In Which I Am Not a Total Downer

Yowza, I have not posted in a long time. The good news is that things are slowly getting better and I've been focusing on taking care of myself, which has gotten in the way of posting.

Writing my "Beast Within" post was very cathartic, much more so than I expected. The babies have not been sleeping much better, but I've been much more able to deal with it. I guess I just needed to get all that stuff out.

In other baby news, I have started to give them some formula because I am still not keeping up with pumping. I send six bottles with them to day care, three per baby. Each bottle contains one ounce of formula and the rest is breast milk. I'm surprised at how visceral my reaction has been to having to give them some formula. I know it's OK, that it won't hurt them. And I am completely without judgment of anyone else who feeds his or her baby formula. Why do I judge myself so harshly? I'm getting over it, but it's harder than I would have thought, like almost anything about parenting. To assuage my white, liberal, working-mom, middle-class, overachieving guilt, I am giving them Earth's Best Organic formula. It makes me feel better and I truly believe that it's better for the babies, so that helps.

Sleeping is getting marginally better. Riley is our tough nut to crack. He reliably wakes up every three hours and just can't put himself back to sleep. He's not always hungry, sometimes he's not even fully awake. He just can't get through that sleep cycle and so he cries and cries. This was driving me INSANE for a while, but now I just gather him up, take him into the room with the glider, and rock and rock until he's sound asleep again. He's so warm and sweet and he won't be small forever. In fact, he's already pretty big. We'll find out next Monday at his four-month pediatric exam just how big he really is. In any case, I'm trying to make the best of it and just enjoy the dozy cuddle time.

We spent the day on Sunday out and about in gorgeous fall weather. It did me a world of good. My head felt clear, the babies enjoyed the sun, and it was nice to get out of the house. Must do more of that while the weather is still decent. Fall is so beautiful.