Yesterday I was "that" mom

Yesterday was one of "those" days. The kind that make you want to crawl back in bed and start over. Not because it was so awful that I couldn't cope emotionally, but because everything I touched, or tried to accomplish, was hindered by something. Not big somethings, mind you, but stupid little nothing somethings.

Example: trying to get ready for the day while B takes his nap. This time is limited, and varies from day to day. Some days I have two hours, some days an hour and a half, some days an hour. Those are bad days. Luckily, they are few. An hour nap means I will most likely have a grumpy baby for the duration of our day, and a grumpy baby makes for a grumpy mommy, which makes for a daddy who wants to turn around and go back to work as soon as he walks in the door of his home at the end of the day.

The short nap may or may not have had something to do with the fact that as I was brushing my teeth, a clump of toothpaste fell on my bottom lip before making it into my mouth, so I did what anyone would do in that situation, I tried to suck it back in. While this seemed like a harmless idea at the time, I soon realized that the force of my sucking would bring the clump of throat burning, puppy hating, devil paste to the back of my throat where it proceeded to burn in such a way that led to a fit of dramatic hacking and coughing, which then led to guzzling water, going to the closet to cough loudly (in hopes of not waking up the baby), scratching the back of my tongue with my toothbrush hoping it would make the burning stop! It didn't.
I cant believe this stuff is approved by four out of five dentists!! That fifth guy was right.

Needless to say, such a stupid incident set the pace for the rest of the day. I felt as though I couldn't do anything without something stupid making my task just a little more difficult than necessary!

You never know where the inspiration for a blog post will come from.

These things (naps) are so darn important! In this case, a bad nap led to an awful lunch date with a friend. I met a sweet girl in Brody's swim class a few months ago. She has an adorable little girl just a few months younger than B. We decided to meet for lunch yesterday, and if you've read my cooking challenge post, you know I LOVE Pita Jungle, so that's where we went. Little did I know, thanks to my deathpaste which led to Brody's short nap,  I was going to be "that" mom at the restaurant.

My child. My sweet, well mannered, easy going, smiles at everything, baby, basically all but grew two heads and shot death rays out of his eyeballs. In his defense, he was also teething. There are just some days when those baby teeth, that are taking their time to push through, give him such a hard time, he can hardly stand it. The problem is, people in the restaurant don't know he's tired and teething, they just know this unruly kid is crying through their lunch break. Before B, I was that person who looked at a mom with my judgment and thought "get that kid under control, lady" or "when I have kids that will never fly". Ha! Oh... me and my naïve, pre baby self. I try and make it a point not to judge moms anymore. There are still times where I will see a mom do something, or not do something and think "I would definitely not handle that situation the same way" and hey, we are all entitled to our own opinion. An opinion doesn't mean judgment, but thats another post altogether.

A little suggestion from an enlightened new mom, if you see a women struggling with her brat child, instead of wishing she would shut her kid up, try and remember that it may not be that she is inconsiderately allowing her child to ruin your lunch with a meltdown. There may be more to the situation than you realize. If you send her a knowing smile, it will make a world of difference in her already stressful day.

I feel like I'm getting off track a lot today. Naps!

Naps have high value in this household. I see so many tired, cranky, babies. They just need a good nap! I wrote a post about sleep training a while back (which, if you have 20 minutes (its a long one) and have any interest in these kind of things, you can find it here), it explains a little about how we handled naps. I will say one thing, naps are tough. Don't stress about them too much. Make sure the baby is eating on schedule, and the morning and night sleep schedule is consistent. The naps eventually fall into place. If he wakes up too early from his nap, I wouldn't feed him right away (like the book says), I would wait until his scheduled eating time.

However, I've learned that there are some things you can do to help the baby learn how to nap well. It takes complete determination on your part. One thing I realized is that babies wake up throughout their naps, and if you go into their room too early, you may be cutting their nap short. There were many times when I would hear B crying 40 minutes, or an hour into his nap, but I knew an hour was not enough, so I let him cry. More times than not he would fall back to sleep within ten to fifteen (sometimes twenty!) minutes. My rule was that an hour wasn't enough, but anything over an hour and a half, was good, so I would get him up, but not before then. Even if that meant he laid in the crib for twenty minutes awake. At least it gave him a chance to rest, and possibly fall back to sleep. If he was still awake 20 to 30 minutes later, the nap was over. I believe this helps him learn that nap time is over when I say its over (because mom knows best, right?!) so if he's awake and still tired, he has learned to go back to sleep. If he's not tired, he's learned to hang out in his crib for a little down time until I come in.
Those are his only options.
It was not a smooth and easy process in the beginning, but now that he's learned "the rules" naps are much easier. We still have our bad days here and there, but 90% of the time, naps are consistent and restorative.
My hope is that we have set the tone for when we eventually put him in a "big boy" bed.
Mom makes the rules, not baby.
...in theory
=)

"I see greatness in you"

Shopping at Hobby Lobby with mom!

 Note to self: Don't let B play with the "harmless"  lotion bottle

(its a miracle it didn't get his eyeball!)

Sweet moments on Grandpas birthday

His favorite way to watch TV

Ready for the 4th of July!

Helping mom cook...which he apparently finds hilarious  

It isn't easy raising a prodigy 

 Nerd

 

Here's to a better nap than yesterday, and new toothpaste!!