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Filed under: mom-zilla

Got Milk?

One of the biggest changes to our lives since Adelina was born was the dairy-free life style that I had to adopt after we found out at six weeks that Adelina has a milk protein allergy. I say "our" lives because by default my poor husband has had to adopt the dairy-free lifestyle as well. Luckily he's been a good sport about it, and eats as much cheese as possible when he is at work.

Finding out Adelina had a milk protein allergy came after our first trip to the ER... we suspected that Adelina had an allergy but weren't completely sure. I had started to limit my cheese and dairy intake but when we had Adelina's 8 week doctor visit the doctor we met with said it probably wasnt an allergy but an anal fissure... yes the things I have learned since becoming a mom. When she told me that I think I almost jumped for joy, I am pretty sure I went home that afternoon and made myself a grilled cheese sandwich. Not a day or so later Brent and I went out for ice cream, it was sooo good, I wish I had savored it a little more because its been at least 3 months since I had ice cream. Not 24 hours later, Adelina not only had blood in her stool but the poor baby was flat out unhappy. And then the blood in the stool got worse and worse until I was literally freaking out. We called the doctor on call and he sent us to the ER, at the young of an age its best to be safe than sorry. Thus at ten o'clock on a week night we were on our way to the ER. We ended up being there about two and a half to three hours and the doctor said that she definitely had a milk protein allergy and to consider other dairy items I had been eating... butter... cream... etc. I hadn't even thought about butter... DUH! Being lactose intolerant myself it probably wasn't a bad idea to give up dairy, but WOW do I miss cheese every so often!

From that day on, I really made a big effort to cut out almost all dairy with the exception of dairy in breads, etc. I suppose this is when the anal mom-zilla of me comes in handy because I am uber aware of anything and everything with dairy, probably to a fault, but if it ensures that Adelina is healthy and well that's all that really matters. I can definitely tell when something has more dairy in it than other things though... i.e. honey nut cheerios have more milk in them than you would think! It's been difficult because truthfully you never realize how many items have milk in them and its hard to find some items without it. I have learned to deal and I tend to fall back on a good 'ol peanut butter and jelly sandwhich when I can't figure out anything else to eat. Boring, yes, but it works! I tweeted to Whole Foods Market one day and asked them what non-dairy snack options they had and they were nice enough to respond with some options for me (Kind Snacks). I also found some non-dairy recipes that I will share in other posts from Whole Foods. And after walking up the aisles of Whole Foods enough times I've also found that there is such a thing as dairy free ice cream AND its not so bad!

It's funny to me now that I gave up dairy at all. One because I love cheese (I mean I worked at a cheese/ice cream shop in high school for crying out loud) and two because lets be honest, I am a bit self-ish. Because of this I wondered when I became pregnant how I would handle putting someone else's needs in front of mine. I kinda thought that I would struggle with it, but it's probably the exact opposite, I am pretty sure (and hubs will probably agree) that I put Adelina's needs in front of mine before anything else. Everyone always tells you how much you will love them when they arrive and how different your life will be but really nothing can prepare you for how little your needs mean and how important everything related to them becomes! Truthfully I love the change motherhood has brought me thus far and while I still need to learn to make more time for myself and for hubs and I to have time to ourselves, its work in progress and I am learning as I go!

The First of Many Tough Days

Long before A was born I knew the 12 weeks I had off after her birth would fly by and I would eventually have to leave her in the hands of someone else when I headed back to work. Alas, I could not have imagined how difficult it truly was. Our first 12 weeks together while sometimes sleepless, were unforgettable and quite possibly some of the most fabulous days of my life. I took the time to focus on just her, our relationship and what I could (and couldn't) do for her. Occasionally it was hard for me, and I did have those days when I felt a bit stir crazy but really, I loved it. I relished our morning play time, our afternoon naps together, the occasional mid-morning walk we took and the hundreds upon hundreds of pictures I took. As the days started to tick by and my first day back at work loomed, I started to get nervous. I had no idea how I would deal with being without her or how I would manage to focus at work while knowing she was in the hands of someone else. I remember other new moms talking about how hard the first day back was... I hadn't really understood until the day was on the horizon in my future.

Almost 2 weeks before I was scheduled to head back, hubs called our new day care and they wanted us to come in for a "test day." For whatever reason I couldn't bring myself to do it and told him and them that I didn't have them time and it wasn't going to work for us. I think my exact excuse was that we had to nap, ha! It was important! But knowing that someone else would be tending to her soon, I wrote probably the most irriating two page "note" about how Adelina slept, ate, played, etc. Needless to say even now after 7 weeks at day care I am pretty sure they still havent read my "note."

As the hours continued to fly by, I grew more and more nervous and yes I started to cry at random increments. I remember sitting outside on the front porch swing one evening waiting for hubs to get home from work... he got home and sat with us and all of a sudden turned to me and I was crying. He of course wondered what had happened. Needless to say that was not the last crying incident.

The morning of my first day was brutal to say the least. Not only did our little one not sleep (I am sure she could sense something was going on) but she was up almost 2 hours earlier than normal and hubs and I were way off in general. I had to call my boss and let her know that we were having a rough morning and I would be in late. After our rough start we all headed to the day care for our first drop off. Both hubs and I went, I think we were equally nervous about leaving her with someone else regardless of how much we liked the center. The gals that now take care of little miss were fabulous, they took her in their arms and immediately gave her hugs and love. While that helped, it also broke my heart a little... and as you can imagine the tears started flowing. A few moments passed, we gave direction regarding feeding and then I had to almost run out before I broke into a full out sob. I pretty much cried the whole way to work. I asked myself then, and still do on a regular basis, if its worth it...

The days have continued to fly by since I've been back at work and it has definitely been slightly easier to be away from A but I admittedly continue to struggle with leaving her. I am sure most moms do... I suppose we wouldn't be moms if we didn't struggle with it right?

The "on-the-go" parent

In and earlier post I mentioned some of the thoughts I had around my hope "pre-baby" about being what I will refer to as an "on-the-go" parent. Before A arrived I had always noticed and envied the moms and dads that were out and about with their little ones, on walks, hiking, at the grocery store, etc, its hard to not be active here in Colorado. But once my daughter arrived my thoughts changed immensely. Both hubs and I had done some reading on sleep training and healthy sleeping babies(he read Baby Wise, I read Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Baby) and I think this changed many of our opinions (and maybe freaked us out a bit too). We both desperately wanted to have a baby that slept well, not necessarily one that slept through the night, simply one that could fall asleep on her own and could stay asleep. As with many people you hear the horror stories of kids that won't fall asleep at night without sound machines, an hour of rocking or an hour of screaming, I just didnt want to subject A to that. And lets be honest, I like sleep and if I could do something to get myself more (within reason) you bet I was going to do it.

From birth until about 6 weeks I really kept to myself and kept Adelina at home. We had our occasional outing but for the most part we were homebodies. We slept, read stories, rocked and hung out on the front porch... it was fantastic! Now, I will say that this was partially due to the fact that I still wasnt able to be as active as I wanted after the birth and it was still relatively chilly in Denver. I didn't like the idea of taking her out in the cold unless it was necessary. Once 5/6 weeks hit I noticed that Adelina was starting to stay away longer but also having trouble napping. I knew that this was a big development milestone (longer periods of wakefulness) but it was also worrisome that she simply wouldnt nap. After having a couple weeks of visitors and finally some great weather in Denver we started to work on our sleeping all over again. It was at this point that I truly became a slave to A's sleep schedule and the mom-zilla in me really came out. You could say, truthfully, that I was overbearing and over the top about it. But when push came to shove if it meant A (and I) could get a good nap in, it meant we were staying home. I know I had friends wondering what the heck I was doing and why I was being so anal about naps and sleeping but we started to see an improvement in day time sleep and thus nighttime sleep and before I knew it Adelina was sleeping 6 hours a night, what heaven that was! Now that I am back at work the nighttime sleep has changed again but thats another blog post in itself.

While I was relishing in all of the new things Adelina was doing (giggling, smiling, sitting up in her bumpo), a part of me still wondered if my friends and the people I used to spend so much time with understood. Many of my friends don't have children and while sympathetic I wondered if they really understood or if they just thought I was over the top. I know I shouldn't necessarily care but I wanted those that I was close to, to get it and understand what I was going through. As it turns out just the other day, I was chatting with one of my girlfriends and while I dont remember the exact question I know I essentially asked if she thought I was being over the top. She said you know I am one of those non-mom's that thinks wow it has to be hard to be a mom and if something works for you then go with it because thats what you have to do to make everything work for YOU. It truly gave me a little peace to know that someone understood.

 Now at almost 19 weeks of age we are starting to get out more, a walk here, a BBQ there, an overnight trip and our first flight within the next month. Before you know it we might even take that hike I am itching to do!

To pacify or not pacify

Yesterday my little peanut turned 4 months old. As I was taking copious amounts of pictures of her yesterday morning I asked myself where the heck the last 4 months went, it was as if we just brought her home from the hospital the other day! When hubs and I found out we were pregnant we did all we could to read and educate ourselves on babies, sleeping babies, crying babies, being parents, etc. We (or at least I) had this vision of the type of parents we would be. I imagined that we would be an “organic” household, be a pacifier free family, and be the family that is always on the go. And then reality set in and we brought our little bundle of joy home. While my hubs will tell you that I’ve always been a bit overbearing and anal about some things, I don't think I've ever been too over the top. Well that changed dramatically the moment little A was born. Most of the things I thought we would do went right out the window and I began to obsess over what to do, what was right, wrong and up and down.

First and foremost was the “pacifier free” zone. I had had this vision that our baby wouldn’t cry (yes, I imagined that we would have the perfect child, dont all parents say that?) and even if she did we wouldn’t need to use a pacifier. Hubs and I talked it over and he agreed. So needless to say once little A was born, I was rather irritated with how easily the nursing staff was to stick a pacifier in her mouth. I swear every time I turned around I found another one stuffed right in there. It hit an escalating point when on the third day, right before we were scheduled to be discharged, and we were having pictures taken of A. The photographer wanted to take some uber-sweet shots of our little one but we had to strategically swoop in and take the pacifier out, snap a few pictures and rush it back into her mouth before she started crying. I was rather irritated to say the least. I swore that we were going to “fix” this immediately.

Off we went as a new little family with the determination to let go of our pacifier fetish. The same day my in-laws arrived in Colorado (they drove all the way from the mid-west to meet their newest granddaughter!). And hence comes my first mom-zilla moment. I don’t know what day it was or what had happened but I remember vividly that A had started to fuss just a little and grandma was closest to her, grabbed the pacifier and immediately put it in A’s mouth. No, I don’t know why a pacifier was right next to her but it was. I must have turned and given my hubs the look of death because he immediately said to his mom that we were trying to not rely on the pacifier and took it out of A’s mouth. I’m hoping I was discreet enough to not glower at my husband and make it obvious to my mother-in-law but let’s be honest at that point I was light on sleep and I probably could have cared less who saw. To my mother-in-law whom I know will read this blog eventually… Sorry! I know I was and still am one of those crazy first time moms! After about a week of trying to not use the pacifier we gave up on that and said hey if we feel like we need to use it lets use it but let’s not obsess over it (I know what you are thinking… Me? Obsess? NEVER!). To this day we still use it at nap time and bed time and occasionally during a car ride. But we are lucky that our little one is truly a great baby and while she has her moments, the tough ones are few and far between and WHO CARES if we have to use the pacifier every so often right?