Excuse Me But Did I Just Ovulate?

Guys...I think I ovulated.

My disclaimer for anyone who has been happily following along while I chat about all things baby and may not have been around before I had the baby, I'm just gonna let you know that before baby I liked to chat about cervical mucus and constipation.   So go ahead and skip this post if you have no desire to read about cervical mucus, from now on known as EWCM (oh the acronyms!)...I'm not gonna talk about constipation.  Though now that I've broached the subject I am going to let you know that it took until 4 months postpartum to poop normally...it doesn't all end with the baby coming out unfortunately!

I've gone off subject... we're not talking about constipation, I'm going to talk about cervical mucus today!

So...ovulation.

I am 9.5 months postpartum, still nursing like crazy and have had very few signs, if any of my period making a comeback. Which I was totally ok with as nursing is our only form of birth control these days and I always told myself that I would wait until Baby #1 was a year old before trying (or thinking!) for Baby #2.

But lately every few weeks, maybe once a month, I would have some EWCM.  It would stick around for just a day or two and then gone.  It was very reminiscent of my cycles when they would last for 90+ days, as though my body was attempting to ovulate, gearing up for it and then just never quite popping the egg out and starting all over.

UNTIL 2 weeks ago I had GOBS AND GOBS of EWCM that lasted for DAYS.  I thought to myself HMMM, MAYBE I'M ABOUT TO OVULATE, but didn't REALLY believe that.  Just the ol' infertile mind coming back to haunt me (I'm ovulating, let's make more babies!)

Then the EWCM disappeared and I decided to take my temperature.  Oh yes, I BROUGHT MY GODDAMN THERMOMETER OUT OF HIDING.  Turns out you can't keep the crazy at bay for long, no matter how much you tell yourself that you're not ready for another baby, the second you think about ovulating you think MUST. MAKE. BABY!

Lo and behold, my temp was up....

Interesting.  But not conclusive.

So I started temping.  Every day.  Well, I'm temping as well as one can temp when one is up at least once every night...I admit my temps might be less than accurate.

But I'm at 10 days of high temps. 

DID I OVULATE?

IS IT TIME TO MAKE MORE BABIES?

Not ideal, but if eggs are popping out on their own, then it's GAME ON. 

Truth be told it wouldn't be the end of the world to get the babies out of the way quickly...my husband isn't getting any younger...and I REALLY didn't like the newborn stage, why prolong that hell, let's just do it now!

As far as I remember I have a 16 day luteal phase...which means I've got 6 more days to obsess over my temperature until AF arrives...or pee on something.

It's been a long time since I peed on something in the desperate search for information.

WHY ISN'T THERE SOMETHING TO PEE ON TO TELL ME IF I OVULATED 10 DAYS AGO?

So here we are, just 9 months after baby and I'm already back writing about EWCM, taking my temperature and thinking about peeing on ALL THE THINGS.

 And so it begins again...I think.

Because There Wasn't Enough to Worry About Already

There's lead in keys.

Are you kidding me?!

I try hard to not be a worrywart when it comes to what goes into Jett's mouth because EVERYTHING goes into Jett's mouth and I actually like his exposure to lots of germs.

So I let him chew on disgusting things which includes my keys.  I thought everyone did this.

He LOVES the keys.  He starts kicking and laughing like a maniac as soon as I pull them off the hook.

And my thought was that they were totally disgusting and dirty but...I'm sure my parents gave me keys to chew on and I'm fine, doesn't everyone let their kid chew on their keys?  What's the harm?

So he chews on my keys.

BUT yesterday while I was out and about and my kid was chewing on his car keys some random dude who worked at the frame shop says "Be careful about those keys, there can be lead in them." 

Are you kidding me?!

I was skeptical but took the keys away because I didn't want to be THAT mom that lets her kid chew on lead laden keys...but I didn't REALLY believe that there was lead in keys, why would they take lead out of paint and gasoline and leave it in keys?!  A KNOWN baby toy!

So I googled when I got home and....

It appears to be true.

There's lead in keys.

Motherfucker.

Guess Baby Jett just lost his favorite toy.  And mama found one more thing to worry about.

Did I give my baby lead poisoning???

I'm sure he's fine and I'm not going to freak out but...damn...just...damn.  What a ridiculous place for lead to be hidden.  WHAT ELSE HAS LEAD HIDDEN IN IT THAT JETT CHEWS ON?

How many of you out there let your baby suck on your keys?  Please tell me I'm not the only one that may have mistakenly poisoned my baby.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/03/cdc-advisers-call-for-less-allowable-lead/index.htm

http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Lead_Keys/

http://www.thesmartmama.com/ii/

Baby Jett - 9 Months

The rapidly approaching 1st birthday is both exciting and scary at the same time.

Only 3 more months?

That's crazy!

So here's Baby Jett at 9 months.

I have no stats because our 9 month checkup isn't for 2 more weeks, but if I were to guess I'd say he's still tall and skinny and is definitely no more than 18 lbs, he hasn't chunked up any but he seems taller as he can reach much higher on shelves!

His hair is still brown/blonde.  He looks pretty bald most of the time, just look at those pics on the stairs, but I swear he has tons of hair in those bald spots it's just blonde and you can't see it!  I imagine when he gets his first hair cut all the brown will be cut away and he'll officially be blonde...but we'll see.

Eyes, still blue...I still think they'll turn gray. 

He lets go of everything and stands on his own.  Usually it's to better hold onto whatever object he's shoving into his mouth, ie. spatula, spoon, Cheerios, etc etc. and I'm not even sure that he realizes he's standing most of the time...I think he thinks the object is holding him up cause after a little while of standing he'll just sort of sink back to the floor and sit down.  Like oh shit...I'm not holding onto anything, better sit down.

He cruises, cruises and cruises some more.  He's like a half second away from walking.  I'm in trouble when that happens...

Case in point, he can do the stairs.  And unfortunately he'll start crawling up them without warning...usually in the half a minute when no one is watching him.  This morning he did them with this ball in his hand.

He loves to unpack.  Drawers, suitcases, shelves, laundry, dishwasher, anything with stuff in it.  Sometimes he puts things back, the spoons from the dishwasher that I let him "help" unload end up in his drawer sometimes, but mostly he just pulls everything out and puts it on the floor...so helpful.

He has officially retired from all bath chairs, seats, etc. and now takes baths like a big boy.   He should of been out of his little chair months ago but every time I took him out he'd try to get back in.  Now I leave it in the bathtub for him to play with and to keep him away from the nozzle which he finds endlessly fascinating!  If I'd let him he'd spend all of bathtime just standing and playing with the nozzle...ugh, so dangerous!

He comes when called...kind of like a dog...so cute.

He's up to eating solids for 3 meals a day and 1 snack now.  He's becoming kind of a picky eater and will not eat just anything I set in front of him anymore.  Boo!

He's still on an anti-meat kick unless it's you know CHICKEN SCHWARMA from the Mediterranean place or MEATLOAF...weirdo.

He might not eat meat but he has discovered the joy of Cheerios.  LOVES Cheerios...and so does the cat.  They share.

He still enjoys boob every hour or two all day every day.

He flushes the toilet and will play in the toilet if the lid is left up...which means bathroom doors are now always CLOSED.

Sleeping, while shitty this week, has generally been good.  Down at 7pm, sleep for 6-8 hours, up once in the middle of the night for a feed and then up for the day between 6-7am.  Morning naps are almost always an hour and 15 minutes and afternoon nap is anywhere from 45 mins - 2 hours.  SO MUCH BETTER THAN WHERE IT WAS and basically we're done fighting it.  It is what it is and I can work with this schedule.

Now that sleeping has been resolved some of my brain space and energy has opened up and I've decided to fill it with ECing and sign language.

We started ECing (that's Elimination Communication ie. early toilet training) a few weeks ago and he's pretty good about pooping in the potty...pees less so, but we catch some...which is better than none! So far we're catching morning potties and after afternoon nap potties...the rest of the day I've yet to catch even one pee.

Sign language...he doesn't seem to get the sign language AT ALL.  But we'll keep trying.  I'm working on "more", "done" and "milk"...if he ever gets those three I'll start doing more.

He says "mama" and "dada" but I don't know if he REALLY know what they mean, but he says them all the time.  The kitties he calls them "kuh"  or "key" and then squeals at them.

And FINALLY we have some teeth!  Two days after he turned 9 months old (and a week of shitty shitty sleep!) the left bottom tooth popped through and the very next day the right bottom tooth.  So we have both of our front bottom teeth!  I kind of thought he was going to be one of those freak kids who didn't get any teeth until 18 months...luckily that's not the case, though I must say TEETHING SUCKS and I really hope we don't have to go through that shit sleep with EVERY tooth!

Dude really wasn't cooperating for his photo session this month...he wouldn't sit still.  Luckily he's pretty cute so I forgive him.

Breastfeeding - 9 Months

As promised in my last post, here's an update on breastfeeding at 9 months.

In a nutshell, we're still breastfeeding A LOT at 9 months.

I started out this nursing gig ready to go the whole nine yards, nursing for at least a year but weaning sometime before 2 so that we can get preggers again and start the whole thing over.  I realize one can breastfeed and be pregnant at the same time but I have NO desire to do it...only one baby using my body at a time please!

Breastfeeding has gone relatively smoothly for us.  I had WAY too much milk in the beginning that caused infinite amounts of stress as it took Baby Jett FOREVER  to learn how to deal with the forceful letdown and the gobs and gobs of milk that would spray into his mouth like a firehose.

But it was never painful (other than those first few days as the nipples adjusted!), we had no latch issues and I've never had supply issues...unless you count TOO MUCH as a supply issue.  So, all in all breastfeeding has been a pleasant experience for me.

At 4 months the boobs finally got the message that my ONE baby did not need enough milk for THREE and really eased up with the milk they were producing.

My letdown however never eased up at all and I can still spray milk across the room. Luckily this isn't a problem for a 9 month old...he doesn't seem to mind gobs of milk spraying down his throat anymore.

So for 6.5 months Baby Jett was exclusively breastfed, I don't even think he had water until 6 months.

Just before 7 months we took the leap and began introducing solid food into his diet.  And now at 9 months he is up to 3 meals and one snack of solids a day...but he still enjoys some boob every hour or so, SERIOUSLY.

Even after the introduction of solids he continues to rely heavily on breastmilk for nourishment as well as comfort.  Some days I feel like I nurse him more now than before we started solids.

For instance, it's 10:30 in the morning as I'm writing this and I have nursed him 4 times already this morning.  Yeah...we do a lot of nursing.

I am eternally grateful to the boob and feel very blessed to be able to breastfeed my baby...I don't know what I would do without it.

There are so many circumstances in which the boob is MAGIC.

Baby only slept for half an hour and needs to sleep more?...boob him.

Baby is being picky and won't eat any of the solids he's offered but is still obviously hungry?...boob him.

Baby falls down and bumps his head?...boob him.

Baby getting shots?...boob him.

Baby won't calm down for any number of different reasons?...boob him.

I have discontinued the use of the boob to PUT my baby to sleep as that was causing all sorts of problems, but to put him BACK to sleep?  Still magic.

Ok that's a lie, I just put him down for a nap an hour ago with my boob...but as long as he's not waking up after half an hour anymore I think it's OK!

As I said in my last post I honestly can't imagine in just 3 months weaning him off the boob, so more realistically I'm thinking breastfeeding will continue until 18 months?  But hopefully still less than 2 years! 

 I used to be able to nap with him NOT attached to my boob, he was just a few weeks old here...

 Not anymore!  But look how big his head has gotten!

Just as Long on the Outside as on the Inside

As of yesterday at 4:45am Baby Jett has spent just as much time on the outside as he spent on the inside.

38 weeks 2 days.

And coincidentally to commemorate this milestone...we're in the midst of a Wonder Week.

Or at least that's what I'm pretending because sleep has SUCKED this week.  And it's easier for me to have an excuse like "it's a wonder week!" than to think he might start sleeping shitty all the time again.

We haven't regressed so far that we're back at waking every 3 hours but for the past few nights he's been waking up 2 hours after going down SCREAMING HIS FACE OFF.  I've ended up nursing him even though it's before my 3 hour mark because he's just been SOOOO upset.  Luckily this hasn't ruined all the sleep training as he'll then sleep for 4-6 hours....so....wonder week, it's just a wonder week!!!

Anyway, it's pretty crazy amazeballs how much these little people change in such a short period of time.  

Before having my own baby it sure didn't seem like that big of a deal that they go from little blobs to walking babbling little PEOPLE in less than a year...but now I get it.  I GET IT!  And OMG TIME IS GOING SO FAST!

But more importantly can you believe I could have theoretically incubated another person already?

I'm not sure which is more impressive, how much the baby has changed on the outside in 9 months or the fact that a person develops from a sperm and an egg in 9 months.

Doesn't matter because ALL OF IT IS AMAZING.

In other news, I'm going to have to write a breastfeeding post soon because when I signed on for this breastfeeding for a year thing I didn't realize that my 9 month old would be almost walking and able to nurse while standing, grab my boobs out of my shirt whenever the urge strikes him, or that he would start playing with my nipple, studying and inspecting it and pinching it!...I reserved these actions for toddlers and I WAS NEVER GOING TO BE NURSING A TODDLER!  I was always going to be nursing for at least a year but less than 2 years...which is still the goal.  But clearly I underestimated what exactly that entails.

I feel like I'm nursing a toddler already and I don't foresee this ending anytime soon.  How exactly does one stop nursing anyway?  I use my boob ALL THE TIME.  Seriously this kid rarely goes more than an hour or two without at least a quick nurse and I thought I would be weaning near the one year mark???

So many things about parenthood leave me feeling like I was SUCH AN IDIOT.  

I thought I would cosleep for a year and it would just work by my sheer force of will.  Or BECAUSE COSLEEPING IS NATURAL and all mammals do it.  I've changed my mind rather drastically on this one and no longer promote cosleeping for longer than 6 months.

I thought you could teach your kid to nap with noise by always having it noisy when they nap. Baby Jett gets woken up VERY easily these days and he's been napping on the go since he was born, which means he can fall asleep with lots of noise, but after he's been asleep for 20-30 minutes a horn honking will wake him up...your kid can either sleep with noise or they can't...just like adults.  You can't teach them this skill.

I thought babyproofing was stupid and you should just teach your child to stay away from dangerous things...I underestimated how their mobility and their cognitive abilities to understand DANGER do not go hand in hand...we've definitely had to babyproof.

And the list goes on and on and on.

Amusingly I'm assuming none of the skills and knowledge I've acquired as a parent will help me at all with Baby #2 because EVERY BABY IS SO DAMN DIFFERENT.

But I've regressed from wherever I started this post...

Oh yes, congratulations Baby Jett you've made it to your Wombiversary!  And you know Congrats to me for keeping him alive this long!

That Whole Sleep Thing

As I mentioned in my last post...Baby Jett has started sleeping better.

We didn't change anything, we didn't do anything different, we just kept doing what we had been doing since we started this whole sleep training business and one day it just clicked.

He stubbornly refused to sleep longer than 3 hours at a time for almost 2 months.  I had completely given up on him ever sleeping for longer than 3 hours, passed sleep training off as a big fat fail for Baby Jett and just decided to make the best of it ie. quit obsessing.

Our method went like this, if baby slept for longer than 3 hours then I would go in and nurse, if it had been less than 3 hours, one of us went in to soothe him with some shushing and patting, no nursing.

The only time we cheated and soothed him back to sleep with nursing was if he had woken up inside the 3 hour window and stayed awake crying for an hour and a half even with us going in and out of there at intervals to soothe...and yes that happened several times.  After an hour and a half at 3 in the morning all bets are off and you do what you gotta do to get everyone some sleep, so I would nurse him back to sleep.

We kept on like this for 2 months, with him never going longer than 3 hours and most nights waking up at least one "extra" time within a 3 hour range.  That means we were up nursing 3-4x a night every. single. night. and many nights up one more time not nursing but shushing/patting him back to sleep.

This sounds miserable but once I quit obsessing about it, quit trying to change it and just sort of accepted it as the way things were, that this was just how my kid was, I felt better about it. More relaxed if not better rested.

Then one night without warning he slept 7 hours, then again the next night and the next...for 3 nights he slept for 7 hours...I was in shock, but just like everything with babies I assumed it was just a phase.

Then he promptly went back to every 3 hours.  But it was enough for me to have hope.  Hope that one day this could be the norm.

Just a week or two later...he slept for 7 hours straight...again.

And since then he does it almost every night.

The new norm is for him to sleep 6-8 hours, nurse once at 2:00-3:00am followed by another 3-4 hour stretch of sleep and then up for the day around 6:30-7:00am.

It is now the rare night that I'm in there at 10:30pm and even if that happens he'll sleep for 5-6 hours after I nurse him at 10:30pm (almost better that way as I can actually get to bed and sleep for that 5-6 hours!)

Only downside to this new sleeping pattern is that he's a bit of an early riser now.  6-6:30 is the normal wake up time and 7:00 or 7:30 is sleeping in =)

I have no idea what changed.

But obviously Baby Jett was not ready to sleep in long stretches when we first started sleep training...and now he is.  I think it's that simple.

They say you can't force your child to eat, sleep or poop...so true.

You can't force them to sleep longer if they're not ready. 

As to the naps, I had completely given up on nap training because sleep training had been so hard and honestly hadn't worked very well.  I was basically laying down with him twice a day for naps, not the end of the world as I wasn't getting great sleep at night and it helped me at least have some down time and the baby would sleep longer if I was with him (boob in mouth!)

But one day while we were both sick and the hubs was traveling I NEEDED to lay down when his morning nap was supposed to be and he was refusing to lay down with me.  So I sang a little song, read a little story and I put him in his crib, awake.  Then I went to go lie down assuming I'd be in there at 5 min, 10 min, etc etc but at least I could lay down while he screamed and refused to nap.

To my utter shock, he cried for a minute or two AND THEN WENT TO SLEEP.  He slept for an hour, woke up briefly to cry a bit more AND THEN PUT HIMSELF BACK TO SLEEP for another 40 minutes.

What, what?!

With absolutely zero nap training Baby Jett started napping better.

Every morning he has a nap in his crib now, some days it's still only 30 minutes, some days it's an hour and 15 minutes, sometimes he wakes up and puts himself back to sleep, sometimes he doesn't.  

But we've quit fighting at the beginning of the nap which was what I was struggling with.  I found it so unbelievably demoralizing when you'd fight to get the baby to sleep for an hour and then he'd only sleep for 30 minutes.  HUGE WASTE OF TIME FOR EVERYONE.

Now if he only sleeps for 30 minutes it doesn't really matter as I wasted no time to get him to sleep.  We sing a little song, read a little story, nurse for 5 minutes and baby goes in the crib.  SO SIMPLE.

Afternoon naps I still like to lay down with him, but that's my choice and something I still really enjoy and it works for us.  The day it quits working I'll try putting him in the crib in the afternoons as well and see what happens.

So for all you mamas struggling out there with baby sleep problems, IT DOES GET BETTER!  Even the shittiest of sleepers start sleeping more at some point.

Motherhood is nothing if not a giant lesson in patience.

Baby Jett - 8 Months

I seem to have fallen off of the edge of blogging planet...I guess I've run out of things to talk about as of late!

I realize it's been a whole month since I posted anything but lately Baby Jett's been sleeping better and apparently I don't have anything to write about when sleeping isn't an issue.

So let's do Baby Jett's 8 month update.

He's still skinny, with all his clothes on at the pediatrician's office he weighs 17 lbs. 11 oz.  That's the 25th percentile...with his clothes on.  Not sure what to do about that as we're eating solids 3x a day now.

As to the solids he's eating like a champ and he's got the poop to prove it!  Ugh, I hate the new poop! Cloth diapers with solid food poop = yuck!

He will still try anything that you put in front of him but he definitely has some preferences.  He loves pears, strawberries, asparagus and carrots and he's not a huge fan of meat or eggs.  Who really needs protein?  Oh right, the baby does!  I've been giving him almond butter to try to get some protein and healthy fats into him.

We've tried most of the most common food allergens and so far so good, no allergies as of yet...you know other than the milk protein thing, which I STILL have not tested.  I just can't bring myself to do it, I don't want my baby's belly to hurt!

His personality is really coming through, he is...ahem...determined.  Some might say stubborn, we're putting a positive spin on it and using words like determined and persistent.  But holy shit this kid is PERSISTENT.

When he wants something he NEEDS it and puts in A LOT of effort to get it.  He's actually becoming quite the accomplished climber this way.

I put stools and laundry baskets and whatever else is in the room in the walkway in front of the cat food to keep him away from it but NO OBSTACLE WILL KEEP HIM FROM THE CAT FOOD.  He goes up, over, around or just pushes the damn thing out of the way to get there.  I am both proud and annoyed that he JUST WON'T GIVE UP.

He has 2 very stubborn parents...I see many fights in the future for all of us...sigh.

He "talks" to the cats.  One day I noticed he seemed to be whimpering a lot, I thought he was FINALLY going to cut a tooth as he was just generally really fussy, a few days later he wasn't fussy anymore but he was still whimpering.  Then I noticed WHEN he was whimpering...when the cats are around!  He whimpers at the cats, he's mimicking their meows!  CUTEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN.

AND

Sleeping is getting better!

Sometime in the last month he just started sleeping more.  I think he just wasn't ready before and now he is.  He's done 7 hour stretches several times and when he doesn't do 7 he still does 5 or 6 most nights.  It's not perfect and there are still nights where he's up every 3 hours, BUT IT'S GETTING BETTER.   We're down to only doing 2 feeds at night MAXIMUM, which means that some nights we only have one middle of the night feeding and that I've actually slept for longer than 3 hours in a row!

Truth be told I don't necessarily feel more rested.  Sleeping in longer stretches is overrated.

Boo.

He's also started napping better.  Again, it's like he just wasn't ready before and now he is.  I've put him down awake in the crib for morning naps and he puts himself to sleep for an hour or more.  IT'S CRAZY AWESOME.

He got his first cold this week.  He made it 8 months without being sick and luckily even this was pretty mild, with just a slight fever and a runny nose, but he gave it to me!  First time I've been sick since he was born too!

And then there's the standing.  Standing, standing and more standing.  His favorite thing in the world is to pull himself up, find something to pick up, bend down pick it up, stand back up then bend down and set it back down and stand back up and REPEAT SEVEN MILLION TIMES with different objects.

He's also a huge fan of pulling everything he can reach off the pantry shelves, just so it's on the ground and he can bend down and pick things up and put them down again.

He also does this with the tupperware shelf.

Ok, he does it with ANY shelf he can reach.

He also opens and closes drawers and cupboards and anything with a handle!

And last but not least he STILL HAS NO TEETH.

I'll leave you with these piccies.

 Right after taking this picture I turned to set the camera down and he basically dove head first off the chair.  Luckily I was there to catch him, but this kid is fearless!

 Enjoying a plum in the park.  I brought cut up pears for him to eat, the plum was for me but once I took a bite he wanted it for himself and he basically devoured the whole plum!

 First time in the swing!

Watchin some Baby Mozart.

 Just grabbing a cold beer out of the fridge after a long hard day of standing...and squatting...and standing some more.