weekend edition, a day late

okay, so i didn't post over the weekend like i said i would. but here i am now! and you should savor this one, because i seem to be coming down with a cold, probably caught from mr. baby man and all those other snotty-nosed little punks at the playground, and i may not have the energy to post for a few days.

so before i get to what i originally had to say, the BIG NEWS: there was unassisted steppage! saturday, 4 steps, stephen and i were both there to see it. since then...well, not so much. a step here and there, but mostly he wants to hang on to my fingers and walk (just my index fingers, pointed in and angled injust the right way, and he gets totally indignant if i do it wrong). but, all in good time; i'm not rushing the walking. excuse me, what was that? oh, my lower back says "rush it, bitch! i'm dying down here with all the hunching over!"

okay, now to what i originally had to say:

1. only four months to spring training (if you don't like/care about baseball, you can skip ahead...)

the 2005 season, she is officially over. the best team won, and yes, it was a 4-game sweep, but they were awesome, close, exciting games, every single one of them. the only reason that i'm not 100% glad that the white sox won is that my mom picked the astros to win it all at the beginning of the playoffs.

but more importantly, how ' bout them mets? we finished 4 games over .500, and in third place. after the past few years, that's as good as winning the freakin pennant to me. and jose reyes led the league in triples and stolen bases. wile has a dollar bill signed by jose that his nana procured for him last spring, and the value just keeps going up.... now all we need to do is ship kazuwalt (aka kazuo matsui—my mom was listening to vin scully call a dodgers-mets game last year and scully pronounced his name "kazuwalt", which of course is so much better than "kazuo") back to japan and get a real second baseman. oh and find a closer. and probably another outfielder who can hit for power. and a catcher. and some more relief pitching. okay, fine. we're probably not going to make the playoffs next year either. but will you look at the left side of our infield?

works for me.

2. sayonara, milk diapers* (if you don't like/care about boobs, you can skip ahead)

it seems like all you ever hear about is women not having enough milk and having to give up breastfeeding. okay, maybe you haven't heard that much about it, unless you're also a mom...or read a lot of books/blogs/articles about momming...or just talk to a lot of moms. in any case, lack of milk seems to be a fairly common problem, with large sections of all the baby/parenting books devoted to ideas for stimulating milk production and support for women who end up throwing in the burp cloth and going with formula. you don't see or hear too much discusion of/support for my situation: having more milk than me or mr. baby man knew what to do with.

and i know i can't really complain. it's like when i bitch about my legs being too skinny and i get the "how dare you use the words thin legs and bad in the same sentence" glare from other women. believe me, i realize that not having enough milk is a problem of a completely different nature than having too much milk. not having enough milk leads to all sorts of emotional upheaval, which i respect—if i had had to give up the breastfeeding, i would have needed truckloads of those anti-post-partum-depression vitamins from tom cruise. having too much milk just leads to wardrobe and personal hygeine upheaval.

i spent the first four months of wile's life covered in milk. no, literally. the leaking was beyond prodigious. it was hoover dam–esque. they tell you that if you leak from one boob while the baby is feeding on the other, it means you have enough milk. yeah, well i think that my hormones sent my mammary glands the wrong message or something, because they seem to have thought that i was having triplets! i didn't leak, i spurted. like a spray gun. when i went shopping for nursing bras, the first thing the salesgirl gave me was this nice comfy cotton model that she said would be great as a "sleep bra", and i remember thinking "huh? why the hell would i wear a bra to sleep?" oh, maybe because if i didn't have some way of keeping the breast pads in front of the boobs, we all would have woken up in a pool of breastmilk every morning!

now, some of you might be going, "what the hizzel is a breast pad?" it's a little absorbant puck that you put in your bra to soak up the milk leakage. observe. i bought them by the 100-pack. for the first six months, i would burn through two per boob a day, no problem. one day i went out for the afternoon without mr. baby man and leaked through the pad, the bra, an undershirt top, and a wool sweater. there were droplets of milk clinging to the boobal region of my sweater.

but for the most part, once i got past the first few months of milk milk everywhere, the pads have done their job. so what's my beef? just this: they don't make for a real smooth silhouette. in fact, they make your boobs look at the same time flat and lumpy. so every outfit i put on in the past year has had to pass the "does it camoflage the breast pads?" test. let me tell you, it puts a damper on the wardrobe. the maternity clothes are finally a thing of the past, your beloved regular clothes are waiting for you...and now you have to contend with the breast pads. curses!

one time i tried to use these silicone breast pad alternatives, which are supposed to work by putting pressure on the nipple and slowing down the flow. ha! really, i should have known better. i was nursing the boo on the right side and the stream of "leakage" from the left side literally blew the little silicone jobby right off the left boob.

but now that mr. baby man is growing up and moving on (slowly, slowly) to the solids, the flow is decreasing. yes, i'll still leak a little bit from the other side when he feeds, but for the most part the milk is still in there but it's not rushing for the exits. so a couple of weeks ago i dared to go breast pad–free. and i haven't gone back. and it's fabulous. there was one incident at the playgorund when a little girl was crying and my left boob was all "here, here, i can help!", but besides that i have remained leak free.

any ideas for a good use for 50 unused breast pads?


* tm binky


3. btietw...

...is gonna have to wait. i need to go drink more tea and go to bed and fight this oncoming sick. hopefully my preventative measures will work and i'll be back soon.....