Growing Pains

The last little while for our family has been extremely busy and full of change. We have moved from one side of the US to the other and we didn't have housing when we got here. Once we finally found housing it has been an adventure to get unpacked and settled. Throughout all of it I have been having some growing pains. I am learning the reality of my roles as a wife and mother. It is a good reality. It is a blessed life. But sometimes I still have growing pains when I have to learn more about the realities of what I am called to do in my position.

Today I was blog hopping and I ran across a wonderful article that reminded me of how wonderful it is to be a mother. I try so hard to enjoy every minute of my life, and in all honesty I think that I do pretty well. If it makes any sense at all, that's why I sometimes get growing pains, because I love being with my daughter, I love serving my husband and I don't understand why I should be having a hard time with loneliness or tiredness when I am living the life of my dreams. 

As I was reading through the article Motherhood- The Highest Service of Order I was filled with a love and an understanding about my position. It is no different than many other women that have gone before me. It's just not quite as publicized in the news or media. And I realized today that maybe that's the thing, maybe I need to be more actively searching to surround myself with a community (online or otherwise) of women who know what I am going through. 

Not only that, but there is this wonderful online community of mothers who are not only in my position of being a stay at home mother and wife and so I can relate to them in that aspect, but they also have my same beliefs. What a wonderful thing to be able to connect with what someone is saying because you too are grateful for a Savior who has died for each and everyone of us. What a blessing to have guidance from a loving Heavenly Father by prophets and apostles that are here on the earth. They truly have words that speak to exactly what I need to hear in my times of need. 

I am so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life. It truly is what I draw from during hard times in my life and for that I am forever grateful.

In my blog hopping another thing that was comforting to me today was a link to this video:

I hope that by sharing these things at least one other person can be comforted like I was. The Lord knows us and he knows our trials and he sends angels to guard and comfort us. How blessed are we!!

Click it up a Notch July Contest

I have decided to try to learn photography. My hubby got me a fabulous camera for Christmas and I have been dabbling here and there, but I finally am trying my hand at shooting manually and I love the results SO much more! 

This was one of my favorite pictures that I took in July.  It was for graduation pictures for my younger sister.

Newton's Law Of Stay at Home Mothering

An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

So, this morning I had an "ah-ha" moment. One of those "ah-ha" moments that you are sure that every other parent knows, but you finally found out how to put it in words. 

 It was 9:00 and I had already: done two loads of laundry, vacuumed, fed the baby, played with the baby, entertained the baby, put the baby down for a nap, unloaded and loaded the dishwasher, wiped down the table and counters, spot cleaned the carpet, exercised for an hour and was starting to take a shower when I stopped and thought, "holy crap this is an unusually productive day."  

 The background on this is that the last little bit I have been struggling with finding a purpose. Now I hate even putting that into words because I love being a mother. I love playing with my baby girl and teaching her and seeing her progress. But I cannot live my life revolving around my kids. I mean I could, but I don't want to lose myself in that endeavor. I personally enjoy parenting so much more when I have a good break from it to be able to better myself. So I have been struggling with days that I just can't seem to get the umph to get anything done. I mean, why clean the house, I am in the army, not near family so no one is going to see it. (I'll  tell you why, I become a monster - I mean totally frustrated and  on edge when my house isn't clean) Why organize because we are moving in a month anyways what's the point. I really was just in a funk. I would try to be productive in the morning but I would wake up at the same time as Kaela and I would watch her play, feed her breakfast and wait to get anything done until she was down for her morning nap. But then when her nap rolled around all I really wanted to do was eat breakfast and watch a show or relax after having chased her around. 

This morning I woke up and just started cleaning and made to do lists and let Kaela play around like she would have done otherwise and took moments to play and laugh with her. That's when I realized..... An object (me a mother) in motion (waking up and starting to do wife and personal things) stays in motion (I don't have any problems getting too exhausted to get a good amount of things done.)

This really sounds like it might be oh so common sense, but it was my "ah-ha" moment so don't make fun! Plus, if I write it down it will help me next time I get the "need-proof-that-I-am-progressing- mothering-blues"

You Are Okay!

Here is another subject that I had been thinking about a lot lately when I ran across this article. It's hard being a new mom. I mean to start with, we are female which means that one of our innate characteristics is that we will compare ourselves with every other mother who has ever lived. Correction, we will unfairly compare other's best talents with our worst or vice versa.

Why do we do that?

I have to admit, I have had issues with that. To clear things up, this blog is primarily for my benefit. If I make specific suggestions on how to run a house or parent children it is mainly for me to remember with future children what worked for me. Please do not feel like I am saying that is the only way that cleaning or mothering or anything else can or should be done. If there is anything that I have learned with becoming a mother it's this: there are a billion right ways to raise a happy healthy child. There are so many great ideas and great ways to parent. Just do what you know best and what works best for you and your child(ren). That is my main goal. To find what works best for me. 

I loved this article because I am the sort of person who loves to listen to people. I love to hear what worked for other people as they started out becoming parents. I am happy to accept advice. The problem with that is that at times I take other people's advice as doctrine. As though if I am not doing exactly what they did I am 100% wrong. (I loved math, there was always a wrong answer and a right answer. I could get 100% of the problems right if I just found that right answer) In fact, the other day I lamented to Russ that there were parenting choices that other parents had made with such and such kid and I had tried and they didn't work with our daughter. He sweetly reminded me, "Kaela isn't him, just because that worked for them doesn't mean it will work for you."

I tell you what, parenting is so much fun. Those moments, I mean those fleeting ones that you prepare for and then they fly by. Like you spend all this time to make dinner so that you have a few moments to smile with your family and start into your baby's eyes and just enjoy who they are. The times they do things like pee all over the bathroom floor while waiting for a bath and you should be so annoyed but all you can do is laugh because it's not like they meant to. Those moments are what parenting is about. Yeah there are things that is hard about parenting, but I feel like I make it infinitely harder when I worry about what other people do that I am not doing.

Here's the thing: I am a good parent. I am still constantly learning, but I am so much more confident at being a mom then I was even just a few months ago. The biggest thing is that I am doing my best. Just like any other parent in the world. That's what matters, just do your best.  

I'm in the Army now

So I have read a few blog posts lately that rang so true to life as an Army wife that I just had to unload my thoughts here.

First I read this one and I agreed with parts of it and understood that since we are only in training there are parts of it that I fundamentally cannot understand until I have really "experienced" the Army. I am constantly amazed at the strength of the women that I am surrounded by. A woman with four children who was induced with the fourth so the husband could be there for the birth before he was deployed. Women who have traveled the world with children and husband in tow to be a support system -- arguably the main support system -- for a husband whom she loves very much. Women who deal with sick or injured children with no husband. Women who are very much capable to run a house 100% on their own because they have done it before and will do it again when the next deployment comes. All of these amazing examples of strength are surrounding me and all of the sudden I turn around and realize that I am one of them. I am an Army spouse. There is nothing different I do in life then any other person in my situation would do, it's just the life we have chosen and we have chosen to love it. I didn't choose to move across country 37 weeks pregnant with my first child. It happened and I lived through it. Who in this world doesn't have a story?! No one.

I have a mother-in-law who has 5 children and moved 11 times in the first 11 years of her marriage. I have a mother who had a child who requires care 24/7 for the past 23 years. Really, can I just say it: Women are amazing!

I guess the kicker that made me start to think about my situation was the other day when I booked tickets and had a blonde moment and didn't double check the day so I will be coming home the day of my wedding anniversary. I am going home for a wedding, but due to army training my husband can't come with me. The timing of the wedding means that he will miss the first birthday of our daughter. I cried when I realized I made a simple mistake to miss part of our anniversary when there will be other important days he will have no option to be a part of due to deployments. I had a moment of trying to figure out who I could pass the blame onto until I talked to my husband. He told me, "that's perfect, you didn't want to travel on the Sabbath anyway. Besides I wouldn't be able to get out of work that day so we wouldn't be able to do anything till the evening anyway." He is such a strength through this whole Army experience! 


I talked to a good friend today about deployments and she opened my eyes to what I need to be prepared for during deployments. She said the hardest thing for her was that you have to realize that emotionally your relationship with your husband cannot stay the same. You can't unload your problems to someone who is fighting for our country without distracting them and making them worry about home. You have to find people to be that emotional "go-to" person. In thinking about it more it made me realize how grateful I am for the knowledge that Russ and I will be together forever. If I didn't know that there was more to life after this I could not have allowed my family to join the Army. 


I guess the two things that the "ticket fiasco of 2012" has taught me is that 1) my priorities have just been strengthened - I need to find every way possible to celebrate and be with my husband and children whenever possible because that will not always be a possibility. And 2) My new frame of mind (I may have to remind myself at times) is that the times when we are able to be together for birthdays and holidays and anniversaries are the blessings, not necessarily the norm. My husband handled it all so well that it made me realize if I didn't change my frame of mind I would only make it harder on myself. 


I love the Army life. Where else would I meet so many amazing people and have such wonderful experiences. I guess because the friendships are so deep and the life is really so good it has to be balanced with a little struggles and pain in there somewhere. But the ironic thing is when we struggle we will have those good Army wife friends that have been there that we can turn to and in turn we will just strengthen those lasting friendships. Which in turn makes it harder to be stationed somewhere new, but a new location is just more opportunities for friends. It really is such a good life!! 

Um... not so expert

Remember that time that I mistakenly typed that we were teething experts?! WHAT was I thinking?! I believe it was that day or the next that we hit the peak of teething time. I mean the clingy, don't-put-me-down-or-I-will-wail, constant pain, nap times thrown out the window stage. I think we are over the worst of it now. I think that will put our teething time to two weeks. But we made it through. Alive. And somewhat in tact. That's when I had mistakenly referred to myself as an expert. That act alone required for something to happen to humble me.

You know those days when you feel like you did when you came out of the hospital the first time with your first baby? You know, the feeling like, "they are actually going to let me take this baby away from the nurses care?" They do realize I haven't done this before, right? I mean completely clueless? I am trying, but I just don't understand it all. And I want to. That is how I operate. I study something, I know what I am getting myself into and then I go for it. I am the kind of person that wants something to be perfect. For example, there were times when I was a secretary that I would take messages for my boss and then rewrite the message note because I didn't think my handwriting was presentable the first time.

So now that it comes to the point of dropping a nap, I am all in a whirl. What do I do?? I have tried just pushing her naps back. I wait until she acts tired. She goes down like a champ. I lay her down for her morning nap (or any nap for the matter) and she rolls over and sucks her thumb like she is off to sleep. I walk out and she proceeds to play in her crib for about an hour before she goes to sleep. It doesn't sound like that bad of a thing, but I thought we had a schedule down. This means that when I have something planned in the morning I have to take into consideration that an extra hour is now needed for all of her nap times. Or else, and this has happened. I have to take a baby that doesn't get her morning nap. Ugh! I know this too shall pass. I know that we will figure out her new napping routine where she doesn't need quite as much sleep now, but the process of trying to figure out is like learning this weird balancing act without any prior instruction.

Not gonna lie, sometimes I just want to take Kaela aside and say, "Hey, sorry that you have to be the guinea pig for all this parenting stuff! But the good news is you are taking it like a champ!"

Multiple Tooth Teething

I am so blessed to have such a happy baby. Seriously, I don't know where she came from, but you can't help but be happy with her. I love being her mom. That's why the last few days have been so surprising. She is still generally happy, but she gets fussier easier and she isn't sleeping through the nights. That's not normal for her. I was confused after 3-4 nights of waking up with her a few times in the middle of the night then I realized her second vampire tooth broke through (yep, she got her vampire teeth before her front teeth). That brings the total to 6 teeth. Then yesterday I wised up and felt her gums. Her front two teeth are also coming in. BASICALLY she will have had 4 teeth break through in the span of a week. Can you say pain? I would be fussy too!

(not to mention the time I failed to catch her when she lost her balance on my lap and hit her mouth on the desk... during skype... in front of my parents... I wanted to cry for her it looked so painful) (I promise mom, that's not a common occurrence. That was really the first time.)

Anyway, we have become teething soothing experts here. 

Hyland's Teething Tablets - When she started teething at 4 months, these upset her stomach each time I tried so I gave up. This time it took Kaela a few tries to finally get used to the tablets, but they are working now! Now she smacks her lips when she sees the bottle. Can I get a hoorah?!

Mesh Pacifiers - Fill these little gems with an ice cube or freeze some fruit juice for variety and she is SO much more calm. (Thanks so much to my aunt who mailed these to us as a gift, they are wonderful for snacking AND teething now)

Baby Tylenol..... if you like sleep, like me. I gave her this before she took her bedtime bottle (if I try to give it after when she is full she won't take it). Sometimes I feel guilty for drugging my child, but I have only used this a total of 3 times in the last week of fussiness so I really don't use it all that much. I guess the guilty factor only comes in when she is fussy at the beginning and I am not positive whether it is teething or not and I give the meds to her anyway. I have never been wrong though. I guess you have to hand that one to mother's intuition. Apparently I know more than I give myself credit for. 

Things Better Left Unknown

So last night we needed to go grocery shopping before dinner and date night. So in planning for our date night we decided to splurge and get ice cream (yeah, I am that bad of a wife that it is a splurge to get ice cream). The hubby proceeded to find a little treasure that I now wish he hadn't....

Did you know that Marie Calendar's makes personal pot pie sized apple pies? Did you know that my husband knows how to cook said pies perfectly in the oven to make them taste homemade?

Neither did I on either account.

I wish I didn't

I plan to promptly forget this blessed fact so that I don't blow up to the size of a small country from eating apple pies (or blow the budget from buying desserts)

The Sweet Life

I

Love

Being

A

Mom!

I don't think anyone could have ever described the joy that mothers feel. Or the satisfaction to see your child experience something new. Or the sense of accomplishment when you find a new better way to assimilate your child into an active lifestyle.

I accumulated a jogging stroller this week, a garden plot last week, a reservation for a boot camp and a whole lot more distractions from laundry. Plus now that it is feeling more like summer I am already planning our pool time to be quite extravagant since we have one right down the street. I love it!!  Who needs clean folded laundry anyway....

I feel like this next month may be a little hard at the garden since Kaela isn't walking really well and we live in Alabama which is officially home of the largest population of fire ants I had ever hope to meet. That means I won't let her crawl so gardening will have to either (a) be done in short spurts so she doesn't grow to hate the stroller or (b) work with other gardening families with children so she can be entertained. She likes to watch people. That makes errands pleasant even if she is having a grumpy day.

The last few weeks I finally found a great scheduling system for cleaning the house. Seriously it has made my life so much easier. Thanks to Jones Design Company and some great friends who introduced me to their monthly calendar printouts. I honestly don't even know how to sign up for the printouts, I just know that I love them. My friends printed them out for me and brought them over for February and I was hooked. Anyway, it worked great for February and then this week I forgot to take time to fill it out Saturday night and to plan time every day for my chores. I have been out of the house so much with the garden and the stroller and such that I am behind with my chores. I guess the good news is that now that I am I house wife I am my own boss and I am okay with the laundry being a little behind in order to figure out this gardening thing and get rid of our cabin fever we developed the last little bit.

 

Really though. Maybe it's the Vitamin D, maybe it's the endorphins, maybe it's because my daughter is so dang cute, maybe it's the fact she finally fell asleep in my arms today for the first time in weeks, I just can't get enough of being a mom. I highly recommend it. In fact, I wonder if with my next child I can go right to the 9 month old stage....

Oh Motherhood...

So my daughter started choking on some food today. Not to worry, all was well. She coughed and her eyes went red and she swallowed it.

Apparently I was in the process of eating when the event occurred because a few hours later I reached in my pocket and found a half eaten apple slice.... nice and sticky.... in my pocket. Didn't think that one through real well.

Valentine's Day

I am aware of how blessed I am, but I have married a man who knows how to make Valentine's Day so sweet. This morning as I was putting Kaela down for her morning nap, I came out of the room and stumbled on this trail of white chocolate chips: 

Which led to this beautifully made bed and heart and flower: 

In our holiday-greeting-card book (thanks Palmers for letting us steal the idea!) there was the sweetest note. It made my whole morning! 

Kaela and I worked hard today to have these ready when he got home: 

Homemade truffles (supposedly healthy...)  --> here's the recipe

And Chicken Parmigiana. Russ and I love this recipe!! (and thanks to Aunt Katy for introducing us to these rolls)

Here is Kaela's "Happy Valentines Day" face

Here is the face the I get when I tell her not to chew on the end of her seat belt. It's promptly followed by this face:  

What age are they supposed to understand "no"?? Is she being defiant already? Please say no. 

Recommendations

I figure that I have been getting some great information from other moms, why not share the things that I recently found that are WONDERFUL!

Picnik.com
So this is an oldie for me, but I forgot about it and just started reusing it. So it's kinda like it's new.
Picnik.com - it's this awesome picture editing program. It's easy to use and there is no huge learning curve. PLUS from now until April 19 you can get all the features that you would usually have to pay for because, dun dun dun, Google bought it. SOO after April 19 you will have to go through Google. Go figure, it is wonderful, it  is on the internet, why wouldn't it be bought by the Goog. Anyway, I highly recommend it!!
Another photo editing tool I recommend is Gimp, but since I only have till April 19 to use Picnik I have been using that a lot more lately.

Roku
The next one will reveal a random fact about me. I have never owned a gaming system. No Mario, no x-box, no wii, no handheld Mario. Crazy right? Am I even American (I assure you I am). My parents finally bought an x-box and wii after I had moved to college. Well, I figured since I had grown up just fine without one there was no reason for us ever to own one. I mean all they do is create more distractions for kids from going outside and using their imaginations. Since I got married the hubster has made me see that it may not be so terrible if we had game stuff so our kids and their friends come to our house too on occasion (besides I like that the Wii and Kinect don't have controllers where you plop your duff on the couch for hours so I wouldn't dig my heels in for that one).
Next confession, we don't have cable. We watch movies and stuff, but we haven't had cable or TV of any sort since we moved to Alabama. We never watched it really when we were both in school so why pay for it right? In fact, when we signed up with Time Warner the fellow asked us if it was legal to not have TV. He thought my husband was kidding and thought he would change his mind eventually, he didn't. We really did not get cable.
All this combined means that it is insanely quiet in my house (where I am most often located, in case you ever want to find me). Unless of course I want to throw in one of our 10 quality DVDs. There is really only so many times you can rotate through DVDs while cleaning. Anyway, this is my long story to tell you we found something that gets Netflix on our TV:
Roku
It's this little box that cost $79 for us to get netflix and tons of other things on our TV. The box itself comes with preloaded apps (like netflix, pandora, disney, hulu plus, etc) and then we just pay the $10/month for Netflix. AWESOME!! I have loved it!
PLUS we loaded it and looked at some of the favorite channels to add and two of the favorites were BYU Channel (complete with past Jimmer games) and the Mormon Channel. This means we can now watch General Conference on TV instead of rigging up our most uncomfortable chairs in the computer room. Or I can listen to past talks or Education Week talks as I clean.
Life changing, right?
I seriously love this little box!

Downton Abbey
Now that I have Netflix, I was referred to this series and I love it! It's fabulous!! It makes me wish I lived in England with all their proprieties and such.

Those are my recommendations for the day :)

My Mornings....

Here is what I thought my mornings would be as a stay at home mom:



I mean think about it. I am home all day and before the baby I would get up early and exercise and get to class. So it would make sense that this is how things would be. She even has a little one to dress and play with and everything. The only thing then would change is I would be singing "then will my life begin" because I am a wife and mother that's real life right there.

Now to show you what my mornings are not.

Go ahead and click on the movie above again...

I wonder if I could pay her to come to my house to do all that??

Sick Baby

Let me give you a quick glimpse into my life. I blog sometimes about things that I worry about or that bother me, so I worry that it may seem that my life is this terrible, no good life. 

Well, generally I wake up to the sounds of my sweet little girl moving around in her crib as she wakes up. She usually sleeps pretty well through the night and then coos in her crib till I come to get her. When I walk in the room her face lights up into a smile and she rushes to the side of the crib to greet me. 

Seriously, what could be a better wake up call. Granted, I let her coo and occasionally whimper (okay sometimes she cries a little too) in the crib until 7 or so when I am ready to have her get out of the crib. If the crying is too bad I get her a little earlier, but any annoyance about that is melted away by her smiles. 

Then breakfast, which is always entertaining. She loves eating and is so much fun to feed. The day is usually sprinkled with some sort of errand, where she is so excited to see new things that it makes me genuinely happy about everything, and cleaning which is never too bad when you have this little imp crawling (and now that she can use the walker she "bumper-car-runs") around my legs. 

Anyway, in all seriousness, life is good. I love being a mom. I feel like all my life I have been searching for my purpose. Like I might have found it in a job or in a major or degree. I never found it. Until now. Now I love being a wife and a mom. There are things about it that are hard. Very hard. In ways I never imagined. But I guess that's what makes it so fulfilling. 

One of those hard things is sickness. My daughter just got sick for the first time. I mean coughing till she gags, can't sleep for more then 15-20 minutes between coughing fits, goes back to sleep faster if she knows we are there to comfort her, nose running like a faucet, cries about the littlest thing because she is so tired type sick. Breaks my heart. Really I was beside myself. I didn't know what to do. We are on the downhill part of it today and she is actually sleeping now.

 (Insert Hallelujah Chorus here... quietly... strike that, let's stay away from all noises) 

BUT I realized something. Something besides the fact that the people manufacturing baby tylenol are in it for the business... why else would they change the dosing so you have to use 2.5 syringe fulls of medicine. Have you ever tried to get one full syringeful into a crying baby? How about 2? How about 2.5? You're all jerks. Corporate, business-minded jerks. Yes, now I will use my baby tylenol a heck of a lot faster and come crawling back to you all frazzled when my baby is sick. Why would you pick on us moms. You try it for a day. Then we will see about how you choose to change dosing. 

Back to what I realized though. My baby is teething. That's right. On top of all the sickness she has two teeth coming in right next to her little bottom teeth. My heart is breaking for her. Breaking and hoping she will sleep just a little longer... 

The Side Effect of Pregnancy and Motherhood

I was realizing today that lately I feel guilty so much more often than I ever have in my life. The more that I thought about it the more that I realized that it all began with being pregnant. Or even deciding to have children. Really, think about it. Are you eating the right things to prepare your body for pregnancy? Is your body too thin? Too fat? Enough muscle? Once you are pregnant are you sleeping on the right side? Do you occasionally drift to your back during the night? Do you eat fish? Do you remember to kegel? Have you taken a birthing class? Are you taking the right birthing class? Have you studied enough? Are you studying too much? Is your baby active? Is it too active? Is it something you ate? Is it something you didn't eat? Did the baby already develop the wrong genes? Once the baby is born the heavy dose of guilt begins: Are you feeding/holding/loving the baby correctly? Did you give birth right? Are the socks you bought going to stunt the growth of his feet? Are you choosing the formula that will prepare the little brain for Harvard? Are you sleeping too soundly that you won't her the important whimper? And too top it off, all the signs that say "Don't leave baby unattended" ...what may have happened that one time you left the baby in the high chair when you had to rush to the restroom?

Sometimes I think that the overactive guilt of being a mother comes from the overactive judging of other mothers that occurred when I was pregnant. Really, the "when I am a mom, I will never be neglectful enough to leave my children while I use the restroom" or the "my children will be so loved they never cry, she just must not love her children" And then your baby cries in the hospital and you immediately feel as though if you had loved her more up to that point she wouldn't be crying. Granted this is after labor and 48 hours of no sleep so the guilt is coated extra strong on your weary emotional eyes.

It's funny because if the roles were reversed and the males were in charge of staying at home and nurturing the children, this would be the mindset:

Dad #1 - "Dude, my baby just stood for the first time."
Dad #2 - "That's awesome!"
High fives
Dad #2 - "You should see the faces my baby makes when she fills her diaper, look at this picture...

Instead this is what happens with moms

Mom #1 - after some deliberation whether it was too much to tell or not, but realizing that her friend would see it either way at the next play date, "She is crawling everywhere."
Mom #2 - "Yay, that's exciting" while thinking, "What am I doing wrong? My baby hasn't even acted like she is thinking about crawling. Should I have her looked at? Maybe the pediatrician forgot to ask me about that and this is a sign of something more serious? I can't believe I haven't given her enough attention that she feels the need to crawl to me."

I realize that all of this may be a slight over exaggeration and may also depend on which males or females you are talking about. Quite an over generalization, but maybe it's all in an effort to make me feel like I am not the only mother who has ever felt guilty...

Don't get me wrong. Motherhood is awesome. I feel like I am one of the few that gets the awesome opportunity to see my daughter as she progresses and the miracles that happen in her life. But why is it that when anything goes wrong I feel like I could have done something to prevent it?? I sure hope that having more children makes you feel less guilty rather than more guilty! 

Weekly Emails

So I get all sorts of emails about my baby's weekly development and things that I should know how to do. As I was glancing through this week's First Aid things to know I scanned and realized it really would be good to know all of these things in case of an emergency.
I started to read in depth and as I read more and more my adrenalin started pulsing. Then I read about head injuries and how you shouldn't let the baby sleep too much if they have hit their head hard. It was at that point I nearly rushed into my sleeping darlin's room to wake her up and make sure all was well.
Then I realized it was only an email and she hadn't had a head injury.
I think I need to get out of the house.

The Glorious Thing I Call Showers

So I feel like there are times when I think that I have a routine down real well and then something happens. But there are bits and pieces of the routine that I hang on to that I couldn't do without.

One thing that I haven't been able to figure out is regular showering. Gross right?! But really I tried it while she was napping but then she would wake up mid nap and there I was soaking wet with a screaming baby that I wanted to cuddle. Or while she was playing in the playpen, but then she was learning how to stand and would fall and cry and I would want to made sure no bones were bent and all was well. Or while she was watching Baby Einstein I would try to take a 5 minute shower.... That's probably the 3 showers that I have had in the past 7 months. Okay, not really. I showered often, but it was always pending the needs of my child. Which is how it should be, right?!

Well, I have decided that there are things in life that I have been viewing as luxuries when in all reality they are necessities. The things that are daily necessities (at least the few I have been neglecting) are exercise, showers, and regular mealtimes.

Before you start thinking that I am disgusting. I showered. 5 minute, "don't wash your hair" showers. At least every other day. But I am talking long, "let the warm water relax your body from the scalp down" showers.

Anyway, this last week I have found that it is possible for me to have relaxing showers. When, you ask. I will tell you. At night!!

 Hello?! Why did I not think of this before? Well, because I hate showering at night because then I go to bed with wet hair which makes me feel like I am sweating if I wake up in the middle of the night with wet hair. BUT, I have learned that going to bed with wet hair is a price I am willing to pay for a nice relaxing shower. Seriously. I showered one night and I realized at the end of the shower that I had thought of nothing. Really, seriously. I don't think my brain ever takes a break. But it did. It may have been the first time in my life. It was glorious and relaxing.

I love it. I will continue to enjoy Kaela's wake time and then when she goes down at night... Me time!! Yay!

All I have to say about the exercise and the regular mealtimes is just to do it. Realizing that I needed them daily was my biggest problem. Now I just remember those are two things that have to be a part of my day.

Feeding Schedules

I am a student by nature. I love to be learning and I have this innate desire to be well versed at everything that I do. I guess that would be why I took a marriage and family relations class about 3 years before I got married. I knew that was going to be the most important thing in my future and I wanted to make sure that I did it right.

When I was pregnant I researched as much as I could handle and thought I was fully ready to be a mom. I read baby wise (and promptly forgot all of it, maybe not promptly but once I actually had the baby screaming in my arms I seemed to forget everything I had learned). I got a nap schedule down, got her sleeping through the night and figured that I was doing well.

Today she is a little over 7 months old. I returned to my research to make sure that I was feeding her the proper amount and at a recommended schedule. I have been feeding her cereal and vegetables for dinner and bottles for every other meal. Whoops.... apparently she should be having solids 3 times a day AND snacking.... looks like I should be doing research a little more often...

Who Needs Sleep?

So last night my baby girl woke up every hour.

You know how you have those nights when the baby wakes up often and you genuinely think, "my sweet baby, what is wrong?? I hope that she is ok! What on earth could be ailing her? I need to be by her side." That is how I feel for a good percentage of the nights she wakes up often. Unfortunately I have those nights when I feel more along the lines of, "Seriously, I just put you down! Why? What more could you possibly need?!" Of course I felt that way the fourth time I was up -- that's when I convinced the hubby it was his turn. Normally he would jump at my asking to help, but he had a big day at work the next day (and flying helicopters is an occupation that you really need to be rested) so he hesitated until I told him she had been up EVERY hour. So dutifully he ran to make her a bottle at 4:30 am. I listened to her cry for another 2 minutes or so while he made the bottle, but before he even got to her she fell back to sleep.

Somehow the message was relayed to her that from then on it was daddy's turn to get up so she slept till 7:00.... How is that fair?!?!

THEN my dear hubby said that I should simply sleep while she took her naps. Awesome, that's the plan. I feed her and along rolls her morning nap time. I am ready for a good 2 hour nap, at least 1.5 hour. Nope my friend, 20 minutes. I laid down right as I put her in the crib at 9:50 and was awaken by her cry at 10:14. Thinking maybe I would let her cry and she would go back to sleep I laid there until the clock hit 10:20... I sobbed into my pillow and I went and got her.

One day, I will request my well earned and well deserved PTO for a full 48 hours of whatever I want to do. But it's gotta be good, so I will wait till I find out what that is.

The funny thing is I want to be so bugged and ornery so she realizes how much she interrupted my sleep, but then I see her standing in her crib and her face breaks into a huge gummy smile at the sight of me and my heart melts and I decide to save the games for another lifetime. For this one I will just hug her, enjoy her and laugh at my lack of sleep. (Once it's too much of a lack I may shed a tear or two, but no one needs to know that)