Thursday, January 24, 2013

A Year in Review

I have a 1 year old girl!  I almost don't believe it.  I should, after all I was there the whole time and I've been witness to all the changes.  I was there for the sonograms, for the delivery, for the first nursing session, the first rollover, the first steps, Easter, Christmas, birthday party, and more.  And now I'm witness to a little girl running to me from across the room to tightly wrap her arms around my neck and give me a squeeze.  We've nursed through a yucky virus, she's fallen down and bit her tongue pretty badly, and now she's sporting a bruise on the bottom of her chin from face planting on the YMCA basketball court (which by chance I sadly got on video).   Her favorite foods started out being moms milk then rice cereal with bananas and avocado, and now she eats entire waffles and pieces of pizza!!  Her favorite things to do are run and play anywhere she can, pull the dogs tail, and move things into and out of and back into again boxes and bags and pails and baskets. She has 8 teeth with 4 molars soon to make official appearances. She's finally growing a little more hair. She sleeps 12 hours at night and takes 2-3 hours worth of naps every day.


Her dad is a great father. They love each other so much. He has to work long hours but on his days off when I have to go to work he takes her to the aquarium and to the park and texts me pictures.

Me. I'm a mom now.  I'm still finding the balance.  I work about 10 hours a week outside of the house and take care of the house and the baby full time.  Keeping the house working, playing with my girl and keeping our 2 dogs exercised could easily be all I do, but I am learning to make time for myself too. Amelia loves our trips to the YMCA now.  She no longer hates being in the car and rather I would almost venture that she might even enjoy it, so we are going more places without anxiety.

I'm still breast feeding which kind of blows my mind. My "plan" in the beginning was to rent a pump from the hospital for 3 months, then return it and that was it.  But when she was 6 weeks old I went to the hospital store to rent the pump and things changed. I met with the specialist and she said that from seeing me with my daughter and talking to me she was pretty convinced I would nurse longer than 3 months. She introduced the possibility of purchasing one instead. I can probably thank this woman for the majority of our success. I used that pump until Amelia reached 9 months. Once Amelia was 9 months she a very good crawler and my free time was lessened and I retired the pump. She only took 2 bottles a week on the 2 nights I was working so we decided a little formula wouldn't be such a bad thing anyway, especially for the extra iron. Turns out she doesn't like formula. Or cows milk, now that she's a year. She will drink small amounts of almond milk on occasion but not near the 16 ounces she needs, so I still nurse. I never thought we would still be sitting in the glider for an hour each night still, but alas, that's where we are. She is not ready to stop and I'm not ready to tell her she has to. I feel like its mean to tell her no, "no baby I know that this makes you feel safe and comforted and that its good for your brain and your immunity, but its not socially acceptable so you have to just deal with it". I can't. She is a petite girl, only 11th percent in weight, and if thats the milk she wants than dammit I'm giving it to her. When people outside of my family and groups of friends hear that I'm still nursing they often tell me "you need to stop that". And I ask why and there's never a real reason other than they just think so.  But its just so easy for someone else to judge.   We will get there. But for now we are going with "I'm the mom" and "I said so".

I might not blog again for a while so I'll leave you with a little clip of my girl at the beach.   Enjoy!

SAND!

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