What a busy weekend!

Saturday I threw a Clothing Exchange party. It was an idea I shamelessly stole from my friend Laima and Callie. Callie had actually brought up the idea two years ago and then Laima brought it up again this year. I thought "Why not?" So I sent out an email to my lady friends in town and two to out of town folks on the off chance that they would be in town. Five women responded and we were in business. I made a fruit pizza, chocolate covered strawberries, a frozen pizza and a Gorgonzola/apricot appetizer, cheese/meat tray with Saltine crackers (I discovered that my good crackers were opened and stale -- whoops), Tim made us strawberry daiquiris, Lowen brought chips and dip and wine, Sigrid brought sugar peas, Laima brought awesome spring rolls, and Hilary brought wine and we were in business! The party lasted later then I thought it would, ending at 12.30AM and we all walked away with new treasures. Overall it was a cheap party that yielded great results: quality friend time, good food and clothes!

Morella gave us a bit of a hard time on Saturday morning because she was up at 4:00 and was really upset. We ended up giving her a bottle and she went back down at 5:00. I realized the day before that my milk supply had dropped 6-8 ounces so I took the opportunity of her getting up early to work in an extra pump. It also worked in my favor because I had more time to go between pumps without worrying as the evening approached and I was getting ready. I felt bad about the drop for a couple days and then concluded that I would actually be okay with producing 34 ounces a day. I mean, I was having a hard time keeping up with 40+ ounces a day, so much so that I was just dumping excess milk after I had Morella's bottles made. If it stays at 34 I can deal with that. So I am going to keep track for a week or two and see if that is the case. If it drops any lower than 30 then I will do the extra tricks to see if I can up it. I sort of hope that doesn't need to happen though.

Today we tried to all catch up on some sleep. Morella has been a little cranky, hungry and tired the last couple of days. She has grown, I noticed it mostly by carrying her last Friday. She is getting heavy hefting her around with one arm, and today I noticed that she outgrew her blue jumper outfit. I liked that outfit too -- but it's too short for her now. She really is getting bigger. Tonight before bed time, I read her a few books and she actually sat there and looked at the pictures and listened to the story. This is a new development! Before she wanted to interact with the books and eat them. I think it's time to put book reading back into the night time bed routine. I have been looking forward to night time story rituals with my own kid for a long as I could remember. My Mom never read to me growing up so this is sort of a fantasy of mine. Oh the books we are going to read!

We went over to our friend Sigrid and Matt's for a BBQ this afternoon. Our first one of the year and had wonderful time despite the blustery cool weather. I had a hamburger as big as my head and an awesome cherry cobbler with ice cream -- we were full the rest of the day. Our turn is next. We have had a standing dog park meetup on Sunday's. But this weekend we were watching Jack possibly for the last time. Jack's owners are the folks that we have been trading dog watching for five years now, but they are moving to MN and that is drawing to an end. It was a little sad to think that this might be the last time watching Jack. When his owner came to pick him he was very reluctant to leave. Tim said that it might be because he senses big changes happening at their house. I remember when Pluto and Jack were younger and had so much energy, now they are all geriatric.

Tomorrow I am going to try and make it to the Pinney Library Baby Book hour. It's at 9.30 so Morella might or might not be up and at em at that time. I think it's doable without messing up her morning schedule too much. Then I need to make a trip downtown to pick up my wedding/engagement ring at some point. It will be nice to have those rings again. This is the longest I have ever gone without wearing rings. Then Thursday night we heading up to Hilbert to visit Tim's parents for the weekend. Our plan is to have Morella have a trial day with them on Friday while we go to Door County, to see how things go with making bottles and having Morella with them all day. That will be the longest I will ever be away from her *sniff*. A part of me just can't wait for our vacation to be done and over with so I can stop preemptively feeling sad and sick about being away from Morella for so long. The worst part is thinking about how miserable she is going to be without me around and that is causing her discomfort and I hate being the cause of that!

Sigh.

We are also meeting our friends Mike and Rachels' baby for the first time this week. That will be cool. I had thought we would go to the zoo but it closes at 5:00 so that's not gonna happen. I suppose we could go to Olbrich and walk around. Tim has never been there and I think they close at dusk.

Well, I am done pumping -- lets see today's results are: 34.5

Let's hope it stays at 34!