You guys.  I might have to curb my skepticism.  I bought a bottle of MotherLove More Milk Plus at the recommendation of a lactation consultant at a La Leche League meeting (yes, I went to one in April.  It was OK.  I might go again in June.), and after using it for 3 days, I am pretty sure I'm noticing an increase.  The last 4 times I've pumped, I've gotten at least 20% more than comparable sessions in the previous week.  I need a couple more days worth of data to feel really confident, but it does seem to be helping!

Since I have started getting a more comfortable buffer of milk, and since we've been putting Penelope to bed between 8:00 and 8:30 for almost a week now, I had Paul feed her a bottle while I was at choir rehearsal tonight and put her to bed before I got home!  It's totally weird to come home and not get to see her again, but I'm taking this opportunity to pump at 9:30 instead of 10:30 and go to bed early, so I might actually get 7 hours of sleep AND still have time to get a shower and get into work by 7:00AM tomorrow!  Wouldn't that be amazing.  I'm not quite sure what my boobs are going to do with 7 hours worth of milk, but I guess I'll find out!

Is anyone else totally tired of the election already??  I have been working on a thought process about how the problem with Democrats' and Republicans' policies actually boils down to the same thing, that individuals are inherently selfish and frequently don't act in the long-term best interests of their community, but they have very different beliefs about the best way to mitigate that fact.  That's pretty much the whole theory, I just need to think about some concrete examples. Of course, this doesn't take into account how broken the government is as a whole, regardless of party...but the root of that problem is fundamentally the same thing too, don't you think?  Human self-centeredness, and not the right incentives in place to mitigate it effectively?  Yup.

This is a weird segue, but I think that's one of the strengths of Paul's and my relationship:  we each deeply believe, correctly, that the other is making decisions with each other in mind, and always trying to support each other. So when something does go wrong, and one of us gets a little angry, and maybe we have an argument, it never lasts long because once it's out in the open it just dissolves away into knowing that now we're on the same page and maybe that wasn't the best, but next time it will happen the right way.  We're both kind of lazy and extra procrastinate-y on our own, but we are really good at motivating each other because we don't want to disappoint each other.  Why can't politicians be more like that??  Haha...ah... *weeps for the future of humanity* (um, just kidding.  I'm totally still an optimist.)

Here, have another picture of my baby sucking her thumb, this time with a naked bottom!