family...local...

i'm so very fortunate to have family in town.  i've thought of this frequently since Avery was born, i'm so very lucky to have their support and to have them close by.  i can't imagine how hard it is to live away from family and to have to wing it solo as a parent.  if anything comes up, i've at least got my mom, sister and mother-in-law (and father-in-law an hour away) if needed.  especially since derek works the insane schedule that he does...i'm solo with Avery a lot.  but for little things, like dentist appointments like i had last night, it's not always awesome to bring my little 2 year old shadow.  so much easier to just call someone to come over and watch her.  and mommy nights out?  hardly EVER have these, but when the opportunity presents itself (like tonight, I get to go to a concert with a friend), i can actually think about it because I can usually find kid coverage.  lucky indeed.  i know many parents don't have this advantage and my hat is off to them.  i miss her insanely and try as much as possible to never ever spend nights away from her because her bedtime routine is literally the only constant this kid has, and i feel a little bad about that.  she's had to be really adaptable at her young age.  she never knows who is coming in to get her in the morning, where she's going that day, if anywhere, if she's staying home, with whom, how long she'll be away from the house if she's going somewhere, when mom or dad will be home, etc.  but...bedtime...that is always mom. i'm always with her at night and we have the same routine each night, and wherever possible, i try to stick to that.  so, inevitably, i'll feel terrible leaving her tonight, especially since i've been away at work all day long as well, and will miss her sooooo much, but she'll be just fine.  and as much as it will break my heart, i do need SOME mommy nights and am so thankful today to have family local to help me out with her.  it takes a village...right?  :)

weekends

friday's are not the same as they used to be.  i used to get totally stoked about them.  now, i like fridays because it means i don't have to work for a couple of days, and i get to spend lots of time with Avery, but at the same time, weekends are just as much work as the work week is, and they are quite frankly, usually really boring.  i miss my husband.  i miss spending weekends with him running errands together, cleaning together, spending time with our little one together.  his weekend shifts are a great thing since he's in school and has to do clinicals and study during the week so it's great for his schedule.  i just miss when he had a normal schedule and we got to be a normal family who spent every week night and every weekend together.  maybe one day soon his schedule will change and we'll have one weekend day together.  i can hope for that.  but for now, we say goodbye to each other on thursday when we meet for a second to swap Avery from one car to the other when i leave work and he's heading into work, and i don't see him again (other than in passing of him going to bed and going back to work) until sunday night.  or this weekend, Monday night because he picked up a shift on sunday night.  it's lonely and i have way more time to myself than i really need..and i LIKE having alone time!!  when he started this job, i thought that time spent apart would be a great thing because i do love being alone sometimes.  and to an extent, it has been, but i guess this absence is a little more excessive than i'd like.  i noticed this feeling when i took Avery to the playground yesterday. other families were there.  whole families, with dads present and they were talking about barbecuing and drinking a beer together when they left the park that evening.  i was sad and jealous that i was at the park alone with Avery, and wasn't able to have that same kind of evening with my whole family, and would ultimately end up spending my evening alone after Avery went to bed.  so that's all for now.  not going too far with this because i'm happy for him that he's pursuing his dream, so i can deal with everything that comes with that.  i have to.  i just need to find more things to do with my weekends than the usual.   and i wish he got to spend more time with his daughter because she adores him and they make a cute pair.

picky eater

i've heard about 4,000 times that toddlers can go through these stages of picky eating where they'll only eat 1 or 2 things over and over.  all day long.  and that they grow out of it.  well avery is doing that right now, and it's not that i don't think she'll grow out of it, but it really bothers me still, more than it should I assume because it repeatedly can bring me to tears if she doesn't eat her dinner.  i want her to eat what i eat, and she won't. she won't try new things that she's not familiar with, and she used to!  when she was 1, her diet was more diverse.  but anymore, for reasons that are both inside and outside of my control, she's come to this point. i'll try to get her to eat something else, but then i'll have to resort back to the 1 or 2 things just to get her to eat SOMETHING.   i know myself..and i'll find a way to feel guilty about just about anything.  but this is way worse.  is it because i wasn't able to breastfeed her?  did i not introduce her to enough diverse foods when she was a baby?  did i not enforce stricter eating habits that sunk in with her?  and also, i really feel like i wouldn't care so much if my girl was a normal sized 2 year old.  which she is not.  she is the size of a normal sized 1 year old.  this all started when she was about 6-7 months old.  she got a bout of diarrhea that lasted for 5-6 weeks.  repeated calls to the doctor, and after we had a regular cardiology appointment for her heart murmur, and he asked us the question of why she had hardly put on weight since he saw her last, led to a "come to jesus" meeting with the pediatrician again.  who sent us to the ER for tests finally.  every test didn't find anything wrong.  they changed her formula, put her on the most expensive kind on the market speculating that she might have an intolerance to proteins, or had developed an allergy to something in the formula she was on.  they also put her on a probiotic.  it worked like a light switch.  literally.  within an hour the constant diarrhea was over with.  so we kept her on this special formula for a couple of months, before switching her back to a regular, organic formula.  i had assumed, as anyone would, that the diarrhea she had been experiencing was directly responsible for her lack of weight gain.  so i assumed when we got that problem fixed, she'd catch up.  but she never has.  they even threw a scary Noonan syndrome speculation our way that we could have genetics testing done on her to find out if she had it and labeled her as "failure to thrive", which you don't know how much i hate labels.  so now..she's 2.  she's has a growth curve that looks identical to every other kid her age, she's just way below where they are.  i know she's healthy, i know everything is okay, and having a small child is not a huge deal, but i just get so tired of people looking at me shocked when they ask how old she is and hear my answer.  it's tempting to lie about it and say she's only 1 just to avoid the looks of shock.  i'm super sensitive about this anymore, thinking, for reasons mentioned previously, that i somehow contributed to my tiny little peanut being so tiny.  i've been reminded that babies on my husbands side of the family have been small before so some of it might be genetics.  the big difference there though is that they were all small babies from birth.  some born pre-term.  but not my girl.  a full beautiful 7 lbs. 12 oz baby girl born 3 days after I was due with her.  certainly not small at birth.  a good sized baby with perfect skin color.  i also hear "well arica, you're petite, so she's like you.".  but...at her age, i was a normal size.  i was much bigger than her at this age.  avery, truthfully, never ate as much as she should have i guess when compared with others.  getting her to take the right amounts of formula (per the pediatric sheets i got from the doctor and the book) was always a struggle, or it just didn't happen.  if she was supposed to have 6 ozs., you'd maybe get her to have 3-4 if you were lucky.  and when we changed her formula, she didn't like it.  so it was even harder for a while.  all of this into consideration, of course it just seems that my kid is just not a particularly hungry kid, never has been, may never be.  but in this critical time for her growth and development, when she's so small anyway, the thought of her not eating really beats me up.  she HAS to eat because she HAS to grow.  she has so much growing yet to do!  my mommy guilt will never end.  i think it's worse although i know we all have it.  maybe the whole tummy issue when she was a baby really messed me up psychologically.  i'm a freak about her eating and her size-i just obsess over it.  and i just hate and dread people asking me how old she is for the looks i'll get and the explanation i'll have to provide.  it makes me feel like a terrible mother, which i'm really sensitive about anyway, although i know deep down that how much I love her proves that i am not a bad mom.  that not much of this, if any of it, i could've prevented, and that i do the best i can.  and that if all she's ever going to be is small..that i'm extremely lucky.  it's amazing to me how much more i care about her than i do myself. 

Heart murmur...

two words no one ever wants to hear.  let alone a parent in regards to their child.  especially when that child is 2 days old.  we were still in the hospital, me recovering from a c-section and the pediatrician on duty that day was explaining to us what pulmonary valve stenosis is.  it was terrifying to hear.  even though she was very reassuring that avery's didn't seem to be an issue at all, very mild, but that she'd need check-ups with a pediatric cardiologist regularly for a while.  i was at a loss.  you never ever want to hear that there is anything at all wrong with your child.  no matter how "mild" they tell you it is.  so of course we did what we were told and took her to a pediatric cardiologist later that week.  she was so tiny and they were doing a full out echocardiogram on her.  to see them rubbing this wand all over my tiny little baby's chest, hoping like i never have before that they aren't finding anything wrong, it was so terrifying.  i nearly collapsed to the floor in tears but i held it together only letting a few overflow from my eyes.  as time went on, it became very clear that her heart murmur really is mild/trivial. it hasn't affected her in the least.  and TODAY..we saw him for the last time for the next 1.5-2 years, and after that, probably never again!  i'm ecstatic like I can't even describe.  no extra shot of antibodies needed at the dentist, no restrictions, just a normal little girl with a healthy ticker.  what i've done in my life that has me deserving to be so fortunate is beyond me.  happy mommy today.  :)  look at this face!!!

Why I don't watch the news anymore

it seems to me that for whatever reason, in the last year or so, there have been way too many cases of children being hurt, tortured or killed by their parents, or by strangers, and it makes me physically sick to my stomach.  there are enough problems in the world without hearing about cases like this.  but also...there is a lot of good in the world that gets completely ignored.  a lot of really important and really awesome things happening in other countries that get completely ignored also.  so for a while, i was just turning the news on quickly to grab the weather report ("I get the news I need on the weather report...", thank you Paul Simon), but now I don't even do that because I usually have to sit through some horrible murder story first before the weather comes on.  so I have this brilliant little thing called an iPhone where there is seriously an app for EVERYTHING, so i just go right to the weather channel app.  no horrible news needed, thank you very much.  come to think of it, the only time my TV is even on anymore is to let my little girl watch a short Charlie Brown movie before she goes to sleep. or to watch a show that I've DVR'd before I go to bed (skipping all of the commercials of course).  i get way too sensitive about all of these stories anymore.  I guess parenthood made me this way.  I hold my daughter close, hug and kiss her many times every single day and end the day each evening with telling her how much I love her, and praying to God to protect her and keep her safe always from the things that I can't.  so turn your TV's off and hug your children.  they will love you for the rest of their lives but you have to love them first so that they know how. 

MINE!!!!

so here we go.  avery has learned the word "mine!!".  so i guess this is where the terrible twos i've heard so much about over the years kick in?  i've been saying how much fun she is (because she really really is) and how fortunate we were because we had such a mellow little baby girl but wow we're kicking up quite an attitude now!  we're also loving the word "no!!!!".  i know, and have known for a while, that discipline for her is going to be tough.  not because I'll have a hard time giving it to her when she deserves it, but because i'll have a hard time establishing if she truly "deserves" it, and if she'll understand what she's being disciplined for.  time-outs didn't seem to work with her.  she'd sit there quietly and if you asked her if she wanted to go to time-out, you'd get "ok" as your answer.  so i've decided to go the "naughty chair" route in the corner.  and oh boy....she HATES it.  so i guess that is good?  today her cousins were over and she spent lots of quality time in the naughty chair for not sharing and trying to take her toys away from austin.  i know all of this is textbook 2 year old stuff.  she has no concept of others at this age, only herself.  her mood swings are like nothing i've ever seen before. totally at peace one second, and screaming the next instant. for what?  who knows.  again, textbook 2 year old.  i think at this point, derek and i both have permanent hearing loss from the screams that come out of this adorable little thing.  i can tell she gets so frustrated because she knows exactly what she wants, and can't find the words to tell me although we're getting better about that.  so it will just result in a whine, a yell, or a cry.  and for the love of God do not tell her that she can't have something she wants!  look out!  she is still my little baby sometimes and loves to cuddle and be held.  she's really taken up affection to her baby dolls and stuffed animals and it's so sweet to see her take care of them (she picks them up and says how I say to her when she gets hurt "awww...it's okay.  you're fine.  shhhh....it's okay now...".  so freaking cute.  and then she's onto the next thing and totally independent, not wanting a thing to do with me.  i've read that toddlers are all a little ADHD.  sure they are, if you want to even label it as that.  or you could just call it "being a toddler" because it seems in some regards there are some commonalities.  i can hardly wait to see what she's like at the end of this year.  when she's about to turn 3.  and see what she's picked up on.  challenges lie ahead...i got her off of her pacifier addiction, and next up will be potty training and a big girl bed transition.  all in time and i'm in no rush because this has already flown by.

so much for being a regular...

so 1.5 years later I'm re-trying this.  Avery is 2 now..somehow that has gone by faster than i ever would've guessed.  i've learned so much from her and i absolutely adore being her mommy.  she hit all of her milestones in stride and still wows me with how smart she is and how much she's learning!  she talks all the time and i can understand more of it all the time.  her new favorite word right now is "toot" which is hilarious.  i would estimate she easily knows 50 words at this point and is getting better about using them appropriately.  i just can't get over how much she's changed so quickly!  I remember her birth like it was yesterday!