Landon is 8 Months

WOW WOW WOW!!! 8 months came and went so quickly!! But we've reached new levels of FUN FUN FUN!! We are hitting milestones left and right and he's basically a lil' man. and there are days I ask myself, "how can I love him more than I do this minute??" - He'll give me a smile... and my heart fills with JOY.



Weight:

not sure- at his 6 month appointment he weighed 18.9 lbs.




Health:

I can't complain, 8 months was smooth sailing but I know theres a flu hiding in a corner ready to jump out at us! I am completely CRAZY when it comes to sterilizing anywhere he might touch. We carry clorox bleach wipes, hand wipes, hand sanitizers, disposable table covers, highchair covers...I'm a germ-a-phobe.


Sleep:

We moved his bedtime to 7 and he sleeps until 3-4am and is up by 7/8am. HE is very VERY very serious about his sleep.



Clothes:

Jammies: 9 months
Everything else is 6-12 months

he's such a great sport when it comes to dressing him. he doesn't get fussy, he doesn't go crazy in fact, I think he actually likes the way we dress him. he seems comfortable.




Diet:
for some reason at 8 months, you started to guzzle your food... at first you liked purees.. then you hated them and wanted to feed yourself... now you like food every which way... I like to give you stuff to pick up and then I'll feed you purees while you pick at stuff. I gave you puffs and you LOVE them.. almost too much. so we limit puffs to a minimum because he is obsessed. We basically give him anything and everything and he will just eat it up.



Development:

Jeeze- he's moving at light speed. He is still crawling, standing, cruising along furniture. His verbal development is insane!! He says "mama"... but this month, he says, "dada, papa, baba, poo". we are very proud of him. He also enjoys taking off his own clothes so he can climb up things... he can also remove his own diaper. I can barely keep him still during diaper changing time... :)



Crying:
NOPE, Nada, no crying ever.




I love him so much... its really hard to get up and go to work.

Happy Little Valentine

we wanted to send some Love and Kisses to all of our readers!


xoxo

P.s

Shirt: Zara
pants: H&M kids
Shoes: target

Happy new year!

Landon celebrated his first Traditional Vietnamese New Year this weekend! We went to my visit my parents house and wished them all a Happy New Year!

Wishing all my readers a happy new year filled with love, good health, prosperity and success!!

Năm mới em chúc - dồi dào sức khỏe, vạn sự như ý và một năm mới phát tài và mong rằng năm nay sẻ mang nhiều may mắn và hạnh phúc cho nguyên gia đình

What Landon wore

Everyone tells me that I'm out of my mind when it comes to dressing Landon... That I should think of his comfort over his style... But does this look like this kid is uncomfortable? He looks pretty happy to me!

breast pumping while working can be very STRESSFUL...

I feel like this post is somewhat emotional for me to write… but here I go.

I’ve been really overwhelmed with keeping up with the demands of nursing/ pumping and providing for my baby…

I work full time and I have a little growing business of my own.. so I feel like I’m double dipping in my career… with that being said, my full time job has become very overwhelming and I find myself unable to keep up with my pumping demands to feed my baby…

And it frustrates me that I cannot balance this “simple task”. Because I can’t keep up, I’ve depleted my frozen stash and all I want to do is cry.

Do I give up breastfeeding- or do I tell my job to wait for me while I run to the bathroom during a tradeshow to pump for 15-20 minutes…

Do I continue to climb the corporate ladder or do I stop to be a mother?

What am I suppose to do?

On a daily basis, I can do both and I do it very well.. I can balance both… but with the next few months of tradeshows and travel, I find myself stressing out and nervous. 2 days before my first tradeshow, I noticed a drop in my supply…

On the day of my tradeshow, I nursed little landon at 3:30am- left my house by 5 and drove to Temecula for a tradeshow.

During my first pump session at 6:30am- I noticed that it couldn’t pump more than 4 oz when I needed 6. I pumped in my car (like I do everyday) but I was rushing to get into the meeting by 7…

Then I made a tough decision. I skipped my second session because I didn’t want to leave in the middle of the show to pump, because I was embarrassed… and ended up being angry with myself for doing this.

Instead of immediately pumping after my tradeshow, I decided to have lunch with the “team”… because again, I was embarrassed.

I didn’t pump for 7 hours. And by the time I got to my car, I was so stressed, I was only able to pump 6oz. Total amount pumped for the day: 10. Total I needed: 18.

I literally kicked myself the whole way home and I cried because I felt like I made the worst decision. When I saw Landon’s face- I was even more upset and overwhelmed that I chose my job over my baby.

Second day- same issue. Total pumped 14. Total needed 18.

On a daily basis, I pump 3x a day (7oz @ 10 and 1/ 8oz at 8)… so what on earth happened???

Anyway- I’m sure I will figure it out- I only wanted to post this because I wanted other mothers out there to know that- I get it, you’re not alone.

Although breastfeeding is a personal decision, I feel that it shouldn’t just be MY decision.. it have my company's support, after all, we are raising the next generation... I believe that in a mans world.. or at least at my company where the sales team is 99% male dominated- I will find myself having to play tug of war with what I think is right… and for right now, nursing my son is most important for me… so I will not skip any more sessions, instead, I will find a way to balance both.

My career is only an 8 hour a day job where one day, I’ll make enough and retire whereas Motherhood, is 24/7 for the rest of my life.

I want will to be successful at both because i want to set an example for my children. I want my son to be able to one day empathize for a woman he works with and I want my future daughter to realize that if I could do this, she can do anything.

LilMama's = BIG HELP.

towards the end of my pregnancy, a friend of mine added me onto a forum of pregnant women and mothers...

You can check it out HERE

at first, I thought...

God dammit!!! Not another group with junk to fill up my mailbox...

but within my first hour of being part of this little group, my life changed. I became part of something, NOT like a gang (but just as hardcore)... it was a support group- not like any other forum or worse- GOOGLE- where you would say,

"today, I didn't feel my baby kick"

LilMama's: mom #1- oh you're at 30 weeks, I was there. you're fine. drink some water etc etc

baby center: "I didn't feel my baby kick" and in 2009, someone didn't feel their baby kick.. no answer.

Google. "your baby has cancer. it's dead". wtf???

I suddenly stopped calling my OBGYN for every little fart, cramp, pee in my pants situation.. I suddenly had someone who understood me and was kind to me, especially when my husband would look at me like some sort of lunatic.

so- I know that most of my readers are new moms and I hope this site will help you, just as much as it helped me.

THIS GROUP is better than parenting.com, better than TheBump, better than being depending on your mother who hasn't held an infant in 30+ years... they have the answer.. hell, its better than Pinterest because they're more realistic.

my favorite topics on the forum are:

sleep, sleep issues, sleep training...
poop- constipation and breastfeeding poop
crap we should buy
feeding our little beast and breastfeeding our kids

most importantly... they really talk us off the ledge... especially when we want to stab our husbands.

so I hope this site will help moms out there- because it helped little ol' me!!!

P.S- I even made it on as a featured mom!! yey!

LilMama's- THank you for all your love & support!

What Landon Wore

Went out to lunch last week.. He's gotta look awesome!

I have to be careful when Landon looks this cute- it's flu season and we have lots of people stopping to say hi.

I'm constantly telling people not to touch my baby!

Xo

Vietnamese Postpartum Diet & Care

So- I knew when I got pregnant, I was going to battling with 2 cultures...

my mothers culture vs. my husbands...

so we compromised...

Lets just say, Vietnamese superstitions can sometimes freak anyone out... this is what I thought would happen:

no showers for a month
a strict diet of rice, porridge and basically nothing...
no leaving the house for a month..

NO SHOWERS FOR A MONTH...

But that wasn't the case. Vietnamese culture believes in the "Sitting Month". “Sitting month” is a folklore ritual observed by many postpartum women in Vietnam.. Traditionally, its pretty strict... but we did a modified version.

I did the following:

1. Avoid All cold food and drinks including ice water- just room temperature water... no juice or soda
2. Sour food and fruits- I don't know why- but I followed it for 30 days.
3. All fresh fruits and vegetables- I ate cooked vegetables but my mom wouldn't allow salads or anything.
4. no beef or seafood- Strictly chicken or pork.
5. rice, vietnamese pho noodles.. rice noodles- I ate brown rice with most of my meals... ALL meals must be served hot. NOTHING COLD..

6. Bathing restriction was a struggle with my mom- who tried her best to encourage me not to shower everyday- but lets be honest, parenting was pretty difficult and there was little time to shower.. I did sponge showers every other day and I washed my hair once a week...

7. Restrictions in physical activity- well its not like anyone would run a marathon the first month anyways- but vietnamese traditions believed one should NOT leave the house for a month... We talked about this for MONTHS with my husband and our Pediatrician who felt that exposing our baby to people is more harmful then taking little strolls around the neighborhood... We kept it simple, because I was still healing- we only went out for 1-2 hours at a time.. and it wasn't everyday...

8. Lots of rest... I took a lot of naps and rested while family came to hold the baby.. we had some rules tho- people who came had to wash their hands- kept their shoes outside (shoes carry 99% of bacteria).

9. Vistors- Since Landon was a premie- we were very strict on visitors. Mostly immediate family- my parents, grandmothers, siblings and josh's family. All extended family had to wait a month to see our baby. Anyone who held Landon had to lay a blanket on themselves first.

that was basically following "Tradition" without giving into crazy demands... and to be honest, I'm healthy so I do believe that most of it worked.