1 Year of Breastfeeding!

You guys, Heather just hit 1 year of breastfeeding Martie!!!! In this episode of The Milk Minute, Heather opens up about her year-long journey breastfeeding Martie—sharing the ups, downs, and everything in between. 

If you're new here, make sure to check out our sister podcast, Beyond the Boob, where Heather shares the week-by-week details of her pregnancy with Baby Martie. Whether you’re a breastfeeding veteran or just getting started, The Milk Minute is here to support and inspire you with relatable stories and expert tips. Grab a snack and join us for some laughs and heartfelt chats about the beautiful world of breastfeeding!

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Mentioned in this Episode
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Transcript

Hello, welcome back to the Milk Minute Podcast. Sleepover edition. Once again. Also, I'm still sick. Oh my gosh, really? Yeah, and no, this was not batch recorded. It has been over a month.

So Thanks for hanging in there with me. Literally everyone shout out to every patient that has tolerated being moved when I have no voice. And for Julie, who is rescheduling people to my friends who have come over and done my laundry that has piled up larger than my King size bed to the point where my family, like raccoons are just digging through it, looking for underwear, and I'm just like lying on the floor, blowing in an inhaler.

Blowing it? No, sucking in an inhaler, just trying to oxygenate myself, you know, and it's like, thanks, everyone. I greatly appreciate it. Now everyone else in my house has a cold, too. So good. So it's time for you to get another cold on top of what you already have. We can only hope, you know, I haven't worked at such a low capacity in so long.

Every day I walk into the office and I'm like, another day of phoning it in. But hey, I'm here. Thanks guys, trying to ace the patient care and everything else is not happening. But yeah, guess what? What? Tell me. Martie turned one. Oh, I know she did. It's so crazy. Yeah. I have a one year old and I have to say, we'll get into it more later, but she doesn't seem like a one year old to me.

She could. I honestly, I feel like when I think of a 1-year-old, I think of a baby who looks older than her. She looks yes. Like maybe it's 'cause she doesn't have a lot of hair. She has no teeth. , no teeth. She doesn't have a lot of hair. She just looks like a ginormous, like nine month old teeth. Yes she does.

So it's really strange actually to like not give her bottles at daycare anymore. But also it's crazy. A 1-year-old is like both Martie and a child who like walks and talks. Yeah, it's a big year. Yeah, it's a big year developmentally. She's a fresh one. I just don't remember feeling this way about my other two.

At like 10 months when they self-weaned, I was like, you're ready. This one, I'm like, you're a sweet little sugar lump, and I don't think you are ready. Yeah, so we're still breastfeeding. We're still breastfeeding. You did it, Heather. I did it. Wait, wait, wait, wait, with the help of some donor milk at the end, because of this illness.

Totally fine. Heather, you did it! Do you remember when you were pregnant, and we were talking about it, and you were like, I've never made it to a whole year breastfeeding, and I was like, of course you can do it this time. You did it! You just did that. Yeah, I fucking did it. So what the hell? Yeah. And you know what?

It wasn't perfect either, because there is no such thing as perfect. It was not perfect guys. I'll tell you all about it. I'll tell you whatever you want to know. I'll show you all the warts and blemishes on my breastfeeding journey. And I'm proud of it because it doesn't really matter because someday.

Nobody is going to remember how many ounces of breast milk was in a bottle. They're not going to remember how many bottles a day they got, how much donor milk ounces I used. I'm just going to remember that we were still breastfeeding a little bit at a year and probably beyond. She loves morning boob.

Nighttime boobie is hit or miss. So that's where we're at. So are we done pumping? I stopped pumping definitely a month ago when the pneumonia hit. Right. For sure, but I slowed down big time pumping at work a month before that. So around 10 months, I was like, I cut down to like one pump a day, I think, at work, because it just was not sustainable.

I was getting like three ounces and it was enough to like keep everything going. But then I was like, this is really hard for me. Like it was really disruptive when you're trying to run a business and anyway, then I was pumping instead before bed and I was getting a little bit and then I was like, you know what?

I'm exhausted though. I'm charting at night. I'm pumping at night. I'm like never off. Yeah. And so around 11 months I was like, I'm done. I have pneumonia now. My body is like, Hey, guess what? I hate you. You're doing too much. You're driving yourself into the ground. So I didn't like purposefully pack my pump up.

I just left it there and I just never used it. Perfect. And I thought about using it every once in a while and I'd be like, nah, she's good. She eats a lot of solid food for a baby that has no teeth. Yeah. A lot of protein. So because of the illness and all of the drying up medications that I had to take.

Oh, like every one on the no list. Yeah. Every single one on the no list. I really did not have much supply at all. But I wanted to keep doing the morning and night and I just knew that eventually it would start to come back a little bit during those times and it'd be more than like a half an ounce, wet your whistle situation, but I was not in a space mentally, physically or spiritually where I was ready to like strap on a pump and try to like hustle through it.

And who needs that now? I mean, she's a year old. Right. And I always tell my patients, and I had to remind myself, like, Is the intervention you're about to put in place going to help you get to where you're going? Or are you trying to get back to where you were? Yeah. Because this baby is going in this direction and we need to meet them where they're at.

And that direction is at a year of age, they're doing cow's milk, they're doing solids, they're doing boobie whenever, but no bottles. You know, some are still doing bottles, but you don't have to do bottles. Right. So I'm, I didn't think it was in my best interest to pump all day, power pump, do the whole thing when she's so close to a year.

So a very kind donor who actually I have shared this donor milk with a ton of patients of mine. So we're milk sisters now. I used like one and a half bricks for this last month of illness hell plus breastfeeding morning and night. So shout out to her, I won't say her name because I didn't ask permission, but she has helped not just me, but five other families.

Nice. Yeah. And that feels really cool to share that with my patients. Yeah. And, you know, when I tell patients like, Hey, no sweat. Like I've used donor milk. Yeah. They kind of go, Oh, all right. Yeah. Maybe I don't suck. And I'm like, we don't suck. We're just using the resources that are available. It's great.

And I would have used formula if I didn't have donor milk. So no shame in that either. Yeah. So, yeah. So are you giving her cow's milk? Yeah. Wow. I keep trying to get the whole cow's milk, the whole vitamin D cow's milk like you're supposed to. Yeah. But every time I order it from Walmart Plus, they're like, did you want skim milk?

Is that what you wanted? The idiot shopper. It's probably one of y'all's ex-husbands that you couldn't stand anymore. It's probably some dude named Mark. Yeah. No, Mark or, or Steve. Josh. Just trying to make an extra buck now that he has to pay for his own apartment. And now he's. taking some bullshit out on me where he's like, Oh, sorry, will you approve this substitution?

The 0 percent fat milk? And I'm like, no, Josh, it's a whole vitamin D cow's milk probably has a red cap. And then he just sends me pictures of everything in the cooler at Walmart. And I'm like, never mind. Just get me the 2%. I don't see any strawberries, but how about strawberry scented shampoo? Is that okay?

Can you eat that with yogurt? I don't know, Josh. I'm shocked that you're divorced. I'm sorry, I don't mean to judge, but like No, I hardcore judge, like, male, like, Instacart shoppers that just can't. Every time I get a girl, nails it. When I order one banana, she knows I mean one bushel. One nut. Not one singular banana.

Would you like your single banana? So anyway, I keep trying to give her whole cow's milk, but so far she's only had 2%. It'll be okay. She's gonna make it. Somehow we all survived on that in the 90s. I like, don't worry, give your toddlers skim milk so they don't get fat. I know. Well, here's the other thing.

So here's my daycare dilemma. It's not really a dilemma. I'm making this drama in my mind. Okay, tell me. I love made up drama. The daycare providers asked me today because today I used my very last bag of breast milk. So I saved my milk for the last one. That's really sweet, actually. And I took a picture of her sucking on the frozen bag.

And I was like, don't cry. Who gets stuffed up again? So I dropped her off. I said, this is the last bag of pressed milk. And they said, okay, well, what do you want us to do? And I said, well, what do you normally do? And they said, we'll do whatever you want us to do. And I said, do you have whole cow's milk here?

Or do I need to bring that? And they were like, no, we have it here. Okay. Because they've always given her oat milk. Why? Just like for a snack. Cause they can't, they're not supposed to give cow's milk before one. Right. Right. Which I don't care. Like if they want to get, I don't care about much, but yeah, they're like, yeah, she had a little oat milk at a.

Okay. Whatever snack. And I'm like, okay. So they said, do you want her to have it in a bottle? And I was like. Technically at a year, we could be done with bottles. However, they were like, what about nap? And I was like, so here's the problem. Her and all of her little cohorts turned one around the same time.

So they're all, Suddenly, as of yesterday, on COTS, they got rid of the cribs, so now it's a COT nap with no bottle? Like, that feels mean. You're like, maybe just do a bottle for two more months. Well, and it's not like a year is the cutoff. No bottles. It's like, okay, this is when it would be a good idea to start thinking about removing them.

Right. I like to tell people have a goal by having them completely removed by age two. Yeah. One and a half would be great, but also like, we're going to be realistic here. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what she'll do, to be honest with you. I don't want her to be upset. And of course she's had a cold, so like she doesn't need that drama.

She doesn't know she turned one. Right. So tomorrow. I have to make a decision. I think I've decided I'm going to bring two empty bottles, tell them to put some cow's milk in it, and help that baby go to sleep, if that's what she wants to do. I think that's a good idea. And it'll make me feel better too.

Yeah, one transition at a time. One big one at a time, yeah. Yeah, I think, I think in a month you can reassess. Yeah, I mean the selfish part of me is like, what if we gave it to her in a straw cup and you never washed another bottle again? What if that happens? What if it happens next month? Exactly. Maybe she'll have a tooth by then.

My little gummy bear. Water intake. She's loving water. Good. And I did get the Dr. Brown's weighted straw cup. Oh yeah. With the handles. I do like that one. It's a good one. Yeah. I like it too. Cause you can put that lid onto any Like narrow neck bottle. Oh, really? Yeah, I just so what I ended up doing For that one because we had all those nice glass bottles.

I just cut the straws shorter And then I put it on all our little like four ounce glass bottles and put the handles on it. How do you cut the straw shorter? I think I just ordered extra lids and then ditched the weight on the short ones and left it on the long ones because it doesn't really matter for the short bottles.

It's like not a problem. It's just tricky for the long ones. And it was really nice because then I could put them on any, like our little stainless steel narrow neck bottles, like All the whole collection of Narrow Neck Bottles became straw bottles. The world was your oyster. It was actually really nice.

Till eventually, as with every straw cup, it got moldy. Yes. When I forgot to wash it, you know? Yes. We could always blame Ivan. I, yeah, I could. But it's actually me who forgets cups in the car. Chronically. So nice of you. He's like, where's your water bottle? And I'm like, well, all 12 of them are in my car rolling around.

Have you, have you tried to get in the passenger seat of my car lately? Cause you would know the answer. Yeah. So I would say she's probably drinking about eight ounces of water a day. And my plan is to breastfeed her when she wakes up in the morning because I love it and I'm not ready to give it up.

So sweet. It's the best thing in the world. Oh, sweet. Oh, She will not start on my left breast anymore. Since this drying out phase of my illness. She's like, that one sucks. It doesn't let down anymore, initially. Whatever. I have to latch her to the right for the let down to happen on the left and then I could switch her to the left and sometimes she'll take it, but I don't think there's anything left in there.

I think it's going to be just right boob steady for the rest of her life. I think the last entire year of breastfeeding Lyra was only on the left. I think that's going to make a lot of people feel better. It was, I was like, honestly, they don't feel any different. Yeah. I'm not like, my left is already twice the size of my right.

Doesn't matter at this point. Yeah. Yeah. And I was just like, it, it started hurting on the right. Cause there really wasn't anything left. And I was like, yeah, we just don't need to do that. We just don't need to. Yeah. So every once in a while she'll entertain it. Yeah. But she doesn't seem pleased about it.

That's fine. Let, let it rest. It's done its work. Yeah. It's done. Yeah. It's hung on as long as it could. I know. I know. I did find it weird though that I couldn't, no matter how long she sucked on the left one, I couldn't get a letdown. The minute I put her on the right, I get a letdown and it opens up the floodgates on the left.

I'm like, okay, body. Good job. Whatever. Yeah. I wonder if it's just like having less glandular tissue and less oxytocin receptors, you know, in general. And like, now that the oxytocin train has slowed down. It's like not, just not effective. Yeah, I guess because of that I've been a little bit more horny.

That's nice. Isn't it? I guess. Well, I mean if we take partners out of the equation, it is nice. It is nice to know that I'm not dead inside. Yeah, and you could, you could care for your own needs should you want to. If I ever had a minute, but yeah, it, it does, so for all those people out there that are like, Will it ever come back?

Yeah. Will I ever want to be touched again? Yes. You will have an itch that you just can't scratch. And it will return. That's kind of where I'm at now, where it'll be like three in the afternoon and I'll be like, Oh, I'm suddenly aware that I have a clitoris. Congratulations. That's nice. My brain just like checked in and was like, how's it going down there?

And you're like, wow, it's not going actually, but it's there. Yeah. Like a, a guy with muscles walks by and I'm just like, Oh, okay. Well, my brain knows that that's not an option, but my body's like, What if it was? So I think we're transitioning back into that, like, body being more my own. Maybe you should congratulate yourself on a year of breastfeeding with a new personal toy.

Yeah, I could do that. I mean, it sounds nice to me. Let me just tell you, though, that My kids rifle through my drawers. And so Theo is 11 and he's digging through my husband's nightstand the other day. And Cash goes, what are you doing in there? And he's like I was looking for a back scratcher. And he was like, get out of my drawers.

That pisses me off. He, like, turned into a full Southern West Virginia. We have nothing that's ours, not even our night scenes. No, I used to do the same to my parents. My kids so far don't. That's nice. I'm like, why is my son not nosy? I was so nosy at his age. But I think it's just we, he, like, feels like we tell him absolutely everything.

So, like, why would he look for things? Yeah. But yeah, it's good to have a secure location for things like that. So they're not like, Hey, what's this? Well, yeah. And so the other day I'm in the living room and Heidi, I'm in the living room on the couch dying. Okay. From my illness. Heidi walks in tonguing. My menstrual disc.

It was clean, but still. And she's licking the inside of it. She's like and she goes, What is this, mommy? And I was like, okay. I said, no, no. You know what? No. And I just couldn't even talk. Don't lick foreign objects. Yeah, just stop. So then she's like, why? Why? Why? I'll tell you later. Oh, no, why? So the next time I noticed that she's been messing with it She pulls it out of the drawer now because I had a reaction keeps messing with it And I said, okay, Heidi, you want to know I put it in my vagina and it catches my menstrual blood, right?

She goes. Oh My gosh, she says how do you get it in there? Yeah, good question. And I said, I fold it up and I put it in there and it pops open and I see her little brain thinking about this, working it through. And then she does this weird little half smile and she looks at me and she goes, Oh, I get it.

It's because you have a really big vagina. And mine is really tiny. And I was like, yeah, that's it. So don't ever put anything in yours because yours is just too tiny. She goes, yep, because I'm little. I'm a little kid with a little vagina. And I was like, go to bed. I'm done. I need to get healthy so I can handle stuff like this way better.

Yeah. Yeah. So oh, also this is just all gonna be about me. I'm just That's fine. Haven't seen you in a whole week. So we started couples counseling. Mm-Hmm. last week. How is it going? We've had one session. Okay. So together, together. Had solo sessions. Are you gonna do that? This week is solo sessions.

Okay. So we start together and then we have a break off session. I always really love to hear about the. First together session after the song, I feel like that's the real tuned. I'm mostly telling you this because I think it's important to understand that even when you've been with someone for seven years and you've had a kid with them before, when you have another kid, anytime you add a human, it adds another new fucking family.

It's a brand new family. And it just adds a whole layer of complication and it's, we are so busy, like we don't check in. So it's been a year of just like basically not checking in with each other. Like we don't have really a relationship. It's like roommates with. Yeah, a lot of shit to do. You're making some hand motions here, people can imagine at home.

I'm just trying to, I know that this is a thing for everybody, but I just don't think people talk about it that much, where it's like, you can go to couples counseling just to like improve your relationship, not to just like prevent divorce. Right. And that's what I want. I'm like, okay, now that she's a year old, my clitoris has turned on the go light again, which is helpful, but I still don't like want to hook up with him because I don't know him anymore.

Yeah. Well, and it's good. Like a lot of people use it as literally a scheduled time to talk. Yeah. Like, You know, the third party is there. They are helpful if you need them to be, but sometimes they're just like, here is your discussion prompt. And you're like, oh, thanks. You're right. I did want to talk about that.

And then you talk about it. Right. And they're like, what'd this bring up for you? And I'm like, well, I have notes. And he's like, oh, what do you think? And I'm like, this is the problem. I think that is how the majority of couple sessions go. Yeah. So, except for mine. The ones I put a vibe in. He's very chatty.

I love that. And I'm the one who's like, huh, huh. But yeah, I think that is where a lot of people find it. And they're like, I actually do have a laundry list of grievances and questions and complaints. And their partner's like, I can't really remember right now. Yeah. And they're like, I don't even remember that happening.

And you're like, that was a big moment for me. Yeah. But, I mean, there's just no way that you grow a business, grow a baby, have three kids, he changed jobs, like, we're not the same people that we were last year, and I just want to check in and see, like, how that's going. And I want a different woman than me, or a different, really, a different person than me, to pull that out of him.

Because I kind of feel like I chase him around the house and I'm like, tell me about your feelings. Tell me how you, is this too much? Like, do you feel overwhelmed? Like, you know, how does it feel for you to have a one year old? And he's like, well, how do you feel? And I'm like, yeah. Oh God, this is bad. Like he doesn't even have any feelings.

So I need a different person to try to like draw it out. So that's going to be on the list. I would love to get back into pelvic floor PT. Because since this illness and all the coughing, I have, I just Blew it right out the water. Peed myself with every single cough for three weeks and had to basically wear a diaper.

Yeah, that's fucking stupid. Here's your sign. Here's your sign. Well let me know if you need a referral. Hey, you know what? What? You need it your business is the pelvic floor people. Girl, I know it. I've been trying but they're hard to come by. They are. They are. There's like one per four counties in West Virginia.

Yeah. And insurance doesn't really reimburse that much for it. Oh my gosh! Shocking! Yeah. Really? So, to like pay a I would have never guessed. Yeah, to pay a provider. Would you like to add another specialty to your practice that insurance doesn't like to cover? Yeah, that's what I need is like more insurance problems.

We might have to pause so I can blow my nose. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. Hold on. You can tell a story, I'll be right back. So, earlier, we were in the kitchen and Heather got out the snot sucker that she has for Martie that you literally like put into the vacuum and she sucked Martie's snot out and then she goes, I wonder what that feels like?

And then sucked her own snot out. We all got to watch. It's actually very effective on your left nostril. Hey, but you know what? I got on a, it was like an, I got in a very normal, different asthma medication from what I had been using and it actually works. That's great. Like the pulmonologist who I'd seen last year when I had bronchitis who was like, just, just use this one inhaler that everybody uses.

Oh, it doesn't work for you. No, it definitely does work. Don't complain to me. Maybe you're breathing in, in wrong. Right, like, what do you mean it doesn't work? Maybe it's your period. Yeah, he just made me feel like an idiot for being like, actually, like, the albuterol doesn't do anything for me, and like, neither does this other inhaler.

And my auntie was like, why aren't you on Singular? And I was like, what do you mean? She was like, Are your inhalers working? And I was like, I don't know. I don't think so. And she was like, okay, let me just prescribe this. I was so skeptical. Yeah. I'm on like whatever the generic singular is. It, I, I have not knock on some fucking wood been sick in months.

Wow. Stop rubbing it in. Maybe you need, I'm like, what new medication can we put you on? I'll take whatever. At this point. I, I dug out, I'm not proud of it, but I dug out some like three and a half, maybe four year old Tylenol threes with coating out of the back of my closet. And I was like, yeah, this is going to help.

Covered in lint. Yeah. I was like, blew it off. And I was like down the hatch. Oh no. That's a good example to set for the rest of podcast land out there. Guys, I was at rock bottom. It was not good. Finding old medication in your closet is rock bottom, Heather. Hey, no, rock bottom, I would think is Julie's Altoid tin of mystery pills.

Oh no. You're like, hey, do you have an ibuprofen? She's like, one second. Pulls an Altoid tin out. Opens it, and she's sifting through them with her finger. She's like, I think this one is ibuprofen. And you're like, ehhh. No, I'm all set. Hmm. That one doesn't look like ibuprofen. She's like, oh, you're right.

That's an opiate. You don't want that one. Oh no. That's for my endometriosis from years ago. That's probably expired anyway. Everyone needs that friend. Yeah, everyone does need that friend. Pills in the bottom of the purse, friend. I have had those friends. They're good. Oh my god. They're good people in a pinch.

Yeah. Martie's birthday party. How was it? I made a balloon arch. Oh. I now have balloon finger. Very Pinterest of you. Have you ever had balloon finger? Yes, I have. It hurts. Because as a child, I used to make balloon animals. That's right! That's right! Your parents were like, She's so autistic. You need to make balloon animals at every party.

And then I, and then I was forced into balloon animal slavery by my parents for every event. They were like, our daughter does balloon art. Would you like her at the church event? Balloon animal trafficking. I'm sorry. It's okay. Balloon finger is not a joke. It's a little traumatizing for me. Yeah. No, you really can burst your little blood vessels in there.

Well, and it like rips your cuticle up with that latex. Sure does. Anyway, it was gorgeous. And I made her smash cake and it was. Way too big. It was like the biggest smash cake ever. I don't know if you all remember this, but Martie was born during the ring of fire solar eclipse, which is, you know, where there's just a little ring of the sun completely around.

So that was the theme of her smash cake. And it was, Martie's first trip around the sun. Yeah. And man, you had a balloon arch and a themed birthday party. Last baby. Yeah. Don't even remember what we did for the other two. So yeah, I did it. And then I brought the balloon arch to daycare the next day. Oh man.

For her party and the kids went, Hey, I'm on that thing. Oh, they were so excited. You should have seen it. And also shout out to the Brownie house. Because they made brookies, brownie cookies, that were like the Ring of Fire Solar Eclipse. So the bottom was a chocolate chip cookie, and then there was like a brownie circle in the middle.

And Martie got to share those with her friends at school. And the pictures are so cute! They're just Eat their little brookies in their little table. And if you want any of those, you could go to YesBrownies. com and they have tons of flavors of brownies like a caramel indulgence, a chocolate lover, pretzel raspberry, blondie, birth control, birthday cake.

I mean, delicious. I thought you were going to say birth control. Birth control brownies. That's what we need. That's a big seller. You eat one a day and it just. Shuts those ovaries right down. That would be hilarious. It's really late, guys. It's like 8pm. We should be asleep. But yeah, so I did it. I had a year of breastfeeding.

I threw an actual birthday party. And those of you that know me would know that I don't I don't throw themed parties. I don't make balloons. Did your other kids say like, Mom, what was my birthday party when I was one? No, thank God. I don't know. They were too busy playing with the one year old's toys and not letting her have them, which is It's fine.

So annoying. She doesn't care. She doesn't. It's fine. She's the sweetest baby of all time still. So, I did it. Out on the back. I'm alive. We made it through. Yeah. Business is still running. Mm hmm. Better than ever. And a lot of that is thanks to you for coming for Oh, you're welcome. One to two days a week to give me a little break to get my insurance situations under control all the time.

I hope you get it all fixed because I'm really tired of driving up here. Hey, you gotta get your IBCLC. I know, I know. I will, I'll come as long as I need to. I'm really tired. I know. We all need a three month maternity leave without having just had a baby. Truly. Well, and I just, okay, I had therapy for the first time in like two months today because we just kept having to cancel.

And she was like, so what's going on? You know, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, I just don't want to wake up early anymore. You know, that's where you start, right? And then you get to like, you know, Deep seated fear of rejection by the end of the appointment. But I was like, look, for years, I've had my own business and I've scheduled my own appointments 11 a.

m. or later. And I've worked till 8 p. m. I don't care. I'm on this rant and I was like, now we can get up at 6 a. m. every fucking day. And I don't know what happened to my life. Yeah. It's out of control. I feel like my life is also out of control. Yeah. And I just. I was like, I just, I feel so much better when I can sleep in a little bit and go to sleep late and it's fine and I need to get my life back to that in the new year.

Okay. Just so you know. Why do we need to wait till the new year? Because I'm still working at your fucking office. We start appointments at 9am, two hours away from my house. I'm so sorry. You are half of the problem. Yeah, but I do, I do them sometimes. Sometimes you come late and I take the morning ones.

Sometimes, yeah. I try not to do that. You just let me know. Anyway, should I let you know that I want actually every single day at work for you to start at 11? I also want my patients to not come till 10 a. m. Listen, I put kids on the bus for two hours in the morning. Theo gets on the bus at 6. 30. Heidi gets on the bus at 8.

20. I am literally, for two hours, getting kids ready. It's awful. I'm like, guys! I've started dressing Lyra. In the clothes she's going to wear tomorrow to bed. I hate that. I don't care. If there's anything that you've ever said that I disagree with more, it's that. You know what? Your kids are going to look like a soup sandwich when they go to school.

She already looks like one anyway. And cause she picks out her own fucking clothes. Okay, great. And she's just doesn't really get sweaty at night or anything. And I'm like, you know what? This literally saves me like 30 minutes in the morning. Honestly, with a little girl I can see it. My 11 year old though, fights me on this all the time.

We're not doing that with Griffin. He's gross and stinky now. Yeah. I love him, but he's stinky. Yeah, and the clothes get wrinkled and they get sweaty. My kids clothes are always wrinkled. I hate to tell you this, Heather. Well, my pile, you know, yes. Yes, they also usually have piles of laundry. Except it's on a table behind my bed.

And it's supposed to be the table where I fold clothes. It's just the table where they go into piles. And similarly, we all go to the table of clothes and dig through like little trash pandas and try to find underwear. Yep. It's good. This we have in common. Anyway, cause yeah, I just like to get, okay, so we can drop Lyra off at pre K kind of whenever we want, but if we miss The 8 15 cutoff.

She doesn't get breakfast. Yep. Oh, the breakfast. But somehow, even if I drop her off at like nine, I haven't been able to feed her breakfast. Yes. I have the same problem. So I try to get her there really early and then, and she actually likes it. She's like, mama, I want to go when there's no one there. She likes, cause the teachers can like really pay attention to her, you know, except when I wake her up at like 7am or 6am or however early we have to do it that day.

She's like,

Just sounds like a cranky door, you know, takes after you. She does. She's a cranky little fuss pot in the morning, but it's been really funny to hear her talk about. Like pre K daycare, whatever it is with, you know, cause we haven't really spent that much time apart in her life and she'll come home and be like, Oh my gosh, today we did this.

And for a while she had been telling me about her new best friend. And she was like, my new best friend's name is this, but sometimes it's And neither of them sounded like names, you know, cause she's three and she has a speech thing. And I was like, okay, whatever. And she's like, and sometimes she dresses the same as her other self.

And sometimes she cries, but sometimes she's nice to me. And I was like, all right, your best friend sounds bipolar or whatever. Her best friend is twins. Oh, I didn't know that until I dropped her off one day and she goes, mama is my best friend. And I was like, Her brain is trying to make them the same.

Oh my God, that's so confusing. And I told her, I was like, okay, they're sisters, they're called twins. And she goes, okay, my best friend is twins. And I was like, okay. Your best friend sounds bipolar. And then I, I like couldn't understand what their names were out of her mouth. Cause they didn't, they're like, They're like unusual names too.

So I was like, her name is definitely not like silly. That's not her name, you know? But anyway, I had, I've kept forgetting to look. So my other friend looked on the sign in sheet and then texted me their name. She's like, these are their actual names. Oh my gosh. Kids are hilarious. It's been very funny. Yeah.

And Lyra like really wants to bring lots of show and tell to school. And I'm like, I don't know what the teacher's threshold for show and tell is. Yeah, we can't do it until the teacher says it's the day to do it. I think Causes problems. Yeah, I know, I'm pretty sure as long as we're leaving whatever it is there, they can just bring something in that like goes in their little mantle of like special rocks and feathers and shit.

So she, you know, she's been like donating to the collection of rocks and feathers and pinecones. But I'm like, when is this considered trash? Yeah. When is it show and tell? I don't know. The gum wrapper she found on the ground, should she bring that? If she wants to, I don't care. Hey, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

Thanks for reminding me, by the way, that Heidi's show and tell is tomorrow. October, you guys, who's with me on way too many events on the calendar? Give her a breast pump. She doesn't want to do that. Plus I only have that really nice one. But yeah, it's like, do you want to come to my trunk or treat? No, I don't.

I don't want to. I don't want to set up a table. There's pumpkin drops. There's dances. We don't have pumpkin drops where I live. Oh my gosh, there's so many. There is a downtown trick or treat day that I think I might participate in as a business. It's not the regular Halloween. Well, good for you. I haven't committed yet though.

Cause my business is like There, there's like an invisible barrier at the river in town, and like when you cross the bridge, like, It's not like downtown anymore. And I'm like just across the bridge. And I feel like not a single child is going to cross the bridge. Like they're going to get to just to the other side where I know they're going to have a kick ass candy station at that business because I know them.

I deliver babies for them. I know everything about these people. And I'm like, they are going to have like hot cider and like just amazing shit. And then I'm going to be across the bridge just looking at them. So maybe I'll bring a table and go over to them. That would be smart because you know, every parent is going to use the bridge.

Yeah. As a barrier. They're going to be like, okay, go have, go have fun. Just don't cross the bridge. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Well, hey, we're all doing our best this Halloween. Happy Halloween. I don't know what my kids are gonna be. I asked, I forgot basically to ask, and then I asked, and they were both like, I don't know, and I was like, what do you mean?

Oh boy. We don't have very long to make a costume or buy one or any of that. What do you mean you don't know? Yeah. I don't know when all of the class parties are. I'm bringing a fruit tray, allegedly, to something at some time. I, guys, I can't keep it straight. I don't know. That's okay. I don't know who can.

Even if you worked within the home and did not have to like go to an actual office and you did domestic stuff full time, it would still be too much. I agree. And bless you all who do that, who consistently bring the fruit trays because I suck at remembering these things. But let me leave you with this.

It's been a good year. It's been one of the most difficult years of my life. Fulfilling, I'd do it again. Absolutely. I've learned so much and it's brought me closer to everyone as an audience, which has been really nice. It's been nice to go through it with you. And for all of you who have reached out to me who have said, Oh, we had babies on the same day.

And I listened to beyond the boob through the whole thing. And for all of you guys, happy birthday to you and the baby. And you know, it's all up from here now that we're sort of sleeping, I hope and getting our bodies back. One little neuronal connection at a time. Love you all. Well, thanks for listening to another episode of the Milk Minute, everybody.

Yep. The way we change this big system that's not set up for lactating families is, I guess, to get pregnant for the third time and make a whole podcast about it and then make another podcast about it and share the education. So thank you all for listening, for sharing it with your friends. We appreciate all the Apple reviews that you've written.

They're, they're awesome. And every time you share the show with a friend, it really helps us out and it helps to spread the good word. And don't forget, we both do virtual lactation consults if you guys want us to help you with your breastfeeding problems from afar. And those links are always in our show notes.

All right, y'all have a good one and happy birthday, Martie. Bye. Bye.