We worked with signs for a while with Miles but he never really picked them up, until one day out of the blue they all clicked!

He has a few he can do now, but his most important (to him) are “eat” and “more”

I made the mistake in the video of asking him to show me “eat” while he had food in front of him so basically he just ate! :)

You also get to see a small sampling of the battle we deal with at EVERY meal between Beez and the dog. He is pretty sure the dog needs his food more than him. The dog feels the same way.

BUT.. In more important news. We have accomplished our crowning moment in Mormon parenthood as our son knows how to “fold his arms” (Mormon’s fold their arms and bow their heads while saying prayers. I tried finding a good link that explains this and couldn’t. I’m sorry)

Without further adieu, The signs and the folding:

Beeza signs from Ryley @That's My Family on Vimeo.

On March 3rd and 10:56 am I read this post. Everything resonated with me.

I was having a particularly rough day. I remember it. I was frustrated with everything. I had a rough evening at home. I had a rough week.

I wrote a comment on that post. Something I had NEVER told anyone. Something I never said “out loud” before. I needed to get it out and thought of that blog as the perfect safe haven. Nobody knew me there. No one was going to judge me and I wasn’t a frequent commenter so I probably wouldn’t have many people come visit me from one little comment. I thought.

{It has taken me this long to talk about it, because I never wanted to put these words out there for someone who knows me to read. But I can 100% say I no longer feel this way. It took me A LONG time to snap out of this, but I think I am finally there. Sure sometimes I lay in bed and still wonder the what-if’s of if we had waited longer to have children, but I no longer wish we hadn’t. Not even for one second. Not one second. And that is the only reason I feel comfortable talking about this now. Because I am not there anymore. It’s just a memory. And not one I am fond of.}

The post was about Postpartum Depression. At the end of her post she said:

“How are you dealing with it?

Are you medicated?

Or do you use other therapies?

Do you talk about it on your blog?

Or are you too scared to admit it out loud?”

On March 3rd at 10:56am I commented:

I don’t talk about it.

Even 14 months after having my son I
still
feel like I struggle with PPD daily.

I hate
it.

I don’t feel completely attached to him. I love him with all
my heart, I
really do, but I still don’t see what the joy is in this whole
motherhood
thing.

Everyone says its so worth it and so
rewarding. I don’t
see that.

I’m pretty sure I don’t ever
want another one.
It’s so hard.

So, I just don’t talk about
it.

How do you say out loud that you don’t like being a mother?
That you wish you had waited longer (I was 26!!) or that you kinda wish you
hadn’t even had your son? How
do you say that out loud and be okay with it?
So you just don’t. you keep it inside, you smile and tell everyone how great it
is to be a mom.

How do you say you wish you weren’t a mom when
all around you people are having miscarriages, your friends have having still
born babies, your friends babies are dying of SIDS, or cancer, or dealing with
some horrible disease. How can you be so selfish? They want a baby so badly, and
you have one and don’t?

You just don’t say those things..So I
keep it inside.

Maybe I’m the only one, but I’m not ashamed of
medication, but I don’t see how it could help. how could a pill change my way of
thinking? Will taking a pill make me love my son more? Make me love being a
mother more?

I just don’t see it happening.

So, I
smile.

*************************************

I thought I would be “safe” posting those feelings on a blog I never comment on. By 11:30 my first email came. The subject line was “I couldn’t ignore you response” She went on to pour her heart out to me while telling me what helped her and she would do anything she could to help me.

20 minutes later, another subject flashed in the bottom of my screen “I’m sorry this is so random” Again, another brave mom who sat down and wrote me a LONG email about her struggles and how her heart broke reading my comment and she wanted me to know I wasn’t alone.

Again, another email and another email, until I received 6!!! emails from women I had never talked to before from a blog I don’t frequent.

My eyes welled up with tears at the thought that these women with lives and families and struggles of their own took time out of their day to email me and show me love.

I don’t know why I am constantly surprised and blown away by this community. The community we have is amazing.

Women that drop everything to offer support. Women that drop everything to offer advise on everything from cooking, to style to breast feeding and birth. We weep with each others sorrows with cheer with each others joy. We are a family. We talk about bodily functions that you shouldn’t mention in pubic. We offer breast milk and emergency breast feeding to each others children’s. We send each other presents and love notes. We drive hours to have lunch with each other. We are always there to commiserate in temper tantrum moments and we always invite ourselves to the pity parties! We all seem to have a bad day together, and we all seem to have good days together.

We are a family.

{just to reiterate. I am feeling better. MUCH better. I don’t have thoughts like that anymore about parenthood, or Miles. He is my sunshine these days, even when he is dark clouds and rainstorms, he is still my sunshine.}

I promised myself that before CBC came, I would be a stronger blogger. I would stop worrying about what I’m talking about and just talk.

Then life gets in the way. You work 10 hour days. You leave before your family is awake and you get home in just enough time to give your son a quick bath and tuck him into bed.

You throw together something edible for dinner then sit bleary eyed staring at your computer while you think about how you can see the clumps of mascara on your eyelashes. So you start picking it off. But you just switched mascara and no instead of being dry and crumbly when you pick it off its gooey and sticky and just makes your eyelashes stick together more, then OH LOOOK over there, it’s twitter and facebook and everyone’s blogs. And then its time for bed.

Every. Single. Night.

Yet all day I day dream about the kind of posts I want to right.

Someone asked me if I have ever written about my breastfeeding and pumping journey. I haven’t, but I should. Not very many people give up breastfeeding for pumping and stick with it for 16 months and aim for 24 months. Not very many. But I’d like to be a support to those that want too.

(oh man, my mascara is currently doing that clumpy-make-all-the-lashes-stick-together thing. and its all I can see..)

I really want to write a better birth story. I am amazed at the details I still remember after 16 months. The one I wrote did our birth no justice at all.

I want to talk most about how horrible those first few months were for me. And how everyone tells you that its okay to ask for help but you still think you’re okay, until you realize you aren’t.

I want to write a post DEVOTED to all the women who email me (a stranger) after I left one little comment on one little blog. This community is amazing.

I want to talk more about my husband’s role as a stay at home dad (turned work at home dad thanks to his AMAZING new business.

I want to get more spiritual SO BADLY. We are struggling right now with our religion. Let me rephrase that; Our faith, Our testimony and our love for the gospel is NOT struggling. We are struggling to live our lives the way we know He wants us to. We are struggling to be the son and daughter that our Father in heaven deserves. We are struggling. He is not. I admire people like Nie and Cjane for being so open an honest about their religion and not offering any apologies. I need to be more like them. I want to shout it from the rooftops just like them. If for nothing more than to help me.

I want to post my recipes every now and then. I have blossomed into my own with these diet restrictions. The sky is the limit and I’d love to share some of my successes with you.

I just want to write.

But I can’t stop day dreaming about him…

Tonight with Miles’s dinner I made him a smoothie.

A blueberry, strawberry, (banana bread frozen) banana, BREASTMILK smoothie! It was his first experience with anything like a smoothie. He didn’t let the new experience slow him down. Even mastering the straw with only just a few pull-the-straw-out-and-fling-smoothie-all-over-the-kitchen moments. I call that a success.

I may or may not have tried this smoothie. And it may or may not have been my very first time ever tasting breastmilk. (what??.. too much information??)

I also may or may not have let Miles take this smoothie into the bathtub with him since he didn’t finish it at dinner, and we may or may not have had a blueberry speckled bath.

While we are on the subject of new food adventures, I’d like to introduce you to Miles’s first pizza :

Homemade wheat crust, homemade tomato sauce, and topped with all sorts of delicious vegetables of the non-allergic-too variety. Black beans, peas, broccoli, carrots, corn & green beans. YUM!

After the first initial gagging, he loved it. And loved it again for lunch the next day, and dinner, then lunch again and then dinner again. I think you see where this is going. Tonight’s dinner was the last of it.

Tomorrow I attempt Quinoa and black bean hamburgers! I am so glad we don’t have to eat like him…