Playground Woes

Finn had a rough day at school on Wednesday, the kind of experience that makes my heart hurt for him. He was digging in a turtle sandbox out on the playground, one that is filled with mulch. Apparently, at the same time, some older boys were also using the sandbox to create a home for some baby worms they had found. I don't know the details (Did Finn get in their way? Did he try to dig up the worm home? Or was it unsolicited?), but the older boys yelled at Finn, told him to go away and find somewhere else to play. Finn CRIED his eyes out - his teacher told me she had never seen him so upset. By the time I got there to pick him up, he wasn't crying anymore, but he was still being wracked by the occasional body shudder - you know, the whimpering/lip quivering kind that is a sign of a really hard cry. He was still a little weepy when we got home and told M. all about it.

I'm not sure how old the boys were - from the looks of it, maybe about 4 or 5. Old enough to know how they SHOULD behave, but also young enough to be self-centered when it comes to playing. It's not really their fault - a teacher should have been supervising better. I'm a little PO'd that such a range of age groups plays on the playground at the same time, but then again, there are kids of all ages at our playground at home so it's something Finn needs to get used to.

For the rest of the night, all Finn could talk about was the older boys, and how sad they made him. M. and I tried to comfort him as much as we could, and let him know that the boys who yelled at him were naughty, that he could play in the sandbox if he wanted to... It was hard to know WHAT to say, really. It's obvious that he's a sensitive kid, at least right now. He's definitely inherited that from me, and so I just get all teary-eyed myself instead of giving Finn some useful advice. I just want to squeeze him and kiss him until he feels better - why doesn't that work!? Gah, I am SO in for it when Finn and Lucy get older - I just know I'm going to be suffering every time they experience a slight or a hurt feeling from a peer, probably more than they do!

There was no mention of the older boys last night, so hopefully after a nicer day on the playground yesterday the experience is quickly fading from Finn's memory. Why does it still stick in mine??

In Lucy news (which I don't want to broadcast far and wide for fear it was a total fluke), Lucy gave us uninterrupted sleep from 10:30 pm until 4:15 am last night. I don't expect it to repeat itself tonight, but I'm hoping we'll have a night like that every now and then so we can recharge.

Lucy has definitely been more awake and alert. She is starting to put up a fight for going down for naps, and she has been waking up every 2-3 hours (at least) to eat during the night. She's also still been having some gas/pooping issues, so I can't really brag anymore about how much free time we've had while on leave, or how easy she has been. She hasn't been hard, just not really easy, either.

We are still struggling a bit with feeding, too. Lucy is breastfeeding just fine - she latches very well. But I still don't have enough milk for her, so we are bottle-feeding and breastfeeding for each feeding, even the ones at night. It's a bit of a hassle, as each feeding takes about an hour, and there are all those bottles to prep and wash... Honestly I think every day about stopping the breastfeeding. But I feel that would be more for convenience than anything else, so I've been trucking along and trying to give her as much breast milk as I can, at least for now.

M. heads back to work on Monday, so we're all going to have to get back on to some sort of schedule (we meant to try today, but failed miserably - no one got out of bed until almost 7:30). Wish us luck!