Sleep... It is a beautiful thing!

So, I fear in writing this that I am going to jinx it, but Aurora has been sleeping through the night for the past two weeks! It has been AMAZING!!! To get to sleep for 6-7 hours in one stretch, is just awesome! Granted, I am getting up between 5-6am, but after getting 6 hours of sleep!! This has not happened in over 15 months! So, life is very grand indeed! :)

Now, it could be a coincidence, but this started happening when I started to use essential oils on her. I finally decided to get DoTerra Essential Oils as I had been interested in them for awhile. Well, I got the box and that first night, I put OnGuard on her feet. Now, this oil is not meant to help with sleep, but rather to help be an immunity boost and to help fight infections. But, that night she slept, all night long. And then again the next night, and here we are two weeks later...

Now, my husband calls this hokum. Which it very well may be. But, hey, it worked, so I will just keep on using it, just to be safe!

Update: I have still been using it, and she has still been sleeping well! Last night in fact, she slept 12 hours!! And she woke up happy. This past month has been just fantastic! Again, could all be a coincidence, but I am going to keep at it and just bought my second bottle to make sure I don't run out!

www.mydoterra.com/karissaoien

325 days...

That is how many days I pumped at work (ok not actually because at the end I wasn't pumping weekends but close enough!). Almost made it a full year. It is really crazy to think that I almost pumped for a full year at work. Before I returned to work, I had no idea how long my breastfeeding/pumping journey would take me. I set small goals for myself. First, I wanted to make it to six months (which would have been March). That came and went and I was still going strong, then it was nine months, then a year. I made all those goals and while I had some issues throughout, overall, I was very successful! I was really proud of myself as I heard so many horror stories and failed attempts at being able to pump at work. I feel I was so successful though because I do have an amazing boss and work team that was very supportive of my taking the needed time to go and pump. I also made it a priority and put it in my calendar so I would make sure I did it. I did have to pump in a bathroom, but I made the best of it, and actually kinda got attached to that bathroom (an odd thing to be attached too, but I spent  a lot of time there!).

Once, I hit the year mark of breastfeeding, I wasn't sure what to do. We started to introduce regular milk, and I was going to start weaning. Well, she had a reaction to the milk, so I held off. Then, we tried other types of milk, and finally found that goat's milk worked for her. So, I cut out one session. Then the next week, I cut out another session, and then when I returned from vacation, I did not bring my pump.

It has only been one week without pumping now, and still every morning, I swear I am forgetting something! It is also so weird at night to not be rushing to clean bottles, pump parts, and the like. I was hoping that by gaining this added time would be so nice, but I have just filled it up with other items. I actually kinda miss my pumping time, as it was a forced time to stop in the work day, and catch up on a show :) What I do not miss though is the sound of the pump, cleaning, and worrying if I am making enough milk!

So, goodbye pump, see you when the next kid comes along! It was a good almost year that we had :)

15 Months!

I have all these other blogs I plan to write, but never have time to write to them. I am determined to keep up with these letters though, so here we go!

A,

My oh my, how you keep us on our toes! Just last night, you learned how to crawl out of your crib! I was shocked to walk in and find that you were waiting for me at the door! We quickly lowered it further and your mattress is now basically on the floor. You were not a fan of this and spent most of the night letting us know your displeasure! I am hoping you get used to it, because you (and us) need sleep! :)

You had quite a busy month this month! You had your first night away from both me and daddy. We went to Cambria to celebrate our 6 year anniversary so Grandma (my mom) came to stay with you! You had such fun with Grandma (Gamma as you call her at the moment) that you didn't want her to leave once we got home! Then over Thanksgiving Week, we went on a family vacation to Hawaii! It was an absolutely amazing trip! You did so well on the plane, only got antsy a bit, but mostly was very calm and relaxed and played with your toys. You really enjoyed looking at all the sights, but loved the water (wa wa) the most! You also liked the geckos that came to visit us at our first place we stayed. You truly made this vacation one of our best as watching your excitement for all the things around you and how you took it all in, was just amazing and made each day so much better!

Right now your diet consists of breastmilk (mama milk) in the morning and before bed and the goats milk during the day. You also eat pretty much whatever we are eating, unless their are blueberries around and then you will only eat them and ask for more!

You are now talking up a storm! We counted the other day and counted over 40 words that you can now say! You really are our little genius! You have started to say people's names which makes them very happy. Grandma of course, and your favorite teacher at school, Miss Cheryl! You love Miss Cheryl and said her name all the time when we were at Hawaii looking for you! You know when we turn into daycare because you now clap your hands and say, Miss Cheryl! It makes me so happy to know that you love your teacher so much as I know you are getting lots of love and attention while I am away from you!

You almost have all your teeth (you overachiever you!). The doctor said this morning your final molar and eye teeth are coming in! After that, you will only have your two year molars that hopefully will wait until you are two to come in! :)

I mentioned sleep earlier, but this is the one thing that eludes you. You do not like to sleep. You still wake up at least once a night. We have tried everything and just keep hoping and praying that one day you will decide to sleep through the night. I know it will happen on your schedule! You already let us know you want things done your way and that you have your own opinions! If I try and put a bow in your hair, you rip it out, but you will bring me a bow to put in, and then leave it in all day!

We love your impish grin as we call it. You know you are doing something you shouldn't and you just give us this little grin as if to say, well, I am cute, so I am going to do this! It is so hard not to laugh and smile back at that face!

Lastly, you have also taken it upon yourself to start using the potty! I already wrote a post about this so won't go into too much detail. But, just like with all things related to you, you only go when you want to. If we try and put you on, no way, you just get mad and walk away. If we are not around, you will sit and go potty like you have been doing it forever!

We love you so much and you have made our lives so much better than we ever thought possible! I crack up when people tell me how much weight I have lost, well, it is easy to do when I am just trying to catch up to you! :) I look forward to another amazing month watching you grow and learn and am just so thankful that I get to be your Mommy!!

Love always and forever,

Mommy

Proud Mommy Moment!

So, I am a very proud Mommy today!

We were getting ready this morning and normally, Aurora, follows me to her room to get dressed. So, today I was in her room picking her outfit out and realized she was not behind me. I yell out, Aurora, we are going to be late, where are you! I am yelling this as I am walking down the hall and I get to the bathroom. I look over and she is sitting on her little potty reading a book. I walk in and ask her what she is doing and then look down and realize, SHE PEED IN THE POTTY!!! All by herself!! I was shocked and immediately started to praise her and tell her good job and what a big girl she was! But, again, so shocked as I did not expect that to happen! And so proud!! I am love the fact that she was reading on the potty, I find that hilarious! Still though, mostly shock, especially because this was the first time she went in the potty (this potty). We bought her the small potty last weekend because little miss independent did not like us holding her on the big potty anymore. So, we stopped doing that and got her a little one she could use. All week we just say her on it, but she never actually went. We didn't push it as she is still young and I don't really care right now if she does, she just had seemed interested and every time she goes she says, Uh oh, and looks down. She really enjoys sitting on her new potty and carrying it around the house, but again, had never actually gone in it. So, we had not yet even praised her for going in it, and yet, all by herself, she did it!

So, yup, one very proud Mama today! :)

Of course, this could be a one time thing that she never does again, but I am still proud :)

14 Months

Well, there goes another month flown by! I swear these months seem to be going faster and faster!

You have finally hit the 20 pound mark though you are still growing taller every day and are now 31.5 inches! This month you went whale watching, you won a costume contest, you went Trick or Treating for the first time, and had two weeks where you slept till 5am each night (though you haven't this past week!). It was quite the busy month!

Talking: You are learning more and more words every day. Like today, you said purple, and were actually talking about the color purple! It amazes me each time you talk as I still expect you to be my little baby, yet, here you are running around and now talking! Shoes is probably your favorite word at the moment. You love to go find our shoes and walk around the house saying shoes over and over again. I feel this is because you know you need shoes to go outside and this is your way of telling us you want to go outside! Your other favorite word is book, which really makes me happy! You will go pick a book our of your stack and then say book and come sit on my lap so I can read it to you. Granted, you usually only sit there for half the book before you get up and grad a different book to read, but that is ok! You also now say Mama quite regularly which I still get so excited each time you say it. You also say, Dada, pup pup (dogs), wawa (water), and then random words that you repeat back like the other day you said Thank You (thak oo), which shocked Daddy and I!

Activities: You are still little miss active! You want to be outside all the time and you love to run and walk! You are our little wanderer as that is what you do any time you are given the chance. I like to watch you sometimes when we are outside or at a store, and I will set you down and I just watch you wander around. You are so curious and just love to look at everything there is to see. You also love your trains you have to sit and ride on. You push them all around the house (or yesterday around the whole block!) or ride them around. You love to look at flowers and plants and you especially loves birds (burd as you say) or airplanes that fly by. I have only seen a few occasions where you are sitting still and that is only when you have a book that is a flip book and you will sit and turn the pages and flip to see the hidden items.

Sleep: We had a good two week stretch there this month! You were going to bed at 8 and sleeping all the way until 5am! This was quite a miracle for you and made me so happy to finally get sleep. Now, the past 5 days you have gone back to waking up 2 times a night, but I am hoping we can get back to sleeping till 5, or hey 6:30 would be nice too! :)

Food: You love fruit! Blueberries are your absolute favorite at the moment, but pretty much any fruit we give you, you gobble up! Veggies, eh, not so much. You don't seem as interested in that, but we will keep trying! You did seem to like the corn on the cob we gave you! You also really like pork, when we make carnitas, you eat that up so quickly! We try and make it about once a week because you love it so much! Milk has been a bit of an issue for you. I got sick and lost a lot of my milk production so you were quickly forced to real milk. You did not do well on whole cows milk. We were trying coconut milk for awhile which you seemed to like, but it doesn't have all the nutrients you need, so we tried goats milk! This seems to be working pretty well now and you are tolerating it well. I still do breastfeed you at the morning and night time. Eventually, I will stop and wean you, but trying to make sure you really are tolerating the other milks first! Plus, I am not ready to give up completely and admit that you are not my baby any longer!!

Even though you think you are becoming a "big" girl now, you still are my little baby girl! I love you so much and each day you amaze me with what you are learning and doing. I am so proud to be your Mama and look forward to each moment I get with you!

Love you always and forever,

Mommy

Halloween

When we were trying to get pregnant, three Halloweens passed us with no baby. Each Halloween got more and more devastating. All I wanted to was to be able to go Trick or Treating with my child and have fun with them as they got dressed up.

Last year, was my first Halloween with Aurora. And it was really fun to dress her up and take her around to visit, but she was too little to Trick or Treat, and she didn't quite get what was going on. So, this year was the first real year we got to participate and it was AMAZING! It was all the things I had hoped and wished for all those past Halloweens.

Aurora was Maleficent this year! I wanted to do the twist on her name and not do the princess like everyone expected. I made the tutu for the costume and was really proud of my work! She also seemed to enjoy her costume and really surprised me by even keeping her horns on for most of the events!

We went all out this year and did multiple events. The first one we did was our first ever, Trunk or Treat event. We decorated our trunk with all our Halloween decorations and got our candy ready. We did not know what to expect since it was our first time at such an event, but it was really fun! Aurora at first helped pass out the candy to those coming by. She also enjoyed taking candy from our bucket and filling up her bucket! I then did take her around to the different "trunks" and she seemed to have a good time doing that. She really just enjoyed putting things in her pumpkin we got for her to carry around!

We then went to a story time reading with Maleficent and costume contest at our new local bookstore, The Open Book at the Oaks. They had Maleficent read a few stories, which surprisingly, Aurora sat and listened to pretty well. Then we went back up to the store and got to decorate pumpkins and get pictures taken with Maleficent. Aurora really enjoyed decorating her pumpkin. The best past though was the girls working came up to us and said that, Aurora had won first place in the costume contest! I was so excited, especially when I saw the prize was books! Aurora is obsessed with books and already loves looking a them! Plus, since I made part of the costume, I felt some pride that my work was good!

On Halloween, Aurora joined me at my work event. This was the only time she was not Maleficent, but instead was someone from Gryffindor House as I was dressed as Harry Potter, so that way we matched. She seemed a bit unsure being at the party, especially because we walked over with a super creepy court jester. She did warm up a bit at the end though and was wandering around the party checking everyone out!

Then, that night, was what I had been waiting for, Trick or Treating!! We put her back in her Maleficent costume, and right as I was taking pictures of her, she fell and face planted onto the sidewalk! I felt so bad! She calmed down pretty quickly, but her whole face was scratched up pretty bad :( She didn't let it stop her though as we were going to take her back inside, but she started walking down the sidewalk, so we went with it! We only did our street, but that was more than enough for her and she was getting pretty tired by the end. We do seem to have a bit of a dud street though as 4 houses had their lights on but then answered and said they had no candy! One lady felt so bad though that she ended up bringing candy to our house later to make up for it! Aurora also was a big help in passing the candy out to the Trick or Treaters that came to our house once we got back.

Overall, it was an awesome holiday full of fun! It was exactly what I had hoped and envisioned and now am even more exited for next year!! :)

Mama

It is amazing how one syllable can mean so much. Aurora has been saying Dada for a long time now, but for some reason, has not wanted to say Mama for me. She has said it in the past, but never for me. Usually, she was just saying noises, or more recently, for milk. But, on Saturday, when I went into her room when she woke up in the middle of the night, I turned on the nightlight, she looked at me and said, Mama! She looked right at me, said it, and got this big grin on her face. I about melted right then and there! It was probably the best feeling ever, I didn't even mind that I was awake in the middle of the night (for the 357th night in a row...)! The fact that she recognized me and then actually called me by name (and happily!) was just amazing. It was funny, because when she said it, I actually jerked a bit because I was so shocked at what I heard. It was one of those times where I wish life had a tv remote (they made a movie about that once) and I could go back and rewind it, just to make sure I actually heard it! Even without rewind, I know it happened (or I guess it could have been a dream, I was half asleep) and am counting it, and so happy about it! :)