Boobs and Poop

I've been having a rough couple of weeks... I've been feeling a little lost and a little insecure about this blog. I've been up in my own head and not on the keyboard. I have written regular posts, but I'm kind of forcing myself to "get it out there" so that I don't loose momentum. I've been hounding myself with the usual questions: What am I doing with my life? Was this decision to stay home, blog and work on passion projects (while raising my baby) the right one? Should I have gone back to an office, and should I take the baby to daycare? My daily routine (or lack thereof) is nothing like I might have imagined just a short year ago... Connecting with other mommy bloggers has surely helped! I think I needed some inspiration and motivation.  Talking with Leah from And 1 More Makes 3 has helped me refocus and feel excited about creating more (and different) posts. There is a lot going on with me that's left me feeling anxious about the pres...

Here's the scoop on Jennifer Lawrence and her uneven breasts. It's not a typo. I didn't mean to say Big Boobs McGee. Big Boob McGee is meant to be singular. As in the lonely McGee booby, the only one of its size. I no longer have a pair of big boobs, which would make the plural Big Boobs McGee fitting. I now have only the one big boob, not two. Prior to my pregnancy, I rocked A cups. From about age 10 until about a year ago, I was ashamed of my little boobies. I desperately wanted big boobs... I had no idea how good I had it with those little and perfectly perky things! In my A cup days, I rarely wore a bra. I could wear low-cut or deep v-neck shirts or dresses, and not worry too much about people ogling my goodies. I could wear a teeny tiny bikini and while I may get comments like "you're so skinny," I would never hear a peep about my boobs being too big for my top. I was generally very comfortable in most clothing and swimsuits. My boobs were on...

Image taken from this article (which is riddled with misspellings but very funny). My baby's boogers are ridiculous. They're usually grayish or white, so I'm not talking about a sinus infection or anything. She just gets these giant, hard boogers on a regular basis. They're like obstructive boulders that stymie her breathing. I expend a lot of energy extracting them from her nose and studying them on a daily basis. I even call this apparent ritual our "daily booger excavation." I once called it a "daily booger extraction" but those days have long passed. It's truly an operation that requires planning, precision tools, patience, dedication and time. I'm a booger archaeologist, unearthing the remnants of a very recent past from my daughter's nasal cavities. Recently, baby girl has also taken an interest in my boogers. The other night she was struggling to sleep, so we snuggled. She settled in, stuck her finger up my nose and only...

So we dove into feeding the baby formula because I wanted to quit pumping. I have quit pumping. I'm still nursing (more and even more frequently over this past week). This is because I think we dove into the formula too quickly. Baby girl's stomach was quite upset last week, and I think it's because we started feeding her up to 4 bottles of formula each day. We didn't take the expert advice of subbing one feeding for a bottle in a progression until she's weaned. I just stopped nursing her during the day, all of a sudden. Last Wednesday, baby girl threw up all over our nanny. All over her. I washed nanny's clothes and gave her an extra outfit to wear. Within minutes of changing, baby girl threw up on her again. I called the pediatrician and he said to go back to exclusively breastfeeding until the stomach issue cleared up. So back to breastfeeding I went, and it was like starting over on so many levels! I think I had allowed my milk supply to drop a teen...

Get a print of this awesome quote from Pen + Paper Flowers ! To my dear sweet and beautiful daughter, I started writing this when you were just weeks old and had already made a mark on the world. You completely changed me from my toes to the top of my head and life will never be the same. I started typing this letter with you strapped to my torso via the Ergo Baby (complete with infant insert), because it was the only way to get you to nap when you're desperately tired during the day... and I'm finishing it now months later, with you napping in your crib and the nanny here to help when you wake up.  Up until now, the days felt so long and I spent so much time trying to figure you out, or put you down for a nap. I still don't really know what I'm doing, and most of the time I fear you've figured me out and can see just how clueless I am before you. You are growing so quickly, and while the days seemed so long they have somehow gone by so fast! I'm k...

This image was taken from this list of offensive memes on mommyish.com .  After 5 months of exclusive breastfeeding and refusing to give the baby formula, I decided to bottle feed her formula last Saturday. It was weird, and I liked it. My husband was surprised and told me that from his perspective it seemed like I just flipped a switch, all of a sudden. Even when I got really sick two weeks ago and should have been on serious antibiotics, I just felt weird about introducing her to formula. But for some reason on Saturday morning, I was on fire and ready to try it. I mean I'd been thinking about it - mainly because now that I've been working again, I want to drink coffee all day. I've been so so so sick of having one measly cup of coffee in the morning and then worrying about my caffeine intake throughout the day. And now that our baby is sleeping like a champ most nights, I want to have wine with my husband on the back patio and enjoy my guiltiest of pleasures, an...

There's no question that attitudes about marijuana use are changing due to increased accessibility to medicinal and recreational cannabis, and a general disinterest in the subject from the federal government. So I assumed that there would be a lot of debate surrounding pot smoking and pregnancy, nursing and parenting. I was correct on two fronts. I have come across a lot of interesting information and opinions about smoking pot during pregnancy and/or as a parent. Brave souls ( like Kiri Westby  and Toni Nagy  via the Huffington Post) started the public discussion about responsible parenting and recreational marijuana a couple of years ago. But it's been very challenging to find any conclusive information about the potential effects of marijuana use on a breastfeeding mom and/or her baby. Everyone agrees that trace amounts of THC may or do make their way into breast milk. But more research is needed to determine the potential impact on a nursing baby. The most compreh...

I like to joke and say that I breastfeed because it's cheap and easier than dieting. What makes me an asshole is that this is not really a joke. These were the two motivating factors behind my decision to start breastfeeding.

On a recent trip to visit family, I fed the baby in front of my 5-year-old niece who had plenty of questions. She wanted to know how and why I was feeding my daughter. I explained to her that we are mammals, like cows and dogs and whales. That all mammals have mammary glands and produce milk. Some women feed their babies with the milk, and that's what I'm doing. She seemed to understand most of what I was saying, and she was immediately concerned with my privacy. We were in the women's bathroom of a restaurant and I was just standing in front of the sink as I fed the baby and answered her questions. She began looking for a place for me to sit down, and as we left the bathroom she found a bench in a secluded area of the restaurant and suggested I go there next time. This moment surprised me - I felt a little annoyed at myself for going into the bathroom at all! In this case, I did have my cover but didn't use it at the dining table because my dad and older brother were...

I'm sure I'll circle back to this topic often! Breastfeeding in public. I've done it. I love it. I support it for all. I think all places of employment, public bathrooms and more should be retrofitted with Nordstrom-style mommy rooms for breastfeeding. But I can't muster up the gumption to do it in front of any male family members. In fact, while I'm comfortable in front of friends or almost any female visiting me in my own home, there are female family members I'm not sure about. Would I whip out a boob to feed my daughter in front of my mother-in-law? If it were just us and in my home, I probably would. But I might feel a little weird, or pause first. And if we were at her house, I would probably go in the other room to feed the baby. In front of my father-in-law, my father, either of my brothers or any other male family member? Close male friends? No way, man! I have fed the baby in public, in plain view of many a male passerby and it didn't bother me...

If you're looking for a fetish site, you've come to the wrong place. 7 weeks and 2 days ago, I became a mother. My little girl has certainly rocked my world, and surely my life (and my husband's life) will never be the same. I expected to hear myself say stuff like that once she arrived. But I was not prepared for nursing and the toll it's taken on my body and psyche, nor was I prepared for so much poop! BOOBS   My life now somewhat revolves around my boobs.  I knew I'd be breastfeeding if my body would allow it. But I couldn't even begin to understand what that really meant until I was in the hospital with a 1 day old baby, crying hysterically as 2 nurses worked together to shove my nipple into my daughter's mouth. That was the first glimpse into how challenging this whole breastfeeding thing actually is.  Challenging and time consuming! Since our breastfeeding journey began that fateful day in the hospital, my daughter has been o...