New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve Hello everyone!!! Happy New Years Eve we are hanging out and being safe with Daddy and Andrew and Courtney. Madi and I were playing earlier. I am not sure if you can make it out but she has a black sock on her head.

SHe loves to drink water from a sippy cup. I think it makes her gums feel better. She wears most of the water but she seems to like it.
HEre we are playing again. Don't worry I am the one who put the hoops on her ears. We don't have the chrsitmas pics with us. I will post when we get them (Carolyn). Hope everyone is safe tonight. GOd bless in the new Year!!!!

We are having a good weekend. It is nice to get to spend some time with Madi ("the madilator" as Jason likes to call her.) She is really coming along with eating cereal. She is able to eat prunes, bananas, pears, and now we are on peaches. We hit a few road blocks with being sick a few times. But now we are back on track. We get to spend some time with Jason before he goes back to work on Wednesday. He starts his 4 pm to 4 am shift. Three times a week he has to work this, so we will be getting used to that for a few months.
Madi is sitting up, and loves to play in her toy box int he living room. We hope you guys have a wonderful and safe New Years. I hope 2008 is a good year for our friends and family.

God Bless

After my bath mommy thought it would be fun to play a little game.....styling my hair. She likes to call this one my "Rocker" mohawk.
And this one she she calls "Napolean".
This is how mommy combs my hair every night after my bath. She thinks this is funny because I look like Daddy ad Grandpa with this style. Lets hope I eventully get mommy's hairline :-)
Then I watched the football game with Daddy.

Madilyn seems to be a Redskins fan. When they scored a touch down she squealed, then once more on the field goal. Go Figure!

It's been a while

It's been a while since our last blog. Everything is going well. Jason is still training at the Juvenile Detention. He only has two more weeks and then he is on his own. Work has been super busy with so many activities. Andrew, COurtney and Aiden flew into town last night. It is so good to see them. Aiden is adorable and Andrew and Courtney are wonderful parents.
Madilyn is getting bigger and more grown up everyday. She sits up all by herself now and is almost rolling over. She gets half her body twisted and stops. She'll figure it out soon and there will be no stoppering her after that. I absolutley love to watch her discover new things everyday.

Thank you

We bought a new winter hat for Madi. What do you all think. I think she looks so cute!!!!! I want to say thank you for all of you who commented on my last blog. Your kind and thoughtful words of encouragement and advice helped me in a difficult time. My milk supply is still here and I am working on getting it back up to my previous "manufacturing quota". Madilyn is still on Soy milk formula and she and I are both adjusting. Thanks again for your support.
Madilyn spent the afternoon yesterday with Jason. She helped Daddy with some laundry. Jason has a few days off before his schedule changes. He will be working the dredded 4pm to 4 am shift for a few weeks. It will take some getting used to. I am glad they get to spend some time together before he goes back to work. He is a great daddy. He carries her around in buckets and baskets along there daily chores.
As you can tell, Madi thinks Daddy is silly and like every minute of it.

Confessions from a Mommy

As many of you know, we have been sick this past weekend. Because I was so sick and dehydrated my milk production has slowed to practically nothing. I have been trying everthing I can to get it back, but in the mean time I have had to put Madilyn on formula. In my mind, I feel that I have failed my daughter because I cannot breastfeed her anymore. Now I know with that statement I have probably offended my mother, mother-in-law and sister and millions of women all over the world, all of whom for various reasons had to formula feed their babies. Rationally, I know i didn't fail her - I breastfed her for 5 months, I am pretty lucky. But emotionally, i feel that I have let her down. I feel she needed me to do this for her and I am no longer able. It is cheaper to breastfeed, Madi has more immunities, better fats, more brain juice, etc. I placed such an importance on breastmilk, that now that I cannot I feel.....LESS.
When I was feeding Madi her first formula bottle, which by the way she think formula is disgusting, i cried. I think I cried for many reasons. Maybe in my mind this unwanted change was another inadequicy of my ablities of being a working mom and wife. Often it seems I am falling short of some if not all of my roles. I want nothing more than to be great at them all and in my marathon of daily chaos I come up short.
I have a wonderful husband who helps me as much as he can and I work for an amazing group of men who want nothing more than for me to be happy. In that respect I am truly blessed. Because I am so blessed I feel an even greater need to make everyone happy.
Daily i feel the struggle that oh so many working mothers feel, and it is this modern maternal struggle that fuels my feeling of breastfeeding failure. It is in that struggle that i cry when I gave Madilyn the bottle for formula.
I am going to try to look at the brightside of not breastfeeding. I can drink milk again (Madilyn is allergic). I can have a glass of wine. Madi might sleep longer at night with formula vs breastmilk. I will keep focused that Jason and I were formula fed and we turned out damn fine ;-).
I have opened my thoughts and feelings to you and confess my working mom secrets in hopes to give insight to those who don't understand, consolation to those who've experienced this and clarity to those who will follow a similar path.

Rough Weekend

Well as some of you already know Madi and I haven't been feeling well. This weekend came the big shabang of being sick. Friday night i fed Madi put her to bed and shortly thereafter she and I started throwing up. We were sick all friday night and into Saturday morning. Jason was awesome at taking care of Madi for me. I was down for the count. I know it wasn't easy taking care of Madi and me but he did it. He was great. We are feeling better now.