Back to normal?

I'm feeling inspired to write. Could it be because I'm home alone (with Eli but he's asleep)? Could it be the New Year brings a new inspired vibe to writing and following through with things you started? Nah. I actually think it's because I have some random person's computer.

My husband works as computer tech support for many companies and people in town and he needed to take our laptop (only computer of the house) away for the evening. So he's like, here have this one. So thank you Mrs. Random. I am sensing your vibe that your computer loves to be typed on. The clicky clack of the keys is louder than my computer. The screen is smaller than my computer. Apparently this is a better computer than my computer. We'll see.

So my hubby was supposed to have the day off but his boss really did need him today so he ended up deciding late last night to go to work today. I was looking forward to one more day of shared responsibilities and recovery together. But alas duty calls. But to top it off he has his monthly Men's New Moon meditation tonight. Oh and they didn't finish the work they needed to during the day so "by the way honey, I'll be staying at work till we do. Possibly all night." Crazy.

So it has been a soul-searching, emotional day for me. Every time my hubby has more than a weekend off (because generally he or both of us are quite busy on weekends anyway) I feel I get a bit of a break in Eli responsibilities. Then when he goes back to work I go through a struggle. I go through some of the following emotions: disconnect, anger, loneliness, sadness, frustration, guilt. Happy moments too of course! But I suppose I'm just noticing this pattern.

The disconnect I find an interesting one. I get the anger, frustration, and sadness, that's part of every mother's repertoire. The loneliness I always find a bit funny too because I have this little person who wants to share every moment with me. How can you possibly be lonely??! Why don't I want to spend every moment with him? Then comes the guilt. I actually couldn't figure out how to play with Eli this evening. I phoned my Mom. I phoned my Mom to ask how to play with my own son. All the answers were in front of me but they were clouded. There are tons of things I could do. Even play peekaboo behind a wall or chase after him. Those would even make him laugh likely! But the problem was mustering the energy to mother.

After having a long talk with my mom while playing megablocks with Eli, I realized this fact that how almost lost I become coming in or out of our routine. That it makes me removed and depressed. What am I not opening my heart to? Accepting help? Taking responsibility? A little of both? So that's what I'm pondering tonight in bed, on Mrs. Random's computer, missing my man and laptop.

New Years? Resolutions

It's taken me a bit longer to get to posting or even figuring out my New Years Resolutions than I had thought it would.

I have spent the past 3 and a half days in bed (or on the couch or floor) feeling pretty much like death warmed over. I don't mean to be dramatic, it just was seriously horrible. It hit me early Thursday morning and Justin had to work so my mom came to help and after 3 hours of being over she had it. I felt so awful. So I finally convinced her to go home at about 4:00pm after 4 hours of taking turns leaving our faithful cushions on the floor to do Eli tasks or visit the washroom. So Justin gets home and takes care of Eli and by midnight, poor hubby has joined the ranks of the stomach flu. So New Years Eve was definitely a quiet one for us, New Years Day too. We had a grocery delivery from a lovely friend with a good recovery soup recipe which I managed to make yesterday. But I keep moving in and out of this terrible nauseous state even though it's been almost two days since I've thrown up. Last night I figured it was dehydration so I've been drinking as much water as I can. It's crazy how little of it I retain. Eli isn't getting as much milk as he's used to and crying heartbreaking cries and biting me while nursing (with 4 teeth now, this REALLY hurts!) And this morning after tons of water and a nap I felt insanely nauseous again. I just can't figure out how to kick this thing!

The worst part is definitely hearing Eli cry because he's not getting enough milk. I'm nursing every two hours, generally on both breasts but my supply still isn't up to what it was. I'm just so thankful Eli has not caught this nasty bug and I accredit that to breastfeeding. He must be getting every antibody from me to fight it off. Thank goodness for breastfeeding!

So that brings me to my New Years Resolutions and a very ironic one to start.

1. I wanted to lose 10 lbs (I didn't really want to do it by the 1st of January, however.)
2. So I suppose goal #2 would be to keep the 10 lbs off in a healthy way.
3. I want to finish half my yoga teacher training by the end of the year and become 200 hr RYT status.
4. We want to spend more time as a couple and as a family. These past 3 days have really shown us what we are missing and have been somewhat of a blessing in disguise.
5. We want to start an RESP for Eli.
6. We want to by the end of this year start saving 10% of what we earn.
7. We want to be earning $1,000.00 a month from Univera by the end of the year.
8. We have a few house goals such as painting our living room, making our kitchen more usable and possibly painting the outside of our house and adding pocket doors onto our bathrooms.
9. I want to start doing a personal hatha practice twice a week for my own benefit. I feel a bit weird that teaching and my once a month teacher training is all the hatha yoga I do. Makes me feel like what right do I have teaching this stuff?
10. I really want to kick my unhealthy addictions with food. This includes junk food (I'm already doing awesome on the pop (pop free since November 11th!)) and especially emotional eating. I have so many emotions attached to food and I know how unhealthy that is.
11. Continue my daily sadhana for my kundalini yoga.

I figure 11 goals is pretty good for 2011. I love that we are in an 11 year. Beautiful number.

I don't really have any goals to do with Eli. I'm sort of just really trying to parent with my heart more than anything. I would love to see him potty-trained by the end of this year but I'm not going to push him before he is ready. Weaning would be easier for work but he's been going 6 hour stretches in the morning anyway so that's perfect for when I work 4 hours a day again. The only other reason for weaning would be to have another baby. I'm so confused about this subject still. I was really going to try and wean him at a year and I go back and forth so many times on this. Is it the best for him? He still loves to breastfeed! And these past few days has shown me how much he gets from it (and how hard it is for all of us when he doesn't get it!) But at the same time, he's been sort of weaning himself. He is going 6 hours in the morning without a feed. So basically what I'm hoping is that gradually he just weans himself and I would love to keep doing morning/evening feeds for as long as I can but I also would really like to have kids only about 2 years apart. I think this is another case of I need to stop over-thinking and just let it unfold in front of me.

I really like the phrase "parenting from the heart" (as I used above). It really speaks to me. I heard it from the lovely site of Peaceful Parenting. Though it's a tad "holier than thou" at times, it really does offer a lot of solid information. I agree with most of the posts. But as usual parents so easily get caught up into what they are doing and tend to judge others for making different decisions.

Well I think that's enough for today. Happy January! Happy 2011! It's going to be a good year, especially now that my body has been cleansed to the core, lol!

2010 in a Nutshell (Hah!)!

New Years resolutions. Hot topic of debate. Do you make them or not? Some people swear by them and some people swear not to do them. Either way is fine but if the only reason you are not doing them is because you are afraid you will fail I think that is a cop out. I was reading an article in Alive magazine, actually it was the Editor's note, and he made a really good point that at some point in the year (if you do not want to conform to New Year's Resolutions that is) you really should go over your past year and figure out where you want to be by the end of the next year. You need to make sure you're going in the right direction and then you can make your goals that are actually achievable. We do this with our Univera business. Accountability is the key to success. So I wanted to write everything we did this past year as a review.

I'm going to start with December 31st, 2009 because it's pretty much the new year. The last day of 2009 we bought a Burgundy 2006 Ford Escape which we named R.B. aka Ron Burgundy. We love him! After getting our car stolen and borrowing Justin's parents little green truck for awhile we knew we should get a family vehicle and since all our cash was going towards buying a house we ended up financing a newer vehicle than expected. Who knew you pay cheaper monthly installments on a newer vehicle that costs more??

We spent new years eve celebrating our new purchase with the Senger family playing games, eating and laughing until we cried. Turning in at a reasonable hour of 10pm since I was 7 months pregnant and tired. New Years Day we tried the usual rope my Dad into playing games with Mom and us. We had a nice quiet dinner with them. The next week or so consisted of me looking around the house going, "I really should be packing something right now," but then feeling too tired after work and having a nap instead. It was great to wake up when Justin got home from work and then have him make me dinner. I got really un-picky about what to eat since I was just so happy I didn't have to make dinner myself.

As January continued, we went out for dinner a day early for Justin's birthday and my mom made him a delicious raspberry ganache cake. He spent his birthday at a Univera event which is another note worth mentioning. December 20th, 2009 was the day Justin signed up to be a Univera associate, a pivotal marker, setting the tone for 2010. January 15-17 we spent in Naramata at a Kundalini Yoga immersion which was amazing. It was my second one and Justin's third. It was a smaller one but that might have been what made this one so memorable, we were all able to go a little deeper and have more meaningful conversation with one another.

After the immersion we felt refreshed and renewed for the task of packing up our house which is what we spent the next two weeks on! Our house deal completed January 28th and we moved in January 30th. I spent my evenings unpacking the following week and the first weekend in February we did a couples yoga class for labour with Erin and Daryl. We also painted what we thought would be the nursery a nice buttercream yellow.

On February 11th, I finished unpacking our last two boxes and to our surprise on February 12th, the first day of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics at about 5am (4:50am to be exact) my water broke. Our sweet angel of a little boy came 3 hours later at Penticton Regional Hospital at 7:58am after much confusion, surprise, and very little pain but what I like to call my hardest workout to date. Eli was lucky to have Daddy and Auntie Erin present at birth (along with 2 nurses, an Obstetrician, a Pediatrician and my midwife Christy).

They kept us in the hospital as long as the could, trying to find things wrong with my so called premature baby but the worst they found was a mild heart murmur and a little jaundice so we were finally released February 16th. I said hi in passing to my friend Jenn who had her little Kaitlyn on February 16th. The next couple days were spent trying to get everything we needed for our little surprise! On February 20th I had my (or Eli's I guess) Baby Shower. My mom, Auntie Sue and cousin Amber threw me an amazing shower full of delicious food and spectacular, generous gifts. I think everyone was pretty excited that Eli was there so they could meet him. The rest of February was spent adjusting as I don't really remember much else from it.

In March Justin was laid off from his job at SageKey as a computer programmer which was pretty scary at first but he came home with a smile on his face. It was a really good thing for us. He was not happy at the job, the work atmosphere left something to be desired. He got to put extra time into his Univera business and spend lots of time with his son in the first few months of his life. A blessing really thanks to EI. Another blessing I forgot to mention was the Karma Krew that our friend Fateh started for us. For 40 days on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, angels would drop lovely dinners on our doorstep. Thank you again angels!

Eli's best friend Cohen was born on March 19th to our best friends Erin and Daryl. So we organized a Karma Krew meal delivery for them as well. We also tried to get as many pictures of the buddies as we could.

In April a third member was added to the crew when on April 16th Lauren was born to friends Amanda and Jeff.

In May Justin and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. My mom was in Redwater, AB visiting her sister so luckily Erin and Daryl were able to babysit Eli. We also went to our first Univera Vancouver Regional in May which was amazing! It was difficult with a newborn but we made it work. We got to meet Dr. Neil Tessler, the Naturopathic Doctor on our team and Justin got to hear Stephen Cherniske the Chief Science Office of our company speak. I heard it from the hallway with Eli who woke every time the audience clapped. We also went to a birthday party of our friend Hari Bhajhan at our friends house Sham Sunder and Pritamjot. This was really a turning point for us because we left with the energy from their beautiful home and wanted to make ours more like it. This is when we cancelled our cable tv and moved around our house. We made a yoga room and moved our tv out of our main living space (since then we've watched maybe two movies on it). May was about the time when Eli was able to hold his head up too, such a smart lil guy :) Mid-May I also started working 4 hours a week at my old job to help them out through the busy months.

In June Justin started working for a Alkaloid Networks with Jeff who was my old boss's Computer Tech Support. He started out working part time, gradually getting to full time as Jeff left on vacation. Justin started doing Univera booths at the Farmer's Markets too which was really useful in upping his confidence with product knowledge and general networking. June I spent mostly outside walking with my fellow mommies and babies. I believe June was when Eli started to roll over in every direction.

In July I took the plunge into my two year yoga teacher training program which after the first meeting I instantly knew I had made the right choice. July was also lots of visiting. Lots of friends came back to the Okanagan and we took our first BIG roadtrip. We slept in a teepee in Golden, got lost in Calgary and then camped with the Hebert family in Forestburg, AB for a few days helping Aunt Lynnette and Uncle Grant celebrate 25 years with a vow renewal and party. Then we had a brief jaunt at West Edmonton Mall and visited Baba Sue and Uncy Dave in Redwater, AB. My cousin Amber came over and made us dinner with her hubby Jason. It was a short but sweet visit. We headed home the following day and couldn't quite make it home so stayed a night in Kamloops. You could hardly call it a night actually, we slept in a room for four hours and continued home. July was when Eli learned how to sit on his own and started rocking on all fours.

By his 6 month Birthday on August 12th Eli could crawl. We also found out he loved food! He has eaten pretty much everything we've given him. He also said a few words here and there like "hi" and "I know", intentional or not, still neat! We also had more visiting! Yay summer! We also attended Eli's first Peach Fest and Eli's first PNE! The PNE trip was both fun and sad. The sad part was this is when our two ferrets went to their new home with friends Grace, Cyril and their "business": Cyd, Charlie and Cemetry. It was a sad day but we know we made the right choice. They are getting the love, attention and care they deserve now. The Okanagan Univera team hosted a really successful Univera event on Ironman weekend as well. This gave us momentum into the fall and I decided to be more involved with the business as well.

In September I decided to give free yoga classes at my house for practice in teaching which went really well half the time and the other half no one showed up. Still it was really good practice for me! Fateh was also back in town so she was able to help us be more focused in the Univera business and bring more accountability to us. We went on our first camping trip with Erin, Daryl, Cohen, Jeff, Amanda and Lauren up to Headwaters. That many babies was very interesting and loud. Also the cabin was very hot. This much closeness resulted in all the babies getting their first cold. September was around the time we all started doing Wednesday weekly baby parties alternating houses. This is also when Stephanie an Dayla joined our rag tag little group. I stopped doing my 4 hour a week shifts at work too since they were getting slow.

October was when I started my first yoga class for money with a private group of 4 women who I shared many laughs and good times with over the next two months! Eli had his first thanksgiving that we shared with both sets of Grandparents and Uncle Marcel. A dear friend of mine passed away on Thanksgiving Monday, Curtis you are missed, I think of you often! We also did a trip to Vancouver for the Taste of Health, a vegetarian food fair to show off our Univera products which was not immediately successful but was a great learning experience for us all. We did a Univera event with Justin's mom in Malakwa in October as well, it was extremely successful! Eli had his first Halloween and we a had a pumpkin photo shoot with all the babies which even got them famous on the local news. His first Halloween was spent with Grandma and Grandpa Ha and he trick or treated at Erin and Daryl's house only. But we watched Garfield Halloween and Mom and Dad ate his candy. Good times. Eli got his first tooth in October with the second one following about a week later and he was also a super crawler by then able to move wherever he wanted. He also started pulling up.

November was a busy month. The first weekend Justin went to a yoga immersion in Naramata and Eli and I had a sleepover with Grandma Ha while Grandpa was away as well. The next weekend we spent at the Univera Vancouver Regional. This trip coincided with my Birthday which was a fun day spent with our friend Tasha and we met up later with Lisa, Fateh and Pritamjot and had some yummy Mexican food. The Regional was a lot of fun but we had to travel back that night for my yoga teacher training the next morning. The trip also made us very aware of our need for a budget so we installed one immediately. I got my first Univera customer (our 10th in total though) in November too which I was very proud of. At the beginning of November Eli took his first steps too (Nov 8 to be exact!).

December I started teaching yoga classes at Lakeside Fitness which I have really been enjoying. I also got choked enough at Bell to cancel my phone when my contract is done. And I got an iPhone! I know this is a material possession and I shouldn't be so attached to it but it has seriously changed my life. I can do lesson planning any where and I can do facebook and emails and shopping lists and games all while Eli is napping on me. I spend less time on facebook too in general which is actually surprising since it is more readily available.

We did our usual December traditions of the Harris lunch in Vernon, a dinner with friends Rob and Gayle, and I did the Salvation Army Christmas Hampers Day where they hand out the hampers. I also taught a special yoga class for Prospera Credit Union.

Our first Christmas as a family was really special, Justin's brother Marcel stayed with us for 5 nights and Justin's parents for 3 and we spent Christmas Eve at our house playing games and eating pizza having a great time. Christmas was a relaxed day with movies and a ton of food at my Mom an Dad's. Eli got pleasantly spoiled but not over the top. I like a little bit of restraint at Christmas. We didn't exchange gifts with Justin's family but they bought a few gifts for Eli. My parents and us did a smaller than normal Christmas which was nice too. It was amazing having all our immediate family together. It was really special. We did a gift steal too which was fun! Eli ended up with a really good mix of clothes, books, and toys, good job and thank you to all the gift givers! Justin and I got lots of amazing things too but some of my favorites were a Fruv gift certificate which I spent immediately on boxing day, a Quinoa cookbook, and a hand drawn picture of Eli by my wonderful brother Marcel. We are a lucky family.

Eli was officially walking in December, he toddles around everywhere. He also had one of his two front teeth poke through, the other one is trying to follow. Super cranky as a result. We also got tired of going to bed really late so we installed a bedtime routine of milk, teeth brush, bath (which he officially likes now!), story and rocking and lullaby to sleep.

It's been nice having Justin off work for just over a week. And we plan on ending the year at home just the three of us with some Indian food and maybe a movie.

Ok here is the ACTUAL nutshell: New car, new house, new baby, new friends, new jobs and a new business. Wow. What will the next New year bring?

After all this I need to reflect a bit before I make any resolutions.

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!