That's right ... Mommy always wins! :o)

So, dinner time has been quite the struggle as of late. Elizabeth just doesn't want to eat. I put her dinner in front of her, and if it's not hot dogs or mac & cheese, she doesn't want it. My response, "fine." I take the tray away, put her on the floor, and let her go about her evening.

We still haven't cut out night time bottles yet and so my first stab at trying to get her to eat dinner was to cut out any snacks after we get home from daycare. She can only have her sippy cup, but no raisins, crackers, apples ... nothing until dinner. We have been trying this for the past week or so, and not much has changed. My next attempt was to cut down on the amount of milk she got in her night time bottle, and again, didn't make much of a difference.

Last night I told Mark that she was not doing a bottle anymore. Oh boy was he not happy. He hated the fact that I would try and try and try to get her to eat meals that she just wasn't touching and now that I decided she wasn't going to get her bottle at night to help top her off, all he could do was shake his head. First and foremost, I'm not going to be a short order cook, Elizabeth will eat what I prepare, and if she won't, she most definitely will not be getting food that she loves, instead she can have a plain piece of toast and some raisins. Giving into her only spawns a picky eater, and I'm not going to have that! I may make her a separate dinner from what we eat at times, but she still needs to eat what I make her.

Anyways, IT WORKED! I was getting later and later last night, closer and closer to bedtime for Ellie and I didn't get her bottle. She was running around the house crying, in and out of the kitchen, I tried offering her sippy cup, but she knows she has to sit on her bottom to drink it, and she was not going to do that, so, we packed up and went to rock in her bedroom. She was just cranky and cried, so I asked if she was hungry and she signed 'eat' back to me. I was such a proud mommy! I brought her into the kitchen, put her in her high chair and gave her what I had put in front of her almost 2 hours ago for dinner ... and she ate it! (okay, not EVERYTHING, but enough!) She was finished with her black beans and green beans and didn't feel like eating her chicken, so I took the tray away and she started whining again. I asked if she was all done, and she looked at me and signed 'more.' Again, proud mommy! I haven't seen that sign in months, but she knew that she was still hungry, so we ate more beans and a container of yogurt and she slept all night long, with a full tummy, without a bottle.

Mommy - 1
Ellie - 0

The Next Baby...

When you start dating someone, you get to a year and hear, "so, when are you getting engaged?"

You walk down the aisle, come back from the honeymoon and you hear, "so when are you going to have a baby?"

Baby #1 is healthy and you have just returned to work and you hear, "so when is your next one?"

At what point do the questions stop? If I decide that 3-4 years between kids is what is best for us, do I have to put up with 2 more years of questions of when we are going to have our next baby?

I guess I started thinking about this more after discussing this questions with my husband. We got pregnant really fast the second time around, weren't expecting it, and then we miscarried. Are we ready for that again? Should we just enjoy our time with Elizabeth for a while, pay off the car and save a little more? How are we going to afford childcare for 2 babies when I have to go back to work? Why is there so much pressure to have kids so close together?

Believe me, i'm not knocking having babies close together, I was actually pretty excited about it when we got the BFP, but the more I think about it realistically, what if we wait? We would be a little more stable as Mark is trying to find a new job since he just finished school, and maybe i'll have a new job, or at least be making a little more.

I feel pressured to have our children close together, I truly do. Nobody is telling me I have to, but so many of my friends are, my niece and nephew are less than 13 months apart, and I honestly get belly envy, but I need to stop back, breathe and look at what is best for US. And what is best for us right now is to enjoy the 3 of us, enjoy our time knowing that we weren't even sure I would be able to have a baby with all my crazy issues. So even if, a year down the road, I can't get pregnant a second time, we have the most perfect little person carrying around all sorts of traits from her mommy and daddy, and in that, I will be content.

Baby? Toddler?

I had to answer a question on a list of questions today, and one asked how old your child was. Baby (0-12m), Toddler (12-36m), etc. My Baby isn't considered a baby anymore? How can that be? I have to shop in the toddler section, I have to get big girl shoes now, it is going by so fast!

Though she may be considered a Toddler now, she will always be my little baby!

Better walking video

So, here is a video taken at home less than a week after her first few steps. She is now a walking machine, and it just looks so funny to see this little person toddling around the house!

Walking!

Yes, she did it, she took multiple steps all on her own! Elizabeth and I strapped on some shoes and decided to take advantage of a beautiful day outside on Saturday. She had barely napped, and we couldn't stay couped up inside any longer. What was supossed to be a little walk to and from the mailbox turned into about 45 minutes of walking up and down the sidewalk. She mostly held on to my finger, but took steps on her own as well! I was such a proud mommy.

Here is a little clip of our walk on Saturday.



Another, less exciting habit we have formed over the weekend is picking of the nose. She was laying on my chest as we rocked in her room on Saturday, and I look down to see her finger delving deeper and deeper into one of her nostrils. REALLY?!?! Am I going to have "that girl"? I know it's just a phase, all kids find and figure out cavities, but still ...

I cannot stress again how wonderful it really has been that Elizabeth has waited for the weekends to show us her new found talents! I feel so blessed!

Sick to my stomach

Mark got Elizabeth up this morning and I ran back to her room from the kitchen to say my hellos before I had to leave for work. She was happy and waved at me, and then I noticed it, her lips were blue. It almost looked like she had eaten something with blue dye. I started to worry.

Like I said, she was happy, alert, talking, laughing, so I knew it couldn't be too bad, but it still worried me. When she was born, the first pediatrician to see her heard a heart murmur (It was part of the reason we had to stay 2 nights in the hospital) but it was not noticeable the next day upon her 2nd checkup. I just couldn't shake that worried sensation.

I called the doctor and have talked with the triage nurse and I should just keep an eye on her, but it is probably that she was extra cold last night. I have never felt like I have this morning, how sick to my stomach I have been, thinking about what could be wrong or what I did to possibly make this happen. I know it's out of my control now, and I just hope to never see it again.

Rough nights

I now have a big 1 year old! I'll post pictures and recount more of the party day later, but for now, I have a big 1 year old, and with that 1 year old is coming a new attitude. She screams, and quite the high pitch scream, mostly when you take something away from her she wants (usually her Lovey - Moo-Moo). The screaming has started to take on a new life though and when she is frustrated or cranky, she screams. It's not a long scream, but over, and over, and over, and over again.

Yesterday I picked up Elizabeth from daycare and she was happy. She screamed when I told her not to pull the mirror off the back of the seat (for the umpteenth time) and also when I took an envelope from her hand she had leaned over and found in the back seat. Other than that, it was a normal drive home, she got a little tired, but didn't fall asleep. Once we got home, I was able to get a few things done including feeding the dog while she tottered around the house pulling out toys and eventually crawling to her room and finding Moo-Moo in her crib. Needless to say, this was about the last moment that she was in a relatively good mood until after she had a bottle. I read to her, we read with the Tag Jr. reader, we read other books, she flipped through books on her own. We tried playing with her new Farm and all her Little People animals. Eventually I turned on Sprout to see if I could get her to just relax and stop fussing. This worked for a little while.

Dinner time came, and went, and I think she ate 1 bite of her soup. Next was a bath, which she desperately needed, and she screamed the entire time, so that was about a 2 minute bath. I think if someone had walked in the front door when I was changing her into her pjs and getting her lotioned up, they might think I was torturing her. As Mark walked into the room, Ellie was crying, I was sobbing, and luckily he took over.

I write it all down and it doesn't sound THAT horrible, but to me yesterday was just plain awful. I come home from a long day of work, and I have a little crabby-pants awaiting me once I get her out of the car seat. All I want is to spend some quality time with my little one, play with puzzles, or pretend with her play house, cook up some goodies in her play kitchen or just sit quietly and read for a while, yet I come home to a pile of tears and mild tantrums. She is only 1 for goodness sakes, tantrums aren't supposed to start yet.

This just makes being a working mommy that much harder. When I was getting her ready for bed, through both our tears, all I could think of was how I would love to have to not work. Work has been a stressor for me lately anyways, and with the lack of acknowledgment of my abilities, nowhere for me to grow to, being turned down for 2 promotions, and now I come home to a cranky girl, I just want to quit. I would lose our house, be forced to rent, just to be able to stay at home.

I know it's all probably just a phase. She is so stimulated all day long by all the other kids and things to do at daycare, she gets home and finally relaxes, and when that happens she falls apart. I honestly just don't know what to do to help her (and myself). I sure hope that I can have a better outlook on this situation and that Ellie and I can come to some sort of terms with her attitude.