Wordless Wednesday

It’s Official!!

We have decided we are going to start trying for baby #3 this summer! I'm beyond excited! We have been back and forth on this issue for a while - and by back and forth, I mean me begging and pleading to start sooner rather than later - so we came to a compromise. We will begin the process this July/August. I got bitten by the baby bug shortly after I had Max. I went through a dark time with postpartum depression and decided that if I had to go through this every time I had a baby that I never wanted to do it again. I quickly changed my mind once I was on the road to recovery. We decided that we will just take proactive steps to help deal with the PPD early on, because the odds are stacked against me. I have had it with both boys, so I will more than likely have it again. Some people are just predisposed to this stuff, and unfortunately, I think I am one of them - but I will not let it stop me from having another sweet baby. (I'm hoping we have a girl)

I have always imagined us being a family of 5: Dad, Mom, 3 kids (and 2 dogs). I'm not sure I would feel complete without another child. Don’t get me wrong - I’m incredibly happy with the family I have, but I think that I would always have an empty spot if we decided not to have another. I seriously have this overwhelming desire to be pregnant again… it’s crazy. I guess that's what they call the biological clock ticking.

It only took us 3 months to conceive Max, so I am hoping that it happens quickly again. We decided that I will start following my the ovulation schedule and try to get it down before we start trying. We got the go-ahead from our wonderful Doctor and are really looking forward to having him deliver another baby. Jordin is really excited at the idea of another sibling, although he told us that there are no girls allowed, only boys. He also mentioned the idea of me having two boys this time, and I told him he had lost his marbles. I would freak out if we had twins - I think my husband would have a heart attack. I'm so excited to be hopefully adding another baby to our family. I am looking forward to the journey, and I'm actually excited to be pregnant this time. I know - I have lost my mind.

Umm…That was awkward!

Okay, so I shop at Kroger a lot… I go about once a week. We’ve had a lot of fun things happen at Kroger, and I’ve gotten some great stories out of our grocery store adventures.

One of my favorite trips happened about a month ago. We were shopping, going about our business, and I went down the soda aisle to get some Diet Coke. I grabbed a 12 pack, threw it in the cart, and started moving on. I happened to look back and see Jordin standing there staring at a lady who was working on getting her 6th 12 pack into her cart. Jordin looked so confused and asked me why she was buying so much diet coke.

I answered, “Well maybe she really likes to drink it.” Jordin thought about that for a second and then replied “Well… she’s going to get drunk, Mom!!”

I seriously lost it - I was laughing so hard that the lady looked at me like I was crazy.  I had to try and explain why you cant get drunk on Diet Coke. It also made me wonder were the hell he learned about being drunk (definitely not from us).

The next story is probably one of the most awkward moments in my life.

I’m shopping again, going about my business, and I happen to come to the feminine needs aisle - and that made me think that I needed to pick up some tampons (Yes, I’m going there). So anyway, I see a heavyset man standing there rearranging some things on the shelf and changing price tags. I slowly approach the area that used to hold the kind I used, and I realized that they’ve been moved to the very bottom of the shelf… right by the man’s feet! (Let me say too that I don't think this would have been as bad if he didn't have that horrible mouth-breathing thing going on…) I dreaded reaching down to pick them up because he was just standing there staring at me, and when I said excuse me, he only took one step back.

I reluctantly bent down and grabbed what I needed, then threw them in my cart quickly – and he just looked at me, smiled, and asked if I found everything I needed. I quickly said yes and practically ran away. OK,  I lied - it was totally as bad as I thought, even if he wasn’t a mouth-breather. I didn't know whether or not to feel violated or embarrassed. I just know that from now on, whenever I see this heavyweight mouth-breathing Kroger sales associate, I’ll be walking the other way.

Wordless Wednesday

Food Challenge

After reading a friend’s blog today I was inspired to challenge myself. Starting April 1st I‘m going to be cooking every meal in our house, meaning breakfast, lunch and dinner for 1 month, 7 days a week. So please don't invite us out to dinner :)

I’m really looking forward to this challenge. I have our whole meal list planned out for next week, which means a pretty big shopping list, but most of the stuff will last for a month or longer. Thank goodness for Sam’s Club. I tend to cook pretty healthy but I am taking it a step further. I'm eliminating white flour and will now be using whole wheat flour, we will be using all ground turkey in place of ground beef and we will only be eating red meat one time this month. I think that is going to be the hardest part, because we love steak. I have replaced most of the stuff in the kitchen with organic, cage free and grass fed, so I feel like I’m taking a step in the right direction.

I would love to hear from my other mom friends on this subject. Do any of you cook all of your meals at home? Do you tend to use natural, organic, fresh ingredients? Do you typically stick to making the same things or do you try new things? How do your kids react to different food and how do you get them to try it? Please feel free to share recipes, I love trying new things. With that being said, I will share one of the recipes I love. It is not super healthy, but I will be tweaking it and adding new things like whole wheat flour to make it a little healthier. I’ll share the revised recipe once I have perfected it myself.

Banana Bars

• 3 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1-1/2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1-1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 medium)
• 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Dash salt
• 
  FROSTING:
• 1 package (8 ounces) reduced-fat cream cheese
• 1/3 cup butter, softened
• 3 cups confectioners' sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions

• In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until crumbly, about 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the bananas, applesauce and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt; stir into butter mixture just until blended.
• Transfer to a 15-in. x 10-in. x 1-in. baking pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack.
• For frosting, in a small bowl, beat cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add confectioners' sugar and vanilla; beat until smooth. Frost bars. Refrigerate leftovers. Yield: 3 dozen

PPD

I am thinking of doing a vlog on my battle with postpartum depression. I feel like my struggle has been way too intense for written words... I don't even know how to express what I’ve gone through in writing… what I’m still going through. It’s a daily struggle to maintain a “normal” existence when you’re suffering through something like this. I do have an amazing support system and have sought out help in many different forms, but it’s not something that can be treated overnight. I think that’s been the hardest thing for me - that I don’t feel like myself, and I want to be back to my old self so badly that I’ve become impatient with the process. I’m going on 15 months of trying to work this out - I would love to just tell my story and let other women out there know that they are not alone in this fight… that there are many other women who are dealing with this and can relate to them. Please let me know what you guys think.

My blog is a work in progress

I have been a little lazy on blog posting lately. I decided to go ahead and buy the domain for BecauseMommySaysSo.com. I figure I plan on doing this for awhile so I better scoop up the name while I can. I think that it looks so much better with a .com instead of .blogspot.com

Any-who..this has put a little wrench in my blog posting. I have a few written I want to post, but I am trying to wait until my DH gets it into gear and makes me a cool new blog :) He is the best when it comes to design. He has been so busy and I have been kind of dragging my feet at picking a template. He unfortunately wants me to pick a premade template to get it up and going until he can get time to build me a custom one. I do not want to settle on a premade one…Not that there aren't some great ones out there but I feel like this is my blog and I want it to reflect me and who I am. Not what some one else is. I know that it’s temporary, but I’m not sure how long temporary is in my husbands world. He is very busy at work and is on the computer all day, so when he comes home the computer is the last place he wants to be unless he is getting paid for it. So how do I bring this to my DH’s attention that this is super important to me and I want him to make me a kick ass blog design now?? You know, without sounding to demanding. I guess I can’t really…So I will probably continue to write a few blogs and just not post them like I have been, or I just post them here and transfer them over later. We will see I guess. Maybe my DH will read this blog post and decide that it would be so sweet to make his awesome wife a really cool blog :)

Wordless Wednesday

All purpose cleaner

I set a goal for my self last year that I would become a chemical free household by 2011…much to my dismay that has not completely happened yet, so I have been on a mission to do so.

Today I made an easy all purpose cleaner made from  borax and white vinegar or you can use baking soda if you do not have borax. It works wonders and it makes me feel better knowing what I am cleaning with. I works so well and I like it so much I thought I would share the formula mixture.

I used a 1/2 of cup of white vinegar, 2 tablespoons of borax ( or 1/4 cup of baking soda). Mix into into 1/2 gallon (2 liters) water. Store and keep. Use in shower for water stains, chrome fixtures, mirrors, tile floors , etc.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do.

Make sure to keep all home-made formulas well-labeled, and out of the reach of children.

Stroller Envy

With my first son, I never remember this being a “thing”… probably because I was 20 and clueless about raising a baby – and definitely clueless about baby products.  Since I’ve had Max, I’ve noticed things more. I’m more aware of what other moms are doing around me.

For instance, my friend and I walked into Stride Rite the other day and went to the back to look at shoes. We get to the back, and there are two girls there with their kids in strollers. The first thing I noticed - they looked at what kind of strollers we had… Almost like they were sizing us up. I was pushing Max in our new Maclaren Volo (which BTW I love), but when I noticed how they were looking at it, I almost wanted to shout out, “My Orbit is in the car!” Like I had something to prove to this stranger, who I will never see again in my life.

It almost reminded me of a man saying, “My good car is parked in the garage.”  It made me really start to think about how we’re judging each other all the time - whether we know it or not. I’m sure that I’ve done the exact same thing. We have hard enough jobs being moms and trying to raise our kids the way we see fit. Why waste a moment of our time judging another mom by what stroller she’s pushing her tot around in?

maybe we should take a step back and try to be a little more aware of what we are doing.

I miss cloth diapering

We decided to start cloth diapering around July of last year. I had done a ton of research and loved what I was finding. It took my husband a long time to come around. He had the idea in his head that we would be pinning a piece of cloth on our son. He was not on board. I ended up ordering one diaper so he could check it out. He was instantly on board. He was so impressed with how they were made. I ended up ordering a good amount to build my stash up. I ended up with about 20 diapers which from all the research I did was a good amount. I found some awesome websites and products for the cloth diapering community.  We adjusted well with the new change. Max looked so cute in them and I thought they were so simple. I got a washing routine down. I set up a makeshift clothesline in the back so I could sun and I found some great cloth diaper friendly detergent. We were well on our way.

About 6 months in I began to notice that I couldn't get rid of the ammonia smell. I told my husband that it was really bothering me and I was about to go crazy trying to find a solution to fix this awful problem. I tried everything from stripping my diapers for detergent build up, to a bleach, to a good sunning, to vinegar, and finally I tried a fancy new ammonia  blocker from a popular cloth diaper detergent company.  At last I found a solution….so I thought. The stuff worked great for about a week. Then the ammonia smell came back…this time with a vengeance. Let me say that I followed the directions to a T with everything that I tried. After this last attempt I was defeated. That is when I made the decision to part ways from our beloved cloth diapers. I ended up listing them on Ebay and got a decent amount of money for them.

I think about going back occasionally and then all I have  to do is think about that smell.  I think that my LO must just have super pee or something because I have never smelled anything like that diaper pad before. I do miss the money savings and I totally miss being friendly to mother earth. I just could not handle that smell. I think that the parents out there that cloth diapering numerous children and do it with ease are amazing and I envy you. I was beat up by cloth diapering and unfortunately will never go back . I also miss the way that my sweet little guys little butt looked in them.

Hmm…

I haven't posted anything yet because I have know clue where to even begin. I have all of these amazing ideas but not one thing to write about. I have this idea in my head that I am going to have this awesome blog that is going to get followers from all around and I am going to conquer the world. Haha!! Where do I even start. When I think about writing one thing my mind goes into over drive and 15 new things spiral out of control. Its like a five car pile up in my brain. I am starting to think that I just need to make a  list of a few things that I want to write about for the week and go from there. Please just be patient with me.

Ashley

My first blog post

 

So I decided that I was going to start a blog on my trial and errors of being a stay at home mom. I am aware that there are other mommy bloggers out there and I am sure some of them are much more entertaining, but I do this because it is good for my soul. Plus my husband has been pushing me to do it. He says I am funny and have some good stories. We shall see. I will gauge my success on how many haters I end up having. HAHA I named my blog “because mommy says so” because I say it to my oldest son Jordin about 5 times a day. Therefore I thought it was very fitting. I do have a family blog, but I wanted to kind of separate the two. I want this to be used for all of my rants and raves about people, places, things and of course a little bit of my life mixed in.  I will eventually do some reviews on products. I want to establish a following before I do anything of the sorts. I really hope you all enjoy.

Thanks Ashley