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

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!

At this point, I have completely accepted my new life as normal. Some things would be nice, like more sunny days (like today!), but things are pretty amazing all in all. I now regard my physical and emotional recovery as complete. Sure, I still have 15lbs to drop, but hey, I’ve got time and I feel pretty good in my body as is.

In fact, I almost want to say I feel STRONGER now than I did before pregnancy. Not just because of the life experience, but also physically. Now that most of the aches are gone or almost gone, I’ve dropped most of my baby weight and I lug around an 18-pound baby all day, I have energy again and I’m developing some hefty arm muscles! I still go for walks with the bean when weather permits, and I do about 250 situps and 10 pushups every day. It’s not much, and I do miss how accomplished the gym made me feel, but my body is still happy with me.

Speaking of the gym – we did some inquiries when we went in the other day. We iced our membership for 3 months since we don’t really have much of a chance to go with our sleep schedules still not aligned (hopefully we’ll do this very soon!) and still stabilizing our income. But we figure in 3 months we’ll start it up again and feel a lot more comfortable leaving Logan at the gym daycare too. Since he’s not sitting up by himself yet, he’d basically need to be attached to someone that’s not me for the entire time we’re there, and that thought kinda creeps me out. I have no problem with my husband, family and friends holding my baby, but strangers are a different story.

I know I’m being paranoid.

Anyway, the older he gets, the more comfortable and less overprotective I am. It’s actually kinda nice. It’s like the little guy is figuring out he’s his own person, and mommy is figuring out she’s still herself, after all.

Today is one of those rare, stunning days. It was supposed to rain all week, but when I woke up this morning, I was greeted by the most beautiful sunshine – and it’s still there! *knock on wood* Logan and I went outside for a few minutes, since it was warm enough with the sun shining down on us. That was literally the first time I just decided to go outside without putting a billion layers on both of us since Logan has been born, and I think I’m going to LOVE this summer! Not only can we have much fun outside, I get to watch Logan discover the world too! Maybe/possibly/probably he’ll crawl by July, too.

My mother is completely spoiling me for Easter and I got to indulge in this:

Jersey Rouche Dress

I die. It’s so pretty.

This is where they go now, all the time:

He’s been playing with his feet for quite a while, but silly me thought there’s no way he’s going to bend them all the way to his mouth for a while yet. Cue my surprise when I gave the little bean a bath 3 days ago and he suddenly sticks his foot into his mouth in the tub, big grin on his face. Since then, he hasn’t really stopped. So now, we’re going back and forth between attempts to sit up that are accompanied by strained groans, back arching in an attempt to move himself (it actually works surprisingly well) and feet in mouth. Little guy just wants to DO stuff. He gets frustrated pretty quickly when he can’t do what he’s trying to do, so mom & dad have to help out here and there.

He grabs everything and puts it in his mouth. I know I’ve said this before, but he’s actually developing a much better grasp as the days go by, and his accuracy has increased tenfold. It’s pretty amazing to watch this process happen… I still remember when he would barely touch toys, and now he yanks absolutely everything.

I remember in one of my new mom meltdowns in mid-November, when Logan was about 2 weeks old, my mother told me that she thought the really hard times would be over by Christmas. I looked at her, tear-stained and snot-nosed, and replied: “That’s FOREVER away!”; then I resumed my meltdown. Christmas came and went, and while I was still getting adjusted around that time, my mom was indeed right. The hard times came and went and were over in what now feels like the blink of an eye.

It is now March and my little guy is a legit baby. Where did my newborn go? How much longer is he going to like cuddling with mommy? He barely ever falls asleep on me anymore, and while I rationally know that it’s a good thing he can soothe himself to sleep, I also can’t help missing it. I never thought I’d be one of those moms, but hey, motherhood gets the best of you.

Yesterday, I got him to laugh hysterically by shaking his bottle up and down while making a silly face. I think he enjoyed the anticipation of knowing that I was going to shake the bottle, but not knowing when I was going to do it. The word “diaper” still makes him laugh as well, and daddy taking him flying always soothes a crabby baby. That said, we did get really lucky. Logan is a relatively easy baby and doesn’t have many crying spells. We had a few rough weeks around the 2-month mark where he temporarily decided to have a witching hour, but it wasn’t even close to colic.

He did sleep through the night again this last night, so I’m hoping his 3am wake ups were only a growth spurt. He certainly did eat a lot these past days.

I’m really looking forward to the weather getting better and being able to be outside with him – going to parks, just hanging out in the sun… he might be able to sit up by himself within 2 months or so, and I think he’ll have a blast discovering the outside world by himself, instead of having to be attached to mommy. Meanwhile, mommy is going to have a blast taking pictures of him doing so, of course.

Western Washington isn’t really good at the whole snow thing. It also doesn’t grace us much with the whole sunny thing. What Washington is really good at is clouds, rain and cold. However, the last few days it’s been unusually sunny, especially for January/February. Munchkin and I made good use of the weather and actually – gasp – went outside for a few walks, and low and behold, he liked it! He doesn’t like when the sun shines straight on his face, so I might invest in baby sunglasses. But he didn’t cry or fuss, which is what he did when I took him outside in the cold. The sun also really helped bring out his pretty eyes (not like I’m waiting on a really expensive lens to showcase them better or anything…). Here’s the reason I marvel at them all day every day:

Holy blue. If they actually stay like that, I’m going to have armies of girls kick my door in in 15 years.

Something less pleasant is also happening, though. I read over on Daily Garnish that she’s going through a sleep regression with her son, and since her son was born on my son’s due date, I’ve been kind of worried about the same thing happening over here. Two days ago, Logan started being a lot crankier than is usual for him – yesterday being terrible. He had a stretch in mid-day where he just cranked/cried for 50 mins straight and refused to take his long overdue nap. Last night, after sleeping 8-9 hours for 6 weeks straight, he woke up at 4am (5 1/2h).

Since my husband and I are still on night/day shift sleep patterns, this isn’t a big deal. He simply took care of the little guy. Mommy slept. However, dealing with cranky baby all day is quite exhausting, and I really hope his mood will lift soon… or within a few weeks, if it’s really the 4-month sleep regression. It breaks my heart to see him cry and none of the usual things cheer him up. On the upside, he’s still an adorable little bugger even when cranky.

Until yesterday, I hadn’t realized how much I – and my little one – rely on electricity. Even though we live in a pretty central townhouse/apartment area, our crazy weather conditions caused the power to go out at approximately 9am yesterday. My honest first thought was “Oh no, how am I going to get Logan to nap without his swing and white noise?!”, followed by “I hope it’s not out too long. It’s gonna get cold, and I don’t know how well it’d work to stuff outside ice into the freezer to keep things cold”, followed by “What do I DO without power?!”

Thankfully, I had just ordered The Hunger Games about a week ago and it was lying unread on my desk. That solved issue #3, but left issues #1 and #2.

To my surprise, Logan proved to be pretty adaptable when it comes to naps. He started sleeping in my lap and then I transitioned him to his rock’n'play sleeper, where he slept for about 40 minutes. Sure, it wasn’t his usual 2-3 hour nap, but still, he got some sleep so he wasn’t cranky throughout the rest of the day. Really, that’s what matters.

It did get cold pretty quickly, so I put a warm fleece one-piece over the clothes that Logan was already wearing, and grabbed a jacket for myself. Wasn’t going to work forever, but sure worked for the time being.

Thankfully, the power came back about 3 hours later, so I didn’t have to employ emergency strategies as far as the freezer and fridge were concerned. From what some news sites reported, some areas around here are still without power. I truly hope their predicament won’t last much longer – no power overnight would’ve been quite the cold adventure.

It’s also worth noting that L’s next nap – back in his swing – was 3 hours long. I think I should keep some emergency batteries on hand for that thing. It’s quite the miracle worker.

It seems that Logan’s growth spurt only lasted two days, as yesterday he was back to his normal sleep pattern and amiable self. My sciatica was extremely bad yesterday, so even taking him out for 10 minutes to enjoy his first big snowfall was quite the adventure. The rest of the day we mostly spent cuddling. I always feel bad when I’m not always on-the-go showing him things and entertaining him 24/7, but some days, that’s just not possible. He didn’t actually seem to mind too much. He got a lot of tummy-to-tummy time, which I’m sure our pedi would be happy about.

My sciatica makes sitting, standing and walking very uncomfortable – there’s a dull, constant pain when I engage in any of these activities – and if I take a wrong step or go up the stairs the wrong way, I get shooting pains. Only lying down alleviates it, which would be easy enough to do if it wasn’t for the almost-3-months-old inquisitive little guy I spend my days with.

My husband actually cooked for me yesterday. This is a big deal. No, really. Not cause he doesn’t usually want to – I don’t let him cook normally. Since we’ve met, this is approximately exactly the second time he’s cooked for me, which really emphasizes how crappy I felt. We had a grand ole meal of Swedish meatballs and bagged mashed potatoes, but hey, it was edible and afterwards I was full. Sometimes, that’s really all that matters. On the plus side, it had more protein than, say, eating chocolate all day long. Barely.

I don’t really know where to go from here. My research said that sciatica usually resolves itself within 6 weeks, but if it hasn’t, to go see a doctor or a chiropractor. Mine’s been present since I gave birth almost 12 weeks ago and if anything it’s gotten worse. I think once the snow/ice slush melts off, I might have to give in and go see a doc. Until then, I’ll just have to creatively use my left leg as little as possible.

Our snow-mageddon is slowly turning into a death trap, as ice rain keeps coming down on top of it. I don’t even think you need a sleigh to sled on it right now.

On the whole, it looks to be another relaxing, tummy-to-tummy time day. I hope the little one plays along. Maybe if I promise him he doesn’t have to go back to the cold place.