honest blogging

can i just say this second kid thing has made my blogging a little more ummmm "honest". i always kept my other blog a little lighter-silly kid stories, work stories that kind of thing-but i don't have any work stories due to maternity leave, and i'm tired and getting my butt kicked by two small kids-guess that ups the real factor.

i mention this because all this breastfeeding stuff i've been posting about, i'm hoping people either understand that this is just what's going on in my life right now and indulge me, or like to know intimate details of my life! it may not always be fascinating but bear with me!

last week i went to yoga with my sister in law, it was amazing, i felt like me again, not ali the mommy, ali the person who used to love yoga. i was going to go this morning but we just did not have enough time, i think i might try to go tonight. oh and after two c-sections i can safely say i have no abdominal muscles to speak of, i would try to do a pose and just not be able too, clearly i need more yoga!

oh and i'm going to do noblo this year-has anyone seen a link for that yet? i almost made it last year, this year i will do it!

alright i must clean my house and i think the baby wants to eat again!

update

yup it's thrush-got the meds and started them...wish me luck!

oh and he weighs 9lbs 4oz! (he was 8lbs 8oz two weeks ago) go me!

sometimes it's no fun to be the mommy...

it's gonna be a rough day! i have two little boys with colds-Will is worse, green boogers and coughing, Ben is stuffed up. Last night Ben had a really hard time settling down, he really never went into a solid sleep, instead he dozed all night and fussed a lot. the only solid sleep i got was between 11pm-1am. Will tossed and turned and coughed all night-love those video baby moniters-and is very sleepy this morning.

but the real issue of the day- i called a breastfeeding warm line yesterday and all signs point to thrush-Bens tongue is fine but he has white patches on the insides of his cheeks, and now yesterday a red, raised diaper rash. as far as the nipple situation-not good-it's so painfulso off to the pede we go, i'm going to call for an appt in an hour. we also need to run to the bank and fax some insurance info.

did you notice my new blog header? i did it myself! i'm very impressed that i figured it out at all.
but now that i know how i'll try not to mess with too much!

breastfeeding antecedents

just a few random thoughts about breastfeeding:

1) this baby is entirely different than the last-i know big surprise right? Will took to breastfeeding easily and after the initial nipple soreness we had no further problems.
Ben from day one fights to get to the boob, pulls off, gets back on, pulls off, eventually he settles down and nurses but he could suck the wrinkles off of an elephant!

2) after the initial nipple soreness with Ben i though we were good, but for a little over a week now it is back with a vengence! to the point where i dread feeding him. at this point i'm feeding on one side at a feeding to give the other side time to rest. and i have cracks all around the nipple it's as if he is trying to suck my nipples off my body. i thought i could wait this out and stuff would just toughen up but now i'm not so sure, and if this doesn't resolve i don't know how long i can keep it up.

3) on the lighter side-Will thinks he can feed Ben by putting his finger (he says funger) in Ben's mouth-he tells me "ben drinkin' " hey i put a body part in the kids mouth and he doesn't see anything happen, and Ben will latch on to pretty much anything!

4)when i was getting Will out of the car the other night he asked if he could nurse, i told him no that he was a big boy now but when he was a baby he ate that way too. so far he seems ok with that

5) Will knows if i'm feeding Ben it's a good time to get into trouble! (mommy can't chase me!)

6) i haven't pumped in front of will, mostly because i don't want to explain it!

any tips on the cracked nipples-how does that ever heal if your getting sucked on every two hours again?

i'm required to feed him so...

i started this mom business two years ago adamant that my son not be like my husband. my husband will eat some veggies, but only certain foods qualify as meals, only certain veggies, and meat and potatoes thank you very much! he will not eat sushi, or soups, or anything a little out of the ordinary.

my goal when will was born was to expose to many different foods, so when i eat something different so does he, as a baby i had him eating avocado, veggie sushi, seaweed and rice, broccoli, etc. he didn't love everything, but he ate it because it was normal.

as time has gone by though he eats less and less, he will try new foods but most things are met with a yuck-followed by a spit out! he is not a child that will only eat three things---he is a child who doesn't eat. i have seen whole days go by with only a few bites making it past his lips, and usually it's something like goldfish! he will try what is in front of him if he feels like eating, but plenty of meals he doesn't even touch.

he isn't predictable either-what he loves one day he won't touch the next, so i resort to putting food in front of him several times a day, if he eats, he eats...(we won't be discussing how much food i throw away when he doesn't) i also give him carnation instant breakfast in his milk when he isn't eating well. calories have to come from somewhere right?

in this day and age of childhood obesity, and since will comes from two families with weight issues my focus has shifted. my new goals are 1) that he eat something 2)that he be allowed to stop eating when he is done 3) that he be served the same thing his dad and i have on our
plates. my working theory is if he is hungry he will eat what is in front of him, and i want him to learn to not over eat. (that i won't cook more than one meal at a time is purely for me.)

i hope as he grows he will not be a picky eater, he will try new things and he develops internal controls to avoid overeating..that would be a start!

would you like a chance to win a 250.00 gift card to williams sonoma? write a post about feeding your kids, are they picky eaters? what have you tried to get them to eat? post it by midnight PST, include links to http://www.deceptivelydelicious.com and (http://blog.parentbloggers.com/

to nursery school or not to nursery school....

William has never been to a daycare or nursery school, we aren't big into playdates either, but he has always played with a few kids regularly and that was always enough for him. Well those kids are older than him, they are now 4 and 5(he's 2 1/2) and attending preschools full day a few days a week. Lately I have been finding him pretending to play with those kids. He will come in and tell me he was riding in his truck with Ella or Jeremy (sometimes they are pocket sized and he hands them to me).

We are members of the YMCA and the local branch is a large busy one. the daycare room is small, sort of clean, and packed with kids from baby-10 or 12. i observed there once and just could not leave him there. too many kids, the staff were a bunch of very nice but very young girls. it would be far too easy to lose a 2 yr old in all that chaos. so we go to the Y but to do things for will, swim classes, kids gym, family swim... that was it.

my sister in law just joined this weekend and i promised her i would do some classes with her, i just had a second c-section and i don't really want mommy pooch for the rest of my life! i won't go if it's for me, but if i commit to someone else...i'll drag my sorry butt in. today i went to a different branch about 15 minutes away with my mom. she is a regular there and has brought will to their daycare room. she told me how great it was but i had never seen it. she wasn't kidding! it was bright, cheerful, clean, the kids were divided up by age, there was a ton of staff on, and they were adults! happy ,experienced, educated woman.

i had been thinking lately that maybe i needed to put will in a formal nursery school for socialization, and today at the Y i noticed he didn't play with the other kids, he just sort of did his own thing. at home i have seen him not so great at sharing and he can be bossy sometimes, other times he can play very nicely. i called a nursery school and i have an appt to check it out tomorrow, but the cost is pretty significant for us,even just for 2 half days a week. i think i would need to pick up an extra shift a week once back to work to pay for it. right now i'm on maternity leave so it would be an even bigger stretch...

but besides the money issue and my anxiety about leaving him with people i don't know (which i have never done for personal reasons) it would be a huge pain in the butt for me to drive back and forth to get him with a baby in tow, and i keep thinking that i never went anywhere for "socialization" i didn't have playdates, i played at home, with my siblings, cousins, by myself..and i'm fine. so is any of this even necesary or just what people seem to do with their kids now?

i'll go check out the school, but i wonder if i'm getting ahead of myself. maybe i should just arrange a few playdates with the kids we know that are his age, take a few classes at the nice Y and let him play with kids there...its not structured and educational...but it is social.....

i don't know what is best....what do you think?

fish food

today while everyone was out of the house the evil golden retriever somehow knocked the laptop off of the coffee table and onto the floor. it has met it's final demise. it was a laptop we had bought second hand that always had battery charging issues-the battery would not hold a charge. we always used it plugged in, but then the place the cord plugged into the computer did not make a great connection and we always had to position it just so. this worked for two years, we did have to have it fixed once in that time. well with the fall today it no longer made any connection with the power cord so we bit the bullet and bought a new one. a shiny new pretty one that you can actually use on your lap, and has cool features like a video camera built into the screen with a speaker, and a place i can insert my camera card to download pictures.

i think this new peice of equipment and i will be bff's-at least until it is replaced someday with a newer shinier model, but for now i just like touching it! it really is amazing how much the price of a laptop has fallen since the last time we priced them out, and boy am i glad!

we went to several stores to figure out what we wanted and one had a petsmart (pets-mart?, pet-smart?) next door so we wandered in so will could blow off a little steam and look at the fish and birds. we now own a male beta fish. it was my idea. i don't even like fish. we spent 12.00 on wills new pet-including food and plastic little aquarium thing. at least it's a cheap pet right? it now lives on my kitchen counter, but the best part is when we asked will what he wanted to name it he said (and i'm totally not kidding here) FOOD! so if anyone asks we have a fish named food....i don't know cracks me up though. tomorrow i'll post a picture of fish food for you.

also making huge progress in the decorating of will's new room-may be able to move him in tomorrow or monday, looks great and i'll post pics when it is all done.

out of the mouths of boys!

my 2 yr old son asked to go potty after dinner-he isn't actually going to go on the potty but he likes to pretend he might. my husband goes in to help him, and after a few minutes sticks his head out laughing.

apparently when Will sat down he sat on the little sheild thing. he looked up at dave and said
"my pee-pee too big, no fit!"

shaken not stirred-with a splash of detergent

so i've been really busy with the house and kids, actually right now i'm watching someone elses crawling 10 month old and cooking dinner (yup in the morning, gotta do what you gotta do)


i haven't been able to look at as many labels as i would have liked. most household items say stuff like don't inhale, swallow, rub in eyes or puncture. the single most popular is keep out of reach of children, but this one i found interesting:

did you see that last line? it says "do not reuse this package for dispensing beverages or other liquids" maybe it's just me but how often are you going to fill your laundry soap bottle with a beverage? did this actually happen? i don't know about you but i prefer my lemonade without the after taste of tide!

oh and loving my new haircut! what do you think?




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mommy needs a time out!

we have been crazy busy around here! before ben was born we started yet another big remodeling project and got most of it done, we took out the old horsehair plaster, put in new plastered walls, new heat, new hardwood floors (we already had the new windows in from the last remodel) in the third(and final) bedroom and the hallway upstairs. we also took out a closet that didn't really make sense in the hallway-it had two cubbies, and we never really used them it also made the hallway really narrow. we bought this house from my in-laws and my father in law had built it to add storage.

this weekend we finally got the closet stuff put in (rods and shelves), the cable ran, filled all the nail holes and spot painted and moved in! so we moved out bedroom over and we will be moving William into the bigger room, mostly cause he needs more space and i need his toys out of my living room!

all i have been doing is moving closets, cleaning rooms, setting up our room. last night i went through wills closet and pulled out all his summer clothes and stuff from the spring that he outgrew, put all his clothes in his new closet and bureau we bought for him this weekend. i also started painting in his room-we are leaving it blue, but i am painting a hillside on two walls, it's going to have a road with some trees and stuff, and we bought some wallpaper cut out cars and trucks and planes, on the other wall i want to make some clouds and his name coming from behind the planes like sky-writing, and he asked for a sun. it's hard to find time to paint when you have two kids under two in the house!

having all these projects i want to do is making me crazy, it's not like i can stop diapering, feeding, holding, cuddling and playing with the kids. so it just sits in my head all day...i could be doing this, i want to be doing that...and when dinner is done and kids are finally asleep (the baby has been going down between 8-10 sometime) i'm wiped, stick a fork in me i'm done!

also we have new rules for the two year old, i had been spanking-i know, i know, but i'm not beating him, one spank on the bum here or there, but it wasn't working. he is very much my husbands son, he constantly has to one up me! here is an example this is an extreme one though, from after we brought the baby home:

he hit the laptop screen with a matchbox car, i told him no, he went to do it again, i took the car out of his hand and told him he could not have it back, he swung at me, i slapped his hand and told him no, he walked over to the bookcase and started throwing his books one by one across the living room-well reacting wasn't working so i started ignoring him. that kid would throw a book and look at me, then throw another book and look at me. i pretended not to notice him. he threw the entire shelf of books! when i didn't react he walked over to me and said "i threw the books" i said then you have to pick them up, i'll help you. that day it worked, most days when i say pick up that thing you threw he says no and walks away. so new rules.

now when he does something i don't want him to he gets until the count of three-then he gets a time out, two minutes in the high chair. no he does not sit nicely, i have stand there for the entire time or he will just get up, or not sit. needless to say we have been doing multiple time outs a day, but it is working, now i say do you want a time out and about half the time he changes his behavior, if i start counting most of the time by one or two he is picking up or stopping whatever he is doing. man am i getting tired of time outs though!

i could use a time out! time to just get stuff done that i want to without being on a kid schedule but it will all get done, it will just take longer!

so that is where i have been, thrilling right?

doing what works!

my oldest son is 2. he doesn't attend a day care or any formal education classes. he is having his own little pre-preschool at home as i'm sure most 2 year olds do.

we started with book reading-he wasn't all that interested at first so i took him to the library and took out a stack of books that revolved around his major interests in life-cars and trucks.

once he realized they were interesting we were reading 10 and 12 books a sitting for a while there. It has calmed down now and we read often but not quite with the intensity we were.

now he learning letters, numbers, shapes, he has colors down. we do all of this in a casual as it happens kind of way, i just point out the shapes or colors or we count things as we see them. i am no teacher, and my son is not going to sit down and have a lesson, he hardly sits down! we finger paint (he says funger paint), we draw, we color, we play with play doe and pasta, we have attended a few little classes at the zoo, we look at bugs, we do lots and lots of pretending and role playing-in other words, i let him be 2.

the joy of this age is he wants to learn about his world and how things work. for example i stuck him in the sink the other day for a quick wash up-when i drained the sink he said "oh no! water in the garbage!" because under that sink is where i keep the garbage. i had to explain to him that the water went into pipes under the sink, and when he was all dry we opened the cupboard, moved the garbage can and showed him the pipes.

what i have learned is that if i want him to pay attention to the lesson at hand it has to key into his current interests or be part of his game. he is not going to learn for learnings sake, and that is fine now that i know what i need to do. i have to show him how it is relevant to him and his world. i'm curious to see if this pattern continues into his formal education, but for now i'll just use what works!

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my breastfeeding experience

Today my baby is 4 weeks old. That's 4 weeks of a small indecisive person sucking on me night and day. We are finally finding a rythm, he is getting better at making up his mind he wants to eat and getting down to business, or maybe he is just finally waking up, he is only 4 weeks old!

I was able to beastfeed my first son for 14 months. Yeah, I know, that's a long time. Noone was more surprised than me! You see i thought the whole thing was gross, it made me sort of squemish to see other woman do it. I never knew where to look, but I did what everyone should do. I minded my own business and looked away. oh, and I tried to act normal.

The thing is I'm a nurse, and when I was pregnant with my first son I had just finished nursing school. Six months before my first pregnancy I was doing my student nurse rotation on a maternity floor of a hospital. I was responsible for trying to assist new moms with breastfeeding, I was learning all about how it is done, how good it is for the mom and baby, and for me the best and most important feature-the immunity it passes on the the baby. A jump start for their immune system! With all the germs out there, with all the drug resistant germs out there, how could I not at least try to do this for my kid, even if I wasn't *ahem* comfortable with it.

So I gave it the old college try, and when I decided to try I meant it I went to a breastfeeding class and brought my husband with me, (ok so I refused to touch to fake boob they passed around and may have made a few immature jokes, noone but my husband heard me I swear)
I did this even though I was sure the whole thing would just fail, and I could use formula and say-well I tried. I knew enough to know that it was hard, that lots of people had trouble, so I went into it expecting it not to work.

Well imagine my surprise when it not only worked, I never had any complications! I had a day of trying to get my sleepy baby to latch on, I had sore nipples for a few days, that was about it. Oh and when i went back to work and pumped he wasn't so thrilled about that whole bottle thing. (my husband broke him eventually)

We nursed through teething with no issues-he never bit me, we nursed through solid food introduction, we nursed straight through his first birthday. After I went back to work and we both adjusted to that transition it was easy, it was cuddly, it was my time with my baby after I came in from work at midnight. I got to hold him, smell him, cuddle him, rock him, while he filled his little belly so I could then go to bed already!

Breastfeeding in public was hard, just because I am a private person and I remembered how I used to feel about seeing it. I quickly got over that once I was out in public enough times with a hungry baby. My best tricks are-using a fitting room in a department store when at the mall-I just took in a clothing item I had no interest in trying on so noone would question me. (note this doesn't work anymore when baby is too interested in the new surroundings to latch on), timing outings so I would only be out an hour or less, feeding baby in restaurants below the level of the table-worked for me cause i'm really short with big boobs. Or parking my car way out in a parking lot and feeding the baby there. I also nursed in groups with other moms, nothing says leave us the hell alone then there being more than one of you!

My only regret with our breastfeeding experience is I didn't know the last time I breastfed him it would be the last time. I had weaned him down to once or twice a day, and one night I offered him a cup of cows milk while I rocked him at bedtime, he asked to breastfeed. I fed him and decided I would let him ask from then on. He never did again. From then on it was cows milk at bedtime.

I think it is important for anyone starting this journey to at least attempt to nurse, like they mean it. Go into it knowing it is harder on the mama, you sit up however many times a night while your spouse sleeps, you have sore nipples, you worry about pumping, having enough milk, making sure you eat and drink enough each day. never mind the exhaustion, the desire for some personal space (could noone touch me for five minutes please!) never mind the lack of sex drive.

It helps to have a supportive spouse-and I do. It is a must to state your needs-as in I had better get a nap today honey! Sleep really does effect breasmilk production-take it seriously. I also joined a breastfeeding new mothers support group through the hospital I delivered in. I didn't have any problems to speak of, but each month of breastfeeding presents its own issues, and it was nice to talk to other moms and know what might be coming, or how they dealt with their issues.

If breastfeeding doesn't work for you and your family-fine, I am no nipple nazi. I think it is more important that moms be happy with their babies, whether that be bottle feeding or breastfeeding, but I wish more people got educated before they deliver their babies, and tried.

Excuse me I have to go feed my baby now!

finding our footing

this being the mother of two boys thing takes getting used too.

i didn't realize how much i enjoy my relationship with Will. i love the funny things he says, the cute way he says them-like when he has hiccups he says he has "gups in his tummy", he says "i a boy", today he told my mom his name was "no name", it just goes on and on. i love his little personality and just being around him. it sort of surprised me how i didn't automatically feel like that about Ben-i forgot i didn't always know Will like i do now, that it took time to get to know him and what to expect from him.

i look at Ben's little face- i see my husbands eyes, nose, ears, and coloring, but i don't know what makes this little boy tick yet, or what to expect from him. i forgot how mothering an infant is flying by the seat of your pants and hoping something works.

i didn't realize how much more you worry when there are two of them. did i remember to change will's diaper? did i offer him enough to drink?, did i find enough time to sit and hold and talk to him? did i put the baby down too much? is he getting enough physical contact, talking too, all the stuff he needs to grow. was Will too rough with Ben just then? i am always mentally taking stock of what i have done for who lately, have i done enough, am i enough for them?

simple things like housecleaning and laundry present all new challenges. i can't leave Will and Ben alone too long cause Will has a tendency to be a little rough and i don't want the baby smothered while i go to the basement to do laundry, so i try to wait until they are both sleeping or daddy is home...but i'm having a hard time keeping up with it. dishes must be done at the first available opportunity or putting away toys because you literally don't know when you might have time again.

as of right now we don't have much of a routine to speak of, Will still gets his naps and meals, but beyond that each day just comes as it comes. i have a feeling this mom of two thing evolves, we are almost 4 weeks into it. i would have to say we are doing ok, but i might have a different answer tomorrow

boys will drive a mama crazy!

when at 10:30 in the morning you call your husband and ask-"how important to you is it that you still have a 2 year old when you come home?" he laughed and said "important why?"

he's driving me crazy, i'm tired, i have a baby i have to take care of, never mind basic stuff like feeding and diaper changing and clothing and keeping safe the one who can walk and talk, but apparently not listen or do as told!

just as a highlight, so far today he has taken off his diaper and pooped on the floor, accidently spilled the dog water all over the place, dumped out all his toys three seperate times, and is clinging to me like crazy.

on the other hand he is adorable with his brother, keeps asking to hold him and telling me to get the camera! that makes me laugh. everytime the baby cries he runs to him and tells me to pick up his baby, and the-boy-who-does-not-share took me going to the bathroom as an opportunity to completely cover his baby with toys, as in couldn't see the baby.

brothers! it's a good thing they are cute!

frustrated!!!!

i'm having a rough day, and as much as i would like to just type it all out and send it into cyberspace-i can't. i'm upset with a member of my family, that i had been relying on. for help during the day with the boys, for company that i was looking forward too...i don't need someone here during the day, it was just nice to know someone was coming. for their own reasons they cannot come during the day, and i'm probably hormonal but it hit me hard, more because it happened with no warning, i was waiting for them to show up today and they just didn't, didn't call either, when i finally got a hold of them they said " you don't need me do you", and no i don't need someone to help me watch my kids or do housework, so that is what i said "no we are fine. " and we are fine.

stuff like this has happened with this same person my whole life, and it is just disappointing, and i probably read into it and take it a little to personally, and i never have before, but now i am comparing what this person does for me vs what they do for others in the family....

the whole thing is just depressing the hell out of me...and like i said it is probably just the hormones and lack of sleep talking but this is where i am today.