The Loneliest Days (Years?)

I think I can honestly say that the past year and a half that I've spent being pregnant and now a stay at home mom have been the loneliest of my life. I knew it was coming...I thought I was prepared. Being a breastfeeding mother to an infant is a 24 hour job. There's no such thing as "sick days" or PTO. Even the days that we have spent away from Abigail I have spent chained to my pump. And I honestly wouldn't trade it for anything in the world because I LOVE being a mother, and I especially love that I get to stay home with her every day. That being said though...sometimes I miss my old life. I miss the old me. I miss the days of cocktails on a patio at noon just because, and staying out dancing with friends until 3am. I miss actually having girlfriends. I feel so disconnected from so many of my friends lately. It's hard to be a SAHM when none of your close friends are too. No one else gets it, how long the days are sometimes. How I feel chained to the house except for the three hours between naps when we get out to run errands or what not. Even with my friends that are moms, there's a sense of disconnect there. A constant comparison of baby to baby. "Mommy Wars", as I've heard it referred to on the Internet. Then I worry that because we're not doing things the way so-and-so did we are somehow doing it wrong and messing up our kid forever. I'm guessing those feelings never go away. I'm guessing that in the years to come the lonliness and isolation might get even worse for a little while, since we plan to have another baby soon. Then I see my sister, and friends with older children, and I am reminded that life isn't always like this. They're only little babies for such an incredibly short amount of time in the grand scheme of things. Life changes every day, and every year. I'm hoping that as Abigail gets older and we add another little one to the mix, it will get easier for me to meet other moms in town and make some new friends. Why is it that it seems to get harder to make new friends the older we get? Or maybe it's just the stage of life I'm in right now, where everyone is getting married and having babies, and fostering friendships is difficult with so much already on our plates. There are some days when I have to remind myself how lucky I am, and that I am making the choice to be a SAHM, and that I have a great husband and a really wonderful life. It's so easy to let myself feel down and overwhelmed, when I should be feeling happy and grateful for the roof over my head and the love in our home and the sweet baby girl we are so lucky to have. She makes every day so special. 

7 Months!

It's hard to believe that our little baby is 7 months old today.  She's not so little anymore either!  When I pick her up these days I can barely remember what it was like to hold a tiny, floppy newborn in my arms.  Sleep regression is still in full force here :(  A good night for us is one or two wake ups.  I'm hoping that if we just keep powering through she will go back to sleeping well in due time.  I decided a few nights ago to turn the monitor way down, and that way I only hear her if she's really making a lot of noise.  It has seemed to help.  Last night she was only up once (loud enough for me to hear and respond, anyway, after giving her time to see if she would settle), and she ate and went right back to sleep.  This morning I noticed a little blood on her hand after she had been chewing on her fingers, so I checked in her mouth and sure enough, it looks like a tooth is starting to break through.  That sure would explain her extreme fussiness yesterday!  She's still been super whiny and clingy this morning, so I gave her some Tylenol and an ice cube wrapped with a wet washcloth and that seemed to help her feel better.  Now we just wait and see how long this tooth takes to pop through...and then keep waiting for the next one, and the one after that.  I've heard that teething is basically never-ending...oh joy!  ;) 

When we were registering for baby items and getting ready for the baby, I swore up, down, and sideways that I would NEVER want a video monitor.  Ha!  Now that she is active and much more mobile, it seems almost necessary to be able to see her and know that she is safe without having to go into her room and rile her up.  A friend gave me an old video monitor a long time ago, and just a few days ago I finally remembered we had it and set it up.  It has been amazing to be able to see her and know what she is up to!  We love it so much that we ordered a new, portable video monitor right away.  It should be here tomorrow and I'm really excited.  I love being able to just see her in the crib and know if she is crying because she's stuck on her tummy, or in a weird spot in her crib, or if she spit up.  I can't wait to have a color screen model and be able to carry it around the house and outdoors with me.  It will certainly make doing yard work while she is napping much easier.  I won't have to constantly wonder if I heard her crying through the audio monitor only, I'll be able to see if she's actually awake.  Guess this is just one time of many, I'm sure, that I'll have to eat my words!  

I plan to do a post soon on how Abigail is doing with food.  We started with oatmeal baby cereal and homemade purees just shy of her 6 month birthday.  She doesn't really seem to care much for the purees at all, and one day I decided to just give her some steamed vegetables that we had in the fridge and she LOVED them.  Ever since then, we've been doing a combination of purees and what's referred to as Baby Led Weaning, meaning that baby is offered soft, large pieces of table food that they are able to hold and feed to themselves.  She really loves it and has had a large variety of different foods, including pear, banana, blueberries, watermelon, apple, green beans, cauliflower, broccoli, toast, carrots, scrambled egg yolk, and even some pork.  Honestly, I was really excited to make all of her purees and didn't think BLW would be for us, but she really enjoys eating her "big girl food" and it's super easy for us because she really can just eat what we are eating, within reason.  I'll try to write up a more detailed post this week with pictures of Abby's adventures with food!

Facebook Break

I realized very recently that I spend WAY too much time on Facebook. I first joined FB way back when you needed a ".edu" email address to have an account. It has been such a useful tool for me to reconnect with old friends and keep in touch with family. I love being able to see pictures of friends and family and feel more connected to important people in my life who don't live near me. Over the years, though, I've become more and more addicted to Facebook. When I worked as a nanny, I was very isolated in my job and Facebook made me feel more connected to the rest of the world. I think it got even worse when I started staying home with Abby. So, it's time for a little change. I've decided to take the month of August off from Facebook entirely. I don't see myself leaving FB forever, so I plan to return in September, but hopefully I won't check my news feed quite as frequently once I return. In the meantime, pictures of Abby can be found almost daily on Instagram (because I know there are some people out there who still want to see pics!). I'll also share some here from time to time :)