What I'm Loving Wednesday, and a little Picture Dump

It's been a while since I've posted anything non Sawyer related. I thought I'd do a little picture dump and also tell you guys about some fun things going on in my life currently!

Things I'm Loving:

First and foremost... Spring Break! Woot! Starting on Friday I will have 10 days off of work. I could not be more thrilled.

My Instamax camera. Justin got me one for Christmas and it is so fun! It's great to whip it out at parties and snap a picture, and the anticipation of waiting to see if it was a good one or not is pretty fun... just like the old days!! ;) Here's one of the best ones!

This picture is from when these two gorgeous girls came to visit. I loved every second of it. It's so great to have those amazing kinds of friends... when distance or time doesn't change your relationship. It was such a great weekend, and I value them so much.

Our house. We love it!!! We are finally unpacked. All the boxes are gone! Not everything is exactly where I want it, but it's getting there. Sawyer's room is pretty much completely finished, and as we get each room done I will be sure to share pictures!

These funnies that make me lol:

Decorating! I love that I get to decorate! And that I have a mantle to decorate! I also have been neglecting my chalkboard lately, so I was really happy with how this one turned out!

This new Meghan Trainor song:


Some people on the inter webs are out there hating on it because they think it's antifeminist. I think it's hilarious and I love it. This part especially,

"After every fight
Just apologize
And maybe then I'll let you try and rock my body right
Even if I was wrong
You know I'm never wrong
Why disagree?
Why, why disagree?"

My husband. He doesn't get enough love on this blog. But he is wonderful, and he has been working really hard to get us all moved in, and get us settled into every aspect of our new life! And I appreciate him and love him. A lot.

And last but not least... this.

Because, seriously? Seriously.

5 Months!

Wow guys, I have not been doing so well in the blogging department. There have been girls trips, and birthdays, and holidays, and all sorts of things that I have not blogged about! My excuses aren't even good... So I wont bore you with them. I'm just going to say that I'm going to try to be better!

Can you even believe that Sawyer is now 5 months old?! The last month went by soo quickly!

I think we have succeeded in bulking our little man up a little. He is now grown out of his 0-3 month clothes. I think we could still squeeze him into some of the onesies, but they are getting tight.

He continues to love cooking with me! His favorite spot is in the ergo, facing outwards. He grabs for everything so I have learned to cook with arms extended. I'm quite talented.

He is starting to sit up independently. He is not sturdy at it, he still uses his hands to prop him up, or is quite wobbly if he does sit up all the way. And I think its hard on his little ab muscles, because he doesn't look like he enjoys it!

We went this whole month being healthy! Woohoo! But now we have a little cold/cough again. It's not nearly as bad as the RSV before, so we're thankful for that.

Sawyer is starting to get just the tiniest bit of stranger danger! He doesn't cry when new people hold him, but he is starting to get a little shy. He'll smile at them but then turns his head away, or sometimes he doesn't smile at them at all, just stares at them looking concerned. We are going to see the Easter Bunny this weekend and I'm so excited to see if he is terrified or if it just doesn't faze him.

Lately playing PeekABoo is sure to make him laugh! He doesn't like to play behind a blanket. A blanket or towel over his face kind of freaks him out. He usually holds his breath. But hiding behind a doorway, or around a corner and popping out just cracks him up.

He is barely starting to discover his tongue! He sticks it out and plays with it, every now and then!

He's been doing pretty good with sleeping through the night again. Every now and then he wakes up in the early early morning hours, but he will usually go back to sleep when we give him his pacifier.

We have started solids! Kind of. I knew that Sawyer was ready, so at our 4 month appointment I asked our doctor about trying them. He said that we could, to treat it like dessert (meaning every now and then, not everyday... shocker, I know). So we have tried some baby rice cereal, and some avocado. And he loves them both.

This kid loves the bath!! He is totally a water baby! I think its the best part of his day. He totally just lounges in the water, sucks on his washcloth, coos to himself, and sometimes rolls over and kicks like he's swimming! I cant wait to get him in the lake or in a pool this summer!

I cant believe how fast he is growing up! We love this little guy so much. Sometimes at night Justin jokes about going to get him out of bed so we can play with him some more and some days it takes all of my strength to tell him no! We just can't get enough!

Breastfeeding

Wow. Breastfeeding. Where do I begin?

I told my sister about this post. And I said, "It's pretty long and drawn out, but it kind of needs to be, because breastfeeding is long and drawn out." I know reading about someone's breastfeeding story may be the most bizarre, uninteresting thing you can think of, but I know I enjoyed reading people's stories when preparing for Sawyer to arrive. So if you're interested... here we go! If not, go ahead and skip this post. No hard feelings. :)

Before Sawyer was born I knew I was going to breastfeed. It was never really an option for me. People told me it would be hard, but it was something I just knew I wanted to do for my baby. 

In the hospital Sawyer started rooting, and looking for food, before I even got to hold him, so right when I first got to hold him we nursed and he latched right on. 

While we were still in the hospital a lactation specialist came in to watch me nurse, she helped with some positioning and made things a little more comfortable, but then was gone. Every time I would nurse my mom or my Ama would try to help me position him the way the specialist had shown me, and help him to get a better latch. It seemed like a multiple person job to keep his little head supported, hold my boob the way I was supposed to and get his tiny little mouth latched on the right way. I remember thinking, how am I ever going to do this alone?

The first couple of weeks home from the hospital were hard. I wrote a post 4 weeks out. That explained some of how I was feeing. But the breastfeeding was so much harder than I ever imagined it would be. When my milk came in, my breasts were so engorged that they were literally rock hard. It was so painful. And when Sawyer would try to latch on with my breasts that full, milk would seriously come spraying out. It would be all over the place. Squirting him in the face, all over my clothes, the couch, my hands. I was a sticky mess. There were so many middle of the night feedings that I would be crying and praying for strength and patience to get through this for my baby.

It may seem dramatic, but in the middle of the night, when your baby is hungry and you are sleep deprived and emotional, it seems like the hardest thing in the world. Maybe it's one of those things that maybe you won't understand unless you've been there. Maybe it was just me.

Finally after the first month things got easier. We started to get the hang of it. My nipples weren't quite as raw, my milk didn't come squirting out, and I even felt comfortable enough to venture out and nurse in public. (Teaching Sawyer to nurse under the nursing cover, was a whole other battle.)

In December when Sawyer was about 9 weeks old we introduced the bottle. It was a little stressful for me, but he took to it right away. We wanted to get him comfortable with a bottle because I would be going back to work when he was 12 weeks old. We decided to go to with the Avent Natural bottles for monetary reasons, reviews, and the fact that it was recommended for breastfeeding babies. Well, what they warn you about was exactly what happened to us. Sawyer would still nurse, but it became a battle. He wasn't getting the milk as quickly as he could if he were drinking from a bottle, and he was sure to let me know how he felt about it. By un-latching (is that a word?) and screaming at me. He would latch back on for a few minutes, and then un-latch again and scream. It became so stressful and I would dread nursing.

After a few weeks of this I decided to try switching Sawyer to a bottle permanently and to pump instead. Although this took up more time, and involved doing many more dishes. It was what worked for us. I started to enjoy feeding Sawyer a lot more, and he enjoyed the feedings more too. Justin got to start feeding him and taking some of the shifts, and I could actually keep track of how much Sawyer was eating per day (which was good to know, since he's always been a skinny little guy). I would pump about 6 times a day, and with Sawyer eating 5 bottles per day, I created quite the freezer supply.

When I went back to work I would get up and pump while I was getting ready, during my lunch break, once I got home from work, and then right before bed. My supply was pretty good, and I was able to keep up with how much Sawyer needed, I only had to dip into my freezer supply every now and then.

As Sawyer got a little older and a little bigger, he needed more milk but I wasn't quite keeping up, if anything it seemed my supply was declining a little. I had to use about one of my frozen bags per day to keep up. As we approached his 4 month appointment my freezer supply was almost gone, and as you may have read, I needed to up his ounces in order to try to bulk him up a little! Well the time came where my freezer supply was gone, and we had to start using a little bit of formula. Thank goodness Sawyer is the most easy going baby and took to the formula just fine. That made it much less stressful for me.

And that's where we are now! And I'm good with it. There are still some hard parts. Pumping 4 times a day is kind of a pain in the butt, my nipples look like sad little stretched out raspberries, and they hurt. But Sawyer is still getting breastmilk every day. And he is a growing happy little baby. Which is the most important thing.

My goal was to breastfeed until he was 6 months old. I've still got a little bit to go until then, and I'm not sure where we'll be in this journey at that point, but I'm taking it as it comes, and it's working out pretty well for us. Even though it's been hard, I'm glad that I am able to provide this for him, and I know it's worth it.