Week of Fun

Monday- Duchess had her end of the year sing-along. Her class is mostly boys- 8 boys and 4 girls. They are not very enthusiastic about preforming. The other 3 year-old class is mostly girls and they are VERY enthusiastic about singing. Duchess sang a little, blew a lot of kisses and played with her sunglasses. After school she had her last ballet class.




Tuesday- I got my haircut, yay! Duchess, Huck and I had lunch on the patio at La Madeline, I got a new pair of shoes and Duchess and I had pedicures. She had a smile on her face a mile-wide when the lady painted flowers on her big toes.

Wednesday- Back to work for me. I was not thrilled to go but it was not a bad day. My sweet nurses brought me Starbucks in the morning and had a chocolate cake to belatedly celebrate my birthday. In the afternoon I popped in to a baby shower for a coworker and got to catch up with several friends I had not seen since Huck was born. Everyone at home fared well.

Thursday- The not-so fun day. I spent hours at the mall trying to find something to wear when I present at conference next week. Apparently my criteria are too strict- professional looking but still wearable for everyday work and not that expensive since it probably won't fit in a few months (when I hopefully lose the last 5 lbs of baby weight). After buying a pair of pants at J Crew that were OK, I ended up finding something in my closet to wear instead. So the pants are going back as I'd rather have something that is better than just okay. I'll save the money for the H&M that is opening Memorial Day weekend. Duch and Huck were with me and did great. The cleaning people came so having a clean house when I didn't have to do it is fun. And teaching the last class in the Natural Birth series was fun.

Friday- Back to work again and lots of work on my conference presentation. Pretty fun since we accomplished a lot. Rushing to get to Duchess's dress rehearsal- not so fun. Watching 3 and 4 year-olds dancing on a real stage for the first time- fun. Two kids fighting in the car the whole way home- not so fun. Listening to the two of them laughing hysterically in bed when they were supposed to be sleeping- fun!

Saturday- Wallace Elementary Carnival! Bounce houses, games, food, running around with friends- what could be more fun? Jackson got thrown in jail twice and we had to bail him out. A friend pays 2 tickets to throw someone in jail and then the jailbird has to be bailed out with two more tickets. I certainly hope that is the only time we have to come up with his bail!








The big ballet recital! Big maybe, but definitely short. So short in fact that Daddy missed it because he was standing in line buying flowers for the prima dona. Her dance lasted maybe 3 minutes and the whole show was maybe 20 minutes. She seemed to enjoy it but didn't really think it was very special. I, however, got a little teary.

Meet Pam

Duchess-
Duchess: Mom, Kennedy and I changed our names at school today.
Mom: Oh really? What are your new names?
Duchess: Kennedy changed her name to Mickey Mouse.
Mom: And what is your new name?
Duchess: Pam
Huh? We don't know anyone named Pam as far as I know.

Duchess got to get a gumball after lunch for having good behavior in the restaurant. It is never really a good idea because they are too big for her mouth. She whined all the way to the car but it was impossible to understand what she was saying because she refused to swallow the spit or to open her mouth to speak. Once at the car I gave her a napkin and she spit out the gumball, but when I tried to throw it away she screamed "no!" I asked what she wanted me to do with it. Her reply? "I want you to chew it up so it is not hard and then give it back to me." Once again,HUH???

Big dance recital this coming weekend, pics to come!


Huck
No more SNS!!!!! We have not used the supplement for more than a week. We saw the lactation consultant last Monday and she thought he was doing great. The pediatrician agreed when we went in for his 2 month check up. Just in time as I go back to Children's tomorrow. He was almost 12 lbs and had grown 2 1/2 inches since birth. He continues to be a serious little guy. He often has a furrowed brow, BUT, he is smiling a bunch too. He smiles at me a lot and will smile at Bubba and Dad as long as he is not overstimulated. Smiling at the Duchess is less frequent as most of the time he sees her she is 2 inches away from his face. He is doing well at holding his head up as well. Last night he went 7 hours between feedings. Yeah for me!





Bubba
Bubba has just 12 more days of school. He read me a book this morning and I still can't believe it sometimes. In just a few short weeks he is going to be 6! Sometimes I look at him and can't believe how big he is. But then I see him at school surrounded by the "big kids" and he still looks like my little guy. He was buying a toy (with Grandma dollars) at the store the other day. He had 10 ones and the total came to $8.54. I told him he needed to give the lady 9 dollars and he looked up at me and said with a twinkle in his eye, "That means I just have to take away one dollar." He is doing subtraction without even trying :-)






Mom
I am headed back to Children's tomorrow. The Hubby has done okay with Huck while I have been teaching but tomorrow will be the real test. The big kids both have school. I can't decide if that is a good thing or not. It is good because for most of the day he will only have Huck to worry about, but potentially bad because he will have to coordinate drop-offs and pick-ups and can't just hang around the house all day. Next week Huck and I will be going to Chicago. I am presenting at the Child Life conference. Grandma is coming up for one day to be smiled at by Huck and watch him while I present.

Back to Work

Last week I went back to teaching for the first time since I was put on bedrest. I am teaching a natural birth series of 4 classes. Gotta admit I'm gonna have to fake advocating for unmedicated births a bit :-) My head can speak to it well but my body still remembers the intensity a little too well right now! The class is a good group and I am enjoying it. The Hubby seems to have fared fine being in charge of the 3 kiddos as well. I guess we can consider it a warm up for my return to Children's in 2 weeks. Huck did okay last week but last night he was fussy most of the time I was gone.



Speaking of Huck, he is doing well. I weighed him this week and he has gained 2 1/2 lbs in a month and is now 11.2 lbs. The expected weight gain at this age is 4-7 oz a week, so he exceeded that by gaining 10 oz a week! I can tell that he is nursing better, his latch is more consistent and I am much more comfortable. I don't want to jump out of my skin each time he latches on. I have been able to feed him several times a day without the suplimenter and am only pumping 1-2 times a day. I can finally see the end of the SNS in sight, although I'll save the celebration until it is retired for good. I have a love-hate relationship with the thing.



I hate the additional work, the difficulty of getting it placed correctly in his mouth, the cleaning... but I am grateful for it's existence because it allowed me to continue breastfeeding. For me, breastfeedingis about so much more than just feeding. Outside of the nutritional and health benifits, not to mention financially, it is about an emotional connection. I love that time when it is just the two of us- me stroking his soft hair, snuggling him close, kissing the top of his head... him reaching his hand up to my chest, grabbing onto my finger, looking up at me... With the other two I especially enjoyed coming home from work and cuddling up together to reconnect. So while nursing is going better, poor baby has had a cold this week. It started last weekend with lots of congestion and a cough. It is a deep, junky chest cough too. You just know it hurts hom sometimes. In the beginning he was so confussed by it all- the look on his face was so pitiful. He just wanted to be held all day. Now the congestion has improved some so I don't need to suction his nose as much and the cough is mostly at night. (By the way, he is sleeping pretty well- I'll usually get a 5-6 hour stretch between feedings at night.) I got the cold early this week. The two of us sound pretty pathetic at night! I'm pretty sure it came from a certain big sister who thinks she needs to be 2 inches away from his face when she speaks to him...

One of the things I love about preschoolers is their rapidly expanding vocabulary and the way they make things up if they don't have a word for what they want to say. The Duchess likes to change the part of speech to suite her needs- two of my favorites right now are: sharp (v) to sharpen a pencil. "Can you sharp this pencil for me?" and inside-out (v) to turn right-side out, "Can you inside-out my pants for me?" She is also know to use some mature sounding phrases. The other day her Dad asked her if it was cold outside and she answered "It is starting to warm up out there." She has just a few weeks left of school. I know she is going to miss her friends, Chloe, Kennedy and Bethel. The 4 girls have really bonded this year.



Bubba has had a fun month at school with feild trips. The older kids have done standardized testing so they have sent the Kindergartners out of the building. They went to the zoo, a farm and today they are walking to a nearby plant nursery. Coming up they also have a carnival, Buddy Fun Day, Splash Day and a last day of school party. Whew! It is pretty amazing to see how much he has learned this year. He is reading independently, writing sentences and doing math. We are so lucky that he had such a great teacher. Not because of the acedemic acheviements but because of the balanced approach she has to teaching. She really seems to understand what these 5-6 year-olds need- and it is NOT sitting at a desk for most of the day, it is NOT doing homework everyday, and it is NOT having perfect behavior all the time :-)



The Hubby got a new car yesterday! It is a Buick Enclave. It is pretty and fancy and is the first New Car he has ever had. The Caddilac was going to need more maintanence and it just wasn't worth putting more money into it. If I can figure out how to upload a picture from my phone to Blogger I will post it.



The other manager at his work quit so he has had more responsibility handed over to him. It is not a bad thing because the other girl didn't really do a very good job, but it does require more time from him.