Milestones: Baby-led Weaning and a Toddler's First Pet

A lot has been going on around here lately! I can't believe how fast these children are growing and changing. When Chloe was a baby, I remember meeting a lady who had just had her third child. She said to me, "Kids are a time warp." I keep thinking about what she said as I've watched my life change so drastically in just 2 years. At this time in 2012, I was in New Momville, exhausted, overwhelmed, and completely obsessed with my newborn. Fast forward to last December, and I found myself a mom of a newborn yet again, except this time with an 18-month old in the mix. Two babies....18 months...whew. Now, here we are in June of 2014. I have this crazy beautiful, wonderful, enthusiastic 2-year old who talks in intelligible language about 90% of the time, and an amazing, strong, funny 6-month old who now sits on the floor and plays. By himself. I mean, I just took apart the Jumparoo because we don't use it with him anymore. What?

So, with every new phase comes new adventures. And since Chloe is obsessed with animals (I think that may be an understatement), we have been talking for a while about getting her a pet. But neither one of us are keen on having a high-maintenance critter. So, when a friend posted on Facebook the other day that she was looking for a home for a sweet little bunny, I thought, "This is perfect!" I think Derrick was surprised that I suggested it to him, because he always thought he'd be the one convincing ME to get a pet. But I knew how happy Chloe would be and that a rabbit would be easy to care for. So, long story short, we welcomed "Bunny Rabbit" (Chloe's term of endearment for her) to our family. :)

(Bunny was not harmed in the taking of these photos. :) )














And if this change wasn't big enough, Elijah decided he wanted to start eating food! I wanted to do "baby led weaning" with Chloe but I was too much of a whimp to give her anything but the mushiest of mushy food. So we did the puree thing and it was fine but, I wanted to go back to my original plan with Elijah, now that I am a braver mom. :) If you haven't read up on BLW, basically, it means just putting food in front of them in pieces they can hold in their hand and letting them play with it, smoosh it in their faces, lick it, throw it, whatever they want. If they swallow some, great, if not...no big deal. Very casual. We've started off with avocado, sweet potato, and banana. He liked avocado until he tasted the sweeter things, and now he doesn't like it as much. Crazy kid...craves sweets just like his momma. :) Here's the Baby Led Weaning website I used to get us started, but it really is just that simple. Messy, yes, but....it is more about the process and the experience than it is about actually eating right now. And I was one of those kids who hated getting my hands dirty so I'm trying to ignore that part of me and let him just dig in and get covered...that's what the bath tub is for, right?

His bib says, "Who put my cape on backwards?" hehe. And also, it did nothing to contain the mess...but like I said, I'm not gonna freak out over a little sweet potato on his clothes. :)

You don't need to put your leg behind me, Mama, I got this! 






These are just a few changes going on right now.....there are a lot of other things that I'll share in the near future! What is new and exciting with you all? :)

Being Ambitious

Hey everyone, I know it's been a long time since I've written on here! I guess I've just been a little bit busy um....being a mom!

So, I have a quick thought to run by whomever may read this. I'm thinking about becoming a blogger....like a real one, for a side job. But there are so many  different directions I could take this that the idea is a little daunting! I'm hoping for a little help deciding what my focus should be. I don't want to be just another natural, cloth diapering, homemade cleaners, real food recipes blog. Because there are like 50 million of those...but it would include those things, too. Thoughts?

My other thought is to just write about whatever I want and see where that takes me......