Heading into the end of month three this weekend. Can’t believe that my little boy has grown so much and I am only a few weeks away from being back to work. Maternity leave went very quickly, let me tell you, and my boy has changed so so much in such a short amount of time. My days have been full so my posts went from a very high frequency to now very rarely. There is so much more I understand about the craziness of first-time parenthood now that I am here. We had a nice trip to Longwood Gardnes today and it was quite crowded, given how beautiful a day it truly was! My mother called me out for being touchy when strangers reached out to touch my little one, and maybe I would have been annoyed at my protectiveness once upon a time. But it really feels weird to have people come near my baby! It is fine if it is friends or relatives or people I know, but geez, when I am holding the baby close to me I’m not expecting people – no matter how clean their hands are and no matter how well they are – to poke and prod! He is so small! I chalk it up to maternal instinct though, yes, mom thinks I’m being excessively protective.
But who could not want to protect my little smiling baby? Finally he has a bit of a social smile and I can play little games with him when he is in a good mood. The he has other moods where he is a bit fussy, but he is always consolable. It just feels magical to be communicating with him and listening to him, trying to meet his needs and noticing his delight when things work out. I am amazed at how much he changes, how he is becoming more comfortable on his stomach and has started to lift his head a little. His arms still aren’t as strong as his kicking, pushing legs, but he has begun to develop quite a grip and I fear the risk of some hair loss when I least expect it from his strong grasp! And the gurgles and babbles coming out of his mouth bring extreme joy – the intermittent laughter, the guhs and the grrs, so many neat sounds!
Believe it or not I’ve kept up with the cloth diapering. I really do like it and prefer it for my boy. I suspect that this will go a bit by the wayside when I get into daycare as it will be difficult to lug diapers back and forth, but that is only part-time and as such I’m planning to try to cloth diaper at home as much as possible. I haven’t noticed any difference blow-out wise compared to cloth, and sometimes when I’m on the go with a disposable I end up putting a cloth cover overtop to help prevent blow-outs! Otherwise leaks are rare and most of his diapers fit him. My recent purchases are some Bum Genius elementals (very nice and soft) and Bumgenius flip diapers with stay-dry inserts (awesome, though the big poos spread fast, but he feels very dry in these diapers) and a Li’l Monster edition of a Rumparooz (undeniably cute diaper). . .so now I’m cut off. No more diapers for me for now, unless I need to upgrade on his prefolds, which are getting very tight for my little one.
The other big deal is my desire to steadily increase my stash of stored breast milk. I got a stockpile from about a month ago when we planned to travel and here and there I’ve been storing bags of milk, only over the past few days have I started to increase the stockpile again. I’m pumping daily in the morning (with the Ameda Purely Yours Ultra – a great pump that is easy to clean) so I hope that I continue to increase the supply I have. Now that the WHO recommends breast feeding for two years I’ve got lots to do. I really, sincerely hope that my supply remains good during the next several months because I enjoy breast feeding so much. It is amazing to get that closeness with a child, even with the discomfort that sometimes happens with breast feeding. And nothing beats an unlimited supply of hot milk that doesn’t require bottles or mixing or heating! It is amazing to be able to feed a person.
So now I am going to head to sleep . . . oh how quickly typing time passes. I definitely should get some rest. Hugs and kisses to you my husband who will probably be reading this shortly. Good luck at school this weekend! Only a few weeks left and then we are a family together each and every weekend. Night night all.
FWIW, using cloth while at day care isn’t any harder than using it yourself, as long as you’ve got somebody willing to use it and who knows how (i.e. no diaper rash ointment, etc). When people are caring for n not in our home (well, and in our home, too, we just laid them out, instead of putting them in a bag!) we sent her with our easiest to use (BG), and a wet bag. They take the dirty diaper off, stick it in the wet bag, good to go. Same at the end of the day as if you’d been doing it yourself. 🙂
Thanks to you N, I think that cloth diapering has been ridiculously more successful for me and I am now looking at what I need to have if I CD at daycare . . so i’m going to make an inventory of what I have and what I may need because it looks like I probably need to have at least 10 AIO/easy to use diapers. I think that my daycare is CD friendly though I will phone them tomorrow to confirm. What did you have for daycare? I’m probably going to have them use disposable wipes, though at home I much prefer cloth. I’m also going to get a big Planetwise wet bag. I have a medium sized wet/dry but I don’t think it’ll be big enough for daycare dipes. And I think we will have backup disposables as well . . .