success measured in ounces

a successful day

She isn't waking at night - hasn't since about two months old - for she finds her thumbs and soothes herself back to sleep until morning.  I usually wake her up in the morning from a sound sleep.  I feed as soon as I get up at 6am, and then again before I leave at 7:30 - always late out the door around 7:50.  She cluster feeds in the day.   am pumping as much as I can because Tuana is drinking it all and drinking formula when my milk is finished.   On more than one occasion I have forgot something in the morning related to my milk needs: a part, a top, a falange, an extra bottle, a cooler.  I spilled milk twice at school.  I had imagine these last weeks a time where I could have meaningful chats with friends, work on some personal projects, and some goodbyes - but my days are still full.  I do one-on-ones through for the first two hours (even through break time), pump milk and wash the equipment, do more students, eat lunch, more students, pump milk again if I can, then leave early.  I get to leave an hour-and-a-half early on "milk permission" - time given by the government for mothers to go home and feed their baby's.  Milk is the central focus of my day.  

After school I walked down to the the bank with Gokhan to collect my dogum parasi - unemployment for my maternity leave.  We had been submitting the paperwork all along, and I was to pick up the money between specific dates at a specific bank that I had forewarned of my large withdrawal.   Tolga had called the offices on Friday to send the money, I had gone to the bank on Monday to make sure they put the money in the vault for me today, then I had to come after three to pick up the payment.  The bank manager came out to watch the transaction - it was just over three months salary I had stuffed in a large envelope - but it wasn't mine, it was money I had to deliver to another bank and deposit in my school's account.  They had been paying my salary all along - so it was there money.  I was entitled to exactly 122 tl - "milk money" they called it, but it's still unclear what the milk money was to pay for (a pump? a steak? a taxi home to feed the baby?)