Back to School!

I am totally alone in my house for the first time in 8 months.  I don't think I like it.  Kelly's working and Steve left a little while ago to drop Evelyn off for her first day at day care.  This means it's really time to get ready to go back to work.

I've been very lucky during my tenure as a Stay at Home Mom to have grown very close to Theresa, another teacher whose son is Evelyn's best little friend, and if things don't work out with Prince George, maybe her future husband, too.

Theresa and I actually both had to go to work yesterday because we were asked to mentor new teachers.  When you've been home for over eight months,  or a year in Theresa's case, you really have to get yourselves mentally prepared for that first day back to work:

• 
  Betsy
  I should find a purse or something. I haven't carried a purse in 8 months! What goes in a purse?
  
  
  I guess I will go take care of getting my stuff all together instead of chowing down on leftover fruit dip! I'm going to have to stop pumping though.
  
  
  I swear I could eat this stuff with a spoon.
• Theresa
  

  
  

  too funny! i had dig my school bag out of the bottom of the closet, dust it off, and take out all the old student papers and packs of gum from over a year ago...
• hahaha! i am totally chowing down on chips and salsa!! at this exact moment!!

  
  

  Betsy 
• 
  

  I am literally licking the fluff off my fingers before I type.

  
  

So you can see where our priorities were the night before we went back to work.  

All kidding aside, people keep asking me how I feel about going back to work.  I know a lot of women say they can't wait to get back to work.  They are bored at home and want the social interaction.  I am not one of those women.  It's not that I don't want to go back to work because I do like my job, I'm glad to have a job, and I'm extremely lucky to have been able to stay at home for eight months.  I'm not against working.  The thing is, I just like being at home with my baby more!  

I'm not worried about other people taking care of her.  We are so lucky that we have family taking care of her for a few days and have found the best day care we could for the other days.  I'm really excited that she's going to get to spend some time with her grandmother and aunts, and some days with other kids.  If I'm not taking care of her, I feel really good about our child care situation.  

So this morning (after a night that she slept from 8:15 until 6:15, woot woot!  But I was lying in bed wondering if the milk was thawing properly in the fridge.) I fed her, dressed her, played with her, and took a page out of my dad's book.  I got out the camera and took some first day of school pictures.  

I did search my computer to look for pictures of myself on various first days, from kindergarten through driving away to college, but, alas, the only pictures I could find had other people in them who probably wouldn't appreciate their picture showing up in my blog.  

I would like to take a minute to mention something in this post.  I am going to try really hard as I go back to work to not complain about it at all in my blogging because even though I won't be spending all day, everyday with my sweet girl, there are people who don't get to see their kids at all.  Most of you know my family, and know that my brother is a Marine helicopter pilot.  He was deployed last week to Afghanistan and will be gone for seven months.  He will miss spending that time with his little man, Marshall, and he will also not be there when his next little man is born in November.  Every time I get overwhelmed or miss my girl I will remember that I get to go home to her every night.  Then I will send AJ an email, or Marshall a postcard, or Katie a text to let them know that we are thinking about them and can't wait until they are all together again!  

And to close, just checked in with Steve about how drop off went.  No problems whatsoever.  She started playing immediately and went right to the teacher.  We will see how long I make it today before going to pick her up!

The Hunger Games

Evelyn and I take a walk almost everyday.  I have a lot of time to think and observe while we are on our walks.  One thing I've observed is that there a lot of elderly gentlemen in our neighborhood!  Many of them are outside walking while we walk.  And I'll tell you what, elderly gentlemen LOVE babies.  They smile at her, laugh at her, and talk to her.  She soaks it up and hams at them.  It's adorable.

We met a nice man yesterday who was pruning a tree that was planted 21 years ago in honor of his wife, Barbara.  He assured me that Evelyn is just the luckiest little girl because she is growing up in a time where she will live to be 115 years old and be perfectly healthy.  It was really one of the sweetest things I've ever experienced.

The other thing about our walks that I've noticed is that I kind of feel like Katniss from The Hunger Games every time we go.  It all started with the birds.  I swear they are talking to each other and repeating each others' songs.  If I could whistle, I would make up my own little song to see if they start copying me.

There is also this band of hooligans screaming around the neighborhood, who chase us on their bikes.  Today they were even carrying weapons.  Ok, they were just Nerf guns, but still.  I've even seen them turn on each other when things start to get tough.

I scavenge for berries.  Well, once I did.  Because they were raspberries and they were delicious.

Last, but not least, I have my very own Little Rue...

The Cow

Since the moment I started blogging I have been mentally preparing a post about breastfeeding.  It has just never materialized for a few reasons.  Usually something else came up that I would rather write about.  Another is that breastfeeding can be a touchy subject.  Some people don't do it, some people can't do it, some people do it way too long, and some people are cows who were just made to produce milk.  I happen to fall into the cow category.

And I suppose because I started out as a cow I just assumed I would stay a cow.   I thought there would always be time to write the post about being a cow.  At the height of my cow-ness I fed Evelyn at least 5 times a day and was still able to pump twice a day, filling about three 5-ounce milk bags to freeze.  At the peak of my milk production I had close to 200 bags of milk stored in my freezer, my parents' freezer, and my in-laws' freezer.  On any given day this was what my sink looked like full of bottles and pump parts:

The freezer looked something like this:

I pumped so much that Kelly asked me on numerous occasions why I was pumping so often.  She said, you make so much milk because you pump so much.  My answer was that I wanted to be prepared for when Evelyn goes to day care.  I don't want her to have to go on formula if I can make enough milk for her.  She accepted that answer, but still thought I was crazy.  

I pumped so much that Steve actually said to me, "I think you're addicted to pumping."  He might actually have been right.  I wanted to stop, but I just couldn't.  Even though I was so sick of cleaning all the parts and trying to remember which milk was pumped on which day, still I pumped.  Some days I felt like some kind of mad scientist combining bottles to make up 5 ounce bags to freeze.  I was just so over pumping, but I still couldn't stop as much as I wanted to because I was just afraid we wouldn't have enough milk.  That in mind, I sat down one day during nap time and started doing calculations to figure out how long the currently frozen milk could last.  If she uses 3 bags of milk a day at day care I can get this many days out of the milk...  If she uses 2 bags of milk a day...  Using these calculations I determined that I needed to pump at least through July to have a chance of getting to Evelyn's first birthday before running out of milk.  

But then as I was pumping I started noticing a change.  I was spending more and more time pumping, but getting less and less milk.  There actually came a morning where I pumped for at least 10 minutes and got nothing.  Not one drop.  I spent a few days being sad that I wasn't making as much milk, until I realized that it meant I could stop pumping so much!  And the decision was out of my hands!  It wasn't like I was making a conscious decision to stop.  Suddenly I am down to one pumping session a day, and even though I barely get enough milk to make one bottle anymore, I'm at least not having to use the milk I have stored ready for daycare yet.  That will start next week.