My last day

As a stay at home mom. Tomorrow is the weekend which is the norm for me and Deb being home. Then Monday I go back to work. I am going to miss him like crazy. I can take solice in the fact that his Yaya will be looking after him and not some random day care. However we do need to look into emergency care as Yaya's back is acting up and she is afraid she won't be able to look after him. We are praying she can make it until Deb is off for mat leave in April ish. 

We have had some quality time today. But I am going to miss him while back at work. Although I'll enjoy more adult conversation. It's just he changes so quickly and I know I'll miss seeing it as it happens instead of second hand from yaya. 

Snack shaming

I just read an article on snack shaming. 

http://www.ivillage.com.au/snack-shaming-teacher/

This brought up an incident we had at an indoor playground. The rule is no outside food so we left Spencer's snacks in the car. There was a woman with her baby that was about 7-9 months old, not a petite baby. She was feeding him some Cheerios. Spencer noticed the Cheerios and was kind of stood waiting for some. I had said to him they aren't for him and tried to get his attention to something else. This is when the mother started snack shaming without even seeing what we feed him. 

Here are some of the comments she made: 

"These are plain, not sugar coated" 

"I don't have any chocolate ones" 

"I don't have candy for you". 

She then poked his tummy and said "it doesn't look like you have missed a meal". 

Had that been me with the Cheerios I would ask if it were ok with the parent and give him one. He is interested, so why not. That is sharing. 

Now Spencer is not chubby even, thankfully, he can have a little tummy depending on how much he has drank or eaten recently (when hungry he can eat a decent size meal). We do try and give him healthy meals and snacks. He loves fruit. For cereal choices he gets some plain cherrios and some honey nut (yes I know not the best but not the worst either), he also gets ordinary puffed wheat or infant puffed cereal with low Salt/sugar, our bread is 12 grain or flax variety, he actually doesn't like white bread very much.  Proteins are our fight with him. I'll get into that in another post. 

Anyway, back in to the point. The mom had assumed that because we aren't skinny that we feed him crap. That is our battle, not his We don't want Spencer to have the same weight issues we had growing up so we are working fairly hard at giving him balanced meals and snacks. Does he eat 100% organic healthy choice items, no, but we do our best to get him to like the healthy foods. He is a very active boy and we limit tv time to 10 minutes before naps to give him down time while having milk and if he wakes up a little too early for us, then he comes into our bed and watches little baby bum or something on our phones. 

On his percentiles he is in the 95th percentile for height and in the 50th for weight. Which is a great combo in my eyes, tall and skinny. At his one year appointment he was 81 cm (31.89") and 10.5 kg (23.1 lb) fully clothed. 

In the end I didn't respond to those comments as I would have gone off the deep end  I'm sure and blown things out of proportion. But the comments of that one judgemental mom hurt me, and got me fairly riled up for hours afterward. And obviously still a little bent out of shape about it because I'm posting about it. And this article proves this is going to something I am going to have to learn to deal with as too many people jump to conclusions. I will say there are times when teachers need to step in as there are reasons to occasionally. But a one off day shouldn't be the end all day. 

To that mom who made those comments, don't pass judgement and you should only care what you feed your baby not what others feed theirs. 

On another note after my last post I went in for bloodwork. I have been very tired lately and moody to put it lightly. As it turns out my vitamin D is very low and could be the cause of some of it. 

And here is a photo just to show you how he is doing. Our favorite photographer that could get Spencer to smile every time no longer works at Walmart and so we haven't been going in for smiles much since. 

So here are some home photos. 

Bad hair day. 

An after hot tub time. 

Cabin Fever, Agoraphobia, with a side of Lazy

The countdown is on. I will be returning to work in three weeks. Well less than that now. My Anxiety about this is growing. What will I miss when I am at work and not with Spencer?  Will Yaya (grandma that will also be looking after him) replace me in Spencer's eyes? Once Deb is home too will I be completely replaced to him?  Will Deb have even less time to focus on us (selfish thought I know)? Will I be replaced and put aside

I  know most of these fears are unfounded and probably PMS Enflamed emotions but things like that keep welling up. 

For the past year I have been home what feels like ALL the time, which is the start of cabin fever. (Christmas holidays to Sechelt  was a good break, even though I fell down stairs twice, at least I didn't break anything) 

I get to go out with Deb and Spencer on weekends. In the past I haven't made much of an effort to leave the house during the week. In turn I'm not sure if this is turning into a fear of taking Spencer out alone, worried I'll forget something, not be able to handle him alone in public, snowball worst case scenarios from there. 

Or am I just lazy to not leave the house. For a while I was getting out to play groups but I didn't hit it off too well with the moms (not sure what I was expecting) but Spencer had fun. Then we had colds and freezing cold temperatures and colds and Christmas to do lists, the excuses not to go seemed to get worse.  Now it doesn't seem worth it as I am going back to work in three play date Thuradays. 

Are my fears manifesting because I have been inside in my bubble for too long? Am I creating scenarios that would never happen to hide the fact I'm afraid to go back to work? be in the real world every day? Will I hate myself for loving going to work more than taking care of Spencer? (Being a mom is hard work, even for the less inspired mom) am I afraid that Deb will be a better mom and think I have done a shit job during my turn at mat leave? She has motivation to do everything. I have motivation to get the required done (laziness)

It is that kind of snowstorm that is in my head at most given moments and I don't know how to make it stop. 

Deb is trying to understand why I'm a basket case and would do anything to help but she doesn't understand why I'm afraid or angry or mad or upset in the first place. She understands that I will miss Spencer during the day because she does every day. But she doesn't get the other stuff. She doesn't get why I'm upset over things that haven't happened and probably won't. Neither do I.