Night Shifts

I have found that there are a lot of pros and cons to working overnight shifts with a little one at home. Pros include being home during the day to see the things she learns, to spend time with her over breakfast and supper and to work while she sleeps. All in all, I miss less of her baby years. Cons include working overnight, missing our time together when I put her to bed (which right now I could probably put onto the pros list being she fights bedtime like a champ) and here is the biggie... sleep deprivation. Yes, I get to spend all this quality time with my baby girl during the day but how much of this time with her is actually "quality time"? I'm awake all day, work all night, sleep 3 hours and repeat this 3 days in a row. I really start to wear out. After that first day I find that I just can't be as relaxed/excited/playful as I would like to be with her. I find myself thankful she can amuse herself and than later I'm sad that she's having to play by herself. Obviously her learning how to amuse herself is a very good thing. I just wish I had more energy to spend time bonding with her while I work my 3 overnight shifts. On the otherhand, I'd probably feel just as guilty (if not more-so) having to put her in day care 3 days a week for twelve hours at a time. How do you decide which is the lesser evil???? On a happier note I traded my schedule this week so I will have Monday-Thursday off to catch up on energy and all those bedtimes I missed this weekend.

Busy Bee's

(Two blogs in one! I didn't post the one I wrote yesterday.)
As Miss Avie practices her crawling I am forced to reassess our living situation. Our house is suddenly appearing a bit smaller as Avie acquires the ability to disappear from the spot she is set in and magically reappear with her hands on the glass TV cabinet doors (which I will be removing tomorrow). Now that she's becoming more mobile I will be blocking off hallways and rooms so I'm sure it'll soon be feeling even more cramped. Although my home will be feeling a bit smaller in these days to come I find myself having no desire to find a new place. Sure, someday I'd love to buy a HUGE house with a perfect location, but until I can afford the mortgage I think I'll stick to my current place. Its warm, cozy and homey. With my crown molding, angled ceilings, large bathroom and perfect kitchen I can't really complain. Besides, its home. We can easily wait on finding a new one.
Summers somehow always seem so busy to me. Maybe its because we try to pack so many activities into such short Midwest summers. I find myself falling behind on things easily during these months. To compensate I try catch up and get a little ahead all in one day. I sometimes get a little to much zest in the process. Such as laundry, when I fall behind I tend to go overboard in catching up. I'll do ten loads in one day. A few loads of clothing of course, than I'll start with all the heavy bedding, rugs, curtains, and pretty much anything that can be washed in the washing machine. On other days I go crazy cleaning closets. I've been known to spend entire days cleaning my closets and throwing stuff out. To bad these days are few and far between!! Good thing I'm not a pack rat... Today I find myself preparing for a baby day. I will be spending my entire day focused on finishing baby proofing, packing up small baby clothes, reorganizing her closets and hopefully work on her baby book. Oh yeah, can't forget keeping the actual baby occupied and happy :) Looks like a busy day ahead!

The evil scale

My scale and I have a love-hate relationship. I hate it and it loves to make me hate it. I must admit to being lucky enough to have not gained much while pregnant and to have lost the weight quickly. My problem is that my butt and thighs seem to have shrunk and that weight went straight to the belly. So I would LOVE to lose about 5-10 more pounds just to feel at my best and a bit more confident. Its petty I know but well, don't we all want what we can't have? Reading my friend J's blog always cheers me up. She has such a great personality and just following her updates gives me a bit of motivation to keep working towards my goal. Thanks J :) Starting tomorrow morning I'm gonna push myself a bit harder so I can look in tip top shape during my vacation to Boston... or where ever I end up going. I still need to plan that out. I'm going to start keeping a food diary and take daily walks with Avie in hopes that being more conscious of what I'm eating will make me eat a bit less unhealthy. Hope it works!

My Shrinking Peanut

So Miss Avie is 6 months old... woo hoo!! Time just goes faster and faster. My big girl has hit a few milestones this week. She started laughing uncontrollably at her silly mommy (she laughed before but never randomly to the point where its hard to sit), she woke up yesterday morning and somehow during the night figured out how to do the army crawl, and than she had her 6 month checkup which included a weigh in and THREE shots. Poor peanut. It was her dads first time seeing vaccinations and it just about broke his heart. I had to pry her out of his arms so I could get some snuggle time in with her. I had a few tears again, as always.

At her check up we learned that she's slowing down on the growing routine. She moved from the 80% mark for weight and length to 50% for weight and 28% for length. She's slowed down a little but I was always in the 20% range when I was a wee one (or so my mother informed me when I called her all worried). So we will watch her to be sure she's eating enough and growing properly.

Tomorrow I finish baby proofing the house. The way she's moving I figure in a week or two she'll be all over. She's a little spitfire these days and in her eye's there is nothing off limits! Oh yeah, the cloth diapers worked their magic. Her butt is soft and peachy once again. Its official... Miss Avie is allergic to her diapers. Glad we got that problem fixed up!!

My sleeping princess after her shots!

Our backyard friend... Dori the Deer. She was across the street in the neighbors yard for this photo.

Pseudo-crunchy mama

So today as I hung my clothes out to dry I was informed that I am becoming a "crunchy mom". Now I had absolutely no idea what "crunchy" meant, but I assumed she wasn't talking about texture being she hadn't tried to take a bite out of me... so I replied thank you. It seemed to be the appropriate response being it was said by a very sweet girl and in the manner of a compliment. After the clothes were hung to dry the first thing I did, well second thing after changing a diaper, was search to find out what this meant. According to urbandictionary.com it is a

"Mother who supports homebirth, breastfeeding, baby wearing, cloth diapering, co-sleeping, gentle discipline, etc. One who questions established medical authority; tends to be vegetarian and/or prepare all-organic foods."

Being I opted for the epidural, would never consider withholding vaccinations and I eat meat I wouldn't exactly fall into the crunchy mommy category. Is there such thing as a pseudo-crunchy mom? Perhaps I would fall into that category! I breastfeed, she goes to bed in her crib and than we co-sleep when she wakes up around 11pm, I try to feed her organic food when possible and as of this week we started cloth diapering (it seems Miss Avie may be allergic to disposable diapers). Apparently hanging my clothes out to dry pushed me into the crunchy category in her book, LoL. I am a strong believer that what is best for Avie is what I will do. I know nursing is of course the best option, organic food has less chemicals in it thankfully and if it takes cloth diapers to get rid of her red itchy bum than I'll do it. I think I like being a crunchy mommy. Not only is it good for Miss Avie it also helps with the penny pinching. Not a bad deal!! Happy 4th everyone!!





Here's a picture of Miss Avie's first experience with Avocado's... not a big fan I guess! On our second attempt I mixed them in with her rice cereal and we had a lot better luck with that.