Sunday, August 25, 2013

It's Good To Be Bad.

I am a bad mom, and I'm perfectly fine with it.

Madison Brianna is 9 months old. She has no designated nap, bath, eating, bed, or wake-up time. She has no schedule, and 95% of the time she is happy.

To most people now days, no schedule for a baby is horrible. Society constantly tells you how to raise your child the best way. How you need to put them on a schedule, or your life will revolve around them and nothing more or less.

My daughter is a baby. She is not a clock.

She wakes on her own for the day between 6:30 & 8:30 and she goes to sleep for the night between 8:00pm & 10:00pm. Sometimes she wakes up between 3:30am & 5am for a sleep feeding, but for the last week she hasn't been waking at all in the middle of the night.

Bath day is every 2-3 days (depending on if we go in the heat or if she is otherwise dirtier than usual). Sometimes it is in the morning. Sometimes it is in the afternoon. Sometimes it is at night. Her bath time is whenever I decide "Okay, I'll give her a bath now." Usually right before we leave if we have things to do that day, whenever that may be. Her bath is not a cue for bedtime, or wake time. It is a bath. It is when I splish and splash her while she splishes and splashes herself. It is not a time for her to relax, it is a time for her to play and have fun while momma does her thing with that cup & washcloth that sure do look like fun toys.

She eats when she is hungry. Sometimes that is every 3 hours. Sometimes that is every 5 hours. Her breakfast is whenever she is hungry after her first morning bottle. Her lunch is whenever she is hungry in the afternoon. Her dinner is when we eat (which varies depending on when daddy comes home.)

My daughter is not a robot. She knows when she is hungry and/or tired. And she knows how to tell me that.

Now, if you put your baby/toddler/child on a schedule and it works for you, more power to you. But that does not mean it is what everybody should do. It works for some people, and others (while it will still probably work for most) prefer to let their child tell them when they need things.

My daughter is not in charge. But I am also not in charge of her basic human needs. While she is a person made from two people, she is her own. I will continue to let her be her own person so long as I am able.

Now That We're Here, Now That We've Come This Far

Well. Here we are. In our new temporary home. Camp Kinser Towers. Right in front of the beach... but of course our apartment is on the wrong damn side so we just get a nice parking and other tower view with a sliver of city skyline lol. I can't complain, though. At least during typhoons I won't have as big a clean up on the balcony!

We've got a 2 bedroom, so we're needing to store things smarter without a third bedroom to use as a "throw all room", but it's spacious enough for us to fit everything we need with a couple extras and still maintain an uncluttered home. Plus there are closets and cabinets EVERYWHERE lol.

I've already began hanging things. Some of the walls are concrete, so I need to have Mark drill into them for me before I can drill a screw in, but other than that, today I plan on hanging everything else.
We bought a printer, but I need a damn cable so the frames will have to deal with old pictures until I can get better pictures printed on base, shipped from online, or the plug since this computer doesn't have wifi and my macbook isn't compatible with it.

Madison is so happy to have her crib back! She is going to bed without a fuss, and so are we! For the first time in 2 months I've had a sleepless night (well 2nd night... we got everything bed two days ago after sleeping on hotel beds and air mattresses for the two days we were here without things lol).

She has her own little area with cubes full of her toys to play with in the living room so hopefully she isn't as "HOLD ME MAMA" all the time. I plan on replacing it with a chest or large wicker basket.

It's so nice to be able to actually cook a dinner now. Granted, we have to sit on the couch and eat it, but it's food by golly and I cooked it! No more eating out or surviving off of simple or frozen meals. I have a damn oven again!

Pretty much everything in the common areas is put it it's place and tidy, except some things in the buffet that I need to find a place for so we can have the government take it back (government furniture). The bedroom & nursery are pig stys lol I plan on tidying those today as well.

I've been scouring facebook for sale pages & booko for a cheap bedroom set for awhile now, so hopefully I find something soon so we can have the government pick up all of the furniture they put here for us to use until we got our own things. First pick up is free, otherwise we have to take it back ourselves or pay to have it taken back... so we are just going to wait until we can give it all back at once.

So yeah, that's that.