Veggies - To Decieve or Not Decieve

April 22, 2011

As an infant beginning to eat real food, Elijah ate EVERYTHING. And when I say everything I'm not exaggerating. I'm talking even the veggies; spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, beets, etc. We honestly would hesitate sometimes on giving him more food because he would eat so much it worried us that we might over feed him. However, with hearing about some of my fellow Momma's having trouble getting their babies to eat certain things or eat anything at all, I began to feel a little better. I thought, at least this is a battle we won't have to have with him at dinner time later. Boy did I speak too soon, this was just a battle we were going to encounter at a later time. The deeper into toddlerhood he gets the more picky he gets. Currently he won't eat anything green (literally). 

As you can see, the zucchini was picked out of the spaghetti.

And he doesn't like oatmeal, doesn't like rice, is picky about meat, will eat fruit but can be picky about it. Basically anything healthy he's not as enthusiastic about. As for cheerios, cheese, bread, crackers, or also known as CARBS, these are the foods he's most keen on. But I've found a system, and for any of you Mom's out there who are struggling with something similar, this works for us!

First, it's important to understand serving sizes, which may lower some stress levels for you if your child isn't eating the foods that you feel are healthy for him. This definitely helped me calm down a bit about it. The easiest scale is 1 tablespoon per year of age as a serving size. Toddlers need roughly 4 servings of fruits and veggies, 2 servings of protein, 16-24 ounces of dairy and 4 servings of grains. At 1 tablespoon per serving, we're not talking much! For us, the part we struggle with most are the veggies, so sometimes I sneak these veggies into his food. I puree' the veggies he's not too fond of and put them in highly preferred foods. Cauliflower in eggs,  squash in mac-n-cheese or grilled cheese, (although sometimes he'll eat squash by itself) broccoli in stew, and pretty much anything (like mushrooms or zucchini) in spaghetti or burgers. Guess what? He eats it all up!! In addition I put whatever veggies we're having for dinner on his plate in attempt to get him to eat them by themselves too.

This method I have found from talking to other Moms is pretty controversial. As some are opposed to it due to feeling like the method deceives our children. My answer to that is when they are between the ages of 1-3 their communication is pretty limited. With that, in my opinion, there's really no benefit to battling at the dinner table trying to explain to your toddler why it's important they eat their veggies. Following with feeling like your failing your child by not giving him the essential nutrients he needs because in the end he wouldn't eat them anyway, or he even spit them out. Not only that, but I don't feel it's beneficial to turn eating into a negative activity, it will just cause additional problems down the line later. So until we can have that dialog between us, why not give him the veggies he needs into his food, offer some on the side but not making vegetables the center of attention. We can worry about having that conversation as to why eating veggies are important later when he can understand? Works for us! I feel a lot better, Elijah is eating good nutritious food, and dinner is stress free! 

A Day With Vinny

I do believe that Momma's reach a certain point when they start considering more children even when their first child is still young. It's like we forget everything we went through, everything we're going through, and everything we would be setting ourselves up for by having another child. While preggo, I used to be really concerned with the pain of child birth and I questioned if I would be able to handle it or not. My Mom used to continue to tell me, "I'm going to be honest, because it definitely does hurt, but it's a pain you forget." I kept thinking she was crazy, how could you forget it? How could you ever want to put yourself through that again? Well she was right, you forget it. And remarkably almost instantly, right when they place that little human in your arms. From that point forward you are faced with a million new concepts, a million questions that weren't covered in the books you've read, and dealing with emotions that take over and force you to tears for minuscule reasons... of course you forget the child birth pain, because now you have too many other things to think about.
I feel that the more Mom's I talk to the majority (however not all) would prefer to have their children close in age. Close in age, meaning 1-3 years apart. Considering a 9 month long pregnancy we're talking becoming pregnant pretty close to after your first child is born. Along with pain, I think we forget the work that goes along with every day in raising a newborn.

I had my first taste of what having a second child around would be like this past weekend. A really good friend of mine asked me to watch her son (4 months) while she was at work. I eagarly agreed, as I was excited to have a baby in the house again! But let me tell you, even though Vincent is a very easy going baby, we had our struggling moments and those struggling moments stemmed from my son. At 15 months he had no idea what was going on, who this little person was, or why the hell he was here, therefore resulting in major jealousy. He wanted to be held, he wanted to "help," and he wanted to "play" with the baby. There was a lot of  "No Eli, be gentle! He's just a baby!" or "I will get to you in a second Elijah, the baby needs his diaper changed" (as he is hanging on my legs). I realized that having your first child be so young with a new baby around makes it very difficult to get through every day tasks or to explain things to him so that he understands what is going on.

Elijah: "C'mon, lemme just touch your nose!"

On the controversy, after raising an infant and now toddler and then going back to an infant, I quickly learned how easy it is to in fact take care of a newborn. I realize now that I should have taken time to appreciate the naps with the baby on my chest, the constant sleeping throughout the day (even if the naps seemed short), the fact that the baby usually does one of three things; eat, sleep, poop and there's not much in between, the down time and the fact that if you leave the baby laying on the blanket he doesn't move! At the time this was all clouded with exhaustion, and my focus was on how tired I was and how hard this really seemed to be. Now, whenever the time comes for us to expand our family, the infant stage is not going to be as seemingly low key as before. From this point forward there will always be another little human running around trying to "help," wanting attention, probably not napping while the new baby is, and when that baby is laying on the blanket without rolling off, he may be possibly being moved by his older brother.

Note: Elijah has had zero interest in this play mat
for months, until of course Vince was in it!

Moral of the story: This is dedicated to the new Momma's out there or the Momma's to be. ENJOY and APPRECIATE your delicate time with your newborn, even though I know it gets cloudy when you're sleep deprived and you haven't showered. Unless you're choosing to only have one child, it'll never be as easy as it is now to raise a newborn.

Teething and the Silver Lining

I think if you talk to most Mom's (or Dad's even) out there they will all agree that teething is a NIGHTMARE! And, I have to agree. Sleepless nights, fevers, cranky babies, babies in pain (and there's nothing you can do), not to mention they begin to resist your love and affection because they realize that you aren't going to take the actual pain away, they have diaper rashes, loss of appetites, clingy-ness, etc. It's just a mess, and we all go through it. Sometimes parent's have a more difficult time and others have it easier but that's pretty much across the board with all parenting milestones. BUT, I have found the silver lining.... remember purees, and steamed food? Dicing up food into little tiny pieces? All I remember is time consumption! 

Silver lining and of course it comes with time, and when the first molars are there, but whole fruits and/or veggies, in this particular case an apple. The pictures are blurry because the little monster kept moving. But I was sitting on the couch folding laundry watching him, and thinking this is SO much easier! He's hungry? Grab an apple out of the fruit basket and presto! He's happy, and you're not dicing, steaming, pureeing and feeding.

I don't know if I'd go as far as to say the teething process was completely worth it especially with the number two molars that are around the corner, but it certainly is providing a little more independence for my son and a little more Momma time (to fold laundry).

Even Banana's are easier!

Liberated

Should a new Mom feel obligated to return to work, or obligated to stay at home with her child? How does she decide? Do we even have that option, to decide what we want to do after having children, given the way our country works? I've been struggling with this decision of going back to work (or not) and debating it's worth for a while now. For me, I didn't have a job to go back to (seeing as though I was laid off while preggo) and so going back to work for me was starting at the bottom of the totem pole again. Of course two incomes would make things much easier for us, but going back to work for me basically meant going to work to pay for a daycare, and so for a long time I went with the decision of it not being worth it. As Elijah gets older, I start to realize how much he might benefit from daycare to create a change in scenery for him, provide socialization, help him become comfortable with separation from me, and most importantly provide a break for myself. With those feelings, I began to look for work. I landed a few interviews and aced them all. I went from having no job to 3 or 4 different opportunities for jobs. One might think I was crazy, seeing the economy is the way it is, to know that I turned them all down. Each job had their separate reasons as to why they weren't going to work for me. Located too far, too much work for little pay, or too much time away from my family. I was told by many people how emotionally charged my decisions seemed to be and that maybe I should respect the fact that I simply just don't want to leave Elijah behind. Although partly true, I knew I just hadn't found something that perfectly fit my objective. Then again this objective had certainly left me thinking maybe I had set my hopes too high.

First day of daycare, first nap. A breeze!
8/26/2011
Thank you to Stacy Kelly for her awesome care,
and cooperation with us! :)

It's been a couple weeks, and  feel I have found a happy medium to my dilemma, and I'm so glad I followed my heart and waited for what felt right. I landed a part-time job in a field that I'm very interested in, it is local to my home and to Elijah's daycare and I couldn't be happier. The money I make basically only pays for the daycare but the sense of sanity I receive is by far the best payment that there is. I love my son, but any job where one is working 24 hours around the clock can and will be exhausting. I didn't feel like I was giving Elijah my all anymore because I was always feeling that I had so many other things that also needed to get done, and multi-tasking was taking precious time away from him. Now, on work days, I take Elijah to daycare an hour earlier, and that hour allows me to get so much more done. With that, the majority of the day that I do spend with him, is actually spent with him and only him. He gets the best of both worlds; one-on-one time with Momma, socialization with other children, and discipline from another caregiver. The job is very part-time but I receive a sense of being in the real world, which has helped in more ways than can be imagined. In addition, I still feel like I have a huge part in raising my son. Don't get me wrong, I've now added another task to my to-do list and now that is just one extra thing to get done in my already crazy day. However, the liberation I feel, has allowed me to stay motivated and I have found myself completing more of my at home duties, and not feeling so stressed out and frustrated about them. The combination of letting go of the idea of having to end each day in completion, with feeling like an adult again has brought me into a new light. I'm excited to journey down this road. I feel accomplished, and that I have found a little more of myself, and in result I feel like I'm being a better parent to my son.

Sense of Accomplishment...or not

While in the working field full time one of my positive attributes was my desire to finish projects once started. I would stay late, work from home, or come in early if I could not get the task finished within normal working hours. Sometimes this got the best of me, and exhausted me, but the sense of accomplishment was what made it worth it. This is something I'm struggling with as a Full-time Momma. If you have read my earlier post "Nonexistent" I talked about how Salary.com computed a study of the jobs that a Stay-At-Home mom is responsible for. With that list as a guide, when I go to bed at night the sense of feeling unaccomplished of my responsibilities is sometimes overwhelming. It just isn't possible to finish everything that needs to be done. Some days are far worse than others as it depends on how Elijah's day is going. Recently he's become very clingy and seemingly not stimulated enough. He follows me around, but if I sit down to play with him he ignores me. If I'm trying to do dishes, he hangs on my legs and cries, same when I'm attempting to cook dinner. Forget cleaning anything, as he's right there getting into cabinets, or trying to "help." As you can imagine, him "helping" although incredibly adorable, actually creates more work for me. And so, during "working hours" (aka when Elijah is awake), I've now given up on expecting to accomplish any tasks and if I do complete something I take it as a bonus. This still doesn't make me feel accomplished, because deep down I'm aware that things weren't finished (or even started for that matter), and it's unsettling.

Just a glimpse of what happens while I'm attempting to cook.

Naps: Sometimes It's one nap, sometimes it's two separate naps, either way it buys me a total of somewhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours. It is absolutely overwhelming trying to decide what to do in the precious time that he's asleep. There's a catch to this too, as when I do attempt to be productive he almost always wakes up early, (30 minute nap). The slightest noise will wake him. Then, when I decide to stay low key (in other words quiet) he takes a long fulfilled nap. Which results with me feeling unproductive, lazy and that I've just wasted 2 hours of quality time where I could have accomplished something. 


Evenings: ...7:30-8PM roll around and my little angel goes to sleep for the night. This is when for an instant I feel a much needed break, I sit down on the couch and let out a big sigh. It's then I realize how many things still need to get done. At this point I'm exhausted just from the day, and I just want to go to bed. Some times, I do just go to bed and that's coupled with lack of feeling accomplished and also guilty. These feelings take away the beautiful feeling of being able to go to sleep. It feels like a lose-lose situation and I struggle with it every day. Even writing this blog entry is taking precious time away from what I "should" be doing, which is almost always the case with writing all of my blogs. 
(insert time stamp of 5:30AM, blogging before he wakes up this morning.)


Where do I go from here? How do I attack it? How do I balance taking care of a home and child and Joel, be a good friend, walk the dogs, work,  AND find time for myself to read, blog, enjoy a glass of wine or work out? How do I find a sense of accomplishment in my day to day activities, when I can't hide from the fact that my to-do list isn't completed and every day unfinished tasks flood into my next days to-do list? Does every Momma out there feel this way, or have I just not gotten a handle on the Super Mom role? Finding a balance would benefit my sanity and every day life enormously. Why haven't I found it?

Cuddle Monkey

Waking up in the morning... *sigh*... has always included a process for me to start my day. Before Elijah, I would get up early for work, just so I could actually wake up a bit before having to drive there. I would take a shower, get ready and take my coffee in my travel mug for my drive. Upon arrival I would even linger around before actually sitting at my desk with a second cup of coffee to begin my work. With this said, you can imagine how difficult it was for me to adjust to consecutive 2 hour wake ups that turned into 6:30AM daily wake up calls, in which there is no time for the gradual waking up process that I was used to.

Lately, my morning wake up has become my favorite part of the day.


Most mornings around 6:30AM I hear movement and babble, and as I glance up at the video monitor I see an excited toddler sitting or standing in his crib eager to begin his day. He's talking to himself, whimpering a little to let me know he's ready to get up and/or playing with whatever he can find in his crib. Some mornings he's not so happy upon waking up and has zero patience waiting for someone to come get him. Either way, It's time for me to roll out of bed and drag my tired body into the kitchen and pour some milk into his sippy cup. Depending on how awake I am by the time I make it to the kitchen, I may also poor myself a cup of coffee that is happily waiting for me due to the coffee pot timer (amazing invention). Half asleep with my eyes barely open, I walk into his room. He's standing there in his crib, looking at me as if he's thinking "what took you so long Momma?" Sometimes he'll shriek a laugh, giggle, or point to the window and say "rar bar bar" Translation: "I'm ready to ask a million questions today with my baby babble."  And so I respond with "Good Morning Bub, yes that's a window." I pick him and give him a big hug to which he's pushing away from and pointing to the decals on the wall. "Yup Eli, that's a giraffe, and a monkey, and a butterfly!" I say, pointing to the pictures. Then we walk into my room, and as I sit him down on propped pillows he puts his hands out to receive his cup. I sit next to him and pull the blankets up over us. Often times I'm enjoying my coffee and at this point I'm so glad I took the extra step in pouring myself a cup. As he reaches the end of his milk, I then reach my favorite time of the day...

...My little cuddle monkey puts his cup down, giggles and nuzzles his head softly into my neck. He gives me kisses, then lays his head on my chest and I rub his back. For about 20 minutes we share hugs and kisses, laugh, cuddle, and play before he becomes anxious for what's in the kitchen, play room or living room. But this 20 minutes is the absolute best feeling in the world. Warmth, love, and happiness. It makes all of those other frustrations, obstacles, and hard times diminish temporarily and reminds me of the blessing that I have in my life and how truly lucky I am to be able to have this 20 minutes with my son. 

Nonexistent

Did you know that a Stay-at-Home Mom actually is a combination of 10 individual jobs? I believe it, because I'm that person!! Salary.com computed a study to try and figure out what the "price of Mom" is.  Don't worry Stay-at-Home Dad's we recognize this goes for you too. The job descriptions that Mom (or Dad) perform on a daily basis are, housekeeper, day care center teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, CEO and psychologist. In addition, she works plenty of overtime (52 Hours worth - 92 hour work weeks), has no breaks, and lastly receives no pay (at least nothing that begins with a dollar sign). She relies on that one smile or snuggle she gets every so often for payment. Not only that, but aside from the 10 individual jobs that a Stay-at-home Mom participates in she often completes them with a crying baby in the background. Or if anyone has a son/daughter similar to Eli, completes them while constantly looking for the toddler to make sure they aren't getting into anything. It's exhausting.  

Just for the sake of closure; in conclusion Salary.com surveyed 40,000 mom's and logged their hours per job description. By calculating the median salary for each position they came up with a $138,095 salary for Mom. Yikes!


And still, when Dad comes home, Mom is seemingly nonexistent to baby and acts like the day has been perfect.
This happened to me today, (although it's happened many times before) today is what encouraged me to write about it. Elijah woke up from his nap, and he was the epitome of the common phrase "waking up on the wrong side of the bed." It was almost bizarre how cranky he actually was. Joel had already informed me that he was going to be late coming home from work, so you can imagine my frustration that Eli woke up this way. Not thinking straight and hungry, I proceeded to continue and cook dinner. Eli cried the WHOLE time. Hanging on my legs, falling to the floor, whining. Then, he'd want to be held, then wanted to be put back down. I tried to feed him he threw it to the floor, I tried to distract him, and he wasn't having it. After a stressful dinner for 2 (and only because I was hungry did I put myself through actually eating dinner), I decided a walk might be helpful. He was completely serene on the walk and I felt a sense of relief. When we came home it started all over again. I found myself thinking, what the heck is this kids deal!?!?!?!  I figured a bath may do the trick; and then in walks in Dad...

...And so begins Mom's nonexistence.  Believe it or not, we have an Angel!! I'm not kidding, it was like night and day, a special act of perfect child and I couldn't believe what I was witnessing. Smiles, laughs, shrieks of excitement. Ugh. These  happy moments he was protruding were not directed towards me in the slightest bit. In fact I believe he didn't even care that I was in the room anymore. Talk about not receiving payment for a long days work.


We all have bad days. We all have off days. We all have days where we just want to scream, crawl under a rock and stay there. So, it's understandable that a One year old would also have these same off days. Although for them, it's most likely worse because they cannot communicate how they are feeling to us. COMPLETELY understandable. I am more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and be there as much as I can for him to try to make him more comfortable. BUT if he pulls a 180 with his attitude and is perfectly fine when someone else enters the room I feel I have zero tolerance for this behavior.

Needless to say, a big glass of wine was needed tonight. I also decided Overtime was not an option. The dishes are still in the sink, laundry is still in the dryer, and the playroom is still a mess. These were the things that were on my "I have to do tonight" list. Lets not mention everything else that was put on hold.










MSN Money Staff (2007). The Price of Mom.http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/CollegeAndFamily/RaiseKids/ThePriceOfAMom.aspx