Mommy Moments

Addie is rather mobile, alert, interactive, and curious.  She is almost 7 months and the world is her oyster!  Last week in Mom's group she followed her friend around.  He is 13 months and was more into doing his own thing but that did not bother her.  Once she caught him she scooted up behind him, grabbed his shirt and proceeded to lick his back.  He tastes good apparently.


This week she decided licking, while fun, is not the only physical thing she can do to another.  So she crawled up to him, sits up in front of him and reaches out.  As she reaches out my mind goes "oh no"  I know how she grabs at my face and it can frickin hurt.  By the time I process and start to react by grabbing her hand she has already secured his cheek in her fist and pulled.  All with a smile on her face.  


Tears came next as pain registered for the little guy and as the time went on the red marks began to show on his cheek.  Five little red marks.  


Was I embarrassed?  You bet.  Apologetic?  Of course.  I sat there realizing that this was embarrassing moment of motherhood #1 of 1,000,000.


Amazingly Addie and I have been invited to go play with the little guy today.   Brave, brave mom.


I will try and keep her claws retracted today.

Just as scary as labor. . .

Vaginal Pimples.  Such a nice phrase.  I almost want to type it out all pretty like and frame it for in the guest bathroom.  


At least with labor you can get drugs to stop the pain, but no good drugs for one of those suckers.  The only thing that works for them is time and a hot bath. Maybe some Ibuprofen. I think I have gotten 4-5 of these and they are not to be messed with!  Also, pretty much leave me a lone when I have one.  I guess it is a price one pays when they tend to "try" and be well groomed in the nether regions.


Now this wouldn't be so bad if I could just get the hot soaking bath it so desperately needs.  Only problem is our master bathroom does not have a bath (stupid builder) and the guest bath is connected to Addie's room in such a way that it would wake her up (again, stupid builder!).  So the only time I can take a bath is when Addie is napping, only I can't take a bath when she is napping because it would wake her.  So I have suffered the last 3 days without a bath.  Hot showers are nice but they don't work.  What does this all lead to?  


Builder FAIL!!


&


Owww.

Mommy Has A Camera - Run!

I have had this computer for over two years now and I am still finding things on it that surprise me. It is a macbook and I have been using iPhoto since the beginning but it wasn't until a couple months ago that I began to play with iMovie. I have been having lots of fun with that though I don't fully comphrehend the program and what I can do with it just yet. My latest find is iDVD. I was looking for a way in iMovie to make a DVD for hubby that had lots of video of Addie and maybe me that he could watch while I am out of town for a week. First off, I shoot the videos with my 2.5 year old digital camera so the quality isn't that great. However, I am just blown away that I can actually make a DVD with an intro screen, snap shots of video playing and submenus with chapters. I mean it is crazy. . and such a cool gift idea! I know what I will be making as a small gift for several family members for Christmas! Now all I need is to get myself this baby:  Flip MinoHD Camcorder 2nd Generation, 2 Hours (Brushed Metal).  I think with that I could take some awesome video.  Time to save up my money.

I think hubby is going to be very touched when he comes home to find the DVD waiting for him after I leave for my parents. I am looking forward to hearing his surprise.

Eating Like A Rabbit

Having Addie has changed my life completely in so many ways. I made the decision to breast-feed and have been so happy about this choice even with the dietary restrictions it has brought about. I would never have gone top 8 allergen free (plus gluten and corn) without her and I credit my weight-loss and overall healthy feeling to this. She has changed my life in such a positive way.

I told hubby last night that Since having her I have two new passions in life that I didn't know I would have, her and the food I eat. This leads to two completely different life paths I could take in regards to work, early childhood development or Nutritionist. I think nutritionist is something I would have a great deal more fun learning about in school. Sadly there isn't a school that offers that near me.

Yesterday we went shopping at the market and I was all excited about my new cookbook: The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook and many of the recipes I wanted to try. Hubby is not quite the same with me when it comes to eating this way. I mean don't get me wrong he would like to eat healthy, but only on the cheap. So in the natural foods sections he started getting pissy as he looked at all the prices. I had him grab me some Kale and Collard greens and he started making comments about not wanting "to eat this shit". Yeah, that is what I get to live with. I love him so much but sometimes, I want to kick him in the balls. He loves salads and everything but because of the prices in that other section he was so pissy that he basically threw a fit stating he didn't want to eat this way.

Needless to say when we checked out the price was $30 cheaper than he thought it would be and he ate that "shit" for dinner and thought it was pretty good. With time I might make him a convert, but in the immediate future I will not be bringing him grocery shopping with me again.

"I'm A Father"

The first 3 months of new motherhood were insanely rough. Not getting sleep, not being able to get away and especially not feeling like I had a partner to help me through all of the newness. My husband froze after Addie was born. That first night freaked him out. I believe he even questioned if he should have had a kid. Then he shut down. I mean he helped change her diapers when asked and would do things if I needed but that was really it. He was not eager to hold her, talk with her or just really interact. It crushed me and caused a lot of problems for us. I mean it really sucked to be the only one holding her while she cried.

Things started getting better around 3 months but still they weren't wonderful. Then 5 months hit and things really started to change. Now at 6.5 months it is like night and day. This morning I listened on the monitor as he entered her room while she was still sleeping and did something that roused her for a second. I later found out he had rubbed her back and then kissed her cheek before heading out to work. Last night he made the random comment that he wants to take her with him when he goes places (work related and other). He has always loved her but each day that love is growing and he is showing it more and more. My heart is melting and a huge part of me is screaming for joy over the fact that it has changed. Once she became more lively and mobile and her personality has started to come out he completely melted.

It has been a long hard road to this point and I am so glad to finally have reached it. Whether or not we will have another child is up in the air. I am not sure I can wait 5 months to reach this point again with another child. To hear him say "I'm a father now, isn't that weird" is so nice though. I love them both to bits and can't wait to watch as their relationship continues to grow.

Auto Karma

Today while on my way to Target for some much needed retail therapy I watched as an older woman merged out into traffic and slowed to try and get into the far left lane. There was not a steady stream of cars coming when she moved out and though I did think it odd how slow she was moving I didn't think it warranted the horn blast she got for the lady coming up behind her. It then became clear that the reason she was moving so slow is that she wanted in the left lane so she could get into the left turn lane and she would not have the opportunity to do so again. I understood the dilemma, I have even had the same issue time and time again. If you don't get into the lane now, you won't have another chance and will have to drive past your turn and have to navigate back. Once she successfully got into the left lane (this just took a matter of seconds) the lady behind her quickly drove past and flipped her the finger.

Really!?!? Was that so called for? All I have to say is that older lady did not deserve that and hope that the other lady gets some karma back for that move.

6 Months. . .Wow. Actually over 6 months, almost 6.5 months to be exact. Every day she takes my breath away a little more, my little Addie. Addie Patty Pie to those in the know. She is such a happy child (except at 11pm 3am and 5am or somewhere there abouts) laughing, giggling and smiling so big at the world around her. I can't imagine life with out her.

It is tough for me to leave sometimes to go do things by myself. Not because I don't want some "me" time. I do, oh deary I do. I just have anxiety that something might happen to me or her and one of us will left without the other. It is horrible to think this I know but I can't help to worry. She lights up my life and I want her to know that. I want her to know how much I love her. I want to watch her grow up. I want to watch her learn and laugh. 6 months seems like so long especially as I waited to get out of the newborn stage (so not into the up every 2 hours thing) but it also is just not enough. I can't wait to spend the rest of my life watching her. All I want is to see her happy, for the rest of her life. A very tall order but one I will try so very hard to make happen.

Imagine

Imagine if you will how my night went last night. Dear husband out of town, just me, Addie and the cat.

Addie wakes at 1:30 for her nightly feeding (not bad went 7 hrs before needing food). I feed her, I leak all the way down my shirt out of my other boob. I do this because I took fenugreek to up my supply. Amazing the amount you can soak a shirt.

Off to bed I crawl after 2:00am when we finish, wet shirt and all.

Then sometime between 2:00am and 3:30am a loud shrieking sound jars me awake. In my daze I quickly adjust to baby monitor to lower its volume thinking in my half sleep world that the monitor is yelling at me because the signal got messed up (Like hitting the snooze button on an alarm, but I don't do alarm clocks anymore because I have Addie).

Then I soon wake to the sound of sir cat hucking up. The night before I got out of bed and attempted to catch him before he ruined the carpet, again. Last night, too tired. Screw it I say. I will clean it in the morning.

Then 3:30am rolls around and the shrieking happens again. I awake, fully this time. Oh, that would be the sound of a smoke alarm, telling me the battery is dying.. . . fuck.

I roll out of bed and attempt to find the offending smoke detector. Oh look, the cat threw up chunks in the hallway. Nice. Get towel and pick up. Smoke detector sounds again. Yay! It is the one in the hallway with the low ceiling. Maybe I can reach?

Haul in the step ladder, clock now says 3:37am. Please don't let this wake the child. Climb on step ladder. Crap, too short. Lets think about this, how do I get it to stop announcing it needs a new battery so I can sleep. Maybe if I can press the hush button? Look around, ohh spoon! Grab spoon and proceed to press the hush button. Stand there looking up and smoke detector, hush is only really going to work for if it was going off. Crosses fingers and puts everything up.

Off to bed I head. The smoke detector was nice to me the rest of the night. Otherwise I had my good friend Mister Broom at the ready to dismantle. Oh yes I would have.

Why?

Why can I not fall asleep early on the nights she decideds to sleep well?

Why does she always have to make a bee line for the cat's ass. . .his dirty dirty ass?

Why does the cat have to throw up more after we cleaned the carpets than before?

Why didn't I fine the degree completion program last year so I could be almost done with it rather than just now looking into it, especially when I don't know how much longer we will be here?

Why does the kid have to be such a poor traveler when I really want to do some traveling?

Why did my netflix movie not come yesterday as promised? Wolfman where are you?

Why do my Dad's new golf clubs that hubby purchased for him have to arrive today, after Dad goes golfing?

Why did my hair have to start falling out to the point that it always looks greasy and stringy now?

Why do good people always seem to get screwed over?

Just a few things I wonder about this morning.

I miss food.

Addie has a sensitive stomach. I think the Rotavirus vaccine caused greater sensitivity and so just cutting out dairy and soy is not good enough. I am free of the top eight allergens: Dairy, Soy,Egg, Wheat, Peanut, Tree Nuts, Fish, and Shellfish. I also stay away from gluten completely. Well, Addie started solids a couple weeks ago and her poop became mushy instead of runny and the green mucous poop went away so I thought, YAY! I figured eating healthy whole foods that avoid the top 8 and gluten would be okay. Except last Monday green poop returned after I ate large quantities of black olives and kidney beans. She also tried Sweet potatoes the day before and I accidently had something with soy in it. I have been on this strict diet for three or so months and it is a bit depressing at times. I mean olives, and kidney beans come on. It has been a week and she is still pooping green so I don't know what it might have been and why it isn't gone yet. I would love to live this healthy diet but without worry of what healthy veggies I eat. I can barely snack. This is getting old, and quick.

Higher Education

I started thinking today what I might want to do when it is time to return to work (4 years or so). Hubby and I had that talk. One of the women at my mom's group was talking about how she is thinking of doing her own kind of preschool with some other mom's rather than sending their kids to some place for $500 + a month. Then I found out a university near me has a degree completion course in Early Childhood Education that is completely online. I would only get jobs working as a preK teacher so money would be very little but a part of me thinks it would be good. I would hope that I would have short days and be able to spend my afternoons with my daughter and extra income is extra income. Granted how much money will it cost us for me to finish? Will I qualify for financial aid, scholarships, etc. There is so much to think about but a part of me is really excited at this idea. I am also unsure. I need to talk with a counselor and see. This or maybe psychology? Who knows.

Lonely

This past 4th of July was spent with my parents. They came up on Thursday the same day we came home and then left for home early Monday morning. Addie was completely happy the whole time, and why not there was always someone to play with. She even slept 9 hours straight one night and only woke because I woke her (hello painfully engorged boobies). It was a wonderful visit. My husband and father went out golfing on Friday, and shopping in a historical town on Saturday for all of us. Sunday my mother and I went out for just over 2 hours without Addie and shopped at Target. It was amazing. Then my husband and father went for a golf lesson. I did not watch any fireworks and didn't need to. The house was filled with talk and laughter. I never saw my husband mad, angry or depressed (except for Friday morning but the rest of the time he was always happy). It was just so wonderful. Now they are back home, and hubby is back at work.

I am lonely. I am depressed. This makes me feel so lost. What am I doing? What can I do? I want to create my own work at home business but haven't the clue what I would do. This was brought about by my husband and his talk about my return to work in a couple years. I feel like there is a count down clock over my head for my return to work. I don't know what I will do when I rejoin the working force. I have no degree and I really don't want to work in the medical field again. I don't want to deal with patients or customers. I rather work behind the scenes or if there was a job that was flexible and allowed me to spend time with Addie after school so I could take her to practices, or anything else. It sucks feeling so sad and depressed after the most amazing weekend. Addie even started propelling herself forward and rocking on her knees which means crawling is coming around the corner in maybe a few weeks.

Last night I did make a kick butt Quinoa and chicken dinner that I am calling Fiesta Chicken. I will need to post the the recipe the next time I make it. It is tough making yummy new gluten/diary/egg/soy etc. free meals. I am reminded of the need for this though because I accidentally had soy in a mixture on Sunday and for the past two days have been dealing with mucousy green poops from Addie. Granted I also started sweet potatoes on Sunday but I will retry those in a few days to see if they were the cause or if it was the soy.

My mind is so jumbled right now I can't really write a well thought out post so I think I will end things here.

Well, that was STUPID

First it really sucks to be without internet when you are addicted to it. We left town on Tuesday and did not get back until today and sadly my computer would not connect to the hotel's internet. My iPod was able to connect but quickly died as I told it to do more and more things.

First and for most traveling with a baby sucks. Addie has not figured how to sleep longer than 30 min at a time in the car. She freaks out the first day we are anywhere new and will not sleep in the pack n play until she because accustomed to it again. I think she thinks I am going to leave her since it is unfamiliar. So she usually will only sleep with me until she has spent a day anywhere and then she is cool with sleeping in her portable crib. Also, when your kid needs to cry for 10 minutes most of the time before falling asleep things can get pretty uncomfortable in the hotel room when you have neighbors. I don't want to bother them, especially at night so I usually ended up snuggling with her until I knew they were gone and then would put her down in the crib and soothe her while she cried. Granted I loved how the first night our neighbors had adult children (because lord knows you have to put all the kids in a hotel in rooms next to each other) that found it fun to run like a stampede in their room for most of the evening. Wanted to kick some major child butt that night. So lets just say she didn't sleep well at all which meant neither did I.

This morning after a night of fairly little sleep I woke and prepared for the day which included packing because we were leaving. I realized that I had forgotten to take my vitamins last night so I quickly gulped them down on an empty stomach. Not too long after my stomach started to inform me that this was a horrible mistake. I started to eat a banana and some cereal in hopes of making my stomach feel better but that was a lost cause. I laid on the bed holding my stomach feeling horribly sick and thinking how I don't want the rest of the day to be like this. So I decided I needed to throw up the vitamins. Yeah, here is where we meet stupid me. I hate throwing up. I have to be really sick to throw up. My stomach will hold out as long as it can even if it will make me feel better.

So there I squatted in the hotel bathroom. Hovering over the toilet holding my hair with one hand and my pinking finger in my mouth (not sure why I chose the shortest finger). I was able to gag myself pretty well at least 5 times before realizing I needed to touch the hangy ball thing-a-ma-jig there in the back. So I switched to my pointer finger and nudged away. My stomach seized and squeezed but I was only able to throw up a teenie tiny bit of food, not vitamin. I tried and tried but finally my body got use to me gagging myself and stopped reacting but not before having exercised my stomach. I soon realized that the vitamin pain was gone and instead replaced by a new pain of a stomach that had worked out way more than it would have liked. So basically I was miserable for the rest of the day and should have never tried to throw up and just lived with the vitamin pain.

I will never, ever, do that again.