Mommy Life

Well Little man is 10 months old and life is full of blessings and challenges. My sweet little man is energetic, adventurous and absolutely hilarious! I love being his mommy; I love his giggles, cuddles, cute little toes, I really just can't get enough of him.

That being said, I also never expected motherhood to be this much of an emotional journey this early. About 2 weeks ago I decided it was time for me to stop nursing, my plan had been to nurse for a year and deciding to stop felt like another failure on my mommy goal list. I miss holding my little man close and watching him nurse, but at the same time I know that this decision has made me a better mom. He didn't like nursing, he was barely eating during the day and starving at night which lead to bad sleep and I was constantly pumping which hurt and took me away from him. Since stopping he is eating better and finally growing again!

On top of that I decided to call first steps to make sure little mans eating an sleeping troubles were not a concern, and today they finished his evaluation and informed me he was a "sensory kid", which I expected. The teacher inside of me thought "great, early intervention is key, so glad I called"! The Mommy inside of me thought "Oh no, what should I have been doing differently!?" Guess that's what happens to teachers who become moms.

I feel so blessed for the love and support of family and friends who constantly let me talk about my thought, challenges, proud moments, everything! I can't imagine being a Mom without the community of people I have in my life. Now what could be a better ending to my random thoughts than a picture of my cute little cuddle bug? I love these PJs, they just scream cuddle me!

If You Give A Mom A Chocolate Doughnut

Well I guess I am feeling a little creative tonight, maybe it's the lack of sleep or maybe it's the constant reading of childrens books, but here is the story of my night....

If a Mom has a really bad day she may ask for a chocolate doughnut.
If you give a Mom a chocolate doughnut she will ask for a glass of milk.
If you give her a glass of milk she will spill it all the way down the front of her.
When she spills the milk she will remember that she has not had a shower yet today.
She will start to get ready for a shower and will then remember that she has to pump before taking a shower.
She will pump and then get in the shower and will begin thinking about all the things she needs to do tomorrow.
Suddenly she will remember that she has 101 free prints from shutterfly that she must order TONIGHT!
As she is thinking about pictures and chores she will make up a silly story and decide it needs to become a blog post.
When she gets out of the shower she will sit down and write her blog, then order her pictures.
She will warm up dinner for her husband when he gets home and then crawl into bed exhausted.
As soon as her head hits her pillow she will suddenly have exactly 1,000,000 thoughts.
Her thoughts will slowly transform into dreams, dreams of finished chores and lots of sleep.
As soon as she hits the blissful REM sleep she is woken by her wonderful beautiful screaming baby who for some reason is morally opposed to sleep.
As she sleep walks to the rocker to nurse him she will begin to think about how sleepy she is, this makes her a little grumpy and then she starts to think about her yummy bag of chocolate doughnuts that she has hid in the kitchen.

The End

Sleepy Baby Toes

The problem with television and boys

Now that I have a sweet little boy in my life I have been looking at things differently. Although he isn't watching television yet (and hopefully wont for a very long time) I am becoming extremely worried about how media is portraying boys. There is so much focus on making sure girls know that they are smart and capable of anything, that I feel we are starting to teach boys the opposite. Many times today's television (especially those geared toward children and Tweens) characterize boys as rule breakers who are almost lacking intelligence completely. Media influences people so strongly, and I'm glad that they are finally portraying girls as smart and capable, but why do we have to belittle boys in the process? I feel the need to write someone, I wonder if Disney channel will listen to me?

Fun times in July

Lately we have had some beautiful weather here, it has been so nice that I haven't been able to help but wanting to be outside! Today Elijah and I decided to go downtown to meet daddy for lunch and then to meet our two new friends Audrey and Natalie who were born yesterday.

We loved seeing daddy in the middle of the day (trust me, the rest of the afternoon all I heard was dadda dadda da)

Caleb and I also celebrated our 2nd anniversary over the weekend. It was so nice to think back to our wedding day and celebrate together. I love my life!

 

Elijah Parenting

Ever since we started telling people that we were expecting I have been overwhelmed with advice and strategies for raising my child. It seems like there are always two extremes and you are expected to choose one side or the other and follow it completely. Friends, family, doctors, everyone is asking me questions like "Are you using attachment parenting or baby wise?". My answer from now on is I am using a new strategy, it is called "Elijah Parenting!"

Like most things in life I am always in the middle ground. I hear both sides, I respect both sides, I merge pieces of each together to fit me. Elijah eats 100% breast milk, but I'm okay with Caleb and grandparents feeding him a bottle every now and then, I pump and get a break, they get to help out and bond with him. I do not co-sleep, when I have tried to even nap with him both Momma and baby do not rest well, but we love baby wearing! We use cloth diapers probably 90% of the time and love them, but I will admit that when I am lazy and get the diapers in the wash a little later than planned we use disposable.

I am not writing this to say that everyone else is wrong and that I have figured out parenting in my short 10 weeks of experience, what I am saying is that no one strategy is perfect. During the past 10 weeks I have learned that I have to put everything that I had planned aside, look at my little miracle, and do what is right for him. I also realize that what works for him will not necessarily work for future children, or in all honesty it may not even work tomorrow; but what I do know is that I will be trying my best to raise a healthy, happy, wonderful little boy!