Day 1: Facebook profile photo.

10 day photo challenge.

Saw this on Four A's and a D. Thought it would be fun!

10 DAY PHOTO CHALLENGE

1. Facebook profile photo.

2. You, one year ago.

3. Someone you love.

4. A photo that makes you happy.

5. You, making a funny face.

6. Your celebrity crush.

7. You & your best friends.

8. You and your siblings.

9. Most recent photo of yourself.

10. A favorite photo you took yourself.

Mom Blog Monday Blog Hop

I am the featured blogger this week on the blog hop! So welcome to all my new readers and followers :) I now almost have a crawler on my hands! Perfect timing too. Tomorrow afternoon, my dad is flying in from Connecticut to visit for the week. I was hoping Boston would start crawling in time for his grandpa to see. He gets up on his knees and rocks, then goes flat. He did crawl forward one time today. He got up then threw his body forward, it was pretty hilarious. A few other "milestones" from this week. He has discovered his toes and can now grab both feet. He also discovered it's fun to suck on them! That makes diaper changes pretty challenging. He also sat in a high chair in a restaurant on his own for the first time. I went to Applebees for a baby shower (I had THREE this week, and two next week) and I ordered rice with my meal because on Wednesday he ate all my rice. Well, he didn't want the rice so I could've gotten the fries I WANTED to eat and instead he ate all the turkey off my sandwich. So many babies this week too, my friend had her son on Thursday, and another friend had her daughter on Friday!

Yum, toes

Not so sure he wants to try the asparagus. 

This is month #4 TTC #2. Got VERY positive OPK's for the last 3 days, so I'm thinking today will be the day I ovulate. I'm hoping it doesn't take as long as last time. I found out I was pregnant with Boston 3 days before I was suppose to see the infertility specialist. Tried constantly for one full year, and wasn't on birth control for 1-2 years before that (my husband was however, deployed that whole year). Wish me luck! I would really like to get pregnant when Boston is 9 months, I think 18 months apart would be perfect.

Mommy Talk Tuesday! {Breastfeeding}

This week's topic Breastfeeding!  

Did/do you breastfeed? If you do/did what was your biggest challenge during breastfeeding? What was/is your favorite part of breastfeeding? Do you think it's ok to nurse in public, covered or not? Do/did you ever nurse in public? Do you have any tips for moms struggling with breastfeeding or expectant moms who plan to breastfeed?
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I have been breastfeeding my son now for a little over 6 months. It for SURE was not easy for us in the beginning. He was born a month early, and I didn't get to see him (besides right when he was born) for 4 hours after birth. He wouldn't latch when they brought him to me. Instead of having me try for awhile, the lactation consultant nurse just handed me a nipple shield (which ended up being the wrong size for his mouth, didn't find that out until he was 5 weeks old). The first week, I supplemented with formula since he would not latch. I was pumping and had already pretty much given up on breastfeeding normally. He just couldn't do it, he wouldn't get much even with the shield and he would be mad after. Pumping every 2-3 hours around the clock is NOT fun.
When he was 5 weeks old I had my WIC appointment to see the lactation consultant. She immediately figured out that he was tongue tied, and that the nipple shield I was given was the wrong size. She weighed him, gave me the correct nipple shield size, and then I fed him. She weighed him after and he had taken a full feeding for the first time, with the new nipple shield size. She also gave me a brand new Medela Pump In Style (I had been using a used one I bought locally because I could not afford a new one). I immediately called our pediatrician when I got to the car about the tongue tie.
The nurse called me back and said he had seen that he had a slight tongue tie at birth. She told me he would check it out at our next appointment in January (it was early December at this point). I told her no, I wanted to be seen immediately and get it taken care of, not "checked out." She scheduled me an appointment for the next day. I expected the doctor to tell me it wasn't bad and we would just keep an eye on it, that's what I was warned would happen, but he took him and fixed it immediately. It took two seconds and he was fine immediately after, took a bottle with no pain.
It was still two weeks after this until he latched, we went on vacation for Christmas and it was exhuasting. I was pumping but not enough because we had to much to do and so many people to see. Pumping in hotel bathrooms while your entire family is in the other room is not a good way to spend a holiday. I ran out of bottles on the airplane home, and had to use the breast shield in the airport which was annoying. But, the day after we got home he latched perfectly with no breast shield! We have had no issues since then. Now he hates bottles and is on a great schedule. 
My favorite part of breastfeeding is that I can tell how much we have bonded from it. I am his main source of nutrition and he needs me. He holds on to me while he eats and I can tell he loves it! I think it's fine to nurse in public. I personally use a cover, but I don't think anyone should have to. Breasts are for feeding a baby, that's the only reason we have them, so people shouldn't think its weird or gross to feed a child in public. No one has ever said anything about it to me, but I've heard a lot of horror stories that people have had comments made to them while nursing in public. 
My main tip for anyone struggling, or who plans to breastfeed, is JUST KEEP TRYING. It took us almost 2 months for him to latch and I never gave up. Having to wake up all night long to pump was more important to me than sleeping, knowing he was getting breast milk instead of formula. 

Mom Blog Monday

Something amazing has happened. Boston slept 9 hours in a row!! I decided last Thursday to begin CIO for sleep training. I decided I no longer care if he wakes my husband up. Yes, he has to get up at 5am every morning for work, but who cares, does that mean I should still be getting up 3 hours during the night and getting no sleep? No thanks! So he went to sleep at 7:30 on Wednesday, and woke up at 3! Thursday, he went to sleep but then was up at 10:30, he cried for 40 minutes and went back to sleep, cried at 11:30 for 10 minutes, then back to sleep. I fed him at 2:30 and he slept until 7:30. Friday was fine, I think he woke up only at 4:30 to eat. And then on Saturday, he slept 7:30 to 5! It was awesome. Everyone says he must have known it was mothers day :) Last night he slept until 4, so it's looking like 3:30 - 4:30 is about average. And I'm completely fine with one night feed, the 3 was just getting to be too much since I knew he wasn't actually waking because he was hungry! I really should either pump before I go to bed though, or set an alarm. They are so full by the time he eats, but I also have no milk left in the freezer and haven't in months, so it would be a good idea to start stocking up again in case we want to go somewhere without him. 
So anyways, yesterday was Mother's Day. In the morning we went up to Medicine Park. We walked around for awhile. We were suppose to go in the shops but we had to wait quite awhile since we got there at 9 and apparently nothing opens until noon. Boston didn't nap the entire time we were there (he usually sleeps 10 - 11:30) so he fell right asleep when we got home at a weird time and it messed the whole day up. We went to dinner later on and he was pissed most of the time. This guy in medicine park held him in one of the shops, and apparently Boston likes beards, he grabbed right on with both hands! It was hilarious. Today is back to the routine, hate when that gets messed up. Today at 12:30 we are going to the WIC breastfeeding support group, which my friend who is a breastfeeding peer counselor there runs each month. But this month we decided to do cloth diapering as the topic! I have a few new Alva diapers coming in today, hopefully the mail comes before I leave so I can bring them. 

Night one: sleep training.

Finally decided to give night CIO a go. Two nights ago, he slept from 730 - 330 without waking up. He has slept until 2 or so quite a few times so I KNOW he can do it. I know he isn't waking out of hunger. He has recently been getting up at 10:30, only 3 hours after going to sleep and it's time to break him of that habit. We finally weaned from the swaddle earlier this week. He is still struggling a bit with naps, but not too badly, he gets at least one really good nap in the afternoon nap and his evening nap is still the same. Just waking early from the morning nap. So last night, he woke at 10:30 and I just let him cry. Luckily my husband was already asleep (he doesn't hear him cry when he's asleep) so he didn't complain about it! He cried for 40 minutes before going back to bed. Ugh. Hopefully tonight it's shorter. He woke again an hour later but fell back asleep within 5 - 10 minutes. At 2:30am I fed him, and then he woke up around 6:30 for a little bit (didn't get him up), fell back asleep and woke at his usual time of 8:00. So I'm hoping tonight he will cry a little less and so on until he just sleeps! I have no issue with him waking once at night to eat, but 2-3 times is just unnecessary at this point. If he keeps waking only once I'll actually be able to pump again too and have some milk in the freezer!

On a side note, I made some chicken the other night. I made them lightly breaded, and then a plain one for Boston. OMG he loved it. I served it with broccoli which is usually his favorite... well once he tasted the chicken he didn't even want to look at the broccoli.

And... painting daddy's birthday card :)

6 months!

So yesterday we had Boston's 6 month appointment. He now weighs 18lbs 12oz, and is 26 1/4 inches long. His height it finally catching up to his weight! He had to get shots and he was more upset this time than the other times, but he was hungry too and we had been waiting around for awhile so it's understandable. I gave him some tylenol before the appointment, and before bed and he's fine this morning. Also last night... NO SWADDLE! He has has one arm out for at LEAST a month now, but still had troubles with both arms out. Well I decided to just go for it last night instead of trying it out during naps and he only woke to eat one extra time. Now if only the dogs would stop whining, not sure what's gotten into them the past few nights. He's down for his first nap now without the swaddle, so hopefully he will sleep a normal amount of time and not wake early.

This weekend, we headed down to Fort Worth for Saturday and Sunday and stayed at my husband's aunts house. His cousins son had his first birthday on Sunday, so Saturday we went to the Fort Worth Zoo. One of the elephants there was picking up this big donut ring with her mouth, and pushing two big balls around with her truck and it was so cute. Apparently that zoo is the #5 zoo in the country... it was cool and all like all other zoo's, but I can't imagine only 5 other zoo's being better? It wasn't all that big, but I guess when you go to zoos practically every weekend you start to get critical! haha

So milestones recently: he finally rolled from back to stomach! And he hasn't stopped rolling since. He rolls across the floor, and mostly only likes to roll to the left, so he gets mad when he reaches a wall or the entertainment center. He's trying to crawl, he can get up on his knees but he can't go forwards or backwards yet. He started solids a little over a week ago, his favorite so far is carrots!

In other news... my husband might not have to deploy! They were suppose to leave mid April, then beginning of May, now they have no clue when they are going. His class date for military police school should be coming in any day now (hopefully tomorrow for his birthday!) so there's a much bigger chance now that he will get to do that instead of deploy. And that means we can move away from Oklahoma!!

Trying to crawl

Destroying the paper on the doctor table

LJ KILLING his smash cake