It's Christmastime, again, and I forgot about my blog, again.

Well, what can I say... things have gotten really crazy the past few months. Joe started a new job up at Dartmouth Hitchcock and no longer has Daddy Thursdays with Owen. In addition he's been working until 6:30 or 7 every night so Owen and I are fending for ourselves from 5 onward. We've slowly started to adapt, but I didn't realize how much I depended on Joe's help during those suppertime/pre-bed time hours. While I was making dinner Joe could play with Owen, while I bathed Owen, Joe would clean up. We'd both read stories with him and then Joe would put him to bed. Now we come home, I try to pop dinner in the oven quick and start the wood stove, we eat, throw dishes in the sink and do a bath if there's time. Luckily most night Joe is home in time to read books and put Owen to bed.

Since Joe went back to 5 days a week, we needed to look for daycare 2 days a week, after lots of stress and searching we found the perfect place, Froggy Lane! It's about 2 miles from the house, and it's a wonderful in home daycare led by Joan and her daughter Jessie. Owen absolutely loves it there, and has really developed some rad skills since going there, including biting (every kid in daycare) but that's another story for another time. For now I'm focusing on the positive, no munching friends, and I'm so grateful that he's safe and happy :)

Crazy Baby

One thing I love about having a baby is teaching them tricks. Perhaps that doesn't sound right, I love teaching babies new and funny things. Owen is totally game for all of them.

We'll never sleep... god knows we'll try

We will sleep again, right? I mean, at some point in my child's life he's going to sleep through the night, right?




Here's all the reasons I'm told Owen doesn't sleep through the night (please note these are not in order of annoyance)




1. I nurse him in bed and we cuddle and sing until he falls asleep

2. We bedshare.

3. We don't let him CIO

4. When he wakes up at night I nurse him back to sleep.

5. When he wakes up at night we rock and cuddle him.




I get it, I really do. My son would probably sleep just fine all alone in his crib, just down the hall. In fact, I'm sure we'd all sleep better without getting kicked in the face by a squirmy baby. But here's the thing, my squishy, squirmy baby isn't going to want to sleep with his Mama forever and some day I'll miss the nights of cuddling. Some people say you have to let your child figure out how to soothe themselves, which I agree with, but I think there are other ways to do it besides at bedtime.




At first I sometimes felt like I was somehow not "living up to my mom duties" if Owen slept with us at 1 year, or 2 years or whatever, there's always so much pressure to get your kid in their own bed or to go to sleep by themselves at night, I thought maybe I was taking the easy way out by just letting him sleep with us. But now I'm really proud of our decision, we have a happy baby and happy parents and we're doing what we think is right for us.




And it's not forever, right?

A throw back to the days when all my son did was sleep!

Sick or whiny?

I mean really, how can you tell the difference?

Owen's had a cold for two weeks, nothing terrible but it involved tons of snot, a hacking cough, low grade fever, no sleep and lots of whining (Joe gets really cranky with limited sleep) Luckily for us, this is the first time that Owen's ever really been sick. Unluckily, we were totally unprepared and had no idea what to expect. I didn't want to go to the Dr., expose Owie to more germs and risk getting sicker for a simple cold. On the other hand, what if it was something more and there was something she could do about it?
So here's my question, when is it appropriate to take your baby in? As a first time mom everything is new, just as it is for your baby. He's never been sick before and I've never had the sole responsibility of caring for someone who is sick. When you're a kid (and even an adult) you can always rely on your mom to make you feel better and take care of you. Now as the mom someone is relying on you for that and trust me, it's not as easy as your mom made it seem! The weight of knowing your baby is relying on you so much to take care of them is never more apparent then when your child is sick. My mom kept telling me to trust my "mommy instincts" and that I'd "just know" if Owen needed to go to the Dr., but I couldn't help thinking, "what if I don't have Mommy instincts yet, or worse, what if they're wrong?"

Tuesday, somewhere around 11-5 am (approximate hours I was awake with a screaming baby) I realized Owen was making it painfully obvious to me that something wasn't right. I might not have killer mommy instincts yet, but my baby knows how to communicate and I know how to listen. Wednesday morning we went in right away and discovered he had a double ear infection. Three days later, a few doses of amoxicilin and ibuprofen later, I have my happy baby back.

To my sweet baby boy, thank yo for remembering this is Mama's first go at things too. 

Wordless Wednesdays

Feeding a toddler

Starting this back up again

Well, it happened. Owen turned one. We made it through the first year. So much has happened this past year and we've grown so much as a family. I could never have imagined how quickly this year would pass even though I was told time and time again that it would go by in the blink of an eye.

So, anyways, here we are. I've made it a resolution to start writing regularly because well, I've got a lot to say and sometimes I think there could be some benefits to writing it down (mainly Joe wouldn't have to listen to me babble as much)

At this point there's probably too much to go over from everything that's happened this year so my plan is to just recap and then start fresh.

Recap:
- we hardly slept.

- my boobs were in constant use. (no picture necessary)
- we changed a ton of dirty (cloth) diapers.

- although we hardly slept, we talk about sleep/sleep arrangements/lack of sleep/sleeping through the night ALL the time

- we went to a lot of concerts/shows and brought baby b with us!

- we learned how much fun camping with a baby can be.

-Baby B dressed up as a Tiger for Halloween

-Tubby time became the happiest phrase in our family's vocabulary

-oh and we ate a ton of food

All in all I'd say it's been a pretty good year.