Thanksgiving: It was great and very low key. It was just Christian, Aria and me. We ended up getting a meal at Boston Market
and calling it a day. Because I had cut dairy out my diet, I had to make my own
mashed potatoes but other than that, no cooking for us. AND disposable plates. It was a win win. The no dairy is still in fact a thing with
me. I notice that a few minor things
here and there haven’t bothered her. But
there have been times… like the time I had a salad drenched in ranch dressing…
that I have a big slip and she ends up being SUPER fussy. At first being dairy free was overwhelming
for me, but over time it’s just become my way of life. I look forward to the day I can have that
ranch dressing again though. Mmm and
maybe some queso too.
December: On the 20th we had Aria’s baby blessing
at church. That was absolutely
beautiful. We were able to have
Christian, my dad, his dad, his brothers, his 3 friends and his grandpa be a
part of the prayer circle. Her
generation is entering into a world that is a bit chaotic to say the
least. They are going to need their
Heavenly Father by their side from the very beginning.
This was actually the first time my family was able to meet
Aria as well. Ohhhh they gushed! I am not going to even try and play this off…
It was SO NICE to have them around. So
many extra hands to jump in a help with Aria.
I had been flying solo for a while so it was nice for Christian and me
to be able to sit back and relax a bit while other people were excited to
change, feed, hold and entertain.
A couple of days after Aria’s blessing, we took an 18 hour
road trip to Florida to spend Christmas at Disney World. The road trip part wasn’t hard at all. Actually the trip went great! Only a few stressful moments when it came to
feedings but other than that we loved it! I can check Disney Christmas off the
bucket list now. (I will give you an
update on the feeding later)
January: I became an official stay at home mom. Yep! I quit my job. This was definitely not an easy decision for
us. For obvious financial reasons and
also because I actually loved what I did. In the end, we laid out all of the
pros/cons and we did a lot of praying and felt very strongly that me staying
home with Aria was for the best. I am SO
grateful I made this decision. It’s been
very rewarding. I will say I thought
“Oh! And I will have my house clean and will have laundry done and dinner
ready….” Yeah. Right. Aria seriously keeps me on an entirely
different level of busy. I have been
good about the dinners though! (Because
of a crockpot. Ha!) Anyway, I was a full
time working mom with Axel so the experience of getting to be home with Aria
has been very new and challenging and wonderful.
February: Aria’s 4
month appointment!! Woo hoo! She got her
shots and cried of course but everything went well. Her stats were: Height 24.25in (37th
percentile) and weight 12lb 14.5oz (20h percentile).
On the 14th we took off to Florida again. I know…
it’s like we like the stress and punishment of traveling with a baby. This time we flew there so we got there a lot
quicker than 18 hours. This trip was THE
BEST TRIP EVER! Seriously! So this was actually Christian’s business
trip. He had a conference to go to and
we just tagged along with him. We had no
plans whatsoever and did a lot of nothing.
Christian would basically go to his ‘classes’ and we would hang out it
the room, play games, go on walks, go to arcades, sit outside, play at a
playground… all things that were super laid back. In the evenings we would choose a place to
eat that sounded good and take off. One
of the days Christian got out of his conference early and was given a free park
ticket. Axel and I got discounted
tickets since we were going late in the afternoon and we spent a few hours at
Magic Kingdom. It wasn’t overly packed
and we were able to ride some rides with Aria.
Her very first ride was Dumbo!
Though she was just looking around the entire time with the most serious
face ever, I know deep down she was excited.
Haha! I am sure the next time we go
she will become a Disney addict like her family. I’ve been several times and since we are DVC
(Disney Vacation Club) members, we will be going a lot. Hmm… I see a big family trip in the future…
perhaps with Christian’s Mom’s side of the family? (hint hint) J
So we got back from Disney on the 18th and on the
22nd Christian went on another business trip. This time to MN and we didn’t tag along. (So let me just throw out there that I am
grateful I was able to go on the first trip because if I wouldn’t have, I would
have been alone for almost 2 weeks.)
This was the first time I was going to be completely alone for 4. Full.
Days. I literally almost had a panic
attack before he left. Aria at this
point was still not an easy baby. How
was I going to manage it all without any help or relief?? I mentally prepared myself “4 days isn’t bad.
Christian is off the day after he gets home so you just have to make it 4
days. You got this!” So I took each day and each minute at a
time. I didn’t let myself get caught up
in little things that needed to get done.
I just focused on keeping baby content to lessen any possible stressful
moments. And then guess what!? Christian go the flu. Yeah in MN.
He calls me on Wed to let me know he had to go to a Dr and he has the
flu and will be contagious for a week. So basically he was going to have to
come home and live in solitary confinement in our guest room until that week
was up. WHAT?! Remember when I said I only mentally prepared
for 4 days!? The anxiety was setting in. How was I going to make it? Guess what? I did! I had the room set up for Christian when he
got home and then just handled it. Maybe not with a smile on my face the entire
time, but I did it! It was a stressful 7
full days of 24/7 all on my own but I pushed through it and we all made it!
Success!
March: As if we
hadn’t traveled enough, I decided to go to Massachusetts to visit my
family. This time it was just Axel, Aria
and me. I was a little afraid of flying
alone with Aria but on the way there, she was so good. I even got the “she was so good. I didn’t even notice there was a baby on the
plane” comments. WIN! We spent a week with my parents, went on a
shopping spree to Janie and Jack with my mom, ate tons of amazing food my
grandma made for us, Aria met lots of family members (they fell in love with
her) and even got to see snow! Being
from Houston, we were probably the only ones in the state of MA excited about
snow in spring. I also spent the week
with my parents’ adorable foster child.
He is 2.5 years old and has been with them for about 18 months now. He is such a great kid but I got to
experience what life is like with a toddler and infant. Holy cow!
It’s work! Kudos to all you
mommas with kids closer in age than 10 years! Ha! But seriously, it was fun but who knew
loading 3 kids and 2 adults in a car would take so long? We also had Aria’s ears pierced while we were
there. My mom had to be the brave one
and hold her because I knew I would lose it when Aria cried. And she cried. Big crocodile tears too. After about a minute she was totally fine as
if nothing had ever happened.
Getting Aria’s ears pierced was sort of a weird topic. I got a lot of feedback from people that I
didn’t expect. Turns out a lot of people
choose to wait to do it. Christian
wasn’t for or against but he didn’t know it was done so early. I was like “so early? I feel like I am late. I am Hispanic! Girls are practically born wearing earrings
already!” haha!! Anyway, he was good
with it and so was I and so we went for it.
That brings us to now!
Phew! Finally!
My little love bug (who I call ‘bug’) is 6 months old! I can’t believe how fast time has gone. I mean I know people say that but didn’t I
JUST have her!? Aria is now 25.5in tall
(28th percentile) and weighs 14lbs 10.5oz (20th percentile). Don’t let those pictures fool you, she is a
little thing. She isn’t a happy baby but
she is content now. She has good days
and she has bad days. She has a nickname
of “the grump”. For a while she was
either crying, grunting, fussing or doing something less fun. We could get smiles or giggles but they were
followed by an immediate frown. Over the
past month or so she has done MUCH better.
To strangers or a camera, she is usually still pretty serious. With me, she smiles just by me looking at
her. And she giggles often and is
becoming so playful.
She LOVES grabbing her feet and putting them in her
mouth. She rolls over, sits up, pushes
and scoots, but no crawling yet! Thank.
Goodness. I am not ready for that. Besides I have been researching and she is
right on track with development. Did you
know if babies skip one of the milestones, it can affect their development? Yeah!
So she can take her time and master each one before moving on to the next.
She has started solids too!
We decided we are starting her off on purees. So far she has had avocados, sweet potatoes,
butternut squash, prunes and peas. Of
those things, her favorite is sweet potato.
Her least favorite is definitely peas.
She will start to eat them but she never finishes because she loses
interest halfway through. This girl gets
SO giddy when she eats food. She also
loves feeding herself. She is also still on breastmilk. Oh! This is a perfect opportunity to give you
a brief update on this. The last post I
was having a rough time with latches and nursing.
So long story short, after all those appointments and
procedures, Aria got used to the bottle and was at the point of no return. To the breast that is. My idea was to latch her on regardless of how
much it hurt during our day at the Disney park.
To my surprise, she screamed the minute I tried to latch her and never
took anything. I ended up having to pump
at the park. At that moment I realized,
this is it. This is going to be my life
for the next while. I am going to have
to exclusively pump and give up on the dream of her ever returning back to the
breast. One way or another this little
one is going to get my milk though. I
had pumped in the car, hotel and Disney park.
If I could do it in these places, I could do it anywhere. This was my point of complete acceptance and
I embraced my new journey. Here I am now
6 months of pumping! CRAZY! It’s not the vision I ever had, but it’s
working for us. Most people hear this
and tell me “I would have quit already and given her formula.” To these people I say, that’s totally
fine. Each person decides what works for
them and I am 100% supportive of that.
This just happens to work for me.
It’s become a part of my life and I have adapted to it and I don’t mind
it (I bring my pump with me and will pump anywhere I need to). At one point I had an undersupply of milk and
had to experiment with a couple of formulas for 2 oz each day. She responded VERY poorly to it and I don’t ever
want to put her through that again if I don’t have to. It was a tough few days and I was blessed to
have someone give me an extra bottle a day for a week until I got my supply
back up. Now we are back on track and if
I can make it a full year, I would love it.
For now, I take it one day at a time and see how long it can actually
happen.
This week Aria was a little extra fussy. Want to guess why? Teething!
Her first tooth (bottom left) has popped out! It’s so cute to see a little tooth when she
gives those big open mouthed smiles.
Motherhood is one of the hardest jobs I have ever had. It is also the most fulfilling. My heart is so full of love and I feel so
lucky to be a mom to these 2. I don’t
know if more kids are in the future for us or not, but sometimes I feel like I
am maxed out on love in my heart. I am
grateful for that “problem.” Haha!
This post was SO long but I finally got you up to date. I
have a few upcoming post ideas already so those should be coming soon. I will talk more detail about Aria’s food fun
and the journey of making homemade baby food.
I will also be posting pictures to catch you up as well. Since this is so long, I think I will make
the very next one pictures only. Maybe
of each month I’ve missed. This way, you
can see how she has grown!
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