This Loved Life: August 2012

Somedays I feel like superwoman. Woohoo, I've got this today! I say to myself. Wake at 5am? Yup. Drop two little ones off at daycare? Check. Conference calls, supervising my staff, meetings with the CFO? I'm on it. Then it's on home around 6pm to make dinner, give baths, and prep for the next day., Mixed in with all that is exclusively pumping for my little girl and cooking up her organic meals fruits and veggies.

But other days, I'm a mess. Dash into the daycare with an unfinished bottle for them to give to Audrey and a clingy son. Email after email, request after request, juggling all the demands from all sides at work. Run out of the office at 6:15 while trying to avoid the eyes of the CFO, who's wondering why I'm leaving "early" only to greet the last kids at the daycare and drag now non-clingy son to the car. I arrive home to try to throw something edible for dinner and the usual nighttime chaos ensues. Grand total of time spent with my children for the day: less than 1 hour.

I've really been struggling lately. Life seems to be moving at warp speed and I'm holding on for dear life.

My current struggles:

1. I'm growing increasingly dissatisfied with Barrett's daycare. He's coming home with some very bad habits, including a potty mouth and aggression and I don't like it! I expected to have to deal with bad language or attitude at some point but didn't expect it out of my 2 1/2 year old. He still seems like a baby to me, but one of his little friends at school is being a bad influence and teaching him things I don't really care for! I have always thought the school where the kids go is the best option but lately I'm starting to wonder if there's a better choice. I hate that the choices other parents are making on how they decide to raise their children is impacting my home, including cursing and discipline. I get that I can't shelter them forever, but I am certainly not crazy about foul language at 2 1/2!!

2. I am also feeling momentously overwhelmed at work. I have been working a ton of weekends and have so many things on my plate right now. I am going to Germany at the end of August for a work trip and have a zillion things to do between now and then. September doesn't look much better, including working several weekends in that month, including Labor Day weekend. This after working the entire 4th of July weekend makes me want to cry in frustration.

3. Also, I can't shut off my non-stop worry about Audrey. We visited her Cleft team last week and received disappointing news again - she is continuing to drop in her weight percentile. Things looked promising at her last appointment but this time, she weighed in at 15lbs, 2oz. This is less than Barrett weighed at 6 months, and he was a peanut too. She isn't a fan of food. Also, she's definitely not where she should be with her speech, which was no surprise to me, but still sad to hear. I'm calling Early Intervention to see if we can start getting her into some speech therapy. The nutritionist also recommended fortifying with formula. This has been a constant recommendation that I've chosen to ignore. But this time I've decided to listen.

I'm a big believer in breastfeeding. I could list all the reasons, but there's just no comparison to breastmilk and I have done so much to allow my children to only drink that. I've always considered it my gift to them, that I sacrificed so much time and effort to give them the very best. Even though I'm away from them all day at work, I felt proud and selfless that I was able to do this for them. I adamantly shook my head to the continuing recommendations that I start adding formula to Audrey's bottles. But after this last appointment, I have to concede.

I guess part of me is realizing that maybe I'm refusing formula for purely selfish reasons. I'm pretty darn proud that Barrett was fed only breastmilk and never had any formula. I wanted to do the same for Audrey. But maybe part of my resistance is because I want to be able to say that she didn't have any formula either. And that's not a good enough reason if her weight is too low and formula might possibly help . So I am going to start giving her some. Anything to bulk this girl up!

So the stress continues. I am looking ahead in longing to next summer, when I am planning on life slowing down a little bit. I am praying for guidance in our lives as we are facing our big decisions.

We had a fantastic last weekend. Summertime in Chicago is short but gorgeous. So we try to spend as much of the weekend outdoors as we can. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves!

Tim took the kids on a bike ride. It was cute to see two little ones side-by-side!

Audrey started chewing on the seat strap so of course our little imitator had to follow suit.

Our new car!

Just kidding, it was the 911 Carrera S that we borrowed for the weekend. Barrett kept saying "go fast! go fast!" He's definitely his parents' child.

maybe ours for good someday?

Our luck with pools hasn't been too good this summer. We had two punctured and one with a dead bird in. Third time is a charm? We got this cute little giraffe one on sale at Target recently.