Back to School

I'm headed back to work this afternoon; I'll be teaching on Monday and Tuesday nights the rest of the semester. This means I need to start pumping today. My goal is to pump as much as he consumes by bottle so that my milk supply will stay at the level he needs it to be right now. Our neighbor will be watching Ian & Nadia from 3-6pm one day a week. Paul will take care of them from 6-8pm that day and 3-8pm the other day. This week Beth is watching them today, and Paul will come home early tomorrow. Paul's parents will probably watch them one Friday afternoon a month when I have faculty meeting. I'm not a big fan of cold weather, but even more than that I dread driving in the snow. We're supposed to get 2-4 inches tonight. I hope it doesn't start until after 8pm. A pleasant thought is that in 3 months we'll be going to Florida for a week with my parents, and in 11 months we'll be going on our first cruise (Western Carribean) with Paul's parents. Also it's just about one more month until spring!

I went to the eye doctor at 8am. I hadn't been in 3 years, My right eye was the same, and my left eye got a little worse. I still have quite a few contacts left. It's been a longer time since I got new glasses; the eye doctor recommended getting new glasses. I'll do so, but I will go elsewhere as Paul got his there last week, and they cost $496! That seems way over priced to me even though he gets some extra features that I don't since I usually wear contacts. Our insurance pays about $235 for glasses. I'll try to buy a pair that is close to that price.

Ian weighs 7lb 3.5oz. Hopefully he'll get back on track with gaining at least 6 ounces this week. He has his 2 month appointment tomorrow afternoon. I called this morning to ask if it should be postponed since he is still coughing up phlegm, and they said we should keep the appointment. If he has a fever tomorrow then they'll give us an additional appointment 2 weeks from now just to have the shots. I doubt he'll have a fever so I expect tomorrow will be his first big day of shots. So far he's just had the one they gave in the hospital. I am curious to see what his length measurement will be, even though I don't find them to be very accurate. I can tell he's really grown based on how his newborn size clothes fit now compared to when he was in the NICU.

Some of the words which Nadia says crack me up in terms of them not being words that are usually learned at this age. For example as I got my electric pump out so I wouldn't forget to take it to work this afternoon, Nadia said "pump." LOL! When I was taking her to the sink to wash her face today, she said "all clean." She also knows several names of VeggieTale characters - she says "Larry," "Bob," "Lunt" (for Mr. Lunt), "Junior" (Junior Asparagus) and "peas" (French peas). I didn't even know the name Mr. Lunt until the last couple of months, LOL. This morning she kept saying "Crunch" as she wanted to eat some Captain Crunch cereal (which her Daddy was having for breakfast). It's fun to hear her vocabulary expand each day! While I was nursing Ian at church yesterday I heard her say "thank you" many times. The room for nursing mothers is right next to the nursery. The nursery worker commented on how polite Nadia is. Of course this was music to my ears! You can see from the pictures that I took out one section of the Swiffer's pole to make it more Nadia's height. She loves to be Mommy's little helper!

Last night was a little better with Ian. He spent about 6.5 hours in the Nap Nanny between 8:15pm and 6:00am. He was only in our bed for about 1 hour. I've had him spend at least a little time in the Nap Nanny and a little time in his gym this morning. It really does me a world of good to have some time where I am not holding him - both in terms of caring for Nadia and also getting housework done. Of course I do love holding the little guy, but I just don't want to hold him 21 hours a day like I was for several weeks. Well we are making progress that is for sure.