Life is a Fight

My cousin got a chestplate tattoo a few years ago that said ,"Life is a Fight". I really questioned why anyone would put that strange statement on their chest? Now, 5 years later, it's totally become my motto and I'm half debating getting a tattoo of it myself!

It's no secret I've been having trouble with Olivia's development. It's really been such a big struggle. Not only to get food into her system, but also with our doctor's office. 2 months ago, I went into the doctor, baby in hand and begged for her to take a look at the baby. They turned me a way sighting "problems with my insurance". After 4 grueling weeks of fighting with multiple insurance companies and getting things straightened out, my doctor finally agreed to see Liv. It was that day that she weighed her and proceeded to criticize me for not coming in sooner, and not getting help for her. She said words like "malnourished" and "hospital visit" and a whole boatload of other things that scared me half to death and absolutely crushed my self-confidence. I wanted to scream out how many times I had tried to feed her a bottle, or a sippy cup. I wanted to give her a piece of my mind about turning me away when I HAD come for help. But I sat there and took it, and vowed to do better.

What followed was an emotional breakdown of horrific proportions. I spent my weekend listening to Satan's whispers about my ability to parent my child. He said words like "CPS" and "worthless" and "Give up". I fought hard to shut the lies out, but it was pretty easy to let them creep in and meltdown. Meanwhile I fed Liv around the clock and used every tool neccessary to stuff as much formula down her throat as I could. I kept newborn hours with her, and went to the breastfeeding support center for tools to help me. 5 days later, I dragged my beaten down spirit to the pediatrician's office again and took off her diaper to weigh her. In 5 days she had gained 13 ounces! I was stunned, as was the doctor. All I can say is, it was truly the Lord who put fat on those bones.

The fight isn't over yet, we still have a LONG way to go. But I have to say that I am so enjoying this little victory. The hug the doctor gave me at the end didn't hurt either.

Motherhood is all guts and no glory; you check your ego at the door. And it subscribes to the theory that Life really is a fight, but it's well worth the fight.

A thought for Noah

DEAR ERIN: WHEN YOU'VE READ ALL THE BOOKS ON THE SHELF AND HE STILL WANTS TO READ ANOTHER ONE- READ HIM 2 MORE!

First Day of School- 2011

Elijah had his first day of Preschool a few weeks ago, and I am just getting around to blogging about it. It's been quite a ride as we've all adjusted our schedules, and our attitudes. The first few days were tough for Noah especially as his best bud was missing from his morning routine, but he got over that really quickly, particularily when he realized he had all of mommy's undivided attention. He has finally found happiness in sitting on my lap and reading for hours. I must admit, I love the time too.

Elijah is absolutely thriving in preschool. He loves his new Buzz Lightyear backpack and getting ready for school each morning. He's also adjusted to wearing underwear to school, and his teachers say he's doing really well with it. YAY! But I must admit, when I come to pick him up I do love the fact that he runs up to me in front of everyone and gives me a big hug and tells me how much he missed me. I'm soaking that up now, because I know it's fleeting.

Elijah comes home with all kinds of songs he's learning, and stories to tell. He's already learning phonics, which is a major plus. And by about day 2 of him coming home and singing a new song, Noah and I are singing along. I thought I would be scared to put my baby in school, and I dragged it out as long as I could. But I'm so thankful that we took the plunge and put him in- he was ready. And the best part? This preschool is a place where all his therapists come to HIM. So no more running around from therapy appointment to therapy appointment trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the other 2. We've settled in nicely to this routine, and I'm looking forward to going on field trips with him and getting all the crafts and projects he does.

The Pinterest Challenge: Of Wreaths and Scarves

I've mentioned before that I was going to start a blog about all my Pinterest experiments: good and bad. So here is my first Pinterest Challenge blog.

Project #1: I started out with something simple: making a scarf out of old t-shirts. It seemed easy enough... or so I thought.

I followed the instructions to the letter. It seemed fairly simple and straight forward. Everything went well, until I finished it and realized it was nothing more than a whole bunch of strings around my neck. They got tangled, and it looked like a hot mess. Maybe cute co-eds can pull of this look, but if I walked into a room of my friends, I'm fairly certain they would ask me why I had a whole bunch of string tied around my neck. I ended up trying to braid it and make some sort of a necklace out of it- on the principle that I refused to waste a perfectly good t-shirt. I stuck some felt flowers on it, and it turned out decent. Not sure if it's anything that I would EVER wear in public, but hey if nothing else, it'll be a start to Liv's first dress-up box.

FAIL

Project #2: A fall wreath using felt flowers.
I have spent the last several months perfecting the felt flower look and I came to the conclusion that, for me, they just looked a little too cheap. So I decided to use fabric flowers instead (which I learned how to do using THIS tutorial.) I bought a grapevine wreath for $3.50 at Walmart. Used fabric samples, scraps, and ribbon from my craft box, and some pearls from the box- note: craftboxes come in handy. It was cheap and totally easy. I finished it in just a few hours and was so excited to hang it and commence fall (at least in my head). I highly reccomend this if you want a cheap and fairly painless seasonal craft project.

SUCCESS
So there you go, my first Pinterest Challenge. Now, I challenge YOU to hit up Pinterest and blogpost your progress! I'd love to learn something new and be inspired by my friends!

Here are a few links to friends who took the challenge:
Shellie

A Double take

ME: age 2 NOAH: age 2

From the day this kid was born, it was appearant he had hit my gene pool. I stumbled upon this picture a little while ago and was absolutely amazed at how similar we look. It's so strange to see your own face staring back at you each morning. I love that we share this connection.



We also share the same sense of humor!

Oh The Agony

My dear sweet baby girl Olivia recently turned 10 months old. It's an exciting time because her personality is developing so well, but it's also a scary time because that seems to be the only thing developing. The unfortunate thing about having a baby when all your friends have babies is that you tend to compare them to everyone else. Right now, all the babies Olivia's age have been sitting up for months, eating well, crawling and are even close to standing up. Most babies are getting close to the 20 pound mark and are getting super tall. Olivia, is doing none of these things.

At 10 months old, Liv won't sit up, refuses to crawl and weighs an astonishing 11 pounds 5 ounces. I know it's shocking, it's actually difficult to even write it. Because the truth is that most people will say she's just "petite" but it's when you tell people just how little she weighs that you can actually HEAR the breath being sucked out of them. It's phsyically painful to admit it because I know that a lot of people instantly jump to one conclusion: I'm not doing my job.

And I'm not sure I would think much differently than them. Afterall, they don't see the massive amounts of baby food she eats, or the 6-8 times she breastfeeds a day. They don't watch her constantly snack on foods her brothers eat or adamately refuse to take a bottle or sippy cup. They also don't see the amount of times a day that I spend trying to get her to sit up, or put her on her tummy to crawl. They don't hear her wail from sun up to sundown because I make her do things she is so insistant on not doing. They see 11 pounds 5 ounces, and a baby who is completely dependent on me.

Though I beat myself up daily about it, I have to recognize that sometimes these things are completely out of my control. But I also have to stop and look at the fact that when Noah was exactly 10 months old, I wrote an almost identical BLOG about him. And that when Elijah was 11 months, I wrote another incredibly familiar BLOG about him. Though I hate to lump her in a category, when you look at the facts, it's pretty appearant that ALL my children have gone through this 10 month hump, and everyone of them have gone on to thrive. If you looked at my boys right now, you wouldn't even think they ever had trouble when they were babies.

So, as I pray and give this worry and fear to the Lord knowing that He made Olivia the way she is, and was meant to be, I take comfort in the fact that I've walked this path twice before. And I hope one day very soon, this blog will be a part of a long list of blogs that I look back on and say, "Oh yeah, I forgot that was even a problem."