On Being Mama

Even though Logan is almost a year old, sometimes it hits me, as if for the first time, that I am a mother.

Mama. 

Will it always be that way? Will that sudden realization always catch me by surprise? This is, without a doubt, the most important and most amazing thing I have ever done. It is so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day, changing diapers-preparing meals-running baths, and forget to stop and feel the sheer joy that this sweet amazing little boy brings. 

Tonight he was having trouble falling asleep. I very rarely hold him asleep anymore, because we put him to bed awake and he generally will go on to sleep on his own. Tonight was different. He was upset.

I opened his door and scooped him up from his crib. Holding him to my front like a little monkey. "Shh, shh, shh," I gently shush and he calms down with his head on my shoulder. 

Little shuddery breaths tickle my ear.

I gently rock from side to side and continue my quiet shushing. His eyelids grow heavy and I return him to his crib.

His back barely touches the sheet, he cries out and reaches for me. His Mama. 

  

Back in my arms, he quiets instantly.

I sit in the rocking chair, that just today I was thinking of putting in storage. 

He straddles me, head on my chest. And we rock. 

Mama and baby.

Me and my son.

Currently - linking up with Harvesting Kale

Logan is currently...

Eating as well as he always has. Logan has been a good eater from early on, and I am so glad. Check out my Logan's Lunches post to see more of what he is eating!

Drinking from straws and loving it.

Wishing for fun and educational birthday presents! ;)

Loving practicing standing on his own. He gets so excited when he stands for a few seconds without any help.

Dreaming .... I wish I knew.

I am currently...

Eating clean...ish. I am trying very hard to anyway. Working toward that lifestyle change that everyone is always talking about.

Drinking kombucha! At least we will be soon. Finally got a scoby this week and we are going to start brewing our own. So many health benefits, plus not to mention delicious!

Wishing that time would slow down just a teensy little bit.

Loving this amazing spring weather. I want to be outside all of the time. The greens and pinks everywhere are so, so beautiful.

Dreaming about Logan's first birthday party. I am having so much fun planning it. I hope it turns out to be close to what I am picturing in my head.

Logan's Lunches: Eleven Months

I've decided to start a new monthly series about what Logan eats for lunch! He generally has the same thing as us for night time meals, but lunches usually aren't very well planned out. Here are a weeks worth of  his lunches at eleven months old.

Starting at the top left and going left to right:

1. Scrambled egg with mushroom, spinach, and bell pepper. Blueberries. Cheese. Avocado.

2. Peas and carrots. Tuna salad. Strawberries and blueberries.

3. Cheese. Turkey Veggie burger. Orange bites. Avocado.

4. Avocado. Peanut butter sandwich. Cantaloupe. Orange bites.

5. Steamed broccoli with cheese. Strawberries. Avocado toast.

6. Chicken salad sandwich. Sauteed mushrooms. Strawberries. Black eyed peas. 

2013 Great Cloth Diaper Change

This past weekend was the annual Great Cloth Diaper Change. It is an event that takes place internationally to help raise awareness and inform people about cloth diapering. I won't go too deep into just how awesome using cloth is, but know that it is and feel free to ask any questions you may have! I attended last year, and was merely an observer as I was just weeks away from my due date. This year I was so excited to be able to participate and I brought my sister along with me!

I was oh so thankful that my mom and sister made the drive up to go with me. I had 1000 times more fun with them with me than I would have by myself. So to both of you thank you and thank you again for coming! They also brought two little ones along, Daniel and Brooklyn.

We had a little time to kill before the official change, and Logan decided to use that time to practice standing alone. I was very excited as you can tell by my mile high eyebrows. Hello!

During the actual change, only active participants are allowed in the designated changing area. When the whistle is blown everyone changes the diapers at the same time.

After the change all of the little cloth bottoms get raised in the air! It was so sweet to hear all of the mamas (and some daddys!) oooing to their babies, and all of the happy baby sounds as they were being held above our heads. 

There were prizes and drawings and a diaper swap afterward. I snagged a few new (to us) diapers and a new wet bag for the diaper bag!

It was so wonderful to be with so many like minded people. Obviously we all cloth diapered, but there were also so many mamas wearing their babies in all different kinds of carriers. When I go out and about I can pretty much assume that I will get a few second glances if I am wearing Logan. Saturday I was just one of the crowd. Also, when he tugged on my shirt and wanted some "num num," I didn't feel the least bit self conscious about giving him a little snack right then and there. 

Just like last year, our change was part of an Earth Day festival. So when we finished we still had plenty to do and see. 

The Heifer foundation had some of the animals from their local ranch there. 

We saw sheep,

chickens, ducks,

goats, and a very large rabbit.

Here's our crew, minus my mom:

Overall I would call the day a huge success. My mom even scored us some kombucha! We are going today to pick up our scobys. 

My little man couldn't even handle all of the excitement.

I can't wait til next year! I wonder if Logan will still be in diapers... hmm...

11 Months Old!

It is so crazy that my little boy's first birthday is less than a month away! He is growing up so, so fast!

Lately two people have asked me when he is going to be two. Slow down people! We are still working on one! It will be interesting when we go to his one year appointment to see what his percentiles are now. I imagine his height is still quite high, and that his weight has raised a bit. 

His catheter procedure to close the hole in his heart has officially, for real, been set for May 20. We have to check in at 11:30, and he can't have any food or nurse any after 5:30. That's going to be hard for my little one. He still loves to nurse and often tugs on my shirt asking for it. Luckily we will have family members with us and they can help distract him. 

I have probably said this every month, but Logan just continues to be more and more fun. The weather has been back and forth here lately, as far as temperature, but we have been trying to soak in every warm and pretty day. We have been to a baseball game, the zoo, and to the park many times.

This month Logan has become a pro at getting a spoon and fork into his mouth. He isn't to the loading stage, but if you hand him a pre-loaded fork or spoon he doesn't delay getting that food down!

We have been using several baby signs for a while, and now Logan signs "diaper change!" He only uses it after you say "diaper change," but he does if almost every time. We do lots of clapping around here. Any time someone says "yay," even if it is just in conversation and not directed toward Logan, he will clap his hands. He also claps his hands when someone sings "If you're happy and you know it." He also points and waves now! He is very observant and loves to copy. When Logan saw Matt snap his fingers he rubbed his thumb and middle finger together just like Daddy! Except his didn't make any noise. ;)

Logan has lots of fun out and about. At the park he absolutely loves the swings the best. Sliding is ok and all, but could you please just put me back in the swing, please. From his swing he can see cars driving by and he loves to watch them. One day we made a dash for the park before a thunderstorm was going to hit and lower the temperature for several days. It was almost deserted, but the maintenance guys were mowing. Logan really enjoyed watching them work. His love for machinery is starting up!

Logan now has four teeth! The bottom two are almost fully in, and on top, the right incisor and the right lateral incisor are both just barely through the gums. He isn't always the most graceful teether, but I think he is getting better, because the first of those two just appeared one day!

I think we may have a little climber on our hands. He loves to climb all over Matt and me. I often sit in the floor with him, and he uses me to try to climb onto the couch! For a few days we had a mattress in the floor for guests, and he LOVED climbing onto that thing. Not so good at the climbing off part.... read: face plant. He has started to let go sometimes while he is standing, and stand for several seconds on his own. I predict he will be walking by his birthday.

There is no doubt we have a very smart little boy on our hands (we are not biased at all, no way, not us). He has several words now. He says, uh-oh, blueberry, Mama, Da-da, banana, num num(our word for nursing), Mmmmmimi, cheese, and a few more. At Easter Mimi got him a little egg that a little chick popped out of. When I played with it with him I would say "BOO!" every time I made the chick pop up. He started saying it too. The same thing happened when I was blowing bubbles with him and saying "Pop!" 

Another little cute thing he does is jump. When someone holds his hands while he is standing you can say "Logan, jump!" and he will widen his stance and bounce up and down. My favorite part is how he has to spread those little feet out before he can get his jump on.

He also has many animal sounds. He does monkey, donkey, horse, cat, dog, roars for a lion, makes the elephant sound with accompanying arm/trunk raise, and wrinkles his nose and snorts for pig. He gets very excited reading animal books. That played a large role in our decision to go to the zoo!

Whenever Logan comes across any form of clothing, hat, socks, shoes, pants, tops, he loves to try to put them on, and he knows where on his body they belong. I'm not sure if he is trying or pretending, but either way it is adorable.

Zoo Trip!

Yesterday we took Logan to the zoo for the first time! Lately he has really been into animals and making animal sounds, so we were excited to show him some of those animals in person.

It was a big hit with him, and we are both so glad we decided to go. He could see a lot of the animals from his stroller, but every once in a while we would get him out for optimal animal viewing. It was so sweet to watch him point at all of the animals. Pointing is something relatively new for him, and turned out to be a most useful skill at the zoo!

Up close and personal with a large swan.

He enjoyed watching the "monkeys" of all types, and some of the chimps gave us quite the show.

Working out that pointing finger!

Hello there!

Our fearless leader.

While we were looking at the lions, I was roaring for Logan. He continued roaring as we rolled on to the next animals. Talk about the most adorable sound ever!

"Hold on, I've got to adjust my hat!"

Seeing him enjoy something so much was absolutely wonderful. He isn't be able to talk about it afterward and go over his favorite parts with us, but we could see the excitement and wonder in his eyes with each animal they spotted. That little sparkle was, without a doubt, my favorite part of the day.

Picnic in the Park

The weather was absolutely beautiful yesterday. We took advantage of it and headed to the park for a picnic supper! I can see us repeating this many time this spring.

Logan is very into Daddy these days. "Where are you going, Daddy? Wait for me!"

"No hands!"

Wearing Daddy's hat.

Blooper reel: Logan's got me in the choke hold! Or at least that is what is looks like.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame!

This weekend we took Logan to his first baseball game! We live close to our local minor league baseball field, and love attending their games. The best part is, it only takes ten minutes to get home!

We weren't sure how Little Man would do, out with crowds, noise, and past his bedtime. He did great and had lots of fun!

While the sun was still beating down on our seats we walked around up in the shade and he had lots of tell me. Bonus: this talking shot is a great view of his two little teeth!

Logan's favorite part of the game was definitely all of the clapping. Whenever the crowd clapped and cheered, he joined right in. Oh so precious. His least favorite part was Daddy's yelling. Poor Matt, he said he is going to have to re-learn how to cheer. Haha. I assured him Logan would probably get used to it. It isn't angry yelling, just excitement! We love baseball!

We stayed for the first game of a double header (only 7 innings), and the Travs won! 7-0! Yay!

44 in 404 Halfway Update

My 404 days to complete a list of 44 goals is over halfway over! Time for a quick update!


1. Cloth diaper Logan all the way through potty training. (I realize that he will probably not be using the potty at 16 months, so this will be an ongoing goal.) Going strong!

2. Master the art of layered cakes. I plan on making another practice cake next week! Gotta perfect it by Logan's party!

3. Make good homemade frosting. (preferably an ideal type for layered cakes!) Any suggestions of recipes?

4. Breastfeed for (at least) a year. Going strong!

5. Pray for Matt and Logan every day. 

6. Read the entire Bible. (John, Joshua, Almost done with Acts... seriously need to step it up, working on the Proverbs through April also, (one a day!))

7. Get involved in a Sunday school class.

8. Stay off of Facebook for a whole week. 5 times. - (2x) I feel like I can go ahead and cross this one off, even though I didn't technically complete it. The purpose was to be less addicted to facebook, and I definitely am. 

9. Do not color my hair. So far so good. I chopped off all of the highlights, which means I am no longer two-toned, so I feel pretty confident that I will make it.

10. Finish the afghan I started in Aug of 2011. Finished it, gifted it, and made another! SO proud of this one! I am told my niece sleeps with it. :)

11. Give all handmade Christmas gifts. Another one I am crazy proud of. I made gifts for every single person and felt like they were good gifts. Hopefully the recipients agree!

12. Send out Christmas cards. Check!

13. Go to bed with the kitchen completely clean every night for a month. Seriously, why is this so hard?

14. Buy only second hand clothing. Recently made a few purchases at a local consignment shop. Going strong on this one!

15. Make a wet bag for the diaper bag.

16. Post on the blog 100 times.

17. Learn more about nutrition and healthy eating. Currently practicing a very loose form of "clean eating." I need to get more serious about it though. I love candy!

18. Make freezer meals, 5 times. (2x)

19. Move out of our apartment. - signed a new lease. :(

20. After we move, unpack everything within the first month. - not moving ^^^

21. Take Logan's monthly pictures every month until he is one. Technically yes, but really I HATE that three months were taken with my phone and are honestly crappy pictures. Not that I am the greatest photographer or have the greatest camera, but they are better than phone pictures.

22. Clean out my dresser.

23. Go through the closet and get rid of clothes I will never wear again. Just did this AGAIN!

24. Organize my craft box. 

25. Sew more & blog about it. I have done a few projects, but have NOT done the blogging part.

26. Slow down and enjoy every day with my son, & don't let stress get the best of me. Always a great reminder. Time flies by so quickly.

27. Do lots of sensory activities with Logan & blog about them.

28. Learn more about gardening.

29. Plant something, even if it is just in a pot. I have plans to REpot a plant. Does that count? That plant is now dead. Go me.

30. Write down Logan's birth story.

32. Keep up with Logan's baby book. Erm... got it out a few days ago. Need to update!

33. Embroider something.

34. Use my gym membership.

35. Make at least two wreaths for our front door.

36. Use more homemade cleaning products.

37. Use mostly homemade baby food. 

38. Learn more about quinoa & make something with it. We made two things, they were so-so. If it were cheaper I wouldn't probably use it more.

39. Finish this list.

40. Call family members more.

41. Decrease the negativity that I let come out of my mouth.

42. Go to a farmer's market.

43. Read more fiction. (Tending Roses by Lisa Wingate)

44. Make a homemade version of something. (apple butter, granola, fruit roll ups, etc.) Bought stuff to make granola. Hopefully that will happen soon!

I am definitely crossing things off the list, but there are many more to go. This is just a check in, and to help remind myself of some of these goals!