I’ll post this post tomorrow.

Or maybe I’ll finish it and post it tonight. Who knows. Procrastination. It’s there. I’ve always been a procrastinator but it’s reaching epic proportions right now in some aspects of my life. For instance…my house. It’s filthy. My dust bunnies are even embarrassed. In fact, I’m pretty sure I saw some packing up and leaving today, they probably couldn’t take it anymore.

But that’s not it. Look below. When was the last time I blogged? 2009? Every day a blog post comes to mind and every day I tell myself “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

I’ll make dinner tomorrow and we’ll stop eating takeout tomorrow

I’ll sweep the floors tomorrow

I’ll take a shower…tomorrow. Ok, just kidding on that one. I’ve been showering. In fact, for the first time in a long time I’ve managed to take a shower every day! There’s a reason why that is happening though… every day something calls for taking a shower. I’m very busy right now with working 12 hours a week (ha ha ha I know, right?), photo sessions (both shooting and editing), celebrating things… It has kept me busy and clean.

Lets see…in the past 2 weeks since I last posted I’ve had 6 photo sessions, a 3 day camping trip in Door County, WI where I brought my camera and didn’t take a single picture (what?), 2 dinners out, said a final goodbye to a friend, work, be a mom, and try to keep my house clean. I just went to the grocery store for the first time in 3 weeks today. It was glorious. I went alone. But my mind was still elsewhere.

So, I was thinking about hiring a mother’s helper/babysitter to come over every Monday from 8-12 and play with the boys while I clean, edit pictures, run errands, and anything else I need to do but can’t find the time to do.

If you have done this, what is it like? What is the average cost for something like this? I am bringing in extra money from photography and from my workplace job, so I’m thinking it might be worth it. What do you think? Is there another solution?

A cupcake party! We had a cupcake party! Well, not really. Quinn turned two last week and we celebrated over the weekend. It was supposed to be a train themed party, but somehow it turned into a cupcake party. Probably because I personally have been obsessed with cupcakes over the past few weeks. In the weeks before his birthday, I brought home cupcakes a few times. On his actual birthday, we had cupcakes. At his birthday party, we had cupcakes. Cupcakes cupcakes cupcakes. Who cares about trains when you’ve got cupcakes?

Let me back up a little bit before I get to his birthday party. On his actual birthday, we celebrated with my parents, Nick’s parents, Nick’s sister, and ate pizza and cupcakes. Quinn opened tons of presents…he was spoiled! But the winner of the evening was the firetruck I bought on Amazon.com the night before and had overnight shipped. Ha! Great spur of the moment idea on my part!

Presents!

Quinn also had a birthday thunderstorm roll through. That has never happened to me, ever, being a December baby. Lots of snow…but no rain.

On Saturday, we had Quinn’s birthday party. His closest friends came and everyone had a blast. It was hot that day so the boys played outside in the sprinkler and rode Quinn’s new tractor. We had a huge Mexican buffet that I put together, with all the fixins! Quinn opened some presents, which he loved, and then promptly passed out from exhaustion for a late afternoon nap.

Quinn and Gavin’s grandpa who lives in Pennsylvania came into town over the weekend. Quinn loves his grandpa so much, that I am surprised he didn’t completely break down when he left this morning. My guess is he hasn’t realized they are gone yet. He will probably ask for them when he wakes up from his nap today. I cried!

During their visit we visited a few train tracks, went on short hikes, and ate lots of good food. It was fun!

This is very opposite of what you are probably used to seeing in regards to the TIME cover. If it wasn’t the “kid sucking on his mom’s tit” that bothered you, it was probably the 4 words printed next to the picture:

“Are You Mom Enough?”

Well, are you? I’m not. Nor am I offended by those words. I’m not offended by the picture. I’m not offended by breastfeeding, by cleavage, or even by nipples. I’m not offended if anyone thinks I didn’t breastfeed long enough. I honestly don’t care what you think about how I mother my kids.

I’m not mom enough to breastfeed to age 3, maybe not even to age 2. It’s not that I think it’s abnormal, it’s just not what I want. I’m not “mom enough” because despite the fact that I have kids, I still very much respect the fact that I am still an individual. I am not willing to give my body up to breastfeed my kids into adolescence. I want to drink alcohol on the weekend, eat what I want, or diet how I choose and not worry about how it will affect my milk supply. It might be good for them, but it’s not good for me.

I also don’t share my bed. My babies sleep in their beds, in their bedroom, alone, all night long. Aside from the occasional nap, my bed is mine and my husband’s and it will remain that way. Heck, I have tried to kick him out too, to no avail. I don’t think they make cribs large enough to contain him.

I wear my babies, but I also push them in strollers. Sometimes I pull them in a wagon. They are not always attached to me, yet they are perfectly loved.

We cloth diaper, but we use disposables too. For every cloth diaper that is changed, another is thrown away. My babies have had diaper rashes, both in cloth diapers and in disposables. It happens to most babies, no matter what is on their butt.

My kids eat and drink from plastic dishware.

Sometimes they cry.

Sometimes I yell.

Sometimes they cry because I yell.

I am not at their mercy and they are not at mine. What we do, it just works. Sure, there are things I do that you might find extreme, like extended rear-facing to age 2 and beyond. But that is not extreme, that’s being cautious. Getting in a car accident is beyond my control. This small thing is a choice I can make to potentially save their lives if someone else isn’t paying attention to the road. That choice has nothing to do with parenting. It shouldn’t even be a choice. It’s about broken necks, people. But I digress…

I don’t care if you breastfeed for 4 days, 4 years, or not at all. I don’t care if you sleep with your babies. I don’t care if they sleep in a crib. I don’t care about your ring sling or expensive stroller. I don’t care if your baby drinks only out of glass bottles and only plays with wooden toys. It doesn’t affect me or my family and what we do doesn’t affect yours.

So no, I am not “mom enough” to fit into a mold someone else made. But I am a darn good mom with happy, healthy kids and to them, I am “mom enough”.

That is all that matters.

Happy 7 months to my baby! I can’t believe how fast the time has gone. I usually don’t do milestone posts, not because I’m against them, but because I don’t think of them. However, tonight I needed to blog about something happy to keep my mind off of the fact that I have my first set of haters. Yippee. That was a nice little surprise for today.

I don’t have a picture to post, but I will soon…because my new camera came today! Finally. I ordered the Nikon D800 on February 7th from Amazon.com and it finally arrived today, 3 months later. I didn’t take it out of the box until the kids went to sleep, and then I realized I’m going to have a little bit of a learning curve with it because the metering dial works in the opposite direction of my old camera.

So…no pictures.

But Gavin. He’s great. Because of Gavin, I now love love love babies. This is coming from someone who used to squirm and make faces whenever someone tried to hand me their baby. I was not a baby person. Not really a kid person. In fact, I found them highly annoying. Now that I have my own, I can commiserate with the mother trying to scoop her screaming toddler off the floor at Target. Been there, done that. I’m not judging you, mama. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Quinn’s baby state but I always felt like I was not doing it right. When Gavin came along, I realized that I’ve got this down. My boys are so happy, and that makes me happy. I love seeing Gavin’s whole face light up and his eyes squint when he sees me. It’s adorable. I will catch it on camera.

Milestones. Let’s see. What should a 7 month old baby be doing?

Teeth: None. Not surprised, Quinn was a late teether too. And I’m also hoping that like Quinn, there are no apparent personality changes with teething.

Sitting: Gavin started sitting unassisted a little over 5 months old. He started rolling sometime around then too. I didn’t write it down. Mom fail. He’s still sitting. But not only that, he’s…

Standing: He will pull himself up on anything he can reach, and he does it very well. Chairs, stepstools, play tables…and today I caught him trying to scoot along the couch while he was standing. What? Stop that.

Eating: Gavin is still nursing. We started solids about a week before he turned 6 months old. He wasn’t really interested. It took him a couple weeks and now he’ll eat anything. I had intended to do Baby Led Weaning again, but I can’t devote as much time to watching him eat as I did to Quinn. So I dabbled in making baby food. Well, let me just say…that is for the birds. I dumped the rest of it down the drain today after thawing from the freezer. Instead, Gavin eats whatever we are eating. I either mash it with a fork or break it down with my fingers. That leads me to…

Motor skills: Gavin can pick up very small items…he sees things that we don’t see. He can pick up tiny twigs at the park. Which means he’s pretty good at feeding himself. Ahh, sweet relief. All I have to do is make sure there is always food there because he is always complaining…

Talking: Of course he doesn’t talk yet! He babbles though. It’s the sweetest sound my ears have heard.

So baby boy, you amaze me every day. Why did you grow up so fast? Tonight you wouldn’t even let me rock you to sleep. Sigh…you definitely paved the way for the likelihood of baby #3. And then, what will happen to One Mom, Two Boys?