And so it comes to be… with the introduction of solid foods in her diet, Caitlin has taken her first step towards gaining her independence from me. It was a bittersweet moment for me when I fed her the first spoon of cereal. Even though I was excited for her I kept thinking about how fast she is growing up… too fast for me. Oh well, I can’t keep her my baby girl forever even if I tried.
Here are pictures from the momentous occasion – Caitlin’s First Taste of Solid Food. Enjoy.
William and I have never celebrated Valentine’s Day and I’m okay with that. It’s one of those holidays that I think is over rated (not to mention over priced). I don’t need a “special” day to show the people I love how much they mean to me and I certainly don’t need a day for people to show me how special I am to them. So in the five years William and I have been together we never did anything on Valentine’s Day. Of course that doesn’t stop me from doing something for him like buy him a gift or baking him cookies, but that cause it’s part of my nature and I never expect anything back. Basically, to me, Valentine is just another day. But, that all changed this year when I got my first Valentine from Aidan.
Sure Aidan and I have had three Valentines before this but those occasions don’t count since he wasn’t conscious of the meaning of the day. This year he had been talking about Valentine’s Day days before the event. He still doesn’t understand the significance of Valentine’s Day but he knows it is a special day and something worth doing something special for. My heart has no words to describe all the joy, excitement, and pride I felt when I opened up his school bag and found the card he made for me. Alright I know he didn’t actually make it. His teachers probably put it together and he scribbled on it and stuck on some felt hearts. But he knew that he was doing it for me and that is what makes the card so special. Btw, if you are curious about how I am sure Aidan knew he was making me the card, Aidan had told William he had made me a card when William asked him what he had done in school that day. Till that time I had not mentioned the card to either Aidan or William therefore the response was unadulterated.
Aidan’s Valentine card to me
The card got me thinking, I’m probably going to have my first Mother’s Day with Aidan this year as well. Oh, I’m so looking forward to it! And then I realized, for the next few years I’m going to celebrate two more first Valentine’s Day and two more first Mother’s Day with Mark and Caitlin respectively. I’m overjoyed at the prospect. I know it sounds ridiculous but these are some the moments that make it so rewarding for me to be a mom.
I can’t believe we are almost at the end of February! I’m a little annoyed at myself because so many fun things have happened in the past month that I wanted to blog about but never got around to doing it. Instead of spending my nights on the computer I opted to lounge in my bed, relishing the peace and quiet of the night. Anyway, here is a run down of this eventful month…
On February 10, 2008, Mark moved from sleeping in the crib to sleeping in a big-boy bed. I was nervous about this move as I did not think Mark was ready for it, but considering Caitlin has become mobile and has outgrown her bassinet, we didn’t have much choice. The first night he kept getting out of bed. I think he may have been excited about his new surroundings and that he wasn’t imprisoned in his crib anymore… he wanted a taste of his freedom. In order to curb this behavior, William or I would put him back in his crib (without his lovey) and wait till he had calmed down before moving him back to the bed. We had to do this at least three more times. He finally got tired of playing his game and we were able to move a half asleep Mark to spend his first night in his big-boy bed. The next night wasn’t so bad. He did get out of his bed twice. The first time we did the whole put-him-in-the-crib thing. By the second time, he had finally figured out what the repercussion was for getting out of bed that when he saw me coming for him, he ran back to his bed and did not get out of it till the next morning. Bedtime has been smooth sailing ever since. Naptime, on the other hand, is another story. I did put him in the crib as a punishment for getting out of bed during naptime, but once I moved Caitlin to the crib, that wasn’t an option for me. Naptime is increasingly difficult on the rare occasions that Aidan takes a nap. Then Mark is so excited to have his brother in the room that he continues playing, banging walls, and screaming long after Aidan has fallen asleep. In such occasions I have no choice but to take him out of the room and let him go without a nap that day. I would rather have one child get a good nap than have two ornery boys on my hands.
Aidan tests out his and Mark’s new bed.
Mark’s first night in his big-boy bed.
In other news, Caitlin has decided to skip working on her crawl (she seems to be happy to scoouch around) and has moved on to more serious matters… sitting up. Currently she can get herself into a tripod position, balancing herself with one arm while seated. Of course I need to keep an eye on her because she is still not strong enough to hold herself up for too long and often ends up rolling around and sometimes knocking her head on something and getting really mad. Also, a few days after Mark graduated to his big-boy bed, Caitlin was moved to her big-baby girl room. I’m so excited because my house now has a baby girl’s room with a baby girl sleeping in it. Also, I must admit, I’m enjoying having my room back. It’s a luxury for me to be able to relax in bed at night and enjoy the silence. I also like that I don’t have to worry about tip-toeing around the room in fear of waking the baby.
In the tripod position.
Caitlin can briefly support herself in the upright seated position.
One more thing before I end this post, I had a very special Valentine this year. Now that I think about it, I think it deserves a post of it’s own. So be on the look out for my post on my special Valentine. 🙂
The end!!
It may not be considered crawling but at 5 months of age Caitlin is definitely traveling. It’s fun to watch her move but you need to watch careful because if you blink you may miss it. What she does is get up on all fours, then uses her foot to give herself a little push forward an inch or so. She doesn’t travel far this way but she does end up going some place.
Yesterday I noticed that Aidan had renamed his Internet icon to “aidan.” The boy can’t even draw a straight line but he can type out his name. Looks like Aidan is going to learn to type before he learns to write.
The kids have contracted a nasty cold that has taken a toll in the household. Caitlin was the first to show signs of it last week. Although her temperature ranged from 99.9 to 100.2 it never went high enough to require a visit to the doctor. With the help of a humidifier, Baby Vicks, and lots of feeding she was able to get through the worst. Her temperature has since returned to normal and all that is left is a nasty sounding cough and lots of phlegm. My poor little princess. It is heart breaking to hear her suffer with such an adult sounding cough.
Mark came down with the cold as soon as Caitlin started getting better. A day later, Aidan got it too. I feel terrible for Mark. All he wanted was to be held and carried around. But with Aidan and Caitlin not doing so well, my time had to be divided and I could only do so much for him. It seemed that the only place he would stay calm was in his crib and so that was where he hung out for the past few days. I hated putting him in the crib when he was feeling so miserable. I felt guilty because it seemed like I was choosing my oldest and youngest child over my middle child. But I’m only one person trying my best to manage three sick babies; my choices were limited and letting Mark hang out in the crib was the best option I had.
Thankfully Aidan didn’t seem to be hit too hard with the cold. He had the worst of it on Sunday and now seems to be back to his normal, complaining self. As a precaution I didn’t take him to school today but I have been feeling bad about it especially since Aidan was ready to get dressed and head to school after breakfast. The problem was that he was already an hour late to a two hour school session. I’m sure he’ll be ecstatic when he goes back on Thursday.
And finally, with three kids suffering from this nasty cold, there was no way for me to avoid getting it. I don’t think I have it as bad as the kids did but I have been feeling highly unmotivated lately and lacking of a lot of patience.
Anyway, I’m thankful that my kids are getting over it and all that is left of this virus is a choir of coughing. Hopefully that will go away soon too. I can’t wait! I’m looking forward to rinsing everything with extra hot water and lysoling everything I can!!!
Caitlin can now get up on all fours. It won’t be long before she starts crawling. Btw, she will be five months in less than a week.
This may not be the best picture but, right now, it is the closest I could get to capturing the milestone.
Mark pooped in the potty today. It was the size of a goat pellet but it was still a poop and I was excited. He has been peeing a few drops in the potty as well. I haven’t made a serious attempt to start his potty training. For now I’m going at a slow pace, letting him get comfortable with the potty and asking if he needs to pee or poop whenever I remember about it. I’m just not excited about starting his potty training after all the work that went into training Aidan. Definitely not looking forward to cleaning up that mess again. Maybe he won’t be as hard as Aidan was to potty train. After all, Mark wants to do everything Aidan does and peeing and pooping in the potty is one of them. But, I’m not going to rush it and I’m going to let Mark learn at his own pace. He may not be fully potty trained for a while but I think he is making a promising start.
I’ve been out of sorts lately… just feeling completely miserable. It’s gotten so bad that I actually hid in the closet today so that I could cry my heart out in peace. Several reasons for this…
1. My stagnant weight loss. I only have 5 more pounds to lose in order to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight, but for the past month my weight has remained constant. I guess I should be happy it is not going up, but it is still a bit disheartening to get on the scale every week (yes, I’m obsessed) and see that there has been no weight loss. Okay, I know I should be working out if I want to see this weight gone, but give me a break. I am a mother of not one, not two, but three kids under the age of five. By the time my husband comes home from work, which is usually late, I am exhausted and all I want to do is crawl into bed. Besides, I thought breastfeeding would help me burn some of that fat. Guess I thought wrong.
2. William and I had a talk about our finances again. It wasn’t looking too good especially considering I am planning a trip to Canada to attend my cousin’s graduation this summer. Although William thinks this trip is a luxury, I consider it a necessity. This is my beloved cousin’s graduation from college. It is a big deal to me and the rest of my family. My parents and my sister will be attending the graduation as well. I have warned William about this trip for over a year and I have told him that there will be no argument about it… I am going to that graduation! Of course this means we will have to cut back on some of our other plans, i.e. sending Aidan to summer camp, and scaling down Aidan’s fourth birthday celebration. Sadly, we have decided to have a low key (just within the family) celebration for him and have opted out of renting the bounce house. I feel horrible since he really enjoyed the bounce house we got for Mark’s birthday and I had promiseed that he could get the bounce house for his birthday. I’m just hoping that when his birthday comes around he will have forgotten about the bounce house and maybe just enjoy whatever we managed to do for him. I think he will be okay with it, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling terrible for short changing my little man.
3. Back to my earlier post. I am extremely upset about the idea of putting Caitlin in daycare. This is what causes me the most grief. Another thing to add to my worry is that Caitlin refuses to drink from a bottle. She would rather cry for hours than take a bottle. Last night William made a futile attempt to feed her. After an hour and a half of trying she had only drunk half an ounce. It was miserable. If William had so much trouble feeding her, I don’t know how the care giver at the day care will handle it. All I keep thinking about is how this woman has five to six other infants to take care of. She is not going to have the time or the patience to try and feed my baby. She may even let my baby go to sleep hungry and upset rather than fight with her to eat. I just can’t handle thinking about this. Add to all this the image I have in my head of the sad face Caitlin makes just before she starts crying. That is what I see when I picture dropping Caitlin off at the daycare. How will I be able to work if that is what she does when I drop her off? How will I be able to get through my day worrying if she is getting enough to eat? How will I be able to live with myself if I feel like Caitlin is suffering without me? So many questions and worries in my head and none of them have an answer or a solution.
Yet if I don’t work I will be back to having the same finance discussion with William, and Aidan and Mark will suffer because we won’t be able to afford to send them to preschool. Which brings me to the next reason for my misery…
4. I will have to settle for a teaching position that I may not be happy with. I really want to teach in a middle school but currently all the openings are for high school. If I had the luxury of waiting I may get a job that I like. But, I don’t have that luxury, so I will have to accept whatever offer I get. Not very promising.
Amidst my tears I read this article in the Arizona Republic about a mother dying of cancer. It made me realize that even thought I feel like my life isn’t the greatest right now, at least I have my health, my kids who drive me crazy, and a husband who loves me regardless of how fat I am. This does not mean that I am not going to bitch and moan about putting Caitlin in daycare, but I may learn to deal with it. I am not going to stop worrying and lamenting about everything I missing out on by having a stranger watch my little girl, but at least at the end of the day my kids still have parents to come home to. And, even though I may miss out on watching my child while I work, at least I have lifetime to make memories with her, the rest of my kids, and my husband.
Here are some pictures from Mark’s 2nd and William’s 30th birthdays.