Life as a Mom Part I

Well, I've been a mom now for a little over 6 months. Thought I should blog about my mom experiences!

Being a mom is great, at times exhausting, but great! We have a pretty good routine going on. Since January, Carter has been going to a sitter in our neighborhood. She watches several other kids as well. He goes Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. On those days, I know I can schedule showings and go up to the office to get work done. I enjoy real estate and am glad that is a flexible job where I can stil work and get to spend quality time with my son. This past year has been the busiest and best year for me in real estate and I wanted to keep it going. I enjoy having me time away from the house too. So MWF Carter goes and hangs out with other kids while I work. I drop Carter off around 9AM on MWF and pick him up by 4PM. On Tuesday and Thursday I get to stay home with him and of course the weekends as long as I'm not needed to show any properties. I'm really loving the schedule as I get to spend time doing work I love as well as being a mom.

Since having Carter we wanted to still go out and do things even though we have a kid. We also wanted to take advantage of the short time it would be easy taking him out. When he was little he obviously slept alot. We would go out to eat at least once a week and he'd sleep through most of it. As he's gotten older, he's been more awake but for the most part is such an angel when we go to eat.

Shopping with Carter when he was younger was much harder though. I didn't ever feel comfortable putting his car seat on the top of a shopping cart, so I would take him in his car seat and snap and go stroller. But obviously, I didn't have much room to put stuff when I shopped I soon learned. The lower section of the stroller was available, but not much room. So I started taking reusable bags with me and just carrying them and filling them up with stuff while I shopped. Needless to say, I didn't buy a ton of stuff at once. In the last few weeks though, Carter is sitting up better so he's been sitting in the front of the shopping cart and doing great! He's just so in awe of everything that he is so quiet the whole trip, just looking around.

Getting ready was a challenge at first too. Once Kevin went back to work, I thought, how am I going to show and get ready with this baby. So the boppy bouncer seat became my lifesaver. I'd hook him in that while I showered and got ready. He gets bored pretty fast these days so I'm always giving him something to try and entertain him again, while I quickly get ready!

Pumping takes dedication! Since Carter started going to a sitter, I've pretty much been pumping exclusively, except for when he first wakes up in the morning, I'll nurse him so I dont have to warm up a bottle. Thankfully he still nurses great for that feeding. Other than that, pumping it what I do during the day. I know I am very blessed as I have a great supply! So really I am only needing to pump 4 times a day and I still have a freezer full for backup. I'm really going to try hard and breast feed Carter for an entire year. We'll see how it goes, but thats my goal. I pack up my double electric pump and it goes with me to work. I really only have to pump once while I'm there so that is nice. There have been days when its hard to fit it in the schedule, but I make it work. I'm in a routine right now, so I'm just keeping on. **PS** Mom-to-bes...while I was pregnant at one of our classes they mentioned that some insurance providers pay for pumps for moms. I was surprised as I had never heard of this. So I called my insurance company and guess what they pay 100% on it. They just needed a prescription for it from my doctor. DONE AND DONE! Saved us a ton of money. So if you're pregnant, look into that.

First glance into my life as a mom, I'll try and make this more regular and show different areas of our life in this new venture!