Captains Log #1

The ship has officially sailed. I'm finally taking a breather. But a quick one, because the little one's gonna be nipping at the boob any second. I remember now why people always say God makes you forget the bad stuff about the whole labor/newborn thing because if we remembered it all we might choose not to continue to procreate. Not that I'm not loving life right now, it's just hard to see through the fog that is sleeplessness, sore boobs, patched "parts" (and by the way--every girl part I have has some sort of ointment-slash-pad on it) and unwashed hair. But seeing that I remember very little about Aidan's labor pain and infancy and as I look at those tiny toes poking out from underneath the blanket in the bouncy chair, I know that this too shall pass.

Little Ryan isn't latching well. It got so bad that I had to call in the milk maid support people to come help me. A lactation consultant sat with me for hours yesterday looking at what is happening, and apparently the little guy just doesn't want to open up wide enough. We have spent hours and hours trying. I hit my breaking point over the weekend when Evan walked in and saw me bawling during one of our terrible nursing sessions. He sat down and immediately tried to console me and start helping me fix things, and with a very caring and helpful look said, "Do you want to call a lactologist first thing in the morning?"

A lactologist! I stopped crying for a second and burst out into hysterical laughter while he just sat there with a blank look on his face and I know he was thinking, "what on earth did I say?" Leave it to him for some comic relief. That's why I married him.

So it's been one day and he's still not latching perfectly but I already see an improvement. I am so thankful. Needless to say, it has been an incredibly busy couple of weeks. Evan was home with me the first week and my mom was here for about a week and a half. This week was the first time flying solo and it's been surprisingly nice and peaceful. I took my first trip out with both boys on Monday (just a quickie to Target but a trial outing nonetheless) and it went smoothly. We went out Christmas shopping this morning. Of course the real test will come when Poops has a complete meltdown while we're out, but so far he's been pretty good.

This has been a trying time for him, apparently. Unfortunately, he is having a bit of a difficult time getting used to another Poops in the house, he has done some lashing out, he gets this crazed look on his face, the pursed lips and evil devil eyes and I think "Where did my angel go!!!!" It has been somewhat of a struggle. I feel like I definitely didn't do enough research on this ahead of time. He has learned to turn on the breastpump, however, which is both funny and not funny at the same time. So they're both napping and I think I will too. Sleep is just too rare these days. I hope everyone's doing well and having a happy holiday season!! May everyone get their shopping done before Christmas Eve!