Mama's, I Need Help - Opinions/Ideas NEEDED

Calling all Mommies’! This mama needs some help with her baby girl. My happy baby is gone, and we now have the most whiney, miserable child and we are at are wit's end on what to do. As you know from my previous post, we moved, so I'm sure that maybe part of it. She started a NEW daycare last week, after being home with me for almost 3 months, I’m sure that is part of it. All she wants is her paci and blanket all day! As soon as we get home from work/daycare, she whines and cries for it. Here's the thing, I don't want her to have her paci in her mouth all day, we limit it to bedtime/naptime. She will throw herself around and whine and cry, pull on my leg, anything to get our attention. I'm to the point, where I want to take it away permanently, but also feel bad because I know she is just in a huge transition.
Has anybody else gone thru this? Do you have any ideas? I would rather not just give her the paci to make her stop; I don't want to get in the habit of letting her have it all day, every day.

Then there is eating. If she doesn't want something, she throws it on the floor, or will whine or cry until we take her out of her chair. I also don't want to get in the habit of making something different for her to eat. At what point did you ladies start saying, if you don't want what we are having, then you aren't eating, or you have a choice of some healthy snacks and that’s it.

Am I being too strict? She is 15 months, am I expecting too much at this age? Any opinions/ideas would be great!!

The Move

A little back story. After my husband and I graduated from college, he got a job out of state, 11 hours away from all family and friends. He took it, and I went with him. We were only dating at that point, but had been together for about 8 years. That was back in 2006. Since then, we got engaged, married and had babygirl.
After having Aryana, and visiting family, we knew we wanted to get closer to family, it was hard to travel back and forth with a baby, and we hated that Aryana wouldn't grow up knowing her Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles as much as we would like. Both my husband and I spent a lot of time with our Grandparents growing up.

My husband started looking for a job closer to home, and right around Aryana's birthday, he received an offer!!! We had about a month to find somewhere to live and move, so he could start his new job! We are now only about 3 hours away from family, and LOVE IT!!! Within the first week babygirl saw our whole family, and a month out she already knows everybody and is comfortable staying with them! We couldn't be happier!!

That is part of the reason I've been MIA, when I gave my two week notice, my boss asked if I could work remotely so I could transition all of my work and help them out with year end, I couldn't pass it up! I was able to work from home and stay home with Aryana for a couple of weeks, but it was busy! I felt like I was working all day, getting up around 6am, working until Aryana woke up, then played with her until she took her first nap, worked, and repeat until she went to bed at night and then worked until about 9pm or 10pm everynight! My last day was this past Friday, and the sameday I accepted a new position locally, starting in 2 weeks! I really couldn't be happier!

Some summer fun pictures since we have moved, we are about 30 mins from a beautiful beach and a small little splash park!

Anybody Still Here????

I haven't posted in almost 3 months?! I missed my babygirls 1st birthday!!! She is already 14 months old!! A lot has happened since the last time I posted, but we'll start with Aryana's 1st birthday! We just had a couple friends over to celebrate, but before they all came, one of my friends came over and took pictures of Aryana, and they turned out great! It was really windy that day, and Aryana just loved it, she was laughing and running in circles, it was so funny! Here are a few pictures

We have a WALKER!

I am waayyyy behind, but Aryana started walking around 10 1/2 months, and she is about to be ONE in less than 2 weeks!!! I can't believe how fast the time goes by :( Although I think I have said this before, she gets more fun by the day. She is always babbling, and sometimes it seems like she is yelling at us or trying to tell us something, she gets so serious. I have to try to get it on camera. I am so behind, but here are some pictures of Easter and then some from the other day, she was walking around with a Twizzler in her mouth. The minute she hears a wrapper or thinks you are getting food she is at your feet in about 2 seconds!

San Diego Baby!

We just got back from a week in San Diego, and it was great!!! We took Aryana with us, so our first family vacation, and first time traveling with a baby! Aryana did so good! She was a good little traveler. Before we left I was worried about being "that Mom" that had a screaming baby on the plane, but she probably cried about 5 mins on the way there and a few on the way back, otherwise she slept! We took a late flight both ways.
We ended up going to Sea World and the zoo! We walked pretty much everywhere, they have a great transit system. We visited a couple of the small cities around and everything was so nice! Aryana LOVED the baby carrier, every time she was in it she laughed and babbled! This is one of the pictures my husband took while he was holding her!





BTW, I used Instagram for some of these pictures, like the giraffes and the one with my hubby and her in front of the Lion, I love it!

Love Part Two

Now that Aryana is a little older I wanted to write down some of the things she does now that I LOVE

I love the way you wrap your arms around my neck when I pick you up
I love the way you will randomly open your mouth and try to give me a kiss
I love the way you play with my fingers when you are drinking your bottle
I love when you crawl on my lap while your playing just to be near
I love how silly you are, you make me laugh everyday
I love how you are starting to mimic us
I love how you bob your head to any type of music that is playing
I love when you are crawling and you will stop and start to shake like you are dancing

Baby girl you are just over 9 months and so much fun, mommy loves you!

P.90x vs 30 day shred

First, let me start off by saying nobody asked me to write about these workout programs, this is just my opinion and experience.

I think mostly everybody that wants to work out says that they don't have enough time to do so. I thought I didn't have time before Aryana, now I really feel like I don't have time. Anyways, before I was pregnant with Aryana, I bought P.90x and was determined to work out, actually before that, I had a membership to the gym, and hated going because I never knew what to do, and was not going to pay for a personal trainer. I convinced myself that p90x would be the solution, I could do it from the comfort of my own home and follow instructions :) Well, lets just say it lasted maybe 2 or 3 weeks. The workouts were over an hour long and the yoga part, I couldn't do half of the things they were doing. I sold it a couple months ago.

Fast forward to after Aryana was born I see the 30day Shred by Jillian Michaels at Tar.get for less than $10 and buy it. Well, I just got around to starting it last week, and let me tell you, I LOVE IT!! It is the perfect amount of time! It takes like 30 mins, which is perfect for me! After Aryana goes to sleep I usually pop it in and still have a couple hours to do stuff around the house. If you don't know how it works, she has 3 different levels that you can start at, Level 1 being the easiest. She does a circuit workout; Strength, Cardio and Abs 3 times using different workouts for each circuit. The only thing you need is some free weights. My first week I started with Level 1, and this week I started Level 2, and boy did it kick my booty! You can pretty much do whatever level you want for as long as you want. I just decided to do the first week at level 1, the second week at Level 2, and so on. I'm not sure what I will do the last week, maybe level 3 again. I will let you know if I see results after 30 days!

Anyways, just wanted to share my opinion/experience, has anybody done either work out program?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Have you been in reach?

Stacy-Ann over at Weather Anchor Mama wrote a post the other day about reaching your breaking point with your child/ren, find the link below. I was going to do a similar post last week, but wasn't sure how people would react, but after reading Stacy-Ann's post, she has a good point that people need to get in on this.

Weather Anchor Mama: Breaking Point

I was telling a friend last week that I can totally see how parents can hurt their children. If they don't have anybody there to relieve them when they just don't know what to do anymore. When Aryana was little, between the time she was born to 3 months, she cried on and off all day, everyday. When I was on leave, there were days when my husband had to come home, because I would just be sitting here crying right along with her. There comes a time when you just can't take anymore and you don't know what else to do to help the baby. For me, my husband would leave work right away if he knew we were having a bad day, to come help. There are people that don't have any family around or friends that just don't have anybody to help, or they are afraid to ask, because they may think they are a bad parent for not being able to care for their child. You hear in the news that a parent shook their child, or somehow hurt their child, and I know everybody's first reaction is usually, I don't understand how a parent can do that to their child, I know, I was one of those people, but now, I can at least think twice, that maybe, they just needed some help, and nobody was there for them. Obviously not all cases are like that, some people are plain crazy. Of course, I would never hurt Aryana in anyway, but I don't think any parent can say that they have never reached their limit and they just need somebody to step in and help out.

I love Aryana so much, and have to say, that I never thought we were going to get out of the stage of constant crying, but now, she is the happiest baby ever! People would always tell us, that after 3 months, it would get better. My husband and I would always look at each other and say, sure, but I feel like there was like a light switch the week she turned 3 months that came on, and she really was so different! Its funny, other parents don't usually tell you this stuff before you have a baby, but I really think that we should share ALL of our experiences, not just the happy ones, just in case there is someone out there going thru or may eventually go thru something similar. I know, when I was in the thick of it, I would always think to myself, I see all these happy and content babies, why isn't Aryana like that, and think that she just wasn't happy. I would ask myself that a couple times a week. I don't have any family around where I live, so I would call my family crying, and tell them, that Aryana isn't happy and I don't know what is wrong with her, that I thought I was a bad Mommy. I know I still have a lot more to experience, her crying is going to be nothing compared to what is to come, but just wanted to share a little of what we went thru, just in case.

Alright, after all this seriousness, have to share a pic of my happy girl!

Crazy Hair

I know Aryana is still a baby, but I really do not know what to do with her hair, it is seriously ALL OVER THE PLACE! It sticks up everywhere, it has some random curls and parts in the back are way longer than others. The hair in the front is getting pretty long and almost in her eyes! My husband is asking me all the time what I'm going to do about her hair and truthfully I have no idea. Maybe I need to start by getting some better shampoo so it doesn't look so dry and frizzy. Truthfully I want to just buzz it off and let it grow back. Her hair is falling out like crazy right now anyways. I could try some clips, but just don't think she will leave them in her hair. My MIL says she loves her hair like that, and I guess its cute for a baby, so maybe I'm worrying too much about it? So, Mama's, I need some advice! Here are a few pics of what her hair looks like on the regular. Tried to get a few diff angles.

Swimming with Daddy

My husband swam in middle school, high school and college. Once or twice a week he teaches swim classes at our local swim school because he enjoys it. I couldn't wait for Aryana to start swimming! She just started her first class 2 weeks ago, and she is having so much fun! At first I was a little nervous about going and watching because after I get home from work she does not want me to walk away from her. If my husband grabs her she will whine until I grab her, but she has been doing so great! We asked the other baby at her daycare to join as well, and the first night it was so cute when they saw each other they both got excited and starting flapping their arms and jabbering! I wanted this to be a Daddy and Aryana thing, but I will probably get in the water a couple times. Here are a couple pictures of her first two classes.

Long Time No Talk

WOW, I can't believe I have gone this long without blogging!! Aryana is getting so big and SO much fun! She has about 4 teeth already. She is crawling and pulling up on everything!
Between work and the holidays I have been so busy! When I get home from work all I want to do is spend time with Aryana before she goes to bed!
We went back to our hometown for Christmas, and I can't tell you how many times we heard what a happy baby Aryana is! She is always smiling! Lately she has been babbling non-stop, and so loud! Its funny. Well let me post her 6 month pictures we got done professionally and some Christmas pictures.