This link was my motherhood status in 2009. I was the mom of a two and a half year old and a seven month old baby. I remember it almost clearly. It was really the hardest job in the world, but together with my husband and the help of my parents, we made it! I almost can’t believe how we were able to travel by plane and survive the airport in those days. Dex and I were always positive thinkers and could not give up our lifestyle. No matter how hard, we did it. We went there and we did that! We packed snacks and baby food and breast milk and all sorts of toys and pacifiers and baby bottles and diapers and extra clothes and bibs and vomit clothes for mommy and daddy and strollers and car seats. Every day at that point was a struggle to get out of the house! It was literally a whole morning affair to get anything done and ready for the outside world. Sometimes, I was too tired to get out after the whole preparation for it! 

Now three years later, I am in such a different state of thought. I have an almost 6 year old and an almost 4 year old! I feel like I have survived the hardest part of it all.With every age that they add every year, I feel like the challenge is always different, but still a challenge in and of itself. Happy Mother’s Day to all the mommy’s out there, especially to the first time mom’s who is at the beginning of their journey. I’m not a fan of Hallmark Holidays, but I gotta go with the flow on this one! It is a deserving holiday to be celebrated! I always say that I have been blessed. This is the reason. My two girls are truly the best gift a mom (and dad) could have on this Mother’s Day! Enjoy the beautiful meaning behind this day! 

Once upon a time, a husband and wife slept together in their beds- in peace and quiet. They went to bed past 2am on a regular day before their scheduled day to work. On most days, when they went out, they went to bed much later for a couple hours and got ready to start work at 7am. When they didn’t have work, they would sleep until 2pm and then maybe take another nap later in the afternoon and then get ready for more fun when the moon came out. Then they had a baby and all that changed literally overnight. There was no warning of what was to come. They brought their baby home from the hospital and it has been that way since. They never slept alone in their beds again… UNTIL NOW. Yes! Five years and 10 months later, the husband and I have finally slept in our beds, ALONE, for the last five days and counting! I never thought I could get to this point! Although “sleeping in” until 9am is considered a blessing, I am happy to take this step for now!

We never ever intended on having our newborn baby sleep with us. Of course every parent dreams of their first born’s nursery, but ours was very far from that dream. We had just sold our town house at that point, moved into an apartment with our dog Tyson, our newborn baby, my parents and my brother. We stayed there for about a year waiting for our house to be built. We did two moves in one year of having our first born. Talk about whoa! Jasmyne never got used to being in her own room. I was determined to make sure my 2nd baby did not follow into her footsteps. She was well trained to sleep from 7pm until about 730am all by herself in her own room. That in and of itself was hard work. It was like living through a strict army schedule. We had to be home by 6pm everyday to get her ready for bed. My brother stayed in the room right next to hers and shared the connecting bathroom, so every slight noise he made was a nightmare for us. That soon fell apart with our love of being out of the house too! Basically Dex and I traded our privacy in the bedroom to be able to keep our late bedtime and also afford a later wake-up time on our days off. Fair enough, right?

Well all that needed to change when Jasmyne started Kindergarten. She obviously could no longer afford to sleep late, so either Dex or I had to start sleeping early with her in our bed. It was almost a paper-rock-scissor game that neither one of us wanted to lose. Believe me! We are both not meant to sleep early at all. So when we moved to our new house, I had a plan. We bought their beds and started having them feel comfortable in their own room that they were going to share with each other. My chances of them sleeping in their room doubles if they shared their room. Three months ago, we started the process of them sleeping in their beds while we slept on the floor. YES! Three whole months of sleeping on the floor and enduring worsening back pains! After two months, they both finally stopped coming down to the floor to sleep with us. We advanced from the closet light staying on to buying a fish tank with a nice dark blue light to be used at night. Then we bought them fishes to keep them company at night. This week we started our sticker prize calendar and it worked like a charm. They look forward to what the next prize will be. For every night they stay in their bedroom, they get a sticker in the morning on that box. They can’t move forward to the next box unless they work together as a team and stay in their bedrooms. IT WORKED and I can’t believe it. It’s been five days and counting. Last night was a little hard due to the thunderstorm, but they still stayed in their room. I am so proud of them, especially my little 3-year old. I couldn’t expect that from Jasmyne when she was that age. They are really looking forward to reaching the end when they can have a shopping spree at Toys R Us. In all honesty, they are super excited because they have only been to that store once, which was for their shopping spree of 2 toys once they stopped coming down on the floor to sleep with us. I can’t say that we will ever get back our “sleep until 2pm” back, but I honestly don’t even want that back. I just want to be alone, in bed, with my husband without feet sticking in my face or finding myself almost falling off our king sized bed because my two little ones have taken over. Please pray that we continue to move forward in a positive way. I have been able to achieve more of what I need to do at home and at the same time, sleep somewhat earlier because I no longer have to sneak out of our room after they’ve fallen asleep. The best part is I can finally watch ID (Investigation Discovery Channel) all night long. Yahooooo! Good night everyone!

Speaking of Kindergartner, I had to Google spell check that one. How ironic, huh? Yes. I am very excited for my little big girl. She started school on the right foot and is an extremely happy child. She is always excited to get the day started and be with her new friends. I only hope and pray that she keeps this enthusiasm going. I was very nervous about her first day of school. I had all these negative thoughts flowing in my crazy head about all the things that could possibly go wrong. I don’t even want to put it out here because I may make it obvious how crazy I was. We had so much fun “back to school” shopping and I may have gone a little over board. New shoes. New book bag. Matching pencil case. Cool little gadgets, that believe it or not, were in her school supply list. On a side note, I don’t ever remember having such things as “the school supply list” when I went to school ages ago. Anyhow, it was quite helpful and at the end of the day, her backpack was much too heavy for her to carry on her own. This is no joke. Thank goodness her teacher emptied it out and left most of her supplies in her own personal cubby. They also have school uniforms, which saves me a ton of money and time deciding what she should wear. It didn’t fail though. I bought her all sorts of pants and uniform dresses and shoes and socks and such. I couldn’t help it. We are now on Week 2, and we are all still ever so excited to drop her off in the morning and pick her up and wait for her stories of how her day went. It gets better and better each time. 

My journey has just begun. I’m looking forward to the next decade of “firsts” and all the adjustments we have to make as parents. I wish to build her a great foundation, which starts NOW! Good luck to all the first time parents out there going through this change with me. Let’s make this good!

Pic 1: Jasmyne excited on the school playground area on her first day!

Pic 2: Jasmyne is first in line. She’s starting off on the right foot alright. LoL! By the way, I shaded everyone’s faces for privacy.

Pic 3: Jasmyne is one of the shortest and most petite girls in the class. These kids are huge!

I’ve always related to this song’s first verse since I first heard it. Actually, I’ve always felt connected to this crazy song. If you don’t know by now, music is therapy for me. It’s always good to find a song that I can somehow relate to in my own way. This song is apparently about self esteem, but if you listen closely to the lyrics, it really has a deeper meaning in terms of life itself. Nobody has ever had a perfect life, but we can all get back up and make it through. I love listening to the way this song calms me. As of right now, this is my song of the moment. Life is about living and learning, but mostly LIVING. There are definitely no regrets on this end. All I can do is look forward and never look back and learn from the past!

So I weighed myself this morning and reached the number:  One fill in the blank Zero. This means that I have lost my next ten pounds on my weight loss agenda. I decided to go back into my 101 Things To Do list and jot it down as an accomplished task only to realize that it took me more than a year to do so. I know I haven’t even barely tried to lose weight, but Golly Gee Whiz-  a whole freaking year!?!? I lost about 5 pounds since giving up rice and potato chips for Lent this year. I think that was two weeks ago. Go figure. So I have told myself that I am no longer eating rice until I reach my goal weight. I am hoping to lose more weight in time for our trip to the Philippines. The one thing I need to really start doing is going to the gym. It has been quite a while since I last did that. Although I am happy to have lost 10 pounds without going to the gym, I think I am going to start having to just to see better and quicker results. I still can’t believe that I lost 5 pounds just in two weeks due to not eating rice at all. Eventually, I know the weight loss will taper off, so I have to slowly get myself back on track to the gym. I also need to start eating a bit earlier than 830PM. I can’t give up my coffee addiction, so I think I need to add water into my daily diet as well. I am not a big water drinker. In one day, I may drink one bottle- if even that. Most days, I don’t drink water at all.  Lord help me with all of the above! Help me achieve all that I want to do with no will power, oh lord. Hahahaha!

Anyway, I can’t believe that it is already March! I’m so excited for spring and summer to finally be here. It’s going to be a busy summer and I am looking forward to so many things with the kids. My spirit feels lifted just thinking about it!  We are definitely spending more time in Chicago this summer since the kids are big enough. We will need to start taking strolls by the lakeshore, taking the train ride to downtown Chicago, Navy Pier and summer festivals and so much more. I miss the city and I can’t wait to share it’s beauty with my girls! Hooray!

There has been so many things on my mind lately. All have been “blog-worthy” and I even stop and think to myself that I just have to blog about it. Now that I actually have the chance to FINALLY get to my blog, my mind is failing me and I can’t remember all the goodies. The one thing that does stick is the fact that our little baby girl has been sleeping through the night. When I first mentioned it on here, it was pretty much in the beginning stages. It was always different with Jasmyne because she sleeps (and still does) with us. Having her sleep through the night was not a problem. She was always comforted by us in our bed when she was a baby.

Going through the notions with Janelle was a different story. We wanted it to be different and we wanted her to be on her own from the beginning. It was one of those things that Dex and I knew we would stick with from the day I found out I was pregnant with her. It was a very rough patch. Her frequent wakings and tantrums. There were many days when I found that I had not slept in ages. Those were the days when I had to stay in her bedroom, on the bed, on standby for when she would wake. I found myself sleepless and on the internet because she would wake on the hour. GONE ARE THOSE DAYS!

A co-worker of mine suggested I read the book after hearing some of my stories. Now, at the two baby showers I’ve been to in the last two months, this book was always part of the goody bag. It just made so much sense, and Janelle is a much happier and friendlier baby. She is getting the sleep she needs. If you really think of it, what baby wants to be awake and crying all the time? So if you’re expecting or already have a baby, you have to get “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child“. It really does work wonders. It goes from birth all the way up to kindergartners. I hope it’s never too late with Jasmyne. She doesn’t really have good sleeping habits due to my own faults. Dex and I are late sleepers, and since she stays with us in our bedroom, she kind of picked up the habit. There is no such thing as telling her to go to her room and sleep- YET! We are hoping to start it soon. Hopefully the books promise will stick with her too. For now, we love the time we have between 8pm-7am. We can watch a movie and even give Jasmyne some one on one time. We love the SLEEP we get. As you can tell, there has been no more time for me to write blog updates in the middle of the night.

Even in the midst of our vacation in Orlando, it worked. She slept in her own bedroom and even though we were putting her to sleep later, she was still sleeping though the night! It took me only a week to see noticeable changes! Now it’s been about two months! Thank god for books like these!

Next Up: Orlando Vacation. It will be Password Prtoected, so ask me for the password if you are a curios little bee and feel you are worthy of the password!

It has been a BUSY summer. As you can most likely tell, I have not been able to update too much. In about half an hour, my Jasmyne-girl is turning three. I almost cannot believe it. We were going to go out of town and do our own thing, but at the last minute decided to have a “small” barbecue for her. No special invitations mailed out as I normally like to do. She requested for a Spongebob theme- and I am still a bit confused by it. I didn’t know she even knew who Spongebob was. Anyway, we FINALLY bought her a kitchen set as a gift. We picked a nice one too since it’ll be way worth it having two girls around. We also bought her a couple other things- including LOTS and LOTS of Caillou stuff that you can only find online. If there is one person she loves more than us in the whole wide world, it would have to be Caillou.

She is also now peepee trained. It was a long road to get there, but we finally got there. It took lots of bribing and lots of dollar toys from Target. There were also plenty of non-dollar toys when we first started this whole process. Now we have to work on making her poop in the potty, which she thinks is so “disgusting”.Yes! That was the word she used.

Janelle has also kept us pretty busy. She loves to crawl and stand now. It will only be a matter of time before she starts walking too. We’ve also been sleep training her. I got a book that a couple of people recommended. It was such an informative book. If I could only have all mothers read it so that they understand the process of sleep in babies and toddlers. She literally sleeps twelve hours straight. She has times when she cries, but she is able to soothe herself back to sleep now. Gone are the nights when we are being awakened during our deep sleep. We have more free time during and after dinner. We also now get to put Jasmyne to sleep earlier than usual. Best of all, Janelle is a well rested baby. It was so well worth it.

Anyway, with all this potty and sleep training… and kids birthday parties… and just always wanting to be out and enjoying the beautiful weather- I am officially exhausted for the summer. I have two weeks to rest up in preparation for our family vacation to Orlando. I can’t wait!

Have a happy weekend everyone and Happy Birthday to my Jasmyne Pooper!