cravings.

With the Pookie finally asleep, I can begin to sit here and attempt to gather my thoughts into some sort of coherent blawgg. Maybe. I am someone who absolutely craves consistency. I think that is why I stick with things so long even when they clearly aren't working out (I won't name any names... but if you knew me in high school or college, you know what I'm talking about). I don't like to rock the boat. I don't like to be uneasy. I don't like not knowing what's coming up ahead.

Babies, as it turns out, do not go well with this kind of outlook.

Just when I think I am starting to understand Emmaline, what she needs, what she likes, and how she's going to act, she throws a wrench into the whole operation. I was fully ready to accept she was never going to nurse. I randomly tried it and now she loves it (2 and half months after initially trying and failing so hard). Now, we come to find out that she doesn't want a bottle at all. Shit. This is not good. We were planning on switching from breastmilk to formula exclusively once school started back up in September since I would be gone for 9+ hours on Tuesday's and Thursday's with no way to pump. If she is now refusing the bottle, then we will be forced to wean her off the breast and back to bottles in two months. Patrick thinks we should just quit nursing and go back to pumping breastmilk for her. I'm sad but I think he's right.

Emmaline was sleeping six to seven hours a night without making a peep. A few nights she even went up to nine hours without waking. It was amazing, to say the least. Now that we finally got her to sleep in her crib, she is waking one and two times a night again. I keep telling myself it's simply because we disrupted what she was used to and now she has to get re-comfortable with sleeping in this new place and she'll eventually go back to sleeping through. I hope I am right.

Some days she likes certain bottles. Other days she wants the ones we used when she was a month old. Some days she likes the blue pacifier. Lately she's been wanting her pink one. She used to not care if her milk was warm or cold. Now she won't accept even a drop unless it's been warmed.

About a month ago, Emmaline started this horrible thing where every night around 5-ish she would just start to cry hysterically. It would go on for an hour, sometimes two, with her just screaming. We tried everything we could ever think of and I was at my wit's end. It honestly is one of the most stressful, heartbreaking and, yes, I admit it... annoying, things in the world. Your poor baby is crying so hard she can't even catch her breath and you can't figure out why. I would just start crying because I felt so bad, so guilty. I felt like, clearly I was missing something. If I was a "good mom" I would be able to figure out why my child was upset and be able to fix it. I finally said something on fbook and I got some really good advice from a dear, dear friend of mine.

Miss Brandi, mamma of two boys, told me that a lot of parenting is just trial and error. At the time, Emmaline was just a month or so old and this felt like the worst advice I could ever get... because I wanted something definitive. I wanted to be told that if the problem was "A," and if I did "B," then "C" would definitely happen. I wanted a cure. I wanted the knowhow, the inside scoop, the 411, the freakin' answer to why my baby was so pissed off.

But Miss Brandi was giving me the answer. Every baby, like every adult who's raising them, is different. They like, need, hate, crave, look for, think, and feel different things. Sometimes it's different from a sibling or your friend's baby. And sometimes, unfortunately, it's different on Wednesday from what they liked Tuesday. And being a good Mommy means I can recognize that what I'm doing isn't working right now and I use my baby's clues to find what will work.

I hate it, because I want (need!) that consistency. But if this is how my sweet Emmaline likes to roll, then I'm gonna go with it. Because, let's face it. She is totally the boss of me now!

And I couldn't ask for a cuter boss :)

confidence.

So, some exciting news. Emmaline and I have nursed FOUR times today. I don't know what it was - maybe talking about pumping last night? - but something encouraged me to try just one more time and Pookie took to it like we'd been doing it since Day 1! I was so shocked. I still want to continue to pump every now and then so there is always milk in the fridge and freezer so Daddy can feed sometimes too but I think I will try to nurse as exclusively as possible myself. The only thing I am having trouble with is knowing when she is finished. She gets so comfy in my arms being held that close to me that she gets all sleepy and drowsy so I am not sure if she's full or just chillin'.

It's kinda ironic because they (whoever "they" is...) say that breastfed babies have healthier weights because the breast only produces enough milk for what the baby wants and needs to eat and that bottle fed babies are in danger of being overweight because parents get sucked into the numbers game ("Come on; just half an ounce left. Eat up!"). But Baby refuses to drink any more from her bottle than what she really wants. She literally will make the most horrible face and spit out the milk once she's done, ha. So who knows? I will keep trying for now. Whatever is easiest at that moment for me to get food to my sweet baby is what I will do.

So, I have plans to meet up with a friend from high school tomorrow and her daughter, and another mommy friend of hers and her 4 month old. Is it lame that I am nervous? I don't go out with my girl by myself very often and, for some reason, I am still a little - hmm, what's the word? - self conscious? That's sort of what I mean. And I think I will be even more intimidated being around two mommies that have been doing this twice as long as I have. There are as many ways to raise a child as there are mommies and children and I feel like I am doing a really good job. But for some reason, I just haven't gotten that confidence. I love my little girl with everything and I am constantly reading, researching, and working to make sure I am doing the best for her. But I am also constantly second guessing myself. I am not very confident in myself in anything else in my life so it does not surprise me that I am struggling with this as well. But nothing else in my life is as important as my girl, either. I just don't know what to do to fix this.

I suppose I will just go tomorrow and do what I always do with the Pookie. I hope we have fun :)