Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Trained by a Little Monster

My six month old son has me trained.
He starts to fuss, I make a fool of myself singing & dancing around.
He throws down his toy, I pick it up.
He happily screams & reaches his arms up, I carry him around.
He cries, I hold & snuggle him.
He talks & laughs, I can't focus on anything else.
I'm wrapped around his little finger & he knows it.

He's my baby, so it's okay for me to be obsessed with him. After all I waited so long for him to finally arrive & he will only be this little once. But I'm afraid I have created a little monster.

He used to sit happily & play in his excersaucer, jumparoo, or playmat & go to bed so well. But recently, he needs me ALL the time. I put him in his jumparoo, & he's fine as long as I am clearly paying attention to him. If I walk in the other room to work on dinner or to throw in some laundry, he immediately starts screaming & crying. It's not too bad, I just started 'wearing' him & that seems to make him happy.
Then, the nighttime routine started going crazy. The sweet little boy who used to go right to sleep when I laid him in his bed & would stay asleep all night is gone. He has been replaced by an adorable little monster who knows Mommy wont let him cry all night.
I've managed to be strong enough in the evenings to let him cry for a few minutes & then I'll go comfort him without picking him up & leave again. We go through this a few times before he will finally fall asleep. However, he has also started waking up between 2 & 4 demanding to be fed & held. This is the hardest part for me. When I'm incredibly tired & know I have to get up in a few hours for work, I'm not so willing to stay up & listen to him cry as I wait for him to fall asleep in his own bed. So, I started nursing him in our bed, which turned into letting him stay in our bed until morning. I kept telling myself it wouldn't cause a bad habit because it was only a few hours, but it did. Now he always wants to sleep in Mommy & Daddy's bed. At least I know this little monster loves his Mommy right?

Monday, April 25, 2011

10 days blog free

It has been 10 days since my last post. Wow, it seems like FOREVER! I sure have missed it!

My husband told me I was on the computer too much in the evenings & said I couldn't go 10 days without it. Well, he was WRONG! I didn't exactly go into the dark ages though. I still used facebook & twitter from my phone, but I only used the computer to edit Easter pictures; which he said was okay. Now that I have made it 10 days, I will resume my blogging <3

I find it funny that in my hiatus from blogging, Luke started using the computer more. I'm starting to think the problem wasn't me being on the computer too much, but more him wanting to spend more time on it. It made me think maybe I should break down & buy a new laptop. Once upon a time, we had a desktop & a laptop. But that poor laptop, which was several years old, finally died. It would be nice to buy another, but with the way things around my house are breaking, it's going to have to wait I suppose.

Which brings me to how I learned to bake a cake on a sandwich maker. Yep, our oven died. We knew it was getting bad & starting to go out after struggling for a while. But it still worked, I would just have to cook things a little longer & at a little higher temp. But the other day was the last straw. It took TWO HOURS to bake ONE batch of cookies. They were only supposed to bake for eight minutes on 350 degrees. I baked them for 2 hours on 500 degrees. We went shopping for a new oven on Saturday, but we didn't end up buying anything. Its just not in the budget right now. After all, we had to buy a new fridge a month ago. So, till I feel we can afford a new oven, I'll be getting creative by doing everything stove top. (or in a sandwich maker!)

Eli's first Easter was a blast. We didn't do much, just relaxed & visited with some family. The Easter bunny did 'hide' some eggs for  him though. Easter morning there were tons of colored eggs scattered all around his playmat. We discovered Eli LOVES plastic eggs. They are currently his new favorite toy. He also doesn't like to share them. I made the mistake of grabbing one. He gave me the angry face & hollered at me. He also got some diapers from the Easter bunny...well, maybe those were more for Mommy. I decided to try prefold & flat diapers. I LOVE the prefolds. I expected them to be time consuming & complicated. But they aren't, & they keep everything in very well. I haven't used the flats yet. I need a tutorial on how to use them first.

On Thursday we will be returning the diapers from the 30 day diaper trial from The Changing Table. I plan on buying about half of them & some different ones. I fell in love with the Best Bottoms & the Flips. I really like being able to just change out the insert & reusing the cover. Maybe that's why I love the prefolds so much. I can use the cover almost all day! And the are VERY cheap. I got 10 diapers, 2 covers, & 2 snappis for $50.

My next adventure is to start making Eli's baby food. I didn't want to mess with straining it, so I was waiting till stage 2 so it could be a little thicker. Now that he will be 6 months old on Thursday, stage 2 is very near!

Friday, April 15, 2011

A walking Mom Zombie

My little Eli has been a champion sleeper since he was born, we're talking 5-7 hours a night his first few weeks & 8-12 hours since he was 6wks old. But that seems to be a thing of the past.
Everyone always asked how he was sleeping & I'd happily reply that he slept through the night, except for every now & then when he didn't feel well. And every time they would tell me that we were very lucky. I have friends who would be up all night with their babies, but I never thought I would soon join them.
But here we are on day 4 of 3 hours or less of sleep. I'd say Eli had his days & nights mixed up, but that isn't true. He doesn't sleep during the day much either, yet he is still a big ball of energy. I, however, don't function well on little sleep. I am NOT one of those super moms who can be up all night, work all day, come home make dinner & clean up the house. I'm doing good to throw a pizza in the oven for Luke & feed Eli. I feel sorry for my poor hubby, I'm not a nice person when I'm sleepy. I'm a crazed, angry Mom Zombie. At least the work week is almost over, maybe I will get caught up on sleep & cleaning.
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Thursday, April 14, 2011

Insert Witty Title Here

My husband loves ground turkey. I was shocked last month when he ate & enjoyed a turkey burger, so I tried it again. I made Turkey Meatball & Mozzarella Sandwiches for dinner last night. I thought it was gross, but Luke loved it. Which made me wonder why the heck I waited so long to trick him into eating turkey. He's even been eating salads lately, which is weird. He never eats food that couldn't walk. I'm way too tired to try & think of anything fun & witty to write. So goodnight. I'll try again tomorrow.

Sometimes I wonder...

...what the heck I was thinking! After devouring some chocolate, I decided I needed to go exercise. I then proceeded to convince myself I could run a mile, even though I haven't run in about 1 1/2 years. WORST IDEA EVER. I was pretty sure I was going to die a quarter of the way through. I ended up only making it almost 1/2 a mile & walk 1 1/2.
I have got to get serious about shedding some weight. I have started WAY too many diets & exercise programs since Bubby was born & have failed at them ALL.
Anyone have suggestions of what's worked for you? Or ways to increase my willpower? Chocolate always wins, ALWAYS.

Monday, April 11, 2011

I LOVE Mondays

Mondays are my favorite day of the week. Yep, that's right, Mondays, the day almost every other person hates. It's the day of the week I can pretend I'm a stay at home mommy. Don't get me wrong, I love spending Sunday with my hubby, but on Mondays I get so much done & I get little Eli all to myself.
I clean, we play, I clean while I sing & dance around like an idiot to keep him entertained, & I catch a little time to mess around on my blog. It's a great day.
Since I have a little time I decided to catch up my blog. I just now got around to following my newest followers. (So sorry if that was you! I've been so busy all weekend.)

I decided to buy some more cloth diapers this weekend. The 10 I have for my trial just is not enough because I refuse to do laundry every day. I ended up buying Flips & Econobums. My favorite diapers are covers with inserts (or All in Two's as Amanda informed me) & these are the cheapest of the ones I've found. The Econobums have a prefold that you fold into thirds before you put it in. I'm not so fond of that, & the seem very bulky, but they haven't leaked! With the Flips you can get an insert that you fold into thirds, or one that you just fold down for length. I like the ones you just fold down for length the most. I think I will be buying many more of the Flips!

We took Eli to his first farm show. Luke climbed up into the tractors with Eli, so I got some great pictures of my future little farmer.

And then we rearranged our living room & now it looks so much bigger (but still tiny). I really wish we would have done this from the beginning.

I even made dinner again. It was awesome if I do say so myself. We had Apple Pork Loin with Mashed Potatoes & Caesar Salad. I highly suggest this recipe. I'm planning to make Stuffed Bell Peppers tonight. Hopefully I don't mess it up too bad!

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

What's that sound!?

You know that sound you hear when the TV is unplugged, the batteries in your son's jumperoo have died, the dogs are outside, and your husband is at WalMart. What's that called again? Oh yeah, NOTHING.
This NEVER happens in our house. Ever. The TV is constantly on. I can't actually remember the last time we have been home & it wasn't on, except for when we're sleeping.
Well, now Eli has decided something needed to make noise while he was jumping. So he's singing & hitting his horse like he's expecting it to catch on & start making noise again. I'm considering never changing the batteries, but that would be mean. Eli likes his music. But Momma likes silence...

Cloth diapers are still AMAZING. I still pretty much love them. Except Eli's room smells like butt. Nasty, stinky, poopy & pee soaked butt. I have to figure out a better way to handle the cloth diaper storage until I can make it to the city to buy the fancy bag that I can't remember the name of right now. I also need to buy some more inserts, or diapers, because 10 is not enough. I'm doing laundry every night. Luke & my mom (she watches Eli when I'm at work) don't really like the cloth. But I'm hoping they'll warm up to them.

I made a pretty great, EASY dinner. You should go check it out right now. Well, after you've finished reading this post, if you've even made it this far. I do get kind of wordy. Anyway, it was Quick & Easy Beef Burritos. Luke loved them & it took about 30 minutes total to make. I'm even determined to cook dinner EVERY night for the next 6 days. We actually went to the grocery store & bought only food to be cooked, and a chocolate cake. I couldn't resist the cake. This is either going to turn out really good & we will have saved money, or we will end up eating out every night & all the fresh food I bought will go bad.

Luke's back, so I'm being summoned to the living room to help him hang up the TV. I decided I wanted to rearrange. If only I'd known it was so hard to move a TV that had been mounted to the wall.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Day 2 of Fluff

I. LOVE. CLOTH. That is all. Okay, it's not really all. But I do LOVE these cloth diapers. So far we have tried the Best Bottoms, Rumparooz, FuzziBunz OS, GroVia Snap, & the BumGenius 4.0 Aplix.
Right now, the Best Bottoms is my favorite. It's the least bulky.
He slept in the Rumparooz & it didn't leak, but I think I over stuffed it. I put both liners in so he couldn't fit in his jammies, nor could he close his legs. Next time I think I'll just do one liner, the bottom one didn't get wet anyway.
He spent the morning in the FuzziBunz. I liked how trim fitting it was, but I don't know much about it's performance yet. I changed it before it had a chance to leak.
Then he wore the BumGenius 4.0 for his nap. When I woke him up to get ready for a family reunion, he hadn't wet it. But I wanted him to wear the GroVia Snap w/inserts to the reunion so I wouldn't have to deal with a whole wet diaper. Just a dirty liner.
So I changed him into the GroVia. It did great. He had a dirty diaper while we were there & I just had to toss the rice paper liner, snap out the dirty liner, & snap in the clean one. So simple. After we returned home, he had a would-be blow out if he's been wearing his disposable diapers (these have been a common occurrence for us). But the GroVia kept it ALL in. There was no leaking, no poo coming up the back, nothing. Needless to say, this made me VERY happy.
After that, I put him back in the BumGenius 4.0, since he hadn't wet it earlier.

I'm going wash them tomorrow. Hopefully I'm still in love with them afterward. The hubs even put up a dog pen so I can hang them outside to dry in the sun without worrying about the dog eating them.

Is it a little sad that I'm looking forward to washing them tomorrow? I'm actually looking forward to cleaning in general. My house is gross. It needs a good cleaning. I'm also aching to get rid of everything we don't use. Luckily, my mom said she would even come over for a few hours to watch Eli on her day off. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get the whole house cleaned AND have energy left to cook a real dinner. You know, instead of the pizza we've been eating all weekend.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

30 Day Cloth Diaper Trial!

When I found out I was pregnant, one of the first things I thought about was how much of our money was going to get pooped on, literally. Diapers are not cheap, & you go through so many each day. Being the money conscience person I am, I played with the idea of using cloth diapers. But I always ended up with the excuse that 'I didn't have time for cloth diapers.'
Then, my friend Amanda @ My World in a Nutshell started using them on her daughter & LOVED them. I still wasn't convinced I could handle the cloth. I mean, keeping the thing you baby poops on? Eww! I'd much rather throw it away! But the more & more I thought about it, the more & more I wanted to try it. However, I wasn't ready to make the commitment to it, & the prices of cloth diapers seemed so high if I wasn't going to stick with it, so I again let the idea go.
When my son hit 5 months & the huge stock of diapers from his baby shower is started to get smaller & smaller, I got more serious about the idea of swapping to cloth. Yes that's right, we got so many diapers at his baby shower I still haven't had to buy any. Well, I finally convinced myself that I needed to try them. If I like them, it will save us tons of money because I would use them on baby #2, 3, 4...lets stop there. Anyway, I started doing research. That's when I stumbled across The Changing Table.
They offered exactly what I was looking for. A way to try them without fully committing! They offer a 30 Day Cloth Diaper Trial. With this trial, you can try cloth diapers for 30 days for only $15, yes I said FIFTEEN dollars! Well, if you want to get technical, you pay $150 up front as a deposit & get $135 back at the end of your trial. For me, it was a no brainer. I was going to try cloth diapers. I got in touch with them & now have 10 diapers to try on Eli, without having to pay anything more than $15.
These are the diapers I got:
1 AppleCheeks
1 Best Bottoms Cover w/2 inserts
1 BumGenius 4.0 Snaps w/insert
1 BumGenius 4.0 Aplix w/insert
1 BumGenius Elemental AIO
1 FuzziBunz One Size
1 GroVia AIO
1 GroVia Shell Snaps w/2 inserts
1 Happy Heinys One Size Snaps w/insert
1 Rumparooz w/insert

I bought separately:
1 pkg of Rice Paper Liners (so he can poop & I can just pull it out & flush)
1 pkg of Rock in Green Detergent to keep these diapers nice & clean!

So here we are, today is Day 1 of my 30 Day Cloth Diaper Trial. So far, everything is going great. I started Eli out in the Best Bottoms diaper, mainly because it had cute little giraffes on it. He seems to love how soft they are on his little tushy.

He's had one wet & poopy diaper & it was so easy! Especially with the rice paper liners & a great friend who has cloth diaper experience (Thanks Amanda!). I think I just may really like these. But I may change my mind on laundry day, considering how much I hate laundry. But so far I REALLY like them. Luke even asked me to show him how to change the diapers. I was shocked. He had told me he wasn't going to mess with them.
I made Eli model his new diaper. I hope you enjoy these!



Ultimate Blog Party 2011

I'm new to blogging (just started in February 2011), so the idea of a blog party seemed strange to me. Until I read all about it. I think this is FANTASTIC! I am so glad I stumbled across it. I am linking up to The Ultimate Blog Party 2011 in hopes of finding some new blogger friends & followers! You should too!