Where has the time gone?

I often wonder at what point your baby becomes your toddler... when does you toddler become a child? a teenager? an adult? Is it those milestone birthdays?

For someone you don't see every day, these transformations happen in segments. You see the infant grow into an adult in pieces at thanksgivings, Christmases and Birthdays. Then, before you know it, you're marveling over how quickly the time has gone. I'm currently doing this with my younger siblings. One is about 10 years younger and the other 15 years younger. I see them every now and then and always catch myself wondering when the little kid who used to tag along behind us turned into this rebellious teenager. I remember at the rehearsal dinner for my wedding, my brother Scott was standing next to me. For some reason I looked down and realized he was not standing on the curb next to us. He was in fact standing on the same level ground I was. However, somehow in a matter of a couple of months he had grown a whole head taller than me.








It then makes me wonder about my own child. At what point will he come running into my room in the morning without the soft round features of a child? Or even worse, at what point will he just not run into my room in the morning? When will those hugs. Those deep, amazing, loving hugs disappear? When will he start to be embarrassed at the thought of HUGGING HIS MOTHER IN PUBLIC? At what point will he not want to nap on me? But instead will prefer the solitude of his bedroom. Perhaps even locking the door behind him so that I can't creep in just to watch him peacefully sleep? When will the nursery become his bedroom - and eventually be plastered with posters and other relics of his interests?

Already, it feels like he's been part of our family forever... while other times it seems like just yesterday he was born.







At what point in his life will it come time to pack up all of his toys and eventually turn his bedroom into just another guest room... in what will be an over sized home for just Ryan and I?




What about making him laugh? Everything I do makes him laugh... he laughs just because I laugh. He laughs at the dog running down the steps. But even I know that eventually... I won't be funny to him.






Every day I look forward to discovering new pieces of Jude's personality - his attitude, his taste, his cuddly-ness. I look forward to seeing the types of friends HE choses for himself, instead of the ones that we chose for him. But, it's times when I sit here and wonder about his future that I try to hold on to who he is today too. It's times like today that I want to hold him instead of holding his hand while he tries to wabble around. That instead of going for a run, I sit on the couch and let him nap in my arms. That I don't regret the decision to let him sleep with us in bed - and that I'm grateful for the times that he lets me carry him. It's times like today that I put the camera away and instead of making a memory through film, I'm making a real memory.






The past couple of weeks I have been filling every waking hour with preparations for Jude's first birthday. Finishing touches on the house, landscaping the front yard and deciding on details for the party. But I think about it and wonder if I'm just filling this time to avoid the truth. My son is turning one. The first year of his life is quickly coming to a close. This first year, he has probably learned and experienced more for the first time than he will for the rest of his many years to come. He has more than doubled in weight, acquired a variety of motor skills, is beginning to communicate and recognizes those people who chose to make themselves a significant part in his life. While his future holds an endless amount of possibility, I'm pretty sure this first year is the most significant part of his future. I'm so thankful that I've had the opportunity to spend this time with him.







But even though I'm nervous about the future... about growing beyond this period of infancy, I'm excited. I'm excited to see the person he becomes and the interests that he has. I look forward to teaching him more and watching him grow.






And yes, I'm even looking forward to his teen years. The years where I'm sure I'll want to pull my hair out and scream. I look forward to reading back over these blog entries and thinking about all of the things that he's done. How our family has matured and become complete with him.






As I say every month, I wish I could just bottle up a little bit of this 11-12 month old Jude. The Jude who just the other day was peacefully sipping away from a cup on the floor - and then I walked in the door. He threw the cup and if one can 'run' while they crawl, he ran, to me.





This Jude who is learning what things are and how they work. He loves using 'real' things. By real things, I mean things that grown ups use. He'll get his own screw driver while Ryan's working and mimic him. He'll grab his own wash cloth and dust like mommy. He'll try to figure out how to hook the hose back up to pop-pop's nail gun - because he knows it won't work without it.




Our outside time is teaching him new things too. He helps me pull weeds, he throws rocks and he eats strawberries (that aren't quite ripe) right off the bushes.




At one year, he has eaten at least 1 pound of dirty, but when tempted with a cupcake at his 1st birthday photos, he didn't want anything to do with it.

He still sucks his thumb, he still nurses and he still fondles my breasts as a source of security. He goes to sleep easily at night, but some how he know JUST when we're going to bed, because he begins to stir in his room to indicate that he wants to be in bed with us.

He says "what's that?" points and says "that" when he wants something and is just all together amazing. I look forward to the next year and can not wait to see what that brings for us.

But for now? I have a birthday cake to decorate :)

Side note: I'll be posting Jude's 12 month toy box picture later.

Sleeping - without the Co

Question: ever wish you didnt stop co-sleeping?

Answer:

When Ryan and I first started to sleep with Jude, it was not something we did for the sake of co-sleeping. It happened quite by accident.

As with any newborn, Jude would sleep best when being held close. I remember if he was having a hard time being put to sleep, I'd lay him on my chest, bring my legs up under him and wrap my arms around him. This gave him the closeness he wanted on all sides and he would fall asleep easily. So, when getting Jude to fall asleep and wanting to sleep myself, I of course would hold him in my arms to get him to sleep.

Jude always hated sleeping on his back. From day one the second you laid him on his back he would wake up. So, I would instead hold him in my arms until he fell asleep and then just fall asleep myself.

The first few times this happened I felt like a terrible mother. Doctors, nurses, anyone you talked to would tell you how BAD this was! You could roll over and suffocate your baby! Even though this option gave Ryan and I sleepful nights pretty early on, we were both a little ashamed to be doing what apparently was so "wrong". I seriously wouldn't tell anyone he slept in our bed because I didn't want to hear the same stories about people rolling over and killing their children or the kids who survived but then were sleeping in their parent's beds until they were 21.

Then one day, felling terrible that my little man was laying in bed between two full grown people I of course did what I always do: looked online. I typed in something a long the lines of "do you sleep with you baby" in google to be sure I'm not the only mother doing it and BOOM there was a million hits. It all led me to co-sleeping and that there are so many supporters of it. Ryan and I were not at all doing it because of this attached parenting style and had no plans on this being a long term thing, but it was nice to know the support was there. I had also read that it was best that if you planned to stop co-sleeping on your own terms it was best to do it before 6 months as this was the point when you child would become most aware of his/her surroundings and so if they woke up in their bed room, expecting to be in your room, they wouldn't be happy. So, we planned to try to get him transitioned by then.

As Jude got a little older, could move a little on his own and we were ready to be away from him for the night, we gave it a whirl in the crib. I'll add that because he was able to roll over, we put him on his stomach. This is another HUGE no-no in the AAP, but we did it anyway. He slept like a champ. I wanna say this decision to move him happened around the time he started to set his own bed time (maybe 3 months?? I'm not 100% sure). Typically now, we put Jude to sleep in his crib and when he wakes up in the morning, Ryan brings him in bed with me. Usually he'll wake up around 5-6am, nurses and falls back to sleep for a couple to a few more hours. This is my chance to cuddle with him. I love it. Then, when he's up for good, we have a little bit of time laying together. He 'talks' to me and bites my face - it's so sweet.

But on with the answer to the question... do I miss co-sleeping. Yes.

Of course it's so nice to only have to share my bed with two other people now (we co-sleep with Buddy) and I'm sure I'm getting a much deeper sleep than when I was aware of Jude and it allows for more random "adult" time.. (wink, wink). However, I love/loved cuddling with Jude. I love taking advantage of nap time and our morning cuddle time.

Still, I consider myself lucky that he adjusted so easily to his crib, but look for random reasons to bring him in bed with me. Typically these are bad decisions because then I'm waking up every 2 hours or so to the sound of him moving, to feed him, or just to check on him when we both could use the good nights sleep. These random in-bed decisions are getting fewer and further between, but it's still nice when it happens, no matter how often I have to wake up!

As a side note, I think that Buddy is happy we stopped co-sleeping. He obviously doesn't get as much attention now as he did before Jude and so night time is he chance to soak up all the mommy and daddy attention he can.

Footsey Pajamas

Ryan and I are very anti-weather control in our house. AC = money. Heating = money. We try to go as long as possible without using either of these (I'll admit when we first moved in together it was a touchy subject, but I came over to the dark side). In New Castle, it wasn't as bad, but in our current home, there is at least twice as much space to heat and windows that are at least 1/2 as efficient.

In addition to this, who DOESN'T like to snuggle up under their blankets on a crisp fall night??

However, since 'soft bedding' is the devil when it comes to babies and the weather is taking a turn for the chilly side, we have become huge fans of the footsey pajamas for Jude!

Basically anyone you talk to will tell you no bumpers, pillows, blankets or stuffed animals in the crib. You should dress your baby for the weather and put them to bed. But what I'm wearing around the house on a cool day won't necessarily keep you warm on a cool night (you're sleeping, your body is relaxing, your breathing slows, bloods not pumping as quickly) and you get chilly. As a result we have been layering little man with PJ's to try and keep him as warm as possible. He has a collection of 'sleep sack' style pajamas, fleece footsey pajamas and regular footsey PJ's. Hopefully those will treat us good for awhile to avoid turning the heat on.

If not, back in to the big bed he'll go to snuggle with mommy and daddy.

I think I took for granted the warm summer nights that we could just put him to sleep in a onesie.

Guilty

I'll start by saying that yesterday was a BIG day for Jude. Typically he sleeps a good portion of the day and then on and off through the night. More recently as he's growing, he is spending more time alert and awake, but still sleeps regularly through the afternoon.

Yesterday I took him down my dad's house to visit and it was a whole new environment for him. He left his normally fairly calm home and went into chaos. Not only is it significantly louder, with more people but my dad's house also means: grandparents and kids! Before I even pull into the driveway I get a over protective phone call to 'pull in the garage it's raining, you don't need to have Jude out in the rain'. Then, before I can even get out of the car, they're in the car in his face, making just way too much noise and going crazy - you'd think they never saw a baby before.

The rest of the afternoon continued much like that with everyone in his face, fighting over who gets to hold him singing rediculous songs, stretching out his arms and legs (my parents insist that babies need to do their 'exercises' to get them out of the fetal position more quickly ??) and tossing him back and forth. My stepmom even said at one point that "babies need their stimulation!" (and she wonders why I won't let her watch him when I go back to work). When we finally got out of there, he passed out on the car ride home as expected. Being that it was only about 3:00 or so, I thought for sure he'd sleep for a good few hours and then end up being awake all night. But I was wrong!

He did his normal wake up/eat thing until he ate around 7:30. After I fed him, he of course when back to sleep. I held him in my arms while watching TV until about 10:00 when I was getting tired. I contemplated waking him up to feed him before I went to sleep because I kept thinking "he's going to wake up any minute now". I didn't have the heart and wanted to see how long he'd sleep so I went up stairs and climbed in bed.

Here's the 'guilty' part: I brought Jude in bed with me. While I was pregnant or even before I started thinking about having kids, I knew for certain there were things I would "never" do as a mother. For example taking a shower with my son, and bringing my child into my room with me - putting him in my bed was very high on that lis! However, as I transition into motherhood, I'm finding that it's not uncommon at all to do things you never imagined you'd do.

Even with a million people telling me about the risk of SIDS (apparently EVERYTHING causes SIDS - beds, stuffed animals, bumpers, crib mattresses) and suffocation if you sleep with your child, it's something that Ryan and I do on and off. Since we started doing it, it's been almost taboo. Because it seems so socially unacceptable we both seem to just not mention that it happens in conversations with other people - and when the doctor asked the other day where he sleeps, I didn't even THINK about mentioning it.

The other night I came across one of the first people who openly asked 'do you sleep with him?'. Ryan and I exchanged concerned looks and said a very guilty "yes...". His response: "We slept in bed with my son all the time!" Why we felt guilty admitting it, I'm not sure - I think it's just because our society has made the AAP the final decider on what's best for baby and have thrown our best judgement as parents to the wind.

But the truth is, when he's laying next to me he sleeps so much more soundly. Regardless of what anyone says, even when I'm asleep I'm aware he's next to me and even the slightest noise he makes has me awake (even though he makes much less noise when in bed).

Being that he was so peacefully asleep on me last night I didn't have the heart to plop him into his crib. I knew the second I did he'd be back up and alert. I really thought he needed the sleep. So we all climb in bed and fall asleep. Around midnight I wake up because I'm aware that Jude has not eaten since 7:30. I look at him and he's still peacefully asleep next to me. I'm of course wide awake at this point and think to myself "this kid is a sleeping machine!!". I reposition myself and in doing so he starts to fuss a little. I assume I woke him up, but the second I settle in, he goes right back into a sound sleep. Not until quarter to 4 this morning (about when Ryan wakes up for work) did Jude wake up! Even though he's been a pretty good sleeper since he was born, last night was without a doubt the best night's sleep we've had!

While I try to avoid having him in our bed, if it gets me rest like that, I'm all about it! Still, being the worried and concerned person I can be I did a little rooting around online and came across this article which is also from the same guy who understands a parent's concerns about vaccines and came up with the alternative vaccination schedule. It helped comfort me that there is someone out in the medical field who seems to support what we're doing and even seems to recommend it! As someone once told me, there's so much information out there about parenting. You'll get a million different people's opinions and advice and really you just need to filter it out and use the advice that works best for YOU as a mother/father.