Seems these days everyone has a blog (well maybe not everyone, but a lot of people). Personally I love reading the posts that go ‘viral’, I mean imagine the disservice we were done prior to finding out how a Mormon mom thinks that Frozen is trying to make our kids gay. Secretly a lot of bloggers dream of their post going viral, even if they don’t admit it, they want it to happen – I do. The next ‘big thing’ – getting featured on Huffington Post or invited to Ellen’s show, oh the possibilities are endless.
However, I am realistic; I am an accountant, not a master writer that will post something that thousands of people actually want to read versus family and close friends who feel somewhat obligated to read the stuff I’ve posted.
I created this blog for Jeanna, I and Gradie – to document things, preferably as they happen, which I must admit I have sucked at. I mean, I just posted about our birth story, which happened almost 9 months ago. I could sit here and make a thousand excuses, but none of that rewinds time so I am moving on, trying to not over analyze what I will post, what I’ll share, what I won’t. In other words, try to take the anxiety out of blogging and just blog because I love blogging, because I really do!!
I also blog over at Africa’s Blog ( ß—–SHAMELESS PLUG!!) which takes a lot of my free time, you know all that time I just lay around on the couch doing NOTHING since Gradie was born…….so I need to find a happy medium where I can get my ‘work’ done for that blog and my fun posted here!!
Here are just a few, some fun, some serious, some completely pointless, tidbits of information I’ve learned, witnessed, and/or experienced, since Gradie came into our lives.
Breastfeeding is hard. Breastfeeding while having a full time job, therefore requiring you to go to a little room, undress your top layers, attach a godless machine to your breasts and have it relentlessly SUCK the life (well milk) out of you, is even HARDER! With this said I would not change any of it. I am grateful to have been blessed to be able to continue breastfeeding her for as long as I have and plan on continuing until she is at least a year old.
Even though your baby was PERFECT, i.e. slept through the night, self soothed, took a bottle and pacifier, had a full mouth of teeth by 6 months and was walking at 9 months, this is NOT the case for us. Gradie won’t take a bottle, she prefers the source. She does not sleep through the night, and doesn’t self soothe very often. I nurse her to sleep (oh the shock). She has ONE tooth and is almost 9 months old, and I’m not even sure you can call it a tooth, it’s a stub of a tooth, that we’re so proud of! She doesn’t crawl, never mind walk, nor does she seem too interested in changing this anytime soon. She eats her solids when SHE wants to, and if she doesn’t want to, that’s OK too.
What worked for your child, very likely WON’T work for ours, or vice versa.
We immunize. This is what we believe in, and I respect your right to choose to do the same, or not. The joys of living in a free world.
We are what is now referred to as – “Scrunchy Mom’s: A mom that is a mixture of both a silky and crunchy mom.” Of course this now requires the definition of a Silky vs. Crunchy Mom.
Silky Mom: Modern mother who prefers medicated hospital birth, formula feeding/part time breastfeeding, disposable diapers, crib sleeping, etc.
Crunchy Mom: Mother who supports homebirth, breastfeeding, baby wearing, cloth diapering, co-sleeping, gentle discipline, etc.
I guess we’re scrunchy moms who lean more towards crunchy then silky as we cloth diaper and baby wear, but we do not co-sleep. We vaccinate and believe in hospital births, but we don’t formula feed. See where I’m going with this. (like I said some pointless tidbits of information).
Gradie is a little peanut, with a true “Mc Loughlin” sized head (and forehead).
We plan on keeping her rear facing in her car seat until 2 years old, and I’m excited to change her to her convertible car seat on April 17th, the day the city is having a car seat clinic where they’ll properly install the seats in both of our cars. Of course I hope to actually publish this post before this date passes.
We no longer stay out much past 7pm. Our new wake up time is around 630am. If you knew me prior to Gradie’s arrival you’ll know that this is quite the life change, I was very unfamiliar with what 630am looked like before, I mean did people actually wake up this early??
Did I mention we cloth diaper………we love cloth diapers, and before you ask, NO cloth diapering really is NOT as gross as you imagine it to be, especially if your mini me is breastfed 🙂 !
Since Gradie switched from disposables to cloth (we waited for those newborn black poops to be done first), Jeanna has a new hobby/interest, possibly bordering on obsession hahaha. Turns out there is quite a lucrative ‘black’ market for Softbums cloth diapers that are limited edition or “hard to finds”. I love her obsession though, we have a collection of really cute diapers and I cannot wait until the summer to see her running around in them.
Unless your baby has had severe colic or reflux, I am sure you don’t know what it is like to go through those first few months. Throw into the mix being first time moms, and then add to that having a baby who has severe colic AND reflux that takes quite a while to be properly diagnosed 🙁 . When you’re faced with this mixture of ailments you realize you’ll do just about ANYTHING to help soothe your brand new baby (including some things that probably aren’t written in those parenting books). There aren’t really any ‘words’ of encouragement that help new parents through this stage and refer to paragraph above regarding your child being PERFECT, chances are this is for sure NOT the time to remind us of that.
With regards to the above paragraph, while things were tough for a while, we realize every day that we are blessed with an amazing and healthy little girl, and for that we are thankful as we know many others are not as fortunate.
Before Gradie was born I posted a lot on Facebook, I thought it was a lot……..I now post A LOT on Facebook, and I don’t see this changing anytime soon. I LOVE sharing our little girl with friends and family. I feel like Facebook has allowed my friends and family back in South Africa to ‘watch’ Gradie grow. (This is why I am very willing to remind anyone who complains about what I post that they can easily hide my posts or unfriend me if they feel the need, as I have no intention of stopping).
I secretly long for a full night of sleep, like get into bed at a reasonable hour and just SLEEP!! While I WON’T be doing this anytime soon, I do dream about it.
Gradie has dimples – on her elbows and her shins, yes I said shins!
Being a mom is by far the hardest and the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve done a lot of pretty amazing things along the way, well I like to think I have. I know every mom says this (well most every one) but I honestly do think that somewhere, somehow, in my life, I did something right to be blessed with such a beautiful little human being.
I am exhausted often, I long for sleep a lot, I question everything I do because I want nothing but to keep Gradie happy, safe, and protected, and at the same time help her to continue to grow and thrive.
While all of this is ongoing, day in, and day out (all of which are going by way too fast), I would change NOTHING!!! I want to capture every moment, to somehow document it all, but at the same time I want to find the happy medium where I take the time to just enjoy her, to make those memories and keep them in my mind and cherish them, knowing that there is no way to document everything.
If you’ve made it this far in this post you’ve either got too much time on your hands or you kept reading hoping it’d get better. Either way – thanks for joining us on this journey. I do hope you’ll stick around and enjoy our antics as we face this journey called life – our life!!
Anne Younger says
Great post! And I hear you…..I dream about a full night of sleep too!
Dar says
Love your updates on FB and love your blog posts 🙂 LOVE LOVE LOVE!
Ingrid says
Thanks for posting. I LOVE reading all about Gradie!
Kathleen says
Great post, and I think you are a “master writer” even if you don’t! I also think you two have THE CUTEST kid ever!!! She is absolutely AWWW-DORABLE!