freedom!

today i went babyless.

no i didn’t leave her at home. because that would be irresponsible. and silly. i took her in to town with p this morning. we had breakfast together (at starbucks, duh, i don’t go anywhere else. also 30% discount = happy mommy.) and i BFed s in p’s office, which by the way is the best and least stressful place in town to feed the baby, apart from the occasional undergrad student or italian tourist staring in p’s office windows even though signs clearly state the COLLEGE IS CLOSED. anyway. i’ll write about BFing in cambridge soon…i need to try it out in some other places and write reviews. it’s on the list.

after breakfast, i left p with the baby for a whole HOUR AND A HALF. now i know that to some of you moms this is not a big deal at all, but we have no family around here. i am with that child 24 hours a day. i love her so much and can’t think about ever putting her in daycare, but sometimes i need to breathe. so i walked down the street without the stroller and went in not one but SIX stores. i tried on clothes for our vacation and bought a bathing suit. not a mom suit (thanks modg for the advice!) either! here it is:

john lewis fat sucking awesome swimsuit. the model is not me. in case you were wondering.

now i don’t love my legs in this suit, but let’s face it…there is no swimsuit in the entire world that has the power to make your legs look hotter than they are, spandex or no spandex. so this one will have to do. and it’s super cute and retro! stay tuned for pictures post-vacation. also now i have absolutely no excuse not to take s swimming! i cannot WAIT to get that baby in the water. she loves splashing and has faceplanted a few times in the bath without any tears. she’s a rockstar.

so all in all, even though i was shopping for a bathing suit…not sipping red wine on a terrace or taking a leisurely stroll through the park…i was babyless for a few hours. i could taste the freedom. and then i was happy to have my little girl back.

baby steps. 😉

catch up

ok, so i said today was silent sunday, but i finally have something to say and can’t keep it in! sorry for being so quiet the last week. you know how you look back on a period of time and can’t remember any of it in detail? that’s how the last few days have felt.

s and i had a much needed rest this week and spent three days at home. we’ve been having some more problems with feeding, but have come to the conclusion that s is teething early and decides to use me as a teether (yum) instead of eating sometimes. so we soldier on.

we had some friends from oxford over to stay wednesday night so played host for them. mommy even had a g and t or two! mmmmmm. friday we went to a lunch thrown by some neighbors (more on the neighbors soon) and then met p for a chaplain’s tea in college. too much schmoozing. not enough cupcakes.

yesterday we ventured out onto midsummer common for cambridge’s annual strawberry fair. p carried s in the ergo and it was lovely being handsfree for a few hours. i’m pretty sure all three of us got high from the smells of patchouli and weed that permeated the air there. gotta love the hippies! we watched pulp fiction in the afternoon (my first time; hopefully s didn’t learn any naughty words) and ate p’s fantastic homemade pizza for dinner.

the plan today was the same as the last few sundays: to be a good vicar’s (chaplain’s!) wife and take s to church at college. it feels so nice to go regularly and to feel part of a community again. HOWEVER, about three seconds before we were supposed to leave the house, the kitchen ceiling collapsed five feet away from s and me. scary. think plane-crashing-into-the-bedroom-in-donnie-darko scary. but, we were running late and i needed to feed s before church. so, we left it. p celebrated and, after breakfast in his rooms, we went to lunch at las iguanas (since our entire kitchen was covered in a film of plaster and dust). yummmmy latin american food! we got home and my amazing hubby cleaned up the plaster on the kitchen floor while i took care of s…also because p was worried that if we were both in the kitchen at the same time the whole ceiling might fall down and we would die and leave s all alone. who’s the crazy one now?! then a perfect sunday afternoon with the family, watching the queen’s jubilee celebrations on tv.

tomorrow s gets to have cuddles with her godmommy! yay!

life is good. ❤

in other news, p has finally been able to give s a bottle! yay for bonding! yay for mommy breaktime!

the biggest loser, baby style

i’ve decided it’s time to get off my not-preggo-anymore-but-still-four-months-pregnant booty and lose some baby weight. life as a mom is finally starting to seem normal (well, as normal as stopping to feed s every three hours and taking care of someone who depends 100% on me can feel) and i have somehow seemed to pick up the trademark mommy trait of multitasking. wow, can i multitask.

so it’s time.

i’ve lost weight with weight watchers before, with varying degrees of success. i know that my body will never be exactly the same as when i was 18, but it will feel nice knowing i’m doing something good for myself. plus, lugging the world’s heaviest pushchair around the streets of cambridge on a daily basis is some good exercise. (no, i am not running. sorry. not gonna happen.) but i’m not sure how the plan will work while bfing. does anyone have experience with this?

stay tuned for updates.

in other news: s laughed today!!! ok, so it was kind of a grunt and she was asleep, but we’re counting it. plus p felt so good to be there when it happened. our little girl is growing up so fast!

read this article: breastfeeding in church

an excellent article on breastfeeding in public, written by an acquaintance of p:

boobie traps

BOOBS part two

WARNING: IN THIS POST I TALK ABOUT BOOBS. IF YOU DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT (MY) BOOBS, THEN STOP HERE.

i haven’t posted much in the last few days. sometimes life just gets in the way. s and i have been having a hard time with breastfeeding lately…pretty sure i have nipple thrush, which SUCKS and makes feeding really hard. we’re working through it though, and i’ll keep you updated.

for now, here’s a list of things i wish people had told me about breastfeeding:

1. it can hurt. a lot. (see BOOBS part one for more on this!)

2. you do it all the time. in fact, sometimes you feel like all you are is a giant boob.

3. breastfeeding in public is hard. really hard. (after a few public meltdowns, i thought i’d never bf in public again…but i found bebe au lait‘s nursing cover and haven’t looked back!)

4. big boobs make breastfeeding harder. someone should write a book for us well-endowed women, because the rules don’t always apply to us!

5. people are rude. okay, so this one applies to all aspects of life, and yes i am otherwise very naïve and trusting, but it applies to boobs, too. some people will tell you that public breastfeeding has less to do with providing sustenance for your baby and more to do with your own insatiable desire to whip out your boobs and lure men into your web of lust. because i know all of us breastfeeding moms feel oh so sexy when we’re feeding. these people will tell you that you should hide in another room when feeding your baby, and that yes, this applies to your own home. or your mother-in-law’s home. purely hypothetically, of course. sorry, off soapbox now.

that said, i love being able to feed my baby. i almost feel like i’m cheating when i give s a dummy, and haven’t expressed at all yet because i feel bad giving her a bottle. i won’t come down on either side of debates like the one in last week’s issue of TIME, but i will say this: girl’s got my respect. breastfeeding is HARD.

no more boob talk for awhile, i promise. 😉

two months

this saturday my baby girl s turned two months old. i can’t believe time has gone by so fast! so, to mark the occasion, here are a few things i have learned about parenthood.

poop isn’t that gross. not after it’s shot out of a baby cannon at your husband at 50mph.

all the crap you think you’re going to need five seconds after the baby is born is either too big, too small, or completely irrelevant. s still hasn’t set foot in her own nursery.

babies sleep. a lot. see the post i wrote here for more on that. and invest in DVR.

it will take at least the first two months to send out your thank you cards. sorry about that!

getting out of the house equals baby sleep and you feeling like a human again, so do it!

when your parents fly halfway across the world to visit, take them up on the offer to watch your baby for three hours so you can go see the hunger games. otherwise you will regret it and have no babysitter three weeks later when you are ready. i’m ready now, guys! (anyone else hear i told you so?)

take all advice with a grain of salt. some people will give you nuggets of wisdom that you will hold onto forever (cabbage leaves in your bra!) and others will tell you rubbish (you’re a hussy for breastfeeding in public!), so tread carefully through the land of advice.

take pictures. every day. like a crazy fool.
and a million other things. happy two months, s.

BOOBS part one

WARNING: IN THIS POST I TALK ABOUT BOOBS. IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ ABOUT (MY) BOOBS, THEN STOP HERE!

up until now, s and i have had a great breastfeeding relationship. with only a few blips in the early weeks, i thought that it would be smooth sailing forever.

somehow my boobs have turned into excruciatingly painful, gigantic balloons. thankfully it’s nothing serious, just the result of a few cranky feeds with bad latches, but it makes for a really unpleasant experience for both s and myself. over the last few days, i’ve been struggling with the idea of getting help, pumping, and the possibility of having to stop forever.

then i found nipple shields. these things should be called nipple GOLD. they are amazing. i can’t imagine feeding without them! s has no problem latching with these and my sore nips (ew, i told myself i’d never say that!) have time to heal. i may never take them off.

thank you, boob gods!

next time, more on boobs. stay tuned. you know you’re excited.