I'm a Good Parent, I Swear!

You may think my techniques are odd, but sometimes, s**t's gotta get done!

Please note that none of these are performed against our child's will.  This was all voluntary.

1.  The laundry hamper method.  Sometimes, I like to only fold my clean clothes once.

2.  The cardboard box method.  When I vacuum, I don't want you chewing on the power cord.

Sometimes, when I'm feeling wild, it's a plastic box! 

3.  The toy bin.  He's just so happy in there!

4.  The Tupperware drawer.  Mommy has to make dinner!

5.  The remote control.  Just take out the batteries and let them play with it, man!

6.  The kitchen appliance method.  

7.  The DVD shelf.  Yes, sometimes I want to finish my episode of Suits on Netflix.

S

Just go with it: life after work

I have been back to work for 6 weeks now and we are finally starting to get into a good routine.  Sure, there are still days where I'm running around trying to figure out what I can make for dinner in 10 minutes, that's considered somewhat healthy.  But for the most part,  I've got this.  However, if you would have asked me a month ago how I liked being back at work, I might have crawled into the fetal position on the floor and ignored your question.  It's not work itself that was the problem.  In fact, I'm really enjoying being back at work.  The problem was the sh*t storm that happened at the same time as my return to work.  It just seemed to be one thing after another.

First, my husband got an infection in his elbow that was so bad it required him to be on IV antibiotics for 4 days!  Of course if they stick a needle in your arm and attach a pump to your waist and they expect you to visit the hospital on a daily basis.  So that was fairly exhausting in itself.  The swollen elbow and IV also meant that my husband couldn't help much with J.  But to make matters worse, I got a bad flu at the same time.  Anyone who has had to parent when all they want to do is curl up in a ball and die will understand how awful this was.  And of course, all of this happened over the 4 days before I was returning to work after my mat leave!

Luckily, by Sunday evening, things were looking up.  I was feeling better and hubby's IV was coming out Monday morning.  We had survived!  But the universe had other plans... I managed to get through my first work day and actually enjoyed it.  J on the other hand, had an awful day at daycare and it was clear by Tuesday morning that he was sick.  Off to the emergency room we went, where the kind doctor informed me that I was to keep him home and stay home with him for the rest of the week.  You can imagine how good I felt about calling my boss with that news!  Luckily, she is amazing and totally understood.

So we got through the week and things were looking up by the weekend... So I thought.  The following week we got strep throat (all 3 of us).  The week after that J got an ear infection that was so bad that his ear drum ruptured!  By this point, I kept thinking things couldn't possibly get any worse, but it just kept piling on.  I got to a point where I had to just go with it.  Roll with the punches as they say.  Amongst the doctor and hospital visits we continued with life and work.  We even managed to celebrate J's first birthday.

Luckily, after the ear infection, things started looking up.  J received antibiotics that not only made him feel better, but it seemed to help with his appetite, which was something that we had been struggling with for months!  My baby was finally eating!

By my 4th week back from mat leave, I was finally starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel.  My husband and I fell into a pretty good morning routine and I finally felt like I could do this working mom thing.

So if you are about to return to work after baby, know that the first few weeks might be tough.  Hopefully you won't have to face too many issues but I think it's fair to expect some bumps along the way.  Just know that it does get better.  It still isn't always easy but as things come up, I've learned to just go with it.

J

How Having a Baby is Like Having a Dog

Sometimes, having a child is like having a dog.

10. Come! Come here!  Common!!!

9. Attempting to drink from the dog's water bowl. 

8. Sit! Sit down! 

7. Stepping on poop inside the house.  (Diaper changes can get a little rowdy.) 

6. Fetch is a popular game.

5. Farts really smell, whether they come from a dog or a baby.  They both can clear a room. 

4. Petting babies on the head.

3. Brushing teeth and cutting nails require wrestling a wild animal and are usually a two-person effort. 

2. At bath time, everybody gets wet.

1. Unconditional love.

~S

Make it yourself: change table storage

I used to keep my cloth diapers in one of those cube type shelves, and while that worked great at first, it wasn't cutting it anymore.  J is now tall enough to reach the top shelf and one of his favourite games was pulling every single diaper off the shelf about 2 billion times a day.  So I started looking for a creative storage solution.

Browsing through Micheals one day I found these beautiful baskets and I thought they would make perfect "shelves" for my diapers.  I got both baskets for about $50.  Of course once I got them home my husband mumbled and groaned because I couldn't simply screw a basket into the wall and expect it to hold weight (who knew?!).

However, he came up with a solution.  I originally wanted to place the baskets horizontally but our wall studs were too far apart for that.  So we placed them side by side vertically.  My husband measured the baskets and cut 2 pieces of 1x3 lumber to place inside.  This helped distribute the weight as well as insured that the screw wouldn't slip out through the basket weave.  Finally, he found the wall studs and screwed the baskets to the wall and voilà!  

The whole project took about 20 minutes and I'm loving the look, as well as the convenience of having this storage above the change table.

Julie

"I don't need you anymore, mommy"

Yesterday was a big day for K and I.  I worked extremely hard to be able to breastfeed K when he was first born (see another new post entitled "A Nipple What?").  He is now great at nursing AND at eating the entire content of our fridge.  He's a bottomless pit. Up to yesterday, he was still nursing three times a day: first thing in the morning, afternoon as a snack and right before bed.  That is what I planned on doing until mid August.  Then, my plan was to start introducing afternoon snack, so that when I returned to work, no pumping and no bottles would necessary.

Well, yesterday afternoon, he decided he didn't want to nurse.  I was heart broken and felt rejected.  I was warned by my mother-in-law that weaning  is "very traumatic for the mom." I believe it!  I teared up and then realized that he would have to start drinking cow's milk, as breast milk twice a day wasn't enough.  So my lovely husband and K went off to the store to get homo milk.  Based on other mom's experiences, I was expecting for this process to be long and difficult.  I was expecting K to refuse the milk, and that we would have mom-baby arguments about drinking the not-so-sweet type of milk.  The thought of him giving me a hard time about this actually made me feel good.  It made me feel like he still needed me and preferred my milk.

WELL, my kid chugged the cow's milk right up.  All 4oz of it.  So there I am, watching him down it and I find myself crying AND cheering for him at the same time.  I'm so proud of him for being such an easy-going baby with new foods, milk, changes in his routine, etc.  But, he doesn't seem like a baby so much anymore.  He's a big boy, who drinks cow's milk and who doesn't need mommy to pump or even BE there in order to eat anymore.

Is this what motherhood feels like?  So much pride AND heart break at the same time?

S

A Nipple What?

Before I had our beautiful baby, K, I knew that I wanted to breastfeed.  I could picture myself holding K right after giving birth and quickly being able to jump onto the breastfeeding wagon!  Although I am pro breastfeeding, I fully respect everyone's personal choice of doing what works for them.  Feeding your constantly hungry child is a huge job, especially in those first couple of months.  We do what we have to do and what works for us, and that's all that matters!

In my case, I wanted so desperately to breastfeed, and unfortunately my desire to start that as soon as that beautiful baby came into my life did not happen.  This post is not just to tell you my story and adventures, but to encourage those who struggle with breastfeeding in those first fews days/weeks/months, because let me tell ya, you're like a human wet bar, and it's not easy!

K joined us 5 weeks early, on the first day of school, which is a big deal, since my hubby and I are both teachers!  Contractions started on labour day (hah!) and 40 hours later, K arrived!  I didn't get to hold him right away as he needed immediate medical attention.  I was finally able to hold him but what felt like a millisecond, before he was taken away once again.  Then came the hard part.  I was told that breastfeeding would be too physically draining for this little fellow and so I never got to try.  Being a first time mother, this scared me and I just went along with whatever the staff at the hospital said.  "We will give him a bit of your milk, and also give him formula...".  Don't get me wrong the staff there were so kind and caring, and did everything they could to make K strong and healthy.  They educated me on what they believed was best at the time.  I do, however, regret not requesting to try feeding K all by myself.  I was then introduced to the mysterious nipple shield.  "What the heck is that???" is the first thing that came to mind.  Well, it helped me feed Kingsley, but I hated that thing at the same time.  Needless to say, he ate well, grew before our very eyes, but WOULD NOT eat without it.  It took me almost 4 months to get rid of that darn thing that I loved and yet hated so much!  It is so hard to keep going when giving up seems like the easiest way to go.  I was lucky enough to have experienced people help me through this.  USE THOSE PEOPLE!  And if you need to take your top off in front of them, they'll just roll with it, trust me.  I showed my boobs to people I never thought I would.  I never thought THAT many people would see them!  As for the people who are discouraging you or stressing you out by saying things like "try harder, your baby should be weaned off the shield by now", ignore them.

There are loads of opinionated people our there who feel the need to tell you "how it should be done".  I had a hard time learning that I need to take things with a grain of salt, and do what I wanted to do!

S

Worry Wart

I was warned by other mothers, but I didn't fully believe them.  "You'll always be worrying about something, just wait!", or "Even when they're adults, living in their own place, you'll worry."  My response was usually something like "Ya, ok..."  When you're pregnant, you think you have everything down pat, including how you'll act, how you'll be as a mother and how you'll handle yourself in different situations.  "I won't worry, unless I REALLY need to worry..." is what I thought.  That's just bologna!  I like to think that I am a fairly calm mother (my husband may beg to differ).  I am pretty good at staying calm, cool and collected when K is grumpy, when he won't sleep, etc.  However, I have been quite the worry wart in the following scenarios (I know that this is only the beginning of my worrying, so really this is an ongoing, forever growing list):

1. I thought K couldn't hear around the age of 6-7 months.  Turns out he was just distracted by whatever he was doing and he'd rather focus on that than turning around when he heard my voice.  He was probably thinking "Ya, ya, you narrate what you do all day.  I'm tuning you out, mommy!"

*Side note - I do actually narrate what I do every day.  More on that in a future post!

2. K took a long time to start army crawling and for a while wouldn't even bother trying.  Turns out, he was just lazy.

3. For the first few months, K would barely smile and I thought "Oh my God, he'll never smile.  He'll be the most serious baby!  It doesn't make sense!  His parents are never serious!"  Now, all he does is smile and laugh.

4. We were hoping and praying that K would just sleep through the night, and when he finally did, I didn't sleep.  I checked for signs of life every hour...  AT LEAST!  Poking him, putting my head against his chest, sticking my fingers near/in his mouth.  After my "life checks", I would lay wide awake in bed, waiting for him to snore (which he does... He really, really does!), sigh, or whimper.

5.  RASHES!  K had a rash, and it was all I can think about.  He would fight me, roll around, push me away, as I constantly inspected it and looked for signs of it improving or getting worse.  Turns out, it's a heat rash, just like the ones I sometimes get when it's so stinkin' hot outside!

I hope I'm not alone when I say that sometimes when I worry about something, it consumes not only my mind, but my entire body.  I sometimes feel like I can't do ANYTHING, but just lay down like a big pile of mush and drown in my worries.  I can't think of anything else!

A PERFECT example of me worrying.  I think he has a fever (he doesn't, it's just hot out) and I'm worrying that one of the thermometers isn't working properly. 

S