I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy on this day last year. The labor was long and trying but I would do it again in a second.
Someone tell me, where the time has gone so fast! I truly feel like he just arrived and I blinked.
From the day I found out I was pregnant to today, I have grown to love this little boy more than I ever thought possible.
From the swollen pregnant feet, to the late night feedings as a newborn, to the sweet squishy face smiles he gives us now, watching a child grow may simply be one of the best things life has to offer us.
I did not believe people when they said you could love someone so much from the day you met them, and it is cliché, but it is so very true.
This little boy of ours, who is now 3 times his birth weight, has us both wrapped around his fingers and he knows it very well.
So much, of motherhood you cannot prepare for no matter how much you read or unsolicited advice you are given. It is an experience and world you learn as you go and they learn right along with you.
He has taught me so much as a person and as his mommy. I am so glad when he talked to God that he chose me to be his mommy. My husband and I are truly blessed to have this sweet, silly, and loving little boy as our son.
Happy Birthday to our tiny, long toed, smiley, always hungry boy with a ton of hair just like his daddy! We love you so very much and wish the world for you!
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We’ve been in quarantine for 9 weeks now. My little guy has been home with one of us since the end of December. That is a LONG time for anyone to be stuck with their parents! 😉
My husband is laid off in the winter so we had taken our son out of daycare. However, we had planned for him to go back obviously, when my husband started work. Throw that corona wrench in the plans of everyone’s life.
Anyone else wondering how your kids are going to adjust when we are back to what is “normal” life in the coming weeks?
I’ll admit the sleeping in with no commute and not having to rush to get me and him ready for the day and out the door is so, so nice. He is also cutting teeth so that is huge for us to have the extra time at home since he is sleeping more and not such a crab. If he were at daycare, I know he would skip naps because he is a neb-nose and cannot miss anything. It has been a huge plus to being home while he is going through the stages and growing so rapidly and we don’t miss a moment.
My concern is how he will act though when he goes back to daycare with his social skills. I do believe he needs other little humans in his life and he is missing that so much. Watching him with our niece last weekend, who is 8 years older than he is, just proved that to us. He adored her and enjoyed playing with someone closer to his size.
Cousins playing together
I am anxious and excited for him to go back to have the social interaction with others again, but the fear of spreading anything is in the back of my mind as well.
The fear of tiny humans spreading sickness was always a fear, even before the pandemic. The week we took him out of daycare a round of hand-foot-mouth came into daycare and I remember looking at his tiny 6 ½ month old self saying, “Don’t touch anything for the next 2 days!” As if that made any sense to him but we escaped the bout that spread there.
It is part of life that the little ones are snotty, germ spreading specimens. It is how they build their immune systems so young, I know and accept that measure of daycare. I also know our daycare is so careful and is taking all precautions as they open up to a new “normal” again.
Enjoying the sunshine for the 1 day this week!
We are fortunate enough that I’m still working from home and have a hand when needed from my mom. When normalcy resumes, whenever that may really be, I will trust that my little guy will adjust quickly, as he does with everything. He has been such a great trooper with every change we have had through all of this, but maybe that is the key, if we are always sporadic, he assumes that is how life should be! 😉
During this quarantine when my son goes for more, than say 2 days, inside without an ounce of fresh air because the weather has been bad, he becomes a bit sad and can be real crabby. He needs sunlight and fresh air. The obvious of “watering and feeding” him is a daily essential.
I joke that he is like a plant because without the sunlight, he really does not thrive or “bloom” you could say.
Our family sanity has been okay and surviving so well because we have been able to enjoy the spring weather when the sun makes is appearances on weekends. (This week’s weather in southwest Pennsylvania is a whole other story for another day to discuss. WTF?!)
We have picked up a new hobby with all of our time at home of hiking and more recently, morel hunting! My husband has got to enjoy it a little more than me since I’m still working weekdays. But man, he learned a lot and got to teach me on the weekends as we scavenged the woods for our new treasures, morel mushrooms that taste amazing!
The morel mushrooms our son & my husband found together one day hiking
If you do not know what these are, I encourage you to look them up! Especially if you’re in the colder states that may be able to forage for them in a later spring. Pennsylvania is about done with these but we have so much more to learn and forage in the woods ahead.
Have any of you enjoyed the outdoors during all of this? Sure the memes are out there joking that it took a quarantine to get people outside and doing things, but it’s true and necessary too. Necessary to get outside for your own mental health!
We purchased a bike caddy to put our little guy in while we pedal (and burn up our quads), also a sweet secondary hiking backpack off of Facebook Marketplace that has proven to be the best money we spent in a while! The outdoor world is what is helping us stay sane or cope, as some other might say.
There’s a tiny human in the bike caddy, I swear!
I encourage families to use this time and get outside TOGETHER. Don’t just push your kids out the door and lock it like mine used to do. We didn’t have touchscreen cellphones then so that was their only option to entertaining us without ringing our necks.
Seriously, when I say we have learned a lot as a family, I mean it. We took the time to hike several different areas together. We saw different landscapes and learned what is okay to eat and forage.
So we may be the weird family that likes to cook homemade meals. I am a little over the whole cooking every meal thing and we have ordered out for take-out more lately. However, when you make an entire meal from scratch and know you worked for the food that is on your table that night all while including your kids and making memories together, it means a hell of a lot more than it did when you were throwing something together from the freezer that night.
Again, I encourage you, while the weather is getting nicer, go outside! Go find something to search for together. Make memories. Even if it means getting lost in your backyard woods like my mom did with me and my friends years and years ago. Guess what? I remember that and we STILL laugh about it! Same for the year we got lost in the woods with my cousins and found a deer skull and saw a man with snakes in a bucket. I don’t remember the year or age, but I remember the experience.
My son may be 11 months old right now, but we hope to continue doing this because my husband and I grew up playing in the woods and being outside. We plan to keep him going out with us as much as possible and joining us so he can remember the fun times and moments we have in the woods!
Make the most of the time we have at home with the little house plants we created! (The kids are what I’m referring to if you didn’t follow that from the beginning) 😉
Two Cents Worth of Mom Life 