Super simple brag board

We made this for two reasons, 1. To encourage Lena to be more artistic and 2. To have a place to display her art so she can feel proud and show daddy when he gets home.

How to make your own:

1. Measure an area low enough for your child to put up her own artwork.

2. Measure yarn to fit area (leave a bit extra to tie off on the tacs).

3. Tie one end to a tac and place TAC in wall.

4. Tie other end to second tac.

5. Pull tight and stick tac in wall.

6. Put clothespins on yarn.

My gluten free, wheat free, dairy free, egg free life

In truth it is much easier for me to give up these foods for Lincoln than it would be for me to be doing it for myself, but even with that this diet is tough!
There are a lot of companies that cater to people who are wheat/gluten free and a lot of companies that cater to people who are dairy free but egg free is a tough one!
I bought coconut and almond flour in an attempt to carry on my joy of baking with my daughter and its been tough so far. I thought I found a great coconut flour pancake recipe but you need to have eggs it seems. I tried it with my egg replacer but they turned out terribly... After trying that recipe I read up some more just about coconut flour it self and it seems I was mistaken about being able to treat it like regular flour.
I haven't even started trying anything with my almond flour, I really want to get a couple good coconut flour recipes. I will not be discouraged! I just need to find an egg replacer that vibes well with coconut flour!

Gas and diets

My son his been a great baby, he doesn't complain when my daughter is constantly toughing him with her face a millimeter away from his, he's pretty easy going and he's a great eater and sleeper. His only issue has been gas. The poor guy tenses up so badly that if he had better balance, he could stand on his own!
Right from the get go I had eliminated dairy and after a few weeks of constant night time pterodactyl screams and frantic crying, I decided to eliminate eggs too, and a couple more says after that wheat...
This has opened my eyes to an entirely new world! I feel so much more for the people with in tolerances and allergies! Especially egg allergies because every gluten free dairy free bread in a regular old grocery store seems to have eggs. :(
We bake a lot in this family and I have purchased coconut flour as well as some other okay to eat foods. I tried to make pancakes with our new ingredients and they turned out terrible but if I stopped something every time I screwed it up I would do nothing all day!
I have just begun this food journey and am anxious to see if it helps Lincoln. Online I read it will take two weeks for any diet changes to get through our systems but I have also heard it could take two months.
Let's hope it will work sooner if that is even the issue but I guess we won't know until we know!

Hope!

Lena has been ridiculous in the whining department for some time now and although today she wasn't perfect I think I have found a couple things that might help us both keep our sanity.
She has been taking only one nap for about six months and its an early one, so around 2:30 she is starting to melt down but isn't feeling a second nap. The last few weeks we have been watching a lot of tv to try to unwind and calm down but it just wasn't quite cutting it.
Today I decided to lock her up in her room and let her do her own thing for an hour. I almost felt like a bad mom because of this, but she ended up finishing her rest time extremely happy. Maybe she is an intravert or maybe she is just tired of.being with me all the time, but for what ever reason it worked!
Also, she has been randomly peeing in the potty, three times in as many weeks. Today i decided to try her in pull ups and see if she could let me know when she needed to go. This effort was kind of unsuccessful but it sure did make her feel special! So now when we have home days we are going to work on potty training. I'm not pushing it but we might as well give it a shot, especially if it makes her feel important and helps her be a bit more independent and a bit less whiney.
Yesterday there were a couple times I had to remind myself that it was okay to walk away but today I feel hope!

Dealing with the craziness of the first child

How do you help your first child out of their regressing when the second baby comes?
Lena was great the first week or so when Lincoln came home. She was.a bit needy but it has just been seeming to continue to escalate.
I read to continue to put her needs first because he won't remember but she might. I've been doing that.
I also read to get her to be part of taking care of him so she feels like she has a new baby too rather than feeling replaced. I've done that as well.
I've taken her on special Lena and mommy trips when my husband has been able to watch our son.
When Lincoln naps, I cuddle her or play with her or find some way to make her feel.like I'm there for her.
I've praised her good behavior and encouraged her regularly. I've tried to help her be a big girl by letting her do things her self, like put herself in her own car seat, and then telling her I'm proud of her...
But even with all that, the truth that I can not give her 100% of my attention still seems to haunt her. And she especially doesn't seem to handle me being with other people very well. It's like her neediness is amplified when she has to share me with even more people...
Needless to say after a month of this, I'm struggling and am having a really hard time figuring out how to help her know I'm still here for her, even when.I'm not able to give her my 100%....
This is me reaching out, anyone else have ideas?

Chicken crazy

Please tell me I'm not the only mom who, when sees blood, completely loses her cool and almost forgets how to be a good mother. Instead of thinking, I run around the kitchen like a chicken with my head cut off trying to clean blood flowing from my girls mouth as she screams bloody murder! Do I think to stop and assess the situation? No. Do i think to calm myself down so my daughter isn't feeling my stress? No.
I often joke that my husband is the only reason I'm even a semi stable person, and the only reason our kids will be, but my joking is based on complete truth!
It's in these blood soaked chicken runs where my husband steps in and helps me regain, or is forced to take control.
Interestingly enough, I am well aware that head wounds always gush blood and my daughter cries over "booboos" which happened over a week ago. But even with that knowledge I go chicken crazy when I see the combination.
So why is it so hard in those moments (and many others if I'm being honest) to set emotion aside and plug into that thinker??

Yet again, I jumped to conclusions!

I hope I'm not alone in when ever I think something is wrong with me I google the crap out of it. If the symptoms and pictures match what I'm sure I'm seeing or feeling I decide that is what is happening to me.
That is what happened with me thinking my uterus was falling out... Turns out it isn't.
I am not a very shy or modest person, but something changed in me after having my daughter (first child) and made me nervous to have any doctor poking and prodding my downstairs.
Needless to say, going into the doctor to find out if what I felt (and in turn had to see for myself) was in fact my uterus falling out made me slightly uncomfortable. I finally did it though.
I hesitantly popped my feet up in the stirrups and waited for he inevitable jabs, and fortunately found out that my uterus is in place. With just having a baby three weeks ago, it's still a bit bigger than usual but it's definitely not falling out.
Now thats the good news...
The not so nice to hear news is what the doctor thinks is going, my "vagina stretched out so big that it over lapped my anus and now when ever there are bowels down there the vagina will bulge."
I can't say it's the worst news possible, but no woman wants to hear that her vagina is so big that it ate up her anus!!!
How long will this last you ask? Good question. I asked the doctor over and over again and she vaguely answered over and over again that it could be something that heals and fixes it self or it could be something that never fixes it self. Pretty reassuring, eh?
What she was really telling me is that she had no idea but if it didn't go away we would have to discuss possible physiotherapy or even surgery.
On that note i need to ask, who knew that there were special physiotherapists for your vagina?! I had no idea!
So good news, although my vagina is so big it over took my anus, I get to keep my uterus!

Oh the stretch marks!

I love all the Hollywood moms who weeks after having their babies look like barbies. I totally hoped that would be me, and although I can gratefully say the weight has been leaving quickly again (I lost a bunch of weight fast the first time around too), my body is a wreck!
Besides my uterus poking out, I have stretch marks and saddle bags and spider veins and I can literally hide my fingers under the flap of extra skin around my once super sexy stomach.
While I'm still wearing my maternity pants and can't help but wonder how in the world the Hollywood moms fit back into their skinny jeans so soon after having their babies?!
But really,who cares about the Hollywood moms, they aren't like us. They have people who cook for them and watch their kids so they can be exercising twelve hours a day. They have a certain image to maintain, while I'm feeling lucky if I can maintain my hair one day out of the week!
I was so appreciative that when I hadn't daughter, my first baby, my stretch marks kept to my hips and thighs and kept my belly clean. I figured that was just how my body was going to handle being pregnant and when I got knocked this time I wasn't as worried about where i would be wearing my stripes.
A tricky thing about being pregnant is not being able to see anything under your belly button. I thought i was doing great until I actually had my son and was able to really see the full extent of the stretch mark damage that will be with me forever.
Oh the stretch marks! They will be a constant reminder that I will never be the same kind of sexy that I remember being or see in Hollywood... I guess my image of sexy is going to change cause this momma, stripes and all, will absolutely be donning her bikini again one of these years!!

And there goes my uterus!

​​So its been a while since I have written anything. I had our boy, our second baby, on 08/05/2012 and have had company pretty well every day since. My mom left on Sunday and i am adjusting to being alone all day with the two kiddos. It's not bad, I'm doing much better than I thought I would be and I'm enjoying having two kids so much more than I was enjoying being pregnant with a toddler... My body just doesn't want any more kids and I'm not going to make it.
Speaking of my body with kids, good times... My uterus is falling out! From reading online it looks like ever are four stages of your uterus falling out and last night I was a stage three. I could literally see my uterus bulging out of my vagina!!! You can imagine that scared the crap out of me and I had to consciously talk myself off a ledge cause I was about to lose it! I have been kind of ichy and scratchy and a bit burney down there for a few days and just thought it was part of my healing process. A week or so ago I decided I needed to see what my vagina was looking like, I wanted to know if I could see the stitches and I couldn't but what I did see was a vagina that was a good inch and a half bigger than it should be! It grossed me out and I wish I hadn't looked, but it was nothing like what I saw last night! I had been uncomfortable down there long enough to figure something was up and since I already knew I was stretched out more than any woman should be (this is, I'm sure, where the term a hot dog down a hall way came from, and yes one of the first thoughts that popped into my head was how in the world I was going to have sex with this going on!) I was a little concerned something got in there and was infected and I needed to know if it was. Ugh, it is still burned into my brain this morning. Where there should be a little hole with some flaps of skin covering it, there was a bulge of pink tissue. Now, I should tell you I tend to exaggerate bad things in my mind and sometimes when I tell stories, and I know this, so when I saw this I (like I said before) had to tell myself it was no big deal or even that I was imagining it. The funny thing is as soon as i saw it I knew it was my uterus falling out even though i had never seen a uterus falling out before. I googled pictures of a uterus falling out and it had confirmed what I already was sure was happening to me!
​Okay, so now I know what's going on with my body... How do I sleep when I think by morning I will be wearing my entire uterus on the outside? I call my wonderful brother in law who just happens to be an obgyn. He told me that this is actually quite common and will probably fix itself. I don't need to worry and I don't even need to contact my dr until I see them for my six week follow up. Phew, I'm not going to have to have immediate surgery! I'm probably not going to have to have anything happen, I'm just going to Keegle the crap out of my vagina and maybe one of these years it might be back to somewhat normal. ;)