Where the hell is the tooth fairy?

Where the hell is the tooth fairy anyway? Why the EFF does she only make an appearance when our precious little ones LOSE their baby teeth? She should be putting diamonds under MY pillow as L -CUTS- said baby teeth. And she should offer babysitting services each and every day after horrible teething nights, so mommy can recover. 

and that's just what she could do for mommy. how about what she could do for poor suffering baby?!

wiggle your stupid sparkly wand over L's precious big head and relieve some middle of the night pain, instantly why don't you, tooth fairy!? earn your wings. your name.  that would eliminate all requests above! 

what are you good for anyway, so-called tooth fairy? 

leaving kids crap when they're five or six years old is way too late if you ask me. losing teeth doesn't hurt! nor does it cause lost zzz's. 

this whole concept needs revisited.

in the mean time i'm joining the natural, hippie, attachment parenting masses and ordering L an amber necklace from inspired by finn (who's finn??!). i have nothing to lose. the kid has had me up 5-9 times a night for the last four nights. i feel horrible for him. and i feel horribly tired.

thus my bitch fest on Facebook. stay tuned re: the necklace. it's my only hope, since the tooth fairy sucks. 

attachment parent by default.

ha, i guess i am one of those "are you mom enough?" moms. heck, we all are in some way or another. i'm guessing we're all asking that of ourselves on the regular.  but i'm one of those "extreme" moms. a mommy that stumbled on attachment parenting instinctually and found myself neck deep in it before i'd ever even knew it was a school of thought. 


it was a perfect storm. baby was born. BAM! i was a mother. and just 19 days later, my own mother passed away. and just like that, all the emotional support, wisdom and hands on physical help a girl might want after having her first baby was nonexistent. 


sure, my husband's mom was and is still alive and well, but, alas, she lives in germany and refused to come to the states. 


i have no sisters, no close female cousins or aunts. no local BFFs. it was me, myself and i when it came to learning to care for a newborn baby. i  trusted the lactation consultants who told me no bottles or pacifiers during L's 1st month of life. i had no one here to tell me otherwise. and as a result, at one month old, L wanted nothing to do with either. we tried the bottle, over and over. no go. 


and that sealed the deal, all feedings were mine. around the clock. but wow! lucky for me, a few weeks in, L slept amazingly at night. nine-hour stretches. granted, he cluster fed from like five pm to nine or ten pm. just before the nine o'clock feeding we swaddled him and then i fed him peacefully off to dreamland. waking to his sweet cries around seven a.m. 


the couch cluster feedings were hard on me, i was not used to being couch bound like that. i missed making dinner. making crafts. typing blog posts with two hands. ironically, nine months later though, i'm typing this post one handed still. (yep, L still prefers daytime naps in my arms.)


at around three and a half months, L started waking up throughout the night. crying hard, awaking two confused and naive parents. one rolled over and fell back asleep, while the other picked up baby and nursed him back to a pleasant dream state. sometimes eight times a night. 


L's pediatrician said to move him to his own room and crib by four months, but that didn't happen. not with all the night nursing. i wanted him right next to me so i could hopefully fall right back to sleep right after breastfeeding him. L graduated from sleeping in his fisher price rock & play sleeper, to sleeping in his pack-n-play, still swaddled,  a somewhat bumpy transition, but not terrible. 


my thought process was, teach him to sleep flat first (the rock and play had baby sleeping at a cradled incline), then unswaddled, then in his own room and crib. HA. talk about a #NaiveNewbie!


two bottom teeth popped out at around five months, an explanation for a lot of the night waking, but definitely not all. 


i read sooo much dr. sears in the middle of the night on my cell phone. i determined L was a high needs baby and began accepting my baby fate. 


it should be noted, all L's naps took place in my arms, his carseat or his stroller. L loved loved loved being held and did not love his swing or any other give-mommy-a-break contraption, so i began carrying him in a sling i borrowed from the la leche league at around three and a half months.


so there i was, an answer-every-cry, baby-wearing, 'round the clock breastfeeding, baby-in-my-room mommy. L was a happy baby, as long as all of the above was taking place. 97% of the time by me and me alone. 


the statement above still holds true to this day for the most part.  i have upgraded to an ergo (should have bought MONTHS ago!), as L has grown too heavy for a sling. L is finally no longer swaddled (another semi rocky transition). L is still beside me in his pack-n-play. L still wakes up, anywhere between 1-4 times a night with expectations to eat back to sleep.


i. am. effing. tired.


i go to bed at 9PM. my life's pleasures and excitements must occur before then. and they predominately revolve around daylight hours and L's various daily activities. night's out for late dinners, shows and such are on hold until further notice. and this is how i survive what i state next. 


i refuse, with my entire soul, to resort to throwing him in his room and letting him cry. the thought KILLS  me. i'll stick this out, i'll walk around like a zombie sometimes, but i will not exile L and leave him to his own devices, when he has no way to articulate what his needs and fears are yet. i'm his mom. i'm here for him 24/7. whatever it takes. my commitment to him.


further, my reasons for him being in my room have evolved. yes, on an up-every-two-hours night, it's dire that he's right beside me, but on the other nights, i love being able to watch over him sleeping, at any hour, like a mama lioness. i love waking up to his round face and his chatter as he stands there, peering at me with a smile each morning.


truth is, this time of scooping him up, and cradling him in my arms for comfort in the middle of the night is fleeting, and will be a sweet, distant memory in no time at all.


so will carrying him close to me. i foresee myself fumbling through the rest of L's babyhood & toddlerhood much like i've done so far. instinctually and from my naive newbie heart. if that makes me an extreme attachment parent, so be it. let me state though, that considering the way i've raised L so far extreme is ludicrous. it's the very least i can do.


this all felt so incredibly, powerfully important yesterday when i read a Facebook status update referring to a small child that was struck down with terminal cancer and was now under hospice care. i could throw up at the thought. my heart is crushed as i think of that sweet boy's parents. today, he passed away. 


love your babies. as hard as you can. hold them. cherish them. cuddle them. follow YOUR own mommy instinct when it comes to raising them, every single clumsy step of the way. because, this time with our wee ones is a mere blip in the grand scheme of things. a precious, precious blip.

exhaustion = retail therapy

when mommy has a bad day (or night) she makes herself feel better by shopping.
lucky me.
i'm still a onesie baby, but she's been crushing on tees lately.
monsters for obvious reasons, lions 'cuz i'm a leo, the beatles because my grandma LOVED them (and mommy digs them too). and of course, when trouble is coming, everyone should know. 
know what? i sleep like poop!
but, why would mommy be surprised? 
so did she. 
tee hee hee.


here comes trouble - H&M
monster - Target
liam - H&M
the beatles - Target

#DIY mother's day present

one of the things i looked forward to most when it came to having kiddies was creating things with said kiddies AND them creating vibrant, sweet & quirky things for me that i could display with joy & pride.

when it came to a handmade mother's day pressie,  i just couldn't wait for little L to do such at preschool when he's 3 or 4. i wanted it NOW. so, a crafty mommy friend and i dreamed up a "MAKE YOUR OWN MOTHER'S DAY PRESENT" event for our meetup.com group like four months ago and today it actually came to pass. about 20 mommies and kiddies came together to craft colorful canvases, totes, hand/feet impressions, clay pots and such. what a fabulous success. everyone shared ideas, supplies, babies... and we got it done. i'll cherish the two creations i made with L forever and ever. and i couldn't have done it so joyfully and stress-free-ly without our meet up group. LOVE LOVE LOVE.

 Our finished pieces... foot print butterflies and a button-embellished clay hand print

 mommies & babies galore, crafting away

L, johana and i creating L's foot print butterflies!

adding finishing touches to our butterflies

  babies awaiting their turn at creating

some days are a bust. BUT, some aren't. :-)

some days are a bust. you just feel like a total loser for having done nothing right, for having accomplished nothing. for just barely getting by. i truly strive to limit such days. usually such is out of my control. but today. it's been pretty freaking great. liam and i went to a fun summer program at the boynton beach library called "dance to your own beat",  a lot of our baby/mommy friends were there and we sang and danced with them without a care in the world.

then we went to toys r us and found two things i had in my online cart on babies r us, right there in person. colorful plastic that might buy the whole family a little bit of happiness and sanity here and there. 

a suction cup toy for his high chair (am sooooooo sick of saying "UH OH" over and over as i pick up the toy he's tossed to the floor, totally inhibits the progress of whatever half-ass meal i'm trying to create for myself. ;-) he fiddled with it as i whipped up some lunch, happily. and thus, i was happy. 

then there's this wonderfully colorful monstrosity of plastic now taking up residence in our living room. whatever, he can pull up on it safely, he can dwell for a bit here and there withIN it SAFELY and i can slow down the wrinkle and grey hair production that's been thrown into overdrive since L's started crawling and pulling up. my whole house will never ever ever be baby proof. it's tile. we have vintage and antique furniture, metal stuff, etc. etc. etc. i needed this ugly thing. it'll allow me to pee and boil a pot of water (things i don't really want to do with L in the ergo). 

and finally... L is napping today, independent of myself or the moving car. this is rare. so i am blogging. awesome use of my time, ha! am certain a lot of you might question that. but writing for me, is like breathing. (so you see i haven't been getting to BREATHE a lot!) and writing something :-) happy :-) like less grey hair, wrinkles and middle of the night fears of L wandering into something extremely dangerous while i'm running to the loo in my itty bitty bit of "me time" is worth while, no?

today was a good day. 

and YAY! it's not over.

i cherish as much of our waking hours together as possible.

'cuz get this!? L turns 9 months this saturday.

can't believe it either.

#NaiveNewbie: Get Thyself an Ergo!

YAY! Mommy is wearing me again! i still LOVE being held, but I'm a big baby! And mommy has little wrists and well, it was getting super hard for her. So, she got herself an Ergo. Finally. At the end of the day, she's definitely STILL a naive newbie. So far, so good. Check it out:

 she has her hands FREE again! 

i have something new & readily available to chew on!

and very very most importantly, i'm cozy. 

YAY for Ergo.

Did you know?

You can carry babies on your hip in the Ergo too? That pretty much sold mommy, although she hasn't tried it out yet. And she's kinda inept sometimes so I could be 2 years old before she does. But I'm pretty happy facing towards her, as evidenced in the photo above. She feels confident about wearing me to the Passion Pit show at Sunfest, YAY! my 1st show! She says we're going to dance like crazy. #Babywearing is the way to go, so happy to be the baby of an #attachmentparent!

love,

L

Cheerio!

mornings have come a long way. L and i actually enjoy a lovely little time at the table each day sharing fruit and cheerios. well, this a.m. i'm having raisin bran, but he (and lily) are having cheerios. we listen to music, sometimes his. sometimes mine. clap. bounce up and down (dance). and overall just welcome the day in a peaceful, happy way. 
while i shed regular tears for the speed at which he's growing, moments like these make the insane ride awesome.