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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

I give

To much is going on in my life right now -

- Keevia and I are sick. We both have colds. K may be teething. I dunno, I've given up trying to figure out if shes teething.
- If K isn't fussing, she wants to walk. ALL THE TIME. She can't do it very well, but she sure wants to.
- My ankle hurts really badly randomly.
- Satan is REALLY bothering our family right now. Like hardcore.
- Between medical bills, student loans coming into repayment, and me not being able to work because of A) being sick, B) my ankle or C) K being a fusspot, we're SUPER tight on money, which leads to SUPER stress.
- I'm trying to work, cook dinner, take care of a baby, start up a business, and spend lots of time with my husband. I have zero free time. ZERO.

I guess I'm just asking for prayer and good thoughts. For various reasons, Satan is just blasting my family right now, and it's starting to get me down... I'm praying hard and trying to stay positive!

There is SO much I want to do with Keevia right now. I want to take her to the Newport Aquarium, the Creation Musseam (okay, that's more me). I want to take her and her Daddy to the State Fair.

Mainly, I just want her to feel better right now. And me.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Pulling up

This will be short, because after almost 10 months, my baby is finally teething.

Yesterday, on 8/19, 10 days before she turns 10 months, K pulled herself up COMPLETELY on her own for the first time!

She has been super, super close before, but never quite done it! The only problem is she wants to be standing 24/7. Literally.

For the first time in 9 3/4 months, I'm exhausted.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Mothering

Being a mom is rough. It's not as angelic as it seems in the movies, or even when you look on someone elses life. But I love it. I adore every single minute.

I look back on when I was pregnant (and before!) about how naive I was. I would see other people (mainly online, because how else do we openly share our lives?) with their parenting styles, or things they did, and think "I will NEVER do that" and then the baby comes, and she wakes up as soon as you lay her down, and so to just get 2 hours of sleep you pull her in bed with you, and it's so much easier to nurse laying down, so you just stay that way all night... Before I had her, I was STRICTLY against bed sharing. I just KNEW I would suffocate my baby. But then it turned out to be the easiest thing, and we both got more sleep. I never had the sleep deprivation most new mothers have, because she slept SO well snuggled up against me. I researched it, I began following simple rules, and viola. We bedshared.Then, as she got older, I began putting her in her Arms Reach Co-Sleeper or Babytrend Pack N Play when she first fell asleep for the night. Some times she'd stay in it 20 minutes, sometimes two hours, sometimes more. As she got older, she stayed in there longer and longer, and the last month or so, she's been consistently sleeping through the night in her baby bed in our room.

So...Keevia has been sleeping the past 4-5 nights in her crib ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE HOUSE. I really enjoy being able to read in bed, or to shower in the master bed room, or to, youknow with my husband without being scared of waking her up. But I miss her. Like crazy.

She still comes in bed with me from her first wake up on. Usually she wakes somewhere between 5-7 am. I usually am up by 8ish. So although we get some snuggle time, it's not as much.

I always go and check on her right before I go to lay down. And the urge to scoop her up and take her to bed with me is sometimes overwhelming. My arms literally ache. I just want to be close to her. I want to STOP time. She is growing so quickly, getting soooo big so fast. I want her to stay little forever. I want to soak in our snuggles, and our games of peek-a-boo. I want to always be the hand she reaches for, the arms she wants to snuggle in. She's turning into such an independent little lady, and it breaks my heart -- the entire time my heart is swelling with pride. She's precious, precocious, and priceless.

I didn't intend on this to just be a post about bedsharing... but it kind of turned out that way. It literally is/was one of the things I am most pleased with about how I parent. It's not for everyone, and I fully understand that, but I wish it wasn't given such a bad rap in our culture. EVERYTIME anyone would ask where she slept, and I would say our room, they would immediately say "You better not bring her in bed with you!" to which I would respond "She's slept with me every night since she's been born, she just always starts out in her baby bed." What business is it of theirs? Sometimes I get very smart and quote that we're the only nation that doesn't practice some form of bed sharing. It just irks me. Yes, I know that sometimes people end up bed-sharing out of desperation, and end up hating it and see no end in sight. But a lot of times I think they really do enjoy it, it's just culturally seen as such a "bad" thing. I refuse to let people tell me that what I'm doing isn't 'right'.

Drives me batty. I don't think I have the temperment to be a mom!

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Breastfeeding = Best feeding

This week is/has been National Breastfeeding Awareness week.... or something along those lines. Honestly? I had a sick baby, I have barely turned on the TV (at Mom's house, because we don't have TV), and I haven't checked my Mommy boards, nor, really, read any blogs.

But I wanted to write a small post about how breastfeeding has changed my life, and how it's my favorite part of Mommyhood.

It really, really has changed my life. I used to be selfish, I used to be modest, and I used to be timid. When you breastfeed, you can't be selfish. Your little sweetie has to come first in EVERYTHING. You have to watch what you eat (will that make him/her gassy?), you have to watch what you drink. Doctors appointments (for the mom) become tedious because you have to repeatedly ask "Can I take that while nursing?" and when they tell you no, you have to tell them to find another option. You have to be proactive (notice I said I used to be timid), and speak up when you don't think that they're making much of an effort. You have to be informed.

And modesty (at least on my part), went flying out the window. Oh, I tried at first. I did the whole blanket thing. But then about 9 weeks, I had an undiagnosed oversupply of milk and Keevia had colic. And she screamed. Constantly. And she was was starving, but she'd scream at the boob, and the ONLY THING I wanted was for her to latch on and nurse because that was all I could do to make it better. I didn't give a flying flip if I was sitting in an easy chair in my living room, in the baby section of Wal-Mart, or in a five star restaurant. My baby was hungry. She needed to eat. I wore two shirts so I could pull one up, one down, and I nursed. And sometimes I'm sure my boob was exposed (for short amounts of time), but it was that, or have my baby scream... and I'm sorry y'all, I chose the unmodest responses.

I know there is a ton of controversy around the topic of breastfeeding recently... and I honestly try and stay away from it. I turn away from news stories about it, because I would probably, in all honesty, chuck something at the tv. And since it would be my parents TV, I don't think that would be a good thing.

This is getting off topic. I digress.

Breastfeeding has molded me into a better mother. It's calming for Keevia, but it's also calming for me. It soothes me. It relaxes me. It makes everything else float away for a moment, and the world suddenly revolves around me and my baby -- just as it should at all times.

It reconnects us. Even on the days (like last Wednesday), when she's fussy and clingy and nurses around 30 times a day... it still reconnects us, because I know she needs that comfort. She needs that nourishment, and she needs the love that I can feel pour through me as she nurses. She doesn't just get milk as nourishment, she gets love. And I love giving it to her.

I wouldn't be the Mom I am if I didn't nurse her. I plan on continuing until she decides to stop. Weird? Maybe... but this is our relationship, our bond, and whats best for my baby.... it can't get any more natural than that!

Time

I feel like a horrible blogger, and an even worse memory keeper.

But my days aren't lazy and carefree. I sometimes don't know where the time goes, but I'm lucky if I have time to check my email.

I'm starting up an internet business though, (see the facebook page on the left?) and hope to etch out more time for blogging and such. Keevia was sick this past week, which left very, very little time to do much of anything.

She's still doing this super annonying 9 month wakeful thing....she doesn't nap well AT ALL, she goes down fine after her bath, but wakes up 30 minutes to an hour later and is bright eyed and bushy tailed for oh, about an hour or more, and then goes back to sleep and sleeps through the night.

Weird, but not unmanageable.

We're getting into the groove of things more.... I can walk now (yay!), and I've been particularly trying to etch out time for housework. I'm trying to keep my dishes clean (something Carl does for me a lot, but he tried to cut off his finger recently...), the laundry caught up, and my floors not cruddy. Carl helps me out a LOT, and I am ever so thankful for him.

We celebrated two wonderful years of marriage on July 26th. I think we're honestly better now than we've ever been.

I have some ADORABLE pictures of Miss Priss to put up soon, but I don't have a camera cord right now... so they'll have to wait.

Everytime I feel guilty about my blog, or my photography, for the stack of dishes in the sink, I strive to remember that poem...

I hope that my child, looking back on today
Will remember a mother who had time to play;
Because children grow up while you're not looking,
There are years ahead for cleaning and cooking.
So, quiet now cobwebs, dust go to sleep.
I'm nursing my baby, and babies don't keep.