Sundays With Oliver - Week Fifty

Sorry so late. We had a visit from Cousin Brea this weekend so although I got time to take the pictures yesterday, I didn’t have time to get them up. We had a great time with Brea and Nicole and Chris. Oliver went down and stayed with the grandparents on Saturday night so all the cousins got to go out to a nice dinner. We ate at an amazing restaurant called Buenos Aires Cafe on the East side. The food was awesome. On Sunday, we went and picked up the kiddo and then hung out with Brea and Chris at the house. 

I’ll update more later but here are the pictures from this week:

Sundays With Oliver - Week Forty-Nine (!)

Three more weeks left!!! Hooray! 

This was a pretty typical week in the Contine household. I went to work, Brian and Oliver hung out at home and we spent some time with friends and family. 

There are no major developments to report. Oliver is still saying his version of “dog” and has now added “ball” to his vocabulary. And, by “ball,” I of course mean he says a “b” sound when he sees a ball. He’s not big on ending words yet but he’s trying to communicate with us in some way other than screaming and that’s exciting.

The weather was beautiful most of the week so we spent as much time outdoors as possible. This is my favorite time of the year in Austin.

Here are the pictures from this week:

Thoughts on Weaning

A note: I've been working on this post for weeks and am still having trouble expressing myself. In that time, Laurie did a beautiful post on her thoughts and experiences with breastfeeding and weaning. So, if you find this post lacking and scattered, I highly recommend you check hers out and imagine that I just said: "Ditto." 

Before I got pregnant and in the first months of my pregnancy, when (or, more appropriately, if) I thought about breastfeeding I always thought it was something I would do for a short while but it wasn’t something that was all that important to me. I was of the “even getting breast milk for a few weeks is good enough” school of thought. As I got closer to Oliver’s birth I did lots of reading on breastfeeding and decided that it was something I wanted to do for at least a couple of months. I was prepared for the fact that breastfeeding was often difficult but felt committed to trying to make it work by asking for help in the first few weeks if I needed it. I still felt that it was something I would only do for a couple of months.  

After Oliver was born, I realized how lucky we were that breastfeeding came so easily to both of us. We “clicked” into a comfortable routine almost immediately. Sure, I had to deal with cracked nipples and painful engorgement in the first few weeks but those discomforts were to be expected and passed rather quickly. During my maternity leave, I came to love (most of) the hours I spent nursing (I never was crazy about it in the middle of the night). I figured out how to read while he nursed and loved the fact that it was built in cuddle time. No matter where we were or who we were with I knew I would get plenty of chances to hold him because I was where the food came from. 

Because we made such a great nursing pair, I quickly decided that my dream goal for breastfeeding would be six months although whenever anyone asked me how long I planned on nursing I would answer “one more month.” That is, I set myself the long term goal of hitting six months but tried to take it one month at a time. As we got closer to that six month mark I let myself begin to think that maybe this was something I could do for an entire year and made that my goal - although it was a goal I shared only with those closest to me. With anyone else, I stuck to the “one more month” answer. I was determined to see it through but I allowed myself one caveat. If after six months of nursing one or both of us were ready to throw in the towel, then that would be the end of it. I wasn’t going to force the issue after six months. Now it is eleven months later, and I'm surprised to find myself asking: "Am I really ready to be done?" For the past eleven months, my thoughts on weaning have been pretty abstract. At times I would be giddy thinking about reaching the year mark and leaving the breastfeeding days behind me. But as I get closer to the actual date, I find myself less excited than I had expected. 

I am going to miss nursing Oliver and when I think of that last nursing session (because there will inevitably be that "last time"), I find myself getting really emotional. Oliver and I share such an amazing bond and nursing is such an important part of our relationship. I struggle to imagine what our relationship will look like once nursing is no longer a part of it. Nursing has never been just about food for Oliver. He has never taken a pacifier, so I have filled that role - letting him nurse when he is fussy or needs help calming down before going to sleep. It is how we reconnect after I have been away - whether for a week or for a day. When I get home from work (regardless of when he last ate), Oliver demands to be nursed. I've also found that whenever he hurts himself (bumps on the head, etc.), that nursing immediately makes him forget his pain (I've actually gotten better lately about this and have found other ways to distract him when he gets the inevitable bumps and bruises). And, it's not just Oliver that gets more from nursing. I love that no matter how hectic my day is or how late I get home from work, that I will have twenty minutes of time just for the two of us when I nurse him before he goes to bed. He's not a cuddly baby with most people, but because of our nursing relationship I get to hold him in my arms numerous times a day. Nursing is a time for me to sit down, put my feet up and focus on nothing other than being with my child. I'm afraid that I'll forget to take those moments when Oliver is no longer nursing. 

I've also found myself weary of weaning at this point because of all of the nursing "propaganda"(I'm sorry, there's no other word for it) I keep encountering on pro-breastfeeding websites while I've been looking for information on how to wean. If you Google, "weaning your one-year old," you inevitably end up at a website that tells you that you are doing a horrible thing by "forcing" your child to quit nursing before they are ready. All of these sites recommend (or demand) that the nursing relationship continue until the child himself decides to give up the breast. Considering how attached Oliver is to the whole nursing experience, I'm guessing this will be sometime around his fifth birthday and I'm not really interested in nursing that long. But, regardless of the fact that I think these recommendations are ridiculous (and despite the fact that I feel cheated for getting berated for breastfeeding for a YEAR and wanting to quit now), I find myself at times wondering if whether they aren't right. Maybe it is unfair of me to expect Oliver to wean when he so obviously wants to continue. 

But, when all of these doubts start to creep up, I think of the Pump. Months and months ago, when my maternity leave was over and I headed back to work, pump in hand, I met new breastfeeding challenges. I hated (still hate) pumping. But I knew I was lucky. I have my own office, with a door that locks and no windows. A perfect pumping room. Plus, I almost always managed to come home with enough milk for the next day and even managed to build a pretty substantial freezer stash. (why is it, by the way, that I always felt so proud/competitive about my freezer stash? That's just weird.) I was very possessive/obsessive about my pumped milk. I hated wasting even an ounce of it and would often get mad at my mom and Brian when I would come home and find milk still left in the bottles they had given him. I will take this opportunity to apologize for that. Sorry I was so crazy. But now pumping has become an issue. In the last two weeks I have not been coming home with enough milk. Whereas I used to pump twice at work and come home with eight or more ounces, now I pump three times and come home with barely six. I'm not having any problems when I'm nursing him but my body is obviously giving up on the pump. 

I had been planning to drop one pumping session at work the week before his birthday and just give him breast milk from the freezer (I still have about 8 bags of milk left) and then the week after his birthday, I could go to work pump-free. But now I'm worried that my supply won't last that long and I'm looking to try and quit pumping sooner than that (though I'm still not sure how that would work considering I don't have the breast milk stashed). We have given him a couple of sips of cow's milk every day for the past couple of days but he's not that interested in it so, even if we wanted to, there's no way we could replace any of his breast milk feedings with cow milk any time soon. Maybe I could try to nurse him twice before I went to work so that he would only have to take one bottle while I'm at work? But, I'm digressing...

The pump starts off my list of things I'm looking forward to when it comes to weaning. Next, comes wearing a real bra. One that, as Laurie put it, doesn't "open like a barn door." I'll add the ability to go out every once in awhile without thinking about having milk in the fridge. The ability to send him down to his grandparents' house on a whim. Then there's the fact that this will make him more independent of me. I think that's supposed to be a good thing but at times I can't help but mourn that particular change. Oliver and I have been physically connected for 20 months and it seems weird that we won't be that connected any more. 

So, adding it all up, it's time to wean so wean we must. I will try to dump the pump as soon as possible but I will keep the first feeding of the day and the one before bed as long as I can. I have to leave for a one-week trip for work the last week of May. So, the week before that (if not sooner), we will drop the first session of the day, and the night before I leave for New York, I will nurse Oliver for what will (hopefully? probably?) be the last time. And, our new relationship will begin.

Sundays With Oliver - Week Forty-Eight

We had an awesome weekend. We went to Lydia’s birthday party yesterday afternoon. It was such a blast watching all the kiddos play. There were three boys and three girls all under the age of three and all of them were so happy. Not a meltdown among them. Oliver was all over the place. He kept pushing Lydia around in her car. 

The food was awesome. Laurie and Robin made a ton of food and about a billion cupcakes. Everything was delicious. 

Today, we went over to Lindsey’s house for brunch. I was a little unsure about how Oliver would do at a house that wasn’t really set up for an eleven month old but he did great! Of course, he rearranged all of Lindsey’s furniture but I think the place looked better when he was done (only kidding, Lindsey). He sat in my lap while I ate brunch and ate some cheese and had a few bites of the yummy strata that Lindsey and her friend, Lindsay, made. He also (and this a big deal for me) had a few sips of cow’s milk for the first time with breakfast. We’re not going to replace any breast milk with cow’s milk any time soon but I wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to have any reactions to cow’s milk and that he could get used to the taste. It’s a tiny step towards complete weaning.

He also decided to show off at Lindsey’s house and stood up by himself for a good ten seconds. That’s a personal record. On Saturday at Laurie and Robin’s I noticed that he was standing up by their coffee table (who knew coffee tables were so vital to development) and was playing with two toys - one in each hand - so it seemed like he was standing up on his own. But today, he stood in the middle of Lindsey’s kitchen with no furniture near by!

In other development news, he’s consistently saying his “dog” sound (it sounds like “Da!”) when he sees dogs. When we are at the park and a dog runs by, he points and says “Da!.” When Coltrane and Miles come in he says “Da!.” And, the other day we were walking down the aisles of Target and he got really excited, pointed and shouted, “Da!.” I said, “No, Oliver there’s no dog” but he kept saying it, so I followed his finger and, sure enough, there was a giant photo of a dog on the wall above the shelves. I’m ready to call it his first word but Brian is still hesitant (probably because he says “Da!” for a lot of things)... Also, just in the past few weeks he has started showing a ton of interest in his books. He will sit and look at the pictures and has even managed to sit still for story time some nights (we’ve been reading at him every night forever but now I feel like we’re really reading to him).

Here are the pictures from this week:

Cruising

My mom reminded me that I had promised a video of Oliver’s new trick on Sunday. So, here it is. The actual “cruising” portion is pretty short because he never EVER does the things we want us to but the video is still pretty cute.  How could it not be?

Happy Birthday, Lydia Cecille!

Today is Lydia’s first birthday! Lydia is Oliver’s first friend. She came to meet him before he was even twenty-four hours old (when her sweet parents brought us dinner so that we wouldn’t have to eat hospital food). But they had encounters even before Oliver decided to become an outside baby. 

From their first couple of visits when all they could do was lay around (and scream),

to a couple of months later, when they started to find their sea legs,

but were also still totally surprised by all the world had to offer...

And even later when they learned to sit up and play with each other...

to now, when it’s rare to get a picture of the two of them in one frame because they are all over the place, it’s been so awesome to watch them grow, change, learn, and develop their own personalities. Lydia, with her perfectly demure wave and gorgeous smile, is the wise one, always examining the world and the people around her. She’s quick to laugh and quick to cheer and clap, but you’ve got to bring your A-game because this is one smart little girl. Oliver is the impetuous one. Never letting a silly thing like thought slow him down in his pursuit of trouble.

They’ve laughed together

cried together (or, you know, Oliver made Lydia cry by pulling her down),

have been super serious together, and, have even worn silly outfits together.

We’ve been so lucky to get to spend so much time with Lydia (and her parents) this year. Happy Birthday, Miss Lydia! Can’t wait to see what your second year has in store for you.

Sundays With Oliver - Week Forty-Seven

Oliver is officially cruising. He started cruising around his play yard last week but just this weekend really got the hang of it outside of the play yard. I think part of what slowed him down in this particular endeavor is the fact that we don’t have a coffee table. I took him to my parents’ house this weekend and he walked all around their coffee table. I brought him home and he has been cruising from one end of the couch to the other. He also spent the first half hour of his afternoon nap time today “walking” around his crib. I’ve got a video I’ll post later this week.

Every time he crawled towards me today he would say “ma ma ma ma ma.” He’s “talking” up a storm lately but the words and the people or objects still aren’t lining up all or even most of the time. He’s still pretty clearly saying “dah dah dah” when he sees the dogs and making a “k” sound when he sees the cats but that’s where it ends. He’s not a mimic at all so we can say “doggy” all day long and he’ll just look at us and smile. But, once this weekend my mother asked him: “Where’s Granddaddy?” and he immediately turned to the office where my stepfather was working on the computer. And, three times today when Brian and I asked him: “Where’s the doggy?” he pointed towards Miles. And, once I asked him: “Where’s Daddy?” and he pointed at Brian. Of course, we asked him these things about a thousand times but still... I’ve always bit a little (okay, a lot) concerned about Oliver’s verbal development so it’s nice to see that he’s starting to figure out that words refer to the things around him. He’s also very consistently acknowledging us when we call his name (when he feels like it). Woo-hoo! It seems like he finally knows who he is. 

We had a great week. Oliver came down to the store on Thursday and had lunch with me while Brian ran some errands. After lunch we went and hung out in BookKids and met a little boy named J.D. and his mom. J.D. will be one next week and he and Oliver had a great time playing together. Oliver was crawling around and J.D. got behind him and grabbed his waist. Oliver dragged him all over the kid’s section. Then my coworker, Madeline, came in with her son, Miles, who is two months younger than Oliver. So, the three boys terrorized BookKids for about an hour. 

Here's the picture from this week. As you can see, we were once again incapable of getting the little dude to sit still. Here’s what we got:

So, instead we decided to start in on our new project - Sundays With Mommy.