Monthly Archives: January 2010

31 Days to Build A Better Blog – Day 1

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I purchased an online course to build a better blog.  True, I started it three days ago, but I’ve just finally gotten around to finishing day 1′s task.  The task is to write an “elevator pitch” for your blog.

Here’s why.  The course writer says that if someone comes to your site to read something you’ve written, you have just a few seconds to win them over and convince them to come back.  If they have NO idea what your blog is about, they aren’t likely to stick around.  An Elevator Pitch is a short description of your blog (the idea is that it’s short enough to pitch to someone during an elevator ride: hence the name!) that will give someone an idea of who you are, what you write about, and why they should come back.

It really DID take me three days to work on mine.  I didn’t want it to be stupid, or full of cliche.  I wanted it to be honest, to really represent why I write, and WHAT I write.  I’m still not sure I’ve hit the mark, and I’m open to suggestion.

However, here’s what I’ve come up with.  I wrote two elevator pitches… one is a one liner, good for the “Tag Line” at the top of my page.  The other is a little longer, and good for using in descriptions and about pages, and things like that!

Tag line-

A blog about the challenges of being a full time parent, working a full time job, and trying to survive a world where there never seems to be quite enough time for both.

Pitch-

This blog is an honest look at life being a full time mom and wife, all while working a full time job.  I am reaching out to help bridge the gap of loneliness that surrounds new mothers as we try to find others out there who have seen what we’ve seen, done what we’ve done, and want to share their experiences.    In the business of baby-making, every day has a story to be told.

Day one.  Check!

She Looks Like a Mom.

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I have to be honest with you, I’m not going to lie.  There are times when looking much younger than my age is rather frustrating.

When a patient walks into the ultrasound room and asks me, “Are you sure you’re old enough to be doing this?”

Seriously, if I wasn’t old enough to be here, I wouldn’t be here.  I’m pretty SURE.

When going out to a bar or club, and getting everyone there carded, because I’m the one that looks under-age.  That’s inconvenient.

When I go clothes shopping, and I can’t find anything I like in my ‘age group’, so I check out the kids section.  That’s mostly just annoying.

But when I take my son to the mall, and I want to let him play around in the play place, it is probably the worst of all.  I’ve been trying, because everyone tells me if I go out and meet other parents, other moms, I can make a network of friends with whom I have something in common.

There’s one small problem with that.

All of the moms at the mall see me with my young son and immediately turn their backs, turn up their noses, turn off their interest.  No one smiles at us, no one asks us any questions.  No “How old is your baby?” or, “How cute… is he walking yet?”  They summarily ignore us, and it took me a while to figure out why.

I don’t look old enough to be his mother.  I don’t LOOK old enough.  No one bothers to find out how old I actually am.  I look like a teenage mom that had her baby just out of high school.  Or better yet, I look like the babysitter, lucky enough to get a gorgeous, well-behaved boy to take out with me!  Who wants to network with the babysitter?

I walk up to, and chat with just about everyone that is there.  Make comments about having fun, and what an awesome place this is.  How much Ronan loves it, and how it tires him out so well.  I get a polite smile, a nod of assent, and then a cold shoulder.

I think I need to get a tee-shirt made that says, “Yes I’m old enough to be his mom.  YES, I’m REALLY his MOM!”

Not that it would help.

Brock told me to go to the nearest high school and make friends with the ‘easy’ girls.  “They’ll be moms soon enough.”  Ha. Ha. Ha.

Now, all that being said.  Just because I look young doesn’t mean I’m a bad mom, nor does it mean that I’m not worthy of getting to know.  Some of my VERY best friends are older moms, and they like me just fine.  It makes me wonder if girls my age that have kids go through the same thing, or if it’s just some peculiar Charlotte breed of snobbery.  I guess time will tell.

You Might Want To Ignore This Post.

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I have things to blog about.

I’m just so freaking out of it after a bad Monday sleep, it’s hard to get going.

11:30, and I still haven’t showered.  I’m lucky that Ronan and I have both eaten.  We’re still both in our pajamas.  We’ve been watching Finding Nemo.

Actually, this isn’t such a bad day.

I want to take Ronan to the mall after his next nap and let him run around the play place.  “Run” is a subjective term, as he really crawls, or holds on to my fingers and toddles.  It’s super duper cute, and tires him out faster than you would believe.

I also need to make dinner, but that involves cleaning things.  Oh, how I hate cleaning things.

I think it’s time for our nap.  I’ll write more later.

Edit:

I decided to make this blog better by adding a video of Ronan play Fetch with himself.  Try not to giggle.

Baby Sign!

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We’ve been signing with Ronan since he was about 6 months old, and I have to be honest with you… I’ve been disappointed over and over that he’s never seem interested, or ever tried to sign back.  Now, at ten months old, I was thinking about giving up on it.  He just wasn’t getting into it.

But last week, we had our first breakthrough!  Ronan has seemed to understand “milk” and “bath” for a while now, but with no reciprocation, there was no way to be sure.  Until, while feeding yogurt, I asked “Are you all done?  Or do you want more?”  showing him the signs for ‘all done’ and ‘more’ as I said the words.

He responded with an enthusiastic clap, an approximation of the ‘more’ sign, and I was THRILLED!!  I cheered, and laughed, and almost cried!  I called Brock, and then got out the video camera for a repeat performance!  Now, he does it at every meal.  ‘More, more, more’ until he’s full.  I can’t wait to see what his next sign will be.  We’ve got ‘all done’, ‘milk’, ‘bath’, and ‘eat’.  This is so very cool.

Monday Monday.

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Mondays are, without a doubt, the hardest day of the week for me.

Getting home at 7:30 am or so, and then going to bed for a measly 4 hours of sleep after working all night… then trying to get up and be functional so that, come bed time, I’ll actually be able to fall asleep Monday night.

It could always be worse.  I could be unemployed, have no money, and not be able to provide for our family.  It helps to put things in perspective every now and again.  Although, sometimes the swimming pool full of chocolate pudding looks mighty tempting.

I have so many random thoughts running through my mind.  I applied for a position back at Maternal & Fetal medicine a few weeks ago, and found out today that I didn’t get the job.  It’s sort of mixed emotions, really.  I’m terribly sad, because I loved working there so dearly, and it hurts me that they didn’t want me back.  Maybe I shouldn’t take it personally, but I’m a fairly sensitive person and I hate feeling like there was something about me they didn’t like enough to decide to pass me over.  I used to work there, right?  So I don’t have to be trained in, I could just hit the ground running, and go!  I already had daycare lined up and everything.  But on that other hand, it would mean giving up all of my precious time with a little boy that is growing up too fast already.  Staying on the weekend shift means not having to miss anything.  A huge part of me is hurt and sad that I wasn’t given the job, but a whole other part is relieved that I don’t have to change anything about my life right now.

Brock is going to tell me that it’s a bad idea to blog that I had applied for another job, because I don’t know who reads this, and I don’t know if people from my work might find out.  I just want to put it out there that I’m not actively LOOKING for another job, and I’m really quite happy working where I am right now.  It’s just that the opportunity came up to return to a job that I absolutely LOVED with people that I adored, and I went for it.  I’m completely content remaining right where I am for the time being, and don’t see that changing any time soon.  So don’t sweat it.

Ugh.  Yeah, it sucks.  Why would they tell me when I left that I was more than welcome back at any time in the future if I wanted to return and they were hiring?  Why would they tell me to go ahead and apply when the position opened?  And wouldn’t it be nice to have enough consideration to let me know WHY I didn’t get the job?

I have to stop being so sensitive.  I liked working there so much, and it makes me feel sick to think that they didn’t really like having me there.

Move on, Mandy.

There will be other opportunities, and other jobs that I absolutely love.  Who knows, maybe I’m not meant to work there again?  Maybe there’s a big old plan in mind that doesn’t include working a full time job?  I’ll just keep thinking like that.  Cause it’s a lot more fun, and a lot less sucky.

Why Yes, Yes It Does Scare Me.

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We are eight days into January already.  Eight days into the year two-thousand ten.  A little over a month and a half until my son turns one year old.

And it scares the crap out of me.

When does it stop?  Will there ever be a point in my life where I hope he grows up FASTER?  I’m sure it will be somewhere in his teenage years.  But even then, it’s frightening to see how quickly time now passes us by.  In retrospect, my life was a sluggish drawl before now.  I was always waiting for things to happen.  Now I wish they would just ease up a little.

Ronan has cut four molars in the last three days.  If that doesn’t cause a cranky, difficult baby – trust me, it does.  I no longer hope everything will magically get easier, I guess I just hope for a good night every now and then.  One where he stays in bed after we put him down, and get some grown-up time.  One where my stress doesn’t start coming out my ears.  But if not, that’s okay too.  I promise, I was kidding when I said I wanted to sell him on eBay.

So, on the breastfeeding front.  My son has always been an efficient, no-nonsense nurser.  He gets in, gets the job done, and gets out.  I’ve never minded.  Now, however, he’s gotten into the habit of latching on, and then pulling his head back as far as he can without letting go of the nipple, and nursing there.  Say it with me now… “Ow.”  Yes, it really, REALLY hurts.  I’ve never had any sort of nipple injury in my nursing career, and now I have a blister that makes me want to cry.  I wanted to nurse until Ronan was one.  Really, it was a goal of mine to get him all the way to his first birthday, but I can’t do this any more.  If I move closer to him, he arches his back and pulls farther away.  If I pull his head closer to me, he screams and fights.  I don’t know why he’s doing it, and I don’t know how to get him to stop… but I can’t continue nursing when it hurts this badly.  It’s supposed to be enjoyable for both parties, and the status quo is that it SUCKS.

NO. PUN. INTENDED.

I don’t really know how to go about weaning.  I was sort of willing to let him take the lead on that one.  But I can’t wait until he’s ready if he’s going to continue mauling my chest like this.  I guess we’ll try pumping and bottle feeding until I can’t take that any more either.  But honestly, the sooner I stop making breastmilk, the better.

It’s no secret that I’ve had trouble maintaining my weight since Ronan was born.  Pre-pregnancy, I was a healthy 118 lbs.  I delivered around 140.  Within six weeks, I was down to 120 again.  Today, I hit 104.  Yes, that’s right, I have reached the lowest weight I’ve been since I was 14 years old.  It’s a little scary, and I don’t seem able to eat the necessary amount to combat it.  I drink “Ensure” shakes during the day to boost my calorie intake, and it still doesn’t seem to be enough.  So once we’re done nursing for good, hopefully my weight will start to improve.  There IS such a thing as ‘Too Thin’.

Updating things.

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One of the things they tell you when you start changing things is to only change one at a time.  That way, you’ll know what it is that you did that caused the improvement.

I never listen.

We started Ronan on his reflux medicine, but around the same time I started trying a new ‘going to bed’ method.  It’s the one where I lay down next to him, and I MAKE him stay laying down, but I don’t help him fall asleep at all.  There is a little bit of fussing, a little bit of crying, but no rocking, singing, nursing or anything.  He just has to go to sleep on his own.

The first night, it took an hour.  The second night, it took 20 minutes.  Last night, it took 2 minutes.  And his sleep stretches have gotten as long as 5 hours.  You know, for us, that is as good as 12.

I don’t know what’s made the biggest difference.  We’ve noticed a big reduction in the amount he’s been refluxing, and how upset he gets when it happens.  Maybe it’s a combination of both.  All I’m hoping is that saying this out loud wont jinx us.

Please, don’t let it jinx us.

**I just put Ronan down for the night, and it took him about 30 seconds to fall asleep.  Holy moly, YES!  Also, I started using “California Baby” soap products tonight because of eczema and a nagging skin rash he’s had for a while.  Lets see if we can FIX everything.**

Edit: 10:09 pm.

Ronan is still awake.  He woke up after about an hour.  He has been up since then, despite all of my efforts.  Nothing ever gets better.  Nothing improves.  I should probably just let him cry it out, because that would probably be better than the impulse I have to hold a pillow over him.  What the hell did we ever do to deserve this?

Snap… Back to Reality.

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Have you noticed something has been missing lately?  Have you kept track of how long it’s been since I wrote a blog about Ronan’s sleep habits?

Well.  That is because we didn’t want to jinx a good thing while it lasted.  I was afraid to blog about how great Ronan has been, because I thought, like speaking a wish out loud, it goes away when acknowledged.

I guess it doesn’t matter either way.

For the past three weeks, Brock and I have been living in a state of partial bliss.  Ronan has been going to sleep easily around 6pm, and staying in bed until morning.  Now, don’t get too excited for us… he hasn’t been STAYING asleep.  He still wakes every couple of hours.  But when compared with him staying up until nearly midnight, this has been a HUGE accomplishment!  He’s also been going RIGHT back to sleep after every wake period.  There have been TWO HOUR NAPS!   Simply amazing.  Brock and I had some alone time.  We watched some movies from start to finish.  We had the chance to enjoy each other… without rushing.  And we felt like perhaps we’d made it over the hump.  Maybe things would look up from here on out?

Wow.

Could we possibly have been more wrong?

I know I’ve said this before.  I know I’ve always said, “At least it can’t get any worse than this.”

I must be tempting fate, really.

For the last week, now, Ronan has been an absolute bear.  All day, fussy and grumpy.  All night, waking and screaming.  Crying every hour.  Unable to be consoled, and unable to fall back asleep on his own.  Trying to GET him to sleep is an absolute nightmare.  Without changing ANY of our routine or habits, he now stays up and fights sleep until 11 pm.  Naps are difficult, frustrating, and short.  We’re right back in the snarling pit of exhausted hell.  What changed?  Hard to say.  Is he teething again?  Growing pains?  Developmental leap? Is there any way to know?

We have an official diagnosis of GERD – Gastroesophogeal Reflux Disease – and have started treatment of Prevacid.  It takes 2 weeks for the medicine to kick in and make a noticeable difference.  Could this have been the problem all along?  Should I have stuck to my guns, and fought harder to prove that his problem at night isn’t just behavioral?  I can’t beat myself up.  We’ve done everything we possibly can.

I hope this is just a passing phase.

I might die if it isn’t.

Resolution Revolution.

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I have trouble with this every year.  Someone asks me if I have any New Years Resolutions, and I always come up blank.  What is a resolution?  Why would I want one?  Is there any reason, really, for me to come up with something that I’m going to try to do, and probably fail?

Dictonary.com says a Resolution is this:

“a resolve or determination: to make a firm resolution to do something.”

After sitting and thinking about it for a little while, I realized why I don’t ever have a New Years Resolution.  It’s because I try to change the things I don’t like about myself ALL THE TIME.  I am a constant work-in-progress, and I am well aware of my shortcomings.  I am always working on the things that I want to better about myself.  I don’t just try one time a year.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been trying to be less bossy.  Yes, Bossy.  In middle school, we called it Leadership, but really, I just like telling other people what to do and how to do it.  I TRY to bite my tongue all the time, because it gets me in trouble.  Read:  It pisses other people off.  Here’s the thing… I just think my way would be better.  Never the less, I keep working towards keeping my mouth shut, letting others do things their own way, and reducing my bossiness to the smallest amount possible.  I’ll leave it up to Brock to tell you all how I’m doing.  I’m working on it.

I have been working very hard for the last year or so to improve my posture.  There is nothing worse, for me, than when I’m walking through the mall and I catch a glimpse of myself in a storefront window.  “Is that really how I stand?  Do I look that slouchy?”  When I see someone else with posture like mine, I think they have poor self esteem, and that they should stand up straighter.  So I remind myself a hundred times a day to stand straight, and put my shoulders back.  I work on it while I’m driving, and when I’m working.  I’ve seen a big improvement, even though I’m not quite where I want to be yet.  I’ve even conscripted Brock to tell me to “Straighten Up”  when he sees me looking particularly slouched.  It has been a lot more difficult than I thought it would be – I figured a week or two of good posture would set things in stone.  What I’ve figured out, instead, is that 26 some odd years of bad posture have made my body very difficult to change, and I’m just now to the point where slouching feels UNCOMFORTABLE to me, but standing straight doesn’t feel natural yet.  I push through it, I persevere.  I want to stand tall and look proud.  I’m working on it.

My house is, more often than not, a bit of a disaster.  I didn’t grow up in an eternally clean house, but I hate it when things get so untidy.  I’ve been trying to improve my habits, like picking up dishes when they’re done, and not leaving things laying around on the floor.  One thing I’m wildly guilty of is leaving my clothes wherever I take them off – and it’s a different place every time.  This drives Brock NUTS.  I’ve got the laundry baskets labeled and arranged, and I TRY to take my clothes off and put them directly in the baskets.  It doesn’t help that I don’t really do laundry often enough, but hey.  I’m working on it.

A few other things:  I try not to give Brock a hard time about things he didn’t do the way I wanted them.  I try not to get upset at the dog all of the time.  I try to keep in touch with all of my friends, and not make them be the ones to have to get in touch with me.  I try to call my mom once a week, and talk to my brothers at least once a month.  I try to be the best person I can possibly be.  I’m working on it!

Some of the highlights of 2009:

I had a baby in February.

I started a new job in May, at the end of my maternity leave.

We bought a new, baby friendly car.

My parents came to visit!

I cut my hair off.

It really hasn’t been that eventful of a year, and yet in 2009 my life changed forever.  This is a year I will never forget.