This Is How I MomSolving the puzzle of motherhood one piece at a time

Somehow, over the course of just one measly year, a little person has nestled his way deep into my heart. I barely even remember how life was before Logan came along, but I do remember it was nowhere near as fulfilled. Sure, we had more time to do leisurely things and our schedule wasn’t nearly as tight as it is now, but the love and joy this little person has shown us is worth so much more than all the free time in the world. This is how one year has changed Logan:

Whoa. Still blows my mind. My baby is no longer a baby… I’m glad I more or less chronicled his first year in pictures, and hope to continue to be able to do so in his future. It’s important to me, and I think he might find his early life interesting in the future, too.

Anyway, what is Logan up to these days? While he’s not yet walking, he stands and cruises (a little reluctantly). He crawls, he dashes and he climbs stairs (up, not down). He’s very mobile, and while it might still be months until he walks, he’s doing everything but. I’m thinking about getting him a walker soon.

We’re down to 2-3 bottles a day and I intend to have him weaned and on whole (or 2%) milk within a month. He eats 3 regular meals and has 1-2 snacks in between. His favorites are yogurt, cheese, fruit, tomatoes and eggs. He’s not terribly fond of meats or breads yet. He feeds himself, but I don’t let him self-feed yogurt yet. He still eats that from the spoon without complaint.

Sleep has improved. *knocks on wood* For over a week now, we’ve had pretty consistent 10-11 hours of sleep a night, with few and short to no wake-ups. In fact, the night we returned from Germany, he slept 14 hours! I’m sure jet lag had a hand in it, but since I was working on correcting my own sleep schedule at the same time, this was amazing. He either has two short naps or one long nap per day. I’d say it’s about a 50/50 chance at either scenario. If he sleeps particularly well at night, a 1-nap day is more likely.

He’s having a blast trying to figure out the world. He hates most toys, though ones that make sound or flash will hold his interest for a few minutes. Much more interesting is everything around the house, especially the things mama doesn’t want him to get into.

It’s really fun to watch him figure out concepts, though. He’s a huge fan of open-close, and everything that is in his reach and can be opened and closed has been opened and closed by him at some point in time now. I’m not sure when it happened exactly, but he understands object permanence. If daddy disappears up the stairs, he’ll crawl over to the stairs and attempt to climb them (provided the gate is open) in search of daddy. He also understands a lot of buttons and what they do.

While he isn’t talking other than “mama” and “dada” yet, he’s been babbling up a storm featuring many different vowels and consonants. He understands a lot of words, too. New words he gets are “down”, “no”, “ok”, “come here”, “diaper”, “nose”, “bedtime” and I -think- “bath”.

He’s still overall very joyful, but a little clingy. He only clings to me and not so much his dad, though. It’s cute but exhausting. He loves most people, though he’s not sure about some (mostly males) and takes a little to warm up to them. But once he warms up, he’s the life of the party.

Sometimes, Logan throws tantrums. I thought they didn’t come until later, but perhaps it’s the frustration about not being able to properly communicate his needs. Whatever it is, sometimes he’ll throw himself on the floor and bawl theatrically. As soon as he’s picked up, it’s as if it never happened. We’re starting to just let him cry it out when we’re certain nothing is wrong with him. Much as I love him, I can’t have him attached to me 24/7. After crying for a little while, he’ll crawl off and do his own thing. The sheer drama he can command is pretty comical.

We’re not sure about his weight and height, since his one year check-up is not til the 5th, but I can’t wait to find out how much he’s grown! He’s in 18-24 month clothing, though, that’s for sure.

I can’t wait to see how much he’s going to change this coming year!

It seems like finding time for blogging is currently quite a tough thing. Like any stay at home mother, from the time I get up until the time I go to bed my life is dedicated to my son. Since he’s not mobile yet (though we’re working hard on sitting up), he’s mostly in some way attached to me, which makes getting any kind of work or play done hard.

When he naps, I usually try to help my husband with the business side of things or do stuff like, y’know, cooking, which leaves me all of an hour after I bring the baby to bed at 9:30pm. I try to find some time to read or take some photos outside to practice when the time allows, but it doesn’t happen as often as I’d like.

For some reason, Logan used to nap a lot longer when my husband and I were still alternating sleep schedules and I had a lot more time to, well, do stuff. I kinda miss it, but having more time with my husband is definitely a nice trade-off and the overall better solution. Rarily, but at least sometimes, we have time to do things like these…:

…But with taxes due (we don’t get returns, we have to pay – a lot), and expanding the home business, things have been stressful to say the least. Oh well, things are getting better. We did have our 2-year wedding anniversary and picked up this little guy to celebrate!

We named him Nocturne (nerdy gaming reference) and Logan LOVES him. He’s a 10-week old bombay kitten. I also decided to finally give in and get a jumperoo and it has probably been the best baby purchase I’ve made to date. Logan loves to jump and jump and jump and play with the toys for up to half an hour at a time, and that’s HUGE for him. Normally he gets bored and wants to be picked up or otherwise entertained after 5-10 minutes.

Yep. Loves it.

Since the weather has been getting a lot nicer, I’m making an effort to take Logan out more, so he can discover the world. He hates bright sunlight in his eyes and he hates the cold, but he’s been pretty appreciative of spring so far.

So anyway, that’s what we’ve been up to. Times are busy, but the productive kind. I hope that the stressful phase will alleviate within the next few months, so we can enjoy Logan’s first summer to come!

We’re back from our mini trip! It’s been quite an exciting, exhausting and fun weekend. We went to the Washington coast and stayed in a nice little hotel called Ocean Crest Resort. The view from our room looked quite like this:

In fact, this is the sunset that was going on when we arrived late Saturday night:

If you’re ever going up to the Washington coast, I greatly recommend it. The rates were cheap, the rooms were clean and spacious (with a mini kitchen!), and the view was priceless! We got really lucky with the weather too – there wasn’t a speck of rain until we left on Monday. In fact, we were so spoiled by the weather that our trip to the coast awarded us with this sky:

Now that I have you sufficiently jealous, let’s talk about how the trip actually went! This was our first time taking the bean on an overnight trip, and since we had been alternating sleep schedules up until that point, we also decided to put them back together to have more time together. I mean, who wants to be alone for 8 hours unable to go anywhere when you’re on vacation?! Besides, even though Logan has some night wakings here and there again, he sleeps decently well overall.

The car trip to the coast went pretty well. Logan took a 40-minute nap, and was awake and mostly amiable for the rest of the car ride. I had some of his favorite toys lined up in his reach, and he was content grabbing onto them.

We wanted to go out for dinner after we’d arrived, but as it turned out, most restaurants closed at 8pm. Thankfully, we found a grocery store that was on the verge of closing and ran in to grab a DiGiorno pizza and some drinks. Phew! Hunger crisis averted. We threw it in the oven and hung out with the little guy until his bedtime. He fell asleep pretty well, but he was up a few times at night – which isn’t a biggy, but since it was the first time I was sleeping in the same room as my baby since he was a few weeks old, I had trouble sleeping myself. I kept expecting him to wake up at any point, and I was wide awake with every tiny noise he made.

So in the morning, I was sufficiently dead, as well as my husband who’d just done a complete 180 with his sleep schedule. Still, we dragged our butts out of bed and went to a Casino Resort to grab some breakfast!

We’d actually meant to take a small stab at the slot machines, seeing as neither of us have ever gambled and it seemed like a fun way to pass some time, but it turns out you can’t go into a casino with a sleeping 5-month old strapped to your chest in an ergo. I suppose this is common sense, but we hadn’t really thought it would raise an issue. So instead, we decided we’d go check out the beach… but the breeze was strong and Logan was shivering in the ergo when we got close to the beach, so we turned around and instead decided to drive onto the beach so I could take some pictures, then go home to grab some naps.

That is to say, both my guys grabbed some naps and I held the fort. Logan was only out for about 30 minutes and, in fact, hasn’t napped well since then, even though we’re back home now.

Thankfully, we did go to eat dinner that night and had an enjoyable rest of the night together. Hubby turned in early and I brought the little guy to bed at his normal time, then hit the pillows myself. Surprisingly, he didn’t wake up at all that night until about 6am, at which point hubs was up to take care of him, so I could get some decent enough sleep. Once I was up, we packed our belongings and got ready to head home.

We made a few stops on the way home, including one at the State Capital…

And there you have it. Since then, we’ve just been adjusting to our new sleep schedules & Logan did an amazing job sleeping in his own room last night! I was so proud of my little guy. Speaking of, he just woke up from his nap so I better cater to his needs.

I’ll see you in the next few days with a 5-month update!

Since my husband is up at night to get actual work done instead of getting distracted by a cute lil bugger all the time, I’m lucky enough to get 8 hours of sleep each night. If Logan wakes up at night, hubby gets him. The bean’s bedtime is still pretty late – about 10:30pm – so after I bring him to bed, I go upstairs to read and spend some time with my husband, and then hit lights out by midnight. I get up at around 8, and Logan’s usually awake by then.

When my husband hears me get up, he comes upstairs with the little guy and we hang out for a little. Sometime between 8:30am and 9am, my husband will go to bed and I’ll start my day with Logan. As mentioned before, once he wakes up for the day, he’ll be up for 2 hours and then take a nap, up until about 6pm, where he just stays up til bedtime.

I used to be really big on routine. I used to take a shower around 9pm every night. My husband and I got to bed at roughly the same time each night. We’d go to the gym usually every day (every second day in late pregnancy) at the same time. I thrive on routine and thankfully, Logan seems to do the same. However, since having him, MY routine has changed a lot. Adapting to someone else has not been easy, though every month it gets easier. We have this family thing pretty down at this point. In fact, we have it down well enough that we’ll actually attempt to have a little family getaway as soon as the weather gets better! I’m excited. Alas, I digress.

I’m not an altruistic person. I grew up as only child and if there was one thing I could count on, it’s that I always had time to myself that I could divide as I pleased – aside from school and work and appointments, of course. Now, I have the time that Logan allots me, which usually consists of sporadic naps and an hour before bedtime. I’m not actually meaning to whine about this; I’ve gotten used to it and absolutely love spending time with the little guy… but it WAS quite a process to get used to it.

There are a few things I need on a daily basis to feel “human”. A shower, getting dressed and putting on make-up. Yes, even if no one sees me and I’m not going anywhere. I want to look presentable because it makes ME feel good, not to impress my 4 1/2 month old.

Typically, Logan will take his first (and longest) nap around 10am. Once he’s out in his swing, I quickly sneak off upstairs to take a shower, dry my hair and get dressed. I then sneak back downstairs, make a coffee and throw together a quick breakfast. Once that’s done, I read blogs/news while munching on my breakfast and put on my make-up afterwards. If I’m unlucky, he’ll wake up right then. If I’m lucky, I get some time to relax.

I prefer to do my chores while Logan is awake and watching me, as even something fairly quiet like doing the dishes has a pretty good chance of waking him up.

His other naps are typically 40 minutes long and mostly taken up by me making food for myself and consuming it, and perhaps reading 10 minutes here and there. I’m interested to see how this will change as he gets older – I know that while he won’t be attached to me as much as he is now when he’s more mobile, I’ll need to keep a constant eye on him so he doesn’t get into trouble. I plan to do a good job at babyproofing for peace of mind.

Overall, I’m very excited for him to get older. As much as I love my little adorable baby, I think the kid stage is gonna be heaps of fun!

It’s been a tough week in our household. We had some money worries at the start of the month which I think are taken care of now, and my husband has been working on finishing up an e-book so he hasn’t had much time for us. On top of that, it seems we have actually hit that 4-month sleep regression in full swing. Things seem to be getting better now (*knock on wood*), but for the past week or two we’ve had at least one lengthy night waking and then a 5-6am up-for-the-day time.

While he did still nap roughly every 2 hours, they rarely lasted more than 30-40 minutes, which resulted in a completely overtired and grumpy baby. No fun. Also, it turns out that 30-40 minutes is not a lot of time to get anything done, especially since I’ve been helping the hubs with his e-book. Oof.

But, there’s an upside! Logan was out about 3 hours of sleep last night, but since it was Daylight Savings day, we figured we’d just skip a nap and then put him to bed an hour “earlier” to make up for the DST. I’m happy to report that the plan worked fabulously. We went grocery shopping at about 7:30pm, came home at 8:30pm, took a bath at 9pm and then hung out a bit until 10pm, where we started bedtime. He was out cold by 10:30pm! Even better, he actually slept right through the night until 6am. No night waking. Whoa. Here’s to hoping that trend continues.

The e-book is due to release today too, so hopefully we can spend a little more family time together soon. I think all of us need it.

We’ve had some adventures in big boy land. We will stick to attempting to feed Logan solids, since his wake-up time keeps moving backwards and he’s starting to have night wakings for hunger again. It might just be a growth spurt since he’s eating like a truck in general, but time will tell!

I’ve also decided I need to be a little more vigilant about crib sleeping, so yesterday we embarked on an adventure. Since he doesn’t usually sleep in his own big boy room, it’s a completely different environment for him and I could understand his reluctance to want to sleep in his crib. He fussed for about 40 minutes while I tried to soothe him to sleep with minimal picking-him-up-moments, and then he just completely passed out.

We decided that once he wakes up from crib sleep, we’ll put him back down to sleep in his usual place – baby steps! I didn’t want to press the crib on him all night when I know he’s already going to be scared and lonely up there. But I’m happy to report that he did sleep for an hour in his crib. I’m going to keep putting him down in it and hope that eventually he’ll regard it as normal and wake up less (or put himself back to sleep).

My husband watched the whole 40-minute ordeal on the baby monitor and congratulated me when I came downstairs. “You’re SO patient!” I didn’t actually feel like I was, I really just didn’t want to give up on it again when I know he was really close to falling asleep. I was rewarded with this sweet sight:

And I have to say – even though we’re doing baby steps – I felt accomplished. I’m aiming to have him sleep in his crib for good by the time he’s 5 or 6 months old. I’m also very glad he wasn’t mad at me this morning, because my happy boy makes me feel so blessed to be his mother.

I love him.

Just some of the exciting things we’ve been up to!

My husband is a keeper. This arrived in the mail yesterday…:

Sadly, the accompanying vase arrived like this:

I attempted to superglue it back together, but when I went to prick open the superglue tube, half its contents decided it was time to go explore… all over my fingers. I spent the next hour soaking both my hands in warm soapy water and trying to rub the glue off. It worked well enough, but I still spent the remainder of the day rubbing leftover glue off. Oh, and the vase? Yeah, didn’t make it. Superglue worked well on me, less so on something it’s supposed to hold together. I guess I should’ve known.

Still, we had a great Valentine’s Day. My mother in law had the baby for a couple hours so we could go out for dinner. We also watched Twilight at home, which was… probably one of the worst and most messed up movies I’ve seen, ever. It was pretty bad. But we got to make lots of fun of it, so it had its own merits. When we picked up the little guy, he was in a really good mood. In a… chompy mood, I should say. Proof?

There you go.

We tried to have him sleep in his crib two nights ago (a package we received brought in a couple of fleas, so we were forced to deep-clean and use insecticide on most of the house, including his usual sleeping space), but he wasn’t having it. Since he’s normally pretty confined in his rock’n'play or his swing, he thought the big, wide crib was more of a play space than a sleep space. We’ll keep trying it though. This is what the 45 minutes he spent in the crib at 11pm looked like:

I think he was trying to do some advanced rolling. Sigh. We’ll get there, eventually.

Before I met my husband, I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted to have kids. Two months after we met, he asked me out on a date. Three months after our first date, we were getting married! We spent about a year in marital bliss until the baby fever came along. I probably had a worse case than him, but he was completely on board with trying for a little mini-us. Our finances were stable and we felt emotionally ready – well, as ready as we could be anyway.

However, it took a good 9 months until we finally saw the two lines on a test.. in fact, we’d given up trying and just didn’t do anything to prevent it as peeing on a stick and seeing negatives month after month was stressing me out. One day.. I’m not quite sure why; perhaps I was thinking about having a Baileys coffee or my period was late, I decided to pee on a stick just to make sure. I waited the three minutes without peeking at it, as I was sure it was going to be negative again. But, low and behold, when finally the three minutes were up and I was getting ready to discard the evil stick, I quickly glanced at it and had to do a double take.

Two. Lines.

Two.

Two.

Pregnant.

I couldn’t believe it. I went downstairs in shock and called out to my husband that he can’t let me fall down the stairs for the next 9 months, or something equally silly. I couldn’t quite believe it and wanted to do another pregnancy test (it could’ve been a fluke, right?!), so hubby ran to the store and came back with no less than 4 tests. Just goes to show what a sweetheart he is. Of course, all the other tests just confirmed what I already knew.

But, on to the point of this post – my husband. The man who made me want to have children and who is hands-down the best father I could ever have hoped for. My husband loves L with all his heart. He’s not afraid to change diapers (in fact, L’s very first diaper was changed by my husband as I was still recovering from delivery and the nurses didn’t want me to walk around too much), feed him, take night shifts with him, love him, comfort him when he’s crying and play with him.

My first month with L was a bit of an emotional challenge for me, and my husband was the one to keep me sane during it. Whenever I was having a hard time, whenever I ended up crying.. he was there for me. Whenever I missed him, he’d cut his sleep short so we could spend time together. Whenever I really needed a break, my husband would take the baby so I could recharge my batteries.

I hear, read and see about so many bad fathers and bad husbands and I feel so, so blessed to have this wonderful human being by my side and helping me to bring up our beautiful baby boy. He’s my best friend, lover and the best father I know.