Wet...

Millie Monday

Today I was thinking about how much my life has changed in the last year.  My little girl Aurora is now a year old and I feel much more in control of my life.  My hormones are more under control, I know what I'm doing (as much as any mother knows what she's doing) and I'm happy with my role as a mother.

On Saturday night we were letting Aurora run around naked for a while before we put her pj's on.  Do you do this?  Aurora is always struggling with yeast rashes so we try to let her air out at least once a day.  We usually try and watch her closely so that we don't let her have an accident on the carpet.  Of course we're not always successful. Saturday we failed utterly, not only did she wet on the carpet but she had a number 2 accident as well.  Luckily we caught it pretty fast and got it all cleaned up.  But all the mess made me think of a blog post I made over a year ago.  I had a week old baby and it all started on the first day I was all alone with little Aurora...

January 2010

"If there were one word to define my new life it would be WET. And no, it's not just the obvious nursing issue, but so so much more. In the middle of the night on Sunday I woke up to a huge puddle under my washing machine. I didn't know what to do and Robert was so dead asleep he just mumbled to put towels down. Well by the morning every towel we own was soaking wet. And I thought it was our washer with the problem so I didn't know what to do with all the wet towels. I tried to carry them over to the laundry room in our complex, but I didn't have a key. Robert had taken the keys with the laundry room key on it. Do you know how heavy wet towels are? Well it was pretty heavy, and wet. I was so frustrated I started to cry...adding to the whole wet issue. Then I noticed there was a big wet spot in on the carpet where I had forgotten and left ice packs out all night. So now I had a wet floor and my big quilt it was sitting next to was pretty wet too. Once again call in the tears...more wet.
Next comes the nursing issue. After I tried to deal with all the water I really really needed to pump or I would possibly burst. So I pumped and then while I was putting the milk into those little baggies to freeze it tipped over spilling breast milk over everything on my kitchen counter. More wetness all over my kitchen. I cleaned that all up, resulting in more wet towels, and then got myself a bowl of cereal...which after eating the cereal I knocked the bowl over with my foot and spilled the milk all over the carpet. By this point it was maybe eight o'clock in the morning and I was crying my eyes out...only enhancing the wet problem.

So I got the wet problem under control until last night. I accidentally overfed Aurora and she threw up all over everything - me, her, the bed and a little on Robert. So I had to change all of our bedding, all of Aurora's clothes, and all of my clothes. The main problem with all of this is that we only have one set of sheets, and we hadn't figured out what was wrong with our washer so we had all of this wet laundry without a washing machine. So we put down a blanket on our bed and went to sleep. Next in the wet life of Millie and Aurora I wake up to nurse her in the middle of the night and I had leaked every where. My bra, (I only own two nursing bra's - and the other was covered in baby throw up), and clothes were totally wet. So for the second time in two or three hours I had to totally change. I had to clean up the throw up bra because it was in better shape than the other one. By then I was starting to think the whole thing was pretty humorous. There was nothing else to do in the middle of the night but think about the irony of the whole situation (our cable went out last night).
So you might be asking what the irony in the situation is? Well if I had to choose another word to define my existence it would be itchy. I've got this issue where all of my stretchmarks have hives on them. They're bright red, really swollen and really, really itchy. There have been moments where I thought I might loose my mind. The only thing that helps is ice packs (which is why there were forgotten ice packs in the middle of the floor). My brother-in-law Greg says this is a common problem and that anti-histamines would resolve my issue. But they say to be careful with anti-histamines when you're establishing your milk supply because they dry you out. So here is the irony - my two biggest problems wetness and itchiness...and I can't solve the itchy because it would dry me up. See how ironic that is? Well anyway, the things we put up with for our sweet babies."

 Luckily things are much more in control around here and I don't have to cry every time I spill some milk, oh what a year can do!  I've grown so much in the last year, I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

Zoo Day! Feb. 2011

-Millie