Looking for Daddy

Last night Dan went to take out the garbage. Cassidy and Livia both rushed over to the door.


There's Daddy!


This is what Dan saw as he came back to the house.

(By the way, I would just like to point out how frequent and timely our posts have been lately. We figured that someone in the family needed to keep their blog up to date since everyone else has been slacking this summer).

Livia at Play

My friend Meisha has been watching Livia a couple of days a week while I work. Her daughter, Anyice, was born the same week as Livia. Here are some photos from the past couple of days.

Cassidy gets no respect

Livia has a funny sense of humor. She can be a very serious baby, but when she thinks something is funny, she gets totally hysterical. One of her recent favorites is my impression of Cassidy. Daddy isn't quite as funny.

Double digits!

Livia is 10 months old! She is now pulling up on anything and everything, especially the bottom step, the activity table, and her mother and father. She talks nonstop most days, with lots of "goo-ga" and "dada" (old favorites) and within the last couple of days she has started saying "doi-dee-doi-dee", and "no" (she doesn't know the meaning of this but once she does I'm sure she will start saying it even more). She now says "Mom" and "Mama" occasionally, but only when she is really mad at something I am doing. She hates to have her diaper changed (and always has since birth), so now when I try to do it she screams and says "Moooooooooom". She also does this when she wants to be picked up. On the other hand, she says "Da da" in the softest, sweetest possible voice. I'm not sure if this is a sign of our future relationship when she is a teenager or if she is trying to make up for giving Dan such a hard time the first few months when he tried to feed her.

She is starting to eat a few pieces of finger food here and there, but only if you place it in her mouth (she will play with it on the tray, pick it up, and sometimes throw it, but she doesn't put it in her mouth). Tonight she actually ate more cheerios than Cassidy did. We still have a very long way to go on that front, but it's progress that she can swallow something other than a puree without gagging.

Whenever I whip out the camera, Livia grabs the case


Standing at the activity table


The last bottle of breastmilk


Cassidy's two favorite toys


Another favorite place to pull up

Our little gangsta, holding one of her absolute favorite things, a blue oval puzzle piece from the Target dollar spot.

Livia loves to hear Leap sing the alphabet.

Cassidy loves to eat her foot.

My little doll

A couple of weeks ago we went on a 5 mile walk on the trail behind our house (we parked at one end and walked home). We went in the morning but it was still pretty hot, especially for Cassidy. At one point, Dan told me that if I was really thirsty I shouldn't really feel like I had to save all the bottles of water for Cassidy. That was a relief to hear. When we got home, Cassidy discovered a new favorite spot-- the kitchen vent. She now hangs out there whenever she is hot.

Grandma Marilyn and Grandpa David come to visit

Grandma Marilyn and Grandpa David came to visit last week after being "in the neighborhood" (they were coming from DC but that was close enough given their desire to see Livia and Cassidy). As usual, Grandma Marilyn took Cassidy on some very long walks. They also took Livia and Cassidy out for some walks without us, while I tried to do some work at home. We even managed to all get out of the house together a few times, including a nice dinner out (and a dinner for Dan and I without Livia one night as well).

Smiling in the morning

Livia and Grandma

In order to get some decent pictures, we usually take a bunch that look like this first.

Cassidy LOVES Grandma Marilyn very much

Unplugging the pumps

Pumping has been such a big part of my life over the past 9.5 months that I thought this event deserved its own post. As many of you know, trying to breastfeed Livia was not a positive experience. I spent most of the first two weeks of her life trying to feed her, which consisted of having her scream in my face, then having Dan or my mom hold a syringe and tube of breastmilk or formula on my breast (see old posts from late October). This process was even more fun when Livia had jaundice and was attached to the biliblanket machine while trying to breastfeed. Livia was impatient, stubborn, and had a "non-nutritive suck" according to Lactation Consultant #3. After 2 weeks, I decided to exclusively pump and bottle feed her (since I was having to pump after each feed anyway). This was supposed to be a temporary solution until we were both a little more sane and less sleep-deprived to try again. But then we got into the phase where Livia often refused to eat at all, and right when that ended just after 2 months, we went through another glorious phase where Livia refused to eat unless I fed her (she would literally scream and cry for an hour before either accepting a bottle from someone else, or having one or both of them give up). By the time she started eating like a normal person at 4 months, I was already in such a groove of pumping and it no longer seemed like a good time to try again.

My pumps (not a typo--I actually have two) have been on 5 plane trips and 3 road trips. I have pumped in 6 states, 6 houses, 5 hotels, 2 cars, and 1 airport. I have spent about 455 hours (19 full days!) pumping about 50 gallons of breastmilk. The experience has been both one of the most rewarding and one of the most ridiculous things I have ever done. One of the best resources for me was an online message board for people who exclusively pump (there truly are online communities for everything these days). I don't regret anything. I thought about stopping a couple of other times, but I realized that I wasn't quite ready. But lately I have been really tired (especially given our childcare situation) and I was starting to get more resentful of the pump-- I really wanted to stop before I reached the point where I absolutely hated it. Livia has been on about 50% formula since 6 months anyway (when I cut back after getting mastitis and almost deciding to stop) and has been fine with that. I have a little milk in the freezer but after next week we will be saying goodbye to "breastmilk in a bottle" on Livia's list of favorite things.

The funny thing is that I just read that this is World Breastfeeding Week (August 1-7). It seems like an ironic time to stop pumping (I didn't know it when I made the decision) but maybe it is appropriate given our experience with actually breastfeeding. If we have another baby I really hope that he or she is better able to breastfeed, because I don't think any of us could last through another round of exclusively pumping. Nonetheless, I am feeling a little nostalgic about packing away those pumps.