10 Day YOU Challenge - Day 2 / Spinnin' Saturday

Today's challenge calls for 2 songs. It also happens to fall on Saturday...so I can count this as Spinnin' Saturday--which I have not done in a few weeks (mostly due to lack of participation, but also I didn't really have many songs stuck in my head).

Song 1: Ba Ba Black Sheep, have you any wool? Yes sir, yes sir, 3 bags full. One for the master, and one for the dame and one for the little girl who lives down the lane.

This is a nursery rhyme I sing often for G... I often switch the typical "boy down the lane" for the more appropriate "girl down the lane" :-) It's usually stuck in my head because I sing it a lot!

Song 2: My husband and I danced to Johnny & June by Heidi Newfield for our first dance almost 3 years ago at our wedding. We both liked the song lyrics and the meaning behind it. Johnny Cash and his wife June Carter Cash had a rough start, but were each other's counterpoint. They lived a full life and died within 3 months of each other. I can't imagine my life without my husband--and neither of us want to be here without the other.

"I wanna love like Johnny and June
Rings of fire burnin' with you
I wanna walk the line, walk the line
till the end of time
I wanna love, love you that much
cash it all in, give it all up
and when your gone, I wanna go too
Like Johnny and June"








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you know you're a nursing mom when.... part I

I've got a lot of comedic/pitiful stories about breastfeeding G, and I'll post more in the near future...but for right now:

You know you're a nursing mom when

....the most embarassing thing about the gym locker room isn't worrying about someone seeing 'too much,' it's worrying about the let down that just occured under your thin towel while 2 other women are in close proximity.

Ten Day YOU Challenge w/Linky

I'm going to do this 'challenge' so that all my new bloggy friends can get to know me a little bit better. There are some whom I think would make great IRL friends, but we just don't live close enough! Feel free to participate in this challenge with me and link up here! I'd love to see your posts!

not a great photo of the baby, but it's the most recent photo of me

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How to keep a sleep log

source

While there is no exact science to sleep training, there are some things you can to do to set yourself up for success in teaching your baby to sleep on their own.

• Break away from sleep crutches (nix the paci, swaddle, co-sleeping, feeding to sleep, etc...)
• Stick to age appropriate wake times (see this google doc for recommendations)
• Consider a bed time routine, and a mini-routine for nap times
• Avoid naps on the go / skipping naps so baby doesn't get over tired
• Keep an accurate sleep log

I've discussed them all, but I've never really explained how to keep a good sleep log.

When I started logging G's sleep, I started with a notebook, a black pen, a red pen, & 3 colors of hi-lighters. I used the black pen to record times/make notes, the red pen to calculate wake and sleep totals, and the hi-lighters to color the time G ate, fell asleep, and woke up. I was trying to find patterns for her natural sleep rhythm.
You don't have to be that precise, but it does help to break it all down visually!

Once you get your baby sleep trained...logging sleep gets a lot more simple. I now just use my iPhone stickies app to keep track of her meals, naps, and night sleep. I tried not logging for a while, but felt like her sleep started getting messed up, so now I always do it. I make sure she's getting what's normal for her (about 13 total hours of sleep) so that I can notice any big changes / predict issues.

Tips for logging your baby's sleep:

• Pick a time to start your sleep log for each day. Choose either when baby wakes up for the day or when baby is asleep for the night. I do the latter--so when I write down G's sleep for Wednesday, it actually starts with bedtime from Tuesday night.
• Write down when baby is actually ASLEEP, not when you put her down. Similarly, write down when baby is awake, not when you got him out of crib.
• Decide if you want to be very specific down to the minute...or if you are okay with rounding to the 5's. Whatever you choose, just be consistent with rounding up or down, so that it balances itself out. I usually round.
• Calculate wake times as you go, otherwise it's doing you no good.
• Calculate total night sleep when baby wakes up, so you can predict how the day will go.

Example: Past two days' sleep log for G

Tuesday:

NS: 6:50 pm - 3 am, 8 hours 10 minutes

Eat: 3:20 am

NS: 3:35 am - 5:20 am, 1 hour 45 minutes

Eat: 5:30 am

NS: 5:50 am - 7 am, 1 hour 10 minutes---TONS: 11 hours 5 minutes
Eat: 8:30 am

Nap 1: 9:05 am - 9:40 am, 35 minutes (shorter than normal, she is cutting teeth & that's affecting naps)

Eat: 11:45 am

Attempt at Cheerios: 12 pm

Nurse to calm: 12:50
Nap 2: 1 pm - 1:55 pm, 55 minutes

Eat a bit before we go to the gym: 2:45 pm

Eat: 4:10 pm

Dinner (plums & oatmeal): 6:15 pm

Eat: 6:30

Total: 12 hours 35 minutes
WT: 2:05/3:20/5 (I generally try for 2/3/4 but with shorter naps, it's a bit off)
Meals: 7 milk, 1 solid

Wednesday: (this day was all screwy)

NS: 6:55 pm - 5 am, 10 hours 5 minutes

Eat: 5:05 am

NS: 5:25 am - 6:30 am, 1 hour 5 minutes---TONS: 11 hours, 10 minutes

Eat: 7:50 am

Eat: 9:40 am

Nap 1: 10 am - 10:15 am, 15 minutes (I'm blaming her cutting teeth, but also the longer than normal wake time)

Attempt at Cheerios: 11:30 am

Eat: 12:20 pm

Nap 2: 12:50 pm - 1:15 pm, 25 minutes (again, not normal AT ALL...)

Eat: 4 pm

Nap: 4:15 pm - 5:15 pm, 1 hour (doesn't usually nap at this time, but with her crappy nap day, I let her sleep)

Dinner (plums/oatmeal): 6 pm

Eat: 6:45 pm

Total: 12 hours 50 minutes
WT: 3:30/2:35/3/2:05 (such a weird day for sleep)
Meals: 6 milk, 1 solid

Abbreviations

NS = night sleep

TONS = total overnight sleep

WT= wake time, calculated from the time baby woke up until the time baby went to sleep next

Please contact me if you'd like any personal advice or need more help with logging!

Internet Explorer Users?

My husband looked at my blog today, using Internet Explorer (hate it!)...and said my tabs are all messed up and my header looks weird. So I logged onto his PC here at home, and sure enough it's screwy! I apologize to those of you IE users, I will try to figure this out and get it fixed. Any advice would be appreciated!

Popsicle Collage: Wordless on Wednesday

I got the idea to do a collage of all the funny pictures related to G's first popsicle from a friend who did one of her son's 6 month picture out takes. I took the pictures with my phone, so the quality isn't fantastic.

This was a 100% fruit blueberry popsicle and she LOVED it. I wasn't planning to give it to her--it was for me! But she looked so interested, and it's got no added sugar or anything, so I let her have half of it before I confiscated it for myself. At first, she didn't know what to do because it was so cold and solid, but turned to liquid. Imagine being a baby who hasn't ever experienced something like that before...such fun! She was kind of sad when I took it to eat the rest, she kept grabbing after it--mean momma! ;-)

Daddy successfully put baby to bed!

I have put G to sleep every night of her life, except July 4th. She was taken care of by my in-laws while we went to a baseball game to celebrate my parents' 25th anniversary.

Last night was the second time I've left G before bed time. It was also the first time daddy did bed time by himself, fed the baby, and put her to sleep. I was really nervous last night because I was worried she would associate him with me, and get frustrated I wasn't there to put her down. Luckily she went down very easy before I even got to the restaurant, so I was able to relax the whole evening. I love my husband for giving me the night off and calling to let me know she was asleep so I wasn't anxious. He said that he changed her, put her into pee-jees, fed her 5.5 ounces (I left 9--it's hard to gauge how much she eats from the breast!), and put her down very drowsy. She was out really quickly, without much crying at all. I'm proud of them both!

I think it is really important for mommas to take some time for themselves. You will be a much better mother if you feel like you get "me" time. I don't think me time is getting together with other moms to talk about your children....that's momma time. While being a momma is the biggest job in my life right now, it is not the ONLY thing to me. Last night, I felt like the woman I was before G was born, and it's so nice to know that still exists. I did my hair (kind of), I wore make up (forgot lipstick), and got dressed up (~ish). I ordered a Martini and held an adult conversation pretty well.

Although we are on a budget, I did splurged a bit last night---$23 (pre-tip). I think that is a great price to pay for a great dinner and drink at The Melting Pot. We got Wisconsin Trio Cheese Fondue (comes with bread, apples, and veggies to dip), I got a California Salad, Cory got a Caesar Salad, and then we finished with the special Dark Chocolate & Dulce de Leche Chocolate Fondue (comes with lots of desserts & fruit to dip).

I love staying home with my baby, and I don't want to be anything but her mom--but I do need to maintain my own identity besides G's momma. Life goes on after having a baby, and I'm finally at that place where I feel like I am living and not just surviving. So happy to be here :-)

Menu Plan Monday

This week is going to be super easy--yay!! I feel kind of silly posting such a lame meal plan, but maybe someone out there wants chili, tuna, or pork and they just needed reminding of that fact!

I'd like to call your attention to Wednesday. My husband saw this recipe on the back of the Sargento cheese package (I got name brand cheese wwwwaaayyyy cheaper than the generic due to a sale+coupon!). It's TUNA--he normally hates tuna, but he asked for this specifically this week. I aim to please, but what's hilarious is that something very similar to this was a "go-to" recipe for me when I did weight watchers years ago. I literally LOL'd at him when he asked for it.

Source

Sunday: Left over Pork Roast, slow roasted potatoes, fresh brocollii & cauliflower
Monday: I'm going OUT!!! (I'm so excited) and the husband gets leftovers
Tuesday: left over Chili, crackers, cheese, salad
Wednesday: Light & easy Sassy Salsa Tuna Melts
Thursday: eat any/everything in the fridge
Friday: out of town for a wedding
Saturday: out of town for a wedding

linked to OrgJunkie.com

PS. If you like to bake, please consider entering my VERY easy to enter Brownie Prize Pack giveaway! It's rafflecopter entries with NO mandatory entries/follows.

Sunday Five - Gratitude post

I have many things to be thankful for this Sunday--and always! I wanted to share some of them, because I have been known to be a bit mope-y here sometimes. God is SO good and He deserves all of the praise. Does the Sunday 5 - Gratitude exist somewhere already? If not, I'm creating one!

1. The weather has been absolutely beautiful this weekend. Yesterday we took G to the local arboretum. She rode on daddy's back and enjoyed looking at all of the new plants and trees. We were there at a good time, too, because the city orchastra was putting on a free concert. We listened to that for a while and she behaved wonderfully.

2. My husband is an amazing man. We have a clean bathroom and I didn't have to lift a finger! I love that he does that for me. He also gave me a fantastic back massage and helped out so much this weekend. Also, see number 5 below...I'm so grateful he is allowing me the night off tomorrow! Love him <3

3. We are going on a fun date this afternoon. Our new gym membership includes a rock climbing wall--it's actually many walls with lots of different path options. G will play at the childcare facility while we hang out alone :-)

4. G behaved great while we were greeters this morning before mass. She rode on daddy's back again while we passed out the Liturgy Guides and said good morning to fellow parishioners. She was a super wiggle worm during church, but nothing we couldn't handle. Win-Win.

5. I have a ladies night planned tomorrow with my husband's cousin's wife. It's the first time since becoming a momma that I have gotten out of the house to meet up with another lady! It's also the first time my husband has done bedtime by himself. Good luck to him on that one! We are doing ladies' night at the Melting Pot (a fondue place). It comes with salad, cheese fondue, and chocolate fondue. I'm so excited!!


Feel like sharing your gratitudes? Blog about 5 things you are thankful for this Sunday and link your post back here! I'd appreciate if you linked to my post too!

Fall Love & September Stats

I took this in 2009 & the
caption read: "sorry diet, you're welcome soul"

September is over??!?! Where did it go!! I really cannot believe it is October now. I love Fall, for many reasons. Mainly Pumpkin Spice Lattes (I've had 2 so far...we're on a budget ;-) ) or pumpkin anything, but also our anniversary, cool walks, chili and crock pot meals, Thanksgiving, Christmas music, my birthday, darker evenings, cheaper electric bills, and pretty trees. I also like not having to shave my legs everyday, wearing jeans and fleeces or hoodies, and not having to blast the car AC. Please feel free to comment with your favorite fall thing, I'd love to know I'm not alone!

Here are last month's statistics:

Google Analytics - September 1 to September 30:
1624 Visits
924 Unique Visitors
3138 Pageviews
2670 Unique Pageviews
51% new visitors
2:45 Average time on site

According to Blogger -September 1 to September 30-
Pageviews 4761
Viewers are primarily from the USA, some from Canada, and a decent amount from Europe and Australia. My most popular posts were the reviews and giveaways, with my hair cut, August stats, meal plans and save our daughter posts coming next. The most popular page on my blog last month was Cloth Diapering. The nicest thing is that google is finally starting to bring a few people to my page. I'm still a 0 PR, but I hope to see that go up this month!


According to Alexa:
Alexa Traffic Rank: 1,477,324
Traffic Rank in US: 209,639
Sites Linking In: 5 (I know I have more than this...so what gives???)

Exciting news in Letters from Momma world: 

I crossed the 200 mark on Google Friend Connect (257), Facebook 'likes' (224) and twitter followers (206)!
I've received a lot of positive feedback on my Save Our Daughters series, and have another post for it in the early writing stages.
I received my first paid sponsor offer. There is a text link on my right sidebar that is a small sponsor of this blog! They reached out to me!! How cool is that!? Maybe other companies will follow suit! See my PR page for more information.
I have a review for Betty Crocker Milk Chocolate Brownie Mix (giveaway includes several other items), and have a Mother-ease cloth diaper review/giveaway coming up toward the end of the month. My first 4 review/giveaways were very successful, and I hope the companies I worked with are pleased.
My goal for October is to write another guest post for The Cloth Diaper Whisperer. I also want to search out other guest post options--let me know if you have one available! Another goal is to reach 500 followers. I think that's pretty lofty, but I'm setting my sites high.


Thanks for following Letters from Momma. I'm glad to have you all! Please let me know if there's anything you want to see, or if you have any suggestions.