The Mommy Learning Curve

Pictures

themommyk — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 01:25:01 +0000

Since it has been so long since I’ve posted, I’ll share some pictures so you can see what’s been going on!

Here is C playing outside this summer.

And C playing in our tunnel from Ikea.

Looking like a rock star.

Running through an apple orchard.

Our little farmer on Halloween.

And finally our new little Bean!!

Golly!

themommyk — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 01:04:25 +0000

It’s been almost a year.

Well. Maybe like 10 and a half months. But who is counting?

So. What’s been going on in our household?

C is 2 now. Running around. Talking. Getting into everything. Learning something new everyday. Exploring his world. Challenging Mommy and Daddy. All in all, keeping us very busy! But we’re loving it.

And the big news…

dun dun dun…

We’re having another baby!!

[There are moments in which I wonder, "Who thought this was a good idea?!?", but then I get excited again!]

This bean is due at the end of April. Actually, my due dates are exactly, to the day, two and a half years apart. So if this bean comes a little late, then C and Bean could be exactly two and a half years apart. Crazy!!

In other news.

We’re settled nicely into the house. We’ve painted two bathrooms and C’s room. Hoping to get to our room and another bathroom before Bean gets here.

I’m taking a photography course at a local college which I’m enjoying immensely. I’ve learned so much and actually know how to use this really nice camera that I own. Perhaps I’ll post some photos for enjoyment soon.

J is busy with his new position at his job. And with teaching a night course at our local college.

Other than that, just terribly busy with the day to day life of being a mom, a wife, pregnant, trying to keep a semi clean house, and keeping C from getting into everything. I’m hoping that I’ll start posting here more often. It’s fun to keep a record of how things are going and to look back and see what’s been going on in our crazy life!

It’s almost over

themommyk — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 03:50:20 +0000

It has been forever since I’ve written. Not sure why,
probably just that life has gotten insanely busy. Mobile children
do that. The point of this post. Breastfeeding. Or, rather, the end
of breastfeeding. A daunting task. They don’t prep you for it. They
throw stuff at you, left, right, and center, about how to start,
how to get a good latch, whether you should have the baby on a
schedule, whether you should supplement, when you start solids, and
countless other ‘shoulds’. But what about stopping? Weaning? What
does that look like? How do you do it? For all intents and
purposes, I got to find that out last week. (I will say that we
aren’t completely done. He does nurse for a couple minutes in the
morning still). A week ago I tried to put C to bed like we normally
do: dinner, bath, get dressed, nurse, in bed. But we had a hiccup.
He wouldn’t nurse. I mean there was full on pushing away from me
and crying. If you ever want to feel totally rejected by your baby,
this is how. No matter what I did, he cried and fought it. I
panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I had thought about weaning,
but I was going to wait till the New Year. At least until we were
done with our Christmas traveling. But apparently he had other
plans. So I yelled down to J. He held C and rocked him while I
battled tears and made a couple calls. First to N. She nursed
longer than most moms I knew. Surely she’d have advice.
Unfortunately, she was out and somehow her husband just couldn’t dish
out the advice on this topic. (N did call me back and was a HUGE
help. Thank you.) I naturally then called my mom. She calmed me
down. Told me her thoughts. Prepared with that and some mommy
instinct, I tried again. We changed locale, I tried to calm him
down, he latched for maybe a minute and was done. He was fighting
all attempts at trying again. So I rocked him to sleep hoping that
it was a one time deal. The next morning made me think it was a
fluke. He nursed, everything was great. Until nighttime. He wanted
nothing to do with it. I tried briefly the next night with no
avail. And since then, we now have a new bedtime routine and no
more nursing before bed. I’m sad. It sucks. If it had been a mutual
thing, I think it would have easier, but there were no warning
signs. One night fine and the next we were done. I haven’t fully
dealt with the emotions yet. I think I’ll ignore them until we are
truly finished. And I’m hoping to make it to 14 months with the
morning nurse. That is another couple weeks. But then again, maybe
he doesn’t want it. We shall see and we’ll roll with it.

He’s getting closer!

themommyk — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:16:38 +0000

We were at the home of friends of ours on Sunday afternoon and J was playing outside with C. He decided to try letting C walk with a little lawnmower [you know the kind]. And he did it! He was walking through the backyard just pushing the lawnmower! No help from anyone!

And now [thanks to said friends] we have a push toy that C can push around the carpeted areas. He was doing it yesterday morning. Let me tell you, it is very weird to have a child who, until now, has completely depended on you to get around walk away from you!

*sigh*

My little man is growing up so fast! It’s awesome, sad, and scary all the same time.

Oh. And he dances to music now. So friggin’ cute!

Our cloth stash…

themommyk — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 13:53:23 +0000

So you’ve heard me talk so much about the cloth diapers and even seen a few pictures. Well now we have all of our diapers [so far... don't tell J that I want to order more!], I thought I’d share a picture of all of them.

Here’s what they all are: [I'll add links to where to find them later, running out the door...]

1 WAHM
3 Sweetdollbaby
2 BG AIO
2 BG 3.0
1 Thirsties Duo
1 Katydid
2 Fuzzibunz [new version]
11 Kawai

So sweet

themommyk — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 20:13:40 +0000

Every once in awhile, you stumble upon something so sweet on the Internet.

I found one today.

Mila’s Daydreams is a blog started by her mother. She is on her maternity leave and has started imagining what her daughter dreams about during her naps. This has started her creations of daily photos of what she imagines Mila’s dreams to be about.

It is so sweet and it’s amazing what she can do with a sleeping baby, some props, and a few pieces of fabric.

We’re surviving cloth!

themommyk — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:40:47 +0000

It’s actually going better than anticipated [well until this little bout of frustration that just hit].

I’m loving it! I don’t mind the laundry. I love hanging the dipes out to dry. I love the fun colors I get to put on his bum. I love letting him run around in tshirts and a diaper, or even just a diaper.

I love it so much that I just ordered more on Monday!

Right now we have 16 diapers [with one more coming when we get to my parents house this weekend]. On top of the ones I’ve posted about, we got in a bunch of Kawaii OS pockets. I love them! They’re so much cheaper and just as good. Plus, they have fun colors and prints.

If you’re looking to order some cloth diapers, check out Sweetbottoms Baby Boutique. Beth is so awesome and helpful. I was super excited about my order and pestered her with some questions. She was prompt and answered straight away. Because they were coming into Canada, neither of us were sure how long they’d take to get here. But she was excited when I told her they arrived. Then with my second order, I made a mistake in my ordering and she changed it as soon as she got my email. Her selection is the best I’ve seen for Kawaii and the free US shipping and free shipping to Canada [on orders over $100] makes it even better!

We have a couple of setbacks going on right now. We have a bit of stink going on. I’m not sure if it’s from the Rockin’ Green or if it’s from the way we’re laundering. But I’ll be stripping them and trying again. Plus, he’s getting a bit of a rash on his belly that seems to be from me not being completely adjusted to the amount of times I need to change him. I’m still used to changing him like he’s in disposables and I need to remember to change him more often.

We’re away for the weekend visiting my family and we’ll be using disposables. It makes it easier when traveling, plus I don’t want to have to deal with those issues while we’re away. But we’ll be back into it when we get back!

Here’s a picture of C in his first cloth diaper! A beautiful blue Kawaii.

Catching up

themommyk — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 19:08:44 +0000

The past three weeks have been a whirlwind! We’re in the new house and are almost settled. We have some things to unpack and the desk area to set up, but on the whole we’re almost there!

The move was chaotic [what move isn't??]! We had tons of friends helping us move, which was pretty awesome. Thanks to all those who did help! Once we got all of our stuff over here, we started unpacking while our dads set up our appliances. Thank the Lord for dishwashers! I love mine! But they ran the water line, and set up our fridge… only to find that it wouldn’t cool. Long story short, we went a week without a fridge, had a mini fridge for a week and a half, and finally our new fridge came! It’s amazing how useful fridges are!

C is doing so well! I can tell that he likes having more space and we aren’t stuck in the same two spots in the house. No teeth and no crawling yet. But lots of chatting and his new favorite activity… holding onto to your hands and standing or walking. It’s so cute to watch, though it is a little rough on the back to be constantly bending over all the time!

C and I also went swimming for the first time! He was a little unsure at first. Quite a bit chillier and bigger than the bath tub that he loves so much. But once I showed him that he can splash, he loooved it! He splashed like crazy and kicked constantly. He even managed to get his body so that he was laying on his stomach in the water. Though he quickly learned that he cannot put his face into the water. A bit of sputtering, but he was fine.

And now the little monkey is waking up for his nap!
Now that we’re settled, I’ll get serious about posting more often!

Father’s Day

themommyk — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:55:39 +0000

It’s sneaking up on us. And of course, we’re moving this weekend, so it might get lost in all the chaos. But I’ll make it up to J.

C was practicing saying “dadadadadada” yesterday and I was thinking of all the ways that we refer to our fathers.

I refer to mine as Dad, Daddy, Father, Faja, and Old Man. We have friends whose twins called their father Dat for awhile. J will start out being called Dada, but what will it turn into? What will C decide to call him?

What do you call yours? What terms do you use? Is it just the typical ones [Father, Dad, Daddy]? Are there inside jokes [Faja, Old Man]? Are there names from a different language? What about your grandfathers? Mine were Papa and Nano. C’s are the same. J’s dad is Papa, and my dad has adopted the term we used for his dad, Nano.

Feel free to share below what terms you use or do use, and be sure to share stories or explanations!

Oh gosh…

themommyk — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 02:09:03 +0000

I just realized how long it’s been since I’ve posted.

*sigh* Life has been busy!

I’ll do a quick rundown of what’s been going on around here and hopefully I can stay up on posting.

The house. It is coming along quickly! We are scheduled to close on June 18th and then move in the next day. So that’s less than two weeks [12 days if you're counting... but who is? ;c)]!! We stopped by yesterday to see what had been done. The exterior is mostly finished [lights and such need to be put up], the ceiling has been done [California drop down, it's a pattern of sorts], the walls were primed, the stuff that goes under then tiles is down, and the tiles were sitting in the living room. I can’t believe that we’re so close! One of our neighbors have actually moved in already! We didn’t get a chance to say “hi” because C had fallen asleep in the car, so we didn’t want to leave him alone. But I’m sure we’ll meet them soon enough!

Packing. Ugh. I hate it! I wish someone would come and pack the rest of my stuff up for me. We’ve gotten a good chunk of it done, but it seems like there is constantly more! Plus, I’m running out of boxes.

Diapers. Haven’t procured any more as of yet. But I’m getting very excited for the move we can start using them! We have a buttload of sposies right now [I bought a box, then we traveled for the weekend and forgot to pack some], so once we use those up… it’ll be time!

Food. I hit a point last week where I realized that I had about 3 ice cubes of food left for C. I spent the rest of the day steaming, baking, and pureeing! But he is now topped up on green beans, carrots, applesauce, sweet potatoes, pears, and mangoes. I still need to steam some zucchini and peas… too many orange fruits and veggies aren’t a good thing!

Sleep. C has been sleeping better! We no longer are nursing in the middle of the night! Hoorah! And he puts himself to sleep [usually, there have obviously been exceptions]. And he’s been sleeping all the way through until 6ish! It does take a bit of work to get him back to sleep, but he usually will. I can’t wait until we can push and get him sleeping all the way until 7. Also, to make this more exciting, I really need to stop going to bed around 11.

Other. J is away from today until Thursday. So I’ll be living what I call the single parent life. J is quick to point out that if I were a single parent, that I’d have to work… so I’ll edit it to the ‘unemployed single parent life’. I’m hoping that the sleep keeps up and the teeth stay at bay while J is away.

C turned 7 months over the weekend. I’ve been having a bit of a reminiscing weekend, looking at pictures and thinking about labor, delivery, and the early days of him being here. I still can’t believe how much he has changed since I’ve had him. I also realized over the weekend, that I never fully wrote out my story of labor and delivery. I think I’m going to start working on that, so you can look forward to reading it [or avoiding it if you're not into that].

But it’s getting late and I need to get into the habit of going to bed early. Since I don’t have J to distract me during the evenings, maybe I’ll post more this week between packing boxes.