January 26, 2015 by Stephanie

George-5 Months

How has it been 5 months?

Weight: 14 lbs and 24.25 inches. He is in the 7% for height, and 2% for weight. His head, however, is in the 58% at 42.25. (Which explains why we have a hard time getting his head through shirt neck holes. He also doesn’t fit into any hats except the one that I crocheted for him, and it stretches a lot.)

Health: He still has problems going #2, but the doctor said it was nothing to worry about at this point because there is no blood in it. She said he may just be a gassy baby. Other than that he is a happy drooly baby!

Diet: He is still mostly on breastmilk. We have a bottle of formula before bed. This month has been really hard breastfeeding wise. I know that I am not making enough. I am still barely making enough even with pumping during the formula feed. Most days I have one pumping session that I get less than an ounce, and most others are not much more. George eats at least 4 oz per feeding. Watching my supply basically start to dry out and having to pump/feed almost every 2 hours, I have decided that this will be our last month breastfeeding. Unless something drastically changes, I plan to start the weaning process once he is 6 months old. It has become more of a burden and it is taking too much time for what I am pumping. Or not pumping. I don’t feel like it is fair to keep pushing both of us to do this when it obviously is not working well. It just makes for one un-happy and guilty mommy. (George could care less as long as there is something in his belly! He is a mess otherwise.) I have tried all the tricks so believe me there really isn’t much more that I can do to increase my supply. Some women just aren’t able to breastfeed because of the supply, and their bodies never adjust to the demand. Despite my best efforts, I happen to be one of those women. I feel like there needs to be more out there for women who try but cannot make the supply. I feel that it is very polarized: either you formula feed or you are an expert breastfeeding with supply galore. It has been very stressful and hard to find material out there for those in the middle. I think there is also a lot of negativity for those who stop “early” too, so I want to say power to all moms for however long you try. Breastfeeding is not an easy journey, and I don’t want to feel guilty for stopping now. So we will happily make it to 6 months. We plan on starting our solids adventure around then any way, so we feel that it is the perfect timing to end our breastfeeding journey. There is a huge weight lifted off me now that I know there is an end in sight. While I am glad that I was able to do it, it is a struggle that I am happy to know will soon be over. I will say cutting holes into my sports bra has helped tremendously while pumping. It makes things much easier to do both at the same time hands free. So that was an improvement this month. We did try rice cereal this month, and he HATED it. We have tried both spoon fed and bottle fed, and he did NOT want to have anything to do with that rice stuff.

Clothes: We are still in 3 month clothes. I wouldn’t be surprised if we are still in them next month either. We are in size 1 diapers right now. By the end of this week, he will be in size 2. And that is mostly because I don’t want to go buy more size one since I know he has almost grown out of them, and we are down to our last stack this week. He also started wearing shoes when we go out on the weekend. It makes him look like such a big kid!

Sleeping: I think he is going through some sleep regression. We have a pretty good routine for bed time. I read him a story and lure him to slumber. Then he wakes up, and Tom has to take a crack at it. It usually takes us about 30-45 minutes to get him to actually be asleep. Unfortunately, he has started waking up around 4am, wide awake and hungry. It’s that awful timing that if I feed him and get him back to sleep I have about 30-45 minutes to sleep before I need to start getting ready for the day. So we end up just staying up. We tried switching his bedtime to 8 pm earlier this month and that just didn’t work for us. It took us even longer to get him to sleep and then he was getting up at 2 or 3. So his bedtime stays at 9pm for now. He is really funny about naps. He definitely gets cranky and will fight going to sleep. The only way we have gotten him to sleep for naps is by having him lay perpendicular to my stomach so his face his buried in my arm and then you have to pat his butt. Works every time. He also will only sleep on his back here at home, but at the babysitter will only sleep on his stomach. Weird kid.

Likes: He has really started playing with his feet this month. (This picture was the first time I saw him try to put it in his mouth though.) George is constantly holding them and trying to pull off his socks. He has started splashing during bath time. I am not sure if he likes it because he is always startled by it, but he will keep doing it. He likes to grab the hair at the nape of my neck and pull it like it is a handle. I never have a full ponytail anymore. He has to either have his hands or a pacy in his mouth. He loves to talk now, so he loves hearing you babble to him. He likes to stand more than sitting. I swear he will stand on his own before he actually crawls. His legs are so strong. He likes when I babywear him, so if nothing else works to soothe him in the carrier he goes. He still loves holding our hands. He LOVES Larry the parrot on VocabuLARRY. He will be screaming, and then when the show comes on, he stops and smiles in amazement.

Dislikes: Not being able to see you. He is more aware of his surroundings now, and knows when you have left him alone. He hates to burp and for feeding time to end. It is quite comical for us, but he acts like he is being tortured. If there is not a nipple (of any variety) in his mouth he screams this horrific scream. So we have to have a pacy ready for after feeding so we can calm him down from the feeding being over. I am not sure if he doesn’t like diaper changes, but he doesn’t want to sit still during them. He tries doing back bends when we change his diaper, or he has to monkey hang on my arm.

Milestones: We heard his first real laugh this month. He also rolled over for the first time. He looks like he wants to crawl; he pushes his butt up like an inchworm. He just doesn’t go anywhere forward, but he turns himself in circles. He can grab things now, but he doesn’t really know how to control it once he has it in his hands. He sort of can get his pacy back in his mouth if you count him chewing on the plastic part instead of the rubber part. He is trying to sit up. He looks like he is doing crunches trying to pull himself into a sitting position on his own.

Quirks: He hums himself to sleep. It is so cute. He attacks his pacy like a lion going after his prey. He will still lay newborn style when he is laying on your stomach. Never too big I guess to snuggle up tight.

We parents are: still trying to figure out a good schedule. Things are good, but Tom’s schedule isn’t the same from week to week, so that makes it somewhat difficult to have things consistent. It has been nice to get back in the gym consistently. om was sick this last week, so that was a little rough pulling double duty so George wouldn’t catch whatever Tom had.

The dogs are: loving him more and more. George has started noticing them a lot more. He laughs at them now and reaches out to them.

January 22, 2015 by Stephanie

It’s All in a Day’s Work

If I had a quarter for every time that someone asked me exactly what I do all day…

Well I would have a couple hundred bucks. Maybe. But it still feels like I get asked that all the time.

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I am a Student Success Advisor, which is an Academic Advisor of sorts.

I work at a small private liberal arts college, which means everyone is wearing a lot of hats. And that is no exception for my office of three people.

My office deals with everything. We have a focus on retention work, but that entails everything on the campus level. If you think about it, everything from the caliber of classes down to what is being served in the dining hall affects retention on some level. So naturally we deal with it all.

We have an early alert system where any staff or faculty can write a concern that they have for a student, and then our office either reaches out to that student ourselves or facilitates passing it along to the appropriate area. A huge chunk of our responsibility is managing these alerts and making sure the students who need assistance are receiving it. We do some manual alerts throughout the semester such as attendance, late payments, not meeting with advisor, just to name a few. We are not traditional Academic Advisors in the sense that students do not have to meet with us for registration, but we do assist in registration matters and four year plans.

My main responsibility though is meeting with all the students who are on probation. These are students whose cumulative GPA fell below a 2.0. They are required to meet with me three times during the semester, but most choose to meet more. I have a couple students who are meeting with me every week. We discuss old habits and make goals for new ones. We take a pretty close look at what brought them here to probation and the best plan to get them off. I take a look at them as a whole person. We don’t just talk about classes, but we also take a look at their jobs, families, basically any out of class experience to see how it is impacting them. Usually there is a lot going on with these students that make a difference on their success in the classroom. I also have to have some conversations that getting off of probation is not realistic and advise the student through the next steps. A lot of these students are also raking up loans, so we often discuss that as well. (The financial piece is the most nerve-wracking part of my job.)

You would be surprised by how many students do not come to college prepared AT ALL. They need help to stay. And I feel that my job is to have stark conversations with these individuals and provide them with resources and tools to be successful. I tell them that I am their coach, but ultimately they are the play-makers. I want to leave them in a position where they can do this on their own. I am here to help, but they have to do the work. It’s my job to make suggestions, but it is their job to make the changes. Some choose to, and some don’t. I find though that a lot of these students want to do well, they just have never been taught how to utilize their strengths to make things work for them.

I really do love this approach of coaching students on their academic success. If you think about an athletic coach, the way we approach our advising is the same way. They come in for regular practice and warm-ups, and we facilitate that training. Than they go and perform. It can be an intrusive approach, but generally we see that it helps keep more students on track for graduation who would have given up without the guidance. Our office has become a liaison for students to all things college. It is really amazing the buckets we have our hands in. I think I asked every day last semester, “Is that really our scope?” To which the reply was, “It is now.” I am ok being a catch-all department though because it keeps things interesting. It is also pushing me professionally to delve into areas I have never had experience in (i.e. financial aid).

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In the first two weeks of classes this is what my schedule has looked like:

21 individual hour long meetings with probation students
Spent at least 10 hours prepping for those meetings (going over transcripts, configuring GPAs for repeated coursework, gathering general knowledge about the student, and creating their coaching folders)
Met 3 times with two other staff members about a workshop we were designing for Student Success
Put on said workshop
Had 3 campus meetings that either pertained to academic advising or retention efforts
2 office staff meetings
1 student staff meeting
Assisted with training three new staff members
Spent 3 hours working on an online advising certification course I am taking (chapter reading, discussion posts-entry and response)
A couple hours working on our second year experience initiative (brainstorming and researching)
I am running a pilot mentoring program through our office, so I spent a couple hours working on this. I collected names for mentoring opportunities and contacted those students to set up meetings. I also created a meeting outline for the semester off of things I have used at other institutions-no need to recreate the wheel my friends.
Ran attendance alerts and contacted students who missed classes in the first week to remind them of the “withdraw without penalty” deadline
Checking in (several times) with probation students who have yet to schedule their appointment with me
Every day I update our Retention Alert system with any notes I have from the meetings that day (this can take me anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour depending on the day)
Helped organize all the books for our book scholarship that our office does each semester
Double checked a colleague’s report on un-used scholarship funds
I had a few student walk-in concerns ranging from their schedule being dropped to losing a scholarship. A lot of problem solving time with emails, phone calls, and calming of fears.
Handling concerns from our front desk area-the first couple days of classes were particularly nutty
And of course email management and other random administrative tasks like data collection happen on a daily basis-some days are slower than others.

I also serve on a couple committees that meet randomly throughout the month. Again most of them pertain to prevention strategies or retention efforts.

So that is what I do in a nutshell!

I really love my job. The only thing missing from my job description to make this THE perfect job is doing something with learning communities. I enjoy getting to work with the at-risk population or those students who are considered in the middle. Helping them be successful gets me jazzed. Academic Coaching is really where my heart is. I love teaching in this individual manner. Giving these students attention sometimes makes all the difference in their success.

And then this is my life. Yes to every.single.statement.

What do you do at your job?

January 21, 2015 by Stephanie

Fit for Me 3/52

What I did last week:

Thursday-30 minutes running on a treadmill

Saturday-1 hour of BodyPump. I had to take breaks in both the bicep and shoulders track. The planks got me too. I am not a planker. We also walked the dogs for 20 minutes that afternoon.

Sunday-20 minutes of dog walking. It was so nice outside this weekend!

Monday-1 hour of BodyPump. I made it through every song except shoulders. Those dang shoulders. Oh and I did punk out on planks for a few seconds again. We also did another 20 minute walk with the dogs. We discovered that Sonic is less than a half mile walk from our house. (I know what we are doing during the summer for date nights.)

Impressed by:

My squats and lunges. With my knee injuries, sometimes it is hard for me to push through these sets, especially lunges. I cannot do weight during these exercises so sometimes I feel really weak. But I really rocked them this weekend with my form and making the most out of the set. It may have burned, but I felt really powerful and strong throughout that whole routine.

Struggled with:

Making all of my workouts: I missed Wednesday and Tuesday. Tom’s schedule changed this week with the academy, so it interfered with my Tuesday workout. Normally he picks G up on Tuesdays, but he had to stay late for class. I was going to workout at home, but once I got home it seemed like everything else was calling my attention: George wanted love, dogs wanted love, dishes needed to be done, a meal needed to be cooked. So I just plopped myself on the floor and played with George instead of doing some cardio. I started my bible study this past Wednesday, and by the time that was over and George was in bed, I just forgot to do my ab workout.

Did I meet my goal from last week?

I made it to two classes this week and wasn’t late to either of them!

What is my goal for next week?

Not to fall down on the planks. Does anyone else shake while doing planks? I feel like I never see anyone else shake…

Fitness Thoughts:

It is really easy to push working out to the back burner when you have meals to cook and dogs to get home to or whatever else. I was really discouraged when I first looked at the fact that I missed two workouts, but then I began to think about it that I made four of them. I don’t want to get into a place that I am habitually missing workouts, but at the same time I know that I need to be flexible for those random days where other things need to come first. Last night it was more important for me to play with George than it was for me to do jumping jacks. And that is ok. I think we often beat ourselves up when we “miss” a workout, and then that can quickly spiral into missing lots of workouts. Like I said I don’t want this to become a habit, but I also don’t wont to be defeated because it happened. I think if I workout at least four days of the week, I made a good effort to be active that week.

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Who are we kidding? George is the boss around here. He does what he wants.

Does anyone have surviving plank secrets?

January 19, 2015 by Stephanie

Being a Positive Mom

I have the best mom.

She has taught me so many things over the years, and still continues to be a role model for me to this day.

Growing up circumstance weren’t always perfect, but my mom tried to make things perfect for us.

She always picked us up with a smile and was intentional about making every moment with her count.

She taught us that even if things are not ideal to go at it with laughter and grace. When we played, she taught us to use our imagination whether we were making confetti eggs or making up songs in the car. She showed us what it meant to be positive ad humble.

It was like no matter what happened, she always had a smile on her face and pushed us to be positive people. She gave her all for us every moment even if it meant putting herself last.

She is a beacon in my life for sure, and I hope that I am half the mom that she has been to me and my brother.

A couple weeks ago, a fellow blogger (whose baby is only a week younger than George) shared her personal experience about motherhood. She shared how she felt that being a mom was not as hard as she thought.

She was (always is) looking at the positives of her situation and how she loved being a mom. She was being thankful for what she had been given.

And people just wrecked her for it. Some comments posted to her page were spiteful and only meant to put her down and make her feel guilty about her situation and how she has chosen to live her life.

It made me think of two things.

One, I agree with her. Being a mom is much easier than I had originally thought.

Hold up before you get your panties in a bunch.

Being a mom is hard, and I won’t deny that. There are a lot of pressures of “Am I doing this right? or Am I messing my kid up by doing such and such thing?” There are moments when I feel like I am not good enough because he just wont stop crying. George is not always a happy baby, and those moments aren’t always easy. I also wonder when I am watching him sleep or watching him take the world in, if I am doing enough to help him grow.

However, it still is not as hard as I thought. People for years say that you will never get sleep again. People say that your life is over once you have kids. People like to poke fun and make you feel like it is such a burden being a parent.

Have there been nights that I haven’t gotten as much sleep as I want? Yes. But there have also been nights that I had to wake up George because he was sleeping so soundly, and we all were able to get a beautiful 8-9 hours rest. (I also remember nights of little sleep in my early 20s too. Just saying it isn’t the first time I have seen 3am)

Is my life over now that I have a kid? Yes and no. My life as I knew it is over, but I chose to make this change. I love embracing this NEW life, and I am completely content saying goodbye to the life that was. However, I haven’t lost who I am as a person just because I am a mom. I still have 29 years of Stephanie that are still all mine. I just have a new part of my identity to explore and develop. I don’t lose me just because I birthed another human being. I have to say it has made me better. So is my life over? Well I am still here telling my tale so that would be a no.

Am I saying that there won’t be moments that I feel lost as a parent or that his needs will trump mine? I am not oblivious to the responsibility of raising a human being. I know I will feel hopeless without any direction at times. I know that there will be many challenging things ahead. Again, I do understand that being a parent is a big deal.

BUT…

It’s not as hard as I thought because I love George so immensely that it makes being his parent easy: Because I have the investment to be a good parent. Because I want to makes the whole process easier. The love that I have for George is so empowering it pushes me to be the best for him. And when you are invested, generally it is a not as hard.

The second thing her post (and subsequent backlash) made me think of is how we as moms treat each other . There is so much support out there for moms, but there is also a lot of negativity, comparison, and mom-shaming. I know I haven’t been a mom long, but I don’t understand why there needs to be so much judgement towards other moms. There is enough to worry about raising my own kid, I don’t also need to worry about raising yours. Are there things that other moms do that I may not do, absolutely. But who am I to judge their circumstances? I have no idea what led them to make those choices. As long as we do the best that we can for our kids and they are happy and healthy, that is really all that we can ask for in this world. We should be supporting and praising each other on this journey of parenting. It shouldn’t be a competition of who has the best schedule or is the crunchiest mom. It shouldn’t be jealously and envy spitting out hate when things aren’t perfect for your situation.

And what is perfect anyway?

This blog does a pretty good job of mocking the pristine images we see of parenting and making it normal that our lives do not look like a magazine or our favorite pins on Pinterest. I get giggles out of it every time.

Any way there should be more support for each other instead of all the side-eyes. We all know we have had those moments where our shirt is on inside out once we get to work. (I did this last week, and not only was it inside out but it was also backwards…) Can I get an amen on the mom bun?

Luke 6: 37 Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

We get to be parents. I think that is pretty awesome, and we should celebrate that together and give each other some much needed grace. I mean we have babies! Seriously what is better than a baby?

A baby and a dog, that’s what.

All of this brings me back to my mom. I want to be a positive mom like she was and still is for me.

I want George to grow up enjoying things and embracing moments because there is always something positive to look at. I want to be happy so he sees and understands happy.

I want to be thankful for each day I get to spend with my little guy. I want to make his day better.

I can’t enjoy that time or make it enjoyable for him if I feel like it is a burden to have him.

I want to be a positive mom.

So in those late night struggles, I want to embrace the extra snuggles and cherish that George finds comfort in our arms.

When I get tears from breastfeeding not going well, I want to congratulate myself for making it as long as we have.

When I see another parent struggling, I want to tell them they are awesome because being a parent can be hard at times and sometime we just need to know we aren’t alone.

When I feel like I am not being a perfect parent, I want to remember that God knew what he was doing when he made me George’s mom and to trust Him in my imperfection.

When I look at other kids sitting nicely at a restaurant when George is inevitably trying to concoct some way to make a spaceship out of a straw, a pickle, and the pepper shaker with as much noise as humanly (and embarrassingly) possible, I want to thank God for that kid’s vast imagination and ability to keep himself entertained.

When things just seem impossible, I want to remind myself we found out we were pregnant at the fertility doctor and that George continued to make the impossible possible when he was born 3 weeks early.

When he just makes me frustrated down the road and I feel that I have no patience left, I want to remember these moments.

But he won’t make me frustrated because he is perfect.

January 16, 2015 by Stephanie

TV Review: The Bachelor

Anyone else obsessed with the Bachelor this season?

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This is probably the most excited I have been to watch a season since I started watching in high school. (Yes I have been watching this train wreck for more than a decade now.)

I don’t know if it is the connection I have with Iowa (Seriously y’all it is a gem of a place to live. I will always feel a smidge Iowanian even with my brief time as a resident. It is a wonderful place to live, and I miss it.) Also he did go to Iowa State, so he must be something special.

Or if my obsession is because I have fallen to their marketing ploys of the “most dramatic season ever.”

Either way I am hooked.

I follow several Bachelor(ette) monikers on Instagram because I need to know what is really happening in these people’s lives. Does that make me crazy? Who cares, because I like looking at Trista and Ryan’s gorgeous kids.

Back to this season for Prince Farming.

I do like that they are going to be staying in the US for most of the season. There is something about the extravaganza of the world-wide traveling that I haven’t always agreed with. Although traditionally you don’t see tractor races in LA, staying in the US in general seems more practical and realistic to me.

As for the women, I feel like there is a bigger emphasis on the drinking this season. I honestly don’t remember as many drunkards in past seasons. Get it together ladies. You can drink, but know when you start to get sloppy.

It is still too early in the game for me to have a clear favorite. I also feel like the women are so vastly different it is hard to say what his type is.

And he apparently believes in the idea of kissing a lot of frogs to find your princess mentality. Holy cow. I feel like he has already kissed all the women, and it is week two. Which I think was so surprising because of his disposition you just don’t think he is going to move that fast.

I don’t think that a lot of these women have accepted the fact that they will need to move to Iowa if they end up with Chris. There are a lot of comments made that make me wonder if they actually are paying attention to what Chris has said.

I think we all have skeletons or weird things about us. Fortunately for us we aren’t on national television. So I don’t want to judge right out whether someone is crazy or not, but I am concerned about Ashley S. They are not showing her best side, or if they are, then I am really concerned that the show is just taking advantage of her antics for ratings.

But I guess that is the point of the show…

I do always wonder though, if they [producers] encourage the Bachelor to pick certain people. Some of them you wonder how in the heck they make it through each week.

I heard an interview with Chris recently, and he does say he is in love but would not disclose if he was engaged or not. As a romantic, I am always hopeful that they find that love. But I also know these are not the most ideal or realistic situations to do so. In the decade of this show, I don’t think there are even 10 couples that have made it.

But those “rooming with my boyfriend’s 20 other girlfriends” antics are what keep me coming back every season. I love the drama!

Do you watch the Bachelor? Do you have a favorite for Chris?