Milestone Mama

It is no small feat that a person completes their Masters Degree. However, I am especially proud of myself because when I began my Master's program, I found out I was also pregnant with my wonderful, handsome, angel. While the days were long and especially tiring toward the end of my pregnancy, I delivered my healthy, perfect baby boy with only 2 class left to take for my Masters! Well, yesterday, I walked across that stage, shook the hand of the President of Sacred Heart University and with my sweet angel in the audience, recieved my degree! I have accomplised many things in life. I graduated with my undergraduate degree a year early, I was married at 22, pregnant at 23, a mom at 24, and still was able to finish grad school at 25! I hope that I am able to inspire lots of moms out there to continue or begin their higher education work because nothing beat the feeling of walking across that stage yesterday knowing what great things I had accomplished over the last year! To those of you mommies out there, the ones that I am friends with who want to go back, ahem... I am more than happy to help watch your LO so that you can pursue your dreams! Nothing is impossible if you can dream it and you believe it, you can achieve it!

Fighting Tooth and Nail

So, for those of you who have never had to cut a baby's finger nails, let me put it into some perspective for you. Cutting a baby's fingernails is like chasing a greased piglet on a sheer glacier with corn oil raining down upon you. In short, near impossible! I remember the first time I clipped Dillon's finger nails, I was so proud, I waited until my little man fell asleep in his bouncy seat and I gingerly clipped each little nail, he was probably a week or so old. I was SO proud of myself! Pathetic, I know, but for a brand new, first time mom with little to no sleep, this was like climbing Everest! To this day, I have never knicked Dillon, not even once, not even close (knock on wood), but for whatever reason, when I try to clip his nails, he screams as though I am ripping his hair out strand by strand, as though I've actually cut his entire finger off! Man, it's so annoying! He actually bit my inner wrist today while I was cutting his nails and left four deep tooth marks- a vector bite! Today, I found my new secret weapon! Clipping his nails while he is watching sports on TV. Yes, it looks as though my little man is going to follow in Daddy's Sports Center footsteps! So, once again, I won the fingernail battle, and for another 5-7 days my baby will not have Freddy Kreuger claws that slice and dice everyone, including his precious face! A great big "good luck" to all of you who have yet to do this, and a "congratulations" to those of you who actually get through all 10 fingers successfully in one shot!

Snakes, Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails

I am a firm believer that pets enhance the quality of a family. Growing up I had 14 Siberian Huskies, a Standard Poodle, lots of fish, 2 cats, and now we have Chloe, our Miniature English Bulldog. I will admit, Chloe is SPOLIED beyond belief, treated quite human. She sleeps in our bed, she rides on the center console in the car- unless there is no one in the passenger seat, then she is Chloe Guilbault, Navigator, First Class! Well, when I had Dillon I was a little worried about how Chloe was going to handle it. Upon bringing Dillon home, I was pleasently surprised! Chloe was oh so curious to meet this new little person that was undoubtedly coming to live. She was immediately gentle, kind, and protective of our new precious life, and it was her baby as much as he was ours! Perhaps treating her like a human member of the family paid off, or perhaps I am just that psycho pet owner that indulges their fur baby as much as their real baby! Now, Dillon has loved Chloe from Day 1. She is one of the first things he truly recognized by name and I think his first "words" are actually "snarfs" like Chloe makes! Sad, but true. Chloe is maybe a foot and a half tall and weighs 30lbs. Not a huge dog, but not a Tea Cup Poodle. There are girls that live in our dorm that are so petrified of Chloe that they actually stand on the counter and yell as though a rodent has just attacked them! It is so ridiculous looking! I try to explain to them that when they carry on like a bunch of psychos, Chloe actually thinks they are playing with her! I explain that she really just wants to eat all the things they drop on the floor and could care less about them, but it doesn't really seem to make sense. I guess that's what happens when you see an animal you might normally eat running around the kitchen! Anyways, I try to show these ridiculous girls that Chloe is in fact gentle enough that I can let Dillon climb all over her and she won't react. Dillon can crawl over to her food bowl while she is eating and stick his hand in the dish and she moves out of the way. He pulls her jowels, pets her a little harder than necssary, and loves to twist her ears. Chloe "grins" and bears it. She is amazing. They are now to the point where he will throw a ball for her and she will get it and bring it back to him, but my most recent Chloe-Dillon interaction to laugh at is the oh so fun game of Chloe playing with her own toys and Dillon chasing her and then lying flat on the floor and crying because she doesn't want to play with him! Dispite their toy baskets being next to each other on the floor, she has not once destroyed one of his toys and almost never steals them! She is such a good girl and I am so happy to see Dillon making a connection with "someone" other than Steve or I and to see how genuinely he loves her! His most recent activity is to crawl up to a sleeping Chloe and snuggle right in to her!

Ode to a Cloth Diaper

So I like to think of myself as a fairly green mom! I made Dillon's babyfood, I used glass bottles (no BPA for my kid!), and I cloth diaper my little fluffy butt! I started off using Pampers Swaddlers- I wasn't working and hadn't planned on going back to work until September, but oh well. I was looking for ways to save us money and making Dillon's food was one, but I discovered and fell in love, love, love with cloth diapers! I did some extensive research about types of cloth diapers and decided that the Bum Genius 3.0s were for me! Tell me that's not the cutest Fluffy Butt you've ever seen! So, since I have put Dillon into these fantastic, amazing, love of my life diapers, I have not had even one blowout, not that I had before, but he has had some poos that could have been blowouts if he hadn't been in those. He has never leaked out of them other than if someone put it on wrong, and he has not had diaper rash ever. These diapers will fit him until he's out of diapers, they come with their own doubler for at night and when his little brother or sister comes along they can wear them too! I took my husband to a store called Papoose in Norwich, CT and the ladies there told me all that I needed to know! We bought literally $400 worth of cloth diapers and haven't looked back! Other than if he is at his Situ's house for the day, Dillon is NEVER in disposable diapers (sposies). I could not justify buying trash, it was bad for the environment, and so much better on Dillon's skin and I get on my CD soapbox for anyone who will listen! We wash the diapers ourselves with Seventh Generation laundry detergent, but any natural plant-based detergent without fabric softener or scent will do! I love them so very much! Dillon wore them all the way to Washington D.C., the entire time we were on vacation, and I never had one issue! These diapers are amazing and fantastic and I hope that you will consider giving your baby a fluffy butt!

Ready Set Go

Recently, my bestest buds, the mommies... aka the Sexy Housewives of Windham County (SHWC from here on out) have started blogging. As a fan of Peyton Sawyer on One Tree Hill AND all of my mommies, here I go! In my daily life, I wear many hats... Mommy, Wife, Daughter, Kindergarten Teacher, and Dorm Parent. It is because of my life and the crazy titles I hold that you will all be thoroughly entertained! No really, I promise!

Let me take you back to September, Dillon, my mini-man is just 3-months old and as a new mom I am CONSTANTLY kissing him on the head... okay, I still do it ALL THE TIME now too, but bear with me. In our dorm we have 17 girls from all over the world. Well, I am standing in the hall talking to my co-dormparent and one of the Chinese lovelies informs me that if I kiss my child on his head I will give him brain damage... no, seriously! This is the SAME girl that two days later asked me how to use the dish dryer... it was actually the clothes dryer in the same room where the cupboard for the dishes is. She had it loaded up with dishes and THANK GOD it was a pay dryer that required a laundry card or we would have had one big mess. So, naturally, I asked her if her mom kissed her too many times on the head- yeah, she didn't get it. Three weeks later this gem also clogged her pooish toilet, no not Polish, poo-ish toilet "CODE BROWN," right Ashley, and it proceeded to leak through the ceiling down the walls of my entry way. I am pretty sure this girl hates me!

This is just the first of many tid-bits that will bring a smile to your face, so if you ever need one, check in on my blog, after three years of marriage while living in a girls' dorm and now as a mom and a kindergarten teacher, the stories are stock piled and ready for your enjoyment!