I have a confession to make

We started using disposable diapers. There. I said it. And I don't know how I feel about it.

I mean, on one hand, the Bummis prefolds we were using were so easy to use and so much better for the environment. On the other hand, my child has diaper rash and the only thing that will help it is the disposables. Seriously. We can use all the diaper cream we want on his bum (someday he will kill me for writing about his bum on the internet) with the cloth diapers, but the rash doesn't go away. When we put disposable diapers on him we don't need to use diaper cream, the rash goes away.

I'm so conflicted by this decision. I mean, I don't want diapers to be in the landfills when my grandchildren's grandchildren are born, but I don't want my son to have diaper rash, either. We've been using Huggies because we used that brand when we were in the hospital and they were on sale when I went to buy them.

But I've been researching environmentally friendly diaper options and we'll be making the switch when we've used up the Huggies we have.

Free parenting advice...that I wanted!

Thanks to Tiffany at Bloggy Moms and Amy at Positive Parenting Solutions I was able to attend a free parenting seminar entitled "Get Kids to Listen without Reminding and Yelling" on Thursday evening.

I had a really rough day on Thursday and when I sat down on the couch after putting Pierce to bed I really wanted to just lie on the couch and stare at the television until it was time for me to go to bed. When I received the reminder email about 15 minutes before the presentation started I groaned. I did not want to attend. I did not want to have to listen actively and take notes. I almost didn't attend, but I talked myself into it by telling myself that I could always leave if I wanted to, but that I should go and at least give it a try.

I am so glad I attended. SO glad! While the topic was geared to older children rather than Pierce who is just 8 months, I felt like I learned some valuable tools to deal with misbehaviour when we get there. Amy spoke about the importance of belonging and significance in children's lives and how punishment has to do with blame, shame and pain (either physical or emotional). She explained why consequences are better than punishment. I even thought to myself, "Wow, I wish my parents had known this when I was growing up!"

Positive Parenting offers a comprehensive parenting course here and I am seriously considering taking it. The only thing that's holding me back is convincing my husband to allow me to spend the money. Maybe I'll wait until Pierce is a little older, but part of me wants to have these techniques in my back pocket so that when the time comes I'm fully prepared.

Anyways, I would definitely recommend the course, even though I haven't taken all of it myself. Amy does host some free webinars, so you can check those out and register for them here and you can even enroll to get email notifications of new free webinars coming up if you scroll to the bottom of that page.

Meal Planning Monday

Here's our menu for this week. What does yours look like?

Monday: Pork Chops in BBQ Sauce, veggies

Tuesday: Tacos

Wednesday: Spinach, hot peppers & goat cheese quiche with salad

Thursday: Shepherd's pie

Friday: Pizza & movie night

Saturday: Spaghetti

Sunday: Egg sandwiches & salad.

The earth shook!

I was sitting on the couch on Wednesday afternoon and all of a sudden I felt this weird sensation coming from the couch. At first I thought it was the cat scratching the couch, so I yelled, "George!" but then I heard him meow his, "What!? I'm just lying here minding my own business!" and I looked over at him on the other couch. At that point, my husband yelled down to me from his office, "Why is the whole house shaking?" and it made me realize that it wasn't just the couch, it was the whole house. Then I thought maybe someone in the building's washer load was off balance, but I didn't hear any banging that would come along with a clothes washer shaking the building. By the time we realized it had been an earthquake the shaking had stopped.

The epicenter of the earthquake was in Gracefield, a small town in Quebec where it was measured a 5.0 on the Richter scale. It was felt in southern and western Ontario as well as western Quebec and as far south as Ohio and as far east as Maine. The last time an earthquake of this magnitude was felt in this area was 1998.

Unfortunately, the earthquake was also felt in Pierce's bedroom where he was having a nap and it woke him up!

Thankful on Thursday

On Monday I spent the day at the hospital with a good friend who was having a miscarriage. She had an ultrasound appointment in the morning and then was required to hang out in the ER waiting room until the results came back. I met her at the hospital after her ultrasound and Pierce and I hung out with her for four hours until all her blood work had been done and the OB/GYN showed up. She was planning on going by herself, but I know that I would've wanted someone to talk to if it was me going through that, especially four hours of sitting around, so I was happy to go and keep her company.

It really made me realize how lucky I am to have such a healthy baby boy.

Please forgive the way I look in this picture, I hadn't slept in two days.

I am still mad at my birth experience

I had a c-section with Pierce. If you have read my birth story then you know all about it, but if not then I'll reiterate some of the details here.

I was 4 days past my due date. I was lying in bed when my husband made me laugh and I felt that popping feeling that women describe when their water breaks. We called the hospital and they had us come in. The confirmed that my water had broken, but when they put me on the monitor, I was having extremely mild contractions. I couldn't even feel them. So I had to be induced. My water had broken but my body was like, "Everything's fine, just relax." and the doctors were like, "Uh, no, this poses an infection risk, we need to get the baby out." and my body responded, "Fine, but I'm not doing any of the work." Awesome.

But wait...it gets better! After being induced and going into active labour we had gotten me to 6cm dilated and 80% effaced. Woohoo! Only 4cm and 20% left to go, right!? WRONG. I went from 6cm, 80% to 6cm 50%. Which means that not only was I not making progress, I was regressing.

So I had to have a c-section. My doctor says that it was a fit issue. Pierce just wouldn't fit. But regardless of that, I can't help feeling like my body failed me. Why didn't I go into labour on my own? Why did I have to be induced? I also blame myself. If I had gotten up and into different positions, maybe he would've fit. If I had been allowed to stay in the shower where I was very comfortable then maybe I would've been able to handle labour better. If I had been a better advocate for myself then maybe my labour and delivery would've gone the way I wanted it to.

I feel cheated out of the experience I've always dreamed of. I feel cheated that I only got to hold my baby after everyone else had because I was in recovery while my baby was elsewhere in the hospital. In my hospital room without me. Meeting the rest of his family when he hadn't had a chance to meet his Mama. I feel cheated out of the moment where the doctor catches the baby and puts him on his Mama's chest for her to touch and look at all over. The first time I saw my baby was when they slung him over the sheet for me to look at and I couldn't even see anything but his outline because the light was in my eyes. The first time I met him I could hardly see anything other than his eyes and nose. I so desperately wanted to reach out for him but my arms were attached to the operating table. My arms were tied down to the operating table. Pretty barbaric way to give birth if you ask me. When I finally got to hold my baby he was at least an hour old. And a picture of him had been put on Facebook already. My sister in law took a picture of him with her blackberry and posted it on Facebook for everyone to see. There are people I don't know who got a better look at my son after he was born than I did. People on the internet who I have never met and probably will never meet saw my son closer up than I did. I'm a little bitter about that.

Next time will be different. MUCH different. I am planning on hiring a doula for my next pregnancy so that I will have someone there to advocate for me when I'm in the throws of a contraction and unable to think clearly. I am planning a VBAC next time and I'm really hoping that it'll go the way I want.

Someone needs to apologize!

On Saturday afternoon Kim Kardashian tweeted the following:

"EWW Im at lunch,the woman at the table next 2 me is breast feeding her baby w no coverup then puts baby on the table and changes her diaper"

"Misunderstood tweet-The woman had her boobs out at restraunt yest feeding then laid her on table and changed her w the food there.Unsanitary"

"My sister breast feeds! Its a natural beautiful thing, there's nothing wrong w it, but she covers herself, not w her boobs exposed"

I am completely outraged. There is so much wrong with these statements that my mind is completely blown.

Some babies don't like to be covered up while eating. I covered up the first two times that I breastfed Pierce in public and then decided that it just wasn't worth it. He doesn't like it, he fights it then he gets hot, which makes me hot. Not to mention he was 6 days old and both of us were still trying to get the hang of this breastfeeding thing. I needed to be able to see the latch. Breastfeeding women shouldn't be expected to cover up. There is nothing to cover up. If they want to cover themselves for their own purposes then fine, but there is no reason to expect that a woman feeding her baby should use a cover.

I also take issue with the last statement. A breastfeeding woman does not have her "boobs exposed" any more than a woman wearing a low cut top such as in the picture on the left hand side of the screen. I have NEVER showed that much of either of my breasts when breastfeeding. When I breastfeed, I unhook my bra, and get my breast ready while it's still underneath my shirt, then lie my son down in front of it, pull my shirt up and latch him on. My nipple is exposed for maybe two seconds. And the top of my breast is covered with my shirt, the bottom with my son's head. The most exposed part of my body is actually my stomach where my shirt is pulled up.


Let us not forget that this is a woman (and I use the term loosely) who has posed for Playboy magazine. I'm sorry but any woman who has been featured in a magazine that is produced solely for the masturbatory pleasures of men has no right to tell women when they need to cover up. I don't have a problem with women posing for Playboy, I really don't. If you have the body and you want to be featured in a magazine like that, all the power to you. Really. But then don't make comments that women who are nourishing their children in the most healthy way possible need to cover up. You forfeit that right when you pose naked in an international magazine.

Just for good measure, I have included some pictures below of myself breastfeeding my son. Please feel free to compare them to the pictures posted here as well as 90% of the pictures that will show up if you do a Google Image search with the words "Kim Kardashian."

Happy Father's Day!

In honour of Father's Day yesterday, I wanted to include a few pictures of my husband with our son. I never used to understand when I read how it made other women feel to see their husband with their child, but looking at these pictures makes my heart swell all over again.



Hope everyone had a great day yesterday!

Our Wedding Day

Where to start? Mr. B and I had originally planned to get married on July 27, 2008 in front of our friends and family. We booked a hall, a caterer and a photographer for the day, but we didn't end up using any of them because we eloped.

We had planned a trip to Newfoundland for Mr. B's family reunion and my parents decided to come at the same time because my mom also has family in Newfoundland. The trip was from August 3 - 13, so we decided it would be great to use that as our honeymoon and elope to Niagara Falls the week before we left. We went to the mall to get our rings and a dress for me to wear and we made arrangements to get married at a small chapel on the evening of August 1, which was also our one year anniversary of getting engaged, and we drove down that day. I had made arrangements for us to stay at an expensive hotel in a room overlooking the falls. It was a beautiful room with a beautiful view! I had also made reservations for us at The Keg which was right inside the hotel.

By the time we got to the hotel we were in a rush to make it to the chapel on time. Neither of us were dressed for the ceremony, so we hurried to check in and get up to our room to change. I called the officiant and let him know that we were running a little late and I brought the map up to the hotel room so that Mr. B could look at it and figure out how to get there. I did this because I am useless when it comes to reading a map (this was a real map, not mapquest or google maps) and Mr. B knows this. As we were getting dressed and ready I kept asking him, did you look at the map? Do you know where we're going? and he said he would. Well, he never ended up looking at the map so when we got to the car I asked him to let me drive so that he could read the map and he said no. Fine, I got into the passenger side and off we went. He then started asking me to look at the map and tell him where to go. Again, I cannot read maps, so first I had to find the page that I needed, which easily took me 10 minutes and then I had to find where we were. I was so annoyed that he was doing this. We were already running late, he didn't look at the map like I asked him to and he wouldn't let me drive so that he could look at the map. Eventually he pulled over, looked at the map and got us where we needed to be, but we ended up fighting the entire way to get married. We both think this is hilarious.

The chapel was tiny. All five of us could not have fit inside, and it was a very hot evening, so we stood outside the chapel to get married. (I do have pictures, but they're on my laptop that's broken, so I can't retrieve them, sorry!) The ceremony was short, but sweet. The officiant's wife was one of our witnesses and he brought someone else with him to be another witness.On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Dairy Queen to have ice cream and then we went to The Keg for dinner. Our dinner was delicious and the restaurant overlooked the falls so when the fireworks went off over the falls we were able to see them from our table. It was a beautiful day.

When we got back from our honeymoon my mom decided to throw us a party. She held it at her home and had lots of our friends and family there. She even got us a wedding cake. I wore my wedding dress and got my hair done. Here are some pictures of our party.

Dirty Boy, Clean Boy, Sleepy Boy

Dirty Boy


Clean Boy


Sleepy Boy (Look Ma, no swaddle!)

Check this out!

http://adventuresinbabyfood.com/contributing-authors/devon-ballinger/

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, you're looking at one of the newest contributors for the web magazine, Adventures in {Baby} Food! I am so excited about this venture and the opportunity to hone my writing skills.

Go and check it out! Currently we are having a Food Tossin' Celebration to celebrate the relaunch of the site. There are lots of new reviews to be read and some fabulous giveaways, too. There is a new giveaway every day this week, so check the site often to enter to win some great prizes!

Here's the link to the Food Tossin' Celebration where you can enter the giveaways:

http://adventuresinbabyfood.com/tag/food-tossin-celebration/

Sometimes you just need a break

On Friday morning I received a message from my mother (via Twitter, no less, what is this world coming to?) saying that I should use one of my "New Mommy" coupons that she gave to me at my baby shower last summer.

At first I decided that I wanted to use my coupon for free babysitting so I could go get myself a pedicure, relax and even read a magazine or a chapter from a book. It's the little things, people. I realized, however, that I would much rather have a nap instead. I haven't been feeling well for the last little while and it's no use to have a nap while Pierce is napping because, more often than not, he only sleeps for 30 minutes and I wake up to him screaming. You can imagine that sleeping for less than 30 minutes and waking up to my baby screaming his head off might leave me feeling less rested than I felt before I fell asleep.

So I packed Pierce up with all his toys and his play pen and took him over to my mom's house where I handed him to her, grabbed myself a can of coke and my magazine and snuggled into her bed. She dug out some chocolate from her closet for me and I sat in her bed reading and eating chocolate for half an hour when I decided I was ready to fall asleep, so I lay down (after ensuring I had finished all of my chocolate, of course!) and slept for one and a half glorious hours.

When I woke up I lay there for a few minutes just enjoying being in bed by myself without worrying about Pierce and my mom came into the room to let me know that he was looking for food. I got up and nursed him while my Mom told me about all the stuff they'd done while I was sleeping. They had gone for a walk to the liquor store and back and they'd played together with the toys I'd brought.

It was perfect for both of us. Some bonding time for Pierce with his grandma and some me time for well, me! Sometimes that's what you need as a mom, though. You need to be away from your child and miss them a little bit. It makes you a better mom to have time for yourself.

Meal Planning Monday

I think that the best way to control your grocery budget is to plan your meals. When you plan your meals you can plan around what's on sale at your grocery store. It saves you the stress of wondering "What's for dinner tonight?" You just check your menu and make what's on it. And there's no eating out when you plan your meals, because you have the food easily accessible in your house so there's no excuse for getting take out.

Here is my menu for this week:

Monday: Spaghetti

Tuesday: Homemade Chicken Nuggets with buffalo sauce and veggies

Wednesday: Stir fry with rice

Thursday: Hot dogs & salad - I'm busy this night so I'll need something quick and easy to make.

Friday: Meatballs in BBQ sauce with rice & veggies

Saturday: Chicken Caesar Salad

Sunday: Father's Day - out for dinner

Do you meal plan? Do you have a list of tried and true recipes that you rotate, or do you mix it up with lots of different meals?

Winner!

The winner of our Father's Day giveaway is Megan Shapka! Congratulations, Megan, I will be in contact with you.

Thanks to everyone who participated. I'm hoping to have more giveaways like this in the future, so stay tuned for that. If you want to be the first to know about giveaways you can join my facebook group here or follow me on twitter here.

Father's Day Contest is now closed!

Thanks, everyone, for your participation! I will use a random number generator tomorrow morning to determine the winner. I hope to have a lot more giveaways in the future!

It's time to get real again

about our debt. We've been getting back into old habits. Not thinking about how much debt we have. Spending money on things that aren't necessities. Like eating out. A lot.

When I first posted about our debt I just said that we had over $20,000 in consumer debt. I didn't give exact numbers, exact interest rates, exact anything. I think in order to keep myself accountable I'm going to start posting here at least once per month, in detail, about our debt.

This is the post for June. Our debt in detail:

Bank of Montreal Credit Card
Balance as of today: $7524.51
Interest Rate: 12.9% (fixed)

ING Direct Line of Credit #1
Balance as of today: $4857.17
Interest Rate: 6.7% (variable)

ING Direct Line of Credit #2
Balance as of today: $4836.50
Interest Rate: 4.2% (variable)

Total: $17218.18

What I normally do is pay the minimum amount on the two ING accounts since their interest rates are lower, and pay as much as possible towards the credit card. I also transfer any available money from those accounts after the minimum payments are made back into our chequing account and apply it to the credit card. So the lines of credit are pretty much always maxed out, but they have lower interest rates anyways and it's best to put all the money we can towards our highest interest rate to get it paid off quickly.

I also haven't been focusing on our budget properly so we probably have an abundance of money on our chequing account that can go towards debt repayment. I will be looking into that today and also creating our June budget, which I haven't done yet. We have a wedding to attend in Quebec at the beginning of August and that's definitely going to have an effect on our budget, so I want to get this all settled so that we're in the best position possible when the wedding comes around.

It's time to get serious about this again and we really need to keep ourselves accountable.

Food Gadget Review

One of my favourite food gadgets is The Nibbler by Nuby. I make Pierce's baby food so it's great for when he's teething because I can just pop a frozen cube inside, make sure it's fastened tightly and give it to him. Sometimes he gets a little confused and uses the handle to soothe his mouth, but usually he finds the mesh pocket with the frozen cube in it. It's a great way to soothe his painful gums without using medication. If your child hasn't started solids yet you can still use it - just put an ice cube inside. I've put ice cubes in it on really hot days when I wanted to ensure that Pierce was getting enough hydration.

It's also really easy to clean. I don't have a lot of time to spend cleaning something like this, so I love that it comes apart easily (though not so easily that Pierce has ever been able to undo it!), it's easy to rinse off, I throw it in the dishwasher, wash the mesh part by hand and let it air dry. I have heard that the mesh net can be difficult to clean if you put bananas in it, but we've never tried that because Pierce doesn't like bananas anyway.

Overall, I think The Nibbler is a pretty neat gadget. Pierce likes to use it, it's easy for him to use, it's easy for me to clean and it's safe.

The Nibbler is a product that was purchased for me at my baby shower and I have chosen to do this review myself. The above is my honest opinion and assessment of this product. I was not in any way compensated for this review.

Fun at the Fair!

On Saturday a friend of mine called to see if we wanted to go to the spring fair. She had four tickets that her husband had won from the radio, so it was a pretty sweet deal and we couldn't pass it up! Parking is ridiculous during the fair (and so is traffic!) so we parked pretty far away and walked to the fairgrounds. We ended up having a blast! It looked like it was going to rain but it ended up being a very nice day, I was just glad that we put sunscreen on Pierce before taking him out.

Our first stop? The petting zoo! They gave us an ice cream cone filled with food and let us into the goat pen where there were about 20 goats. I was afraid that Pierce would get too scared by being swarmed by the goats so I let Mr. B feed them and Pierce and I stood close. Pierce didn't get scared at all and even "pet" some of the goats. ("Pet" = whacked one in the head, after which I took his hand and showed him how to pet it properly.) The goats were so. freaking. cute, by the way, and I wanted to take one of them home with us.

Then we hit up the rides. There wasn't a lot that Pierce could go on so we did a lot of watching my friend's son, who is 18 months old. I did, however, take him on the carousel which he seemed to like. I was surprised that it went so fast - it was hard to stand there and hold on to him!

We had so much fun, but I have to admit that my knees and ankles are really sore already and I am worried about doing the 60km Weekend to End Women's Cancers in September. If I can't spend a day at the fair without my legs aching then how am I supposed to spend a weekend walking 60km? I think I need to start training sometime soon and maybe a trip to the doctor is in order!

I just changed two poopie diapers in a row

in less than an hour.

Pierce hasn't pooped in forever. I guess the broccoli I gave him backed him up a bit? Or maybe it was the bananas that I gave him before the broccoli that did it. Either way, I should've known this was coming.

And as I'm writing this, he just pooped again. Excuse me while I go change the fourth diaper of the day. He's only been awake for two hours.

And I'm back. So anyways, he hasn't pooped in forever. In an attempt to get him to poop I've fed him oatmeal cereal for lunch and apples for dinner for the past two days.

I've never been so relieved to see so much poop in my life.

And now, of course, my bed sheets are in the wash. Because, when you change your baby on your bed and he requires 3 changings in 2 hours, you get a little poop in places where it doesn't belong!

Father's Day is just around the corner

Pierce is too young to make his Poppa a handmade Father's Day card this year, but that doesn't mean that my husband doesn't get a handmade card.

Kristin at Creations by Kristin makes cards for all occasions, crocheted hats and pacifier straps. I gave my mom and grandma some of her cards for Mother's Day this year (One each from me and Pierce.) and they were a big hit. And she gave me some beautiful thank you cards at my baby shower. Remember these from my shower post?

There's something so great about a handmade card. It says to the person you give it to, "I care about you so much that I'm not going to give you some generic, store bought card. I want the card you get to be an original, not something that 40,000 other daughters and sons gave their dad for Father's Day."

But...if you suck at making things like I do, your handmade card might say, "I ran out of time to get you a card and when I went to Hallmark this morning the line up was out the door and there were no cards left." No one likes to hear that on a special occasion, whether it is said or implied.

My Mom decided a while ago that she only wants handmade cards. So the Mother's Day before last I went to the scrapbooking store, picked out some nice paper and embellishments and lovingly made her a card that actually turned out pretty well. The first thing she said to me when she opened it was, "You didn't make this!" which to me is a compliment, but I can understand how to other people who are actually good at this sort of stuff it may not be. Then last year for her birthday, I was HUGELY pregnant, insanely uncomfortable and certain that if I didn't have a baby very soon, I would die. So I pulled a sheet of lined paper out of a notebook, folded it up and drew, with pen, two stick people, one of whom was pregnant with a stick baby in her belly, to represent my husband and I. She said she loved it. She lies.

So that none of you have to go through the shame of a lined paper card with stick people on it, Kristin has generously agreed to provide one of my readers with a handmade Father's Day card of their choice.

Here's how to enter:

1. Go to Kristin's blog and check out all of her cards then come back here and tell me which one is your favourite.

2. Join Kristin's Facebook group then come back here and leave a separate comment to tell me you did.

3. Follow me on twitter and tweet, "Give Dad a handmade Father's Day card without doing any of the work! Check out @piercesmomma's blog." And then leave me a comment telling me you did.

Each one is a separate entry, so if you do two, leave two different comments, if you do all three, leave three different comments. I'll use a random number generator to choose the winner. You have until 9pm EST on Thursday, June 10 to enter. The winner will be announced Friday morning and the card will be put in the mail for the winner no later than Monday so it'll have lots of time to get to you.

Good luck!

My morning coffee tastes better at 5:30 than at 7:30

I never knew that until this morning.

Up until just recently (as in, three days ago) Pierce has been swaddled to sleep. Yes, I swaddled my son until he was 8 months old. With pride. Okay, less with pride and more out of pure fear. He slept so well that I was afraid to mess with anything lest he turn into one of those babies that never sleeps and has his Momma walking into walls with exhaustion.

I agonized over how to rid him of the swaddle. Should we just go cold turkey? Wean him off of it? I was leaning more towards weaning, but that meant that it would be longer when he was finally sleeping without the swaddle, and I really wanted him to be able to sleep without us needing to bring the swaddling blankets with us if we were going to be out somewhere with him past bedtime. And I really didn't want to hear any more Judgey McJudgerson comments about the swaddle.

After months of doing nothing because I couldn't decide whether or not to go cold turkey, I decided to just take the plunge. Yes, I was scared, but he needed to learn to sleep without the swaddle at some point, and really he seemed to not want to be swaddled anymore when we went to put him to bed. I knew that he'd eventually learn to sleep and I wouldn't be so sleep deprived I couldn't function.

It's actually been going pretty well. I can't really complain. He doesn't sleep through the night, but he doesn't usually wake up too much, either. Last night he woke up a lot. The worst part of him waking up without being swaddled is that he's so much more difficult to get back to sleep. He has spent a lot of time sleeping in our bed with us when we can't get him to go to sleep. The first two days when he made it into our bed I just left him there, but last night when I woke up and he was fast asleep, I was able to successfully transfer him to his crib.

Despite the 5:30 wake-up calls this is going a lot better than I thought it would, so I'm happy, albeit a little tired!

Eight Months

Dear Pierce,

I can't believe it's been eight months since you were born. I almost wrote that I can't believe that it's been eight months since we met, but you and I knew each other long before that fateful day in the hospital. I knew I loved you before you were born, and I told you that every day, but I could never have known how much my love for you would grow. We have that special connection that only a mother and child could share. I remember turning to my Mom soon after you were born and saying, "Mom, I just love him so much!" and she said, "I know - just wait until he gets older." Confused, I asked, "Will it lessen?" and she replied, "No, it will grow more." I didn't believe her then. I thought it was impossible to love someone more than how I loved you at that moment. But Pierce, your Grandma was right! I love you more and more each day. Sometimes I scare myself with how much I love you. I remember telling your Poppa that I didn't think I could love someone more than I loved him. I was so wrong, Pierce. And every day that I wake up I think that it can't be possible to love you more than I do that day, but then I wake up the next day.

You make me so proud of you every day. You can sit all by yourself now, and have been able to for some time. You are also showing interest in learning to crawl, although you haven't quite figured that out yet. Sometimes I try to help you figure it out, but other times I just sit there in awe, unable to believe that we are already here. We are already at the point where you are trying to crawl. It makes my heart not only swell with pride, but also sink a little to know that you are slowly becoming independent. But I know that I will always be an important part of your life, and you will always, always be an important part of mine.

Happy eight months, Pierce.

Love,
Momma