Monday, July 30, 2012

4 Months

Jillian is 4 months old today.  She is such a sweet & precious baby.


  • She smiles at us all the time & "talks" & coos a lot.  
  • She's learned to roll over from her tummy to her back.
  • When she's on her tummy there's a lot less fussing because she's holding herself so well now.  You can tell she likes it because she's able to look around or if I give her a toy she can play with it.
  • She's learning to reach out for things.  When she lays on her activity mat she grabs hold of some of the toys hanging down.
  • Tomorrow is her 4 month well visit so I don't know her stats yet.  I do know that she's over 12 pounds though.  And so long!  She's been wearing 6 month clothes for a while now & already seems to be outgrowing the sleepers.  When she stretches her legs the sleeper isn't tight but definitely running out of room.  But other clothes like onsies are really lose.  So I think her length is all in her legs.  This she did not get from her momma!
  • She's still sleeping in our room but will be moving to her room very soon.  We've had a busy month & I'd like to get us back in our old routine before I make the big switch.  She's been sleeping through the night for a while now so I know she's ready.  I don't think I am though.  I cried the first night we moved Shaylin out & I'm sure I'll do the same with Jillian.
  • Although I don't intend to introduce solid foods to her for another 2 months, I'm going to start researching how I want to go about it.  I'm strongly considering skipping all the cereals altogether, or at least skip rice cereal.
With Jillian turning 4 months today it also makes me reflect on her birth, or more specifically my birth experience.  In some ways I feel like I shouldn't be too amazed that I did it all natural seeing how that's how it was done for hundreds of years.  But I am amazed!  I accomplished a goal that was very important to me. And it really has made me feel like a stronger person since coming out of it.  It's also given me such a passion for natural birth.  I read so many articles posted from some Facebook groups that I follow & just eat it up.  I don't know if God may someday have me to work in the birthing field but my interest in definitely peaked.

Monday, July 9, 2012

My Cleaning Schedule

Apparently my last post was my 100th post.  Woo hoo!

Going from 0 to 1 kid was tough.  Going from 1 to 2 is way harder.  It's taken me a long time to find a routine.  And really I'm still working on it.  Some mornings both girls wake up before 7.  Other mornings like today they both sleep till 8:30.  A lot of mornings Shaylin wakes up long before Jillian.  So that alone makes it difficult to find a good routine for us.

Sadly the more days we just stay home the better we seem to function.  Or maybe that's just me.  It's not easy when one child needs 2 naps a day & the other only 1.

I've been able to keep up with my running pretty well.  Hopefully Jillian can become more predictable soon so I can wake up, pump, run for 30 min. & shower all before she wakes.  Until then I'm squeezing it in when I can.  Today I had to wait till both girls were down for naps.  Not my favorite time to run but it's just how the day went.

Most important to me was finding a cleaning routine again.

Is it obvious yet that I thrive on routine?

I've always had a laundry routine & after Shaylin was born I slowly added a cleaning routine.  I thought I was going to be able to keep up with it during this last pregnancy but that goal quickly failed.  Oh well.  It's hard work growing a person!

It's been over 3 months since Jillian was born & at this point I pretty much got a good cleaning & laundry schedule.  Throw in running or working out & I have a full week.  Here's how my weeks typically look:

Monday:
- grocery shopping
- girls' laundry
- run

Tuesday:
- wash towels
- workout
- dust & vacuum

Wednesday:
- change sheets on all beds & wash dirty ones
- run

Thursday:
- sweep & mop kitchen & bathroom floors
- clean bathroom sinks, toilets, & showers
- workout

Friday:
- mine & Jeremy's laundry
- clean mirrors & sliding glass door
- dust & vacuum

On top of this, every morning I empty the dishwasher, after the girls go to bed I clean up the kitchen, make Jeremy's lunch for the next day, & every other day I wash Shaylin's cloth diapers.  I'm trying to actually vacuum more than twice a week since I have a constantly shedding dog.  And I'm trying to find one day a week where I do "projects" that I've been meaning to do, like file medical bills.

Sometimes on Saturdays I'm still working on laundry but usually it's just a matter of putting it away & doesn't take very long.  And of course I run on Saturdays, too.  But what I love about my cleaning schedule is it keeps me from having to do any of this stuff on Saturday or especially Sunday since that's the Lord's Day, not mine.

What's also great about keeping up this schedule is most activities don't take me that long because I do it every week.  I just never want to have a day where I'm doing load after load of laundry.

This certainly can't work for everyone.  And I don't always stick perfectly to it.  The crazy problem I have is if I miss a day, let's say Thursday's cleaning stuff, I won't do it the next day.  I'll wait a whole week so they will still be done on a Thursday.  Yes, I really am that crazy!

Monday, July 2, 2012

July 2

If I want to post a new status update on Facebook, before clicking on the box it asks "What's on your mind?".  Rather than posting it as a status, I'm writing a blog post.  

Today is July 2.  It has significance to me.  It's a due date of one of the precious babies we lost.

But the problem is that I can't remember which baby the due date belongs to.

And that bothers me.  A lot.

I really haven't retained all 6 due dates.  Or the dates that we lost each baby.  That's just a lot of information to keep in my head.  There are certain ones that I will never forget, like the day we learned we lost our first baby (May 2, 2007) or that baby's due date (December 21, 2007) or baby #3's due date (December 3, 2008) or baby #6's due date (September 9, 2009).  But the rest I have a rough idea.  And I've been ok with that.  So why am I so bothered that I can't for the life of me figure out if July 2 was baby #2's or baby #5's due date?!

I'm not beating myself about this & in the end I'll be ok.  I know I'm still a good mother & I'm only human.  It's just another reminder that no matter how many years go by or how many of my babies are born, the painful sting of miscarriage will always be there.