um, so it's tuesday

and that's about all i've got.  maternity leave is blissful.  and i've been holding off on posting because i feel like i can't post without new pictures, so i had planned to do a photo shoot with the little one this afternoon but she seems to be interested in other things.  like napping.  and Napping.  also, nappinG.

we had her 2.5 week checkup yesterday and she's doing beautifully.  after getting down to a low weight of 6lbs even, eleven days later she's up to 7lbs 9oz, which according to the pediatrician is about an ounce a day.  i'm not going to check his math.  the whole 12-oz-in-a-lb thing totally throws me off because my feeble mind can only think in tens.  at any rate, the pediatrician proclaimed that to be "terrific weight gain," and we don't have to go back again until she's two months old.

between now and then i've got to get down to business and figure out what kind of vaccination schedule i'm going to do.  i've pretty much decided i'm going to do the bare minimum and decline what i think are unnecessary or unnecessarily risky vaccines, so now i have to figure out which vaccines fall into which category.  vaccines are a great concept, but i've seen vaccine injuries first-hand and i'm not going to expose her to any risk that isn't very, very well warranted.  i mean, it's not like when i was a kid and you got your dip/tet and were done with it - they've got a vaccine for EVERYTHING now, and they're not all so well-researched IMHO.  so we'll only be vaccinating for serious illnesses and not everylittlething. 

oh, and the nurse at the pediatrician's office keeps mispronouncing her name.  write it on her chart!  it is extraordinarily annoying and also somewhat worrisome to me.  i think we chose a beautiful name for our daughter spelled in the traditional way, but i genuinely hope we haven't saddled her with a lifetime of American mispronunciation.

Kitten *is* beginning to settle into a pretty regular schedule of waking up to feed about every 2 hours, give or take thirty minutes.  i'm breastfeeding her on demand, so this gets a little exhausting, particularly between approximately midnight and six a.m.  i have never seen so many consecutive sunrises in my life.  in fact, i've probably never seen ANY consecutive sunrises in my life, because in my previous life if i was up THAT early, then the next day you could guarantee i'd be sleeping in.  so in order to maintain my sanity i have *not* been looking at the clock the last few days because i really don't want to know how much sleep i'm [not] getting.  it's not like there's anything i can do to remedy the situation, anyway.  thank god for naps.  naps are goooood.

i haven't started pumping yet, nor have i introduced her to a bottle, because i wanted to prolong both of those things for as long as possible.  but last night J pointed out that next thursday (her one-month birthday), we have tickets to see conor oberst and jenny lewis at the cain's.  we bought these tickets when i was 7 or 8 months pregnant and i was *so* excited about it at the time, thinking, oh, she'll be a month old by then and i'll be pumping, i can leave her for a couple of hours and get out of the house, it will be good.  but when J mentioned last night, we need to line up a sitter for next thursday for Princess... and Kitten, my heart about dropped out of my chest.  noooooooo!    

it's not that i don't have a cadre of sitters who i trust and who are clamoring at a chance to watch her (hi mom! hi sis! you guys work this out between yourselves!).  and it's not like i haven't stolen away here and there while she's been napping to run to the grocery store or do whatever errand.  but the idea of having to get her used to a bottle in the next week and then actually leave her with someone and she might wake up while i'm gone and be fussy and no one knows how to take care of her like i do she needs me!  it's all a total new-mom cliche, but that's not stopping it from putting a great big lump in my throat as i type this.

so that's what's going on in our little world.  i'll be transitioning back into work around the first of october, which is only two weeks away, which is crazy fast, but that's the bed i made for myself when i took maternity leave early before she was born.  i have done plenty of beating myself up about that (in fact, i was beating myself up about it as i was doing it), but the bottom line is that when i think about how i felt physically around that time, it was my only choice.  i had to do it for my health and sanity, so i will make do with the rest of my leave, be thankful that J has several weeks of leave to stay home with her once i go back, and the rest will work itself out.  especially since mom and my sister are both teachers, and the public school system has such beautifully liberal winter break schedules, so there will be quite a few days between now and the end of the year when we'll be able to keep her out of daycare.  and also i won't be full-time right away. 

so that's all for now.  chance of pictures later: 63%.