My Love/Hate Relationship With Breastfeeding

Welcome to my celebration week of guest bloggers! I wanted to celebrate, and what better way to celebrate than to share some of my favorite voices with you! There are 7 ladies that will be writing for your reading enjoyment! There will be one lovely lady featured each day for the next week! I am so excited to share some of my favorite ladies with you! I hope you enjoy! These lovely ladies took a day away from their own awesome blogs to guest post for me here at W3G, so Please stop by their blogs and show them some lovin'!

 

Today we have Risa at Counting My Blessings, writing for you! She and I met when she nominated me for a Liebster Award! For those non-bloggers following along, a Liebster Award is a prestigious, peer recognition award that is awarded to up and coming bloggers! We have been bloggy buds ever since! Risa is married with two kids. She started a blog when she was on maternity leave with her baby who is now almost 5 months old. Along with blogging, working full time, and taking care of her two kids (ages 6 years old and 5 months old), Risa is also going to school to get her Master's degree in Clinical Counseling. Risa hopes that her blog will help other mothers, provide some topics for discussion, and entertain others with her writing.
She is a doll! Go check her out! NOW! GO! Well, after you read her post below! Wink! Happy reading! And don't forget to tune in tomorrow!

 

 

 

My love/hate relationship with breastfeeding.

I tried to breast feed my first child. It didn't work out so well. Not only did I have an overactive letdown, which if you've never experienced it is pure craziness, my daughter also seemed to have some kind of milk protein intolerance. She would cry non stop for at least 2 hours, every single night. I managed to breast feed her for about 2 months before I simply gave up. She was a happier baby for it.
When my son came along, I was ready to have the same troubles. After all, my daughter inherited her milk protein intolerance from her dad. I thought that my milk may come in the same way too. Alas, things have turned out much better this time around and I am breast feeding my son going on 5 months!
That being said, breastfeeding is great, but sometimes I HATE it! It's a love/hate relationship.

So why do I love breastfeeding?
-It's a way to bond with my child. I think I love that “skin-to-skin” as much as he does and it makes him so happy to see me after I've been gone all day!
-It saves a TON of money! It's great to not have to buy formula all the time!
-It's very convenient. Baby needs to eat, the food source is right there. I just have to find a comfortable, discreet place to feed him if I'm in public. I will breastfeed in public, I just try not to do it right in the middle of everything.
-It helped me lose weight and has helped me to keep it off. When I couldn't breastfeed my daughter, I gained back all the weight I lost from giving birth and then some! With my son, I lost 20 pounds just giving birth and another 15 since then.
-It's great for the baby! He was 5 pounds 13 ounces when he was born and he weighed 13 pounds by the time he was four months old. A lot of people who see him say they can tell he's breastfed because he's got those chubby cheeks! I love it!

Why do I hate breastfeeding?
-I'm the only source. I have to get up at all hours of the night and feed the baby, while my husband snores away in the bed. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to work, but I have to be to work at 7 am so sometimes it is really tough.
-I hate pumping. I feel like a cow. Some days, it's tolerable. Some days, I wish I could just skip it. But I know I have to do it to keep up my supply.
-Sometimes, I wonder if my baby only loves me so much because I have the food. Then I think about it for a minute...nah he'd love me either way!!

So, if you are a breastfeeding mom or you are a soon-to-be mom thinking about breastfeeding, remember this. There may be some things you absolutely hate about breastfeeding, but when I weigh the pros and the cons, the things I love versus the things I hate, the things I love definitely win out. Don't let the tough times discourage you. Power through and you'll see that the benefits far outweigh the inconveniences.

 

Hope you all enjoyed!

 

 

 

A Not-So Snow Day for Mom

Today my Lil Punkin Doo woke Hubbie the Dearest and I up, by climbing into our bed, snuggling down, and saying good morning!  What a sweet way to wake up(but way too early after staying up until almost 2:30 in the morning!)  I asked her if she had looked outside yet, there was a surprise waiting on her.  She looked outside, and with a 4yo's excitement, eagerly asked to go out and play in the almost four inches of snow that fell overnight! I love sharing in the excitement through her child's eyes!

 I fixed her a quick breakfast of a Pop Tart and milk, so we could hurry out and play in the snow before it melted!  So I wolf down my identical breakfast of champions, as I get the 4yo's snow bibs out of her closet.  I decide to open the front door and take a picture of the snow, while the little one is scarfing down her breakfast.  I open the door and this is what I find; the trunk of my car left open from Hubbie the Dearest carrying in our groceries last night. This morning is off to an awesome start! It can only get better right? Riiiight. 

 

I then come back in and proceed to advise Hubbie what he will be responsible for cleaning up after work.  It's not like it is going to melt in ten degree weather!  I then come back to the living room to slide my child into her snow bibs, and after I am done, I look down to where she was sitting while eating her breakfast.  Covered in crumbs from the one Pop Tart she ate.  How do one 4yo and one Pop Tart make such a mess? How does one even bite a Pop Tart to make so many crumbs?  So after cleaning up the Pop Tart crumb mess, I am coming back into the living room, where I advise my child to finish drinking all of her milk before we go outside and play in the snow.  She apparently puts her mouth around the bottle, and proceeds to chug.  My husband then says something to her, which causes her to break the seal and laugh. Yup, uh huh. You guessed it.  She spews chocolate milk all over my new iPhone and her White Bible! I find myself saying to her, before I think," you just spewed chocolate milk all over Jesus!" The hubbie finds this hilarious.

 

So now it's chocolate milk clean up time, and time to pray to Jesus that she did not ruin my new phone!  She has quite a trajectory, just like her past projectile vomiting incidents.  So I find myself finding more and more area she covered with the spray of chocolate milk, the couch, the floor, the table, my pants, you get the picture. 

 

Next, Hubbie the Dearest goes out to start the car, to let it warm up.  He comes back in and commences to search for his key ring(he is taking my car to work today, it is better in the snow), which has his work keys on them.  He searches high and low for his keys, having no success, but leaving in his wake, a trail of still frozen Doc Marten, size twelve tread shaped, snow clumps.  All over my clean floors.  They start melting immediately.  Yet another mess to clean up.  He sits down on the couch to wait while the car supposedly warmed up and melted off the snow. He kicks the recliner up and props his feet up.   Drip, drip, drip.  A puddle of water is now under his feet as well, which in my mother's mind, foresee the 4yo dancing through later and busting her a$% on the wet hardwood floors.  So off I go to the kitchen for more paper towels to wipe up the puddles, that are all over the floor.

 

We finally make it outside, and Hubbie the Dearest is sitting in my still snow covered car, blinking at me like a kitty who wants more milk.  I get the child size broom(2.5 ft tall) because we lost the full size one, my favorite pink broom, in the Flying Truck of Horrors incident, which you can read all about here; Misadventures In Moving . Smooshed into a razor like thin strip of metal!   I proceed to shove all of the snow off of the car for him with the tot size broom, so he doesn't have to do it in his suit and tie.  I also get the scraper out of the car, and finish scraping the ice off of the back windshield, which is completely covering the back glass, except for the little porthole shaped circle he scraped off  to be able to see out.  Somedays I have to wonder, what would he do without me?  (and vice versa)

 

So my Lil punkin Doo grabs the broom and proceeds to clean off  Daddy's headlights.(see above picture)  Too cute! My little helper!  So then we proceed to get down to business, playing in this glorious amount of snow!  We wave at Daddy as he drives off to work, and here are pictures of the rest of our morning! Snow makes everything better! I am so blessed! No matter how crazy things get, or how many messes I clean up, I am always counting my blessings! So here is one of my biggest ones !Enjoy!

                                      My sweet Lil' Punkin Doo!

                          My newest favoritest spot at our new house!

                             Rolling, rolling, rolling down the hill!

                                     My favorite!

                      Moooommmmmiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Help!

                                             Wheeeeeeeee!

                                  Nah nah nah nah nah na!

                  A la the little brother from A Christmas Story that couldn't get up!

              

           My other favorite, eyelash snowflakes!

                Having fun trying to climb into my play set!

                                         Snow angels!

 And then we went inside for hot cocoa, and my Lil Punkin Doo made a different special request, popsicles!  So what started out as my not so snow day for mom, had a very happy ending!

 

 

Image by FontMeme