Mama milk

"Mommy, can I have mama milk please?" Such a polite, simple request from Ian as we curled up together in the darkness tonight. But I told him, "No, sweetness. I'm not up for mama milk right now. Let's just snuggle."

He started to whine for just a second, but it faded to a sigh. "Oh, okay ... let's snuggle."

My son turned four last month and we're still nursing. It's a completely different relationship than those first few months. I'm not pumping. I'm not his food supply. I've been wearing underwire bras for at least a year. But every once in a while, we curl up in the recliner or he crawls into bed just before dawn and we have "mama milk."

I remember when we first started that relationship. I would time how long he spent on each side, trying to stay even. I remember the ache and weight of a delayed feeding. We started down this path under less than ideal circumstances. Our first moments as a mother and child were in a rolling office chair next to his plastic bassinet in the "special care nursery" of Norfolk General Hospital. There was no lactation consultant, just rotations of nurses trying to offer suggestions and supportive smiles.

We made it through and I feel incredibly lucky that it went so well for us. Ian never even had solid food until he was 10 months old. No thrush. No blocked ducts. No cracked nipples. No dwindling supply. No hooter hiders. No disgusting public restrooms. I only ever had one person be ugly to us and all the other people at the hockey game rallied for us, including the police, the AHL team staff and the rink attendants. Our nursing relationship has been blessed.

But for all those blessings, I have struggled lately with hormones. Since Ian was born, I've been on the "mini pill" versus my usual combined birth control pill and lately I've been missing the estrogen. I feel off for two weeks each month. My blood sugars go haywire for a full week before my period as well as the week of. I am the second most patient person on the planet (Mom is the most patient) and I can feel myself getting irritable with Rich, Ian, co-workers, the dogs, drivers who don't use turn signals, and Republicans. All those frustrations are not measuring up to five minutes worth of mama milk every three days or so.

I called last week and requested a new prescription (or to go back to my old prescription). I took my first pill yesterday. I don't necessarily feel very different today, but we're slowly closing the door on that phase of our relationship. It hasn't been a secret relationship and neither Ian nor I have any shame. Again, for that I feel incredibly lucky. But as my doula says, it's a relationship and it has to work for both parties to be a success. This next phase - the snuggling phase - seems to be pretty great so far.

Day of rest

I cooked a lamb and turnips tonight then had a bowl of cereal for dinner. It's been that kind of day. Mind you, the lamb turned out lovely and the turnips were pretty good (I need to tweak the recipe) but I just wasn't feeling it. Head colds ruin eating.

Writing today is a bit of a struggle for me. We did so little today in an effort to recover from head colds and general funk. We skipped swim lessons, I made pancakes and let Ian eat them in front of the TV. I skipped rapier practice today in favor of roaming the park with Ian. My big accomplishment today was the aforementioned lamb and sorting fabric in the sewing area.

But somehow I managed to burn 2700 calories today, so I'm pleased. And I managed to have a blood sugar of 109 before lunch so maybe all that is settling. It's 112 now. Here's to continuing that trend.

Bleh day

Today has been a little rough. I walked in the door around 10pm last night and we have deduced that Rich's iPad was most likely stolen last weekend. We think that when Rich went into his car to get dice for the dice tourney, he left it unlocked and someone later came through the parking lot and took it out of his gaming bag. I bought that for him so he'd have something to use in the hospital last year so it's a real bummer that some punk kid took it. It's locked and "Find my iPad" says that it's offline so it's not like anyone is getting any joy from it, but that doesn't put it back in our possession. This is why we can't have nice things.

After going to bed with that disappointment, we woke up at 7am so that Rich could take the dogs to the vet for their check ups. While he did that, Ian and I cleaned the bedroom and got ready for the day. Unfortunately, all three of us have been in a bit of a funk from not feeling well. Ian and I have colds and Rich has a bad tooth that doesn't get fixed until Tuesday so we're all just feeling meh. When four year olds feel meh they are even more whiny than usual.

We soldiered through the baronial inventory at the storage unit and went to Cookout for the first time. It's everything they said it would be. Very average food for incredibly cheap. But the girl behind the counter did give me a high five for my milkshake flavor choice (banana pudding), so that was a plus.

We all napped for two hours this afternoon but that only marginally improved our spirits. We watched the last part of Star Wars with Ian and he played with his new X-wing. Dinner was scrounging and honestly I'm ready for bed again.

My blood sugar has been insane for the entire week and frankly I'm tired of it. I've been scared to over-correct so I keep being conservative in my corrections, but between 4-9pm I have not been able to get my blood sugar back to "normal" despite three corrections and increasing my basal rate by almost 50%. I'm throwing insulin at it by the gallon and I'm still skirting around 200. So irritating. Invariably, I will end up at 35 once it all plays out, which is exactly what I'm trying to avoid.

I don't have much cheery to report today. But I did take this video of Ian sleeping this morning that pleases me. He looks pretty similar to three and a half years ago, just a lot longer.