HDBD 8/8

[Leaf 🌱]

Age:

Rants/Raves:

Milestones:

Q&A - What’s for dinner? Tell me your favorite easy dinners!

[Leaf 🌱]

Age: almost 4mos

Rants/Raves: heading back to work has been MUCH MUCH easier this time around. Having a flexible schedule and a supportive team has been a game changer. I really really do love my job and working. (Though it may also be that I love my routine and maternity leave is painfully routine free since I have few local friends and had a bunch of weird transitions to deal with. I also know I’m good at my job and feel like I’m bad at being a SAHM 😂)

Milestones: she’s rolling all over the place now and seems to be reaching out for people/things - or at least reaching in their general direction.

She also FINALLY takes a bottle well so that’s been a huge relief. When she was struggling with the bottle during the day she also struggled with sleep, but hankfully that’s gotten better.

Q&A - What’s for dinner? Tell me your favorite easy dinners!
Spaghetti squash with a ground turkey marinara sauce or pesto with shrimp. Cauli rice + lentil soup doctored up with some curry powder, spinach, and whatever protein I have is also super good.

[clementine]

Age: 5.5 months

Rants/Raves: Rant - Most of Ls 3-6 month clothes are short sleeved, but he’s not quite fitting in them yet, so now all the size/season clothes are off. Rave - I get to stock up on some warmer clothes in that size. I bought a couple things from Old Navy when they had all their baby stuff 50% off last weekend. I loveeeee baby clothes shopping.

Milestones: First fever 😥 (although I guess we are lucky to have made it 5 months), tripod sitting for longer stretches now, starting to babble with some consonants now (sounded like he said “ma” the other day... can’t wait til he’s saying it for real!)

Q&A - What’s for dinner? Tell me your favorite easy dinners!
Tonight is slow cooker chicken fajitas! Chicken breasts, peppers, onions, garlic, diced tomatoes, and spices in the slow cooker. Shred the chicken and serve in tortillas with cheese and sour cream.
I also really like hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes with corn - that’s my comfort food. Pretty quick and easy.

Poof

[snowmoon]

Age: 4.5 months

Rants/Raves: she's a very high maintenance baby and I'm effing tired. We had a nice few weeks of 4-5 stretches of sleep at night and feedings during the day. In the last week or so she's back to nursing every 1.5 hours. I know it's that frequent because I'm keeping a gd log of EVERYTHING because she is still having allergy/intolerance symptoms, even after cutting out dairy, soy, beef and eggs. I'm ready to throw in the towel and transition her to formula.

Milestones:

Q&A - What’s for dinner? Tell me your favorite easy dinners!

Rotisserie chicken from the grocery store haha.

Taco bowls

Salmon and zucchini noodles

Eggplant and chickpea moussaka is my new favourite

[mrsmonogrammed]

Age: he’ll be 4 months on Saturday!

Rants/Raves: raves- we transitioned off the swaddle and he did amazing! No wake ups and he slept until his usual morning wake time. He’s had an explosion of skills lately and has just become so fun!
rants- I think he’s picked up a cold from DD and in slightly nervous how it will play out. Dd got a cold at 6m and stopped using her pacifier. I’m not ready for him to be done with his yet😩

Milestones: rolled over! Once.😅 I’m pretty sure it was accidental but I’m counting it!

Q&A - What’s for dinner? Tell me your favorite easy dinners
Crockpot dinner are my fave because it’s literally ready when you get home! Although I did find a really good pork chop recipe- a packet of Italian dressing seasoning mix and 1/2c brown sugar put on both sides of the chop and then back for ~20min. It was surprisingly delicious!

Owen unimpressed with the gorillas at the zoo


And swimming at my IL’s pool-

[alwayscheese]

Age: 5 months today!

Rants: I am feeling blah about our marriage. DH is amazing, but I've been letting the little things get to me and my mind immediately blames him for anything that goes wrong. It's an awful selfish mindset I've fallen into and it's so hard to change. I'm also feeling overwhelmed with life and realizing that green beans and peas are ready in the garden and that's work plus I'm helping organize a reception at our church for 150 this weekend and then I'm having overnight guests next week. It's my uncle's that have never been here so I'd like them not to think we live in a dump. Which....ya, would take a lot of work.
Raves: DS's smile is the best and he very rarely is inexplicably sad. I got him a helium balloon and he thinks it's so cool. Also I'm very excited about having a family ride/main vehicle.

Milestones: always playing with his feet. Can kinda grab stuff during tummy time, can hold onto stuff good enough to wave it around.

Q&A - What’s for dinner? Tell me your favorite easy dinners!

Tonight we had Taco salad. That and tacos are pretty quick if you have the ingredients.

-chicken salad in wraps or sandwiches

-IP curry meal with a sauce/spice jar from Aldi. Over rice usually.

-sheet pan meals are yum and easy if you have time to dice some stuff. Or you can do baby potatoes and baby carrots and drum sticks and not have to chop.

[auri]

Age: 4 months

Rants/Raves: I’m so excited that DD is started kindergarten. The house was so quiet yesterday and I didn’t have to repeatedly tell her to let J sleep.

Milestones: He’s been rolling over for a few weeks. Now he’s starting to grab his toys.

Q&A - What’s for dinner? Tell me your favorite easy dinners! Ooh the crockpot chicken quesadillas sound so yummy!

Honestly, right now I’m in the stage of my picky eater only wanting to eat fish sticks, so I’m kinda in a rut now too. Yesterday I made hotdogs and beans because I’m tired of making dinners where the only thing she eats are a couple of bites of veggies.
I love making chicken salad sandwiches in the summer and it’s pretty quick and easy. Unfortunately, DD won’t eat anything with mayo in it.

[calendula]

alwayscheese sending you support on the marriage stuff. Going from 0 to 1 kid was hard on my marriage too. Its a pretty abrupt adjustment and one mistake we made was keeping our hobbies and commitments the same as pre-kid. Obviously having a newborn isn't forever and you ease back into doing the things you enjoy, but I have vivid memories of being VERY STRESSED OUT about all the vegetables in the garden. Like, yelling at DH WHY DID YOU PLANT THREE DETERMINATE VARIETIES OF TOMATOES I DONT HAVE TIME TO CAN THEM YOU IDIOT level of stressed out. LOL. We let those little things grow into big things and found ourselves in therapy when DS was maybe 1.5? Our therapist helped us to cut way back on commitments and stress, and our marriage really improved once we weren't taking the lifestyle stress out on one another. I hope you are able to get there, too.




Age: Lou is 4.5 months old!

Rants/Raves: Things are good! Really good. Lou is the happiest little thing. DS is hanging in there, and we got him evaluated by an OT for some sensory issues that might be causing some of his sadness/emotional stuff. DH and I are happy to have a therapy plan for him, and the most telling thing is DS is happy about it too. He said he is looking forward to learning how to "slow his engine down" when he is upset. DH is in the final stages of interviewing for a new job that would have him working from home two days a week and earning 25% more, which would be amazing. And work is going great for me. All good things!

Milestones: Lou is rolling over like crazy. We are starting solids next week. She said "dada" this week. <3 omg it was awesome and DH cried. "mama" was DS's first word so I'm happy he gets that experience.

Q&A - What’s for dinner? Tell me your favorite easy dinners!
I've been making this in the instant pot lately...https://pinchofyum.com/instant-pot-summer-soup
Also black bean quesadillas and salad is pretty easy
We also grill a lot of fish to go over salad.

[alwayscheese]

calendula 😭 😘 thanks, your anecdote is very meaningful to me. And I also laughed because yes DH was all enthused about a garden this year, so I told him it was his. I should pip the tomato plants, they're ridiculous. I always get together with MIL and SIL to can those so I'm not worried but the plants are so overgrown idk how I'll even pick them.

[woodenshoes]

Age: 5 months

Rants/Raves: I go back to work Monday. I always have mixed emotions about returning to work after summer break. I need the mental challenge of work, but I will miss my boys. We used to go back closer to Labor Day, but we start earlier or earlier each year. Working in the schools is the perfect blend of working mom and stay at home mom for me.

Milestones: first ride in a swing at a park and first visit to the ILs in Iowa’s. Also, he is rocking tri-pod sitting.

Q&A - What’s for dinner? Tell me your favorite easy dinners! Last night MIL made chicken enchiladas. I have no idea what is for dinner tonight. My favorite easy meals are salsa chicken in the crockpot and any meat on the grill.

[nuggetrn]

I am late, but all of the cute babies!!

Age: 6 months on 8/15 holy crap!

Rants/Raves: I have 2 PRN jobs and a home health job. My hospital closed and now I am scrambling for hours. I just want one part time day shift job that is close to home. This should not be this hard.

Milestones: she is sitting!! Just in the last week or so. So fun.

[cp3]

Age: 4.5 months

Rants/Raves: she is a super needy baby compared to her sister. Still wakes up 2-3 times a night and constantly needs to be held by me and only me. I was really looking forward to getting a break this vacation but she has been extra sensitive and must be held by me at all times. So I've been wearing her for 10+ hours a day. She will not hang out in the stroller and it is killing me. Two more days and we will be home and hopefully being back in our routine will help.

Milestones: Tried baby oatmeal last week. She was all about the food but it upset her tummy a bit so we are holding off for a bit.

Rolling from back to front consistently. Rolled from tummy to back a few times. Starting to tripod sit as well.

Q&A - What’s for dinner? Tell me your favorite easy dinners!

We are on vacation so dinner will be whatever we find at Disney.

We've been doing a lot of sheet pan meals this summer that have been super easy. Especially salmon and tilapia because they don't take long to cook. Usually make broccoli or asparagus with them. For salmon, I love to do a honey teriyaki glaze or an Italian medley seasoning.

Chicken tacos or barbecue chicken in the crockpot are easy too.

L liked the sand at the beach but was not a fan of the water. She loved meeting Moana yesterday and was infatuated with her necklace.

Poof