Updating...

It's been a while.
Stuff has happened.
I admit that i know that putting it all down when i was going through it would have helped me cope, but..... I couldn't. I wasn't ready.
I don't even remember what my last post was about.
*sigh*
Ok so first things first.
My granny phased away.
It hurts to even type that. I really thought i was ready to talk about it, but it seems I'm not so I'm going to move on.
I will talk about how I'm coping.... I'm better. Rosie has helped. I don't have the luxury of falling apart like i really want to since she depends on me so. This is not to say I haven't had my moments. They're just not as severe. The medication helps too. I know that. I'm thankful.
Have I mentioned how amazing Rosie is?
We celebrated her first birthday early since her grandparents had a cruise scheduled on her actual birthday. They didn't do this on purpose. They planned it last year when we all thought she'd arrive on time-not early. I'll post stuff on her party another time.
I'm so proud of my kid. She's trying to walk. I really think she'd be walking now if she didn't over-think everything.
Bill and I are going paleo/paleo-like. Baby steps. I'll post more about it on the food blog.
But...
Life is good.
I thank the Universe everyday for my life.

then life happened

I'm a terrible blogger to begin with because I simply don't have the attention span to be consistent our the creativity to be interesting. But I still do it since it helps me to get it all our there. If people read it, awesome. If they don't, it's cool.
So I'm typing this all out in my phone as my daughter quietly destroys a corner of my room. It works for now.
It's been so long since I've posted anything that I have no clue what I wrote about last. So here's a quick rundown our my life:

I'm no longer breastfeeding:
It's no secret that I have depression and other issues. My need to breastfeed Rosie made me willing to go off my meds for longer, but everyday was a balance between needing to breastfeed and my health. Which is one of the reasons I tried so hard to have a frozen supply. Once we realized that I needed to get back on the meds I stopped pumping and made an appointment.

Rosie has teeth!
took those suckers FOR EVER to break through, but they're finally out.

I'm taking a break from school:
So I failed a class. This means that the university of Phoenix pulled me out of classes until I can pay to retake the class. So.... That's in hold until I can get $1100.

there are things I'm sure I'm missing, but I just can't remember. Im happy. I like my work, I love my family, I'm good.
I do miss my mom and sisters like crazy. I hate that my granny hadn't meet Rosie. I don't know when we'll be able to remedy that.

Here's a pic if Rosie getting into something she shouldn't be getting into:

A mother’s love

I’m doing this early because tomorrow I will be running around like crazy and I want to get this down.

Life has been pretty crazy lately…. The new job, school, Rosie, the house… everything. It’s just nuts.

And I’ve never been happier in my life. Yes, I cry because I only have 2 days in a week  where I’m supposed to rest, spend quality time with my daughter, do homework, do laundry, wash the dishes, clean the house, and do all the other chores that come with being a mom… what was the point of this?

Oh yea… I’m happy.

I am.

I’m tired, but I’m happy.

When I lived at home my mom would tell me about the time right after having me. She says that after I was born an aunt of mine came to visit and said “now you know how much your mother loves you” and at that moment my mom knew exactly what she meant.

When Rosie was born I laid there in my hospital bed hooked up to an IV, bandaged up, propped up by pillows and holding Rosie in my arms…. And that story came flooding back.

I understood.

You will never understand exactly how much your mother loves you until you hold your own child in your arms. Sure, you think you know. Yeah mom loves me. You have no clue. Not even if you took the greatest amount of love you could imagine and multiplied it to the Nth degree would you even come close.

Why else would we be willing to do everything we do for our children? What I do for Rosie doesn’t even come close to what I would do for her.

Don’t ever test a mother’s love. You just have no idea.

I am so in love with my child. My every thought is of her, for her. I want nothing but the best for her and truly feel she deserves nothing less.

No one but another mother will understand how deeply I mean those words.

And because of that I now understand how much my mother loves me.

Thank you momma.

I know I can never hope to return all the love you have for my sisters and I, but I will try.

Rosie and Coconut Milk

Some things to know about coconut milk before giving it to your child:

ü     Coconut milk is often used as a substitute for cow’s milk for children over 12 months that have an allergy or intolerance to dairy.

ü     Coconut milk should not be the child's main source of hydration/liquid or food/calories. Coconut has a laxative effect, so you risk causing the child loose stool, diarrhea, or dehydration if coconut milk is given in excess.

ü     There is debate in the medical (and probably other) community as to whether coconut should be considered as a nut. Given the popularity of nut allergies, people are trying to see if coconuts should be added to the No-No List until age 3.

ü     There are many benefits to drinking coconut milk:

o      Helps to maintain blood sugar places

o      Keeps skin and blood vessels flexible and elastic

o      Aids in building strong bones

o      Helps to prevent anemia

o      Relaxes muscles and nerves

o      Helps in Controlling Weight

o      Decreases the risk of joint inflammation

o      Helps in lowering high blood pressure

o      Helps in maintaining healthy immune system

o      Promotes the health of prostate gland

For a while I was considering giving Rosie coconut milk instead of cow’s milk. I just want to hold off on giving her animal products for as long as possible. Does this mean she’s on a strictly vegetarian diet? No. I just don’t want it to be a huge player in her diet. I’m still debating this one. It may be a 50/50 kind of thing. I may just have soy, almond, coconut, and cow’s milk on rotation. I don’t know yet.

Back to the coconut milk. I wrote a blog post on my food blog on how to make your own coconut milk if you want to check that out.

Here I’m just posting about how it affects Rosie.

What I have decided to do is use it as a substitute for water when I make up her sippy cup. Please note that I am NOT replacing a breast milk bottle here.

What does she think?

She flippin’ loves it!

She just couldn't get enough of it, but as I mentioned before because of its laxative effects I had to take it away after a while. ... .she wasn't too happy with me then. 

As I would with any new food, I am monitoring her for allergies.

Resources:

http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/the-three-best-substitutes-for-a-child-allergic-to-milk/

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_you_feed_a_baby_coconut_milk

http://canigivemybaby.com/coconut-milk

http://www.drgranny.com/2011/05/05/benefits-of-coconut-milk/

7 Months

Rosie is 7 Months old today.
Why is time going by so fast!??!
Well, Rosie is now holding her bottle like a pro. She can drink out of a sippy cup and feed herself.
She's not quite crawling, but it's only a matter of time.
She's saying "dada" now. Though we're convinced that her first word was "hi"

She can give kisses and they are the sweetest thing you have ever seen!

All in all this little girl is amazing.

Momma's Food Demons and Rosie

I’m on this journey to expose Rosie to as many different fruits and veggies as I can get my hands on. I want her to have the opportunity to experience them all before she’s older and the biases of others can affect how she feels about certain foods. This is all in an effort to build a solid foundation of appreciating healthy natural food so that she is less likely to commit the same food mistakes as her mother & father.  

This past week I purchased three new things that I will be writing about in the days to come: coconut, watermelon, eggplant.

I find it interesting, because I want to find a balance between all the new, breast milk, and giving the foods she’s eaten all equal attention and time. And because it’s all fresh, it all has a shelf life that I have to be very aware of.

It’s a huge responsibility –to know that you are responsible for the development and the creation of the foundation on which your child’s nutrition and health stands on.

How do you do that when your own foundation is shaky and you’re busy fighting your own food demons?

You fake it as much as you can and do as much research as you can stand that’s how.

I don’t know if anyone other than my friends read this –if that’s the case I’m ok with it, but I hope that by putting my experiences down they help other moms that are out there fighting their own food demons and trying to help their children avoid their own.  

Pick Up Fruit & Veggies

Rosie has moved on to pick up fruits & veggies. 

Here's what I did this time: 

She's not quite ready to be exclusively on pick up foods so what I do is use one cube of puree mixed in with 12 a cube of diced fruit or veggies and leave the remaining 1/2 for her to work on feeding herself.
I chopped the fruit into a small dice and stored it into the ice cube trays. The fruit's natural juices will help the pieces freeze & bond to each other.

Also, I have started giving her a spoon to work with. I'm not expecting much, but again this is exposure. Every once in a while I'll scoop on a little food on there so she actually feeds herself some food off of a spoon. 

By my calculations, by the time we use up all of the food that I just processed and stored in the freezer, Rosie will be on table foods all together and I won't need to process her food separately. Except for cutting it into smaller bites.