Mommy Diaries – that mom justine

Big Changes:

I know I have been M-I-A for the last few weeks. There have been a lot of new changes in my life. I started back at work on the 4th of September and Olive started school on the same day.

The first few weeks for very hard for me, a lot harder than I thought they would be. I mean I knew coming back from maternity leave wasn’t going to be easy, but I didn’t realize just how difficult it would be. I don’t know if it’s because I was out for so long and I just needed more time to get back into the swing of things, or it’s just harder now that I have a child when before it was just me but either way it was a rough start and the third week was the worst. I just felt really overwhelmed, like no matter how hard I tried to make things better, more things would just keep going wrong.

I knew a lot of this was just temporary and it would get better. I just needed to get through the next few weeks. I had to just keep my head up, stay positive, find some humor even in the most difficult situations, and everything would be okay. Every job is like this. You have ups and downs. You have super easy days and super hard days. Some days go by really smoothly, others not so much, but you make it through. You get stronger and you learn more and more.

The one thing that helps me get through a hard day is visiting Olive in the infant room during my lunch break. It’s my favorite time of the day. I’m very lucky that I have a job where I can see my daughter during the day. I feel bad for the moms that have to drop their babies off and then drive in to work somewhere else.

I’m also grateful that Olive is doing so well in the infant room. Every time I visit her, she’s very happy and smiling. That makes things much easier for me. If she was crying or seemed unhappy, I don’t think I’d ever want to leave her, but thankfully she’s doing great in there! She is enjoying stories, and music class, and buggy rides outside. I even got pictures of her finger painting last week. It makes me happy to see her having a good time in her class room.

The first weekend after my first week back to work, I was so exhausted that I just laid around as much as I could plus I wasn’t feeling that great either. Thankfully I felt better during the second week. The second weekend, I had a little bit more energy and was able to take Olive to a nearby farm where we just walked around and looked at farm animals. They did have events there that day, but Olive was too young to participate.

The third weekend Kevin and I took Olive to Peddlers Village to see the scarecrows and the spot where we got married almost two years ago. It was such a nice Fall day. It was the first time in a while that I was able to stand outside and not feel uncomfortable in any way.

We have been super busy with school events too. We had our back to school night a few weeks ago, and last week we had picture day. Olive did such a great job, smiling for the camera. I cannot even believe how great her pictures came out! We also have our Halloween party and Parade to look forward to too! As crazy and busy as things are, I must say that it is nice to be involved in a community and to have help and support from other teachers and parents.

And yes, things have gotten much better at work. Just like I knew they would. I honestly think it’s a struggle every working mom goes through. Wondering if you are doing the right thing, Is it wrong to go back to work after having a baby? Is your child happy? Are you doing enough for them? Are they getting enough attention from you? And even when you do a really good job, you still think it’s not good enough.

So far my daughter seems very happy in her little life. She’s always smiling and in a good mood. She hardly ever seems upset unless she’s hungry or super tired. She lights up when she sees people. So I must be doing something right.

I hope so anyway…

Why I will Never let my daughter watch The Little Mermaid:

Hello fellow readers and parents,

Tonight I want to bring up a subject that I’ve been wanting to write about for a very long time now. I’ve been putting it off though, out of fear that other people may argue with me or think I’m just being crazy. A disclaimer before you read this:

This is my own silly opinion and beliefs based on what I’ve been through in my life. I’m not in any way, shape or form blaming my parents or calling anyone else a “bad parent” for letting their children watch the Disney movie “The Little Mermaid”. I just personally do not want my daughter watching it for the following reasons below….

The entire movie is pretty much based around looks. Throughout the whole movie, every character talks about how important looks are. At the beginning of the movie, Ariel falls in love with Prince Eric, because he’s handsome. Not because he’s kind, or has a great personality, or is super funny, NO! She basically sees him, thinks he’s hot and is obsessed with him from then on.
She pursues him. From the first time she sees Eric, Ariel goes out of her way to see him again. She constantly thinks about him and soon her entire world starts to revolve around him, meanwhile he’s going about his life not even aware that she exist.
She completely disobeys her father, to “follow her heart”. In the movie, they make her father look like a monster for destroying her statue of Prince Eric and telling her not to go up to the surface, when really he’s just trying to be a good dad and protect her.
Everything goes her way and she ends up marrying him and living Happily ever after, which is extremely unrealistic.

Ok, you may be sitting there thinking to yourself that I’m being way too harsh and judgemental. Afterall it is a Disney movie and everyone is supposed to live happily ever after by the end. I will even admit that I loved this movie as a little kid. In fact, it was one of my all time favorite Disney movies right up there with “Beauty and The Beast” and “Aladdin”. However, later on in life it got me into trouble.

I remember at a very young age, having crushes on boys. I’m not sure if I was just born with that type of personality or it was a learned behavior from watching “The Little Mermaid”, but now looking back on it, there are a lot of similarities between how Ariel acted in the movie and how I acted in real life.

I started chasing after boys that I liked and of course they never liked me back because after many frustrating years I learned that if you really like someone, you have to play it cool. Chasing after them is the worst thing you can do if you want them to like you back.

I just feel like it sends the wrong messages to young girls. It tells them that it’s more important to look good then to have a good personality. It teaches them that it’s ok to disobey your parents for love. It gives false hope that everything will work out, when life doesn’t really work that way.

When I was a teenager, I was also really depressed because I didn’t think I was a “pretty girl”. Being a teenage girl is hard! And it sucks! It’s around that time that you really start to be concerned with the way you look. You compare yourself to other girls who you think look pretty and if you don’t look exactly like them, suddenly you assume you must be ugly. It doesn’t help that you grew up watching Disney movies where every “beautiful princess” had a tiny nose and perfect hair, when you have a bigger nose and fizzy hair.

I just remember being really unhappy as a teenager, partly because I didn’t feel good about myself and partly because I got my heart broken a lot.

As a parent, I never want my daughter to ever feel that way. I pray for her every night. I mostly pray for her to be happy and to live a very happy life. That’s my biggest wish for her and I hope it comes true.

I wish Disney would have followed the actual Little Mermaid story by Hans Christian Andersen. In the real story, the prince never sees her as a love interest. He sees her as more of a pet. At the end, the prince ends up marrying someone else despite everything that the little mermaid sacrificed to be with him. She sacrificed a lot more in the book than in the Disney fairytale version. In the book instead of just taking away her voice, the sea witch cuts off her tongue, leaving her mute forever. She also tells her that in exchange for legs she will also have to suffer a great deal of pain with every step she takes. In the end she doesn’t get what she wants, or lives happily ever after. The movie is cute and has some really catchy songs, but I find the book so much more interesting and relatable.

I want my daughter to grow up strong. I want her to know that she doesn’t need a guy to make her feel special. She is already special and wonderful just the way she is. I think we will just stick to movies like “Frozen” and “Brave”.

The Mean Vaccines and The No Breast Milk Blues:

Ever since people found out I was pregnant, they have been asking me the two most dreaded questions known to parenthood. Question one: Are you going to vaccinate your child? And question two: Are you going to breastfeed?

I HATE when people ask me those questions, because I feel like no matter what I say, someone is judging my parenting choices. I honestly don’t judge other parents based on whether or not they vaccinate or breastfeed. I believe every parents does what they think is best for their child/ern. Just because someone doesn’t agree with you, doesn’t mean that they are wrong.

I feel like these are two very touchy subjects with people, especially with vaccines. I have a family member who is very strongly against vaccines. Then on the other side of the family, my husband has a family member who is very strongly for vaccines. So when it came time to make a decision, we weren’t really sure what to do. I did some research and talked to our pediatrician about it and my husband and I decided to vaccinate our daughter.

I’m not saying everyone should vaccinate their children, it was just the best choice for us. I work at a daycare where all the children have to be updated with their vaccines. I’m going back to work in September and Olive is coming with me. To me and my husband, the pros of vaccines outweigh the cons by a landslide. I’ve personally have had really good experiences with vaccines. I’ve always been pretty healthy all my life and I did get vaccines as a child and an adult.

I understand that everyone is different, and maybe some people didn’t have such great experiences with vaccines. So now they are not crazy about giving them to their child.

I will admit that whether you are pro vaccine or not, it is still really hard to watch your child get them done. I had to take Olive to the pediatrician the other day by myself. She had to get three shots and it was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I was so upset about it, that I cried on the way home.

She was smiling at me,( like she always does) right before the shots. As soon as she got the first one her face turned bright red and she cried more than I have ever seen her cry in her whole 2 months of life. It took me a few minutes to calm her down, but she did calm down. The doctor said that she may get a fever. She never got a fever. After taking a long afternoon nap, she was back to being her same smiley self.

It’s been two days since the shots and she’s totally fine. She’s still smiling at me and as happy as ever.

Now on to the breastfeeding issue… I tried so hard to breastfeed. I originally wanted to just breastfeed with little to no formula. Not because I thought formula was bad, there is nothing wrong with formula. It’s just that, I really wanted to have that closeness with her. I would see other women breastfeeding and think that it was just such a beautiful way to bond with your child. I wanted to have that too.

In the hospital, I tried so hard, even had a specialist come in to help me, but she just was not taking to it. She was also very tiny when she was born, so we were worried about her and wanted her to eat. So we started giving her formula.

Over the last two months, I still tried to breastfeed her. I tried all the different tricks and positions. It was so frustrating, because she would start to suck and I would get really excited, thinking that she was finally doing it. Then she would stop and turn her head away.

In between all this, I would be pumping. Even though I couldn’t get her to breastfeed, I was still giving her whatever breast milk that I could pump out. Which was not a lot. It was like an ounce a day, then became half an ounce a day. In the last two weeks, it;s been even less than that. I tried everything to get my milk supply up. I tried eating a lot of oatmeal, because that’s suppose to help with breast milk. I tried drinking a lot of water. All that did, was make to have to pee every 10 minutes. I felt like I was pregnant again. I tried pumping every two hours, which is very unrealistic to do. No matter what I did, my supply just kept getting less and less. So now she is just on formula, which it fine. She is growing and gaining weight and really at the end of the day, that’s what’s most important.

To me, as long as my daughter is healthy and happy, I know I’m doing a good job. 🙂

Have a great weekend, Everyone!