wait, they grow up?!

I've been hit right smack in the face this week with the stunning realization that Jude is growing up. I suppose this won't be a new revelation to me over the years - to suddenly realize that he's gotten older, but it seems to have happened almost without me realizing it.

For instance, we have a tooth! A tooth! Only grown up babies get teeth. Holy cow. You know what this means, right? This means that eventually he'll be eating. That crevices of our house will be filled with bits of slobbery biter biscuits, and I'll become one of those Moms who whips out Cheerios from the mysterious recesses of the diaper bag. His little tooth is sweet, though. It's just the tiniest little sharp white thing poking through.

Jude has also started sitting up on his own - much to the surprise of Shawn and I. We've been working with him a lot to teach him to crawl, and quite honestly - forgot all about sitting up. I mean, he sits up a lot, but we always make sure he has something behind him to help prop him up. We went to Jenn's on Saturday to take photos, and she asked if he was able to sit up and have some pictures taken with props. I figured we'd try, but hovered close by in case he took a spill after a few seconds. Do you know that this kid sat up - by himself - for like ten minutes?!

And then there's crawling. Oh, that boy is working hard! He grunts and scoots and pushes and shimmies and grunts some more, all for the prize of reaching either the puppy or an elusive toy - which he reaches more often than not nowadays. We keep thinking he'll be crawling any day now, but he seems to have stalled a little in progress now that he can shimmy his way around to get what he wants. He'll get there. We've definitely entered into the "I just left the room for two minutes - how the heck did you manage to get under the bed??" phase.

Not that I'd ever do that. :)

And my favorite part of Jude getting older (drumroll, please) - he is actually sleeping through the night!!! He goes down around 8:30pm and stays down! Yes, folks, Shawn and I are going on about two weeks of sweet, sweet slumber. Of course we've both managed to get sick in the middle of this, so we wake up feeling like we took a good beating - but that's okay! We're sleeping, Jude's sleeping, Coletrane's sleeping, and we are all very, very happy about this new arrangement. The teething has made Jude a little bit more fussy during the day, but so far the only changes at night are that he wakes up around 6:00am instead of 7:30am. What, you ask, do I do with my newly acquired baby-free time from 8:30 until we go to bed around 10:30 (if I have my way) or 11:30 (if Shawn has his way)? Shawn and I talk (and no, "talk" isn't a euphemism for "kiss." But we do that too), I pump and answer emails, sometimes I sew if I'm trying to get a project done, we do the dishes and/or laundry (yes, "we" does mean both of us. I prettymuch have the best husband in the world, it's true), we watch Ace of Cakes or Good Eats, we do some cuddling, and we basically just enjoy having some time to ourselves. I need to get better about working less during that time and spending it more with Shawn, but it's great to have it nonetheless.

So my friends, Judeabug is growing up. Not so much that I'll stop calling him Judeabug, though. I plan on doing that...loudly...in front of his friends...maybe with some kissey faces...and definitely in a singsong voice...for a long, long time.

I finally had a chance to pump for each of Jude's feedings, and realized that he's not getting nearly enough. I pumped about a total of 15 ounces a day. While it's hard to gauge how much he's actually getting, I know three things: 1) He is getting more than 15 ounces. The pump is never as effective at removing the milk as the baby. 2) He needs at least 24 ounces a day, and 3)Even with assuming that he gets a generous amount more than the pump gets - he's not getting enough. We've started mixing in 2 oz of formula (I have no frozen breast milk left) with his solid food three times a day, so he's getting an extra 6-7 oz a day. Because I'm a total spaz, I cried - and cried hard - the day that we had to give him formula. I wrestled with all kinds of stupid Mommy guilt thoughts like feeling like I wasn't enough, like no matter how hard I tried I couldn't provide a basic necessity for my son, like I wasn't doing the best thing for him, like I was giving up and quitting on him, and like I was being selfish and having to add another item to our budget in needing to pay for formula. Then I dried my tears, said "Jen, suck it up. Stop this. This is crazy. Seriously. Babies have formula ALL the time and are healthy as can be. For real. You're being ridiculous and overly dramatizing something that is not that big of a deal. So stop letting the breastfeeding nazis of the world dictate your self worth and feed your child what he needs. "

So I stopped my pity party and we're all good. Shawn actually came up with the idea to mix the formula in with his feedings, and I think that really made a difference. I was thinking that I'd have to pump each feeding, see how much I got vs. how much he should be getting, and mix in the difference with formula. I knew that if I needed to pump at each feeding, I'd start giving up and just feeding him a bottle of entirely formula. Silly as it may be, I feel much better knowing that I can still actually breastfeed him. If we see that I'm getting more or less milk when I have the chance to pump, we'll adjust the amount of formula we give him with his solids accordingly. I'm looking into getting a prescription from my OB for something like Reglan to help increase my supply. I've run the gamut of trying Fenugreek, eating oatmeal, pumping more often, increasing my water intake, stopping caffeine, drinking Mother's Milk Tea - and while I do still do all those things, just in case they make a difference - they're not working enough to give Jude what he needs. So I'll try whatever they prescribe me, and if it works - terrific! If not - we'll just keep doing whatever we need to do to fatten him up, and I'll lay my ridiculous breastfeeding pride aside and take care of my son.

Do you like I just casually slipped it in earlier that Jenn took some more pictures of Jude? They're cute. Super duper cute. And they're coming to a blog post near you...soon! :)