CourtenayMomma.com is here!

(Today is the last day to get in on the BIG BLOG GIVEAWAY! CourtenayMomma.com)

The day has arrived! Today is the day that my new blog is unleashed upon the world. Courtenary Quite contrary is no more. so direct your browser to:

CourtenayMomma.com

The old posts will still be there, so you can still ready the funny things Emily says and the dumb things I do on a regular basis. Don’t forget to update any links or bookmarks you have to the new site CourtenayMomma.com

So long 8minutes.wordpress.com its been fun while it lasted. 2 and a half years ago I got bit by the blog bug. Here’s to you 8minutes and CQC. Its been fun. NOW GO TO IT:::

CourtenayMomma.com

Blog launch in 4 days.

I’ve come to a conclusion about the blog re-vamping. I’ve decided to stick with wordpress, but we are going to host it ourselves and that gives us tons of room for creativity. So I’ve been working away at getting the blog just perfect before my big grand opening on July 3rd. I picked my mother-in-laws birthday because that’s a happy day to have a grand opening or revealing of the blogness! I added google ads to the blog because I’d like to work towards bringing in some bacon. Even if it’s just one slice at a time…thank you Morgan. I’m finding it hilarious that the ads that are up already have tons of yeast infection ads because I’ve been blogging about this battle with thrush. Soo funny. I guess Ill have to blog about really cool stuff for a while to get better ads. So the count down is on. T-minus 4 days and counting! I’m still working on a banner, so we’ll see if I can get to that before the grand switchover or not. If you have any super ideas of what should be included in my blog, please let me know!

Here are some lovely pictures of Morgan and Emily at the wildlife park in Kamloops.

Emily at the Wildlife park with Junior Glory House

Emily insists this is a Chinchilla

Bond, James Bond!

I wanted to go too, but I ended up heading to Langley for the day to see some family that I hadn’t seen in years and remember my great Aunt Mary who was a wonderful lady. While I was there I saw a picture of her and my Auntie Lisa holding up a quilt that Aunt Mary had made for me when I was 2 or 3. It was a very special moment because my daughter Emily now has that quilt in her bed. I thought the day would be much harder because it was the first time I had been to my grandma Jean’s house since before she died. I have so many memories of playing there and exploring her yard and my great Aunt and Uncles yard. I think that enough time has passed that I just remembered fun things and didn’t find myself so overwhelmed with sadness. The sadness did catch up with me at the Relay for life last weekend as we walked by my grandma Jean’s luminary. Every year I think it will be better, but every year I’m crying before I even get to the luminaries. I hate cancer! I really do. I’d better segue or I’ll make myself sad again

Yesterday was a fun day! despite getting home at 3am and getting about 3 hours of sleep, I had a great day. I wasn’t going to go to church, but then I realized I was going to have to be awake and tired anyways so I’d better go and enjoy myself. It was a great service. Dustin preached on Faith and Hebrews 11. He talked about Joshua and the journey towards Jericho. Josh-boy had some serious faith to be able to follow the military strategy of walk around in circles and yell at a wall. You have to do what God says to do!

After church we got a babysitter for our miserable overtired Emily and we went to Shannon’s 60th birthday. She’s like an extra Mom to me. She’s Leah,  the Informal Matriarch’s, Mom. I practically lived at their house in high school. I even had chores to do sometimes.haha. Anyways. It was great fun with all Leah’s siblings and old friends there! I think I pulled a muscle playing DDR. Trying a little too hard to beat Cornelius at Bust a move! I’m no dancer. Bring on the Lego Star Wars! I wish all my extra siblings lived closer because I have such a blast hanging out with them. I wish I had my camera, but on the other hand, I’m glad there is no proof of my BAD dancing.

Fighting Thrush #2

Well I had a little bit of a nap. I’m feeling a bit more pleasant than pre-nap. The last two nights were harder with Avery. I can’t decide if it’s just catching up with me or if it was just that the nights were longer. I wasn’t sleeping well even when I could sleep. Sooo not fair. Normally, I can fall asleep really fast, but the last couple nights I’ve been awake a fair bit. Its not even that hot.

I think Emily is getting a cold. Yesterday she had a runny nose, but today she started coughing. Conveniently she started hacking right as we walked into the health food store. Nice. “Cover your mouth Emily”…over and over again. I stopped to pick p a few things to help in the FIGHT against thrush. I think we are winning for the most part. I’m back to being ok with nursing again. Avery seems to hurt a bit less and her mouth doesn’t look as white. Anyways, I picked up some grapefruit seed extract in capsule form to take and some in liquid goo formula for topical battle! So that brings the total meds and herb-ish things to 6. There’s only one more thing I’d like to try (Gentian Violet) and we can get a prescription for that at Avery’s six month check up tomorrow. Here’s our battle plan thus far for those who might need the 411.

First start with awesome information on EVERYTHING to do with breastfeeding and problems at Dr. Jack Newmans site.

I took fluconizole for my deep tissue pain and pin stabbed nips (overshare?)
I have a mixed compound cream for mutipurposes that you can find here.
I take Grapefruit Seed Extract capsules and apply the liquid topically.
I also take Acidophilus because of all the antibiotics we both had in hospital.
I paint Avery’s mouth with Nystatin 4 times a day.
And I’m going to try Gentian Violet too.

That’s main part. I’m hoping that once this thrush is gone, that we won’t get it again, but if we do, I’m putting up a fight!

I have the hardest time just buying 1 thing at the health food store. I picked up a metal watter bottle for Emily because I’m anti- plastic, but too cheap to convert all our plastic in one day. Her new bottle is bigger, which is good for hydrating in the summer. I also picked up some chocolate covered Halvah bars. My favorite! They also have this awesome granola with Hazelnuts in it that I add All-Bran buds and Hemp seeds too. Its really yummy. All that and a good non-prenatal multi-Vitamin. Oh and some organic gummie bears for Emily, who was a good girl in the store until I caught her with her foot on Avery in her car seat. She says she was just rocking her with her foot…Riiight!

Conversations with Emily this week. Pulling into the Tim Hortons drive-thru.

Em: Mom? We’re going to heaven right?

Me: Yep, but not for a long time.

Em: But how do we get there?

Me: We have to die, and then we go to heaven.

Em: Oh…When to we die?

Me: Hopefully not until you are really old.

Em: Oh ok. And one more thing…

Me: What sweetheart.

Em: Can we get some timbits?

Emily in the swing at Playgroup at Kim’s

Avery Sleeping with Emilys lunch on her.

Sleep Training the Baby

A moment of time to myself. It’s kinda nice. Morgan is playing piano and Emily gets to play in the music room when he does. Avery is attempting to fall asleep un-assisted. We are starting to let her cry a bit to fall asleep. It feels heartless, but it worked amazingly with Emily and we’d love to have another good sleeper. She already sleeps pretty decent for a newborn. So we’ll see how this goes.

With Emily we read this book called “Babywise”. It was recommended by a good friend who had followed the principles in it with three of her kids before I’d had Emily. Its definitely a controversial book and for the most part I have to keep my mouth shut about it and the methods it uses for sleep training. I go to drop in parenting groups in town and they are big proponents of attachment parenting. For the most part they are fans of things like co-sleeping, wearing your baby, and breastfeeding until Jr. High. They are really serious about not letting your baby cry ever.

I guess I just see it differently. Firstly, I’m not a co-sleeper because both my girls are noisy sleepers and I like to sleep. Plus I already have to share my bed with Morgan, and I’d rather not add to that even though we have a king size. I don’t mind wearing Aves in a sling or snugly, but it really doesn’t have to be all the time. I’m even on the side of breastfeeding. It didn’t work with Em, so I pumped for six months so she could have the benefit of breast milk. And with Avery, I plan on breastfeeding for at least a year. Technically, I’m on the same team as the attachment parents, I just do things differently. If you take ten minutes to hand out with Emily who didn’t sleep in or bed, got carried around sometimes, bottle fed with formula supplemented and cried herself to sleep for a short period of time, you will find a girl who is very attached to her parents. She’s also very independent, social, care-free, and well adjusted. She hasn’t suffered at all.

I felt I should explain myself so I don’t come across as harsh, unloving, and stone hearted towards my tiny little preemie baby. I love her dearly, and want her to get good sleep too. One lady at the drop-in parenting meeting actually told me that if my baby slept “through the night she might get SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome)”. WHAT? She said that as if my baby could contract a cold. Get SIDS? I do all the things that are recommended to avoid that. Maybe I’m not as worried about that because I believe that God is in control of my life and my kids lives. Either way, it’s a bit harsh to say “your parenting choice could kill your kid”. Special moment much?

Morgan is listening to Jars of Clay “Crazy times” downstairs. I used to love that song! It was one of the most complicated songs I could play on my guitar when I was first learning. Wow that’s a long time ago. Anyways…I get sidetracked easily.

My newest news is that I’m changing things up Blog style. I’ve been looking at a few different sites to blog on, and what the capabilities are. I’m bored with this wordpress site, so I had planned on switching to squarespace, but I haven’t found it to be THAT much better. It helps that I have free hosting, so I can host my own WordPress and choose my own template. I’ve found one that I like, but I haven’t decided to fork over the moolah yet. We’ll see. It’s silly because I want a blog that isn’t so word heavy. I like pictures to much for the way my blog looks right now. There’s also some collaborative events in the upcoming blog future. I can’t wait to tell you, but I’m going to have to wait until the transition with my blog is complete. Soon…very soon!

Coffee Time

In our house coffee is not so much a favorite past time, but an important part of a complete breakfast. Most people don’t have more than one coffee maker, but like many things in our life MK and I are unable to share coffee makers. Two Computers, Two cars, Two toothbrushes(whew), Two coffee makers. This one is practical given that I’m drinking decaf for Avery’s sake. I had caffinated coffee yesterday because I couldn’t breastfeed Aves. It was like being ALIVE! I can see how someone could quit smoking and start again. I didn’t drink coffee almost at all since last September. Several of those months were due to copious amounts of pukage and an extreme dislike for food at all.  I’m not saying I’m an addict, but the first step is denial right?

Day 2 of fighting Thrush with all our superpowers combined. 24 hours of letting my body recover and 32 ounces of pumped milk down the drain *tear* and we are back on track. Avery isn’t nursing as well as before, but clearly her mouth still hurts. We’ll get there. I have more determination than I had before. I’m even going to try to be one of those Mom’s who can nurse in a sling. Maybe not grocery shopping, but capable for an emergency long lineup at Save-on.

I’ve been thinking alot about healthy eating again. It’s been really hard to eat much of anything healthy for the last little while. My life is starting to calm down and I’m looking forward to eating real food again. So my goal is to consume the rest of the junk in our house and not bring any other junk home. I think it will be pretty hard since my sister started working at DQ again and cheap blizzards make me happy.  I want to get going back to my GYM whenever I feel I  am up to spin class again. I’m trying to get out walking whenever I can, but this weeks rain put us behind on that one.

Apparently, I’m a bit of a bad influence when it comes to junk food(so I’ve been told). So from now on, I’m going to try and be the good influence.  The influence that doesn’t feel guilty giving her child 2 m&m’s, but eats the whole BIG bag herself. The influence that doesn’t put flax seed on her daughters cereal while eating cinnamon toast crunch or pizza for breakfast. The influence that doesn’t like to buy organic fresh veggies, but forgets to cook them till they are yucky.

I know dieting while nursing is a bad idea, but having a healthy diet while nursing is a GOOD idea. So that’s the new plan. I think the truck that drove through the front door of Husky was a sign to avoid going there for screamers. Maybe if they had have just stole the slushie machines this wouldn’t have been a problem!

So I think I’ll go have some All-bran buds on Yogurt and a nectarine for breakfast. Breakfast that has already passed by…haha