Follow the shenanigans of a woman's attempt at going green while trying to raise a little one on a small ranch in Arizona with chickens and horses.
You know you’re a new mom when…
- Sleep is no longer required until you fall over.
- You look at your friends who have 3-4 kids and wonder how the hell they survived
- You realize that there’s no way to do full grocery shopping because the car-seat takes up pretty much the entire cart and loading food on top of your baby is completely inappropriate.
- You find time to wash out bottles twice daily but the other pile of dishes are taking over the counter-tops
- You’re too tired to walk outside, across the street, to put a letter in the mailbox.
- You realize there’s no such thing as a quick run into the gas station for caffeine, and then you realize why drive-thru’s were created and successful.
- You find yourself on Facebook when your little one is sleeping, hitting the refresh button over and over because it’s the only thing you have energy left to do.
- You’re brain is too fried to continue writing a list.
Is the house on fire?! Um, no… not exactly…
Number 2 reason to breast-feed your babies… Boobs don’t catch on fire or melt….bottles however can…
I had a bit of a scare this morning! I went out into the livingroom only to smell an odd smell and see a light haze of smoke!!! I went flying into the bedroom yelling “Ray, wake up, RAY!!! WAKE UP!! HELP!!! there’s smoke, there’s SMOKE! I can’t find it, HELP!”
Scared the living crap out of Ray who went flying out of bed to help me find it.
Running through the house we’re checking the lamps, the appliances, the fish tank filter motor and then it hits me… I was running the dishwasher earlier.
I opened it up and what did I find stuck in the bottom of the dishwasher underneath the rack, caught under the rotating blade???
THIS:
SIGH
So mental note… do not put bottles in the lower-rack of a dishwasher… in fact, not sure if you should even have them on the top rack, will have to check the gaps to see if they could “escape” and fall during washing or not from the top rack…
I have the house open and my big fan pulling out the “haze”, and my heart has started to slow down a bit… Ray asked “Can I go finish having a heart attack and then go back to bed?”
Chicky Mama Vs the Clogged Vacuum
I have a love-hate relationship with my vacuum cleaner, cuz it sucks… (ba ba bum….)
Personally, I hate vacuuming, but with a little one, it’s something I’m going to have to start tackling every day, especially since I have a german shepherd dog who sheds an amazing amount of fur daily, and a long-haired russian blue cat.
The past two weeks, my vacuum has been clogged. Prior to Lilly, I didn’t have the energy to take it apart (which is a tedious time-wasting task) and post Lilly 1-week, I’ve been busy with Lilly and with being ill.
My carpet was over-run with dog/cat fur, totally DISGUSTING!!!
After getting some well needed rest last night and again this afternoon (thanks to Ray and Mom for letting me rest!), I had the energy to start tackling things.
Growing up, we had a kirby like this one, which I swear could have sucked a bowling ball through a garden hose, but alas, no, I have a crappy bag-type bissel that clogs every other time I use it…
So I set out tonight to get it unclogged. I took apart the short tube where every other time, the clog is always at. Yes, it was clogged but when I put it back together, it still wasn’t working right. The hair had gotten clogged in the “long” tube… oh… crap….
So I pulled it apart and tried using a metal hanger (untwisted and pulled somewhat straight) and tried for 20 minutes to get the clog out… no…such…luck… mind you, I was attempting to do this outside, while it was raining, and with fire-ants biting my feet again…
I was on the verge of putting a hose down the tube and flushing it out, but I didn’t want to because then it would take forever to dry out, thus delaying my vacuuming and adding more hair to my poor carpet. Ray said I should try the shop-vac, and I tried suctioning it out, nothing… and then I remembered the unfortunate incident when I attempted to clean the bunny cage and had the shop-vac on reverse and shot nasty rabbit bedding across the room a few months ago… Hrmmm, wonder if I can “shoot” it out…
Flipped the shop-vac hose to the other side, hooked up the hose, and POOF! Out went a wad of compacted shepherd hair in like 2 seconds flat like I’d just shot it out of a tee-shirt canon!
It stayed compacted thankfully, or I would have been cleaning another mess in the bedroom.
So I think this will be a weekly adventure, shooting hairballs out of my vacuum. I wonder how much distance I can get on it….
Thank Goodness for Sister-in-Laws! @CrunchyBeachMama
Thank Goodness for Sister-In-Laws!
I actually have 2, Courtney and Heather, both are fantastic Sis-in-laws, but this post goes out to Courtney for saving my sanity last night.
Going on Day 5 of being a new mom, I find myself either smiling insanely or crying insanely. Mostly tears of joy but occasionally tears of frustration from sleep deprivation.
Last night, Lilly was incredibly fussy and just did not want to be out of my arms. I was beyond exhausted and while she slept soundly and happily as long as I was holding her, I found myself drifting off and then jerking myself awake out of fear she’d slide right off me and fall.
That’s when I remembered that I had the Moby Wrap still sitting in the closet, something my sister-in-law Courtney, writer/blogger of Crunchy Beach Mama told me is one baby essential that no mom should go without. She was 100% correct.
I wasn’t sure if I should get one, I’m a big mama and I figured from all the cute pics of mama’s toting their kids around, that moby wraps were more fitting for, well, more in-shape mamas. Courtney assured me that there was plenty of fabric and get one anyway. (By the way, she was right, more than enough!)
Lilly screamed while I had to figure out how to use it (problem solved pulling up a youtube video of it, ha!). Once I had her snuggled safely in, she instantly settled and sighed one of those cute adorable baby sighs that says “Thanks Mama, I’m okay now”… Phew!
I nestled into the couch, propped my feet up. Lilly was out in 30 seconds of settling in… I cat napped here and there, I still woke up but it wasn’t that jerking feeling of fear, but just to make sure that she was okay. It also made it so that I could get up easily and move about the house. It’s a little odd feeling at first but the wrap really does a great job of keeping them secure.
The warmth of her against me, and not worrying about her falling/sliding off was so incredibly relaxing, and it was a wonderful bonding experience.
Considering she slept on me like that for about 4 hours, I would say it made her one happy camper too.
Tonight she’s back to being passed out happily on her own and I’m free to move about and clean (and blog), but I’m telling you, that wrap made all the difference last night when there was just no way to settle her nerves.
So many thanks going out to Courtney for her advice, as usual. If you have a chance, pop over to CrunchyBeachMama.com
or you can follow her on FaceBook at:
http://www.facebook.com/crunchybeachmama
She writes a lot about not only ways of living a natural green life with children but she does a TON of product reviews for various products that make being a mom easier (and tons of fun giveaways too!)
She amazes me all the time!
Lilly’s Arrival
Yay, I'm Here! Time to sleep ZZZzzzzzz
So I’m taking a few minutes to post while my baby girl is out cold and share my somewhat weird labor experience.
On September 1st, Lilly Anne joined our world at 12:36am.
I was sent to the hospital for inducement on Monday at 3pm however my body was being completely stubborn and just refused to respond to the inducement techniques. (12 hour plug first with no response, then 3 doses 4 hours apart of pill, which got me to a 1cm, and then the foley balloon dilation.)
I had them epi me about an hour after the foley balloon was done. I handled the insertion like a champ but got hit with the pain about an hour into it and my blood pressure went through the roof and I kinda went delusional. Things weren’t right, it felt like I was outside of my body looking at everything from eyes in the back of my head. That was the ONLY bad experience I had though, and they got the epi in for me right away and I was right as rain within 15-20 minutes.)
Sometime Wednesday evening I finally got to 4cm dilated and they broke my water. That’s when my body finally ramped up and said “Oh! Okay, I get it now”. I dilated from 4 to 9cm by 11:30pm. After a few more exams, just after midnight, the nurse said “Okay, let’s do a test push and see how this goes before I get the doctor.”
So, I get ready to go, start to push and they start yelling at me to stop!
Lilly was a little more anxious to join the world than we had anticipated.
The nurses ran and got my doctor, we waited for the next contraction and they had me push and she crowned… wait for next contraction 2 minutes later, push and out she came. Holy… Cow…
So, all in all, other than about 48 hours of being really annoyed, the rest was amazing.
Both Ray and I (and my doctor) had expected hours, not MINUTES of pushing. Ray had this look on his face like “What.. the hell… just happened….”
Then she was safe and in my arms… and I couldn’t be happier. Tired, but happy.
