Car seat shoppin'

Yesterday we went carseat shopping. Can I just say... I loathe carseat shopping. It is like worse than buying a dang car! Ok, well maybe not that bad... but close!

I had researched car seats all week. When it hit me that they aren't as easy to transport from vehicle to vehicle. What was I going to do at the babysitters house? We always left her with the infant car seat and she took him to pick up her daughter or drop her off at piano lessons  or even to come visit me at work <3 about="about" began="began" car="car" i="i" more="more" nbsp="nbsp" needing="needing" one="one" p="p" panic="panic" seat.="seat." sigh.="sigh." so..="so.." than="than" to="to">
Saturday we went to Albuquerque to buy a seat.  I went there thinking we were going to buy two. When I told the husband this idea, he about had a heart attack. He was not into buying TWO! I of course wanted one of the most expensive ones (Britax) But they didn't have the color I wanted.  I thought maybe we would settle on, not the cheapest carseat and not the most expensive, but one in the middle.... that way maybe I could later convince Ryan to buy a second one!  We spent maybe an hour staring at carseats and debating between ALL of them!  We finally ended up taking home a Graco my ride 70 carseat. Not going to lie we were both pretty skeptical about whether or not it would even fit in the back of our car!

Colin LOVES it.. mostly because he likes to play with the cup holders! Lol

When we returned home we immediately tried it and low and behold, it fit... Even with the seat ALL the way back the Ryan likes to drive! Hooray!

We will probably give the babysitter our infant one for the time being. I don't think he has ENTIRELY outgrown it. (Although we are going for his 9 month well visit in an hour so I will find out then!) And we can recover from this purchase before we get another cheaper one for the sitter.

Rough couple of sleepy days

I thoroughly enjoyed having 3 days off with my little angel, but man those next couple days were rough! Maybe because we are adjusting to a new schedule? Or maybe because Ryan has been working on projects like a mad man at work and has been away for awhile? Who knows?

I think it all started when, after having a few days of not very good sleep I decided to look online about sleep help.  I read somewhere that if the baby is waking up a lot to nurse, to instead rock them for 2 minutes and they will usually just fall back asleep.If they are still hungry after the 2 minutes then feed them. Made sense to me, so I tried it... the night before my first day back to work... MISTAKE!

He fussed  a bit for food, instead of nursing, I stood up and rocked him, because he was so fussy there is no way I could rock him in bed. And boy did that make him angry. He was NOT happy. I nursed, I rocked, I nursed, I rocked and he was STILL AWAKE. It took me almost 3 hours to get him to go back to sleep. I cried, he cried... it was a disaster. I haven't been so overwhelmed and lost my cool like that since he was very young. I had to just put him in his crib and let him scream, so I could collect myself as I cried in the other room. I finally rocked him in the rocker in the living room until he fell asleep and by then it was about 20 minutes before my alarm clock went off. Sigh. Frustration was all I felt.

When you are that tired and that run down and soo very frustrated all of these terrible thoughts run through your mind. What am I doing wrong? Why won't my kid sleep? Am I a terrible mother? Have I ruined him from EVER sleeping again? Is it because I'm nursing him? Should I stop for my own sanity?  It sucks when you start to question your parenting and everything you've done thinking that maybe you went wrong somewhere.

Luckily I've had a couple days to sleep on it think about it and I feel a bit better. I understand that being a mommy is very hard and you won't always have perfect days. I understand that I need to ask for help from my husband when I am at a breaking point and I need to not stress out and take more deep breaths.

Somedays I feel like Colin has come along way in sleeping. He will go a few weeks with a few good stretches of sleep like 4 hours and I will feel wonderful in the morning and think, YES, he's finally got it. And then he will relapse, like this past week and get up every 2 hours again or even every hour.  I'm sure you are thinking, how is that coming a long way with sleep, well I feel like he's come a long way because every night now for weeks, he has started off his night in his crib. He is usually awake and will fall asleep in his crib. To me that is progress, because he went through a stage where he wouldn't sleep in the crib at all, so starting off there and falling asleep there is pretty good. Granted, as soon as he wakes up he wants out... but we will work on it.

I am not a fan of Cry It Out. I am sure it is harder on me than on him, but we've tried it and my kid can cry for hours.  He gets himself so worked up he can hardly breathe. I hate it and practically cry just as hard.  So instead I put him in his crib almost asleep and pat his back until he falls asleep, sometimes I don't need to and he will just fall asleep. But it is after that first stretch when he wakes up that we have problems because I bring him to bed with us. I like cosleeping because it is easy. When he wakes up every few hours I just roll to my side and he nurses and goes right back to sleep and then I feel rested in the morning because I'm not really waking. Seems like a good plan to me... but then I worry that he is waking to often because he has an all you can eat buffet right next to him all night and just wants to snack or nurse for comfort.


I think what I need to do is when he wakes up from his crib, instead of bringing him to bed, try to lay him back down in his crib. If he isn't having it, nurse him in his room and then put him in his crib. That might be a new plan to start on my WEEEKEND and not the day before work! Ha! Then maybe he will get more used to his crib and less used to having me right next to him.

Although, I'm not going to lie, I will miss waking up with him every morning in my arms and watching is perfect little face sleep. I would gladly continue to cosleep... if he actually slept! But hopefully someday... after a nice nights sleep... I can go watch that perfect little face sleep in his crib, all I want! Lol

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Well its taken me awhile to get down a pound, but I honestly feel better than I have in a long time!  I gave myself 9 months to get my pregnancy weight off.... It takes 9 months to put it on, Gotta give yourself 9 months to take it off! Well, I am happy to say, 9 months after baby and I weigh 8 lbs LESS than when I got pregnant! My goal weight is still 2lbs away.  Lately exercising hasn't been happening with my husband's work schedule. BUT, I've hiked for work and gone on evening and sometimes morning walks with the baby to make up for it as well as doing situps and such in the mornings and trying to eat healthier. Oh yeah and I'm pretty sure breastfeeding plays a HUGE role! ;)   My work pants that I was worried about fitting into before I went back to work... are officiall big. :D

9 months!!!

9 months is kind of an epic month... It means he has been out of this world as long as he was growing inside me. Tear... my baby is growing up!

At 9 months according to my at home calculations he is 18 lbs and 27 inches long... but we go to the Dr. next week, so we shall see. I'm always waaay off from my calculations so we'll see, but now that he can sit on the scale by himself that I think will help in our accuracy!

He wears size 3 diapers and 9-12 month clothes

The big news thi month is that he has 5 teeth! FIVE! 4 more than last month!

At 9 months he eats EVERYTHING!  His favorite foods are still avocados, blueberries, bananas and now pasta! He would eat pasta every meal if I let him... that inner Italian is coming out... Mama is soo proud ;) !! He also hardly eats purees anymore. Mostly just finger foods or whatever we eat.

His sleep is just horrible again. He started sleeping better at 8 months and I was soo optimistic. He was giving me 2-4 hours stretches every night... then the past week or so its all gone downhill and he gets up every 1- 2 hours. Sigh.... and Yawn. I'm so dang frustrated and tired when it comes to his sleep!

Anywho, he pulls himself up onto EVERYTHING, he's balanced with one hand, but yet to balance with no hands, although I think he will walk within the next month. (Ha! I probably said that last month too, I will have to check! ) He is a crazy speed crawler, if it was an olympic sport he'd have a good shot at winning!!

He waves and/or makes the sign for milk, says: Mama, Dada, Yeah Yeah, and his knew sound is Oooooh. He jibber jabbers and yell off and on ALL day!

He loves his dog and looks for her when you ask her where she is.

Loves to read books, sing and dance and be outside. He will it in his stroller even in the house if he thinks it means he might get to go outside on a walk ;)

He is still very social, but that darned ole separation anxiety has kicked in and he has gotten very clingy. Luckily when he says good bye at the babysitters she brings him outside and he gets distracted waving and watching my wheels spin/birds fly or other cars go by that he forgets I am leaving!

And now, picture overload... I still don't know why they are posting sideways. Oh and I am pretty sure by 10 months I am going to get a billiard ball thrown at my head. He was picking it up and then dropping it behind him... all he was missing was that forward motion!

Zucchini dinner

So I am not one to post food blogs... but today I couldn't help it!  My boss gave me a GIANT zucchini from his garden and so I went to down on zucchini cooking today!  I made a chocolate zucchini cake and my signature recipe that I call, zucchini garlic shrimp pasta.


Not going to lie I got the zucchini cake recipe from the Internet...
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chocolate-zucchini-cake-iii/

But I made some changes, I split the oil in half with applesauce and instead of grating the zucchini (too much work) I pureed it. :)  I also didn't add nuts (Yuck!) and put chocolate chips in instead... mmm!  It came out very good! I was nervous cause my electricity went off half way through its cooking, but it still turned out scrumptious!


Next is my signature dish that I typically make once a week.

Brown Zucchini and garlic

I saved some puree from the cake to use as a sauce for the pasta and added some garlic powder

Boil pasta as zucchini is cooking

Add salad shrimp to zucchini and garlic... I use salad shrimp cause it doesn't have to be peeled and is already cooked

Combine the two and I put some grated cheese on top and Serve!

 Colin also had squash and turkey... but he had FOUR servings of pasta and zucchini and then some apples for dessert!

World Breastfeeding Week

Happy World Breastfeeding week! Have you all been overwhelmed with all my FB breastfeeding posts this week? :)

I've decided that I've turned into a hippy. Well... A breastfeeding hippy! I never thought I would feel so passionate about breastfeeding and now here I am, encouraging people to nurse and attend nursing groups. This week I told a local newspaper reporter about world breastfeeding week (she is doing an article on it next week) and then I responded to a letter to the editor that frowned upon women who nurse in public (although they never posted my comment! Lol). I am also going on 9 months of nursing Colin and have been hearing comments about how I should quit now that he has teeth.

Well... we've been through a lot in our breastfeeding journey and quitting because some teeth have popped through is just not going to happen.

I feel like we've come so far and overcome so many hurdles that we can't stop now. We are so successful, even with me working full time (until next week... ha!) and being able to still provide breastmilk is pretty awesome and no easy task, but a totally worthwhile task! :)

I feel like I want to shout out to the world, encourage everyone to try it, who may have thought it was weird and let all the mothers know how wonderful it really is.  Although I understand many choose to not nurse and many have difficulties nursing.... heck I'd say we had more difficulties than most. But I truly wish people were more educated about it and that they at least give it a try before dismissing it as an option. I'm not going to lie I was very scared to nurse. The thought was weird and foreign... but I read a lot about the health benefits for both me and baby and thought, you know... I'm going to do this and at least try. I know I say my goal was 6 months... but I'll be honest, I was really just hoping I'd make it to 3 months!  Any little bit, even a week or a month is better than none at all. So if you are reading this and tried breast feeding and feel like you failed, I hope you are proud of yourself for giving it a shot and trying because that in itself is a success.

I told someone today that nursing your baby is addicting. I know, that sounds weird to some, but for me it is true. You build a connection with your child that is so strong and unlike anything else. It is beautiful and a bond that cannot be replaced.


And now, because I am going all crazy breastfeeding hippy on you... Here are pictures of me nursing my baby. GASP! I know... Going all out there! The first two are from when he was little little and the last two are like this week...

Friday Phone Dump!!

Helping me unload the dishwasher

"Drinking" water

I think these are afids (sp?)

Love that face!

Chowing down!

reorganizing my tuperware cabinet...

Ha Ha, look what I found.... shiny billiard balls!

Not quite awake yet.... early in the morning.

His new best friend... I am not a fan of this silly bear.

Again with the bear.

Watching the fishies swim at Walmart! Lol

I got this in the mail last week... to help us remember our trip to Durango!

Trying to drive

LOVE this picture... Marcie's pug Fiona was a big hit in Colin's eyes!

Water baby

Wave or Milk... he' got it down!

I'm not quite sure if it is the sign for milk or he is waving, but either way he has been doing it like crazy and I think it is soo cute and neat to watch him learn and grow! :)

Bathroom remodel

Since we moved into our house we've not been happy with our master bathroom. The two main reasons were the tub was old and disgusting and there wasn't any ventilation in the bathroom and it molded up very easily. Soo... we finally (4 years later... I can't believe we've lived her for 4 years!) got around to getting it fixed!  We hired a contractor to come in and we took out the tub and put in a shower stall and a ceiling vent... and while they were at it, he re tiled (although it didn't need it). Can I just say, I LOVE it.... and Colin does too! :)


BEFORE:

Colin actually figured out how to turn on the water in this picture! Lol

DURING:

AFTER::