Dear, (the water park eddition)

Dear mother of the 4 week old baby,
Your baby is precious, but please tell me that he's adopted or that your husband carried him in HIS womb for 9 months.  Please!  Otherwise, other mothers will be loathing themselves as they look at you and your flat abs in your itsy bitsy, teeny weeny, bright pink bikini. 
Sincerely,
Other mother

Dear very pale and very big man,
I will help you put sunscreen on your back.  But, only because I can spray it on.  If it was a rub on kind, well, you know... You'd probably be burnt.
You're welcome,
A little weirded out


Dear Eliza,
I appreciate the fact that you were pretty tired at the water park.  I don't usually mind holding you, either.  But, the fact that you took your longest nap in an entire week, in my arms, so I could not move or enjoy the said water park was a little inconsiderate. 
Love,
Your I-sat-for-over-an-hour-holding-you Mommy

Dear big kids,
I love that you are both tall enough to go on the slides!  What a fun time we had!
Love,
Some parts of growing up are fun

Dear E,
I know she's "your daughter, too" but I clearly have an irrational fear of children drowning.  So, lets not push my trigger as far as it will go before I snap.  I don't really want you to take our 8 month old daughter into the wave pool in the deep end.  She's tiny.  What if she slips?  How would you find her with all of those people?  What if she gets water in her lungs and then "dry drowns" later?  What if...
Always,
I'll stop now

Dear water park,
you and your awesome smelling fries sort of suck.
With regrets,
Soy and dairy free

Dear multiple women in the bikinis that have a stomach like mine,
I wish I had your moxie.  You, clearly, must have some amazing self esteem that I lack.  Rock it girl, rock it.
Regards,
too many stretch marks

Dear lady in a too-small bikini,
Please stop glaring at me while I feed my infant under this nursing cover.  I am showing amazingly less skin than you at this moment. 
Farewell,
Not showing any boobage

Rub a dub, in the tub sink

"hmmm...  bubbles and water.  this FEELS like a bath.  but, where am I?"

"Something's amis."

"I'm not sure I like this, Mommy."

"Wait.  What?  I'm in the sink?!?"

 

"get me out of here!" 

moving on, but digging my heels in

Its been a big week around here for this little girl.  Lots of growing up in a short time.

*She started crawling (really, a glorified army scoot) mere days ago, then just took off like a rocket.  She is super fast, y'all.  The child can go from one room to the next like speed lightening.  (It still shocks me that she mastered pulling up before crawling.  in.sane.)

*Her first tooth broke through on Friday of last week, followed by her second tooth on Sunday. (Her motto, "go big or go home!" when it comes to teething.  What ev.  She's a horrid teether, so I encourage extra effort to bring forth more teeth at a time.)

*She's mastered the art of going from a crawling position to a sitting position. (she's been a master of the sitting to crawling position for a while.  I call it the "lung" position.  She often times hurls her body towards the direction in which she wants to go.)

*She confronted her long time fear of Zhu Zhu pets.  (Okay, so maybe it wasn't by choice.  But, we did realize she is absolutely terrified of them.  Like shaking, and screaming, and gnashing of teeth scared.)

*She started waving.  (Not consistently, but who can really make a baby do things on command?!?)

All these things occurred with in a 10 day span.  I know I should be thrilled she's thriving, and I am.  I'm glad she's healthy, and on target with development.  However, I'm completely crushed that she's growing up.  Before she mastered movement, I could just pretend that she's still a tiny baby.  She is, in fact, still swaddled at night.  She didn't crawl, and she was content to hang out on mommy's hip.  She's gaining independence.

I have always loved the baby stage.  I've also have always been one to grieve the loss of my kids' infancy.  (as an aside, I'm convinced that people who say "oh, I don't get sad about them growing up.  I'm excited for what's ahead" are just not baby people.  You can't be a baby person and not be a teensy bit sad when your kiddos get out of that season of life.)  It just seems so wrong that she's my last.  I don't want to be done with babies.  I DON'T WANNA!

ahem.  sorry for the outburst.  As you can see, I'm not entirely at peace with our family's current decision to be finished having  children.  I'm still praying for that peace.  Or for a certain some one to change his mind.  I'm still praying for my heart to be changed.  That my favorite stage will change, and I will no longer pine for a tiny, smells-so-good, baby. 

In the meantime, I'm digging my heels into the proverbial ground, and holding onto Eliza tight.  Wishing her to stay a baby for just a teeny, tiny, bit longer.  Pretty please.

pee, poop, and no sleep: the bane of my parenting existence

If you would've asked me over 7 years ago what would be the hardest parts about early years parenting, I'd probably wouldn't have answered the same as I would today.  I probably would've said making sure they eat healthy or keeping them safe.  I am pretty sure I had no idea that the 2 hardest things in early years parenting are potty training and sleep "training" (I hate to use the word "training", since sleep training has such a negative connotation.)

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to  change with the number of children you have, either.  The two biggest issues in our house right now?  Isaac's potting training and Eliza's lack of sleeping by hergosh dangself.  Don't get me wrong, I've certainly changed some of the ways I parent in those two areas.  For one, I try to be super calm when it comes to potty training in hopes that I won't screw this one up he doesn't get stressed about it and develop negative associations.  I've also changed what my expectations are when it comes to infants and sleep.

According to my husband, "almost all" 8 month old babies are sleeping through the night with out eating.  We had a discussion about this very thought/statement last night that got a little heated.  He seems to forget the times that *I* would go into the baby's room to nurse them.  (Oh, wait.  He probably never even woke up to KNOW that I was doing that.) 

The only reason he is aware of Eliza's wakings is because she doesn't like to sleep in her room/bed if I'm not in there with her.  She has some kind of magical mommy sensor alarm that goes off if I'm more than 5 feet from her.  She actually sleeps, (usually) pretty well at night since I'm right next to her.  Its the early evenings, when I want to come downstairs to watch t.v. or run, (or any other thing that might require me to the use of both kid free arms) that her internal alarm goes off and she realizes that OMGosh, MOMMY IS GONE FOR.EV.ER! 

However, the child does sleep in.  She slept until 8:45 am yesterday, when I had to go in and wake her up to take the big kids to VBS.  Its just unfortunate that I can't sleep until 8:45   8:00  7:00  6:30. 

I mentioned the discussion E and I had on facebook.  The vast majority of people said their babies didn't sleep all night at 8 months, either.  (Also, I'd like to say that part of our discussion was about how Eliza is NOT 8 months old, yet.  I don't care if its only a week away.  She's 7 months.)  There were a few people who said their babies slept through the night earlier, and good for them.  But, I was referring to babies who were breastfed and NOT sleep "trained" at 2 weeks old.  (And, really quick, I realize that some babies DO just sleep through with out being sleep trained at 2 weeks old.  O would've been like this had we not had to wake her up to feed her so she would grow.)

I'd love to show that post to E, just to give him an eye-opening realization.  But, he'd probably say something along the lines of "well, its the TYPE of people you're friends with."  I'm pretty sure he's going to grow up and tell our children that all of them were sleeping through the night by 3 months and stopped breastfeeding at age one (my dad does this to me, even though I nursed until age 2!)

Thanks for joining me for this lovely rant post.  Next time, we'll discuss the awfulness that is trying to teach your child to go number 2 in the potty instead of on your carpeted closet floor.

Scenes from my birthday

Before the bridal party came down

The bridal party walked down these beautiful stone stairs.  The photographer says "look up and smile".  Um... you clearly are unfamiliar with my clumsy-ness.

I'm planning a more detailed post with more pictures from my brother's wedding, but E took very few at the wedding and reception and I was, well, a little busy. 

a reflection of herself

You cannot get a true sense of how funny this was with out being there.  She was laughing, hysterically, at the baby in the picture before we turned on the camera. 

My own Facebook experiment

I took the entire weekend off from social media (minus one late night tweet I sent via text message on my phone.)  No checking facebook or twitter on my computer or my phone. It was torture.

 I learned something about myself.  I may be addicted to social media. I was like a junkie, thinking about my next score.  Thinking about how long it had been since I opened up that beautiful "f" app.  Thinking about pictures I should post, or things I could say, or OMG(osh) what if something ah-mazing is happening and I'M MISSING IT! 

There were a few times where I *almost* gave in and checked.  Mainly when I was alone, nursing Eliza right before bed.  In fact, I almost caved last night at 11:00pm when I got up with her.  But, amazingly, I stayed strong and carried on. 

I made it the entire weekend with out social media.


Things I learned:

*the world does not, in fact, revolve around me.  Even my madre didn't notice I was not present via social outlets on the Internet for a whole 2 days. 

*It doesn't really matter if I "miss" anything.  It'll all still be there in my handy notification box whenever I decide to jump on the wagon again (fall off the wagon?  on the wagon?  not sure which is the right phrase there.)

*If something *super* important is happening, you have my number and you know how to use it. 

* I was a lot more productive when I wasn't constantly checking to see if some one commented on my photo or if some one replied to my comments on another status, etc. 

*I was a lot more present with my family.

But, what did I do first thing today? I'm sad to say I pulled my phone out and checked it before I even got out of bed. I know. I know. Shame and finger wagging.

However, in light of my recent experiment, I am vowing to give up social networking take at least a day each week to go facebook and twitter free.  (Maybe I'll work up to 2 days a week.  But, for now, its baby steps.)