You Do What it Takes For This

NOTHING in the world wakes you up from a dead sleep and makes your heart skip a beat faster than hearing a small scared voice say, "Mommy, I need you!" in the middle of the night. And in order to be a good, kind mommy I think God has to instill certain characteristics such as the ability to hold your stomach while a) cleaning up puke b) holding your child over the toilet as he pukes and c) being able to sleep with one eye open as you lay next to the pukee waiting to thrust the trash basket under his chin the minute he sits up to puke again. I am ever so grateful that Owen has a full sized bed because I don't know where else I would've slept the last two nights with him. He has been so sick and so groggy from being up all night for two stinking nights in a row. And I am so sick and tired of washing his sheets and cleaning up puke off the floor! But in the end I am still so in love with my little Bubba. He is a trooper, even asking me nicely if he could have some "Scooby snacks for bedtime" because he was finally hungry. I hope tonight he sleeps a restful sleep with no more puking.

Joey, on the other hand, is feeling just fine and has decided to really start hamming it up to the camera! Check out some of these poses he lends:

Look at me and big boy that gets his own chair at the table and gets to eat!


Do I have you wrapped around my finger yet?!

Look at my snaggle-tooth grin! I'm growing some good chompers!

Shhhh, be quiet, can't you see I'm trying to concentrate?

Being a mommy really means that you do whatever it takes to make your babies smile, giggle, laugh, love, and be happy.

What a Week!

Oh the week we've just been through is not one that I would opt to do-over! Owen had what started out as allergies then moved onto something stronger that ended up giving him an ear infection (his second one ever) and of course, being a good big brother he shared his cold germ with Joey who wound up with a double ear infection and double pink eye! And of course I caught it and my grandma caught it - she has a horrid cough and I ended up losing my voice for a couple of days. Oh they were both SO miserable on St. Patty's Day...And since this week is Spring break, I've decided to take advantage of not having to take Owen to school and opted to do SPRING CLEANING! What a difference it makes when you get the chance to toss out crap you haven't used in more than a year! I am almost done, just the kitchen and the family room left. Then when the weather warms up we have to shovel our way out of all the crap that piling up in the garage, ugh! Watch out Craig's List here I come to sell some junk and make some major curb alerts!
So I haven't been on for a while, but we've been busy bees with all the work I've cut out for myself lately. And tonight I'm having some issues with feeling resentful...upset that we moved back here from quite a distance and my family still can't seem to figure out a way to help me with the boys when Ryan's working evening shifts. Sigh...sometimes I wonder if it was worth the hassle.

5 Months of Poop

So I am a self-proclaimed expert baby poop remover! Any outfit, any style, any color - I can knock it out with my powerful concoction of 20 Mule Team Borax, Clorox color safe bleach (free for sensitive skin) and Shout. Rinse the poop off in the sink, fill it up with the Borax and the bleach then spray the stain with Shout (Shout it out!) and let it soak for a good long while...then rinse and retreat if necessary. I have never seen a baby blow out so many stinking diapers! And when he really explodes it just goes everywhere - front, back, legs. Oh what a mess that child can make - almost enough to want to rush him into potty training! :)

So Joey is 5 months old now and officially "slept through the night" a couple of nights ago by going from 7pm to 6:30am. I was SO thrilled! Then he woke up absolutely starving and gulped down a ton of breast milk, only to spew half of it back up all over me, him and the bed. *Sigh* My washer and dryer are going to be worn out before the next decade for sure! And now he is getting more difficult to breastfeed in public or even with other people around, he is so curious and just wants to check it all out - especially whenever he hears his daddy's voice. He's learning how to sit up and is getting very proficient at sucking his thumb. I am a very proud mommy of my "Big Brother" and my "Little Brother"!

Owen, age 3 years and 10 months & Joey, age 5 months - my two favorite momma's boys!

Love, Logic and Baby Food

So this past Saturday I attended a Love and Logic conference in Arvada with my best friend Desiree and her sister-in-law Melissa. It was very interesting to hear what the authors of the book had to offer in terms of giving a little extra guidance on how to handle certain behaviors and how to actually use some of the techniques that they give in the book. But as in all parenting advice and techniques, I take a little from each and make my own concoction of discipline, rules, and consequences. Owen is a quick learner and he knows almost all the tricks I come up with to get him to comply, so I often find myself looking for the next best solution to the current behavior problem. The latest problem is listening. The child is simply too busy to listen to what's being asked of him at the moment. He's either too busy talking, playing, or watching TV (yes, my child watches what I consider to be a healthy amount of TV!) So the Love and Logic discipline teaches compliance through choices that the parent can live with and consequences to that must be followed through with when the choice isn't made by the child. They also include an "Uh-oh" song that your are supposed to SING when you are sending them to their room for some "time away from the family" as opposed to Time Out; and they advise you to sing it because you can't use anger in your voice when you are using a sing-songy voice. Makes sense, but is very hard to put into everyday use when you are a yeller by nature! So for now Owen is good at making choices, his toys go to toy jail when he fails to comply and we still use the naughty spot technique learned from the Supernanny. Its a mix that changes on a daily basis to meet Owen's behavior and attitude for the day. So far though, from all the discipline techniques I've read up about and contemplated my favorite saying is from the Love and Logic book: "I love you too much to argue."

So I thought I'd share some tips for other mommas out there (the ones that actually read me) about how I make my own baby food. When Owen was a baby I decided that I wanted to make his food at home because no matter what they try to sell in the baby food jars that say "no preservatives added" I still can't quite grasp that the bananas in the jar stay yellow without any additives - mine always turn to the natural brown! So since I learned with Owen I am repeating with Joey. Not only is it easy, but it saves money and waste with no little jars to toss! I have a couple of books that I use as my reference and guide for recipes and storing, "Blender Baby Food" and "Super Baby Food". I just recently made Joey a batch of organic red apples that I purchased at the Commissary for about $1.50 and it was enough to make two ice cube trays full as well as a couple of small containers. I store by freezing the food in ice cube trays (I cover the trays with foil while freezing to prevent any contamination from anything in the freezer):

The picture above is from the day I made both apples and sweet potatoes. I purchased about 4 medium sized sweet potatoes and boiled them for about an hour, peeled the skins and threw them in the blender with some nursery water, poured them in the ice cube trays and here they are ready to freeze and store. Each ice cube measures out to just over 1 tablespoon worth of food and in the beginning he'll eat about one cube per meal, when he gets older he bumps up to 2 or 3 cubes per meal.

After the cubes are nice and frozen I place them in freezer safe bags, label them with the name, date made and how long they are good in the freezer. As Joey gets older I can stop using the blender and start mashing the food with a potato masher to give the food some texture. I found that my Owen is not at all a picky eater and I really think it's because I made all his baby food. To get some good meal ideas I occasionally browse the baby food aisle and look at the combinations - like chicken and pears or ham and apples (those were a couple of Owen's favorites). The only two foods you are not supposed to make at home are carrots (too much zinc) and ham (too much sodium) so those are about the only two items I purchase in jars. So when I am ready to make a meal with the cubes I usually set them up three days at time and put the cubes in sealed baby food bowls in the fridge and let them thaw, when in a pinch to thaw I just zap 'em in the microwave. Then when serving I sneak in the boring old rice cereal or oatmeal so he's getting the extra nutrition without the added fuss!

Simple, easy, healthy, logical (especially with today's continuous food scares!)