Nov
25
Dylan has been sleeping better the last few nights — he’s back to waking up just once or twice during the night, which compared to the multi-hour screamfests I will gladly take. Oh, I had grand ideas of getting him to sleep through the night with no interruptions at one point, but there’s nothing quite like comparison to get you on board with compromise.
Everything I read says he shouldn’t physically need a bottle in the middle of the night, and there’s the question of whether or not I’m creating a very bad habit of him 1) wanting a bottle to soothe himself back to sleep, 2) learning to be hungry in the middle of the night, and 3) continuing his broken sleep pattern by waking up his body with digestive processes and so on (that sounds weird but makes sense: our bodies are designed to be restful in the middle of the night, and eating switches on these bodily functions that are normally supposed to be chilling out), but on the few times I’ve tried to cut back on the milk he lies there afterwards howling in fury and he DOES. NOT. STOP.
I’m cutting my losses, though. One or at most two trips in there to plug his snoot with a bottle is survivable, while listening to him blat away for three-quarters of the night is not.
Speaking of milk, in February we can transition away from the beshitted formula, and I cannot wait. It stinks, I’m sick of mixing it, I hate the stupid container (have you seen this hilarious thing on their website? Warning: OBNOXIOUS TY PENNINGTON AUDIO) which is supposed to somehow make my whole life easier but comes with a foil lid that takes like half an hour to peel off, and most of all it’s been creating a year-long Similac-shaped dent in our budget and I would like to fill that space with, say, shoes.
(Quick recap for anyone new: breastfeeding was not an option for me, so no need to remind me of the cheaper alternative, mmkay?)
In our daycare if you are providing milk for an infant you have to send in filled bottles with the specific amount you think they’ll eat — for safety purposes they won’t mix anything up, nor will they keep anything left in the bottle. Over the months I’m sure this has resulted in a LOT of wasted formula, as I’ve tried to guess how many feedings Dylan will want, especially when he was younger and drank more often but ate unpredictable amounts each time.
In addition to the money we’ll save by buying regular milk instead of powdered heroin, or whatever it is, expenses will go down even more when Dylan’s a year old or so and moves out of the uber-expensive infant room at daycare into the ‘woddler’ room, so come on 2009! Mama needs a new pair of . . . okay, fine, Mama needs to contribute to her kids’ 529 plans and pay off the credit card. Bah.
In the meantime, we’re augmenting his bottles with the occasional cup of creamer-enriched extra-strong coffee. Wait, you think this has something to do with the not-sleeping thing?
Nov
24
I was getting ready to leave the house the other day and after I’d loaded both kids in the car and run back inside to grab my purse I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and came screeching to a halt. It wasn’t the sweaty, red face that startled me (my god, Dylan has become a hefty little honey-baked ham, and toting him in the carseat is like some sort of nightmarish Level FIVE strength routine in 30 Day Shred); it was the whomper-jawed hooters.
One was pointing slightly off to the left, the other making its escape down the right side of my ribcage. The thin, cheap fabric of my Target-purchased bra was doing nothing to mask the décolletage coup d’état happening under my shirt, and as I shoved both hands in there and wrestled everything back to place like I was trying to manhandle two unruly badgers, it occurred to me that in the absence of surgical intervention, it was time for some expert advice.
So yesterday I headed to Nordstrom’s lingerie department, dragging my friend Ashley along for moral support.
We found a clerk and I sidled up to her, awkwardly clearing my throat. “Hi,” I husked. “I know we are total strangers . . . but I feel something magical happening between us. I was wondering if you could come with me into a small dressing room and look at my unclothed breasts?”
Okay, not really, but that’s what it felt like I was saying when I asked if she could do a fitting. I’ve never been fitted for a bra before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect — was I supposed to whip off my shirt immediately, or were we going to engage in some girl chat first, maybe share a little pharmaceutical assistance to loosen the old inhibitions? Would there be a pillow fight, and if so, would the feathers that drifted gaily onto our naked shoulders be pink, or white?
Well, it turns out that a bra fitting is quite professional and there’s really no giggling involved, except when the nice lady informed me that I was not in fact a 36 C like I’ve been wearing for YEARS, but rather, a 32 D. I laughed disbelievingly and said I knew she was the one with the measuring tape and all but I did not think so, ha ha ha, and she had me try on a 32 D Wacoal that fit so perfectly I actually snapped my own picture when she left the room because I’d never seen my chest at, you know, chest level before.
(Dorky jumped-the-shark Lolcats text placement for modesty purposes only, because clearly every last drop of humor has long been wrung from this idiotic meme.)
I bought two bras in my crazy new size and both of them provide the key elements I’ve been looking for: elevation, containment, immobility, and, er, temperature shielding. I would never in a million years have thought to decrease the band size OR increase the cup size, but apparently that was exactly what I needed. Hooray for Nordstrom’s, their famous-for-a-reason customer service, and the oddly named “t-shirt bra”, which essentially creates a bulletproof, sag-resistant Viking-esque covering for that which has been Ravaged by Time and Motherhood.
In related news, I seem to have undergarments on my mind lately because I see I referenced a “pointy-bra’d rack” on a recent Lemondrop post, which is my TOTALLY SEAMLESS segue to ask you to visit me there because no one reads that shit, possibly because I have a lame posting schedule and some mysterious behind-the-scenes editor always adds at least one silly line to my entries, but still, empty comments fields make me sad, boo. Come say hi.
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