Guilty.

I started school last Monday and I am not enjoying it.  I am pretending that it is all going well though.  The reality is, I feel so guilty about going.  I have spent the last 4 months raising my little girl.  We have spent nearly every waking moment together.  Now I am spending nearly 17 hours away from her attending classes, meetings, and tutoring sessions each week.  Then when I am home I am cleaning house, cooking, or doing homework.  I feel terrible  about it.  I feel like we are both missing out on so much.  She is so close to crawling and I will be devastated if I miss her first crawl.  I don't know how working moms do it.  I am so grateful that this is only temporary.  15 more weeks left (yes I'm counting).

Mommies brag.

I have begun to notice the endless bragging that moms do.  I have also noticed how much moms try to top each others' kids' stories, accomplishments, failures - pretty much anything about their kids.  Why do we do this?  We brag about everything they do from rolling, sitting, crawling, and walking, to pooping.  When a mom starts her conversation with, "you will not believe what my baby did last night," you know the next mom will say something like, "well let me tell you the story when my baby did that."  It gets ridiculous sometimes I think. 

Yes, I am apart of this.  I wouldn't be a mom if I wasn't. 

When I go do my visiting teaching us women usually talk the whole time about our babies.  We talk about our pregnancies - whose was worse.  We discuss our labors.  And then we discuss anything and everything about our babies.  No matter what the topic we all have a story we can tell and we think is better than the others.

It's crazy right? 

Why do we feel the need to do this? 

I think we do this because our kids become everything to us.  And why wouldn't I want to brag about everything my child is doing to the lady in the supermarket whom my child is flashing her two tooth grin at?

So, if, for some reason, I brag on here about my child, forgive me.  It is a common occurrence.  Can you really blame me though?  My daughter really is the most adorable, smart, funny 6 month old.

Sick and tir... - scratch that - exhausted!

My baby girl is sick.  Miserably sick.  There's nothing I can do about it either.  The Doc said she just has to "ride it out."  They told me to get her benadryll because it numbs the throat when swallowed so that she can have an easier time eating.  She has hand foot and mouth disease, which makes her sound like a leper.  Really, it's not that bad, but we are losing lots of sleep.  She has sores in her throat, on her arms, and on her legs.  The throat sores are the worst part, which make it hard for her to swallow.  She has been drooling like crazy because she doesn't want to swallow.

I am extremely exhausted.  Yesterday I slept maybe 4 hours and tonight I have slept like 3 hours while my husband cared for her.  Now it's my turn.  (We're taking shifts).  She won't sleep in her crib, she wakes up after a half hour screaming.  The best way to help her and one of us sleep is to just hold her.  She is exhausted too.  She can't get comfortable enough to get any kind of good sleep.  You would think the benadryll would knock her out, but it doesn't seem to want to work that way.

Basically I feel helpless as a Mom.  I can't really do much for her and it is heartbreaking.  I'm hoping that it won't take too long for her to get through this illness, but I will be here to dry her tears and rock her every second of the way.

The late night blogger.

I am feeling extremely insecure/fearful about blogging.  Just wanted you to all know that.  But I feel the desire to blog my thoughts.  This desire usually comes at night when I can't sleep.  So here are tonight's thoughts:

• 5 year reunion weekend.  Yep, I graduated from high school 5 years ago, which seems pretty crazy to me.  It's been so long but at the same time it feels like yesterday.  I was pretty hesitant about attending the reunion, but I'm glad I went.  It was fun reminiscing and seeing people that I had forgotten about.  Although I didn't really talk to anyone outside of my circle of friends.  I don't think I will attend the 10, 20, 30 year reunions.  I keep in touch with the people that really matter to me from high school so I don't really see the point?.  Besides the reunion I hung out with friends from high school like the good ol' days.  What a state of nostalgia we were all in.  We had fun though and enjoyed each others company.  

•  I was called today to be a ward missionary.  In case you have forgotten I am LDS.  Basically a ward missionary helps to welcome in investigators and helps the missionaries find people who are interested in our church within our ward.  At least that's what I think it is.  Anyway, I'm pretty nervous about it and feel out of my comfort zone.  I am definitely not a gospel scholar, but I guess I don't really have to be.  Investigators just need to know the basic principles of the gospel.  I just haven't had very many missionary type experiences.  I hope, though, that I can help bring the gospel into people's lives.  I definitely have a testimony of Jesus Christ and of the gospel.  That's all I need right?  Here is my Mormon.org profile. (I need to update the "How I Live My Faith" section)

•  My efforts in sleep training my 6 month old daughter are making her sleeping worse.  She still goes to bed around 10, but now wakes up around 1:30 AM, then around 4:30 AM.  It is terrible.  I am finding myself regressing back to how things were before, because it was so much easier then.  I don't know what to do about it and it makes me feel like a terrible mother.  I have tried the "cry it out" method, and that was terrible.  Everyone tells me it only takes a few nights for it to work, but I can't do it.  So I have tried no-crying methods, but they haven't worked either.  I try to get Joe to go in and put her back to sleep at 1:30 AM because if I go in she smells the breastmilk and wants to eat, but Joe works full time and it's too tiring for him.  Ugh, I feel like I need to stop trying for a few weeks.  

• I am going back to school in a few weeks.  It's my last semester.  I'm dreading it.  I have to take two classes that I really do not want to take, but I don't have a choice.  I'm also stressing out about my preschool practicum.  I need to start preparing some lessons otherwise my semester will be extremely stressful.  Oh and did I mention I have a 6 month old?  Oh and that 6 month old won't take a bottle.  I'm hoping everything works out and that she won't starve while I'm at school.

That's not even the entire list of thoughts bouncing around in my head right now.  My Mom made cookie-bars and gave me some.  I think I will go have a midnight snack now.  Hopefully that will clear my head ;)