Tatas

June 19, 2012

Tatas…mourning the beginning of the end of my breastfeeding journey (I think).

So when I found out I was pregnant, I was like “I am going to try and be a good parent (props for an obvious goal there?) and raise a healthy child to the best of my means and ability”.

Then….I started reading, and obsessing, and I got into the slow period of work last summer (when everyone left me the F alone and I actually had a relaxing summer) and I was like “I am totally breastfeeding, at least until 6 months!”   I had always planned to try and breastfeed, but the more I read, the more I wanted to try and sustain this goal. The ‘at least 6 months’ part meant I would have to pump at work (since I only had the first 3 months at home). Luckily my BFF had purchased the mac daddy of the breast pumps and then was not able to breastfeed for more than 6 weeks, so she told me I was welcome to use it (score!). (BTW I do NOT need any input on the use of a breast pump by more than one user…got it, I read the disclaimer)

So listen, I KNOW that breastfeeding is hard for many, impossible for some, and I applaud all who try it.  Don’t hate, but overall it was easy for me.  Looking back there are some mistakes I made (not building a freezer stash when I had oversupply is now a big one I am kicking myself in the ass for), but overall the major hurdles we took in stride.  P had a good latch from the start; I only had a clogged duct once and while painful for 24 hours, it went away rather uneventfully; pumping sucks (no pun intended) but I am making it work…..until the last two weeks.

P is right at 10 ½ months old and has only had breast milk (and a little goats milk in his cereal), so I know I more than exceeded my 6 month goal…but my 6 month goal quickly became a 12 month goal, which has become “I’ll wean when he is ready to wean” goal. But the last few weeks my supply has just been tanking.  It is making me depressed and in turn that depression is making my supply worse.  The BIG question that I cannot quite figure out is WHY??  I am sad to admit that I truly believe this bull $h!t being babysat at HR work schedule is mostly to blame.

This is not just me bellyaching (it is mostly me truly aching). I truly think this is the reason for the downfall of my ’12 months on only breast milk’ goal.  My body was on a sweet routine for a while. I was waking up with P and nursing, going to work, pumping a decent amount to get him through the middle of the next day and then storing what was left over on Fridays.  I was even pumping enough extra in the evenings on the weekends to almost be set for Mondays.  No more.

I am tired all. the. time. Now that I get up too early to see P in the morning, I have to pump super early.  Also I am pumping in someone’s office at work and I can’t get on the computer in that room and I can’t get my mind to just shut off and relax. So for the last week I have been getting ONE session where I actually get a decent amount (decent now = 4oz…that used to be a sucky amountL) and if I am running late in the morning or I am just particularly unhappy to be awake, I have been struggling in the mornings as well (plus throw in some random middle of the night wake ups by P and I am toast).

As of Monday my freezer supply is gone. This made me cry.  Writing this post makes me cry.  Using the formula samples in my pantry that have been mocking me the past few weeks when I realized I was not keeping up….makes me cry.

I am completely aware that in the big picture, this is far from being a tragedy.  P can still nurse, we just have to supplement until 12 months when we can start incorporating cow’s milk.  Also, the success I have had to this point is an accomplishment, especially with pumping and working.  It does not change that I feel like my body is letting me down and that I was not prepared to NOT do this on P’s terms, not because I couldn’t keep up.  It also does not change the (possibly irrational) anger I feel towards my job right now.  That is a whole other post for another day, but getting up at 5:30am to sit at a completely unfulfilling job until 4pm and not get home to see P until 5pm is starting to wear thin, fast.  Anxiety and almost tears three times a day when I am again disappointed by a pathetic pumping session definitely does not help.

I am done. This too shall pass. Vacation is in two weeks.

Jury Duty

June 4, 2012

Jury Duty

SO on the way to the airport with my mom and P to go to Indianapolis the other week, J (husband) hands me a piece of mail and says ‘Oh yeah, I almost threw this away, I’m so sorry’.  It was a jury summons for 8am on Monday morning, the day after I returned home.

Now, I have to be honest, aside from the timing being a little rushed; I was sort of excited about my jury summons.  I have never been called for jury duty and I was curious about the process and to see why everyone dreaded it so much. Plus, work is SO slow right now, so it was at least something interesting to occupy my time for a day or two. My only major concern was how I was going to pump (I am still breastfeeding), but I had some milk in the freezer, so it was not the end of the world.

Monday was a cattle call for all intents and purposes. I wish I had brought a book because it was so very boring.  We checked in and sat in an auditorium where eventually we were separated into ‘pools’ and shown a video on how great jury service was and that our civic duty was part of our freedoms as Americans (blah, blah, blah…..not that I disagree, but it was just so corny).  When we took a break, one of the people organizing this step of the process was able to provide a private area for me to pump, score!

After many unnecessary breaks and explanations, my group was brought to the floor of the courtroom where we would be evaluated for a potential case.  This case was to run for one day, the next day, and was a criminal case between the state and a young man charged with driving with no license and providing a counterfeit license.  Pretty straight up, right?  I was thinking that there had to be some interesting ‘L&O’ twist that would possess this guy to plead not guilty AND for his attorney to be like ‘Sure, we’ll fight this, no prob!’

I could write a dissertation on all the things that surprised me and made me shake my head.  The waiting was not surprising, and in fact, was probably about as efficient as it COULD be done, it just sucked.  The seriousness with which people expressed their flimsy get-out-of-jury-duty excuses was entertaining.  Many times I was like ‘Really, REALLY? You’re going to run with that one as your reason you can’t be partial?’

I, of course, was selected to be a juror.  At first I was a little bummed, until I realized that I was free to eat lunch and go home and the poor bastards that came up with lame excuses to get out of being selected had to come back in the afternoon to see if they were eligible to be selected for a different case.  Plus, like I said before, part of me was more curious than displeased (aside from all the waiting).

Tuesday morning things were totally official (I felt like a dork wearing my ‘Juror #567890’ sticker on my shirt, but whatev).  Still lots of waiting, but now we got to hear all the juicy details about the Spanish kid and the fake ID (that he plead not guilty to).

So here’s the Cliff’s Notes version:

-          Kid (we’ll call him a kid, he was like, 22) gets pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt.  (**The defense acts like she is going to challenge the original encounter with the cop, but fizzles and goes nowhere with it…it was frustrating and confusing**).  The kid does not produce an ID right away and he gives the cop a different name than the cop gets when he runs the plates on the car.

-          When the arresting officer questions the kid’s identity, the kid then pulls out an ID from Honduras to prove he is who he says he is.

-          The cop questions the validity of this ID and scans the ID for confirmation from another cop (who specializes in counterfeit IDs) and with confirmation it is in fact fake and arrests the kid.

So, seriously, that is it. No $h!t.

Some background info:

-          The state’s attorney provides us with the actual license to look at, a blown up version of the ID (**but NO picture of a valid Honduras DL**), the testimony from the arresting officer, the testimony from the officer that confirmed the ID was invalid, and a school official that stated that the kid was in school the date the DL was supposedly issued IN HONDURAS (**However, the school official did not actually work at the school on this date, she just printed out the attendance records…..BUT the defense never questioned whether the attendance record and her client were one in the same person, so we assume that record is legit**)

-          The defense questions the arresting officer and when she has her client testify (**big mistake**) she asks him questions that point out some discrepancies in the story of the arrest, but she never straight out says that she is trying to get the arrest itself thrown out, we are never directed to consider that, so it all mostly seems in vain.

-          It is almost painfully obvious this ID is fake. What possessed this kid to present it as real is beyond me.  I know we don’t all have common law knowledge at our fingertips and in a panic people do stupid things. However, if he just did not present an ID at all, it would have been a misdemeanor charge of driving with no license.  Slap on the wrist, learn English, try to become a citizen and stop wasting tax payer money.  Instead, the kid not only produces a terrible fake ID, HE TESTIFIES in court the outrageous story of how his uncle got it for him, how he used a PEN on his thumb to apply the thumbprint on the back, USED CORRECTION FLUID to fix it, and signed his own name to it AFTER it was brought to the US for him.  HIS attorney was asking the questions, it was a disaster.

-          SO….the closing arguments consisted of the state basically saying use your brain and the defense trying to argue that the kid genuinely thought the ID was real (**she had all but given up on the lesser charge at this point**)

So, we deliberated for maybe 15-20 minutes.  I was selected the foreman, and we agreed the kid was guilty (no duh).  I can see you are as impressed as I was (mostly that I was selected to be foreman, woo hoo!).

 

Fly Over States

May 24, 2012

Fly Over States

So in my last post I mentioned my impending trip to Indiana for my cousin’s wedding.  I have been home since Monday, but I am just now getting my wits about me and emerging from the tunnel that was flightàfamilyàflightàhomeàjury dutyàwork catch up.

For the flight TO Indiana, I was prepared for anything: crying baby, restless baby, meltdowns, etc.  I had stuffed as much toys, food, books, snacks as I could into the diaper bag to take on the plane.  So what happened?  P nursed right after take-off and slept the ENTIRE flight.  Aside from my leg falling asleep because I dare not move, it was perfect.  However, my mom and I were just a little bored; we brought nothing to entertain ourselves because we were prepared to entertain P the whole time.

For the flight HOME:  We were now prepared for a sleeping baby, we even brought books to read (we should have known better).  It was sort of close to afternoon nap time, P needed to nurse and he had an action-packed week, surely he was ready to sleep in the great white-noise tunnel in the sky again, right? WRONG.  He must have caught wind of the fact that he missed an entire ‘vacation event’ the first time around and he was not missing it this time.  Thankfully he was happy for the most part, but he was all over the place.  He wanted to play and climb and flirt with people and eat puffs and nurse, but not sleep.  It was draining for my mom and me, but again, he was happy, so overall travelling with the baby was a success.

Our stay in Indiana was awesome.  Yes, Indiana...corn fields, small towns, flat land, and endless back roads…was awesome.  We saw family and introduced P to relatives I haven’t seen in years.  It was so nice to go ‘home’ (Indiana is more my parent’s home than mine, I am an Ohio/Illinois child, but the Midwest feel is the same, plus we spent a lot of time and miles between those three states when I was a kid) and have people that just know you and love you welcome you into their homes and make you feel special for a few days. P thought he was a celebaby…the world was his oyster and he was all over it.

Over the last two decades I have maybe become too anti-Florida, and I know that there are people who plan their whole lives to come here and retire or even come here and work and build businesses.  It just isn’t my cup of American tea.  I could take or leave the beach, it’s pretty, but it is also sandy and sweaty and salty and hot.  Plus, I have never lived near the beach; I have always lived in the middle. I loved Gainesville when I went to college, but mostly because it was a cool college town, not because it offered anything particularly special geographically or seasonally.  I am a mountain, river, cabin type of person; it is where I find peace.

So not that Indiana has mountains, but we stayed at my uncle’s cabin on a lake.  It was down endless winding roads and the first night there offered cool enough weather to have a fire.  I was in heaven.  The air felt fresh and crisp and even the hot sun on my cousin’s wedding day felt better than the Florida sun somehow…see, I told you I have ‘the grass is greener’ syndrome!

Bipolar Oranges

I work in the citrus industry…not doing research (we’ll get to that later). For 4 to 5 months out of the year (right around the holidays) your brain is toast, you are so busy that each morning you prioritize your to-do list into:
1.Must be Done NOW
2.Must be Done Today
3.The World Won’t End if This Isn’t Done Today and
4.Can Probably Be Done Tomorrow…and each evening you re-evaluate your list to see where you are a failure and how much you will want to kick your own ass in the morning for not finishing something important, but you must, MUST go home and rest your brain and see your husband and your baby and eat real food.
However, you are rewarded for enduring this, during an already busy and stressful time of year (did I mention that Florida Citrus and Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year’s all run together, like a sadistic gang?) by having a long and glorious spring/summer of down time. Sure you crunch numbers and make plans and changes for next season, but that stuff is child’s play, a well-trained monkey could do it.

My direct boss is a really great friend from college (who is also a guy, and we’ve always been just friends, resist the urge to call BS on me, it’s true) and his philosophy on the whole thing is that as long as the work that needs to be done in the off-season gets done, he doesn’t care about office hours or filling out HR forms to account for every move you make, just get your job done when it needs to be done and enjoy the quiet time. He thinks this creates a workplace where you WANT to give it your all during season because you have that pot of gold end of the rainbow thing to look forward to. He kicks ass. This is a big part of why I am working with him and NOT in a lab.

Unfortunately, he is not ultimately responsible for cutting my paychecks. Between him and my paycheck is an HR department and gossipy office hens (and gossipy office roosters for that matter).

Because of the seasonal nature of this industry, the majority of the hourly employees are laid off in the summer and come back in the fall. A handful of staff are on salary and work all year. I am on salary; it was one of my conditions of taking the job. Also on salary are some sales guys, HR staff, IT, and upper management. A few of these people live close (not me, I drive an hour each way, whatev) and apparently have no desire to be at home…they arrive early, leave late, and can’t POSSIBLY have that much work to do in the off season, they just prefer to be at work than at home. They can suck it.

I know that you know where I am going with this…this is NOT me. I have a husband that I actually like spending time with and a 9 month old that is pretty awesome. I also have a house that always needs to be cleaned, doggies, a horse and 50 other things I would rather be doing during my slow time at work than sitting in my office, surfing the internet (that IT has basically on lockdown, so it’s not like I can look at anything entertaining) and listening to country music (the only radio station that will tune in…since I can’t listen to internet radio, FU IT). Again, D, my boss could give two $hiots, he’s all like ‘Make sure the accounting spreadsheet is done and play hooky on Friday’ and I’m all like ‘Cool beans, it’s finished, have a great weekend, peace out’.

Until yesterday. Yesterday he calls and he’s more like ‘You won’t like this’ and I’m like ‘Lay it on me’. Apparently someone who likes to come to work for too many hours and surf the internet and listen to country music got a burr up their ass about the lack of structure in my schedule. They complained/gossiped enough that the CEO of the company (seriously people?) called D and said ‘Look, we love S, she is a hard worker and we could give two $hiots what her schedule is, but she is on salary and some people are complaining/gossiping about her coming and going when she pleases’. It should be noted here that D is NEVER in the office during the offseason, but he’s the head of our department and makes the company a nice chuck of change so they can shove it (plus he has ME to be the patsy who drives in each day to say ‘see, our department works all year too, bite us’).

So at least for the immediate time being I have to play nice and arrive somewhat on time and not slink out ridiculously early….and fill out the HR forms for days where I just don’t want to come in at all. It’s all good though, this is part of the reason I started this blog…that’s funny, you don’t actually think I can access my blog from work do you, remember IT lock down? I write on WORD (to yo motha) and email it myself to post at night (lame-o). This will also give me plenty of time to marinate in self-evaluation of my life and peek around the scientific job market (these can be dangerous things, I tend to get dark and gloomy when I ponder my non-scientific career path for too long…especially this time of the month…ew, not that, it’s when my student loan payment hits my bank account). I can also research to death parenting methods and child development and baby food making recipes and toys and preschools and the endless amount of online resources that basically make you feel like a failure as a parent (until IT decides that parenting websites should be on lockdown as well).

I know, I know, I KNOW…be happy I have a secure job in today’s economy, collect my paycheck and stop bitching, got it. Tomorrow I’ll be getting scanned by TSA, I’ll have stories from the Midwest when I return. Oh yeah, and my pony is being looked at today, pray to the pony selling gods…NOW!

Leaving on a Jetplane

My Impending ‘Air Travel with Baby’ Experience:

Yep, in two short days I am going to be that person with the baby on the airplane. Awesome. I am hoping that since we are going to Indianapolis, on a Wednesday, in the middle of May, that maybe just maybe we won’t have a full flight and I can be the pariah in the back (by the toilets, of course) with my mom trying to help me entertain a 9 month old who has recently discovered crawling and climbing (and thinks that both are far superior to sitting still).

It is Monday, I am working today and tomorrow, and when I get home it is all P all the time until he goes to bed around 8pm. I have not packed for me or for P yet, I am thinking this should start tonight. In an effort to be cheap (my budget is stretched so thin this month you can see through it), I decided to travel with P’s cloth diapers and not buy disposables. While this is totally do-able (we are staying with family who has already said I could use their washer and dryer) it does take a little bit of extra planning. Mostly I just have to juggle getting the diapers and all the clothes I want to bring clean, dried and packed by Tuesday night. Easy peasy right? Sure, if I wasn’t currently sitting in my favorite jeans and a shirt I want to bring with (mental note: wear ugly clothes to work tomorrow). I also need to put some serious thought into the most important packing task at hand: what to put in the diaper bag that I will carry on the plane. I have to walk that fine line between sacrificing bag space for something P might find amusing and potentially leaving out that one key item that could have saved us all tears and frustration. Throw in the ‘what will TSA seize at the security check, because my blonde baby looks like a potential terrorist’ factor and let the fun begin.

Wish me luck, and my apologies ahead of time to anyone travelling from Tampa to Indianapolis on Wednesday.

An Introduction, of sorts:

I am starting a blog.

This is not my personality, but I have this itch to start one and I think (probably incorrectly) that I have some stuff to say, so I have decided to give it a shot.

It should be noted that throughout my life I have attempted to write journals (pen and paper old school stuff). Each time I have a genuine motivation to keep up with it and learn something about myself by doing it. Each time, regardless of my age or life experience, I keep up with it briefly, but it fizzles to nothingness without any closure. When I run across any of my journaling attempts from the past I am always frustrated with the lack of detail and follow through….so I am preparing you, this may come to the same end.

I notice, through reading other people’s blogs online that many start blogs with the beginning of a life event: starting college, planning a wedding, getting pregnant, etc. I am past all that exciting, juicy stuff, so again, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I finished college years ago, I am married, and I have a 9 month old baby. My husband and I are contemplating a second baby, but I am not pregnant right now.

I have some talking points, but to say they are random and scattered would be an understatement. Mostly I will probably ramble on about parenting, but I will sprinkle in some non-child-rearing topics (promise). I work in an office of a citrus gift company, it is not terribly interesting, but at times can be fodder for some ridiculous stories. I get contemplative about my life path and not utilizing my college degree…you will just have to suffer through those posts. I can’t cook, but I love food, who knows if that will spark anything worth musing about. I love horses and I am still peripherally involved in them, I have been desperately trying to sell a pony I bred in college, maybe if I can get a few more people to pray to the pony gods for me, he will finally find his new home and I can stop stressing about it! My husband is building his own small business, and he and his business partner could easily have their own reality TV show (if he liked writing, he would be the successful blog writer in this family) they are funny and just dramatic enough to keep people interested (I am the non-social half of our marriage…I exude an 'eff off I don’t like other people' quality which has softened a little bit now that I have a child, people can’t help talking to you when you have a child, hopefully P gets his daddy’s social skills). I have spent my entire life to this point feeling young and like I had all the time in world to accomplish my goals. In just the last few years, there has been a switch that has flipped for me, I now feel very behind…like I have waited too long to build a career, I should have had kids sooner if I wanted more than one, I wasted too much money in college and instead of a financial nest egg building, I am just maintaining to get out of debt (those will be some exciting posts, I’m sure!).

So welcome (if anyone other than me and the few friends and family I tell about this are reading). I hope for all of our sakes that I hit a stride with this and write stuff worth reading!