New baby...new year...new house

Friday we closed on our new home in Boca! Beautiful quiet neighborhood, spacious and about 4 miles from the beach. Doing some renovations first and moving in 9 days! There's still a lot to be done. We have to finish taking out the baseboards, paint the interior, add wainscoting in the living room/dining room, lay the floors, pack up our condo and move in all by the 29th. Eeek! My brother arrives tomorrow night to help H, and my dad should be here on Thursday so we'll have more help. Hopefully it all gets done. We are cutting it so close but we hit the ground running as soon as we got the keys and it's been a lot of fun so far!

Have a great week!

😊

Ava 5 months!

Weight

At her doctor's appointment last week she weighed 13.5 lbs. She's such a little chunks the munk's and I love it! Her squishy little thighs are exactly how Layla's were when she was a baby. I can't stop squeezing them! 

Health

Ava has been healthy from the start but I knew it would happen eventually with 3 other sisters who seem to constantly have a cold that cycles between them now that 2 of them are in school. She seems to have gotten a cold Tuesday morning. She was stuffy and feverish and sounded hoarse when she cried. I suspected croup after doing some research but I'm not 100% sure. I got her fever down with tylenol and it stayed away after that first day. The hoarsness also sounds much better. I debated with H about taking her to the doctor but since she improved on the second day we decided to just watch her closely and see if the symptoms improved. So far so good.

Sleep

Terrible! Still terrible. There are some early early hours of the morning where you might find me crying over it. It's truly exhausting and frustrating. There isn't much H can do. She doesn't want to be soothed by him in the night because she expects to nurse. I don't even ask him anymore to take shifts. A couple times he has slept in the living room so her and I can co-sleep comfortably but I end up just nursing her several times in the bed like I always do.

Clothes

She is in 6-9 month clothing and some 12 month. I can't believe how big she is now! It's going by too fast. 

Diet

Still breastfeeding like a champ. We plan on starting her on solids at 6 months. 

Crying

She's been better. Still likes to be held constantly though so I'll alternate with my arms, the moby wrap or the bjorn.

Milestones

Well her hair is still growing like crazy and it's gotten even curlier. I always have people stopping me to talk about her hair. The biggest milestone this month is she is cutting her first tooth! Aww my baby. She's not afraid to use it either let me tell ya. The first day it cut which was on Monday she was already trying to bite me. Ouch!

If only I can have this...

 

When I was a little girl, I used to say; "God. If I can have this I'll never ask for another thing in the world." When I was in my early twenties I used to say; "God. If you can just let me have this, I'll be so happy. This is all I need to be happy." A specific event was dating my soon to be husband years ago. He was perfect for me. He was who I needed to spend the rest of my life with. I remember saying to myself. "God. If we get married, that's all I'll need to be happy." Of course that was silly because of course I wanted children with my husband as well. What I hadn't forseen was that there would be difficulties in conceiving a child together and then a miscarriage along the way. I remember when and where I was when the words came out again. I was on my way to work and I was feeling particularly sorry for myself having not been pregnant yet. 

"God. If I can just get pregnant and deliver this baby safely, that's all I'll need to be happy. It's all I that I want."

Fast forward to the present moment. I am sitting here 4 children later. My husband is at work. The baby who is feeling under the weather sleeps in my room. I'm tense. I only got a few hours of sleep last night and I know she's going to stir and cry any moment--as she always does the minute I get comfortable and take a few minutes for myself.

I'm reminded of the things I once asked God now more than ever. I suppose I'm trying to hold myself accountable to it. I'm struggling this week. With my role as a good mother, with my role as a business owner. With my role as myself. Myself. Ha! I don't even know where myself is anymore. Buried somewhere under the mountain of laundry or pile of toys maybe. I sound pathetic. It all sounds so cliche. Overworked mother of 4 carrying on about having lost herself. We come a dime a dozen don't we? Nobody is feeling sorry for me. I know I did this to myself. It is everything I wanted after all. Well I didn't plan on 4. Years ago I never dreamed I'd have my own little business. The children were supposed to be happy little sleepers and not give me a hard time every single day. I suppose that was the plan. I regret nothing. However that doesn't diminish the fact that I'm tired right now. I haven't slept good in months. The past few weeks worse than ever. What is reality exactly? Are my feelings those of just being "tired", is it post partum hormones? Is it more? Is it tired, post partum, and more? Self awareness is good. I take comfort in knowing that I can recognize when I'm feeling out of sorts. That I can rationalize with myself that it is because of one thing or another which explains my moods. I have everything I could want right now. My husband. A beautiful family with him. We are about to close on our new home in 2 days. I want to jump up for joy. I'm so happy. Yet I am frustrated at the same time. Frustrated because I have less time than ever to do anything for myself or even work on the business. Frustrated because I cannot give every child the attention they deserve. Somewhere over the years along with my family, my need for perfection has grown and grown as well. I need everything to be perfect and when it's not it frustrates me. Before I sat down to blog and after I put the baby down. I went to put on my makeup and fix my hair because I knew it was my only chance and H and I have a final walk through on the house later today with our realtor. I am a tired mother of 4, one which is a new baby and it's perfectly acceptable for me to walk around looking a bit desheveled and my hair up in a bun with no makeup, but I wouldn't be comfortable. I can't let people have a negative image of me. I can do it all. I will do it all. Perfectionism remember? It is exhausting at times. As I type this. I want to delete it. So many times I'll type stuff out on Facebook or message boards only to delete it. A need to vent, a moment to complain, but I don't. I know I'll regret it the moment I do it.

I feel like I've gone in an opposite direction of what I originally started writing about, but it does tie all together when you think of it. I need to relax. I need to breathe. I need to let go and let God. I cannot control everything that happens in my life. 

A date with my memi

I've been trying to come in here and blog all week, but it's been one hell of a week. Mainly the kind where you aren't getting any sleep and can hardly speak in coherent sentences. Ava was having the worst sleeping patterns in the history of all my babies. She got her first cold and I spent most of the week only getting 3-4 hours of sleep for 5 nights straight. It wasn't even 3 hours straight. Oh no. That was 3 hours broken up. It was really really hard. You can currently understand my writing because thankfully she broke the streak Friday night and appears to be back to just waking up 3 times a night. Due to a now lowered immune system from lack of sleep and the cold that was circulating amongst the girls, yours truly now has a cold. Great. 

I didn't start writing just to complain, so on to the topic at hand. Mariam. I'm trying my best to start giving the girls more one on one time. A few weeks ago I took #3 Mariam to Morikami Gardens here in Boca. Ava came too, but she pretty much slept the whole time in here stroller. It was nice but Mariam's main concern when we got there was wondering where the snacks are. I came ill prepared this time so we settled on some Japanese fruit chews from the gift shop. There is a cafe on the premises but the line was insanely long and we did already have lunch. The weather was beautiful that day and all in all we had a pretty good time.

Have a great week. I'm off to catch some zzz'ss

Phone camera roll dump

{On the left, Layla & Mariam at our local library. The girls love going there. Great selection on books and movies and it has a nature trail surrounding the library. On the bottom left Layla is enjoying a cookie from the cafe inside the library. The libraries in Houston don't have cafe's so I thought it was pretty neat. No need to rush home if you're hungry or didn't bring a snack. Top right is the time Serena sprained her ankle yet again. That was a tough two weeks for us here. }

{Driving through the city on the way back from the beach. I love this city! Top right, Layla wearing one of my sunglasses enjoying the view from her window. Bottom left, the inlet.}

{Left picture is a little sneaky peeky of our new house. Ahhh! I'm so excited. So ready to peace on out of this condo and get back into a house again. God willing we'll be closing at the end of the month. Top right: Current state of the hair. Debating on how much I should cut. The ends need a trim for sure and I keep losing more and more hair every day with this post partum hair loss. Bottom right: The girls at Barnes & Noble playing}

{Pictures from the Caribbean Cowboy ball this past Saturday benefiting the George Snow foundation. They provide scholarships to underprivileged children. The weather was perfect and the event was a lot of fun. The fireworks on the inter coastal were beautiful. It was also nice to have a night out away from the kids. Ava is finally taking a bottle so it has definitely made things easier for me as far as getting some time away.}

Happy February!