Time flies....

My friend's baby shower is today & it just brings me back to all that we were doing one year ago. Her due date is July 9th (although I think they moved it up a little); mine was the 10th last year. My baby shower was this week last year too. Bean's room wasn't even completely set up yet, I had just gotten back from a stint at L&D (complete with a shot of terbutaline to stop contractions) and I was still working full-time. Sometimes it seems like yesterday, and other times it seems like it was ages ago. Now we are closing in on her first birthday, need to get some decorations, plan some food. I sent out the invitations yesterday. Its hard to believe that a year ago I was baby-less, and even harder to believe that in less than one month I will have a toddler! *gasp*

She is cruising around more and standing on her own often, only for a few seconds though until she realizes crap, I'm standing here not holding onto anything...what do I do know??? I think she might start walking soon. That will be exciting and fun, and I imagine it will be easier to chase her down for a bit because she'll be a little slower when she starts out walking. Not for long though...then I'll need my running shoes!

It is amazing how much a year changes everything!

Homemade Baby Food

I was so excited when my preggo friend told me that she is planning on making her own baby food. Seriously, it is SO easy, it saves you money, and I feel so good knowing exactly what my little Beans was eating. Now she's eating mostly table foods, but I've got to get my butt in gear and make some sweet potato fries for her. Actually, I made some last week but I burnt them :(. If you think you don't have time to make your own baby food you are probably wrong. I have a friend who made a ton at a time, but I usually just took one day and made one thing a week. You can steam or bale the fruit or veggies, puree them in the food processor, pour into ice cube trays, cool in fridge for a few hours, and then freeze. After frozen, you just pop them out of the ice cube trays (sometimes are easier than others), place them in a freezer bag and label with name and date, and then freeze for up to 3 months (or longer perhaps for some things).So, in just one day you can make enough food to last quite awhile.

A great resource is www.wholesomebabyfood.com I got most all my information there. The book Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron is good too, but I found the website more useful. Yaron seems to push a lot of solids early on (at least in my opinion) whereas my belief is that the little ones should be getting more breastmilk up until age one. Beans doesn't eat anywhere the amount of solids that Yaron would suggest, but there are a ton of recipes for toddlers in the book & a good amount of info too. But, the website is free and WONDERFUL!!!

So, try it out. You don't even have to be too adventurous at first...just mash up a banana or an avocado and -- walaa -- you've made your first homemade babyfood :)

Applause!

Beans started clapping the other day. It is pretty much the cutest thing in the world! She claps ALL the time. She claps in the bath, when she wakes up, when she's eating her dinner, when daddy comes home, at Yo Gabba Gabba, at the cat. You name it, she's probably clapping. It always puts a smile on my face. It is amazing to think that just eleven months ago she was a little newborn baby who did little more than eat, sleep, and poop. She is all over the place now, you have to chase her around and she sure keeps you on your toes. Gone are the days when I could lay her on a blanket and run to the bathroom or make something to eat. Do that now & who knows where she'll be. It is hard when there are so many places in the house she can't go right now because of the remodeling. I will never, I REPEAT NEVER, go through a remodel with a little baby again. It has put so much stress on my family. I feel bad about this blog because it seems like I'm always venting about something, but in reality this is the only place I have to get those thoughts out. I feel alone. I feel stressed. I feel anxious. I can't sleep. I miss my husband. I can't wait to not have to worry about if there are tools or etc on the ground that Beans might find. I can't wait to have a clean start at a new house.

Okay, that's enough. My post that was supposed to be happy and all about clapping turned into another vent. Sorry. I guess I'll have to get Beans to start clapping and get me smiling again.

How do you do it with 2?

Today hubby asked when we were going to TTC #2. We have talked about later this summer or fall, but I am really having mixed feelings about it right now. Lately every day has seemed like a challenge to me. I feel like a failure at keeping up with the daily grind. I can't get Alexa into a good nighttime sleep habit (although, admittedly I still have never gone balls-to-the-wall all out with it). I know I am extra stressed with trying to handle the everyday things and the remodeling & I am hoping it will improve once the remodeling and moving is done and over with. As I try to find the time to take a shower in the mornings I wonder how would that time arise when I am caring for two little ones? When hubby is working these long 12 hour days, going to bed at 4 or 5 pm and I am trying to figure out dinner for Beans and I, I wonder how I would feed Beans her dinner and attend to a newborn as well. I doubt my ability to be a good mommy to two children. Somehow, and this is probably faulty thinking, but I think it would all be easier if hubby was around in the evenings sometimes. I feel like maybe I wouldn't have allowed her to sleep in my arms all evening, maybe she would not scream and throw a tantrum when I tried to put her in the pack and play so I could go to the bathroom, maybe she would nap in her crib. I don't know...as I type this out it all sounds completely unreasonable and illogical. But, I guess what it boils down to is that I am having so many doubts about my successes at this time that it is hard to imagine being successful as a mother of two.

I KNOW I want another child. And, as silly as it sounds, I know we would make it work. There are a lot of things I have learned these last ten months that would help me greatly the second time around. Maybe its the stress of the remodel. Maybe its that with all this work around the house and hubby's long days that I can hardly find the time to take a shower. Or that I forgo taking a shower in the morning so I can take care of some chores instead.

I felt bad when I told hubby I had mixed feelings about it. I think that was unexpected. And, seeing as how we were in the car on the way home from the grocery store and he shortly had to go to bed, we still haven't really talked to much about it. I want our children to be close together in age. While I always have said I wanted a boy and a girl, I think it would be fun for Beans to have a little sister and secretly hope they would be as close as my sister and I.

I guess I just need to sort things through in my head. I have been having a tough time lately and that just makes me doubt myself even more. I guess I just need to keep reminding myself that I am an awesome mom and doing the very best I can!

Thoughts about Breastfeeding

I've been thinking a lot about breastfeeding lately. Why is there this supposed "cutoff" at one year old? Nothing changes on her first birthday. Why is it considered "extended" if you go beyond one year? Let's face it, Beans is a boobie baby and there is no way she is going to self-wean anytime close to 12months old. Its not like I can tell her, "Oh, you're a year old. No more boobie." And, I'm not ready for that relationship to be over with either. My plan is to just go with the flow and see what happens. Even now I can see that as she is getting more curious about the world around her that she wants to nurse a little less often, but she still nurses to sleep for both naps and bedtime (at least the majority of the time). I don't know why people (loosely here, no one in particular) try to make nursing to sleep out to be a bad thing, something I shouldn't do. If I don't have a problem with it, then how is it problematic? She would much rather nurse than eat any sort of solid food. Most of the time I feel like her self-feeding is a futile attempt. More food ends up on the ground or crumbled up in little pieces on her high chair than ever makes it to her mouth. I guess that is how it goes though.

Anyways, I've just been pondering where this one-year cutoff comes from. It seems completely arbitrary. I know people have other cutoffs in their own mind, saying they want to breastfeed for 6months or 9 months or whatever, but somehow (at least to me) this one year cutoff feels different. As if its not imposed by me, as her mother, but by other people and society itself. She's one, so she can drink cow's milk, she doesn't need breastmilk or formula, etc etc. I guess I have another six weeks to get to that cutoff. The day will come and go, and I'm positive Beanie will want the boobie just as much as ever. And, maybe no one else will raise their eyebrows or say anything anyways. We'll see.

Mmmmm...coffee!

Apparently Miss Beans didn't get the memo that last night was mom and daddy's date night. Instead of going to bed like a good girl at 7pm she decided to stay up until nine. Which would've left enough time for date night, should she not have been up for 2 hours the night before and I was exhausted and Hubby had been up since 1am working and then coming home and working on the house. By the way, the kitchen looks fabulous, hubby made a lot of progress yesterday and I managed to get the whole thing cleaned while Beans was playing yesterday morning.

So, she goes down at nine. Up at midnight. Rock her back to sleep. Up at 3:00. Hubby's alarm goes off for work and we reset it for 4:00. First thing he says is "I'm taking a nap today." Poor guy. She was up for a bit and then up for good around 7 or so. Gheesh!

I'm drinking coffee. She's getting cranky. Maybe its time for a nap?

And I still haven't gotten to watch Juno :(

Tackling my house.

We are currently remodeling our kitchen and bathrooms and trying to get ready to sell our house. In an ideal world, all the work would've been done and the house would be on the market now. Well, its not an ideal world. We are mostly done with the kitchen, but still need to tackle both bathrooms and retile the entry way.

People who think staying at home is easy-peasy piss me off. It is hard enough to get the daily chores and mundane stuff done, let alone get a house ready to sell, with a ten-month old who is crawling everywhere, doesn't like to nap in her crib, and loves to get into anything and everything. Its not a party staying at home, and a lot of times I feel like a failure at it. My whole plan of cleaning one room a day has never really materialized, my house is cluttered, and its in the middle of a remodel. Do families with children ever have that nice, shiny house that you might dream of? I am sure it is possible, but at this moment in time, for the life of me, I can't figure out how to get it all done.

I do know what the first step is though & that is getting off the computer right now!

Cheese.

Cheese is apparently Bean's new favorite food. She gobbles it up like its going out of style. I am so glad she is doing better with her finger foods, and that I have gotten over (or at least am not as freaked out about) my fear of her choking on something. Mostly she has been eating little sticks of cheddar cheese but today she tried some of my string cheese. Her first taste was met with a look of "eeeeww" but once I started eating mine she was suddenly more interested in the bit she had in her hand. Then she realized that string cheese is, in fact, quite delicious. So delicious that she managed to get the whole bit I had given to her in her mouth all at once. While I was trying to "help" and get a bit of the cheese out of her mouth so clamped her mouth shut like "No mommy, I like my cheese!!" and then gave me the hugest, silliest grin I have ever seen. With a little glob of cheese hanging out the side, of course. It was priceless.

Frustration.

I have come to the realization that frustration itself is not a bad thing. I don't need to be beating myself up & feeling like a horrible mommy because Beans is frustrating me lately. It is normal for there to be times of frustration; its how you deal with them that matter. Beans has at least 3 teeth coming in. Now she's rubbing her bottom gums with her tongue too so I wonder if there might be more. She doesn't want to sleep, nap, or chill out...she wants to be cranky most of the time and has resorted to making what I can only describe as "wild animal" groans. Then she'll look at me, smile and blow me a kiss & the frustration subsides, even if its just for a minute or two.

You can't feel like a bad parent because you are getting frustrated. I have questioned myself as a mom, wondered how in the world I could make it work when we have #2, been mad at my husband's work schedule, etc etc. I think it would be abnormal not to be frustrated with a little one who was crying for a good 2 hours before wanting to go to bed the other night.

So, yea, I'm frustrated. I can't wait for these damned teeth to cut through finally and to have my happy little baby back for awhile. But I'm over beating myself up over my frustration. I'm a good mom, and all in all I think I'm handling this worst-ever (well, worst-ever so far *crossing my fingers*) teething episode pretty well.

I see it.

The left front tooth. Its there. There is some answer to this craziness of the last week. The days I have questioned how much more of Beans' endless crankiness I can take, the nights of no sleep whatsoever, the tears (on my part and hers). I have seriously wondered whether I want another baby (okay, not really, I do...but days like today sure make it hard to think about having two little ones). I feel bad because I feel like I shouldn't be so aggravated by her crankiness, but I am seriously at my last nerve. Her little smiles still melt my heart, but they have seemed so few and far between the last few days. My mom told me that teething didn't bother me a bit, that her and my dad didn't even know I was teething until a relative pointed out that I had a tooth. I guess I didn't pass that ability onto my little one.

On a brighter note, my heart absolutely melts as I lay next to her while she's sleeping. Especially the last few days when it seems that when she's sleeping is the only time she is calm and happy. She is learning how to blow kisses and it is hands down the cutest thing she has learned so far. I love her so much. I'm glad there are so many ups to outweigh the week or so of crankiness that comes with teeth. Each tooth. Four down, how many more to go?