My First Mother's Day

Today was my first Mother's Day & I have to say, it was pretty great! Even though Nathan wasn't here my family sure did make it awesome! My beautiful sister woke up early to make me chocolate cake french toast with bacon and sliced strawberries with a glass of orange juice. YUM!!! She's soo incredibly thoughtful because a couple months ago during the very end of my pregnancy, we were downstairs watching Food Network channel and the show "The Best Thing I Ever Ate" was on. One of the chefs said the best thing they ever ate was this chocolate french toast. Well in the show they go to the restaurant and show how the dish is prepared. Turns out this chocolate french toast was made out of chocolate cake! During my pregnancy, I craved chocolate like no ones business which was hilarious to those who know me well because they know that before I got pregnant I did not care much for chocolate. I'd rather have fruity desserts and candy over chocolate things. FACT: my favorite candy of all time are Lemonheads :) Well, now that I'm not pregnant I still do get the occasional chocolate craving... way more than before pregnancy anyway lol. I was so surprised that she even remembered that I said I wanted to have chocolate french toast and then for her to figure out how to make it! She is nothing short of fabulous!

Love you Rachel :)

I couldn't tell you if church was any good or not because for 99% of it I was in the mother's room with John or walking the halls with him. I've noticed that he is a little homebody. He seriously gets so stressed and overstimulated with leaving the house. It doesn't matter if it's an all day outing or something simple like grocery shopping. It messes up his whole day and then I have an extremely irritable baby on my hands. Church is no exception. Today was really hard/annoying because he wouldn't take the bottle of pumped milk from me. He just screamed and screamed. Luckily, I had forgotten to grab the diaper bag before heading off to the mother's room from sacrament meeting (he chose to start crying during the passing of the bread... his timing is excellent I tell ya!) So I was pretty flustered that it was SO quiet and then my baby starts crying so I grabbed the bottle and got out of the chapel as fast as I could so that he wouldn't disturb the rest of the congregation. Anyway, it's good that I forgot the diaper bag because my mom brought it to me and she was able to feed John the bottle. So, I think I will just suck it up and nurse him next week and see how that goes. I get stressed out about even thinking of nursing in public but today I discovered that the chairs in the lounge swivel so I can sit facing the wall and hopefully if anyone else comes in to nurse they won't see anything. This wouldn't be a big deal but John hates and I mean HATES the nursing cover. It can't be touching him at all other wise he won't eat, he'll just squirm and cry. I only have a couple nursing shirts but they aren't too well designed for ladies who are "blessed" in the chest area. So this week I will be ordering some super cute, cleverly designed nursing shirts that are designed more for ladies who are bigger up there. I just don't want to revel too much, even though its a natural act to breast feed... it's something I think of as private. 

Well, that took up most of sacrament meeting then he refused to nap afterwards for whatever reason which meant that he was overly tired and cranky and the only way I could keep him semi calm was to walk around with him all swaddled up. Hopefully he gets over this whole not liking to leave the house ordeal because it is really exhausting. 

I was able to do a lot of thinking since I wasn't able to listen to the lessons today and I'm so thankful for the opportunity to be a mother. I've already learned so much about myself in these 8 weeks and I know that this is just the beginning of the road. Everyday I'm just in awe of this precious little baby that Nathan and I get to love and raise. It really is incredible. I now have felt only a glimpse of what my parents feel for me and my siblings and what our Heavenly Father feel for each one of us. I'm so thankful that I have my mom here with me while Nathan is gone. She truly is a selfless and loving mom & grandma & helps me in more ways than she probably knows. I don't know how I will ever be able to repay her for all that she does for John and I. I admire her patience and her service and hope that one day I will be able to help my kids or really anyone else in the way that she is helping me. I love you, mom!

Love my momma!

Love my little man!

Anyway, I'm really excited because I think I have finally found the answer to our sleeping dilemma! John still won't sleep in his crib or bassinet so a friend from church is letting me try out her daughter's sleep & play. It's basically like a baby hammock at a 30 degree angle- which is the perfect position for his acid reflux. It's crazy hard to position a crib mattress at 30 degrees. He seems to really enjoy it so I'm going to be buying him one tomorrow :)

Fisher-Price Sleep & Play- My Little Lamb
www.babiesrus.com 

So hopefully he will sleep soundly in this until he gets bigger and out grows the reflux and can transition to his crib. He seems to really enjoy it so far and I love that it rocks too so if he gets fussy it's nice that I can reach over and rock him back to sleep.