books and breast feeding

so i forgot to write last week, oops! oh well, i'm here now! :) anyways, i got some good news yesterday - jon's coming home in 2 weeks! yay!!!!! :D we weren't sure when he'd get here b/c he was supposed to have to do training w/ the new people coming to replace them and then it would depend on how they shipped them home, but it turns out they're only doing like, 1 day of training! wahoo! so he'll be home only 1 or 2 days later than they originally told us, hooray! i'm so excited to have him back! i wasn't letting myself get excited about him coming home in case it took a few weeks (or months) and he ended up being later than expected, but now that he's told me an actual date, i can't help but get excited! :)

in other news, i'm still reading up a storm and discovering some AWESOME books along the way - here's a short list of the ones i loved and highly recommend:

* the midnighters series by scott westerfeld (the secret hour, touching darkness, and blue noon)
* the uglies series by scott westerfeld (uglies, pretties, specials, and extras)
* peeps by scott westerfeld
* the last days by scott westerfeld (seeing a trend? well, it ends here, that's all i've read by him)
* the twilight series by stephenie meyer (twilight, new moon, and eclipse)
* the bar code tattoo by suzanne weyn
* the last days of kypton by kevin j. anderson

they were all really good, and for very different reasons. the funny thing about the ones by scott westerfeld is that usually when i read a series, i end up not liking anything else written by that author, but he's broken that trend for me. i read the uglies series first, and when i ended up loving it, someone told me to read the midnighters. then i saw peeps and the last days (which are kind of a series in themselves), and i loved them; i'm going to pick up another book by him from the library today, so i'll see how that one goes. . . i just read the bar code tattoo last night and was skeptical about it, at best. from the description on the back, it seemed like just another run of the mill utopia-gone-wrong kind of story, but i was pleasantly surprised. the krypton one is the story of krypton's destruction, the whole reason we have superman, so that was really interesting. even better, i finished it on thursday night and then, when i went to watch smallville, clark actually went to krypton while it was being destroyed, so that was pretty cool!

last, but certainly not least, anyone who's read the twilight series knows there's nothing i can say to do these books justice. they are by far the best books i've ever read! they're so different from anything else i've ever read, which makes them so much more intriguing. i'm so excited for the 4th book to come out this summer, i've already pre-ordered it (breaking dawn). . . i'm ALSO excited about the twilight movie (check out these links for info: imdb, stephenie meyer's website, twilight movie site) coming out in december!!!!! my friends and i have already decided we're going to see it as soon as we can once it's in theaters. we'll get our husbands to watch all the kids and have a blast, i can't wait! :D

ok, so enough about my obsession w/ twilight. . .

so i haven't really been doing much besides reading CONSTANTLY, but i have managed one thing - i'm done pumping! happy day! i haven't pumped since 4/30 and i'm so relieved! i was scared it would hurt to stop completely, but i think i did a good job of weaning slowly b/c i haven't been in pain at all! so yeah, i'm glad to be done, to not have that always hanging over my head. it was worth it to make it this far though; trevor hasn't had formula since he was a month old, and even that was b/c of doctor's orders. i have enough stockpiled in the freezer to make it to his 1st birthday, so i'm happy to have made it. it was rough, and i definitely wouldn't have made it w/out jon's help, especially in the beginning. i don't ever wanna do it again though. . . i will if i have to, of course, but i'd prefer to only pump b/c i CHOOSE to, not b/c i don't have any other options. and anyone who asks me my opinion on the subject will get the same answer - nursing would have been SO much easier, and if i could have made it work, i would have. i only chose to pump b/c it was really important to me that trevor get breastmilk for as much of the first year as possible, and he absolutely 100% refused to nurse, even w/ help from lactation consultants. in the end, it was pump exclusively or give him formula. obviously, i chose to pump. anyways, yeah, it's a huge weight off my shoulders to be done w/ it - YAY!!!!! :D