Category Archives: Baby Stuff

A Birthday BASH!

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5

Ronan’s first birthday party was today.  All of our very best and most wonderful friends came.  I was so so very worried about it for NOTHING at all.  It was amazing, and I think everyone had a great time.  Short of a few birthday boy melt-downs, it couldn’t have gone better.

Here are some pictures of our Ronan’s big day.

Ronan LOVES balloons!

Sweet Farah!

Walkin’ man and his birthday balloons.

Our party guests – so many amazing people.  (The other half were in the kitchen.)

Do you see anything wrong with this picture?  Let me give you a hint… helium balloon + candle = FAIL.

Balloon popped and scared him silly.  He cried until he tasted the icing.

“Hmm.  This is pretty good actually.”

“This gets it to my mouth faster.”

WIN.

Quick bath, wardrobe change, and BACK in the party!

Hooray!  Presents!

Thank you SO much to everyone who came!  Until next year…

This is HARD.

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I totally can’t let this go.

Last week, I was visiting with some friends and having a great time.  There was me, Ronan, my two friends, and their sister with her 4 month old.  The two friends are married and pregnant, and I sometimes feel it is my duty to impart bits of wisdom that will help a new mom in ways that I was completely clueless after having my first.  You know, little things that no one remembers to tell you, and when you’re going through it yourself you wonder, “Why didn’t anyone tell me this?!”

At one point, I looked down at Ronan who was being a little pill and remarked, “No one will ever tell you how hard it is.  I mean, I had no idea how utterly and completely difficult it would be.”

My pregnant friend said, “I’m sure they TRY, but you don’t really understand what they’re talking about until you’re going through it.”

“Very true!” I agreed.

Her sister, holding her sweet 4 month old baby, said, “Yeah.  It’s so hard in the beginning.  But it’s gotten easy now.  It’s not really hard any more.”

I’m not kidding, I think I did a double-take.  Not hard any more?

I honestly can’t remember a time when it wasn’t hard.  It surely wasn’t when Ronan was 4 months old and teething.  It’s not even NOW, when he’s trying to be all independent and grown up.  It’s still hard as crap.  I still have days where I can’t believe how hard it is, and nights where I don’t want to have to deal with how hard it is.

I try to give myself the benefit of the doubt.  I still don’t get to sleep all night.  I still have to work full time hours.  My shift is horrible, and throws off my rhythm all week.  But, between you and me, I think I have a pretty good kid.  He’s even tempered, he takes good naps, he plays all alone like a pro; despite all of this, there are times when I just wish it were easier.  Today, we’ve only been up for an hour, and he’s already made me want to pull my hair out three times.

He wanted a bottle, so I gave it to him.  He took three big sucks off of the bottle, and then spit it out all over the couch.  Then he used the bottle like a pen, and drew all over the black leather in sticky milk.

I finished my bowl of cereal, but I don’t really like to drink the milk out of the bottom.  Ronan crawled over and asked for some, and I told him it was all gone.  He got mad and put his hand into the bowl and splashed it around.  I told him, “No, Ronan!  You don’t do that!”  He looked me straight in my face and started screaming.  I love a good temper tantrum early in the morning.

I picked him up and brought him into the bedroom for a nap, because it was obvious he was having a little trouble.  I laid him down, sat next to him, and started patting his back.  He laid there calmly for about 5 minutes, and then started tossing, turning, squirming and screaming.  I kept him down for about 15 more minutes before giving up.

Now, we are back out in the living room, where I put on Finding Nemo so I could have 15 minutes of quiet time.  He’s drinking out of his straw cup, where he’ll take 5 or 6 big swallows, and then he’ll spit the next two out.  Sometimes, it’s all I can do to keep my patience.

So, I don’t know if it’s her, and she’s just putting up a good front because the fun stuff is fun, or if perhaps she has the perfect baby and it ISN’T hard for her anymore… or it it’s just me, and I’m a terrible mom because I find this to be the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life.  And I don’t see it getting any easier any time soon.

Sweet Naps

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3

I have done everything possible in the last hour to avoid writing a blog.

I don’t even know why.  There is NOTHING coming to my mind about what I would like to write about today.

Then I realized that I could celebrate a breakthrough last night.  Only I don’t want to jinx it.  I’ll just put it succinctly… I got some sleep last night.  And Ronan did too.  That’s all I’m going to say about it for now.

Birthday party anxiety is ramping up.  Way up.  So far, I have 14 people RSVP’d and are coming to my tiny little house.  My tiny, little, dirty house.  I’m planning on working on that today – you know, since I’m all rested up.

What does any of this have to do with the title of my blog?  I love it when Ronan is napping.  I swear, God invented naps to preserve mothers’ sanity.  I could genuflect over naps alone.

Goals for today?

  • New baby gate at Target
  • Kitchen tidied and cleaned.
  • Floors swept/mopped.
  • Living room tidied.
  • Laundry DONE!
  • Bonus goal: Clean master bathroom.
  • Bonus goal: Clean and organize baby room.

I’ll admit, my expectations for today are a little unrealistic, but why not aim high?  We’re getting the trip to Target out of the way early.

And right here, I’d like to do a little celebratory dance… just days from my son’s first birthday, we FINALLY have him paid off.  *dance*

Birthday Parties and I’m Sorries.

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I took two days off.  I don’t really know why… I have been so good about posting every day, it just didn’t come to me yesterday.  Or the day before.

Today, I’m watching the Biggest Loser.  I effin love this show.

So, I’m planning a birthday party for Ronan.  Only, sort of.  I’m totally unable to handle doing things like this.  I don’t want to have a bunch of people at my house, and I don’t want to try to make sure everyone has fun.  We have a ton of friends without kids that we want to come, and a ton of friends WITH kids that we want to come.  How do I make sure that everyone is having fun?  No one will know each other.

I know, I’m stressing over this for nothing.  It will just be fun, I know it.  It’s not a big deal.  I don’t know why I’m so anxious about it.  Same as everything else with this kid:  it seems a lot scarier when I’m thinking about it than when I’m actually doing it.

In other news, Ronan has the funniest poop squat ever.  He always goes to the dog crate to poop.  It’s hilarious.

Okay, so what else is going on?

Evidently, in my last post about sleep, some people that I care about very much felt like I was implying that they lie to me about their children sleeping.

First, I want to apologize.  It was never my intention to behave as though I think that everyone lies.  Nor was it my intent to act as though the fact that your children DO sleep through the night is something bad or that you should be ashamed of, regardless of how you got them there.

My point REALLY was that I used to lie to people about how Ronan sleeps.  I got so tired of hearing people telling me that I just need to let him cry, or that there must be something wrong with him because he doesn’t sleep, that when I was asked if he sleeps through the night, I would simply answer “Yes.”

I lied because it felt like I needed to.  I was tired of feeling like I was a failure as a parent because he didn’t sleep.  I don’t feel that way any more.  I don’t equate sleep with skill.  To me, they simply don’t connect.  Maybe that’s my way of protecting myself, but I really feel like every child is different.  And it’s okay that mine doesn’t sleep.

So.  I’m sorry.  I don’t hate you because your baby sleeps, and always has.  I don’t think any of YOU are lying to me about it.  But, hells yes I’m JEALOUS!  I know my time will come.  And I’m okay with how things are.

It’d be really nice if my next kid could sleep through the night.  I could really just love that.

Parenting FAIL.

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9

I had my first major parenting FAIL moment today.

Yeah, I know.  The other things I’ve written about here weren’t major fails?  Well.  This one puts the rest of them to shame.

I suffer from Monday night insomnia.  It has something to do with working a midnight shift on Saturday and Sunday.  I try to stay up as late as I can on Monday night, so I’m really tired when I go to bed.  That way, when Ronan wakes in the middle of the night, and I get up with him, I wont get stuck awake and spend the rest of the night struggling to sleep.

It didn’t work last night, and I was up for almost all of the night.  When I got up this morning, I wasn’t ready to get up.  So I did what I usually do in that case.  I double checked the room for baby-proofed-ness, laid my blanket on the floor, and dozed while Ronan played.  I dont get much more sleep, because he wakes me every 10 or 15 minutes or so by jumping on me, but it makes me feel better.

Right before I laid down, I changed his diaper and noticed he’d had a little pebble of poop.  I set the diaper aside so he couldn’t kick it while I was changing him, got him dressed, and put him down on the floor.

Then I forgot about the diaper.

Ronan crawled over to me about an hour later, and he smelled like poop.  I got up, and asked him if he had pooped again… and then noticed the poop smashed ALL OVER THE CARPET.

He had found the diaper, and dropped the poop pebble on the floor.  Since he can now walk, he proceeded to step in the poop, and then walk around the living room.  I spent the rest of the morning scrubbing baby poop out of my carpet, spaced several adorable inches apart.

All I can say is that I’m thankful he didn’t TOUCH the poop with his hands, nor put it in his mouth.

Mandy = fail.