The "b" word

Welcome to my blog. Where I get to talk about things like the 'b" word, which is breastfeeding by the way. I would have never in a million years written anything with the word "breast" in it on the internet before becoming a mother. Since Jake has arrived, all of my modest tendencies have flown out the window. I have nursed Jake in a restaurant, hotel bathroom, mall parking lot, gas station....you get the idea.

Newly pregnant friends have recently asked me, "what do you wish you knew about being a mother before Jake arrived? what do you wish someone would have told you?" My answer is always this: breastfeeding is hard. I had a vision of this amazing bonding experience that would provide nutrition for my son and feelings of euphoria for me. In reality, that's not what happened. The other thing I am always sure to mention is "babies eat a lot.....like, all the time." I remember hearing that babies ate often. In fact, I think I knew that my newborn would need to eat every 2 hours.  Someone failed to mention, however, that this time interval began when you STARTED feeding. Oh, and breastfeeding takes up to 45 minutes or longer when you first get started. So, you do the math. All of a sudden, 2 hours looks a lot more like there is a tiny human on your breast every hour of the day. One day I will share our breastfeeding story with the hope that it might help a new mother cope with a new and challenging situation. Until then, I will leave you with this great blog post on why breastfeeding totally sucks.

Tomorrow marks our three month anniversary with breastfeeding and as far as I ever thought I'd make it. I'm happy to say that we will surpass this three month goal. The next challenge is returning to work where I will become very friendly with my breast pump. Stay tuned, this is for sure going to create a whole new set of challenges!

Beginning of the end {of maternity leave}

Monday marked the beginning of the end of my maternity leave. Our nanny spent the morning with Jake and I to start to get a handle on our routine. It went really well. Better than I could have hoped for, in fact. So why did I cry alligator tears into Jake's whale tub later that night as he happily splashed around? Because the day marks the start to an important transition from full-time mommy to career mom. June 13th is the big day. Ready, set, go.