Tag: Summer

The best time of the year

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Friday Funk

2 Friday Funks in a row?? Crazy. I must be on a roll over here. I’ll call this one the “No More Moo” edition, because I’ve been given the green light by Lana’s pediatrician to start weaning her from breast milk. Time to start shutting down the milk factory.

The reason for doing this is kind of a need mixed with a want. She NEEDS to start sleeping through the night again, and her doctor said weaning will absolutely help with that. I took her in the other night for her first sick check because she’s had this congestion and cough for months now, and I was afraid she might have an ear infection since she tugs on her left one all the time. Ears look perfect, the doctor said, but she said she still sounds a little croupy. Something in her upper respiratory system is definitely still bugging her, so she’s currently on a 5-day antibiotic just to try and kick whatever keeps running around in there.

But anyway, I was telling her how terrible Lana’s sleeping at night has gotten, and she was pretty surprised to hear that she almost always wakes up 2-3 times per night now. A complete sleep through is essentially nonexistent these days, which is really shitty for a 7 month old.

So after we discussed the decline in night sleeping and I asked about maybe stopping breastfeeding soon, her doctor said yes, let’s definitely start to wean her. That’s where the want part comes in.

I’m ready to be done nursing this time around. I don’t know if it’s the novelty wearing off earlier the second time around or maybe the fact that me having been home basically all of Lana’s life so far with her she’s just spent more time actually nursing than Della did since she was in daycare so much or what, but I’m pretty much over it. That “magical bond” between mother and nursing babe just isn’t that magical anymore.

As when Della was stopping breastfeeding, I would love to not have to worry about it over the summer. Taking my stupid hand pump to all-day events gets so old, and enduring the pain of engorgement when I’d rather just not have to think about it is getting annoying right now. Plus we need to get Lana to know that boobs are no longer an option in the middle of the night. That’s the worst part – as long as she continues to wake up inconsolable save for nursing, we’ll keep taking steps backward instead of forward in this process.

So enter Enfamil, the formula I’ve always dreaded due to its price tag. The act of giving my baby formula doesn’t bother me in the least; it’s paying for the crap when I know I can provide plenty of breast milk for free. But like I said, I’m willing to sacrifice the dollars for a few months this time to get my body freedom back. Selfish? Probably. But Mama needs her sanity too, thank you very much, and Lana will thrive just fine on formula for only a couple months. For when she turns 11 months, we’ll put her on whole milk anyway.

Day 1 of the weaning saga was yesterday, and it was an utter failure. The doctor said to begin by replacing the least important breast milk meals with formula until there is no more nursing, so we’re starting with the one she usually has between her now solid lunches and dinners. Yesterday I whipped up a 6 oz. bottle containing 4 oz. of breast milk and 2 oz. of formula, thinking that would be more than enough breast milk to mask whatever the foreign taste of formula is in there. Nope. She drank a couple good gulps, then refused the rest of it. Well shit. I even made a separate 1 oz. bottle of strictly formula, thinking maybe the breast milk was bad. Still refused. Double shit.

I was afraid of that. Della did the same thing when she stopped nursing, refusing formula. She was about a month and a half older than Lana is now, though, so I just pumped another month or 2 until she started whole milk. I’m not pumping for 4 more months this time, though, so we have to get this to work with Lana. Fortunately round 2 this afternoon went better. I made another 6 oz. bottle for her, but this time I used only 1 oz. of formula and 5 oz. of breast milk, and she drank the whole thing without hesitation. Much better.

My hope is that I can just keep upping the formula ratio in this afternoon bottle and her mid-morning one over the next week or so until those 2 are strictly formula. Then we’ll work on switching the morning wake-up feeding to formula, then lastly the bedtime feeding. The doctor said that’s the order of importance for the feedings to be breast milk. I may start transitioning the bedtime feeding to a mixed bottle sooner, though, so I can make it bigger. When she nurses I obviously have no idea how many ounces she’s taking, but her doctor said to give her a bigger bedtime bottle (at least 6 oz.) to help her stay satisfied through the night better. Makes sense to me. Let’s get this pony rolling.

I would love more than anything to have her nearly fully weaned in the next 3 weeks before we go to Colorado, but I won’t push it. I’ll try, but if I have to take the damn pump, I’ll take it. So wish us luck on this journey! Any and all easy weaning juju you can send our way will be much appreciated.

Speaking of Colorado, my sister had her baby today!!!! I could just poop I’m so excited for them. His name is Roan, and from what I’ve seen so far he is absolutely perfect. I simply cannot wait to hold this newest little Goonie nugget, and Della already knows she has a new baby cousin. She can even say Roan pretty well. I’m so happy we’ll get to meet him when he’s still so little. I just hope my sister and brother-in-law truly know what they’re signing up for when they invite us all to stay with them with a newborn in the house. Heh.

What else? Oh yeah – my race last weekend. Dudes, I kicked its ass!! I was hoping for under 27:00, secretly wishing for under 26:00, and I blew that thing out of the water. 25:11 was my time. BOOM to the OOM! 8:06 pace. I was floored. No way was I expecting a time like that, which is one of my fastest 5k times ever. Let alone after having 2 kids and just getting back to running a few weeks ago. It felt like a terrible run, too, because I started off way too fast trying to keep pace with a group of grade schoolers. Note – never EVER try to keep up with 7 year olds in a race. They’ll destroy you every time. So when I saw sub-25:00 on the score clock as I approached the finish line I was ecstatic.

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Then it was off to Miller Park that afternoon with great friends for the Kenny Chesney concert. Yahoo!! That was an absolute blast. We skipped the first couple opening acts and went in for Eric Church and Kenny, and we had so much fun. It turned out to be a gorgeous day, and we had a wonderful afternoon and night.

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I think that about wraps everything up for this week. Just another batch of random I wanted to write down before I forgot it all. We’re off to Madison on Sunday for my cousin’s wedding, which will be awesome. So you all have a great long weekend, thank you to those whom we remember in the name of this holiday, and I’ll talk to you later.

 

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Friday Funk

Haven’t seen one of these posts in a long time, eh? In fact, the last one was the one I wrote right after Lana was born; my 39 weeks pregnancy update.

But I wanted to get something posted since I haven’t for a while, yet all my thoughts are just kind of random right now. So let’s see… We’ll call this one the “Start of Summer Edition”.

Tomorrow is going to be a spectacular day. Bold prediction, no? But listen to the itinerary – in the morning I have Run the Bay, the 5k for which I’ve been training this past month or so. It’s the first one I’ve run in 2 years, the first and last time I did this same race. I’ve been pushing the girls in our new jogging stroller along the race route for my training runs, so hopefully when I do it alone tomorrow I’ll go faster. The other day I pushed them at a 9:07 pace, which made me pretty happy. If I can get in the lower 8 minutes range somewhere for my race pace that’d be awesome. I think my fastest race pace is just over an 8:00 mile, so I’ll consider anywhere close to that a success, 2 babies later.

stroller

Then tomorrow afternoon we’re going to the Kenny Chesney/Eric Church concert at Miller Park. Let the summer of music begin! It’s Kenny’s “No Shoes Nation” tour, and the next stop is Milwaukee. We’re going with friends, and this will be I think the 3rd Kenny show my girlfriend and I will have been to together. I can already hear the Coronas opening and the limes being squeezed…

What else? Oh, Lana has officially sprouted her first tooth. Excellent. Just what we need – something else to make her scream. However, she did sleep completely through the night last night for the first time in at least a month, so I’ll take that. If teeth = sleep for her, I’ll even spring for some dentures to fill her mouth.

Look who my bed partners are this morning – how could it not start well? Sorry the quality is so terrible. It was taken on my phone, which has a ridiculously bright flash, so I kept capturing their recoils instead of their cute little faces, but oh well. You can still tell who it is. Lana has switched positions, though, and is currently trying to squirm her way over to eat the computer. Attention diverting is in full effect right now.

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Della has started swim lessons at the gym, so we’re off to those later this morning. This will be her 3rd out of 7 sessions, and she said today she wants to jump in with the teacher and put her head all the way under the water. So far she’s been very hesitant to do so, but the other little girl in her class is a whirling dervish in the pool, which I think has prodded D on a little. I hope she does dunk under today, because I just want her totally comfortable with being in and around the water before we’re near any lakes this summer.

Oh yeah – there’s going to be a baby any day now too! No, not in this household, but in my sister’s. She and my brother-in-law are expecting their first, a little boy, sometime in the next week or so. She’s due next Saturday, but I have the feeling of tomorrow in my head. We shall see – I can’t wait to hear the news!

I think those were the main things running around upstairs this morning. Have a great weekend, everyone, and I’ll let you know how the race goes. Fingers crossed for a respectable finish!

 

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Summer lovin’

I am beyond thrilled that the weather is finally starting to turn. Huge emphasis on the finally. I swear this winter seemed to never end, no matter what date the calendar read. Having a newborn during those miserable winter months wasn’t the most fun either, but that’s not the point of this post…

This summer is going to be so much fun. Ryan’s place of employment allows them the full calendar year after a baby is born to take parental leave, so he has saved his and will be taking a good portion of June and July off. We get a summer vacation as a family this year! I can’t wait. First up will be a nice long road trip out to Colorado to visit my sisters and meet our brand new nephew, who should be making his appearance sometime in the next couple weeks!! (Marissa, if you’re reading, did you just poop your pants at that thought? 😉 )

But I think I will coin this the summer of music. We have more concerts lined up so far than I think we’ve had in any other season. Check this out:

  • Kenny Chesney & Eric Church at Miller Park in May
  • Tedeschi Trucks Band at Red Rocks in June
  • Violent Femmes & The Avett Brothers at Summerfest in June
  • Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers at Summerfest in June
  • Rush at Summerfest in July
  • The Eagles at Summerfest in July
  • Paul McCartney at Miller Park in July

Come on! That is one hell of a lineup! This is going to be awesome.

And on a completely different note, I bought a new face lotion that I am loving. Despite containing a broad spectrum SPF 30, it’s super light and not greasy at all. This is something I definitely appreciate with oily skin. I just started using it so I’m not sure how truly effective its claim to reduce dark spots is (i really hope that works, though), but everything else about it is great. It smells really good too, which is a major criterion for me with any product ever since my sense of smell went haywire when I was pregnant with Della.

That’s about it for today; just some random thoughts for you all. Get out and enjoy the day – it’s supposed to be in the 80s here! The girls and I are going to the park for the first time in months, and D is so excited. I just ordered a double jogging stroller that is supposed to arrive today, and I can’t wait to test it out.

 

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Oh, hi

Hi guys. Yes, we got back from vacation last weekend, and no, I haven’t been on here since. So sorry.

I’m realizing just how much I have to do in these next couple weeks before Dv2.0 comes, so that has now become my main focus. I’ll still be on here every once in awhile, though, so have no fear.

I will have a ton of vacation pictures to share once we sort through all of those. We did leave one of our cameras up in Canada, however, so I just need to wait until we get that back from my sister before I can get through those. We got some good ones, though, so I think you’ll like seeing them.

D is getting so big! She had an amazing time on the island in Canada, and it’s simply mind-boggling how different this visit was from last year’s. Last year she was just a little baby, only 11 months old. This year, at 25 months, she owned the place. She ran all over the island (with life jacket on, of course), up and down all the stairs, playing with all our family and the dog, and loving the lake and boats. It was so fun to watch, and I can’t wait to take her back each year and watch her grow to love it more and more.

We’re going to get her a twin bed this weekend, so that will be a change for her. She slept in one the whole week in Canada and did great, so hopefully she’ll transition ok here as well. We need to get the crib moved into our room for the baby, and I want her completely comfortable in a big bed before #2 is here. And right now she’s using the paint app on my iPhone. It seriously blows my mind how much this kid knows.

And of course there will be my weekly pregnancy posts until Dv2.0 arrives. I’m now 33.5 weeks, which scares the crap out of me. I made a pre-baby to-do list this week, and it takes up an entire page! Yesterday I did start in on it, though, getting out the most neutral of the baby clothes and getting them washed and put away, so there’s one thing I can cross off. I had my latest doctor appointment yesterday and got the pre-registration forms for labor and delivery, so yeah, it’s definitely starting to feel more real. I just hope we can get enough crossed off our lists before he/she gets here!

So bear with me, please. I apologize if I’m sporadic in my posting and such, but rest assured I have not forgotten about any of you. I can’t wait to catch up on my reader feed, too. I’m sure I have about a million unread blog posts in there, so that’ll take awhile. But I’ll get there. I hope you’re all doing well!

 

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Buffett #9

Saturday was our annual trip to the Jimmy Buffett concert at Alpine Valley, and I’m pretty sure this was my 9th show. We’ll have to do something fun for my 10th anniversary next year. A signature cocktail maybe?

This was the 2nd time I’ve gone while 7+ months pregnant, and I will admit, it wasn’t quite as fun this time around as it was when I was pregnant with D for some reason. Maybe it was the 5k I walked the night before that wiped me out. I don’t know, but I was just so tired the whole time, it made for a very long 12 hour day.

It’s always great to see our friends with whom we go with each year, though. They bring a whole spread of food, Ryan makes his famous gumbo, we set up our tent, crank up the tunes, and watch the crazy. The row in which we parked this year was pretty tame, though, so there wasn’t a whole lot of good people-watching from my chair, and since it was 90 degrees again I was definitely not up for doing the whole parking lot walkabout this time.

But overall it was a really good day. I saw a guy with whom I swam at Madison and his wife, and they’re wonderful people, so it was fun to catch up with them. R’s ego was permanently boosted when 8 Louisiana natives said his gumbo was the best they’ve ever had, and I don’t think they were just blowing smoke up his ass either – it was delicious, as always. He definitely had his fair share of the cocktails, though, and was walking on a slant by the time we headed back to the car. Mind you, Alpine Valley’s parking lots are completely flat. 😉

And of course the music was as awesome as ever. It’s hard to believe Jimmy’s 65, the way he still rocks it on stage. They did just play 1 big long 2.5 hour set this time, though, instead of their usual 2 set show with an intermission. Maybe they’re getting ready for the end? My favorite part was when they all sat down for their acoustic-ish segment, during which they played “Southern Cross”, one of my all-time favorite songs.

Then, somehow, our exit from the usually chaotic, jam-packed parking lots was the fastest ever. The friend to whom we had given a ride was already back at our car when R and I arrived, we were able to pull right out of our row, and we were home a solid 2 hours earlier than normal. We typically stay and fire up the grill again afterwards to wait out the traffic, but this year we were just elated to be out of there so early and easily.

So here’s a little peek into the day. We didn’t end up taking many pictures at all this year, but we did manage to get a couple good group shots as various people showed up. And here’s to not being pregnant for the next show!

no tailgating and no alcoholic beverages? oh yeah right. then why did we get there 8 hours before show time, ha!

another of r’s annual treats – teriyaki shrimp skewers. yum!

boys stirring gumbo

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group shot #2

yes, the 31 week pregnant girl had had enough. and this was before we even went into the show, haha!

 

 

 

 

 

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What have we been up to?

Well since I can barely remember what we’ve done myself most days, I’ll just let some pictures do the talking…

The last weekend in July was our northern WI vacation, so we’ll start with a glimpse into that.

The first day we went to Stevens Point Brewery in Stevens Point, WI; found Nueske’s, the famous bacon-makers; ate lunch at Red Eye Brewing Co. in Wausau, WI (don’t freak out, i only had one small sample glass. the rest of the sampler was ryan’s); then checked out a supper club that Ryan discovered called Marty’s Place North before spending the night in Minocqua, WI. On our way out of town the following morning we swung by Little Bohemia, where the movie “Public Enemies” was filmed and the real-life John Dillinger hid out.

The rest of that weekend we explored Madeline Island (1 of the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior); Bayfield, WI; and Ashland, WI. That upper coast of our state is simply beautiful, and we had a blast.

The last day of our vacation was spent in Green Bay. Since Ryan and Della are now Packers shareholders, we met up with 2 of our friends at Lambeau Field to attend the annual shareholders’ meeting. It was really hot, but even as a Bears fan I still had fun.

The following weekend we went to my first, and quite possibly only, Brewers game of this season with friends.

Then the Tuesday after that was d-day – my last day of work and Della’s last day of daycare.

The rest of that week was spent getting ready for our annual summer party/birthday party for R and D.

And since then, D and I have been getting into the swing of our stay home routine. You know, helping me in the kitchen (yes, i actually made that Elmo cake pictured above), taking walks to go explore the beach, and playing at the park.

And that about brings us to the present. We did go to the Wisconsin State Fair last week and the Milwaukee Air Show yesterday, so I’ll get those pictures up soon. Despite losing my job, we are having a great summer!