Getting In the Mindset

So I'm halfway through with my maternity leave, and have decided it's time to start preparing to go back to work. Six weeks is not enough time to have off, in my opinion, but R and I have had "the talk", and we've (I've) decided that he needs to start sleeping through the night by then. So we'll see if he holds up his end of the bargain.

I've started pumping to have some sort of milk stash for daycare, and already I seem to produce more milk than I was able to pump for E. I have no idea how much is a good "beginner's stash" for a part time job, but more is probably better than not enough, so we'll keep going. A friend of mine told me that she stopped breastfeeding in November, but had enough freezer milk to last until March. That's a lot of milk.

L got me a fancy medela hands free pump ("free" from our insurance co), and it's a lot better than my previous pump. I don't really see myself going "hands free", since I'm not sure what other tasks at work I could do while I'm being sucked dry of milk in my car. But who knows.

We've been talking to E a little bit more about R going to daycare with her, but she's not loving that idea yet. I

And in order to prepare for my return to work, I plan on putting together some freezer meals that I can pull out and pop in the oven. I have a feeling that the transition in the evenings will be quite busy, so making dinner may not happen some nights with a nursing babe and a busy toddler. Any good summer time freezer meals (is that possible?) would be appreciated.

I was dreading the thought of returning to work, but I'm more confident that it'll be okay now that we've had a few weeks under our belt. The bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler have finally hit home at L's company, and so things have been pretty slow, forcing the co. to cut back in a lot of areas. My income certainly doesn't/wouldn't replace L's, but it's a good supplement for extra savings. We're not that nervous (yet), but have just certainly decided to put our extra frugal hats on, just in case.

Anyway, there's a crying kiddo laying next to me, probably begging to be fed (he gained a pound in two weeks, and think he's going through another growth spurt again... yikes!).