Ch Ch Ch Changes

I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since this tiny creature entered our lives. I feel like I've known him forever. We're settling in ok, he's a relatively good baby. He only cries in the evenings between 6 and 7, right when we're trying to eat dinner. I think he feels left out, so we let him sit in his boppy seat in the kitchen with us.

In all of the emails I got after we sent out the news of Baby Charlie's arrival, one person asked how I was doing. I guess it really is true that once the baby gets here and you're "un-pregnant" the focus really changes :)

That's part of why I've decided to make a separate blog for Baby Charlie - I'm very happy to be "Baby Charlie's Mom," but I'm still an individual aside from that, and I still have things to talk about. The "fun" baby stuff and cute pictures will be on his page, the "mom" and "Jene" stuff will be here.

So how are we doing? I've been home from work for 3 weeks and home without Charlie for the last one. Things are going well, but it's definitely an adjustment. The first 2 weeks were spent getting used to each other as a family and getting into some kind of routine. Of course, once we got home we realized that we had no idea what we were doing and weren't really prepared for the myriad bottle parts and breastpump accessories littering the kitchen counter. Baby Charlie took an early trip to Target to get the things we didn't know we'd need.

Speaking of the breastpump, that's really the biggest challenge we have right now. We started off great with the breastfeeding but had to switch to pumping and feeding bottled breastmilk because we needed to track exactly how much he was eating. Three weeks later I still can't get him back on the boob, so I've become permanently attached to my Medela PISA. I think I'd handle the late night feedings better if I was just feeding the baby rather than feeding the baby, hooking up to the pump, then cleaning the parts and setting them up for the next session, then getting back in bed an hour later. Even though he slept for a 6-hour stretch last night (!) I still had to get up to milk myself in the middle. It wasn't so bad when the Olympics were on but now all I have is the DNC and that's over after tonight. I've been in touch with a La Leche League leader and if he's not back on by next week she's going to come by and help me out. I'm also going to the evening meeting of the group next week. Who would have thought?

Charlie and I celebrated our 3-year anniversary on Tuesday and cloth diapering is going extremely well. I'll tell you all about it next time.