How is it that..mom knows everything

How is it that moms' know everything.
No seriously they do.
My mom happens to always call me to mention something, or ask me if everything is okay JUST when I need it.
It's no surprise that this year has been hard being 1000+ miles away from my family. Its been really hard.
But just hearing my mom, and seeing my son smile when he hears her voice through the phone makes my heart glad.

Somehow my mom always knew when something was wrong with me. I see it now. I feel that extra mom instinct. Being a mom now I "sense" things my hubs doesn't that mom instinct is so true.

My mom guessed I was pregnant before I did. She knew before I did.
Let me explain

My husband is in ministry so right now I am lucky to be a SAHM and follow him where God is leading us. Hence were we were.
I was not working, home alone, no job prospects, and it was technically a good time to have a child, other than the lack of money but it was a good time.
My mom called me on a thursday, and we talked about life, and she mentioned how this would be a good time to start a family since I was able to stay home.
I told her MOM YOUR CRAZY, we are NOT ready for a child.
She was like "okay just think about it"
I started thinking.
Thinking about recent "strange" things going on in my body.
My recent craving for slushies... and then I took a pregnancy test that night and yes indeed it was positive.
My mom knew.
The next day we went to the doctor and he confirmed.
I called my mom and she was over joyed.
I love her, she is so strong and amazing I can't wait to spend a whole month and a half in chicago with my family this summer!

Reconnect

The hubs and I decided to spend some more time together at night reading a devotion together.
We read our own thing, but we realized we really need to reconnect at night.
With the stresses that baby brings, sometimes we put our marriage on the back burner and I forget that it is EXTREMELY important for the hubs and I to be connected.
We are enjoying these past few days, reading and really expressing our feelings to each other.
My husband loves to joke. I say 80% of the time he is funny and likes to joke, but sometimes I feel like I'm the complete opposite.
He makes it hard for things to be "serious" and I on the other hand like to take things seriously.
I love that he likes to "laugh" things off and not dwell on the "little" things but you know sometimes I wish he would be more serious.
That being said, I love that man. When he gets serious and "deep" in conversation. WHOA he blows my mind away, and the sweet words that come out, I love that when he means something, he means it.
He doesn't losely say things just to get me to be quiet or becuase he thinks I want to hear it ( although sometimes I wish he would just say those things) haha. We grew up in different types of homes. I grew up in a very affectionate, emotional, bare all home, which he grew up in a more reseverd home.
Marriage is super hard to work on. It is.
Its not easy, and I often tell my friends who are about to be married, to think about their home life, how they grew up, values things that are "obvious" but when your blinded by love, you often forget to look at those things.
It will affect the way your husband looks at life.
Other times, if they have been in a bad home situation, they don't want to repeat the same mistakes. They want to be better and different in their own family.
A marriage is definitely worth fighting for.

Picky Eater

As I checked my emails on my phone while nursing I recieved the " your baby at 11 months" email.
It was meant for me.
It talked about children who are picky eaters.
Andrew is NOT a "good" eater
He is so picky and eats maybe MAYBE 6oz of food a day.
He does eat more table food, and that is what he wants.
He doesn't want anyone to feed him, but the problem with table food is that I'm scared of choking.
I've gotten much more comfortable but with only 2 teeth he sometimes starts gagging and I freak out.
So its between feeding him tiny pieces of wheat bread, dipped in his baby food, with other small amount of food.
He still nurses quite a bit, and he's happy and he is around 20 pounds.
I thought he'd be bigger by now, but he's not.
I'm not giving up on letting him try new foods, but at the same time I WISH he was a better eater, a piggy even, I often compare him to others, which I know is stupid, but he had a play date with 2 twin girls and they ate 12 oz in one sitting. ONE SITTING.
anyways I hope the boob is enough for him for now.
I'm scared some self weaning is happening, but at the same time he def uses me fore comfort, basically for nap time, he can't fall asleep without me nursing him.
ay.
Anyways, still "planning" for his birthday, so many things to do and still I have nothing.
UGH.
1 month away almost from his 1st birthday, my how time flies

Bilingual home

Its hard to teach your child another language when you are the only one in your household that speaks the other language.
I am fluent in both Spanish and English.
My husband speaks just English.
My goal in life was to make my son bilingual like me.
Before he was born I thought FOR sure it was going to be easy for me to teach him.
My plan was to JUST speak spanish to him. My husband was going to try his best to understand me. Since he also wanted to learn Spanish this was a win win situation.
Then came baby to our house. I immeditaley felt strange even speaking to him.
How weird is that? I have an undergraduate degree in Speech-Language Pathology. For me to feel this way when he came home was hard on me.
I thought that I would be so comfortable speaking to him in Spanish, and since at that time my whole family (who basically only speaks spanish at home), was around me it would be a piece of cake right?
Wrong.
I was very very much discouraged, and I thought at this rate he will never be bilingual and it will be all my fault.
Of course my husband only spoke english to me, and I kept telling him STOP, you need to try to speak as much spanish as you can!
Clearly I was being obsessive about this.
Slowly I felt more and more comfrotable in speaking to my child, in whatever langague came out first.
English was the easiest but then in a few months I found myself comfortable again in speaking to him in Spanish.
We are still on that bilingual journey, and so far I say I do 80% spanish and 20 % english.
Its hard, but I'm glad I am doing it.
Some tips, if you know another langauge even just a little bit I have discovered are:
1. Don't beat yourself up about it. Let a few words flow naturally and say them to your child.

2. Say the words in both languages for objects.

3. Try to focus on certain phrases you want your child to learn in the langauge your teaching him/her

Most of all children are like sponges, so I know he will learn eventually. Till the age of 5 they have the ability to learn a language like they were natives of that country, meaning the accent will be less than if you learn it later in life. that is my goal.
And hopefully the hubs will catch one or two Spanish lessons from us. :)

Thankful thursday!

Today I'm thankful for feeling better about this Weight Watchers thing, and me making better eating decisions.

I'm thankful for my little baby boy, who I get to spend 24/7 with.

I'm thankful for my supportive hubs, and him bringing me sonic slushies when i told him i've been saving a treat for myself the last 5 days :)

I 'm thankful for my family, and their constant support too.

I'm thankful for LIFE in general.

Only one

This is kinda weird for me to type.
Have I mentioned the hubs and I have seriously talked about Andrew being our only baby?
Are we crazy?
I love him so much, and don't get me wrong i totally get baby fever a lot, but at the same time we think about lot of things.
The ugly world around us, raising kids in this crazy world. Of course we want to be a good example and teach him to make right choices, but the world is so tempting, the bad things are always out there.
At the same time we feel happy with us 3. Yes it seems selfish to some, because he has no siblings.
I have one sister, and i LOVE Her to death. I know the great bond that siblings bring.
Sometimes I think I shouldn't even type this, but its true for us right now.
Who knows 5 years down the line.
My sister and I are 9 years apart. OF course we didn't even have similar things to talk about till maybe 1 year ago.
Now she is 14 and she and I are finally "sisters"
Before her and I had the "Mom and daughter " realtionship.
Anyways.
We have never been in a hurry to have a family, clearly.
Also neither of us came into this marriage wanting a BIG family.
It would be 2 kids tops, if we had another one.
Till then we will enjoy our little one! HE is MORE than enough right now :)

I just had to.

As of last night I have officially started Weight Watchers online.
I have been kinda hesistant to start this program cause I am HORRIBLE at keeping
track of things online, but when i plugged in my points of what i ate yesterday, it was so easy.
Seriously I really needed this accountability factor in my life.
The thing what i thought was me making 'good' choices turns out to be a lot of extra point I could be investing else where.
Seriously its like a game almost, where you wanna keep your point and make them worth it.
Needless to say I immediately looked up "sonic slushies" haha since i love them and have them maybe once a week, and they are only 5 points. So yay, I will always keep that in mind now.
I'm so excited about this, and hopefully things work out well for me.

It will take a lot of energy, but support is key!
I just spent all morning plugging in typical foods I eat.
We eat  a lot of meat subsistutes like morning star meatless patties, and meatballs, ect.
I never realized how much protein they had till i just plugged them in.
Luckily they are all about 3 to 4 points a serving, which is great.
What I am worried about is my cheese and pasta intakes.
We shall see how i calculate that.
anyways so far easy peasy, I feel like I have PLENTY of points to work with right now, and I know that will also change once I start losing weight and stop nursing. Which will be soon, but at the same time now I don't want to stop nursing. hahah.

We had a nice relaxing weekend here. Hubs worked all night saturday which is never fun, and i totally binged on chips and dip, which then in return i felt sick. bleh.
Anyways here goes nothing!