I made cookies yesterday.
They are chocolate chip cookies from my new cookbook, Deceptivey Delicious. They. Are. So. Good. If I didn’t tell you, you’d never know there were chick peas in there for added nutrition, and I even substitued one cup of spelt flour to make them even better! Honestly, these cookies are great and I’ll be making them again and again!
Today, we went shopping at Once Upon A Child and bought Gwen a Little Tykes Push & Ride Doll Walker. She loves this thing!
She hasn’t quite figured out how to walk by herself with it, but Brad thinks she’ll be good by the end of the week! When we first let her at it, she would pull herself up on the back and when we would let it move forward, she wouldn’t move her feet and would fall. Now, she’s got the hang of walking behind it while we control the speed.
I’m not entirely sure why we’re encouraging this walking thing … 
Hey everyone - it’s Earth Hour 2009. What are you doing?
I’m sitting in my living room lit with candles and the glow of electric computer screen 
I’m also thinking right now of the impact an event like this can have on the world. If we all did it, just think of the impression we could make!
Kim: I brought a friend to the La Leche League meeting today!
Brad: So does that mean you get to level up in the guild?
Wow. It’s been a while since I took the plunge, and I have yet to update you!
So here we are. I think it’s been three weeks. (Seriously? Where does the time go?) My hair looks GREAT after I wash it - bouncy, shiny, healthy, and it’s actually got some volume. I’m currently doing 1 tbsp baking soda in some water, pouring it over my hair, scrubbing, and rinsing and then doing a 1 tbsp: 1 cup water apple cider vinegar rinse, just a little bit at a time, since my hair isn’t too long. My hair feels so clean!
I’m trying to be a big girl and not wash every day. I’ve been washing every day for years and years and years because I’ve got fine, thin hair … and let’s get serious - it gets greasy the day I don’t wash it. I’m hoping, though, that if I stick with washing every other day, eventually my scalp will figure out how much oil it needs to make. It’s actually looking better the day after the wash than it ever did when I was using shampoo, so I think we’re getting somewhere … it’s just not as quick as I’d like! If I have to go somewhere and it’s looking particularly bad, I rub some cornstarch into the roots and massage it into the roots and comb it through.
One thing I never thought about - a great way to conserve water is to not shower every day!
It’s naptime and there is (literally) a jackhammer outside my house.
I’ve got the kid who is afraid of her father using an electric shaver and terrified of the vaccuum, even when it’s being used two floors away.
This day is going to be interesting.
It’s nearly impossible to be a kind, patient, loving parent with a solid month of sleep deprivation behind you.
For the past week now, Gwen has been sleeping much better - going to bed between 8 & 9pm, sleeping solid until around 12:30 - 1am, then coming into bed with us and falling right back asleep, nursing around 4, and sometimes again around 6, and waking up for the day between 7 & 8am. I know it won’t last forever and that we’ll be back in the throes of sleep deprivation at the next developmental milestone or tooth, and that we will then likely trudge through another month of sleep disturbance, but after this last week, where our sleep was only minimally disturbed, I feel like a different person.
I feel like a better person. A better mom, a better wife.
I was in the depths last week. I was honestly considering going to the doctor and asking for some anti-depressants - or at least a thorough postpartum depression evaluation. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so low in my life. When my mom came to visit I asked her, “Do you think I have postpartum depression? Or do I just have a really hard baby?” She believed it was option #2. That’s hard to say out loud. I love my daughter - she’s truly a delight to be around and has the most beautiful smile and such a fun personality.
But when it’s been over a month since you’ve had more than two hours of uninterrupted sleep, you think things that make you feel like you shouldn’t be a parent. That you should never have been a parent. That you’re the worst mother in the world.
But when that month is over … when you get a couple of nights of decent sleep and when your daughter starts smiling again and, for the first time in her life, really starts giggling at things you do … you understand that you aren’t a horrible person or a horrible mother.
You understand that really, it’s been the sleep deprivation talking and, well, let’s be honest - it is a form of torture.
And you know what’s really cute? Gwen’s actually been snuggling with Brad at night lately. I’ll wake up and she’ll be over beside him … after months of co-sleeping with her wedged directly beside me, it’s kinda nice to be able to turn over and see her over there. She’s also developed a cute habit of sticking her head by him and her feet by me and laying like the mid part of a capital ‘H’. I’d read about those kinds of co-sleeping kids, but I believed I had a die-hard heat-seeking missile. Apparently I was wrong!
I’ll try 
So, last week, Gwen turned 9 months old! 9 months!! That means she has been outside of me for longer than she was in my womb. That’s just craziness.
Our little miss is pulling up on everything in sight and trying to climb.
She has become a VERY proficient crawler and frequently finds the grossest things on the floor to put in her mouth!
She’s been babbling a tonne in the past week and has also learned to sign ‘milk’!
She’s into EVERYTHING in a flash - learning about gravity, how things feel, taste, sound …
… and leaving NOTHING IN HER PATH UNTURNED! One of our nicknames for her is ‘Gwenzilla’.
This stage of development is so fun! She’s a treat to watch and play with as she babbles away (”ba-ba-ba-da-da-da-pth”) and climbs all over you. Gwen LOVES books. She loves being read to, just looking at the pictures, and playing with books on the ground. If you put her down, she beelines for any book that might be sitting out. We need MORE BOARD BOOKS, PEOPLE!
Sleeping has been … difficult lately, although the past few nights have been wonderful and we’re hoping that we’re over the hump. For the past month, Gwen had been resisting bedtime (we’d lay her down and she’d push up to a sit and then pull up in her crib) and waking VERY frequently (on the order of 8-10 times a night). She wasn’t waking due to hunger, but she was waking nonetheless. Then, she stopped waking as much, but then was waking up for hours at night wanting to play. Either variation is not pleasant! For the past two nights, though, she has gone down between 8-9 (we’ve been trying to keep her awake a bit longer to get her practicing in BEFORE bed time!) and gone 7 hours without eating and only waking 1-2 times to be resettled before that one feed. Then she’s been going back to sleep and sleeping until she’s ready to be up for the day - around 7:15. It’s been a lovely few nights, and we’re hoping that maybe she’s through her need-to-wake-up-and-practice-all-my-mad-skillz stage.
First, let me caveat this post by saying that, in the rare occurance that I may actually get to sleep during the day and have a decent nap, as soon as I stand up, I am in pain. Extreme gas pain that puts me in a fouler than foul mood and is often accompanied by moaning, crying, groaning, and lying curled in the fetal position for 30 mins - 1 hour. I can’t tell you how long this has been the case, but long enough to know that unless I really need that nap, it’s really just not worth the aftermath. That said, let’s move on
Brad advised me this morning to sleep with Gwen goes down for her naps. We’ve both (yeah, I’ll get around to updating about that eventually) been quite sick, and I. Am. Exhausted. I shunned the idea for Gwen’s first nap, as it occured at only 9:30am, but I thought maybe for her second, I’d see what happens. Following is an account, for my darling husband, of what transpired during said ‘nap’. Please know that these events are not isolated and their occurence is well noted by myself under 4 - 5 months of observation. This wasn’t a one-off.
I had gone out to get lunch - a bagel - from a local shop and saw some friends while there. I arrived home at around 1:45pm, perfect timing for Gwen’s second nap, since she’d awoken from her first (1+ hours) at 10:45am. She was rubbing her eyes and yawning, clear Gwen signs that a nap will easily overtake her.
I decided to nap with her in our bed - one of my favourite things to do when she was little - and got us all comfy-cozied up. She latched on … and popped off. And latched on … and popped off. Bright eyed and bushy tailed now that we’re trying to get her to sleep, my kid played. Until 2:39pm. We had some cute moments, as she rewarded me with the ever-elusive Gwen giggle after I tickled her belly a few times, followed promptly by a head-butt into my sore, congested, sinuses. Thanks, Gwen.
So. At by 2:39pm, she was whiny and clumsy. I had lain there the whole time hoping against hope that she would tire quickly and I could still get my nap. I got us comfy-cozied up again (oh, and she’d fallen asleep in our bed for her naps just fine on Saturday when I had been too tired/weak to move, so it’s not because she was in our bed. Nice try though - I knew what you were thinking!) and … oh right. Comfy-cozied up again and she nurses and slips blissfully into a quiet sleep. I lay there staring at her, blissful amidst the nursing hormones and begin drifting off a few minutes later.
To be awoken at 3:00pm.
That’s right, people, my kid slept for 15 minutes.
That, my dear sweet Brad, is why I don’t try to nap anymore. I’ll take sheer exhaustion over that fiasco any day! Although today I got to enjoy that fiasco followed by sheer exhaustion made worse by the fact that my body thought it was going to get to sleep followed by kill-me-now gut pain. Yay!
Can any one else see why I find it difficult day after day to find the sunshine and puppy dogs in being a mother?
This is what keeps me going. This kid is seriously cute.
Wow. I just wanted you all to know that we are all still alive here, although life chez Schellingerhoudts has been … gross? Painful? Tiring?
I’m going to go with all of the above.
I promise I’ll blog soon.
