PSA: A movie you don't wanna watch (for Momma & Sissy)

Shawshank Redemption.

Normally, I LOVE Stephen King movies, no matter which it is.

But as I watched this with Michael the other evening, all I could think of the whole time was Buddy.

I almost cried during parts of this movie. And almost cried afterward, while trying to fall asleep.

So don't watch it. Or anything like it.

Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back......

I'm back! After almost 4 months of no blogging, I am back. I promised my sister I'd come back to blogging, so here I am.

So, tonight is my first night shift since coming back to work. And it's off to a really shitty start. My child is at home with Daddy. And how's it going for the two of them, you ask?

HE.WON'T.SLEEP.BECAUSE.I'M.NOT.THERE.SO.HE.CAN'T.NURSE.
RIGHT.NOW.TO.FALL.ASLEEP.....

Great. So now, of course, I feel like the crappiest Mommy on the face of the Earth. Yeah, it's sweet, he can't sleep at night without Mommy. But he's at home right now, fighting sleep and inadvertently irritating Michael because HE WON'T SLEEP AT NIGHT WITHOUT MOMMY!

On top of this, I get chewed out for being in the bathroom pumping when they needed me to go out and do a few minutes of work. "Where have you been the last hour? I needed you go to untag RCIC. I had to send Chip to do your work because we couldn't find you...."

Great, make a Mommy who's about to cry over her baby refusing to sleep feel even worse, why don't ya? Sorry my milk is trying to dry up, and it took me an hour to get it to let down to my pump, and then I only got just under 3 ounces, even though I haven't pumped or nursed since before 6:00, which was over 3 hours before I started trying to pump.... Two weeks ago I could get 4 ounces or more in less than that time. I spent my whole 7-off nursing my son every time he acted hungry, trying to up my supply. I wouldn't let him fall asleep nursing until he had emptied both breasts each time. You'd think it would increase my milk. But no. It's no better than it was at the end of last week, after working four days.

The really sucky thing is, My friend KW just had her baby September 1. She can nurse her son and THEN pump 8 ounces, which she is freezing for when she goes back to work. How is that fair??? He's ten days old. He can only eat two or three ounces at a time. There's no way she needs to be making that much milk. And her mother keeps mentioning it to me, which is just great. Talk about making me feel like a failure because my boobs won't do as I command. But no, no empathy for me. Just on and on about how productive KW's mammary glands are, while I sit here trying not to cry sometimes over the thought that I'm slowly losing my milk and I'm going to eventually give up on trying to breastfeed, waaaaay before either of us are ready. It's not like I have gallons frozen or anything. I've been lucky to make enough at work for a couple of bottles the next day. And the stress from missing my baby when I'm at work, trying to work, not making enough milk, and feeling guilty for not pulling my weight around the house are NOT helping my milk supply any.

Bless Michael's heart. He doesn't say anything about me not pulling my weight around the house. Every once in a while, if I'm off work, he'll ask me to do a load of laundry for us. Or to cook us something quick and easy. That's about all he every asks. I'm still doing the grocery shopping and menu planning and all that. Aaron usually cooks dinner, even when I'm off work. I've never had to worry about taking out our garbage or cutting grass. I think he knows I'm tired and stressed. He tries to do almost every bit of it so I don't have to. Bless him.

So, to recap: Work sucks. My child refuses to sleep tonight without Mommy. Michael is irritated at the lack of the baby sleeping. My milk is drying up. Today is September 11,2009, which is the eighth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, and also the second anniversary of Toney dying.

I'm thinking of taking a daytime-only position, if they'll give me one. I'll lose most or all of my overtime, and I'll be working Monday through Friday every week, so there'll be less days off. But maybe it'll be worth it to be home every night. I don't know. I'm so tired right now. Tired of worrying about my milk, and pissing people off at work over my pumping taking up so much time, and worrying about helping clean the house, and.... Everything.

God, I wish I didn't have to work. Especially tonight. What I wouldn't give right now to be a stay-at-home mom. I guess I should be thankful I even have a job, much less one that pays so well. I just can't help but be so sad over everything I'm missing.....

If my milk supply would cooperate, and my boobs would let down better for my pump, it would be a tremendous help.


I am literally sitting here at work, with tears streaming down my face over all this. Maybe something will resolve itself soon.

I'm going to the bathroom now to wash my face and try to pull myself together before they need me to do something, which will require facing co-workers with red puffy eyes and a tear-stained face. If anyone made it through my rambling, emotional post, then bless you.

Also, another post with baby updates will be posted sometime later, depending on how busy we are the rest of the night. We're bringing a unit down tonight for some repairs, so we may be slammed pretty badly.

P.S. to Mom - Please know I'm thinking about you today. I'm sorry I didn't call to check on you. If it makes you feel better, Robbie wrote me on your birthday and I haven't sat down to write him back yet, either. I don't know yet what to say to him. Not much has changed. There's only a couple things new to tell him. And he can only have 5 pics at a time, so I don't know what they did with the rest of the 18 that I sent him last month, but he said for me to not send anymore right now, so....

But please know I am thinking of you.

For Momma: A Post on GF eating

I saw this on my Google feed, and thought I'd link it for my mom and anyone else who sticks to a GF diet. A guest blogger named Carrie posted this over on Erin's blog, 5 Dollar Dinners. It has lots of good links to other GF blogs, as well as other GF info. Check it out!

As promised: An update on weight gain

My mother is concerned about my health, and is worried I may be eating too much too often. Normally this would cause a "WTF?" reaction in me, but this time it doesn't. My mother is concerned about this for good reason. She has a genetic auto-immune disease, Celiac disease. It is hereditary. She also has been diagnosed with a gluten sensitivity or allergy. (Sorry, pregnancy brain is keeping me from remembering, and I'm too lazy to go through my archived emails on the subject right now to figure out which.)

Since she has both, all three of us kids (myself, my seester, and my brother) each have a 100% chance of having at least one of these conditions/diseases, if not of having both. Celiac can cause devastating effects in pregnancy, in severe cases. We have wondered if I have Celiac, since I exhibit several of the symptoms. My mother is worried that my gigantic appetite is connected to Celiac. (Don't worry, none of this offends me, since I, too, am shocked some days by the sheer amount of food I have to consume to keep my stomach from screaming at me every few hours!)

Anyway, the purpose of my post: my total weight gain for this pregnancy. Yesterday morning, after my trip to the bathrrom and before getting dressed, I weighed myself. I weighed in at: 166.2, for a total weight gain of 21.2 pounds. Pretty good, I think. I still have 13.8 pounds, give or take, that I can gain and be in the "normal healthy weight gain" range. Last time, I gained something more like 40 pounds. Of course, last time I was alotted that extra gain by my doctor for health concerns. So far Roberta says I'm right in range for weight gain, and have been so far the whole pregnancy.

This morning, I weighed 166.6 pounds, but I didn't have a BM yesterday, so I'm discounting that extra 0.4 pounds. :) Even so, that would only put me at 21.6 pounds. Well within the so-called "norm".

And also, the guys at work are now making jokes on how many times a day I eat. They're all good-natured, as they all are married and have kids, so they know what's up with my 5 meals a day. :) Most of them have said their wives ate like this in the last weeks of pregnancy. The women I've talked to at work all say they did, too. I think my Mom was maybe just "abnormal" in her eating and appetite. :) [Just kidding! Love you Mommy!!! XOXOXO]

Gluten Free: 5-layer Cookie Bar

Just for my mom:

I found a recipe that looks yummy today. 5-layer Cookie Bars. It looks and sounds just absolutely delicious.

Also,
Gluten-Free Shopping Guide.

123 Gluten Free makes and sells GF products, and has recipes and such on their site.

Don Wiss's Home Page has lots of links for GF/CF/milk allergy, etc. sites.

For GF recipes, try:

Authentic Foods

AllRecipes.com (also has non-GF recipes

Gluten.net

Karina's Kitchen

Epicurious (also has non-GF recipes)




Now, a recipe, copied and pasted since it is waaaaay down on the page I found it on, and most of that page isn't GF-related (although I did link to the page to give credit to the source):

From the blog, Green Gourmet Giraffe. (This has been copied and pasted directly from Green Gourmet Giraffe's blog with no editing on my behalf.)


Condensed Milk Macaroons
(From Best Gluten Free Recipes)
Makes about 30 bite size macaroons

1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup desiccated coconut
½ tin (200g) condensed milk
125 choc chips (I used white) OR chopped dried apricots

Mix all ingredients together. Drop in teaspoonfuls on a greased or lined baking tray. Baked at 150 C for about 15-20 minutes or til just turning golden brown. (Don’t let them get too well cooked – I once threw out a batch that I gave a few more minutes in the oven.) I found the mixture seemed to fall apart a bit and made an effort to shape it into balls but when baked it held together easily.