The ugly.

I don't particularly experience "mom guilt" or "nanny envy", but there are times when I do feel the pangs of guilt and envy when it comes to the little man.  Most are just slight pangs, quickly squashed by reminding myself that a. this is the life that's best for both of us and b. its normal.  However, there are those that are not just slight pangs...these are full blown panic attack inducing mind distortions.  These moments tend to occur when involving the little man's daddy.  Now, technically I'm still married to the man so I guess he's still my husband.  But I've been living apart from him now for several months.  And if you're counting...that's most of little man's little life so far.

The little guy has been amazing adjusting between the two homes, though getting his daddy to stick to an actual schedule made my life a living hell for a while.  I really can't say anything bad about him, he is a great loving father.  But...he and I are VERY different.  It'll be interesting to see who the little one will take after more. If I could guess, I can see a good balance between the 2.  Hopefully the better parts of both of us.

Anyway, slightly off topic. So having the 2 homes, I do often have to relinquish time with him to his father.  Which is fine.  Most of the time.  Lately, I've noticed that when he's with me (he sleeps in a pack and play for now...crib is on its way), he wakes up once or twice a night.  I've asked the 'husband' about it and he claims he sleeps fine and eats well and is happy and everything when he's with him.  It makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong.  Not that I'm doing anything wrong...but why? I mean... he spends the majority of his time with me, so he should be more comfortable right?  I'm not sure... it makes me unsure of myself. It makes me insecure.  I hate that.  I'm a mean, ugly person when I'm jealous and insecure...and that comes out with the baby daddy.  It's not a good time right now for me.  I'm happier than I would be if I still lived with the husband but in some ways...it makes me so angry and jealous when the little guy behaves more for daddy than me.

8 months...and 10 days.

Doh! I'm such a bad blogger. I mean how hard is it to come up with something, anything, when it concerns le little man.  These days, it's practically something new every week.  There's no excuse that would adequately pacify the future me reading back on this and wondering, why didn't you post an update?!?!  So, MadMommy of the future, I'm sorry.  Things have been cah-ray-zee. If you remember...

Well, let's recap.  Up until about mid-August, little man has been exclusively breastfed.  It was working, why mess with a good thing.  Not to mention the monetary benefits of being a food factory for the little guy.  But as fate would have it, I contracted an eye infection...in both eyes! So I needed antibiotic eye drops.  I'm not of those that believe it's dangerous for me to breastfeed while on antibiotics but still, if I could avoid it, I would.  Unfortunately this happened the week before I was planning on going on an extended weekend away from the baby, AND he had a growth spurt that week so he was eating more.  All my frozen reserves were used up and I had to supplement with formula until I could feed him again.  I'm still supplementing with formula to try and build up a reserve again, but we'll see how that goes.  Anyway, in true LLM fashion, he was totally fine with the temporary switch between breastmilk and formula.  And we both survived the 4 days apart, though I missed him dearly in the evenings before bed.

Dinner time is fun, and funny...

Somewhere in this past month, he'd learned how to pull himself up...and in the past 2 weeks or so became frighteningly good at it.  

For Labor Day, we took a trip to Lake Geneva and hung out at the beach.  His first beach experience!  I'm not sure why it took this long to get to the beach this summer, but oh well.  It was fun.  Little man didn't know what to do.  I took him into the water, and slowly lowered him in as the water was fairly cool, obviously...its a lake, not the bathtub.  He didn't like it.  Though he was interested in it, wondering about it.  But he preferred the safety of madmommy's arms, clinging like a little monkey.  But other than being anxious about the new surroundings, he enjoyed the day...

And yes, that is a picture of him eating funnel cake.

The other day I saw him stand up on his own, but I didn't have enough time to get the camera out before he plopped down again. I was thinking it wouldn't happen again for a while, until he remembers how to but that same evening he just wouldn't stop standing up... I was able to snatch several photos and a partial video before he 'fell'! Crazy kid...

Officially standing on his own. Oh dear...

Well...that's all the news for now.  Hopefully I update this again in a more timely fashion.  Especially now that in a month or two he may be walking....he's already getting into mischief. Little punk.