Birthday Blues

Johanna turns 1 in a little over a month. Can you believe it? Well, I'm in the midst of plannng her party and something has been nagging at me, keeping me from making decisions. I couldn't even buy her outfit. Well it finally hit me. The theme of her party is Johanna's Sweet Shoppe and typically Sweet Shoppe birthdays are pastel pink and white. Ummm yeah, so, about that? *shudders*. Well tonight while doing one last scour for her birthday outfit, I found it! But how was it going to fit in with that light, girly theme? Would I have to change the theme? Nope! I just needed to do it MY way. Her birthday outfit is black and pink and so shall her sweet Shoppe decorations be! Black, pink and perhaps a peachy orange. Wooosaaahhh! I feel so much better. My rock and roll side feels a lot better. Johannas diva side? is lo-ving-it! Now I'm excited! Booyah!

*JohannasMama*

What's In Your Easter Basket?

Sunday as you all know is Easter and this will of course be Johanna's very first Easter. Now, I will say that I LOVED getting Easter baskets when I was a little girl. Heck, every once in a while my father would buy me one as an adult and I loved them then as well. It was never about the candy, or the stuffed animal. It was just the excitement of receiving one! Well as an adult Easter has become so much bigger for me, definitely more spiritual than anything else. Forget the basket, forget Peter Cotton Tail, forget all of that. Easter is for me truly about Christ rising from the dead after dying for my sins.

Let's not forget that before Johanna I was child illiterate.

Fast forward to Ohhh, I don't know, Monday, when I learn that a lot of the ladies in a group I'm apart of are all making Easter baskets for their kids. Now see, when I was thinking about the Easter basket I was clearly thinking about the store bought ones. My reaction? "People actually take the time to MAKE those??? And for the first birthday??? Now I gotta get a basket too???? Niiiccceee". Yeah, that definitely blew my mind. Welp, in an attempt to not make my child the bootleg laughing stalk of the Knottie Mommies group, off I went to order her stuff. So far I have a my first bible that I will read to her, a bunny from build-a-bear with a cool golf outfit, a spiritual songs lullaby dvd, and a my first easter book. There was suppose to be a bib to go along with all of that buuuttt, it won't arrive until Monday O_o, so off I go tomorrow to look for something to fill that spot.

While visiting the DC Moms Like Me website I read what some of the other ladies were putting into their basket. One entry in particular piqued my interest:

From Ulasp -  Where I grew up (in Ukraine), Easter basket has a bit different concept. It is full of symbolism and meaning that is linked to the reason why we celerbrate Easter (rebirth, new life).
We would bake easter bread with raisins (yiest bread), paint eggs in different and often times elaborate colors/patterns (usually patterns you paint on eggs has a story or means something e.g. deer/horses is a wish of wealth and prosperity; rose - love and caring; continuous line denotes everlasting life, etc.). You can see beautiful painted eggs (pysanky) here:
http://www.artukraine.com/egg/pysankyp2.htm
The basket than is filled with an Easter bread, eggs, sausage, some condiments and taken to church to be blessed with holly

I.want.

At the time I was under the impression that I couldn't do that this year because Hannie isn't old enough, yadda yadda yadda. That's when I learned that people also have a "main" Easter basket that they do for the house. Who knew!?!? That didn't happen in my family. I won't be doing it this year, but next year it's on! I want the Easter bread and everything!

What Easter traditions do you have for your little one and your family? What's in YOUR Easter basket?

Life Without Baby

So, it has officially been over a week that I'm back at work and the baby is in daycare. It has been haarrddd for so many reasons:

• Work hardly compares to being at home with my little one.
• It's hard feeling like someone else is raising your child during the day, no matter how much confidence you have in them.
• The evening isn't hardly time enough to catch up since the baby is usually all pooped out by then.
• I now realize how unimportant stupid little petty stuff is and would rather just be at home cooing at my kid.

That's just a few of the reasons. Most of my others simply end with...I miss her. That little girl rocks my socks. I love the conversations we have because she's so animated and so confident in what she's saying lol. I cried all day that first day thinking about the fact that I could talk to her and listen to her babble *smh*. Here's an email I sent some sistafriends on the day before I sent her off to daycare:

Tomorrow my baby heads off to daycare and I head back to work. I'm so sad to have to hand her off to someone else. Although I am very comfortable with the daycare we chose, I just can't imagine not having her all day. And I feel so bad for the provider because between today and tomorrow she's gonna be bumrushed by me telling her things like "when she starts pulling her hair or babbling aggressively, it's because she's beyond exhausted, so here's what you have to do...". Lucky for me she says she already expects for me to call a gazillion times this week with info like that, but still. I'm so sad that I almost took my husband up on the offer of being a stay at home mom for the rest of the year, but, yeah, about that? A sista has to have her own so that's a no go. But I thought about it for a good 15 seconds before coming back to reality.

This motherhood thing has totally caught me off guard. Now that I have her I am completely baffled that I never wanted kids. If I could afford it...and had the patience...and some nannies...I would totally be that Duggard woman, or whatever her name is.

I feel like I'm going to miss so much. We just had tummy time and she turned over to her back again. She's starting to do it more consistently. I'm totally going to miss her turning over from back to tummy, I just know it!

This, my friends, is no bueno. I'm gonna have such a pissy attitude come Wednesday. Why would I want to go deal with a bunch of whiney grownups when I could be home smiling at my daughters big, wide, toothless grin? Oh yeah, that's right, because I have to provide for her.

Le sigh.

Sincerely,

One seriously distraught Mama

I must say I don't feel too differently today. I'm still sad. This too shall pass right?

~JMJsMom

The Smiling Bean

I love this kid, I truly do. This week she has taken to waking up at 6am, adjusting her eyes, then giving the biggest smile evah! Then it's talk time.She tries her best to have a conversation with me. I'm in love! That's all :-)

~JmJsMom

Good Hair: Not In This House

photo courtesy of http://ontheroadtoqueendom.blogspot.com/ 
I just finished watching a rerun of the Tyra Show about "Good Hair". It really broke my heart. So many mothers on the show were placing their own insecurities onto their daughters. I felt bad for one mother/daughter duo in particular. The mom was white and her daughter was biracial. The mother put a relaxer and weave in her daughters hair (I believe the little girl was about 8 or 9), but unbeknownst to her, the daughter didn't like it. The mom said her daughter had never told her that before. She just wanted her daughters hair to be "nice" and basically, manageable instead of spending hours trying to do it. That mother is missing out on so much. I understand that working through our natural coils can be frustrating, but it is a great bonding experience for a mother and her daughter.

Nothing can replace the time when my mother use to do my hair herself instead of sending me to the hair salon. She would sit me in the kitchen on a chair while the pressing comb heated up on the stove. Then section by section she would straighten my hair, then put the soft spongy rollers in my hair so that it would have some sort of style to it the next morning. There were also the times when she would place pillows on the floor so that I could sit between her legs as she detangled my hair, put it in ponytail holders, and twist or plait each section adding barrettes or beads to the end. Yes, it took hours, but I would talk my mothers ears off during the process and she would respond with laughter or by asking me questions. Nothing can replace that. That is such a special time.

Trust me, I know doing natural hair can often times not be easy. My mother ended up putting a kid relaxer in my hair when I was about 6 years old. My hair was curly, but as soon as humidity hit it (which DC has a lot of) POOF it went. That didn't look cute to my mother. The lady that sported a fro in the 70s didn't think it was so cute on her kid, so I got relaxed. Everything was all good until I was about 10 years old and my beautician left a relaxer on my hair too long. It not only damaged my hair, but it damaged my scalp. Til this day it is hard for me to get the front and sides of my hair to grow at all! My bangs are just past the tip of my nose and you have no idea how many years (yes, years!) it took my hair to get to that point! But I digress. My mother herself would get her hair done every two weeks, getting a relaxer every 6-8 weeks. She wasn't an expert at doing a kids hair so she did what she saw best to do.

One thing I am happy about is the fact that I decided to go natural almost two years ago. I hate getting my hair done. Abhor it. So going to the salon to get a relaxer every 8 weeks killed me. Before you knew it, I was only going like twice a year. By that time my hair simply stopped taking relaxers. It would never be straight, it would just relax my hair into waves. So, I said forget it and gave up relaxers. The journey of learning my hair has been a bumpy ride, but I honestly never wanted to give up, only improve. Now I have a routine for my natural hair. I know what needs to be done to it for it to be healthy and this makes me happy. It makes me happy because learning the patience to deal with my hair has made me confident that I will have the patience to deal with Hannie's hair.


Johanna at 1.5 months 

I have zero plans of putting a relaxer in Hannie's hair. If she ever gets one it will be when she's of age (probably around 16) and strictly her choice. I am going to do what I can to make sure that she loves her natural hair, understands it, bonds with it, and has some clue as to how to style it. When I was pregnant with Johanna I thought there was a great chance that she would be a bald baby because I kind of was, so I was prepared. I had the headbands packed in the diaper bag so that folks would know she was a girl just in case she was born like me. I just had thin peach fuzz that was blond O_o. However, Hannie took after her father and had a head full of hair when she was born. I must admit that I cringed so hard whenever someone would say "look at that curly hair!". I hate hate hated the fact that the focus was on her hair.  Everyone is inlove with her hair right now, but what about when it "turns". Her real hair texture won't come in until she's about 1 or 2. What are folks gonna have to say then? I cringed when I was a little girl and aunt's would say "you have a good grade of hair". I don't know why I did, but it just didn't make me feel good. It was said as if it was something to proud of, but I didn't understand why. It's just hair, right? I don't want Johanna's hair to define who she is. I want it to be healthy, I want her to take care of it, but I don't want it to be a burden for her.

I'm on a mission to raise a confident young lady. I don't want to put any of my baggage on her no matter what it is. I don't plan to force her to stay natural, or be pissed if she gets a relaxer. I want her to be the best, most authentic Johanna she can be. The world is already going to judge her; I'm determined that she won't have to face that in her own home. The term "good hair" won't be used in my household and if I hear someone else say it to her, I'll make sure to educate them on why that term isn't appropriate to use with her. Everything about her is good no matter what. Even when she's screaming like she's lost her mind she's still good, even though her behavior is not (I try to tell her this but she doesn't care, she just keeps screaming, le sigh). If she ever has self esteem issues I'm just determined to make it so that it doesn't stem from what mommy and daddy are saying at home.

~JMJsMom

My Birth Story Part III: Feels Like Death

Saturday morning I woke up settling into the feeling of being a mom. Everything was good...sort of. See, my breathing was a little off. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I just assumed that I felt that way because I wasn't use to walking around yet, so of course it would be difficult to br4eathe easy! Well, it got bad enough that I finally told the nurse excuse me, I can't breathe. At the same time the nurses told me that there may be something wrong with Johanna's heart, a murmur. By then I'm freaking out. It's 10am and I'm calling Jonathan in tears. I can't breathe and somethings wrong with the baby. By the time he makes his way to the hospital I'm on oxygen. My breathing had dropped from 99% to 70% O_o. Everything was out of whack. My blood pressure was sky high, I couldn't breathe, they didn't know what was wrong. Things are pretty much a blur but my oxygen level kept decreasing, only holding steady at about 77%. Finally they called a doctor in because I was gonna have to go to ICU. The doctor wanted to put some kind of tube in my neck. I.freaked.out. Not because he was about to cut into my neck, but because this fool wanted to remove the oxygen mask while he did it. I'm sorry, excuse me, but didn't we just discuss how I can't breathe??? You want to do what??? And then he made me lie on my side and put a plastic cover up over my face. I CAN'T BREATHE!!! WHO THINKS THIS IS A GOOD IDEA??? OMG *faints*. I nearly jumped off the table. I couldn't. I also couldn't believe hubby wanted to stay and watch. That lets me know that he was really afraid for my life.


Eventually they rolled me downstairs and I had all kinds of medicines pumped in me. Come to find out I was going into heart failure smh. It made zero sense. I went from being just fine to heart failure just like that. Tomika was there, but I couldn't talk to her. All of my concentration was on trying to breathe because even with the oxygen I was still struggling. I had yet another catheter, some drips, antibiotics, blah blah blah. I almost gave up. I truly started to remove the mask from my face and just say forget it, let me die. I was so tired of trying to breathe. I've never had to fight to breathe before. I honestly thought to myself that Johanna would be fine because she had Jon and that was that. Then my Aunt walked to the glass window and she looked done. Immediately I felt bad. My mom was in one hospital dying and here I was in another dying. It's then that I snapped out of it and decided I couldn't do this to her, Jon, or Johanna.


My nurses were so concerned. My nurse from labor and delivery followed me down to the ICU and wouldn't let me out of her site. My nurse in ICU was so concerned that as soon as his shift started the next morning he came straight to my room. I was so scared to go to sleep that night, but I finally did. By morning my vitals were looking much better and my nurse was able to take me back to L&D. He told me he never wanted to see me again and I told him the same lol. All was good...then here comes Tuesday...


I couldn't breathe again! So here we are again with the oxygen and more tests. It was finally decided that there wasn't a blood clot in my lungs but still more fluid so they gave me medicine to help with that. During this whole ordeal I had 3 blood transfusions. I lost so much blood during delivery that they said I'll never be normal again, so they were just trying to get me up and going again smh.


This is what happened. My body was carrying so much amniotic fluid that my heart was working super hard. It was having a difficult time regulating my fluid and the amniotic fluid. It was pumping so hard, some of the fluid was going into my lungs along with blood (I was spitting up blood that saturday). That was super scary. They did do all the tests in the world to make sure my heart was ok, and it was in good straight and very strong. Praise Jesus for that.


By tuesday night I was able to breathe but my blood pressure was still high so I still wasn't able to leave the hospital.


Wednesday broke my heart. I lost my mom that Wednesday. She never got the chance to hold Johanna, but thanks to my aunt she got a chance to see her via picture. It hurt that i couldn't see her or be with her, but God has been carrying me through. I wish I was able to experience this with her, but I'm not the first person to lose their mom during a time like this, so I kinow I'll make it through.

That Thursday Jo Jo Bean (thanks for the nickname Mare) and I were released, woohoo! Since then it's been nothing but weird sleep schedules, bottles galore, and stinky diapers with a few smiles, giggles, and bonding thrown in. I love it! Being a mom is totally the bees knees!


~JMJsMom

My Birth Story Part II: Dazed and Confused

I had all hopes that the epidural would be easy breezy, but that thing hurt like a &%*#$!!! It was the most uncomfortable and painful thing I had ever felt. I am mentally scarred and petrified to get one in the future. In fact, I still have pain sometimes at the site of the epidural smh.

Anywho, they gave me the epidural, then I freaked out. I couldn't feel my legs. Scariest.thing.evah! I don't like being that out of control. When Jonathan came in he asked me what was wrong...everything! The epidural sucked, I couldn't feel my legs, they were about to cut into me. Boo hiss boo.I'm laying down on the table and they put up the sheet. Hubby is eagerly waiting. I, on the other hand, am dry heaving! The epi was making me sick! They had to get me a pan to throw up in (which I didn't) and pump me with anti-nausea medicine, then they started the procedure. Everythign was going fine until I started blacking out a little. Then they cut me on the right side and I could feel it. I was so loopy that I had to slowly and steadily say my words "I can feel that!". After saying that 3 times hubbs assured me that the anestheseologist(sp?) was pumping me full of medicine. Then...I black out. I'm out, just done.Periodically I come to and I hear words like "this is impossible" and "fibroid". At one point I open my eyes and see the anes...yeah, that person...pulling a rope that's connected to some tool inside of me and the doctor is yelling for him to pull harder. He was now atleast 10ft behind me pulling O_o. I gladly passed back out at that point. The next time I come to I here "got her!" then I hear a little person le sigh. She le sighed! She's mine :~) Out again I go. I open my eyes and they are holding this white baby upside down. I said "Jonathan...Jonathan...why is she so white?" I have no clue what he said because I passed back out. Moments later he's saying my name and shaking me because they were showing me the baby. I say "Hi Johanna" and then knock back out. The next time I come to I'm in recovery and we have visitors! Jonathan's mom and sister Angie was there, BIL Larry, my Aunt Lola and my babies godmother Tomika. He took them to the nursery to see the new bundle of joy:

Later his father stopped by and they finally brought the baby in. I held her and looked at her, but I was missing the connection. I was way too drugged. After awhile they finally wheeled me to my room for the night. I had to stay in the observation room because of my c-section. The way Jonathan explained it is this: My bag of water was huge! There was water everywhere when they broke it. I lost a lot of blood. The doctor was sliding around in it *shudders*. They got rid of one of my fibroids because they could get to the baby for it being in the way. However, just like I did to my mom, Johanna went high up in my side and they had a really hard time reaching her (hence the anes...pulling the rope). Apparently I had a really bad and awkward incision so they wanted to monitor me.

Now, we get in the room and the nurses have to press on my stomach/pelvis. No one tells you this before you have a baby. That is now officially the worse pain I've ever felt. I imagine it hurts when you've had a vaginal delivery but my God! I just had a horrid c-section! It hurt so bad that I was crying and begging the nurse not to do it anymore. And there was so much blood! Ugh. After they were done I was able to hold my baby. I told her that I loved her and just watched her sleep. Then I slept.

The next day they moved me to a private room. Oh joy. This is where I learned that I wasn't able to do anything on my own. I had to stand up with nurses, use the bathroom with nurses, get cleaned by nurses...I'm just glad I'm not body shy because if I were that would be so embarassing! I had three visitors that day: My dad, my good friend Mare, and Jonathan's father who just couldn't get enough of Johanna!


All seemed well it really did. Then, saturday came...