The blog that fell by the wayside

Talk about being a busy mama. I just haven't been able to blog, so much other stuff has been going on.

My divorce is finally final. As stressful as it is to have to start figuring stuff out like health insurance, I am relieved to finally be officially not married. The night that it was final I went out with some friends to celebrate. I've been a lot more social lately, which is nice. I like getting out of the house. I've been reconnecting with old friends that I just hadn't talked to in forever and I even went dancing the other night!

I found an apartment and I move in on September 27th. It's a 950 sq. foot 1 bedroom apartment, which means I don't have to have a roommate. I was kind of stressing out about the whole roommate thing. The apartment is in an amazing neighborhood, and the apartment I found is about $300/mo cheaper than every other 1 bedroom in that area. There's room for my sewing stuff that is separate from the bedroom or living room, which is awesome cause my sewing area is definitely not baby friendly. It's in a super central location and I can either walk or bike downtown if I wanted to, and I can walk to Whole Foods, Pease Park, some swimming pools, and other fun stuff. 

Eli is awesome. He's growing up so fast. In 4 days he will be 14 months old. Seriously, where has this past year gone!?

Positives.

+ CT Scan came back all clear! Cancer can't touch this!
+ I have begun to have somewhat of a social life. Meaning I have a friend that I hang out with regularly.
+ I have begun thinking of ways that I can minimize objects and expenses in my life. This world is so driven by stuff and things. I want to live minimally.
+ I've been on the best sewing kick of my life lately. It normally takes me 2 weeks (or more) to sew orders, but I have been so driven lately that every order from the past week or 2 will be shipping out on Monday. I forgot how great it feels to not procrastinate more than is needed, and it's super nice to not have anything looming overhead.

Life has been hectic lately

Finding the time to update my blog has been moved to the bottom of my ever growing list. I love writing and wish I could do it more, but the life of a single mother is harder than I could have ever expected. I always had a lot of respect for single mothers, but it wasn't until I became one that I knew just how hard it was. 

So, #1 on my list of things I have to do? Find an apartment. This one is going to be really hard because no matter what way I look at it, I have no money. Luckily for the past 3 months I have drawn up patterns for several different things to make including Boo Boo drops, baby blankets & quilts, baby pants, reusable snack bags. I'm only now just starting to get around to making these things because I have been so backed up with orders. I've been working my ass off to try to make enough money to survive on my own. I'm glad I have sewing. It's been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember, and I have been doing it for over 12 years now. I've put a ton of work into this business that I have been building, and it's finally starting to pay off. I am hoping that my business will continue to grow and expand because this has been my dream for as long as I can remember. I guess #2 is in there on my list. My business. I finally made a pair of wide leg baby pants that I have been waiting to make for months. I've had this pattern drawn forever and I finally had an open night where all my orders were filled, so I got to work. I'm still working on perfecting them and coming up with the perfect waistband, but they are my favorite things ever. I'm currently working on a pattern for mama pads to. This one is probably going to take a little while to come up with. 

#3 on my list is dealing with the finalization of my divorce. This is the shitty part, the part that everyone fights about. No one can ever agree on anything. I have to basically rewrite the entire decree and add change things around and resubmit it as a counterproposal, then we go to court on Sept. 15th.

My real #1 though, is being a mom to Eli. I am trying to cherish these moments that I get to spend with him all day because I never know when I won't be able to do it anymore. Being a single mom means I might have to start working out of the house, at least part time, and that means I will miss out on being with Eli a lot. I've been slacking on everything lately, my dishes don't get washed, the laundry sits on the couch for days, just so I can spend the day with my babe.

Oh hello there, blog.

Every day I get to see new little miracles. This little dude is seriously the most amazing person I have ever met. We're going on 13 months here soon and every day is filled with new excitement and milestones.

I sure did luck out in the teething department! Eli was sitting on the floor and leaning against our bed with his head tilted back laughing and I saw MOLARS! I had no clue that he was even teething at all. I have always heard that teething for molars is the worst and I was kind of nervous about that, but it just happened and I had no idea that it was even happening at all. He did have a fever for a few days, maybe that had something to do with it, but I'll take it!

Friday I have a CT scan coming up. I'm pretty nervous about it, though hiding it pretty well (I think I am, anyway). I've been having these weird sharp pains and my brain automatically goes straight to "you have cancer". I honestly feel like a little part of me is going to always think that way now, unfortunately. I'm remaining positive, but those thoughts will still occur. I'm positive in the sense that I know I have a lot of life left to live, so no matter what happens, I'm not going anywhere. It would be nice to not have anymore road blocks though, so cross your fingers that cancer never comes back.

I'm currently in the process of looking for an apartment for Eli and I. It's really hard to say the least. I would prefer a house to rent, but they are expensive. I need a lot of space too. I need to have a designated sewing area that isn't in a common area because there are lots of not baby safe things hanging around and it's frequently a mess, especially when I've been working a lot (and I'm going to have to start working a lot). My budget is not a lot, so I really have some searching to do. Unfortunately there's a lot of crap going on in between in this area. I was informed by my ex that he will not help with move in costs or co-signing, even though I have no money and I need a co-signer.  So that's something I am going to have to fight for.

I have to run right now because Eli is all over the place, including on my computer, and we need to eat lunch!

Welcome to Toddlerhood

I've been lax on the blogging lately. Life as a single mom to a 1 year old and running your own business is a LOT of work, so lately in my "down time" (if there ever is such a thing) I read or veg out and watch movies.

Once Eli had his first birthday it was like a switch was flipped into toddlerhood. He's changing in so many ways, it sure is amazing to watch. He's always been curious, all babies are, but it seems that he's especially curious lately. He's perfecting his walking and hardly ever falls down while doing it, he's figured how to take off his diapers that snap, and he's become a night owl just like his mama.

Eli loves his toys. For his birthday I bought him a mini bowling set that has 6 wooden pins and a felted wool ball. You can frequently find him walking around with one or two of the pins in each hand. The car shown is by Sprig. It's made from recycled materials and wood chips (and it smells like the wood chips!) in Canada. He also got some other great stuff including a rocking horse, lots of wood blocks, and a wooden sailboat that I bought for him for bath time and then playing in puddles as he gets older.

With the fun has also come the not so fun. Eli has all of a sudden started going through a hair pulling and face slapping phase. Luckily it's most likely just a phase, and hopefully it won't last long. I am trying to teach him that it's not nice by telling him no and that it hurts, then leaving the room. Whenever I do this he starts freaking out and crying, so I come back in and give him a hug. I think he's learning, it's not happening as often as it was a couple days ago.

That's the extent of his "naughtiness" though, and he's only 1, so he doesn't know any better. Life is a learning process, and so isn't being a mom. A learning process for both of us. Nothing in the world seems bad when he puts his nose on my nose and stares into my eyes then laughs. He loves me and I love him.

One Of Those Weeks

We all have bad weeks, this one just happens to be mine. First of all, my shoulder, arm, and neck have been in severe pain. I've been in pain ever since my surgery, but it's been pretty bearable. Sometimes I would just try to rest, sometimes take some tylenol or ibuprofen, but the past couple of days nothing has been working. I'm tough, things hurt me, but it's nothing I can't usually handle. To give you an idea of my pain tolerance: I have a lot of tattoos in painful places like my ribs and my chest and I gave birth without any drugs. Now I'm not saying that stuff didn't hurt me, cause it did, but I was bearable. This shoulder and neck pain has become UNbearable. I called my doctor yesterday and started crying. They called me in some pain medication and I am going in to see him tomorrow (for a doctors visit that I cannot afford). I hate pain medication, but last night was the first night in a long time where I was relieved from pain.

Next up was my wonderful night "off". I told my ex that he would have to take Eli overnight once a week so I could get some work done and do things that I needed to do. One night a week isn't much, especially considering I have done all night parenting and putting to bed for the past 11.5 months. The schedule now gives me 2.5 - 3 hours per night and 12 hours total on the weekends. On the weekdays when I am baby free I like to spend a little time relaxing and maybe even eating dinner which leaves me very little time to actually do work. Once I get Eli back for the night I put him to bed (if he will go) and I try to do as much work as possible, but what I can do is limited while Eli is asleep (can't use the serger, it's really loud. Have to keep stopping what I am doing and get Eli back to sleep if he wakes up, etc). So, I am basically doing full time work with about 15 hours per week to do it. Not enough. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked here. I gave my ex some pumped milk, oatmeal, and coconut milk for an emergency if he runs out of breastmilk. He had swaddle blankets and diapers. He basically had everything, and more, that you need to put a baby to bed for the night. Well, my "night off" as ruined by incessant texts telling me that he wouldn't stop crying, wouldn't sleep, it wasn't him it was Eli, it's not the right time to change his sleeping arrangements. I was called selfish and a bad mother. I basically told him he needs to learn how to night parent. I told him what I do that works (swaddling rocking, etc.) and I was told he couldn't swaddle cause it's too hot (even though the a/c was on) and that he did rock him and it did nothing. I told him he just needs to figure it out and it's not easy. Then the guilt trip began. Apparently I am not supposed to, or allowed to take a night off. I honestly don't know where I am going to pull this magic time from to get all the things done that I need to do.

Then finally, the straw that broke the camels back. I sat don last night ready to do a lot of work, even though I was feeling funny from pain medication and stressed out beyond belief. I needed to re-thread my serger because the upper looper unthreaded. So I re-threaded it. Then I tried to serge. The lower looper unthreaded. Ok. I re-threaded the lower looper about 5 times (which is a huge pain in the ass, if you have ever threaded a serger before then you know what I mean). I finally realized that the 2 discs that hold the tension of the thread were broken and there was nothing I could do to fix it. I don't even know how it happened. I emailed Brother but I know that it would be weeks and weeks before I saw a repair or a new machine and I don't even have DAYS. I checked my bank account and paypal, not enough to cover a serger. I made the mistake of asking the ex if I could just use his credit card and pay him back, which I got reamed a new a-hole for and I was told again how selfish I am. Cool, ex, cause I need you to put me down constantly. Cause I don't have enough shit going on in my life. It's pretty funny that he thinks he is just hurting me by doing what he's doing, when in reality he is hurting his son too. Really, really sad. Anyway, I was freaking out. I listed some baby carriers for sale on facebook and craigslist. After a lot of crying and arguing with the wonderful ex, I got a call from a mama saying she would buy me a replacement serger. I was floored. I started crying. I forget that people can be caring and nice because all I deal with is my ex who is the complete opposite. I asked her if she was really, really sure and she said yes. So this mama (who I don't want to name just in case she doesn't want to be named) bought me a new serger. I want to tell her again thank you so much. You are an amazing woman and I am going to make that baby of yours a bunch of cute stuff, and I won't take no for an answer!

Now this week is looking up. I can continue to work, which is a good thing. Tomorrow I will hopefully get some answers regarding all the pain that I am in (and hopefully switch my PET scan to Austin too).

I want to end this on a positive note so I want to tell you about Eli's new accomplishments! He will be turning 1 in less than 2 weeks now (crazy!) and he's started saying mama and walking! My little boy is growing up too fast.

What's To Come

Life has been so busy lately. I took almost an entire day and devoted it to cleaning up my living room. Seriously, I had been trying to clean it for about 3 weeks. The clean laundry just kept piling up and for some reason piles of stuff just kept appearing all over the floor. I got it done, thank god, I had to anyway because I babysat today and I needed that room for Eli and little P to crawl around and play. Now the rest of my house, that's another story. I'm hoping that within a month my whole house will be clean. Ha!

So, as I posted before I'm making some blog changes. I've been thinking about it more and more and I want to do more than just less reviews. So here's what I have come up with:

• New look. Yup, redesigning the layout. Think of it like getting a haircut after a breakup. My "new" blog is going to reflect my new life. I want it to be light & airy, not dark & heavy.
• New name. This is a big one, especially since everything is Le Petit Owlet down to the .com. My business was named Le Petit Owlet, then I changed it to Little Owls to separate my business from blog, but I think I need to go even further. I have no clue what I'm going to name it. Rockin' (single) Mama? I really have no idea, any suggestions are greatly appreciated!
• As I start getting more time (HA! ha ha ha, time? What's that!?) I am going to start writing more about crafty things (hopefully even some tutorials!), recipes, eating and living on a budget (since I pretty much and completely broke now), my life, Elijah, single motherhood. I am also going to continue writing about natural parenting and issues that I am concerned with such as breastfeeding, circumcision, babywearing, etc. It's basically going to become more personal. Again, I will still do a select few reviews/giveaways here and there but they are a LOT of work, too much work for all the things that I have going on in my life.

I do have several reviews and giveaways lined up for you:

Elemental Shop Review/Giveaway
Glamourmom Review/Givewaway
UV Skinz Review/Giveaway
Sustainablebabyish Sloomb Longies Review
GroVia Review

So stay tuned for those, and of course all the changes!

Changes

I love reviews, I really do. I love reading reviews by moms because I am a mom, and I trust the opinions of other moms. What I don't love is how so many blogs are becoming pure advertising.

I am going to continue doing reviews, but only a select few every now and then. I have only ever reviewed stuff that I use on a daily basis and fits in with our lifestyle, but I feel that blogs need to have actual content.

Reviews and giveaways are also hard work. It takes a lot of time to write that stuff up and honestly, I am just too busy. Between having a 10 month old son, sewing/having a business, and now starting an organization to get more babies into cloth diapers, ell, I'm spread too thin!

So, while there ill be less reviews/giveaways, you can be sure that what I do review is totally awesome. It's the quality, not the quantity!

And to talk about my organization for a minute, it's called The Cloth Diaper Revolution. Our goal, like I said before, is to get more babies into cloth diapers! I am applying for a grant in June (and I in by votes, so be sure to get your voting hats on) and the money ill go towards not only making affordable organic diapers, but also a free cloth diapering class that will be held in Austin, TX and video taped and broadcast online, so EVERYONE can attend, no matter where you live! We're also going to talk to hospitals about making the switch and lots of other amazing stuff. I want to show everyone how easy, affordable, eco-friendly and fun cloth diapering is. You can like The Cloth Diaper Revolution on Facebook and follow our blog!

What's new!?

I feel like I haven't written forever, it's really only been a couple days. Things are still a little rough over here. Eli is feeling better, I don't think he was teething though. I did some internet searching and I am pretty sure he had a mild case of roseola. Roseola is an acute disease of infants and children in which a high fever and rosy red rash occur. I think this is what it was because as soon as Eli's fever went down he got a rosy rash on his chest and stomach, and was still a little irritable.The treatment for roseola is pretty much to let it run it's course. Generally a child's fever will last for about 3 days, Eli's only lasted for a day and a half, and I made sure to nurse him as much as possible. Sick babies, no fun!

You know what else is no fun? Falling babies! Elijah falls at least once a day now, and that's with me watching and with him every second! It happens out of nowhere and it happens to fast to stop it. So, we've got some bumps and bruises, but I guess that's what happens when babies just want to pull up and stand up all the time! 

I got a huge wooden play area for Eli. I hate play yards, they just look like baby prisons to me, but I had to get one. There's just too much stuff for Elijah to get into and too much stuff that he can probably get hurt on or by. So, wooden play yard it is. It really is huge, I can lay down in it! Now, it might take some getting used to, but he doesn't like it. If he's in the play yard then he will start crying, if I take him out and put him on the floor outside of it he's fine. He's also fine if I sit inside it with him. I think he's going through some separation anxiety right now, so when it seems like he can't get to me he freaks out. I'm ok with holding him and being with him all the time, but I do need free hands sometimes!

I am in the process of changing my cloth diaper co. name to Little Owl Bums, I'd like to keep it separate from this blog. On top of sewing diapers I am starting a graphic/web design business. It's called Fawn and Doe design and you can go look at my coming soon page at http://fawnanddoe.com, you should become my facebook fan too!

There's still a real woman behind this blog!

Whew! I feel like I've hardly been blogging aside from my reviews and giveaways. I suddenly got super, super busy so any "free" time is spent doing, well, nothing. Not only is my almost 8 month old son extremely mobile now (crawling everywhere, standing up while holding on to things and semi cruising!), but I have taken on a lot of extra stuff. I am working on a website for a farmers market in New Braunfels, sewing custom orders, sewing to keep my shop stocked, and also writing reviews. It's a lot! I don't even think I've showered in two days. 

I've been having quite the anxiety attack lately. A small, painful bump formed on the back of my neck just below my head. I'm pretty sure it is a lymph node. It's gone down in size and it's not as painful as it was the other day, so I am hoping it's just allergies or a cold or something, but I can't stop thinking it's cancer. For the rest of my life a bump, blemish, sore spot, headache, or any other ache or pain is going to automatically be cancer. Cancer head. It's unavoidable and it's making me anxiety ridden. I'm going to see a psychiatrist in March to get evaluated because the Zoloft that I am on for PPD doesn't seem to be working that well anymore. It works to some degree but I really think I need something different, and something that will hopefully help with my anxiety. I hate taking medication but right now I really have no choice, it's beyond my control.

I go to MD Anderson in Houston on March 1st for a follow up with blood work and a head, neck and chest ultrasound. Hopefully everything will turn out ok, but if it doesn't at least I can go to one of the best cancer hospitals. Excuse my language, but fuck cancer.

I've been looking into Buddhist meditation centers here in Austin. At this point I need to find some kind of spiritual path and I think meditation would be good for me. If I can learn to center myself and find peace then maybe all of this won't be so difficult to deal with. What do you do to calm yourself? Do you follow any kind of religion?

I've been desperately trying to get all of my diapers clean at the same time so I can take a photo of my stash. Maybe tonight will be the night (minus two)!

A Quick Update & Giveaway Recap

I have a canker sore on the side of my tongue, a cold sore on the corner of my mouth, and super engorged breasts because apparently babies nurse less when they are teething. Gah! I can't find the power supply for my pump right now so I have been hand expressing milk into a cup. Yesterday I hand expressed 3oz. If I was using the electric pump it probably would have been more like 8oz. I have a lot of milk, a lot. Breasts that are engorged with that much milk is awful! Teething lasts forever too.

I have a lot of stuff to do and I think I need to make a list to get it done.

Don't forget to enter the current giveaways!

gDiapers giveaway! Little gPants 2-pack and one pack of biodegradable inserts. Ends 2/19.

Lunapads giveaway! Enter to win a Lunapads sampler pack! Eco positive periods. Ends 2/12

NoseFrida "The Snotsucker" giveaway! You need this if you have a baby or a toddler! Much more gentle than a bacteria harboring bulb syringe. Ends 2/4

The winner for the Earth Mama Angel Baby giveaway is Heidi J! Congrats Heidi!

 

Here is her winning comment

 

One last thing, I am about to go make a survey so I can find out the demographics of my readers. I really hope that you will all take a minute to fill it out for me!

I'm still here, I promise!

There are a million things that I should be doing right now but I got so distracted by this here blog. I have been sitting around playing with the layout and trying to think of what I want to do next. I love the layout that I am working with right now but there are a few things I really want to change about it. One thing I did do was make a signature for my posts! How cool, I love it!
I need to go finish putting away the clean diapers (I stopped in the middle of putting them away to mess around on here), take a shower, then maybe go to sleep. I'm sorry I have been so neglectful of Le Petit Owlet this weekend, it's been a busy one!
Maybe if I have time after all the things I need to do I will post some photos!