I am afraid of Mothers day

I think the stress of this upcoming holiday has been why I am feeling so depressed this week. Which is just so wrong, I should not feel afraid of the holiday I have looked forward to for so many years. Last year was hard because Joe had to work- then his family started WW3 over it. This year I should be overjoyed that he will be home to celebrate with me. Instead I am just waiting to see what they pull now. Either way it will be bad- either they pull something which will suck, or they forget he even exists like they have done for the last year, and I will feel bad for him. I may not want them in my life but I understand they are his family and he loves them.

Post 5- catch up

Okay I meant to write more often than this. We went on our trip to Washington. It was nice, I was really glad we went. Then I was really glad to be home. While I love seeing my family I am used to having a lot of help from Joe. Why we were gone Katie got a lot of practice at pulling herself up, and now she does that like a champ. She rode her first subway. Her facial expression when the train first started moving was SO funny. We saw some of the monuments, and she slept through some of them. There was a lot more I would have liked to see though. Lets see, what else? She had been crawling for awhile but it was a belly crawl, just in the last few days she has gotten up off her belly. She and I are taking swimming lessons on Saturday mornings. I was so scared to put her head under water the first time- and she does not seem that thrilled when it happens, but she does not scream either. She does realy enjoy the part when she sits on the edge of the pool and holds my hands, then she falls into the pool- that gets a big grin out of her.

OH I went to IKEA last weekend! that was so cool. I want to go back by myself and just wander around. I saw so many things I thought were interesting.

Oops baby crying, more later.

Number 3

My daughter is a traveler! We went to Washington DC last week with my mom and grandma. It was a LONG car ride and she did great. Actually I found it a lot easier to keep her close to her normal routine in the car than I did on the sight seeing days. She is so curious about everything and it was hard to get her to sleep when she knew she would miss something. This is were my parenting style helped out a lot though. I believe in baby wearing so I took two kinds of baby carriers with me, and I soon discovered that if I put her in the carrier facing me I could get her to nap. I also believe in co sleeping and I dont think my mom or grandma tought it was a great idea that I planned to put the baby in bed with me- to tell the truth I was a little nervous about it myself because Joe does a lot of the night time parenting. I was not sure how much sleep I would get but we both had plenty of room and she slept really well.
We had a good time but I was glad to get home to my husband. I love taking care of her but it is also great to have someone she will go to and be happy long enough for my to eat a bowl of cereal or take a shower.
Taking the trip- without her other parent for me to rely on- actually increased my confidence in my parenting skills. Sometimes I am afraid I do not know what I am doing, but it has gotten a lot better since she was born. In the beinning I truely did not know what I was doing. I do think it was a good thing on my part that I could admit that I did not know what I was doing though.

Crunchy Mom

Okay so I am going to come out of the closet. I am a crunchy mom. There I said it. I am not a go with the norm cause it is normal kind of mom. Which is really funny because I have spent my whole life caring what other people thought, going out of my way to be more normal than normal. And now that I think about it the more normal I have tried to be, the more dorky I turned out.
That being said- I do not care what normal moms do. Before Katie was born I was terrified at the idea of caring for her. I had NO idea what it was going to be like to be a mom, or what kind of mom I would be. So I decided to just do what felt natural, somehow the what "felt" natural turned into what was natural.
So things that describe me as a mom are organic, homemade, co sleeping, baby wearing, elimination communication, responsive... humm I am sure there is more but that is all I can think of right now.
The thing is I think there are all kinds of ways to be a great mom... this is the way I think is working for me. Hopefully some day she will think I am a great mom and not the dork I have been my whole life to everyone else.

Funny quote from my co worker this morning

"half the stuff we get in this country is from China, but the Chinese fortune cookies are from Chicago." Hilarious.

Number 2

Well this week Katie and I are off on an adventure. We will be going to Washington DC for 4 days. We are driving there with my mom and my grandma. It is a pretty long car ride so I am a little anxious about it. I want her to stay on her schedule as much as possible because she is happiest when she gets the right amount of sleep, and I am happiest when she gets the right amount of sleep too! I know she is too small to remember seeing any of the sights but I am excited to share them with her just the same. The only downside is that my husband Joe is not going with us. I have never been to Washington and I love it when we are able to have these kinds of firsts together.

Also I can not imaging if I were in his place, the one staying home. Not only is he not getting to go on this adventure with us, but I am taking our baby with me. If he ever took her away from me for days I think I would melt. Life would have to stop for those days they were gone. It is so amazing how this little person can just change everything about life. She is so much fun, and having her with Joe is just that much more incredible.

And YEA! he is home with us tomorrow. Our new schedules for work are both good and bad. I am so happy to have actual days where neither of us work, but on the days we both work it is HARD!.

Today at least we had the morning together. I got up and worked on cleaning the house, then we went to replace my cell phone as it stopped working the other night, on the way home we passed an accident where 2 people died. As we drove past I could see the driver still trapped in the car that was upside down. I read that he later died at the hospital. That brings back horrible memories for me.

Anyway I lost all the great pics I had taken with my old cell phone so here is the one I took today- So CUTE!

Oh and follow up to my last blog- I am not pregnant yet, but we will keep working on it.

My first Post

I have what I have always wanted- a family. I love my husband, I love my daughter. So why do I need more? When I got pregnant last year I asked the doctor- how long can I safely wait before trying to have a second baby? the answer I got was 6 months. So my daughter is 8 months old and we have been trying for 3 months now. Even though it took us seven years to get pregnant with our daughter I somehow thought it would be easy this time. When I did not get pregnant the first month well I chalked that up to no fertility drugs, the second month- I was seriously disappointed but I accepted that I was not pregnant. This month is a totally different story- first we did not see the specialist this month so it was just good old fashioned sex. My body was really clear about when I ovulated and so I know we had sex at the right time. For the first week after I was pretty calm. Maybe it happened, maybe it did not, I was okay. But then in the middle of the night I woke up and my breasts hurt, and they hurt for a few days after. I started to get excited that maybe I was pregnant. Two days before my period was due I took a test, it was negative. I was sad for a few hours but when I got pregnant with my daughter I took two tests that were negative before I got my positive- 3 days after my period was due. So I did not lose hope. My period was due on Sunday and it was a no show. Since about 6 months before I got pregnant I have been VERY regular, every 28 days. So when I did not get it that day I was really excited, convinced I was pregnant. On Monday I took a pregnancy test, again it was negative, well so still not period and it really did not phase me, even after 2 negatives I was still sure I was pregnant. So Tuesday night I was going to take another test, but before I did I sorta got my period. I say sorta because my period always starts HEAVY. and this one is LIGHT. So I know the likelyhood that I am pregnant is very slim, but my mom had a period when when she was pregnant with my brother. I am still holding on to hope.



A note on Katie's developement- yesterday she pulled herself up for the first time in her crib. I was not home, she did it for Joe. That makes me sad that I missed it but glad she does some firsts for him too. Right now she is alseep next to me in the bed. I hate to think she will be my only child, but if she is I am still so blessed that she is in my life. No one should ever have to go through infertillity.