Happy FIRST Birthday Morgan!

Please check out Morgan's website for many, many more pictures, videos, and comments about today. I can't believe my baby is one!

It's Monday

This is the perfect descriptor of my day....enough said.

Crying over spilt milk

Today a tragedy of gigantic proportions happened at our house. A few weeks ago I had gone out to the deep freezers in our garage to prepare Morgan's weekly allotment of breastmilk. One of our freezers is notorious for frosting over and I noticed that some milk had become completely encased in ice. Not to worry though, if it was covered in ice, it was cold, right?

Today I asked Patrick to go out to that freezer and de-ice the milk so I could figure out just how much milk I have left since we are going to start the slow transition to cow's milk next week. As I am sure you have guessed by now, when Patrick opened the door to that freezer, water came gushing out and ALL the ice and milk was defrosted. And I am not talking a few bags. Over 150 bags of breastmilk was lost. 600 ounces. Enough milk to feed Morgan strictly breastmilk for over 4 weeks.

I cannot even begin to describe how devastated I was once it was discovered, or how immediately my heart sank to my toes and my eyes welled up with tears. Or how even hours later it still upsets me. I still have 5 weeks worth of milk in the other freezer that remains frozen and drinkable. And I am going to start mixing her breastmilk with cow's milk next Sunday. But that is not the point. The hours spent pumping, bagging, sterilizing, and more importantly the intense love and motivation of best nutrition behind my intent to freeze all that milk was all gone. In a gush of water and milk.

You know the old saying from your mother, "Don't cry over spilt milk!". Sorry Mom, today I cried over spilt milk. I just couldn't help it.

Happy Father's Day!

Although it's Patrick's second year as a father, technically, it's his first OFFICIAL Father's Day! Morgan gave him a golf practice net, a golf bear, T-shirt, picture frame, and a collection of pictures of the two of them in a pretty collage frame. All of the pictures are of the two of them napping together (something they do frequently)!

We also went bowling today and Daddy helped Morgan roll her first ball, knocking down 5 pins.

Best of all, Morgan gave her Daddy (and Mama) the gift of allowing us to see her first unassisted steps! It was such a joy to watch her, and she is so cute! Now she's officially a toddler!

Happy Father's Day Patrick. You are such a good Daddy. I see the love for your daughter in the light of your eyes every day. I could ask for a better man for her to grow up with.

You eat the peas, I'll eat the Milk Bone

Morgan and Bailey have become the best of friends over the past few months. They play together, Morgan often racing the dog up the hallway toward one of Bailey's toys. Morgan will take toys out of Bailey's mouth, or they will play tug-o-war, and Bailey will bark at Morgan, causing Morgan to laugh and laugh like it's the funniest thing she has ever seen!

Bailey has also figured out that when Morgan eats, food gets dropped to the floor, so she takes up permanent residence under the high chair during meals. Last night Morgan was eating peas and some pork chops cooked in mushroom gravy. I had mixed some of the peas in the mushroom gravy, which apparently was not the correct thing to do. Morgan was picking out the peas that had gravy on them, looking over the side of her high chair, and dropping the rejected peas to Bailey! She was eating the peas that didn't have gravy on them though. It was funny to watch, but I had to teach Morgan that food on our tray needs to stay on our tray, even if we don't eat it. After dinner Morgan got to sample a small bit of Mama's chcolate ice cream. Traditionally Bailey always gets to finish off the bowl. Below is a picture of what happened next:

Since Morgan's newfound mobility and independence, Bailey has been having to deal with a lot of invasions to her way of life. As I mentioned on Morgan's website, Morgan has discovered the dog's food and water bowls, which for 11 months have been untouched by the baby. Morgan also spends a good deal of time in the dog's "house" or swinging the door to the cage open and shut, with the poor dog inside wondering what the heck is going on! Yesterday Bailey left a Milk Bone on the carpet in the foyer just outside of her cage. While cooking dinner, I glanced down to see Morgan eating the Milk Bone! So apparently nothing of the dog's is sacred anymore, although we are really going to work hard on keeping Morgan out of the dog's food, treats and water!

A sad day, but the good kind...

Today, after much thought over the past week, I have stopped nursing Morgan completely. We had been down to one nursing a day, in the morning before our days started. Recently she has been crying after only nursing for 2-3 minutes, and I finally figured out that she was probably not getting enough milk. This morning I gave her a 4 oz bottle of frozen milk, which she drank quickly, and she didn't cry when the feeding was over.

It's a bittersweet day for me. Many of you may be laughing because before I had Morgan I swore that breastfeeding was gross and not for me. I was only going to "try" because it was cheaper than buying formula. However, Morgan took to it pretty well and it really helped us bond through my intense period of post-partum depression. Even though I am looking forward to actually sleeping IN one morning and letting Patrick take care of the morning feeding, I am going to miss our special time where it was just me and her, and I was the only one who could give her what she needed.

On the positive side, Morgan is growing up and doing more things on her own. I don't have to lug the breast pump with me everywhere I go, nor am I having to wash and sterilize breast pump bottles and parts every day. I also don't need to pack the Boppy on vacation. I don't have to worry so much about feeding schedules and being somewhere that I could nurse privately. Even though it's an added step to now put the frozen milk in a bottle, and makes more bottles to wash, it's a step toward Morgan being completely off breast milk (and the bottle). I am not going to rush her weaning from the bottle, but I hope that by 15 months she is completely off the bottle. Then we'll tackle the binky!

Smithsonian National Zoo

Over the weekend we went to visit my brother and sister-in-law in Maryland. Their company was having a picnic at the zoo for it's employees and Jeff thought Morgan might like to go. We had a really wonderful time! We got to have two animal encounters (a tarantula and a tenrec), and we got to see the gorillas get fed! It was funny because they were actually tossed brown bags...to which either Patrick or Jeff made some comment about the original brown bag lunch!!

On the subway

Next Stop...the National Zoo

Tenney Family at the Zoo!

Morgan liked the tarantula.

Just eating my brown bag lunch...

Joann the Tenrec

Watching the Oranutans

Tai Shan (we think)

Totally Wiped OUT

It was really hot, but all in all we had a wonderful time and Morgan seemed really fascinated with the animals that we did get to see. She was sleeping through the elephants and pandas and slept a good bit of the way home, but I think she had a good first zoo experience!