Welcome to Toddler-hood

Dear Larissa, Mother of Lilian,
Today we welcome you to toddler hood, which will eventually consist of toy aisle tantrums which may include, but are not limited to: snot excreting from the nose, screams that can be heard all the way to the cash register and embarrassment only a mother can anticipate.
Toddler hood will also consist of: Seeing your little "baby" grow up right before your eyes. Get the feeling like your "little stinker" is growing up too fast and learning too quickly. Getting teary eyed when your little one catches your eye across the room just to smile at you. You realizing that you are no longer the mother of an infant or baby. That the next big step is elementary school. You realizing that those "newborn" days that you were so stressed out about and sleep deprived, are days you actually miss and when you look back at them, you actually exclaim "awww" out loud.

Today at this exact time, 7:20am I was in the hospital, 4cm dialated and contracting every 8 minutes, in less then six hours, I would be meeting my Lilian. She was place on my chest the second I gave birth to her. I remember feeling her little tush and crying my eyes out, looking up at my husband and not even recognizing him, because he was full of tears with a red face. He leaned over and kissed both Lilian and I, whispering " I love you guys."
I remember sleeping one hour that night. I wasn't even tired. I just stared at her while she slept next to hospital bed. She was so content. I was so terrified. I was responsible for this little person. Holy. Crap.
I followed her everywhere, every time the nurses came in and asked if they can take her to the nursery to check her stats, I followed right behind. I remember not wanting to go come from the hospital, I remember when the nurse pushed me through the hospital to my car, I was so proud holding my Lilian, I swear my face was as bright as a 60 watt bulb. I remember being terrified of the ride home, but she just slept right through it. When we got home, I slept on the couch, purposely uncomfortable so when she needed to be fed, I'd be awake and ready to go. I remember my husband trying to help me relax, I remember crying on his shoulder for no reason and being terrified for no reason. I remember thinking that it'll take forever for her to turn one year old. Now that I look back on everything, I wish I had those days back, I would try and make them last forever.
Now I have a wonderful, silly, excited, glowing, smart happy toddler. I love how passionate she is about everything. I love how smart she is, I love how brave she is. I love how silly she is, I love it how when she knows that she is doing something that makes you laugh, she'll do it longer or more. I love cuddling with her in bed and feeling her little warm feet drape over my legs. I love waking up and seeing her sleeping face, she looks so happy and comfortable. I love seeing her get excited about something, she points and opens her mouth really wide and gasps, like to say "No way!!!".
I can't wait for her to grow up but another part of me wants her to stay a baby forever.

Picture withdrawl!

My camera is broken and I haven't been able to take any pictures of my adorable baby....ahem....sorry, I mean toddler.
She has been getting better at walking. She can totally do it, but she's too scared to walk on her own. I'll hold her hands, she'll get moving, I will slowly let go, and she'll walk a couple of steps, and then you can see that she realizes no one is holding on to her, and she'll fall on her diaper. Wow that was a run on sentence.
I'm also trying to get her to eat more table food. She ate mac'n cheese yesterday for lunch and the day before she ate chicken for lunch. I'm going to be so embarrassed when her doctor asks what she is eating and I am going to have to say that she is still eating a lot of baby food. I try to give her table food, but she won't eat enough to be considered a healthy meal, so I have to supplement with baby food. I know it's probably enableing her, but what else should I do? This is my first time, so I guess it's trial and error. I know this sounds a little dramatic, but I feel like I messed up. I mean she's gonna be one year old tomorrow and she's still on baby food? What the hell. I feel like the parent of that five year old you see still in a stroller and sucking on a pacifier, does that make sense? She's still nursing too, but that doesn't bother me. I'll let her nurse until she's ready to stop. I mean I am not going to nurse until she's going into elementry school, but I'm not stopping at one either, I mean she's not stopping at one.
((sigh)) There are a lot of things that I did with Lilian that I think I'll do differently with our next child. Sometimes when I sit and think about it, it feels like I did a lot of things wrong. I know it's a mom thing to feel, and I know I tried my best, but it's hard to not doubt yourself, ya know? Anyways....let's talk about my baby factory. So remember back when I posted I got AF? Well I didn't. I like spotted for two days, and that was it. And now it's happening again, what is up with that? It's really annoying. I'm not pregnant either. So that's not it. My body hates me. I hate my body, it goes hand in hand.

Tomorrow is Lilian's wellness check up, I'll update you tomorrow.

I got my tetanus vaccine yesterday....my arm is useless. It doesn't hurt really, it just feels like my arm weighs 20lbs, just to lift it. Anyways, I'm exhausted, I don't know why, but I really don't feel like posting anything. I'll come back with something interesting. I promise.

Yesterday was so much fun! We (Lilian and me) didn't do anything out of the ordinary. Just hung out at my parents house until the afternoon, went home to meet Jace, and then we (Jace, Lilian and me) went out to eat. Lilian loooooooooooooves fries....I think that's bad. But every time I would have a fry in my hand she would grab my hand and bring it to her mouth. I also gave her a couple of bites of my chicken sandwich...she loved it. After dinner, we went home and played on the floor with all of her toys for an hour then it was time to start the bed time routine. She ate dinner ( a really good dinner) and took a bath. I brushed her teeth, put lotion on her and brushed her hair along with cleaning out her ears and nose (she likes to store food in her nose) and proceeded to nurse her to sleep like I usually do. She didn't fall asleep though. I looke down and I see two little eyes staring back at me....then a smile. So back to the living room floor covered in toys we went.

I ended up getting a phone call from my mom. My parents and brother with his wife were at a Bar/restaurant called Br.ew Ga.rd.en. Lili wasn't tired, I wasn't tired, so we went. There was a live band playing, Lili started dancing and laughing, it was a hiliarious show. We got home about an hour later and off to bed we went.

So my Saturday was nice...my Friday? Not so much. I had to wake up at the butt crack of dawn to get Lili to her appointment to get a flu shot. I had to get a flu shot and then I stepped on a rusty roof nail. Now I italilsized rusty because it wasn't questionably rusty, or here or there rusty.....the whole dange thing was unbelievably rusty. I was taking out the garbage in my husband's flip flops... and suddenly I felt this horrible dull pain in my foot, I lift my foot up and notice a nail sticking through the sandal and into my foot. I had to pull it out. That sucked. Luckily it didn't go too far in, not bad at all. It still hurt really bad though. I called three different places, all said I have to go get a tetanus shot....((sigh)). So have I gone yet? Nope. Why? Because I'm lazy, and I feel like I'm wasting time. Sounds ridiculous right? I know. I am going to my health department tomorrow to get one...I swear. I have to get a shot within three days of the incident according to poision control. So Monday is the third day...I'll let you know of my jaw starts locking up before that.

Stinker cannot breathe

Lili is sick. Poor thing couldn't breathe last night, so it was a hell of a night. She would wake up crying almost every 45 minutes it felt like. I got no sleep.
I took some pain reliever P.M's last night so I could fall asleep at a decent time ( I have a hard time falling asleep). Yeah. Those suckers didn't work at all. Two hours post pills, I'm wide awake watching t.v waiting for them to at least make me drowsy. Nothing. Anyways, I took them because like I said I needed to get to bed because this morning, I had to be at Lili's pediatrician at 8:45 am for her flu shot; he is about 30 minutes away. So I knew I'd be tired. Well it didn't matter what time I got to bed, I was up every hour with Lili anyways.
She did well with her vaccine. She didn't even know she got a shot. Well stinker is up from her nap.

((Sigh))
Alright, I'm back. We went out to lunch. Is it bad that I took out my congested baby? I figure she's going to be congested no matter where she is, home or out.
I just got her down for another nap, her last one was a sorry excuse for a nap. Usually to get her down for a nap I hold her facing me and rock her. This time while I was rocking her, I guess she wasn't tired and thought it was hilarious to make motor boat noises in my cleavage.....I kid you not. I am wearing a low cut shirt so she was eye level with the 'girls'. I couldn't help but laugh when she giggled, but that just egged her on. That's all the news for now, I'm going to get my flu shot in a couple of hours...I'm a wimp. I gave natural birth, I have nine piercings and three tattoo's, but I'm nervous about getting a vaccine....lame.

Fall in Florida

It's so nice outside, it's 68 degrees. Yes. That's right friends....68 degrees is considered crisp to us Floridians. We are a warm bunch.
I felt it when I woke up this morning, not Lili's wet cheap diapers, I felt that it was nice a cool outside. I don't know how I do it, it's not like I actually feel the temperature, I can tell it's cool outside without actually going outside.
It is going to be a little hard to enjoy the outside weather because I feel like complete and utter crap...yup...crap. I have snot dripping out of my nose, my right eye is swollen from sinus pressure, I am sneezing like a mad man and I can't smell or taste a thing. Oh well. What can you do?
So back to Lili's wet diaper this morning. So my little stinker sleeps with me in the morning....we both like this accommodation. So as we are cuddling I feel her little bum is wet. Yup. Her pee actually penetrated the diaper. The one time I actually buy the cheaper diapers, because I thought to myself "It can't be that bad....it's just supposed to absorb, it'll be ok." Nope, it's not ok. Her butt was wet, her clothes were wet, my sheets were wet. Stupid diapers. They were half the price for a reason, because they are half as good. This is just a public service announcement: Do NOT buy store brand diapers, they suck. If as a Mother, you feel a product will not work for your baby....you are probably right.
Alright, I'm stepping down from my soap box.

Yesterday Lili and I were playing outside with Duke. He is our 5 year old Dobermand Pinscher. He loves his Lili. Here is a picture of my handsome pup and some pictures of him and Lili playing when she was five months old.
So as I was saying we were outside playing with Duke. Lili would follow him EVERY WHERE. She would then grab his red ball that is laying on his paws and give it back to him. Duke would very gently take it from her little hands, when he would take it from her hands, his mouth is the lenght of her arms, so her entire arm would disappear into his mouth. Then she would grab it again, Duke would get all excited, thinking that she is about to throw it for him, nope, she would just take a step or two and hand it back to him, he was fine with that. He would gladly take it. I need to take more pictures of them...my camera took a poop though.

Growing up the odd one out.

I'm going to write about something that's pretty personal to me and that is growing up as and currently being a Jehovah's Witness.
I'm not going to write about what we believe in or anything like that, but more of what I had to grow through on a daily basis. I understand everyone has been made fun of one time or another, maybe because of a birthmark, being overweight, braces or maybe too tall. When you get teased for something like that, you don't have a choice but carry around the object of your teasing, but growing up as a Jehovah's Witness, I had a choice on a daily basis if I wanted to endure teasing and ridicule. I could pretend I wasn't a 'witness' today, and everyone would leave me alone. No one would know.
Going through school as a witness (I will refer to being a Jehovah's Witness as 'witness') was hard. As a witness, I didn't celebrate any holidays which included birthdays, nor did I say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. As everyone knows from personal experience, children are cruel, so when children observed me not taking part in Birthdays I usually got made fun of. I didn't mind getting sent to the library to sit by myself while the class celebrated birthdays, I didn't mind having to sit on the bench during chorus because they were singing Christmas Carols. I didn't mind not being able to dress up and go trick or treating....really I didn't, I never felt like I missed a thing. I didn't miss not getting birthday gifts or party.
The only part of not celebrating holidays that bothered me and usually brought me to tears was when I got made fun of, told I was a freak and idiot. Or when I would get ridiculed by close family that weren't witness's, or when they would try to pin me against me mother, because she declined a invitation to holiday party. That hurt. It hurt when I grew up and the same part of my family still didn't understand we had beliefs and we weren't going to compromise those beliefs for them. But even if we did, say for one day we decided "Whatever! Let's go to Thanksgiving dinner!" It always baffled me how this said family would not feel bad for talking some into compromising their beliefs...I don't know. It hurt when that same part of my family tried playing the guilty card by saying it was hard for them .....for them.....hard for them... to grow up with witness's as relatives. It was hard for them to go through holidays knowing we weren't going to be at the Christmas dinner or birthday. It's hard for me to feel bad, especially after all the nagging and persecution I've gone through, I have no empathy I guess.

I want to raise Lilian with good standards. I want to raise her the best way I can. I look back at the job my parents did, I look at the job my in-laws did, and I hope to follow in those foot steps. I need to show Lilian that no matter how much she goes through for sticking to her standards, principles and beliefs, it's worth enduring it.
Growing up as a Jehovah's Witness is something I rarely ever talk about, I don't harp on it, I don't even really think about it. I figure every person has their belief that someone will not agree with, so I am no different, I'm not special. But when family threaten to never let their child develop a relationship with Lilian, it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart that even after so much we ,as mankind, have broadened out and come to accept others for whatever they stand for, a simple invitation decline can bring down 24 years of a family relationship and future relationship of little cousins. My heart hurts now. But I know I need to stand for my beliefs, because if I don't now, all those years of standing for I believe in will be pointless.




I just wanted to add something. Lauren, here is the answer to your question. Thanks for asking.

Have you thought about what you will do or how you will react if Lillian chooses not to follow in the witness path? Or how you will answer her questions regarding other religions?

I haven't really thought about it, but coming from personal experience, I would have to let Lili do what she thinks she needs to do. I wouldn't be happy about it, but I really wouldn't have a choice. When I was a teenager I decided that being a witness wasn't something I wanted to do. I rebelled in every aspect you can think of, for a while too. But I came back to the religion because I thought it was the right choice for me. And I hope that if anything like that happens with Lili she'll make the same choice.
As far as answering her questions regarding other religions, I would encourage her to do research and find the answers she is looking for, the same thing my parents told me when I was younger. Actually when I was younger, in highschool, I took four years of world religions class to learn about other religions, it was something I wanted to be educated about.