Giveaways for the week :)

All natural skincare line from MaMi

This is a giveaway for a really pretty handmade necklace, check it out here
AND
A professionally bound photobook by Inkubook here

Monogram from Quote the Walls here

I want to be a Mime when I grow up

My daughter has this bad habit of waking up before 5 am and refusing to go back to sleep! I can barely function enough to make a pot of coffee at 4:45 am, especially after being up all night with her.
Yesterday I cleaned the room, picked everything up off the floor and checked for any little chokables or other dangers that I might have missed. Clear. So, I figured this morning it would be okay to turn on PBS, put some toys out for her and lie back down (we are sharing a room right now, so I was right there). About 30 minutes later I heard her laughing and thought I would see what cute thing she was laughing at.

OH MY GOD....

She looked up at me with the biggest smile I have ever seen and giggled. The first thought that came to my mind was, Is it possible that a mime broke in and painted my daughter's face?!

She had somehow managed to pull the industrial size tub of Balmex down, not tube but TUB, unscrew the top and paint her face, carpet, my clothes and the pack and play with a thick, greasy layer. This wasn't just a thin layer she used almost the entire tub, and the majority was covering her adorable, little face. Even her eyelashes were completely white. It literally looked like she was preparing for a mime performance.

When I brought her in the bathroom to put her in tub, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror, and a look of horror came across her face, which was immediately followed by hysterical laughter. I considered taking a picture so I could show her later in life, but I decided it would be best not to let anyone else see this disaster!

I guess from now on I will just have to set my coffee pot to brew at 4:30 am and just suck it up!

Mom Look At Me!!

Hmm... I was just going through my pictures and came across these and thought to myself:

"I should probably never show these to anyone."

So then I emailed them to myself and posted them on my blog... I'm just waiting for DCF to come knocking on my door.

I swear I'm a good mom, she's just really, really fast and sometimes I do use the bathroom :)

My sister and I were having a conversation last night on the way to buy a bottle of wine, that was obviously needed, for the evening. It went like this:

Sis: I am so old
Me: No you're not

Sis: I'm 30 and I don't have anything
Me: At least you're about to graduate law school, and then you'll have a law degree

Sis: At least you have a baby, I'm 30 and I don't even have a husband OR a baby
Me: At least YOU'RE not memorizing the ingredients to guacamole and 48 other AWESOME menu items for your AWESOME new waitress job!

Sis: Yea I guess you're right, that DOES suck.
Me: Thanks.

And THAT is why I'm going back to school in 2 weeks :)

Mia Got A Heart!

Little Mia got a heart!! Please pray for little Mia and her family that she recovers quickly. You can read more about her story and surgery here.

Help Baby Mia

Please read this blog and help baby Mia get a new heart.


THE STORY:
I'm so happy to be doing a Quilt Giveaway, in hopes of generating donations for Baby Mia. Mia is my friend's baby, who was born with a dysfunctional heart and is on a waiting list in Seattle for a heart transplant. I read their family blog everyday and just cry. My heart aches for Mimi (the mom) and is so inspired by her strength and faith. She's with Mia everyday, but because of all the tubes isn't allowed to even hold her.

Mia has been patiently holding on for the past 3 months. But, she's one of 7 babies in the Seattle Children's Hospital on the Washington waiting list. Sadly their insurance is falling short of paying for the surgeries and health care Mia has already received. I ask all who read this to please help, by adding the banner at the bottom of this post to your blogs, email, or Facebook. Donate if you can and read about sweet little Mia: HERE

A great day of R and R with my munchkin

My poor baby woke up coughing and wheezing again last night so I immediately turned on the shower as hot as it would go, shut the door and sat in there with her for 15 minutes. This seemed to help a little but I was scared she would wake up and not be able to breathe well in the middle of the night so I put her in bed with me and we tried to get some sleep. Sleeping did not go well because she was so uncomfortable but in the morning she seemed to be feeling a lot better.

We spent the entire day just lounging around in our p.j.s. watching Lifetime's marathon "He's Hot but I Hate Him" with my sister. It was actually a great day, I am so lucky to have a snuggle bunny baby that loves to cuddle with me. Anika also had a snack and played with her best "friend." I am going back to work and school in 2 weeks so I have been feeling so sad that I won't get to spend as much time with Anika anymore, so this was a perfect Sunday spent with my little girl :)

A night in the hospital

So I have been M.I.A. for awhile but I'm back and have lots to blog about!
For starters last night was my first trip to the ER with my little munchkin. Poor thing woke up coughing and wheezing and unable to cry. The first thought that came to my mind was that she had stored away some food in her cheeks and was now choking. After attempting the baby Heimlich and determining that was not the issue I decided that she was having an allergic reaction and her throat was closing up, so my sister and I buckled her in her car seat and rushed to the hospital. They immediately brought her back and started asking me if she had a history of asthma, I told them no and started panicking at the possibility that she could be having an asthma attack. Luckily that was not the case, it was a bad case of croup.
Phew.
They did a nebulizer treatment, gave her a shot of steroids, did chest x-rays and monitored her for 2 hours. Holding her down while she screamed and stared straight in my eyes, obviously begging me to make them stop, was the worst feeling ever. It is so sad knowing your baby is so uncomfortable and unhappy and expects you to make it all better when you know you can't.
The great thing about babies is they forget so fast. Withing 30 minutes of getting the shot of steroids she was back to her old self blowing raspberries as loud as she possibly could at every nurse that walked by, and jumping up and down on my lap "yelling" at me in Anika language.
Today you would have no idea that she was in the ER the night before, she's such a resilient little baby she has had more energy than ever today!
Now I must go relax before she wakes up.

Giveaways Galore

I have been finding some great giveaways that I wanted to share with everyone, check some of theses out:
You can win a beautiful monogrammed burp cloth from the Silken Thread by clicking here
Win 1 lb of gourmet coffee every Friday here
A $250 prize pack from Happy Baby here
A $50 gift certificate to Shellamie Jewelry here and check out her amazing website to see what she has here
A Bissell vaccuum cleaner at SITS
A Golla Laptop Sleeve from Kolobags here
$40 gift certificate to Lily Gulch Soaps here
Beautiful dress AND matching ribbon from All Things Ribbons here

SITS BLOGATHON

Check out this really neat blog! I am new to the blogging world and this is a great site to meet other bloggers and to get your blog out there for others to see. Not only all that but they always have great giveaways, tips and featured blogs.So much fun, I check it every morning, I have found lots of cool blogs through them and others have found me, without them I think I would just be writing to myself haha! Check out some of the neat blogs I have found through SITS:

Cancer Lost
Pennies in My Pocket
Life As A Mom At 22
Keeper of the Skies Wife
Stacey

Yet Another Great Giveaway

This is a great giveaway for some amazing prints for a little girl's bedroom or nursery. Click here to enter

SITS

Check out this really neat blog! I am new to the blogging world and this is a great site to meet other bloggers and to get your blog out there for others to see. Not only all that but they always have great giveaways, tips and featured blogs.So much fun, I check it every morning, I have found lots of cool blogs through them and others have found me, without them I think I would just be writing to myself haha! Check out some of the neat blogs I have found through SITS:

Cancer Lost
Pennies in My Pocket
Life As A Mom At 22
Keeper of the Skies Wife
Stacey

Premature Awareness Month

November is premature awareness month, please go to this March of Dimes link and sign the petition. It only takes a second to do and the more signatures the better. Thank you!

A light at the end of the tunnel

Last night started off really good, Anika slept from 7:30 to 12:15 and then 12:30 to 3:30. Unfortunately she decided that 3:30 am was a great time to start the day, early bird gets the worm I guess! I was so excited about her long stretch of sleep in the beginning of the night that I couldn't sleep, I kept looking at the clock and waiting so I only got three hours of sleep. But I feel like we might be turning a corner (fingers crossed!!). She had been getting progressively worse by the night, going from three hour stretches to two to one and a half and lately every hour waking up, last night gave me hope! I was really starting to think there was no light at the end of the tunnel, I felt like I might never sleep again. I know we have a long way to go but at least I know that there is hope and one day I will sleep again.

Funny story

I got this email from a friend about her 5 year old daughter that made me laugh and I had to share it, I am so looking forward to moments like these in the years to come:

On the way to school yesterday, V announced, "mommy, do you remember when I used to run into the bathroom when daddy was peeing? I used to like to try and see him squeeze his penis and make the pee come out." As I'm trying not to laugh, remembering how M used to dance around to block her view before he got smart and started locking the door, she adds, "That's a true story," and I am suddenly horrified.

Why, you may ask? Well, V's class does something called Writer's Workshop. Kids are asked to illustrate a story, and then the teacher puts their words to it. A TRUE STORY.

I then talked about private parts, trying to think of how to tell her that under no circumstances did I want to come in to talk with the school counselor about why V drew a picture of her Daddy's penis in Writer's Workshop without in fact, suggesting it as a good topic.

She then told me how the teacher told some kids in her class that they were engaging in bathroom talk and had to stop. I told her that the story about daddy peeing was bathroom talk, too, and would not be appropriate at school. Fingers crossed.

Yay for The Office

I have to talk about how excited I am to watch The Office tonight yay!! There is nothing like a great night of TV and there's nothing better than The Office. I'm just praying that since I don't have DVR anymore that Anika waits until 9:30 to wake up.

Bored bored bored

Slowly starting to lose my mind. What the hell do you do with an eight month old? So far we have tried Barnes and Noble which is good but trying to keep Anika from destroying all the books gets very tiring, the park which is also good but again constantly wrestling sticks, dirt and grass out of her little fists before they reach her mouth is exhausting! I need to find some new activities asap before I loose it!

Splish Splash

No matter how hard our day has been tubby time always makes it better. I had no idea someone could love water this much! Seeing her that excited about the water always makes me forget any frustrations from the day and make it all seem worthwhile.
Just wanted to share our favorite time of day :)

Crying it out

I recently realized that I created a monster by feeding my baby every time she woke up during the night. How was I supposed to know that by eight months she would have it figured out and start waking up every hour to get a little snack? For some reason I just assumed that this was what I was supposed to be doing. That is, until my daughter's 6 month appointment when her pediatrician told me that she no longer needed that midnight feeding. She disagreed. It was too late. I tried to get her back to sleep by rocking and soothing her but it was useless, so I went the easy route and just gave her what she wanted: the boob. Not a smart move. But at 3 am a battle of wills between an exhausted and desperate for sleep me, and a determined, very loud infant seemed pointless... I would never win! It got so bad that there was a night or two that I found myself BEGGING her to sleep, I mean crying, making promises to God if only she would sleep, begging. That was when I decided that it just wasn't worth it and did the easiest thing possible.

I feel that I have suffered enough. Every 3-4 hours was manageable, but every hour and a half is NOT, it's torture. I know what I have to do, the scariest parenting thing I have had to face so far, let her cry it out. I have tried, I really have and so far have failed... miserably. I always go into it with a plan: 5 minutes then 10 then 15 and so on. I always give in. I know that eight months is probably a little late to really get serious, but I am. Because if I don't get serious now I'm afraid I'll be doomed to live life as a zombie, surviving only by ingesting massive amounts of caffeine on a daily basis and having to write myself reminder notes to put on a bra and shoes before leaving the house... seriously. It's now or never.

If anyone has any advice please let me know!

If One More Person Tells me to "Just Sleep When the Baby Sleeps" I'm Going to Punch Them in the Face!

Although I truly do appreciate the advice and I understand that people are just trying to be helpful, I have found there are several very serious problems with this plan:

1. I know that sleeping is essential to my well being and survival but there are many other daily activities that also fall into this category; a few of those being: eating, showering and brushing my teeth.

2. I am so jacked up on caffeine there is just no way I could even think about a nap during the day. I have considered the fact that maybe I should cut back on the coffee and take a nap here and there but this would be at the expense of my daughter's well being since I can't even think straight or function, let alone care for an energetic, very mobile 7 month old without large amounts of caffeine.

3. My daughter's idea of a nap is 30 minutes followed by a battle between her and I to get her back to sleep. I cannot bear the idea of falling asleep only to be awoken by a crying baby just 30 short minutes later. That is just cruel and unusual punishment, I would rather stay awake and be tired than be teased with a mini nap.

So please, the next time you come across an obviously sleep deprived mother resist the urge to ask her if the baby is sleeping through the night yet, and definitely hold back from saying just make sure you're sleeping while the baby sleeps.