Yet another list of random memories and happenings...

Possibly the worst picture of my baby EV-VER.
But it makes me laugh, so there you go.


• My breast pump talks to me. When I am really stressed out (like the first night home from the hospital) it chants "REDRUM!" over and over again. When I am having a bad body image kind of day, it not-so-gently reminds me that "Lypo" is always an option. It has even gone so far to call me a "White ho".
  
  (My breast pump is kind of an a$$hat.)
  
  But is isn't all bad. Sometimes, when it is on let-down mode, it instructs me to "Wiggle your bum".




• My mother and I stared at the baby stroller for ten minutes in a wasted effort to figure out how to collapse the d@mn thing so it would fit in the back of my car. Finally, we gave up and called Trevor. He laughed at us over the phone and told us to look for the strap with "Pull to Collapse" on it. It couldn't have been more obvious {shakes head}. I don't know how we missed it.




• I spend a significant amount of time worried that Banner will be smothered by my substantial bosom while nursing.



• Banner's latest "talent" is projectile pooping during diaper changes at 5:30 AM. He is counting on us putting too much effort in covering his...ahem, "Fire Hose", and then shocks and awes with a wet fart that has been known to splatter paint the diaper genie, hamper and - once - the far wall on the other side of the nursery.




• On Wednesday morning, Trevor got peed on, pooped on and spat up on in a span of less than three minutes.



• I am within three pounds of my pre-pregnancy weight, and my regular jeans fit again. I don't even have to suck in to get them buttoned.



• The last week has been a bit of a challenge for me. All of a sudden, I was hit with a case of the baby blues. It came out of nowhere and hit me like a mack truck. I cried at least once a day from last Friday until Wednesday, and my ability to sleep was close to nonexistent. The weird thing was, nothing was wrong. The baby was fine. I knew what to do, and wasn't actually overwhelmed (although, I FELT overwhelmed). Banner was even sleeping better and more consistently at night. And yet there I was: a weepy mess. For no reason at all.
  
  My way of dealing with this was to - literally - try to will myself out of the funk and out of the house. On Tuesday, I spent most of the day with my mother. Banner and I went with her to her dental appointment, watched her get her teeth cleaned and took her to get the Pertussis vaccine at Daugherty's. Then, we had lunch with her at North Park before taking Banner to Neiman's to purchase a wedding gift for Anni and a shower gift for Amy. I pumped in the car for the first time and got to experience changing a diaper in a bathroom without a changing table. It was all very stressful for me, but I survived and Banner seemed no worse for wear. And, if nothing else, it showed me that I could leave the house for an extended time period with a baby and survive.
  
  I DID tell my doctor what I was experiencing at my six week appointment yesterday, and he wrote me a prescription. Apparently it is either a third or a fourth of the potency of whatever they would prescribe for a depressed person, and is just supposed to help pull me out of said funk. I filled the script, but haven't started taking it yet. I really don't want to take anything because it will all end up in my breast milk. But, on the other hand, I don't really want to risk the blues becoming a full fledged postpartum depression, either. So, I've decided to keep the pills close by, but only start taking them if things get worse.
  
  The good news is that I seem to be pulling out of the blues on my own. I haven't cried in over 48 hours and slept better last night than I have in days. Of course, this doesn't mean that I won't be figuratively hit by another truck tomorrow or the day after, but - if I am - I always have the pills.
  
  In the meantime, I have plans to take a lot of walks with Banner (bring on spring temperatures!) and be more proactive in seeing friends and making more plans to get out of the house. My sister has also been a Godsend this week and has come over multiple times to help with the baby. Just having someone else in the house seems to lower my blood pressure and raise my confidence and mood. THANK YOU, AMY!




• Today's outing was to the barn to watch my mother and sister school horses over jumps while I watched with Banner all snuggled in the Baby Bjorn. This might become a weekly ritual as the weather improves this spring.
  
  And, yes, I'm saying this even though it took me THREE HOURS to prepare to leave the house with a baby on my own (and I STILL managed to be late). Obviously, I need a little more practice in this regard.