Dear Blog…

Dear Blog,

I have to start with an apology and say that I am SO sorry for neglecting you.  It wasn’t intentional.  I didn’t even realize that it had been so long.  Not that it’s any GOOD excuse, but I had a baby, was still taking care of the big baby who just turned 2, and moved across the country.  I hope you understand, and that we can start fresh, and move forward from here.  I love you Blog, I really do, and I promise to be more attentive, and  post to you as often as possible.  Thanks for understanding.

Rashida

Traveling with Two Under 2, Part II

Wow, is all I can say.  It took me almost a week to recover enough to even be able to write about my first trip with both of my children.  But then I remembered how bad it was, regressed, and decided to wait until we got back home to write about the whole travel experience.  Still traumatized, I waited even longer, and now, here it is.

For the flights going to Dayton, I did everything good mommys are supposed to do…packed a bunch of my sons favorite snacks, his favorite toys, got him TV on the plane so he could watch cartoons, had Mr. Bluefin (his stuffed fish) ready in case he wanted to take a nap, and NONE of it mattered.  He just wanted to do what he wanted to do.  The first leg of the trip, he did well during the take-off, watched cartoons for a little while, and I thought, wow, this won’t be as bad as I thought it would/could be.  THEN the whining started.  He decided that the cartoons bored him, he didn’t want to watch them anymore, so he started to throw the earphones, almost hitting the woman in front of us.  So, I thought, well maybe he wants a snack.  Pulled out his favorite granola bars, no dice.  Cheese and crackers?  No thanks, crumbled them up and threw them on the floor.  FINALLY got a hit with the fruit snacks, but only had two little packs left.  It wasn’t enough.  He started to get mad that there weren’t anymore, so he started whining again.  Ok, pull out his Bumblebee Transformer, nope, doesn’t want that….okay…maybe the laptop he just got that he loves so much.  Nah, not really interested, played with it for about 5 minutes, and threw that too.  Then the whining started again.

I’m thinking to myself, thank GOD this is only a one hour 45 minute flight, but then I thought, man, he’s gonna do this the WHOLE rest of the way, then thankfully, the drink cart comes by to save the day.  For a little while at least.  He’s calm for about 15 minutes while he sips on his little soda.  I am thankful to the flight attendant for getting us a re-fill and buying me another 15 or so minutes of whine-free time.  So he whines for most of the rest of the flight, but I tune it out for the most part, and just try to keep him quiet enough so that he’s not disturbing all the other passengers.

So then this horrendous smell starts to permeate the air, and im looking around like, “who the HELL is THAT?!?!”  Then, to my dismay, I realize its my child, and I had to laugh out loud a little bit.  So I take him to the incredibly small bathroom, change his rancid smelling diaper, and think, there’s not much else that can go wrong.  BOY, was I wrong.  About 20 minutes later, we’re sitting down, well im sitting down, he’s jumping on the seat, squealing, because the man behind us is playing with him.  I try to get him to sit down, and then he turns and looks at me, shakes his head, and then throws up ALL OVER himself, me and his sister, who is in a sling.   I don’t even have time to say anything but, “Oh!”, the beginning of OH MY GOD!   I just sat there and looked at him for about 15 seconds, too stunned to do anything else.  The man sitting behind us (who obviously has flown with children before) immediately popped up out of his seat, and got us some paper towels.  The flight attendents were also really cool and helped us out.  After that leg of the trip, I vowed to never again travel with two small children by myself.

Coming back to California, however, wasn’t so bad.  Miles still didn’t want to walk around the terminal or the jetway to get down to the plane, which made things more complicated, but didn’t really phase me.  I was SO happy once we completed our trip that I just took a couple of days and didn’t really do much of anything that required me having to get the kids ready and leave the house.  Now if I could just get these suitcases unpacked…

Traveling with two under 2, Part I

Pray for me.  Tomorrow will be my first foray into traveling with two small children.  I have to say that I am not particularly looking forward to it, but I am trying to make sure that I am as prepared as I can be so that its not total chaos.  When I was traveling with just my son as a baby, it was still relatively easy.  Pack a couple snacks, some toys, put him in the sling and go.  Traveling with him was easy, he usually nursed as the plane was taking off and slept most of the way until he was about 17 months old, which was the last time we flew.  I was 7 1/2 months pregnant, and it seemed like once we got into the airport, he turned into a tasmanian devil, twisting out of my grip, wanting to run everywhere, and screaming as loud as he could.

This time, he’s 22 months, and I have a 5 1/2 week old, so it’ll be just that much harder.  He’s stepped up his rambunctiousness, and is one of the loudest kids I know right now.  Im just hoping that he will keep it together while we are on the plane.  My daughter will be a breeze, just put her in the sling and give her some boobie if she needs it, and she’s good.  Im trying to think of all of the things that I can do to make sure that he’s occupied, and doesn’t scream his brains out the entire way, without having to pack ALL of his toys.  Thankfully, we will have free DirecTv, so maybe some cartoons will help to keep him occupied.

Ah, just praying that everything will go smoothly, and maybe he will fall asleep for the second leg, since we will be flying mostly in the late after, early evening.  No naps for him tomorrow unless its on the plane!  Will update once we’ve completed our trip.  Here’s to flying and staying sane!

Life Changes

So many things in life change, and it can happen so quickly that it will make your head spin.  Welcoming a second baby into the family is definitely a major life change.  Not just for you, who can at least prepare for it, but if you have older children, its a major life change for them also.

My son was 21 months when his sister was born, and its amazing to watch him changing and adjusting to her being in what was formally “his space”.  He has definitely stepped his energy level up a few notches, but he is also a really loving big brother.  When I was pregnant, I would always point to my belly, and say, “your sister Micah is in there”, and he would rub, and sometimes kiss my belly.  I wondered if that would continue once she got here, and it has.

Its the sweetest thing to watch him with her.  He loves to give her kisses, and when shes crying, he’ll stop what he’s doing to go to her and try to calm her down.  Don’t get me wrong, when she first came home, he wanted to love her, but  was NOT happy about her being here, and tried to get some little licks in (lol), but it didn’t take him long to warm up to her.

Initially, I worried about them being so close together, but people assured me that they would be very close because of their age difference.  I am already beginning to see signs that they will be pretty close, and im excited to see how that bond changes, and evolves over the years.

Ah, if we could all be like children and take life changes in stride…

I’m BAAAAAACK!!!

Yes, after an unanticipated, much longer than planned hiatus, I am back!  Back, and excited.  I am now mommy to 2 little people who, throughout the day, never cease to fascinate me.  My little girl arrived mid-March, and she has just been a joy.

I will divulge the details later, because, I am so excited to be back. I hope that you will continue with me on this journey through motherhood, now times 2!

It’s been a while…

Well, its been a while since the last time I wrote and SO much has been going on.  Of course, i’ve been “on-the-go” as always, but in the time that i’ve been gone, we found out that we are expecting another little bundle of joy!  Im SO very excited, but i’ve been completely exhausted running after my 17 month old.

I PROMISE I will be blogging more now that I have more energy, and will continue to discuss issues that affect mommies on-the-go.  Thanks for all your support!  you’ll hear from me soon.

Mocha Mommy

Is the food safe to eat?

If you’ve been watching the news recently, you’ve seen all the beef recalls, and recalls on vegetables like tomatoes, bell peppers, chile peppers, and spinach in the recent past. It’s interesting because the ONLY reason that these stories came out is because LOTS of people got sick this time and reported it, they couldn’t risk ruining their industry, and so they went ahead and recalled some of the food. There’s no telling how many times people have been sick and not realized that what they were experiencing was food poising. That’s scary to me!

What a lot of people don’t realize is that these companies are about their bottom line, NOT your health. They put all kinds of pesticides and herbicides on your vegetable, and hormones and sh*t in your meat, and don’t think twice about it. People like to believe that the government has our best interest at heart, and set up regulations that would protect us from pesticides that have been linked to cancer and developmental issues, and hormones that are causing detrimental changes (developmental and fertility) in our children. I wonder how many people would change their eating habits if they realized the toxic load that they were putting on their bodies.

Over the past couple of years, my husband and I have slowly made the transition to organic, locally produced fruits and veggies, and grass fed, hormone free meats to reduce the toxic load on our bodies, and it has made a tremendous difference. Is organic better, yes, but it also depends on what you buy organic. In the last couple of years, organic has become a buzzword that is slapped on so many products and you can’t tell what’s good and what’s not. Check what organic means in your state. In general, the rule in our house is if it has more than 5 ingredients, and/or contains ingredients that you can’t pronounce or find in nature, then you don’t need to put it in your body.

As far as the meats, we’ve been especially careful, because of the ridiculous amounts of hormones and antibiotics that are allowed to be given to animals now. They are given growth hormones to make them huge, and grow faster to get them to market as quickly as possible, and given antibiotics because most of the time they live in filthy conditions. Not only that, but they are not fed what they would eat if they had their choice. Cows eat grass, chickens eat worms, turkeys eat plants and insects. When you go the grocery store, you see signs about vegetarian fed animals, and we think thats good because it’s been suggested that vegetarianism is good for humans. But it ain’t necessarily so for animals.

All i’ll say is, be aware of what you’re putting in your bodies, and the bodies of your children, because these companies count on you being ignorant about what they are putting in your food. Do a label check, see what’s in there, and if you can’t understand it, do some research. Believe me, your family will thank you for it!

Baby Steps 2.0

Well, it’s interesting how things happen. Last night, I wrote about not wanting to force my son to walk, and that he would do it in his own time, and today…he’s walking! We were sitting out on the back porch trying to stay out of direct sunlight (it’s hot as HELL in Dayton today), and he was holding onto the railings, walking across the porch away from me. I thought for a minute, maybe he’ll get nervous and start freaking out, but he was okay. He kept turning back and laughing, so, I didn’t think anything of it, he was having a good time.

Each time, he held on, and walked a little bit further away, and im just trying to make sure that I can jump up and grab him if he decides he wants to jump somewhere or falls. I offered him some water thinking he would follow the railing back, but he let go of the railing, and just walked over to me. Just like that! At first, I thought I was seeing things, but he took small little steps, and just kept making his way over to me. I couldn’t believe it. My baby walking!!! Almost immediately, I flashed back to the first time I saw him, wow, my baby. And now, WOW, this is MY baby, walking to me for the first time. I cried in excitement, and I am not a cryer. This is the next step, he’s on his way. Getting bigger every day, and giving me more things to be excited about and look forward to!

Baby steps

I, like many other mothers, frequent a couple different baby sites, and get a weekly “checkup” email on new milestones to look out for. Milestones that really, in the grand scheme of things mean nothing. Well, maybe “something”, but sometimes, I think it’s just another way to freak parents out about whether or not their child is developing “correctly” or “on time”. These milestones are just supposed to be a GENERAL GUIDE for things your baby may or may not be doing yet. It even says in the email don’t be alarmed if your child isn’t doing the things the email references, because each child develops at their own pace.

You see all the message boards, full of women who are freaking out because their 13 month old doesn’t have a vocabulary of 10 words yet, or hasn’t yet decided that s/he wants to walk without holding onto your hands. OR, you have the moms who brag about their kids knowing two and three word phrases, or having a 76 word vocabulary in three different languages. It can be so extreme at times that I just have to sit back and laugh, and think about how much these people must be stressing themselves and their babies out about these things. I wonder do they realize that they are helping to raise a generation of neurotic children?

I know that they mean well, and they want their children to grow up and be smart and productive members of society, but people don’t give babies enough credit. They are smarter than you know. My son doesn’t say much more than mama or dadda, but he understands EVERYTHING that I say to him. He knows when I am going to tell him not to touch something, because he turns around and looks at me first, and shakes his head “no”. He can’t (or doesn’t want to) say it yet, but he knows what he’s doing. He hasn’t decided that he wants to walk by himself, so we walk around together. He’s now getting to the point where he is okay with holding onto just one of my hands, or letting me walk behind him just holding on to his collar. He’ll take a few steps, and then turn around and want to walk with me again.

It bothers me that people want their kids to be early walkers and talkers, trying to make the baby grow faster than s/he is ready to, and then complain about how they wish they were babies again. Babies will do what they are supposed to do when they are ready, it’s the parents ideas about “independence” and things the baby “should” know that will frustrate them the most. Right now, i’m enjoying ALL my sons babyness, because before I know it, he’ll be talking up a storm, walking all over and destroying my house, and i’ll long for the days he could just say “mama”.

Women’s Event at Roll: Bike shop in Dayton area! Come out!

Ladies, do you have a bike, or have you been searching for a new bike?

Well, Roll: (a bike shop at The Greene in Beavercreek) is having a Women’s event this Sunday where they will let you try out new bikes, do body scans to give you the perfect ride, clinics on maintenance of your bike, personal training, Pilates for cyclists and gift bags at the end of the day!

Roll: is a pretty cool spot to learn more about bicycles and riding, so if you are interested, check out the site, and sign up! I’m sure its going to be fun, and I hope to see you there!

Sign up!

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