H1N1 Vaccine

So yesterday I took Spencer and we went and stood in line for three hours to get the H1N1 vaccine. I was still a little unsure of whether or not I wanted to get it, even while standing in line, but after reading the handout they give everyone, I felt a lot better. I'm still a little uneasy with the fact that there's no long term studies to show if there may be issues down the road, but in a pandemic situation, you need to take on a 'if the benefits outweigh the risks' mentality. Or at least I do. It's definitely a personal decision whether or not you're going to vaccinate yourself, but I felt that it was the right thing for my family. (after 2 hours of standing in line and then receiving the handout!) Dan is going to take Liam on the next clinic day so they can both be vaccinated. We learned yesterday that it's a good thing to be there about an hour before the doors open so as not to endure a ridiculously long wait time!! We also learned that Liam will have to sit in his stroller, and Dan will have to bring lots of snacks and entertainment for him!! This kid hates to sit still, so imagine what a multi-hour wait will do to the kid! It won't be pretty folks!! I can promise you that!

So Nolan last night gave us 2 3 hour stretches of sleep. Before and AFTER his 2 hour play time at 3am. I really need to figure out a way to break him of this habit. But, how do you break a 3 week old babe of any habit? I think all I can really do is let him grow out of it. It's hard though. I'd be fine getting up an extra couple times through the night if it meant that he'd be going back to sleep after each feed!! I'm sure it'll happen sooner or later, but I'm getting impatient!! Extreme fatigue does crazy things to your mind!!

Anyway, almost time to make lunch for the troops!! I was hoping to get out of the house this morning with all three kids to go buy batteries for the baby swing, but, Nolan has been sleeping forever, Liam is super crabby, and Spencer is glued to the cartoons on the TV, so an outing was a no go. This afternoon will be a write off cause the big boys need naps, I'm hoping Nolan has another nap so I can have some quiet time before getting ready to go to work!! I love that even though Nolan is only 3 weeks old, I'm still able to go to work for three hours a week! Granted it's more of a night out with some visiting rather than work, but it's still nice! I don't have to wipe any bums or noses while I'm gone, so that's perfect for me!!

Happy Friday!

3 Weeks

Today at 12:03 Nolan will be three weeks old. This makes me sad. I want him to stay a squishy newborn for a little longer! He's my last newborn so I'm really trying to enjoy every minute with him while he's still so super tiny!! Okay, he's not super tiny, he was born big and just kept on going!!

3 weeks postpartum I'm starting to feel the effects of no sleep. Nolan wakes up to eat every 2 hours at night. The routine is that Dan changes Nolan's little tush while I run down to the kitchen, throw a bottle of BM in the bottle warmer, put together my pumping stuff, bring the bottle upstairs, Dan feeds baby, I pump more milk. That part of the routine works well. The part that sucks is that it's taking anywhere from 15-25 minutes to empty my milk boulders so by the time I get back into bed it's been a half an hour or more. So, when Nolan is waking every 2 hours, and I'm up for at least a half hour every time, that leaves me with maybe an hour and a half of sleep time. Not enough. And on top of that, every night Nolan is up for at least an hour, sometimes 2. Usually around 3 or so he wakes up to eat and then decides he needs to be awake for a while. He's not pissy, just ready to be awake. I have no idea how to change it either. So I'm getting sleep in 1.5 hour intervals, plus a guaranteed 1 hour of hang out with Nolan time through the night. That leaves me with not very much shut eye.

I notice that with this lack of sleep is a lack of patience. I'm very short tempered with the big boys. I hate this and it wears heavily on my conscience. It seems lately my only form of communicating with the big boys is scolding or yelling at them. I'm not focusing enough on little things and praising them for it. I'm sending them both to their rooms or to time out WAY more than they deserve, and I'm yelling far more than I should be. I need to stop this cycle because it's definitely not their fault I'm tired and hormonal. I'm going to really make an effort to be NICER to my kids. Because right now, I'm not being a very nice mom and I hate that. A lot.

So aside from my lack of sleep and bitchiness towards my kids, things are going pretty good. I'm able to keep my house somewhat in order, I haven't had a complete meltdown yet, though I'm sure it's coming. Dan got to work this morning almost on time!! We're slowly starting to fall into a bit of a routine, hopefully it lasts!! Anyone who knows me knows I need routine and order! I'm not good with chaos and 'flying by the seat of my pants' kind of lifestyle. I'm a planner, an organizer and a scheduler, so you can imagine what the chaos of a newborn does to my world!

Well, time to put Liam down for a morning nap, a diaper full of poop and a 7am start to his day are not going well for him so far!! hopefully a nap can turn his day around!

So the little baby boy we brought home from the hospital, the baby boy who was so content and slept no problem...He's gone. He left behind this adorable little baby boy who needs to be held, needs to have a suckie held in his mouth, won't sleep more than 2 hours at a time (at night) if he sleeps at all, has a pretty decent little temper on him, and spits up. A lot. It's a good thing he's as cute as he is, because at 3 o'clock this morning he was about 3 seconds from being moved into the shed. Nothing would make him happy or sleepy. He just wanted to be super snuggled with a suckie firmly held in his mouth. While I certainly love to snuggle my littlest baby (and my bigger ones too!!) I don't really want to do it at 3 o'clock in the morning for 3 or so hours. Seriously, I have my limits. I know he's still super fresh, not even three weeks old, but jeez, I'm tired man!! This little boy of mine also has an insatiable appetite. He's never satisfied. I can give him 3 oz of pumped breast milk, or 4, and he's still wanting more. I try to limit him to about 3 ish because he just throws it all up if he eats more. Also, he no longer enjoys being swaddled. We learned this on Thursday night. He had a near panic attack when we swaddled him up before bed. So, off came the swaddle blanket and the happy returned to the little man. However short lived it was.

Spencer and Liam on the other hand are doing really well. Liam seems to be settling down a little bit. He definitely needs some serious one on one time during the day. He got about an hour and a half, almost 2 hours of one on one time with mommy today. It did us both good!! He's a completely different boy when there's no one else around! Spencer has been needing naps every afternoon for the past few weeks. Apparently he's just as tired as his mommy and daddy are! It's hard work having a newborn in the house!

Anyway, Nolan is about to go to bed, so that means I'm about to go to bed!! Only to be back up again in 2 hours or less. Ahh the joys of a fresh fresh newborn!

What a Night

Wow! So last night we learned that if Nolan is not swaddled in an actual swaddle blanket that velcros closed, he will not sleep. At. All. He was swaddled in a regular blanket, but that, apparently, wasn't good enough. As soon as he had a taste of the velcroed security of the Kiddopotamus swaddle blanket, there was no looking back. I sat in the chair in our room last night ALL night holding Nolan while he dosed a little here and there, but didn't actually get into a deep sleep. He did toot his little cheeks off last night so that also may have had something to do with it. I suppose that means I have to be a little more careful about what I eat so that it doesn't end up giving Nolan's little belly gas bubbles. Anyway, Nolan is all swaddled up and sleeping like a baby!! Hopefully he sleeps tonight, because my goodness I'm exhausted!! No more all nighters, please!

Some pictures of the different men in my life!! They're definitely a handsome bunch!

The Thackeray Men

So pumping and feeding isn't a big deal. Except that I feel like I don't get to hold Nolan anymore. We're going to try nursing today and see what happens. Maybe a miracle?! We'll see. I won't hold my breath. I can't keep up with how much he wants/needs to satisfy himself. We've been supplementing with formula again, something I really really didn't want to do. But the kid needs to eat, so there's nothing I can do. He's still getting more breast milk than formula, so that's a good thing, but still. I want him to be getting all breast milk and nothing else. It'll happen, eventually. I know I'm still establishing my milk supply and all that, but holy god, the boy loves him some booby milk!!!

So we've been home for a whole week as of today!! And, Nolan is 10 days old today!! It really makes me so sad!!! I loooove the squishy tiny newborn phase, and it doesn't last nearly long enough. He's starting to stay awake for much longer periods of time, he's kinda falling into somewhat of a routine at night. He's the most easy going baby we've ever brought into our home! He's so content to just hang out and listen to all the sounds around him. He looks around lots and really responds to his mama's voice!! I love that the most!! He'll lift his head and try to find me if someone else is holding him and i start talking!! Melt my heart little boy!!

We had my mom here for the past week helping out!! It was nice to have dinner cooked for us and someone to play with the big boys!! It's funny how different it becomes with each baby you bring home!! With Spencer, we needed my mom to help us with EVERYTHING! Diaper changes, baths, feedings, swaddling (still need her help with this, I'm useless!!) With Liam, we still needed help with a lot of the day to day, but not as extensively as with Spencer! With Nolan, I needed help with the big boys, and hardly at all with the baby!! It was nice to just have someone here to visit with, or to look after the big boys if I needed to sleep a little. Speaking of sleep, I haven't hit my wall yet, I'm sure it's coming in the next week or so, but I've been feeling pretty good! It's hard to get out of bed in the morning, but then again, when isn't it? Once I'm up, though, I'm pretty good to go! There's enough to do around here that I don't have time to really sit and get tired, so that's a blessing in disguise I think!!!

So Spencer is completely smitten with his newest baby brother! He loves on him like crazy!! Loves to just look at him! He holds him, and sings to him, brings him different toys, you name it!! Liam is pretty curious, likes to look at him, touch him and get to know him in his own way. He's acting out a bit, but not towards anyone, he's just really crabby pretty much all the time. I think it's just his way of adjusting. We've been really working on keeping Spencer and Liam on their regular schedule so that their little lives aren't totally turned upside down!! I don't think it'll take too long for things to settle down here and Liam to return to his normal happy self!! Spencer seems completely fine with the newest addition, so that's a good thing! I'll just have to make sure I'm not as hard on him as I have been this past week. He is only 3 after all. I need to just let him act his age!!! I've been raising my voice a lot more than I really care to admit to in the last week! I need to stop it before it becomes habit.

Anyway, time to go eat some breakfast!! I'm starving!

The Post where all i do is complain.

So my plan all through my pregnancy was to pump my breast milk and then bottle feed Nolan. I've been nursing full time since he was born, but am now having some super problems with his latch. Suddenly my plan to pump and feed isn't working for me. I'm having a hard time accepting that maybe breastfeeding directly from my breast isn't the route for me. But, why after a week of fantastic latching is he having such problems. On top of latch issues, he isn't a very effective sucker. His suckle on my right breast is, well, frankly, it sucks! I don't know if it's me getting lazy, or him getting lazy, but its driving me crazy. I spent over an hour last night trying to get him to latch properly on the one side. To say it was frustrating is a gross understatement. I don't care what other people say, but to me this breastfeeding thing is not natural. It's bloody hard and in my experience doesn't really work out. With Spencer I had gaping oozing nipples that took weeks to heal. I bet if I had gone to the doctor about them I could have had stitches they were so bad. With Liam, he started off great and then just got lazy and started to have latch problems about 2 weeks into the game. Nolan, started off better than great and just in the past few days has completely crapped out. I am pumping a good deal of milk and he is getting a bottle of breast milk at night rather than the boob...it's faster and he goes to sleep better...so I shouldn't be having such horrible issues with not actually physically nursing him. Yet I am. I guess it just falls into the wanting what you can't have. The bottom line is that he needs to get the breast milk, and if it's through a bottle nipple rather than a breast nipple, than so be it. I guess I'm just thinking that if we're out and about (rarely happens) it'd be so much easier to just pop a boob in his mouth rather than dealing with finding somewhere to heat a bottle and give it to him.

Okay, so I have a new bitch. I just got off the phone with Medela Canada. You cannot order breast pump parts off their website. Stupid? YES. The very incompetent ESL woman I spoke with was so friggen hard to understand I had a hard time being civil with her. Seriously, is it that hard to have people who you can understand working your call center? It's over the phone, I can't read her lips and figure out what she's saying. I don't know how many times i had her repeat herself. Stupid. Anyway, to order 2 larger breast shields for my pump, shields that were 8 bucks a piece, I had to pay THIRTY dollars in shipping costs. Are you effing kidding me? Seriously. SERIOUSLY. She happily directed me to the 'closest store that sells medela parts' Three hours down the friggen highway. Yeah, no thanks lady, just send me the shields, and rob me blind while you're at it. Sound good? Good. Anyway, my new shields should be arriving in 3-4 business days, so that means I have a good week still of pumping with shields that are a little too small and end up dripping everywhere cause I can't fit my nipple in the way I need to. Lotsa fun.

I don't think breastfeeding, or anything related is right for me. But, I don't want to be buying formula so I'll persevere and get the job done. Like right now, need to pump or my boobs are going to explode. And that's a mess I'd rather not clean. Thankyouverymuch.

All right, done my bitching for the day.

He is Here!!

Baby Nolan Francis Thackeray came into this world on Thursday, October 8th 2009. He weighed in at a whopping 8 lbs 12 oz and measured 19 inches long! He's the perfect blend of his mama and daddy, and his two older brothers are completely in love with him!!! The c-section went really well!! They had to work hard to get him out, but other than that, no complaints!! I'm healing really super great, minimal pain...lots of swelling in my legs though!! So now, how about a few pictures?

Anyway, I hear Liam singing in his room. Apparently he's too cool for nap time today!! Gonna go see if I can convince him that napping is totally the cool thing to do!!

24 (ish) Hours!

Baby Nolan will be making his debut sometime tomorrow morning!!! Can't wait!!! I will admit, i'm starting to get nervous, but I'm really really excited!! It's time for this bean to be on the outside! Last night was my worst night yet as far as comfort goes. My tummy 'muscles' were aching all night long, I had a REALLY hard time getting out of bed to go pee! Seriously, it was awful!! I did sleep pretty deeply for a few hours, so that was a bonus, but alas, I was still awake at 5:30am. Not cool. I got out of bed at 6:30 and am now enjoying some quiet time before the house wakes up!! I doubt I'll get a morning like this for a LONG time!! That's okay though! I'll manage, I always do!! Anyway, gonna go get me a cuppa joe and enjoy these last few minutes of peace and quiet!!

6 Days

and baby Nolan will be here! I can hardly wait. In the past week i've really started to feel uncomfortable. I'm still sleeping well, so that's definitely a blessing!! The kids have been really good, playing well together!! I'm enjoying the minimal fighting and bickering! Now I just need to figure out how to get Spencer to start sleeping a full night again. He's been going to bed at his regular time, playing for an hour or so in his room, and then waking up before the sun. Thankfully he just comes upstairs to our room and climbs into bed, but it'd be nice if he just climbed back into his OWN bed and went back to sleep for a few hours! As soon as one kid is up, the other wakes up immediately. So, a few extra hours of sleep in the morning wouldn't be too bad! But, we'll take what we can get!

We got the bassinet on Tuesday and got it all set up immediately! I love it. The wood has a much redder tone to it than I thought, but it's still nice! It fits nicely in the corner, though I'm sure we'll be moving it/Nolan into the closet! If my dad has time when he gets here for the whopping day and a half before we go into the city, (Yeah, kinda pissed about this!!) I'm going to get his help on determining whether or not we can move the closet organizer to the other side of the closet, giving us almost twice the space! We'll see how well I sleep with Nolan out in our room. It really is a big room, so it might not be an issue at all!! Time will tell!

Liam has been really clingy for the past few weeks. I'm wondering if he knows life is about to seriously change in this house!! It's going to be really really REALLY difficult not to pick him up after surgery! He's a boy who likes to ride around on the hips of his Mama and Daddy!! No question about that!!

Spencer I think is going to be just fine. He's so super excited for baby Nolan to get here! He asks every day if today is the day!! He loves loves loves babies, so I'm hoping that'll help him transition into having 2 younger brothers to play with!! We'll see what happens!!! Hopefully the novelty doesn't wear off!

Anyway, time to put a super grumpy/tired little Liam to bed!! One nap a day isn't going so well!