Five fun updates

Geez, it's been almost six months since I have updated this blog...slacker! Well, I'm going to cut myself some slack here...I have a toddler, and a part-time business that I do from home, and a husband who has been home from work for four months with an injury...so it's almost like I have two children at home (just kidding, honey). It's also been summer, with vacations and playdates and all kinds of things going on...But I figure it is time for an update. And my dear friend April hounded me for awhile...and then gave up...so this one's for April!

Here are some simple facts: 

1) Logan actually, truly sleeps through the night now. From 8pm(ish) to about 7:30-8:30am every morning...I almost never hear a peep. In fact, last night I made my dear husband go check on Logan because we hadn't heard from him since bed time. And since this sleeping through the night thing has only really been happening consistently for about a month...I still have to make sure that it's real and I'm not making it up! It's a God-sent miracle when your 16-month-old baby begins to finally sleep through the night! 

2) The above mentioned sleeping began when we took away Logan's bottle, cold-turkey. Gasp! How could we take his bottle away?! He LOVED his bottle! Well, after 16 months of sleep deprivation, I decided that mommy loves sleep more than Logan loves his bottle...so away it went. And lo and behold., he had a few difficult nights followed by sleeping peacefully for 11-12 hours regularly for the first time in his life! It's good for me and it's good for him. Bye bye bottle, hello 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep for mommy!

3) Logan began to eat, and eat, and eat. Take away the gallon of milk he was drinking, and all of the sudden he has an appetite for food! I had to learn how to feed a kid literally overnight! After a few play dates where I was totally unprepared and my food-monster ate all of the other kids' snacks...I learned my lesson: pack a lot of stuff for your kid to eat when leaving the house for any length of time above walking to the mailbox. A walk around the block? Bring two squeezies, a bag of snacks, and a sippy cup. A trip into town for a few hours? Pack a teenager-sized lunch box of food for the bottomless pit of a toddler! It's crazy, but it really warms my heart to see him eating. It makes me so proud to exclaim, "Logan ate the ENTIRE yogurt, and a banana, and fifteen blueberries, and a small piece of toast!" 

4) Logan is eating more...and what goes in must come out...so he poops more too. Yes, huge man-poops that would make his daddy proud. And, he has decided that it's fun to poop in the bathtub too. In his lifetime he's pooped in the tub three times, all of which have been in the last 3 weeks. So that's fun. At least my bathtub has been cleaned and bleached more often in the last 3 weeks than in the six months before that!

5) Mommies hate teeth. Well, not the teeth themselves, but the process of them coming in. While it's adorable to see those toothy grins of toddlers, I can't help but dislike the gallons of drool that soak the front of Logan's shirts (and also get smeared onto my clothes too), the little dirty fingers that won't stay out of his mouth to ease the pain, and the whiney baby that just wants to hang on my leg all day long because of those darn teeth that are slowly and painfully making their way through the soft, pink, inflamed gums of my sweet child's mouth. I hate teething. You hate teething. We should start a Mother's Against Teething group! Until then, I do my best to be empathetic and loving to my poor teething boy. Thankfully I think all we have left are the canines on top and bottom (which I think are coming in right now)...and then we hopefully get a little break before his 2-year molars start coming in. Don't even get me started on those 1-year molars. Those were months of sleepless nights for me...but they are here now, and they are allowing Logan to chew real food without choking on it...so I guess it was worth it.

So those are my big updates for now. I'll attempt to get back to this blog long before six months from now. Until then, I hope you are all well and enjoying babies that eat, sleep, poop, drool, and provide the sweetest baby kisses and hugs a person could as for!

Hallelujah, he slept through the night!

Last night was the first night of his life that Logan slept through! He's almost 11 months old, so you can imagine the funny happy dance I did this morning when I woke up at 6:30am to the sound of him babbling over the monitor and realized that I hadn't gotten up with him at all during the night!

I can't even tell you what a long road this has been. I have to be honest, it's partly my fault that it took this long. I don't think I was quite ready to force Logan to be trained to sleep. I couldn't handle the cry it out, I tried it for one night and was tortured by Logan crying for almost two hours. I felt like the worst mom in the whole world even though our pediatrician said that cry it out would be fine since Logan was over six months old. I'm not bashing cry it out (I know that works for a lot of people and babies). But for me, I couldn't do it after that one horrible night, and I didn't think Logan was ready for that either. To each their own, but I needed a different plan. I have probably tried some modified form of every single type of sleep training out there - Baby Wise, Ferber method, CIO, etc, etc, etc. Either Logan wouldn't "comply" with the schedule, or I didn't feel right about it. I felt lost and sleep-deprived and desperate. 

When Logan was four months old he had the infamous "four month sleep regression." He went from waking up a manageable 4x/night (every 3 hours), to getting up every 45-90 minutes. This went on for about two weeks and I couldn't handle it anymore. I was ready to lose it. I actually lost my keys two days in a row, broke about four glasses or dishes, couldn't think straight and felt like crying for no reason. I knew I needed to get some sleep and this routine was not going to work for me. So at 3am in the morning I was desperately searching online for sleep solutions for my baby. I found The Baby Sleep Site and began reading all of their free articles and posts. I knew it was time to make a change. I loved their site because they routinely say that whatever you are doing is the right thing, until you feel that it's not the right thing anymore. So even though I am sure I was doing everything "wrong" if I wanted Logan to sleep, it was right until it wasn't right anymore. I was desperate and seeking help and answers and was ready to make changes. 

I had tried Baby Wise (which everyone swore would work for us). Logan wouldn't wait three hours to eat no matter what we did. He has always been, and still is, a snacker. He eats all day long, throughout the day and never would eat more than 4oz at a time, up until he was about 9 months old. I think this will be good for his metabolism as he grows up, but for certain baby sleep plans, this wouldn't work, and Logan wouldn't change.

The Baby Sleep Site didn't make me feel bad about what I was or wasn't doing. They have tons of free tools, but I knew that Logan and I needed our own plan. So I purchased one of their personalized plans, and that was the BEST purchase I ever made! We did this when Logan was four months old, and he didn't sleep through the night until he was 11 months old, so you can see that I took a ridiculously long time to completely comply with their plan. I'm what their site calls a "tortoise." I had to take things VERY slowly. I didn't want Logan to cry a lot. I understood that a little crying was necessary though. And I wasn't ready to make radical changes, so they worked with me to take very tiny baby steps with Logan. And each time we did, we saw progress. We had a long way to go from the first time they sent us our plan to now. At that time Logan would only nap in his swing, I rocked/nursed him to sleep at night and then put him in his crib asleep, and then would get up with him a lot and nurse him every time, he'd fall asleep while nursing, and I'd put him back in his crib, then sometime around 2am I'd put him in the swing because he slept a few hours longer in there than in his crib. It was a mess. 

I am not a paid advocate for their site, but I am a HUGE fan! They had me fill out a questionnaire all about my baby, myself and my husband, our parenting philosophy, Logan's schedule and habits, his likes and dislikes, his personality, my personality etc. They want to make a plan that works best for YOU and your baby. So we started by simply putting Logan to sleep at night awake in his crib (no rocking and nursing to sleep). He responded that first night, although he did cry for about 20 minutes, but he went from waking every 45-90 minutes back to only 4x/night. Thank God for small miracles! Then it was a long road of breaking sleep associations (like mommy, bottle, rocking etc), giving him a Lovey to sleep with, having a regular bed time routine, some crying with comforting visits from mommy and daddy, and many sleepless nights. We'd take a small step, see results, and then I'd be happy for a month or two. Then I'd decide I needed help again and I'd re-contact them and they'd give advice and I'd institute the change, see results and wait a little longer before contacting them again.

When Logan was 8 months old he began to only wake up 2 times a night. I was in heaven! So after two months of that, when he was 10 months old, I decided it was time to finalize this process. I contacted them again two weeks ago and they gave me more personalized advice. We instituted it about a week ago, and here we are! Last night was the first night where Logan did not wake us up! He was getting better and better
all week long, and not needing to eat at night, so I knew it was coming soon. And now that I know he's capable of it, I will continue with the plan if he wakes up tonight, and in future nights.

For all of you sleep-deprived mommies out there, do what feels right to you. Taking baby steps over six months was right for me. God bless you if your baby slept well from a young age. I am envious. But for those of you who have struggled with this - I wish you success in whatever way you choose to find it! There is a whole world of mommies out there who are up all night long and searching for answers! So rest assured - you are NOT alone. 

The very faint pink line.

No, I am not currently pregnant - for all of my friends who think there are hidden meanings to these posts. But on August 10th, 2011 I found out that I was pregnant!

The moment you find out you are pregnant can be so exciting! Your stomach somersaults that first time you see the pink line on the test (or the happy face, or the "pregnant" or whatever symbol designated to mean it's positive - mine was a pink line). For some reason that I don't understand, we don't believe that first test - we think it's lying. We feel the need to take five more in a row just to be sure. We finally conclude that yes, I must be pregnant! Yay!!! Well, hopefully it was a "yay," but it may have been an "Oh, $#*&!" Either way, it's usually a moment most of us can recall with clarity.

For me, I made the ridiculous mistake of taking my test on a morning when my husband was away on a camping trip, out of cell phone range, and not due back for 36 hours. What the heck was I thinking?! I got my positive, and then I was supposed to keep that tiny piece of information to myself for the next day and a half.  I wanted him to be the first person I told. That made sense to me because he's half the reason that it happened! So I was tortured all day long with the knowing of the little life blooming inside of me, and yet I couldn't tell anyone: I ate lunch with my mom, and I didn't tell her! And if you know my mom and me, we are superduperclose. We talk about ten times a day, text approximately 100 times a day, and tell each other every little insignificant piece of information. So to NOT tell her that I had her future grand baby sitting at the lunch table with us was excruciatingly hard. Later that afternoon I took a walk with a very good girlfriend of mine down a popular path to get a coffee. Again, I spent an hour with someone I'm extremely close to, and couldn't tell her either! Thank God and mosquitoes that my husband decided to come home one day earlier and was home by 6pm that evening! I didn't have to sleep with that miracle of information in my head! My husband called at 3pm and said he decided to come home early because mosquitoes were eating him alive. Who knew I could be so grateful for biting bugs?!

So then after we take the test, we get to tell the father about the baby. I had it in my mind that I would do something super cute to tell him. I've heard from friends who were so creative with breaking their good news! But I was so self-absorbed all day long with the difficult task of keeping it to myself that I didn't pour that anxious energy into some cute way of saying, "your hot wife's body is about to go bye-bye, but at least my boobs are going to be huge!"

My husband got home early from camping and I was practically jumping out of my pants to tell him, but he wouldn't let me hug him because "I'm dirty and covered in poison oak so don't touch me." That wasn't a good time to mention our little bundle of growing cells and then not be allowed to hug its father! So I waited impatiently on our bed while he showered. Then he got out of the shower and was taking his time chatting to me about his trip instead of getting dressed. So I waited some more so that I didn't tell him and then have him stumble over backwards with one leg in his pajamas pants. Finally, he was dressed and he turned to me and asked, "so, how was your day?"

Nothing creative came out of my mouth. I pretty much just said, "well, I found out that we are going to be parents!" Pause. Huge smile - then husband pouncing full body slam right on top of me on the bed followed by a big kiss and hug. So it turned out okay without the creative plan, followed by me telling him to be more gentle with the new little incubator that I was!

Amazing how mentally you go from "not pregnant" to "pregnant" with a very faint pink line, and in that instant your whole world changes. You see the world differently. News stories and movies hit home in a completely different way. Before you even meet your wee one nine months later, you begin to love them and worry about them and plan for them and their futures. It's a life-altering shift that takes place after that early-morning pee. Little did we know, we had begun the most difficult and rewarding journey of our lives, and we had NO idea what we were getting ourselves into!

Supermom?

I was feeling super excited to have started my new blog. Ideas about topics are scribbled all over my notebook and on scrap pieces of paper in my purse. Funny mom stories from friends are bubbling to the surface of my memory just waiting to be forever recorded and shared in this blog!

This morning I told my husband, "I did my first blog entry last night!" He didn't jump out of his seat in excitement to read it, but after I asked him a few times if he wanted to, he asked me how to get to it online. So he sat there reading on his laptop at the kitchen table while I played with Logan on the floor, glancing up at him from time to time to read his facial expressions...and I'm thinking...how is he not laughing, or at least looking mildly amused? Maybe only moms get the humor.

He finished reading, looks at me and says, "Supermom? Don't you think that's a little arrogant?" (Just so you aren't confused - in my profile description I say that "I am a Supermom and wife...")

To give him credit, I honestly can't remember if "arrogant" was the actual word he used, but his tone and look were asking me something along those lines. So I tell him, "well it's a joke, but YEA, I AM a Supermom!" And so are all of the other moms I know! 

Yes, I am a self-titled Supermom, and a Superwife for that matter! I accomplish more in an hour than many men do all day long! You can all probably relate, so I will not get into the details of the hundreds of little tasks that I do all day long that make me the Supermom I claim to be. Arrogance? Maybe. More like self-awareness. I take pride in my accomplishments of finishing the laundry, making dinner, getting Logan fed three meals, allowing him time to play at the park, paying our bills, checking the mail, doing the grocery shopping, vacuuming the house, tending the garden, AND working my own business at home part time. Okay, okay, so I had to mention a few of the hundreds of tasks that I accomplish...but it was to make a small point. Yes, I am a Supermom. And I am proud to call myself that!

So that's what my husband got out of my blog, the wondering question of why I felt so confident that I could call myself a Supermom...haha! I am not offended by the fact that my blog didn't evoke either laughter or tears from my husband. I can understand that he may not see the humor in my day-to-day life as a mom. He's extremely supportive and that's what matters the most. 

So, to all of you under appreciated Supermoms out there - this is for YOU. I appreciate you. Other mothers appreciate you! And many many years down the road when your own child has their own baby, and they are sitting there cleaning their thousandth poopy diaper, they will think about how much they appreciate you too! Here's to Supermoms!

When the Sperm Meets the Egg

Nice title, huh? Well that's where it all begins: when the sperm meets the egg. Since this is my very first entry in this blog about motherhood, I figured I'd start at the beginning.

I have a son, Logan, who is 10 1/2 months old. He is my heart living outside my body. I adore everything about him: his chubby little hands, his laugh and gorgeous smile, his rainbow sparkly eyes, even his slobbery, milk-mustached face being smashed across the front of my clean shirt as he grabs onto me. Not that I thought that shirt would stay clean for very long. I am well aware that the days of wearing jeans twice are gone (unless I don't mind a smear of sweet potatoes or a crusty booger on them). Gone also are the sleeping in, the leisurely Sunday afternoons reading, the nights out for "drinks" with friends. Oh no, the night ends at 7pm when my sweet boy goes to bed. But the moments where my heart expands so much that I think it might burst out of my chest from so much love...well, those have increased exponentially since Logan was born.

My husband and I got married in Kauaii. It was amazing. We love to travel and were planning to take a 3-month trip to about seven different countries during the first year we were married. Then I decided that instead of doing that, I wanted to make a baby. I didn't want to wait until after our trip. That biological clock was deafening! We had already done a lot of traveling, so when I sat my husband down and told him my feelings, he was supportive.

So the baby-making began and Logan was a planned pregnancy. You know the kind...you purposely "do it" a lot, you track your ovulation with those expensive kits from the store (which didn't ever show that I ovulated, however, I got pregnant, so apparently I did), and then you wait the excruciatingly long two weeks after ovulation to take the test. I was ecstatic when that little pink line showed up! In fact, I took the test three days before I was supposed to get my period. Okay, let's be honest...I took it a good six days before I was supposed to get my period. But I got negative results three days in a row before I got my positive. Then at 5:30am, with my first pee of the day, I saw the most faint ghost of a line show up on my test. Sooo, I took another one. Same result. I took a third with the same result. Then I decided to use one of the super expensive ultra tests...and that's where I got the very clear pink line. I was pregnant! Some crazy gibberish word escaped my mouth! Little did I know that when my husband's sperm met my egg two weeks earlier, my entire world would be turned upside down! There began the journey that I am now on...the journey of being a mom.

I am a new mom (Logan isn't even a year old yet), and yet I have so many stories already! Pregnancy, child birth, newborns, diapers, spit up, crying (both baby and me), new friendships, old friendships, hearing my husband sing to our son in the other room, rocking my son at hours of the night that nobody should be awake...these have been the hardest and longest months of my life. But they have also been the most incredible. And I know they are as fleeting as the steam on my third cup of coffee. I want to remember them. I want to bottle up those feelings and moments and come back to them when I'm feeling down. You can all relate (or if you are a mom-to-be...you'll see very soon).

I'll admit that sometimes (honestly most of the time) I have no idea what the heck I'm doing. I just wing it. I do what feels right or I try one thing after another until it works. Motherhood is a guessing game. I ask every other mommy I know for advice and input. As a woman most of us can relate to the saying, "girls are mean." Growing up, girls aren't nice to other girls. They can be catty and cliquey. But moms are another story... moms are so generous with advice and information. Mommyhood is a whole new "club" that you don't even know exists until you are initiated into it by squeezing a baby out of a hole you never thought could open that wide, or having your belly opened up so your gorgeous new (sumo-wrestler-esque) baby could be brought into this world. It's a right of passage. It is something to be proud of! You never knew how much your mom loved you, until you held your own little cone-headed bundle of joy in your arms.

So here I am...a new mom who has nothing to share but stories you can possibly relate to, or moments you can look forward to. I've got advice that worked for me, and may or may not work for you (sorry but it's true). I've got stories that will bring you back to your own life, remind you that while motherhood is the most difficult job you've ever had, it is the most amazing one too. Remind you that you aren't alone in this, even in a dark and quiet house at 3:52am when all you want to do is go to bed but you can't put your baby down because he will only sleep in your arms while you pace in circles around the living room, you aren't alone. We are in this together, fellow mommies, laughing off spilled milk (unless it's pumped breast milk, then we cry), and texting each other at 7am with a question (because we know you are already up). I hope you will enjoy the humor I find in being a mommy, and share some of your own experiences too!