Christmas Break

I really only have one question or issue to discuss tonight. It's one that is really bothering me today. How come Daddy's get to take a Christmas Break from work while Mommy's are expecting to keep on exactly as normal?

I've been working my butt off today all day and I barely got enough of a break to get prepped for the yoga class I taught tonight and I am just exhausted!

Mommy's should have some sort of Christmas Break too. Couldn't we split days, you're on Christmas vacation for the first half and I get the second?

Just. So. Tired. Going to sleep now.

All he wants for Christmas are his two front teeth

I know it's a lame name, probably very over-used as well. But it's true. Upper tooth #1 reared it's ugly head sometime between bedtime and wake time. Not a particularly fun night, I'm hoping tonight is better now that it has initially poked through but we'll see. I wonder if he'll get the other before Christmas as well just to make that corny line applicable, hehe.

Other news is that he turned 10 months a week and a half ago. Still no weight stats but I did measure him with my tape measure and it read 30 inches on the dot.

AND I've been so fed up lately with being up with Eli until 11-12 at night that I started a bedtime routine. So far it's helped immensely to get him to go down for the night. He's down by 9pm (9:15 pm the first night we tried). He wakes up still two-three times (or four or five last night, geesh) but still I think we may actually be on the road to sleeping through the night. Though my cousin with a 5 year old informed me hers still doesn't which frightened me a little I must say. But yeah so every night at 8:30pm I feed, brush teeth, bathe, read a story, and rock him for about 5 minutes and he is out like a light. Amazing! I even have some time to blog now! Maybe even work on child #2 sometime, lol! I actually asked my husband last night after Eli was asleep and I had finished cleaning the house... "what did I use to do before we had Eli?" So tonight I am blogging and going to read for a bit and hit the sack early. Because he is going to sleep earlier he definitely is awake by 7am which is not a draw back if I get to sleep early too!

The actual drawback to this though: I don't get to have a life past 8pm. *sigh

My hubby and his bro are at the Winter Solstice meditation put on by our Kundalini Yoga group which also sort of functions as the holiday party and social. And I have to miss it all for the sake of routine and the better sleep of all. Oh well, I knew there would be sacrifices when it came to having children and I love being a mom, even if it means my nights out now end at 8pm and after that involve blogging, reading, and sleep. That still sounds like a pretty damn good trade off for the adorable bundle of sweetness that I get to call my child.

Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays everyone! Looking forward to another amazing year for 2011!

Walk like a man...

Hello!

How do you define when your child is officially "walking"? Is it when they take their first steps on their own? Is it when the take a few (like 5) steps all at once? Or is it when they frequently take 5-6 steps in the period of a day? Or is it when they are walking on their own and no longer falling down?

Well Eli took his first step on November 8th, my dearly departed friend Curtis' birthday. And to date he is walking 5-6 steps on his own probably 10 times a day. Can I consider this walking? Do I really care? I will likely just tell him if he asks when he started walking that it was around 9-10 months. Do we really need to get into specifics with every thing? I find it tiring. All I know is that my little man is adorable, despite that fact that he just unravelled all of Daddy's toolbox string and trailed it over to where I am sitting.

Unfortunately it appears he has eczema. Just two spots on his leg but still. Poor lil' guy.

I am dealing with one major issue at the moment. Guilt about weaning. We really want to have another child and it doesn't appear that is possible for us while breastfeeding. So my plan was to replace a feeding with goat's milk, the midday one. As I read more and more about the best way to do this and everything told me I was weaning him. I didn't really even realize I was weaning him. I was only going to take away one feeding to see if I could bring back my cycle but now I read I'm weaning him? There suggestions were to add honey to milk to make it sweeter and more in line with breastmilk. And honey is only allowed after one year hence making me feel guilty about weaning him when he's not even 10 months yet! I know lots of people wean much earlier but it's onto formula which is a little different. So the question is am I depriving Eli of what he needs in order to give him a sibling sooner? It feels a little like I am.

So that's the major decision I'm dealing with right now. I tried it one day and he would absolutely not drink any of the goat's milk. It could have been the bottle too because he hates the bottle (has since about 6 months). So I was feeling like I was forcing it on him and felt terrible and decided I just wasn't ready to wean him. Me, myself was not ready to wean. Then after 2 days break, I decided to try rice milk in his sippy cup. And I even changed it to the sippy cup lid rather than the bottle like lid (which weirdly enough he would take for some reason). And he drank it! Only about an ounce or two and he tends to do this weird thing where he drinks and spits so I'm not sure how much of it he gets but he ended up going from 10:30 to about 3:30 without breastmilk which he has done before but not often. A couple times at night and maybe one or twice during the day. And he only drank an ounce or two so maybe we can do this. I'm feeling a little better just by thinking I am only taking away one feeding. I really will only do the one feeding replacement until he's a year old. That makes sense to me. Then if it's enough to get me pregnant again, it's enough. If it isn't, we'll see how I feel at a year. If I need to breastfeed to 18 months or two years, I guess we'll have closer to a 3 year gap between kids, whatever happens is meant to happen. It has to be the right time for everyone.

So I am feeling optimistic again. Also I think it's cool that he'll drink from the sippy cup lid now. He also eats lots of finger foods now. It took him quite awhile to figure them out but he totally gets it now. Our best idea was to give him chunks of fruit (which he loves!) We gave him a whole strawberry on November 14th (and many others immediately after) and he just chowed down. It's great. Feeding has gotten easier and fun again!

Now bedtime!

*sigh

I have been having a rough past few days. Perhaps a rough few weeks even. First of all we all got sick, yet again. If you're keeping track that is like 4 colds in 2 months. Second of all, Eli has taken to nurse for two seconds then pull off and act completely uninterested. Then he continues on like this till he gets up and wants to nurse sitting. As soon as he gets up he gets so upset that he's not eating anymore! So frustrating. Thirdly, Eli has been so cranky that he wants to eat like every 1.5 - 2 hours. He must be getting a tooth but I don't feel one. He's got a little rash under his lip from drool and everything. But it's so taxing on me to hear him cry and cry and cry.

Justin is great but he seems to offer a lot of advice without really confirming that he hears what I'm trying to say and why I am frustrated. I think it makes me extra angry hearing advice from him since he doesn't have to deal with it all day and when he does he's not expected to get anything done. Life would definitely be easier to do nothing all day but I would go crazy! I haven't left the house in 2 days and that alone is making me crazy. We have had a really big cold snap and all the momma's don't seem to want to walk much in it. That is my only transportation so I'm a little more motivated, hehe.

On another note we've been working on increasing our financial stability. We did a budget and although it's very hard to follow and very restrictive we kind of don't have a choice for once. It's do or die, or a least do or don't pay our bills. But the bright sides are as follows:

• I'm drinking less coffee
• I'm eating less junk food
• We're wasting less of the food we buy
• We're eating better, healthier meals
• I don't have the question "what am I going to make for dinner?" because it's all laid out for me in a meal plan

So that's what we've been up to. I'm really excited it's almost Christmas time! October is my favorite month of the year weather-wise, but December is my favorite when it comes to good cheer! People just seem so much more genuine in December. They really, authentically want to help each other and feel connected in humanity with one another. Bliss.

Oh and I'm thinking of opening a yoga studio in my house but am looking for a name. Any suggestions are welcome!

Univera Baby!

I have had such an amazing weekend! I'm not sure if I have mentioned the company that my husband and I are involved in before but here it is again, Univera! It's a company based on growing a community of wellness. The products are based on science and nutrition and shared through a relationship marketing structure. I know this type of network marketing gets a bad rap as some sort of pyramid scheme but it truly is the way of the future. Even well-renowned "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" author Robert Kiosaki wrote a book on it as the up-coming business of choice and he's not even in network marketing!

We were at the Taste of Health Vancouver this weekend for Univera and it just gave me a completely new perspective into this business and how much it has done for me product wise as well as my husband and I growing in character because of it. But also just thinking of how amazing it would be as a "mom job". I'm taking my yoga teacher training but I think you have to work pretty damn hard in this town to make enough money to live on just teaching yoga. I think I would have to be doing about 6 classes a week and you prep for each class so that's quite a bit of work. So this business seems like a perfect way to make enough money to just teach yoga and not have a day job. Plus a lot of the "work" for Univera is connecting with people whether it be on the phone, email or going for coffee. Pretty sweet stuff!

So anyway I got to see a whole bunch of my Vancouver friends this weekend and talk to a whole bunch of cool people interested in health and wellness. What a fun way to spend a weekend!

Eli had a lot of fun too! He was a bit cranky because he got his first tooth on Thursday I believe and has since then been working on another. Slow process those toothies. Plus I fed him some mac and cheese twice on friday and he was up every hour that night with a tummy ache I think :( Thankfully, hubby and I take Xtra (Univera product) which kept us bright and bushy tailed with energy despite the lack of sleep. We give Eli our aloe vera product every morning and since we have it has regulated him and instead of pooping every 3-4 days he goes every day now and with ease. He even had bananas this weekend with no problem which he was very happy with because our little monkey loves bananas! We also give him our Essentials product which is a super food with tons of nutrients.

If you would like any information on any of these products comment or feel free to go to my husband's website:

http://justinhebert.myunivera.com

8 Month Stats!

8 Month Stats:

Weight: 19 lbs 12 oz

Height: just under 29 inches

Not too much else to report. We're good!! Finally over all the colds :D

8 Months!

Hello! I can't believe it's been nearly a month since I posted last. Wow time flies.

Eli is officially 8 months old tomorrow, crazy! That means new foods! Every day is a new worry too, he bonks his head... A LOT! He is obsessed with standing now. He'll crawl when he has to but he prefers to pull himself up and work on sidestepping and walking. I'm so not ready for that...

This will be another short post. I will have stats for you a week late, yet again. I just don't find the time to take Eli to interior health to get weighed on my own. Life is crazy right now. I always forget that it's not just the summer that's busy. It seems to linger all the way into late October, early November.

My only issue is that Eli first got sick September 19th and he is still sick! He had croup and that got better in about 4-5 days. Then he got a bit better and got worse again. He's had a runny nose and a rumbly chest for a week or two now. Dr. says his lungs sound fine so we shouldn't be too worried but still that seems like a really long time. I'm just glad his cough has stopped for the most part. But still how long does a runny nose linger?? Hopefully he clears up soon. He still plays like normal (and eats, sleeps, etc.) so I'm trying not to worry but still he's my little guy and I just want him to be better!!

Right now he loves four things: the coffee table, horsey rides, paper, and monkey noises

I'm feeling very exhausted after a busy and emotionally draining weekend. Lots of visitors fit into a small amount of time, houseguests, thanksgiving celebrations, and sad news about a friend. So lots going on right now. Best time to grow and change though, right?