2009 is over!

2009 was a BUSY year. After all it was the first full year I spent with my little scooter bugs! Where to start?!


Dawson was only 8 days old when the New Year began, so we have come a LONG way since Jan 1, 2009.

Dawson started eating solids, sitting up, playing, rolling, crawling, pulling up, standing, creeping, and then walking. He talks now. He screams and laughs. He has hair now. He’s 31 and a quarter inches tall. He’s 22lbs. He’s the light of my life and my heart beats for him. He’s amazing! We went from newborn clothes to 12-18 month clothes. We took him to the zoo, aquarium, the children’s museum, the beach and countless shopping trips. He is on all table foods now. He drinks from a sippy cup and just yesterday we started the transition to real milk. He’s in shoes now. We avoided these until December 2009, but now he’s walking and needs them. He’s learned what “No” means, and he even can say it, but he doesn’t like listening to it. He’s really grown into the most amazing child I have ever met. I have the privilege of being his mom and that’s amazing.

Daniel started a new job at a new fire department. His “dream job” so to speak. The schedule has been a rough adjustment, but we’re doing it. He’s grown into the finest father I know except for his dad. He’s got big shoes to fill, but he’s well on his way. Dawson is lucky.

As for me, I started a new job this year too, and it’s proven to be an adjustment. It’s not everything I thought it would be and at the same time it’s more than I thought it would be too. I have discovered that it’s lonely at the top. I wish I hadn’t found this out so soon, but what can you do?! I have turned into a full fledged mom. I go to bed early, get up early, make sure there is always food in the house for the baby and am always shopping to pick up something or another. I love it. It’s wonderful!

We are truly looking forward the 2010 as a family of 3! I can’t wait to see what the next year holds for us. Happy New Year to you and yours!

D's 12 month appointment and update on our sleeping habits.

So I consider D to be pretty healthy, he eats okay, is really active and happy and generally a healthy normal child. So when I took him to his one year check up I didn't expect the doctor to tell me that he's underweight...um he's 22lbs?!?! That's not underweight, but she says he's in the 30% for weight and 90% for height and he's fallen off his curve for his weight. So I have to take him back for a weight check in 6 weeks, and I'll tell you this whole thing has made me a little nuts. I started to plan menus for him and was going to start packing his lunch and breakfast for the sitter and make her keep a food diary...and then I decided that he's tripled his birth weight, I'm not a big person and when I was child I wasn't either. Dawson is fine. I think, right?!

Now we WERE sleeping through the night, with D in his crib and I was SOOOOOO excited about it. If you're famaliar we've really struggled with sleep the last year...and then I came down with a cold, and D got it and now he has his 4th ear infection in a month and a cold and won't sleep longer than a couple of hours in his crib and then he's up for an hour or so and then will only go back down with me. I'm really upset about it. I just got him sleeping on his own in his crib like a week ago and now this. It effing figures.

Sippy cups, FORGET it. D REFUSES to drink from one unless he's just playing around or it's dinner time. Forget putting his milk in one, he's not having it. All he does is scream. We're going to try again this weekend, I don't expect anything different. We'll see.

Happy 1st Birthday my little scooter bugs!

When you're pregnant, everyone (and I do mean everyone) has a story to tell. But the real story is what's going to happen to you as a person the moment you give birth. Let's be honest, when you're pregnant with your first child you have NO idea what to expect. You learn, quickly and inbetween the stress of being a new mom you grow. I think every day I learn something new, and grow as a person. I watch my son, who I brought into this world, and I think how did he learn so much in one year?! Well he grew, and we taught him. How amazing is it to be able to say that I taught my son. He's taught us too. I now truly understand the meaning of love. And motherhood is the greatest lesson I've ever learned. I'm not perfect and I will never pretend to be perfect, but over the last year a lot of my flaws have melted away. I have patience, I'm kind for no reason, I'm happy because I'm truly deep down inside happy. I'm forgiving and understanding. That's what I've become over the last year because of him. I love him so much that most of the petty stuff in life doesn't matter anymore. If he's healthy and happy than so am I. I could go on and on about how wonderful it is being his mother...but today's about him. And let me tell you, Dawson Lee is a little ball of energy, he's smiling all the time. He rarely cries and over the last year he's learned to smile, roll, crawl, stand, and walk. He talks, he screams, he laughs, he's absolutely a mother's dream, and to me he's perfect.

I almost bought a onsie that said "Mommy was in a world of hurt this time last year..." and you know what I was, but it was worth it. I may have been in pain, but my heart was growing twenty times it's size and I'll never be the same woman I was a year ago. Now I'm a mom and he's my son and it's his birthday and I can't believe he's here and grown to be an entire year old. I can't wait for the next 60 years with him!

Catch Up

So Dawson’s party was awesome! Tons of toys that he didn’t need, but he loves them. After Christmas I will be doing a massive cleaning up of his toys and putting away the old ones and only keeping the new ones out with batteries that work! I do have pictures, but unfortunately I mostly only update from work and I don’t have my USB cord with me. I’ll try to remember to bring it but that’s doubtful. It’s hard enough getting out the door with my stuff, Dawson and all his stuff too.


2nd interesting bit: We are on night 3, day 4 of D sleeping exclusively in his crib. Saturday night he did okay, I was up probably 5 times from 10pm-9am laying D back down and giving him his bottle. 2nd night, not very good at all, and sparing you the details, at 4:30am he was in bed with me until 6:30 when I had to get him up to go to the sitters. Last night, better. I think I was up 3 times until around 2 and then he slept until 6:30. One of the times all I had to do was go in and lay him back down and he went right back to sleep. He’s only drinking about 2 oz of an 8 oz bottle whereas before last week he was drinking the entire 8 oz and then some. So I know he’s not hungry anymore at night. So after we get this sleeping in the crib thing down, we’ll be weaning the overnight feeing and with any luck, one year and plus some after D was born I will FINALLY get a full night’s sleep.

Dawson is HORRIBLE with transition. I was doing the bottle to sippy cup transition and he gets soooo mad and cries and cries and cries, so we’re doing the mom bed to crib transition, then the no overnight feeding transition and finally the bottle to sippy transition in that order. I can’t fight him on everything and I can’t take away his comfort zones on everything all at once. So it’ll be rough, but that’s just what we’ve got to do.

3rd interesting bit: Took D to see Santa and he screamed. Exactly what I expected and I did get the timeless first Santa picture complete with a screaming child and all.

We’ve got our one year check up on Monday, which means Dawson will probably be off the formula forever. Which is okay with me, milk is cheaper and although I don’t think he eats enough now, I’m hoping that when we make the change he’ll eat more and be on a better schedule as far as meals go. Right now and since he was born life has revolved around bottles and instead of a paci he comforts himself with one. I do frequently give him water in his bottle, and he doesn’t like juice, so I’m hoping we’ll be on our solid 3 meals a day and some snacks in between. It’ll be nice to pick up and go without having to worry about formula and all that it brings…

Ignore my last post!

Thank goodness!!! No accumulation expected!!! Sorry for starting my last post with a cusre word. Can you tell that I write the same way that I think?

Something always goes wrong, always!

Shit! You’ve got to be effing kidding me. So if you aren’t aware, I live in Upstate, South Carolina…where it NEVER snows and when it does the entire state shuts down. I mean seriously, ½ an inch of snow (which is never actually snow and almost always ice) means no school, no work, nothing’s open…period. So I get the lovely message today that it’s supposed to snow tomorrow, 1-4 inches. Dawson’s party is on Saturday!!! He’s screwed  and I’m devastated. Please pray that it doesn’t snow.

Birthday Planning

So Dawson’s FIRST birthday party is this Saturday…and I’m super excited, but kind of sad too…I mean my little baby will be one entire year old on the 23rd, and that’s only 8 days away! I have all these mixed emotions about it, and that’s probably contributing to my baby fever (although I was with a 2 month old baby last night and had NO desire to have another right now.) Anyway, it seems like yesterday I was in dreadful awful pain, having a much shorter labor than I had ever anticipated (3 hours!) and pushing this incredible human into this world. And my first thought was how amazing God is for allowing people to be parents. He must really have it right, this is love. If you don’t know love after having a child, you must not be human…seriously. I had NO idea how my heart would burst with emotion for my son. SERIOUSLY.


And now I have the honor and privilege of watching him literally walk out of his baby year into his first toddler year. Amazing does not begin to describe it. Speaking of walking, it seems like just yesterday I was helping him roll over and finding the greatest joy out of it when he finally did it…then he crawled and he hasn’t slowed down since! Now he’s walking and screaming and laughing and playing and just turning into this wonderful little boy. My wonderful little boy. What did I do right in my life to deserve this?!

Now back to the party planning. If you’re a normal reader of my blog, no doubt you’ve seen his little fire truck invitations (Thanks Again, Janell!) and you know we’re having the party at one of the fire departments that Daniel has been associated with. It’s going to be very laid back and mostly family and close friends who’ve been there from the beginning and since D isn’t in daycare he doesn’t have that many little friends. So here’s what I have so far:

Table Cloths

Table Toppers

Cupcakes (I don’t have them yet, but they will be ready by Saturday)

Ribbon Pull Pinata

Plates

Napkins

What I need:

Pizza (pick it up on Saturday before the party)

Candy for the piñata

Drinks

Veggie Tray

Fruit Tray

Chips and various other snacks…

And here’s the problem, the various other snacks, what snacks do I need? I could do chex mix….but since there’s pizza I just need snacks….Any advice?

Physical relationship...

If you'd rather not read about my intimate relationship with my husband click off this page...you've been warned.

Now I think it was pretty obvious in a couple of posts ago that I've been struggling with sex. I haven't been enjoying it.I've literally been forcing it and Daniel knew it. It was rough. Our marriage was truly suffering...well I'm happy to report that I had amazing sex with my husband last night! Seriously that was the first time since probably before I was pregnant with D...so almost 2 years. I forgot how much fun sex could be. It's great! And yes this was with my husband...

Baby Fever!

It's hit me, I've been bitten b the baby fever bug. It probably doesn't help that a lot of people that had babies when I had Dawson are pregnant again...but Daniel won't even entertain the idea until July of 2011. Which is fine, I don't really want another baby, I just want the excitement that a baby brings.when are you thinking of adding another?

This will probably piss some people off....

I don’t know how else to say this, but to just say it. It pisses me off when Mom’s of girls act like their child is better than mine b/c I had a boy. I don’t know if bothers me so much b/c being the mother of a boy is the most amazing wonderful experience of my life, or if I feel guilty b/c I never thought I’d be so happy to have a little boy. When I found out I was pregnant, I knew in my heart from that very moment that Dawson was in fact a boy, but I forced myself to remain “optimistic” that I would have a girl. Well lo and behold at our 20 week ultrasound, D was all boy. I’ll admit I was upset about it. I couldn’t believe I wasn't getting my little girl, it wasn’t fair! God must have had some kind of agenda towards me….he must hate me for giving me a boy. What the hell was I going to do with a son, all I’d ever wanted was a little girl. And I gradually got used to the idea. And the day HE was born, my heart knew that I was meant to be the mom of a wonderful SON. I can’t tell you how amazing my child is, but what I can tell you is there is no way in hell, in any given way, that you love your daughter more than I love my son.


I have a friend who has a daughter and she’s constantly making comments about how having a daughter is wonderful and that she couldn’t handle having a boy, etc….and one of her friends is having a girl, and she’s always talking about how glad she is that her friend isn’t having another boy…Are boys the plague? Is there something wrong with them? Is this country the opposite of China and we don’t want boys? I don’t understand. Let me assure you, my son is loving and wonderful and he holds my whole heart. I couldn’t love 3 girls as much as I love my one boy. Does he have cute clothes, hell yes he does, but they aren’t pink and he can’t wear bows in his hair.

I have another friend who has 2 boys and one girl, and I can tell you that I’ve witnessed on more than one occasion that her daughter is clearly favored. But that could be b/c she’s the baby, I don’t know.

I work with a girl that is pregnant with a girl, and everyone acted like it was amazing that she was having this girl…my question to her was, is the baby healthy? Seriously why does it matter if it’s a girl or a boy if it’s a healthy baby? Will you not love a boy like you do a girl?

What I do know is that I love my son, and I don’t want sympathy looks and conversations from people b/c of it. I love him, I praise him, he has my soul. Just b/c you have a girl doesn’t mean that you joined some illicit club that only moms to girls can be in. Trust me, as parents, we all know the trials and tribulations parenthood brings, but having one sex over the other, doesn’t change the experience.

I know firsthand what it’s like to have a son and desperately desire a girl…and let me tell you…when I think about my 2nd child, I don’t care if I have a boy or a girl, as long as I have a healthy child who is happy.

And let me be clear, not all or even most Moms of girls act this way, but it is something I've noticed in some...and it does piss me off when it happens. It's as if they are saying " You're child isn't good enough, he's a boy..."

She was right, this book is AMAZING!!

Karen, you are a lifesaver!


On my last post Karen suggested a book and I immediately went and picked it up. I can tell you I’m only on chapter 3, but I can already tell this is exactly what I’ve been looking for. I highly suggest this book to any new mom, whether you have 1, 2, or 5 children. If you’re feeling spread too thin and like a failure (see last post) you NEED this book!! It’s “I was a really good mom before I had Kids” written by Trisah Ashworth and Amy Nobile. I can’t put it down and I’ve already ordered “Dirty Little Secrets.” Thanks again, Karen!