YAY!

So now that Keira is turning 4 months, I realised how long it had been since I wrote...JEEZ. Time flies, doesn't it? Today I am recovering from Keira's 4 month shots. Yes, I know SHE was the one bombarded with needles...but *I* always end up just as upset as she does...if not more.

I just started back to work two weeks ago, which already has me in a foul mood. I told my boss that I could not travel for work anymore in the morning...and by the afternoon a work friend approached me to see if I would take a job under him. It is a serious paycut, but I can work most of the day from home which means no expensive childcare. Childcare around here costs more than half my salary, so it hardly makes working full-time worth it. Thank goodness for mom, who will take the baby for a few hours every afternoon.

The one shitty part of the deal was, that I had to pick up the slack from my other job until this new opening was created, so I have been travelling a bit for the last few weeks. Being away from Keira for a full 12 hours is rather PAINFUL (and not just mentally). I HAVE gotten quite good at pumping in odd places now though...including department store parking lots, grody airport bathrooms, and even while driving in rush hour traffic! Keira protested and refused to eat a few times, but when she is really friggen hungry, and when her bottle is heated roughly to the temperature of the sun, she will eat.

I am still waiting to fit comfortably back into pre-pregnancy clothes. I suppose I may still be waiting a year or two from now too, won't I?

Keira talks like a champ, but is a BIT developmentally behind in the grabbing/flipping/tummy time department. But oh well. Mom always says, "No kid ever went to college having not flipped over or not learned how to grab hold of small objects." I hear babies get more fun with age, but I wonder if that is just a ploy to convince us to keep them even after a night of gassy tummy screams.

Better Late than Never: Two Months Ago...

I am PETRIFIED about going back to work. 80% of my job requires travel. Let's just say that I will be looking desperately from work very soon. I am already running on empty trying to keep the house clean on top of mommy duties. My house is a pit 9 times out of 10. Cleaning up after myself and the baby (and usually Michael too) ON TOP of visitors is MURDER. Hell, if anyone else wants to cook or clean for me...I am all for it!

People laugh at me when I say I was more afraid of needles than of the childbirth process itself. :) I still am. We will see what happens if we decide Keira needs a little brother or sister.

Meanwhile, we are dead set to prove that there is no place you cannot take a baby. She goes everywhere...shopping, picnics, concerts, movies...I do admit, it is a bit more cumbersome when I have to duck into the bathroom with the baby every few minutes. She actually made it through Superman with only one minor peep. Since very few of my local friends have kids of their own, I also have to apologise every 5 minutes for stopping to feed her or change her. I really feel like the odd man out!

Oh yes, I am breastfeeding (I mean free baby food? Who wouldn't!?). It has been quite an experience. That's for sure. 4 days after Keira was born, I thought my boobs were going to explode. They stood straight out, were bright red, and had taken on the shape of lumpy torpedos. I am normally a B cup. During my pregnancy, I grew to a D cup, and after getting engorged, I was easily an F cup! I swear I went to sleep at night in tears for fear that this was what the next year of my life would be like! When Keira went in for her first out of hospital checkup, the pediatrician made me breastfeed her right there in the office. Took off my bra, and the doctor immediately inspected me and let me know I was on the verge of an infection unless we drained my milk ducts. She took Keira's little head and shoved it hard into my boob to make her drain me empty. It was pretty gruesome, but it worked. And she has been eating like a champ ever since! She actually gained 6 oz in the next two days!

I am still a fountain. Keira gets shot in the face almost every time she nurses! She cries, but it is hard not to laugh sometimes.