I'll Very Nearly Miss Her

HR had his 4-month check-up today and he continues to be perfect. I feel very, very lucky to have such a healthy little dude. He's on the small end of the spectrum (10-15th percentile, whatever that means) but neither his dad nor I are particularly big 'uns so it makes sense. He's growing appropriately and to me he's a delicious marshmallow of a baby, finally starting to put on some adorable chub. I guess the recent milk influx is no coincidence. He was such a love during the exam, smiling and laughing at the nurse and doctor, only crying when he got his shots, and I think that was mainly because he was hungry anyway. My boy's a champ, what can I say.

We're having a wonderfully decent sleeping week, back to him waking only once to feed after a going down for a 7-8 hour chunk. I know better than to think this pattern is here for good, but I certainly enjoy it in the moment. I know I need to wean him from his swaddling soon. And I need to sleep train so he can put himself to sleep instead of me nursing and holding him to sleep like I do, it's for all of our own good. But I'm selfishly putting it off because I don't get home until 6:30 on weeknights and that hour-and-a-half before he goes to sleep is my close time with him. Arg. If I don't ever train him there are probably worse things... but I know I should. Arg, again. I was led to believe that parenting would be easy? And that there would be more pie involved? Come to think of it I don't think I've had any pie since I started this blog and it makes me feel like a fraud. We can't have that, now.

Because of this morning's appointment I'm off my pumping schedule, which means I probably won't have to deal with Sandra Lee. What am I talking about? OK, I'll explain the correlation. Because of where I work I get the cushiest pumping set-up - we have studio apartments on site and on any given day there's one that's unoccupied. I get privacy, A/C, a refrigerator and cable TV at my disposal while I'm doing my thing (another enormous job perk). I like to be efficient and get it done quickly, but pumping is boring so I turn on the TV so I can zone out for ten minutes. The Food Network was on the first time I turned on the TV in my current little station, so I just left it on because I like to watch food being made while I'm, er, making food. The Neelys are on during my morning pump (they've grown on me because they are so obviously in love) and Giada is my late-afternoon buddy (I've always liked her). The problem is the mid-afternoon abomination known as Sandra Lee and her various crimes against humanity through "recipes" and "decorating." It's so easy to dislike her and her awful-looking food and ridiculous tablescapes that watching her becomes its own kind of fun. I could change the channel, but why when I can gape and yell things at the TV like, "Sandra for the love of god there is no such effing thing as MELK!" and feel better about my own kitchen skills in comparison? I'm no chef, but at least I never dumped a jar of strawberry jam and a pork butt in a slow cooker and called it dinner. Today though I'll have to look elsewhere for my dose of culinary schadenfreude.

It's a tough life, but someone's got to live it.