Occupation: Stay at home mom/wife

Occupation: Stay at home mom/wife

Description: Wife and mother who does not hold a job outside of the home.

Duties: Wake when baby does, change diaper, make breakfast for baby and self, attempt to enjoy a cup (or two!) of coffee, change diaper, entertain and play with baby till nap time, change diaper, take a few minutes of personal time to take a shower or eat lunch, clean and pick up around the house if time allows, get baby up from nap, change diaper, feed baby lunch, run errands outside of house like grocery store, bank, dry cleaners, drop of bills...etc., pick up niece from school, change diaper, put baby down for afternoon nap, do laundry, cook dinner, maybe have a few minutes of personal time, get baby up from nap, change diaper, feed baby dinner, eat dinner with husband, entertain and play with baby, bathe baby, put baby to bed, do dishes, pick up around the house, go to bed, get up every time baby wakes, repeat.

Now, I don't have a sparkling clean house. It's far from it. But I have a happy, healthy baby and a happy, healthy husband. I love my job. I realize it isn't for everyone but it is most definitely for me. This is the hardest yet most rewarding job I've ever had. I get to see every moment of my little one's life. I've been there to witness his milestones. I get to rock him to sleep every day and every night. These are moments I'll never get back and I'm doing my best to cherish them. No, it's not easy. There are days I long for help...for a break. But I know that this is my calling and I want to do the best I can at it.

Kyle will be 9 months old tomorrow. Wow. I am constantly amazed at how fast time goes. He started army crawling this last month and is now fully crawling on his hands and knees. Over Thanksgiving at my dad's he started pulling up and standing while holding on to something. He now wants to do this all the time. It doesn't matter what he's trying to pull up on...he's going to do it. He hasn't started taking any steps but I know it won't be long. He claps, chatters a lot, still only has the two bottom front teeth, smiles and laughs at things on tv, loves his walker and will cruise around the house. He loves bath time, still takes good morning and afternoon naps, sleep at night is unpredictable. Some nights he sleeps from when I put him down till 5 or 6am...other nights he wakes up every few hours or so.

He is the happy in my life. I am so proud to be his momma.

8 months!

These days, I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job at updating this blog if I can get around to it once a month. Kyle is crawling and is ALL over the place. When he is awake, I'm busy chasing after him. When he is asleep, I'm busy showering, cleaning, reading or napping. Sadly, I don't nap as much as I'd like to when he is but every now and then I sneak one in. His sleeping patterns have been all over the place lately. During the day he is pretty consistent (except for today, of course) with taking an hour and half or so nap in the morning and one in the afternoon. (Today, he took a 30 min nap in the AM and maybe and hour in the PM. Not sure why...) Sleeping at night? For a while there he woke up at 5:30am every morning, ate, and would then sleep till 9-9:30. Then for a few nights he started waking up around 1 and then again at 5:30 and awake by 9 again. This past week he started sleeping till 6:45 or 7 like I had been hoping he would! But we are going out of town next week for Thanskgiving so I'm sure his sleeping habits will be all over the place again. Even though they aren't consistent, I am thankful that he sleeps pretty good.

Besides crawling (oh, did I mention that it's an army crawl?) he is starting to pull himself up in his crib and on me. I'm so not ready for walking! He loves his walker and will cruise all over the house. He discovered the pots and pans in the kitchen today. The walker has put him at a perfect height for several things he shouldn't get in to! I'm learning to baby proof quickly!

He is eating more solids now and even though he only has two bottom front teeth, I give him soft chunks of food and he's doing well with it! He loves macaroni and cheese and ramen noodles! He loves all fruit and will eat green veggies if they aren't pureed. If they are, he will just spit them out. But give him a green bean or an asparagus stalk and he'll chew away. I've tried giving him small pieces of chicken but he's still not sure about the texture. I need to try pureeing it and see how he likes that. I can't bring myself to give him jarred pureed meats even though I'm sure they are fine. I make a lot of his food but do give him Gerber fruits and veggies too. There is just something about baby food meat that I can't make myself give him.

At 8 months, I'm still breastfeeding him. This is something I'm very proud of. It has not always been easy and yes, it would have been nice to have someone else feed him a bottle from time to time, but breastfeeding is something I have always wanted to do and I am thankful I've been able to do it this long. I plan on only doing it until he is a year old but am already starting to get a little sad about it coming to an end. It is a special time that only Kyle and I can share and I love it. Now that he is on the go all the time, feeding is the only still time we have together anymore!

I can't believe Kyle is 8 months old now. He is such a joy and I just love being his momma! Oh! By the way, he can say "momma" and "dada" now. :) I love it!

One of my favorite pictures so far! Look at that sweet face!!!

 After swim class

 His daddy and uncles wore this same outfit as babies!

 This is his "cheese" face :)

 He LOVES bath time 

 He loves flipping over on his tummy and "swimming" in the tub. Ha!

 Peeking at Maverick :)

 Wish this picture really showed the food that was all over his face!

 My little tiger at Halloween

7 months!

I realize I am long over due for an update. Sorry.

Baby boy turns 7 months old tomorrow. Wow, how does time go so fast? I tried uploading updates on my iPhone last night and recieved a message that I had too many videos and photos for the update so I had to go through and clean things out. It was a nice trip down memory lane of when I was pregnant and the first few months of the boy's life. It is hard already remembering him being that small and still! At 7 months, Kyle is anything but still. He isn't crawling yet but seems to be close. He gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth. I'm waiting for the day he just takes off!
He is sitting up really well now. As long as a toy is within reach, he will sit and play for a good while now. Sitting up has made it handy for me to sit him in the floor and run to the bathroom or to grab something from another room without coming back to him on the opposite side of the room that he would have rolled to. I realize that once he's crawling, this will be a luxury of the past so I'm enjoying it for now!
Kyle is now eating solids regularly and seems to really enjoy them! Well, he enjoys the fruit! Most veggies make him gag or make a really funny face but I've learned that if I mix them with a little fruit, they go down easier. I know he is still getting most of his nutrition from breast milk so I guess I shouldn't be too worried, I just so want him to love all food like his momma. :)
A week ago my boy cut his bottom front teeth! It amazes me how sharp those little baby teeth are! The teething process hasn't been as bad as I thought it might be. He's been a little fussy but not too bad. I hope he cuts all his teeth this easily.

Jax and Kyle in their Bumbo's at the Olive Garden

the "Stone" grin

 This boy rocks my world :)

 Kyle's first Oktoberfest with Uncle Michael and Aunt Julie (& mom and dad!)

 Uncle Michael was all too happy to give Kyle his first beer

 Not very excited about the avocados

 Mmm...

 My baby's first mow hawk

 Kyle got to meet his great grandfather, Papa. 

Domestic Goddess?? Yeah, right...

Before becoming a stay at home mom, I had these visions of what being one would be like. I'd take care of the baby, have a sparkling clean house every day, would look fabulous and have dinner on the table each night when the hubby walked in. A very 1950's like home life.

Two words... yeah, right!

Pretty much the only thing I accomplish every day out of the above mentioned tasks is taking care of the baby. That is the one thing I am sure to do each and every day and do pretty well in my opinion!

A sparkling clean house? If I do manage to get some cleaning done during the day, it usually only looks presentable for a very short time. Kyle isn't even crawling yet so I can't imagine what it will look like around here when he does. I try so hard to keep things picked up, yet, "stuff" just piles up all over the place in minutes it seems. I'm learning that cleaning in its self is a full time job that never, ever ends.

Looking fabulous? It's almost noon and I am still in my glasses and pajamas. Hopefully I'll get in a shower soon and look presentable enough to pick up Nayeli from school in a few hours. Presentable is about as good as I get these days. I didn't want to be the mom in her pj's all day, but its just easier most days. When I don't have to leave the house, why get dressed? Right? Also, my post-partum body doesn't help in the matter. I don't fit in the clothes I think I should by now and hate the process of getting dressed these days. I try on several shirts with the few pairs of shorts that fit, looking for something that doesn't make me look like a whale.

Dinner on the table when hubby comes home? I actually do cook dinner most nights and sometimes it is even ready by the time he comes home. Sometimes not. Sometimes we order pizza or drive-thru and pick something up. Sometimes we just have cereal for dinner.

Am I June Cleaver? Absolutely not. Is life around here a 1950's sitcom? Most definitely not. Are my son and hubby fed and taken care of? Always. My house and myself make look like a disaster most of the time, but this is my life as a stay at home mom. Hopefully I'll learn to keep things cleaner and will try to get dressed every day...but if I don't, I guess we'll just deal with it!

Update

Baby boy turns 6 months on Saturday. I remember when I was pregnant and had friends whose babies were around 6 months and thought that it was so far away. That felt like yesterday and now here we are. His first birthday will be here before I know it. Sniff, sniff. 

With Nayeli back at school, I feel more like a stay at home mom than I did this summer. It was nice having her with us all day but now that its just Kyle and I until we pick her up at 3, it feels different. Being a stay at home mom can be lonely! I love my boy but I do miss adult interaction! I miss chatting with my co-workers every day. I don't want to give this wonderful opportunity up, but I do miss a few things about working outside of the home. I would love to find a mommy and me play group or something. I need to meet more moms out there like me!! 

Here are a few pictures of my boy.  

He loves to play with cool, wet rags!

The picture he'll hate when he's older :) Look at those sweet cheeks!! 

My aunts gave me this outfit that they found when going through my Big Mama's things after she passed. It still had the tags on it. It was like it was a present for Kyle from her. It's too hot for him to wear now but I knew he wouldn't fit in it in a few months so I had to get a few pictures of him in it. 

"Mom, its hard to roll over with your leg in the way!"

 Last weekend we went to Keller to Sheila's house to meet her daughter Ali. Sheila and I graduated from high school together and probably hadn't seen each other since! We reconnected through Facebook and realized we both had babies due in March! Ali was born a few weeks after Kyle was. It was so nice to catch up and the babies seemed to just love each other. :)  

Labor day weekend is coming up and I hope to make it down to San Angelo for some fun in the sun. Kyle loved the water last time we were there so I hope to get in a few more lake trips while its warm. (Though I am oh so ready for cooler weather!!! Hurry fall, hurry!) 

Taking a break

There was a segment on the Today show this morning about moms and their feelings towards motherhood and their children. Today Moms and Parenthood Magazine polled several mothers on several topics but one thing that came out over all were that mothers were tired and needed breaks. I'm a new mom. My son is only 5 months old. Saying that I need a break almost seems silly since I haven't been doing it very long and even thinking about a break, whatever kind of break, makes me feel guilty. I wanted a child and wanted to be a stay at home mom. Breaks are out of the question, right? Well, the segment helped me realize I wasn't alone and that its ok to need some "me time" every now and then. One big problem with that is that Kyle refuses to take a bottle. When I went back to work for a few weeks he would take both the bottle and breast, but now that I have been home with him all the time, he will not take a bottle anymore. I'm now trying to get him to take a sippy cup. I figure he'll be drinking juice or water from one soon enough so maybe he'll take breast milk from it. I've been trying to get him to drink from it a little bit every day. Hopefully he'll catch on sooner than later.  I don't want to go back to work, but a dinner alone with my husband one night would be nice. :)

We went to my dad's lake house last weekend with friends and family and had a good time. We spent a little more time in the water with Kyle and he seemed to love it! He splashed and kicked and smiled.

Jax came to play at the lake too!

 Kyle loves his LuLu

 Came home and wished Erica a Happy Birthday!!

 My beautiful blue eyed boy :)

 Kyle loves his Maverick (and Mav loves giving Kyle kisses!)

 King Kyle :)

 Kyle loves his cousin Nayeli too :)

 He has just about figured out this sitting up business

 He loves his bouncer 

 I tried giving him some avocados. He wasn't too sure about them. 

5 months!

Happy 5 months to my sweet boy! Where is the time going?? At 5 months he is trying desperately to sit up by himself. When you lay him in a reclining position on his boppy or in his chair, he tries so hard to sit up. I don't think it will be long until he is doing so. He does pretty well in his Bumbo chair!

We went to my mom's house last weekend. Kyle loves his BeBe. I'm so glad that she is close enough to go there for a few days. 

Kyle tried bananas for the first time at BeBe's. He wasn't too sure about the texture of them!

 

 Kyle had a visit from a Yaya!! Hi Doni! 

Last week Kyle started making a very odd noise when he was fussy. It seemed to get worse and he was more fussy than he has ever been. I thought that maybe he was starting to teethe but this noise was not normal for him. Someone said it sounded like a goose honking. We took him to the dr on Tuesday and she sent us to get chest xrays since she couldn't hear anything in his chest and he wasn't running fever. The xrays showed a little swelling around his vocal cords so she thought it was little croup. She started him on a steroid that day and we had a follow up appointment scheduled for Thursday. Wednesday night he was horrible. He cried and fussed the whole evening. On Thursday morning our doctor told us that the steroids would have acted fast and helped if it were croup. She was worried that maybe he had something in his throat that the xrays didn't show and called and ENT doctor in Decatur to see if she could scope him and take a look. She didn't have an infant scope and we were appointed with a doctor in Southlake the following Monday. So, with no obvious cure for what was going on and no real idea what was going on with him, we were left to wait until Monday. Thursday night he started to seem a little happier and he seemed great over the weekend. He hardly made that sound at all and he was my happy boy again. We decided to go ahead and take him to the appointment in Southlake on Monday just to be sure things were good. That doctor made me feel so stupid for bringing him in. I played the video of Kyle making the sound and he said that it sounded fine to him and that he was just crying. I told him that no, he does not cry like that and he does not act like that (fussy all the time.) He said we could do the scope to rule out anything being wrong so thats what we did. Kyle of course didn't like it and neither did momma like hearing my poor boy cry. But the scope at least relieved my fears of something major being wrong and showed that he had reflux! We decided not to try medicine right now since he seems to be doing better but it is an option for us if we think he needs it. He was pretty fussy again Monday night and yesterday but I think most of it had to do with the discomfort from the scope. Today he seems to be pretty happy. :) 

It can be scary not knowing what is wrong with him or why he is unhappy. I don't want to think nothing is wrong and then find out later that something is. I also don't want to be in the doctor's office every week for something that really is nothing. It really is a guessing game and can just be scary. I can only imagine that he will only go through more and more issues that I will wonder about and just pray that I have good sense to know when he needs the doctor or not. I am blessed with a pretty healthy and happy baby. 

Here he is after a bath. He loves baths...most of the time. :)

 

And here he is with daddy at reunion. 

I love my boys. 

Oh boy!

Kyle can now roll from his back to tummy! This is another major milestone that my sweet boy has reached and I'm thrilled to have been here to see it. I realize more and more every day that he is growing up so fast and I am just so thankful that I am able to stay home each day with him and see all the big and little things that he does. Every smile melts my heart and every laugh makes my day.

I started giving him a little rice cereal now. At his 4 month check up, the dr recommended I start introducing it to him so he could learn to eat from a spoon. I started out just letting him try it a few days a week but now think I'll try giving him a little every day. I've been pretty hesitant about starting solids but now I'm getting more excited about it. He seems to really like it and now I can't wait to try a vegetable or something. I plan on making his baby food since it seems pretty easy and much cheaper.

I love being a stay at home mom but some days are challenging. He's been pretty cranky and fussy lately and the days that I just can't figure out how to make him happy can be hard. He's usually so happy and easy going that this fussiness is throwing me for a loop. I'm not sure what is causing it but I hope my happy boy surfaces soon!

I can't believe how fast time is going! Kyle will be 5 months old next week. Wow. I look at the pictures from the hospital and already can't believe he was that small. I know he'll be crawling and walking before I know it.

Here are a few pictures from the last month. Enjoy!