i'm going to make a conscious effort to write regularly now. for my own sake, so that when i want to look back i actually have something to look at.
liam is fully mobile lately, and stands up every chance he gets. a few days ago i caught him as he pulled himself to stand next to rowan's bed, then grabbed a toy and did it with no hands! i'm thinking he will be walking before his birthday... i've been experimenting with letting him swim underwater, since he seems to have no fear of the water and can hold his breath when dunked.
rowan is still anti-potty for the most part, but she is getting enough cognitive ability that i think i'm going to start pushing her a little bit more. as for swimming, a few weeks ago she fell off the top step in my parents' pool, and came up without choking (meaning she had held her breath)... she cried for a few seconds but i made a huge fuss about what a big girl she was for swimming all by herself, and the tears turned into pride pretty quickly. but she still doesn't want to leave the steps. she is going to be a lot more work in terms of encouraging her to take risks. liam will be the total opposite, ha.
matt received a shift change as of tomorrow; he'll be working 4pm-12am with tues/wed off. that is going to be... interesting. on the days i'm home, he will be trying to sleep in until 10am or so with the kids running around (after waking up at 630am). on days i work, i won't really see him at all. i have to say i am rather looking forward to some 'alone time' in the evenings, in which to knit, or work on computer stuff, or just not cook dinner... but it will be weird to go to sleep without him almost every night. weird and unpleasant. i hope it works well for him in terms of getting things done at home, though. he used to be a total night owl, so maybe this will be comfortable for him after the initial adjustment period. we should theoretically save a bunch of money on movie rentals, too, since we will only have two nights per week in which to watch something uninterrupted. we'll see. soon enough it will change again and he'll be on 12-hour shifts... then i will really never see him. sigh.
some milk production drama happened but i don't feel like explaining it; butters is doing well and we are getting a gallon a day. our chicken situation, however, fucking sucks. all our adults were killed (but the ducks remain unharmed). the babies that i mentioned in the last post died--9 of 12 of them--of a sickness which is apparently highly contagious and re-infectable. so i can't keep the 3 who survived, because they will pass it on to any new birds we get. wtf. so right now i technically have no chickens, and it sucks. (as soon as i get rid of these 3 i will be ordering some new chicks.) i do have a batch of 9 eggs incubating, and if i can believe what i see while candling, they are all developing nicely. i'm excited about that because those were the last few eggs from our now-deceased chickens, so i'm glad to potentially have some progeny of the good birds. i'll be ordering chicks to arrive about the time the eggs are due to hatch (july 19).
speaking of milk production, work has ruined mine. i was doing great, pumping 6-8oz at work and nursing plenty... and then suddenly shit went to hell. i'm not really sure how/why. but i know that liam gets bored nursing (let-down too slow lately) and wants an instant-gratification bottle and i am failing miserably at pumping ever, let alone regularly. i started taking fenugreek but so far all it has done is make me smell like syrup. not necessarily in a good way. i was reading up on relactation, though, and it sounds like if i just stick with a 2-hour nurse or pump schedule for a week or so i should be fine to reestablish supply. i wouldn't even care about weaning except that liam is clearly not ready to stop sucking milk out of things, so i would prefer that it be me if that is the case. granted, i am giving him homegrown raw milk in those bottles, and he eats food abundantly, but since he wants to nurse i need to be able to provide the milk. trouble is, bottles are so EASY; plop him in bed, hand him a bottle, and done. none of this 'baby is sleeping in my arms gotta slide him gently into bed without waking him" frustration. laziness prevails despite the best intentions, sometimes.
what else? my new niece, aria, is adorable and growing very fast. kai has been given the 'a-ok' by several doctors, including his ophthalmologist, which was a surprise. he is normal on all the scales, and will grow out of whatever slight delays may be holding him back. it's shocking, frankly. i realize there may be emotional/behavioral differences that surface as time goes on, but apparently hope is strong. if i had to compare him to rowan (speechwise), i would say he is where she was at about 13-14 months (he is technically 19.5 months now), just starting to use understandable words. he's a sweet little kid and has so far been very good with his baby sister.
the grapes are starting to ripen on the vines in the yard...
liam is fully mobile lately, and stands up every chance he gets. a few days ago i caught him as he pulled himself to stand next to rowan's bed, then grabbed a toy and did it with no hands! i'm thinking he will be walking before his birthday... i've been experimenting with letting him swim underwater, since he seems to have no fear of the water and can hold his breath when dunked.
rowan is still anti-potty for the most part, but she is getting enough cognitive ability that i think i'm going to start pushing her a little bit more. as for swimming, a few weeks ago she fell off the top step in my parents' pool, and came up without choking (meaning she had held her breath)... she cried for a few seconds but i made a huge fuss about what a big girl she was for swimming all by herself, and the tears turned into pride pretty quickly. but she still doesn't want to leave the steps. she is going to be a lot more work in terms of encouraging her to take risks. liam will be the total opposite, ha.
matt received a shift change as of tomorrow; he'll be working 4pm-12am with tues/wed off. that is going to be... interesting. on the days i'm home, he will be trying to sleep in until 10am or so with the kids running around (after waking up at 630am). on days i work, i won't really see him at all. i have to say i am rather looking forward to some 'alone time' in the evenings, in which to knit, or work on computer stuff, or just not cook dinner... but it will be weird to go to sleep without him almost every night. weird and unpleasant. i hope it works well for him in terms of getting things done at home, though. he used to be a total night owl, so maybe this will be comfortable for him after the initial adjustment period. we should theoretically save a bunch of money on movie rentals, too, since we will only have two nights per week in which to watch something uninterrupted. we'll see. soon enough it will change again and he'll be on 12-hour shifts... then i will really never see him. sigh.
some milk production drama happened but i don't feel like explaining it; butters is doing well and we are getting a gallon a day. our chicken situation, however, fucking sucks. all our adults were killed (but the ducks remain unharmed). the babies that i mentioned in the last post died--9 of 12 of them--of a sickness which is apparently highly contagious and re-infectable. so i can't keep the 3 who survived, because they will pass it on to any new birds we get. wtf. so right now i technically have no chickens, and it sucks. (as soon as i get rid of these 3 i will be ordering some new chicks.) i do have a batch of 9 eggs incubating, and if i can believe what i see while candling, they are all developing nicely. i'm excited about that because those were the last few eggs from our now-deceased chickens, so i'm glad to potentially have some progeny of the good birds. i'll be ordering chicks to arrive about the time the eggs are due to hatch (july 19).
speaking of milk production, work has ruined mine. i was doing great, pumping 6-8oz at work and nursing plenty... and then suddenly shit went to hell. i'm not really sure how/why. but i know that liam gets bored nursing (let-down too slow lately) and wants an instant-gratification bottle and i am failing miserably at pumping ever, let alone regularly. i started taking fenugreek but so far all it has done is make me smell like syrup. not necessarily in a good way. i was reading up on relactation, though, and it sounds like if i just stick with a 2-hour nurse or pump schedule for a week or so i should be fine to reestablish supply. i wouldn't even care about weaning except that liam is clearly not ready to stop sucking milk out of things, so i would prefer that it be me if that is the case. granted, i am giving him homegrown raw milk in those bottles, and he eats food abundantly, but since he wants to nurse i need to be able to provide the milk. trouble is, bottles are so EASY; plop him in bed, hand him a bottle, and done. none of this 'baby is sleeping in my arms gotta slide him gently into bed without waking him" frustration. laziness prevails despite the best intentions, sometimes.
what else? my new niece, aria, is adorable and growing very fast. kai has been given the 'a-ok' by several doctors, including his ophthalmologist, which was a surprise. he is normal on all the scales, and will grow out of whatever slight delays may be holding him back. it's shocking, frankly. i realize there may be emotional/behavioral differences that surface as time goes on, but apparently hope is strong. if i had to compare him to rowan (speechwise), i would say he is where she was at about 13-14 months (he is technically 19.5 months now), just starting to use understandable words. he's a sweet little kid and has so far been very good with his baby sister.
the grapes are starting to ripen on the vines in the yard...
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