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So, this weekend, Scott and I went to a hotel for one night and left Lily with her Nana and Gump.  We took her out to my parents’ place right after lunch so she would sleep in the car and then have some play time with us before we had to leave.  She woke up just before we arrived and was pretty groggy for the first little while – she didn’t really want anything to do with her Nana or her Gump.  But, we found her some blocks and she found some crayons and she warmed up to them pretty quickly.  When Scott and I finally decided it was time to leave, she was not a happy camper.  She didn’t cry A LOT, she just had this look on her face like we had broken her heart.  I teared up a bit as we left.

When we got to the hotel the first thing I did was go up to the room and call my parents to see how she was doing.  They told me that they had taken her for a walk, she was waving at all the cars that went by, she got to pet a puppy, and she even asked to be picked up.  She was playing happily, didn’t really care that I was on the phone.  So, Scott and I went to the pool.  We walked into the pool where there were a couple of families in swimming.  One of the families had a little girl who was not much older than Lily.  It made me miss her even more!  They were playing with her in the same way that we play with Lily when we take her to the pool.  But then, Scott and I started throwing a beach ball around and having some fun.  Then we went back up to the room to shower before our dinner.

We went to the fancy restaurant in the hotel.  It was lovely.  I felt SOOOOOO out of place.  They kept bringing us small little palette cleansers between the courses.  It was really nice, but so not us!  The food was DELICIOUS!  And it looked nice, too.  After dinner, I called again to see how Lily did with bed time.  Dad told me that she fussed a bit, but they just read her a couple more books and she went right back to sleep.  It made me feel much better knowing that she went to sleep okay without her regular routine – some parts of her routine just can’t go with her. Then we went to a movie, a late movie, because we could!  We went to see Pacific Rim.  It made me think about Lily because *spoiler alert* one of the main characters flashes back to her childhood and the fear on her face is unbearable.  All I could think was, ‘I never want Lily to ever feel like that!’  But, what can I do?  I will never be able to protect her from EVERYTHING!  That thought was the worst of all, knowing that there are SOOOOOO many things that I can’t protect her from and that one day something beyond my control could make her feel just like that!  But, I sucked it up and watched the whole movie, tried to push those thoughts out of my mind.

After the movie, it was after 11pm, I rarely stay up that late, let alone am out that late.  But, we had a nice leisurely walk back to the hotel.  We got back and watched some tv, which was exciting all in itself because we don’t have cable, so we got to watch commercials, and random shows that we would never otherwise watch.  Then we went to sleep, and in the morning, I woke up, to no screaming!  It was so peaceful.  It WAS 7:30am, but it was peaceful, I was able to just lay in bed and not have to run after Lily or try to keep her out of the room or try to make her breakfast while she throws a tantrum over wanting a bottle and not a cup.  We went for lunch and I went back to the pool, also very peaceful, not many people in the pool in the morning.  Then we slowly got showered and ready to go while we watched some tv and we left a little early because we both missed our little girl!

When we got to my parents’ house they weren’t home.  We waited for them to come back after they ate lunch.  Lily was asleep when they got back, we laid her in the bed (not the play pen) and she slept for at least an hour, and would have slept for more, I am sure.  She got up, still half asleep and cuddled with me for a bit, which was nice.  Then as she woke up she got to playing and eating and all the other things she loves to do.  We had some supper with Nana and Gump, Lily had corn on the cob cut off the cob for the first time.  After supper we stayed for just a little while longer, then when we told Lily it was time to go she did not want to leave.  When we did finally get her out the door, I asked Scott to move the car so I could get her into the car easier, she started freaking out when he got in the car and started driving.  It made me sad, but happy that she did, in fact, want to go home.

Lily’s current favourite activity is building with her blocks.  Anytime that she is not eating, sleeping or out and about with Momma she is playing with blocks.  When she first started building with blocks she would just keep building up the single blocks.  It would get so high and then when she put the block on top it would break which was a little frustrating for her.  Now she uses a larger block as a base and makes sure that all the bumps are covered as she goes.  She builds up one tower, then when she doesn’t have any small blocks left she slowly breaks it down by building a new one.  It’s really interesting to watch!

Very focused on her work!

Taking blocks from one tower to make a new tower!

For anyone who might be checking in on my blog.  Not that I think anyone is.  It has been moved.  And I will be spending the next little while tweaking it to make it look a little nicer.  You can now find me at www.mommaslittlemiracles.com

As Lily’s 18 month birthday approaches, it becomes more and more obvious that she is becoming a toddler!  The past week or so she has decided that temper tantrums are the way to go.  She is still a very happy, silly little girl, but if something doesn’t go just the way she wants she starts to fake cry, if that doesn’t work (which it rarely does, only works if we didn’t understand what she was trying to tell us) she proceeds to throwing her body on the floor or hitting any furniture that is nearby (or a person if she is picked up).  It’s not fun to deal with, but watching her throw tantrums over certain silly things is pretty amusing.  I will be a very happy Momma when this phase passes and she learns to communicate with us using words.  Actual words.  Right now, if we ask her to use her words she squeals, as loud as she can.

There are lots of blogs and websites out there to tell you what a bad parent you are, and why.  There are lots out there to tell you that you are not a bad parent, but only if you are like them.  There are a few out there that will tell you that you are not a bad parent no matter what.  But, as uplifting as those few sites can be for the couple of seconds that you are reading them, there is very little out there to help you beyond that.  Everywhere you turn, there are judgmental comments and faces, or there are the obstacles that you are facing mocking you.

Now, most of my feelings have nothing to do with my parenting.  Although I do often feel judged by other people when in public, I know that Lily is happy and healthy.  I know that even if I let her throw a tantrum in the middle of the mall because she needs to hold my hand and doesn’t want to, or if I accidentally scratch her with my nail as I try to grab her before she falls or runs out into traffic, or if I accidentally knock her over in an attempt to keep her from falling she will forgive me.  She will always give me a hug when I (or she) REALLY need one.  The fact that she runs to me when she is too tired to be social tells me that even though I am not perfect, I am good enough for her, and that’s all that matters to me.

However, as you all likely know, either because you know me personally or because you have read it in earlier posts, or maybe both.  I had a very hard time conceiving.  And, at the time it would seem that everywhere I looked people were getting pregnant, some of them had been trying for a while, but others were mistakes.  And although I wanted very much to be happy for all of them, I found it a lot easier to be happy for those who had been trying, and I found myself angry and resentful of the “oppsies”.  Once I got pregnant though, it didn’t seem to matter anymore if people were trying or if it just happened by mistake, if someone was pregnant I was happy for them!

But now, here I am again.  Lily is almost 18 months, I had hoped to be having a baby around this time so that she would not be TOO used to being an only child.  Up until just the last few months it hasn’t bothered me to discover that I am once again not pregnant.  But the last few months, probably because it is so close to the time I had hoped to be giving birth, it has hit me really hard.  I’m trying not to let it get to me, but it’s not working.  I’ve been trying to do things with Lily, get out, with people.  We go to the Chebucto Family Resource Centre, there are children and Moms there, it’s win-win.  After Christmas I had a really hard time getting back into it, but this month I finally did.  But now, I’m still not pregnant and everyone there seems to be part of these big families that are growing.  They are not necessarily “oopsies”.  But I find myself looking at the Mom of 5 ahead of me, who once told me that she never wanted so many children but the healthcare professionals wouldn’t tie her tubes because she was so young.  And the Mom beside me who has three young children, probably all under the age of 4 (the youngest is in a snuggly on her chest, quite small) who is talking about her ultrasound and that she is 10 weeks along.  And even the woman who is leading our walk has 4 children of her own.  I find myself looking at all these families walking with me and wondering why I can’t find it so easy, why I feel like I’m going to only have one, albeit an amazing one, but just one child.  And wondering why there is no one in this group who seems to relate to me and my situation.

I found when Lily was brand new that I was struggling with a feeling of failure because of having a c-section and not being able to breastfeed.  I decided to start writing this blog, not because I wanted to connect with other mothers who felt the same way, not to complain to or about other people, but just as a way to put those feelings out there to help me cope.  Now, failing at yet another unattainable goal which I have set for myself, I find myself once again feeling like a failure as a Mom and a woman.  With all these feelings of inadequacy resurfacing, I find myself remembering preparing Lily’s formula and reading the bottle that clearly states that breast milk is recommended – because that’s helpful for those of us who didn’t really have a choice.  I find myself wondering where those other Moms are.  The ones that like me feel like a terrible person because they couldn’t offer their baby breast milk but instead had to prepare formula in spite of the notice on the label.  The mothers who had a c-section and felt like less of a woman because of it.  The mothers who are having a hard time conceiving either for the first time or for the ninth time, and feeling like there is something wrong with them.  Why can’t I find those people on this wonderful internet?  It tells me that I am not alone, and yet all those blogs, they are all Moms of more than one child, that never seem to have had any problem, I’m sure some of them just fell and oops, got pregnant, they had their children naturally and breastfed them even though it wasn’t easy at first.  There is a lot of understanding for Moms who DO breastfeed that had a hard time getting started, but I have yet to see one that just plain couldn’t do it, or one about how hard it was to get pregnant, or how hard it was to deal with having a c-section.  Even the people that I talk to in real life who have had c-sections seem to have had no problem coping with it.  Maybe I am alone out here in the land of feeling inadequate…

So, I have been noticing lately that Lily is constantly telling me that she has pooped or peed or tooted or is dry (if she hasn’t pooped I tell her, no, you didn’t poop, and then she decides she has peed, etc).  She is also fascinated with the toilet and is very proud whenever we let her flush the toilet.  So, I decided that I would let her sit on the toilet periodically so she can get used to it, but also just to see what she will do.

The first few times I did this it was because I had noticed that at nap time she would have a poop and that would ruin her nap.  So, I thought if I tried to get her to poop on the toilet then she might be able to get a better rest.  This did not work, she was happy to sit but and try to poop.  Then the nap time poops seemed to stop for a bit, so toilet time went away with it.

On Wednesday, it happened again.  I put her in bed, she laid nicely, and then all of a sudden she was wide awake and playing.  When I went to check on her she had had a poop So, on Thursday I decided I would try toilet time again before her nap.  She was very excited when I asked if she wanted to sit on the toilet.  She sat, and she seemed to try, and she even tinkled a bit!  Since then, she has sat on the toilet many times, and has peed two more times!

I honestly never thought would do anything on the toilet, I just wanted her to get used to it so that when the time came she wouldn’t be afraid of it.

Okay, so a lot of people (my husband, specifically) might say, ‘you’re a woman, you were always an emotional basket case.’  To them, I would say you just don’t know me very well then.  Yes, as a woman, I am a little more emotional than most men, but I was never THIS bad.  I would also like to say that I took pride in the fact that, for a woman, I was relatively emotionally stable.  Yes, I had my ups and downs, I went through some rather dark days in my past, but generally speaking I have always been quite stable and more often than not a bubbly, happy person.  My husband tells me that in comparison to most women he knows, I am not greatly affected by PMS – my mood does not generally change at this point in my cycle.  This being said, I have noticed some disturbing emotional changes since I have given birth to my beautiful baby girl.

There was a time in my life when I could watch “chick flicks” with some ‘awe’ moments and maybe getting a little teary-eyed.  Now, my emotions are no longer limited to a small amount of moisture clouding my vision.  No, now, when anything sad or even exceptionally happy happens in a movie you can see TEARS running down my face, at times I find myself fighting back SOBS!  What is this?!?

Okay, so that’s movies, that’s Hollywood, they are PAID to make the emotional women of their audiences cry, I can handle that.  Enter YouTube!  Have you seen this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPDXmbaXvgw?  Or how about this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NjKgV65fpo?  Well, I have.  Before Lily, I could have watched those and gotten a little teary-eyed and thought to myself, ‘how sweet’ or ‘it’s so nice that they have done that to preserve their memories.’  Not anymore, now, I couldn’t finish watching because I was crying too hard!  What has happened to me?!?

As if that is not enough!  I am heading into town with Lily to buy some food for the dog and some birthday presents for my nephew.  As I am driving, it is a long drive into town, lots of time to think, I start thinking about my wonderful daughter who is sitting in the backseat being so well-behaved, as usual.  I start thinking about her whole life, and how it all began, the moment in the hospital when she was laid on my chest for the first time, I started to tear up.  I couldn’t help myself.  Before she was born, I could look back on those big, important moments in my life and not cry, simply sigh or smile with nostalgia.

Before Lily was born, I had been told so many times, when you have a child of your own it will change your perspective, only then will you be able to understand what it feels like to be a Mom.  I felt like because I was not a Mom yet I was being told that I was incapable of having empathy for the parents of the children in my care and that because I was not yet a mother I was an inferior caregiver.  I took offense to this, I felt defensive about it; the children in my care meant the world to me, I thought about them when I wasn’t at work, worried about them as though they were my own, this to me felt like the closest I could be to them and to feeling empathy for their parents.  Now, in retrospect, I understand, not being a mother did not make me inferior, nor did I need to feel defensive about the comments; I simply was not capable of understanding the love that those parents feel for their children.  I read something on Facebook that I feel says it all, before I became a mother I did not know how it felt to have my heart on the outside of my body.

I don’t entirely agree with all the statements, but I do now understand the sentiment.

Okay, so my irrational childhood fears came back to haunt me not long ago.  I was fairly certain that as an adult (who has plenty of irrational fears, anyway) my silly fears of monsters was behind me.  However, it would appear that I was somewhat mistaken…

So, as a child, when I would take a bath I was frightened to let the water out while I was still in the tub because I thought the monster who lived in the drain may come up and get me.  So, I would always step out of the tub before unplugging the drain.  This crazy irrational fear caused me to continue taking only baths for much longer than most of my peers.  But, I somehow overcame this fear and was able to shower like a normal human being.  Since I have not worried about the monster who lives in the drain for quite sometime, I felt that this would never come back to haunt me…

Last week, while I was bathing Lily, I discovered how wrong I was.  For her birthday, her great aunt Loretta gave her some tubby crayons.  She found them one day, so I opened them up for her to see what they are and told her she could bring them in the tub with her when it was time for a bath.  So, at bath time, I put the crayons in the tub and showed her how they work.  She, being only 13 months old, of course, tries to eat them.  But, she did get the hang of it toward the end of her bath.  She made a lovely masterpiece on the side of the tub.  When I wiped off the crayon it started changing the colour of the water.  Her bath was cut a little short because the crayons made the water look so gross, I had to drain the tub.  I pulled the plug.  Then, I felt it.  I became a little anxious.  I was watching Lily who was very curious about the water running down the drain and remembered my fear from growing up.  It took all my strength not to pull her out of the bath at that very moment; not to tell her to stay away from the scary, evil drain monster.  She just kept getting closer to the drain, and I kept biting my tongue.  I did say something when she tried to put her fingers in the drain – I tried to sound calm, I am not sure if I succeeded or not – I said, ‘don’t put your fingers in there, it’s dirty.’  Now that I know that this irrational fear of the drain monster still exists in the back of my head I have to be extra cautious when I am bathing her so that I will not pass this ridiculous fear onto her.

So this amazing thing happened recently; Lily started helping me!  It started with, ‘Lily, bring me your block’ so that I could put her blocks away.  I would point to the block I wanted her to bring me, she would walk over, pick it up, walk back and hand it to me.  She followed this simple type of instruction for a couple of weeks when it occurred to me that she could help with other tasks.  ‘Lily, do you want to help Momma with the laundry?’ She nods her head yes and walks to the mud room.  She helps put the clothes in the washer, she helps move the clothes from the washer to the dryer, she helps put the clothes from the dryer into the basket.  She also likes to push the buttons, but that task is a little trickier, there are so many buttons and she never wants to push the one I ask her to push.  The other day, I said, ‘Do you want to help Momma put wood on the fire? And by help, I mean stand nearby and watch while Momma puts wood on the fire.’  She once again nodded her head yes.  I brought her out to the living room and put her down on the floor near the wood pile, I grabbed a log and went to the wood stove to add it to the fire.  When I looked over to see what she was doing, she had walked over to the wood pile and was trying to pull a good size log down off the pile.  I quickly stopped her, I didn’t want her to pull it off the shelf and hurt herself, but I did give her a smaller log and asked her to bring it over to the wood stove for me so I could put it on the fire.  She very proudly carried the small log from the wood pile to the wood stove, handed it to me and watched as I put it on the fire.  This was not a task I really thought she could help me with, and yet, she did.  A couple of days ago, she was playing in her room while I folded her clothes and put them away.  This always takes longer than she can handle, but she does her best while I finish up the task.  This day, I decided that I didn’t want to leave her room in the state we tend to leave it in after putting her clothes away.  I got down on the floor and said, ‘Can I help you put your toys away?’  She nodded her head yes.  First we gathered up her blocks, she put them in their bag one by one, when they were all away I zipped up the bag and put it away – she was not sure about me putting it away.  I quickly called her to another task, her shape sorted and all the shapes had to be put away.  We found all the shapes and I helped her find the corresponding holes for each shape.  Once it was full I gave it to her and asked her to put it on the shelf, she knew exactly where it went and took it over.  I asked her to put her books away and she put them on the book shelf, I asked her to put her sleep toys away and she put them in the basket, I asked her to put her blocks away and she put them in the appropriate basket or shelf.  She knew exactly where all her toys were meant to go and as long as I kept pointing out toys that were out of place she was quite happy to tidy them up.  I love that she has turned into a little helper, she loves to help me with any task (even if the only way she can help is by watching).  Things take a lot more time to get them done now, but it’s much more fun with a little helper and we really have no deadlines for any of these things, yet.

So, Lily’s birthday is February 2; right in the thick of winter.  Usually, here in Halifax, not a big deal.  Living on the coast we don’t often get big snow storms, and when we do they are promptly followed by enough rain to wash it all away.  February 2, 2013 was on a Saturday, which is birthday party day fro most families – but not ours.  I teach dance on Saturday afternoons so we couldn’t have her party on the 2nd.  Instead, we planned her party for the 3rd, the Sunday.  This seemed like it would be a great idea anyway because then her older cousins who could have been invited to other birthday parties on the same weekend would likely still be able to go.

So, everything was great, I had purchased treat bags for all the children who might attend, I had a cake on order to be made, I had decorations and a special ‘1’ candle.  My husband and his mother went shopping on the 2nd for fruit, veggies, drinks and other snacks.  We were all set!  Then the snow started.  We were reluctant to cancel or postpone because we had everything prepared and my mother-in-law had come to visit for Lily’s birthday, it would be a shame for her to have to miss Lily’s first birthday party.  However, we live pretty far out of the city and our roads are some of the last to get plowed.  When the snow didn’t stop before noon we decided that it would be safer for everyone if we postponed the party – February 10, 2013 was the new date.  I received an email from the person who was making Lily’s cake and by some miracle, she had broken the cake and offered to make a new one for another date – I asked her if she could try again for the following Sunday, and she agreed.

A lot of the drinks and snacks were still good from the weekend prior.  This meant only a small amount of food would need to be purchased for this party.  We had an appointment to have our photos taken in the morning on the 10th, so we had planned to stop on the way home to purchase any drinks and snacks that were now needed.  Enter Winter Storm ‘Nemo’.  The forecast was grim, upwards of 40 centimetres was forecast to fall beginning on Saturday and ending sometime on Sunday.  I kept my hopes up as long as I could.  After Lily went to bed on Saturday I ran around the house trying to make it clean enough for company and my husband went outside to shovel the driveway.  In the morning, the plan was, try to go to pictures, if we make it the party is on, if we don’t, no party.  We got up in the morning and looked out the window, the driveway was covered again and the road did not look nice at all, it was still snowing and the wind was blowing the snow making it hard to see and hard to clear the snow.  We decided it would be safest to stay home; no party this week either.  I went to my email to see what I could do about getting the cake – there was another email, she hadn’t been able to pick up the cake pan, did we want to have the cake on Monday or did we want to save it for yet another date?  We told her not to worry about the cake and we would try again another time.

So now, when can we have the party?  February 17 was out because my husband was going to be out of town for the weekend and we had a family party to go to; February 24 we had already agreed to go to another party for a friend’s new baby; March 3 is out because I had already agreed to substitute for some dance classes that day.  Now we are looking more than a month after her actual birthday, this just seems silly!  I don’t want to give up on her party though, she is my first baby and her first birthday is a big deal to me!  She doesn’t understand and is not disappointed that she has not had a party, but I am a little disappointed.  So, what to do?  Should we go ahead and try March 10 even though it is so far after her birthday AND the weather could cancel it again, or do we do something crazy?  We do something crazy, of course!  Why have a 13 month birthday party when we can look even further forward, to the summer when the weather is not as likely to be so bad.  So, for our baby girl’s first “birthday party” we will be having an 18 month party in August instead.  In day care, for a child to move from a baby classroom to a toddler classroom, they must be 18 months old, so instead of a “birthday party” we are having a “toddler party.”  This solution will not work in the future, I know, we will likely have a disappointed little girl every now and then, but at least she will still get to have a party this year!