No more breastfeeding

Well, I did it. I stopped breastfeeding and switched exclusively to formula. I know, it's only been 1 1/2 weeks, but after much emotional turmoil, I decided it was the best for my WHOLE family. With Drew being such a lazy eater, I was with him all the time and just couldn't give Emma and Charlotte the attention they needed from me. I spoke with my sister, who is a nurse and mother of 2, and she told me that I was under enough stress. Formula is wonderful these days and it's more important for me to be a good mommy to ALL of my children than to beat myself over the head trying to breastfeed one of them. I still struggle with my decision, but ultimately, I know that it's best. He actually seems to be doing better on formula - he's less gassy and seems to be more content than he was before. It's so tough! There's so much emotion attached to this decision because it's about the welfare of your child and it's permanent. Every mother wants to give her best to her children and everyone tells you "breastmilk is best"...but what good is breastmilk if you're constantly grouchy and screaming at everyone because your hormones are all over the place and you're excessively sleep deprived? I have to think about the welfare of all my children and I feel like this is the best way to do that.

Our crap-hole apartment

I really want to use a word other than crap, but I'll be good. It's raining, which means our window is leaking...again. The same window that supposedly FINALLY got fixed last time it rained cats and dogs. I can't even begin to enumerate all the things that are wrong with this apartment and how much I would love to move out of it, but it's just not an option right now. Brian is only planning on having this job for another year, so we'd be moving then anyway, who knows where to. I REALLY want to go back to Texas. I know it's probably because of the hormones, but I've been crying every other night because I miss it so much. I think of all the things we'd have that we don't have here and it just frustrates me. Right now, we are a family of five trying to survive on $40k/year in a super expensive part of the country. We're doing fine, but we have to go without things like tv, etc., because we just can't afford it right now. We can't even really go on dates because 1.) babysitting is expensive and 2.) we can't afford to do anything fun anyway...Wendy's gets a little old after a while. If we lived in Texas, assuming Brian gets a job that pays comparably or better, we could afford to go on dates (things are MUCH cheaper there...nighttime movie rates are cheaper there than matinee prices are here, for one). We'd also have both sets of parents nearby, which would be great not only for us, but for them, too...I know the grandparents miss our kids terribly and it breaks my heart that we've had to force them apart. Who knows, maybe we could even get a house. If not, we could definitely afford a better apartment than THIS one.
All that being said, I know that God moved us here for a reason. He has taught us so many wonderful lessons, like how to trust Him when things get tight financially, and how to be more frugal. Brian and I have gotten a LOT closer because we're all we have. Yes, Brian and my children are my home and I wouldn't want to live anywhere without them, but my heart still aches to be in Texas. So, right now, I'm praying that God will open up an AWESOME job opportunity for Brian in the DFW area, preferably in the Mid-cities, and that we can go home...if that is not God's will, I'm praying that he changes my heart so it doesn't get crushed.

My All-Time Favorite Emma Quotes

1. Brian was trying on his Ph.D. regalia, and anyone who has seen it knows it looks a little crazy. Emma goes up and says, "You're a tent. I be a tent, too?"

2. Brian was walking with her around Walmart, and Emma started sniffing the air like she smelled something. Brian looked at her, she looks at him and says "I smell balls"...horrified, he looked around to see if anyone had heard what she said, and in doing so, noticed one of those big racks of cheap latex balls with that nasty acrylic smell that everyone remembers from childhood. So, she really did smell balls. Go figure...

3. When we brought Charlotte home from the hospital, I was nursing in the living room. Emma came over and asked "What are you doing, Mommy?" I told her that I was feeding Charlotte, and without missing a beat and with a HORRIFIED look on her face, she exclaimed, "Charlotte eats BOOB?!"

4. Once Emma got used to the idea of how Mommy feeds Charlotte, she decided she wanted to be able to help. One day as I nursed the baby, Em came over, pulled up her shirt, grabbed her chest and said "I need to feed Charlotte from my boob."

5. Emma was feeling a little gassy before bed one night, so I told her to lay on her tummy and it would feel better. Brian used to get the girls ready in the morning because I had to get to work early, and when she got up the next morning, she looked at him and said "My big girl bed helped the fart out, Daddy."

6. This morning, she went up to Daddy and said "My diaper's wet. It's like a swing at the park!", then proceeded to move her hips to make the diaper swing between her legs. Where does she come up with this stuff?!

7. I painted Em's nails and we were driving in the car when she says "I want to suck on my fingers, but you painted my nails. I GUESS I won't suck my fingers... ahhh", like she was being some sort of martyr.

8. She pulled a pair of my shoes out of my closet, put them on, and then proceeds to tell me "Mommy, your shoes are so STYLISH!!"

9. We were watching Star Wars IV on tv and it was the dramatic part where Darth Vader fights Obi Wan Kenobi. Her comment? "Oh No! We need to help the robot get the crazy man! They're playing with their wands!"

10. We were renting a movie from the RedBox at the grocery store, and there was a lottery machine that Em was pushing the buttons on right next to it. When the movie came out, Em grabbed it and said "I won, I won!!"

11. This morning, I'm laying on the couch, and Em runs over, gets in my face and says "I'm hungry!". So, I ask her what she wants to eat for breakfast. Without skipping a beat, she throws her hand over her nose and yells "EWW, Mommy! Your breath is STINKY!"

12. "Charlotte! No, baby..." She wants to be a little mommy so bad!

13. Conversation while I changed Drew's diaper: "Mommy, what's coming out of Drew's bum?" "Well, Honey, he just pooped." "No, THAT!" "Oh, well, those are his boy parts." Confused look and long stare. "Okay..."

14. I gave her a sip of Brian's diet coke while we were at the mall and she thought we called it "Diarrhea coke"...as we're walking, she yells at the top of her lungs "I want more diarrhea coke!". Seriously, people must have been wondering what kind of parents we are!

Babyfactory??

Ummm...yeah, it's really cool being called a baby factory. It's not like we have an assembly line for these things. "Arm. Leg...No, other leg..." Geez. What are we, that creepy family that lives in the basement apartment that just pops out kid after kid? Uh, yeah, yeah I guess we are. Yikes.

Side note - I really hate Thomas the Tank Engine. The songs make me want to rip my ears off. Em's watching it right now...UGH. And then the other part of me wants to jump up and start rockin' out to the obviously horrible music just so I don't go insane.

Breastpumping 101

Well, I pumped for the first time this morning because Drew is turning out to be a "snacker"...he'll only eat off one side at a time, and frankly, I don't want to look like a melon on one side and a prune on the other...hence the pumping. Anyway, Emma was very curious and I figure she's gonna have to learn about it somewhere, might as well be from me. So as I hooked up to the machine, I told her I was going to use the "boob sucker". (In our family, we have a tendency to come up with names for things based on their function...the bulb syringe is a "nose sucker", etc.) She gave me a very confused look and said, you're going to put it up your nose? "No, Honey, it's to get the milk out of Mommy's boobs so someone else can feed Drew if they want to." Continued confused look. "Mommy, why do you have that milk?" "Well, Sweetheart, it's the way God made it. Before there were bottles or formula, this was the only food babies had, and babies have to eat just like everyone else." Continued confusion. "I want to see" - as she sticks her head about 3 inches from my boobs. Staring, staring...then she sits back on her heels and says "I don't have milk" to which I have to explain to her, "No, only mommies who have just had babies have milk." "Oh, okay!", and then she was done being interested and ran off to play.

On a side note, my pump's early let-down setting definitely sounds like someone saying "Oh crap" over and over again...maybe that's the slap-happy lack of sleep talking. Who knows.

Adventures in Breastfeeding aka "Battle of the Boobs"

So, second night in the hospital around 2 in the morning, the night nurse wheels Drew into our room for his feeding (YES - we kept him in the nursery overnight. We're all about free babysitting!!) He was a little skittish with the boob - he just wouldn't start sucking even though it was right there, so I called the nurse back in for a little advice. I know, I've done this twice before, but at 2 am, you just forget everything due to your exhaustion. She was a nice looking older woman, maybe in her 50s or 60s...a grandma type if you will. She suggested massaging the breast to help the colostrum come down. So I start to follow her advice...unfortunately, not to her satisfaction. She reaches over and grabs my boob herself and starts squeezing it. I looked over at Brian, who has to look away from me because he's going to bust out laughing at my look of horror, and then I almost bust out laughing because the only thing that keeps going through my head is that scene from "16 Candles" where Molly Ringwald's grandma says "Oh look, Fred. She's got boobies!" and then proceeds to feel her up. I really wanted to look at Brian and quote Molly's next line "I can't believe I just got felt up by my grandma". That, or I could have gone with something from my sister... "Hey lady! That ain't no horn you're honkin'!". Either way, everything's a little more amusing at 2 am.

The Best OB and Postpartum Advice I Ever Received

WARNING - TMI alert!! This should be read only by women who are pregnant or just had a baby, women who would like one day to become pregnant, or people who just like to be grossed out by way too much information. For the third group - Eww...don't tell me who you are.

Being pregnant can be really cool. Being pregnant can also really suck. Morning sickness, stretch marks, constipation are just some of the symptoms that can plague you, not to mention later in the pregnancy when the kid gets so big you feel like he's using your bladder as a punching bag and your ribs as practice soccer balls. My personal favorite (note my sarcasm) was when I'd be laying on my side in bed, and I could feel a little hand slide along the bed, basically pinching my skin and muscle in between fist and mattress. But all this craziness aside, it truly is worth it when you hold that little one in your arms for the first time. Along the journey, you will pick up some great advice and some really crappy advice, and you have to sift through it all to see what works best for you. Here is a list of my all-time favorite advice that REALLY helped me through some tough situations. I hope something in here can help you as well:

**You will look 6 months pregnant when you leave the hospital AFTER giving birth. That is OKAY. It goes down considerably over the course of the next few months. But be prepared to wear those maternity pants just a little bit longer. And be prepared for people to ask you when your baby's due - try not to punch them in the face.

**Pain medication during labor and after childbirth can cause constipation. Make sure you do something about it so you don't get hemorrhoids or (gasp!) a fissure. Some great tips for doing this: Miralax works wonders. So does the "OB cocktail" - equal parts of orange juice, apple juice, and prune juice that can be drunk either warmed up or cold. It basically looks like poo in a glass, but it doesn't taste bad at all and it works really well. Also, if needed, stool softeners are very helpful.

**If you happen to get a fissure (which can be caused by actual labor or from constipation afterwards), the doctors will try to tell you that you have to use this nitroglycerin gel that can cause headaches, or numbing cream, or worst case scenario - surgery. TRY THIS FIRST!! I was nursing, so they wouldn't give me the nitro gel and the numbing cream didn't work. Their theory is that the reason it doesn't heal is because you can't relax. I think that's crap (no pun intended, and of course I'm not a medical doctor, so take this with a grain of salt) It's basically just a tear in the skin that if your stool remains too hard or large will rip open again every time you use the bathroom (think of a bad paper cut that just keeps getting irritated). I found an awesome natural wheatgrass cream that helped me heal literally within about 2 weeks. I suffered for about 8 months prior to that. Here's the key. Keep everything moving, if you know what I mean, drink your water (green tea helped, too, for some reason), keep really clean when you go to the bathroom with flushable wipes, and use the Wheatgrass cream after every time you go. (http://www.grassfactor.com)

**There is no shame in Postpartum Depression, nor is there any shame in taking antidepressants. Consider it like a supplement instead of medicine. For a period of time, your body is missing this certain chemical, and you are helping fill in the blanks.

**Take care of yourself. If you aren't well, you'll have nothing to give to your children or husband.

**You will completely lose all modesty for a brief period of time. Everyone will be staring at/touching you in places you'd normally be horrified to have anyone see/touch. You're super modest normally (like me), so you think it won't happen, or that you'll be embarrassed when it does. Probably not - you'll be so busy pushing out a kid or recovering from said pushing that you most likely won't even care. It's crazy but true.

**Sleep when your kids sleep - if you can. This is not always an option when you have older children, but if by some fortuitous happenstance they all fall asleep at the same time, lay down as well. Even if you can't sleep, rest is better than nothing.

**You have to find your "new normal" after each and every child. Things will change, and you will have to change with it, but if you can survive the first two weeks, things usually get a lot better after that...and even if they don't, you learn to adjust and deal with it better.

**Formula-fed babies are not going to shrivel up or have horrible things happen to them just because they are not breast-fed. Some people will try to make you feel horrible for not breastfeeding, but sometimes, it's just not that simple. I had to work with my first two and lost my milk supply, and then it just became too tough. And frankly, after 10 months of pregnancy, I just wanted my body back. Sorry - that does not make me a horrible person OR a horrible mother. It's better to be a happy bottle-feeding mommy than a depressed, grouchy, angry breastfeeding mommy (as I turned into). My children were breastfed for at least the first 6 weeks, but not exclusively, and by at least 12 weeks, I had switched them over to formula. It's what worked for our family. Breastfeeding may be better for your family. Whatever the situation, don't let anyone tell you you're a horrible mother or make you feel bad for it or that you HAVE to do it a certain way.

**Coffee and under-eye concealer are a new mom's best friend (Thanks, Andi!) I've found that yellow under-eye concealer works well to cover really stubborn dark circles, then you cover with your normal concealer, just so you don't look like some kind of strange jaundiced raccoon.

**You go 10 months without getting a period (AWESOME!), but beware - you're body's just storing it up and it all catches up to you in the 6 weeks after you have your baby. Yikes...a 6-week long period. It sucks.

**Laugh - so you won't cry ;D

A Day in the Life of the Praschers

Today was an interesting day. Here are some of the highlights:

**My mom took a picture of me right after nursing Drew, not realizing that my shirt was pulled up and my bra was pretty much the only thing covering me (fortunately, the flaps were up...that's not always a guarantee these days). Then, she forgets she has it on her camera, uploads it to her computer, and shares it on Facebook. For 6 brief hours, the world saw more of me than I ever wanted it to see. Fortunately, I was able to hack into her computer last night at 1 am and delete it. Whew! Crisis (partially) averted.

**Charlotte gets a hold of the Vaseline tub and gets a nice glob on her hand - which she proceeds to eat. We fully expected a disgusted look, but no. Apparently she liked the greasy texture, because she sat there smacking her lips for a while showing no emotion whatsoever. Hmm...go figure.

**On a positive note, Drew let us sleep for 3 HOURS this afternoon!! It was AWESOME! The girls were also sleeping part of that time, and my mom watched them for the rest.

"And I shall greatly increase your pains in childbirth..."

I don't do pain well. At all. When labor pains strike, sweet little Laura transforms into a screaming, reptilian-like Hydrosaur (I've been watching Diego dinosaur adventures with Em lately), sitting on the toilet screaming curse words at anyone close enough to hear them (Yes - curse words). My poor husband, after being sent to find out what the H-E-double hockey sticks had happened to the anesthesiologist for the second time, wandered the halls supposedly in search of said anesthesiologist but really just fearing my wrath upon returning without her. He stopped at the nurses' desk, chatted up the orderlies, and pretty much avoided me until he saw my nurse walking to our room. He then discreetly followed her so that I would continue to think he was my knight in shining armor who worked so diligently to bring me relief from this hellacious and excruciating pain. It's a good thing I didn't know the truth at the time - I might have ripped his head off.

My husband's take on things:

"You know, it's called self preservation. I could have gone down to the nurses' station and told them what they already knew: 'Hey, my wife really needs that anesthetic now.' To which they would have replied, 'Thank you for telling us...again, we're working on it. Why don't you just go back to your wife, Mr. Prascher?' 'Well, I can't really do that because she's sprouted six tentacles and I'm afraid she might pull me into her beak and eat me if I go back. And by the way, it's Dr. Prascher."