Summer Break

I am approaching my second solid week of medical leave with my son. This is, I believe, the longest contiguous break I've had from work since he was born and my maternity leave ended.  So far, so good.

T-man is healing up really well. He is still sore right at the surgery spot but has continued to refuse any pain medication.  The soreness only affects bathroom stops and wiping (hey, you don't want to hear about  body functions, go find another blog, LOL). He's still on a bigger-than-before dose of Miralax to make sure that nothing hurts coming out. He is about 50% in underwear, 50% in pull-ups. The extra Miralax sometimes gets things moving a bit too fast for him. Before his surgery he wore a panty-liner in his big-boys every day because the prolapse would rub and bleed through his pants. This past week, when not fighting liquid stool, his pants are staying dry and clean!

Besides that part, it's just summer break.  He can't sit in a bathtub or pool, but showers are fine, so we have gotten out the sprinklers and water guns. We decorated kites then flew them at the park. He did play at the park, but knows not to go down a slide on his bottom (yes, for once I'm telling him to go on his tummy, feet first of course).  The kids have had way more screen time than average (because what's a good old fashioned summer break without some mind-numbing couch potato time). Every morning at breakfast time they also do a couple of pages out of school workbooks (multiplication and division practice for the soon-to-be 4th grader, and a variety of reading/writing/math/clocks/time/etc sheets for the little guy). We've been to the library to sign up for their summer reading program, and collected a prize each. We went to a concert (Casting Crowns, at Six Flags, in the pouring rain and thunder).

We still have a few to-do's on our wish list to check off. Paint pottery, see a movie, go to the zoo, do some drawing.  And finish writing the novel I've been working on for 1.5 years. (Seein as how I've been known to hammer out a first draft in like 3 months, this particular story is driving me insane) I'm down to 2 scenes before I can type The End and set it aside to "rest"...I think editing this one will be a breeze because my self-editing process takes more of a fixed amount of time. Also, I abhor this story. It's either the worst thing I've ever written or it's brilliant (my money's on "worst").

I think by the follow-up visit next week that I will have little to no vacation or sick time left, so my husband will be the primary sick-day-parent for the next several months. I'm not upset with that. I'm a little sad that I'm unlikely to have enough vacation left for an actual Vacation this year, but 2.5 weeks off in June isn't bad.  Wish I could do this every year (minus the surgery of course).

Resolutions for 2011

I think the New Year should really start on the Winter Solstice. What better day to designate as "0" than the shortest one of the year? Of course, if that were true, then I would already be late on writing my resolutions :)

Exercise
 I don't need to lose weight. Man is it nice to be able to say that for once in my life. But I do need a goal. Minimum 2x a week of good exercise. Gym-worthy, hour-long exercise. Not just my 10-minute stroll around the parking lot at work. I've done step classes for years, but recently become rather infatuated with Zumba. And our Y just switched Yoga and Tai Chi to be free for members, so I might try one or both of those. Or try running a little, like I did last summer. A very little. (very, very little).

Finances
I have many financial goals, the vast majority of which do not bear posting to the web :)

So, I will focus on one resolution I am comfortable mentioning in front of the eWorld. Book-buying. I own way too many books. And an ereader. I'm thinking I should reconcile these two data points. Maybe next year I will try to buy 75% of all reading material in electronic format.

I can't make it 100% because I'm sure there are exceptions that must be in hardcopy, like software books for the day job where my ereader is not welcome (ironic, I know). And though I'm tempted to buy mostly e-books for Charlotte to read, I would have to buy her an ereader to go with them...maybe when the prices drop again :)

Home Organization
So many options, so few days off work (well, days off work without busy children underfoot to prevent us from actually accomplishing anything).  I shall concentrate on one single problem area of our house:  The basement needs gutting.

Not the walls, the junk. Baby toys, a mish-mash of (working but unconnected) a/v equipment, enough Christmas doodads to stock my own boutique. And no shelving.

We must buy shelves, and then put the junk on them in some systematic fasion. Ideally, throwing away large quantities of the junk in the process (my husband is probably giving me the evil eye on this one, sure that I'm thinking of the boxes of...stuff...that he hasn't touched in 11 years....)

Writing
Ah, the writing goals. I have a separate blog where I jabber about my writing so that this blog stays more family related. I will probably have a goal post up there at some point soon.

One idea I'm kicking around is to combine that blog and this one. Or to take that blog down altogether and move its contents to the WordPress site on the domain where I get my writing-related email. (y
Yes, I have a website. And its really really boring and exceedingly sparse since, you know, I haven't published anything therefore have no real reason to advertise my as-yet-non-existent writing business).

I will state one goal for the year. To publish something :) Of course, unless I self-publish that goal is like some of my day-job ones: it is 98% out of my control but it makes the managers happy to have it written down.

Where do you read?

I frequently hear from writing friends that they don't have much time to read. Actually, I hear that from non-writer friends, too. I am totally mystified by the comment. Who doesn't have time to read?

There is a cute post at Tor.com called Gulp or sip: How do you read? The blogger and I have much in common when it comes to reading.

I read all the time, every day. I used to get in trouble in school for whipping out a book and reading during class. When I started reading romances in high school—the kind with Fabio and an unlaced corset on the front—I bought a cloth book cover so that teachers couldn't object (as much) to what I chose to read.

Like the blogger, I read when I eat by myself. I read before bed. I read on airplanes. I love flying by myself because I have hours where I can do little else besides read.

When I was nursing both of my kids, and pumping on breaks at work, I would read. I had to set myself a timer to make sure I didn't get too engrossed in a book and stay in the mother's room for an hour at a stretch.

I read old classics through DailyLit.com (free! Delivered in small chunks via RSS feed to Google Reader! Alice in Wonderland is even wackier than I remember it!).

Lately, with the addition of my Sony reader and both the Borders and Kindle apps on my phone, I read everywhere. In between stirring the tomato sauce for dinner and draining the pasta. Just out of splash range while the kids are in the bathtub. During Dragon Tales, Max and Ruby, and WordWorld. In the lobby during the kids dance class. In the waiting room at the doctor's office.

I read in the car on long car rides. I read on short car rides. If I cared for audio books (I don't), I'd “read” while driving. I'm tempted to try them again, just to make a dent in my list of books to read.

With few exceptions, I read two or more childrens' books every night. Outloud. To my children, who always beg for one more.

Since starting writing the past few years, I haven't noticed any decline in how much I read. But I have changed what I read.

I read books on writing, books on grammar (a small section at a time), books in genres that I'm also writing, books that are completely different. I read my critique partners' chapters of books they haven't finished yet. I've beta-read whole books for them. I read blogs and more blogs (from editors, agents, writers, book reviews).

I also read more than one book at a time, and I don't always finish them. Right now, I probably have 5 books in progress. I can think of two books on writing, at least two fiction books I've started, and a couple of non-fiction ones in areas of research for potential future writing of my own.

I used to finish every work of fiction that I started, no matter what. I'm much pickier now. I also have an entire bookshelf (plus a still-unpacked duffel bag) full of books that I've bought or received (love free books from RWA conference!). So a book has to be great (or better than great), or else it can be replaced by one of a hundred more that I have queued up and ready to go.

What about you? Where do you read? Or do you need a long "gulp" for your reading time?

The best way to recover from a trip

The best way to recover from a trip is by turning around and going on another one. Right? Uh, sure.

Two weeks ago I went to the RWA National Convention (Romance Writers of America) in Orlando. Yes, I'm a writer. No, I'm not published. I'm working on that :) That, in fact, was the purpose of the convention. Though at times it felt like a vacation (no kids, no cooking, no laundry), the point was to attend workshops to improve my writing and to network with other writers, editors, and literary agents. The first photo is from the last night when the Golden Heart and Rita awards are presented. Its kind of like the Oscars for romance novels, only 99% of all of the awards attendees are female :) The first photo is my weekly critique group (minus Dawn, who had already headed back to her room). From the left are Shawntelle Madison, Jeannie Lin, myself, and Amanda Berry.


After a week back at the day job, and not quite catching up on dirty laundry, we drove to Indiana for my husband's family reunion. The second photo shows my kids (facing the camera behind the table), their cousins (backs to the camera), my sister-in-law (right side of the table) and mother-in-law (left side) working on crafts during the heat of the afternoon. There were lots more cousins and second cousins there that I didn't get photos of. Most of them blondies like my kids :)

We left the reunion close to dinner time and drove up to Indianapolis to visit my mom and two of my sisters. On Sunday, we all went to the Indiana State Fair. We took the fair train, run by the Indiana Museum of Transportation, which also happens to leave from about 5 minutes away from Mom's house. Trystan is a train fanatic and loved every minute of the ride. I got pictures of Charlotte and my sister Katie because they were in the seat across from mine, but not Trystan (who was in my lap or running down the aisle most of the trip).

The kids rode a bunch of rides, and it was Charlotte's first time on a Ferris wheel. We walked through some of the livestock barns. The kids especially liked the chickens and bunnies. For lunch, we had rib-eye steak sandwiches that were delicious. Except that the tent was right next to one of the doors to the cow barn, where the cows were being primped for show. As my husband phrased it, "There is no second place." We drove home Monday afternoon, exhausted, and still haven't tackled the mountain of laundry.


I have an unexpected day off today. Unexpected because we have a deadline at work next week, and I was mentally prepared for stress and overtime. But (fingers crossed!) we are running ahead of schedule, so I'm home.

And I plan to spend the day lazing by the pool eating chocolate, since the kids are at daycare.

Or, I could do laundry, buy groceries, clean the house, pick up supplies for tomorrow's girl scout day camp, and finish polishing one of my manuscripts (fancy word for those unpublished books) to send off to a requesting agent.

eReader

Back in 2007, I wrote a post on this blog about the brand new Amazon Kindle on sale for around $400. I wasn’t impressed. Actually, that wasn’t quite it. Through my rather sarcastic humor, I was trying to show that I am not an early adopter of new technologies, and that I thought that e-readers and e-books have a bit more evolving to do.

Times change, some. I am still underwhelmed by the Kindle. Not so much the idea of e-readers, but the device itself reminds me of the stereo in my husband’s last car: it has too many buttons. But the more I get into writing, and studying up on the business of publishing, the more I like electronic publishing. And the more writers I have met, the more I like the variety of work that is electronically published.

No, I’m not published yet. Still working on that. But considering some of the subgenres of romance I am writing (in my "spare" time, in case this hobby of mine is news to you), I am absolutely open to being electronically published.

But back to the e-readers. One of my major hangups about e-readers is the cost. I have a laptop and a netbook. Why would I want to shell out another $300-400 (or more) for another device. Why can’t I just read on my existing computers? Well, I can. But I don’t. It kills my eyes. I spend too much time in front of a computer screen already. More and more, an ereader with an eInk screen, the kind with low refresh rates and low light output, have started to seem like a better idea.

Ok,the issue isn't just my eyes. Its also my bookshelves. We have an entire wall of our bedroom lined in tall book shelves. And if I'm not careful, I will soon begin overflowing them. Not counting the books in the office, cookbooks in the kitchen, or the kids collections, which are overflowing shelves in their rooms.

What did you say? Get rid of books? Blasphemer.

Prices on e-readers are coming down and I finally bought a Sony touch. So far, I love it. Its does not have built-in WiFi/3G networking so it can't just automatically download books, but I don't miss that feature (too easy to overbuy, and I have lots of e-book resources to choose from without it). And it has a stylus and some ability to highlight and take notes on screen.

I still think that e-books and reader technologies have a long way to go. There are too many formats, and the options can be really confusing (can you say Beta vs VHS?). And some formats look nicer on small screens than others. But this works. It travels nicely, and I'm taking advantage of free reads, digital-first books that aren't in print, and a few books that I know I'll only read once.

Twitter

So, did I mention I was tweeting? With a couple of the sick days last week with the kids, I actually got a little bit of web surfing time.

Now, don't laugh too hard. I signed up for a twitter account. I'm elitsirk, same crazy jibberish name as my blog :) And I'm tweeting about once a day (maybe), about many of the same things you'll read right here. Things the kids are doing. Random tidbits about writing (because talking about writing fiction is just as productive as actually doing it, right? right?)

So, yeah. Twitter. I'm sure you're all a-twitt...nevermind. Feel free to follow me. I promise I won't be the one filling your screen

500

I just realized that I recently passed my 500th post. 500! Wow. I sure jabber a lot. I posted for the first time in February, 2006, though I'd had the blog address for about a year before that, but never wrote anything I felt like sharing with the world.

Since then, I've gone from regular life of working and being the mom of a then 1.5-year-old girl to the regular life of working and being the mom of a 2.5-year-old boy and http://elitsirk.blogspot.com/search/label/Charlotte. I've had a high-risk pregnancy, dealt with all of Trystan's myriad surgeries, doctors, and health problems, and written 1 novel plus 1/4-3/4 of three additional ones (not published, just written..baby steps and lots of learning along the way).

I think this is the part where I'm supposed to say something pithy and wise. Er, I've always been better at wisecracks than wisdom.

So, thanks for listening! See you at 1000.

My week

I tried not to tell my kids that I was going on a trip until the last minute. And, as I expected, I got a torrent of tears when Charlotte realized that I was going, and she was not coming with me. No amount of reassurance--it was only 4 nights, after all--helped at first. And then she pereked up, and demanded that I bring her a gift. "Mommy, you have to buy me a present."

My daughter, the princess.

I don't think Trystan would have quite understood, which is unfortunate. For him, I was there at bedtime, and gone by the time he woke up in the morning. I had a 6:40AM flight on Wednesday, and left the house by 5. I think he held up just fine while I was gone, but barely left my sight on Sunday after I got home.

I talked to the kids every day except Saturday, when they were at their aunt's while my husband attended a wedding. Charlotte led the conversation Thursday night, starting with an (unprompted) play-by-play account of her entire day. Then she asked me what I did that day. How very grown up she is.

Trystan only says "hi" and a few other phrases on the phone before he begins pressing buttons. My gadget boy.

I went to a writers conference last week. It was fun. It was overwhelming. I had 4 days of adult conversation and meals without potty trips. That was awesome. But, it was also 4 days without snuggles from my kiddos, without kisses and hugs, without singing a single lullaby or reading a bedtime story.

I am glad I went. And I am so glad to be home.

Is it a little chilly in here?

I am getting very very tired of the cold. I don't think I've been warm since last September. Or maybe earlier than that. Maybe 2006. You know, before I became the oven to a couple of buns. Don't rush to any conclusions. I'm not yearning for another pregnancy. Just a little warmth.

I think I'm getting old. Or my metabolism is slowing down. Because in my wild youth I don't remember constantly reaching for a sweater. Or a fuzzy purple bathrobe. And thick socks. And slippers. The Cookie Monster ones. And maybe a blanket.

The problem could be the long winter, that I swear started last August. For thriftiness, our programmable thermostat is set for 65 overnight, 67 during the day. I keep finding myself upping it to 68. There's a world of difference between 67 and 68, you know.

Or the problem could be work. I work in a dungeon. The elevator calls it "level 1". Or the basement. Whatever. It's cold down there, and there are no windows. I keep a sweater at my desk. And a blanket. And a large supply of hot tea (never underestimate the warming power of a hot coffee mug). I wear that sweater all year round. I get cold in my car too. Even with my winter coat and a scarf on, I keep the thermostat set at 67 (68 unzipped). And I love seat warmers!

I am ready, oh so ready, for some real heat. To sit outside while the sun broils me from above and the concrete-turned-pizza stone browns me from below. Not that I brown, and not that I spend much time without my SPF 9-Million on. But at least in the summer, I won't need a sweater.

Woman vs Machine

The jalapeño chips called to me. Loudly. From three hallways away.

"I go great with peanut butter and jelly," they said. "And I'm way cooler than that banana."

I held out as long as I could. At least five minutes.

Finally, shoulders slumped in shame, I stuffed a dollar bill into my pants pocket and snuck out into the hallway. Empty. I could feed my spicy-salty-greasy craving without an audience.

"Now equipped with Golden Eye," the sign read. "We guarantee that you will receive your product."

The machine slurped my dollar with a whirr. I punched the numbers. 126. And I waited.

Gears turned. Change fell into the coin return slot. The long metal spiral turned, nudging the green bag forward. And it stopped.

My jalapeños hung in midair, trapped by the shelf above.

No problem, I thought. I will just buy two. There will be more peanut butter tomorrow, which will go nicely with more chips. I strode with purpose back to my cubicle, and found another dollar.

Whirr. Slurp. Punch. And I waited.

Noooo!

Now two bags of chips hung, caught on the shelves, and perhaps trapped by the oversized bag of cheesy corn in the next slot over.

I considered my options. I'm too short for an effective vending machine wrestling match. I couldn't even budge the thing. The dispenser drawer was nicely theft-proofed, so there would be no reaching in with an arm. Not that my arms are four foot long anyway.

I could taste defeat, and it didn't taste like jalapeños.

Studying the problem, I perked. The cheesy popcorn. If I played my cards, er, dollars right, I could have two bags of chips and cheesy popcorn.

Back to my desk. More money. I was out of dollars, and had to count dimes from the bottom of my purse. Back to the machine. Clink clank clunk. 128. The popcorn nudged forward. The bag bulged out of its slot.

And held.

I sucked in my breath preparing to scream.

And then, with a faint rustle of plastic, the two bags of chips fell. They landed safely in the bottom bin, and I clutched them to my chest in glee. Chips!

I would have skipped back to my cube. But I didn't. The chips were spicy. And salty. And greasy. And they tasted heavenly with peanut butter.

As for the popcorn, it hangs there still: a silent warning to all who come after me.

She felt compelled to tell me...

I received fanmail about my blog. Well, not exactly fanmail. More like errata. If you check my profile, I have a list of some of my preferences in books. There, in the list is Jane Austen. Well, until about 5 minutes ago it was Jane Austin. Oops.

I don't know if the kind person who found that typo and took the time to email me (hi! yes, you @aol.com!) actually reads my blog or just stumbled upon my profile by accident.

I make typos. Probably quite a few. Without Word's autocorrect, you probably stumble through a lot of "teh"'s and other common mixups. Sorry. Does it impede your understanding my words? Gosh, I hope not. If all it takes to trip up a reader is to swap two letters then maybe I shouldn't try so hard to be witty. After all, half of my puns probably look like typos. If you get the feeling that I'm not particularly concerned by my digital mishaps (hah! another pun...), then, as Obi Wan said "Trust your feelings, Luke"

So, anyway, thanks for the email. I changed the typo. Yes, I do love Jane Austen's books, and I have a sister in Austin. Distinct subjects. Common brain. No copy editor. Such is life.

That's it, she's finally cracked...

I am finally owning up to it. I'd read several friend's blogs, friends who admit publicly that they like to write, about NaNoWriMo--National Novel Writing Month (for those of us who are not up on the latest writing news). Basically, you try to write a novel of at least 50k words during the month of November. Apparently typical novels range from closer to 70k words (for those skinny books), to well over 100,000 or more. So 50 is really just a sort of prototype. A novella, if you will. Still a rather impressive accomplishment.

Well, over Halloween I was sitting in a training class and while I was indeed paying attention to the class, I was also surfing the web (does that make me a little ADD? quite likely...), and decided to look up what the whole NaNoWriMo thing was about. The next thing you know, I'd actually signed myself up.

What? Writing? Isn't she an engineer? I didn't think engineers read books, let alone could write them. Unless books were full of "if !(foo(bar->getData()) == NULL)". Ha! Fooled you!

I don't make much use of it at work these days, but I did actually study literature in college. Study so much of it, they gave me a pretty piece of paper in a red folio with the university seal on it. Of course, none of the stuff I read or wrote for my major in college was in English--it was in Spanish. I will admit that there was one conversation class, and one "culture" class thrown in there, but my major wasn't about ordering tequilas in a bar or asking directions around Cancun. It was pretty much all reading and analyzing literature.

So there. I've justified my qualifications. I know I shouldn't need to. But for some reason, I've never allowed myself to really admit that I have any interest in reading or writing books (or any other writing). I think it has something to do with my reactions to English teachers in high school, and my solitary semester of "English" at Wash U (really freshman composition, taught by a grad student and not even a real prof). Basically, I could not (still cannot) relate to some of those people, and got a rather bad taste in my mouth for "English" as a course of study. One high school teacher was so anti-math that she insisted on recording every grade as a letter instead of a number, and claimed to be somehow averaging all those A's, B's, C's, etc to come up with your final grade. That drove me nuts..especially since no matter what, she could not believe that what she was doing WAS math (either that or pulling final grades out of her ass, something I would easily believe of her). Deep breath. Let it out. All better. I did meet English majors who did not drive me nuts. I even liked some of them :)

While my computer science degree has done a good job of paying the bills for all of these years, that other piece of paper has helped me justify spending a lot of money on Amazon.com buying books by Isabel Allende, Laura Esquivel, and others (not counting all of the reading I do in my native language). I have actually missed having to write papers, and frequently spend a while after each book musing over the imagery or the characterizations, or outright allusions to other works, etc. Fun stuff. Some of those hated English teachers from way back when might be proud. I have enjoyed writing for this blog. It's kind of fun to know that other people might actually read what I write (lucky you!), but mostly it's been good to be able to write things in complete sentences on lines that don't begin with // or ' (another coding reference...if you don't understand, you're really not missing much here).

I'm not writing in Spanish. I am attempting to write something like the books that first inspired my reading: a romance. Much as I would love to be writing a historical romance, well-researched and interspersed with period detail, I don't have have the time for the research and detail part. So it's set in modern times, in a as-yet unnamed city which might bear a strong resemblance to St. Louis (location isn't terribly key to the plot as yet). I have no title--probably won't until after it's a lot more done. I have the main plotline figured out, am refining details of the characters as I go. I've had the idea (and a handful of others) swirling around in my head for years. Yes, indeed, years (since probably high school) of silently inventing characters and plots, twists and turns, and nary a word written down before (see above notes on feelings of inadequacy in English).

So far, I've only written about 11,000 words. My schedule-performance-index calculations tell me that I'm behind schedule with that, but I do have a day job or two (or is it 3...2 kids plus one that actually pays me), and I've spent an awful large amount of time with a really sick baby this week. Maybe I'll catch up this weekend. I have quite a few scenes running through my head at various times, so when I'm not actually at the keyboard (and not at work...I am trying really really really hard not to do this at work), in theory I'm still working on it.

Will anyone get to read it? We'll see. I don't think it's that bad so far. It's nice right now that I am under no pressure professionally to actually write a book. If I do, great. If not, well, I'm a software enginner. In my profession, writing fiction is usually frowned on...

Bye Bye Balloon

There is nothing so sad as the face of a baby who has just lost a balloon. I don't know what it is about the things that brings such joy to the little ones, but their faces light up when they get a balloon of their own to play with. Yesterday, Charlotte got 2, and didn't keep either one for very long. We went out for lunch after church, and got a balloon to take home from the restaurant. She held on to that thing for dear life until she fell asleep in the car halfway home. As soon as we got home, it was time to go over to a birthday party for a friend who was turnign 1, so we took the balloon to share. All of the kids at the party enjoyed it.

For dinner, we joined my in-laws, who were in town for the March Madness basketball games, at a mexican restaurant. Charlotte loved walking around the restaurant looking at all the colorful streamers and piñatas hanging around. As we were leaving, she got another balloon. The group of us stood outside for a while chatting, while Charlie shook her balloon, and pressed it to her face to look through it and hum into it. We all took turns looking at her from the other side, and getting our faces bopped. She had the ribbon around her wrist, and my husband and I also had a hold of part of it, but as we were walking to the car, she must have shaken the ribbon loose, for all of a sudden it floated up and away. She didn't cry or throw a tantrum at the loss of her toy, but she had the saddest face. We told her to wave "bye bye" to the balloon, and gave her a kiss before tucking her into her carseat for the ride home, where she promptly fell asleep.

Bright and round,
you float above me.
Your feet never touch the ground.

Your dance I command
as you bounce and bop,
safely tied onto my hand.

Now the ribbon is undone.
Bye, Bye Balloon
Away you fly up to the sun.

Beautiful day

White flower petals
driting from the sky
gently, gently
landing on the cold ground
a lacy blanket on the earth

I wrote that poem in the 6th grade on a day just like today. Many people think I'm nuts, but I love this weather. It's about 35 degrees and snowing. There's no ice, no wind, just big, wet snowflakes falling in clumps from the sky. I stood for a while by the window near the entrance to my building just watching. My office has no windows, so it's quite sad to realize that I'm missing out on such a pretty sight. I'd go for a walk, but this building is not in the best neighborhood, and I just don't feel comfortable doing that. Sloshing around the parking lot would not be the same.

If the snow doesn't melt by the time I get home from work, I'm putting Charlotte's boots and snowsuit on, and taking her out to play.

Why am I doing this?

I started this blog about a year ago when I found myself with slightly fewer tasks than hours in the day. I'd just been hired to a new job and was actually waiting to be placed with the group within the company that actually hired me (big companies = lots of paperwork). At the time my daughter was not quite 6 months old, and I'd been playing at being a stay-at-home-mom since she was born. She was still exclusively breastfed and I didn't have any interest in switching her to formula to make my work day more convenient. So I started my first day on the job hauling a breastpump around between orientation events, perching on the edge of a toilet at one point in order to pump. I found several forums online full of women like me who spent quality time with a breastpump for their lunch hour and breaks every day, and took a lot of comfort from the camaraderie.

I decided that it would be an interesting experiment to start a blog to journal my experiences, but that got derailed in a hurry. Shortly after I started, I got transferred to my current department, where I do not have internet access at my fingertips all day long. That's worse than stopping a caffeine addiction cold turkey, btw--this is the first job since college (mid/late 90's) where I haven't been online at work all the time.

Recently I decided that it might be an interesting experiment to try this again. So where are the original blog posts about the pumping, you might ask? I deleted them a while ago thinking that I would start over fresh. So all you get is a very abbreviated summary. I managed to pump till Charlotte's first birthday, including over a 2 day business trip out of town. She took to cow's milk and sippy cups with no problems, and transitioning her off the bottle at daycare went pretty smoothly. I think she may have been the first at our daycare to get mother's milk in a sippy cup during the transition, but they apparently don't have a lot of kids still breastfed by a year, let alone after. We're still nursing morning and night (mostly just at bedtime these days--in the AM only if she requests it). Charlotte's nearly 18 months old now, and we never had to give her formula.

If anyone else is interested, I highly recommend the PumpMoms group on yahoo, and of course, La Leche League. Both were great for moral support during the year. I would do it all again in a heartbeat, btw, and probably will at some unknown point in the future--and No, that's not an announcement of any sort :)