Target!

Ian has gained one ounce a day the past three days; he's finally right on target!! YAY! He now weighs 6lb 5.5oz! Hopefully this trend will continue and Ian will have gained one pound since his last weigh-in at the doctor's office (when he weighed 5lb 10.8oz). I know this is still less than "the norm," but if I tell the doctor about the retained placenta, hopefully he'll be satisfied with Ian's weight gain. Sometimes when he nurses he still only consumes one ounce, but this morning he consumed more than three ounces in one feed! I felt badly as I was working really hard to get him to nurse on the other side, but then when I weighed him I realized he had gotten plenty from just one side. Way to go, Ian! I have stopped giving him the syringe of milk to help him latch on. This means I need to come downstairs when I nurse him during the night as otherwise his screaming wakes Nadia up, but it's well worth it to start weaning him off these additional contraptions. Thankfully there are times when he latches on easily. He's been getting one bottle (2 oz) of EBM a day. He also is showing improvement in how long he will stay on without the shield. If he continues to gain one ounce a day, then I plan to go cold turkey with eliminating the shield later this week. I'd love to have him off the shield before his February 1st doctor appointment. I might use the SNS if it will help him get off the shield. I have more hope right now that we can get him off the shield and more importantly I have MUCH more hope that I can keep nursing him for many months to come. I can't tell you what a relief this is!!! How I wish I hadn't been carrying around his placenta for an extra 5+ weeks - all the stress that could have been avoided! Well it's water under the bridge now. I am going to take a break from weighing him for a few days.

Speaking of water, too much has fallen from the sky around here. I heard there was some flooding, but I didn't realize that some of it was really  close to our home. I should have stayed home today!!! Ian would have been happier if we hadn't gone to Target this morning. He didn't cry too mucj on the way there or while we were at the store, but he screamed the whole way home (about 15 minutes). He was hungry so I started nursing him as soon as we got home. I find any time I go to Walmart or Target I always end up spending more than I think I'll spend. I even stuck with my shopping list this time! I bought Nadia a new pair of shoes as she has outgrown her size 5 shoes. I already had purchased a pair of size 6 black patent shoes, but I didn't have anything for her to wear the other 6 days of the week. I would have purchased the same brown shoes she has been wearing, but they didn't have them in size 6. Most of the shoes available were sandals. I know stores always are "ahead of schedule," but for Pete's sake, it's only January! I saw bathing suits for sale, etc. Way too early in my opinion! I finally chose a pair of pink sparkly shoes (see the pic above). If they were cheaper, I'd buy more pairs of shoes to coordinate with her outfits, LOL. Even shoes are so much fun to buy for little girls!!! I also bought her 2 more sippy cups. We've switched to the hard spout kind because although the soft spouts were the only ones she could use for many months, those leak rather easily. Now that she can use the hard ones, I packed the soft ones away. I also bought her a bunch of simple peg puzzles (about 5-8 pieces per puzzle). I want to start working with her on the puzzles every day.

I carried Ian in the ultimate baby wrap and had Nadia in the front part of the shopping cart. That seems to be the way to go. There is a Starbucks inside the store, and many months ago I was given a $5 gift card to Starbucks by some of my students. I used it to get a cookie that I shared with Nadia and a cup of hot chocolate for myself (since I'm not a coffee drinker).  The cashier asked me if both of the children were mine. I wonder why she asked me that? I admit the question caught me off guard. The past 6 days I haven't been alone with the kids very much at all. We've been on our own all day today, and I think we've done just fine although Nadia still is watching more tv than I'd like her to watch.