Tuesday, March 6, 2012

you can't plan for life.



When the hubby and I first started talking about having a baby, I had a very clear idea in my head about what it would be like. My pregnancy was going to be lovely. I was going to play music for my belly every night, i would get the nursery all ready for my little girl and I would work right up until my due date, because I'm awesome!

Unfortunately that isn't the way it turned out. I was sick every day until I went into labour. I developed condition after condition and could barely walk.. it was horrible.

Then the pregnancy ended.. thank god!
hey wait.. you're not a little girl...

we were going to be the greenest most environmentally friendly family ever!
I was going to breastfeed exclusively, no need to waste money on formula!
I was going to cloth diaper exclusively, no need to waste money on disposables!
I was going to make my own detergents, clothes, everything! I was going to have so much free time.. because I'm awesome!

my breasts did not cooperate, and I have never been able to increase my milk supply enough to sustain him, so we're "wasting" money on formula*
my baby was born too small for the cloth diapers that I had purchased, and we were still living in the tiny apartment with no space so we decided to hold off on cloth diapering until we had moved to the new house, and the smaller size insert had arrived. Unfortunately, by the time all this had happened, he had become far too used to the disposables, and would scream the second he felt wet so we decided to hold off a bit longer. We still need to use disposables at night if any of us want to get any sleep. So we wasted money on disposable diapers.

since we waited to cloth diaper and we were still at the apartment, I didn't start making all my own detergents and things, and considering my son didn't like to be put down at all for the first two months of his life (he's gotten much better), I barely had time to move, let alone do stuff.

Basically, I'm pretty disappointed in myself so far, and I'm determined to do something about it. I am now breastfeeding as much as I can but we still have to buy formula, there is nothing I can do about that.
I am cloth diapering 90% of the time, and working on making that 100%
I won't be buying any more detergents (laundry, cloth diaper, or dishwasher) or harsh cleaners. I will be making my own once I run out of what I have.
I will be planting vegetables and herbs this spring, because I want to be able to make a salad from my own garden.
I have already started to make Des' clothes, now I just need to learn to sew :o/

now if only I could figure out a way to make it financially viable to not go back to work so that I can continue to have enough time to do things.

*I don't think that it's a "waste" to buy formula to feed my baby, but if I could breastfeed and bought formula for more selfish reasons then I would consider that a waste of money.

1 comment:

Jessica said...

You're doing a great job. Being a mum is a fluid thing, and you are adjusting to both of your needs as they come up. Don't be to hard on yourself. It's really easy to say you're going to do all that stuff for an imaginary baby; harder in reality. xo