Me & Mine March

I'm not sure if it's because of taking part in this project or not but the month's are just flying by! We are already a quarter of the way through the year, it won't be long before I have to buy a frame for my 12 family pictures!
March has been slightly quieter than February though not much. We celebrated St Patrick's Day and Mother's Day, my first one! Luke wasn't too sure of the Patrick's Day celebrations, the crowds and noise of the parade were a bit too much for him. We had a lovely day, just the 3 of us visiting a local play area and eating cupcakes, I'm trying to be "good" and "healthy" but thought with the day that was in it, a cup cake was allowed.
There was another night out with friends this month although I think I'm done with them for a while now, I'm just not able for them like I used to be. We've got a teething baby this month, those top 2 are almost through though, needless to say the lack of sleep is taking it's toll. However, Luke has mastered his version of crawling and he is flying around the house and getting into every nook and cranny, I love it.
The clocks going forward is probably my most favorite thing this month, I love having the extra bit of day light in the evenings and it means that Summer is on it's way...hopefully.
I've struggled a bit this month with finding a balance between work and home life but things have settled down a bit now, although I feel like this month's pictures aren't up to scratch and I had planned on taking them earlier in the month but my energy and motivation was not there all that much.
Nonetheless here it is, our portrait for March:

This month Luke loves:

• Crawling
• Opening the kitchen drawer where the saucepans are
• Being awake all night

This month Dad loves:

• Going for a cycle
• Watching Thor 2
• Having a couple of Sunday's off

This month Mum loves:

• Watching Luke crawling around 
• Gypsy Sisters - the ultimate trash tv!
• Finally getting around to printing some photo's

Mother's Guilt

I've been quite lax lately with my blog except for L's updates and such. Things just seem to have been so busy, here I was hoping to have a quieter month this March!
However I put my most of my absence down to guilt, mother's guilt. Everyone always tells you about the rush of love you feel for your baby or the feeling of total sleep deprivation almost pushing you over the edge but what was never mentioned was the guilt.

The guilt I feel for not knowing straight away what is right for my baby - It took me a few weeks to figure out that L was experiencing discomfort due to his formula brand, once we changed it he was fine, but I felt tremendous guilt for not knowing what to do sooner rather than him having to suffer on.

The guilt I feel for having to be away from L 4 days of the week for 10 hours a day to go to work. I worry that he realises I'm not around as much as Daddy (luckily the OH's job is different shifts so he would look after L a lot of the time that I'm at work). If I was in a position to work less and be at home with him more than I would definitely take advantage of that.

The guilt I feel for trying to split my time on my days off between Luke, house work, appointments, weekly errands etc I know all of these things need to be done and it's a constant juggling act on my 3 days off of trying to get everything done while he's napping or playing when all I really want to do is sit down and play or nap with him all day.

The guilt I feel for leaving him in his Nanny's for the night to go out with friends. This doesn't happen often and when it does it's always planned well in advance, I always bring him to his Nanny's, give him his dinner, a bath and put him into his pj's before he goes to bed. I always have everything ready for my Mum so she's not trying to do it all herself. I get his clothes out ready for the next day, measure his formula, pack food if necessary, set up the monitors etc. Yet still I feel guilty for 1) going out and carting him off and 2) if he has a bad night (we all know he's not the best sleeper!) that Mum will be wrecked tired the next day!

The guilt I feel for the times I get stressed with him, not at all often to be honest but there are times when my patience wears thin and for these times I carry that guilt for ages. He's a little baby how can he mean to test my patience? Of course it's not done on purpose and a lot of the times it would be more down to everyday stresses, but still.

The guilt I feel for sometimes willing the next milestone to "hurry up"! Like the first tooth because by god did he teeth hard for the first one. Or moving on to solids in the hope that maybe, just maybe it might help him to sleep better. Or the crawling so that he can follow me around rather than cry every time I leave the room and I then have to carry him. When really I should be cherishing every moment I have with him while he's this small because time is going by so fast and he is growing up so fast!

This feeling hits me most when we are having our bedtime cuddles, when I'm giving L his bottle in his room at night, chilling out together before I put him into bed as he begins to fall asleep in my arms, if I only I could just freeze those moments in time.
As I'm sure a lot of mother's do, my own personal hobbies and interests have taken a back seat while I try and find some kind of balance with our life, sometimes I get really frustrated when I can't get the million and one things I need to do done in a day!
I know a lot of the above scenarios are down to "life" and there's nothing I can do about it, I have to work, the house needs to be cleaned, yes times will be tough, not every time will my mother's instinct kick in straight away, I know it doesn't hurt for him to spend some quality time with Nanny and Grandad on an over night and when the guilt is overwhelming I try my best to remember all of this.

9 Months

Every month seems to go by fast but this time it went by super fast! It's been a blur of sleepless nights and a clingy little boy. I read about how babies suffer from separation anxiety between 7 and 9 months which effects sleeping, eating etc and I definitely think Luke was going through this. The poor little mite couldn't even deal with us leaving the room to go to the room next door, be more than a few feet away at any time and basically just wanted to be up in arms all the time. I also read this can last for months, thankfully it was only a couple of weeks and he's back to his normal chirpy self. Still not sleeping great at night though!
He is flying it with the moving about by himself, all he wants is to be on his feet! He holds on to anything now, coffee table, drawers, chairs, his high chair..anything that allows him to stand up and bounce on his feet. He's even getting brave now and letting go and only holding on with one hand, for a second or 2 he might even let go with both hands. The stairgate's are next to go up along with the nursery fireguard.
He's still a hungry little grubber! He eats almost everything we give him to try. Bottles are still the same, 5oz with breakfast, 5oz with lunch and 6oz going to bed. He's been having a drink during the night but we are going to try and cut that out now too because most of the time he only takes an ounce or two.
I've just finished putting all of his 9-12 month clothes in his drawers but the 6-9 months clothes are still fitting him for another week or so.
We've tried just about everything to help him sleep better at night but he just isn't. I'm not sure if its sleep regression or bad habits or what but it's something we are always working on to try and improve. It is frustrating because he has a solid bedtime routine, a full belly, proper wind down time, nice warm bath and he goes into bed awake after his bottle and has no trouble putting himself to sleep after I leave the room (he does have a dummy and his Bear). He's usually ok from 7.30pm to midnight but from then on we could be in and out every hour until he comes in with us. I know the dummy is a major part of the problem because it's that we are going to find every time he wakes, sometimes its right next to him, other times he flings it across the room! In the last week or so we've gone in during the night and he's actually holding his dummy but wants us to put it in his mouth..he's really having a laugh at our expense! So it's something we will work on.
As with every month he is becoming so much more independent, I love watching him try new things for the first time. He's also become so much more affectionate. He's started to snuggle in my neck or chest just to have a cuddle, not because he's tired or upset but simply to have a cuddle with Mum or Dad, he gets up and moves on again afterwards. I love these moments, I could snuggle him all day if he wanted.
He's a right little chatter box now too, there's lots of "baba", "dada", "bubbub". It's so cute to watch him having these little chats.

We also had our 9 month developmental check up with the public health nurse. I'm not too fond of these appointments because I find them to be quite judgemental and hear a lot of "You shouldn't be doing that...". We were also given wrong advice when he was first born from a PHN so my faith in them isn't strong. Our last check up at 12 weeks was rushed and she really didn't seem interested in answering any of our questions. Thankfully this time it was different. We had a new PHN and she was lovely, really took time to discuss things with us and interacted well with Luke. Overall she was quite pleased with him particularly his strength and ability to stand. However as expected she did comment on his weight, he's not over weight but in the high end of his range. She advised that we watch his sugar intake, to cut out all of the baby desserts he might have and give him fresh fruit puree with natural yoghurt. With diabetes on both sides of the family it's something we will monitor carefully. Luke seems to love his savoury foods much more than sweet so hopefully it won't be an issue. He weighs 23pounds and is 73cm in length.

So another month of change is ahead, hopefully this one won't flash before my eyes like the last month and hopefully, like I really hope that this month may see him settle down a bit more at night and start to sleep for longer stretches...one can only hope right?! ;)

Also this month I managed to capture this lovely picture of my 2 boys and just had to share it xx

Spring Has Finally Sprung

Today was the first day that it actually really felt like Spring here. The sun was shining all day, it didn't rain once and I got to put the clothes outside to dry instead of turning on the dryer or having the clothes horse take up space in the living room, it was great!
So of course we took full advantage and headed out and about to get some Vitamin D into us. It was Luke's first time in the playground in our town and all he wanted was to stand on the bench and take everything around him in. We also had our first 99 of the year! Long may this fine weather continue so we can make the most of the outdoors and go on some more adventures :)

Ooops that may just be my finger ruining the picture!

Calm waters