Mom Life in the PNW

What Do You Know, I Have Another Niece…

What Do You Know, I Have Another Niece…

It’s only the 20th one. Lol No, just kidding.

I have 3 sisters.

my first sister had 2 girls, then a boy (guess 3rd time was the charm) and now shes due with another girl in October. Then she’ll have 3 kids under 3. I think she’s kinda crazy… but, that’s just me.

my 2nd sister, has 2 girls and just had her 3rd girl arrive August 1st (the reason for this post).

my 3rd sister has 1 girl, but i imagine she’ll be pregnant again in no time and it’ll be a girl.

And I of course have my daughter.

So as you can see, we’re an all girl posse.

My poor nephew Braylon doesn’t stand a chance with his siblings and cousins. Poor fella.

They say it’s all dependent on the male for which sex you get, but I think it goes a little deeper than that. I’ve found some information online (that I of course take with a grain of salt) that states some findings suggest that it also has to do with the vaginal PH. This results in the sperm of each deciding sex to live longer or die faster.

Apparently you can test your vaginal PH with a test strip and find out if you’re more alkaline (to get a boy) or acidic (to get a girl). A vaginal PH of between 4 and 4.5 is ideal for conceiving a girl, while a vaginal PH of between 7.5 to 9 is perfect for conceiving a boy.

I think im going to order the strips and have myself and my siblings do the test since I’m curious. And if we’re all acidic that would explain the reasoning for all the girls, at least in my mind it would.

Anyways, id like to welcome my new baby neice Alexis. Isn’t she adorable? She weighed 8lbs, 4oz and 19 and 3/4″ long. Her biggest baby yet, but still not bigger than mine. heh.

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Has anyone tested the PH theory?

Baby girl update: She’s 15 months now

Baby girl update: She’s 15 months now

Or should I say toddler update since she’s the size of a 2-3 year old. Lol My baby has always been in the 98th percentile and she got it from her mama. Poor girl!

She’s running around now causing as much havoc as possible. She turns the house upside in 2 seconds, literally. Oh the joys of having a constantly messy house. It was never like immaculate clean, but I at least had things organized and put away. Those days are now long gone. So if you can’t stand a messy house, you may not want to visit ours.

She still only has 8 teeth. I’m surprised her molars haven’t started to come in yet, but I aint rushing, cause I hear those are the worst, not only for baby but for parents too! Eek.

Shes starting to play with her toys more so  now than when we first got them. Maybe she was just too little or just not interested before, but thankfully my money didn’t go down the pooper and they’re getting some use out of them. That’s one thing I need to stop doing is buying toys, then shes going to think she constantly gets a new one everytime I go to the store. But, it’s so hard to pass up a good clearance deal at Target. I LOVE TARGET!!! SQUEE. If you’re in the area stopping by and I’m not at home, I’m most likely at Target. Lol

Her vocabulary is getting better. She says mama, daddy, memma (emma) her cousin, owe, wee, yeehaw (Thanks sheriff callie), no (my fault), yes, A for her abc’s, she does the count from sesame streets laugh, ni ni (night night), bye and hi, and some random correct words that she’ll say once. And we’re like, did she really just say that? She’s like a copy machine. I know all kids are. But one night, a few days after the fourth, I said shit when I heard a loud firework go off near us cause my cat was outside and she’ll take off, then of course she copies and said shit too. Thankfully it never stuck and it was a one time thing but it reminds me that I need to be aware that she’s in the learning stage and I have to be careful. Oops!

I still haven’t figured out how to transition her to her room, but I’m completely fine with co sleeping. My husband, however, is not. He told me if we don’t get her moved out of our bed so he can have at least 9 months of good sleep, we won’t be having another baby. Lol lil does he know he isn’t the only one that gets to have a say.

I ordered some bumpers to prevent her from falling off the bed in her room, so ill see how we do with that, even if I have to sleep with her a few night since she’s still breastfeeding. That’s mainly the reason I keep her in our room, cause she still acts like a newborn with her eating schedule. It’s tiring, but I know shes not ready to stop just yet.

This post is long enough so ill stop here until next time. 🙂

Our First Trip to the Portland, Oregon Zoo

Since it was the only nice day on a weekend that we’ve had so far, we decided to plan a trip to the zoo. Unfortunately, so did everyone else in the area. It was crazy crowded! You’d think it was the only thing to do on a nice day in the Portland area. Lol

But we endured the crowds in order for our little one to get a glimpse at animals she’s never seen before although she was more curious about all the people instead.

Some of the animals that were up close and easy to see she enjoyed, like the porcupine and goats and chimpanzees.

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She also got a kick out of the elephants; smiled and squealed with excitement which is what we’d hoped for when going.

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All in all it was a great day. A little expensive with food and whatnot since we didn’t pack anything. Almost wished we had cause ordering food almost ate up an hour of our time since everyone else decided it was lunch time too. After we got our food, it pretty much cleared out. Oh well, next time we know to either bring our own food in, eat beforehand or wait and go to one of our favorite restaurants over in Beaverton.

I love family days. And I love seeing my little one grow and learn. She’s amazing.

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10 and 11 month old update

I’ve been so busy with Etsy crafts and everyday life that I skipped past her 10 month.

Starting at 10 months and continuing on, she’s started walking around while holding onto things. She’s getting good at balancing herself without holding onto anything now at 11 months, so I imagine she’ll be walking by herself in no time. But, I’m still in no rush. I want my baby to stay a baby forever! 😛

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She’s got quite the personality. I don’t know if terrible 2s start early or if it’s pretty normal for little ones to fuss and fight about putting clothes on and getting diapers changed. It’s a struggle everyday it seems. Hell, I’d just let her roam around naked, but I don’t feel like chasing her around with the carpet cleaner because she WILL poop and pee, and having to clean up the cat barf on the rug is bad enough.

She is a little sassy pants; already yelling at me when I take stuff away. I feel like I’m in for a rude awakening. Please tell me this is not what’s to come? Lol

We had a rough week a few weeks ago when she caught hands, foot and mouth disease from her cousins. Luckily, she didn’t get it very bad, but she was miserable for a couple days with a high fever. She didn’t want to eat, not even breastfeed which I now realize is because she was getting her 2 front teeth in at the same time as she caught the illness. Triple whammy, no bueno!

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11 months today

She has been starting to say ma ma more now for the past couple of days. Mainly when she’s tired and or cranky. I seem to be the only one she wants, most likely because I have the boobs and dad doesn’t. So I get tired of not having much of a break to do me time. But I suck it up, because it’s all I can do. And if I do happen to get a break, it’s to do work on the blog, craft stuff for etsy/fb groups sells and whatnot. No relaxation for me is going to drive me bonkers, but surely it’ll get better… I hope, at least.

We even bought a ps4 a couple months ago and I haven’t even been able to play it once. When you have kids, there’s no time for video games, but husband knew I wanted one for when uncharted 4 came out, so he snagged it when he opened a Best Buy credit card.

Hopefully I get a chance to play. No play makes Jenn cranky.

Baby Girl is 7 Months Now

On the 19th, she turned 7 months. I was just looking at photos of her as a newborn and it’s amazing how much she’s changed and grown already.

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I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to be a mom and to this little girl.

We’ve truly created a great daughter.

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She’s been a little more whiney lately if you don’t hold her but I feel like that’s my fault cause she always wants to be on the boob still and is just used to being next to me, or maybe it’s contributed to teething as well. Still no teeth yet.

She’s definitely more alert to sounds. She’ll be nursing and some jingle comes on the TV and she’ll whip her head back to see what’s on the TV and rips off my nipple while still sucking. All I can say is ouch. I’m going to have to turn the TV off while I feed so she’ll break that habit, but even if she hears dad or the cat, she does the same thing. Means I probably should take her to an isolated room but then I’m stuck there myself until she’s done nursing/ napping, because as soon as I put her down, she wakes up. Need to figure out a better method of transfering I guess.

She’s sitting up by herself now, which is great. She hasn’t really mastered crawling yet, but that’s okay, because I’m not ready for her to be mobile. Ha. I still need to baby proof ugh. And I want new carpet, but there’s just no funds for it right now. I need a money tree, but who doesn’t?

We’re feeding her some pureed baby food. Well, we have given her a little here and there since 4 months as recommended by pediatrician, but we’re giving her a lot more now. If dad had his way, she would strictly be consuming only breastmilk. She’s curious about food and wants some of what we’re eating, then you feel bad cause she can’t have it so I said it’s time. And she loves it of course!

Sleep has been good since the beginning.  Okay maybe not the first few weeks, but it’s been good since then. I get up once a night to feed her for 20 minutes, then we go back to sleep for however long she’ll allow. Usually we get in bed at 11pm (she still sleeps with us) and wakes up around 5:30 am and I’ll change her and feed her and we go back to sleep til 9:30-10:30am. So it’s been nice.

I know youre probably thinking get her out of your bed or you’ll have issues later on. I have her sleeping with us cause during the summer it was hot and our room is the only one that was cool because we have an ac in the window. Now that it’s not summer, the house gets cold if we don’t keep the heater on. My husband turns it off every night, and obviously if we keep it on, going to be a higher bill and if we dont, she’s going to be cold.

So that’s my Co sleeping dilemma. Right now it works and I like her being close to me.

How did you transition baby to own bed and was it a success?