Sometimes I worry about blogging about things like my son, being a mom, my extremely ordinary life because I'm sure no one has one crap to give about any of it. However, life is good and I like to write about it :)
Landon is 3.5 months old. HOLY FREAKING COW. Where does the time go??? Just looking at my last post, he was 7 WEEKS old and I can't even believe it. He is a little firecracker who knows what he wants and who knows that his mommy is going to give it to him. He is full of smiles and CHUNK like no other.
Can I just say, again, that being a mom is hard? The hardest thing I've ever done. My meals are all cold, some nights I don't have time for a shower, my house isn't clean and the laundry isn't done. What DO I do all day? I have no idea; besides take care of this little studly, whiny, handsome, difficult, adorable boy.
It's difficult knowing I'm not contributing financially or that I'm not making a difference in the world. Long gone are my hopes of traveling to exotic places and solving world hunger (for now). I know I'll never join the Peace Corps or live as a homeless bum in another country just for the adventure. My dreams now are all about my little family. Making sure my hubby gets a good meal when he gets home (still a daily struggle), is Landon favoring one hand over the other? When will he start to sleep through the night? Are there biodegradable diapers? What's this red dot on his skin? Ope! Time to get those boogies! OH WOW, my life has changed. Surprisingly though, I'm happier than I've ever been. Hours and hours of screaming and crying and blow-outs and sleepless nights are often easy to forget when I wake up and see my little guy's smiling, toothless grin. Sounds freaking weird, I know.
So yeah! Life is good. I'm consumed with motherhood and wifey-hood and right now I don't think I would have it any other way. Pete is just trucking along in school and working his butt off; can't believe how lucky I am to have such a hard-working and just flat out AMAZING hubby. I am truly blessed.
CAUTION: this is becoming purely a mommy post.
The real reason that I sat down to write tonight wasn't really to just update the blog, but because I am a little troubled. I've been hearing and reading about so much as a new parent, because I have no idea what I'm doing most of the time. Can I just say, there is so much freaking judgement and conflicting information out there?! Breast is best, don't co-sleep, let your baby cry-it-out, don't spoil him, you can't spoil a young baby enough, etc. Seriously what is a new mom supposed to do? So far, my strategy has been to read about a problem as much as possible, ask for advice, and then just trust my instincts and see what happens! It's been working out well but we've definitely had our struggles.
Breastfeeding for me was absolutely the biggest struggle I had during the first few weeks (actually, months!) after my son was born. Not only did I have the normal struggles of latching, positioning, pumping, milk supply, and just not knowing what the heck I was doing... I had the pleasure of experiencing plugged milk ducts, mastitis, and eventually had to deal with a painful and horrifying abscess. Fortunately, after many, many, MANY tears, hours of reading and research, and sheer perseverance, I got the hang of it. Our little guy is now a healthy chunk who can't go anywhere without hearing "look at those cheeks!" or "look at those thunder thighs!" I just smile to myself because that's exactly what I'd always hoped for.
New moms, breastfeeding is freaking hard. My advice is to seek out support and don't give up. Set small goals. I still remember telling my husband, "This is the last night! I'm done breastfeeding!" over and over and over and over until I started to realize it was slowly but surely getting easier. I always read how "it gets easier" but never believed it until it really did. So tell yourself, if you truly want to keep nursing, that you can do it for one more week. Hopefully, that will turn into "one more month." "until he/she is 3 months old." "maybe I can make it to 6 months." And, as I'm still saying when I have to nurse in an uncomfortable place (like the NASTY bathroom at Comic Con) "if I can make it 7 more months, I will finally be DONE!"
More advice: follow/like La Leche League and Kellymom.com. Those two websites are very informational and supportive. Learn to look forward to nursings, because before you know it your little one will be eating solids and won't need you for nourishment/comfort any longer. Find a good book series or keep your phone/tablet close by. Talk to a lactation consultant if you have problems; neither my physician or OBGYN had any real advice about breastfeeding besides "it's ok to switch to formula." And most importantly, do what is best for you and your child. Nutritionally speaking, breast milk is said to be best. But pumping/nursing doesn't work for everyone and a lot of women lose their milk or are unable to breastfeed for a lot of different reasons. If that happens, take comfort in the fact that you are doing your best; you know what is best for your child and for yourself and it's ok if things change or don't work out quite the way you'd hoped.
Next thing that I feel the need to get off my chest is all of this mommy judgement. People need to stop judging other moms! I recently read a post that said something to the effect of...
If you're breastfeeding your child, you're a great mom.
If you're formula feeding your child, you're a great mom.
If your child bed-shares with you because you think that is what's best for him/her, you're a great mom.
If your child is sleeping only in their crib, you're a great mom.
If your child is sleeping through the night, you're a great mom.
If your child is still waking up to nurse/get a bottle, you're a great mom.
Etc., etc., etc.
Moms need to quit beating themselves up and quit beating each other up. We're all doing our best so just remember that the next time you go to make a snap judgement because one mom chose a different option than you. Please stop forcing your advice onto other moms, unless they ask for it. ESPECIALLY if you can see that you're causing them distress or causing them to doubt their own abilities as a mother.
That is all, lol. Good luck mommies. You're all amazing!!!
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Hello Internet!
So, here I am again. I am the worst blogger, I'm going to go ahead and just stop apologizing because I will never have the time really or the energy to blog on a consistent basis. Oh wells!
I am officially the mom of a sweet little 7 week old, PERFECT, baby boy. Can I just say how crazy it is reading my last few posts and remembering how life used to be? Having a baby is hard. Worth it, soooo worth it, but really hard.
I always thought and learned in college that sleep was just another need that human beings have. We have the need to eat, drink, procreate, and sleep. Severe lack of sleep can actually be FATAL. Welp! That is all crap. I feel like I am living proof that you can live without sleep because that is exactly what I've been doing since our little Landon was born.
Our lives have been turned upside down. No more going to class, going to work, or watching our routine shows on Hulu. Now it's dirty diapers, spit up, crying, a few smiles, but mostly crying. Oh, and WORRYING. I have always been a worrier. Warning: having a child does not decrease the amount of time you worry about things, it exponentially multiplies it by one million.
I am officially the mom of a sweet little 7 week old, PERFECT, baby boy. Can I just say how crazy it is reading my last few posts and remembering how life used to be? Having a baby is hard. Worth it, soooo worth it, but really hard.
I always thought and learned in college that sleep was just another need that human beings have. We have the need to eat, drink, procreate, and sleep. Severe lack of sleep can actually be FATAL. Welp! That is all crap. I feel like I am living proof that you can live without sleep because that is exactly what I've been doing since our little Landon was born.
Our lives have been turned upside down. No more going to class, going to work, or watching our routine shows on Hulu. Now it's dirty diapers, spit up, crying, a few smiles, but mostly crying. Oh, and WORRYING. I have always been a worrier. Warning: having a child does not decrease the amount of time you worry about things, it exponentially multiplies it by one million.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Back to the challengio!
20. Describe 3 significant memories from your childhood.
There are many significant memories that I have from being a kid. The first thing that comes to mind...
Playing at the apartment complex I lived at until I was 13. This place was the coolest place for kids to play (or so we thought). You had different friends in each building and usually your parents didn't care if you were out after dark because you were rollin' with your homies, simply unstoppable. There was nothing better than getting out our roller blades and cruising around the playground and basketball court, in front of the laundromat, or to get the mail. Ahhhh yeah. We would play tag, hands up stands up, hide-and-seek, and make up dances to old Backstreet Boys songs, joyriding in our parent's cars... So much fun was to be had. And we had it.
Another memory or group of memories was hanging out with my then annoying, now awesome, little sister. She's six years younger so she mostly just followed my friends and I around and I was the mean older sister that no one should have to tolerate or put up with. But she did, like a champ. I loved hanging out with that little squirt (who is now a gorgeous super-model look-alike that is way more mature than I'll ever be). We would sneak our hamburger helper into our socks and throw it over the fence to the sheep. We would teach our guinea pigs to run to their cages from the living room. We would chillax in our PJ's watching Pokémon or whatever else was on day-time TV. Did I ever mention that I have the best little sister in the world? Because I do. Boom.
More memories:
Hanging out with our "grandma Leslie" and our "cousins". People always told me they weren't my real family but I know better :)
Riding bikes and rollerblading everywhere.
Being the pickiest eater in the entire world. This has not changed.
Having tickle fights with my ma.
Eating TV dinners.
Driving remote control cars until the batteries were dead.
Waiting for Santa to visit our house.
Seeing scary movies and listening to classic rock with my pa.
Visiting granny's house and getting spoiled rotten.
Mojojojo, Buppy, Squeakers, Roxy, Fluffy, and all the other pets we grew up with.
Being a kid. I miss not having a care in the world. Writing love notes to dumb boys. Fighting and making up with my best girlfriends every few days. Ignorance to the troubles of the world. There were a lot of things that I loved about my childhood and lots of things I would give anything to forget.
Good thing I'm only in like, my middle childhood now :)
There are many significant memories that I have from being a kid. The first thing that comes to mind...
Playing at the apartment complex I lived at until I was 13. This place was the coolest place for kids to play (or so we thought). You had different friends in each building and usually your parents didn't care if you were out after dark because you were rollin' with your homies, simply unstoppable. There was nothing better than getting out our roller blades and cruising around the playground and basketball court, in front of the laundromat, or to get the mail. Ahhhh yeah. We would play tag, hands up stands up, hide-and-seek, and make up dances to old Backstreet Boys songs, joyriding in our parent's cars... So much fun was to be had. And we had it.
Another memory or group of memories was hanging out with my then annoying, now awesome, little sister. She's six years younger so she mostly just followed my friends and I around and I was the mean older sister that no one should have to tolerate or put up with. But she did, like a champ. I loved hanging out with that little squirt (who is now a gorgeous super-model look-alike that is way more mature than I'll ever be). We would sneak our hamburger helper into our socks and throw it over the fence to the sheep. We would teach our guinea pigs to run to their cages from the living room. We would chillax in our PJ's watching Pokémon or whatever else was on day-time TV. Did I ever mention that I have the best little sister in the world? Because I do. Boom.
More memories:
Hanging out with our "grandma Leslie" and our "cousins". People always told me they weren't my real family but I know better :)
Riding bikes and rollerblading everywhere.
Being the pickiest eater in the entire world. This has not changed.
Having tickle fights with my ma.
Eating TV dinners.
Driving remote control cars until the batteries were dead.
Waiting for Santa to visit our house.
Seeing scary movies and listening to classic rock with my pa.
Visiting granny's house and getting spoiled rotten.
Mojojojo, Buppy, Squeakers, Roxy, Fluffy, and all the other pets we grew up with.
Being a kid. I miss not having a care in the world. Writing love notes to dumb boys. Fighting and making up with my best girlfriends every few days. Ignorance to the troubles of the world. There were a lot of things that I loved about my childhood and lots of things I would give anything to forget.
Good thing I'm only in like, my middle childhood now :)
A BIG Update :)
Hey there pear! SO, life. Life, life, life!
First off, Pete and I are having a little boy. There ya go! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! We are so excited. And scared. Mostly I'm scared and Pete is just excited but I'm excited too but I also am scared. Makes sense, right? I am 29 weeks and our baby should be due around June 4th if he cooperates and my body cooperates, lol. I always said I wouldn't be one of those annoying people who post about their baby all the time but I can already feel it coming.. Please forgive me if you're as intolerant as I've always been with this stuff.. What can ya do!
So I'd been wanting a baby for like, a loooong time but Pete always said we should wait. Wait until we have more money, wait until our lives are more stable, wait until we were done with school, etc. That, for some reason, made me want a baby even more. I'll admit it, I fell into the trap of seeing all my friends with their cute babies and I started to reeeallly want my own little one. So after me asking for months if we could have a baby Pete finally said we could have one whenever I was ready! Yaaaaay! And then it became more real to think about. A real baby? Not just the ideas and thoughts and pinterest boards? Was I really ready to quit my job and stay home and change diapers and lose some or all of my freedoms? I don't think so! So we decided to wait longer, lol.
All my friends and family members had their cute little babies and one day I was ready and the next day I was NOT. We knew we had to wait until we were BOTH ready all the time, not off and on like we'd been. Women never know what they want. And when they get it they still don't know if that's quite what they wanted. Confusing.
Anywho! To make a long and boring story short, we both decided we were ready to start our family last year. I'll never forget the first pregnancy test I took and the slight pink line that said our lives were about to change forever. I always pictured myself jumping up and down and throwing my hands around Pete in excitement, just like in the movies. Instead though I sat in the bathroom for kind of a long time, just staring at that pink line and thinking WHAT. HAVE. WE. DOOOOONE?! Hahaha okay I was super excited, but like I said, also scared to death.
We had our first appointment when I was (I think) 12 weeks and the doctor's visit was just, insane. We got to see our little one on the ultrasound and received our first pictures. Looked like a real baby. There was a real alien baby growing inside me.. I'll have to edit this later so he doesn't know I referred to him as an alien baby.
And so, time has just been flying! Pete has been doing school and going straight from there to work Tues-Fri. He is such a hard worker. I can't believe how lucky I am to have him as my hubby (could go on about that for 5 more years but I won't, tonight). And I've just been working. My first trimester was super easy, no sickness, no nothing. I was worried something was wrong because I didn't have ANY symptoms really. I guess I was just really really lucky. Second trimester was a little more difficult. I was super tired, all the time. I would come home from working only 4 or 5 hours and would crash, I was so exhausted.
The third trimester (well, and end of the second) has been a little more tricky. I'd felt great and had been running a little and just being my usual self when I started to just get terrible pains in my groin muscles and lower abdomen. It was mostly when I would work out so I just started working out less to see if that would help and it kind of did but hasn't gone away completely. I talked to my doctor about it again a few weeks ago and he finally decided to check my cervix and informed me that my cervix was soft. I had no idea what this meant so I did what every pregnant woman really should never do, I googled it. Trust me people, googling something like that is beneficial maybe 3% of the time. The rest of the time you just read millions of articles about horror stories and you know for sure that your baby isn't going to make it or if it does all these other horrible things are going to happen. Just avoid doing that and your life will be much less stressful :)
Anywho, on top of that and a few other things, Pete and I (mostly Pete) decided that it would be better if I quit my job and stayed home the last two months of this pregnancy. Which brings me here again. Extra time=craziness because I feel like I always have to be productive and when I'm not I feel like I'm not doing what I should be doing.. If that makes sense. I think mostly I'm just a crazy person; but I'm sure you already caught onto that :) So I'm writing again. Just to clear my head and organize my thoughts I guess.
So yeah, I should be able to blog more now. Warning, the majority of it will probably mostly be about me and Pete and our sweet little alien baby. Ok, little one. There, that sounds better. But I'll try to throw in some other things to that are occupying my brain on occasion. We shall see :)
First off, Pete and I are having a little boy. There ya go! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! We are so excited. And scared. Mostly I'm scared and Pete is just excited but I'm excited too but I also am scared. Makes sense, right? I am 29 weeks and our baby should be due around June 4th if he cooperates and my body cooperates, lol. I always said I wouldn't be one of those annoying people who post about their baby all the time but I can already feel it coming.. Please forgive me if you're as intolerant as I've always been with this stuff.. What can ya do!
So I'd been wanting a baby for like, a loooong time but Pete always said we should wait. Wait until we have more money, wait until our lives are more stable, wait until we were done with school, etc. That, for some reason, made me want a baby even more. I'll admit it, I fell into the trap of seeing all my friends with their cute babies and I started to reeeallly want my own little one. So after me asking for months if we could have a baby Pete finally said we could have one whenever I was ready! Yaaaaay! And then it became more real to think about. A real baby? Not just the ideas and thoughts and pinterest boards? Was I really ready to quit my job and stay home and change diapers and lose some or all of my freedoms? I don't think so! So we decided to wait longer, lol.
All my friends and family members had their cute little babies and one day I was ready and the next day I was NOT. We knew we had to wait until we were BOTH ready all the time, not off and on like we'd been. Women never know what they want. And when they get it they still don't know if that's quite what they wanted. Confusing.
Anywho! To make a long and boring story short, we both decided we were ready to start our family last year. I'll never forget the first pregnancy test I took and the slight pink line that said our lives were about to change forever. I always pictured myself jumping up and down and throwing my hands around Pete in excitement, just like in the movies. Instead though I sat in the bathroom for kind of a long time, just staring at that pink line and thinking WHAT. HAVE. WE. DOOOOONE?! Hahaha okay I was super excited, but like I said, also scared to death.
We had our first appointment when I was (I think) 12 weeks and the doctor's visit was just, insane. We got to see our little one on the ultrasound and received our first pictures. Looked like a real baby. There was a real alien baby growing inside me.. I'll have to edit this later so he doesn't know I referred to him as an alien baby.
And so, time has just been flying! Pete has been doing school and going straight from there to work Tues-Fri. He is such a hard worker. I can't believe how lucky I am to have him as my hubby (could go on about that for 5 more years but I won't, tonight). And I've just been working. My first trimester was super easy, no sickness, no nothing. I was worried something was wrong because I didn't have ANY symptoms really. I guess I was just really really lucky. Second trimester was a little more difficult. I was super tired, all the time. I would come home from working only 4 or 5 hours and would crash, I was so exhausted.
The third trimester (well, and end of the second) has been a little more tricky. I'd felt great and had been running a little and just being my usual self when I started to just get terrible pains in my groin muscles and lower abdomen. It was mostly when I would work out so I just started working out less to see if that would help and it kind of did but hasn't gone away completely. I talked to my doctor about it again a few weeks ago and he finally decided to check my cervix and informed me that my cervix was soft. I had no idea what this meant so I did what every pregnant woman really should never do, I googled it. Trust me people, googling something like that is beneficial maybe 3% of the time. The rest of the time you just read millions of articles about horror stories and you know for sure that your baby isn't going to make it or if it does all these other horrible things are going to happen. Just avoid doing that and your life will be much less stressful :)
Anywho, on top of that and a few other things, Pete and I (mostly Pete) decided that it would be better if I quit my job and stayed home the last two months of this pregnancy. Which brings me here again. Extra time=craziness because I feel like I always have to be productive and when I'm not I feel like I'm not doing what I should be doing.. If that makes sense. I think mostly I'm just a crazy person; but I'm sure you already caught onto that :) So I'm writing again. Just to clear my head and organize my thoughts I guess.
So yeah, I should be able to blog more now. Warning, the majority of it will probably mostly be about me and Pete and our sweet little alien baby. Ok, little one. There, that sounds better. But I'll try to throw in some other things to that are occupying my brain on occasion. We shall see :)
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