A Small Victory

Ape-Leg April

For all of you women who have had to suffer through Mustache March, I'm creating Ape-Leg April. One full month of letting the leg hair grow out and go wild. Maybe then, my husband will start to understand just how irritating it's been to look at his mustache all month.

"A Series of Unfortunate Events" (For my Mom)

It's a tradition in my family to take a picture of each girl at 4 months in an heirloom dress that has been passed on now for 4 generations. In this photo, each baby girl has the same facial expression and is in relatively the same pose. Now that The Chubs is 4 months old, the time has come to accomplish the impossible task; getting a shot of her in the same exact pose. And, an added challenge of making her not look absolutely ridiculous in a dress that is 3x too big for her.

First off, (so Grama Jingles doesn't get her hopes up) we were not successful. We came close, but not close enough. The next series of photos will sum up our photo shoot this afternoon.

Off to a good start (she's happy and hasn't spit up yet)

Starting to slouch a bit

This was the closest shot that we got, but her hair looks ridiculous and the smile isn't quite right.

Fascinated with the dress (A major point of distraction throughout the entire shoot)

And this is where it starts going downhill... literally

I would show the rest but most of them are a sad and annoyed baby that has had just about enough of being photographed. So Grama Jingles, we may just need your expertise for this one.

More on Terrible Tummy Time

The more I research about tummy time and making The Chubs comfortable on her belly, the more frustrating it gets. It seems as though I've tried almost everything, and alas, nothing works. The Senorita could not loathe it more.

I'm starting to wonder if her tiny little arms are not long enough to support her body yet. Because of the IUGR diagnosis when I was pregnant (Intrauterine Growth Restriction), her head grew normally but the rest of her body slowed in it's growth leaving her with tiny little appendages that were measured in the womb to be about 6 weeks behind. When I get her up from naps and she promptly stretches her little arms up in the air, they barely go above her head. Her finger tips are usually in line with the top of her head (or slightly above). See example:



Now try pushing yourself up if your arms were this short and small compared to your head.

Another thing that is irritating is the disclaimers that you should not put your child on their tummy right after they have eaten, or when they are cranky or fussy. This is problematic since The Chubs stays awake about 30-45 minutes tops after she finishes eating. There is a fine line between a full belly and a cranky child. If I wait too long, she's already borderline fussy and putting her on her stomach makes it worse. If I don't wait long enough she's uncomfortable from her last meal and spits up promptly when placed on her tummy. This advice is absolutely no help.

Yes, I've tried laying next to her and talking to her. Yes, I've tried putting toys on the floor to distract her. Yes, I've tried having her lay on me. Yes, I've tried putting her on my shins so she can look down at me. She's not buying any of these tricks. You can't fool her. My next step is going to be rolling a towel and placing it under her chest so she's not flat on the floor, however I highly doubt this will make a difference either, because even when she lays on my chest at a considerable incline, she still fusses. I'll keep you posted, and hopefully have a video so you can see the agony firsthand.

Shades ...

... she's got 'em

Note to self ...

Don't call your husband a drama queen, unless you're willing to face the consequences:

Our conversation went something like this:

Ellie: Can you be a little bit quieter, The Chubs is sleeping right above us.
Hubs: I wasn't talking that loud! (still talking loudly)
Ellie: You're just kind of loud person in general
Hubs: (speed walking toward door to the garage) I'm going to take a long drive and I don't know when I'll be back.... maybe 2 hours, maybe tomorrow!! (in dramatic voice)
Ellie: (Laughing, goes the computer and plays this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp7tlrolez4)
Hubs: (walking back and hiding behind kitchen entry, then slowly moves into the kitchen as he hears the song) Why are you playing that?
Ellie: I just like the song!
Hubs: Why are you REALLY playing that?
Ellie: You're kind of a drama queen sometimes
Hubs: (has something behind his back)

Enter whipped cream fight ...

And no, not THAT kind. It was completely innocent :)

Sunday Best

I love dressing up The Chub Muffin for church. Now that she's fitting into 0-3 month clothing, her wardrobe has increased to include some fun items. Namely, dresses complemented by frivolous hair accessories.


While she's looking quite stylish in her new digs, I however look more like a hobo (especially when I hover over the donuts in the hospitality area, shoving them down my throat like Homer Simpson). Throw in several days without a shower and spit stains down my shirt and pants and my look is complete. It's a good thing that when you have a baby people spend much more time focused on your little bundle than they do on you. At least someone in this family (looks like she) has it together...

The problem with always having to wear a bib, is that you end up in situations like this:

Phew...

I was so worried Chubadub would wake up howling like she did after her 2 month appointment but to my relief I have a happy baby this afternoon ...


... who is still holding a slight grudge



... but is fortunately too interested in her rings to think about it for too long

Hoping for more, but still happy

We just returned from the doc with a cranky little Chub Muffin who is now sleeping soundly in her crib after a very busy and chaotic day.

As you might have read earlier, today has been really off. She was cranky before we even got to the appointment, so you can only imagine how things turned out after she got her immunizations. She was fussing really hard even before they stuck her with the needle. It was not a good scenario.

I was really excited to see how much she weighed. I was thinking she would be over 10 lbs. since last time she weighed in at 8 lbs. 13oz (however, that was with her clothes on including a baby sweatshirt and pants + onesie & diaper). This time she was totally nakey. Since she was about 4 oz behind what she usually eats by this time of day, that didn't help either. Her weight was 9 lbs. 4.5oz. I was bummed. She probably gained a pound since the last weigh-in a month ago since her clothes probably were several ounces of extra weight, and had she eaten normally today she would've weighed in at 9 lbs. 8.5oz, but still the number bummed me out. She is now 21 1/2 inches long which is around what I expected. Don't get me wrong, I love having a tiny little baby that people still think is "brand new" (despite the fact she tracks everything she sees, giggles and smiles and is super interactive). I guess it's hard not to put the blame on myself for her not growing as fast as I think she should be. The doctor keeps telling us she'll catch up and find her own growth curve, however, she has yet to do that. She's still >3% for height and weight (but her head is 5%... I had to laugh at that one).

But on to the positive. She's looking great, very healthy and she scored above average on all aspects (especially social and fine motor skills). Her gross motor skills are only slightly behind which include having better head control and being able to push herself up for longer than 5 seconds without letting her head crash to the floor. I attribute this to her loathing for tummy time. I think once she starts liking that more, she'll make more progress. Right now all she can think about is how she can get out of it (rolling over would be a great solution but she's just not there yet). I talked to our pediatrician about swaddling as well, and he says it's fine to still swaddle until she's done with it and that it won't delay her development. That made me feel so much better! He also gave us the green light to introduce solids. I'm not sure we'll be jumping on that right away, but probably within the next month. We have some trips coming up and dealing with solids would just throw one extra thing in the mix to remember to bring and deal with while we are there.

So that's about it. I'm praying she'll take a good nap and not wake up howling like she did last time. Not fun, not fun at all.

One of those days ...

Every once in a while Senorita Chub Chubs has a very "off" day. Today is one of those days. It's pretty bad timing considering we have her 4 month check up this afternoon which includes her immunizations. Big bummer.

The Chubs is very schedule oriented, and I think this all began at Children's hospital when they had me on a strict 3 hour feeding routine. The Little Muffin got used to eating every 3 hours which naturally put her in schedule mode and made it easy for us to create a consistent routine. This has been great in some ways, but hard in others. Keeping her on a schedule has made her a very happy baby that is well rested and has a very predictable internal clock... most of the time. It's nice to know when she'll be eating, napping, going to bed and waking up etc, but it is also very limiting especially since she can't stay up more than an hour and 15 minutes before she turns into a pumpkin.

There are however, days (such as this one) where the schedule is just thrown out the window and for one reason or another The Chubs is in a funk. This morning she woke early (about an hour before her ideal wake up time), but then didn't eat nearly as much as she usually does. She seemed overly distracted with her surroundings. There were many head jerks in the direction of the ceiling fan, then more side glances and head turns toward the quilt on the rocker. Add in a dozen smiles and intense thought-provoking stares and you have a recipe for a bad eater.

I put her down for her nap as usual since she was getting fussy and was clearly tired. She whined for a couple minutes (like she usually does) and then passed out (like she usually does). 15 minutes later... not even the usual 45 minute sleep transition disruption, but 15 flippin' minutes later she's wide awake again and then proceeds to fuss for 45 minutes. I let her go this long because she almost always falls back asleep again, but this time she didn't. So I went up to feed her, and it turns out her fussing was more of a social call. She smiled at me brightly as I entered the room. I picked her up (more big smiles) and then tried to feed her again thinking that because of her poor eating this morning, she would be hungry again. NOPE! She continued to smile, look around, suck half-heartedly and shoot a load in her diaper (a pretty large one, I might add).

We're about to head to the doctor in 30 minutes with a tired baby that is just too interested in the world around her to get some shut-eye or eat a decent meal.

Over-tired child + Poor Eater + Immunizations (will surely) = A very long day for mom.

Shameless Plug

As many of my readers know (since most of my readers are family), I have my own modern wedding invitation business that I've been running for a little over a year. I love this because it's so much fun to share in the happiness of weddings. It takes me back to the excitement of our engagement/wedding. Up until November 18, 2009 it was the happiest day of my life. Now that I have been granted another amazing gift (The Chubs), I thought it would be fun to start making some baby announcements on the side. Yesterday I took the plunge and created my own Etsy account: pinkpoppypress.etsy.com. I only have a few designed right now but I plan on adding more to it as time goes on (whenever The Chubs takes a decent nap).

I know, like I didn't have enough to do already right? I'm also in the process of teaming up with a good friend and neighbor to create custom baby bedding. I will be designing the fabric and she'll be sewing it. Right now I'm enjoying the opportunity to dabble in various artistic outlets, however as soon as the Chubber Muffin starts having more wake time, I know I'll need to back off.

And for all my family members that mainly just read this blog to see pictures of the little muffin, here you go:
We call this the modified baby straight jacket. This is how we keep The Chub's arms down so they don't distract her on hot days when her room is a sauna.

Happy 4 Months Chub Muffin!

Today The Chubs is 4 months old. My how time flies! I can't believe how much she's changed since we first brought her home from the hospital. She barely fit in her carseat, was wearing preemie size clothing (that was still too big on her), was having trouble eating (needing to learn the suck, swallow, breath coordination), was on oxygen, was eating every 3 hours round the clock and only taking about an ounce to ounce and a half each feeding, and was only about 17 1/4" long and 4 lbs 10oz. I was in a haze of sleep deprivation from never getting more than 1 1/2-2 hours of sleep in a row.

Now at 4 months Senorita Chub Chubs:

• Eats about 24-27 oz a day of expressed breastmilk
• Eats 6 times a day and anywhere between 3 and 7oz at each feeding
  
• Weighs over 9 lbs but probably closer to 10 (won't know an accurate number until our appointment next week)
• Is more than 21" long (can't get an accurate measurement with her squirming)
• Still sleeps from 7pm-7am with one feeding at 10pm
• Wears size 1-2 diapers
• Smiles and giggles especially when we make weird faces at her or swing her around
• Takes 3 scheduled naps a day that are anywhere from 1 - 2 1/2 hours long
• Can't stay awake more than an hour and fifteen minutes before getting cranky and tired again
• Has better neck/head control but still headbutts on a regular basis
• Finally fits into our front jeep carrier (similar to a baby bjorn) and loves looking around and seeing everything
• Looks for people in a room and smiles or stares if she sees someone she recognizes
• Grabs for things and loves looking at her hands. They are pretty much the coolest thing ever!
• Isn't a huge fan of her paci anymore, however she'll still take it if she's tired and in the right "mood" for it
• Still loves her swing and watching the fish go by on the mobile
• Loves to look at fans, even if they aren't moving. She regularly stares at our ceiling fans during feedings and sometimes gets so distracted she stops sucking entirely and smiles
  
• Still poops several times a day
• Hates, hates, HATES tummy time, no matter what you do to try to make it better. She'll cry frantically until you pick her up and everytime she pushes herself up she cries more because it's soooo hard!
• Likes sitting in the Bumbo, but regularly spits up when she's in it.
• Exclusively sleeps in her crib for the most part. Will take cat naps in her carseat if we're out during nap time
• Does a "huuwawawawawawa" cry when she's tired
• Is still being swaddled for nap times and night time
• Is just starting to fit into 0-3 month clothing
  
• Knows 7 different foreign languages and speaks them fluently

We've come a long way, baby.

Bumbo Attitude

And this time it really IS a Bumbo. We borrowed one from our friends because the Prince Lionheart was too large for The Chubs.

The Chubadub Stare (almost as intense as the Care Bear variety)

The Angelic "I'll never do anything to stress you out when I'm 16" Look

And finally:

The "Step OFF mother! Enough with the pictures" Look

"Where everybody knows your...(boobs)"

When we were at Children's Hospital after The Chubs was born, I felt like my boobs were on display for everyone to see at ALL times. Between attempts to breastfeed and pumping, I rarely had a shirt on. It's embarrassing but also amusing at the same time when you go down to the Cafeteria and frequently run into people who have seen your boobs. "Oh, there's the neurologist whose seen my boobs", "Oh there's the dermatologist. Yep, also seen my boobs", "Oh and there's that random Asian dude that popped his head over our divider (3 times, no less) while I was pumping to grab the nurse."

As I've stated before, I'm a pretty modest person so this definitely stretched me beyond my comfort level, however by the end of our stay there I probably could've walked the entire hospital topless and not noticed. Once we got home though, I fell back into modest mode.

While we were at Children's we became very close with a nurse there. She signed up to become our primary nurse and was absolutely wonderful. I love her to death. Today I met her for lunch. She wanted to catch up and see The Chubs now that she is almost 4 months old. Prior to our meeting I realized that she has seen my boobs far more than any of my girlfriends. This was a little awkward for me. I felt like I needed to preface our lunch date with "Don't worry, I'll have a shirt on!!!" but I have a feeling that would make things even more weird.

Midway through our lunch I was feeling good, thinking to myself how silly it was that I would even think she'd remember my boobs at all. She's a medical professional for heavens sake! She sees this type of thing all the time. And then she made this comment: "I went to shop for nursing bras the other day and thought of you.." (well, that's sweet...) (Oh, and she's pregnant right now by the way...) "I remember you telling me that you went up (x amount of) cup sizes during pregnancy/after birth." (... where is this leading?) "I don't think I've ever met such a little person with such big boobs."

Ok, worst fear realized. She DOES remember. But at least she's not the Simon Cowell of boobs ("Those things are absolutely hideous.") In which case I would have to run away crying and hugging my chest to avoid whiplash in the eye.

Concerning?

Many people say you should be able to take care of a plant before you have a baby. This is to give you a responsibility lesson, because a plant requires so much less effort and maintenance than a child does. You water a plant maybe once or twice a day, and then just let it sit there.


Does the image above concern you? Does it concern you that my plant is dead, but I am also taking care of this:


A child that is growing like a weed and needs to be watered about 6 times a day. Don't worry though, judging from the above expression I must be doing a terrific job.

Digestive Dancing

Meal time around here is a time to (obviously) get nourishment, but also to practice our dance moves and take a really great poop.

The Chubs has a ritual when eating. It is very sacred and she probably doesn't want me to even be sharing this on the internet, but it's important to document this ritual while it is still in place.

Her eating routine goes something like this:

I get her up from her nap and take her downstairs. She is all smiles until we round the corner of the stairs, then the eager anticipation comes with a bit of crying and lip smacking because rounding that corner reminds her what is to come and that she has to have it RIGHT NOW!!

Insert bottle into mouth and frantic sucking begins with some eye rolls into the back of the head because "oh, this is sooooo good!". About 2oz into her feeding, her dancing begins. First a pause, then a very long drawn out grunt followed by a beet red face and some martial art movements with her arms. At this point we usually hear a "pooot pooot poooooooot poot poot poot poot" from her behind that ends with a half sigh/ half grunt of relief. Then the sucking begins again and depending on the load she has that morning, many more arm movements, grunts and noises from down under may continue throughout the rest of the feeding.

This is what we call her digestive dance.

A disturbing thought

I'm a stalker of BabyCenter.com. Not only do I get weekly updates on my child's development but I also found some wonderful lifelong friends on there during our struggle with infertility. I couldn't have gotten through my IF journey without them.

However, sometimes there are some very interesting posts and topics that I come across. Kind of like a car wreck. It's a mess but you can't stop looking. Today I came across this post.

To summarize (in case you're too lazy to click on it, and believe me, I understand if you are) a community member was wanting to know if it was ok if her husband tasted her breast milk. This question in itself is not THAT strange I suppose. I would be lying if I myself had not pondered this question before, or had even a touch of curiosity about what it tasted like. HOWEVER! However!!! the comments made below the question disturb me greatly. There is a difference between tasting it just out of curiosity and making it a habit or the milk that you use on your corn flakes each morning.

Let me highlight a few choice comments:

"I think that if he wants to and you are comfy with it... go ahead... its natural"

Not sure about that one. Yes breast milk is natural, but is it "natural" to have your husband drink it? Probably not.

"I let my husband try one night when I was too full and baby was asleep. We both enjoyed it and have continued."

That's what breast pumps are for.

"What a beautiful, intimate thing to share with someone you love and hope to live a long and healthy life with. "

I'm not sure I would necessarily call this beautiful and intimate. More like creepy and wrong, but to each his own.

"I personaly dont find anything wrong with this, my husband has been drinking my milk off and on for almost 6 years now"

Now THAT is weird beyond words (and she could use some spelling and punctuation lessons).

But I digress. As one poster politely stated:

"What you do in the PRIVACY of you OWN home is YOUR BUSINESS!"

I couldn't agree more. So let's all keep our creepy fetishes to ourselves... sound good?

The Milk Trance

I'm going to miss this. I'm really going to miss this. Senorita Chub Chubs is the cutest when she's milk drunk. Her facial muscles start twitching and her eyes roll back into her head. It looks like she's smiling out of pure intoxication. When she does this, we refer to it as Trance Mode. She's doing it less and less as she gets older and as I look back on videos and pictures of her from just a few months ago getting all "Trancey" on us, it makes me sad to think one day she won't be doing this at all anymore. Here are some examples:

The Chubs at one month:



The Chubs at two months:



I'm excited that my baby girl is growing up, but I'm going to miss this SO much.

Out of Control

Up until this point, I have been swaddling Senorita Chub Chubs for both night time and nap time. Lately I have been worried that swaddling her so much, since she sleeps so much during the day, may be delaying her development. I don't have any proof of this and it's not like she isn't already growing like a normal baby, but we all know how much I enjoy worrying. And when we purchased our miracle blanket (which I love, by the way) it mentioned not swaddling her for more than 10 hours a day. Considering she sleeps about 19 hours a day, I figured we should probably start to try to transition her out of the swaddle for nap times. Once we can get that down, we can eventually stop swaddling her at night.

We originally purchased the Miracle Blanket for several reasons. One being this:


She also was starting to break her arms free on a regular basis and that in itself would wake her up. We'd look at the video monitor at night and there would just be a giant hand in the camera waving around. One day during a nap she got her arms free and I just saw her waving them around with a huge smile on her face. I could almost here her singing "Freedom" by George Michael.

As I type this, I am experimenting with her afternoon nap to see how this will actually play out. The problem is that she still is mesmerized by her arms and hands. She moves them around and watches them fly all over the place without really having much control of where they're going. She'll be drifting off to sleep but then catch a glimpse of her arm flying through the air and all of a sudden she's thinking "Oh wow, what is that cool thing that just flew past me? Look out, it's headed straight toward my eye!"And then it's all over. She startles herself awake again and then the process starts all over again. Lately she's found her hair and her ear, both of which she likes to pull on and then make herself cry because, "Ouch, that hurts! Who the heck is doing that to me?"

So far this nap is not going well. She's extremely tired and keeps almost falling asleep and then waking herself up again. And then she flails her arms around like a crazy person and starts crying because she feels (and looks) so out of control. Another thing she does is look straight at the camera several times like she's trying to say "HELLO! I'm not sleeping in here, come and get me up already! You guys are so lame."

If anyone has any advice for me on how to transition this little Chub Muffin, I welcome it with open, flailing, chubby baby arms.

Hidden Treasures

Have you ever seen one of those shows about those really really "obese" people? You know the ones that eat 33,000 calories a day and need a fork lift to move them from point A to point B? Well, The Chubs can relate to these people.

I saw an episode awhile ago where this really large woman actually got food stuck in her fat rolls and it would start to decay without her knowing it. Then there would be this foul stench that she didn't know where exactly it was coming from (other than the fact that she probably hadn't fit into a shower in years).

The Chubs has many chins and many neck rolls that like to hide chunks of spit and milk. I try to clean these areas as best as I can but sometimes they are difficult to find. However if you smell closely you can get a whiff of turning milk. When I find a problematic fat roll that is harvesting a chunk of curdled milk, The Chubs fights me. She absolutely HATES it. I imagine that's how the 600 lb. woman feels when someone tries to peel a bagel bite out of one of her belly rolls. Violated, and jipped.

Things we did in Arizona

1) Took the Chub Muffin to my husband's favorite Mexican Restaurant

(The Chubs: "Hola!")

2) Ate at In-N-Out twice
3) Went out on a date while Grama and Grampa watched the Senorita

(I made this picture black and white so I didn't look quite as blinding white next to my super tan and sexy hubs.)

4) Laid out in the sun in the beautiful 70 degree weather
5) Napped when time permitted
6) Had a delicious Lemon Meringue and Apple Pie that both Grama and Grampa made
7) Put the Chubs in her adorable heart sun dress for church, even though Sunday was the only day it rained and was cold.
8) Went shopping with my MIL while The Hubs watched The Chubs.
9) Had a delicious Thanksgiving-y meal (my favorite!)

Yes I realize that most of the things we did involved eating. Now that I'm not puking everyday and am burning 800+ calories a day pumping I am letting myself go wild! Or at least letting myself go ...

"Sorry. You just seem like, you know, kind of an indoor girl"

The title of this post is a quote from one of my all-time favorite movies: Titanic. Yes it's super cheesy and I'm not ashamed to admit it. It came out when I was in High School and had this silly little school girl crush on Leonardo DiCaprio. That died fairly quickly but I still love the movie to this day despite how terrible the ending is (totally didn't see that one coming!) and the sight of Kate Winslet laying buck naked on such a nice expensive sofa. I hope her bottom was clean.

In this scene, Kate's character Rose is trying to commit suicide by jumping off the back of the ship. Jack (Leonardo's character) is there just in time to try to rescue her and tries to distract her by making conversation. They get onto the topic of ice fishing (well Jack does) and he tries to explain to her what it is. She gets pretty ticked off that he would assume she doesn't already know what that is (even though she's wearing an extremely ornate gown and her hair (which has somehow withstood the moisture in the air and 60 mph winds) is neatly done up in perfect curls). Oh and her make-up looks ridiculously fresh consider the distress she's in.

This week we found out that The Chubs is (for now) more of an "indoor girl". We tried several times to take her outside to enjoy the warm weather. It was a little too bright for her taste. Her eyes were almost closed shut, and she squirmed and squirmed from being held. I also don't think she was digging the wind. So she spent the majority of the time in AZ doing this:

(smiling and laying on a spit rag)

For some reason in the last week or two she has become so interactive. We notice her looking around a lot more and finding people in a room, making eye contact with even strangers, and smiling SO much more. She's gone from mostly an observer to an active participant. Of course, this is all on her terms.

(oops, how did that one get in there?)

So far, we don't anticipate any Iron Mans for the Senorita, but Dad is hoping that some hiking, backpacking and skiing is in the future for our little princess and I hope so too since I also love those things. She has plenty of time to acquire a taste for the outdoors though, and until then she can watch movies, go shopping, eat bon bons and get her nails done with me.

Pump and Circumstance

We officially graduated to flying status with The Chubs. She handled both trips like a pro. In fact she was amazing. She was a quiet observer for most of the time, taking brief intermissions to nap until the flight attendant blared her shreiky voice over the intercom. The things I feared the most turned out to be no cause for concern at all including getting her off her nap schedule for one day, taking a small baby on the plane and getting "the look" from other travellers as they carefully avoid the seat next to us, major blowouts at 32,000 feet and a fussy inconsolable baby. All of these were a non-issue.

What WAS an issue however was finding a place to pump. I say again, this world is not friendly to exclusive pumpers. Especially the Phoenix Airport. If you recall I had my car adapter with me so I could pump in the car. Great plan right? I agree. Except this doesn't account for a sleeping baby next to me who then needed to eat along the way, and me trying to cram In-n-Out into my mouth like nobody's business so I could get lunch before our flight, and arriving at the airport only 40 minutes before our flight because we mixed up the time.

I figured I would be able to find a family restroom quickly before the flight took off but we arrived right as they were beginning to board and I had things to do like get a cup of warm water to heat her next bottle, and rinse out the one we used on the way to the airport to feed her. Security was no picnic either. Using at least 10 tubs, and pulling out stored breastmilk and butt cream so they could "inspect" it with their fancy little swatches to make sure I didn't want to blow up the plane with my tiny 3 month old on it took a good solid 10 minutes of the 40 total we had since we had arrived. They also needed to "inspect" my pump. There is no shame in motherhood.

At the ticketing counter they also like to see a birth certificate of the lap child that's traveling with you to make sure they are under 2.


Maybe The Chubs looks wise beyond her years (either that or the hair threw them off) but she still wears newborn clothing. I guess they can't even profile babies anymore. She could be the world's tiniest toddler midget muffin, so I suppose they need to account for that to avoid a lawsuit.

So there I was boarding the plane, knowing that I needed to try to figure something out. I assumed there were no options on board so I would just have to wait until we got to DIA. Then after loading the majority of the plane, another attendant informed us over the loud speaker that something was broken on the aircraft and we would be delayed an hour. The Chubs miraculously slept through this announcement but I knew this was my opportunity to try to get somewhere to pump even though I hated the thought of waking her, knowing she would be missing two naps that day.

Feeling optimistic, I slowly passed off the Senorita to my husband (she didn't successfully make the transfer unfortunately (No, we didn't DROP her, I mean she woke up)), grabbed my pump and exited the aircraft. I was on a mission to find a family bathroom. First exit I forgot the plug in adapter (I only had the car one) so I had to go back on the plane again. Second, I forgot my "cover". Third time I came to find out they only have 1 family restroom in the entire airport and it was too far away for me to try to make it there and back in time. I talked to another female attendant about my situation and we finally concluded the only option was for me to use the public restroom because they have "outlets next to each sink". Oh what fun that would be. Occupying a sink in a fairly busy bathroom to pump in front of everyone was not my idea of a solution. I know if I was "really desperate" (which I was) I should've considered this option, but even though I mentioned there is no shame in motherhood, that was just a general statement that does not apply to electronically pumping your boobs in front of hundreds of strangers. Oh the looks! Oh the laughs! Oh the humility!

I entered the plane for the fourth and final time (they must have thought I was a terrorist lugging my "secretive" equipment off and on the plane over and over again) and resolved to attempt breastfeeding the Chub Muffin. This would kill two birds with one stone considering that her milk was still an uncomfortably cool temperature since we hadn't had time to refill the cup with warm water a second time and the water really doesn't get all that warm in those bathroom in the first place.

So you know how I said The Chubs didn't fuss at all? Well I lied. The only time she fussed was with my pathetic attempt to breast feed her. You would think I had chinese water tortured her (either that or made her watch a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie). I decided after about 45 seconds that this wasn't a good idea and wasn't working at ALL so that mission was aborted. In the end the repair only took about 35 minutes and we landed about the time I thought we were originally going to land and God bless DIA, they had a family bathroom waiting for us right in the terminal about 200 feet from our gate. It had an outlet, and a changing table so I was a happy girl and so was my daughter who had pooped twice on the flight.

Next time I will be much more prepared and bring a manual pump in case I'm in a pinch. They look weird and I don't really know how to use one but I'll figure it out before we travel next.

I have much more to tell about our trip but I figured I'd break it up into different posts so that not everyone has to read through the details about my boobs. I'm sensitive like that.