Nursing Challenges

This was my third week back to work and so far things have been going great. I have a decent routine down for pumping at work. I’m starting to get my 12 ounces consistently. And Maya seemed to have adjusted very well, until this week. On Wednesday, things went as usual. She had her three bottles at the sitters and came home where I nursed her. On Thursday however, she did not want to nurse. She wasn’t latching on even though she was hungry and I was ready to feed her. I noticed that she was trying to suck as if I were the bottle and she wasn’t getting any milk that way, which led to screaming baby! After struggling with her for an hour, I got her to finally fall asleep in the swing with her paci. At her next feeding, she was fine. I was so happy. I am not ready for her to stop nursing. I love this time together.

On Friday, I ran into the same challenge. Except this time, she wouldn’t nurse. I refused to give in. We struggled together for 6 feedings and finally on Saturday at noon, she nursed without fighting me on it. I am really panicking now. I am home with her for four days. Will I be going through this each week? Is she going to hold out longer and longer each time? There has to be a way to nurse and bottle-feed. Don’t people do it all the time? I want her to learn that when she feeds with her sitter or with daddy, she takes the bottle and when she is with me, she will feed from the breast. Is that even possible?

Adventures in Couponing

I have two friends who are so into couponing that I’ve been inspired to become better at it. I have always clipped coupons but when I get to the store, I forget to use them or I don’t feel like digging through them at the cashier’s register. Also, I don’t think I was leveraging them properly. Plus, I don’t want to end up spending money on things I don’t need just to use a coupon. Anyway, as I spend more time listening to my girlfriend Maria and reading about Cindy’s quest and adventures in couponing, I’ve started to learn more and more. The internet is filled with such valuable information. I found that some people really do their homework when it comes to combining sales circulars with coupons and they share that information with others.

So, I decided to pay CVS a visit yesterday. Thank goodness Maria’s ride home crossed with mine at the exact same time and she stopped into CVS because she really helped me get through what could have been a crazy ordeal. We went through the aisles picking up the good deals. They had Pantene on sale at 3 bottles for $12. I picked up 6 bottles and used two coupons in conjunction for a total of $8 off. Then, I picked up two tubes of paste that I used with two coupons for a total of $1.75 off. I found a box of pantiliners on sale for .99 cents so I picked that up as well. I got to the cashier and presented her with a $4 online coupon from CVS (which I got for updating my profile with my email address). She rang up all my items and took my coupons and my total was $16.97.

As I am walking out with Maria, I can’t but feel like I didn’t really get a good deal. I spent $17 and only received $2 back in extra bucks. As we look at the receipt, we realize that we didn’t receive the extra bucks for the paste so back to the register we go. I had mistakenly gotten the wrong size tube so we had to do a refund. Oh no. What a mess. She refunded the two tubes but needed to put it on my card and my card’s swipe wouldn’t work. Then another cashier came to help and couldn’t get it to work. Before you know it, the manager is involved and I’m starting to sweat. Thank God Maria was there. They finally decide to put the credit back onto a gift card but tell me that I’ll loose my $1.75 in coupons. Why? That doesn’t make sense to me. But I only said this to myself so Maria steps up and demands to know why. The manager never really explained it but says she’s going to apply the discount for us. What a mess.

This morning, I went back to CVS and picked up a box of pantiliners. They weren’t on sale and I didn’t have a coupon but there was a promotion running where you would receive 3.84 back in extra bucks. How can I loose? As I sit down and look over my receipts and calculate spenditures, coupons, and extra bucks I realize that I spent a total of $21.14. I used $13.75 worth of coupons and received 12.50 back in extra bucks that I can use on future purchases. Wow, maybe this couponing really does work. I was so inspired that I bought a newspaper subscription and I can’t wait to start analyzing the sales ads and the coupons. Thanks Cindy and Maria for getting me on track!

What a Scare!

It was a dark and stormy night. No sir. Just kidding. But it was about to pour. I had just let Rio out and decided to check the mail just in case there was anything interesting. I was happy I went because I found some notices from the immigration office. I headed back to the house and find myself face to face with a locked door. Could it be? There’s no way. He doesn’t reach. Or does he? No, I’ve never seen him at the door messing with the lock. But lo and behold, there I am in front of a locked door. I calmly knock on the door and call to Jayden. After a few minutes, I hear the pitter patter of his feet running to the door. I say to him, Jayden, open the door. No response. Jayden, please open the door. I hear fidgeting. I check the door, but it’s still locked. I hear Jayden say oh-no. I’m trying to stay calm, but now I hear Maya crying and I knock again and say Jayden, open the door. I hear the unmistakable sound of fear and frustration in his voice as he’s trying to open the door and cannot. I am about to loose it when all of a sudden he tries again and unlocks it. My initial thoughts are to beat him senseless, but of course I can’t do that. Words can’t express what I felt at that moment. All I could do was cry and tell him to never lock the door again. That was probably pointless since I haven’t taught him the word door or lock. I have been working on open, close, on and off. I just broke down thinking about the what-ifs. What a scare!

On a positive note, the immigration notices turned out to be approval notices. The applications we turned in for my husband’s kids have been accepted and hopefully the kids will receive their visas as a result. I am not sure how much longer the process will take, but even if it does take the estimated 4 or 5 years at least the kids would be able to come and visit us. Maybe they can even come to school here. As of now, the kids are 15, 13, and 10 years old. They are so big now. The oldest, Shanel, just had her Sweet Fifteen party. She was beautiful.

Jayden and Esteban

Do you think they look alike? I was completely flabbergasted when I came across this photo. It's like seeing Jayden in another time and another place.

Esteban - Age 2

Jayden - Age 2

Jayden's Words

In two short months, he's really started to communicate a lot more with us. At the age of 26 months, Jayden has 21 words and expressions he uses. Those are:

* Mama and now Mommy

* Dada or Daddy

* Ni-ni (Night-Night)

* Gracias

* Yes

* No

* Yeah!

* Ok.

* Bye-bye

* Uh-oh

* Ca-ca

* Hi

* Oh wow.

* Oh no.

* Ten-coo (thank you)

* Bess-u (bless you)

* Lub - u (love you)

* Titi (auntie in spanish)

* Baby

* Sowee (sorry)

* Hello

* Pees (please)

* This

* See ya

* I dunno (he actually shrugs his shoulders when he says this)

* I know

* Here I am or here they are.

* Cooz - ee (excuse me)

* Want more

* Oh man.

* Car (he pronounces this as if he were from Boston.)

* Avion (Spanish for plane. He says this clear as day!)

"I Don't Know" or does he?

It seems like Jayden’s short list of words and expressions has exploded in such a short time. I don’t even know if I can recap the list, but it’s very exciting to be able to communicate with him. We spent some time at my girlfriend’s house the other day and there was a game of pool volleyball going on. The ball went out of bounds and into the grass and they called out to Jayden and asked him to get the ball and off he went. In order to get to the ball, he had to get past a hammock and there was no way he could do that without falling into the pool so my girlfriend told him to wait a minute and he did. Then she moved the hammock and told him to come around this way and very carefully, and he did. She turned to me and commented on how nice it was that he understood so much of what we were saying. Amen!

We continue to speak to him in Spanish and English. As recommended, I mostly speak to him in English and Esteban speaks to him mostly in Spanish. Jayden seems to understand Esteban’s basic commands just as much. Now, he is actually stopping to watch the TV during playtime so I am starting to make sure that he catches episodes of Barney or Sesame Street. He likes to repeat numbers and his favorite seems to be six. We also like to put on Diego, Dora, Handy Manny or Maya & Miguel because they use both Spanish and English just like we do at home. On the weekends, there’s not much programming on for his age so I always make sure to order Baby Einstein DVDs from Netflix. He really enjoys them. Because he usually listens to instead of watches TV while he’s playing, I play the DVDs during meal or snack time because he’s strapped to the highchair and really pays attention.

But not only is his comprehension getting much better, he’s starting to use words as opposed to the expressions he’s been using. It used to be where he would say things like oh no or oh wow. Then he started to use two word expressions like thank you and bless you. Now, he started repeating words that I usually use with Rio like eat and sit. Unfortunately, when he says sit it sounds like s*it. J When Rio goes out to do his business, Jayden chases after him calling his name, just like we do. Except instead of Rio, he says ee-oo. The other day I was talking with him and I asked him a question, never really expecting a response because mostly he just uses gibberish. And much to my surprise, he said I don’t know. I just sat there, dumbfounded. Did he really just say that? Then I heard it several other times. He was saying I don’t know and I know. He even mimics mommy and daddy when they are having a “passionate” conversation by yapping away in a raised voice until he gets our attention. Little joker!

It’s so funny how much he learns just by watching. He understands when I say help mommy that I need him to do something. He always comes running. He takes the fabric softener sheets from the laundry basket to the trash. He takes his diapers to the pail and patiently waits while I change Maya to throw her diaper out too. If Maya cries or sneezes, he knows to run for her pacifier and a blanket. He puts his sippy cups in the sink when he’s done with them and he puts my water glass on the counter next to the fridge because he knows I will go there to refill it. At night, he knows what buttons to press to start and stop his CD player. He also knows how to make the CD repeat itself. He flushes the toilet when we go and sometimes when we don’t. He even hands me the toilet paper, one square at a time. The other day, he locked the sliding glass door behind me when I went out with Rio. Luckily Daddy was home!

Sometimes, Jayden regresses, but usually he just bounces right back. I called him a few nights ago to come to me. He was about 3 feet away. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled to me. Hmmm. Other times, he wants to have milk, like the baby does. I nurse. (The answer is no.) Now, that I’m back to work and Jayden sees Esteban bottle-feeding Maya, he wants that too. A couple of times, I have found him sucking on a finger or putting Maya’s pacifier in his mouth. Mostly, I just think he’s curious. And definitely, he’s growing (in more ways than one)!

Maya is Three Months Old

Maya is three months old today. She’s weighing 12 pounds 11 ½ ounces and is 22 inches long. I’m not sure how since she measured ½ inch longer when she hit two months, but oh well. She still wakes up once in the night to nurse, but she sleeps a good 5-6 hours in a row and I’m happy with that. Maya is no longer sleeping in her first bassinet. She always seemed to sleep very little in it as if she were uncomfortable so we moved her into the play pen's bassinet. She seems happy there. She’s still living in our room and I’ll probably leave her there for now. I put her in her crib for naps sometimes, but she usually fuses so I end up moving her to her swing. Plus Jayden tries to climb in with her. And he’s a big boy at 30 pounds and can cause some serious damage if he were to fall on her accidentally so she'll be rooming with us for a while.

Maya continues to nurse and nothing makes me happier. I just went back to work and I was so worried about the transition. I worried about not having a place to express my milk, about not having enough milk to express and about Maya not wanting me anymore. It was all for naught. I am pumping in my office. I do pump almost exactly what I need and Maya still latches on with no problems at all. The days she was with the sitter, she made me nervouse because she was drinking way more milk than when I nurse her, but as soon as we were together again, she seemed content with my supply. I was so happy because I was killing myself trying to squeeze in an extra pump, and I was barely getting enough milk to make it worth it so I decided to stick with three pumping sessions a day, which is a lot more manageable than four.

Maya coos and chuckles and even squeals in delight. Esteban swears she says mama when I'm not home. She's very active. She goes nuts in her play yard and bouncer and usually tires herself out. She responds very well to mommy and daddy and her big brother too. Maya grabs on to fingers or toys and shakes them around and many times you can hear her tiny feet kicking at her toys in her bassinet. She holds herself up very well and is super alert so I give her tummy time. She's not crazy about it, but I know it's good for her. She's also starting to suck her thumb which is just too cute. To let you in on a little secret, I sucked my thumb till I was 10 years old. I am not planning on letting her go that long though.

Jayden is crazy about his sister, but is now starting to show signs of jealousy. Before he was definitely trying to dominate our time and attention, but now he gets jealous if he feels in any way threatened. The other day, Maya was crying so I went to get her from my room and was carrying her into the living room. When I got there, he had folded up her play yard and sat on top of it as if to stop me from putting her in it. If I lay down next to Maya, he will try to squeeze in between the two of us. He's also doing the same thing to Esteban when he's home with the kids. Mostly, Jayden just wants to help but every once in a while... Watch out! He’s something else.