a.simple.mama

Baby Shower fun

Published on May 4, 2014May 4, 2014 by a.simple.mama2 Comments

Yesterday my Mom and I threw my brother and sister-in-law a Couples Baby Shower for their coming bundle of joy.

A couples shower is something I’ve heard of but hadn’t even been to, but I loved it. More like a party than a regular shower and was very fun to watch the men participate in the games and activities. Plus it was fun to see my Bro participate in opening the gifts as well. For my baby shower the Hubs had to go through all the gifts with me afterwards and I’m not sure he really got to enjoy all the stuff we got for J.

The weather turned out great (a crap shoot for May in CO) and they had a really good turn-out too. They had an alligator theme.

For one of the games we did the Egg game. Everyone takes an egg when they arrive and whoever ends up with the “winner” inside gets the prize! The catch is that you are allowed to steal eggs and trade eggs. There’s only one winner, so whoever has the most eggs has the best chance of winning!

Then there was the baby bottle game. These 5 guys bravely volunteered to chug beer out of a baby bottle. Harder than it looks! After 3 minutes, the winner only chugged 2 ounces!

Then the Baby Food Game. Blindfold one partner while they try and feed an entire jar of baby food to the other partner while his hands are behind his back. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong! Try and get a spoon in the mouth of your partner while they are laughing and you can’t see their mouth! Way fun.

The clothes-line game! Hold your phone on your ear while holding a broom under your other arm and then try and hang as many clothes on the line as you can. Not too bad until the “tornado” comes along!

The lovely couple made out pretty well!

Even J found something to keep himself perfectly entertained for a good 20 minutes 🙂 Was really funny watching him splash around in this perfectly sized water table! Thanks Auntie Tay for having this “just for him” haha.

*Stay tuned for further instructions on the diaper wreath and other Shower how-to’s.*

10 Things more fun than “toys”

Published on May 2, 2014May 2, 2014 by a.simple.mamaLeave a comment

I can’t count the number of times people have told me “don’t buy toys, baby’s will play with anything…” Well, here’s proof…even after I refused to believe them and still buy too many toys for J

10 things a 10 month old thinks are more fun than toys:

1. Grass in your toes (or your mouth)

2. playing with the vacuum or “helping” vacuum

3. eating mama’s hoodie pull strings (delicious)

4. Playing with my socks

5. pulling everything out of the cabinets

6. Cardboard boxes

7. climbing into the shelves

8. Drumming on pots

9. Playing with kitty

10. Trying to break mama’s good dishes

I have about 5 more that J’s come up with in the last month but they are all videos and I can’t load them here…boo cuz they are hillarious.

What do I do with all this time?

Published on May 2, 2014 by a.simple.mamaLeave a comment

J slept for and hour and a half for his morning nap. 1.5 hours. That’s 3 times what he normally sleeps for. I seriously did not know what to do with myself. As we were going about our morning routine or dressing, eating, playing I had millions of To-Do’s for today running through my head – laundry, dishes, clean kitchen, blog, clean bathrooms etc. But as soon as he passed the 30 minute mark on his nap I found myself having only done the laundry and sitting aimlessly at the computer staring at very unproductive things. When the 1 hour mark passed, I thought to myself “hmm I know there’s something else I should be doing right now…but what was it?”

Of course when I finally got myself out of the chair and into the bathroom to do said cleaning, I heard J waking. That was the fastest toilet cleaning thus far!

And now it is 1pm and J is down for his second nap of the day. What will I do with my time? I’m sure there’s still more laundry to fold or wash, and the dishes need to be put away, and the house needs additional cleaning…

Or I could just nap. Mama’s need some downtime too people!

BTW – there’s some pretty awesome Baby Shower posts coming very soon, so stay tuned 🙂

Dental hyGenes

Published on May 1, 2014May 1, 2014 by a.simple.mamaLeave a comment

As I sit here typing with half of my face numb and the other half tingly from 2 fillings today, I can’t help but think back on the many many many many times I’ve been in the dental chair. My first major filling was when I was 4. Since then my mouth has always been total crap. Not for lack of brushing either, just genetics (I tell myself). My mom has told me the story countless times. During my 4 year old wellness checkup the doc noticed that one of my molars was rotting out of my head. Brushing wasn’t in my routine at that age. Whoops.

Now as a mom myself, I can’t say that I would remember to incorporate regular brushing into my kiddos routines either. It’s not something that I’d put at the top of my list for sure. The times I’ve ever had to help a little one brush their teeth, it’s more them sucking the toothpaste off the brush rather then actually “brushing” anything. So even if you are “brushing” every night, there’s no guarantee that there will be any major effect.

I do have the baby finger toothbrush thingy and the baby toothpaste (no fluoride), and in the last 10 months we have used it…maybe 3 times. Whoops. The experts tell you to brush even before teeth. Ha, no teeth? Like I’m going to remember to brush something that doesn’t exist yet. Kudos to the mama’s out there who keep dental hygiene at the top of their list. I am not one of them, apparently.

Speaking of teeth…J has 6 now. holy crap. He didn’t have any and now he’s got 6. No wonder he’s been such a pill lately. I knew he was cutting teeth on the top, but I tipped him upside down one day and got a glimpse of 4 top teeth cutting at the same time. I would be grumpy too! Poor lil’ guy 😦

Teething from here on should look something like this…although I’m taking this with a grain of salt.

Found this on good ol’ Pinterest.

When did your little one teeth? Did they come in easy or was it a grump fest at your house too?

To wean or not to wean

Published on April 29, 2014 by a.simple.mamaLeave a comment

As J approaches a year old, I have been asked by many people when I plan to wean him from breastfeeding. I’ve also asked myself this question. When I was pregnant I knew that I would breastfeed for at least a year, but haven’t given it much thought after that original decision.

I wholeheartedly agree with and believe the vast benefits that breastfeeding has for infants. J has never had any illness other than a slightly runny nose, never had an ear infection or any other health issues and I am sure this is in large part due to breastfeeding. I know that breastfeeding for some mama’s is extremely challenging either by lack of time or milk production levels, and I feel very blessed that I have not had to endure this struggle for the last 10+ months. Which is part of my hesitancy to decide when to wean J.

I don’t feel like I “need” or “have” to wean him. But I also realize that with planning to expand our family soon, I’m not sure how the logistics will work if I were to continue to breastfeed J while pregnant or beyond. It wasn’t until recently that I was educated on the fact that some mama’s can continue to breastfeed both their young children along with their infants in what they call “tandem breastfeeding”. I had no idea that was even a possibility. But I’m also not sure that I could do that or would want to do that with my kiddos. Partly because when your little one is really little, for the first 3-4 months, I felt like all I did was breastfeed. My boob was out of my shirt and attached to J more often than not during those first few months. A blessing, yes…but extremely exhausting at the same time. The idea of feeding two kiddos simultaneously is kind of nerve wrecking for me.

With cows milk being introduced at around a year old, I feel like maybe that will aid in the weaning process too. Although I know there are plenty of ideas and opinions out there about the ill effects of cows milk on infants too…so I’m not using this as my only reasoning behind deciding to wean or not to wean.

So when then? At this point I plan to just see what happens. Maybe J will decide that he’s not that interested anymore….although I don’t see any sign of that yet. And until he starts sleeping through the night I doubt that this will happen on his own accord. Or maybe when baby #2 is on the way and I’m too big around to nurse J comfortably that’ll be when I really push the weaning. Although I haven’t the slightest idea of how to go about that either.

Until then I’ll take full advantage of the snuggle time I have with my little guy, as we all know those days get fewer and further between as the grow into big boys 🙂

(J at about 2 months)