Family Size

We had the talk last night.  Are we done, for sure, having kids??  I think we are.  Brendan is anyway.  I'm about 80% sure.  And when we were deciding on whether or not to have another after Ingrid, I was 80% sure I wanted one.  So...I think we're done. 

I have to wrap my mind around that one.

A few people I know are pregnant right now for number 3, and even though Otis is still a baby, I was a little envious when I found out.  Then I found out another friend is pregnant for number 2 and she got pregnant when her baby was Otis' age.  Sigh...I hate being pregnant, I'm remembering last summer how sick I was, how miserable I was in the heat even though I wasn't big.  How life seemed to stop while I laid on the couch for months at a time.  And let's not forget the whole three week hospital bedrest ordeal!  And yet I'm envious of pregnant women??  What's that all about?

We were dead set on having an only child, and I do have to say I'm glad we changed our minds.  Watching Ingrid be a big sister is amazing, she loves to make Otis laugh and talks baby talk to him.  Yesterday morning she got up and said "Where's my Otis boy?"  And Otis is nothing but smiles for his big sister, even though she's not gentle with him at all.  He gets smacked in the face by her foot or gets a hug that suffocates him, and all he does is gurgles and smiles like it's the best thing in the world.

So another one?  I could do it.  I loved this past six months with Otis.  Using the Moby, nursing him, sharing a bed with him.  He's now settling down for naps on his own, bedtime on his own, he can sit in his Bumbo for a half hour or so at a time, or on his play gym and be content while I get things done.  By the time another Bub would be here, he'd be walking and eating solid food and would be a toddler!  So yeah, I could do it.

But Brendan says he doesn't want to.  And I can see the pros of being done now.  I could finally lose all the weight I've gained birthin' babies.  Ingrid will be off to school soon and it'll be just me and the Fat Man.  We can sort of travel right now, we have a parent for each child so it makes it easier to keep an eye on them.  It's kind of like we have the best of both worlds--our kids each have a sibling and we still have a relatively calm household. 

It's just hard to say never.  I've heard women say they just knew when they were done, they knew their families were complete.  I don't have that gut reaction, I could still imagine another one.  But I also am enjoying our new life back in Milwaukee, the idea of buying a house and making it our home.  I don't really want to be pregnant for another one.  So, I guess we're done. 

Tummy Time is Bullsh*t.

I just thought I'd let you all know that I have done about ten minutes total of tummy time with Otis in the past five months.  My doctor said I had to do fifteen minutes a day with him, all the books say you have to do it with them, moms talk all about tummy time.  And I just ignored everyone and didn't do it.  Just never got around to it. 

Do you think my son has a jelly neck and can't hold up his head?  Is he going to walk around with his head drooping on his chest forever?  Have I done something detrimental to him? 

Nope. 

We were at the children's museum last week and they have a little baby area.  I put Otis down on his belly in front of the mirror and up popped his little head, strong as can be.  He just stared at himself in the mirror, drooled all over, and cooed.  Just like any other baby at five months.  And then he rolled right over back to his back and went about his day.

I put him in the Moby and hold him up on my chest and do all sorts of other things where he has to hold his head up so why would I put him on the floor and listen to him scream for fifteen minutes a day? 

I'm not saying no one should ever do tummy time with their kid or judging you if you do it.  I'm just sick of so much worrying!!  It's so hard to be a mom and then you have doctors and books telling you what to do and telling you bad things will happen if you don't do them.  I wish we could turn off all the outside noise and follow our motherly instincts and just live.  And enjoy our happy children instead of worrying about all the terrors in the world. 

Wow, how did this go from tummy time to that?  Whatever, it's early rambling but there it is.  I think tummy time is bullshit. 

Another Post About the Second Kid

I'm still enjoying the fact that I'm way more laid back about Otis.  Every day I realize how things change and we go with the flow and change what we need to and I just don't stress.  His "bed time" which I use loosely, is ever changing.  I usually get him ready and then bundle him up in a blanket and either nurse him to sleep or he hangs out in my arms for awhile and eventually falls asleep while I'm snuggled on the couch.  Then when I'm ready for bed I bring him in with me. 

With Ingrid I would rock her and feed her and she would take forever to fall asleep and I would get so irritated because the day had been super long and I just wanted to relax finally.  I would put her in bed and listen to her cry and sigh and go back in.  It was stressful. 

Naptimes are similar.  I put Otis in the Moby and go about our way in the morning, either cleaning the house or doing laundry or walking to the park.  Whatever the case, Otis falls asleep almost instantly and will sleep for an hour or so.  I never pay attention to how long he's been sleeping.  This happens a couple times a day, he sleeps here and there in the Moby or in my arms while I try to rest in the afternoon.  I don't pay attention to how many naps he gets, or how long they are.  I don't worry about how much sleep he's getting or not getting, I just go by his personality.  If he seems like he needs to sleep, I put him in the Moby and walk around. 

With Ingrid I would try to put her down for her naps at the same time every day, I was stuck at home for nap time.  I would freak out if she didn't fall asleep right away or sleep for long enough or especially if she didn't sleep at all.  Worry worry worry.  Is that inevitable in the life of a first time mom?? 

Otis is also just fed whenever.  I don't know if it's been one hour, three hours, four hours.  I just hear him get fussy, try to figure out which side he should be on, and nurse him.  And again, I follow his moods and he lets me know when he needs to eat. 

With Ingrid I bottle fed and therefore was so concerned with how many ounces she was consuming, I knew in x-amount of hours I had to feed her.  And oh man, just having to travel with bottles and formula and water, it was so much extra work.  I'm so glad to be breast feeding this time around!

It sounds like I am regretting what I did with Ingrid, and that's not really true.  Sure I wish I had known I could've nursed  her with my meds, and yes I wish I had known about babywearing sooner than six months old.  But I did the best I could, and believe it or not, I still consider myself to have been a laid back first time mom.  I'm just realizing how much I've learned in the past three years and how much my parenting style has changed and how much better this works for me.

What have you done differently with baby number 2 or 3? 

Second Time Around

I'm realizing just how different the second time is when mothering.  My four months with Otis have been so different than Ingrid's first four months!  As I sit here typing this, Otis is asleep in the Moby, as he would not be put down this morning.  Instead of worrying that he "needs" to learn how to sleep laying down in a bed, I just popped him in and walked around to get him to sleep.  And I'm enjoying listening to his little breaths and feeling his warmth up against me!

With Ingrid I felt rigid.  Instead of going with the flow, I worried every time there was a change.  I had to be home for naptime, I had to feed her at the same time, I read books that told me I had to start solids at a certain time, I had to have a bedtime routine, I had to let her learn how to soothe herself.  I felt like it was this monumental job that I couldn't screw up on, or else there would be major repercussions throughout Ingrid's whole life.  If I did something wrong once it was going to turn into a habit that could not be broken. 

Ahhhh, how glad I am I'm not that way with Otis!  I don't know if it's knowledge or necessity or a bit of both, but I just glide through our days without even thinking about things like that!  He sleeps when he sleeps, he eats when he eats, if he's not happy I put him in a carrier and then he is happy.  It just hit me that he's four months old in a couple days and I hadn't even thought about what milestones he "should" be reaching.  Cooing, smiling, reaching for toys, grasping things, finding his toes, holding his head up, sitting, whatever he's supposed to be doing, I don't care!  He does what he does.  He'll do more as time goes on. 

I wish I could go visit myself three years ago and tell myself to relax, take a deep breath, and look at the big picture.  Now I see how fast the days and months go and I'm enjoying every second of Otis growing, instead of thinking of the next thing he should be doing or saying I can't wait until he's older and can walk/talk/sleep etc.  He'll do all those things.  In the meantime I'm going to laugh every time I hear his first giggles and stare at him while he sleeps next to me and wear him before he starts squirming. 

Quit Selling Me Stuff!

I just got my issues of The Mother magazine, and Mothering magazine.  To look at them side by side is funny.  It totally made me realize that even though Mothering is geared toward a more natural hippy dippy kind of parent, they still are a big magazine that have to run ads to make it happen.  So while Parents magazine has ads for Pampers and expensive strollers, Mothering has ads for Bum Genius and expensive baby carriers.  But they're still the same--selling me things I don't need!! 

I remember when I learned about slings and I wanted to get one on a limited budget.  Some of them were pretty expensive but I always saw how you could make your own.  I never did.  I spent the money and got a ridiculously expensive Hotslings pouch, which I love, but now that I know I didn't have to fork over that much...sheesh.  And my Ergo, I just had to have one but never could fathom spending over a hundred dollars on one.  The only reason I have one?  I found one at the thrift store for $8!! 

It was the same with cloth diapers--I went the inexpensive route at first, got some used fitteds and some covers, they worked just fine and kept Ingrid dry.  But it wasn't enough.  I had to get the newest FuzziBunz, in cute colors.  I had to try the Bum Genius, and even though I hated the velcro, I still ended up with seven of them!  They don't work any better than what I had, but I thought I had to have more. 

Isn't that what I'm trying not to do?  Aren't I trying to live with what I have and be happy with what I have?  Aren't I trying to teach Ingrid that it's what we do that makes us happy, not what we own?  But dammit, you see these glossy ads in magazines and think your life would be so much better if you just had a different diaper, a better wrap, another glass bottle with bpa free nipple.  Or that organic cotton whatever that costs five times more than I can afford.

What can you do, we live in a material based culture.  It's up to me to figure out that I can read the articles and enjoy them while ignoring the ads and knowing I don't have to have every little thing that's out there, it will not, in fact, make my life easier or my baby happier.  It's so easy to get sucked into it though!!   

I've Gone All Hippy

Thanks to all the wonderful blogs I've been following the past year or so, I have gone all hippy.  Cloth diapering, cloth mama pads, thinking of homeschooling, using slings, breastfeeding baby #2 if I can (and for longer than six months, thank you very much.)  It has been so gradual that I hadn't noticed it much.  And then I talked to old friends and realized how much I've gone over to the crunchy side!

Number One:  Slings.  A friend of mine is very pro stroller, and I respect that.  I was trying to tell her how awesome slings are and how babywearing is so great for the baby.  She just isn't into it.  And then she found the warning about bag slings and said for sure no.  Not for them.  I thought back to when I was pregnant for Ingrid and I'd never even heard of a sling.  I spent hours and hours researching strollers, it was an obsession!  And then we got a front pack and I never used our stroller anyway...And then we got slings and carriers and I just loved them so much.  I loved the feeling of having Ingrid right there, she'd lean back and look at me and smile, I'd kiss her every five steps. 

Number Two:  Cloth Diapers.  I have tried to convince so many people that it's really not that big of a deal!  Again, when I was pregnant I thought about using cloth but the upfront costs really made it seem impossible.  It wasn't until I started really looking at things that I realized that you can do it pretty cheaply, and you can do it part time, and you can get a stash little by little, you don't have to have all 20 diapers at once.  And washing and poop, they are not a big deal.  You get used to it.  And after spending $600 on disposables, I cringe thinking of how many awesome organic diapers I coulda bought with that money!!

Number Three:  Paper products in General.  I use cloth pads now.  It's just a given that with using cloth diapers I suddenly saw how silly it was to use disposable pads.  We also don't use paper napkins--I have cheap washcloths we use, and I just started thrifting some cool old cloth napkins.  I used to think they were for fancy dinners, I don't know why it never occured to me to use them every day!  We also don't use paper towels, which doesn't seem like a big deal to me.  We haven't used them in years.  But a maintenance man came to fix our dishwasher and asked for a paper towel.  I said we don't use them and he gave me such an incredulous look!  But I thought about it and duh, why would you use papaer to soak up a spill?  We don't dry ourselves off with paper bath towels do we?? 

Number Four:  Breastfeeding.  I did not breastfeed Ingrid.  I don't regret it one bit.  She grew and grew and she's smart as hell, and she hasn't had a lot of sickness at all.  But...for baby #2 I am going to do everything in my power to breastfeed him/her.  For one, it's so much better than shelling out $20 for a can of formula that smells and stains everything!  And it's easier to stick a boob in the mouth than fumble around for a bottle and measuring the formula at 2 in the morning.  And one thing I got defensive about with my friends was extended breastfeeding.  I have to admit that when I first saw people nursing their toddlers and tandem nursing, I was freaked out.  I just never saw it before.  It was weird to me, it was different, and I just didn't get it.  But after seeing it around it seems normal to me.  Like why not nurse past six months?  Why stop it at one year exactly?  What's wrong with nursing past what someone deems normal?  This was something not one single friend of mine agreed with me on!  They all thought it was gross, and the mother being selfish not wanting to give it up.  And unneccesary, why not just give the kid "real" milk?  I was really quite surprised, as my friends around here in MI nursed their kids as long as they wanted, they never seemed in a hurry to stop, and were actually sad when it did stop.  It seems strange to me to just stop it and give a kid cow's milk instead of human breast milk...

So there you go, I'm a crunchy hippy and I am proud of it!!  Thank you so much to Sarah and Gina and Sunnymama for showing me a different way of being a parent.  It has helped me be the kind of parent I want to be!

Growing Up Too Quickly...

I feel like Ingrid is growing up too quickly.  Everything seems to have flown by.  She's not even two yet and already she's this little chatterbox who's singing full songs and telling us she needs to go to the bathroom.  Where'd my baby go?? 

She has been going on the potty all day today, no diapers except just now when I put her down for her nap.  We even went on a walk and she stayed dry and went when we got home!  We're totally following her lead, she just started to tell us she had to go, so we bring her.  And she goes.  And gets the hugest smile on her face, you can tell how proud of herself she is!  It's amazing!

And singing, oh man.  That kid loves to sing!  She likes the Five Little Monkeys song right now, and can sing pretty much every word.  And Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, although you can't understand half the words she says.  She gets the tune right, though. 

She also talks in full sentences and is pretty good at articulating her words.  Some kind of run together but mostly you can understand her. 

She's not a baby...

I am proud of her for doing all these things, for counting to 10 and saying her ABCs and reciting her books, but I feel like it's all happening too quickly.  I want to have a cuddly baby still!  She was so behind on crawling and walking, and then bam, she went full force from baby to preschooler!  At least that's how it seems sometimes.

But, because she's almost out of diapers and finally pretty much sleeping through the night (until her teeth want to bother her again I suppose) I feel ready for baby #2.  When we visited our friend and I had her baby and then had Ingrid hanging on me, I swore up and down I didn't want that and I was staying with one kid.  Yesterday those friends came over, and the baby is now 6 months old.  Ingrid went right up and said "Hi, cute baby!" and was all in her face.  I wanted to try out the mei tai I'd made so I strapped the baby in, and it felt so good!  And Ingrid was hanging on my leg but I was imagining it for real and it didn't scare me so much.  I know it would be hard, but I feel like I can see past the first few months of it being that way to when it would be a little easier as the baby grows, and as Ingrid grows. 

And then that baby will grow up too quickly and I'll sigh and wonder where the time went...

Should There Be Another...

These are the things I will remember if we have another baby:

1. The first six weeks are hard and I will let the baby sleep wherever, whenever and not worry I'm forming bad habits.

2. I will wear the baby more than I wore Ingrid. I didn't know about wraps with Ingrid, we had a front pack and I used that instead of a stroller and when I wanted to get things done and she was fussy, but I will use a wrap and really WEAR baby #2. If we have one, this is all hypothetical :)

3. I will try to nurse. I have meds I'm on and I don't want to NOT be on them, but I never really tried to find out if there were similar meds that I could've nursed on. Formula sucks, I don't think it's evil, but BF would be so much easier I think.

4. I will try to cosleep. We had Ingrid in our room but I was so crazy about every single noise she made that I would jump up and check on her. We both slept better in separate rooms. Until just a few months ago when she started getting up every hour for a couple weeks--I would've loved to be cosleeping then so I could stay in bed and try to comfort her instead of getting up, walking to her room, rocking her, putting her down, walking back to my room, getting in bed, and then hearing her cry again.

5. I will for sure cloth diaper from day one. Now that I understand how much money those stupid disposables cost when you can get super cute cushy cloth ones, I can't believe I went a whole year using them!! I am such a convert!

I just read a blog carnival about cloth diapering and what you know now that you wish you'd known then and it just got me thinking of having a kid in general. There are so many things I wish I would've known when Ingrid was born. But that's a dumb reason to have another kid, right?