The Seventh Month

Leland and I are finally getting well and back to normal. I have been fighting my bronchitis for weeks. Thankfully, after only a few days on the antibiotic, Leland was much better. Though, he still has a lingering cough and the sniffles. Hopefully I will be able to get back to blogging more.

This past months has been so eventful. I hosted a 70^th Birthday party for my dad. It’s bittersweet. I enjoyed all the time I had with my dad and my four older sisters, but it’s hard to accept that my dad is really 70. It was also a little stressful as not all of my sisters get along well, mostly because not all of my sisters are nice people. Specifically, my sister just older than me – I’ll call her CM - is really just not nice. We made it though the party without incident, but CM had a large outburst at the end of lunch on Sunday. She started screaming hysterically and saying awful things about me and Robert. Thankfully my three oldest sisters came to our defense. Good (nice) sisters really are a blessing. Outside of celebrating the wonderful man my dad is, the best part of the weekend was getting to introduce Leland to family members (including my three oldest sisters) who had not met him yet.

Leland is growing and changing so much. On February 3^rd he weighed 13 lbs 1 oz. On February 21^st he weighed 14 lbs 7 oz! He is a little eating machine and is just plumping up wonderfully. He has started sitting on his own and has mastered rolling about to get to things. He still hates to be on his tummy, but we are working with him. He has started giving kisses and it just melts my heart when I get one. We practiced for weeks and then one day it just clicked. Still, he is more likely to give a kiss on his own just because than on demand, when asked for one.

Breastfeeding continues to be a struggle. When I was sick I was pumping 5-6 times a day to get 8-9 oz of milk. I was burning through my freezer stash. With this reality, I made a difficult decision about two weeks ago. I have added in one 4oz formula per day in the afternoons.  My milk supply has actually increased some now that I am feeling better, but keeping the formula bottle takes a little pressure off me when I was already struggling so hard to produce. It also means I don’t have to pump after Leland goes to bed so I can relax more and get to bed a little earlier. He has done well with the formula at daycare. The first time Robert tried to give him the formula he objected, but has sense accepted formula from Robert (and even once from me). I thought he would need a formula bottle on the weekends since my daily supply is not matching his daily demand, but I have actually found that on the weekends he would just rather nurse on demand rather than have the bottle. God continues to look over me and bless me with the ability to continue to breastfeed and for that I am so thankful.

This weekend, Leland will be 8 months old. Wow! Now...some pictures:

 Got my cell phone!

Dimples

 Sitting up all by myself!

Blue eyes like daddy!