Never Say Never!

As future parents, we spend time daydreaming and planning - what is life going to be like once the little Bean arrives? What kind of baby will I have? What kind of parent will I be?
We think we know what we will and won't do.

Hey, it's great to have a plan, but you know what they say- even the best laid plans of Mice and Men often go awry.

Pre-baby me knew enough not to get too stuck in any mindsets before the baby came along. But I'm human, so of course I had a list in my head of things I thought I would never do.

Here are some of the things I've done, that I thought would never happen:

1) The Whale Pod in My Bathroom
The "Whale Pod" is a bath toy holder that sticks to the wall above the bathtub. My first encounter with this type of thing was a few years ago while visiting a friend who had a toddler and a baby. It was bath time at their house, and I noticed their bath toy holder (shaped like a frog) above the bathtub. I thought it was cute, but I also couldn't imagine ever putting one up in my own bathroom. Best case scenario for me at that time was that our kids wouldn't have to share a bathroom with us, so if we did have these sorts of things around it wouldn't interfere with the aesthetic of our own bathroom. Otherwise I figured I'd devise a plan to cleverly hide all toys from sight. Well, flash forward a few years and lo and behold, there is a giant plastic whale attached to the travertine tile in our bathroom. Yes, we have a second bathroom, but it's in the basement and there's no way I'm going to go up and down the stairs a million times to bathe the baby. And our bathroom is small- I couldn't cleverly hide his toys if I wanted to. Truthfully, aesthetics go out the window in some cases, in order to make room for convenience.

2) Become "that" Mom
"That" mom is the one who fills up your facebook newsfeed with pictures and updates about her children, and who rarely has anything else to talk about. I told myself that wouldn't be me. Oh, how I look back and laugh at myself now. I'm fully aware I may be irritating to some of my friends when it comes to my incessant posting of adorable Sam pictures on facebook. But hey, they can unsubscribe from my posts! I know that one day I will reclaim more of that person that I was before having a baby, but right now I'm just going to give in to the all-consuming role of being a mommy to a new baby.

3) Amber Necklaces
I never could understand the amber necklace thing. Amber necklaces are supposed to be a safe way to dull teething pain for babies. They wear the amber, and the amber interacts with their body heat by releasing its oils. These oils are thought to produce an analgesic effect and help manage the pain and side effects of teething.  It sounds very hokey, plus I didn't like how they looked.
Then we went through two nights of my normally easy-going baby being full-out miserable and almost inconsolable. By the second night I was grasping at straws and booked it to the nearest place where I could pick one of these things up. I came back with an anklet so that it wouldn't be seen all the time. Also, it was multi-coloured as opposed to the honey colour I'd seen in the past and didn't really like. I still have no idea if it really makes a difference, but we haven't seen that sort of fussiness since. Now our son wears an actual amber necklace every day (ditched the anklet because it always fell off) and I don't care if anyone else thinks it's weird.

4) I Want to be a Stay at Home Mom
I was completely blindsided by this new development in my feelings, especially considering I had always been on the fence about kids in general, and in the first couple months of motherhood I was pining away to go back to work. I'm not saying that staying at home every day is the most amazing thing ever. I get frustrated, lonely, annoyed...but I feel like for once in my life that I'm doing what I should be doing, and that I have an actual purpose. I have always tried to pick a career path that would lead to that sort of fulfillment, but had yet to succeed. And of course, like many other moms, I just can't imagine someone else looking after my baby. Unfortunately our reality is such that I will have to go back to work because we need the dual income. But I don't want to and I never thought I'd say that.

5) Sleep In
Here's one that actually worked out in my favour! I thought for sure that a baby meant I would never sleep in again- I mean, "they" are always throwing that in your face from the second your pregnancy goes public. I was saddened at the thought that my lazy weekend mornings spent in my pajamas, hanging out in bed and drinking coffee, would be gone forever.
Well thank Heavens, that didn't happen. My baby is a crap-tacular sleeper. He stays up late and wakes up multiple times a night. But so far he has one redeeming sleep quality- he generally doesn't get up for the day until between 9 - 10 a.m. And then he goes for a nap roughly an hour and a half after waking up. So weekends still work out well for me. I may not spend the morning in bed as often, but I don't have to wake up early, I can stay in my pajamas, and I can relax with my cup of coffee while my husband and I take turns with the baby. I fully expect this perk to end any time (if not with this baby then for sure when we add a second to the mix), but for now it's one of the only times I can say I was happy to be wrong.

I know these five things are just the tip of the iceberg, and as the baby gets older I'll probably do a million more things I never thought I would. But the important thing is to try to remember to never say never, and don't judge other people who do things differently because you never know when that person will end up being you!

What Christmas Means to Me

Today is day 12 - the final day- of Tiny Treehugger's Photo Challenge. The assignment is a picture that represents what Christmas means to me...

To me, my baby represents everything that Christmas is about...

His birth marked the beginning of our life as a family of three, instead of a couple - and Christmas is about family.
All babies represent the miracle of life - and Christmas is about baby Jesus and the miracle of his birth.
I'll give my baby everything I can, and in return he has given me a real purpose in life - and Christmas is about giving.
He's happy, and joyful, and amazed by everything - and Christmas is about all those things as well.
He gives me hope for the future - and Christmas is about hope.
I love him so much it hurts - and of course, Christmas is all about love.

Sleep Struggles Update...

Last week I wrote about the sleep struggles we've been having, and my plan to attempt to fix them. If anyone is wondering how my brilliant plan to gently sleep train my son is going...Well, it's not. I keep forgetting he's smarter than me.

My unpredictable little non-sleeper decided two days in that he wasn't having any of that 9 p.m. nap he had been taking, so most of our nights last week were spent just trying to get him to go to sleep before midnight.

Last night was the peak of our frustration, as the little man decided he would have no part in sleeping before 1 a.m., and that as long as he was up he would spend his time whining, screaming and generally fussing. Good times, good times.

However, as it turns out our latest sleep battles may have something to do with the new skill Mr. little Man as somehow learned. Two nights ago he started army crawling, and last night he was really getting the hang of it. I've read that sleepless and difficult nights often correlate with the addition of new skills.

And we do have some small sleep victories to celebrate. The first two nights of my wake-to-sleep plan gave us a little bit of progress, and we've seen some of those longer sleep stretches return even in the nights with difficult bedtimes. Also, last night after he finally conked out at 1 am, he woke up again just before 2 am. I didn't go to him right away and he ended up fussing for a bit and then falling back asleep on his own. He didn't wake again until 5:30 a.m. to eat!

OH! And although I was SO frustrated while trying to get him to sleep last night that I just wanted to shove my head through the window, I didn't. So that's a victory worth raising my box glass of wine to!

Tonight I did manage to get him down at 9 pm, so I'll start the wake-to-sleep method again and hope for more progress this week! Wish us luck!

Christmas Accessories

Today is Day 10 of Tiny TreeHugger's photo challenge! The challenge: take a photo of your kids/pets/significant other with a Christmas accessory.

I chose my kid (surprise, surprise), dressed him in his Christmas baby legwarmers (which we all know are my favourite baby accessory), and gave him his Christmas stocking, which is the best Christmas accessory out there! (IMO)

Here's our picture:

I can't wait to fill that stocking and dress him in his whole Christmas outfit. :)

Oh Christmas Tree

We put up the old Christmas tree this weekend- It's been 2 years since we last put it up!
(This post also coincides with Tiny Tree Huggers Photo Challenge Day #7 - A picture of our Christmas tree!)

The past few years we have made ourselves so busy outside of our home, that putting up the Christmas tree was just another thing we didn't have time to do and we wouldn't be around to enjoy it anyway. But everything changes when you have a little one! It's funny how things can get busier and crazier when you add a baby, but at the same time other things just slow right down. Now that I'm at home all the time I was really looking forward to having the tree up. And although he won't remember, we have to make Sam's first Christmas a special one!

So this past weekend we ordered pizza, bought a bottle of wine, propped Sam up in his circle of neglect exersaucer so he could watch us, and we put up the tree!

Sadly, our tree is fake. We did get a real tree our first year in our house, but by the next year we had our dog and we were worried that the obnoxious puppy would eat the pine needles. So we opted for fake, but it's temporary. One day when we're in a bigger house and have a fireplace, we'll start getting real trees again. That's the dream anyway.

Our tree is less impressive than I remember it. It's skinny and isn't very full. But it came with lights, so that's a plus! And it's pretty tall. And I love it even if it isn't "perfect".

I cut the top of the tree out of the picture on purpose- we're missing our star and I haven't had a chance to get a new one yet. I made a bow out of some ribbon and threw it on up there, but I think it looks weird.

Also, the tree is looking pretty bare underneath! Can't wait to get started on putting some presents under there!

The Power of the Sun and a Dash of Lemon!

I recently purchased a pre-loved diaper that had a small, but noticeable stain. I was willing to overlook the stain because the price was okay (not great), it's a brand I love (Happy Heinys), and the colour is purple.
I felt my little man was in dire need of a dark purple diaper, and I also had to feed my compulsion to work towards having a perfect rainbow of solid colours in my collection.

So I made the purchase with the intention of trying to get rid of this stain- and people, I am proud to say: I DID IT!

I'm very pleased with myself. Here is my Before:

 

Before

And here is my After:

After

I know the stain wasn't horrible to begin with, but I'm still happy about the result! This is what I did:

-First, I bleached the diaper. I know you should never bleach a diaper cover because it can ruin the PUL and you can never be too sure about how colourfast the outer layer is. But in this case, seeing that it was second hand plus it had a glaring stain- well, you can never be too careful. (I bleached according to this entry on the Doable Diapers blog.)

-The stain was still there after the bleach, and multiple wash cycles to ensure the bleach was gone. So I re-wet the diaper and doused the stain in pure lemon juice. I just took that little container that looks like a lemon, and poured drops of the juice directly onto the stained area.

-Because it's winter here and I didn't think hanging a diaper to dry outside in -20 weather was a good idea, I hung it fleece out in my window. I've been told that bleaching diapers in the sun works best if the diaper is wet when hung.

-Then I waited. I left the diaper in the window for three days. On day two I re-wet the diaper again and added a bit more lemon juice because I could still see the stain. On day three I took it down at night and threw it in the wash with the rest of my diapers. And when it came out, the stain was gone!

I'm glad this worked, because this is small potatoes compared to the next diaper I have coming to me. I also recently purchased another pre-loved diaper, for a great price ($7!), in a print I've been coveting (Rumparooz Robotronics print). According to the pictures, it does not look pretty- hence the price. But apparently it's only been used a handful of times, and the previous owner just didn't have the time to work on removing the stains. I'm anxious to see if the magic of the sun and lemon juice can salvage my next piece of fluff!

Sleep Struggles

The past 6 months with my darling son has been, among other things, a roller coaster of sleep patterns. And more often than not this roller coaster has made me sick with sleep deprivation.

From the start he ate every two hours around the clock, with a few 5+ hour sessions of cluster feeding thrown in once in a while for good measure. Just before 3 months he started falling into a more predictable sleep pattern, and although he was still a frequent waker/nurser, he started giving me the odd 4 or 5 hour stretch of sleep. Then around 4 months that first stretch of sleep became a safe bet, and sometimes I'd even get 6 hours out of him. I even started wondering if that dreaded 4 month sleep regression I had heard about would somehow skip us?

Then as we approached 5 months it all fell back to shit. He had never been one to go to bed "for the night" at a decent time, always staying up past 11 pm and sometimes as late as midnight. But at 5 months, that 11 pm became 12:45 am, and then 1:30...and oh. my. GAWD, sometimes 2:00 IN THE MORNING. And he'd still be up every few hours after that to eat.

He used to sleep in until 10 or 11 am, to compensate for his stupidly late bedtime. Then that shifted and he began to wake up between 8:30 and 9 am. I became prematurely excited at that point, thinking that the time had come where he would start going to bed earlier and our sleep troubles would begin to disappear. Well, I was sadly mistaken. One thing did improve, in that he would start to get tired around 9 pm. But he wouldn't sleep, and if he did it was a short nap. Just enough to refresh him so he could continue to party into the night.

We are now at the point where things have calmed down again, and the pattern is more predictable. Except it's just as terrible as it was when he was a newborn. I can still get him to bed by 9 pm. Except he will without fail wake up between 45 minutes to an hour later. And then he may or may not go back to sleep. If he does go back to sleep, he needs rocking and soothing to get him there and he needs it multiple times before he is truly back to sleep again. If we can't get him to go back to dreamland, he stays up for a couple more hours, often past midnight. And then he's up every three hours, almost to the minute, to eat.

I've been pretty stubborn, trying to avoid any sort of crying it out and attempting to just ride these waves. My hope is that he will regulate his own sleep eventually. And although sometimes I feel like I have a better chance of seeing a Yeti ride a Unicorn across a double rainbow, I still hold on to this belief because he's done it before with his nap schedule. That's right. He never used to nap on a schedule, or for longer than 30 minutes at a time. Well folks, I'm proud to say that my little man figured it out at some point and now naps three times a day, for 30 minutes minimum rather than maximum. So I still believe the rest of this sleep stuff will eventually work itself out.

However, I feel that now we are at a point in this road where if I don't step in and do something, sleep habits will be ingrained in him that we may never be able to undo. I'm talking about the type of sleep problems that will keep him living at home FOREVER because he will simply be unable to stay asleep without a lengthy nightly ritual involving rocking, shushing and bum patting for the rest of his life.

So I have narrowed down the things I feel he needs help with, and I'm ready to start with a plan to help him sleep better. So far we have moved him into his own room, which is going well because he's no longer in our bed treating me like the nightly special at an all you can eat buffet. But it's not helping with the frequent wake-ups.

Problem #1 is the habitual waking after an hour of being put down for the night.
Problem #2 is the frequent waking throughout the night, at which he expects to be fed.

Goal #1 is to stop the habitual waking after an hour.
Goal #2 is to at least get back to the 4 or 5 hour stretches of sleep, and to wean down to 1 or 2 night feedings max. 

Problem #1 is the easier one to tackle, because I can do it on my own or with minimal assistance from my husband. Problem #2 is harder, because it requires him to get up in the night to help soothe the little man. So this is basically reserved only for weekends when my husband doesn't have to be up at ungodly hours in the morning so that he can go in to work early in an attempt to get home with enough time to spend with us. Weekends aren't long enough to make any sort of lasting impression, so we're waiting for holidays in order to really put in the time and commitment we'll need.

So on to Problem #1. My plan is to try the "wake to sleep" method, which you can read more about here (and various other places on the internet, but that was my main source of information). Basically, the theory is that if you have a habitual waker like mine, who wakes every hour or so for no reason other than habit, chances are the baby is having trouble transitioning from one sleep cycle to the next. As adults, we wake up multiple times in the night, but we have the ability to fall right back asleep. We might switch positions, fix our pillow, pull up our blankets, but in the morning we will hardly remember waking at all. Unfortunately babies can't always go from one sleep cycle to the next as easily, and need help with the transition.

The "wake to sleep" method instructs you to go to your baby before their habitual wake-up time, and do something to slightly rouse them from their sleep. You don't want to go in and wake them up so that they're alert, you only want to wake them just enough so that they can easily settle back down, and you essentially reset their sleep cycle. So, maybe you go in and fix their blankets, reposition them, or even change their diaper. Basically, that depends on your baby and how heavy they sleep (when they're actually sleeping). Then, you stay with them until you're sure they're back asleep. The thought is that by consistently doing this at the same time every night, you are breaking them of their habit of waking up at their habitual time, and helping them transition into a new sleep cycle. That's just my understanding and quick explanation- don't take my word as gospel and attempt any sort of sleep using only my advice.

"Wake to sleep" is part one of my plan. The other part is that I'm also going to refrain from picking him up when he wakes and needs my help to resettle. My little man does know how to soothe himself. I see him do it for almost every nap, every day. For some reason night times are more difficult for him, and he doesn't put his mad skillz to use. We've been picking him up and rocking him back to sleep at night when he wakes up, and I think we're helping to give him bad sleep habits because it seems he's starting to depend on us for this. So my new plan is to go in, reposition him and make him comfy again, and then only pat his back and shush him instead of picking him up. Unless of course it's obvious that he needs a little more contact, like if he's in some sort of pain or discomfort.

Tonight was the first night of my plan. I went in to try "waking him to sleep", by adjusting his blanket and rubbing his back. He stirred and repositioned himself, and I stayed with my hand on his back until I heard his little sigh, and his breathing became deeper again. Unfortunately he woke up about 10 minutes later, but I went in and soothed him back to sleep without picking him up. Although I had to go in there two more times after that, I'm still feeling good because I've heard him stir a few more times but I haven't had to go in. And we haven't had any tears, so that makes me happy.

Wish me luck! This could be a long week...

Christmas Baking Kick-Off: Double Chocolate Mint Cookies

For the first time ever I am going to attempt to do some holiday baking!

Today was Day 1 of a series of recipes (mostly cookies because I'm no baker, and I'm not that adventurous) that I've chosen. Hopefully by the end I'll have enough treats to put together some cute (and delicious) little gift bags for people in my family.

I decided to start off simple, with a recipe I've made before - Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies. Except around Christmas when mint M&Ms hit the shelves I like to sub them in instead of chocolate chunks. So what we end up with is Double Chocolate Mint Cookies.

(I'm not a food blogger, and I only have a little point-n-shoot camera that I barely know how to use, so please excuse the barely adequate photography)

They're a soft, cakey, rich, and chocolately cookie. The mint M&Ms are a perfect compliment and turn an average everyday cookie into holiday goodness.

For some reason they turned out a little dryer than they have in the past, and as I said -I am no baker- so I'm not sure why. They're still delicious though! It took a lot of self control to only taste test a couple before wrapping them up and putting them away in the freezer! 

When I make these outside of the holiday season I like to use peanut butter M&Ms, which I also think make an amazing addition to the wonderful chocolateyness of this cookie.

Anyway, the recipe is below if you want it. It's actually a Nestle Toll House cookie recipe, and I've only slightly adapted it:

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cups baking cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup salted butter or margarine, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 package mint M&Ms

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium bowl combine flour, cocoa and baking soda.

In a large bowl beat butter, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla until creamy.
Beat in eggs.
Gradually beat in flour mixture.

Stir in chocolate chips and most of the M&Ms.

Drop by rounded tablespoon on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Press a few of the leftover M&Ms onto the top of the cookies.

Bake for 9 - 11 minutes or until cookies are puffed and centers are set but still soft.
Cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.

Delicious when warm!!!

It's a Wrap

It's Day 6 of Tiny Tree Hugger's Photo Challenge! I'm pretty proud of myself for only missing one day so far!

Today's assignment is to take a picture of Christmas wrapping paper:

This is what I'm working with this year. A mishmash of wrapping paper from years past (passed?)
Usually I try to pick a creative (and greener) way to wrap gifts, or I pick a colour theme. This year I'm just going to use what we've got because our budget is a little more strict this Christmas, and I'm lacking the creative energy to pick a theme or come up with a cooler way to wrap gifts. Plus this stuff is taking up way too much space- it barely fits in that container.

Besides, it feels like our list of people we buy for is getting shorter and shorter as more people are opting not to partake in the traditional gift-giving, so I'm actually feeling a little defeated. What's the point in putting effort into wrapping gifts when I feel like people don't even care about receiving them? I know that gifts are not the reason for the season, but I'm not ashamed to admit that I really do enjoy gift exchanges.

So I'm using what little creative energy I have to do some Christmas baking this year. Just because people don't want to exchange gifts doesn't mean they're going to get away with not receiving anything at all from me!

Christmas Decor

The assignment for Day 5 of Tiny Tree Hugger's 12 Days of Christmas Photo Challenge is to take a picture of a Christmas decoration, but not the Christmas tree. No problem there, because ours isn't even close to being up yet!

Considering my extreme dislike of Christmas songs, it should come as no surprise that I don't do a lot of Christmas decorating either. But I do LOVE Christmas tree ornaments! However, just like I don't listen to very traditional Christmas music, I also don't like to decorate in traditional Christmas colours. Our Christmas colour theme is silver, blue, green, pink and purple. No red or green in sight. I even regret buying a green Christmas tree, and wish we would've gone for white instead.

So anyway, because I love tree ornaments so much I was actually super excited to go digging through our decorations to pick something to take a picture of. The only problem is that I couldn't narrow it down to just one thing.

Hopefully this doesn't disqualify me, but here is my picture:

In the back I have my ginormous silver ball ornament, which is new this year. I have no idea what I'll actually do with it, since I only have the one and it might look a little ridiculous on the tree. Then in the middle I have my two very favourite ornaments- the funky turquoise ornament (which I also have in hot pink), and the elegant pink ornament with delicate snowflakes. And the little frog prince in the front was just pleading with me to let him be in the picture...I just couldn't say no to that face!

And, just because I feel bad for not including them, here are the runner's up that didn't make the photo challenge picture:

The disco ball (every tree should have at least one disco ball!) and of course, the Christmas Pickle.

Okay, now I'm RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED to set up our Christmas tree this weekend!