Dear Baby Arlo

Dear Baby Arlo,

Today's your very first birthday.

As I sit down to write this I can't help but let the tears fill my eyes. I can't believe it's been a whole year with you in our lives. It seems like just yesterday and a whole lifetime all at once that we brought you into this world. This has by far been the hardest, most frustrating, sleepiest, amazing, exciting year of my entire life. And I have you to thank for that. I'm going to be honest, we had a rough start. It was hard to be a mom and I know it was really hard to be a baby. But we stuck together and we are still making it one wonderful, messy day at a time. I don't know what I would do without you and your contagious smile and hearty laugh. I don't know what I would do without your excitement for life and your bright blue eyes that just seem to take in the world around you. You have so much drive and determination in such a teeny, tiny body. I just know you are going to do so many amazing things and once you make your mind up, no one will be able to stop you.

You have turned our world completely upside down. No books could have prepared us for the smart, energetic, observant, persistent, boy we would have. No books could have prepared us for the intense love and frustration we would feel all at once. No books could have prepared us for the months and months and months of sleepless days and nights. No books could have prepared me for how much I would love the fact that you need me, even if it means I miss some hours of sleep. No books could have prepared us for how amazing and perfect you are for our family.


Thank you for  helping me see all the imperfections and impossible expectations I had for our life. We would be so bored if you turned out anything like I had planned. Thank you for keeping us on our toes and for keeping the excitement in our lives. Thank you so much for being you and for making me a mom. It's honestly the most amazing gift you could have ever given me.

You are the most amazing, beautiful boy I've ever met, you are the love in my heart and the bags under my eyes. You are the joy in my day and the marks on my hips. You are my perfect boy and I wouldn't trade any of it for all the sleep and perfect skin in the world.

You are truly amazing. 

I love you so very much.

Happy birthday my sweet boy. 

Love, Mama

There's someone I'd like you to meet...

Some of you have met him, a lot of you haven't.Most of you have caught a tiny glimpse of him through what I've shared, but I wanted you to really get to know him. I want you to really see him and see what an amazing boy God has created. I know I share a lot about our sleeping issues and how tired I am. But I also want to share who he is in spite of that ( or maybe even because of that.)

This is Arlo Harrison Stone. The most alert baby I have ever met in my entire life. The first night he was here he was too busy watching us to sleep, even though I'm pretty sure he couldn't really see anything. He greeted the world with such wonder and interest. If I had a quarter for every time someone mentioned how alert he was, I could buy us all lunch. He wants to look at everything and he wants to explore everything. He rarely takes long naps and has a really hard time staying asleep at night, but it's because he's too busy taking in everything around him. He has to touch and examine everything with his precious little fingers. He grabs things with both hands and a whole lot of enthusiasm. He looks at everything from all sides, flicking them with his fingers to see what it feels like, sounds like, and moves like. He notices every little sound or movement. So many of the things we take for granted in our daily life, he is experiencing. He notices the birds in the sky or on the telephone wire, he notices the leaves on the trees dancing in the breeze (and he thinks they are hilarious,) he notices Josie playing outside, and if he notices it, he needs to investigate it.

He loves looking at pictures and faces. He loves people and this may be one of my favorite qualities about him.  If he can hear you but can't see you, he looks around and arches his neck to see where your voice is coming from. He often stares people down until they acknowledge him and then he greets them with the biggest smile you've ever seen. He lives for eye contact from anyone (even Josie) and squeals with joy when he catches your attention. It might take him a minute to look you over, but once he's done investigating he turns on the charm. He thrives in groups and out in public and he loves to be surrounded by people. He loves the wind and being thrown way high. He loves being startled and caught off guard. He loves being "dropped" and he loves to swing. He's already my thrill seeker boy.

Arlo is busy. He has been moving ever since he was being created. I was never worried if he was alive in there or not because he was constantly moving and kicking... I should've known then we were in for a wild ride! The first video I ever took of him was a few days after he turned a month old and it was nothing but him cooing and kicking his legs and moving his arms. When he learned how to bounce in the bouncer it was the best day of both of our lives. He began "playing" with toys a little after he turned 4 weeks old and soon needed new toys because those were all played out. He loves playing, LOVES it. He's just a busy boy. He would rather be standing than sitting, he would rather be moving than lounging, he would rather be outside than inside any day. He's also the most opinionated and determined baby I've ever met. He knows what he wants and he knows where he wants to go. If he can get it or get to it he will, and if he can't he'll let you know about it until he gets help. He rarely cries even though he hardly sleeps, he's happy as long as he's busy, and he can take a thirty minute nap and be good to go for hours. I could go on for days about how wonderful and special our busy, sleepless boy is. I could go on for days about how smart he is and how he loves to clap and how he's already figured out the "where's Arlo" routine. I could go on for days about the love I have for this tiny human.



Yes I'm exhausted, yes I wish he needed less of my attention some days, yes I've gotten really good at doing all of the "important" things for the day in thirty minutes and as quiet as a mouse, yes he's the perfect blessing our little family needed.

I prayed for a boy that was more than just a "normal" boy. Because "normal" boys can be mean, "normal" boys can need to be accepted no matter the cost, "normal" boys don't speak out for what's right. I prayed for a boy who would do great things and have a heart for people. I prayed for a boy who wouldn't be easily fooled by this world and would bring glory to his Heavenly father in whatever he chose to do. I prayed for an extraordinary boy and I think I got one.

Am I your Mother?

**This is a hard post to write, but I have to believe I'm not the only one who has had this type of experience with motherhood and I'm hoping that in talking about it someone will feel encouraged or maybe just not so alone.

I'm embarrassed to say that I did not transition into motherhood very gracefully. (Still transitioning, still working on grace) Arlo was not a mistake or a surprise. He was very much planned and hoped for. We made the decision to have a baby while on vacation, came back to reality and never had a chance to look back. Three weeks later little baby stone was growing, growing! Now, if you know me, you know how planned, organized, and efficient I like to be so I was thrilled to find out everything went smoothly and quickly and we were well on our way to being parents.

My pregnancy was a relatively easy one. No morning sickness, very few things made me nauseous, my feet only swelled a couple of times, and very little heartburn. Sometimes my feet would ache and towards the end the pressure of our sweet boy made it hard to roll over or get up to go to the bathroom or move quickly in general. I did gain WAY too much weight (more on that in a bit), but besides those few things I didn't have any trouble at all. Then his due date came and went. Every morning I would wake up and think, "today could be the day!" It wasn't. He was induced a week past his due date (You can read his story here)

I had always heard of this "love at first sight" experience you have when they place your sweet baby in your arms for the very first time. I can't say I had that experience. I was super excited that he was finally here and super excited to get to meet this human that we created and of course I loved him, but I wasn't in love with him the way I had expected to be. ( Don't worry, I'm completely obsessed with him now!) The next few days were a blur. A blur of postpartum-ness, aches, pains, learning about this new life, and our roles as parents. Then we brought him home. I was completely overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by this tiny life and how much he demanded of me, overwhelmed by how much he wanted to nurse, overwhelmed with how unprepared I was to be a mom, overwhelmed by the fact that THIS WAS NOT MY BODY, overwhelmed by the amount of visitors we had, overwhelmed to wake up and do it all over again...every day. I became a very anxious person. I was anxious every time I put him down for a nap because I couldn't help but think, "how long will he nap for?" "Will he just cry when he wakes up?" "Will he want to nurse...AGAIN?" "I wish it didn't hurt so bad" " He's going to want to nurse, I just know it" "After  he naps, I feed him, and change him, then what do we do?" "Should I be trying to sleep?" "Maybe I'll just lay down for a minute." "Oh he's up... I guess I'll feed him." All of these thoughts every.single.time. I didn't want to go out in public because what if he cried, what if he got hungry, what if I need to change his diaper, what if I see someone I know? I was incredibly self conscious of being "that person" at the store who couldn't handled her baby (and still am) and the fact that I was terribly overweight and flabby had my self esteem and confidence at an all time low.

I knew everyone said that being a mom was hard, but no one told me why it was hard. Maybe because it's a different hard for everyone. But here I was, having such a hard time, feeling like a failure, feeling like no one else fought the change into motherhood this badly, feeling like I had made a huge mistake. I mean, I CHOSE this for myself?  I hated nursing because it hurt so badly. He wanted to eat all the time so I constantly felt like I was alone and naked, especially since he would nurse for hours if I let him. I never knew what to do with him when he was awake, which was all the time. I didn't know how to be a mom AND a wife. And I wanted so badly to enjoy "every single minute of it," because "it all passes so quickly. But I didn't. I loved Arlo, but I didn't really love being a mom yet.

I thought being a mom would feel like the greatest thing I'd ever done, but it just felt like the most exhausting thing I'd ever done. I thought I would be so full of joy that I had this tiny human that I would just burst all over everyone. But I wasn't. I was full of anxiety, tension, confusion, stress. I was so tired, and mean to my husband, and I got frustrated when Arlo cried. Definitely not the type of mother I thought I would be. I thought I would be like one of those fun blog moms, who always look cute in their top knot and skinnies. I thought I would have it together and have crockpot dinners ready and my baby on a schedule, but not get stressed out when something upset our routine. Needless to say none of that happened. And if anyone else was having this hard of a time being a new mom, they for sure weren't saying anything! So I woke up being anxious about what was in store for the day, feeling like a failure because I hadn't showered or shaved my legs, feeling sad because I had cut off all my hair so my dreams of adorable top knots went out the window,, feeling nostalgic for my "old life," and feeling awful for feeling all of these things. But I hoped with every passing day that things would get better, that I would get better.

Eventually the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, and things started feeling a little bit more normal. I started loosing weight and feeling better about myself. I stopped trying to get Arlo on a schedule and, as hard as it still is, I started going with his flow. I'm still trying to stop comparing myself to other moms, Arlo to other babies, and Steven to other husbands. It's a battle everyday, but it's definitely worth it. I'm still working on being a mom filled with patience, grace, and understanding. I'm not the mom I thought I would be, but I'm still working on the mom I want to be.

Back to Blogging

I decided not to make any new years resolutions this year simply because they would end up being things like, "take a shower everyday," "drink less Dr. Pepper," "get more sleep." And honestly I would have already failed. You may be thinking, "Who is this disgusting, sleep deprived, Dr. Pepper addict and why can't she get it together already?" Well, it's me. I'm a mom and some things in life are luxuries (like showering everyday) and some things are a matter of life and death (like Dr. Pepper and coffee.) What I have decided to do is set small, attainable goals for myself. Like blog more and CREATE time to do something I used to love before the little mister showed up. So in this day, the second of January 2015, I'm taking one small step towards my goals and getting back to blogging. It will no doubt become a lifestyle blog filled with posts about being a mom and how I'm mucking it up and posts about new tricks our sweet boy is learning and how we had cereal for dinner again. You will also be bombarded by a ridiculous amount of pictures of the cutest baby you've ever seen. But between these posts there will be posts about delicious and easy dinners, my weight loss journey back to my pre-baby clothes, Pinterest things I've mustered up the courage to try, and maybe some things you might actually be interested in. However, this is all I have for now (mainly because naptime is over,) I hope you'll be checking in on all of our adventures!