Random Thoughts

So you would think that a walk to the park, yesterday, would be easy right? Not when it is a comical as my walk to the park yesterday.

How is this mental picture…me pushing 2 3 year olds in my double stroller, not a sided by side stroller mind you, but a front to back double stroller. That is not all, I had my 18 pound 6 month old infant on a backpack on my chest and my 85 pound lab on my right hand with her leash wrapped around my hand while I pushed the stroller. The 2 3 year olds weight 70 pounds together and with the stroller itself and all the stuff we had packed in the bottom, it would be safe to add another 15-30 pounds. Needless to say I was WORN out by the time we got home. I even has help on the way to the park from my mom-in-laws house to the park but it was the walk to her house and the walk back home that were seriously a nightmare.

What was I thinking? Well, it was our first day in the 60’s for a couple months and the kids and I were all ready to get out. I was just excited to get in a nice walk. I was sweating and sore and tired and had to take 800 mg of ibuprofen when it was all said and done. I totally crashed last night hard and slept like a baby. Sad, but true, the walk to the park kicked my butt!

My 6 month old was so fussy last night. He usually smiles all the time he is awake and last night he would cry when someone would talk to him, look at him, or anything. I was hoping he was not getting sick again.

Wouldn’t you know it but this morning he had cut his first tooth. He has been teething for literally 2 months on these bottom front teeth and he cut one last night. He is so happy today and back to his normal self it is great. He looks so cute with his little tiny tooth bud in his mouth.

One of the things I am noticing and more now is that when we let our children stay up past their normal bed time we are not benefitting them at all.

I have to constantly be the parent that makes the bed time a firm time because my husband thinks he is being nice and the extra time is worthwhile to let our 3 year old stay up. The problem is that it only takes about 30 minutes past the normal bed time to make the night go downhill fast.

If we let our daughter stay up then she ends up crying herself to sleep with a tantrum because she is so overtired you can’t reason with her. I hate having her go to sleep like that as it makes me feel awful all night. It does not need to be this way if we put her to bed at her normal time. There are still nights we may have a few problems but the heavy tantrum can be avoided if we don’t let her stay up.

I also have to make sure that we do not stay out for more than 1 night in a row because if I keep her out late, like at my in-laws etc and she does not get to bed in time, it makes for hard days. I do find that I have to constantly defend myself to my family members but it is so worth it for me to have a happy child at home. It is not like we won’t go off our normal schedule when we need to, but I am not going make a habit of it and help my child be tired and moody all day long.

I haven’t blogged since last week as I had a very hectic weekend. I had my Irish Dance performance on Saturday and that kept me busy both Friday and Saturday night. I did dance quite a bit, not enough for a full work out but still did a little work out during the days. I was so tired on Sunday I could barely keep my eyes open. On top of doing the concert I stayed out both Friday and Saturday later than usual and I have had a hard time recuperating.

I have also been watching my friends 3 year old for Monday and today and even though he is easy, and extra child does seem to take more energy. I am worn out.

I have still been doing my leg and arm weights (5 lbs each) and am still feeling a little sore after. I don’t think my metabolism will be burning like it should be because my sleep is lacking for the past 4 nights so I am probably not getting as much of a benefit from my work outs, but, I am still doing it every day. I will get back into a good sleep mode hopefully tonight.

I have been keeping up with 30-40 min. of weight work outs, mostly palates moves with the weights. I can feel it is my stomach big time, which is great, and my arms and thighs are at a constant low grade sore, which is also great. I will keep up with this and will be walking to the park today and tomorrow while pushing my kids in the double stroller and putting my infant on the backpack. This should do me in by the end of the day I am sure. Weather is nice for a couple days, got to take it while we can get it.

So on 2-5-10 and 2-23-10 I posted problems with my 6 month old not sleeping well at night. I got some great advice from some but got the best so far yesterday from my fiend Kristy.

My son sleeps on his stomach and always has. He hates sleeping on his back and won’t do it from the day he was born. I use to freak out about this because of all the hype about SIDS and stomach sleeping so I use to try and force him on his back. Well when he was not sleeping at all I gave into his stomach sleeping and that helped a lot. I just slept in the room with him so I could hear every breath all night long.

This worked out for awhile but now that he can squirm and move it was making it difficult for me to sleep. He is a pretty loud sleeper and would squirm himself into the corner of his crib and then really upset so I would be getting up every 20-30 minutes to pull him back down to the middle of his mattress.

He can hold his chest and head up fully and can roll over from his back to his stomach and CAN but has only rolled from his stomach to his back 3 times. He gets mad when I try to make him keep doing it.

The problem is that he was/is getting way to use to me being there for every single move he makes and I was/am not letting him fend for himself at all. This way he knows that all he has to do is make a few little noises and I will do everything for him. This was working when he could not move at all on his own but now it is making a very bad sleeping habit and making me so tired and grouchy that I need to do something different.

Kristy told me that when her kids are sick with a stuffy head etc she puts a blanket underneath one end of the crib mattress to just raise their head up very slightly and this has helped. So I did this last night to see if it would help with his squirming into the corner and it totally worked! He still moved to the side of his crib a bit but he can move himself over, I just have to make him want to do it.

I slept in another room so I could not hear every little sound but close enough that I could hear if he got really mad. I got 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep! I am so excited about this. He did not cry until 6:30 and I went in as he was slowly starting to wake up. I did lay with him for 45 min as he was in and out of sleep trying to wake up and at 7:15 he was totally awake. I think a few more nights like this and he should be broken of the Mommy habit. I may not be such a witch during the day if I keep getting some sleep too. I feel and hear myself at times and I just think “chill out woman.” It is hard to “chill out” when you are so darn tired.

Thanks Kristy!

So my husband is a good man, he really is, he just has a problem thinking ahead when it comes to gifts etc. He is always thinking about the hobby store and his planes as he can’t stand not to go into a store at least once a week and tell me “what I need to fly my plane” etc.
So Valentine’s Day comes around and I have his card for about a week. He has nothing. It is not like we expect gifts from each other, but a card? Seriously? We do that every year and this year he had to be reminded and his reminder was my card. He always decided to go get me a card and/or a gift on my birthday day as well. But don’t let that fool you, it is not that he just does not think of shopping because he does all the time when it comes to him but the only stores he thinks of are, hobby center, goodwill, big lot’s and micro center. I have to hear all the time “I really need this for my plane, for my computer, blah blah blah.”

So the Valentine’s thing did bother me because just once I would like to be remembered. Yesterday I told him that it hurts me when he has to have me remind him to think of me so if he can’t do this on his own I was done getting him birthday cards and presents and on other occasions as well.

I guess I can’t continue to be mad at him all the time because he is not doing what “I” want him to do so I need to quit going out of my way and maybe that will make me feel better. If I don’t expect it at all maybe I won’t get so upset? He felt a bit uncomfortable with the conversation I could tell, but if this does not need to be a problem in our marriage then I am not going to make it a problem anymore. I will give him one more chance on Mother’s day and my birthday this year since they are literally just a couple weeks apart. If nothing changes then I have to change. I can just shop for myself from now on.

So my daughter wanted to sleep over at my Mom-in-laws house tonight and when I told her “yes” she was ecstatic. How could I say no she was so excited? It is nice and quite as my husband is out of town for work and my son is in bed. It is so quiet that I miss the heck out of her, I wish she was here.

Isn’t it funny that we beg and plead for a break but when we get one we wish we were with our kids? I guess maybe when my kids are teenagers I will be more excited to have a night off right, or will I just have different stress? Hmmm, who knows? I can’t wait to hug my little peanut in the morning.

I know that shopping healthy can be a bit more expensive but I have found some ways to make it more affordable. I used to only buy fresh healthy food that would last about 5-6 days of the 2 week pay check and then it was bad food for the next week. I have learned a few things to keep the healthy food preparation through the entire 2 weeks and I am not paying more on my grocery bill.

• Those green bags that they sell in the grocery that are advertised to keep your fresh food better longer? Well… they totally work! So I tried them and was skeptical because they are $9.99 but totally pay for themselves as they keep my produce and fruit fresh for like 2-2 ½ weeks. I won’t go without them now.

• I figure out how many meals I have to cook and am buying strictly what I need for the recipes. This means that I am not guessing or buying, “maybe” items. When I do this I have literally chopped anywhere from $30-50 off my bill. Go into the store with a purpose and don’t go hungry.

• I bought a topsy turvy and grew my own beautiful tomatoes last summer. It turned out to be such a great plant that I am now going to go buy 2 more and plant cucumbers and red peppers.  Saved me a ton on buying those expensive tomatoes.

• I planted my own herbs and kept them next to my topsy turvy plant. It cost me $10 for seed, $20 for soil, and about $25 for the planters. You can buy the planters for about $1-1.50 per planter. I had mountains of herbs clear into Nov. 1st last year. I wanted to buy a heat lamp to keep them through the winter inside but just never got to that before they died. I am going to do it next year. NOTE: There were 3 stubborn herbs that I had to replant 2 times but they did come up. The package of seeds last for about 3-4 plantings as I only have to buy a couple herbs this year because I have enough left over from last year.

This has helped a lot because I cannot afford to just go whatever I want and not worry about the grocery bill. I have also noticed that the organic produce has become very comparable to the non-organic so I have been buying a lot more organic.

I want to plant a garden this year but not sure if I will be able to. We might move. If we don’t I am going to plant some lettuce, peas and raspberries, we will see.

All it took from my husband this morning was him saying, “hay it is our anniversary month.” Usually this would be a good thing, a husband remembering an anniversary but for me it is really not the best thing to hear as it made me instantly go into a break down that I can’t shake this morning.

On March 26 of this year it will be our 5th wedding anniversary and SHOULD be the 2nd birthday of our son Brayden. Brayden came into this life on March 26, 2008 and then left us broken hearted about 60 minutes later. I have had a horrible time talking about it since and still do. I guess I know that I need to talk about it more and maybe hiding behind the computer so no one can see me cry will help with the outlet a bit.

I am trying real hard to be excited about our anniversary but it is killing me inside and every time I think about it all I can do is feel sad.

I have so many emotions going through my body right now and have for the last 2 years. We now have a 6 month old son Brahnan and we love and adore him so much. There are times that I almost feel guilty because we always only wanted 2 children. We thought that Brayden would be our last and when we lost him it took a year but we decided to try again. We had our son Brahnan and he is our little miracle. I feel guilty when I cry for Brayden and wish he was still here. I then feel guilty because if Brayden was here than Brahnan would not be here. It is a roller coaster of emotions and I know I am killing myself, but it is a tough emotion to tackle and overcome. I wish I could just have all 3 of my kids together healthy and happy, but this is not ever going to be possible.

I have been hesitant to join any support group as I know there are a lot out there because I know they will make me talk about it and I am still not sure I can do that in an open setting. This blog post is hard enough but for me is a stepping stone and am hoping not to get over my son, but rather be able to cope better.

I still cry it least 2-3 times a week but this is better than the 2-3 times a day I use too. I use to feel guilty if I did not cry enough. I would feel guilty if I was happy for a few hours or a day because I did not want my son to think I forgot about him. I know this may sound funny to some, but this is truly something that keeps coming back to haunt me.

I don’t expect every to understand and feel what I am going through as until you hold your child in your arms for his entire life and feel him stop breathing you can’t. I just need to vent some frustration and hope that others out there who have gone through a similar loss find my story and know that they are not alone. If you have and you find this please give me any tips on how you cope and get on with your day to day and maybe help with some of the guilt I am holding on to. Does it ever get easier? I don’t think it does ever, I just hope that I can enjoy my anniversary again with my husband. I don’t want to forget my son, but rather be able to celebrate his life instead of morn it someday. How do I do this?

So I have blogged about having troubles with my 3 year old quite a bit lately and I noticed a change in her today and it made me think.
We have been cooped up in this house because of the snow for weeks. We have had more snow than usual this year and who wants to pack to young kids out in this cold snowy weather to go do things? Plus with all the flu that is going around it makes me more nervous.

However, my husband took my daughter out shopping with him and his Dad today and she had been whiny and horrible all morning long. It has been a night and day difference since she got home. She is so happy and not whiny it is like having a different daughter at home than I have had over the last few weeks.

This made me think that maybe my daughter was experiencing cabin fever just like us adults do. Maybe she just needed a change in environment from the hum drum house. I know that I get antsy and stir crazy when I am cooped up too long so why shouldn’t she? We will see if she is in a good mood the rest of the day and see if it lasts another day or so. If she is then I guess we just need to get out every few days so we don’t fight so much.