comfortable in my skin

it took me a long time
to become comfortable in my skin.
like many women, i have struggled
with body image.

more than just thinking i look fat
i have dabbled in binging and then purging
exercised compulsively
and starved my way through europe in college.

what the hell was i thinking?

my clothes have had serious range
over the years.
size 0 to size 10
and every size in between.

but after 38 years
i have, for the most part,
put the body image issues to rest.

sure i have days when
i like the way i look
and days when i cant stand it.

i have come to accept
that having two children
via c-section leaves a permanent pouch.
but at least i dont have a shelf anymore.

so, to celebrate this acceptance
as well as gift ph with a killer
40th birthday present.
i decided to have a "boudoir" photo shoot.

it was an awesome experience.
it was freeing.
it was fun.
it was not nearly as uncomfortable as i thought it would be.

it taught me how far i have come.
and that i dont look so bad in my skin, after all.

here are some of my favorite shots.

back to school

today i took a machine quilting class at my local quilt shop.

i learned lot.

free motion quilting is hard!

but i did manage to sign my quilt in stitches.

yay me!

from the frontline

my newest lesson from the frontline of motherhood is... if you have a routine that works, for goodness sake do not change it!

bean has always been a good sleeper at night. the days of walking around like a zombie and feeling like you need tooth picks to prop your eyes open are in the distant past, that is until recently. the last two nights have been awful. bean has woken up numerous times and wont go back to sleep. ph and i have been on the bean merry go round trying to get him back to sleep. just when we thought we had won the sleep battle, he would wake up. it has been a long couple of nights.

the culprit of his sudden unwillingness to sleep is oatmeal cereal. everyone tells you that once babies have cereal they sleep through the night. well i am here to say that is not the case with my baby. turns out oatmeal cereal gives bean gas preventing him from eating full bottles and sleeping. we were fighting hunger because he was eating about 10 ounces less than normal and we were fighting gas bubbles. people, this is a losing battle.  sorry bean, its only formula for you for the time being.


again, the moral of the story. if you have a good thing going, do not change it up.

conflicted

i would not consider myself an environmentalist, but i do care about this planet and try to help preserve it in my own way. i make small contributions, hoping that they will add up and help with the fight.

when i was pregnant with cooper, i received a postcard in something i ordered about cloth diapers. it caught my attention. i had this archaic image of cloth diapers, you know the one. gerber diapers with safety pins. but these were easy, stylish and looked like disposable diapers. i began researching the topic and was appalled at how horrible disposable diaper are for the environment. precious husband and discussed this at great length and made the decision that we were going to do our part by using cloth diapers. after reading many reviews, i settled on this brand and placed my order. i had decided i would start using the diapers when cooper was 12 weeks old, mainly because it would be easier to use disposable in those first weeks with a newborn.

as bean gets closer to 12 weeks old, i move closer to my commitment to the planet and i am conflicted. i am embarrassed to state my reasoning, basically it is about convenience. i am lazy. lets face it disposable diapers are easier. cloth diapers mean more laundry and one more thing for me to do in my day. they also mean that i am not dumping all that waste into a landfill and harming the planet. we are leaving a smaller footprint and doing our part to help the planet. by using them we are also setting a good example for our son. i want to teach him to make wise, thoughtful decisions, not decisions based on convenience. but the extra laundry.......

i am ok with being conflicted for now. but when i return home from santa fe at the end of may, conflicted or not, i am going to use the cloth diapers. i need to attempt to do my part to help the planet. all i can do is try.

never say never

before i was a parent, i had alot of thoughts and theories about parenting, what i would do and not do, and i was very vocal about them. my mother taught me that saying never was the kiss of death, but i was pretty clear about my parenting thoughts without using the word never.

well, 25 days into this journey of parenthood, i am doing some of the things i didn't think i would ever do. and it is all in the name of sleep.

don't worry, i am not doing anything that requires cps coming in for a home visit. but i am doing things that make life a little easier and allow all of us to sleep. enter exhibit a, letting the bean sleep in our room. we have a hushamok for our room and one for downstairs. he loves it and sleeps while in it. and when the pediatrician said it was fine for him to sleep in it, i breathed a sigh of relief.

enter exhibit b: babywearing. perhaps it seemed a little too hippy and crunchy for my taste. but today, my very own moby wrap arrived in the mail. i tried it on while the bean was sleeping, let me tell you what a sight that was, i got myself all tangled up. i will have precious husband help me later. i think it may make me a little claustrophobic, but if the bean likes it and it allows me to be more productive and him to sleep, so be it.

i am sure that there will be other things that i can add to this list as i continue down this road of parenting. but there are some things that i will not bend on, like letting the bean watch tv before he is 2 years old. but then again, never say never.

lessons learned

** the bean hates mornings. this is no surprise, really, because i am not a fan of mornings. when i owned the yarn shop i didn't open the doors until noon, and would usually sleep until 11. if i could just get the bean to sleep the morning away. i keep telling him that is the key to avoiding the dreaded time. we will keep working on it.

**i discovered the best app for my iPhone, white noise. when the bean is cranky, the sound of the hair dryer seems to calm him. now i can just use the app on my phone, rather than holding a hair dryer in his ear.

**motherhood makes you do things you never saw yourself doing. say like, making up silly words to songs to calm your screaming baby or choreographing a dance at 2 in the morning to get your child to fall asleep. i call that dance the hula, jiggle, pat dance. and no i will not demonstrate it.

**i am learning to trust my instincts, though i doubt them a million times a day. i tell myself that no one knows my baby like, i do. i did carry him for 9 months after all.

**parenting is a privilege, an honor and the opportunity of a lifetime.

swaddling, poop and sleep.

this is what i have learned in the last 2 weeks since the bean's arrival.

**i suck at swaddling. i mean really suck at it. i think i have a good swaddle going and within minutes of picking the bean up, he manages to free his arms out the top, expose his feet and have the blanket in a basic wad around his neck. and the thing is, he really likes to be swaddled. but when he is cranky forget about it. its a lost cause. fortunately, precious husband is pretty darn good at swaddling. unfortunately, he will have to go back to work soon which leaves me wrestling with the bean and the swaddle blanket.

**i have never had so much conversation center around poop. whose poop you may ask? well mine and the bean's. conversation stems around when was the last time either one of us pooped. and every time we change a diaper, there is disappointment that it is only a wet one. seems he takes after his mama and is not as regular as some. i called the dr yesterday because i was concerned that he was only pooping once a day. the nurse asked me in this calm voice, "well, have you tried stimulation with a thermometer and vaseline?" "no" i replied. thinking to myself , how in the hell would i know to do that? she explained what to do in a very matter of fact voice, answered some more of my questions and sent me on my way. we will be exploring this subject more in depth on monday when we visit the pediatrician.

**sleep, what sleep? i am so tired and miss my sleep. and the sad thing is my parents are here to help, how tired am i going to be when they leave. i am one of those people who loves sleep. when i was little i could never go to a sleepover, because i would inevitably get sick because i stayed up all night. back to my current state of sleepless, this morning after precious husband fed the bean around 3 am and put him back in his hammock (he is sleeping in this brilliant contraption next to our bed) i kept my back to him, thinking if i don't look at him he wont wake up. it worked, he slept until 5:30. but i do miss my sleep.......ahhh, motherhood.

i wonder what i will learn next week....