One Year

We made it! 365 days have come and passed. It has been a more challenging journey than I ever expected, and one that I often wished would hurry up because I needed to make it through this year. And then I sit in a layer of mom guilt for wishing time to pass by so quickly. I will be totally honest though, aside from the struggles we had with nursing/feeding/diet tolerance, I just simply enjoy the toddler phase more than I do the infant/baby phase. Life is just so much more interactive. Changes happen so much more quickly. Life feels so much more exciting.

Haddie had her one year check up a few days after her birthday. She was a whopping 16# 6oz and 29" long. I was surprised to find that with a weight that low, she still made it on to the growth chart, falling in the 8th percentile; her height was around the 50th. That's not even 3/4 of a pound a month. Babies are supposed to double their weight by 6 months; mine barely doubled hers in a year. How about that for some major mom guilt? Those low weight numbers are why the first year was such a struggle and why I couldn't wait to get away from breast milk.

The last month, especially the alst two weeks of Haddie's first year, my production sank even more than it already had. Haddie was lucky to be getting 12-15 oz total in a day from me. And we ran through all of my measly supply in that time frame, too. She's a big eater; she loves food and eats a lot of it. But milk is where you can really pack in the fat and I just couldn't do it. The pediatrician was willing to bet that as my supply continued to drop, my milk became more and more skim. I'm putting all my chips in on that bet. I feel like I've had skim milk this whole time. The saddest thing is that I can remember looking back to the start of my nursing journey with Haddie, where I was pumping 15-20 oz in a 15 minute sitting and producing a couple bags full of milk for storage each time; I was so excited and hopeful because I thought, "I'm going to be able to donate milk to the nicu." I had even done some research on how to go about the process. But then I went against it when I was later de-frosting my milk only to find that it seemed like it had somehow soured despite keeping it in a deep freeze and using it well within 6 months of storage. So I threw away A LOT of milk. Only to discover way way later that what I thought was rancid milk, was probably just milk with excess lipase, which breaks down the fat contents in milk at a faster rate. It's still safe for babies to eat; they just usually like it diluted with fresh milk and if they refuse to take it, it can still be donated as it is often used in feeding tubes where taste doesn't matter. All this knowledge, a little too late.

The thing that frustrates me the most is the scars that this difficult feeding journey has left on me. I know that each baby is different, clearly, the two I already have are, but it makes me really fearful of having to go through these same tribulations if we end up having a third baby. I don't want to have another bad latcher. I don't want to have to exclusively pump again. I'd really prefer to just burn my pumps in a massive bonfire. But really, the thought of having what I consider to be a "failed" nursing journey happen again makes me hesitant to even walk down that road again. There's a big band of support out there of women who understand that nursing is hard; that it isn't as natural as it appears or as one thinks it should be. But what also is hard, is sharing your body with another human for almost two years (or more if you're able and desire). There's so many restrictions that you have to follow while the baby is inutero that don't all necessarily go away once they are earth side with you. You're still making sure that you're getting enough calories to feed the baby, limiting alcohol, avoiding certain medications, in my scenario, eliminating all dairy. It's straight up exhausting. The pediatrician asked me "How does it feel to have your body back?" and really, I could just cry from the freedom.

But anyways, enough about me. This should really be about Haddie.

In that last week of Haddie's first year, we had no other choice than to start supplementing my milk with some other source of milk. Given her cow's protein intolerance, we had slowly been bringing dairy back into our diets which by and large seemed to be going well but her intake was still quite low. Pumping 10 oz of straight dairy milk into Haddie seemed like a big jump and was a bit nerve racking, but she has tolerated it well and as my milk has been completely phased out, she is going strong on more and more Vit D milk.  She has been on Vit D milk for almost three weeks now and just yesterday started having diarrhea; so we're not sure if that's the milk or something else but we're keeping an eye on it and staying hopeful. She currently takes about 15-20+ oz of milk a day (hoping to really fatten her up now :))

Haddie is in the process of transitioning to a sippy cup. She does best with the soft, thin spouts that are a transitional piece to a real sippy. She hates hard spouted sippys but she is getting the hang of the munchkin/nuby toddler styled sippys that she practices drinking water out of. She also likes drinking out of the 360 sippy that is the miracle "no leak" sippy that doesn't have a spout. I think she just likes it because her big brother drinks from the same kind!

She eats three large meals a day. We're really working on feeding her until she's totally full, and it feels like she's emptying out the cupboards! She loves fruits, especially bananas, kiwi and blueberrys. She eats oatmeal at breakfast every day but also really likes fried eggs (not as big of a fan of scrambled eggs). She likes bread, graham crackers, cereal, puffs, etc. I felt like I really had another toddler on my hands when I started giving her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!

She likes to feed herself and has pretty good hand-eye coordination for getting that spoon into her mouth. She also loves setting her cup down in the designated circle of her tray. Harken likes when it's Haddie's eating time, too, because she loves to throw him her scraps. The other day I caught her throwing food over the edge and I yelled her name, she looked at me with a shit grin on her face, fist held high in the air with a wad of food in it and just stared me down with this big old smile as she released the food onto the ground. This, right after I told the doc, "no, she's not sassy yet."

Haddie loves to crawl up the stairs. Doesn't matter how tired she is or if she has a diaper full of poop, she wants to spend 10 minutes going up the stairs herself. If she leads with her right, she will actually lead with her foot instead of her knee, like she's getting ready to walk them. She is also getting the hang of scootching down the stairs on her bum, but lately wants to try and walk down them instead. Totally not coordinated or big enough for that yet, but she thinks she is!

At the time of her birthday, she had no interest in walking. I mean she could furniture walk and cruise with toys, no problem. But if you tried to get her to let go of the table or walk between you and another person, she was all "you dummies, I can get there much quicker if I just crawl." So there you have it. She wouldn't even try to take a step. She'd just plop down and get to scootin. But on July 28th, she officially launched herself into the world of walking. I was on my way home from work, at the intersection just by our house and talking with Aaron on the phone when he interrupted himself and said "Oh my gosh, she's walking." and then went silent as he watched and then exclaimed "She just took 10 steps!" So I told him to get off the phone and start taking videos! And she's been working hard at it ever since.  Even carrying toys around and working on her dance moves now.

She absolutely loves to crawl up into Avett's child's size chair in the living room. You should see her little self sitting up there with her dolls and animals, thinking she's such a big kid. Usually when she sits (on anything) she puts her one arm up on the top of the chair/couch, like she's just chillin.

Some of her favorite toys include her tea set, play food and kitchen; stacking things; and of course, her cowy. She really enjoys opening drawers and cupboards. She bawled when she discovered I "baby-proofed" the kitchen cupboards. So now she spends most of her time opening and closing the drawer on the bathroom vanity. She likes playing peek-a-boo, bobbing her hand on her mouth, blowing raspberries and sticking her tongue in and out really fast. She also enjoys reading books now and turning pages; her current fav is "Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes".

She likes riding in the wagon, stroller and carts. She can sit up perfectly fine despite the big/fast movements, but I still make sure to lock her in, because more than anything else, she'd try to crawl out without any hesitations. Avett and her sat in one of those double carts at Target this week. Oh my goodness did they love it. Haddie just sat and stared at Avett the whole time with a big cheeky grin. She thinks she's so big.

Her receptive language is much more developed than her expressive; typical. She says Momma, Dadda, and Baby. She signs "more" and waves "hi" and "bye" and can blow kisses. When you ask her a yes/no question, she gets a really big smile or laughs when the answer is yes. She knows that a cow says "moo". She tries to make a cow and elephant sound. And she is really good at making car sounds.

She is currently still napping twice a day. She sleeps for about two hours in the morning from like 9-11 and again in the afternoon from like 3-5.

She has four upper teeth and three lowers. I'm expecting that she's getting more because she's had her fingers in her mouth a lot the past couple of days and was drooling a bit more today. Still no fussing (thank you baby!)

For her birthday, we waited for Daddy to get home from work and then we ventured out for some donuts and ate those over at Auntie Mooey's house. When we got home from there, we put the kids down for a nice long nap. After the nap and lunch, Mommy took the kids to the zoo (Daddy had to nap because he had to work). Given that the zoo is a fairly regular part of our routine, we made it extra special for our girl by going on the carousel for the first time! Avett wanted a Tiger and I put Haddie on the horse next to that. Fortunately, Avett's animal didn't move which made it a lot easier to hang on to the both of them. They both really enjoyed it but near the end, Haddie had a brief look on her face that made me think she was nauseous and ready to vomit, but thankfully she didn't. So we followed that up with some ice cream :) After the zoo, we met up with my girlfriend and her family at the hot air balloon festival. We went last year for the first time, just days before little miss made her big arrival. It was a bit hot and a little chaotic managing the two on my own (mostly because I had to take care of toileting duties and hand Haddie off to other people while doing so.) My parents were also there coincidentally, so we met up with them for a little bit.

Haddie was able to celebrate her birthday with the Bollwahn gang the week before when we were in Michigan for Brandon and Katie's carnival-themed wedding. The wedding was a blast and I savvily (made that term up) re-used the wedding decorations and turned Haddie's birthday party into a lady-bug theme. Haddie had her first taste of cake (cupcake really) and enjoyed it. Did much better with it than Avett did on his; however, neither of my kids devoured it like you'd expect a child to.

We have one more birthday celebration coming up when my sister is in town. They will be here at the end of next week so we will throw a birthday part for the two one-year-olds. Lissa has invited some of her friends from the area since she doesn't get to see them, but besides that, it'll be pretty intimate and low-key. I'm looking forward to that and the other fun activities we have planned while they're in town! It's been almost a full year since the Bollwahns and Kings have seen each other! A long over-due visit!