(Mostly)Natural Momma

I Was Tagged!!

momma — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:23:35 +0000

So a while back Maria over at I Love you more than Cookies tagged me for some awesome blog fun! It has taken me a while to actually put this up on my blog to answer (sorry about that), but here goes!

1. I HATE chicken. I have tried it baked, boiled, fried, and pretty much every other way you can fix it and it still does nothing for me. I always get a lot of weird looks about this and one time someone actually told me I was unamerican because I don’t eat it. That was a little much…but whatever.

2. This may shock some people but my political views fall mostly in line with the Libertarian Party. The government is in our lives way to much and for the most part they need to just butt out. It’s to bad that there will never be a major libertarian candidate and I will have to choose between two dumbos.

3. I can’t spread my toes apart. Yup. That’s right.

4. I put ketchup on steak and shrimp and pretty much every other meat there is. Don’t know why but it makes the meat taste soooo good!

5. I nursed my son for 14 months and the experience has caused my to become a HUGE breastfeeding advocate. I am most likely going to try to become a lactation consultant. This could take a while since I want to stay home with my kids but it will happen someday….

6. I don’t wear makeup. I never have. At this point I am so glad that as a girl I never had an interest in it. Turns out in can actually do your skin more harm than good…

7. I love to take bubble baths!!! They are so comforting and relaxing. When we finally get to buy a house the master bathroom will be the most important room. The tub will be huge!

Ok…there are 7 random facts about me! Now it’s your turn:

I love Babywearing!!

momma — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:22:48 +0000

So for those of you who don’t know we are right in the middle of International Babywearing Week. I am a HUGE fan of babywearing. It is so comforting and snugly for both mother and baby. Sweet Pea probably spent the first six months of his life (at least until he learned to crawl) cozied up to me or Elmo. Whether he was just lying on our chests, next to us in bed, or all wrapped in a sling.

In honor of this week Adventures in Babywearing is hosting a contest to win a new sling from Nonny and Boo. Just pop over to her site to learn more about the contest and about babywearing!!

I tried four different slings and wraps before I found this moby wrap. For me, it was the most comfortable. I was sad that I didn’t find it sooner. And I just spent ten minutes trying to find a picture of me and Sweet Pea using it, but I couldn’t find one!! But I did find one with daddy and Sweet Pea using the baby bjorn. There is something a little more manly about a baby bjorn and Daddy always used that one.

Hungry?

momma — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:57:18 +0000

Ok. So we are past the tooth debacle and definitely feeling much better about it. I think Elmo and I took it a little harder than Sweet Pea did. Thanks so much to everyone who shared their own stories with me. It was good to hear stories of people going through the same thing. Stuff like that always makes your own situation much easier.

So now I am going to move on to something a little more cute. Sweet Pea has never really been one to eat things or put things in his mouth. That is probably because he has either had nursing or his pacifier to satisfy his needs. To this day he is incredibly addicted to his pacifier, so I have never really had to worry about him eating random things. Until a few days ago….

I don’t know what changed or flip flopped in his head, but now he must eat everything! Here are some examples:

1. I had just bought groceries and loaded everything into the car. I am half way home and decide to take a peek at little Sweet Pea in the backseat. And what is he doing? Munching on a hamburger bun!! He had taken the package out of the grocery bag, opened it up, and was eating the bun. I can’t even tell you how he managed to do that.

2. Sweet Pea sits and plays on the bathroom floor while I am taking a shower. I peer around the shower curtain every now and then to see how he is doing. The other morning, I noticed he was be particularly quiet so I took a peek and he was eating the toothpaste! How he managed to get hold of it I have no idea, but he was certainly enjoying it!

3. Our bedroom is off limits to Sweet Pea. So when he does get to enter on rare occasions he is very excited. It’s almost like entering new territory for him. Because he is not allowed in there we don’t worry as much if we leave food or drinks in there. One night Elmo popped some popcorn and left it on the floor. I accidentally left the door to our room open the next morning and when I went looking for Sweet Pea he was sitting on the bedroom floor chomping away on some popcorn. Now we are very strict about what he eats and popcorn has never made the list before so he was extremely happy with himself since he was in the forbidden bedroom and eating something totally new.

It is a big change for us to have to just now start watching out for this. You would think that he would have gone through this stage a little younger or not at all. Oh well…it just makes life a little more interesting.

Toothless Joe Jackson

momma — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 03:47:02 +0000

Sweet Pea has a little chair and table that he sits at to eat, read, play, or do whatever strikes his fancy. He has used that table and chair everyday for the past month or so. He has even fallen out of the chair before. Never has it been bad. He always picks himself right up and moves on.

Today he was sitting in his little chair eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch at his little table and boom…he falls out of the chair. We didn’t think to much of it at first. He was crying a little and we walked over to help him up. Then we noticed a lot of blood around his mouth. Needless to say we freaked out. We scooped him up and rushed to the kitchen. It was really scary. We had no idea what was happening or where the blood was coming from, therefore we didn’t know how to make it stop.

And then, something caught Daddy’s eye. He picked it up and lo and behold it was a tooth! Ahhh!!

Somehow Sweet Pea’s right front tooth had popped out in his fall. This helped in knowing where to put pressure with a wash cloth and we were able to get the bleeding stopped. We decided to take him to the minor emergency room to have a doctor check him over to make sure nothing else was in his mouth and to make sure the tooth had come out all the way. By the time we made in there Sweet Pea had calmed down and was actually in a cheery mood. The doctor okayed him, but suggested we take him to a pediatric dentist this week. There is nothing they can do about the tooth. It was a clean break. It is almost like the tooth just slid right out of his gums. Sweet Pea will just have no tooth there until he grows in his adult teeth.

I have to say I have been going between wanting to cry and being relieved since this happened. It’s amazing how something that we do every single day turned into a visit to the doctor. I guess that just shows that we really have no control on what is going to happen. We have to lay our complete trust in the Lord. I am so glad that losing a tooth was the worst thing that happened in his fall.

But on the other hand I still can’t believe that this happened. I keep asking myself stupid things like why did I let him sit there instead of the highchair or even the floor? Why wasn’t I sitting next to him? Why didn’t I make myself and sandwich and eat with him? I have no idea!! I know I can’t play the what if game but the thoughts just keep entering my head. My baby’s smile will never be the same and that makes me cry. I can’t even put into words how sad that makes me. He had the cutest little gap tooth grin and now it is gone.

I can’t even tell you why this makes me so upset. I know it is just a tooth. But I feel like a part of him is gone. I know that is not even true. Even after getting back from the doctor he was the same Sweet Pea. Running around and laughing. Hopefully by tomorrow I will be better. Sweet Pea doesn’t seem to care at all that the tooth is gone. I need to just take my direction from him. Whatever he is feeling about it I need to feel, and he obviously doesn’t care. The only change we saw in him tonight was that he would take his tounge and rub it in the spot where the tooth used to be…almost like it felt really cool. Here are some pics of him from this evening after the doctor visit:

I know he is still the same old Sweet Pea. I part of me just needed to grieve a little. Thanks for listening.

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

momma — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:54:26 +0000

The last day of our trip was filled with meeting many of the Disney characters!! We wanted to be sure and get in line to meet Mickey early because the line to see him can get ridiculously long. We had gone the night before to check the line and it was a wait of over an hour!! So we decided to go the next morning and beat the rush. We got there twenty minutes before they opened Toon Town and decided that when they opened the gate Elmo would run to the line with Mickey and Sweet Pea and I would catch up. It worked magically! We were second in line to meet Mickey and Minnie. So instead of waiting over and hour we only waited twenty minutes! Woo hoo!

Sweet Pea had a blast yet again! He walked right up to Minnie and gave her a hug!

And of course he showed Mickey where his nose is:

Sweet Pea also had a lot of fun with Donald Duck! He gave him a big hug and a huge kiss!

Character Breakfast

momma — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:51:31 +0000

On our last day at Disney we got to go to a character breakfast at the Grand Floridian hotel. Basically while we were eating breakfast the characters came around to our table and we got to meet them. We met Pooh Bear, Tigger, Alice (from Wonderland), the Mad Hatter, and Mary Poppins. Sweet Pea had a blast! He ate waffles shaped like Mickey and got to give kisses to all the characters.

Sweet Pea enjoying his yummy breakfast:

Giving Pooh Bear a big kiss:

Giving Tigger a high five:

Showing Tigger where his mouth is:

The little fam:

The extended fam:

The Mad Hatter and his nose:

My Dad aka. Papa T and Mary Poppins

The character breakfast was so much fun!! It is such a great way to get up close and personal with the characters. I definitely recommend it.

Disney Day 3 — 11/7/08

momma — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:28:04 +0000

Today we headed off to the Animal Kingdom. The new Yeti Ride opened a few years back and I had never been able to ride it because I was pregnant one year and nursing the next. It was so cool! After that we headed to the Safari. It was one of the things that was high on my list because Sweet Pea loves animals and I couldn’t wait to see his reaction. I was not let down at all! He loved all the animals. He pointed and grunted and made animal sounds the whole time. And the Safari is the best place to see animals. These two animals walked right up to our jeep! And all the others weren’t to far off.

After the Safari was over there were some statues of animals. Sweet Pea was obsessed! He growled at these lions for quite awhile.

After the animals we headed back for a nap and then went to Magic Kingdom to visit Toon Town. Sweet Pea loved it! We must have stayed in Minnie Mouse’s house half the time we were there. Here he is chillin in Minnie’s chair.

Here he is helping Minnie sew one of her prize winning quilts:

And here he is in Minnie’s kitchen. The oven baked a cake over and over and he just sat there and watched for a while. Other kids came and went but he was enthralled. It was so cute!

Outside Mickey and Minnie’s house was a garden. Here is Sweet Pea with the Mickey pumpkins!

After that we took Sweet Pea to play in Winnie the Pooh’s tree house. He had so much fun he didn’t want to leave. He must have slid down the tree slide fifty times.

And here is the family as we are leaving to go back to the resort for the night!

Disney Day 2 — Epcot — 11/6/08

momma — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:46:37 +0000

On Thursday morning we got up and headed to Epcot. My hubby, brother, grandpa and I all got to take a segway tour of the countries! It was so much fun! The first hour they spend teaching everybody how to ride the segway. It is definitely an experience. I have to say I was a little scared for some of the people taking the tour with us. You have to be able to balance really well and have good posture. The second you start to lean a little bit the segway moves. It took a little getting used to, but it was worth it! here is a picture of my brother and my grandpa putting their helmets on and getting ready for the lesson:

Here we are on our segways:

After the segway tour we headed off to find the rest of the family and ride some rides. Sweet Pea had so much fun with everything. He just took it all in. After all the rides there was something interactive for him to do and he loved it! Here he is “driving” with his uncle.

He was so worn out from the morning that on the way to eat lunch in Japan he crashed in his stroller. He just kicked his feet up and fell asleep.

Here we are enjoying our meal in Japan. It was so yummy!! Eating here is almost like going to see a show. The chef comes out and cooks the meal right in front of you.

And here is everyone after the meal. Tired, happy, and full.

There was a coy pond right outside the restaurant. Sweet Pea loved looking at it! It was hard to pry him away.

We ended our day with a bubble bath in the huge tub! I think our whole family could have fit in there. Sweet Pea has so much fun. It was a treat for him to be able to move around so much in the tub.

Disney World — Here We Come! 11/5/08

momma — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:11:13 +0000

Early Wednesday morning we headed off to the airport to go to Disney World. My dad’s company has a conference in Orlando every November and years and years ago my family started this tradition. We show up in Orlando on the last day of my dad’s conference and head for Old Key West, a Disney Resort. It is so much fun! Here is Sweet Pea playing at the airport. It was the day after election day and they still had all these balloons set up! Sweet Pea didn’t know what to look at first. The balloons or the airplanes out the window. He has such a great time! We probably could have stayed at the airport all weekend and he would have been satisfied.

We ate a healthy McDonald’s breakfast (yeah right) while waiting for our plane to arrive. This was a special treat for Sweet Pea as McDonald is not a regular staple for us. Here are the boys enjoying their pancakes!

The cool thing about our plane ride this time around was that my mom and little brother were already on the plane that we got on! Their flight had a stop in Dallas and we just happened to get on that flight! It was fun to meet up with them before even getting to Orlando! It also made it easier with Sweet Pea. This way he had four people to entertain him instead of just two. Here is our plane! I mainly took the picture to say “look! my mom and brother are on that plane!” Yes, I am that silly.

We made it to Orlando without a hitch! We rented a car and headed to the resort. We stay in a room that has a kitchen so that we can make some of our meals. This year my mom ordered all our groceries through a service and had them delivered that day. This eliminated a long shopping trip right when getting there. It was such a huge time saver! I recommend it for all travelers. Anyways, with the food already there my mom, grandma, and I started cooking chili for dinner! Yum! Here are my mom and I being goofy, good thing we are at Disney right?

And here are some of us enjoying the chili on the porch. We are also solving (rather arguing) the country’s problems.

Our first Disney related fun came in the form of a boat ride! After dinner we headed to the docks at Disney Yacht club and took a boat ride to watch the fireworks and light show at Epcot. It was very cool! Sweet Pea did a lot better than I thought he would. When the fireworks first started he got a little upset but then just sat in my lap and hugged me the rest of the time. No real tears. Yeah! He was also required to wear a life-vest since he is so small. The only reason he was okay with that was because our boat driver let him “drive” the boat. It completely distracted him from the life vest. Oh…and we gave him chips.

Here is the whole crew!

It was a fun first day! Until tomorrow…

We are in Disney World!!

momma — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:09:25 +0000

Hello all! We are in Disney World having a blast! WIll be able to write more and post pictures on Sunday! Talk to you then!