enough about me (and happy leap day!)

Well, since this blog is not called East River Mom, I suppose you may be interested in some Fay news to supplement my woes about returning to work. This past weekend Grandma Sandy came to town to get her Fay fix. We had some good times and bad times. Knowing that Fay had to take the bottle again with the impending work week we wanted to make sure she would not reject it. Fay has had a bottle here and there since she was 1 month old. But primarily she has gotten the breast. She's never had a problem feeding from either one until recently. She hasn't had a bottle for about 3 weeks when we were out to brunch with friends and she took it fine. But when Mandy did a trial run day last week Fay was absolutely distraght at being given the bottle. It seems that some of her recent social advancements may be to blame. Maybe she now knows where the milk comes from (mom!) and doesn't want a substitute. Or maybe the slow nipple we've used since month one was not giving her milk fast enough.

So this past weekend we played around with different feeders (grandma and dad) and different nipples (fast flow, and different brands). We've settled on the same ole Platex nursers we've used before but with a fast nipple.

So that was the difficult part of the weekend. The FUN part was watching Fay work on her pre-crawling skills. She has her moments where you think she may just take off crawling! But I'm sure there are months and months before that will happen. Check out her photos though. I'd love to put them in a flip book to see the action move from frame to frame. :)

Hate the pump, love the milk

So here I sit on Thursday morning getting to spend the day with Fay finally. This week was pretty difficult. It was really hard to come home at the end of the day and know that I'd just missed a whole day with Fay and that I would miss another the next day. Hopefully this will get better over time. I know that in the grand scheme of things I will not be spending every day with my daughter! Its just that we've been so attached to each other over the past 4 months, it is really painful to leave her. My heart aches when I see her at the end of the day and she is so tired for that last hour of her day.

The other thing that made the week difficult was pumping. The logistics were fine. The training place gave me a private room to pump and I could go there whenever I needed. But the pumping was just stressful. I was so anxious about how much milk I could actually get at each session and whether it would be enough to get Fay through a full day at home without me. And that anxiety made less milk come out I'm sure. I think it will help once I get a double pumper. Right now I only have a single but I will be getting a hand-me-down double in about a week or two. That will make pumping take less time and I think if leftie and rightie work as a team, I'll get more milk. (Sorry if that is too much information! :)

I did manage to pump *almost* enough milk. Fay seems to eat A LOT. On Tuesday, the day after the first full day of pumping, Fay had 18 oz of fresh milk, 4 oz of frozen, and supplemented with 6 oz of formula. 28 oz! Wow. Plus I'm breast feeding her in the morning and evenings. I will be curious to see if this is how much she eats. From what I read I was expecting her not to go over 32 oz. But it seems as if she is just over that.

The best thing to come out of the week is I know that I've found a really great Nanny. Mandy is terrific. She is caring and loving and I know she will love my daughter. I wondered whether she had enough experience. She has cared for some children over 1 yr. And she has cared for a newborn. But she has a big gap in experience for exactly Fay's age. But you know what? I think this is a good thing now.

I know that Mandy is super competent and smart which is why I was comfortable hiring her without specific 4-12 month experience. The added bonus is that Fay is her first baby really. She is not a baby in a long string of nanny jobs. So she will be really special to Mandy. I can tell already. Everything is just as fun and new and exciting for Mandy as it is for me.

At the end of the day we chat about Fay and her eating and feeding and play accomplishments. And we are both excited to see what the next day brings.

Oh my God I'm back to work

My original return to work date for maternity leave was last Wed. Feb 20th. But as that day approached I reached out to my employer and asked them to not have me start work until there was a project in place. I work as a consultant, so where there are no projects available, I sit on "the bench". Which means I get paid to work on internal projects or proposals etc. But mostly, they just try to keep me busy. That would be hard to handle knowing my new little baby girl was missing me at home. (Or I am missing her!) They agreed and I was expecting to have an additional couple weeks at home with Fay.

But I got an email last Friday requesting that I attend a training class M-W of this week. I could have said no, its too short of notice. But my nanny was available and it would be good training for the project that will start soon. So I've been thrust into returning to work, and it has not been easy, emotionally. Yesterday I woke up with a stomach ache that was on and off all day. I really do believe it was due to the anxiety of leaving Fay (rather than food poisoning or Flu). Today, as I was leaving the house I got all choked up. No tears, but almost tears.

Its such a tough spot to be in. I know I will enjoy working again, but there is no getting around missing Fay. We've really bonded over the past couple months. She's my little love.

grab something!

Mommy has been trying to get Fay to grab things lately. Fay really likes to grab onto towels and blankets, but will only occasionally grab onto a toy. I figure its got to be more fun to grab a stuffed animal or rattle, but what do I know. And Fay, as always, shows me who is boss. After successfully getting her to grab onto her chain of rings, she showed me that she would still rather suck on her fists than play with or suck on the rings.



And of course when she finally decided to make her move and choose something to grab on to herself, it was a big fistful of Mommy's hair. So Mommy got to hang out on the floor for a while until Fay lost interest in her firm hair grip.




Lastly, Fay showed Mommy how very interested she was in playing with her purple elephant after Mommy was so kind as to place it on Fay's chest.

flashback: Fay, Daddy and a Noodle

This video post is a little late, but believe me, it is a MUST for viewing. The events in this video occurred over our xmas vacation to Florida. We call the piece "Bad Daddy".

Nanny found!

So I am happy to report that I have ended my nanny search. After about 3 weeks of interviews I hired the 2nd person I interviewed. Her name is Mandy. I guess its hard to believe that you've found THE ONE when its so early in the process. I kept trying to find a person comparable so I would have two people to choose between, but I never really did. I found a few people that were perfectly qualified and would've probably been fine nannies. But I really like Mandy head and tails above the rest. Apparently she likes us too. She said that she was holding off on answering a couple other offers, waiting to see if we would come through with an offer. So I'm happy we both found each other.

Seeking Nannies

Fay sitting in a Bumbo. What is a Bumbo? I believe it is a device for taking REALLY CUTE photos.

I haven't written in soooo long. This is mostly due to one thing. I've been spending all waking/napping (me awake, Fay napping) hours searching for a Nanny for Fay. I never anticipated it to be soooo exhausting. I think it is more difficult than I thought because I have such limited time to work on the search. I have to sneak in an email, reference check or phone interview when Fay is either napping or entertaining herself.

I've been using multiple resources -- friend's referrals, craigslist, and this site I found called sittercity. Before this week I had looked for two weeks and I had only found one nanny that I really liked. She doesn't have a ton of experience in the under 1 year ages. However, she is smart, kind, youthful, and was really good with Fay.

This week I've been really working the sittercity site. And I was getting pretty disappointed. The sitters on that site seem to be pretty young over all and not highly educated. Or if they are more educated, they seem to charge A LOT. But then I may be used to the lower rates charged by nyc nannies that prefer to be paid in cash.

But I had a really good reply today and I have two in person interviews tomorrow. If I find time to blog I will tell you how they went. One of the girls is from Argentina and one if from Ohio. I think I have a thing for midwesterners. :)

In the meantime we have taken some adorable photos of Fay. I guess that is mostly to her credit. Its hard to take a bad photo of her. Well except for in the early days. :)

A week ago we had one of Ryan's friends from work over with his wife and 8 month old boy. Damien is exactly 5 months older than Fay. They got along famously, except when Fay tried to steal Damien's mommy....



Fay had also been making some daring fashion choices lately. You know at that 3 month mark you have to start giving babies a little freedom to dress themselves and choose their own hairstyles. Fay is big into fashion Ts, jeans, and you guessed it, mullets.