Hi guys! Whew, it has been a busy week over here trying to balance mom time and work time. I have a feeling this will continue to be a challenge. 🙂 In exciting news, though, we are finalizing a contract with a new nanny (after our original one bailed on us last minute – see Monday’s post if you missed it), and I actually like her more than our original nanny, so it seems like this is all working out for the best! It’s actually really serendipitous too because she has a part time nanny job with a family she has been with a long time and they will just need her on Wednesdays moving forward – which is the day I was hoping to take off from work and have Riese all to myself! So perfect! I think she’ll be starting in two weeks… and in the meantime my mom is willing to fill in, whew! 🙂
This Wednesday was my first day taking care of Riese all day solo. We had our PACE mom’s group in the morning and I definitely underestimated how long it takes to get out the door with her when it’s just me on my own – we were already running late anyway and then just as I was strapping her into her car seat, she pooped. Lol. Of course! Oh well. We made it, and we were only about 10 minutes late so I consider that a win right now. 😉 After a rough start to the week, it was nice to connect in person with other women who are also juggling the emotions and logistics of being a new mom, and like last week, a small group of us braved going out to lunch together after the group with the babies in tow. This week we went to Silver Diner. Stroller party!
Riese actually did really well – I had fed and changed her during the PACE group meeting, so by the time we got to the restaurant she mostly slept and was pretty mellow. I had a really good kale, bacon, shrimp, feta, and farro (love that chew) salad for lunch – hit the spot although I wish it had been just a bit bigger.
Riese and I hung out at home for the afternoon and took a short walk with Freyja, too. On Wednesday evening, I had a girl’s night planned – Matt spent the night with Riese and I met my college friends Kathleen and Sarah for dinner at Ambar restaurant in Clarendon. We ordered a billion things and shared them – I only got a few photos but it was delicious, and as always it was so nice to have some quality time with two of my favorite ladies. <3
On Thursday morning Riese and I met with a lactation consultant! She’s already up nearly 1 pound from last week – wow! Guess all that cluster feeding (and occasionally topping her off with bottles of breastmilk) paid off! It was really helpful to meet with the lactation consultant – we worked on positioning to improve the shallow latch, did a weighted feed, and she noted that there is a bit of a tongue/lip tie, but she thinks we can improve the latch enough via a couple more sessions that we might not have to do a procedure to correct the tongue/lip tie. We will see! The intense afternoon and evening cluster feeding she was doing the past week has calmed down as of yesterday so maybe she was just going through a big growth spurt. Either way, in addition to working on the shallow latch I’ve also been working on increasing my supply – drinking mother’s milk tea, trying to pump more to stimulate production, and eating extra lactation-friendly snacks. I’ve started bringing snacks up to the bedroom again, too, so I have them in the middle of the night. I used to always do middle of the night snacks when we were up practically all night with her in the early days, but now that we’re sleeping a bit more I was getting lazy about it and didn’t want to walk downstairs even if I was hungry. So, I’ve been making sure I have snacks on the bedside table again! My mom made me some of these No Bake Peanut Butter Lactation Bites (cut into bars – easier than rolling into balls – pictured below) as well as these Blueberry Oatmeal Lactation Muffins (she used frozen wild blueberries per my request – so good in baked goods and extra nutritious) to help the cause. Both were delicious!
My mom came over to babysit yesterday evening so I could go meet an AnneTheRD nutrition client, but before she came over Riese and I took a nice long walk with Freyja. I tried out the Solly baby wrap for the first time – it’s on loan from a friend of a friend – and loved it! I wish I had tried it sooner – I was intimidated by the logistics of getting it wrapped and into place, but I just watched a video on their website and it was super easy. I have two other wraps to try as well (the Boba and the Moby), so we will see which one I like best! For those of you who have tried all of them (or other wraps) – any preference? I like that the wraps are a lot less bulky than my more structured carrier, although the structured carrier (the Boba 4G Carrier) is better when it’s really cold so I can put Riese in her snowsuit.
Riese was really into the wrap – she was able to look at the action as we walked which was nice (vs. the other carriers I’ve tried where her view is blocked by the carrier). She checked out the scenery for a long time before eventually conking out for the rest of the walk. I listened to a podcast while we walked – the Best of Both Worlds podcast about being a working mom. I listened to one about maternity leave and transitioning back to work (episode 18) – it was interesting! Thanks to my friend Kylie for giving me the heads up about that episode. 🙂
Last night for dinner, Matt enjoyed some Riese cuddles while I threw together a variation on my Pesto Baked Salmon with Veggies – a few of you mentioned sheet pan recipes involving fish and pesto and it reminded me of this old fave! It’s really easy – just toss veggies (I used tomato and zucchini) and fish (I used barramundi instead of salmon, just to mix it up) in a pan, put a hefty spoonful of pesto on each piece of fish, and bake for 18 minutes at 400 degrees.
Et voila!
Served atop some quinoa. The fish pieces were massive so we have a little leftover, too, which is always nice!
Two other food highlights from this week – one was the return of my old fave tuna sandwich – it’s chunk light tuna mixed with avocado, dijon mustard, and sauerkraut. Such a good combo. Served with some carrots and a sleeping baby on the side.
And for dessert, I had half of one of these (giant – hence the half) cookies which I think are legit the best cookies I’ve EVER had. I’m obsessed – they are made locally in DC and they were sampling them at the grocery store last week and once I tried one I knew I had to get them. Perfect chewy texture and not too sweet!
As for fitness, I made it out for a class this morning! As always, it was tough timing/logistics-wise with feeding Riese (I ended up having to wake her up to feed her before leaving because otherwise I knew she’d want to eat right after I left and Matt would have to get up early and do a bottle feed), but I’m glad I made the push. Chelsea and I met up for Bodymass Gym’s 7 a.m. boot camp via ClassPass (<- just reactivated my account! that’s an affiliate link for $40 off). Felt good to move, as always!
Have a great weekend guys! And remember to check out my Easy Throw Together Super Bowl Snack ideas and Healthy Super Bowl Snack Recipes posts if you need some inspiration for Sunday!
