tifapunchface

[tifapunchface]

When you have to put your childs toys on timeout after bath time because they have those darn holes in their mouth that collect water! The water doesn't even squirt out straight because all of the animals are posing for a facebook photo in 2009.

[tifapunchface]

We’re adults right?

Just a little conversation my husband and I had over lunch today.

Me: Watching the griddle smoke: "375? Don't you think that's a little high for grilled cheese."

Hubs: "Fine I'll turn it down."

Me: "Here I'll start my soup (tomato basil) for you. All you gotta do is stir it."

"I just don't want my grilled cheese burnt, I hate burnt grilled cheese."

Hubs with all the restraint in the world not to call me a nag: "Okay."

Me: "I gotta go back to work, would you cut my grilled cheese into triangles pleeeease?"

Hubs: "Sure, love you."

Me: "Love you too, thanks for lunch"

**10 minutes later**

Hubs walking into my office: "Here's your grilled cheese. COOKED AT 375!"

Me looking at plate: "It's not cut into triangles..."

I hand the plate back to him.

Hubs: Sighs "At least I didn't burn it."

Me: "You're not getting a tip."

Hubs walking out to kitchen: "I'll give you a tip, I'll give you the whole damn thing!"

Hubs brings back grilled cheese cut into triangles.

Me: "Where's my tip?"

We both crack up laughing.

[tifapunchface]

Holy shit my kid fell outta her crib!

So remember the super long blog post I made about getting my kid from the bassinet into her crib. Well subsequently a few days later she awoke at 4:30A M which was a little unusual for her. I went into the kitchen to prepare a bottle for her and figured all would be well because my husband was there awake but a little drowsy because she woke him up too. We still room in with Surina and her crib is on my side of the bed. I come back to the room bottle in tow, rubbing my crusty sleep eyes. I grab my boppy pillow and her binky off the floor and throw them onto the bed along with the bottle with my back turned to her. Just as I'm turning around she begins to JUMP up and down in her crib, one jump too high and whoop, flip... THUD. Surina is face down on our carpet after an estimated 3.5 foot fall from her crib. She let's out a small whelp and then flips over and SMILES at me of all things. All the while my husband is furious because we were just talking about lowering the mattress in the crib last night, me in tears because I said it could wait until morning because she was asleep at the time we were discussing this. I picked her up with tears streaming down my face and she smiled at me again as I fed her bottle. I continued to sob like the hot mess of a new mother that I am. My husband went back to sleep and Surina and I went to the living room to continue our morning routine as usual.

The way most mornings go for us is that I change her diaper after her bottle and get her out of her jammies and into day clothes. Or I just leave her in jammies cause I'm too tired to deal with clothing a wriggly 9 month old. Today I opted for changing her clothes so I could give my little human a once over for any bumps or bruises. It's crazy how resilient babies are, she didn't have a single mark on her chest, legs, arms or head. Thank god we have carpet everywhere in our house but the Bathroom and Kitchen. We played with her toys together for a bit and I have my current Hulu obsession on: Nashville don't judge. After a bit of play I put her in her bouncer or walker so I can get to straightening up. There's usually a sinkful of dishes and trash to get together. This takes me anywhere between 1-2 hours to do. I noticed halfway through my cleaning that she was rubbing her eyes and acting sleepy. This was around 6 AM which is not her normal naptime for when she wakes up at 4. Usually after a nap she has 3-4 hours of up time before I put her down for her first nap. I started freaking out and letting my mind go all haywire. I started doubting my validity as a parent. Contemplated calling CPS on myself due to my blunt disregard of lowering the mattress the night before. Contemplated calling 911 because she was acting so sleepy. Also we haven't found a new pediatrician here in Iowa yet and our Pediatrician's office in Colorado didn't open up until 7 AM in CO which is 8 PM in Iowa. 8 PM would also be around the time that she should be going down for her nap.

I took a break from my cleaning and read some stuff on the internet that I shouldn't have read concerning baby concussions, vomiting, and kids dying in the crib after a fall. The internet is a fucking scary place and did not make me feel better in any way, shape, or form. Of course, I started crying again so I took Surina out of her bouncer and turned on my Keyboard Piano for her to bang on. I just sat and watched her and played with her trying my best to keep her up for her normal amount of time. I must've looked at the clock 100+ times waiting for 8 AM to arrive. As soon as it did I called Julia the MA at our Pediatrician's office in Colorado and told her the news.

Thank god for Julia and the doctors/nurses of Mountain Pediatrics in Evergreen, Colorado. They are absolutely wonderful people, they gave Dillon and I a ton of free formula when I couldn't get Surina to breastfeed anymore and were always there right away when we needed help. She picks up the phone and says "Emilee, I got your message. I'm going to tell you something here and please don't get upset when I say this." I nodded my head and replied "Sure." meekly. "It's going to happen again." Julia replied to me with a small laugh in her voice. I guess babies falling out of their cribs is quite normal. She asked me a few precautionary questions about the fall: How far did she fall? Was it on carpet? Did she lose consciousness? Did she vomit? Is she acting normal? etc... After answering the questions Julia let me know that it should be just fine for us to not worry too much about the fall, but that we should definitely lower the mattress today before her first nap. I felt leagues better and told her how much I missed everyone at the office and thanked her for always being there when I needed someone to call. Happy to say Surina's nap came right around 8:30 AM and Dillon lowered her crib before we put her down for it.

Tl;dr: Kid fell out of her crib. I lost my shit until I could call our pediatrician, and the pediatrician told me it will more than likely happen again.

[tifapunchface]

My kid was crying as if I was skinning her alive: A tale of transition from the Bassinet to the Crib.

So we moved to Iowa on March 15th from Colorado. It was a pretty crazy drive, our first ever road trip with the baby who was 7 months old at the time. My husband and I had our share of long drives. We drove from Colorado to my hometown of Pennsylvania in 2014 and back to CO from PA in February 2015. In our 2000 GMC Jimmy who we creatively named "Jimmy" he goes by a few other names "asshole", "fluid hemorrhaging piece of shit", and "Big Brother Jim." Because the Jimmy was definitely our first child. We got it in August of 2014 after the first car we got through Car Hop shit the bed via the radiator blowing up on I-25 and Colorado Blvd. After the Buick our first car lovingly named: Serana (a la Skyrim) died on us we got a new lease for Jimmy which absorbed the Buicks lease as well. We've been paying on this damn car since 2012 with them and I will not be done with payments on it until February next year!!! So yeah never lease a car from Car Hop they'll hemmorage your money from you and will give you a car that's radiator blows and one that pisses out oil and transmission fluid in return.

Since giving birth I have rarely been alone just myself with my daughter. My husband has been a saint, he is a stay at home Dad and her primary caretaker. Daycare is extremely expensive, 200 bucks a week WTF that is more than my rent! Even though I work from home I cannot have Surina with me when working. I work for an inbound customer service call center, thankfully I have been promoted through the years so the only calls I take now are helpline from our frontline customer service, international calls, and escalations when our frontline customer service reps get a customer who is asking for a supervisor. So a screaming or babbling baby in the background is not quite welcome. I have a few stories as to when my customers have heard her even though she is in the other room good and bad but those will be for another time.

When we moved from CO to IA we couldn't bring our car because when we arrived at the moving truck rental place we found out that the tow dolley we reserved with them had been discontinued and the only one that would work for our car was in California, fuck you Budget Truck. So we packed up our shit into the moving truck, turned off the passenger airbag and strapped in the beeb for an ass numbing 800 mile drive in a cramped budget truck cabin. Once you have a car and then go without it for a good 2 months is a traumatic experience. To be with wheels for so long and to move to a new unfamiliar place without wheels is a pain. Especially when the nearest gas station is a mile walk away and you have exercised regularly since 2008. We were lucky a friend of mine from work nearby that we could use her car sometimes when we needed to do a grocery trip or pay our bills but it wasn't available at all times. My Mom was awesome and paid for a 1 way ticket to Colorado for Dillon so he could pick up our car and drive it back to us. He also had an interview with 9 News about why he left Colorado. I've linked here if you would like to watch, his interview is at 19:00. So I took off work from the 30th to the 3rd so he could go get our first baby back to us.

http://www.9news.com/news/local/next/next-with-kyle-clark-full-episode-5-1-17-/435813436

When Surina and I kissed Dillon goodbye I was really looking forward to spending some quality 1 on 1 time with my daughter, and hopefully getting a little personal time to myself during her naps. There was a goal I needed to accomplish while my husband was gone: Getting Surina out of her rock and play (Bassinet) that she had gotten far to big for and into the crib that had only been used by her once. Until now the crib has pretty much been a storage container, laundry basket, anything that can be thrown in it will be thrown in it, etc... at our old place. We knew we needed to do it much sooner, honestly she should've been in the crib at 6 months but it was just so convenient when I was breastfeeding. If she woke up hungry I could just lean over, pluck her out and pop her on my tit. But Surina gave up the boob around 6 months anyways but even with bottle feeding it was just so much more convenient to have her right next to the bed within arm's reach. However now at 8 months old and a million new skills under her belt: rolling over, pulling herself up, etc... She had begun a habit of rolling over in her sleep and that was a definite SIDS risk keeping her in the bassinet any longer.

So this trip felt like it was an opportune time to get it done. Bye bye Mommys personal time because I didn't factor into learning how to sleep in the crib would result in Surina taking shorter naps. The first night was hell, I invited my Mom/Work friend who had born and raised 3 kids over for some playtime with Surina and to make her dinner. Yeah that worked... not! I put Surina down for her 2nd nap of the day and began to prepare dinner. At about 15 minutes into her nap she woke up freaking out. I tried everything and she just kept flipping and flipping no matter how drowsy I got her. I had to cancel Dinner because I hadn't even gotten it started due to her meltdown. She completely missed her 2nd nap of the day which turned her into Super Saiyan 3 Surina and she was now overtired and over fussy. She screamed for 2 hours, count it 2 hours straight. I swear every second of that 2 hours felt like pure pain in my heart.

She had been played with, fed, diapered, read to, bathed, rocked, bounced, gas drops and tylenol administered (she sometimes gets bad gas and is also teething for her top teeth now.) Anything and everything I did was met with screams and I asked my friend if we could do dinner another time. I dealt with this for a little over an hour before I started crying myself, panicking, and hyperventilating. All and all I had to stop and assess myself. "Okay Emilee, she's clearly losing her shit here, you're clearly losing your shit here. Remember what the pediatricians and internet pages said "If you get overwhelmed put your baby in their crib, step away and collect yourself" to me this was hard, extremely hard. 

Dillon and I have really done very well at attached parenting, I breastfed as much as I could, she slept in the same room with us, right next to my side of the bed to say the least. Anytime she cried we met her with a way to comfort and get her needs met. We felt so proud that we had raised such a happy little girl because of this parenting method. However it caused quite a problem for Surina because she had in no way ever really soothed herself to sleep. Usually it was nursing to sleep, bottle feeding to sleep, rocking to sleep or letting her fall asleep on our chests. The bassinet was also a very great tool in the beginning stages of her life. I am horribly short, 5' 1 and 3/4" and the 3/4 MATTERS! Because of this when I would attempt to put her in the crib I would have to stand on my tip tip tippy toes to get her in the crib. This almost always resulted in her jolting awake due to the startle reflex newborns have and an immediate crying jag. My Mom bought us the bassinet when she visited CO when Suri was only 6 weeks old. When the bassinet was used it was the most hours of consecutive sleep that we both had both gotten before Suri was born. So we depended on it.

I sat Surina in her crib and went out to the living room. At the time, I was a hot mess, I was  covered in sweat despite taking a shower just the other night, felt gross, was without food due to her being up and at em all day and only napping 30 minutes for her first nap. I took another 20 minutes of me listening to the baby monitor and her screaming bloody murder as a multitude of bad thoughts came into my head: 

"You're just letting her scream in her crib, she's freaking the fuck out."

"You're clearly a child abuser you know, because she's screaming like you skinned her alive." 

"She's going to have horrid attachment issues now. Every time you put her in that crib she is going to think of this moment every time and of how you left her there screaming, snot streaming, to cry it out while you went to fix yourself. You shouldn't be fixing yourself, you should be fixing HER! She's the most important thing, you signed up for this. OVARY UP AND BE A MOTHER!"

Yeah... my thoughts can get pretty deep, dark and desperate. I frantically facebook messaged my Mam (maternal grandmother) and asked her if I was a good Mom. She replied to me with words of encouragement letting me know that I needed to let her cry and get myself together because that is when I will be able to take care of her best. I typed back to her thanking her for the advice. I turned down the volume on the baby monitor, not like I couldn't hear her from my kitchen. I'd grown dependant on the baby monitor too it was ALWAYS on so we could make sure she was okay at all times. Thankfully, we hadn't invested in the web camera baby monitors or I would've caved much sooner if I would've had to watch her precious face cry. 

I sobbed relentlessly as I cooked my dinner listening to her cries, and constantly battled my inner voice telling me what a horrid mother I had been. I ate my dinner barbecue chicken and this amazing steamable quinoa with garlic and kale that Walmart sells. It is effing delicious and takes 2 minutes to make and really fills you up when you don't have much time to eat but need some serious energy. After calming down with dinner I heard the monitor go silent for a bit. I sent my Mam a text asking if I could call her since I had dinner and calmed down. She doesn't like me calling her on the phone when I'm upset and crying. I had a nice heart to heart with her and it honestly made me feel so much better. I'll go into my Mam in a later blog post because there are just simply too many good words to say about her. At the end of the call I went into the room with Mam on the line and just watched Surina sleep for a bit. You could barely tell that she was freaking out earlier.

The 2nd day of only doing the crib went a lot smoother. I knew now that if she fusses she fusses, as long as there is nothing in the crib that can hurt her she will be just fine. I learned to turn the monitor down and not respond to every cry with a bolt to our room to soothe her. The consecutive days after have been met with much better sleep for both me and my husband. I can't tell you how relieved I was when he got home a day later with our car in good shape. We now have Surina's Big Brother Jim back and things are finally starting to feel normal in our new place. 

If you're still with me now because I type a lot you're awesome and thank you for reading! This happened back on April 30th to May 3rd and as I finish up this blog post is it now May 22nd. I'm not really too good with this blogging thing but hope to make it a nice casual habit to de-stress myself from the craziness of being a new parent. I added a tl;dr for anyone who couldn't read my huge blog post. I hope you enjoy it and look forward to more infrequent posts in the future.

Tl;dr Decided my husband leaving to get our car was the best time to get kid in the crib and attempt the Cry it Out technique. Kid lost her shit, I lost my shit. But no one died and hey she sleeps in the crib now!

[tifapunchface]

Hullo there!

Hello Tumblr! I’ve decided to delve into the world of online blogging. I’ve been on the interwebs since I was around uhhh 10 years old back in the heyday of AOL. I am 24 years old, a new Mom to a beautiful baby girl (Surina) and married to my wonderful husband for 5 years (Dillon.) In this blog I'm not sure what I'm going to write about so we'll play it by ear! Until this day I have only used Tumblr to follow a ton of food blogs, Post Secret, and my favorite parenting blog Message with a Bottle (not sure how to link things in here quite yet.

I work for a pretty popular department stores customer service. My employer is pretty great as I get to work from home, which usually means I work even more than the usual employee as I can clock in whenever they need me outside of my working hours. I don't even know if this blog will stick for me because I haven't done something like this since Xanga was a thing. Does anyone even remember Xanga back in circa 2005-2006? It was huge in my middle school and our whole lives revolved around it, I'm pretty sure it was killed by MySpace. I don't fondly remember Xanga because:

1. It was during the most angst filled period of my life. 2. We all put our lives on it, multiple people in my school uploaded our school schedules on the website where anyone could see them. (I look back on this with horror because anyone could know the school we went to and our entire schedule by looking at our pages, child abduction risk much?) 3. Bullies used it and were freaking horrible in the PMs and comments when you would blog something.

But what's past is past and I hope I can build a nice blog here as I stumble through motherhood and being in a new town. My daughter was born August 2016 while we were living in Colorado with roommates. Long story short our room mate/slum lord had a big alcohol problem and we had to get out of that situation. Since then we have relocated to Iowa to be closer to my jobs headquarters and to seek out a lower cost of living to provide our daughter with the life she truly deserves. I'm really looking forward to what is in store for us here!