baby stuff

Yes, I'm procrastinating. But I decided that a nice way to procrastinate would be to let you all know what Baby D is up to.

He learned how to crawl on Valentine's day, and by that Friday (three days later) he was pulling to stand on everything he could find, and cruising. Now he is a master at pulling to stand. He wants to stand always, all the time, without exception--which is annoying when we have to change his diaper.

We'd started disposable-diapering while we were on vacation in California for Christmas, and then we got home and I was sick for like the next month (and not feeling the near-daily loads of laundry), but we just got him back in his cloth diapers and that's been nice.

He loves to play with newspaper, which is convenient because I keep a stack of it in the room where I work out every day. So he just crawls on over and starts tearing it apart while we exercise.

He blabs all the time, with emotion. He uses his eyebrows when he talks, too. I wish we could understand what he's trying to say.

I gave him another haircut on Sunday, to get rid of his new Gollum hairs and his rat tail. He looks much more clean cut now that his hair doesn't break the BYU Honor Code.

He's been sick on and off for the past three weeks, but he's finally just about over it, I think.

He's started eating solids almost daily. My mom is fanatic about forcing food on the kid, so at dinnertime he always has a pile of Cheerios and teddy grahams and pretzels and whatever in front of him (and then, under him). He doesn't swallow a whole lot, but he licks a lot of things.

He also enjoys licking the bricks on our fireplace (??). I used to discourage that, but he does it so much I've given up. If my child wants to lick bricks, well! By all means--lick those bricks, kid! Whatever.

I took some more videos of him the other day that I need to post. I'll get on that the next time I have a chance.

bodies and stuff

I've been going through a quarterlife crisis over the past few days. Today I resolved to read some Ensign articles on motherhood. This one had an interesting point, which I bring up only because I've been writing about fitness on here.

And I quote from the article:

In view of these pressures [to put off motherhood], I was glad my commitment [to being a mother] had begun early. I paid careful attention to diet and exercise from my early teens on, because I wanted to provide my future children with healthy bodies.

My mom told me all the time while I was a teenager, that I needed to prepare for motherhood by taking care of my body. I kind of rolled my eyes at it because I felt like, really? You think I'll be having kids anytime soon?

...and then I got married a few weeks after turning 20 and yeah, I had my first kid less than three years thereafter.

My mom taught me that a body needs five years of good diet and nutrition to prepare for healthy kids. I do regret not paying more attention to my body sooner. During my pregnancy, I know I ate WAY too many potato chips and FunDips. And don't even get me started on Doritos.

...mmmh Doritos.

Our current scientific understand of fetal development is so limited. I truly do wonder about the impacts of my teenage self's and pregnant self's diets on Nathaniel. And I know I need to be better about my food for the next kid I have, whenever that is.

Don't make your diet something you regret when you get around to having children. Maybe you're like I was when I was 19 and sure I wouldn't get married anytime soon--that is to say, WRONG and eating a terrible diet. As a woman, taking care of your body isn't just for you. It's for your children.

[/fitness rant]

DC Opportunity Scholarship Program

I love The Heritage Foundation, and Virginia Walden Ford, whom I have had the pleasure of meeting several times in her fight for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.

She recently blogged at Heritage and I hope you check it out.

In her honor, I created this pin. You can check out the first pin I ever made here.

I feel like a pinning genius, yo.

sweet moments

Today I asked Carl if he would put Nathaniel on the ground while I worked. My plan was to watch him as I typed.

Carl didn't return for a while, even though he had work to do, too. Finally I looked for him. He and Nathaniel were sitting just around the corner, playing ball together. It was so sweet I could hardly stand it. I had one of those moments where I just realized that Nathaniel won't be so little for very long, so I had better treasure it. I have a few of those moments I've tried to tattoo on my heart. I treasure them all.

Just now I was trying to get Nathaniel to go to sleep. Over the past few days, he's done this thing where he gets super tired--you can tell from the circles under his eyes and how he rubs his eyes with his hands--but he cries if I try to nurse him down to sleep. So it takes some effort now. We turn off all the lights, and I snuggle him and try to nurse him in the complete darkness.

Just now I was getting a little frustrated, because he was clearly very tired but he just wanted to be going! going! going! I looked at the time and said I would try to nurse him for 15 minutes and if he were still awake after that, I would give up and turn on the lights and finish everything up with him awake.

Lo and behold, four minutes later he was sound asleep. He is sleeping beside me this very moment. I need to remember that he is a total n00b to being alive here. He doesn't know how to handle his body. I have to help him learn things even as simple as going to sleep at proper times. I have to be patient with him.

Here, you should read this great essay from my friend Lanette on being a mom.

Over and out.

too many clothes

Lately, yes, Pinterest has been inspiring me with my thoughts on clothing. I've seen a bunch of pins on organization that have got me thinking, and one thing that keeps coming back to me is the idea that I have way too much clutter.

I do believe that every person's external self is more or less an accurate reflection of their inner self. Terrifying, no? But I have seen it over and over again: the way we live our lives in one thing is how we live our lives in everything.

I have two closets filled with clothes right now. Seriously. And more clothes packed away because, well.

- Because my Nana gave me that sweater when I was nine and it would be a real shame to lose it. Will it ever fit me again? No. If it did, would I wear it? No. It's not really my style now. But it's sentimental.

- Because maybe one day I will suddenly lose my sense of taste and really want to wear those ugly skirts I inherited from someone I can't even remember. Can't even remember who gave 'em to me and they don't even fit--and I think they're ugly--but maybe one time they will fit me and I will like them!

- Because my mom bought it for me and if I get rid of it, she'll be offended. Have I ever worn it? Of course not. Will I ever wear it? Probably not. Didn't wear it the first five years I owned it. But it was a gift!

- Because what if one time I need that particular item of clothing for a reason I can't currently think of?

- Because I'm entering those motherhood stages of life, and when I'm pregnant I need one wardrobe and when I'm not pregnant I need a whole other one.

- Because my mom always got mad when I wanted to give away my clothes growing up, because she thought my sister could use them. (My sister then grew up and is now taller than me. Yeah, hand-me-downs are not so helpful now.)

- Because maybe one day there will be an emergency and I'll need all these clothes for some reason.

~~~~
Okay. I have approximately a zillion items of clothing that I don't wear ever, will likely not ever wear, and I keep them why?

But I think it's possible that my whole life is like that. I wonder a lot if the reason I have held on to my unwanted weight for so long is because I just hold onto things I don't need, no matter what the sphere is.

Like the time I went to a convention of farmers to talk to them about tax law and returned home with like 10 jars of jalapeno-strawberry jam (okay. I was seventeen). Which I didn't even like that jam. But they gave it away at the conference and I HAD TO KEEP IT.

For the record, no, I am not a hoarder and I love throwing things away. Also, I have never been actually overweight. But I sure wouldn't mind being fit both inside and out. And I think this process will entail shedding some excess baggage. Possibly in the form of clothing that:

- doesn't fit.
- is ugly.
- was unwanted in the first place.
- I never wear.

I decided that when I get to my goal weight, which I haven't really decided what that is yet, but I'll know when I get there, I will reward myself with a new wardrobe.

This is what it will consist of.

- two pairs of jeans, dark wash
- one pair of slacks, black
- five skirts
- two dresses
- ten to fourteen tops
- maybe as many as four cardigans but I should really just make it two but I love them so maybe as many as four ::cardigan love::
- a light jacket
- a winter coat
- a pair of everyday shoes
- a pair of black nice shoes
- a pair of bone nice shoes (just because those are required for my choir)

And that's all.

That's all that I want.

I have a million items of clothing and really, I only wear like 2 pairs of pants, 4 skirts, 2 dresses, 2 cardigans, and many 10-14 tops I just cycle on through. So why do I have two entire closets full of clothes?

Dude. Do you realize--I have like 7 workout shirts. Seven shirts--all of them from campaigns or church functions where they only ordered size L, XL, and XXL, and I actually kept the shirts. WHY? I do laundry every two days. I do not need to wear seven workout shirts in two days. Why do I still own them? WHY CAN'T I GET RID OF THEM?!?!?

I think cutting down on this baggage in my life will help a lot. I think when I am finally able to let go of the sentimentality, and the expectations, and the fears, and the rest of the emotions that come with keeping tons of excess clothing, it'll help me cut out the rest of the stupid clutter in my life. Getting rid of clothes I don't need will be a symbol in my life, a signal to tell the rest of my life that I can actually really afford to downsize, to cut things out and focus on only the stuff I need and use. Only the stuff that matters.

This, for the record, is why I do not share my mother's passion for decorating. So much stuff just makes my little soul tie itself in sad yucky knots. Yeah, it's cool to go into my mom's house and see 49 Christmas trees decked to the hilt in season appropriate decor, but the thought of storing all those trees in my house--and wasting my own time decorating them--oh yikes. I'm glad she does it and loves it, but I was happy to just have one tree this year. I'm so glad that Christmas decorations only take up one small pile in my attic, instead of an entire room in my attic.

Attic clutter is still clutter.

I want my life to be organized. I want the things in my life to have purpose. I don't ever want to have to waste my time maintaining something I don't care about (i.e., the extra clothes in my closet).

Maybe in this aspect, less can be more.

baby is crawling!

Nathaniel turned 7 months old on Monday, and the very next day, also known as Valentine's day, he surprised us (not really) by taking his first crawling steps. REAL crawling. Today he built on that fine accomplishment, crawling several feet at a time, over and over throughout the day. I will add that the first day he figured it out, he did it about five times.

So, yep. Got a crawler now. I'm really proud of him. What a little rock star.

I will point out that six weeks ago, my mother said that he would be crawling within six weeks. This week she predicted that he would be walking before he is 10 months old. We'll see! The race is on!

rather than writing... or, the gap

Rather than writing, I will over-analyze my writing.

I have always loved to write.

I have little stories that I wrote when I was so small--stories my mom had to write down for me because I didn't know how to write yet. They're funny and imaginative (for a four-year-old anyway).

As a kid growing up, I would write stories all the time. I have binders full of stories in my attic now. Stories about all sorts of weird crap only a nine-year-old would think of.

Then in high school I could barely stop writing. I wrote hundreds of thousands of words in high school, on tons of different projects. I started something like 8 novels in high school. Of course, didn't finish any of them (though some came close).

In college I started doing NaNo and really focusing. I completed two novels, a sci-fi and a fantasy. The sci-fi sucked, I'm sure. The fantasy, eh. Could be better. I've rewritten it now, oh, like 6 hundred bazillion times. It's getting there.

I love to write because I love sentences. I don't know what it is about those guys. I love 'em. I just heart 'em with a million lovey dovey hearts. Good sentences just make me want to hug things.

Bad sentences make me want to hit things.

Grammar is my homeboy. I love it. I love understanding it and I love messing with it and using it and strategically not using it.

I love utilizing white space--e.e. cummings is my hero for that.

I love layers of meaning, like T.S. Elliot mastered. He is so cool.

I love to write because I love how words look, how they work, what they mean. I just love words and how they fit together. They are beautiful puzzle pieces that you can put together however you want, to mean whatever you want, however many times you want to. How amazing is that?

Because I love writing and patterns and structure, it follows that I like to write stories. I love it. But I always feel lacking in the inspiration department.

Recently I had what I thought was a good idea for a story, and I snowflaked the crizzap outta that sucker and now I have no real motivation to write it.

I started writing a story to go along with the writing exercise I did the other day, but now I'm 7000 words in and have no idea where it's going.

This year, I resolved to complete four novels. Didn't matter which ones they were, if they were new or old ones I've put on the shelf. So far I have not really come close to finishing any and my first deadline is in March. I need to be accountable.

Here is a pin, since all my inspiration comes from Pinterest these days (possibly sad, but extremely true):

Source: thepipersson.tumblr.com via Allie on Pinterest

I think this is my big problem. The stuff I write is rarely as good as I want it to be.

Sometimes I get it just right. Just so perfect I fall in love with that one passage--regardless of whether or not it belongs anywhere in the fine world of literature.

And sometimes, most of the time, I'll get it partially right, or even mostly right, but that one niggling mistake just gnaws at me until I fix it. It's hard to complete anything when you are so set on perfecting every little thing you write down.

I AM GOING TO FINISH THE FOUR NOVELS THIS YEAR SO HELP ME.

This is my commitment to you, blogosphere. Make me keep it.

buffalo wing popcorn

This stuff was good.

I popped popcorn. Then I opened up the bag partway, poured in some buffalo sauce, and shook the bag up.

Then I poured it into a bowl and ATE IT and loved it. You should try some too.

Someone Like You

Reading this article makes me wonder if I am broken or something.

The article is about the song "Someone Like You" by Adele, and why it is such a tearjerker. Basically it's just got a bunch of sciencey proof behind stuff that I thought was just kind of like common knowledge. Well, not COMMON, but like, if you are trained to sing, then you would realize out of logic that duh, adding appoggiatura and emotion to a song would elicit more emotion. And people like to feel emotions when they listen to a singer. Your job as a singer is literally to elicit emotion using sound.

Anyway, apparently "Someone Like You" makes people get all emotional, except I am not one of them. Not only have I never cried during that song, I actually find that song really annoying because it is slow and lame. Personal opinion. But apparently everyone actually likes it (which explains why I can't turn on my radio without hearing it) and everyone cries over it (??).

I have always felt that as a person, I am very influenced by music. Possibly more than the average soul. Music is just in my brain. Rhythm and pitch are everywhere to me and it's hard to think without them. I am very prone to earworms, I have had numerous auditory hallucinations over the years, and there are many times where I'll just be chillin, and BAM there's a song in my head and I have to write it down. Music is really a central part of my life.

So why don't I even care about Someone Like You? Why does it just make me want to listen to something not boring, instead of making me cry?

I think it may be one of the following things, or both:

1. Musical training. I have been studying music since forever. Music theory is fun to me and I enjoy it bunches. So maybe, my more thorough understanding of music and what goes into a song could make me enjoy Someone Like You less.

Why this doesn't make sense: Even though I have that strong musical background, I can still be swept away by songs that AREN'T Someone Like You. For example, "Goodnight, My Angel" by Billy Joel can often bring me to tears.

2. The lyrics. Try as I might, I can't think of anyone not in my life anymore that I would want to find someone like, except my awesome husband. Who I am actually married to. So there's nothing in my own life that makes me able to relate.

I think this one makes more sense.

Or I guess there's a third option:

3. I am heartless.

Possible.

I would really like to see a continuation of the study explained in the article that compared the importance of musical qualities and lyrics in tear-inducing passages. Also, I would love to see a study on how relative familiarity with music theory and so forth impacts the effectiveness of tearjerking passages in music.

fit times

I was reading some of the message boards on MyFitnessPal earlier this evening and I stumbled across one that just asked what made people turn their lives around. The woman asking the question had a friend who was literally killing himself with food, and she wanted to help him get his life under control. So she asked: why did everyone on MFP start their journey in the first place?

So many people try over and over again to get in shape, and then fail, and then start over, and do it again. I know I've done this. I've worked to get in shape, then decided that really, it's easier to just eat potato chips and chillax. And I relapse.

But not this time. I do believe that this time is different. Because for the firs time, something has clicked with me--

being in shape is a lifestyle choice.

In the past, I wanted to keep my old lifestyle, AND be in shape.

Yeah right.

You can't out-exercise a bad diet. And you can't just keep living your life as usual and expect things to change.

CHANGE ONLY HAPPENS WHEN YOU CHANGE.

Maybe that is totally obvious, but yes, it took me 23 years to figure that out and internalize it where my body is concerned. And now that I've realized that, I've started to actually change. Change my whole life. Maybe it doesn't look like it on the outside, but there is actually real life change going on up in hizzle, yo.

Here is a pin:

Source: google.com via Allie on Pinterest

The difference between who you are and who you want to be is in what you do. It's in what I do. And it turns out, the person I want to be minds what she eats and exercises regularly. And the person I want to be loves doing that. She adores it. She is so happy to be making wise choices about her stewardship.

THAT IS WHO I WANT TO BE.

And now I am finally actually being it.

But it took realizing that key fact first. The key fact that, to change, I had to change.

This year, my secret new year's resolution was to live with intention. I still have a long way to go, but I feel like this is a good start. Good things come to those who wait, but the best things come to those who do.

Source: prettystuff.tumblr.com via Allie on Pinterest

Baby and James

The other day I picked up Nathaniel and gave him and James a chance to say hi. They ended up holding hands (voluntarily) and it was so cute, I tried to take a picture, but my pictures failed. Here are some failure pictures that attempted to capture a beautiful moment.





Here's Jameser these days:

side-effects of fitness

I recently signed up with MyFitnessPal. It's a free calorie counter and exercise diary. I signed up on it because a friend did and it sounded like a good idea.

Which, it was. I was already starting to be more responsible for my body, with daily or near-daily workouts, and I was thinking about being conscious about my dietary habits, but I just wasn't quite there. MyFitnessPal helped me get there.

In fact, MFP has helped me quite a lot. Since January 22, when I joined, I've lost almost 5 lbs. That's five pounds more than the five pounds I talked about losing before. Good for me--not so good for my wardrobe! Totally forgot that when you lose inches, your clothes don't fit anymore.

I measured myself today, and since I started being diligent about filling out my MFP daily, I've lost three inches to the hip and over an inch on the waist. Again: go me. But now I need totally new clothes.

Seriously, my pants can barely stay on me. Even with a belt, they bag. I think it's safe to say that every item of clothing that I own at this point, is too big for me. At least every item of clothing that I can wear at this stage in my life (read: clothes I can nurse in).

Anyway. I guess with every great success comes unforeseen problems. I'm sure many of us would love to have the problem of all our clothes being way way too big.

Well, if you are one of those people, sign up on MyFitnessPal and friend me. I'm alliebaba27. We'll get fit together.

s'mores bars

I discovered these on Pinterest and they swiftly became my family's dessert of choice.

You need:

- 5 tbsp butter
- 1 12-oz package of mini marshmallows
- 6 cups Golden Grahams
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- chocolate chips.

Put the chocolate chips in the freezer (so they don't melt when you mix them into the rest of everything later).

Melt the butter and 4/5 of the marshmallows with the vanilla extract.

Pour the melted mixture into a bowl with the Golden Grahams, the leftover marshmallows, and the chocolate chips.

Stir, and transfer to a casserole dish.

Enjoy hot or cold.

story beginning?

Here is my writing exercise from yesterday.

I’m ready to get violent with whoever is tapping on the table—but just before I sigh in exasperation I look down.

I am the culprit.

My fingers are dancing, dancing like madmen. They remind me of feet, the feet of hanged men on a tree. I saw that once, before I came here. Two hanged men, side by side. Four legs, four fingers, dancing madly.

I squeeze my fingers back toward my palm, making a tight fist. I feel the eyes of others on me. I disturbed them, too.

“Vera,” comes the computerized voice through the speaker above our heads. There is a collective sigh breathed from every mouth in the room.

Well, almost every mouth.

Vera is the girl next to me. She is stone. I scan her face, and she catches my eye; she is afraid. I look away. I hadn’t meant for that connection to take place. I would have trouble sleeping tonight, remembering that moment.

The door opens, and a rush of air sends my hair flying. I wait, frozen, as two men enter the room. They smell of sweat and leather, and their arms and faces glisten in the light of the one light bulb swinging above us. There is one man for Vera’s left arm, and one man for her right. She doesn’t struggle. She merely stands, and allows them to escort her out. The thick metal doors slam behind them, and the rest of us pray prayers of gratitude.

And I wonder: did she know?

When she stepped into the room, did she know that she would be the one escorted out?

I shiver. None of us know what happens when you leave this place. When you leave Home. That’s not what this place is; it’s just a title. I can barely remember my real home, but the snatches of memory I have are enough to remind me that this place, whatever it is, is anything but home.

There were twelve of us, once. Twelve of us.

Seven are left.

In my mind, I call it the Selection: the time when we all come to this room, and wait for our name to be called. Wait to be Selected.

I don’t know what the process is for. I wonder if it’s death. I remember Vera’s eyes and shudder. She was wondering the same thing, if the calling of her name meant her destiny was death. But what had she done? We were obedient.

We were obedient.

“You may exit,” the voice through the speaker comes again. We all stand up to leave. All of us, except Vera.

And four others. The four others who were called before.

“Maybe it’s freedom,” Laurie says as we move toward the door. Everyone turns to look at her.

“It doesn’t have to be bad,” she says as Millie opens the door so we can go. There is another rush of air, and I hear a scream from somewhere else in the building. It soaks through the walls like water, flooding the room. We drown in it.

I usually am 100% opposed to the use of the present tense in narration, but I was writer's-blocked and just started writing. I really like this beginning. But I have no idea where it's going.

I thought of having the narrator be:

- a priestess in training
- a gladiator
- a human sacrifice of some sort

And then last night I got the idea that maybe she could be a slave--like a slave in training. Something like that. When she is Selected, it will be her time to be sold at an auction, and the price will be high because she is trained in combat but looks weak. Her current owner maybe made a fortune off of kidnapping girls, training them up to be hardcore potential assassins, and then selling them at exorbitant prices to the elite who could really use a nice-looking girl to sneak into certain places and wreak havoc. Something like that.

I mostly like that idea, but I don't like how animal my main character is becoming. I hate in fiction how female characters so often are just tomboys. I think it's cheap and denigrating to femininity in general. There are already way more stories about boys than about girls, and even in books about girls, male characters typically outnumber the female characters by a wide margin. Why is it that even in stories with strong female characters, those characters almost always spend all their time trying to be men?

[/rant]

Anyway. Any ideas? Anyone?

nursing clothes tip!!

Okay! I feel compelled to share this with the world, because I had to figure it out on my own.

I decided that if I'm going to nurse my child for anywhere close to the medically recommended two years, I needed a nursing-friendly wardrobe.

I started out buying legit nursing clothes. But it turns out, those are often way expensive, and also they are often not even cute. Most of the time, nursing clothes from motherhood stores also double as pregnancy clothes. So on a non-pregnant woman, they look baggy and shapeless.

Fortunately for me, though, fashion has dictated the return of the cross-wrap top. Here are two examples:




They're both from Target, although the first one is from Target years ago (it was my mom's).

Anyway. I've started stocking up on those, and additionally taking scissors to my old $2 camisoles from Forever XXI:



The camisoles now end right at the bra line (the picture above shows an uncut camisole and one I've taken scissors to). So when it's time to nurse, you pull up the camisole on the appropriate side. You're still totally covered on the other side, and I've found that with the stretch in the camisole fabric, most of the side you're nursing on stays covered too, if you're careful with it.

This solution is way, way cheaper than buying legit nursing clothes--and bonus, you can use these clothes even after you're not nursing, and you won't look like you're drowning in excess shirt! Yay!

Here is a nursing outfit that I love. It's a pencil skirt with a cross-wrap top and a homemade nursing tank as I showed above. I think it's a way cuter alternative to the kind of nursing clothes you would get from a maternity store.



That's my tip for the day.

sicktimes

I feel like we were just sick, but now we're sick again. I think Nathaniel and I picked something up at the elementary school we volunteered at last Wednesday. Baby has a cough and a nose full of goo. Poor baby. I've got a sore throat--I hope he doesn't have that too!

On Sunday morning I woke up to a leak in the guest bedroom ceiling. Last night, my dad and Carl were up until midnight fixing the darn thing. They were busy sawing a hole in the wall or floor or something right behind the master bedroom, so I think it's safe to say that none of us really got to sleep before midnight. They did get it fixed though. Hooray! Having no water is not that fun.

Poor Nathaniel--and I--are pretty beat, though. Maybe I will not be having people over to work out this morning...

Nathaniel plays catch

Our baby doesn't do everything the normal way, because he's so cool and underground like that. He plays Catch With Dad, but he doesn't need any limbs to do it successfully, unlike lesser mortals.



- Carl

Nathaniel learns to kiss

Apparently, while I'm at work, my wife and mother-in-law dedicate themselves to schooling my Heir on life's most vital topics. Always an eager and open-minded student, Doozit Junior assimilated the lesson, attempted its practice, and then threw himself completely into its execution.



- Carl

babies are freaky

Heather told me to blog my thoughts on Nathaniel's weird burp from just now. He just did this bizarre three-part burp, and it was super deep and loud. I thought he was going to puke up his guts or something (he didn't).

The big thing I have learned from motherhood is this.

Babies are totally freaky.

Totally cute.

Totally freaky.

Never believe anything else.

getting healthy

Source: survivalofthefit-ness.tumblr.com via Emily on Pinterest

I'll say that being on Pinterest, and especially frequenting the fitness board, has really impacted my life so far this year. I get so much motivation from there.

Love it.

on gratitude and an attitude adjustment

Yesterday started out being a tough day. I was up all night trying to keep Nathaniel from sleeping on his tummy, and by the time I got him to sleep for real on his back, it was 5:30 am and I hadn't gotten any sleep at all.

So I fully planned to have an awful day. I wasn't mean about it, just resigned. I got up to make Carl's lunch and thought, of course I have to make him lunch on the worst day. And stupid stuff like that.

When we got back from taking Carl to work, I prayed for help to get through this day, because it was clearly such a terrible, terrible day.

And then it hit me:

There are thousands of women praying right now to have a child. They would give up so much for the opportunity to stay up all night keeping their kid from sleeping weirdly.

There are women right now praying for an escape from people who would beat them or rape them or murder them or worse. They would give so much to have their biggest problem be a lack of sleep.

There are women starving to death, and women forced into slavery, and women with terrible diseases, and I am seriously complaining about staying up all night with a baby?

My baby is even cute! He's even happy! There are plenty of moms who don't even get that!

What business do I have complaining about anything when I am pretty much the most blessed person I know?

So, no, I didn't get a real nap yesterday. And by the end of the day I was beat. But I will say, after that attitude adjustment, my day was great.

The purpose of life is happiness: men are that they might have joy. God has given me so much. I feel like it's pretty much my job to be joyful.

So, sorry I was a complainer. It was ungrateful of me. At the end of the day, my life is good. It all just comes down to an attitude adjustment.

Source: thenester.com via Allie on Pinterest

baby back to normal!

He slept normally last night!

He only got to lick a few Cheerios yesterday, and then during the night I let him roll around as he desired. Of course I made sure that when he was on his tummy his head was to the side. He slept awesomely.

Whew.

sleep issues, continued

I think I discovered the answer to his sleep issues. I'll test it out tonight and let you know.

All morning, he's slept super well, but only on his tummy. If I try to get him to sleep on his back or side, he stirs and starts grunting and being sad again. No tears, but just general restlessness.

Right now he's on his tummy, and has slept peacefully for the past hour. All last night when he was tossing and turning and getting upset with me, it was because I wouldn't let him sleep on his tummy. I kept him from his tummy for two reasons: 1) SIDS risk and 2) he loves scooting and I didn't want him scooting around in the night.

But it looks like he'd rather sleep than scoot, and also, I'm right next to him all night. (Yay bedsharing!) So I can hear him breathe all night long. If something happens with him, I notice. So maybe it might be okay to let him sleep that way.

baby has sleep issues

Nathaniel has been weird lately. Normally, he sleeps well during the night, and is happy all day. The past few days, he's been a grump--and last night, he didn't bother going to sleep until 5:30. And then he was up at 6:30 and now he just fell asleep again. It's like 8 am.

Just in time for me to load him in the car to take Carl to work! This will be superfun.

I gave him some Orajel at 6:30, and some baby motrin. I guess his new grumpiness and sleep issues are from teething, or starting solids? He loves to suck on bread crust and Cheerios and pretzels (he doesn't really eat them, he just licks them), but I wonder if that's making him crazy?

All I know is, when my baby doesn't sleep, I don't sleep. He spent the whole night just making weird grunting noises and thrashing around, until I gave up trying to placate him the whole time and he just cried instead. Poor kid.

I think the real secret may have been that he wanted to sleep on his tummy and I wouldn't let him. A benefit of co-sleeping is that I can keep him in the positions that are good for him to sleep in. But he just learned how to sleep on his side last week, and now sleeping on his back isn't good enough. And just now, he fell asleep on his tummy and it's the most restful I've seen him in days.