The nurse worked fast, and James was on the scale and off while I was working on some paperwork. I heard the nurse say James’ weight was six pounds, eight and a half ounces, but I thought she made a mistake because that was less than half an ounce over his hospital discharge weight. The nurse double checked and…yep. James had only gained two-fifths of an OUNCE in ten days.

Dr. Looove walked into the room right when I started crying. Mike explained that I was upset because I’d been working so hard on breastfeeding and James wasn’t gaining weight. Dr. Looove was awesome about it, because she’s awesome in general. But, there was obviously something going on because for as often as James was eating (and filling diapers) he should have gained far more than two-fifths of an ounce. Dr. Looove brought in a bottle of formula and had Mike feed James to make sure James was sucking and swallowing correctly. The kid gulped down an ounce in about a minute, so he certainly knew how to eat. Dr. Looove sent us home with instructions to breast feed, pump, and supplement with formula. She also told me to follow-up with a lactation consultant, and to have the LC weigh James every day.

I was pretty bummed out. I’d felt like the whole breastfeeding thing was working for us, and it turned out that it wasn’t. Dr. Looove and the lactation consultant explained that it was hopefully just a temporary setback, and to keep at it. So I have been, although I am possibly even more exhausted than I was when I was the only one feeding James! Now every three hours, I nurse him, then I pump while Mike tops James off with a bottle of either pumped milk or formula.  And even though (for once) supply wasn’t an issue, I’m also taking every supplement there is. Fenugreek, Mother’s Milk Tea, beer, oatmeal, you name it, I’m trying it. I also try pumping before I feed, pumping after, pumping every two hours, using a nipple shield, and using a nipple everter/latch assist. I even made “lactation cookies” from a recipe I found on the internet.

The good news is that in three days James gained half a pound and now weighs in at seven pounds, officially an ounce above his birth weight! The flip side is now that James has discovered the ease of bottle feeding, his interest in nursing directly from the source has dropped considerably. Sigh. However, I’m now making enough milk to feed a small army of babies, so hopefully he’ll come back around at some point soon.

Unsurprisingly, Annabel thinks James eating from a bottle is the greatest thing ever, especially since we sometimes let her help.

If only she’d take the 4am feeding.

© copyright Heather Spohr 2013 | All rights reserved.

This content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.

Heather looked at me sideways.

“Did you just -”

“No!” I croaked as I jumped to my feet. “It was the chair!”

Heather crinkled up her forehead, then took a seat. Sure enough, the chair coughed up another undignified “WHOOOOOSH!”

“Uh-uh,” Heather said. “We’re taking this thing back.”

Unfortunately, after a couple weeks of not being able to find the time to take it back, we decided to keep the chair, whoosh and all. Eventually we grew so accustomed to it that we didn’t even notice the sound it made anymore.

The evil chair in question

A couple years later a friend of ours and her four-year-old daughter came to visit. At the time I was busy with an assignment for work, and was toiling away at my desk when the friend and her daughter came into the room to watch TV. I was so focused on my assignment, though, that I barely registered their presence over the next couple hours even as I rose from my chair to grab a Diet Coke, go to the bathroom, and answer the phone. I did notice that each time I sat down the little girl whispered to her mother, but I didn’t pay it much thought. Finally, after what must have been my tenth time time settling back down into the chair, I overheard the little girl’s mother forcefully say, “You have to stop asking about it. I’m sure it’s nothing he can control, just let it -”

“But why does he do it so much, Mama?”

“Everyone does it, so stop mentioning it. Please. Just ignore it.”

It took my brain a second to catch up, but then the horror hit me all at once. They thought I’d been ripping outrageously loud farts over and over for hours on end! I was mortified. Thankfully, I was able to demonstrate the culprit was the chair and not me, and the awkwardness (mostly) went away.

It’s been five or so years since then, and we now have a better, quieter chair. The old chair still sits in the corner of our office, but we rarely if ever sit in it. Last week, though, I was invited on The Huffington Post Live to discuss this post via webcam, and decided (like a moron) to sit in the old chair because it was next to the window and had the best natural light.

“You’re going to sit in that chair?” Heather asked.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be sitting the whole time.”

Ten minutes later the producer for the segment came on the webcam. After exchanging pleasantries, she suggested that I wear headphones for the segment.

“Sure,” I said as I jumped up, ran to get my headphones, then plopped back down into the chair.

WHOOOOOOOOSH!!!!!

My eyes bugged out of my head. Great. Just great. An awkward moment passed interminably as I considered explaining the noise was the chair, but then I thought that would sound really weird, so I said nothing and forged onward. The appearance went well after that, but I can tell you this much… ol’ farty chair is finally headed for the scrap heap.

© copyright Heather Spohr 2013 | All rights reserved.

This content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.

It’s only a matter of time before she starts dressing him up.

© copyright Heather Spohr 2013 | All rights reserved.

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Annabel’s enthusiasm saved the morning. She spent a lot of time decorating her card for Mike, then she took even more time decorating James’ card. She dictated what I should write in each card. “James’ card should say ‘Wah, wah’ because that’s all he knows how to say.” She asked her daddy if there was anything she could do for him – she even offered to rub his back. Throughout the day, she’d spontaneously yell, “HAPPY FADDER’S DAY!”

Luckily, Mike didn’t care about my lack of preparedness. He just wanted to spend time with his kids.

My mom and aunt hosted us and our extended family at my aunt’s house, where we took a family photo (another one of Mike’s requests):

And I got some pictures of Mike with his kids (my own request):

I feel so lucky that first Madeline, then Annabel, and now James have such amazing men in their lives. Annabel and James have tremendous examples to look up to in their dad and grandfathers. They are enriched, loved, and protected.

Happy Father’s Day to Mike and my dad. Thank you for being so incredible to my babies. (I promise next year I’ll be way more prepared.) They are so lucky (and so am I).

© copyright Heather Spohr 2013 | All rights reserved.

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I like to hold James against my chest, and Annabel has begged me to let her hold James the same way. I finally gave in, much to Annabel’s delight. She loved rubbing and gently patting James’ back, and he liked it so much he fell asleep after a few minutes.

© copyright Heather Spohr 2013 | All rights reserved.

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I think she has a real future in songwriting.

© copyright Heather Spohr 2013 | All rights reserved.

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Annie: This is the greatest! I love my baby brother!

James: WHY IS SHE TOUCHING ME?!

© copyright Heather Spohr 2013 | All rights reserved.

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When Annabel was born, I examined her closely, looking for family but mostly looking for Madeline. At first, she did resemble her sister, in tiny ways. But she quickly grew into her own person, and I think it’s much better that way. I do sometimes wish that they looked a bit more like siblings, even though I think it’s great that they are so unique.

So of course, when James was born, I inspected his face to see who he looked like. Madeline had my fair coloring, while Annabel possessed Mike’s Portuguese skin and eyes. Where was James going to fall? He came out quite fair, and while he had the same shock of hair that both of his sisters were born with, the girls’ hair was jet black while James’s hair is brown with blonde at the temples. I see my own features in him the way I did with Madeline and did not with Annabel. But I see Annabel in him, too.

I have a silly hope (because it really doesn’t matter) that James will continue to be the link – that when you put pictures of the three of them together, James will be the one that makes it obvious that they are all siblings. I’ve already found links between the three of them that make me happy. They all have the same chin. They have similar noses (I think Maddie and James have the same nose, and Annie’s is a smaller version of theirs). They have the same head shape (c-section for the win!). They have the same sweet lips that I love to kiss.

I’m excited to see the faces James and Annabel grow into. And I hope that they keep their similarities, so I can imagine what face Madeline would have grown into as well.

Madeline

Annabel

© copyright Heather Spohr 2013 | All rights reserved.

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This post is sponsored by P&G’s Thank you, Mom campaign.

I’ve always admired my father, but now that I’m a father myself I admire him even more. No matter what (often crazy) interest I became obsessed with as a kid, he always supported me one hundred percent, and believe me, that was easier said than done with a kid like me.

Before I get into my crazier childhood interests, I should mention that some of my pursuits were pretty typical, like baseball. That  undoubtedly thrilled my Dad, a lifelong baseball fan who grew up idolizing Mickey Mantle. What probably didn’t thrill him was just how over the moon crazy I got about it. I made him play catch every night when he got home from work until it was too dark to see, wait with me for hours after games at Candlestick Park so I could try to score autographs, and even manage my little league team despite the fact he worked an hour from home and leaving early to get to the five o’clock games likely nearly cost him his job! He did all of these things for me, though, totally supporting my love of baseball, and never once complained. Being the oblivious kid that I was, it never even dawned on me that he might not be as excited about doing these things as I was, but he never let me see that.

What really amazes me about my Dad is how much he supported my crazier interests. The first one that comes to mind was my short-lived (though probably not short-lived enough in my Dad’s eyes) obsession with airplanes. Unlike normal kids, though, I didn’t just want to go see the Blue Angels fly or catch a matinee of Top Gun (which I did dozens of times). No, I was the weird kid who wanted to build an actual, working airplane so I could fly it to school and stop taking the bus. Amazingly, instead of smacking me upside the head, my Dad agreed to help! He took me to the hardware store to buy “parts,” spent hours with me hammering wood together in the backyard, and even agreed to let me have the engine out of his lawn mower to power my plane (but only after I’d successfully built the rest of the plane). Thankfully for all Spohrs involved, I was no pint-sized Wright brother, and eventually moved on to my next obsession. My Dad’s allowing me to explore this crazy dream, though, meant a lot to me.

Annie is a lot like I was as a kid. When she gets into something, like her latest interest, Wreck It Ralph, she becomes obsessed. Some dads might find this annoying, but thanks to my Dad’s influence, I’ve watched the movie with her to the point where I know it by heart, played hours of “Ralph and Vanellope” in the backyard, and even took her to our local pizza restaurant so she could see an arcade like the one in the movie.  Supporting Annie (and soon James) in their interests will be exhausting at times, but I’m always going to help them follow their dreams and desires wherever they take them. That’s a gift my Dad gave to me, and one I’m going to give Annie and James as well.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad! You’re the greatest!

This Father’s Day, P&G’s Thank you, Mom campaign is celebrating dads and everything they do for their families! On their Facebook and Twitter, Thank you, Mom wants you to fill in the blank and share what makes the dad in your life (OR YOU!) the #WorldsGreatest ____. They will be selecting some of their favorite responses and creating custom illustrations to help these users honor their Dads. Check out some of their cool illustrations here.

© copyright Heather Spohr 2013 | All rights reserved.

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Today is my due date. When I told James he could technically still be inside, he gave me this face. I’m pretty sure I was making the same one.

© copyright Heather Spohr 2013 | All rights reserved.

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