later

i have so much to write about, but no energy for it right now. totally slacked on the "9 months old" blog. soon, i swear. also so much to tell about this past weekend! sleepover, work, visits, sick baby. its all to much right now, i didnt work today and i swear that made me more beat than if i had.
one thing i would like to note though. there is a little girl at belas day care that calls me "belas mom". every time she says it i can feel my heart melting. "hi belas mom!" bye belas mom!" belas mom is here!" i will no longer have a name to other children, i will just be known as belas mom. and i love that. kinda like a super hero. or something.

30 hours without baby

oy. not sure i am gonna make it through! i dropped bela off this morning to stay with my oldest and dearest friend becky for the day. i know she is in good hands!! oma will be picking her up from there at 5. she is sleeping over there tonight because i have to work tomorrow morning. so that means i will not see my bela until about 1:30 tomorrow afternoon! i guess in a way it is good for me (and her), but i will still miss her little face tonight at bedtime!
hopefully in the next few days we will have our very first guest blog here on the sweetest pea!! i think that becky will entertain us with an epic tale (complete with photos) from her day with bela!! can't wait for that!!

sleep is good

i have been having a hard time sleeping lately, well since i was pregnant really. the last 2 nights bela has slept through the night. i started taking melatonin to help me sleep. last night was the second night in about 16 months that i have slept straight through the night. well almost straight through. i woke up at about 3am from a disturbing, yet reoccurring dream. most nights, if i woke up for any reason, i would then stay awake for at least an hour, unable to fall back to sleep. the last two nights i slept like a champ. wonderful, i hope it lasts!

more firsts

we were in cinci over the weekend. such a good time! i really wish my sister lived closer and i could see her every day!! but i guess it makes it more special now when i do get to see her. or something like that.
summer is almost over and bela started out not wanting anything to do with water, other than the bathtub. we spend a week in south carolina and she freaked whenever i got her too close to the ocean or the kiddie pool. well, this weekend in cinci she took on the big bad baby pool. she loved it! she was crawling around and splashing like an old pro! i am just glad that she finally likes the water, but i wish it could have happened earlier. oh well.
also this weekend bela got her first booboo. not the first time she took a tumble or a fall, but the first mark or proof. no this is not a good thing, but at this point in the game i gotta take all the firsts i can, they are dwindling!

surprise!

bela woke up this morning at 5:45 to eat, i heard her talking to herself so i gave her a minute. when she started screeching i went in. i walked in and thought my tired eyes were playing tricks on me. there she was standing up with both hand on the crib rail, just like she had been doing it for years. she looked at my and started giggling. i picked her up and squeezed her for her newest milestone. although, once again, it was new for me, but i heard about it from mama chris yesterday when she did it for the first time there. i just ignored that though, had to see it with my own eyes!!

holding

so bela is still sleeping through the night. or at least her version of it. she is still waking up around 5ish and eating, but falling back asleep until closer to 7. i am hoping that this is the end of the middle of the night feedings!
why is it that other babies go to bed at like 9 and sleep until 9? why does my girl go to bed so early? it works out though, if she slept any later in the morning i would have to wake her up to get out of the house on time. although, is there any way i can train her to sleep later strictly on the weekends? ha, wishful thinking.

we are going to cincinnati this weekend with brittany to see heather, paul and the girls! can't wait. also brittany gets to see the new house for the first time and the chicken next door!

good good

so i had a great weekend! friday night out with the girls(and guy) was lots of fun! spent saturday and sunday at my folks with the baby. all in all no details necessary, just good good. also too tired and too early right now. pictures are better than words.

go mama go!

i am going out tonight! when is the last time i went out with the girls.. geez.. can't even remember! anyhow it should be a good time, dinner and drinks on the patio. very nice. bela will be at home tucked into her crib with daddy. i will try to not call to check on her too many times!

i know i am lucky...

i have a good baby and a good husband, i have a job, a car, an education and a good head on my shoulders. some are not so lucky. i encounter many people like this on a daily basis and for anyone who really knows me, you know this is the toughest part of my job. sure i am a cynical and sarcastic girl most of the time, quick to judge and point finger, but honestly i have the biggest, most sympathetic heart in the world. it hurts me to see people doing so poorly and living such hard lives. if you think that this is unlike me to say these thing, well then you dont know me at all.
the hardest thing for me to deal with is teen moms. sure there are plenty of women who get pregnant too early and end up in great situation and ahead of the game. in the demographics that i deal with, this is rarely the case.
very early in my pregnancy i encountered a girl who had just found out she was pregnant, she was 17, on probation and in a bad relationship. i remember calling my mom that day on the way home from work totally distraught. the first thing my mom asked me was, i bet you wanted to take her home with you. and i did. i just wanted to take care of her, tell her what to eat, how much to sleep and to take it easy. i wanted to take her out of the life she knew and put her into my own. of course we all know this wasnt possible, but it killed to me see this girl, that i had gotten to know so well, in such a bad situation. in the end this girl had an abortion. not because she wanted to, but because her no good boyfriend would have left her if she didnt.
two days ago there was another young girl here with her 7 month old baby. she seemed frantic and bewildered. i was talking to her about her baby, relating my experiences about bela with her. this little boy was just about the cutest little guy i had ever seen. very alert and smiley, but he didnt make a peep. you cant keep my little bean quiet, she is just like her mama. also this little boy, at 7 months, could barely hold up his own head. it made me wonder, could this type of delay be attributed to lack of parenting skills, or could be just be behind? i know all babies are different and hit their milestones at different time, i know this, but this seemed to be something else. i just sat at my desk watching the two of them together. i made me feel so bad. this girl of 16, i am sure she didnt plan this, i am sure she never thought it would happen to her, but there she was alone, unsure and with a baby. i wanted to just sit with her and tell her all i knew, all i had learned. i wanted to help her, but what could i do?
so all in all, i still feel like shit. i feel bad every time a teen girl comes in pregnant or with a baby. maybe this is too judgmental of me, maybe i shouldnt assume that they are unhappy or unprepared, but in my experience, 9 time out of 10 that is the case. i could go on and on with stories like this, but i am not sure my heart can take retelling them.
i just want to say thank you everyone in my "support system", i love you all and i couldnt do this without you.

bad mama!?

yeah whatever, she loves it. plus how am i going to be able to eat ice cream without sharing it with my little bean?

still going...

so we are still on this waking up between 5:00-6:00, eating a bottle, back to sleep until 7ish thing. i am for sure not complaining. i am gonna say this is pretty darn close to sleeping through the night.
during a recent conversation with mama chris, i found out that bela holds her own bottle most of the time when she is there. she never holds her own bottle for me and i have been trying for some time now. i almost didnt believe it until i saw it with my own eyes. i walked in to pick bela up on thursday and there she was just chillin with her bottle. she looked up at me as if she was caught red handed. she just kept on drinking and then paused, looked up at me and smiled like she had just pulled off the biggest prank of the century.
so since that day i have been trying extra hard to get her to hold the bottle. brett suggested that i tell her that she cant eat unless she does it herself. knowing my little booger that might just work. during our bedtime rocking session on saturday, she pulled the bottle up to her mouth and i just let go, but this only lasted for a few seconds. she stopped eating and looked at me as if i just wasnt doing my part.
so after a long weekend of struggling, she started to come around.
brittany and i had spent all day sunday running errands and the peanut was pooped. as i was putting her into the carseat after the last stop, i thought i should give her a bottle to make the car ride home a little better. as i went to put the bottle in her mouth, she grabbed it from me as if she had been doing this all along. i jump in the front and started driving. she did a pretty good job of feeding herself, but brittany had to help her out a bit.
so we are still struggling with this, at bedtime last night we took turns holding the bottle. i know this is not a big deal, but it is a milestone of sorts. i know she can do it, i saw it with my own eyes, its just that having mama do it is so much better.

almost

bela woke up this morning at 5:30. i woke up to her sweet little voice talking to herself. i knew that this early in the morning i had 3 choices. 1) let her continue talking to herself until she decides she is ready to get out of the crib 2) get her up now 3) feed her and pray that she goes back to sleep. i opted for number 3. i fed her and she went right back to sleep until 7:30. perfect. so i am not sure if this counts as sleeping through the night or not. i am going to say yes and carry on with this three day streak.

deep breaths

i am still keeping my fingers (and toes) crossed, but bela slept through the night again last night!!

good sleeper=good eater

so bela slept through the night last night. i am trying not to get excited because this might just be a fluke. it has happened before. of course i still didnt sleep through the night because it was hot as balls in my bedroom. is it bad that i just said balls on my babys blog? eh, its true so whatever. anyhow when she woke up this morning she was like a little pirana, she wanted to eat everything! pirana? okay maybe not. anyhow. normally in the morning she just has a bottle and then has breakfast when she gets to daycare. this morning she was not about waiting. she gobbled down a whole 8 oz bottle and also ate her yobaby and a ton of banana fruit puffs. i guess sleeping for 12 hours takes a lot out of a girl!