Ahh so excited! I love my aunt so much. She lives in Alabama and we live in Indiana so we hardly ever see each other. So looks like we get to have a mini vacation to Alabama in September! :D
We are FINALLY going to have our own place. I’m so excited. :D
Since I see a lot of these being done, I’ll do my own. :)
Sophia wakes up around 6-7 in the morning for a bottle. I nudge Bret, who then gets up and makes it while I keep baby content. She takes the bottle and falls back asleep until around 9 (sometimes earlier, sometimes later, we don’t have much of a schedule). Bret gets up between 7 and 8 usually and gets ready for work or school, whatever he has that day. He usually leaves before Sophie is awake. Meanwhile, I go back to sleep until she wakes me up by pouncing on my face.
We get up and I make her another bottle. We play for a while. Sometimes we eat breakfast, Sophie isn’t that big of an eater though so that’s only a few times a week. When we do eat, we share yogurt and toast or something similar.
After breakfast, or whenever baby girl starts showing signs of tiredness, we take a shower together. Sophia sits in her little tub and plays with her rubber duckies and bath toys while I wash my hair/shave/etc, then I bathe her. Then I get out and leave her in there to play while I dry off, brush my teeth, and get dressed. She watches me brush my teeth and giggles, she thinks that’s pretty funny. I get her out of the tub and wrap her up in a warm towel and we head back upstairs to our room, I grab a bottle on the way. It’s somewhere between 11 and 12 now. I make the bottle and let Sophie drink it while I lotion her up, put a diaper on her, and get her dressed. Then she goes to sleep in our bed for a nap that usually lasts about two hours.
While she’s napping, I clean our room and start laundry (usually diapers). I get on Facebook and Tumblr because I’m an addict. She wakes up sometime between 1 and 3, depending on how tired she was and when she fell asleep.
When she wakes up she’s ready for a bottle. She eats a couple of ounces but gets distracted by all the fun things in our room and starts playing. She chases the cat around the house. I fold laundry and blow dry my hair and do my makeup. I’m too scared to dry my hair while she’s napping because I’m afraid I won’t be able to hear her if she wakes up and cries for me. If I’m not there when she wakes up, she freaks out until she sees me.
We spend the rest of the afternoon playing. We dance, read books, chase the cat some more, try to pull ornaments off the Christmas tree, and practice climbing the stairs. Sophie falls a few times and cries, and the cat gives her kisses to make her feel better. If we didn’t eat breakfast, we probably eat something during this time.
Daddy gets home, either on break from work or home from school, sometime between 2 and 5. He joins in the playing and changes the TV from music to actual shows. Soph has another bottle sometime during this playtime, and usually naps again, but for a shorter period of time. This second nap is at different times every day.
Around 6-7, daddy cooks dinner for us all. Sophie eats little bits of whatever we’re having, and has another bottle. She makes a big mess and I clean it up. I give her a sippy cup with water (occasionally juice but not very often) and she drinks tiny amounts of it. Then we relax and play some more until bedtime. I usually get on the computer again during this time while daddy plays with baby.
Sometime between 10 and 11 (usually), Sophie gets sleepy. She gets a final bottle and drifts off to sleep shortly afterward. Once she’s asleep for the night, I start more laundry and wash her bottles and the dishes. I clean everything better than I did during her nap. Daddy and I have alone time (lol) and then we go to sleep with her. :)
Sometimes, Sophie wakes up once or twice during the night for a bottle. She takes 4 ounces, every two hours during the day, just like she did as a newborn. Her feeding patterns haven’t really changed with age, but she’ll occasionally drink water instead now.
Obviously not every day goes like this, but this is our basic routine. Some days I have school, and some days we go to visit a friend/family member or have a play date or go to the store, etc. Some nights Bret surprises us and takes us out to eat instead of cooking. If you actually read this long, boring post, you must be really bored or you really like me, but either way, thanks! :)
Whenever I say “moo moo!” she says “Mama!” and whenever I say “Pop pop pop!” She says “Paw paw!”
My little girl is super smart. :D
She was crying “Hold me momma!” She looked maybe 3 at the oldest. Her mom kept saying “Catch up to me and I’ll hold you!” But just kept walking quickly away. I can still hear the poor girl screaming down the hallway. I’m sad now.
Sophia always has to have a bottle to fall asleep at night (and usually at nap time too). I would love to have her off the bottle in another month or two, but I have a feeling the bedtime bottle is going to be the hardest habit to break. Help! I will NOT let her CIO so don’t even suggest it.
We were at a friend’s house last week and Sophie hit her head on a chair and started crying. Their little five year old boy started hitting the chair saying “Bad chair! Bad chair!” Everyone else thought it was funny, but I thought it was kind of disturbing. It really shows the kind of discipline used in that household and the way of thinking that is resulting in the child. Maybe I’m overthinking it, but I never want my kids to fear being hit or to project that fear onto inanimate objects (cycle of abuse type of thing, IMO). :/
She was making up for the night before, I’m sure!
She fell asleep at 8 (that NEVER happens, she usually goes to bed around 10 or 11) and slept until 10 this morning, only waking up at midnight and seven for bottles. We both got some much needed rest. :)
We have to be up at 6 am to get ready for school and drop Soph off at the babysitter’s by 7.
I ended up telling Bret about an hour ago to just go to sleep and let me deal with it, because it doesn’t make sense for both of us to be exhausted tomorrow morning.
So I’ve been doing laundry and letting Soph crawl around the kitchen while I eat big spoonfuls of cookie dough and a giant cup of Big Red to stave off my sleepyness. My bedtime these days is usually around 10 or 11.
Then to take out my frustration I secretively threw away a bunch of Gerber toddler meals my MIL bought for Sophia. By secretively, I mean I hid them underneath other trash so she wouldn’t see I had thrown them away. LOL!
Today, when I was in the bathroom blow drying my hair, she started feeding Sophie these Gerber Yogurt Melts (a lot of you probably know what I’m talking about) and Sophie choked on the first one. I heard crying so I ran out to see what was happening and MIL says “Oh she’s just mad because she choked and I had to take it out of her mouth.” Then while she’s still crying from choking on these things, MIL tries to force her to eat another one! So I pick her up to comfort her and MIL keeps trying to feed her while she’s in my arms, crying. She was acting like I wasn’t even there or something. I was shaking because I was mad and scared she was going to choke again if this woman didn’t stop putting these things in her mouth.
Then after Soph kept refusing the Melts, she started trying to make her eat these cheese puff things (They seriously smelled like the cheese puffs adults eat). I checked out the labeling and these things are sooo high in sodium. Why can’t she at least buy her healthy food if she’s going to buy her food?
Bret told me to just tell her how I feel, but do you guys remember the Nutter Butter story? Yeah, calmly asking her not to give Sophie something never works out well. It turns into a huge bitch fest from her. So I’ll just passive aggressively throw away the things she buys that are gross, and let Bret deal with the talking.
We’ve never told her we cosleep before because we knew she was very against it. But today the nurse asked if she slept in her crib and before I could stop myself I blurted out “No, she sleeps with us.” Cue the shit storm.
First the nurse seemed shocked - like she couldn’t imagine anyone would ever sleep with their baby, let alone admit it in public. Then she lectured us for a good ten minutes about it and left the room.
Enter doctor. Can you guess what the first thing she mentioned was? Yep, cosleeping. She lectured us for another ten minutes or so and then told us a story about another nine month old baby who had been her patient and had died while cosleeping because he got trapped between the bed and the wall.
Then throughout the rest of the check up she kept putting in little jabs about it. Like when we were discussing ERF (which she agrees with), Bret told her proudly that I was very educated on the benefits of rear-facing and had bought the safest ERF car seat I could find. She then said “You put so much effort into making sure she’s safe in the car, why not do the same at night?!” Bret and I were both pretty insulted at that point. She knows we’re fairly well educated, especially for young parents, yet she’s assuming we let our baby sleep with us without doing any research on it?
At any rate, Sophia is very safe in bed with mommy and daddy, and she will continue to be there until she decides she is ready to sleep alone. In the meantime, I think I’m going to be looking for a new pediatrician. I left that office almost in tears from humiliation and I’ve been really upset about it all night.
It’s sharp, and she’s fussy, and I’m excited! :D
For the past week or two I’ve been having a really hard time getting Soph to sleep at night. She always thinks it’s play time as soon as the lights go out and we’re all in bed. I would get frustrated because she would get so hyper and end up hitting her hit on the wall or something. Bret had to put her to sleep because she refused to take a bottle from me. I felt like a bad mommy because I wasn’t even putting my baby to sleep anymore.
But the past couple of nights have been so much better. I’ve stayed peaceful and really gentle with her. I’ve realized she’s just excited to be with mommy and daddy because she loves being with us, and climbing all over us and covering us in smooches. I’ve been able to lay her on my belly and pat her to sleep. I’m really proud of myself for sticking to my guns and not letting her cry herself to sleep, even when it seemed like there was no other way she was going to fall asleep. I’m trying to be more patient with her as we hit this more toddler-y stage where she gets a little mischievous and hyper. I’m trying to stick to the peaceful parenting methods that I know are best for her, and so far it seems to be working. :)
I turned Pandora on, on our TV, and she crawled over right in front of it and got on her knees and started bouncing up and down and clapping. Then when the song changed she stopped and crawled back to her toys. LOL!
My mom’s getting us formula. Thank god. I’m still pissed at Bret’s mom for just going to sleep and expecting Sophie to magically transition to 2% milk in one day at nine months old.
I’m having a horrible fucking day already.
So I wake up this morning and Bret’s already left for class, without making sure I was up. So I was already running late and Bret’s mom was supposed to babysit but she got home late because she spent the night with her boyfriend last night (like she does every night). She finally gets home and I can’t find my keys anywhere. After twenty minutes of calling/texting Bret finally answers me and tells me that he accidentally grabbed both sets of keys this morning. School is half an hour away and he will be there until 9:00 tonight. So I can’t go to school.
The reason he didn’t realize he grabbed my keys was because he was “half asleep” this morning. The reason he was half asleep is because he insisted that we go to his friend’s house last night, and we were there until almost 1 in the morning. I told him I didn’t want to go.
Then I realize we’re almost out of formula and guess where all the brand new cans are? Sitting in the fucking trunk of the car, which is locked and the keys are half an hour away with Bret. Why is all the brand new formula sitting in the trunk? Because when we went to the store two days ago, Bret didn’t grab it because it was raining, and when I asked him to grab it last night he apparently ignored me.
Bret’s mom is home and could easily go get a can for us for the day. But instead, she lectures me for half an hour on the importance of having extra keys and not clipping your keys together (umm, what?) and then insists that I just give Sophie 2% milk for the day. Then she goes to bed.
FML. I have enough formula for maybe one more bottle, two if I’m lucky. She’s only 9 months old and I really don’t want to give her cow’s milk yet. I wasn’t even planning on giving her cow’s milk at a year, I was going to do almond milk instead.
So yeah, I’m pretty pissed right now. I don’t know what to do about this formula thing. I’m about to try and break into the car. :/
So we’re going to be doing the rest in a week or so. But the ones that are done will be on a disk by tomorrow and I’ll post them. They turned out GREAT. :)
Got Sophia some pink Mega Bloks (they’re like giant Lego’s, I think she’ll love them) and a pink Mega Blok car to go with them, and some more clothes. :)
We also found her a Christmas dress at Gymboree, which is perfect because tomorrow we’re getting Christmas pictures done! We have the dress and a little outfit that says “My First Christmas” and I’m soooo excited! I’ll post the pictures as soon as our photographer gets them to us! :)
Annnddd we started planning her first birthday party! Her birthday is on a Wednesday, so we’re having it the Sunday before. We’re going to make it Princess Peach themed (yes, like Mario’s Peach). Bret’s going to make a big Princess Peach cake and a small cake for Sophie to eat, and everything is going to be all pink. :)
I can’t decide if this is a Christmas present for me or for Sophia, since I’m the one all excited about it. :)
I’m buying three Flip covers off of a friend of mine and ordering 15 unbleached prefolds to use with them. I’ve never used prefolds before but I’m really excited to try them out. :)
They’d be over 18 months apart. Too soon?
I used to hold her and rock her/feed her to sleep for every single nap and at bedtime. But lately she’s been holding her own bottle, and fighting me if I try to hold it for her, or even hold her period. She likes me to tuck her into bed and then she feeds herself to sleep, like she just did for a nap. Miss Independent doesn’t need mommy as much anymore! She still likes to have her hand on my face while she sleeps at night though. :)
