how co-sleeping kept me from going insane.

As i've written before, Andrew was a horrible newborn.
He didn't sleep the "20-22" hours according to books that newborn sleep.
He was a very alert baby mostly all day.
And then he would sleep at 6 and wake up at 11 and be up till 1 or 2.
It was miserable. Then I was breastfeeding.
I was such a heavy sleeper, i HATE getting up hate it. So getting up to feed him and sitting on my chair and using my boppy, ugh it just took a harder toll on me. Plus the baby wanted nothing to do with his crib or pack n play. He would sleep in his car seat or his swing. It was miserable.
I really had no issue, or I really didn't have a plan to not or to co-sleep. It just happened to us.
He was so tiny and my boob was so big that i was scared to sufficate him if i fed him in bed at night.
So for the first month or so I would get up and feed him and bring him to bed with us.
BUTTT once he got strong and more alert co-sleeping/feeding in bed made life 1000000% easier.
Sure its annoying to be woken up at 3 am to feed, but to turn over just plop your boob and keep 'sleeping' just felt so much better than getting up.
I know there are horror stories about co-sleeping, but for us? I felt SAFER with him next to me.
I became a light sleeper and I would get up naturally just to make sure he was breathing. I felt his body warmth and I just would not be freaking out to make sure he was breathing/moving.
It gave ME more peace of mind.
I read many of articles one that proved my point about co-sleeping and being more aware of your baby in general.
But like a lot of parenting issues its all about how it works for YOUR family. If your a heavy sleeper no matter what ( hard to be once you have a newborn i think) or your husband sleeps like a log, and more importantly if you don't feel safe about co-sleeping, then don't do it. For me it just provided that rest that I desperately needed in order for me to survive the following morning. Co-sleeping let me feel somewhat rested without fully "waking up", even if i was awake i would be resting and laying down.
Of course later co-sleeping got very annoying once the baby started being mobile, and for us he even hated sleeping with us. He still hates it and will not fall asleep in our bed. Which is good for us :).

sunday ramblings

We went to take pictures at Picture People today.
they sucked.
Hard.
Well I know a lot of you love them, but as usual we had some sort of problem
Our photographer was crappy.
Seriously I am the last person who will complain to someone who does their job, but I was so close to saying " umm are you going to do something"
He didn't even say put your child here, i basically directed the whole session I HAD TO ASK HIM where the props were, and then I had to tell him the baby had enough. All he said was " Hey buddy smile"
Really? to a 1 year old active boy.
Yeah that didn't work
Out of the whole 20 shots we got , we got 1 good shot kinda ( not really but i needed to walk out with a picture).
Then when we got home we realized it was a shot he took after the baby stopped crying.
Then we waited 2 hours to get our images.
AHHHHH
the highlight of today was going to mellow mushroom eating my favorite pizza and cherry coke. :)
YUM
Anyways, Im not trying to take any more photo shoots with him till he's 2, oh and maybe christmas photos, thats about it!
Wish i had a photography friend that would take pictures for us near by... sigh...

have a good sunday night friends!

Things I want

There are a few things that I love
1. Nail polish
2. Cute dresses.

gosh i love essie.
I love their colors and just they way the nail polish feels.

alas, I leave you with a few things that are on my wish list..

Forever 21

Add caption

Too Tired Thursday

Lots of mommas are going through something or another with sleep or naps.
In our case its the naps.
We were doing well on schedule and he would sleep anywhere from 10:30-12 or 11-1 although
it might not seem like a lot of hours to other moms, for this family thats good sleep.
So recently he will be dead tired at 10 and ill put him down only to be back up at 1030.
UMMMM... that is not working for us.
I know he's teething, and his 4th tooth is coming in his right incisor.
Its funny that he doesn't have his front teeth but has his 2 incisors.
my little vampire.
Anyways sleep is never easy, but its important I think to instill some good sleeping habits.
Lord knows I never had them, thus my mom had to sleep with me until i fell asleep till i was 11 years old.
Yes the shame. I know.
I don't want that for him.
Sure I don't mind once in a while him jumping into bed with us, but constantly coming to bed like i did with my parents? NO.WAY.
I can see how my mom and grandma treat babies now,and I can see why we all have some sort of sleeping issue.
My gosh one peep the baby did and they were up and hushing and rocking the babe back to sleep.
I wasn't too against it the first months, but once he hit 6 months... well... i wrote a whole post on that.
Regardless, I hope he figures his sleep out and that we are there to help him through it.
Oh look he is now officially awake. ...

Summer days to be...

I'm linking up this evening with Erica about 10 things i wanna do this summer
This is kinda weird for me since for me its basically been summer 12 months in a row living in orlando, give or take 1 month of "cold" weather.
Regardless I will be spending half of my summer home.

1. Spend the reminder of my time in orlando enjoying this city and the weather it brings, as much as I complain how hot it is, living here this past year has been good for us the constant sunshine has made things much better :)

2. Get my son to the beach! you would think living here we would go often, but alas we haven't

3. Enjoy a good day at the beach for my hubs and I 2nd anniversary! Its gone by so fast!

4. Get to chicago and let my mom love on her grandson as much as she wants

5. spend summer nights with my sister talking and doing our nails and watching " pretty little liars"

6. Taking the little one on a mini "vacay" with my parents as we usually go to some indoor water park/hotel.

7. Make my husbands fathers day very special since last year it wasn't as special as he would have liked it.

8. Move to Michigan and Pray that God sends us a perfect place that we can settle for the next 3 years.

9.enjoying days at the park

10. Spending the day downtown chicago with my son showing him where mommy is from and where he was born :0)

The Birthday.

Today was my little boys birthday, he is officially one
 This weekend we went to Miami to celebrate his brithday, it kinda felt like a "destination" type birthday, but not really since its only 4 hours from us and my husband has lots of family and friends there.
It just seemed that way because traveling with a 1 year old is kinda crazy.
Anyways, packing our car with 10384 birthday supplies and leaving friday morning, only to arrive and run back out to buy the food for the weekend, we were tired.
Luckily we were staying at some church familys house that basically considers my hubs their own son, we stayed in a wonderful house with a VERY comfy guest room.

So sunday came, and the forescast did call for rain all weekend, but there was nor rain friday or saturday, and then i got scared.
I KNEW it would rain sunday for his birthday.
And it did.
It rained, hard.
And poured.
And i think i cried a little bit.
But i had to pull it together because people were coming
Let me remind you it was suppose to be a "pool party" and the food was all mostly grilling.
We still grilled some veggie burgers and hot dogs in the rain.
And it didn't really get any better from 11-2pm.
I got over it and tried to make the best of it.
Overall We all had a great time! Everyone really enjoyed everything and even called me "crafty" BAHAHA yeah right. I did some small things handmade but nothing to be called "crafty"
Regardless I was happy people saw the love and effort i put into this party.
I know he won't remember a thing, but I wanted it to be so special for him.
He will have those special pictures and he will know that he was loved!
So here are a few pictures of the day.
It was owl themed.

 

A special day

Yesterday was a lot of fun.
There was lots of love and I shed a few tears from the card the "baby" got me.
here is a little bit of yesterday in picture form

There was these flowers from my parents

 Then the Hubs made this omelet,it was amazing, like he some how learned to cook suddenly! he needs to do this more often.

Then there was a bag with some presents and a card. A new straightener that i desperately needed and this:

I wanted to read this so bad but there was a 132 person waiting list at the library!

hubs bought it for me!

 This card made me cry

That little hand? Hubs traced the chubs hand, *tear* and he "wrote" me a little note that I'm sure said " thank you mom for losing 304738734 hours of sleep and cleaning up 23703847308 diapers, I love you ;) "

Then we had a little web cam photo shoot

* please excuse the blue line, stupid new computer came with that line on the web cam *sigh*

It was a good day!

In preperation to...

How is it May already?
I have no idea but the fact is my baby boy will be one soon.
So this week I will be very nostalgic and perhaps more grateful that God has granted me such a gift that is my son.
He loves his mom more than anything, and I can bring him that comforting touch that no one else can.

being a vegetarian

I did not grow up being a vegetarian.
In fact my family probably consumed their fair amount of meat.
There were a few factors that lead to me living a vegetarian life style, it wasn't all of the sudden but many years .
When I was 15 they found gall stones in my gall bladder, and I realized how sensative I was whenever I ate something super fatty. I just stopped eating "beef or red meat" immeditaley.
I was going to a boarding school where no meat was sereved. I love everything I ate, I didn't miss meat at all. It was only when at a BBQ or a mexican place that I wanted something with steak or like that. After I would go out to eat when i got home I would be so so sick, the taste in my mouth the smell, ugh I was mad at myself for eating it.
It wasn't till my freshman year in college when I hade my LAST piece of beef. It was at outback and there was NOTHING i wanted to eat, so i ordered a burger, knowing and hoping it wouldnt upset my stomach too much.
HOLY CRAP, I had the worst stomach ache, i felt like crap
And i vowed not to eat any more red meat again.
I haven't since that day.
Chicken, well thats another story.
ps. I just don't eat any type of sea food or pork ever so I didn't have to worry about weaning myself off those.
I loved chicken, and it did nothing to my stomach.
I didn't mind it and I was happy.
Then I met my husband and he was becoming a VEGAN.
HOLY CRAP.
I was just dating him and I knew I could give up meat, but cheese, milks , and eggs! too much.
Him being vegan lasted for 4 months and he just couldnt keep weight on, and he's thin already so he was looking too thin, so sad for him.. anyways.
I knew if I were to marry him we would raise our kid in a vegetarian household, and I was so happy about that.
I was, but then I thought, OHMIGOSH i love my chicken.
So I slowly weaned myself off it.
And right now i say I am about 99% vegetarian. that 1 % is maybe if there is a piece of chicken and it looks TOO good then i'll have some, but if not, then I do not miss meat at all.
There are so MANY meat subsitutes that taste SO good, I can't even tell the difference, and actually i prefer them to any meat.
Morning star makes great burgers
Veggie patch has the BEST meatballs, and  yum so good.
You can make your own veggie meats with nuts and cheese onion breadcrumbs, delish!
I have made my own gluten and its hard work but its so good.
Its like meat chunks you can put in stews, or you can slice them up and fry them.
Then there is tofu.
I wasn't a fan at first, becuase honestly I  HATED the softness inside. HATE.
I met someone who taught me to season it and put it in the oven
Then it becomes chewy like little pieces of chicken! LOVE.  Its perfect for stir frys
I'm not trying to say meat is bad AT ALL, I am just saying my experience with it, and that if you are contemplating maybe trying a veggie life style its simple and there are plenty of things and products to substitute the meat.
Like I said its taken me 8 years to finally let go of all meat. Its a been a journey but I like it.
I think it helped me not BALLOON  up in weight after having the baby.
I have never ever been satisfied with my weight, so that always been a never ending journey, hence me on WW and its been great !