Let's Talk Feeding

Let's talk about feeding babies.  Being a cloth diapering mom, I tend to speak with other cloth diapering moms during my internet browsing.  This is honestly very nice.  It's helpful when you are having stinky issues with your diapers, if you want some advice or if you want a recommendation.  But there are times when I'm not a big fan.

Cloth diapering moms, tend to have more "natural parenting" tendencies.  "Natural parenting" is probably in and of itself a horrible stereotype, but these are the mommies (and daddies) who cloth diaper & baby-wear, co-sleep & use elimination communication, breastfeed until babies are young children (sorry, this is an exaggeration, but I'm trying to paint a picture) & refuse to feed their babies anything that isn't purely organic.  These are also the "cover your home in Saran wrap, buy inflatable tub and have a home birth" parents.  (Again, please realize I'm exaggerating and pointing to the extreme of natural parenting.)  

Well, I consider myself somewhat of a "natural parent."  I cloth diaper.  I breastfeed.  I co-slept with Kayla for about 4 months.  I tried to make my own baby food.  Actually, when it comes to feeding, there is a technique of introducing solid foods to babies called Baby Led Weaning.  I tried this.  Basically, you skip purees and give baby "finger shaped" foods that you would eat (veggies, fruits, chicken, etc.)  And natural parents rave about BLW (baby led weaning).  I was all excited about it.  Bought the book (couldn't finish it because it was so boring and redundant.)  We started Kayla on solids before we "should have."  We fed (and still feed) her purees (the organic kinds in those suckable pouches.  She stinkin' loves those things.)  She literally would not even touch the foods when we tried baby led weaning.  Supposedly, these babies have larger palates, are less picky, etc.  (I guess probably depending on who you talk to.)  Kayla has some picky days, where all she will eat is bananas.  But overall, I think she's a pretty good eater.  

And like her mother, she clearly loves macaroni and cheese (cue MANY hilarious photos of Kayla and Mac'N'Cheese.)

But before the amazing photos, (you can skip this paragraph if you wish), sometimes I have a real problem with these so called "crunchy" parents.  (I mean, just look at the title of this blog...) These people always seem to think that the way they are doing things is the best way and no one should ever have to do anything any other way.  This drives me completely batty.  I may not be doing everything right, but if I've learned one thing, it's that there is no "right" way to get babies to sleep through the night, to eat their veggies, to take good naps, to get a schedule, to pee/poop when you want them to, etc.  I could go on and on.  I think so many natural parenting ideas are awesome.  And if those things worked for you and your baby that is SO great.  But please stop pushing it on everyone else around you.

The ultimate thing that drives me crazy is this.  As a breastfeeding mom, I can honestly say, I want to punch mom's in the gut who rave about "breast is best" & "there is no better milk than mommy's milk." There are so many woman who have a hugely difficult time breastfeeding, or even physically can't.  I mean, you may remember that I bled so much that Kayla spit up blood all over herself and me TWICE. I'm lucky I've made it this far.  All I have to say is that being a mom is hard enough, we don't have to add extra guilt into it for not doing what is "best," when in actuality, we are.  OK, I'm off my high horse.  And as I side note, I pretty much support all mommies, no matter how they diaper, what they feed, or where their kids sleep.

Look at this little piggy!

So stinkin' excited.

Mom I seriously LOVE macaroni!

And please (please, please!) don't even get me started on vaccinations.  Please.

11 Month Update

I almost have a one year old.

Yeah, take a second and let that sink in.

Need more time? No?  Ok.  On to the update.  I honestly cannot believe how skilled Kayla is on her feet.  She pivots and runs and balances on one foot (usually accidentally and only for a few seconds, but I'm still very impressed.)  She loves to feed herself, especially bananas.  There are some days where that is all she wants to eat.  I try to remind myself her main nutrition is still coming from nursing and bottles and to try not to get too frustrated that all she wants to eat is bananas.

The sign language I was trying to teach her at 6 months is coming out of the woodwork like wildfire this month.  She hasn't yet said any "real" words but she sure has a lot to say.  She babbles all. the. time.  It's funny because if I babble back, it's like we are having a conversation.  She has inflection in her voice and intonation.  I really believe she understands so much more than she can express, which is why she is LOVING the sign language!  She consistently uses eat, more and all done.  she also knows milk, and we made up our own special sign for "sleepy."  She also understands that people come and go from the door and often walks towards it waving.  I'm looking forward to her first real words but for now, the babble is really fun!  There have been inklings of words ('nana'...not like grandma, like banana, and others) but nothing concrete yet.

She also has learned this awesome high pitched squeal.  I know what you are thinking, "Awesome? Really?"  But it really is so great, she gets this look on her face like she is so excited she can't stand it, all her muscles tense up and she lets out this little squeal of joy!  She now has 7 teeth, she got 5 in about 1.5 weeks around Thanksgiving, and sleeping was horrible, but such is life.

She consistently gives hugs and kisses (usually French ones.)  Honestly, I'm not sure what I did to deserve such a great baby.  Sure, she wasn't a great sleeper and still sometimes isn't, she gets fussy sometimes.  But the large majority of the time, she is a joy to be around.  She laughs at the silliest things and it totally makes me laugh, which consequently make her laugh harder.  She makes this "ahhhmmm" sounds when she puts food in her mouth, like she's anticipating how great it's going to taste.  I love that we get to share some giggles when I get home from work just in time to put her to bed.

Sometimes, I don't feel like I'm old enough to have an almost 1 year old.  Sometimes, I feel like I'm still in my early/mid twenties and looking forward to going out with friends on the weekends.  I can't tell you the last time I had some drinks with friends.  But what I can tell you is when I am out, all I want to do is go home and say goodnight to Kayla before she's asleep for the night.  I can tell you that our life may not be the same kind of exciting anymore, but I love every second of it.

Here are some monthly photos I took this morning (yes I promised you and I'm following through. I took, edited and posted all this morning!)  These monthly photos are getting significantly harder to take, but I think I've jazzed up some of mine today with these awesome free actions I downloaded from the Internet.

I usually have to give Kayla something to play with for the photos...

I sometimes manage to snap a maybe not so great photo, but one with a great expression:

I manage to snap a few each month that really show off her monthly sticker (before she tries to pull it off)...

Sometimes I'm lucky enough to have someone else there who can make her smile come out...

Socks are fun toys.

I get some really great ones I just have to edit, even though you can even see the inkling of a sticker.

And I get some I just really like and want to try out my new actions on.

Today was especially hard, since there are 8 adults, 1 baby and 3 dogs in the house, and Kayla isn't too sure about the dogs:

And in some, she has such a great smile, I can't pass them up.

Peek-a-boo

<3

And some may be considered outtakes, or trash to others due to the lack of focus on what I wanted, but I only got one precious picture and I can't delete it.

I sure do love her...

And she sure does love them... (sometimes from a distance.)

Happy Holidays From the Hales

I wanted to do joint Christmas/Thank You cards this year, but I'm starting to think I'm a horrible person and it is clearly way to late to thank everyone for the kind gifts that were sent to us when Kayla was born.  I mean, I'm practically a year late now.  Maybe I write joint "We Moved!"/Thanks for new baby and 1st birthday gifts all in one!

Anyways, back on track here.  I wanted to make a quick photo Christmas card this year.  I was thinking about doing something clever with photos from Hawaii and some clever saying involving Mele Kalikimaka.  So I went on shutterfly and found a card I liked, but couldn't edit the wording.  I went through the uploading pictures/placing process and asked Justin what he thought.

This is the response I got, "Can't you make something like that yourself in Photoshop for a lot cheaper?"  Um, yeah sure I'll take the extra time and effort to make it myself.  Slightly annoyed, I set out on my new task.  Honestly, I'm pretty impressed with how well it came out.

Then I was talking to a patient who is a photographer who gave me the idea to have them printed at vistaprint.com.  I got 30 cards with envelopes for less than $20.  So I highly recommend this.  (Except for some reason, I set the size of my Photoshop document at 5x7 but the 5x7 blank card upload on vistaprint didn't seem to work out well.  It got a little stretched length wise but I still think it looks good.)

The big reveal (I hope everyone has received one...if you didn't, sorry we only had a small amount printed to save money.):

Then, from VistaPrint, you can put a quick photo and message on the back free of charge as well!  Pretty sweet.  Here's a crappy iPhone photo of the back:

11 Months

Happy 11 month birthday Kayla Marie!

I cannot believe my little, stubborn, 4 days late baby is 11 months old.  My skinny, squeals with glee, runs all of the house baby is growing up too fast for me.  I promise to take pictures, edit and post a monthly update this weekend.  Hoping for Christmas themed photos!

WeddingBee Randomizer

So this wedding blog I follow which also has discussion boards about everything, both wedding related and not, is doing a new series.  See the rules here, but basically you use a random number generator to choose 10 photos from your wedding to reminisce and write a small description.  I love this because we had SO many wonderful photos and this give me a chance to look back on some maybe not so ogled photos!

And for the fun of it, since our lives have drastically changed since our wedding, I added a few random numbers from our family photos when Kayla was 6 weeks old. :)

#443

Hubby and his momma: they both look very different now!

#1117

My grandparents' table:  the two longest married couples, 2 great aunts and a very great friend of my grandparents.

#325

Vows.  I love him.

#668

Making me laugh so the photos are more "natural" :)

#763

Our wedding party.  So funny this photo was randomly chosen because I have a 8x10 framed ready to be hung in our new apartment.

#272

Our dear friends the Langman women and little Jax (who is no longer this little!  He has a little brother and a sister on the way!)

#430

Us with my paternal grandparents (their anniversary was the day after ours.)

#1368

This photo is so indicative of our wedding...so much fun and dancing.  These are some of my very very best friends from college.  Man do I miss them!

#379

My sister in law and niece...who is also definitely so grown up!

#255

Justin and his good friend Jon: congratulations.

Baby Photos:

#162

Poor little stinker with her baby acne.

#143

Born a Hokie...forever a Hokie.

#255

I honestly cannot believe how far we have come this year!

#138

Another shocking photo to be randomly chosen as this is a favorite.  I had it printed for a little desk frame for Justin for his work.

#65

Our little family <3