Life right now.

Ok.

Sooooo.

Life is going ok.  I am really letting the Pookah have solids now.  We’ve gone through all the fruits and are working on getting through vegetables.  When I started at 4 months, he really wasn’t interested, and I didn’t push it.  I tried again and now, he eats whatever I put before him.  So we are on one meal a day right now.  It’s working. 

But I’ve realized, and so has C-Dub that soon, the Pookah will have to go to day care.

I checked out one today.  My cousin who lives here takes her kids there.  Now, I realize that beggars can’t be choosers.  I really can’t afford these premium  daycare rates around here.  Especially since I only want to send the Pookah a couple of days a week.  Basically, the morning after I work.   So most of the  daycare centers around here are $200 to $250 a week.  They have curriculums for 6 month olds.  They are clean, refreshing, regulated.  Just where I would send my child under normal circumstances.

But these are not normal circumstances.  I cannot AFFORD $200 to $250 a week.  That’s a mortgage payment.  I can barely afford to pay my mortgage. ( that’s another post for later).  So, I went to this in home daycare.

Really, it’s a home, converted into a daycare.  I was not impressed on the outside.  Hell, I wasn’t really impressed on the inside either.  But the price of $35 per day had me looking once, twice, and a third time.   And the Pookah loved the owner.  He flirted like his life depended on it.

So now, I have a thick packet to fill out and a tentative start date in July.

Now.  That brings me around to my next issue.

Sleep.

I’ve been trying to avoid it, but the Pookah needs sleep training.  Or just some help doing it everyday, the same time, without the hour to two hour long fight.   And he needs to learn how to do it without my boob.  Now, apparently, he does fine with this when C-Dub has him at night.  He takes a bottle just fine, and goes to sleep sometime within the hour.  But he doesn’t do ANYTHING consistently.  I can tell you just about when he is going to be sleepy.  When he SHOULD go down for a nap.  Sometimes, he does, sometimes he doesn’t.  Just like he knows and is used to a somewhere between 8 and 9 pm bedtime. 

I don’t WANT to sleep train, I just want to steer him in the right direction.  Besides.  I am ashamed to admit that I have not weaned my almost 6 month old off of the swaddle.  He doesn’t even struggle against it anymore.  I think he likes it.  This is not good. 

So, I’ve got a month to get his sleeping under control.

Which leads me to my next issue. 

I need to build up my freezer stash.

I hate pumping.  HATE IT.

Therefore, I have neglected pumping when I am not at work.  I am only at work 2 nights a week.  The milk that I pump those nights usually goes for the next night.  I have about 2 whole days worth of milk if I send him to day care.  I need to pump.  I need to build up my supply.  I have a month.  I’ve started taking  this stuff called Motherlove More Milk Plus Herbal Supplement from Whole Foods.  It tastes awful.  But after just two days I pumped way more at work than I usually do.  Now, I have to start pumping during the day.  If I start now, I can build up a great freezer stash for daycare starting in July.

So that’s my life right now.  My baby is sitting beside me( did I tell you he is sitting up on his own?? Oh and that he finally rolled over on his own this morning!!!!).  Anyway, the Pookah is obviously tired.  He looks dazed.  He took a 25 minute nap, and refused to go back to sleep.  Now he’s just quiet.  As he always is when he is tired.

I’ve got to go cook dinner now.  Something simple.