I did not fall off the face of the earth.. I just had a baby

Well now it has been a very very long time since I've been able to post on the blog for a number of reasons. Mainly the baby and all that came with him. I developed bad postpartum depression and am now just getting into the swing of things. I am just now feeling comfortable in taking care of him and my husband (oh yeah I got married) and my self and my house. I want to spend the next while getting back into shape. (lost 15 lbs of my baby weight to put it right back on so I'm basically holding onto all my baby weight :( ) I want to become the mother, wife and self I dreamed of being while I was pregnant. Not this mess of a human struggling to get by every minute I have felt that I became for the past few months. It's time to pick myself up and dust myself off!!! I will try my hardest to post daily. I have always wanted to be a blogger. I find my favorite bloggers are those who are open and honest with everything in their lives. So I will try hard to be that kind of blogger as well.

So how has the past 7.5 months been well I can easily say that having a baby is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Not just delivering him but raising him. It is hard to have a human depend on you for EVERYTHING in their lives.

First off I am breast feeding.. sounds great right. Formula is expensive, breast feeding is convenient, its healthiest for the baby its got this pro and that pro blah blah blah.. What the hospital told us is do not introduce a bottle to them until they were 4-6 weeks so they wouldn't get nipple confusion. I was a bit against it I wanted to introduce a bottle right away, hubby wanted to wait. In the end it was more convenient to give him the breast when he was hungry.. Now to the huge CON... he wont take a bottle. Never has I cant even get him to drink from a sippy... Seriously.. he will take 1-2 sips from the sippy cups but nothing substantial. He will drink a bit from a regular glass but as you can imagine that is a bit of a mess. Best thing is I want to go back to work early I want to go back to work May 6th which is 2 months away. Which has me wondering how the hell I'm going to if I can't get him on a bottle. And believe  me I have tried everything. I have tried every bottle on the market, every nipple out there, he will not take soothers either. I have tried not feeding him for hours to see if he'd get hungry enough, warmed nipples, put my finger in with the bottle nipple, you name it I've tried it.. nothing has been a success so that is our struggles now.

Secondly he is 7.5 months he started doing an army crawl at 6 months.. he is active. He is curious, he is a handful. Jon is at work 9 hours a day (including drive in and drive home time) It is a lot to be home with an infant by yourself for that long! He doesn't get fussy that often anymore, he did for a while though. I think mainly because he was feeding off my negativity. When you have postpartum it's hard. It's super hard. I also have no family around. The closest family we have is a half hour away, although that doesn't seem that far we rarely get visits in because everyone is just to dang busy.

I do go to play dates every couple of weeks. Which has been a help. I have developed a fantastic friend ship with my friend Kim. Her little guy is 2 months older then Alexander. It's great having another mom to talk to. I felt very alone for a very long time. It felt like every other mom I knew had no troubles with their children and they were the perfect mom. When I'd look at myself, my house was messy and the baby was fussy and I felt like I was a failure as a mom for not being able to do all I wanted to. I struggled a lot. I am now getting over it. So if your a first time mom out there, struggling and reading this.. it does get better.

In November we went to Punta Cana and got married.. I was amazing. Not as relaxing as I had hoped but it was fantastic none the less. I hope to get back some day.  We had a lot of fun. The wedding was amazing and everything I hoped it would be. The day/week long adventure was perfect. (Marlin travel however was HORRID) I will do a post with my experience with them sometime seriously horrible. I would never ever recommend them to anyone EVER!

The next few months I look forward to getting back in shape. The weather is warming up I'm hoping to get Alexander out for a lot more walks and getting some of this baby weight off. Another momma through baby group said she never lost any of her baby weight while she was breast feeding either then when she stopped she lost 16 lbs in 2 weeks. Knowing my messed up body that's why I'm tipping the scales at 240 lbs now :( My goal is to be down to 170 lbs. I know it's doable. I've done it. I just need to get the motivation back and eating properly back.  Totally doable though :)

I look forward to the summer with Alexander, going to the parks going for walks/jogs/runs. Taking him to the beach. He loves being outside, he falls asleep in the stroller for the most part after 15-20 minutes but its still so good for him to be outside! I want to become a runner. I want to run 5k's and 10 k's. Maybe someday even a half marathon. I want to be the mom that Alexander can be proud of. One thing I want to do is a lot less phone time and focus more of my energy on Alexander when he's awake. It's hard right now though because texting is my way of adult interaction. Until I'm back to work its really the only way to talk to another adult until Jon gets home from work. And sometimes when he gets home from work he just wants to watch TV and unwind not listen to me go on and on.. Which really I can't blame him. But I think once I'm back to work it will be easier.

That is another post that I will be doing soon a post on going back to work early and without childcare! I have a lot going on in my mind which I will be doing posts on for the next while :) YAY topics! But seeing as how this is a very long post right now I shall say tootles for now and go do some research on how to wean my baby.. Wish me luck!

In the mean time I'll leave you with a cuteness picture!