The hard way. Lesson #422 bringing baby to the beach by yourself

Tonight's topic:
Learning things the hard way. Lesson #422 Bringing baby to the beach by yourself.

Playing in the back yard with the hose

Last Friday, I had planned to meet up with a group of mommies and their babies at one of our local beaches. The meet up time was set for 10:00am and the beach that had been chosen, was one that we all knew the parking lot filled up quickly and was pretty much first come first served. After breakfast that morning, I put chunk-o-love down for her morning nap and packed the car. I was excited to be even going to the beach. I knew it wasn't going to be easy but I knew if we did get there, we'd have fun. It'll be fun. FUN......F....U...N.... the magic word.

 Chunk and I left for the beach at 9:00am. While packing the car, I discovered that my swimsuit bottoms were missing and I couldn't find them to save my life. So I planned a little stop on the way at Target to get a black pair of bottoms. We were in and out of Target in no time. I paid for and changed into the swim bottoms at Target and we made our way to the beach. I should've known things were going to go wrong when my swim trunks went missing before I left the house. I should've known things were going to go wrong when I was stopped at the bridge for 20 minutes to let a sail boat pass. I should've known that things were going to go wrong when, we made it to the beach 20 minutes late and the lot was full. But, I didn't.

I text the mommies of the group to let them know that I was just going to go to another park beach entrance near by and maybe we'd meet up with them later. Chunk and I waited in the lot for 15 minutes just in case someone else was leaving, but luck didn't shine down on us that day. I drove us to the nearest beach entrance. All the while, Chunk is now screaming in the back seat. Nothing consoling her. I parked the car, frazzled made my way over to her side of the car and discovered a poo diaper. Easy enough, I've had practice with this. I changed her, and put her into her swim diaper. I then somehow managed to get her, the diaper bag, the blanket and beach bag out of the car and to the beach. That required, arms full, crossing a busy street and up a 25 meter path to the ocean. When we got there, I dropped the bags, some how managed to get the blanket down on the sand one handed and placed chunk on top of it. I lathered her little legs in sunscreen for the first time since I couldn't also carry the umbrella to the beach. About this time, is when her paci fell into the sand. Now, for those of you that have ever been to the East coast beaches in Florida, you know, this isn't normal sand. It's really crushed up shells dragged out of the water from off shore and placed back on the beach because of erosion. Our beaches haven't had that beautiful white soft sand since I was a kid. Because of this, the stuff we now call sand, sticks to you wet or dry. So, I made a poor attempt at cleaning off her paci with some water from my water bottle and placed it into the beach bag. Next, I grabbed chunk and we made our way towards the water. The waves were unusually rough, so I only put my feet in. I put chunks feet down in the wet sand and when the waves rushed in to meet her little piggly wigglies; all hell broke loose. She instantly screamed like I was trying to drown her while at the same time picking her legs up and refusing to stand. People walking by were laughing at my sad attempt of getting my natural Florida born child into the ocean. I decided to try torture my child one last time and placed her feet down again in the wet sand and water. NO. It was not going to go my way. I walked chunk and myself back to our blanket and decided to just pack up and go home. She wasn't going to last long on the sand playing because it was so hot and sunny. So, I packed everything up with the exception of the blanket that chunk was sitting on. I placed her sitting up in the sand, packed the blanket and looked down. There chunk was, eating fist fulls of sand. Lovely, I picked her up, and the 3 bags of stuff, tried to brush her off and realized she was tired from the one glorious sign she gave me, rubbing her sandy hands over her eyes.
Great! I thought. She's got sand in her mouth and eyes. Cursing under my breath, I walked us back to the car as quickly as possible. When we got there, I started the car, then walked around to chunks side put her into her car seat, and proceeded to make her a bottle. (I stopped breast feeding due to medical issues) I grabbed her bottle already filled with warm water, and the zip lock baggie I placed at least 8oz of formula into. As I'm trying to rip open the zip lock bag, I get distracted by another family in the parking lot. Before I know it, the bag completely bursts open and formula powder explodes everywhere on me, chunk and in my clean car. It looked like someone took powdered sugar and dusted the inside seats. This was the point, I laughed, gave chunk what formula I hadn't lost and shut the door. I walked around to the drivers side of the car and cried. Not for long though. Some guy was watching the entire scene play out in the parking lot from his truck. Since, I'm not an actress or side show act for everyone's viewing pleasure, I backed out of my spot and went home. On the way, Chunk fell asleep instantly after her bottle was finished. To wrap this long story up, we played in the back yard with the hose when she woke up. It was nice to have her and myself finally clean of sand, formula and enjoying the water.

Asleep on the way home

No officer, it's formula dust in my car I swear

So my dear friends, if you take your infant to the beach by yourself, I pray that you have a better time than we did. I'm not sure if I'll ever do it again to be honest.


Live and laugh my friends. Sometimes, it's all you have.

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His way or my way? When you don't see eye to eye.

Chunks eyes are my favorite

Tonight's topics are:

1) His way or my way? When you don't see eye to eye.
2) Cloth diapering and the car. Only cloth families understand


His way or my way? When you don't see eye to eye. So lately, my darling hubby and I have had it out. He's expressed his concern that while raising our chunk of goodness, I tend to do things my way and I'm not open to his way of raising her. "Fair enough," I tell him. "I'm with her at home all week and have figured out ways to deal with multiple situations. My ways or solutions may not be the quickest or the best, but its the only way I know how." He has tried to show me on two different occasions how to handle our little chunk, however, I get easily frustrated with him when he tries to tell me how to do anything with our child. Why? Well, some things I either don't agree with or I'm not fully understanding what he is communicating to me. The same happens when the situation is also reversed. I expressed this frustration to my therapist last week. She told me that it was good for our little to learn that there is not just one way to do things with her. She'll learn that there is mommy's way, daddy's way and her grandparents' way etc. No one way is better than the other and so long as she isn't being harmed and has all of her basic needs met, she will be fine. She also said I should be a little more open to daddy's suggestions and not be so quick to right them off. I might find he does have an easier way with her and some tasks. We could learn from each other. Lastly, she said to try and find the positives in the different ways that my hubby does things. He loves her and wants to share her. So, this week has been a challenge since I left my therapists office. However, it's been a good challenge and a funny one now that I can choose to see the positives instead of the negatives. Below are the different ways we feed our child a bottle. The positive in the picture with daddy is, she has learned how to hold her own bottle. He did teach her that. Also, he can multitask.

Mommy's way of feeding a bottle

Daddy's way of feeding a bottle

Cloth diapering and the car. Only cloth families understand.
If you've read some of my previous bogs or have been on my FB, you know that my chuck of goodness, loves to share her body fluids generously. I like to think of it as her way of giving me little reminders to smile at my day and to not be so serious. I mean hell, I used to be so carefree until I had a child. It's like someone gave me a dose of "grow up" when she entered the world. So imagine this.
It's a beautiful spring day. There is a clear bright blue sky with warm Florida sunshine. It's shinning all of its beautiful light and warmth out onto the state. My little and I are sitting in a parking lot changing her fully loaded cloth diaper in the car before heading into Old Navy. What do I do with a cloth diaper on the go? Well, I have special bags I place the dirty diaper in so that my car and other belongings are protected as well as I can then clean it when I get home. However, I don't want to carry around a cloth diaper that's completely filled with poo. (If you do that, sorry, I'm being honest when I say, I'm judging you as a shit carrier.) The only other option is to leave it in the car. Yes, the car. The car that sits in the hot Florida sun. The hot humid state that everyone hates between the months of September to May because of envy. I did leave that poo in the car. I guess I can be judged as a shit leaver. I tried too, as best as I could to be quick in the store. But, Florida heat and humidity don't care. They laugh at you the second you turn your car off even if you have already planned the quickest way to get in and out of a store. You can only imagine the smell we returned to when we did make it back finally from the store. I can't describe it. It did make for a wonderful ride home though. It's rare when I roll down the windows in the car and let fresh air hit our faces. Chunk thought it was grand. I like to think she just wanted us to feel the wind on our face. In all reality though, we were riding in a poo smelling car. Ask me how long it takes to get the smell out. Well, I have put those Fabreeze car clips to the test and as far as I'm concerned, either the thing works, people don't want to tell me my car stinks or I have some weird friends and they like the smell.

Chunk in a cloth diaper and swing

Live and Laugh my friends. Remember to be open to new ways or possibilities and to laugh when things go to poo.

Wearing blue for Autism Awareness Day

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helmets and shots, shots and helmets.

Happy baby

Tonight, on The Current Lifestyle:



Helmet or not to helmet..... that's the question
and
Shots....... yes please!


Helmet or not to helmet..... that's the question
Friday I took the chunk-o-lot to her 6 month check up at the pediatricians office. I usually like going because I get to find out how much she weighs, which in all honesty is ridiculous since we have a scale at home. LAZY!!! Anyway, that's really the only reason. I dislike toting around my now 15 pounds of love, not to mention the car seat carrier, to the doctors office, only to have them ask me to strip my child of all clothes. Don't they know I fight with her to wear just a onesie every single morning? Haven't they read my past blogs; that she pretty much pees and poo's on me with clothes, why would I chance it without?!?! Well, we are there, I undress her, they measure and weigh her. She's now a whopping 15 pounds and 26 inches long. The doctor then comes into the room and meets us for the first time. (our previous doctor left to have her 3rd child.) She's a nice young gal and asks how my lovely little talker is eating. I tell her our feeding schedule and she seems satisfied. The doctor was also impressed that our little has slept in her crib since 6 weeks old and has slept through the night since she was 4-1\2 months old. (Stop sending me hate thoughts! It is possible even without CIO) :-) She then performs a physical check of our little chunk talker. The doctor seems very satisfied with her assessment then turns to me and asks how much tummy time we do. I tell her probably not as much as we should. I explain that she's either in a carrier on me, in a jumping contraption, sitting up or on her back. I don't believe she's on her back too much. I put her down to sleep on her back, but when I check on her, she's either rolled all the way over to her tummy or on her side. I have seen her roll from tummy to back and back to tummy. I have also seen her push up, so I know she's capable. The doctor then told me that our chunk has a flat spot on the lower right side of her head. She said that it won't effect her developmentally, but it is cosmetic. She said we need more tummy time and when we come back at her 9 month check up if I wanted she could send me to someone would pretty much put her in a helmet. She then said, its just cosmetic  though, and her hair will hide it too. So I asked her, does it bother you? She replied, its flat. I went home that day wondering if I was being a good parent in telling myself, I see it, but it doesn't really bother me. I told my husband later that night what the doctor said, and he agreed with me. Yes, its a little flat, but not really noticeable. Is your head really supposed to be perfectly round in the first place? I think since we here in the states have so many babies born via C-section, (thus no squeezed oblong head shape from the vaginal canal,) we've forgotten what vaginal birth babies heads look like. My husband and I have decided, yes, we will give her more tummy time, it can't hurt, but we are going to pass on the helmet. Judge what you will, but you really can't tell.

see my round head

Shots.... yes please

That leaves us with the last topic tonight, which no does not include tequila. Last but not least the doctor ordered chunks 6 month vaccines. (if you're a non-vaccer, then please don't leave a rude comment if you continue reading.) Poor kid was so happy until this point. As I can imagine, it hurts. I look at it as, my love for you sometimes hurts and I'm saving your life from all of these diseases and germs. She first received an oral vaccine which she swallows, then followed by that were 3 injections to her chubby legs. I distracted her as best I could, but crying will and did happen. If I did anything right, I had a bottle ready and waiting for her when she was all finished. The bottle settled her down and seemed to forget almost instantly what had just occurred. She was all smiles as we walked out the door. For the rest of the day, like her 2 month and 4 month shots, she slept. Pattern tells me and I've now had it happen three times. That after every vaccination she receives, she sleeps the rest of the day and the following day her schedule is slightly off. Two days later, she bounces right back to normal. I just wish there wasn't so many vaccines if I had a complaint. Every 2 months from the day new babies enter the world, they're poked until after their first birthday. (With month 8 and 10 being the exception.)

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vaccine schedule

"I'll stand barefooted in my own front yard with a baby on my hip 'cause I'm a redneck woman"

Mommy put a flower in my hair

Good evening everyone. This week has been rather busy, exciting and successful. It seems everyday we have something planed. Tonight's topics include: the very first mommy and me meet up group and strolling the hood like a redneck.

Mommy and Me meet up
Today, my chunky goodness and I went to our very first mommy and me outing. I honestly have been very hesitant with going to a meeting, for reasons I won't bore you with, but then I thought what the hell, one outing at a park shouldn't hurt. At 10:30am I packed up the chunk-o-potamus and we went to a local park in our area which had been designated the meet up spot by the host mommy of the group. We had fun and met three mommies. Two of which had more than one child. All of them were extremely friendly and introduced themselves to Caroline and myself. Today's meet up was like a teachers dream because it was a baby and mommy read a book at the park meet up. We brought a couple of books and shared the books when we were finished reading to our children. It was cute. I find it hilarious that my chunk wunk loves "This Little Piggy". The book, that we were aloud to read  from another mommy, had a finger puppet of a piggy that followed the entire story line and she was so focused on it. The meet up was fun and it was nice to finally get out with chunk and socialize with other mommies. By the way, if you're looking for meet up groups in your area, (it doesn't have to be a mommy and me) check out the free app called: Meetup. Browse topics that interest you such as; arts and crafts, sports, reading clubs, politics, etc. The app will show you all of the groups in your area meeting to either do or discuss those topics.


Strolling the hood like a red neck

Showing off my Palm Breeze disguised as a Due South brew.

After a wonderful afternoon at the park today, chunk and I ran some errands, took naps, cleaned the bathrooms and watched Doc. McStuffins and Sesame Street. We felt that the perfect end to our glorious day would be to walk around our neighborhood. Since it was "5 O'Clock somewhere," (Literally it was) mommy decided to grab a Palm Breeze. What could make mommy look more red neck than that? Oh, add her wardrobe. I was still in my cleaning clothes of a faded black spaghetti strapped tank which is so old it shows the tops of my bra, (not just the straps.) Pair that with the shortest shorts I own that ride up the crotch when I walk and are at the same time, to big for me in the waist. My stripped underwear could be seen if my tank rode up my back. Top it off with broken flip flops and I had just won America's Next Top Red Neck!  The best part? I could care less. I walked our circle like I owned it. I owned all 0.7miles of it. (All the way around, the damn circle is short 3 tenths of a mile. Kills me every time I run it.) I just wanted some sunshine before the day was done. Was it a beautiful sight for our neighbors? I guess it depends on who you ask. The only thing that could make it more beautiful would be if I was blasting "I'm a red neck woman" by: Gretchen Wilson

Chunk in her stroller

Be Bold and be daring my friends. You only get this one beautiful life.

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