7/15/13 Back To Work

It's been a while. Coming home from Hawaii, then prepping for the Epic Relay, and getting ready to go back to work kept me all kinds of busy and unbalanced. I could just focus on one thing at a time. I am working on getting a balance back again and back in a routine of logging my thoughts and activities as a new mom. I have a lot I want to say about the time I didn't blog, so if I find a day particularly boring, then I'll just do a blog about the past.

Getting back to work has been a smoother transition than I thought it would be. I am enjoying it to some extent. I got oriented to the new computer system and I don't feel completely lost. It has been a stretch of my organizational abilities to try to cram in all the breaks for pumping and still use the bathroom, eat, hydrate and get all my work done, but somehow I am doing it. I am already back to being in charge and up at the desk a bunch as well. I miss Josiah a lot when I'm at work, but not uncontrollably. I don't have any trouble with milk let down happening when I think or talk about him, and I don't have any trouble with pumping. It's just if I were able to choose who to be with, I would pick Bryan and Josiah every time over work. But, because of the way we live our lives, someone has to work, it's a good thing that I love my job and I love being a nurse. It helps that Bryan sends me pictures of Josiah sometimes throughout the day and updates on all the little things that are somehow very important to me.

Our biggest struggle with me going back to work has been Josiah reverse cycling. Reverse cycling means eating the bare minimum throughout the day and wanting to nurse all night long. One day he only ate 12 ounces of milk total for 14 hours and then wanted to nurse every 2 hours at night. I was pretty sleepy the next day! It has been a bit better since Bryan has been giving Josiah 5 oz. of milk on a schedule at 9, 12, 3& 6. Then Josiah will sleep 3 hours at a time instead of 2, but still not getting his long sleep at night. Bryan is wondering if the night time diaper system I have been using makes Josiah uncomfortable so we purchased some fitted over night diapers to try. I am excited for them to arrive. Judy tells me that with time Josiah will just get used to the change and it'll be ok. I hope that is true, but as long as I work 5/7 days and then only 1/7 days every two weeks I fear he'll never get used to it. However that schedule may change after August when we go though a new scheduling system.

One of the biggest blessings going back to work has been my mom helping out. She comes over every morning at 6 on my work days so that Bryan can sleep in. She helps out around the house: weeding, doing laundry, dishes, mowing... anything and everything really, and watches Josiah till around noon usually. That splits the load up, she watches him for 6 hours and Bryan does 8 hours, and nobody gets horribly burnt out or overwhelmed by it.

Here's some photos of Bryan and Josiah. Some that he sent while I was working, and then just some cute ones of the two of them.

Learning about Looney Tunes.

The Michelin Man

Bryan and Josiah playing at the doctor's office before getting shots. He did really well. He was hardly fussy at all the rest of the day and the next day!

sleeping after shots

"I will get this thing in my mouth!"

Rusty cuddles. Josiah is very interested in Rusty. He loves to grab his fur and was very excited the time he actually got Rusty's ear in his mouth.

"But, I don't want to do tummy time Papa."

 

 

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6/4/13 Seahorse Farm

In the morning, we did some laundry and went for a swim. After lunch, we went to see a seahorse farm. 

This is my favorite of the pictures I took there. We learned tons of Sea Horse facts. They are the only naturally monogamous fish. They are now living in captivity up to 15 years. The one Elijah held was 12 years old. (Twice as old as he is). The female makes eggs but puts them in a pouch in the male where he fertilizes them and carries them 30 days before giving birth to 300-600 offspring. In the wild only 3% live, but on the farm 50% live. 

We stopped at a coffee shop on the way home. I got an iced strawberry green tea latte and we each got two mochi. It was very tasty!

The surf was so high at night that the salt water pool looked like an infinity pool because of all the waves that crashed into it. Cliff and I went to go watch surfers. We found some

 but none were doing fancy tricks. There were some boogie boarders out doing tricks. It was fun to watch. 

6/3/13 Beach BBQ

We hung out at the condo in the morning. We went swimming and watched Elijah catch toads. At 3 we left to meet Cliff and head up north for a beach BBQ. We walked maybe 1/4 mile south along a beach past a restaurant called Lava Lava. We passed this sea turtle along the way.

Sometimes we had to walk on really narrow stretches of beach. At times, we even had to go up through the trees because the water was all the way up to the roots. 

The beach we came to was really solitary. We only saw a few other people while we were there. 

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Jesaiah rocked the bouncy seat on the beach.

Cliff brought burgers and hotdogs, but his coworkers brought steaks and Carne Asada and piles of dessert. Everyone was sharing their food, so of course I ate way too much! It was delicious and we had fun cooking it camp fire style on grates right on the beach. 

I have enjoyed all my nursing spots with  views this trip. 

There was a very nice sunset and we walked back to the car using flash lights.  

6/2/13 Church and a Baby Birthday Party.

We went to church just down the road from Cliff's place. The church has out grown it's building so much that they meet both indoors and outdoors and has three Sunday morning services. 

The sermon was on faith and was pretty good. I was distracted because Josiah was hungry and I tried to nurse him during service. He was really fussy and kept latching and detaching. I think now that he was too hot under the nursing cover. 

We had a nice crab lunch when we got home. Elijah had been really excited about and then discovered that we had to break the shell to eat it and became quite upset. He got all excited again though after he tasted it and when we were able to leave the too shells in tact. He got over the fact that we broke open all the legs and pinchers. 

After lunch I went with Yo Nd Elijah to a birthday party for a 1 year old. The first birthday is traditionally a bigger deal than birth in Hawaii because their birth to 1 year survival rate didn't used to be very good. It was huge, probably 75 people were there. The whole family including extended family, all the friends and all the coworkers of both parents were there. It was sure different than any other 1 year old birthday party I have ever been to. 

Yo playing with Josiah. 

They provided a lot of food. There was grilled chicken, ribs, Hawaiian pork spare ribs. There were also a lot of side dishes and appetizers that people had brought. There was papaya and pineapple that I loved. All of it was delicious. I ate second lunch, dessert and dinner while I was there. 

We took Josiah to a small inlet part of the ocean and put his feet in the water. He didn't seem to mind much when he got used to the temperature. The water is tons warmer than in Oregon but is still cool like a swimming pool not warm like bath water. 

He did get upset when I sat him down in it, so we quit and changed his clothes so he could be warm. 

Yo took me back to Cliff's around 6. This is the beautiful sunset that we saw tonight! 

6/1/13 Cram Packed Day

We went to Waimea to pick up a friend of Elijah up to hang out with us today. We also went by a market there. I got some lychee and some cinnamon sweet bread to snack on for second breakfast. It was delicious. 

We went to Mahu Kona to snorkel around a wrecked ship. It's chain, engine, propeller and boiler are in the harbor. There is also the ruins of an old port where the train came and used to put sugar on ships. It looks a lot like swimming around Atlantis with all the man made things under water. The coral in the area is recovering. There were a lot more kinds of fish than I thought I would see. The ones I know the names of that I saw are needle fish, yellow tang, moorish idol, milk fish, rasp fish, reef trigger fish, brittle sea star, sticky sea urchin, pencil sea urchin and a bunch more that I don't know the name of. 

Our little covered area. 

The yellow tang. 

The place where we snorkeled. 

Bryan and I took turns staying on shore with Josiah.

Snorkeling around. 

The brittle sea star that Cliff dove for and let Elijah play with for a little while. 

Elijah asleep in the car after a long day of play. 

We got dinner from Annie's a burger and sandwhich place that was amazing. I got garlic basil fries and a catch of the day sandwhich which was ono grilled lettuce tomato and wasabi sauce on sour dough. It was delicious! We ate in the car and drove to Volcano National Park to see the lava glow at night. It turned out to be a clear night with no moon. The glow was amazing and so were the stars!

Taken with my iPhone above and taken with Cliff's camera below. 

5/31/13 Beach trip!

Josiah slept from 8:30pm to 3am!!! Bryan gave him a bottle at 3am and I didn't have to feed him until 6! I decided that with all that sleep I might have the energy for a run. I ran 4 miles along the ocean view road. The photo below is a view on my run!

Cliff had some errands to do in the early morning so we played in the pool for a while before heading out on the days's adventures. 

This is the PDF I got at Costco for Josiah. It is supposed to float babies face up. It is possible to flip face down if Josiah flails his arms and legs a lot, so we are teaching him to be calm in the water. 

Hands free floating calmly. He actually fell asleep. He was tired or he probably wouldn't have fallen asleep. 

We went to two beaches today. We walked a little way through the lava field to a beach called Kahaki or maybe Mahailua.  We carried quite a lot of stuff. I guess we used most of it except a canopy and one chair. 

It was rather empty which was nice. 

There were some abandoned buildings on the beach. 

I followed a trail over to another area of the beach and Elijah went through the water. 

There was also this old water tower. 

Cliff brought a hammock. With the beautiful beach and the water and a trail, Bryan of course chose to hang out in the hammock when he wasn't having to watch Elijah play in the ocean. 

Cliff and I walked another lava trail over to another beach called Makalevena. It had beautiful teal colored water! We played in the water for about 20 minutes and had to head back so I could feed Josiah. We left him and Elijah with Bryan. I didn't pack any bottle of milk or anything today, so we went back after I bummed some sunscreen off a stranger so I wouldn't burn my legs. 

I fed Josiah while laying in the hammock. It was doable but would have been easier in an asymmetrical one like Bryan's blackbird. Josiah liked laying in the hammock. Maybe it was the bright red contrasting fabric blowing. The wind. 

We got Josiah propped up in Elijah's chair pretty easily and sat around chatting watching the ocean for a while while Elijah played with some kids he just met and while cliff took pictures. 

So cute!

Elijah playing with his friends. 

All the stuff Bryan carried to the car while I used the restroom. Notice Josiah is helping to carry his bouncy seat. (That bouncy seat might just be one of the most useful inexpensive baby items. It is a clean place to put Josiah pretty much anywhere: the pool, the beach, the kitchen counter, the bathroom while showering if I don't want to hold him the whole time I shower and I am sure many more. It's actually where Josiah is sleeping at night while we are here because there are very poisonous centipedes that make it a bad idea to leave him unsupervised on the floor.)

The sun coming through the clouds!

Sea turtles and dolphins we saw in the pools at the Hilton. We went to take the boat ride and let Elijah look at the fish b

Bryan and I behind a waterfall in one of the Hilton's pools.