The joy of motherhood

I am so blessed with a sweet natured baby, yet he is so time consuming I can't believe how quickly the time is passing by. The last month has seen a few changes for both of us.

The first one is a sad one for me. Aiden has stopped nursing and is now bottle fed with formula milk. From about six weeks old Rob and I had several conversations about the possibility of Aiden being Lactose Intolerant. He had most of the symptoms, except weight loss. Instead his weight gain was very slow, especially considering his healthy 8lb 7oz birth weight. It all came to a head on Thursday evening when Rob came home to Aiden screaming in pain yet again. It had been building up for several days, but he had reached a point where he would not sleep for more than 15 minutes at a time during the day, and would wake up screaming, obviously uncomfortable. I started to do some online research and found that Aiden's symptoms matched all the criteria for Lactose Overload. We decided to try formula for a few days to give his body an opportunity to get some relief, meanwhile I expressed to keep up my milk supply. It was during the week that I was expressing and storing my milk that we realised the problem was my milk. It had no fat in it. No matter how much milk I expressed there was only ever a weak, watery milk coming out. After speaking to Rob's aunt I discovered this was not normal, that expressed milk should have some rich fat, that if left standing with separate to the top. In the weeks leading up to this Aiden and I had already instinctively tried feeding from only one side per feeding and then block feeding for several hours on one side only. It never worked. Aiden was always hungry, and with no fat to slow down the digestive process, he was also always in pain from the lactose fermenting in his intestines. Now that we have switched permanently to formula milk Aiden is no longer screaming, and is finally gaining weight that is more in line with his size. I miss nursing him, but I'm also aware that to continue would have continued to keep my son in pain and with a constant hunger.

A happier change is the amount of interaction we are now having with Aiden. He loves to sit on my lap and sing nursery rhymes with me. It is so sweet to here him try to sing just like his Mamma. He is spending more time sitting up and lifting up his head when we put him down on his tummy. I know it won't be too much longer until he starts trying to crawl. He changes so much each day, that I try to just soak in these baby days. I know they will pass too quickly. I waited so long to become a mother that I want to make the most of each and every day.

We continue to work on Aiden's daytime sleep patterns. He is such a good sleeper at night, still sleeping 9-10 hours every night. Most of his daytime naps don't last much past half an hour. I usually will only get one longer nap out of him (which is what he is doing right now) and so have to try and squeeze in as many chores as I can during that time which can last from only an hour all the way up to two and a half hours. The longer naps are a true rarity, in which I might even get to enjoy a few sips of coffee before he wakens up.

My favourite part of the day is always when Rob comes home. As I here the door I always tell Aiden that "Daddy's home" which is always replied to with a huge smile. I love that our son enjoys his daddy's return home as much as I do. It is a joy to watch the two of them together reconnecting at the end of the day while I finish getting dinner on the table. Rob interacts with Aiden in a very different way than I do and it really blesses my heart to see Aiden have the balance of both parents investing in his life and development.

I can hear Aiden begin to stir from his nap, so I will finish and get this posted before I go and see to him.

Single Income Living, a new category of post.

I have decided to start a new category of post here on my blog. As a family living on a single income in South Florida, where the cost of living is expensive, every penny counts. While neither Rob nor I thought we had an extravagant lifestyle, we are still finding ways to cut our expenses. I thought I would share some of them here on the blog.

Today I want to share my latest experiment. I made my own liquid laundry detergent. I was very surprised at just how easy it was. I got the recipe from the Duggars website (since I don't know how to directly link here is the web address - http://www.duggarfamily.com/recipes.html )and used Ivory soap, which was very easy to grate on a manual cheese grater. I made 10 gallons for about 60 cents. The one thing I did notice is that this laundry detergent does NOT froth the same way commercial detergents do, but it actually cleans BETTER. Both Rob and I are very impressed at how well it has worked, and how much money it will save us. $12 used to buy 1 gallon of detergent, but $12 in supplies will yield 20 batches of 10 gallons each.

I don't think we will ever purchase commercial laundry detergent ever again.