the most wonderful time of the year

one more week till christmas! 

snow!

we've had lots of days where it flurried but nothing ever stuck around. friday though it did! so i bundled grayson up and took him outside to enjoy his first snow. 

he wasn't really sure what to make of it. 

he kept looking up at the sky and making faces because all the snow would land on his little cheekies. 

it was nice to see a little white stuff but i really really hope we don't have another winter like last year! 

that would not be fun. 

don we now our gay apparel

Tis the season for holiday parties. And with holiday parties comes holiday sweaters! 

Even grayson was sporting his best outfit. 

our lovely hosts

our fancy fire. 

then came time for the chinese gift exchange

Yes that is a pregnancy test she has in her hand. Best gift ever. 

seriously exciting gifts!

grayson was disgusted by the whole thing. 

happy holidays! 

the beginning of the end

I am days away from no longer breastfeeding. Days. I actually had intended to stop at the end of the month but i had no idea how quickly milk actually dries up.


I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand i loath breastfeeding. It's been a struggle from day one. Grayson was in the nicu when he was born and so the IV made him not want to eat. I had lactation consultants there several times a day trying to help me. He got more bottle then breast and because hes lazy smart he figured out bottle was way less effort for him and refused to breastfeed.


So in comes the pump. Every three hours I had to remember to go isolate myself in a room for a good 20 minutes to pump. If i was going out, the pump was there. Public bathrooms, weddings, cars, you name it.


I felt like i was constantly drenched in breastmilk. I was always full and leaky. The rare times I could get grayson to breastfeed he insisted on using a shield. He would fill the thing up then knock it off so everything spilled down on me.


I know some people love breastfeeding and found it as a bonding time but for me it was a battle. He screamed and kicked at me for 45 minutes one time because he just did not want to nurse. He wanted the bottle. So even though it was so much more work, i just pumped. At least he was getting the benefits of breastfeeding.


That was until my milk supply went away overnight. I went from having an awesome supply of 6-8 oz a pumping session to only 3oz, if i was lucky. This happened mid-september, just as i was getting ready to go back to work. After consulting both the lactation consultant and the midwife i tried eating disgusting oatmeal, downing the mother's tea, fenugreek, blessed thistle, power pumping. Pretty much every trick in the book. Instead of getting better it just got worse though.


My supply just kept going down. I even rented a hospital grade pump that i've been using the last two months. Nothing. It didn't help that as i got less milk i got more stressed. I'd just end up crying and Mark would look at me like i was a nutcase. Everyone was frustrated. I was lucky if he got two bottles a day.


So i decided 6 months was the cut off. I was done, in every way. I started taking away pumping sessions little by little and in a weeks time i'm down to pumping once every 36 hours. I didn't realize how easy it would be to stop. I feel kind of sad about it, that i can no longer provide for him. The whole thing made me feel like a total failure though, i just couldn't do it anymore.


I do wish i could have kept going, as much as i hated it. Next time I will do things a bit differently. For now though, this is the end.

oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree

new hat!

our talented friend robin made us a hat! grayson loves it. 

pretty sure he is the most adorable baby ever by the way. 

thank you robin!

transitioning to solids

last night mark and i were discussing how much we think grayson will enjoy transitioning over to solids. here is how our conversation went. 


mark: i think he's really going to love it once he can have real food. 
me: i think so too. we will probably start him on cereal by the end of the month.
mark: sounds good. you mean like cherrios and stuff right? don't babies like cherrios. 


haha. forgive him. he's new at this. 

santa baby

guess who we went to see this weekend. 

we took grayson to santaland in the nyc macys. he loved it. more on our trip later! for now i leave you with this...

disadvantages to removing the bumper pads

i am constantly walking into grayson's room to find this...

stinker.

usually it's a foot, but lately it's been the arm. i think it's time to put those bumpers back up. 

guess what we finally started doing today...

somehow putting up christmas decorations is a bit more challenging this year (wonder why). we pulled out all the holiday bins this weekend and have had a half put together, unfluffed tree sitting in the middle of our living room since.

today grayson and i finally started making a little bit of progress.

little hands kept undoing my work.

we're getting there...

working mama no more?

the plan was never to put grayson in daycare. for one, it's way too expensive. i would pretty much be working to pay the daycare bill and that just didn't make sense. 


another reason was he spends most of his day in my arms and if he cries i pick him up, always. i know some parents probably don't agree with doing that but to each his own. this is what works for us. i know that one adult caring for 3-4 babies is not able to do that. so no daycare. (not that i have anything against it, for a lot of people it's a great option- or their only option). 


that being said, being a designer i have a bit of flexibility. the plan was to freelance or hook up with a company where i could go into an office just a couple times a week. i love being home with grayson but getting out of the house and being with adults is needed to keep my sanity. 


so i gave my company my two weeks because part time is not something they'd ever offer. apparently i was wrong though. they just had a huge baby boom in the office over the summer and advertising does not lend itself well to family life. i suppose rather then loose a large group of designers they bent their rules a bit. they offered me part time. which is awesome because i can stay with the same company i've been with but not be in the office five days a week.


so far i've only gone one week of this new schedule. it's been pretty easy to pick up where i left off. i'm still working on the same clients. and although i did work an 11 hour day on friday it seems like it will work out. being home with g man is beyond thrilling. i love it. 


horray for working part time. boo for how tight things will be due to salary cuts. it's so worth it though. 


anything for this face. 

just stopping by to say hello

can you spare two clicks? we would love your votes. thanks!

thanksgiving

i did not have a camera for grayson's first thanksgiving, parent fail, whatever. i did take some cell phone shots though. 

we started out with our morning playtime. 

followed by breakfast out! 

breakfast is my favorite by the way, i would rather go out for that then lunch or dinner anyday. 

then daddy and grayson passed out for a nice nap.

then we enjoyed a nice big thanksgiving dinner with family. grayson was exhausted and passed out, when we got home i couldn't bare to disturb him (especially since his teething has made him super crank lately) so i put him right in his crib. clothes and all. 

how adorable is this child. 

especially that little foot sticking out of the crib (which he does all the time)

the next morning grayson and i did a bit of black friday shopping. look at this big boy in his work shirt at home depot. 

happy thanksgiving everyone