breastfeeding and working. ugh.

I don't want to spend the whole year complaining, but I do want to document what it's been like to be a working mom while still attempting to breastfeed. Hard. It's been pretty hard. Trying to find time to pump at work is frustrating. My schedule is not conducive to finding 30-minute chunks of time that are adequately spread out across the day, since I teach three 99-minute classes in a row every other day this year.  Somehow, I've been able to make it work to continue breastfeeding.

**Some totally random recent photos that I love

He's always had enough to eat until one day this week. We think he had another growth spurt because he's just about 12 weeks old, and for two days in a row he ate almost every hour. On Thursday, I got a text message from his teacher saying that he'd gone through his entire milk supply by 1PM. I didn't get the text until school was almost out anyway, but it completely stressed me out. He had more than what would normally have been enough for an entire day. What the hell?

I rushed over to the daycare center as soon as school was out. On our hour-long commute home he started screaming bloody murder, and there was nothing I could do to get home faster because there was horrendous traffic on every single route (been using the Waze app). So stressful. Often times, I feed him in the car in the parking lot at daycare, which helps, but let's face it: an hour-long commute is a little too much for a 3-month old. I really wanted to wait until next summer to move, but I'm beginning to realize that we may need to pull the trigger sooner than later. We'll have to weigh the stress of moving against another 8 months of this horrible commute. We want to be able to maximize the time we spend with Neko every day.

My daily schedule looks something like this:
5AM: Wake up and shower while (hopefully) Aaron and Neko sleep in.
5:30AM: Feed the baby, change diaper, get him dressed and ready to go
5:50AM: Leave the house (together). We've been trying to carpool to save on gas and tolls.
7:00AM: Arrive at school. Aaron rushes to teach 1st period, and I plan my lessons, make copies, then pump before my first class.
8:45AM: Teach for 99 minutes.
10:35AM: Rush to the bathroom to pump, then eat, then back to teach until the end of the day (with no breaks!!).
2:50PM: Finally done teaching. Pump one last time, then head over to grab the baby.
4:30PM: Arrive home.
8:30PM: Pass out.
Repeat.

It's truly exhausting, I'm perpetually behind with my grading and planning, but I love this kid so much, it makes it all worth it. I cannot wait for our summers together. Right now, Saturday mornings are my favorite. We're all together, Neko's such a happy boy in the morning. We sleep in until 7AM, listen to music, drink our morning coffee, and enjoy being a little family. Sometimes we even run out for a quick beer at one of the local breweries. It always feels like such a big deal when we make it out of the house together to do something fun.