Sunday, May 8, 2011

Planning Around the Boob

Is it amazing that you make life, grow life, feed life as it grows, give birth to brand new life, and then feed it from your own body.  I am quite impressed with what nature has given to me.  You never realize how cool being a woman is until you get pregnant and have a child.  You have all these amazing instincts that kick in and you just nurture them, as you do your baby.   It's pretty cool.  I know that those of you that have had a child are like yeah...whatever, but I am just truly amazed.

So, for my first mother's day I got a beautiful pair of earrings that are Sophia's birthstone, aquamarine, a cake, Amine made a quiche, and we had some mimosas.  You have to plan though!   We had our mimosas and then I couldn't feed her for a while of course.  I have read the new literature, as well as listened to what my doc said about pumping and dumping, and basically that's not necessary.  You just wait 2 hrs per drink and then you are good to feed again.  That sounds like a ridiculous amount of time, and it is, because then your boobs are about to pop!   But, it was worth it I say.   We really did have a beautiful morning.   And to make matters even better, she slept last night from 8-4:30!!!   Yes!!!   And then today she is currently still in the middle of what I can only guess will be a 4 hr nap!   But, I am NOT waking her, because I know if she wakes up, she'll be plenty hungry and then she'll go down tonight at 7 or 8 and perhaps we will have another good night.   Best to not jinx it though..... :-)

On this Mother's Day I reflect....I reflect upon all the years that Amine and I have been happily married, spent tons of time together being poor, then getting real jobs, and basically growing up together.  I mean, Amine and I spent our entire 20's together!   We travelled together and did a HELL of a lot of darn good partying and boy was it all worth it.   Now, we are true grown ups!   We can still have our mimosas on Mother's Day, because we are FINALLY mature enough to handle that and not freak out, and then we look down at that beautiful baby, that life that we've created and we both can get emotional.  

I love my family, I love my life, it took a long time to get to where we are...but I wouldn't change any of it.  Thank you for my first Mother's Day.  I'm the luckiest mom in the whole wide world.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Family Pictures & Baby Sophia

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ouahidi/

Click here to see all our family photos so far!   :-)

Being a Mom and Questioning EVERYTHING!

Sophia, my beautiful baby girl will 7 weeks old this Wednesday. I cannot believe that time has flown by so quickly. It's amazing to think that the time that I was pregnant couldn't have crept by any slower and now that she's here, I cannot slow time down!

A a new mom, one questions everything. I lay awake at night thinking about the 90 million things I need to do ask my self one of a hundred questions, did I feed her enough, did I burp her, was she sleepy when I laid her down, is she too hot or too cold, and a thousand other things. It doesn't matter what people tell you, and truthfully sometimes that makes it harder, you question everything you do and you cannot make it stop. You cannot turn your brain off and you cannot help it; must be a mom thing or a Bess thing who knows!

Amine and I recently started trying the steps of the Ferber method with Sphia, better known as CIO or the "cry it out" method. It's not as awful as all the blogs and comments on the web say. In fact, it's been less painstaking then my husband and I taking turns every night walking around the house, bouncing, rocking, and trying all these wacky things to get her to go to sleep. We of course then gingerly lay her down hoping that she won't wake up screaming because she's not being held. So, against what everyone was saying, even our doctor....we began using the steps of the ferber method to get her to sleep on her own at night and during the day. She's been sleeping longer, better and wakes up rested and ready to eat.

I never thought being a parent would be this hard...really! I honestly thought that with my background in childcare and babysitting AND teaching that I would really just "know" what to do. Haha, yeah right! At the very least this whole parenting experience, so far, has been incredibly humbling and taught me patience....which I am still working on.

What also amazes me is how I miss her when she sleeps or when I haven't seen her for while or how, even when she is sleeping, I think about her and what I am doing constantly; AND constantly question myself. :-). I love being a mommy and I love love love my little Sophia.