Indirect Encouragement

LI get discouraged a lot as a stay-at-home mom. Most of my friends with kids work and have 2 or more other activities they are committed to. They are at ease when someone else watches their child. They are a whole different breed than me. What sucks is, these are people I am friends with and so I am asked, "Why aren't you..." a lot. Even my husband does this and I understand why everyone does: they always do this or that so the fact that I'm not is strange.

It took me (I think) 6 weeks before I was back at church. I wasn't sleeping well and Emily had no schedule yet and I didn't really have a handle on this whole "get out the door and go" thing, but I really got grief from my husband and others for not going to church. I haven't been at youth group as a leader since before she was born. I explain why its rough (Emily's schedule vs. Falling asleep on the 40-minute drive and keeping me up as weird hours) but I'm trying to get situated to go back next month. I took a month to take her to the store. I'm sure there's more.

I know I'm probably an over cautious momma, but I kep wishing for people to tell me its okay to take things slow. Its okay to take 8 months to return to youth after being involved over 5 years because I was getting used to being a mommy. Its okay to keep a routine. Its okay to keep her home if she's sick. Its okay that I'm not ready to put her in the nursery.

(For the record, my mom is very good at encouraging me. She doesn't always agree, but she encourages me)

Lately, I'm comforted in more ways than one in my friend's blog. Her blog is reassuring as a mommy, insightful as a Christian, and helpful as a wife. I don't know if she'll read this but thank you for writing your blog.

I am seeking God in a different way than I was before. My perspective has become so much more grateful and humble than before. If I glorify and seek Him, this mommy-ing and wife-ing will flow more easily. I need to show my daughter the example of what Godly living is. Right now, that's love. That's all she understands.

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The Pampered

Tonight, I took the time to pamper myself. Romance myself. Indulge myself.

I had a bubble bath. A cozy, bubbly, candlelit bubble bath. I read a book. I closed my eyes, listening to Emily's lullaby CD over the monitor. And all this pampering was ruined by the fact I can't just do nothing. So I started thinking.

If I have time to pamper my body, I should start taking care of my body.

I need to get in shape. I would say "back in shape" but let's face it: I've never really been "in shape." I don't wanna be skinny or even slender. I want to fit below a certain jean size. Yes, that is one of my several selfish reasons. I want to look good. I want to feel good. I want to wear clothing that has no more than one X on it. My one non-selfish reason is because I want to be at a better weight for my next pregnancy so I don't have as many risks. Since we hope to have our kids close in age, I need to start now.

I have two days left of pumping (I'm on one a day now) and I will be giving myself one week of indulgence. It won't be the end of ever snacking or treating again, but it will definitely be less junk.

Right now, Emily's diet is so much more diverse than mine. She had sweet potatoes, peas, zucchini, bananas and more. And all that I just listed are homemade. She has maybe one or two things that are store bought (but that's because I either can't make that or its a gift from my mom) which is great because I save some money while I try out new things. What do I eat? I'm pretty sure I have one vegetable a day. She eats at least 3 different ones a day!

Starting a week from Sunday, I want to start working out and eating smarter. I am going to start at 3 workout-days a week and go from there. Going to be eating more veggies and less processed food.

Goal? By Christmas, I would like to have gone down 2 jean sizes. I think I can.

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6-Month Well Baby

The visit took a while to get to. Emily's appointment was at 10:15am so we arrived about 20 minutes early (since we have gotten in and out sooner before when we did that). We didn't get called back until 10:30am and I believe it was after 11am when we were finally seen.

Everything went smooth after that, though. Dr. Smith came in and did his exam. He tried to coax a smile out of Emily, teasing her about her "serious face" but the girl meant business! He went over her height (27 inches, 90th percentile) and weight (18lbs, 3oz, 90th percentile) and said she is perfectly proportional.

We discussed eating solids and I told him that she's already having solids (single-grain cereal and a veggie) for two meals a day and he wants me to go ahead and add one to breakfast time. He said to go ahead with the stage 1 and 2 foods and then I can add chicken and proteins in about a month or two, but its gonna need to be blended a bit. He said that, whatever I'm doing, keep doing it because she's growing and developing perfectly.

He told me she's perfect. But I already knew that.

All of my mom friends know, that phrase is music to our ears. Right, ladies?

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Celebrations

There's a lot to celebrate this week so I will go in order.

First of all, Emily is almost an unsupported sitter. She took her first ride in the seat part of the cart at Wal-Mart earlier this week. I got her the cutest seat cover. She seems to enjoy the new view of things.

On Monday, Susan came over and she got Emily to giggle. This was a HUGE deal since it was the first time for Susan. I cannot express how happy she was.

They were both a little surprised.

On Wednesday, Emily turned 6 months old! I can't believe she has been with me for half a year now. She's just such a gorgeous girl and she's all smart and funny and great and stuff.

I mean, who else can chew like this?

Yesterday, my parents dropped by for a few hours to put up Emily's FIRST CURTAINS that my mom made for her so it wasn't so sunny in her room during her naps. After, I got to spend some time with them and Emily in the backyard. I kept spritzing Emily with a water bottle to keep her cooled off which she really enjoyed.

And the best part of the week - Today, my parents celebrate 28 years of a HAPPY marriage. So if you know them or see them, wish them a good one!! :) (Love you, Mom and Dad!)

And now, my week shall end this way: Kissing my husband as he leaves for work and cuddling with Emily while watching The Muppet Movie.

The Beginning of the End

If you have read my blog since Emily was born, you probably know I have had a lot of issues with breastfeeding.

Quick recap - Had issues getting Emily to latch at the beginning. By the time she started latching correctly, she'd lost weight. Found out the issue was production and I started pumping after every feeding. At the beginning, I would pump about 6 times a day and would get 1-2oz each session. At my best, I was getting 10-12 oz a day. I would hand-express, even after I used the pump. As of the last two weeks, I've gone down considerably.

Since I've had so many issues, I had already decided that, at 6 months, I would start to decrease my pumping sessions. It seems by body is starting to do this for me because I am now pumping four times a day and I have been getting about 2oz for the first of the day, and about 1.5 for the rest of the sessions, bringing me to a total of about half of what I was doing before.

I kind of knew this would happen. I feel like I could have done more. For example, I could've tried to eat more (even though my time was limited) or pumped more or drank more. But that doesn't really matter because it's coming to a close.

Emily hasn't actually been breastfeeding for about a month and a half. She will only latch about 5 seconds or swallows (if that) and pull away. The thing that really sucks about this is that I am going to be buying a lot more formula. A big container lasts me a week right now.

I'm going to keep pumping 4x a day until her Well-Baby check-up in about 2 weeks. Then, I'll talk to Dr. Smith about how to not affect her digestion too badly. She's already eating some baby food (rice cereal and sweet potatoes) at dinnertime and, since her diet is less than 20% breastmilk, I hope it will be a smooth transition.

I hope that my next experience with breastfeeding will be a lot different. I think this time was heavily influenced by the pressure I felt. I kept hearing from person after person, "Every woman can breastfeed. Don't let them pressure you in to formula. Breast is the best. Your body will produce enough." I think that I would have stressed less and produced more if I hadn't been so stressed about breastfeeding and that I had to breastfeed.

I really want to breastfeed next time but I won't be listening to everyone about it next time. I need to do this my way next time.

New things

Good news first - Emily's cold is gone. Even better news? Even though she woke up at 4am last night (after 7 hours asleep), she was able to go back to sleep until 6am in her own bed. It's occured to me that my new "sleeping in" is 6am. I am glad I was in bed by 10pm but I kept waking up because she has been getting up after 7 hours lately. She was really tuckered out yesterday though because she napped less than four hours yesterday.

Before I forget, I finally got videos of her rolling over from belly to back :)

And then, from my phone:

We've been trying a lot of new things with Emily this last week. When I went grocery shopping, I saw a sippy cup for 4+ months and decided to get it. She's been taking up everything really well lately so I decided to give it to her to play with after putting a little water in and she immediately grabbed both sides and drank :) I was a proud and shocked momma. I'm not planning on weaning from her bottle soon but I was surprised at how quickly she took to it.

Other than that, it's been a pretty nice week. Father's Day is Sunday and I've already gotten gifts for my dad and Eric. Hope they like them!!

Homemade baby food with the Baby Bullet

I have made my first homemade baby food for Emily will the Baby Bullet.

My mom got me this for Christmas this last year. The system has a steamer and a blender and recipes for making homemade baby food. With all of the parts, it seemed like a lot of work but it was actually super easy. I had already decided to use it for the first time when I went grocery shopping and, since I know Emily likes sweet potatoes, I bought one (these suckers are HUGE) so I could use the Bullet. Which was much easier than I anticipated.

To make my sweet potato, I just had to peel it and chop it up and leave it in the steamer for 13 minutes. Now, I missed a part so I actually made a big mess with water that I had to clean but it still worked :) Then, you put it all in this blender for, like, 30 seconds, and it's done. This one potato made enough servings for over 2 weeks for her. Let's break down that savings:

Gerber First Foods
$0.98 for 2-pack of baby food. 1 pack = 2-3 meals. 2 weeks = 6-8 packs. 6-8 packs = $3-$4 for two weeks = $78-$104 a year for one serving of sweet potatoes.

Homemade Sweet Potatoes
$0.88 for a sweet potato = 2.5 weeks of servings = $19 a year.

Oh yeah. Saving big :)

The plus? Very easy cleanup. I'm very grateful that my mom bought it for us. It's going to save me tons :) And it's a ton of fun!