Prayers.

We had another nice weekend overall. I've been feeling sentimental since Friday thinking about the shooting in CT. Now that I'm a mommy, I can't imagine ever losing Eliseo. I can't imagine what those poor parents are going through. When I was younger I used to think that I didn't want to bring a child into this messed up world. So many tragedies. A failing economy. What is the earth going to look like when E is my age? Will there even be grass or trees? Will there be a horrible natural disaster That affects him in his lifetime? Will there be a war on US soil? But as I got older, I realized that there are a lot of good things in this world, and I can raise my children to bring more goodness and happiness. I feel lately like people are putting pressure on me to not hold Eliseo so much, but I dont care the consequences of holding him too much. After something so horrific, I just want to love and cuddle my baby.
That's really it for today. Some things on the horizon to look forward to: looks like Eliseo should be crawling soon, and I've been spending lots of time on the floor with him showing him that he really can sit up on his own. as always, when something happens, I will post!

Sending my prayers to CT.

This asparagus is pretty good Mom!

Asparagus is a hit! How a kid likes asparagus over carrots is beyond me. I was expecting more gagging but he ate it all like crazy. What's up after this? Peaches maybe? It's time to step it up...time for some mixing and spices. And meat??!! That's going to be an adventure! I have a feeling he's going to be a meat lover like his Daddy.

Any suggestions? Feel free to comment if your baby has a fave we should try.

Mommy and E playing on the floor.

Another weekend has come and gone!

This weekend went by way too fast. It was a good one but I need another day. Friday night we had friends over, Glenn made his famous Mexican food which always attracts a lot of people. We had a great night and most everything was washed up and put away by the end of the night but not all of it...but no chance to clean it on Saturday, we helped our friends move and then had to get some Christmas shopping done. Sunday was the 354th MPs Christmas party, we were there until 3 then Glenn went on Daddy duty so I could chip away a little more at my Christmas list. Almost done shopping, but I'm not happy until everything is bought and given! I've also been freaking out about not having anything Christmas up yet. So when I got home tonight, I put the baby to bed then went into freak out mode. Took out all the Christmas stuff, unpacked it, swapped out decorations with my usual house stuff, meanwhile I have a laundry pile the size of Mt. Everest, the kitchen mess grew from Friday, let's not talk about my bathrooms...so at my typical time (10:30pm) I decided to have a breakdown. But I'm happy to say, I have a clean kitchen and much of the Christmas decorations are up now. Not quite done, so hopefully my motivation will carry over to tomorrow.

Now onto Eliseo...he is the best baby ever. As long as he is fed, he's happy. We were gone from home much of the weekend and he was so well behaved. Everyone is always telling me how good and how cute he is. He is always smiling and laughing and just having a good time. I'm so proud of him. We tried carrots this weekend, he didn't care for them very much! The first night, I had to stop after a few bites because he was gagging and spitting them out. Today I mixed in some breast milk and that seemed to help. He was still making some crazy faces. He was making me laugh. So much joy...what did we do before him?

Congrats to my 2 friends this weekend who found out they are pregnant! I couldn't be more excited for them! Now that I've been through it, I think I might become a belly toucher. Watch out ladies, Lol.

I'm going to attempt to attach pictures from my phone onto this post ( that is from my tablet...technology these days!) So I hope I don't lose it. Not sure yet if I can post from one and add pictures from another. We shall see!

This is my crib!

I never thought it could be done, 5 nights now in his crib with little to no tears. This is the real deal. I'm so proud of Eliseo, but mostly I'm proud of me. It's obvious Eliseo was ready to make this move. I really wasn't. I feel like we have several accomplishments here. 1: he's falling to sleep within a few minutes of being put down. 2: he's not crying. 3: he's in his bed. Seriously I just can't get over how easy it was when I finally did it.

New topic: lunchtime!! Yep, I added in the 3rd meal of solid foods. I'm still nursing about an hour after I give him his solids, mainly because that's when it's naptime. But he was coming home from day care with bone dry bottles ago I knew I needed to add more food. So we are doing that now too. It just adds to the predictability of the schedule. We also brought him to day care 4 days this week which I think has helped. So tomorrow he gets to stay home with us! More our reward than his. Lol.

The results are in!

I can't believe it!  Last week was so hard, trying to get Eliseo on a somewhat predictable sleeping schedule. So many people weigh in on this topic and it's hard to know who is right and who is wrong. You just go with your instincts. But after 7 months of anxiety over Eliseo sleeping upstairs in his crib at night was for NOTHING!!!! Yesterday I moved his monitor, noise machine and night light upstairs. I thought I would just try putting him up there for an hour,  then if he didn't stop crying I'd get him and put him in the pack n play in our bedroom. I did our normal bedtime routine...bath, book,  nurse, kiss on the forehead and say nite nite...put him down in the crib, and he went right to sleep and slept all night. What??? Of all of the scenarios I played in my head,  this was not one off them!  And guess what...I slept in my bed too! I swore I wouldn't be comfortable doing that,  but this video monitor makes me feel like he's not too far away. I thought maybe it was a fluke and he must have just been really tired,  but he did the same tonight!  So did we do it?  Is this permanent?  Well,  I think so but I won't be hard on us if we have some bad nights. I will certainly try to keep him up there from now on,  cuz that was a lot of hard work that finally paid off.  And to boot,  I even got him to nap in there this afternoon. He is growing up! I'm so proud of us. Picture is to prove it!

I'm 7 months old already! !!

My baby is getting so big!

The last 7 months have been so much more than I could have ever imagined. Eliseo is such a perfect mixture of Glenn and I...Glenn's good looks and my personality!  How did we get so lucky? It boggles my mind how we made this perfect little person...people that don't believe in miracles have obviously never had a child.  We have so many firsts still ahead of us. I'm so excited for E's first Christmas!  The holidays have been losing their special feeling for me for some time, I've longed for a while now to get that feeling back; for my faith to shine through. Eliseo has proven to me that miracles do exist and he has escalated my faith to an all new level. Celebrating the birth of Jesus holds a new meaning for me this year. Now that I have experienced birth and am raising my son the stories are so much more dear.

So a quick update on the dailies: still working on getting naptime established, we haven't made much ground there. It's not so much the nap as it its getting him in his crib and falling asleep without being held (and staying asleep). On Friday I tried for 5 hours and he never fell asleep until I put him in the pack n play. This kid has some fight in him and I haven't won any rounds yet. Luckily a friend reminded me it's not a war to be won, its establishing a happy relationship with sleep. So I will keep doing the work because I know it's the  right thing for E and I know one day he will get it. He is still such a good boy and I will approach this with love.

That's it for today, early exercise day tomorrow so I had better get some sleep! (And I wonder why my child doesn't like to go to sleep...)