Mommyhood can be a love/hate relationship...

I love being a mom. But sometimes I find myself loving moments and looking back and wondering what I was thinking...

I love that my baby is strong enough to push herself up and off of things.
I hate that it means that she pushes herself off of me while I'm holding her.

I loved when my baby learned to blow raspberries.
I hate it when she does it with a mouth full of food.

I love that my baby is growing and becomes more interactive each day.
I hate that my baby is growing and becoming less of the little bug I brought home from the hospital.

I love when my baby poops after a bout of constipation and two prune/apple juice cocktails.
I hate when I have to clean it moments later.

I love that my baby is on the verge of crawling.
I hate that it means that soon I can no longer leave her on the floor with toys and leave her for a moment without supervision.

I will love it when my baby takes her first steps.
I will hate it shortly thereafter when I realize that my home and baby are no longer safe.

I will love when she says her first words.
I will hate what that word is if I don't start watching the words I use...

All's Quiet on the Home Front

My blog has been quiet lately. I wish it was a no news is good news sort of thing, but it's more neutral than anything. It's certainly not a bad news situation, but there are some things I wish were different. For example, it would be good news to share that my house sold, but no such luck yet. We press on, however. I spend most of my moments trying to treasure and preserve my time with Baby Girl, as she recently hit 6 months and keeps growing and growing and growing. My wishes that she remain my tiny little cuddle bug are unanswered, so instead I'm trying to memorize her every moment before she too quickly moves into a new phase. My family has been busy - busy enjoying the spring, busy trying to sell the house, busy being active and social and trying to be healthy. I'm halfway through the first weekend I've had in a long time where I don't have any obligations, and it's hard to swallow! Next weekend starts the run of showers, parties, and festivals all over again. I wouldn't give it up though, but it sure would be nice if I had more free hours in the day. Maybe someday when scientists find out how to survive on no sleep...

Today - well, the few hours I was out of the house - was devoted to grocery shopping. I get into food ruts where I can't think of anything to make and want nothing more than to drive through the nearest unhealthy restaurant. The best way to get out of the food rut is to spend an hour or two browsing through a specialty grocery store. On weeks where I have a bit of spending money, I may find myself perusing a Whole Foods or similar market, buying some good looking produce or fancy cheeses. But on weeks like this - where the bills stack a bit higher than is fun, I take my frugal pocketbook and head to an Asian market.

There's nothing more exciting to me than strolling through grocery aisles with products that I normally don't see in my week to week grocery shopping. Granted, I can't read most of the packages, but most of them do have English translations somewhere on them. A larger Asian market will also have some produce and fresh meats and seafood, which can also be an adventure in food. I normally stock up on rice noodles and Panda chocolate biscuit cookies and spend the rest of the time looking for fun new things to try. Candies are usually a safe bet, as well as frozen pancakes and pork buns. However, every once in a while I get an item that sounds good in theory, but goes into the garbage after an initial try. The price can be the best part - tonight's adventure gave me three bags of groceries for $30.

Of course, I still had to supplement my experimental groceries with my regular run of items, so it was a second trip to my "regular" grocery store. I've actually started really enjoying going to the grocery store each week. I do spoil myself each time with a stop at the Caribou Coffee kiosk for a skinny latte, but after that, it's all business. I wish I could say that I have some good frugal tips, but the grocery store is one place I have been splurging lately. The main reason for that is for health- it seems that the healthier you want to be, the more you have to invest. However, I also spend more than I need to for convenience, too. For example - fruits and veggies. I enjoy taking cucumbers for lunch, but if I buy a whole cucumber, I won't find the time to cut and bag it for lunch, and it will end up going bad. I can spend a few extra dollars, however, on mini cucumbers that I do not need to cut up to eat. So I do spend on the convenience, but in the long run, it's worth it.

I also love shopping when it's busy. Not because of the crowds, of course, but they have the sample ladies out when the store is busier. Some of my favorite ways of cooking veggies come from the lady that gives samples in the produce area. And I think she's starting to recognize me as well... either that, or she's very friendly to everyone and thinks I'm nuts for talking to her like I see her all the time!

Grocery shopping used to be a task I hated, but I've found a way to make it a little date with myself each week. I don't do as good of a job at saving money as I should, but I'm taking strides toward being much healthier, so it's a good balance. Now if I could just find a way to start looking forward to exercising the way I look forward to my weekly grocery shopping trip, I'd be set!!

Happy Easter!

It's been a long time since I've blogged, but live moves at a fast pace, and sometimes trying to keep up with it is all I can manage!

The house has been on the market for 2 months. We've had what I consider to be a lot of traffic - usually one private showing a week - but no bites yet. I was really down about this for a while, but with the change in weather and being able to get outdoors with the family and enjoy nature a bit, it's brought my spirits back up some. Being active always makes for a much lighter spirit (and body...)

Baby Girl is growing like a weed, and I wish she would slow that down too, but my wishes are unanswered. She's starting to sit on her own with little wobbling, so soon after that will come the crawling, and the walking, and the running... I'm just hoping we are in a new house sooner than all that so that we can babyproof it as we move in.

It's Good Friday, so I have the day off to spend at home with the baby. We're being lazy and staying in our PJ's late and snuggling and relaxing. The poor girl has a cold that keeps her up more than she'd like, so I think everyone in the house - especially the husband that doesn't get today off work - is just a bit worse for the wear. But we'll get through it. Hopefully she feels much better for a certain someone's visit on Sunday (Hint: hop, hop!).

This weekend, I'm tackling LAUNDRY and CLOTH DIAPER STRIPPING (dun dun dun!!). My household normally does laundry on the weekend, so no big change here, but I'm tackling it from a money saving and green angle. I bought some clothesline yesterday and got that hung and am going to hang my first load of sun dried diapers as soon as they run through the rinse enough times to get 6 months of detergent build up cleaned from them. I was also feeling curious and industrious and wanted to try and make my own laundry detergent. From the research I did on this, you can make detergent that is highly effective at cleaning clothes for what equates to $.01 a load!!! However, this requires a 5 gallon bucket to hold all of the detergent you make. So while I do want to try this, I think I would prefer to be in my new home when I do so that I have more space to work in and don't have the home staged all the time. Also, I think I should probably work through the stockpile of dye and fragrance free detergent that I've stocked up on from various store sales.

I'd absolutely love to hear from anyone that either makes their own detergent or uses any sort of alternative to the typical lines of detergent sold in most stores.

So here's hoping the sun comes out all bright and shiny like it's forecasted to so my clothes actually dry on the line. I'm going to be very embarrassed if I'm in my yard after sundown pulling in all of my clothes to run them through the dryer.

I decided I'd take a quick break from spring cleaning to update my blog, and all of my loyal fans out there. My family is still in the grand swing of trying to sell our house. I'm hoping that with the great spring weather we've been having that it will increase traffic and get us a buyer soon!

The biggest task - and the task that was saved for the end - has been cleaning the basement. I've never been too keen on looking with homes that don't have basements, and it's not even a midwest cyclone-phobia. It's that I simply don't understand where people without basements put their "stuff". However, after cleaning ours out, I've decided that those people are the sane people, because they just don't accumulate "stuff".

Standing in my basement last weekend, amidst the dust and cobwebs and totes full of "stuff", I realized that in the six years that I've been in my current house, the basement that started empty and clean was filled with "stuff" - things that I had spent hard earned money on and decided that I had no place for it in the main part of the house, or I wanted to keep it for our next house where we would have room, or it was something that I just couldn't part with. I think there must have been ten boxes or more of books, the same amount of boxes of video games - ranging in age from 1982 - present, boxes of art projects I never finished, art projects I never started, boxes of clothes the baby has already out grown (I know there were at least 4 of those), and the list goes on and on...

If you haven't caught on yet, I'm decidedly sick of "stuff". In order for us to fit all of our "stuff" nicely into our next house, I'll have to look for a 6 bedroom, 5 bathroom, 3000+ square foot house with a library. Which I know are out there, but they are understandably not in my modest price range.

My husband and I made a pledge that when we move into our new house, and the storage pod full of "stuff" is delivered for us to empty out, that things are either going to have a home that is not storage, or they are going to have a home that is at the Goodwill. Because I am not, ever again, storing, cleaning, moving, moving around, going through, or collecting "stuff".

I'm glad things are moving to a digital format. I remember when iTunes first came around, and I thought it was silly to buy a digital album. I wanted the shiny CD and the plastic impossible to open package- it was a trophy of buying that album! I've of course switched over to digital music since then, but realized as I moved boxes of old cds and cd cases how silly that statement was. I still say the same thing about books and e-books, and I wonder if I will look back in ten years and realize how silly I am now to think that (it's doubtful...). I took my husband's old Nook after he got a new one and while I did read 10 or so e-books on it while I was on maternity leave (I miss when the baby slept more than the cats some days), I still want to replace them with used paperback versions someday. But it sure would be nice if everything else could be digital and we didn't have to store it!!

And as I type this, I realize that I still have a pile of records that need to be boxed up and stored properly, because I will not ever give up buying records. Especially since new ones usually come with a free digital download...

And the problem of "stuff" starts all over again...

Giving it Up

I picked myself up a new book yesterday called Give It Up! My Year of Learning to Live Better with Less by Mary Carlomagno. It's an interesting read so far - it describes how she decided on year on New Year's to give up a different "vice" each month for the year. So far, I've read through her months of giving up alcohol and shopping.

While some of the things she describes giving up - television, chocolate - would be a challenge for me, it's made me wonder- are there things that I could give up that would make my life better?

Alcohol and shopping aren't currently problem areas for me, so I'll really need to examine my life to decide what I want to improve on. The first thing that comes to mind is diet soda. I love diet soda. It's tasty, refreshing, calorie free... but I've heard the lectures too. It's bad for your teeth, it makes you crave sugar more, it has the dreaded CAFFEINE...

Another thing I thought I could do better in life without is stress. If I could do that, I certainly wouldn't need to be reading books on simplifying life...

I've also thought lately of giving sugar the boot, but every time I try to research sugar free diets, I get inundated with information that I am not sure is even accurate. Natural sugar is terrible for you, but chemical sugar substitutes are healthier- really? Eating sugar is okay during certain times of day - honestly? Now, I do believe that corn syrup is unhealthy, but it's syrup- how can it be healthy? My doctor had advised me at one point to cut corn syrup out of my diet completely, and I have been successful at that. So could it be that much more difficult to quit sugar?

On the other hand, while I don't want my family to be a family that is completely and utterly dependent on sugar, I also don't want Lucy to be on such a strict diet growing up that she goes wild at friend's houses with her first taste of the white stuff. So maybe rather than cutting out sugar entirely, I'll refocus my energy and just minimize the sugar for now, or leave that for another month of something to give up.

As far as giving chocolate up - I'm not even going to give that the slightest bit of consideration. That is out of the question. Well, until I try giving up sugar.

So what is the point of giving something up for a month? Partially to try and improve life and become a better, healthier, more active person. But it's also partially selfish- it's a test to see if I can even do it. Because if I can give something up for a month, I can reevaluate that month and see if it even needs to exist in my life. And if I can give one thing up, I can give anything up.

Thankfully, since it's only the 8th of the month, I have a while to think about it. But I urge you to join me in giving something up for a month (and yes, I realize that if you are Catholic you are laughing at me now because you've already given something up! Us Lutheran-raised gals don't know about Lent.) We're starting April 1st, so pick the thing you wish to remove from your life and get ready! Or, to look at it another way, think of the thing you'd like to add to your life, and we'll give up the opposite (I want to exercise more, so I'm going to give up not exercising).

My adventure in fruit- Dragonfruit!

I've always liked dragonfruit scented lotion, but I was curious a few weeks ago about what a dragonfruit actually was. A quick Google search and Wikipedia entry told me that it was highly likely I'd never find out what a dragonfruit tastes like, since I'm very much landlocked in Iowa, and the dragonfruit is decidedly not a fruit of the continental US. However, I was quite shocked to find dragonfruit at my local grocery store today! Of course, the fruit was marked up at a very high price, but I decided to treat myself to a splurge.

It really is a beautiful and striking fruit. It's got a lovely, and somewhat squishy, hot pink outer, with green leaves that stick up around it. It's even more interesting once it's cut open-

I've never seen anything like it - a white flesh with black seeds. And it contrasts so well with the pink skin. I wasn't sure how to go about eating it, so I scooped all of the flesh out into a bowl using a spoon and just dug in. I'd like to say I was brave and had no hesitation, but that's not entirely true. The fruit has the texture of kiwi- soft and crunchy at the same time. The seeds are the same texture of kiwi seeds as well. The taste, though not bad, is very, very subtle.

So was it worth the money I paid for it? For the experience, yes. But not for taste. Needless to say, I won't be buying dragonfruit again, unless it's very, very much on sale.

Now, for a quick round of "Good Baby Buy, Bad Baby Buy." Good baby buy- washcloths - and plenty of them! Surprisingly enough, I don't keep many washcloths in the house. I'm starting to feel that now that I have a baby learning to eat solid foods. There aren't enough washcloths to clean that puree-smeared face. So if you're expecting, stock up! Bad baby buy - a robe. Very, very cute, but very, very impractical. It's enough getting the slippery, wet baby into a towel, much less a robe! But I did manage to use it once and snap some pictures, since it is cute-

A soapbox for boobs...

Before I get on top of my soapbox, I have to thank my friend Dana for helping to break me out of my non-money-saving rut. She gave me an excellent money saving tip this morning- try cutting kitchen sponges in half. Usually, you only use the outside of a sponge, making the middle of the sponge useless. Cut that sponge in half, and you have twice the usage!!! Seems really simple- one of those tips that makes me wonder why I didn't think of it years ago when I got my first kitchen...

My sister gave me some information today on an author that wrote about raising babies and how to handle that, which of course is a huge industry! And there are so many different theories and ideas on this. I tend to think that there are not many right or wrong answers when it comes to babies and kids, as long as your kids are happy, safe, and healthy. Anyhow, I started to Google this author and her methods for more information, but most of what I found were scathing reviews, tearing the author down for suggesting the use of formula for babies. This took me back to when I had Lucy and tried nursing...

I had not taken any classes to prepare for nursing, because I assumed like many others that nursing would come naturally to me. Well, it did not. And frankly, I don't see how it would be natural to many first time moms! Not only are you learning to hold the baby, but trying to hold the baby in such a way as to latch, and keeping the baby awake- it's all a lot to take in! But I tried, and tried, and tried, and tried... We had gotten two successful feedings at the hospital, and I was counting my success by the fact that it lasted 2 - 3 minutes each time. I was visited by the lactation consultants, who assured me that if I just tried more, it would get easier, but that I had to keep trying. They were actually a bit stressing and made it seem as if I was not trying hard enough. We were sent home on the 4th day, and I had no better luck at home. By the next day, we were at the pediatrician's office, and I was bawling because the pediatrician had decided that the baby was losing too much weight, was dehydrated, and was not getting enough food.

This is where I got the best advice I have ever gotten in regards to nursing, or child care in general. The pediatrician, after handing me a tissue, told me that she could tell I was doing everything I could and was being a good mom, but that it was more important that I was happy, and that the baby was happy because I was happy, than it was to nurse. And then she gave me many, many formula samples.

Now, I am not pro-formula, and I am not pro-nursing. But I think it is unacceptable that this was the very first instance of someone telling me it was OKAY to not nurse, and that they knew I was trying, but there is nothing wrong with failing at nursing. I know it isn't exactly the job of the lactation consultants to tell you this, but I think that there is way too much of a dividing line between nursers and formula moms. I don't understand why a war needs to exist between the two groups. Nursing only moms are brutal to mothers that use formula, and mothers that use formula act like nursing moms are nuts! Frankly, if there is something that a new mother does not need, it's undue stress about feeding.

Nursing is wonderful - it's natural, it's healthy, and it's FREE! But formula is great, too - it provides the necessary nutrition, is convenient, and has worked for many generations. So why are women made to feel as if they have to choose one over the other, and pick sides in a baby battle?

I wish nothing but luck to mothers that want to nurse. But please remember that it is okay to try, and it is okay to fail. It is okay to decide two weeks in that you don't want to put forth the effort and would rather do formula. And to all of you formula moms out there- please don't make your mom-to-be friends feel as if they are crazy for trying nursing. Be a supportive friend- not a negative one.