Fall

On saturday it was beautiful outside, so i finally spent a little time in the yard.

planting, cross your fingers...

raking...

playing in the leaves

with monster

Mission Organization Laundry

Here's a goal for me in the next 10 or so days. By Thanksgiving I want to have all the laundry washed, dried, folded/hung, put away, sorted for giveaways/throwaways, and taken to the salvation army. This includes going through Monster's baby clothes for giveaways, keepers, lending, and throwing away. Think I/we can do it?? God, i hope so. This whole laundry situation has gotten completely out of control.

For Us parental-types
Step 1 -- Sort clean and dirty clothes.
Steps 2,3 -- Wash, dry, and lug clothes back upstairs.
Step 4 -- sort for giveaways, etc.
Step 5 -- fold/hang clothes
Step 6 -- put away keepers and bag up others
Step 7 -- take others out of house -- to garbage, friends, or Salvation Army.
Step 8 -- Stay on top of laundry pile.

For the monster
Step 1 -- Wash, dry, fold all clothes
Step 2 -- Sort by sizes/types (newborn girl vs neutral) and giveaways, etc
Step 3 -- Containerize by size/type
Step 4 -- Put all keepers in storage and take others out of monster's room.

When you type it all out like that, it doesn't seem too bad. I have 10 days to do this (counting today, not counting thanksgiving day). I think I can, I think I can... And get the husband to help with his clothing...

PS Anyone have a good stain remover recommendation? Baby food stains like a b*@$%.

Day in the life

It's that time again! Navigating the Mothership is doing her quarterly round up so here goes nothing!

October 22, 2012

3:25 a.m.
Wake up to husband's alarm going off. I hate Mondays.

4:15 a.m.
Wake up to crying monster. Go in, rub her back, cover her up. Go back to doze.

4:35 a.m.
Not having it. Bring monster in bed with me and drift back to sleep. yay.

5:31 a.m.
Alarm goes off. Snooze. Snooze. Snooze.

5:58-6:34 a.m.
Decide to drag myself out of bed and get dressed/ready for work. Monster sleeps in my bed. I'm jealous. Make lunch/breakfast for myself. Monster will eat at granpat's house. and COFFEE. thank god for coffee. Get monster ready to go and leave for the day.

6:35-7:00 a.m.
Drop off monster at Granpat's house. "commute" to work. Smells like pizza. Love it when the bagel shop makes these bagels, garlic ones? Wait for the elevator. Log in.

 7:00-1:00
work. chat with coworkers.work.  eat snacks. work. check email and blogs. work.

1:30
Take monster to clinic.

2:15
leave clinic. Monster falls asleep in the car. Thankgod! Leave her in her car seat at home and get supper ready to be cooked. eat a snack, doritos, apple, and peanut butter bread cuz that's how i roll.

 2:55-4:15
Husband gets home. Monster wakes up and plays with her daddy for awhile. I play on my phone. Husband goes to do homework. monster falls back asleep on me. Need to get this kid to sleep in her bed! Anyone have any tips for babies who don't sleep in their beds well???

4:30-6:00
Supper for monster. Make/eat supper. Watch cat chase bugs. Solo trip to Target. bliss. so much faster alone!

6:15-8:00
Watch TV, have a treat, play with monster. Husband does homework and then puts monster to bed so I can watch my show (How I Met Your Mother). Bummed and confused when a rerun of Big Bang is on instead... is it Thursday? watch random shows and play on my phone/with cat.

 8:01-9:15
Get supper ready for the crockpot for tomorrow. Get ready for bed. Read a little.

 9:20
Monster cries out. Check on her. rock her and put her back to bed. Repeat many times throughout the night.

9:30
Lights out and sleep while husband does homework next to me. Cuz, I'm old.

party planning

It all started... with a nickname. Monster. and then a theme was found. little monsters. an invitation was chosen. pastel DIY print. and a PARTY was born.

I swear, I've been planning this party since before monster was born. But really I've been working on it more diligently since August. I thought at first I would just invite our immediate families (brothers and grandparents). Then realized that half of them wouldn't be able to make it. Sad. So I branched out and invited some close friends. Still more of them wouldn't be able to make it. Finally I realized that a lot of the husband's extended family hadn't met monster yet, so we invited them. Probably about 20-25 people actually came to our party! That is a lot for our little house.

I have been having so much fun planning this party that I am almost sad that it is over. ha-ha.  And, a party is a good excuse to get my butt in gear to clean the house! Especially things like vacuuming the stairs and the upstairs hallway corners. I made all the food but ordered the cupcakes from Hy-Vee. Yum. I did not take pictures during the party, which is a bummer. We did get some of monster and her smash cake exploration and a couple of the decorations beforehand, but that's it. What a sad thing. Oh Well. It was a fun day.

I used these posts for inspiration YoungHouseLove; ItsAllHappening; and AnniesEats.

I'll hopefully find some pictures of the birthday madness to show!

Traditions!

Getting started on monster's birthday bash! This will be used for decorating. I plan to use it year after year for her with some streamers in her bedroom or on her bedroom door. Starting traditions :)

I ordered the book Birthday Monsters! by Sandra Boynton and will to read it to my monster for her birthday every year.

I am working hard on planning her first birthday party. I thought I wouldn't go too big but it's mostly family and close friends who are invited, we do have a lot of family. Hopefully it will be nice and everyone can hang out outside. Otherwise, I don't really know where people will sit but I am excited!
Plans in the works include cute invites from chickabug on etsy, lots of monster decorations, and cupcakes from hy-vee (love their cupcakes and frosting). Mother in law is crocheting a monster hat for monster to wear and her godmother made a tutu skirt. I can't wait. I love birthdays!!

Speaking of traditions, what birthday traditions do you and your family have? In mine, we always had a family dinner, cake, and a special birthday prayer read before supper. For our little family now we'll start our traditions with monster and as they occur, i'm sure to tell you all about them.

Monster is 1 year old

Dear monster,

You are now officially 1 year old. To say this past year hasn’t been what I expected would be correct. You are a very cute little girl, no longer really a baby, and you are usually in a very good mood. You have started smiling, laughing, and giggling with no provocation (that I can understand) and make those around you laugh/smile every time you do this. I didn’t know what to expect with having a baby, would you eat, would you sleep? Would we figure it out? Well, sometimes I feel like we have it figured out and other times I don’t. It hard to say what life will be like from one day to the next, but mostly it’s on the level.

You are learning to chew and swallow your food and getting better with each day. We still do baby food but you will take some regular table foods, like toast or bananas, as long as we give you enough time to figure it out. You will sometimes feed yourself but your pincer grasp has yet to show up. Slowly, you are learning to palm grasp foods and Granpat says you do very well You eat a lot but apparently could eat a lot more since you are very small. We switched you over to whole milk a couple of weeks ago and it has been a very good transition. You stopped liking to drink your formula during the summer but now, you grab for the bottle in order to have more milk. I think this is also going to help you bulk up. We haven't figured out sippy cups or straw cups with you yet, so we're going to stick with the bottles and open cups for a while. I hope we can all figure it out, because once you feed yourself and drink for yourself, i think we will all be a lot happier!

You grew a lot in the last couple months and you look very tall for your size. You are tall and skinny, only weighing in around 16 pounds. I hope you stay tall :-) you can wear clothing from 6-9 months all the way up to 12 months. It really just depends. Still wearing size 3 diapers and probably will be for a while since they say they go up to 28 pounds, and that is almost twice your size. 

Your development is really taking off lately. I have noticed a difference and see you get stronger with every day. You are about the stage of a 6-month-old and are reaching out for things and playing with things more and more. It's fun to watch. We work on sitting and developing the muscles in your low back and upper chest in order to get you to sit up on your own and eventually crawl. It looks like you are really working to figure this out! You love to work with Katie, Mary Jo, and Emily from Early Intervention and they are pleased with the progress you have been making.

I love you lots you little monster. I hope your 2^nd year on earth is as good or better than the 1^st one.

Always,

Mama

this was me...

October 12, 2011. 39 weeks and 5 days pregnant. The day I was induced. Ugh. and still 2 LOOONG days away from having an actual baby.

But now, I'm back to finish working on Monster's birthday bash... coming up soon. :-)

monster update (not in size)

*After 5 days of coughing, sneezing, stuffiness, runny nose, not eating well, or sleeping, I finally gave in and took monster to the doctor. what does she have? an upper respiratory tract infection, or in other words a fancy name for a cold. Plus, I got yelled at for her not being big enough. Have you ever tried to make a baby eat who doesn't want to eat? I don't know what more I can do. I guess 16 pounds isn't enough. Too bad. She's just going to be a small girl.

*Missed out on going to our class field trip tonight because of said cold and need for monster to sleep. Sad, we missed out on the petting zoo but monster's not really ready for that yet. Maybe in a few months...

*We started switching monster over to whole milk today. So far, same reaction as to formula. Will drink a little and then stop. Need to get this kid to drink better... maybe a straw?

epic 3 hour nap

On a completely different topic... I sometimes wonder if I would like the bloggers that I follow in real life? Some of them yes for sure, but others, I'm not really sure if I would or not. And, would they like me?

How monster got her nickname

When I was pregnant, I didn't even notice monster's kicks and movements at first. I thought it was just gas. However, over time, as she got bigger and I got bigger, her movements got more and more noticeable. By the end of that summer, you could really tell when she was moving around or kicking. It was like she was trying to get out through my skin! Totally freaked me out, like a monster inside me or something. after she was born, there were days (and still are days to be honest) where she is crabby and nothing can help to calm her down. She acts like a monster, hence the nickname.

GranPat (my mom) always said to me, "don't call her a monster, she's not" but then one day she said, "I can see why you call her that." Ha! ha! Vindication. I guess monster isn't always on her best behavior when she's with her grandparents.

progress

**Meant to post this yesterday! Oops.**

Last night was our first ECFE (Early Childhood Family Education) class for the school year. We meet once a week on Tuesday evenings for an hour. The ages in the class range from 9 months to 18 months. All of the kids are pretty mobile, except for Monster. It was pretty hard to sit there and watch all the little kids, especially the ones younger than Monster, climbing around all over the place, crawling, and sitting/standing like it's no big deal. I almost teared up. It gets to me that she can't do these things yet. Will I ever get it through my head that she has developmental delays? She'll do things in her own time, not when the other babies do things? She works so hard doing what she is doing that I should just enjoy the fact that she can do things. She can roll around and scoot sort of. She can sit if placed in a sitting position but not yet get to one by herself. She almost did last night though! She can get up on her hands and knees and rock back and forth, just not quite crawling yet. Its hard to see her progress since I'm in the thick of it every day but the teachers we have been working with can definitely see her growth.

Chickenbeans burrito salad (or my attempt at chipotle)

Chickenbeans burrito salad.

yum

Ingredients

For the chickenbeans
8 oz cooked chicken (I used leftover grilled chicken)
1 15-oz can black beans drained and rinsed
2 tablespoons salsa
1/4 cup water
garlic powder
cayenne pepper
salt & black pepper

For the salad
2 cups cooked brown rice
8-12 cups mixed greens (2-3 cups per person depending on how big you want the salad to be)
1 cup low fat shredded cheese (Colby jack or cheddar works well)
4-5 Tbsp plain fat free yogurt
1 cup salsa of your choice
1 avocado diced

Directions

For the chickenbeans... Put beans and chicken in saucepan over medium heat. Add salsa, water, and seasonings to taste, mix well, and allow to simmer for 10-15 minutes, until hot and all the flavors are incorporated.

Put 2-3 cups of mixed greens on 4 plates, top each plate with 1/2 cup rice, 2/3 cup chickenbeans, 1/4 cup cheese, 1/4 cup salsa, 1/4 of the avocado, and 1-1.5 tbsp yogurt. Add additional toppings (onions, scallions, jalapenos, crushed tortilla chips)  if you want. :)


*Update to this post, I have a butter baby!! We put a spoonful of butter in her apples last night and she gobbled them down like there was no tomorrow. So, we followed that up with some squash with butter and again, ate all of it!! What a girl, my butter baby :)

butter baby food

Monster had a checkup today. She is a tiny, tiny girl. 3rd percentile for height and weight. The doctor suggested that we put a spoonful of butter into her baby food jar and then give it to her. Sounds really weird to me. I looked at him like he was nuts. In my head i was thinking, are you sure? I mean, i know you're the doctor and all, but really? butter? really? or margarine or cheese for that matter... Still shaking my head over this one. I've read over and over not to give babies the extras, like butter or salt. Now he's telling me that I should. Ugh. Conflict. Why can't they (any by they i mean the universal they) pick one way to go and agree on it?

Has anyone else had experience with this? Monster needs to bulk up (lol like a weightlifter). I am going to research how to give my baby extra calories. The butter thing just seems a little odd to me. Any suggestions out there?

Things I did today...

Fed/changed/played with monster

Farmer's market

Coffee and scones with parents

Failed at kale chips

Forgot to turn oven back on and succeeded at kale chips, go figure

Enjoyed a fire in the pit hubs built

What did you do today?

A different kind of mommy guilt

Anyone who is a mother, about to be a mother, or who knows a mother knows about or has heard of mommy guilt. The feeling that you're not doing enough for your child, that you're spending too much time away from them while at work, or the feelings that set in when you're trying to decide what is best for your child. For me, it's never really been about that. I don't know if I am doing enough for my monster, I have to work, and I just go with my instincts for decisions about her.

For me it's different.

I read a couple of blogs by moms who have children just a little older than mine. They range in age from being born in July 2011 to September 2011 when monster was born in October. I also have a close girlfriend whose daughter is 3 weeks older. I pay attention and notice all the little things that these moms report about their babies... when the kid is rolling over, sitting up, eating solids, reaching for things, wearing what size clothing when, what kind of diapers, when/how much formula/breast milk baby takes, what a routine is like, how naps go, and even daycare... my baby girl is not doing anything the same as these other kids. She is not doing anything at all like them and it's hard not to judge and feel that there's something wrong with her.

I know that all kids are different and develop and grow at a different rate/pace. I KNOW that. It's just so hard to remember when I hear about other kids her age(ish) and what she is not doing. Is there something I did wrong first off? Did I do something during my pregnancy that is affecting her now? Should I not have gotten induced but waited until she came naturally? Should I have made a bigger deal about her sleeping in her swing and instead put her in her crib right away? Should I not have rocked her to sleep for months? Should I be more strict now about a certain routine? Should I send her to a daycare center instead of to grandma's house while I'm at work? Should I try harder with baby lead weaning to develop her grasp/reach for things? Should I have started solids earlier? Should I stop spoonfeeding her?

I just don't know.

Monster is 6 months old

Dear Monster,

It's hard to believe that you are 6 months old today. It feels like just last week we were in the hospital waiting and waiting for you to arrive. Just as in life, you were stubborn before you were born too! Finally at 10:27 a.m. on Friday, October 14, 2011, you came into this world. You were such a cute, very alert baby with a full head of hair!! :) You still have all that hair and it gets longer every day. The back doesn't stick up as much as it did and we are learning how to style it. You get many compliments on how beautiful you are. And, you are just a very good looking kid. I would think so, coming from me and your daddy. :)

Big things that have happened in the last six months are many. You like to talk a lot but no real words just yet. I think it will happen soon. You got glasses in the beginning of April, the doctor says you probably won't have to wear them much more than a couple of months. They seem to help you focus on your world more and we think your vision will really take off from now on. You keep them on pretty well so far but when you get tired, you try to take them off so you can rub your eyes. It's pretty cute. You are just beginning to eat solid foods. You've had rice cereal, sweet potatoes, bananas, and peas. You don't seem to like any of them. I think you just need some more time and you'll figure it out sooner or later. We'll keep trying though. You have 4 or 5 bottles every day with 5-6 ounces. You take 2 or 3 naps during the day, usually longer in the late afternoon and short ones in the morning or at grandma's house. You got to bed at 7 p.m. every night and even though you might wake up a few times during the night, you are pretty content to just play in your crib until you fall back asleep. Very rarely do I need to come in and check on you, so thank you for letting me get a good night's sleep. You can roll over from back to front and front to back and you grab your feet many, many times a day. You are very strong. Whenever you are laying on your back you always have your feet off the ground and your head up as well. We call it you doing pilates. You are a pretty happy girl, really only crying when you are tired or super hungry. Sometimes you'll cry if daddy plays with you wrong. ;) At least you know what you like! You like to stand, jump, and look around. You laugh and smile a lot and sing along when music is playing or i sing to you. You love to be held by us and we love to hold you. Cuddling with you is one of my favorite things to do!

You are a pretty small girl, mostly in the bottom of the growth chart. 22 inches tall, 13 pounds. But that's okay. You'll just be a little cutie like mom. ;)  **Update 04/23/2012... You are 25.5 inches tall and 13.5 pounds according to 6-month checkup.**

You are wearing size 2 diapers and probably will be for awhile longer. You wear various sizes in your clothes, anywhere from newborn size leggings to 3-6 month onesies, and 6 month dresses. Most of the 6 month clothes are still too big for you but the 3 month are just a little too small. You hate to keep your socks on so grandma always has to keep putting them back on you. You go to grandma pat and grandpa tom's for daycare most days of the week while mom and dad are working. They love to have you around and you seem to like it there too.

One not so good thing that has happened is with your head size. At your 2-month checkup, the doctor noticed that your head was much smaller than it should be. It turns out that your anterior fontanel and metopic suture (the spots in your skull that allow for growth) had closed early. We were pretty worried that you may have to have surgery to open these back up but it turns out to be a wait and see kind of thing. So we're waiting and seeing if your head will grow and your development will continue to be normal. If not, I don't know what is going to happen but you seem to be doing really well to me!! :) I think you're just going to "have a small hat size" as the doctor would say.

adjusting to being a parent has not been easy and the first 2 months really sucked but I like it now and I wouldn't change it or you for anything. I love you baby, monster. :)

always and forever,
mama

Efficient

*totally meant to post this last week, my bad! here it is anyway

There is a push for efficiency in most workplaces. At the same time there is a push to be healthy as well. When walking back from lunch, I am torn between being efficient by going from break room to bathroom and then back to my desk or being healthy and going back to my desk to drop things off and then back to the bathroom, thereby taking extra steps and being healthier... Is there a way to be both efficient and healthful at work?

Little monster's baptism was on Saturday (march 17). It was a gorgeous day in MN, hot even. We walked over to church and she slept through most of the mass and almost all of the baptism ceremony. She didn't cry at all. She was just a little startled when Father John put all the water and oil on her head/hair. He really caked on that chrism oil... she still smells like it even now, 3 days later!

Baby food... what!?!

I just bought my first box of baby food...rice cereal. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that.

I don't know that monster is ready for solids yet but her doctor said we should start because she weighs so little. He wants her to put on a few... don't hear that much after you're 10 years old. :-)

I guess we'll just try a little bit and see how she likes it. Maybe even tonight. More likely not though.


I had done some research about starting baby food and the AAP recommends starting solids between 4 and 6 months. Well, she's 4 1/2 months old now... I had planned on waiting until closer to 6 months... and then starting without rice cereal, just going straight to sweet potatoes (for some reason I want her first food to be sweet potatoes, don't know why... probably the same reason I wanted Chipotle everyday while I was pregnant with her...). I also wanted to make my own baby food. I still do. I'm just not sure if it will happen. It wouldn't be too hard I don't think. We'll see what happens, maybe try this rice cereal now or maybe wait a few more weeks. I'm not sure yet. At least I'm prepared a little bit. and I do have plates/bowls/silverware for her also.

Privacy

I wish I didn't have such an issue with my little monster's privacy. I want to put her pictures on this blog because a blog with no pictures is pretty boring... I'll have to come up with other things to take pictures of. I feel like I won't be able to blog about her very well without pictures... must be creative!

No facebook oversharing for my baby!

surgery

My baby has to have surgery. Don't have a lot of details now but will soon, i hope. :( sad.