Baby for Ballerina

Some news!

2011-06-22T08:35:00.001-05:00

It's high time I stopped abandoning this blog. Especially when there are some majorly exciting things happening in our house these days! The first is that I now am the proud mother of a 2 year old! When did that happen?!?! Oh yeah, last Saturday. But seriously, the past two years have just flown by. My little boy has gone from a snuggly, cuddly newborn to a rip roaring, sports obsessed toddler. And I'm loving every minute of it.

The second bit of exciting news I have to share is that...

We are having another baby due in November!!!

Yes, it's another miracle. A surprise miracle actually. But a miracle nonetheless. We were shocked, but couldn't be happier. It took me awhile to share the news as with our past infertility issues, I wasn't sure it was going to be really. But, I'm almost twenty weeks along, everything is looking great and we found out we are having another little boy! I'm over the moon. Such blessings.

I'll add some creepy ultrasound photos later- blogger isn't letting me upload anything for some reason. More to come!!

Mother's Day

2011-05-08T14:42:00.000-05:00

This is my second one I've experienced as a mother and I find it a very humbling day. I'm so grateful to be Jude's mommy every day.. but it's days that pay homage to the blood, sweat and tears that goes along with being a mother that make today especially poignant. I'm loving the little boy Jude is becoming. I wish I could take responsibility for it, but there are so many beautiful people in his little life that help to shape him into the smart and hysterical little monster that he is. I find myself most happy today to have such a wonderful husband and father that Jude has for a role model. The patience and love that eminates from Phil is beyond words. This Mother's Day, I'm so grateful for the love of my little family. A love that knows no bounderies. I find it hard to believe that life gets much better than this. But the next day somehow proves me wrong.

"Guyyez!"

2011-04-12T11:02:00.000-05:00

I have to blog about this. I'm sure my toddler isn't the only one to do this, but it cracks me up. Jude has come up with an all-encompassing word that pretty much means anything and everything. Let me share with you.

"Fix this" - "Guyyez".
"Help" - "Guyyez".
"Get that for me" - "Guyyez".
"I'd like some more of that." - "Guyyez".
"Let's go over there." - "Guyyez".
"Look at that." - "Guyyez".
"Open this." - "Guyyez".

Yes, the word "Guyyez" is his favorite right now. Perhaps it's because of how effectively it works when he points to something, says it, and we do what he wants. Is it Eskimos that have like 4,000 words for the word "snow"? Well, my son has one word for about 4,000 phrases.

Hell Froze Over!

2011-04-06T10:33:00.000-05:00

This is a follow up to my picky eating post below. I would just like to report what Jude happily ate for dinner last night:

Whole wheat pita squares with HUMMUS
Green beans
Fresh pineapple slices

Hummus? Really Jude? I was ecstatic (but I couldn't let him see that). After eating two squares of pita-hummus, he then told me he wanted peanut butter on his other two. Okay, I can live with that. Yay for improvements (maybe). He also just could've been really hungry from our long walk around the neighborhood before dinner. Regardless, it was very exciting. Fingers crossed we're over the hump.

Maybe he traded in the picky eating for sleep issues. The last few nights, he has woken up in the middle of the night and STAYED awake for an hour or two. He is such a stinker...and I'm a walking zombie.

It's arrived.

2011-03-29T11:44:00.001-05:00

Well, it's here.

One of the beasts I've dreaded encountering the most.

The monster that books have been written on and talkshows have been dedicated to.

The legendary horror that I used to shake my head in sympathy at when I'd hear the myths and legends of encounters being whispered from other mothers' mouths.

It started emerging from the shadows every now and then, but its presence has been made known with a deafening roar and a sinister snarl.

The Picky Eater.

Look at the way it carefully analyzes its food offering to determine the worthiness of the sustenance even touching its fingers.

Before flinging it across the room in utter contempt, horrified that one would even allow the foul thing in his presence. Even if the beast screamed "MORE! MORE! MORE" for the very same food only the day before.

And to make his point all the more clear- EVERYTHING the offending piece of food touched must be BANISHED from its presence!

Don't even think of trying to trick the Picky Eater by telling it a.) enjoyed eating the same food only yesterday b.) the food tastes just like the thing it ate minutes before- the Picky Eater knows better than this c.) something it will truly love if it would PLEASE just take one bite. The Picky Eater scoffs and roars at the word "please". It's for the weak.

And lastly, the great and terrible Picky Eater can smell desperation like a shark can smell blood. All attempts at bribe and trickery will consistently be met with a look of disdain and utter refusal.

However, the Picky Eater will happily accept cupcakes in any flavor.

Thoughts

2011-03-17T09:47:00.000-05:00

I was talking with a good friend the other day who is 20 weeks pregnant with her second little girl. She was saying that this baby is her chance to do a lot of things differently. Her comment made me start thinking about Jude. Would I do anything different in regards to raising him? Is there anything I’ve learned these past 21 months that stopped and made me think “Hmm, mental note, if we have a second child don’t do this.” I’ve been trying to come up with anything I feel that I would differently with another baby… and I really can’t think of anything. We’ve just gone with our instincts and what feels natural when it comes to Jude, while still providing boundaries and discipline. He’s happy, well-adjusted, social, and respectful. Of course he has his occasional toddler moments of “NO! MINE!” or back-arching spaz attack when he doesn’t get his way, but not so often that I would call them anything other than being an ordinary toddler. With daylight savings time, there was a night this week that was a little rough and brought me back to the first year when every little creak or crack would wake him up, pretty much hourly. As I was rocking my almost two year old back to sleep, I was transported back to one of the many similar moments over a year ago and couldn’t help but smile. I kissed his sweet blond head and snuggled him a little tighter. I thought of all the “advice” I got during that time period about letting him cry it out because he was “manipulating” me. If ‘manipulating’ meant he needed his mommy to hold him in the dark because he was tired, scared, hungry and couldn’t get back to sleep on his own, so be it. Those moments felt like an eternity when I was in them, but now they feel like a million years ago. And I miss them. I suppose only time will tell if there are certain things I would change. But when I look at Jude right now – with his wild shock of white hair, infectious laugh, million watt smile, and his sheer enthusiasm for EVERYTHING- no, I wouldn’t have done anything differently.

19 months

2011-01-28T13:26:00.002-06:00

Yesterday, I realized that Jude is less than six months away from turning two. 2! I'm going to be the mother of a two-year-old! I don't know why this floors me way more than the anticipation of him turning 1. I guess because to me, 2 truly is no longer a baby. He's going to be a little boy. I'm not ready yet. The chubby little guy with the wispy ducktail sprout of hair on the back of his head who loved to nurse and snuggle is now a busy little toddler with so much to do and so little time for things like lingering cuddles. Busy-busy-busy. He's my sweet little monster with an agenda that takes up every second of his day- and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Likes:

-Playing a game called Boom Boom Puppy. You take blocks and build a tower as tall as you possibly can waaaay over your head. Then you carefully place a plastic puppy at the top of the tower. You turn a flash a mischievous smile at your playmate- whoever they maybe. Then you battle ram yourself into the tower- knocking it all the way down. Puppy goes Boom-Boom.

-Naps with his "Hass". "Hass" is the word he uses for his pacifier and lovey that he only gets when going to sleep. Rather than resisting sleep, he will sometimes ask to nap early by just whispering "Hass. Hass." When he wakes up in the middle of the night, he will call out to them: "Hass! Oh Hass!" like they are a faithful dog. Then I hear some contented little grunts after they apparently come running to him and he settles back down to dreamland.

- Brushing his teeth. But only if HE is in control of the brush. Once I take control, see Dislikes list.

-Helping load the dishwasher, getting the dish detergent, and turning the dial. He is mightily offended if you start the dishwasher without his supervision.

- Playing in his castle.

- Giraffes (AAAAFS). He can't get enough of 'em. Elephants are a close second, especially the dancing one on the GE commercial.

-Shoe shopping. The kid loves shoes. He gently takes them off the shelf and oohs and ahhs about how nice they are. Hysterical.

-Wrestling. If you're hanging out with Jude and you go from a sitting position to laying on your tummy or back, you're asking to get pounced in 0.2 seconds.

- "Reading" books by himself.

Dislikes:

- Being in a different room than mommy.

-Anyone brushing his teeth but him.

- Carseat. Always.

Some Photos

2011-01-23T11:41:00.002-06:00

I've loved getting into a new hobby. Lately it's been photography. Luckily, I have one of my favorite subjects close at hand, who loves to be photographed (most of the time, that is). I have no aspirations to ever become good enough to become a professional, but I do have fun learning all of the things a camera and a trained eye can create when they are together. I've watermarked some photos that are my favorites only because there are some weirdos on the interwebs and I'd prefer these not be used for anything but to look at, smile, and remember that perfect moment in that perfect day.

Twas the night before Christmas...

2010-12-24T23:22:00.001-06:00

It's Christmas Eve and the child and husband are all tucked snug in their beds... while I wait downstairs for Santa to come. For some reason, I want this Christmas to be perfect for Jude. I know that he won't remember much, if any, of it and the little details that I'm fretting about will go completely unnoticed, but here I am regardless, wishing I had spent more time making things perfect for Christmas morning. It seems ridiculous, especially since I'm not a type A personality at all. There very well may be a million things I'm doing wrong in regards to raising my son, but I at least want him to always feel that I made his Christmases special. And what I've always found so special and wonderful about Christmas isn't the presents at all. It's snuggling up on the couch Christmas morning with hot chocolate in warm jammies while It's A Wonderful Life is on the TV in the background. It's the electricity of the anticipation of the holiday in the air wherever you go. It's the time to cherish not everything you have, but everyone you have. As a child, Christmas was always so magical for me and I want Jude to have the same wonder and awe of the season as I did and still do- even if I view things differently as an adult.

Our little Christmas. It isn't fancy or grand, but it's ours.

The tree...

Our first ornament after we got married...

Santa is always watching....

Jude's art project at school gets prominently displayed...

Cookies and milk are out....

Now, we just wait for Santa....

18 months

2010-12-18T09:25:00.050-06:00

I'm absolutely floored that I am the mother of an 18 month old. 1.5 year old. Toddler. Quoi?

I think I've done a pretty good job of cherishing every moment with him. It's part of the reason why I've been so absent from my blog lately as every spare second I have, I'm building blocks, being a horsey for the millionth time or getting tackled. And I love it.

Things Jude loves at 18 months:
Blocks.
Pushing buttons- any button.
Sweeping.
Sorting all of the canned foods in the pantry.
Brushing his teeth.
Crackers. I can't even describe to you how adorable it is when he says the word "Cwak-ah".
Going to the zoo- specifically the aquariam and the gorilla house.
Wrestling.
Identifying photos in his books.
Going into the bathroom to help by handing out rolls and rolls of toilet paper, trying to flush repeatedly, and insisting on washing his hands with you.
Giving kisses- his favorite thing is to have mommy and daddy sit on opposite sides of the room and run back and forth, back and forth, back and forth planting a big wet kiss on our mouths each trip. ::melt::
Snuggling in bed between mommy and daddy.
Dancing.
Yo Gabba Gabba- we don't let him watch TV much yet, but for some reason he absolutely loses it if he sees a YGG character in a photo or on the television.
Books- the kid would look at books all day long if he could.
Buckling his highchair straps back together after he's done sitting in it.

Things Jude hates at 18 months:
Santa.
Diaper changes (still).
Going into his carseat. (We are still rear-facing for a few reasons, so I'm sure that's part of it)
Going inside after playing outside.
When the dogs get in his way.
When I won't give him a snack whenever he points to the top of the fridge.
Toys that move or sing or dance- not a fan at all.
If he feels like he's being treated like a baby- i.e. don't cut the corn off his cob if everyone else is eating it on the cob.

Favorite books:
Mars Needs Moms
Corduroy
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Tykosaurs (This really weird book with photos of babies in dinosaur costumes that we picked up at a garage sale for 25 cents. He's obsessed with it. We have to read it over and over and over. I hide it sometimes, so sue me.)
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
Rumble In The Jungle
Llama Llama series

Favorite foods:
Crackers
Carrots
Sweet Potatoes
Chicken :(
Fish
Green Beans
Cheese
Broccoli
Cheerios with milk
Peas
Bananas
Cheerios
Tofu
Spaghetti

A three month recap in photos

2010-12-16T10:45:00.003-06:00

Renewed

2010-10-11T14:53:00.002-05:00

Tons of posts and a blog makeover this week. Stay tuned!

Love you all!

Slow down, little man.

2010-08-30T00:00:00.005-05:00

I came across this the other day and decided to post it here so I can look back on it when life starts to get crazy, as it always does. I worry too much about things like career, money and other "important" things that you really can't take with you. I need to make this blog more of a priority as my hope is that one day, when I'm gone, Jude will be able to pull this up and read and still feel my love for him emanating from these simple words. I need to learn to stop and give my husband one extra kiss or lingering touch every day and resist the urge to check my work email on my phone in the evenings while Jude hands me cloth diaper after cloth diaper that he pulls out of his drawer. "Thank you, Jude, " I smile. "Yup. Yup mama." he says as he reaches for another, bursting with pride and confidence at what a good helper his mother thinks he is.

"Long ago you came to me,
a miracle of firsts;
First smiles and teeth and baby steps,
a sunbeam on the burst.

But one day you will move away
and leave me to your past.
And I will be left thinking of
of a lifetime of your lasts..."

"The last time when you ran to me,
still small enough to hold.
The last time when you said you'd marry
me when you got old.

Precious, simple moments and
bright flashes from your past-
Would I have held on longer if
I'd have known they were your last?"

You're dealing with teething HOW?? With WHAT??

2010-08-29T23:48:00.000-05:00

Jude is what I like to call a "violent teether". Most babies teeth gradually, sprouting one and then another right behind it or even two at the same time, then they get a bit of a reprieve before cutting another couple of teeth and so on. But, since this is Jude we're talking about, we all know that he is anything but textbook (and I'm okay with that!). Jude first cut his two bottom teeth simultaneously around five months. No sooner had the bottom two broke through the surface that his top FOUR- yes FOUR- main teeth came crashing through the gums. Oh my goodness, even looking at the huge white bulges in his mouth before they cut through the skin made me cringe. He is now only missing four teeth out of his mouth. That's it. The kid even has his molars already. Anyways, whatever is painful for Jude is in turn painful for us. I actually think I can safely blame our 10 months of extreme night waking/night nursing/napping/okay, just general sleep issues partly on teething. Hell, when I was dancing 8 hours a day and 7 days a week, I woke up hourly too since dancers really feel the pain when their bodies start to unwind at night.
How did I counteract the pain of Jude's teething? Well, there's the usual quick fix in Tylenol (it's crap, by the way) and Infant Motrin. Infant Motrin does work wonders. However, I think it's been safely established in this blog that I'm a total hippy when it comes to things like this so I felt there had to be something a little more natural out there to help (and something that also doesn't wreak havoc on your liver and kidneys when given chronically or in high doses). I looked into and used Hyland's Teething Tablets. They work incredibly well. However- one of the ingredients in them is Belladonna, which in high amounts is toxic to humans. Now, in teething tablets it's in fractions of fractions of fractions of traces of amounts so that part actually didn't concern me. What concerns me is that with all homeopathic products, it is not regulated by the FDA, therefore, what if for some reason, one bottle didn't have the correct concentration or what if the stuff, even in the tiniest of amounts truly isn't safe? I did use it and have positive things to say about teething tablets, but I still felt there was SOMETHING better out there.

Cold teethers? Sure, I bet they work. Jude looked at me like I was insane when I tried to encourage him to bite on them and then proceeded to chuck them on the floor. Good idea in theory, not so good in reality. He relieved quite a bit of pain by gnawing on his crib when he would go in there while we were getting ready for work in the mornings and also the occasional bite he would take out of my shoulder. Frozen fruit in mesh feeders was another outstanding idea.....for someone else's kid. Jude acted like I was trying to poison him when trying to get him to suck on one of those.

Okay, so long story short: Modern day pain reliever meds- used when it got really, really bad, like the couple days before the awful, swollen bulge became a little white line on the surface. Homeopathic teething tablets- worked amazingly well, but only in short increments of time and I had concerns on the whole FDA bit of it (PS- why doesn't the FDA monitor herbs and such. After all, they are powerful medicines. I digress) Teethers or cold of any kind- no dice.

Then, I hear about a little resin called amber. More accurately, I started to educate myself on traditional beaded amber necklaces imported from the Baltic region that are a non-invasive and side-effect free remedy for the pain and complications of teething, such as lack of appetite, upset tummies, earache, fevers and colds. This is information I got from Ghaia Herbs website, but it correlates with all other sources I've read on amber.

Currently, there are two different theories that attempt to explain how wearing amber on the skin can have a soothing and calming effect on teething babies and toddlers. One theory suggests that when amber is worn on the skin, the skin's warmth releases miniscule amounts of healing oils from the amber which are then absorbed via the skin into the bloodstream. Amber's anti-inflammatory and therapeutic properties are also recognized by allopathic medicine. In Austria, Switzerland and Germany, you will find amber teething necklaces sold in local pharmacies. Pharmacists and doctors have long known about the healing properties of amber which include calmative, analgesic, antispasmodic, expectorant, and febrifuge (anti-fever) functions. A second theory is based on scientific findings which have shown that amber is electromagnetically alive and therefore charged with a significant amount of organic energy. Its special attribute is the fact that it is electronegative. Wearing amber produces negative ionisation on the skin's surface. This, in turn, has a positive influence on the human body. The negative ions assist in the in the prevention of illness. These health-promoting effects apply to babies, children and adults alike. It is possible that the soothing and calming effect of amber teething necklaces, which has been empirically observed, is based on a combination of the factors listed above.

Total hippy crap, right?

I sort of thought that too. But then I remember that I do have some major hippy tendancies, and those hippy tendencies told me to trust my gut and give up all of the modern medicine fertility treatments and rely on homeopathic remedies and acupuncture and four months later my body actually worked correctly, and Jude was created. So, I bought a necklace since Jude is working on his upper and lower fangs or eyeteeth or whatever they are called and they seem to be a bit brutal.

Um, it works. Like, it works REALLY well. Sure, he's fussy and will occasionally stuff his fist in his mouth and howl for a few seconds, but overall, he just doesn't seem to be in pain like he was last week before we tried this.

I believe in it. I believe in a world where modern medicine and homeopathic medicine can coexist and break down the walls surrounding supposed mysteries in science. It helped me with Jude and it's helping Jude with his teeth and I'm curious to see how much more I can explore and utilize these types of things for my family in the future. I know enough that I'm not just going to read the back of a bottle of herbs and blindly start taking them to treat something. Every decision I've made has been thoroughly researched (come on, you all know me, I research things to death before taking a plunge) and I've talked to professionals. Herbs are just as powerful, if not moreso, than drugs on the market. And since they aren't FDA approved, there just isn't the hours of research associated with these medicines that I think there should be, both for safety of the consumer and also for the sheer knowledge we could gain since we just don't know everything they are capable of. Hell, the cure for cancer could be growing in our backyard!

Anyways, yeah, teething necklaces (and bracelets and anklets) are incredible. I recommend them to everyone, seriously. Even if you're not crunchy like yours truly, just try having your sweet little one rock it for the fashion statement part since they come in all sorts of colors. :)

Cute, right?

Jude's Words And Delicacies

2010-08-27T10:17:00.003-05:00

So I don't forget, I like to make a post every few months of all of the words Jude says and all of the foods he loves and hates since I know pretty soon, there will be too many on each list to keep track.

Words:
Mama
Dada
More
Yup
Dog
Banana
Puppy
Cat
Kitty
Hat
Bellybutton
Book
Go
Hello
Milk
Shoe
And there are plenty more words that he has made up for things that I have no idea how to spell. :)

In regards to food, I'm super lucky: I don't have a picky eater. He LOVES veggies- the greener the better. He doesn't dislike much, and the ones he doesn't like, I sort of agree with him since they are foods of a questionable texture. Maybe the universe is giving me a non-picky toddler to make up for the fact that he woke up every 1-2 hours a night for the first 10 months. He'll have an occasional fickle day where he turns up his nose at all of the faves and will only settle for macaroni and cheese or toast, but those are really rare. Regardless, I realize I'm lucky and I'm grateful!

Foods Jude loves (the favorites):
Pears
Peaches
Zucchini/Squash
Cucumbers
Tomatoes
Pizza (who doesn't?)
Cheese
Crackers
Cheerios
Bread (let's be honest, Jude hasn't met a carb he didn't love)
Yogurt
Sweet Potatoes
Oatmeal
Peas!!
Carrots
Spinach
Green peppers
Salsa (mild of course)
Beans (black, pinto, baked- whatever)
Veggie Burgers
Lettuce
Raisins
Avocado
Veggie Eggrolls
Scrambled eggs
Toast
Pancakes
Macaroni and Cheese
Noodles with olive oil and garlic
Tofu
Frozen yogurt
Green beans
Mozzarella sticks
Tuna Salad
Onions
Mushrooms
Fish
Hashbrowns
Hummus
Potato Salad

Foods Jude hates:
Mandarin oranges
Mashed Potatoes (?!?!?)
Blueberries
Raspberries
String cheese
Cole Slaw

Apologies

2010-08-22T20:17:00.001-05:00

Gah! I feel awful for virtually abandoning this blog for the past month! Things have been so busy with work lately that when I finally get home, play with Jude, do the bedtime routine, throw in laundry and then pick up the house, I usually collapse into bed. I've been SO unbelievably tired lately. Like pretty much just as exhausted as I was in the first trimester. Plus, I've been having random bouts of nausea. Sounds like pregnancy, right? I thought so too. So I peed on some sticks and can confirm to everyone with absolute, 100% confidence that pregnancy is NOT it. While it would be nice to have another miracle baby without any fertility treatments again, we just aren't ready yet. So, I'm thinking it's hormonal, possibly. All I know is I hope it stops soon. If not, off to the doctor I go. I would think that with Jude sleeping 11 hours straight at night, I would be amazingly well rested. Instead, I feel worse than when he was up every hour or two. It could also just be the 9 months of virtually no sleep catching up with me.

Anyways,

I have lots to write about and have made it my goal this week to write one entry every single day until I'm caught up. I love this little blog and dearly miss the outlet it gives me.

More to come about Jude and less about me- I'm not as interesting and certainly not as cute!

14 months!

2010-08-18T20:09:00.000-05:00

Likes:
Being chased and doing the chasing (crawling/walking around and around and around the living room)
Grabbing random things and putting them on his head and saying "hat!"
Having us say a line from a random book and then he goes to his shelf to pick out the book we are talking about (he gets it right pretty much every time!)
Climbing up and down stairs over and over and over
Watching older kids
Handing you a book and then snuggling into your lap
Giving hugs and kisses

Dislikes:
Cherries in fruit cocktail
Diaper changes
Getting into his car seat
Being told he can't do something

I'm not dead!

2010-08-10T10:08:00.002-05:00

I have much more coming, I promise. I'm just busy with lots of exciting things right now and will share soon! Thanks for checking in- I'll be back this week!

Walk a mile...

2010-07-23T14:31:00.002-05:00

Passive aggressive comments stated to others regarding how a "good mother" would still maintain an active social life and wouldn't be "only about their child" really, really, really anger and hurt me. Especially when they come from people who do not have children. And it stings even more when these statements come from people who have such importance in your life. They have no idea how hard it is to find balance while working 40+ hours a week while raising a son and trying to mix in a little socializing here and there. I may not be the same family member or friend that I was before I added mother to my title, but that doesn't mean that I haven't forgotten my previous roles. They change, it's life. That's all I'm going to say as I try to smile and pretend like those comments don't break my heart.

I'm a good mother, damn it.

13 months!

2010-07-18T07:53:00.001-05:00

It was hard enough to believe my little boy was a year last month. Now he's officially one month into toddlerdom and oh what fun it is! The monthly update!

Likes:
Pushing around his walker. Actually, obsession is a good word to describe it.
Pushing around anything with wheels.
Playing with trucks and trains and making a "BRRRRRRRRR" motor sound while doing it. Where does he learn this stuff??
Loves to have your recite a line from one of his book and he picks out what book it is. He gets the right book about 98% of the time.
Sign language.
Watching other kids.
Feeding the dogs his food from his highchair. They now go outside during meals.
Dancing to music.
Veggie burgers.
His lovey at bedtime.
Bubbles.

Dislikes:
Diaper and clothing changes (this seems to be a staple every month).
Being interrupted if we have to leave when he's engrossed in an activity.
Going in the carseat.

The Joy of Having a Boy

2010-07-10T21:59:00.000-05:00

I think most people would describe me as fairly laid back. I don't necessarily freak out about much, am fairly accomplished in the procrastination department, and just have a very c'est la vie attitude about life in general.

That is, until Jude came along.

The paranoia was ridiculous at first. Those beginning weeks, I could come up with these insane scenarios in my head about what could happen. For example, I remember saying: "Don't use any scented lotions or perfumes, Jude may develop allergies or ADHD. I don't want anyone wearing perfumey crap while holding my baby." That's one of the milder ones. Anyways, as Jude got a bit older, I relaxed quite a bit. Even when he was hospitalized for RSV back in February, I kept my cool for the most part.

Then he starting crawling.

The kid was into everything. It was a little harder to maintain my zen demeanor when my 8 month old was halfway underneath a couch trying to reach the lamp plug to pull it out of the socket. But, I maintained composure and we've survived.

Now he walks. Nay, RUNS. The kid is a thrill chaser of the most extreme kind. Daycare says that they spend half of their days running and catching him as he launches himself off the top of the toddler slide. At home, if a door opens, he crawls at breakneck speed to try and squish his fluffy cloth diaper butt through it to get to two things he is obsessed with: stairs. and the dogs' water bowl. It's as if these two things are constantly on his mind. Oh, and everything can be pushed. The baby cribs at daycare, chairs, toyboxes, dressers, anything. If it's there, Jude will try to push it along...hopefully down some stairs if he could.

Daycare called on Friday. They were in a panic. Jude had fallen while running and his tooth cut through his entire lip. Blood everywhere. Come get him.

I flew to daycare. By the time I got there, he was surrounded by three of his favorite teachers, happily chewing on an icey toy and enjoying the attention. I could tell by the look in his eye he was already pondering what his next adventure was going to be.

The cut was hardly bleeding by the time I got there. It wasn't very big on either side, but due to the location of the wound, it was gaping open. I took him to Children's Hospital emergency room where I spent two awful hours. First they had to put a cottonball full of numbing agent on the cut, band-aided to his face, for 20 minutes. Yeah, right. They say nothing is impossible? Trying to convince a one year old to not lick, pull, freak out that a cotton ball of numbing liquid is taped to his lip is impossible. Sadly, that wasn't the worst part. The absolute worst thing I've been through with Jude was yet to come.

The ER doctors strapped him to a papoose so he couldn't move anything, covered his face with a sheet so that just the wound was exposed, and held his head in place. The sheer terror and look in his eyes while he kept them on me the entire time he was being stitched up will haunt me forever. I could tell that he was heartbroken that I wasn't coming to rescue him. He was too young to understand what was going on, all he knew was that he was being tortured and his mama was doing nothing to stop them. It broke my heart. I never want to go through that again. But chances are, I know I probably will.

Three stitches felt like thirty years. They finally let him free and he spent the next hour alternating between sobbing and doing this little hiccup/shuddering thing. I felt awful. He finally took a nap on the way home and I just wanted to pull over and kiss his little tear-splotched face over and over and tell him how sorry I was.

He was pretty clingy the rest of the day, but in better spirits after his nap. By bedtime, he had rubbed or licked all of his stitches out (they warned me that this was probably going to happen due to his age and the location) and I almost felt like I put him through all that for nothing. The wound has stayed closed, though.

Someone mentioned to me that the money you save not buying cutesy, frilly, pink things for a girl is made up in ER copays on boys. How true.

Close-up of the stitches. Jude worked the middle stitch out before I could even get a photo. Please excuse the banana on his face. He's anything but dainty when he eats.

And my little Hurricane Jude back to work as usual. Pushing a stroller. Into the cat.

12 months

2010-06-28T23:12:00.000-05:00

Likes:
Saying all of his new words. Over and over.
Pointing at things so you can tell him what they are.
Choosing his own books at bedtime.
Rubbing different fabrics on his cheeks to see what they feel like (probably the cutest.thing.ever.)
Running around the house and daycare with one of those push toys.
"Helping" with whatever you're doing.
Trucks.
Whatever Mom and Dad are eating.
Clinging to Mama quite often.
Opening cupboard doors and relieving them of their contents.
Swimming and sprinklers.
Walking!!

Dislikes:
When his pushtoy gets stuck somewhere.
Not getting his way.
Diaper and clothing changes.
Feeling left out.
Not being able to multi-task effectively (his brain works faster than his body).
Lotion/sunblock applied to him.

Sneak peek!

2010-06-23T22:55:00.001-05:00

I'm so behind on my blog! I apologize! I've got a ton going on right now with work and life and I have a million things I need to blog about. Fear not, I'll play some catchup this week and will have a few recaps and thoughts. Stay tuned! For now, how about just a few photos of Jude at his first birthday party last weekend at Mama's Pizza with the family. It was a very informal night with grandparents, uncles, and cousins with some pizza and birthday cake. He wasn't sure about it at first.....but then a whole sugary world opened up for him! Enjoy and I'll be talking to you all again very soon!

What the....? Hmmmm...

I'm not sure about this. Not sure at all.

Here, Dad, try some first, make sure it's not poison.

Oh MAN, how come I've never had this before!

Life Is a Ball.

2010-06-13T22:35:00.001-05:00

Well, according to Jude at least. We're experiencing a mini-explosion of word and word associations in our household lately. Jude can say and identify Mama and Dada (although sometimes he apparently gets us confused), ball (ba!), book (gook!), hi, dog (da!), monkey (kkkey)...and there are a few others that I "think" he says, but they are too sporatic to say for certain. His favorite word and thing is "ball". The kid goes absolutely ape whenever we are at the grocery store and he sees one of those giant containers with those marble swirl bouncy balls. He starts pointing, kicking his legs excitedly and emphatically repeating over and over "Ba! Ba! Ba! BA! BA! BAAA!" We are the proud owners of three (yes, three) identical of these because Phil puts one in the cart every single time because it makes him so happy. He hasn't learned the genius move I pull out of my pocket by either a.) avoiding the aisle completely or b.) quickly get away from the display with a silly "peekaboo!" to get him to giggle and it's soon forgotten. However, this obsession with all things ball has gone beyond the scope of cheap plastic ones. Display of watermelons and cantalopes? BA! Circular wall decorations in restaurants or shops? BA! Tires? BA! Doorknobs? BA! If it's circular, then it's a ball- and Jude wants to have it.

Getting my boobs and my body back.

2010-06-09T08:24:00.004-05:00

Today is the first day I've gone to work without my pump! I feel amazingly free and not sad at all. I decided to help the transition, I would slowly stop pumping all together and continue to nurse Jude in the mornings when he wakes up and in the evenings before bed. I am not setting a timeframe to stop doing this, I will do it until I am no longer producing. Judging by how fast my milk supply decreased when I shortened my pumping sessions, I'm wagering that it won't take long at all. I'm okay with that- finally. It will be nice to have the girls back all to myself. Maybe they'll drop a size. That would sure be nice. It's funny, when I was dancing, I used to lament how small and insignificant they were. Now, they could have their own zipcode. It's amazing what a little weight gain and some lactation stimulating hormone production can do.

On the topic of weight gain, I've come to a decision. I'm done being this weight. Hear me? FINISHED. Before I got pregnant, I was well on my way back to ballerina weight. I gained 25 pounds during my pregnancy. Four months post partum, I was eating right and going to the gym and almost back to my pre- pregnancy weight. Now? Let's just say that I'm almost back to the heaviest I've ever been. It's disgusting and there is no excuse, especially when I used to take such wonderful care of my body. I used to spend hours dancing and cross training at the gym and fueling it with (mostly) wholesome foods. I don't eat awful these days, I really don't. Sure, I may have a little too much ice cream with my husband now and then. The big difference is the lack of working out. When I stopped dancing due to an injury and some other personal factors, the 6 hour a day workouts ceased. I enjoyed the new freedom I had to actually do "normal" things like watch TV or shop or go grab drinks with friends. Unfortunately, these things do anything to promote physical activity and the only thing that accompanies those things are empty calories from foods that go with those things. I'm tired of feeling so insecure all the time and the paranoia of running into someone who hasn't seen me since I quit dancing and knowing they are thinking what the hell happened to her?? So, I'm done complaining about it and actually getting off my ass and doing something. I may not be a ballerina with a company anymore, but I don't have to live like this. I can still get back my ballerina body even if I don't have a grueling rehearsal schedule and performing onstage nightly. So that's what I'm doing. I've started going to the gym and working out HARD every single day. I'm going to take up running in the evenings with an eventual goal of running a marathon within the next year. I'm taking yoga two days a week with a friend. I've quit putting complete crap in my body. I have a health screening scheduled for this week: cholesterol, blood sugar, body mass index- a complete workup. I'm sure I won't like the results, but I think it's the slap in the face that I needed to get awhile ago.

How can I show Jude what it is to be healthy and take pride in his body if I don't live it? So, I'm taking a stand and never looking back.

Thoughts on weaning

2010-06-02T08:13:00.000-05:00

Well, we've started the process. Jude will be one year old in less than two weeks and as much as I hate to admit this, it is time. I always planned on breastfeeding until it was no longer mutually beneficial. I was hoping to go 18 months, but it looks like Jude, my body, and my breasts have other plans. He has been dropping feedings and my supply has plummeted. I still produce enough, but just barely. I am no longer responding to the pump and only get about two ounces a day at work. I'm so tired of pumping and pumping and pumping and not getting much. It's exhausting. I thought long and hard about it and stopping at one year is the right thing to do. I'm sick of spending 1-2 hours a day attached to the pump. I'm tired of taking 5 pills of fenugreek and blessed thistle 3 times a day. I'm tired of drinking gallons and gallons of water. I'm tired from having spent approximately 100 hours in my work's lactation room listening to the whir whir whir of the pump. I'm tired of constantly analyzing how much is left in my freezer stash versus my output for the day and doing the math in my head. With all of these reasons, plus a few more I won't bore you with.....we're weaning. I guess I always looked forward to the day I would start to stop breastfeeding and now I'm dreading it. It's the pumping that I loathe, not the breastfeeding. Another crappy thing about being a working mom- all of the stresses above are in addition to trying to maintain a good performance at work. No wonder moms have supply issues when it comes to breastmilk just from the stress of it all!

Anyways, I dropped my pumping sessions at work from 3-4 a day to one. I thought that when I did this, the engorgement would be unbearable and I would spend the day in extreme discomfort. Nope. If I didn't know any better, I would've thought I had been pumping all day. It was like my body was just waiting for any excuse to stop. I'm actually very sad writing this and I know I'm doing a poor job of forming my thoughts into words. It's amazing what you find most important once you're a mother. I'm going to miss that bond so much. I'm so glad we stuck with it for as long as we did. I know that we are ready to do this and Jude seems to be perfectly fine with it. It's me who is having the difficult time. I know that with weaning comes a crazy hormone drop which can cause the blues, so I'm thinking quite a bit of the sadness may have to do with this. We had a good run and the only regret that I do have is not investing in a deep freezer. By the time I went back to work, I had around 300 oz of breastmilk frozen and pretty much stopped any extra pumping because I didn't have room for it. In retrospect, I should've invested the $200 in a deep freeze and kept on pumping. I will keep this in mind for the next baby for sure, if we are so lucky.

Here we go, the beginning of the end of this chapter....

If I were to be graded in Juggling, I would get an F.

2010-05-26T07:47:00.001-05:00

Gosh, I'm usually pretty good about keeping this blog updated, but I've gone a week without a post! No, I haven't been lost in a pile of dirty cloth diapers (it's going REALLY well, by the way). Things have just been insane. I have a feeling this post is going to be a bit raw. It's been so hard for me to juggle everything. Lately I've been fantasizing about being a stay at home mom. I love my job, truly. It pays really well and I enjoy what I do. But a full time career plus being a mother seriously leaves me no time to do anything else. Nothing. It's near impossible to keep up with the housework for some reason. Yet, I see that other moms who work have no problems. It makes me start to feel like there is something wrong with me. I rarely cook, thank goodness my husband LOVES to cook and prefers it, because I don't have time to do it. By the time I get home, 100% of my attention is on Jude for 2 or 3 hours before he goes to bed between 7:30 and 8. Then, I do just the basic things like loading the dishwasher from dinner, doing some laundry, etc. at which point I am exhausted. Then I usually have some sort of project that needs to be worked on (like this week, writing and addressing invitations to 150 people for my in-laws 25th anniversary party). Okay, so what about the weekends? Excellent question. Phil is usually doing something for his 80+ hour a week career (which I wouldn't change- he is SO awesome at his job and LOVES it), so having him watch Jude while I do something like scrub the floors is impossible on most weekends, especially in the summertime when his industry goes insane. My son will MAYBE take a 45-60 minute nap in the mornings and a 30 minute nap in the afternoons. I guess I just don't know how to do the deep cleaning stuff like washing windows, shampooing carpets, scrubbing floors, organizing closets, cleaning out basement storage, gardening....and the list goes on and on. How do working moms DO all this stuff??? I guess the only option I have is to use vacation time from work while Jude is at daycare. But then that is more time I will not get with my little boy. I'm left wondering if I'm too attached to get things done when Jude is with me. Have a created the baby who refuses to be left in an exersaucer to watch while I'm doing things? I know I have a bright, inquisitive baby who wants to be a part of everything, but sometimes I feel like it's because I wore him nonstop and coslept with him and allowed him to be a part of all mundane tasks that now it has to be that way forever.

I know I'm just rambling at this point and I am not blaming the way we parent exactly. I'm just envious of all my mom friends both in real life and in the blogosphere that seem to be perfect. Moms who bring home a great salary, cook, clean, and entertain while maintaining the perfect body, wearing makeup, always looking beautiful, and giving their husbands just as much attention as their children. I feel like the only part of that I even come close to is the great job and nothing else. I feel frumpy, chubby, disorganized, unkempt and frazzled. I need to stop complaining and just try harder, but that's easier said than done- especially when I don't even know where to begin.

Part of why I just don't feel good enough has to do with the fact that I can honestly say my mother is damn near perfect. Growing up raising two kids two years apart, she did it all: crazy fulltime career with insane hours and a husband who traveled two weeks out of every month on average, a perfect house- PERFECT, running us kids around to all of our extra curricular activities (if you knew me in gradeschool and highschool, I seriously danced for 6 hours a day, 6 days a week, nuts), and never forgot one single permission slip, dress down day at school, soccer practice, lunch money, nada. Most days, I'm lucky if I don't forget my breastpump or purse, let alone remember anything else.

I know I'll figure it out and maybe just try to convince myself that perception isn't always reality (but this is hard when I SEE my other mom friends doing it all). I can do this. I can.

Right?

11 months

2010-05-18T07:19:00.002-05:00

My sweet baby boy is eleven months today. This time is going by way too fast. He is starting to look and act less and less like a baby and more and more like a toddler.

Likes:
Avocado eggrolls from Kona Grill
Snugglepuppy book
When Mommy dances for him
Playing "This Little Piggy" with his toes
Pulling all the toys out of the daycare toyboxes
Walking while someone holds his hands
Exploring every nook and cranny
Yogurt, yogurt, yogurt (if you offer it to him at a meal, he can't see it and it has to be given last otherwise he refuses to eat any other food)
Puppies
Having a bite of whatever someone is eating
Brushing his teeth (well, more like sucking the baby toothpaste out of the bristles)

Dislikes
Diaper and clothing changes
When Mommy leaves the room
Someone new taking him out of our arms before he is acclimated to them
Exersaucer
Telling him he can't do something

We survived!

2010-05-17T07:15:00.001-05:00

I'm happy to report that our first day of cloth diapering went extremely well! In fact, it went so well that I'm angry that I didn't try this sooner and let fear get the better of me. Granted, we used pockets and fitteds for the entire day as I wanted to send the prefolds through one more wash and dry cycle. I'm still a little intimidated by prefolds with snappis, but I'm sure it will be just like the others. The only mistake I did make was forget that a fitted diaper wasn't a pocket (I was distracted by the striped skulls on the front) and forgot to put a cover over it. Luckily, I noticed some dampness on the front of Jude's onesie before any huge mishaps occurred.

Daycare will be the next hurdle. If you are thinking of cloth diapering and you send your child to daycare fulltime, you will have to check with the daycare provider to ensure they will be on board. Oh, a tip I learned in regards to that: make sure to talk to them in person with a pocket or AIO diaper in hand. Most people when they hear the word "cloth diaper", the image of complicated cloth folding and big bulky diaper pins comes to mind (myself included before I knew better!). Once they see that cloth diapering can be just as easy as disposables, most will go along with it with no complaints. I didn't have an issue since the director of our daycare center said that many parents over the years had cloth diapered. The only thing we needed to do was bring in a diaper pail to leave there and also a new wetbag everyday. Then we would just transport the dipes to and from daycare in that. We still have some disposables to use up at daycare, but will probably start with the cloth this week there as well! We won't mess around with sending the prefolds there, only pockets and AIOs. So far, so good!

In other news that is un-cloth diaper related, we are in the midst of trying to plan Jude's 1st birthday party which is occurring in a month. My baby will be one year old in ONE MONTH?? It seems impossible. It makes me sad and happy all at the same time. I know it is stated over and over, time and again, but it really does go by so fast. That's why I love to keep this blog- if only to remember the little things.

Here we go!

2010-05-15T22:52:00.002-05:00

My first cloth diaper purchases are all ready to go! I currently have about one day's worth of dipes. So far, I have an assortment since we're not sure what diaper(s) is going to work best for Jude. Another amazing bonus of cloth diapering is the resale value. Anything that doesn't work out for us we can always resell at a diaper swap or Craigslist. Score!

Here is what we have so far: Bumgenius 3.0 (light blue), Fuzzi Bunz pocket (red), Happy Heinys pocket (butter), Thirsties Duo (mango), Thirsties cover (green), a Rumparooz G2 pocket (monsters), Monkey Snuggles fitted (skull stripe), and a Monkey Snuggles overnight (chocolate chip cookies).

I also got 8 organic prefolds with snappis to try out. There's no turning back now!

I spent all of tonight prepping the diapers for our first official day of cloth diapering Jude tomorrow. The biggest time consumer was prepping the prefolds. I boiled them for about half an hour and then ran them through several wash and dry cycles in order to get maximum absorbency once they are on the little boy's bum.

Wish us luck!

And the cloth diapering journey begins...

2010-05-15T10:18:00.000-05:00

Well readers, we're doing it. We are jumping right in to cloth diapering starting this weekend. Oh, first and foremost, a HUGE thank you to my friend Hannah over at The Swoboda Family for schooling me in all my newbie questions in regards to cloth diapering. Hannah and I went to high school together ten years ago (yikes!). I was looking at pictures on facebook of her ADORABLE (no seriously, this kid is something else) daughter and saw that she loved to babywear like we did so we started talking about fun baby stuff! She is a clothdiapering guru and I'm sure I'll be bugging her for many more weeks until I get this thing down. Anyways, where was I?

Yesterday was an important day.

I received my first fluffy mail! That's right, the 'fluff' I speak of was none other than my first cloth diaper order! I've been stalking Jillian's Drawers for some time now and finally made the plunge. I ordered a three pack of different brands of pocket diapers: A Bumgenius 3.0, a Happy Heinys, and a Fuzzibunz. They are just so stinking cute.

I've been frustrated in that the only cloth diaper store that is closest to me is 60 miles away. Ugh. My city has a huge need for a cloth diapering store. Lo and behold, I found a couple who operates a cloth diapering boutique out of their home and they have an awesome selection online! So, I spent my lunch yesterday eating Whole Foods to go food and shopping on their website, Top to Bottom Baby Boutique. I know it's local so I wasn't expecing a huge selection, but oh my gosh- their selection surprised me and I, in typical Erin fashion, went nuts. A dipe with stripes and skulls on it and overnight cloth diaper with chocolate chip cookies all over it? Yes, please! I'm going to pick up my new stash later this afternoon. Expect a post tonight or this weekend that will be photo-heavy.

If you would've told me a few years ago I would be THIS excited about cloth diapers, I would've told you that you were nuts. Now it looks like I'm the one who is nuts.

A sign that cloth diapering is the right move...

2010-05-14T07:56:00.001-05:00

So, my friend Rebekah wanted to cloth diaper from the very beginning and built up quite an impressive stash of them. Turns out, the cloth diapering isn't really working out for them, so she is hosting a giveaway on her blog! How exciting. I really think it's fate since we decided to make the transition over to cloth and I am in the (expensive) stage of buying different types of dipes and trying them out to see what I like and dislike. Check out her giveaway and follow her blog, To Infertility and Beyond..or just go over to see the adorable photos of Hampton (how cute is that name?) if nothing else!

To all the mamas who have ever bedshared...

2010-05-12T20:11:00.001-05:00

Someone shared this little poem with me and it made me melt.

A Child's Fragile Sleeping Soul
by Peggy O'Mara

They tried to steal his soul.

Creeping in,
In the middle of the night.
Waiting for the crack
Between the dreams
When he was neither here
Nor there.
When he was spinning in
His mind,
Crying out in his sleep.
When he no longer remembered
His name.

They tried to steal it then.
When he was not remembering.

But just at the moment
When they might have snatched it.
Just when his mind was lost and hungry,
Just when he cried out helplessly,

I reached over
And touched his hand.

And the evil spirits
Were once more
Cast adrift
Forever.

Mother's Day and The Mama Necklace

2010-05-10T08:27:00.003-05:00

My Mother's Day rocked.

Jude woke up at 5 am (oh yeah, and he slept through the night- he must've known it was Mother's Day) and I brought him in to bed with us. He chattered and giggled away until Phil got up with him so I could sleep in, which I didn't think I could do. Then I woke up at 9am to the smell of a Skinny Vanilla Starbucks latte, a bouquet of beautiful flowers, a card and a beautiful little wrapped gift.

Sidenote: Thanks to the blogosphere and mommy blogs, I fell in love with The Mama Necklace from ripegoods (etsy love!). I showed Phil months ago and then assumed he forgot. He didn't.

I love the 'concept' of mother necklaces. The only issue I have with them is that most you find in stores are just cheesy. That's not for me. This has that earthy, hippy, artsy vibe that I love in jewelry. And it's eco-friendly. What is there not to love?

The day was awesome. I was spoiled by my two favorite guys. I'm a lucky, lucky lady.

What kind of mom are you?

2010-05-07T08:54:00.005-05:00

I was thinking the other day about all the planning that goes on once you find out you are having a baby. If you had asked me to describe the sort of mother I planned on being before Jude got here, the following description would probably sum it up best: Stroller walking, disposable diaper using, crib sleeping, breastfeeding for up to 6 months at the most, caffeine drinking, still maintaining somewhat of a social calendar, working mama. It wasn't a conscious thing, I didn't research anything, yet, I think I'm the complete opposite of all of that and it all just happened naturally.

Stroller: I will say we use it now more than we ever have previously. For at least the first 6 months, Jude was one of those babies that didn’t want to be put down. At all. End of the world to be out of my (or anyone’s arms). I’ve heard all my life that carrying a baby around too much will “spoil” him and I guess I believed that. But, once he was here and in my arms, I knew that this couldn’t be true. How can you spoil a child by holding him close to your heart rather than constantly at a distance? Why did holding him feel so much more natural to me than putting him in a stroller or playpen while I went about my business? In my gut, I felt that this wasn’t true in regards to Jude. So I held him. All the time. I invested in wraps and slings to help lessen the load, but for the first 6-8 months, he was attached to me (literally) constantly. And it WORKED! Jude loved being strapped to me or Phil all the time. He was always happy and smiling and content. Whether I was loading the dishwasher, shopping for groceries, or taking a walk around the block, it was good to be Jude. Once Jude learned to crawl a couple of months ago, it felt as though our babywearing chapter started to close just a little bit. I still pop him in a sling when he is having a clingy moment or I just need to carry him somewhere since he can’t walk yet. But with the crawling milestone, it is as if he is happy with a little independence and loves to explore his surroundings while not attached to me (though he prefers to have me within eyesight). So in our experience, babywearing Jude constantly in the beginning helped him to trust that the world was not a scary place as long as he was in mom or dad’s arms. I feel he took that experience and is now anxious to touch and see and hear the happenings going on around him. Maybe the opposite is true for other babies, I guess we’ll find out if/when we have another!

Disposable Diapers: I’ll admit I’m still on the fence about this one. We use gDiapers when not at daycare and Pampers for daycare. Before Jude, I thought cloth diapering meant squares of cloth with big ole diaper pins. Um, no. Cloth diapers now are pretty much the coolest things ever. And what’s cuter than a big fluffy cloth diapered baby butt? Um, nothing! Anyways, since this whole Pampers-causes-chemical-burns-and-rashes-on-babies-investigation, I’m really wondering why the hell I’m not asking more questions as to what is IN disposables? I don’t know, the whole thing makes me nervous. I’ve ordered the cloth diaper trial from Jillian’s Drawers and I’m sure I’ll be posting about our cloth diapering adventures soon! I’m kind of excited!

Cribs: Babies sleep in cribs, right? That’s what they do. There aren’t any other options. At least that’s what I thought before I got pregnant. When we started to get the nursery all set up, I was adamant about getting the perfect crib. And we found it, all right. It was beautiful and everything I imagined. Majestic and dark wood and perfection. So we bought it, took it home, and got it (after much cursing on my husband’s part) set up. That’s when I got uneasy. The nursery is the sitting room off of our master bedroom, and therefore, it was ideal. Jude would be sleeping literally ten feet away from me. I wouldn’t even need a monitor at night since I would hear him cry. As his due date approached, I started to feel more and more uncomfortable with him sleeping in another room, but pushed those thoughts aside. Then, the little mister was here, we brought him home, and it was bedtime. What if he stopped breathing? What if someone broke in his window and we were sleeping so heavily we didn’t even hear and they STOLE him? What if the cat somehow opens his door and decides to sleep right on his face? (Hey, when you’re post-partum and experiencing a severe hormonal fluctuation, ANY scenario you come up with in your head is totally plausible!) So, we set the pack and play up right next to the bed on my side, inches from me. The Mama Bear instincts in me woke up at even the slightest sound or movement he made. Jude was also the baby that was up pretty much every hour for the first four months, then every 2-3 hours for the two months after that. So bedding close to each other made things a lot easier. When Jude wanted to eat, I would just pull him in bed with me and doze while he nursed. We are now to the point where we realized that Jude sleeps better for the first half of the night in his crib. So, after about 8 months of non-use, we are now using the crib! Jude goes to bed for the first half of the night and wakes up around 1 am. I go in to his nursery, where I see him standing up in his crib with his arms outstretched for me. I grab him and take him in to our bed for the other half of the night. We have plans to stop the semi-cosleeping before 18 months. I just really love it. As a working mom, I cherish every second I can spend with him- even if it is sleeping. There really is nothing like a chubby finger stroking my face or a warm little arm encircling my neck in the middle of the night.

Breastfeeding: “Breast is best” is the classic mantra one hears constantly while preparing for baby. With that knowledge, I knew I wanted to breastfeed. I figured I would give it my best shot and if it worked out, great! I planned on weaning around six months and then going to formula, thinking it would be much more convenient at that time. I’ll be honest, the first four weeks of breastfeeding were pure hell. We had latch issues you wouldn’t believe. He would get frustrated, I would cry. I would get frustrated, he would cry. My nipples were cracking, splitting, bleeding. Everytime he latched, I felt razor blades. How could something so natural be anything but?? But with the difficulty came a sense of intense determination. We were going to get this and we weren’t going to let each other give up. So I talked to a lactation consultant and went to La Leche League meetings. Then, it clicked. I’ll never forget the nursing session that changed it all. He latched on and started audibly gulping. Wait, I didn’t feel like my nipple was being sawed off! Oh my gosh, did I just feel my milk letting down? Am I experiencing that euphoria that comes with the rush of oxytocin with the letdown? Is that my baby all blissed out and drowsy? Is that actually milk pooling out of his mouth? EUREEKA!!! From then on, I was hooked on nursing. We were a great team and there was NO WAY I was quitting at six months after all this hard work. So we kept plugging away and here we are, almost eleven months later and still going strong. My supply has really plummeted lately, but he’s also nursing less as he takes in more solids. In about six weeks, we’ll start whole milk. I’m sure I’ll be obsessing over this next chapter very soon, so stay tuned.  (Oh yeah, the caffeine part ties in here too. Before I was pregnant, I would seriously knock back like 5 diet sodas a day-gross. Once I was pregnant, I would have a Coke or so a day. I pretty much quit caffeine shortly after having Jude since I thought it might have something to do with his sleep issues. Unfortunately, it didn’t help. But I still stopped it. I’m slowly adding a coffee to my diet in the mornings now that Jude isn’t nursing as much. God, that stuff rocks.)

Social calendar: None to speak of. I’ll touch briefly on this, but I feel the need to address it in a post of its own someday soon. I am horrible at balancing “me” time with motherhood. I think if I were a stay at home mom I would be much better about this. Since I work 40+ hours a week, I CRAVE time with my baby. If I have to spend extra time away from him, I am overwhelmed with guilt. Big time. How can I be away from my baby 8 hours a day and then tack on another few hours? This pretty much rules out any dates with my husband. We’ve gone on a couple, but nothing extravagant like spending a whole night away from him. Recently, I’ve gone out with girlfriends for dinner and drinks, but only after Jude goes to bed and I’m home before his first night waking. This is something I need to work on, although I’m not quite sure how I can get over the guilt I carry around with me that daycare spends more time with my son during the week than I do.

So there it is. I’m pretty much a complete oxymoron of the mom I thought I was going to be. The “stroller walking, disposable diaper using, crib sleeping, breastfeeding for up to 6 months at the most, caffeine drinking, still maintaining somewhat of a social calendar, working mama” in my head became the “babywearing, maybe cloth diapering, semi-cosleeping, extended breastfeeding, non-caffeine drinking, no social calendar to speak of working mama” instead.

I suppose there are a few morals to this post I’m probably failing at getting across. The first is that you really can’t plan what kind of mom you’ll be ahead of time. The second time is that it’s never okay to judge someone else’s parenting choices since there are reasons behind those choices that you just can’t know. We all do what is best for our babies since each baby is such a beautiful individual. And that, my friends, is what makes parenthood so truly incredible.

Nature vs Nurture

2010-05-03T21:37:00.002-05:00

Before I had a baby, I always thought that most of the reasons why girls were the way they were and boys were the way they were was because parents and society molded them to be that way, teaching them how they are supposed to be. Now that I'm a parent, I'm constantly noticing this isn't so. It is so apparent, even as a baby, that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. For example:

I walked into daycare to pick Jude up a couple of weeks ago. As I was filling out the sheet stating what time I picked him up, I heard the unmistakable sound of plastic banging loudly on plastic. As I approached the door to the infant room, the noise grew louder. I got to the doorway and saw four girls roughly around Jude's age all sitting quietly close to one another. One was gazing at a book and turning the pages, two were softly cooing to each other, and the other was twiddling the ear of a stuffed animal. I did a quick scan of the room searching for my son and saw him. He was over in the corner next to a giant empty toybox, the contents of which were strewn about all around him. He was standing up, trying to climb into it, while simultaneously banging a plastic cup against a toy piano with all the strength he could muster. He was also screeching out something that I can only describe as a baby battle cry.

I've been noticing little things before this: he tackles me to plant big, wet, open mouth kisses on my cheek- there is nothing gentle about it. He insists on crawling with a truck or a car at all times and has just now started to make a vrrrrroooom sound to it as well (I'm sure it's coincidental, but how is it that he inherently knows how a car sounds??). He loves nothing more than to spill water or food onto his highchair tray and smear his goopy fingers all over anything within his reach with his toothy, devilish grin. He loves catapulting himself off everything without so much as a warning (thank goodness my mommy adrenaline hasn't reached low levels yet as I'm always one step ahead of him- so far). Oh yeah, and he's 10 1/2 months old!

Where did my son learn to be such a......boy?

I know for a fact my husband isn't conducting classes on the benefits of rough play. I'm pretty sure there aren't lesson plans being snuck in behind my back about how toy trucks give life meaning or speeches on the joys of smashing things together. Therefore, I can only attribute this classic male behavior to one of those mysteries of human nature.

I suppose it just gives some affirmation to the phrase "boys will be boys". And I love having a boy. (Who is now a big boy and eating grilled cheese and pineapple chunks...when did this happen?!?)

Cloth Diaper Trial

2010-05-01T10:44:00.000-05:00

So, one of my biggest regrets about a decision I made regarding Jude was not starting right away with cloth diapers. I seriously thought about it. They are cheaper in the long run (they do require more money up front for the initial investment in a cloth diaper stash), way more eco-friendly (yes, you do use more water to wash them but it's at least using a renenwable source and not spending a million years in a landfill), and just exposes a baby's bum to way less moisture, chemicals, etc. The cloth diapers that are out today are not the square piece of cloth and diaper pins of old. I was shocked when researching them while I was pregnant. They've come such a long way! Plus, they are freaking adorable. Who wouldn't love a fluffy butt like that?

Anyways, I need to find out if daycare will support cloth diapering. Depending on how much of a hassle it is, I may still do disposables at daycare and then cloth diaper at home and on the weekends. Jillian's Drawers has a 21 day cloth diaper trial program for $10. How it works is that you get enough diapers of all sorts of brands to cloth diaper for 10 days. That way, you can decide which kinds you like and which ones you don't. You can send back the ones that you don't want to keep and either exchange them for more of the ones you do like or get your money back!

I'm not sure how much Phil is on board with this whole thing. I think once he sees that it isn't quite the hassle is appears to be, he may go with it.

Magic

2010-04-28T07:47:00.002-05:00

Yesterday we had classic spring weather. The type of day where if you were standing in direct sunlight, you were warm, but if you happened to stay in a shadow for a few minutes there was a chilly bite of kinetic energy in the air. I love these kinds of days that briefly exist before the hot blanket of summer takes over. I came home from work, put another layer of clothing on Jude and we went and hung out in the backyard. These days are his first real experience with the great big outdoors and he is constantly in awe of the small things that I take advantage of on a daily basis. I found myself slightly envious of Jude in that he is able to see such sheer beauty and magic in the smallest of small things. I posted something of the like on Facebook stating that I wished I could see the magic in something so simple as a blade of fresh spring grass, as Jude does. My wonderful aunt/godmother (who is one of the most insightful and artistic people I've ever known) stated in response to my comment : "you ARE--just noticing his discovery of the magic returns it to you!"

And as always, she's right.

HUGE milestone.

2010-04-26T22:32:00.002-05:00

That's right, avid blog followers. It's official. The day we've all been waiting for. Are you waiting with baited breath? Can't stand the anxiety for one more second? Alright then, here it is....

We would like to announce.

Jude finally has enough hair to make shampoo mohawks!!!! Wheeeeee!!!!

Enjoy the cuteness of the photographic evidence (and also the last time a bath will take place in the kitchen sink as evidenced by the last photo, before the expensive camera was almost lost to a tidal wave).

Infertility Awareness Week

2010-04-26T14:22:00.000-05:00

1 in 8 suffers from infertility. Such a staggering statistic. I'm aware and hoping this week that everyone suffering from infertility is blessed with their miracles.

The foods of Jude

2010-04-22T08:13:00.005-05:00

We're becoming more adventurous with introducing foods to Jude these days. I figure he's over 10 months old now so we've moved on from purees. I hate that he gags on a lot of stuff and the paranoid mom in me just wants to stop harder foods altogether because I'm afraid he'll choke. The pediatrician reassured me that gagging is a prevention of choking and to just keep working at it. It takes practice. Anyways, I wanted to start a list of all the foods, purees and not, that Jude has tried so far and whether he loved it or not. I thought it would be fun to look back on these days when I'm arguing with him about all the reasons why he can't have a lollipop and cookies for dinner and think back to the days when a pizza crust was a really big milestone. I think I'll continue to keep new lists as new foods are introduced. If there is a heart next to it, he loved it. If there's no heart, he spit right back out repeatedly, clamped his lips shut and tossed his head from side to side until I stopped coaxing him to try it again. I wonder where his flair for the dramatic comes from.

Apples ♥
Pears ♥
Sweet Potatoes ♥
Carrots ♥
Green Beans
Peas
Squash
Blueberries ♥
Raspberries
Peaches ♥
Yogurt ♥
Puffs/Cheerios ♥
Yogurt melts
Bananas ♥
Pumpkin (don't even think about not putting some cinnamon with it, though) ♥
Mango ♥
Mandarin Oranges
Cheese (riccotta, Mozzarella) ♥
Pancake ♥
Whole Wheat Toast ♥
Oatmeal ♥
Pizza crust ♥
Spinach
Pineapple
Potato ♥
Brown Rice Cereal ♥
Plums ♥
Organic Cheerios ♥
Avocado ♥

10 months!

2010-04-19T20:26:00.001-05:00

My newborn is 10 months old! I really can't believe Jude is creeping along to a year old. It's just too much to take. Our neighbor has a 5 month old and she brought him over in the yard while we were grilling out tonight and it's just getting so hard for me to even remember him being so small! I now understand why people get baby fever BAD when they're little ones encroach upon a year. No worries, I don't have baby fever. Yet. Even if I did, I'm still breastfeeding and my body is so stupid that I'm sure we'll need treatments again and that's a no-no while BFing. Anyways, time for the list of Jude's stats and likes/dislikes. Here we go!

10 MONTH STATS
Weight: 20.5 lbs (40th percentile)
Height: 28.5 in (50th percentile)
Head: 17 3/4 in (50th percentile)

LIKES:
Playing with bouncy balls, plastic balls, actually any ball.
When his Mama walks into a room.
Cars.
Crawling while scooting something along the floor with his hand.
Fruit.
Hats.
Sunglasses.
Shopping.
Llama Llama Red Pajama and The Very Hungry Caterpillar books.
Anything Dr. Seuss.
His daycare teachers.
Seeing his friends at school.
Feeding himself.
Pizza crusts.
Taking items out of something. (i.e. taking folded laundry out of the basket, taking all of the toys out of his toybox)

DISLIKES:
Sitting in grass.
A statue of Jesus at my parents house.
Being handed to someone new before he can get acclimated to them first.
Pretty much any green veggie.
Getting into his carseat.
When Mama leaves the room.

Happy Earth Day!

2010-04-17T21:57:00.003-05:00

I love this day, I really do. It's usually nice out and the world smells of rain and renewal. I remember as a kid, we would always plant a tree or some flowers or something to commemorate. While I thought about doing some planting today, I opted not, seeing as the weather in Nebraska this time of year is insane and I really just don't feel comfortable doing any planting before Mother's Day. I've been burned too many times thinking there was no way a frost would fall.

My two favorite boys and I ran our Saturday morning errand to Babies R Us for some organic baby food (yay sale!) and then to Once Upon A Child for some gently used toys and clothes. I adore that place. We got Jude three pairs of Gap pants, a pair of Nautica overalls, a ball popper toy that he fell in love with at his friend Avery's house, a crib toy that plays music and nature sounds, and some baby window shades for the car for $45 total. You can't beat that. And I felt somewhat Earth friendly given the holiday and buying used.

Jude checking out the new toy.

There's that camera again.

Wait, the balls come out of this thing?!?

I'll just take them over here.

And chew on them.

Well, I thought $6.50 was a good deal on this toy, but apparently I just got overpriced toy balls for Jude to chew on instead.

And to think, we actually were considering spending $40 on this crib toy, when we found a used one for $10!

Baby cold/ear infection = penguin humidifier is having to work some overtime in the nursery.

And apparently, this is waaaay cooler than a toy that tosses balls in the air and makes them speed down ramps.

Score on organic baby food today. That's right, I don't make my own....I had every intention...no freezer space because it's full of breastmilk...don't judge me...another post to come on that hairy subject.

Kickin' it with the hubs on the back patio after the Judester went to bed.

A Lucky Bucket lager for him. A glass of Relax Riesling for me.

Mason performing his whirling dervish on a spring night.

Leif panting per usual in the cool grass. He spent the day at the groomer losing 20 pounds of hair. Handsome boy, huh?

Baby monitor is blessedly silent. For now.

Yes, please take my picture. Sans makeup. After a night of Jude wakings. In bad light. And make me promise to put it on my blog if I am putting one of you on there. Thanks.

The tree in the backyard that blooms once a year for about five minutes.

Okay, I didn't take this photo. The hubs did, that's why it rocks. Showoff.

Just one lonely thought this evening

2010-04-14T23:02:00.002-05:00

The look on Jude's face when I pick him up from daycare; the sheer joy and happiness that his Mama walking into the room brings him just makes it all worth it.

This is going to be a long, long week.

2010-04-12T21:49:00.001-05:00

So, Jude's cold is a little more than that. It's an ear infection. Poor little man. He's had a faucet for a nose since last week and he started running a fever. Phil took him to the doctor today and it was confirmed he had an ear infection. His first one. Daycare has a policy where he can't come back until he is 24 hours fever free. This happened on the worst week ever.

Since I got my promotion back in January, I've been working on this huuuge project for our biggest client and I submitted it to them today. Not only that, but I have to give a big presentation on a product enhancement to the company on Wednesday this week. Sooo not the time for my little sweetie to be sick. Thank goodness for family. My dad will watch him for the morning tomorrow so I can at least set some things up in the conference room I reserved to go over my presentation.

That's not all. Phil rearranged his day to pick Jude up from daycare and take him to the doctor. In his hurry, he slammed his middle finger in the front door of our house. That was this afternoon. Cut to this evening and the pain was pretty much unbearable, his finger and fingernail were black and it was swollen up to massive proportions. He is currently at the ER. I feel awful I didn't go with him, but Jude is in bed and we didn't want to wake him. My mom is meeting him there to keep him company in the waiting room. God love her.

So yeah, the first day of the week was a little stressful. But, I got my project successfully submitted before end of business today, which is a huge weight off my shoulders. Now I just have to breathe and relax about this presentation I have to give this week and again next week (to people in the company who know way more than I do no less). And I thought dancing in front of audiences for years and years was nerve wracking. No way, that was cake compared to public speaking.

Fingers crossed my boys pull through and are as good as new soon and that this week of stress flies by.

Eek. I take it back, I don't want to grow up!

Petri Dishes for Playmates

2010-04-09T07:52:00.000-05:00

Jude has another nasty cold.

I thought we were maybe getting done with all this sickness. I truly believed that his constant colds/illnesses were a combination of being so young, during the worst winter I can remember, combined with the fact that he goes to a daycare center and is around so many other young kids (or Petri dishes, as I prefer to call them). The weather has just started to get warm and a sense of relief has come about that cold and flu season is nearing its end.

No such luck.

The first telltale sign that Jude is coming down with a nasty cold is eye drainage. Ew. It gets all green and gunky and seals his eye shut overnight. Poor guy. I have some drops that clear it up, but it's always the first sign that things are going south. Congestion sets in. Then the coughing. Then the all night wakings. At that point, our world becomes a sea of saline drops, nasal aspirators, cool mist humidifiers, and Boogie Wipes.
Our pediatrician has repeated over and over that the typical newborn/baby gets about 12 colds a year. It seems like Jude constantly has one. Hell, he was hospitalized for RSV for five days back in February. I can't help but get sort of panic-y when he gets sick now. Although the RSV virus was special, he ran a 102-103 degree fever the entire time and that was his first symptom before anything else. He isn't running a fever this time. Thank goodness.

I just hate when Jude is perfectly healthy and I go to pick him up from daycare and he is happily playing with a friend. Then, the friend turns around to grin at me and all I can see is the river of snot pouring out of his nose and I know that Jude will have a cold in about 48 hours. Ugh.

I guess it's the expected repurcussions in the glamourous life of a working mom who sends her kid to daycare.

He says "Ball"!

2010-04-07T07:37:00.002-05:00

That's right. He doesn't say "Mama" and the jury is still out on the word "Dada" (although Phil claims he's saying "Dad", it sounds more like "Datttt" and he says it to everything whether its his father, the dog, or the blinds in his room). I thought I first heard him say "ball" ("bah") in church on Sunday. He has this book that associates things with animals and on the first page shows a picture of a brightly colored ball. The moment he saw the page he said "BAH!". I thought maybe it was a coincidence and he didn't say it again when I showed him the page a few minutes later. This afternoon, we were playing up in his room and one of his favorite toys is one of those cheap large plastic bouncy balls you see in giant bins in the grocery store for $1.79. I'm sure it's manufactured in China using every questionable chemical known to man, but he just loves it so much. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe I should search for a more earth-friendly, non chemical-laden one seeing as how he also loves to put his mouth all over it. ::cringe:: Anyways, he's learned that if he rolls it back to you, you roll it back to him and so on, and he just gets such a kick out of it. I brought the ball down from the shelf to play with it and he grinned and said "BAH! BAH!" excitedly. Now, I wonder where the word "Mama" will be on this list. Whenever I encourage him to say it, he looks at me like I'm crazy and then says "Datttt". Sigh.

A Lovely Little Saturday

2010-04-03T22:49:00.002-05:00

Let me just start off by saying that I most look forward to Saturdays with my little family.

Jude usually rouses for the day around 6:30/7 am. Phil willingly gets up with Jude and takes him downstairs so I can catch up on some zzzzz's (since I'm the one that handles all nightwakings during the week). Phil will then bring Jude back upstairs around 9 or so and we all catch a morning snooze in bed as a family. It's glorious, truly. We usually get up around 10, pack Jude and his accessories in the car, and make our first stop: Starbucks. Now, since I'm breastfeeding, I try to limit my caffeine to one cup of coffee in the mornings and a soda in the afternoons. Jude hasn't seemed to have any aversion to me drinking caffeine, but why push the envelope. I used to be an awful caffeine junkie. Seriously. I couldn't function if I didn't have 2-3 cans of Diet Mountain Dew in the morning and at least 3-4 Diet Cokes in the evening/afternoon. I can't even imagine that now. I get a total buzz from my Grande White Chocolate Mocha on Saturday mornings. It is truly the perfect ending to my week. The first sweet sip of satisfaction. Ahhhh.

Anyways, where were we?

Right, Saturdays. So, after our fix of Starbucks, we'll run errands. Usually Target is involved. Sidenote on Target: why is it that even if I stop in for freaking dental floss, I can never leave without spending at least $50. Does that happen to anyone else or is it just me? Ugh. Target, why can't I quit you?

Well, this Saturday we were on a mission:

Get Jude an Easter outfit.

That's right, we were those people who hadn't yet gotten their little one a spanking new outfit for church on Easter Sunday. So we headed to our favorite place in the whole wide world for children's clothing: Village Pointe. Where else can you find a Janie & Jack, Carter's, and Baby Gap all within a stone's throw of each other? It's like a new parents' dream that actually came true! If any of you know my husband, you'll know that I have a rare breed indeed: one that LOVES to shop for kid clothes! Seriously. The man will drop hundreds of dollars in one afternoon if he were allowed to. I wish I were kidding. He gets this glazed look in his eye when he is coordinating outfits for the kid and doesn't even glance at the price tag. Thank God he has the good sense to shop with me so I can reel him in, otherwise, I fear that we would be living on the streets.....but at least our kid would look cute.

As you can see, we had fun buying outfits for Jude and spending the day out in the sun as a family. It's the simple days that are always the most poignant for me. From kisses in bed for Mama to modeling some of the new couture out in the backyard at the end of the day, it was another Saturday I don't want to ever forget.

There really is no better way to wake up than your sweet baby nuzzling your cheek.

I don't want the paparazzi to recognize me if we lunch somewhere. Oh, right, Mom's the paparazzi. Nevermind.

Looking at hats (what else?) at Janie and Jack

Dad's..er...Jude's favorite store

Enjoying the outdoors

Surveying the sweater vests

Getting bored, but hanging in there like a champ.

Sale signs at Baby Gap never bode well for our wallets.

Carters, we salute you.

The workaholic checks the Crackberry.

Trying on a new shirt with his trusty cap. It's all in a day's work.

Not too sure about this whole sitting outside in the grass thing. But, at least there's a cat!

2010-03-30T22:13:00.001-05:00

Mama Bear

2010-03-30T07:56:00.001-05:00

This week is dragging. I have three projects due in mid-April. Big ones. I’m at the point where I should be completely stressing out, but I’m strangely not. I think motherhood has calmed me down a bit. I’ve taken a more c’est la vie approach to things and I think it’s totally improved my outlook. Before Jude, these projects would’ve completely taken over my brain and life. Now, I’m able to put work and family into the two separate entities they are supposed to be and I think I’m the better for it. Granted, I bolted awake in the middle of the night last night thinking about a portion of a software upgrade that I felt I needed to work on asap. And then I looked over at my son (who was sleeping peacefully in between Phil and me since I didn’t have the energy for sleep battles last night. FAIL.) and stroked his downy, blonde little head and fell back asleep.

That’s not to say that I’m completely zen about everything. Motherhood has also awakened the mama bear that I apparently had sleeping within me. Convictions I never knew I had come out with their teeth bared whenever I feel Jude or any other child for that matter, is being threatened. When I hear stories on the news about poor, defenseless children being neglected or abused, I choke back the intense feeling of wanting to vomit and I just find myself wishing the worst things on the person that did this to them. Then I hug my baby just a little tighter. I can now spot an uneasy situation from miles away and can avoid it quick as lightning, no questions asked. I no longer have qualms about telling people that I still breastfeed and spouting off the million benefits whenever someone challenges me as to why he is still nursing (It’s amazing how I’ll talk about my breasts with anyone these days.) Or when I politely tell certain in-law family members who try to give my kid meat gravy and ice cream that they need to remove their fingers from my kids mouth before I bite them off. People who knew me before I became a mom knew me as the type of person that would totally let things slide unless I felt very strongly about them….then watch out. Now, I’m much more assertive when I initially feel that I need to be, rather than just waiting things out. I love the fierceness just one little angel baby can bring out in a woman.

All in all, Jude is making me a better, stronger person.

Knock On Wood

2010-03-25T06:22:00.001-05:00

I really hate to even "say" this out loud, but here goes. Jude has slept through the night TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW. Now, if you follow my blog or facebook, you will know that this is something we've been battling for quite some time. A quick background: Jude has never slept for longer than four hours at a time consistently. Sure, here or there he will go for maybe five hours, but these events are very few and far between. As I've previously stated, when we brought Jude home from the hospital, Phil and I both agreed that we weren't going to let him cry it out. I am not judging anyone who does, but we felt it just wasn't something we were willing to do, for multiple reasons. I naively thought that Jude would definitely wake for the first 3 or 4 months, but he would eventually outgrow it and he would sleep peacefully through the night. Wrong.

Once 8 months rolled around and I realized that Jude wasn't figuring out sleeping through the night on his own, I went to Borders (and didn't have a repeat breastfeeding/poopsplosion incident thankyouverymuch) and grabbed Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution (NCSS). After Googling and reading what Dr. Sears (whose childrearing philosophies I have really gotten on board with) had to say, I decided this option would be the best for us. It basically teaches to attend to the babies needs at night so they do not cry, but slowly wean them off whatever association the baby has with sleep so they can eventually fall asleep without it. Jude had quite the perfect storm of elements needed in order to fall asleep. I realized that I had set Jude up to have sleep issues when all I thought was that these things were in his best interest.

First, Jude wanted to nurse before going to sleep. He would latch on and his eyes would roll into the back of his head in pure bliss. As soon as the sucking stopped, I would lay him down. His eyes would shoot open and he would wail. To replace my boob, I would put a pacifier in his mouth, which would suffice, and his eyes would roll back again. Then, I would place his lovey in his hands and he would roll to his side and fall asleep. Then, I would turn on his mobile that played classical music for twenty minutes and he would be out. This was all well and good except for the fact that once the music shut off or the pacifier would pop out of his mouth or he realized that my boob was nowhere to be found, it was all over. Sometimes this was two hours later, sometimes two minutes. Oy ve.

Long story short, the NCSS did not work for us. We tried diligently for a month. The only thing that improved was that Jude started to sleep a longer stretch in the beginning of the night. He went from waking up within the first hour to sleep for 3-4 hours and then waking up every 1-2 after that.

People with good intentions had all sorts of suggestions for us. "You just need to shut off the baby monitor for a couple of nights so he can cry it out all night", "You need to stop spoiling him so much by carrying him around all day so that at night, he thinks he needs to be held then too", "Stop breastfeeding him and give him formula, you shouldn't breastfeed once they have teeth", "Put some cereal in a bottle and send him to bed with it". Again, not judging what other parents have done because we all make parenting choices that are best for our own family, however, none of the suggestions people had to offer felt 'right' in regards to what would work for Jude. Therefore, I resigned myself to multiple night wakings until toddlerdom.

So this post doesn't turn into a full blown novella, I'm going to try to speed things up. I decided to read Ferber's book, "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems". The most I knew about Ferber was that his methods were associated mostly with 'crying it out', but someone told me that if for no other reason, pick up his book to read about all the information he has on infant sleep cycles and sleep associations. So I did.

Upon first picking up the book, I was surprised to see that he runs the Harvard Institue of Pediatric Sleep Disorders. Okay, totally giving this guy a chance, he probably knows a bit about what he is talking about. Holy moly. I was floored reading about all of the cycles babies go through and that night waking is a necessity, ESPECIALLY in the early months since that is a main prevention of SIDS. If a baby is sleeping TOO soundly and in a sleep cycle that is difficult to get out of, they can stop breathing. It was nice to read an affirmation that an early infant sleeping through the night just didn't sound right to me. Maybe Jude was more normal than abnormal. Also, I didn't know that Ferber doesn't call for straight crying it out, but rather letting a child cry in intervals and then going in to check on him so he doesn't believe he was abandoned. Ferber first states that you need to create the child's sleep environment into a sleep association- free environment. The reasoning behind this makes sense: because of the way a baby's sleep cycle is set up, they go through the multiple stages of sleep in shorter intervals than adults and have brief periods of waking. Upon these periods of waking, adults are able to fall right back to sleep if everything is the same as when they fell asleep. But say that you go through the brief wake period and sense that a light is on in the hallway that wasn't on when you fell asleep, you are instantly fully awake and investigate. Same as a baby. If Jude fell asleep with a pacifier in his mouth, with his music on holding his lovey and when he hits his wake cycle with the paci out of his mouth, music off and his lovey nowhere to be found, he is instantly awake because he feels he "needs" all three of these in order to go back to sleep.

Okay. Get rid of sleep assocations. We stopped with the music. I nursed him before story time instead of right before bed. I did lay him down with his lovey, but if he wakes up, he can easily find that so I didn't think that was an issue. I also made sure to leave the room while he was still awake, without rubbing his back or anything since that would also be another sleep assocation. It worked! Well, for a few hours. Basically, Jude would sleep from 7:30ish until about 11, wake up and want to nurse, nurse, nurse until it was time to get up at 5:30.

Cutting to a different topic that I think is the missing piece to the whole sleep mystery. I think I'm starting to develop milk supply issues. While Jude is at daycare every day, I pump 3-4 times a day at work to send breastmilk with him the next day. I've been pretty proud of myself that Jude is almost 9.5 months and I'm still able to give him breastmilk 24/7. (And it saves so much money!) These past few weeks, I've gone from being able to pump about 16-20 oz in a day, and it has tanked to being able to pump 10-12. I've done everything in an attempt to get it back up, I'm an expert. No dice. More to come another time. By the time evening rolls around, I don't produce much since prolactin levels are the lowest in a body at that time. I now believe that at least half of the issue is that Jude is seriously hungry in the middle of the night and since he isn't getting much milk before bed, he wakes up very often to "top himself off".

The last week or so, I've been giving him a 6 oz bottle of milk before bed and then I pump after he goes to bed. This, combined with getting rid of his sleep associations has provided the breakthrough we so desperately needed.

Two days ago, I put little boy to bed at 7:15. He briefly woke at 8, I settled him back down and he didn't wake up until 5:30 am. WHAT?!?! Of course, that didn't mean I got any sleep. I was checking on him hourly convinced that something was horribly wrong.

Last night, he went to bed at 7:30. Woke up briefly at 11:15 and settled himself back down and woke up at 4:30 am and I was able to settle him down again. Not as great as the night before, but a SERIOUS, SERIOUS improvement.

I hope the trend lasts and that I didn't completely ruin things by talking about them. I attribute this success to my education of sleep cycles for babies, getting rid of *most* of Jude's sleep associations, realizing my milk supply is starting to tank and finding alternatives for evening feedings, and the fact that Jude has cut 6 teeth in the two previous months and he is no longer waking up because of teething pain.

If you've made it this far, you're awesome. I mostly just wanted to record our sleep story (so far, as the issue is clearly tumultuous) so I can show Jude someday just how much he put us through when I tell him he can't stay out all night - my sleepless nights thanks to him are in the beginning only.

Rub-A-Dub-Dub

2010-03-23T22:14:00.002-05:00

What can I say? The kid loves baths. He loves splashing, shrieking, and giggling in the kitchen sink. It's crazy to think of how I used to bathe him in an infant bathtub and couldn't fathom ever having a baby big enough to sit in the kitchen sink. Now, his days are seriously numbered for baths in the kitchen before he's playing with sailboats in the bathtub. Time really does fly. But I'll save those thoughts for another day. Let's just look at the pure joy that happens when you mix a baby with bathwater.

Adventures with nursing in public

2010-03-21T13:26:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, we went to go visit some good friends of ours who have an adorable little girl about six weeks older than Jude, Avery. Avery's mom and I grew up together (more to come on that in a later blog) and it's been fun getting the kids together. Anyways, she and I both have plans to breastfeed for a year and were laughing last night at the many mishaps that accompany nursing a baby through their many stages. I thought it would be fun to blog about one incident in particular where, really, what can you do but laugh? Warning: if you aren't prone to a little TMI (too much information), you may want to skip this post and scroll down to older posts or wait for a new entry in a day or so.

Jude was about two months old. I was still on maternity leave and actually enjoyed leaving the house for jaunts during the day- it made me feel human to go out amongst the living and actually shower and put on clothes that didn't consist of unsexy pajama pants and an oversized spit-up stained T-shirt. At 2 months old, Jude and I had pretty much overcome our latch issues and I was somewhat proficient at getting him latched the first try. As long as I had my nursing cover, I was totally okay with nursing in public. I decided to go to Borders. Jude rarely cried and if he started to get fussy, I figured I would just curl up on a loveseat with a book and nurse him. Lo and behold, he started showing signs of hunger so I grabbed a book on cupcake recipes (so I could drool over the photos as sleep deprivation made it difficult to comprehend any reading material any more complicated than ones laden with pictures) and sat on a couch away from everyone. Well, as luck would have it, a lady came and sat right across from me and a few minutes later another man sat cati-corner from me. Jude was so tiny that they didn't even see any sign of a baby underneath my cover. What I neglected to consider was that Jude loved to take a nice, loud poo immediately after or during nursing in the beginning days. Now, if you've ever seen breast-fed baby poop, it really does challenge the laws of physics. And I'm not talking just a quiet poop, but a wall-shaking, earth-shattering, incredibly wet sounding poo. Not only did he let out one explosion, but three. In a row. I really wish I were kidding when I tell you that the sound reverberated all around the 2nd floor of Borders. I'm not sure what was worse, the sound of the 'poopsplosion' (as we lovingly call Jude's early poos) or the even more deafening silence that followed. I could tell that the two people were trying to pretend like they didn't hear it. Then all of a sudden, I had a realization: they didn't know I had a baby under my nursing cover.....and they probably thought it was ME! I was horrified. Then all of a sudden, the man couldn't hold it in and started turning red trying not to laugh. That was it. Jude was still happily slurping away underneath the cover, but I moved part of the cover to reveal his little feet and stated, "That was my baby, it wasn't me. Just in case you thought it was." The two 'spectators' started dying laughing and informed me that yes, they had assumed I was nursing.

It was somewhat of a relief to know that they didn't think I was sharting myself while reading a book on cupcakes.

Nine months gone in the blink of an eye

2010-03-18T21:07:00.002-05:00

It's hard to believe that today marks the day where my little boy has officially been in the outside world for just as long as I carried him inside me. The time has flown by in what feels like a second. When I look at him, he is no longer a "baby" to me, but this little person with a huge personality and an even bigger smile. I think for every month, I'm going to start listing his favorite things so I can look back and reminisce on these special and poignant moments before they slip by.

Likes:
Crawling
Turning the pages of books himself
The dogs
Clapping his hands at games - especially one where a ball goes down a ramp
Scrinching his face up and opening his mouth really big so his teeth stick out
The Very Hungry Caterpillar - especially the part where it lists all the food the caterpillar ate in one day: one sausage, one piece of chocolate cake, one slice of Swiss cheese, one pickle...
Dumping containers of toys out
Smashing toys together
Watching mommy vacuum
Peek-a-boo
Baths
Splashing bathwater everywhere
Walks in a carrier or stroller
Other babies and children
Waving at everyone
Eating fruit purees and oatmeal
When Mommy and Daddy sing songs
Nursing
Any sort of toy piano

Dislikes:
When Mommy leaves the room
The sippy cup
When Daddy gets up to tend to him at any point in the middle of the night - only Mommy will do
Getting into his carseat
Diaper changes
Getting into his pajamas
When you take a toy out of his hands before he's ready to let it go
Exersaucer
Green beans

A rose by any other name...

2010-03-17T22:36:00.001-05:00

Nothing really much to this post. As I was playing with my darling boy this evening, I thought about alllll the other names this little man gets called other than the one on his birth certificate. Hopefully the poor babe doesn't develop an identity crisis because we just can't stop calling him some of these. And like he needs a nickname, his name is four letters long! Regardless:

Jude
Jude Dude
Judebug
Bug
Buckaroo
Pumpkin
Pumpkin Head
Mister
Judecifer (when he's throwing a tantrum)
Booger
Boogs
JP
The J Man
Junior
Sweetie Boy
Mr. Snoopy

Crawling Judebug

2010-03-16T19:46:00.006-05:00

Jude started full-on fast crawling on Saturday.

He had been army crawling pretty efficiently for the past two weeks. It was pretty impressive how quickly he could get what he wanted without being on his hands and knees to get it. I was beginning to wonder if he was going to be one of those kiddos that has their own unique way of getting about before they actually just move on to walking.

On Thursday, he started sloooowly crawling to get something. The sort of crawl that I would have to tap my fingers and look at my watch. I believe they call it creeping? Anyways, I thought to myself that this was indeed crawling and how crazy it was that there were so many different baby safety items on the market. "I can totally catch my kid before he gets into something dangerous. The majority of parents just must be pretty lazy and not want to watch their baby every second." If motherhood has taught me anything, it's that I sure eat crow alot.

Cut to Saturday.

Dear God, I can't babyproof this place fast enough. Mr. SpeedDemon is ripping all over the place at breakneck pace. By the time I've realized he's tipped over his entire plastic container of pop-link blocks, he's halfway across the room, empty container in hand (you read that right, he crawls with things in his hands!) and heading for the rocking chair. Sometimes the only thing that saves me is if he takes a pitstop on his mission, if only to smash a couple of things together, giggle at the glorious sound, and then proceed on his merry (breakneck speed) way.

This little boy is so proud of his accomplishments. As he passes by me scooting along, he gives me the biggest, toothiest grin he can muster, as if to say "Hey, look! Did you know we can get to things on our hands and knees??? Not even kidding, come on, follow meeeeee!"

I can't have a bad day around this kid, I seriously can't. For the first time in my life, the stresses of work don't follow me home. The minute I walk into daycare and he beams and scurries toward me, the previous events of the day just melt away...

Motherhood rocks hard.

Nostalgic over retired new baby items

2010-03-14T13:39:00.003-05:00

Our neighbors recently had a little girl and we went over with a big care package for them of everything we found completely necessary during the first six months. Infant Tylenol, Vick's Baby Rub (um, that stuff smells so good I often smear it on myself. Not kidding), saline drops for stuffy noses (essential for any daycare-going babe, Jude has an eternally dripping nose), Fold & Go diapering kit, big box of Pampers Sensitive wipes (if you're going to do disposable wipes, these are the gentlest, the next little one we have, we will be using cloth wipes I think), a package of baby hair bows (SIGH- love my little boy but hairbows on baby girls are just TO DIE), and Trumpette Mary Jane socks (:::squeal of cuteness:::).

I guess we still use all of that stuff on Jude, but slowly we are putting some new, new baby stuff away.

The Boppy. My breastfeeding companion that saved my arms and sanity during the early days. Jude is so efficient at nursing now that he's done in ten minutes. He can support his own weight so I don't really have to hold him. Since he started sitting unsupported at 5 months, we haven't used it for extra support for him either. Thank you, Boppy, and I commend you for a job well done.

The bouncy seat and the swing. Both retired. I remember reading on the manuals for both of those items that you couldn't use them once baby exceeded 25 pounds. I remember thinking "Oh, well that's awesome, we'll probably be using these for well over a year." Um, Jude was squirming and scheming ways out of them by 6 months and 16 pounds.

The Bumbo chair. He catapulted himself out of this at 5-6 months as well. It served its purpose for a short time I suppose. In retrospect, I think I would've saved the $40 (ridiculous pricetag in my opinion) and skipped it or bought a used one off Craigslist. It's a rubber/plastic chair for God's sake, buy it used and wipe it down with a sani wipe.

My trusty Lansinoh ointment. I couldn't have lived without it in the early days for our awful latch issues. Now that we're such a great breastfeeding team, I never have pain or "injuries" anymore. So I guess the only use I have for my previous favorite baby item is for when Jude's lips get a little chapped from the cold weather.

The Moby. Ahhh, the Moby. The ONLY way Jude would nap during the first three months. We're big fans of babywearing in our house (a long post about this will happen this spring- my favorite babywearing season, I'm sure) and this one was absolutely wonderful for the newborn days. We do still use it occasionally and I'm sure will continue to this summer. The only complaint I have is that for a bigger baby, the material stretches out after wearing him for awhile. I buy this for almost every baby shower. If I am invited to your babyshower and you're reading this, sorry for the spoiler. :)

Actually, I think I need to do a few "my favorite/unfavorite things" post. More to come!

Watching a St. Patrick's Parade downtown

2010-03-13T23:50:00.005-06:00

It was a great day. I'm a lucky lady.

He never ceases to amaze me.

2010-03-09T11:10:00.001-06:00

I'm moved by my son every single day. I love looking at the world through his big, soulful eyes. I guess I never realized the beauty and wonder in the littlest things like Jude does. He is making me see the world as I never saw it (or remember seeing it). I always thought it was the parents that teach their little ones, but I feel like I'm the one doing all the learning.

He's discovered his tongue and all the lovely sounds he can make by moving it in different positions. He is so excited about all the doors he has opened in terms of "language" that he wakes up in the middle of the night to practice. He talked and chattered away from 1:15 am until almost 3 am this morning. And the thing is, I didn't mind. Sure, I tossed and turned as he had a conversation to everything in his vicinity, but I loved listening to him revel in his discovery of words. My husband is convinced that he is saying "Daddy", but that would be him learning the "D" sound. If we are going to play that game, then Jude said "Mama" at three months. :)

He is cutting his four top teeth. The top two erupted yesterday. It was a painful few weeks. His upper gums have been swollen for the past month and you can see four prominent bulges where the four teeth are coming in. I'm so glad the front main ones have finally cut. Poor guy, he's been miserable. Restless, fever, diarrhea and even a little vomiting. He doesn't like to eat solids when he is cutting a tooth, so he promptly vomited up his food at daycare and they sent him home and said he couldn't come back until he was vomit free for twenty-four hours. So, I had to take another day off work to stay with him today. Not that I mind spending time with my sweet baby boy. I love every second spent with him.

Jude waves now. It is the cutest wave in the world. He raises his hand in the air, fingers spread, and then bends his thumb up and down while keeping all his other fingers straight. Hilarious and adorable. I want him to wave like that forever. He is just so darn pleased with himself.

This age is awesome. I love him so much.

My son doesn't sleep.

2010-03-02T19:00:00.001-06:00

Jude has sleep issues. Big time.

I've avoided doing any sort of sleep training this entire time for a few reasons. For starters, I never believed that they were necessary. To me, sleep training has always implied that this is purely for tired parents' sake and not in the child's best interest. I'm now retracting my former thoughts on this. Sure, I'd love a full nights sleep. But to be honest, I'm so used to 6-7 night wakings (you read that right- and this is on a good night) that they don't bother me much anymore. I guess my mommy adrenaline isn't 100% depleted. I'm honestly worried about Jude. It seems like he always has bags under his eyes and is so cranky at the end of the day, that he just isn't himself.

First, a background.

In the very beginning, we started off with Jude in a bassinet next to our bed. When he would wake, I would nurse him or change his diaper or attend to whatever need he had. During the first four months or so, I never gave his multiple, often hourly, night wakings a second thought since that is what newborns do. Once Jude outgrew the bassinet next to the bed, we decided we wanted to cosleep and have a family bed until he was a year. I'm a fan of Dr. Sear's Attachment Parenting principles and thought this was ideal for us. Being as I'm a fulltime working mom, I love that I can spend all my time with Jude when I'm not working by sleeping next to him. The night wakings continued. From four months on, all Jude really wanted when he woke up was to nurse himself back to sleep. That's fine. Bedsharing makes this very easy to do. Once six months rolled around and he was still waking up about ten times a night, I decided that we would try Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution. I was not willing to let my son Cry It Out, but this seemed like an answer I could definitely go with. It was all about weaning a baby off the suck to sleep association, which Jude clearly has. After a few weeks of doing this, the only improvement I've seen is that he doesn't fight initially going to sleep like he used to and will actually sleep for a three hour stretch in the beginning. It was also around this time that we put Jude to sleep in his crib initially and then upon the first night waking after we go to bed, we bring him into bed with us.

Now we are at the present. Jude is 8.5 months and he has now decided that naps aren't for him. Daycare is lucky to get two twenty minute naps out of him. He comes home cranky, tired, rubbing his eyes, and ready for bed at 6 pm. I know this is all because Jude cannot self soothe when he wakes up for whatever reason. The littlest noise in the world will startle him awake and he cannot get himself back to sleep without a breast or a pacifier. I'm at my wits end. I've heard things about Ferber and really mostly associated his methods with crying it out. Someone who practices Attachment Parenting told me to pick up his book because it has really great information on baby sleep cycles and sleep in general and I can put other bits of his philosophy into action without resorting to cry it out. So, this is where we are at. Updates to follow. If anyone has any advice, I would LOVE LOVE LOVE comments.

This parenting stuff sure is hard.

Working on that new body

2010-02-24T18:32:00.000-06:00

Well, I've taken greater steps at becoming healthier. I've cut 99% of the crap out of my diet and really focusing on wholesome and organic foods to feed myself and subsequently my baby. On one of my favorite blogs, Le Petit Owlet, she writes about all the benefits of juicing and got to try out The Healthy Juicer. Reading about this awesome contraption on their website has me convinced not only of the benefits of juicing, but also of wheatgrass! On all the research I've done throughout the years on PCOS and infertility in general, I've heard of the amazing benefits of wheatgrass on egg quality, but had no idea all the other added ones such as organ detoxification and immune system boosting. I'm sold! I'll be adding wheatgrass to my Whole Foods grocery list from now on. Maybe I'll even be able to win the Healthy Juicer since Le Petit Owlet is giving it away on her blog! Check it out! :)

28

2010-02-20T09:47:00.001-06:00

It's my birthday today and I'm a mommy. It's pretty crazy to look back on everything that happened in one year. Even though this day will probably be the most lowkey birthday I've ever had, it will most definitely be the most profound. I look at my little Judebug and wonder how I got so blessed. He is truly my everything.

No major plans for today. Phil and I are going to go grab dinner at a deelish Mexican restaurant and my parents will watch Jude for the evening. I sure miss being away from him, I'm so attached! It's hard working full time during the week that I feel absolutely guilty when I go on a date or have to be away from him for any period of time on the weekends. This is why I feel practicing the B's of Attachment Parenting works so well for a family whose parents both work fulltime. We are able to bond every second we are together, and that means the world to us.

In an attempt to lose all my extra baby weight that I am STILL carrying around, I am starting P90X on Monday. I know a few people who are dedicated to it and they are seriously RIPPED. So, after Jude goes to bed every evening, I will be dedicating an hour a day to this regime. I used to dance 8 hours a day, 6 days a week for years, so I'm not worried about the physical demands or the dedication that is required of me. The only worry I have is if it will have any impact on my milk supply. I always hear of people warning about starting up a fitness routine causing their milk supply to tank. I've been looking into this alot over the past few weeks and it seems like the warnings are more towards newer breastfeeding moms whose supply hasn't been established yet. On kellymom.com, she mentions some studies that point to milk supply increasing with more physical activity. Also, breastfeeding immediately after cardio could cause a fussy reacion in the baby due to lactic acid buildup in the breastmilk, but this should subside in about an hour post- working out. I'm already taking fenugreek, blessed thistle, eating oatmeal and drinking tons of water to keep my milk supply going strong at 8 months. I want Jude to have nothing but breastmilk (and solids) until one year. I didn't realize how important it was to me until my supply started to tank around 6 months. I've been doing everything possible to keep up with his demands in regards to my pumping output and so far, things have worked.

I will report on my P90X progress in this blog. I will also be posting before pics soon. Ouch.

I'm Back (and Jude's birth story)

2010-02-15T13:34:00.003-06:00

I feel so awful that I've neglected this blog when really, it should be such a wonderful way to document and remember my sweet baby boy and his little life! I guess I should go back to where we left off. It looks like my last post was from 36 weeks. I'll recap:

On June 17, I was at work and I started to have crampy lower back pain. It was the kind of back pain I usually get whenever AF arrives, so it wasn't completely unbearable. I continued to work throughout the day and before I left to go home, stopped to go to the restroom. Lo and behold, I had lost my mucous plug! Still, I know that this didn't necessarily indicate baby arrival right away, but I knew that things were definitely changing! That night, I just laid around and watched TV while the lower back pain continued. I went to bed. I woke up around 3 am to go to the bathroom for the thousandth time that night. After I crawled back into bed, while I was lying there trying to go back to sleep, I heard a *POP*! Then, a huge gush. MY WATER BROKE! Apparently, that lower back pain was contractions! I woke Phil up and we got ready to go to the hospital. Here comes a funny part of the story: the night before, Phil had a work emergency (he is the area director for a beer company) so he had to grab a Coors Light van and was planning on returning it to work the next day to go get his car. So, I was driven to the hospital in a Coors Light truck! Oh the stories to tell this little one. :) Anyways, contractions started on the way to the hospital. Once I got to Bergen Mercy Hospital, my water had broken again and again. Yeah, that’s right…one of the many things nobody tells you about labor: your “water” keeps refilling to keep the baby hydrated, thus, you keep having gushes of it breaking over and over and over…. By the time I waddled up to Labor & Delivery, my overstretched maternity jeans were soaked and sagging. Lovely. There were no questions: I was most definitely in active labor. I got hooked up to a fetal monitor and the mister looked good. I was dilated to four centimeters. The nurse asked if I wanted an anesthesiologist paged to start my epidural. I stupidly said “Nah, this is nothing, I’ll be fine until it gets to be a little later, I don’t want to wake anyone up, “ (Stupid, stupid, stupid) So, I waited. I facebooked, drank some water, read a magazine, grimaced and winced at contractions, listened to classical music, laughed with my husband. This labor thing was cake. The nurse came in to check my progress. Not much progress, maybe another half centimeter.

Then things started to change. All of a sudden, my uterus started contracting HARD. I vomited. And vomited. (Another thing I didn’t know, labor makes you nauseated. Go figure.) The short waves of pain became intense, long, and knocked the wind out of me. I breathed through them. I had decided ahead of time that I was going to try to make it as long as possible without an epidural since I have a high pain tolerance and really wanted to experience med-free labor for as long as possible. It was at this time that the nurse mentioned that the anesthesiologist was there for another patient and if I wanted the epi now, she would grab him. YES YES YES! And it was a good thing too. Right before the godsend administered the epidural (which was NOTHING, by the way), I had a contraction so long and painful that it seemed like it lasted an hour. After the “zap” of the epidural, my legs started to go numb and the pain from the contractions subsided. I was back in good spirits.

But then, my blood pressure dropped. Hard. I was on the verge of passing out. Cold water was administered on my brow and I struggled to keep my eyes open. My face went white. Ahhh, the third thing they don’t tell you. A side effect of an epidural can be a drop in blood pressure. For the next several hours, ephedrine had to be administered to me to bump my BP back up. And then, my progress pretty much stopped. Right before I got my epidural, I was at 6 cm. Two hours after, I hadn’t progressed much further than that. Another side effect. My labor slowed. They administered pitocin. (Something I didn’t want to happen, but because of my choice of an epidural, was probably inevitable.) The contractions became very strong and violent and I did feel the pain, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I am totally rethinking pain management during labor for the next babe, more to come in this topic in the future.

Two hours later, push time.

I was a champion pusher. I only pushed for twenty minutes before I heard my beautiful, wonderful son scream his entrance to the world. When they handed me my baby, time stopped at 12:46 pm on June 18, 2009. It was just him and me in a world frozen around us. I had never felt such love in all my years and knew that life would never be the same. The moment lasted but a second, but will stay with me forever.

36 Weeks

2009-05-25T10:17:00.003-05:00

Less than a month to go before my estimated due date! I started my weekly appointments on Friday and had my first internal. I am 0 cm dilated and 70% effaced. Not that dilation or effacement numbers mean anything. I've heard of people being completely closed and delivering that night and then others who have been 3 cm dilated and not going into labor for another two weeks. But the Dr. said that everything is softening, the baby has dropped, and things are progressing. So, yay! I really hope I don't have to be induced. I want him to come whenever he feels ready. (So, if that decision is 38 weeks, I sure welcome it!) :)

The hot weather has caused major puffiness. I've been blessed in that I haven't experienced too much swelling...until this weekend. It seems like whenever I walk or do any sort of activity, I just get puffy. Goes with the territory I guess! I've also been having TONS and TONS of Braxton Hicks contractions. Basically, I will get one whenever I flex my stomach muscles. Yesterday morning, I sat at work and recorded over 30 from 6 AM until 1 PM. They were running about 8 minutes apart from about 8 until 9 and then tapered off. I know that you're *supposed* to call the doctor if you have four or Braxton Hicks in an hour, but honestly, they weren't painful, I was drinking tons of water, they were irregular, and they stopped. My doctor even told me that if this happens, to not call and just drink lots of water and put my feet up. What is the point of going in to Labor & Delivery for them to send me right back home telling me I was in false labor? My big worry is that I won't know when I'm actually in labor. Everyone reassures me that I will definitely know. I always wake up with big Braxton Hicks (from a full bladder) in the middle of the night and they can be a bit painful and always think OMG THIS IS IT. But I pee, and it's gone. :)

I've started nesting a little bit, but not to the extreme that everyone talks about. I kind of wish it would start because there is SO much deep cleaning that needs to be done and whenever I start to do it, I run out of energy after just a little bit. Plus, I'm just getting too darn big to maneuver around like I used to. I'm hoping these bursts of nesting energy all the books speak of are around the corner here soon, because I need some serious cleaning action going on in my house before the babe gets here!

Surreal Mother's Day

2009-05-10T13:35:00.000-05:00

Well, today, Mother’s Day 2009, I am 34 weeks pregnant. Seriously? I feel like time is racing by and I haven’t done all of the things I wanted to do this pregnancy! Phil wished me a happy Mother’s Day this morning and told me that I’m the luckiest out of all the moms since I get to spend every second of today with my baby and plus I don’t have to hear him cry or anything! LOL. Part of me is so incredibly excited that I can hardly contain myself and the other part of me wants these pregnant moments to last forever. I am so scared for labor and delivery and terrified that I won’t be a good mother because I just don’t know what I’m doing. It doesn’t matter how many books or articles I read, I feel like I’ll just be left in the dark fumbling around trying to be a mother and that I’ll end up not meeting all of his needs. I know these are all normal, rational fears, but I think they are contributing to my constant and severely emotional state lately. Last night was my amazing husband’s birthday. We went out to dinner with another couple and then he wanted to go bar hopping downtown for a bit. Just the thought of parking downtown and battling all of the crowds at the bars and being so big and pregnant started to really overwhelm me, coupled with the fact that a bunch of friends bailed on the birthday dinner for him already had me kind of sad. Cut to me just sobbing uncontrollably on his birthday and telling him that he would have way more fun without me anyways. He is so amazing and told me how much he loved me and to go home and rest. I just felt awful that I didn’t spend the latter part of the night with him. I drove home feeling like a HORRIBLE wife. Although I know he had way more fun with his buddies than if I would’ve been there all uncomfortable and tired and just PREGNANT. I’ve reached that stage where I’m just never comfortable longer than a couple of minutes.

On a happier note, I had my first baby shower last Saturday, May 3. It was so much fun and so many girls showed up. I was a little worried that there would hardly be anyone there and it would just be the sound of crickets in the background. Our little boy is so spoiled already! We got tons and tons and TONS of clothes and books. We also got quite a few other things that we need as well, like breastfeeding supplies, bottles, wipes, healthcare items, etc. I have another shower on my in-laws side on May 30 (hopefully I don’t have the baby before then!) and then my work is throwing me a post-baby shower in August so they can all see the baby while I’m still out on maternity leave.

At my 34 week doctor appointment, she said the baby is about 4 ½ pounds and everything is right on track. I only gained two pounds in the two week period between appointments, making my total weight gain thus far 24 pounds. Not too shabby. Hopefully I can keep it around thirty. She was really encouraging when she told me that in her experience, most women lose about twenty pounds with delivery and the week after with water weight being flushed out. If I can get through this pregnancy with only ten post-baby pounds to lose, I’m throwing a party. With food! Haha.

Our little boy’s nursery is 99.99999% finished, I’ll post pictures soon. We have most of our “big” items already: crib, dresser, stroller, bouncy, pack & play. The only thing I need to get is a breastpump, which I think I’m going to bite the bullet and get the Medela Freestyle, which is the best one you can buy unless you go hospital grade. I’m still considering renting one of the hospital grade ones initially, but since I plan on breastfeeding for a full year, that will be SO expensive. I’m nervous about breastfeeding and returning to work. My job is so go go go and stressful that I worry that it will cause me to have to stop breastfeeding sooner than I anticipated just because it’s hard to catch a break around there. We’ll see. I’m going to try my very absolute best at this. We also still need to get a swing and various other items, which of course escape me right now. I guess we’ll realize what we are forgetting when he’s here and we don’t have it!

One of my good friends, Joanna, just gave birth to her baby girl on May 7. She was only 4 weeks behind me, due May 20. Eeek! I’m anxious to speak with her and get her whole birth story and to ask her so many questions, but of course the last thing I want to do right now is bother her for details. Part of me is so jealous, I want to meet my little baby too. We’ve been waiting so many years to meet our little miracle, it can’t come soon enough. But keep cooking for just a few more weeks, little mister, for we’ll have the rest of our lives to get to know one another..

Way too long

2009-04-30T22:47:00.001-05:00

I can't believe that it's been over a month since my last post. Yet here I sit, 33 weeks into my pregnancy! I still can't believe that the end is near and my little baby boy's arrival is just around the corner. I feel so unprepared! I'm starting to freak out just a bit. I filled out and turned in all of my FMLA papers for maternity leave. I think I'm going to take ten weeks off to be with him. I can take up to twelve weeks, but only at 50% pay, so not sure I can even afford the ten weeks. We shall see. It would be so nice to be a stay at home mom, but things would be SO tight if I were to do that. Maybe if we have two kids under school age, it would be a little more realistic.

I have my first baby shower on Saturday! My friend Sybil is throwing it for me at my mom's house. I'm really excited. I'm just nervous that not a lot of people will come. I don't have that many friends that live in town, so I'll guess we'll see. I think my husband's mother is planning on throwing me one on Memorial day weekend and then work is throwing me one once the baby is here.

It's so late and I'm utterly exhausted. I guess I didn't want all of April to go by without a single post. I am making a promise to update this more frequently as my due date draws ever nearer...

AW: Our Nursery Furniture is bought!

2009-03-28T11:45:00.003-05:00

We bought our baby furniture yesterday! It should be here in 7-14 days! The nursery is coming along so well. I can't wait until I can post complete pictures of our little Sailboat Nursery. Until then, this is the picture of the crib and dresser that we have!!

AW: Our little boy has his stroller!

2009-03-15T14:18:00.002-05:00

It's the Chicco Cortina Coventry travel system. Perfect stroller for a handsome lil guy!

The home stretch

2009-03-15T14:09:00.001-05:00

Holy crap! I officially start my third trimester this week! It honestly feels like yesterday that I was staring in disbelief at the digital pregnancy test before work on the morning of October 6 at the words ‘Pregnant’. I remember shaking my head and squeezing my eyes shut, half believing that when I opened them again, the word ‘Not’ would’ve preceded it. I will forever be grateful for that moment when I realized I wasn’t alone at 5:00 am that morning in the bathroom. Even if my ovaries only worked that one time and never work again, I will always be so thankful for this gift that has been given to us.

My little boy is moving around like crazy lately. I feel a leg kick and then I feel his little butt scoot into me and elbow jabs. I would love to see what he’s doing in there when I feel those. Of course, he just goes nuts when I’m trying to go to sleep. Ahh sleep: a luxury that I honestly no longer receive. I got three good hours last night. I invested in a body pillow and it does help some, but it’s the pressing bladder every few hours that really gets me. I just feel bad for Phil! Every time I get up out of bed during the night, the 80 pound dog that insists on sleeping with us, let’s out a big old groan and has to reposition himself as well. Phil has been a very good sport about everything, God love him.

The baby weighs about two pounds! At my last visit a week or so ago, I hadn’t gained any weight since January, but I’ve gained a total of 9 lbs. Most of it is baby and uterus and whatnot! That’s kind of hard to believe because lately, my appetite has been out of control…especially when it comes to the sweets. I really need to tone it down. I have my GD test the first Friday in April. I’m kind of nervous for it. Diabetes runs in my family and my mom is also a diabetic specialist, so I know enough to know that it is one condition you wouldn’t wish upon your worst enemy. I need to cut back on the sugar!!

The nursery is coming along. Phil has most of the wainscoting up and we got the walls painted. We are buying the furniture next week, so we’ll have that into place soon. I would like to have the nursery all put together and ready by the time I’m 34 weeks along. I think that’s doable, considering I’m 26 weeks and change right now. I was freaking out last week about how we had NOTHING for the baby yet. Well, we finally bought and received our stroller travel system! We bought the Chicco Cortina Coventry travel system. It’s just so adorably boyish and I LOVE it.

I guess I don't have anything more exciting to share. More to follow!

We started the nursery!

2009-03-08T13:37:00.014-05:00

I'm posting all of the "before pictures" right now. We're going with an ocean/sailor theme. I know it's been done over and over, but there is just nothing cuter than a baby boy sailor room. I'll be posting photos throughout the nursery construction process over the next three months! It's all going by so incredibly fast!! The room is a mess right now as we tore everything apart, but it already looks soooo good with what we've done. More photos next week with progress!

23 week worries

2009-02-22T13:53:00.004-06:00

I think I'm starting to near the end of the "honeymoon phase" of pregnancy, or whatever they call the reprieve that the second trimester brings. I'm used to waking up all hours of the night to pee, but now I also wake up because of how uncomfortable the weight of my boobs and belly are on my back! I've also begun to get mild leg cramps if I don't move around a lot in a day. I'm still trying to go to the gym 3-4 times a week for some cardio. I have light cramping afterwords, but the rest of my body loves the workout. I want to clarify that I'm not complaining at all. I try to be grateful for every symptom, ache, pain, and side effect I get as I know how blessed I am to be where I'm at. I love feeling his little kicks, although they are progressively getting stronger and stronger as he gets bigger muscles! This time is just flying by. We've already registered for baby things and we will be buying all of our furniture next month. I've held off for so long on buying anything. I figure if I buy the furniture in my third trimester, that will be safe enough. I'm just so dang superstitious. We literally have nothing bought for our baby boy. Well, I have a couple of newborn pajamas...and that's IT. People keep asking if we've started to get the nursery stocked with everything we need. Um, how about, have we even started to decorate and construct the nursery? My amazing husband will be starting that up soon, he's just been so busy with work lately, it's so hard to find the time. I have faith it will get done....I have to!

I'm just continuing to read all my baby and pregnancy book and trying not to freak out too much. Lately I've been having all of these mini moments of panic in where I realize that I have no idea what I'm doing and that I'm going to be an awful mother. I'm sure it's normal, but I just hate worrying so much. I want to be able to provide everything to my little boy and worry that I won't be able to.

20 week ultrasound pictures of my little man

2009-02-15T07:57:00.007-06:00

I am so blessed to have this miracle. I never thought I could love someone so much. I cannot wait to meet the little guy.

We are having a ....

2009-02-15T07:47:00.004-06:00

I knew it! We found out on February 3. It's so funny, but I just knew it. I think the first couple of weeks I thought it was a girl, but after about three weeks, I couldn't wrap my brain around having anything other than a boy. Isn't it crazy how maternal instinct really does exist? I even told Phil that if the ultrasound tech said "girl", I was going to fall off the exam table. Sure enough, after the first scan, it was so completely obvious. This little guy wasn't shy at all! Good thing we wanted to find out, otherwise, we would've anyways! The ultrasound was amazing. He was moving all over the place and at one point, he started sucking his thumb and holding his ear with the other hand. I didn't think I could fall in love with him any more than I already have, but I surely did that day. It's hard to believe that he is going to be here in like 17 weeks. This time is flying by. The worrying is starting to kick in for me: how will I know what I'm supposed to do with a newborn? What if I fail him? How can we afford this? What about daycare? The worrying goes on and on. It doesn't help that I wake up every few hours during the night to pee and then just start worrying when I try to fall back asleep. I know we'll figure everything out, but I internalize most things by nature, so why should pregnancy/baby worries be any different? Okay, well now I'll post fun ultrasound pictures of my little man!

18 weeks!

2009-01-20T10:43:00.000-06:00

15 Week Belly Pic!

2008-12-29T07:33:00.000-06:00

My first belly picture taken at 15 weeks. So exciting!

Love

2008-12-28T08:19:00.002-06:00

I know I haven't written on here since October. I guess the reason why is that this baby is such a miracle in the first place, I've been so cautious of every little thing thinking it will be just too good to be true. I'm going to start writing faithfully now so that once our little Bean is born, I can look back and read about the incredible journey we went on. Today I am exactly 15 weeks. Now that I am safely in the second trimester, I'm shouting it out to the world...and it feels so good. I'M PREGNANT!!

The first trimester was a little rough. I got my morning sickness at night, which was both convenient in that I was able to get through the work day, and inconvenient in that my poor husband had to hold my hair back and feed me crackers and wipe vomit off my face every night. He's an amazing man. I tried to tell him often in between my heaving. I did experience the extreme fatigue and occasional cravings (egg salad, pineapple, anchovy pizza, Kraft macaroni & cheese).

Around 9 weeks, I had some bleeding, which was crushing. Turns out I have a subchorionic hematoma (blood clot) near my cervix that isn't too much of a threat, but the obvious source of the bleeding. We had an ultrasound at 9 weeks and it was such a relief to see little Bean just dancing away on that screen. My OB said to keep our fingers crossed at that point. At my last checkup at 12 weeks, she said we are pretty much in the clear for having a miscarriage. I've never felt relief wash over me like that. I have another appointment at 17 weeks on January 9, but not an ultrasound unfortunately. I believe this next appointment is the blood test to check for spina bifada and cystic fibrosis and all of that scary stuff. The worries just never seem to end. More frequent updates to come as we continue on this journey.

I love this baby so much.

9 week ultrasound photo

2008-11-12T09:14:00.000-06:00

7 week ultrasound photo

2008-10-31T09:12:00.000-05:00

2008-10-24T13:44:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow I will be six weeks along. I'm so happy, but incredibly frightened at the same time.

Beta #2

2008-10-16T09:16:00.001-05:00

453! It more than quadrupled. Dare I believe that this could be real????

BF....P!

2008-10-10T17:45:00.002-05:00

I cannot believe this. I have been on a break cycle following a cone biopsy for some precancerous cells they found on my cervix. They removed a portion of my cervix in August and I've been waiting for AF to come so we could try one more round of Clomid before moving on to IUI. I'm coming up on three months without AF, so I decided I was going to call my dr for a script for Provera to bring it on. I decided to take an HPT just in case. After ten minutes, I saw a SUPER faint line! I told myself it was probably an evap line, but got some digitals anyways. 7 test later...PREGNANT!!!!! I can't believe this. I've heard of break cycle miracle BFP's, but never in a million years would've thought after 2.5 years of TTC that it would happen to me this way. My beta on Friday was 90. I have another test today to make sure it doubled. Updates to follow, but O.M.G!!!!!!

Encouragement

2008-09-10T13:44:00.000-05:00

There are SO many BFP's on the TTTC board this week. It is so amazing to see such blessings being bestowed on women who have never lost their faith that their time will come too. If anything, I'm learning that I have patience I never knew I had. Their stories offer so much hope and encouragement that I often find it hard to get down since I know there are so many others to hold me up through their wisdom. I'm so glad I found that board, I would be lost without reading it!

The world and my mind today

2008-09-01T13:44:00.001-05:00

It's a scary world out there these days. The housing crisis, stock market collapse, job eliminations, economy, upcoming elections, policital party chaos, etc. is creating a very unsettling feeling. I've been so consumed with TTC lately that now I'm wondering if maybe there is a BIGGER reason than my broken ovaries that we are childless. I can't imagine bringing a child into the world in the middle of The Great Depression II. It would be heartbreaking to have a newborn in a soup kitchen because my house was taken from me. There is a very real possibility that credit will come to a halt and will be given to NOBODY no matter the credit score. That is unfathomable. America exists on credit. Hell, the government moreso than anyone! Without China issuing trillions of dollars in credit to the US, the economy would've tanked long before this.

That being said, who will save us from this collapse? I think we have come to rely too much on the government taking care of us. Americans need to stop being lazy and do what our great-grandparents did. SCRIMP, SAVE, SACRIFICE! So we have to alter our lifestyles from extravagant to simple. Is that so bad? Only then will we start to see positive changes trickling down. America is so all about instant gratification that we don't want to wait several years to see the fruits of our labor. I think that's the problem. Hell, I'm easy to please. I would just like a bill to be passed so that infertility is declared a medical issue and full coverage is available in all states. Because at this point in time, if IVF is deemed the only way we can conceive, looks like it won't be happening. No way no how will I be able to come up with $20,000 for a procedure that might not work.

Enough of my rant, this economy thing is just freaking me out. Plus, I think that AF is about to rear her ugly head. Hopefully soon, I'd like to start the next round of 150 mg Clomid before 2008 is over! Ciao!

Admitting it is the first step.

2008-08-15T13:47:00.003-05:00

Hello, my name is Erin and I am infertile.

I am officially starting an IF blog.

I think this will be very beneficial to just let everything out in writing in a place that I can keep away from everyone in my life who is blithely unaware of our struggles.

Ten years ago when I was in high school, Mom took me to the OB/GYN because I only got AF every six months or so. I should mention that I was already pursuing a professional ballet career and so I was your typical ten pounds underweight female. The doctor mentioned that I “probably” had PCOS, but most likely the reason for amenorrhea was because of my low weight and high activity level. She placed me on BCP and sent me on my way.

It is now ten years later, I’ve ‘retired’ from the ballet world at the age of 26, married my wonderful DH two and a half years ago, and threw out the BCPs at the same time. Here we are, years later, and BFN after BFN after BFN.

Went back to the OB/GYN where bloodwork was taken and the official PCOS with anovulation was diagnosed with AF showing every 3-4 months. In July, I went on 100 mg Clomid but did not O. Then 150 mg. Then 200mg. Then injectibles. Then IUI. Nothing is working. :(
It’s hard not to get angry, when I see everyone else around me having absolutely no problems getting their BFP after the first week of trying.

It’s hard not to get bitter when the woman down the street collects welfare checks and is pregnant with her 6th baby from a different father.

I hate hearing God has a plan or that I shouldn't stress about it or it won't happen.

I never thought I would be that woman. Yet, here I am. And so begins the journey..