From functional to perky once more: a month to go...

So today is the last day I'll pump thrice at work. Next week I'll take it down to two pumpings, and I'll drop to one pump per workday the last week of July, after a week of vacation and a second week of two pumps per workday.

But you know what I'm looking forward to even more than dropping pumping out of my life for a year or few?

Wearing regular, supportive, attractive, flattering and wonderfully deceptive REGULAR BRAS again!

In the past year I can count on one hand the number of times I've worn a regular bra. No joke; stories of mastitis attributed to underwires scared the bejeezus out of me. I think I wore a regular bra once for my birthday dinner, once for a graduation party and once about a month or so ago just 'cause I felt like it. Other than that, it's been nothing but nursing bras and nursing tanks, because the little clippies and drop-down front panels are just so, so convenient, what when you're exposing your boobs five to 12 times a day.

Funny, because I was so, so anti-nursing attire before I gave birth. "What a silly waste of money" I remember thinking to myself, back when I knew it all, confident that it was just as easy to pull a regular or sports bra up or down to nurse.

Then I had a real baby, promptly ate my "I will never" words and made my first trip to Target for nursing bras and tanks.

Thank you Gilligan and O'Malley: My four bras and three tanks have served me well for 11 months, but I'm ready to be done with them and re-enter the world of perky, underwire supported boobs.

Granted, that's largely because a near-year of nursing has left my girls a bit, well, deflated. Not quite National Geographic material, but certainly not the confidence-inspiring rack I took pride in pre-baby.

But now I can really, fully appreciate the scientific wonders of wires and padding (smoke and mirrors, if you will), and I'm excited to artificially prop up the boobs and deceivingly present (or misrepresent) that with which nature has left me.

I'm vain like that. :)

I know the boobs aren't what they used to be. The hubs knows the same. But no one else needs to know, because underwire bras are AWESOME. Well, no one other than those who read this little entry.

So I splurged last week on two new bras from Vickie's, which were fantastically knocked down to $16 each at the end of the summer semi-annual sale. So that's like $80 worth of bras for $32.

So what if a handful of early-twenty-something shoppers shot me disdainful glances as I clumsily finegaled my way-too-big-for-the-over-cramped-retail-aisles stroller through the towers of bras and panties? So what if a sales associate watched desperately as Cayden unloaded all over the floor the drawer-full of bras she had just finished carefully folding and sorting. So what if the fitting room attendant reluctantly let me into the handicapped stall so that I could prop Chicken in front of the mirror and still have room to move around?

The bottom line is this: I got me some new, fantastic regular bras, and I got them on the cheap.

And if Vickie's doesn't vacuum their floors regularly like any good retail business should, then they deserve the ants I'm sure our trail of raisins and oaty-oh's will attract. :)

New tricks

Suddenly, Cayden is all about mimicking and performing. In fact, I call him my performing monkey at least once a day.

His newest tricks? High fives on command (accompanied by big grins and giggles); sticking his tongue out in response to seeing a tongue stuck out; arms thrown way, way up in the air for "so big!", answering the question "How big is Cayden?" (and if the question is posed at lunch or dinner-time, smearing handfuls of food into his hair while doing "so big!"; real, actual tooth brushing, as compared to gnawing on his toothbrush; unsnapping his own pants to remove his diaper post-naptime; and trying his darndest to mimick words.

He's been doing a high-pitched "Caaa Caaaa" for a few weeks now, when asked "what does a rooster say?", and he always laughs when his simple response is followed by a hearty "cock-a-doodle-doo!" by the asker.

And recently he's tried to mimic more words: Mama, Daddy, clock, Cole-Cole (Aunt Colie worked on that one with him on Monday) and a whole lotta "b" words that all come out "baa baaa": bottle, bubbles, boo boo, boom.

And while I'm sure he was trying to communicate something entirely different than the concept he verbalized, this past weekend Cayden very clearly uttered the syllables al - co - hol, in that order, in my parents' presence. Funny or worrisome: you take your pick.

Oh, and while he's still stingy with kisses for people -- he has to be in just the right mood to offer them up when asked -- he's totally into kissing toy animals and animal pictures in his books when prompted. I love ending each bath with "night night kisses for baby froggie, please; night-night kisses for mama duckie, please," watching him love on his rubber bath pals.

This is a really, really fun stage at 11 months old. It's like his brain just turned on and there's this avalanche of stuff he wants to show us he's learning.

Bouncing Baby Boy ... Literally

So this afternoon we had the pleasure of going to Miss Avery's second birthday party. It was the second year in a row Cayden and I made the trip sans Daddy, because this same weekend each of the past two years has been a Daddy get-away to visit college friends.

Last year Cayden wasn't yet known as such at Avery's birthday party, and he was still an inside baby. This year I loaded him into the Ergo (love, love, LOVE our new baby carrier, by the way -- goes up to 40 pounds and puts most of Chicken's weight on my hips, so my back isn't killing me anymore!), completely expecting him to be too young to take advantage of all the little-kid fun Paramount has to offer.

I have never been so excited to be wrong.

Cayden LOVED Paramount! As soon as I put him down he started off, speed-crawling across the endless expanse of soft bouncy floors.

Surely, I thought, he's too young for the trampoline floors. But he was dying to get on them to see what they were.

And he got a kick out of the smooth surface.

And so I jumped ever-so-gently, to see what his reaction was to a little bouncing.

He absolutely loved it. Smiles, giggles, drool and all. And in no time, other Mamas of littler littles took their babies out for a little bum-bouncing on the trampolines.

And before you knew it, our bum bouncing turned into all-out tummy bouncing, and Max had a ball bouncing Cayden into the air. (That's Miss Avery in the background, dressed all too adorably in a pink gymnastics bodysuit.) And while Cayden couldn't have been happier being bounced all around, I did step in before the bouncing giggle-fest continued for too, too long, because I was a little concerned about the repeated whip-lash effect on Cayden's little neck.

So then we moved...

to the ball-pit!

Where Cayden stared deliberately at all the other kids and further wore himself out kicking his legs deeper and deeper into the endless pit of balls.

And we ended the wonderful afternoon party with a dinner of macaroni salad, cantalope, cheese, blueberries and a hot dog. As in an entire freakin hot dog, sucked down in minutes. And then my baby glutton tried to steal the hot dog of the little girl sitting next to him. But all he got was a swipe of ketchup, as the little girl and I both stepped in right-quick to rescue her dinner from over-stuffed porky pig.

To top it all off, just before we left, Cayden and Miss Avery loved on each other, pointing out ears (Avery, delicately), grabbing noses (Cayden, a little rougher than I would have liked) and hugging like true pals. Don't tell Brett and Lynn, but I see a future romance in the cards.

To be honest, I was kind of dreading keeping my little guy entertained at this party, but it ended up being a lot of fun for both of us. So I was really, really happy this afternoon to be proven wrong.

Oh, and I have a feeling we'll be taking the Daddy to Paramount before too much longer, so he can see first-hand all the fun that can be had there.

I think the pumping Gods are trying to tell me something

*Knock on wood*, I've been lucky so far to have never had a major pumping catastrophe: I've never spilled a bottle of milk, I have yet to have to throw away a frozen baggie and I've never forgotten any of my pump parts on my way to or home from work.

Until this past week.

First, I forgot my bottles one morning. Of course it was the one morning I succeeded in getting out of the house 15 minutes early, so I ate those 15 minutes back-tracking home after I realized the bottles were still in the dish drainer.

Then I left my freshly pumped milk at work one evening this week, so we had to use frozen milk for an entire day's supply. (I like to mix up the frozen and the fresh, so he's always getting at least half of the fresh stuff that I read has transformed to the make-up he needs at this age.)

And finally, Wednesday. Wednesday I didn't forget any pump parts or leave the milk at work. No, something else completely unexpected happened Wednesday. After my morning pumping session, I uncapped my horns and gathered my bottles to take to the office fridge. And upon opening my office door, the friggin door knob FELL. OFF. THE. DOOR.

I skipped my middle pump session out of fear of being locked in my office. But admin services had yet to fix the door by 4:15 p.m., so I decided to give it a try, pleading with my boss to come rescue me if I didn't emerge by 4:45.

Turns out I can jimmy-rig the apparatus to close securely, then let myself out all without the broken-off knob. But if this week isn't a sign from the pumping gods that it's about time to slow down, I don't know what is.

One more week of three pumps a day, then I'm dropping to two.

Oh, and I found this satire from The Onion hilarious, so here you go.

Father's Day and other catch-up rambling

Turns out having a sick baby is way more time consuming than having a baby who is not sick.

Yep, Cayden has the second cold of his short little life, and this one is much tougher on all of us than his first sniffles were.

Father's Day had its ups and downs, largely because of the sick baby in our house. Cayden was so uncomfortable Saturday night he just. couldn't. sleep. alone. Daddy seemed to be the only one who could calm the bugger and lull him into dreamland, so he spent much of the night like this.

Suffices to say no one got a good night's rest, and we all kind of dragged through our first Father's Day as a family.

But Brian recognized the sweet irony of the situation: he was the only one who could comfort his sick son on the eve of the day set aside for celebrating fathers. And it was wonderful to watch him hold, coddle, stroke and whisper to his needy little boy. This boy is certainly lucky to have this daddy. And this Mama is unbelievably grateful for her partner in live, love and family.

As I wrote in Brian's Father's Day card from me, I knew when I fell in love with him nearly 15 years ago that he would be a great dad. And I love that he has proven me right every day for the past eleven months, continuing to exceed all my hopes and dreams for who he would be as a daddy.

Our Daddy was thrilled to receive two cards on Father's Day, plus a WonderPets storybook to read with Chicken (Daddy is a real fan of the show) and a 20" x 30" print of the picture he's wanted ever since he saw it in on my camera in Canada, framed in his office. This photo balances the office perfectly, as it faces the fall foliage pictures we took at the cottage a few years ago, which are mounted on the opposite wall.

And then we hosted a wonderful dinner with both our dads and siblings. So it was a good day, despite the exhaustion and tuned-up nerves.

After two nights spent downstairs on the floor, we've all returned to the upstairs bedrooms, and night-time sleep and naps have improved markedly over the last day or two. But the sniffles have not.

And I'm talking gross sniffles. Sniffles that started out innocuously as clear, watery dribbles above Cayden's top lip have now turned into an impressively persistent supply of gelatinous snot and coagulated greenish-yellow boogers. And he hates both the saline solution that disolves all that crap and the booger-sucker that would relieve some of his discomfort, if only he would allow me to use them in tandem.

Thankfully, Daddy was still tonight when I literally wrestled Cayden to the ground, pinning his arms at his sides with my knees and restraining his head from thrashing about with one arm while I saline sprayed, then booger sucked his nostrils with the other hand at bedtime. It wasn't a pretty sight.

Oh, but his baby coughs are pitifully cute.

So what else?

Cayden has perfected his "lemme outta jail" look. I know I'm biased, but really: can you get much cuter than this?

And he finally figured out how to open a cabinet or two. Although he's still working on opening cabinets and doors without conking himself in the head or face.

And we're preparing for a Daddy-less weekend, as Brian packs for a much-deserved long-weekend with college friends. Last Sunday he was exhausted after staying up all night with the baby, and this Sunday he'll be exhausted after staying up all night with the boys. But both kinds of exhaustion are worth it, in completely different ways.

Re: #4, below

I have one less pregnant friend.

Welcome to the world Nora Erin, and congratulations and much love to Erin, Mike and all the new grandparents and aunts and uncles.

Waxing sentimental

20 things I love about being a Mama, right now:

1. Wet, sloppy, open-mouth dog kisses from my baby that make my heart glow like nothing else.
2. The little bit of granola in the pre-baby me that has become a whole-lotta big granola pride in Mama me.
3. 5:30 a.m. nursing sessions, when it’s just him and me, and the house is quiet.
4. Excited can’t-wait-til-they-get-it anticipation for pregnant friends who have no idea the great journey they’re in for.
5. My boy’s excitement over pushing the button to make the garage door go up and down
6. Becoming OK with the fact that priorities change. Scratch that. Becoming completely satisfied with the fact that priorities change, and learning that a different perspective on life is thrilling and fulfilling in a new (and better) way.
7. Seeing the joy my son brings our families.
8. Watching my first love fall deeper and deeper under the spell of our second love as he moves further and further from fragile baby to rough-and-tumble little boy.
9. Being this close all-caught-up on first-year videos and scrapbook pages.
10. Having a few more extra-long weekends to pack as chock-full of excitement, activities and family time as possible before our year of extra-long weekends is over.
11. Practicing different character voices during story time, because stories are that much better with funny voices that distinguish the roles.
12. Giggling each night because I can’t remember what impression I used for what animal, and smiling, knowing someday not-too-far-off my boy will know and call me out when Peter Rabbit’s voice is saying Benjamin Bunny’s lines.
13. Realizing that despite all the panicking and worrying, we’re going to sail through our nursing goal; and being so confident in that realization that drafting a thank you letter to Mary the LC 1.5 months out seems not a jinx but a confirmation of fortune.
14. Counting down the few remaining weeks the f#$@ing pump has left on my desk.
15. Spic-and-span floors that are so much more rewarding because they’re now clean for a purpose beyond just looking nice.
16. Still finding poop exciting proof that the living creature I created is growing and thriving just fine. Scratch fine. Impressively.
17. Easily and quickly forgetting a tough day at work when little arms outstretch for an “I’m so glad to see you!” hug.
18. Recognizing Daddy was right, and a small, simple first-birthday party makes much more sense than an over-thought, over-planned theme party.
19. Delighting in the fact that an over-thought, over-planned theme party will be just perfect in another year or two.
20. Bedtime prayers -- with a mop of hair tickling my lips and the musk of baby tickling my nose -- as I whisper my love into little ears that listen long after little eyelashes have intertwined in peace and trust and comfort.

So what are other Mamas loving about mothering right now, with your babies, littles or all-grown-up kids?