Motherhood- Take two

October 27th, 2009 at 12:05pm, Ronan Ryker Berry came into this world... ass first. Nate likes to say he was telling the world to kiss his ass. I ended up having to have a c-section, much to my dismay, but 3 weeks later I'm healing nicely.

I can't believe he's been here 3 weeks already. I can't believe that at 24, I'm the mother of 2. Mostly, I can't believe how much I'm loving it! I get to really appreciate Ronan's babyness more than I did Austyn's. I was so depressed after I had Austyn (who's surprised? Look who I was married to!) that I couldn't appreciate her. Then after I left her sperm-donor, I had to work a lot to support us so I missed a lot of her baby time. I still kick my self for having lost the camera that had all her baby photos on it and even some video of her being silly in the tub but there's nothing much I can do about it now.

I have developed a new appreciation of my boobs. I mean I tried to breastfeed with Austyn but she didn't suck, she gnawed, so I ended up giving her a bottle. Ronan on the other hand, has taken to breastfeeding like a fish to water. It's so gratifying! I feel a little Goddess like when I'm doing it as well. Yes by breasts hurt, yes it's sucks a bit that I HAVE to be the one who gets up at night with him but honestly I love watching him eat! Okay the little piggy-like noises he makes when he's suckling has something to do with it... it's just too darned cute! On top of all of that, I make milk like a freaking factory! I hardly even pump because I leak so much. I currently have 20 (6oz) bags of milk in the freezer!

Life is a little crazy, I'm tired most of the time but I'm hoping to get more sleep soon. My living room is no where near as clean as I'd like it, nor the kitchen, but the rest of the house is still acceptable. At least I'm staying on top of the laundry! Okay using cloth diapers has something to do with that but what ever works. I guess that's all for now.

Heh... *Sheepish Grin*

I'm a horrible blogger. Actually I'm horrible at anything that requires me to do it daily. Birth control pills? Forgot those ALL the time, besides the fact they made me ill. Actually getting me to remember ANY pill is a crap shoot. Hell in high school I would occasionally forget what class I had next... HALF WAY THROUGH THE SCHOOL YEAR. I'm just not a creature of any real habits. I live from moment to moment and I rather like my life that way. Life is much more interesting.

As to the homeschooling, we're still right on track. Austyn is on the letter J and the number 10 this week. It's so cool that she still asks to do school. She really enjoys learning. I can't blame her, so do I. We're adding tons of signs to our repertoire and having two friends that are fluent in ASL really helps! She's also started using the computer. We really like the games on Sproutonline.com. They're the ones most geared to her age and computer skill level. She's getting really good at the rhyming ones and the coloring ones she'll spend tons of time on. It's educational and it's improving her fine motor skills. We'll probably take next week off, due to the due date being impending and all that, and we're at a pretty good pausing point.

Ronan seems more and more like his mother's child. I was two weeks late and if he keeps going like he is then he will be too. I'm at 39 weeks and not dilated a single centimeter. You can't imagine how irritating it is! I've been sitting on a yoga ball for two days, I'm stimulating every accupressure and reflexology point for inducing labor that I know and there is some serious love makin' going on in this house. But is there any proof of all this work? NO!!! UGH, Nate even tried evoking random Goddesses to exorcise (as in performing an exorcism) the wee demon spawn from my belly. That one had me laughing so hard I almost peed the bed but alas, nothing more came of it. Here's hoping there some sort of progress at my next appointment on Monday, or preferably before that!

Holy Crapola!

Okay so besides my inability to sit at the computer for long periods, I have been a bad homeschool mommy! We took the week of Labor Day off because one, it threw off our groove and two, Austyn got pretty sick all week that week. We ended up taking her to the ER when she spiked a pretty high fever, and she got some antibiotics and an Albuterol inhaler because she was wheezing and coughing. The inhaler seems to be doing more for her than the antibiotics if you ask me.
On a good note, we're getting back on the wagon and will be doing school again after nap today.

This weekend was very productive, though. We got both Austyn's new twin sized bed put together AND the crib put up. We got the nifty cloth diapers in and I got them all washed and ready. We're making plans to go to Home Depot to price the materials for two big ( 4ft x 2f tx 2ft) toy boxes and a 9 cube shelf (5ft x 5ft x 18in) to go into what is supposed to be the dining room. Since we don't have a dining table and we probably wouldn't use it even if we did, we're converting the dining room into a play room. That way all Austyn's toys are downstairs and she's more likely to want to play than she is now. Also it will be nice to not have to trudge up stairs every time she wants to watch a movie. I'm also looking into getting her a cable box so that I don't have to watch Noggin 24/7... AHHHH! LoL.

Pregnancy and Blogging...

are not conducive.

Austyn has been doing really well with school, I just haven't been motivated to sit at the computer for long periods of time to blog about it. She traced "C"s and "3"s really well and we are really proud of her. Saturday we made paper bag puppets while Nate was at work and had a ton of fun with that. She is still playing with them! I know I say it a lot but I love watching her learn! She's getting so smart.

On another note, I am so happy that I finally found someone I trust to watch Austyn when I go into labor. Our friend, and her Sunday school teacher, Audry, was more than happy to take the job. It's so nice to have friends to turn to when you need help.

I will try to blog better this week but I'm not promising anything.

Week 3, Day 1 and 2

I was too tired last night to blog but it was a good day. We got up early and made our weekly trip to the local library. We got 4 new books to read this week and it's nice to rotate through them. She colored a picture of two cats, since cat is our theme for this week. We learned the signs for cat and claws. She named the cats in her picture after our cats and stayed pretty well within the lines. We also started learning "Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat".

Today we colored some diamonds, since diamond is the shape for this week. We learned how to sign Diamond and she showed me the big, medium and little diamonds on her color sheet. We sang "Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat" again and she's getting really good at it! Her fine motor skills are really improving, her coloring is REALLY improving day to day. I'm really proud of her.

I also want to share some of the links that I use regularly for our school, in case anyone stumbles across this blog and wants to know were I get some of my stuff.

My curriculum
Coloring sheets (letters)
More coloring sheets(all kinds)
Even more coloring sheets(shapes)
Handwriting sheets
Worksheets
ASL dictionary ( video!)

There are other places I go sometimes but these are the big ones for me. I also find some really cool clip arts for our learning board by just googleing! I know it looks like we just do a lot of coloring, and we DO color a lot but it's something she loves to do so I work with that. It definitely makes it easier to teach when we do things she LIKES to do.

Last Week

Okay so last week didn't go as well as I wanted to because neither Austyn or I was feeling very well but we did get everything done that I wanted to. Given we did most of it in 2 or 3 sessions on Friday but it did get done. I just can't get over how awesome it is to watch things click in her little head. I am really loving teaching her and I don't know if I will ever want to give up the joy of being the one she looks at with that "AH HA!" look. I can see why people become teachers, I just don't think I could deal with other people's kids bad attitudes! This week is Cats, a favorite subject with her anyway so hopefully we'll stay on target this week. I can't wait to see what she teaches me this week as well.

Not a good night..

Today was a seriously bad day for me. Hormones took over and I pretty much cried on and off all day about EVERYTHING! Needless to say there was no school work done today and that makes me feel even worse. It's an ugly, vicious cycle but it's not a problem to just do 2 lessons tomorrow. Best not to make a habit of it though. ACK! I hate hormones!