Leveling Up Your Baby

It is the best thing watching your child develop his or her personality. Sometimes I am in awe of how wonderful it is to watch this little human grow and become his own person.  I can see little rays of personality shining through and I can't wait to see what the next thing he learns.  I get a jolt of bliss when I help him discover something.  Nothing is cooler and more earth shattering than when your child learns a new word that you have been helping him with for weeks.  I always thought that motherhood is bold and big and there are these huge defining moments where your kid turns from an infant to a toddler and its as if you have almost leveled up your child.  Maybe I feel this way because I played way too many video games when I was a kid.  I can already picture myself holding up JJ and the Zelda theme music of opening a chest begins to play, and a text blurb pops up saying, "You have received a toddler!  Equip with C!"  However, this is by far the most inaccurate assumption I made.  There are second by second moments that are so impactful and necessary in parenthood, that the big moments aren't actually the big moments.  Does that even make sense?

I am not saying that there aren't big moments, like having your son say dada or mama for the first time, but I think what surprised me was that they weren't my favorite moments.

What is beautiful about parenting is the minute by minute memories.
 The can't breathe moments because you are laughing so hard at your son giving you kissy faces.  The moment when your heart explodes in a million pieces because he has fallen and is crying and comes running to you for comfort.   More importantly, it is when your whole family (my husband included) are running around in circles and making weird noises to get that joyful squeal out of my son.  These things don't level up my child. They are just little pieces of himself that he is sharing with me.  They are addicting, because they bring peace to a somewhat chaotic life.  Not to get serious here, but it is like I have finally found where I am supposed to be and what my calling is.  I could build my career and be at the top of the leadership team at my job, and still nothing is more satisfying than spending time with my baby.  I never really knew I was meant to be a mom, but I am so happy that I am.

Is this what the best thing about motherhood is so far?  Most definitely.

These moments, however small, are what make the hardships and struggles of parenting worth it.

JJ is already curious and adventurous.  He loves to explore and is involved in trying out everything.  He is fearless, a quality I wish I had in most situations, and it makes me wonder who he got that from.  My husband and I always joke that JJ is our little barbarian because he acts like it.  Aside from the grunts and growls he makes (it is totally adorable), or the love of chasing us and being chased, I just can see him growing up to be such a strong and independent boy.

I never really understood what it took to be a mother before I actually became one.  I am holding onto moments as much as I can because they slip away so quickly.  I blinked, and now he is almost a year and a half old.  Although I am a working mom, I wish so desperately to soak up every minute with him.  I will never deny my jealousy of stay at home mothers.  I know being a stay at home mom comes with different challenges, but I do believe the minute by minute moments are what make it all worth it.

So what can I say?   Even when I am low on mana, I know that I can pull through because he will soon remember these moments too and I want him to know how special these moments are as well.  He makes every level worth it!

 Mamas, share with me if you are in the same boat that I am in.   I am not saying having a child is easy.  It is probably the hardest thing I have done in my whole life.  I have to bring my A game in every situation.  But man, could I listen to my son laugh all day.  It is my goal to make him laugh as much as possible.

- Jax

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The Brotherhood of Motherhood

Guys, before I became a mom I hate to admit that I was one of those people who judged moms.  Like hardcore.  I felt that I knew how motherhood would be and if it didn't look like my image of what motherhood was, I rolled my eyes along with my friends and gossiped  that my children will never be that way.  If it didn't pass what I thought the good mother qualifications were, I remember saying what I could do differently to make the situation run smoothly.  Reality: I was stupid.

Now looking back I am embarrassed by myself.  That is not to say that some parents don't need to be judged if their kid isn't being taken care of to the point where social services are needed, but man, I wish the older more "wiser" version of me could slap the dumber version of me.  This also may bring on the robot apocalypse though, as I seriously would think I was in the movie terminator if my future self came back to give me advice.

All jokes aside, I wish someone had pointed out how naive I was being.  As they say, hindsight is 20/20.  I don't like to dwell in the past but as I say sometimes to my husband, I needed a reality check.  We are all so quick to point the finger.  It is so easy to look at someone and point out the flaws of their plan.  Living in it and being a part of the day to day life of a mother is something entirely different. News alert: Motherhood is hard.  Like Jon Snow facing the Night King hard.  Except the Night King is actually depending on you for survival.

 

That was a weird twist.

Moms are superheroes.  They legitimately let something destroy their body for 9-10 months, have it ripped out of them, get no sleep for three months (at least), are still expected to maintain relationships, go back to work (if she is a working mama like me), or keep her children alive by herself (if she is a stay at home mama), look presentable, and be the "best mom she can be."  She is still expected to change diapers, get peed on, pooped on, put her children first above her own needs, use her body to feed her child every 3 hours, get no down time to do simple things like watching Netflix, and still be pestered by other social obligations that are now apparently required once you have a kid.  Just typing it out is making me want to take a nap.

I charged myself to be more understanding this year, and to be nicer to people.  The reason behind this is because I really thought that I had it all figured out before being in the actual shoes of a mother.  I believe that mom's that look like they have it together actually don't, and the ones that don't look like they have it together actually have it more together than I thought.  I never thought that I would be the mom that didn't brush her hair in the morning and just throw it in a bun, but alas that is something that happens way too often.   For me personally, there are so many more things that matter than appearances.  The best thing about having a kid is living in the moment with them, and crying profusely when they learn something new (Spoiler Alert: I am a crier).

So if you see a mom trying to deal with her kid having a melt down in the middle of the grocery store, please understand that you will NOT do better when you have a kid.  I am telling you, as someone who has been in your shoes, that no you will not.  Your kids will probably act the same way, and that is OKAY.  We are all freaking HUMAN.  Except Taylor Swift, who may be a robot.  I mean seriously, Taylor Swift is looking more and more like number 6 in Battlestar Galactica, no? Just me?



 That can be another topic for another time.  Lets get back on track - moms.  I just want you all to know that I have your back and I feel weirdly linked to all mother's now, as I too have been through parenthood and have come out the other side.  We are now the brotherhood of motherhood, and we will do the best we can and maybe drink a lot of wine to deal with what we can't.  We laugh when our kids pee on us and feel guilty if we make our kids cry.  We over analyze ourselves way more than you ever will.  So why not for once, choose kindness?

P.S. ladies and gents, did you see there is wine ice cream?  Please comment below to let me know if it is good!

-Jaxxylake
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New Year - New Goals - Becoming Supermom

Happy New Year to everyone!   I hope the holidays came with a fun and relaxing time for everyone (that is a joke as nobody I feel has a relaxing holiday).  Mine was filled with stress, anxiety, and a lot of family time.  Rushing around buying presents, wrapping presents, setting up the Christmas decorations all with a 1 year old was definitely an interesting experience.  Needless to say there were many sleepless nights trying to get things completed while the little one was down and sleeping peacefully.  I now realize this is how it is always going to be with children in the house.  I am honestly okay with that, as I am personally someone who is obsessed with winter and the holidays surrounding it, and I will take one for the team to make sure that my family is having a good time. 

Since my son was born the day before Thanksgiving, I now realize from November to January it is just going to be busy in our household and during that time it will be a whirlwind of events.  Now that the holidays are coming to a close, I am finally able to sit down and think about what has happened this past year, and how much of my life has changed for the better.  Even with the busy flow of my life, I would never want to trade it or adjust things.  I am content and happy where I ended 2017.

I can't believe this year has come and gone and now a new year is to be explored and discovered.  I am a little nervous, as I love setting new years goals for myself.  I love competition against myself, and to a fault sometimes.  The problem is, I also get anxiety about my goals and half the time end up not doing them for fear of failure.  One of my goals last year was to start this blog, and it literally took me until October to get the courage to even post anything.  Not to mention, I had a whole blog post written out for the month of December, and because of my anxiety I ended up not posting it, as I was too afraid it was not good enough for my readers or a good representation of me and what I want to be perceived as.

I guess this post is a little more serious, as I reflect on 2017 and what I want out of my life for 2018.  I had minor goals last year that were more technical - get to x amount of followers on Instagram, start a blog, start getting followers on twitter, and pay off some debt.  I am going to move forward with some of these technical goals in the new year (get to 400 instagram followers, hit 150 twitter followers, and start a youtube channel). However, there were some really important goals that I made for myself and I think I am going to move forward with them in 2018 that I would encourage all of you to consider:

- Be Nice To People - Even when I don't want to (which is a lot because sometimes I am really petty).  I find however, that most of the joy in my life (other than spending time with my family) is when I can legitimately help someone out that needs it.  When I am left with a choice to be damaging in my relationships, my goal is to take a step back and try to make the better choice of being nice and kind.  I know how cliché that sounds, but as I did this last year and it changed the way I looked at things, I am going to put more of a focus on this and how I can be better in 2018.
-Make time and put my family first - As much as I can or always.  My son's emotional, financial, and physical health is the most important thing in my life.  All nerd references and jokes aside, it is so important to me to make sure he has the best childhood that I can provide to him, and that will mean making hard choices that might affect relationships in the future.  As I am a people pleaser, this one has been difficult for me this past year and it is my goal moving forward to set boundaries for myself and for others so people are more aware of my decision to make my family the most important priority.
-Spread Peace and Love as much as possible - this one is obvious, so sometimes I don't dive in to this.  However, I am an advocate for equal rights and believing that you should always try to understand someone's point of view, even when you don't want to.  So for the new year, I am going to try and do just that.  I want to be a bridge for people to learn to communicate and find understanding and some sort of peace in their lives.  This connects well with being nice to people, and so my goal is to continue to try to break down barriers that divide us, and seek to find a common ground.
- Be Healthy - This goal doesn't mean to lose weight, because I am sick and tired of living against society's standards of beauty, but more to be healthier in my life.  Make healthier choices (both physically and mentally) for myself and my family.  This ties right into making sure my little one has the best life possible.  I want to build healthy relationships within my family, my friends, and with myself.  I want to find healthier eating solutions, and I want to feel good about the way I am taking care of my mental and emotional health.  I want to grow in knowledge and find a way to grow my understanding of others.  There is more than one way to be healthy, and my goal is to improve as much as I can.
- Be myself and Accept it.  This one can't really be measured, but I think it is the most important thing I need to learn to do.  With my anxiety, comes a lot of high standards that I put on myself as a mom and as a person.  Something that I am coming to terms with and trying to embrace is that I am good enough just as myself. When I became a mother, my desire to be perfect amplified.  Now, I just want to know that I am good enough just the way I am.  Julia - lover of all things nerdy and cheesy, loves holidays, is a passionate person, is very loyal, and is someone who gets emotional too easily.   Take me or leave me (RENT anyone?!), but this is who I am!  This version of me can be a supermom just being herself.

To all the mothers that are trying to be more and more for their families, just take a moment and give yourself a pat on the back.  I understand the desire to be a better mom and wife, and I am with you and understand you.  However, please make sure to take some time of reflection and realize you are already wearing that supermom cape, and you are a wonderful human being taking care of your babies.  You are enough.  In 2017, you were enough, and in 2018 you will be enough.

Take my advice or leave it!  Either way, lets make a common goal to support and lift each other up in 2018.

May all of you have a wonderful start to your 2018!  Make this year great.

-JaxxyLake

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Baby 101: Things I didn't know

The movies and television portray motherhood and child birth as a very clean cut and easy process.  I even remember watching 7th Heaven when I was a kid where Lucy gives birth on an elevator and she looks stunning afterwards with no medicine and not much medical help either. 

Even as a child I knew this was an exaggeration.  There is no way that a baby coming out of your lady parts was going to cause you to glow (which she looks like in this picture here).  You want a reality picture?  Screw it:

This was me almost right after I had my C-section.  I was exhausted afterward, and although I had a "glow" of pure happiness that my baby was finally here, it is important to note that I may have not looked my best.  I am not ashamed of how I looked, because I believe I am beautiful no matter what I look like, but it is jarring to me the drastic difference between Hollywood's perception of pregnancy and mine.  As I continue to think on this, there was a lot I didn't know about pregnancy and only knew from what I saw on television or what I heard from other mothers.  I did not have a good perception on motherhood and I blame Hollywood partially for my ignorance.  How is Hollywood's portrayal accurate?  More importantly, how does this help with judgement of mothers and what they are expected to look and be like with their children and during the child birthing process?  Mother's get a lot of flack for not having it all together, but pregnancy and motherhood changes your life completely and most of us are still trying to play catch up.

But I digress.  Although I had a lot of advice from family, these are the things that I wish someone had told me before having my cute and adorable baby.

Warning: Some of this might be detailed, but honestly I don't give a fuck.  Kindly skip over it if you don't want to hear the "details" of pregnancy.

You are not going to sleep.

I know you hear this one a lot, so bear with me.  There is more to the "no sleep for parents" ideology.  At first I had thought that the reason parents didn't get sleep was because the baby kept you up.  I was mistaken, and was unaware of what was required for my little man.  What I learned that beautiful morning of November 23rd was the reason you don't get any sleep is because the baby needs to feed every 3 hours.  Which means that if you are breast feeding like I did, you are responsible to wake up every 3 hours to do about a half an hour to an hour of nursing with your child.  To add onto that, the maximum amount of time you have to sleep as a mom is probably about 2 hours, because it usually takes some time to baby to feed from you.  Even more, if you have a partner that is also trying to both give you that precious mana of sleep during that first week of life, and also requiring sleep, you will need to take a long shift of being awake. One of the hardest things for me was attempting to stay awake holding a warm and snuggly baby while Justin was sleeping.  Let me tell you.  Before going into my c-section I thought I would rock at the sleep thing, because in college I didn't sleep ever.  I was too busy watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel with my room mates.  Boy was I wrong.  I would be lying if I didn't say there weren't crying sessions in that first week because I was SO. TIRED.  I felt like the human race running from the Cylons every 33 minutes. Battlestar reference anyone?

You have to do that every day for at least 3 months.  Some times you want to cry, and sometimes you need to just take a nap but can't.  So the bags grow deeper under your eyes, and you feel like the dog in that fire meme.  You know which one I am talking about:

You get through it, because you have to for that cute button you call your little one.  However, it is an extreme adjustment, and can definitely alter a mother's schedule and mood.  When you read about how to best help your new parent friends?  I am telling you to force them to take a nap while you watch their baby.  They can see you later.  They need to sleep.

You are going to leak!

That's right folks, if you are a breast feeding mother, that ish gets everywhere.  Hearing babies cry makes it happen (and no it doesn't have to be your own baby's cry), and it will continue to happen until the day you stop breast feeding.  Talk about embarrassing, and also a little strange.  It is like your body is programmed for your little human.  The hardest part for me was going back to work and trying to maintain a level of professionalism.  Talk about awkward when you are in the middle of a conversation and you feel drips of milk on your hand.  Luckily, it only happened once to me and it was in front of a friend who was also a colleague.

Nursing is incredibly difficult.

So let me get this out of the way, so no one dares judge me!  Fed is best in my opinion, and I will never feel a different way about that!  Did I breast feed?  Yes.  Do I look down on mothers that formula feed?  HELL NO.  You gotta take care of that little one the best way possible.

However I will say for those that do decide to breast feed, my hats off to you.  Your poor sensitive nipples are going to be in pain for the first couple of weeks of breast feeding.  Not to mention that they CRACK AND BLEED from your little ones gums constantly sucking your life source out of you.  Additionally, nursing makes you incredibly tired.  For me at least, I could barely function after my baby fed.

Not to mention, actually learning how to nurse your child and the anxiety that comes with it was a huge surprise to me.  As a new mom, I didn't know what it felt like to nurse so for the first day I had no idea what I was doing or what my baby needed.  The lactation nurses had me do all sorts of weird poses to get my baby to latch, and it took about an hour for that to happen!  For those mama's who had trouble nursing let me tell you one thing that saved me: the nipple shield!  For some reason the nurses didn't tell me about it, and eventually was told by my sister-in-law to request one.  Nipple Shields give your baby a better ability to latch on. Ask a medical professional about them, but honestly it saved me from the added stress of making sure my baby was fed.

Pooping.

Is the most... terrifying thing ever after a C section.  That is all I am going to say.

The mom guilt is real.

Moms, let me just tell you how much I believe each and everyone of you are a beautiful unicorn, and  that each of you deserve to be pampered and given wine.  However, we don't always feel that way and every small error created by you comes with enormous guilt. You end up convincing yourself that somehow your decisions will ultimately change your kids life and it. is. all. your. fault.  I am here to tell you that you are a beautiful and wonderful mom, and you need to keep reminding yourself of that daily.  I know personally I did not, and I still struggle with the mom guilt until this day.  Since I had literally no mother experience before having my first baby, I was always worried I was doing something to hurt the baby.  Even simple things that I needed to take care of myself (like taking a shower or you know... sleeping) made me feel like I wasn't putting my son first.  That is simply not true!  You can't take care of that little person if you also don't take care of yourself.  Just make sure that you give yourself some time, because that is the only thing that kept me going!

The biggest thing I have learned?  At the end of the day, you are never going to be 100% prepared for a baby.  No blog is going to tell you what you are going to experience, how you are going to feel, what situations you will be put in, and what is best for you or your new family.  Take it one day at a time, drink some coffee and wine, catch up on your TV shows (I watched all of the Vampire Diaries when I was awake at 4 in the morning), bitch to your mom friends (and if you don't have mom friends find some so you can combine drinking wine and talking about your baby's poop habits with one another), and breathe.

Did I miss anything?  Let me know below!

- Jax

Beginning of the Mama Nerd

I am an exhausted and nerdy mama.

I know right?  How typical of me, to discuss being exhausted and being a mom.  So original Julia.  People are going to want to continue reading your blog about how tiring life can be as a mom. Because you know, there aren't already a million people doing the same thing.  Bear with me alright?  I promise you I am interesting.  At least I tell myself that.

I wanted to start and blog and do the thing that all the other mom's seem to do.  After many attempts to start a blog, and show my life as it appears to be (perfect of course! just kidding), and after many failed attempts to muster the courage to put myself out there and write about my experiences, there is one truth that has come forth from it all.  It turns out I am like all the other mom's out there.  I am tired, I am slightly malnourished, my hair hasn't been brushed in 2 days (and that my friends is an improvement), I am late to everything, and half the time I am trying to remember what I have forgotten to do.  10 months ago my life changed when I brought a little human into this world.  My life leveled up, and I became mythic.  Sometimes, it is hard for me to articulate and show people how that change has affected me and how much it means to me.  I know from the outside looking in my life seems perfect, but there are a lot of struggles I as a mom can now shyly admit to.  The real reason why I want to start a blog?  Is to be proud of my motherhood and how that has changed me for the better.

My life has always been a little strange, and our family is not your typical cookie cutter family (although my husband LOVES cookies and tells me frequently how much he wishes we had an unlimited supply).  Motherhood has changed me in ways that I can't just express to someone over the phone or in conversation.  Sometimes it can take me plenty of time and thought into how it makes me feel.  Why not share those feelings, emotions, and sometimes hilarious moments with the internet?

I am also extremely nerdy. I come from a pretty normal family, and so does my husband.  Somehow through time we delved into the nerd realm and found each other.  It wasn't cool to be nerdy when I was a kid, and therefor I was a definite outcast most of my childhood to adult life.  My first true loves were Mario, Zelda, DDR, and Final Fantasty VII.  Now that we are starting our very own family, it is my goal in life to make sure my child carries the nerdom on.  My husband and I have a joke that our son is going to be the one nerd to rule us all.  But that is another topic for another day.

Does this blog have a direction?  I would say no.  I am just going to post when I want about what I want, because well I do what I want!

But seriously I have noticed that trying to be honest and open about who I am and what I stand for, and what my beliefs are has become more difficult as I age.  This year I made a commitment to myself to be more positive by finding something everyday that makes me happy and to take a picture of said happiness on my Instagram (@jaxxylake shameless plug), to be a healthier version of me, and to be more real and up front with my emotions.  So this is me attempting that.  I hope you stay for the ride!

So enough about why I am starting this blog.  Let's talk about my family!

I just recently had my first child.  He is almost 9 months old now.  His name is Justin Jr.  Is it normal to be obsessed with your baby?  Because I am.  I literally want to spend every minute watching and learning about who he is.  The main thing I learned?  My son is a legitimate barbarian.  He likes to smash his way through everything (including learning how to crawl).  He thinks the way to learn things is to push on through until it works.  I am pretty sure he gets that from me.  He also likes to growl.  A LOT.  If this were a pathfinder campaign I would say he was an orc barbarian with all his stats in charisma.  Because you know, he is SUPER CUTE.  Just sayin.

My husband and I met when we were in college but had different love interests at the time.  We met (surprise surprise) at a Dungeons and Dragons campaign.  It wasn't until years later when we were both single that we gave it a shot.  7 years later and here we are.  We have two goofy and loveable dogs Luna (yes from Harry Potter, you really thought I wasn't a fan?!) and Meelo (I wonder if anyone can guess this reference).  Our happy family of five!

Also shameless plug, is the fact that my dogs have an Instagram.  Go follow them now, they are really stinkin cute. @meelolunalove

I leave this blog post with this: I have had many signs pushing me towards this goal of creating a space where I can create and be honest.  At some points this past year, I felt like God was literally hitting me over the head with his vision for what he wants from me.  Yet, I sat motionless, too afraid of the could be and failure.  Life is too short to stand in the corner, and fear change.  Be bold, be brave, and take a chance.

-Jax