Holy cow! 6 Months!

I can't believe it's been a half year already since we welcomed our sweet Lexi into the world! My 6 month girl!

Squee! I love that face! She's developing quite the personality, sassy and playful. Her big milestone this past month was learning to sit by herself. She really started getting good at it the Tuesday before Christmas on the 18th. She's a little wobbly still, but improving every day. She also loves to give "kisses" (which are really just open mouth slobbers on my cheek haha). She'll grab the back of my neck, pulls me to her, and give me a big wet one!

Christmas was really fun having Lexi here. The three of us opened presents Christmas morning and boy was it a good year! Lexi got the FP Learning Farm, some stacking toys, blocks, books, clothes, diapers (from momma haha!), a pink terrible towel (from daddy) and a baby doll. I also gave her the first figurine in the "Growing Up Girls" set. When I was growing up my BFF had this set and I always really liked it. I'm looking forward to giving her a new figurine every year on her birthday.

KJ got me a bedazzler (haha I think it's really called an "enhancer") for my engagement ring.

And Lexi got me a "Mom" necklace. I love being Mom!

I got KJ a phone adapter for his car so he can talk hands free while driving to and from work. Lexi got him a "Daddy and Me" story book and made him a little picture flip book out of floppy disks.

While fun, the holidays were also a little overwhelming for Lexi. Lots of new toys, places, and faces. There were times when it got to be too much for her and she had a couple melt downs. They were wearing on me also. I hosted our Christmas party, cooked Christmas Day dinner, made three batches of truffles, four batches of cookies, did 90% of the gift shopping, all of the wrapping, and deep cleaned the house... All while taking care of a 6 month old... I'm ready for the holidays to be over... Momma needs a break!! (And a glass of wine!)

Here's wishing the coming year will be as wonderful as this one was!

Happy New Year!
Lots of Love,
KJsbabe

Struggling

I recently read a blog post I saw on Pintrest entitled "Being a Working Mom When You Really Want to Stay Home". At first I thought, "Great! This describes me to a tee. I'll get some inspiration from this post that will help me keep going as a wannabe SAHM. Wrong. This post only made me feel worse. A lot worse.

"Even though we knew it would be short-term when I went back to work, it still wasn’t easy. I will never get those first few months of my little girl’s life back."

Gee, thanks for rubbing it in! I've been trying not to think of my work situation that way, but thanks for making it black and white for me. Every second that I'm hating my life at work, I will never get those moments with my daughter back.

"When I was a working mom, God enriched my life with co-worker friendships."

Well, how nice for you that you had awesome and supportive co-workers! My co-irkers suck. Plan and simple. I have never met a more miserable group of women. They're all divorced, so I get to hear them, on a daily basis, bitch and moan about their ex's, their kids, going to court, and how they never have any money because the lawyers take it all. The atmosphere at my office is toxic. They are mean and bitter and about as far from "enriching" as you can get.

"When I was a working mom, God provided an amazing babysitter–who became a dear friend."

Now this is the only thing I can agree with. We have been very lucky that my MIL is able to watch Lexi while we're at work. It's nice to know that someone we trust is giving her one on one attention and genuine love everyday. However, sometimes it's a struggle to get MIL to do certain things. Sometimes Lexi doesn't get all of her bottles during the day because she's sleeping and MIL doesn't want to wake her up. Or she'll heat up a bottle and then not give her the whole thing. That's probably the most agitating thing, because once you start a bottle you have to finish it. You can't save it for later. You can't heat and chill, heat and chill. You'll get bacteria and it'll make baby sick. It kills me when this happens and I have to dump half a bottle because it's been sitting out. I'm working around the clock to get enough BM to give her during the day. It's not like I can just mix up more formula... MIL doesn't seem to get it!!

"When I was a working mom, God allowed my husband to have some daddy-daughter bonding time."

Again, how nice for you!! My husband gets less time with Lexi because, I'll admit it, I'm a baby hog. I miss her so much during the day, all I want to do when I get home is hold her and spend time with her. If KJ doesn't say, "Hey. I'll hold her" or something, I forget to offer her to him and end up holding her the whole evening.

"When I was a working mom and exclusively breastfeeding, God sharpened my will and determination."

Yeah... Determination is not what I feel when I have to stay up until 12am every night pumping because I wasn't able to pump enough at work for the next day. Determination is not what I feel when I only get 2 messily ounces and pray I can get at least 2 more in the morning. A sharp will is not what I feel like I have when I'm taking enough fenungreek to smell like maple syrup, chugging more water then I did while pg, and stuffing my face with lactation cookies in hopes of actually keeping up for once. Annoyance, frustration, exhaustion, failure. That's what I feel.

"If you have a plan in place to come home, remind yourself that this season of being a working mom won’t last forever.
I reminded myself of that fact daily–and before I even knew it, I was a stay-at-home mom."

The original plan was to quit my job in January... That's not happening any more. We need money to fix up our house in order to move to be closer to KJ's job. I don't know when I'll be able to quit now. It might not be until we move, and who knows when that will actually be. In all reality that might be a year from now. Thinking about another year at my job makes me want to cry.

So, thanks so much, Thehumbledhomemaker. I feel so inspired...

Lots of Love,
KJsbabe


http://thehumbledhomemaker.com/2012/11/being-a-working-mom-when-you-really-want-to-stay-at-home.html

Christmas Traditions

Today KJ and I played hooky and took Lexi to go see Santa. It went pretty well. We were the first ones in line and got to see him right a way. I put Lexi on his lap and she half her arm out and gave this look like, "what the heck is going on??" She didn't cry, thankfully, but she didn't want to smile, either. We got a pretty cute pic of her, though.

It was my first experience with Santa, also! Growing up my parents didn't do the Santa thing with my sister and I, so we never believed in him. They felt it was important to teach us the true meaning of Christmas from the beginning. I always felt like I missed out on a big part of the Christmas tradition because of it. And like any good parent, I'm righting the wrongs of my own childhood while raising my daughter. Ha! So yeah, mom, we're doing Santa. Get over it!!

After Santa we went to a local Christmas store. Every year they put together a big indoor display with themed trees and decorations galore. We walked through "Christmas Land" and Lexi just took it all in. She didn't really smile at all, but boy was she looking at everything. She couldn't keep her eyes off the display! They have a huge selection of ornaments so we picked one out for her. It's a little marshmallow snowman and says Baby's First Christmas. I think it was really special for KJ to share Christmas Land with her. He went ever year as a boy and now he gets to take his little girl every year.

We went out to lunch after words to Eat n Park and had a nice little time. There were a lot of other moms and babies there and there was a woman nursing her baby. Seeing her really gave me the courage to NIP for the first time. Normally I just go home when Lexi is hungry, but I figured if she's doing it, why can't I? I was very proud of myself! And I don't think I even flashed anyone. Ha!

We're going to make this a Christmas tradition. Santa, Christmas Land, and then lunch. It was a really nice day, just the three of us.

Lots of Love,
KJsbabe