Kara's 2010 New Years Resolutions

Is it really the end of the year, already?  I can't believe it.  2009 started with a new baby and has been nothing but watching the kids grow and change ever since.  Lately I have really enjoyed watching Maida and Skogen play together.  Every day they interact a little more.  My all-time favorite is how Maida talks to Skogen all the time like he actually understands what she's saying.  Yesterday I overheard her saying to him, "Skogen, you stay home and watch the dog.  I'm going to the grocery store and then I'll be home.  And don't touch the baby, she's sleeping!  You be patient about that."  Here's a video that I took of them playing house this morning.

I have a feeling that 2010 is going to bring a lot of changes for us.  One being that I am going to start working again, beginning on Monday!  I don't actually have to leave the house, and I'm still going to be a stay-home-mom, but I am taking in an extra baby!  Baby N will be spending our weekdays with us and I'm sure this will keep me very busy.  He is almost three months old and I can't wait to have a new baby in the house again.  There are two things that I'm nervous about concerning Baby N, though.  One, I won't have as much time to spend with my own kids, and, two, I'm not the best house keeper in the world (and if I was bringing my new baby to someone else's house, I'd expect them to keep it pretty clean).  So, I've decided to start here with my new years resolutions (I've never made new years resolutions before).  Here we go...

Kara's 2010 New Years Resolutions

1.  Never go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink.

2.  Vacuum every night.

3.  Keep the toys organized.

4.  Spend at least 20 minutes of quality, alone time with Skogen and Maida every day.

I think I'll stop there before I stress myself out too much about having too much to fulfill, but I did have one other new years resolution that I have already fulfilled that I thought was worth mentioning!  It was a new years resolution to wean Skogen, which was slowly proving to be a very difficult task over the past two months.  Luckily over Christmas I came up with a master plan and two nights ago I executed the plan and it worked perfectly.  In case you are ever in need of a great master plan for weaning a breastfed baby, here's how I did it (which is very different than I weaned Maida, who was just as difficult to wean - every baby is different, so no guarantees this will work for you!)...


First of all, I had been buying bottle after bottle, just to find one that Skogen could put in his mouth without gagging on.  He literally would gag every time I stuck a nipple in his mouth.  Even the most expensive bottles, claiming to be "just like the breast" didn't work.  Little did I know that the secret was hiding in the $0.99 bottle, the Gerber brand that I always figured was way too cheap to ever be a good bottle.  Well, that was step one of my master plan, accepting that the Gerber bottle could actually be the one he likes.

The Gerber $0.99 bottle

The second thing I had to do was find a formula that didn't taste and smell so bad.  Coming from breastmilk, which is naturally very sweet and odorless, I could feel Skogen's pain every time he'd even smell formula in a bottle and try to squirm away.  I felt bad forcing him to try it when there is no way I would ever drink it.  Over Christmas, I had remembered that my sister-in-law made her own formula for all three of her kids.  I didn't know what it tasted like, or what it smelled like, but I remembered that it had Karo syrup in it, and anything that has Karo syrup in it must be good, right?!  So, I got the recipe from her and whipped up a batch.  This was the second step in my mater plan, discovering a sweet, odorless formula
.

Sweet, odorless formula ingredients

Step three in my master plan was to find a way to get Skogen interested in the new bottle and interested in what was in the bottle.  So, I had Skogen "help" by sitting on my hip and holding the bottle while I made the formula.  Every time he'd hold the bottle up to my face, I'd say, "Yummy! Mmmmmmmmmmmm!  We're going to put some new milk in there."  Well, by the time the formula had actually cooled down enough to taste, Skogen was begging for me to pour it into the bottle.  I couldn't get it in the bottle fast enough and he was sucking it down like it was better than anything he'd ever had!  That was the final step of my master plan.  Getting Skogen to actually accept the formula in the bottle.

So, we are now on day three of the weaning process and it has been fairly painless (unless you want me to mention my super sore, very engorged, yowie-owie boobs).  I'm pleased with this progress and slowly plan to  switch Skogen over to whole milk since the homemade formula really doesn't have much nutrition (that's probably why he likes it!!).  I also plan to slowly phase Erik into the night-night process as up until now, I've always been the one to put him to sleep because I was nursing and he wouldn't take a bottle.  It will be nice to know that I can leave Skogen over bedtime now and someone else will be able to put him to sleep.

I hope that you have a great New Years Eve.

Happy New Years!