18 months and 6 weeks

So Monday Penelope had her 18 month appointment. She's 30lbs and 35", her head is 19.5" around - in the 97% on all counts. The Pediatrician evaluated her walking and posture and doesn't think physical therapy is necessary, the exercises we've been doing at home seem to be working quite well. Bryan and I have noticed a difference already so we'll continue to do what we're doing. She starts gymnastics next week and that should help as well.

Language and motor skills wise she's right on track. Her vocab gets larger every day - she has over 15 signs and half a dozen words that she uses regularly. She repeats more words, but doesn't use them all the time so those are harder to count and keep track of.

She's doing really well with Griffin - she really loves him. She enjoys showing him off and giving him kisses.

Speaking of G, his 6 week check up is tomorrow (with the midwives). We'll hopefully get the approval for Healthy Families this week or next so we can make an appointment for a Pediatrician and get him his first round of shots. No hurries though, shots aren't fun. He's getting so huge, I've had to pack away all his 0-3 month clothes and his 3 month jumpers are too small! Luckily his 3 month onesies still fit, but when it comes to footie pajamas he's in 6 month size.

We're still nursing - and still supplementing. He gets about 1/2 from the bottle and 1/2 from me. I stopped pumping and am still on the domperidone... we just ran out of donated breastmilk so we're on formula now. He seems to be gassier on formula, so we may have to experiment with different brands.

My decision to continue nursing is day by day at this point. Last week I passed the mark where I gave up nursing with Penelope - I'm happy to have made it to 6 weeks, but still very disappointed that we're having to supplement. Some days I love breastfeeding and other days I hate it. But I'm not quite ready to give it up... so we'll nurse until one of us is done. I'll probably be ready to stop long before he is, but who knows. Our situation is what it is, and no amount of wishing is going to make me produce enough milk to feed him on my own...

Our nursing struggle, plus all the aches and pains of pregnancy, the post-pregnancy body issues, and the lovely no-sleep newborn phase have made me very glad that this will be our last baby. Don't get me wrong, I love Griffin and am glad we have him - but I'm also glad that his baby stage is our last. We have two beautiful, healthy, and happy children - we're very lucky and very happy with the size of our family.

There's a lot more I wanted to talk about, but typing around a sleeping baby is difficult so I'll end here. I hope to be able to update semi-regularly now that Griffin is slightly less needy. Of course I'll be student teaching in the Fall so that will make opportunities to post even more scarce.