Revisiting EC

First let me start by saying sorry for not posting in so long! My father in law came to stay with us for a week so I spent a while cleaning and preparing and then a week playing hostess and then preparing for Mr to go back out to sea! But I will try to get back on track with writing at least weekly! I have a lot of blogs I want to get down... like making a wrap and making some momma cloth items and baby sign language... but when I have more time!

So remember back when I was talking about "Elimination What Now?" (if you need a refresher on EC click here)... well a couple days ago I decided we typically catch her poo (she is so obvious when she has to poop!) so why not try to catch her when she has to pee! So for a few days I let baby go cover free (I have a few fitted diapers and prefolds and pins) and I really watched and because she wasn't wearing a waterproof cover I could see the moment she peed, with out getting pee all over the sofa! I could see in her face the moment she did pee and at the time I couldn't see before she had to pee... though looking back I see now that she was trying to tell me but I just misread her signals. After a couple of days of watching her but still having her pee in diapers I finally decided to get serious about it. I started with putting her on the potty (I just hold her over our toilet since we dont have an actual potty for her) after naps but I noticed she didn't always have to go right after her naps. Then it just clicked sort of... I noticed she was just getting fidgety and not fussy but she just seemed unsettled. I knew that she wasn't hungry and when I checked her diaper she would be dry so I started trying her on the potty then. And et voila! She peed! This whole time she really had been telling me when she had to go but I thought that she was just teething or fussy. Seriously since we started this my baby has been an even better (and she seriously is the best baby ever!) baby! She seems so happy. At first I thought maybe she doesnt really think this is as great as I do but then one morning I asked her "potty" and did the sign for potty (make a fist and sorta twist it back and forth) and she smiled and when I put her on the toilet she smiled SO BIG right before she peed and then she laughed. Every time she goes on the potty we say "YAY! peepee on the potty!!" and then we dance and play in the mirror. The first couple days I was actually bringing her to the toilet more than she had to go but each time I put her on the toilet and she didn't have to go she would let me know! She pushes with her legs to try to get off the potty and she actually does that now after she pees on the potty. We are still working on the sign for "All Done" but its hard to do the sign while holding her over the potty!

I really wasn't going to get too serious with this but I thought it would be cool to do when we have time but it seems that I have created a monster! The other day while at lunch with my mother in law she started showing her pee pee signs and I tried to just ignore it and let her go in a diaper... she is a baby after all but then I felt bad. I brought her to the restroom to check her diaper and it was dry so I held her over the potty and she went! She was then an angel for the rest of lunch! She then peed on the potty while we were shopping in Kohls! She did pee in a diaper on the way to my sisters house... but she did try to tell me she had to go while I was driving there! She was asleep when I got to my sisters and when she woke up she went pee on the potty to my sisters surprise! It seems I was not serious with EC but my daughter is! She likes to go on the potty! I can see the happiness and relief on her face when she goes on the potty. Last night I thought I'd take her to the potty instead of just offering the breast when she woke in the middle of the night. She peed on the potty at 9pm and at 3am she started to stir so I checked her diaper and since it was dry I tried her on the potty and she peed! I was scared she wouldn't go back to sleep but she nursed and went right back to sleep! At 7am when she woke up nice and dry. I put her on the potty and she smiled up at me, peed and then laughed!

I wont say that EC is for everyone but it is for us! I don't think we will be a truly "diaper free" family for a while.... after all Baby is only 4 months old! But I think as long as she is telling us that she has to go, we will listen! I can't say that I don't love EC... as I look in my diaper pail I count 3 diapers, 4 shirts and 3 receiving blankets and I haven't done diaper laundry since Saturday and today is Tuesday! But I understand other parents concern... maybe they don't have the time to literally sit there and watch their baby for hours on end. Maybe you have a toddler running around also... whatever your reason for not wanting to EC that's cool with me! Though I will say, you don't have to do it all the time! I just started by getting her when she had to poop... and who wouldn't like a few less poopy diapers hanging around! It is a lot of work and it takes some time but I think this is something that pretty much everyone can achieve. I mean if we ask our 3 year olds to do this why cant we ask our 4 month olds? They are just as able to communicate their needs... we just don't speak their language yet! And that leads me to my next blog... BABY SIGN LANGUAGE! Just do it... what is the worst that can happen? You and your baby will be happier because you can finally understand each other? But that's another day... right now little miss is telling me she has to pee!

Have a great day and happy cloth diapering, nursing, baby wearing or ECing!

The possitive side to not putting away the clean laundry

So after my small victory of being under prepregnancy weight the other day I was bombarded by Christmas and celebrations and way too much food and way too much vegging out on the sofa! I find it so hard to get and stay healthy when Mr is home and he has been on stand down (only working once every 4 days) so we have just been eating and watching movies. So I am back up about 5 pounds but never the less I had planned on getting my work out routine back up with the new year anyway! Breastfeeding has been well established (I actually have a pretty big oversupply issue and still get engorged occasionally) so I don't think there should be a problem getting back into a work out routine. And the moment I notice a change in supply I will scale back because priority number one is feeding and sustaining my baby. Priority number two is that my father in law will be coming to visit in the end of January and I really don't want to hear his crap about how having a baby ruins your body. So I really want to stick it to him and show him that NOPE having a baby has NOT ruined my body. In fact pregnancy and having a baby has brought my body full circle... this is what my body was made to do! We have tried so hard and worked so hard and we finally won! A few stretchmarks are nothing in comparison to what we have now!

Before baby I used EA Active on the Wii to help me lose almost 40 pounds while Mr was deployed. And they have just come out with EA Active 2 for both the Wii and PS3. Yesterday Mr and I found it at Sam's Club for only $59 and it came with ankle or wrist weights. So today Mr is on one of this work days and I decided Well I will just get started on my new work out! Right?! WRONG! So I get everything all set up wearing my arm and leg sensors and I set up the settings and select a "medium" intensity work out. For those who don't know about it this is a game on the Play Station and it tracks your motions using 3 sensors-one on your leg and one on each arm-while you are completing the activities on the screen. It has a 9 week program where you just click and it sets up a 20-40 minute work out for you to accomplish. The work outs are strength training and cardio and it really mixes it up and it a lot of fun! So I have my glass of water right next to me, good to go and I get started. The warm up is easy... I blow through it with a ha ha ha you cant keep me down! I made and birthed a human almost 3 months ago! No fitness program can get me! We then get into some cardio and I am flying through the course when woosh... wait a minute... did I just pee myself? Great! So much for being indestructible! But thanks to my procrastination I have all the freshly cleaned and folded prefold diapers stacked on the couch in easy reach! Nothing is going to keep me down! I must soldier on even if it means peeing myself! In between work outs I stuff a prefold into my shorts and continue on! That's right... you cant scare me that easily work out program! But as I came up on exercise number 20 I can barely breath and I have already gone through 3 glasses of water. I surrender oh great and powerful EA Active work out!  So I cut my loses and quit the remainder of the work out. I burned over 130 calories and I am happy with that for today!

So note to self: just because you created and then birthed a human being does not mean that you can go right back to your old work out level! Looks like I will be scaling back already and going down to a "low" intensity work out until I can work up to medium! I am OK with that... I am not a super hero you know! Even though I often have to do many of the activities a super woman does! I cant expect to be perfect and get back to where I was right off the bat. But I look forward to taking my time to getting there! Lets just hope Baby doesn't end up with a little brother or sister before I get there! We are throwing caution to the wind and hoping that breastfeeding and the pull out method helps in that department!

The good, the bad and the Mommy!

Raise your hand if you have dreaded shots! As a child and even as an adult needles and shots do not bother me one bit, Mr however is a different story. Monday was Baby's first official doctor appointment and it included the dreaded 2 month shots! EEEP! We looked like your stereotypical first time frazzled parents. I hadn't finished the paperwork when they called us back. We had to strip Baby for her weight and height and after the diaper came off the scale broke so we had to switch to the other scale and in the process my sweater, jeans and shoes became SOAKED in pee! hahahaha gotta love it! Baby is officially 2.5 inches longer and 5 pounds heavier than she was at birth! She is in the 90th percentile for weight but only the 30th for height which is surprising to me because I am not petite! Perhaps she will take after the short females on Mr's side of the family. So we get into the exam room and the dr comes in and is checking out Baby (who was SO happy and chatty and adorable!) They checked her temp (rectally) and suddenly my happy silly baby was not so happy or silly. As the dr finished her exam (which Baby is perfect from head to toe... she has a hemangioma on her back but it should go away with time) Baby decided it was payback time for the thermometer and let out the biggest poop ever! SO funny! I got the normal confused/intrigued questions on cloth diapering logistics from the dr while I changed her. The typical, "don't they leak?" and "do you use a service". Nope, don't use a service and do you see this poop contained in here! NO leaks! So we finish up and at the military facility we go to shots are given at immunizations, not by your actual dr. So we go over to immunizations and sign in. We are greeted with heartless drones who take our paperwork and tell us to wait. As the clock tics by I am starting to dread my decision to wait until after the shots to feed the baby. On one hand it will comfort her afterwards but on the other hand she is hungry now... and just then we are called back. The drone says nothing and then in a robotic voice (or maybe I was imagining that part) she reads from a sheet of paper, "the 2 month shot are important for all babies 2 months of age to receive. The include 2 shots, one in each leg and one dropper full of liquid-taken orally. Here is a sheet with all the information, do you understand why your baby needs these vaccinations?" Suddenly I am LOST! I have just been handed a package of 40 pages and I cant read everything to know how to make a good choice. OH MY GOD how can I make such huge decisions in my child's life! And of course Mr is just standing there not offering ANY help at all. I chose to for-go the orally taken rotovirus (because in my fast reading the side effects seemed to basically be what the vaccine was for!) I place my innocent baby on the table and she is then injected with 2 shots, one in each leg. Seconds after it is over and my baby is covered in blue tweety bird band-aids Mr starts reading aloud the side effects that I obviously missed during my scanning through the multitude of papers. Things like; coma, death, seizures, excessive crying, fevers of 105.0, pain, diarrhea, vomiting and long term neurological damage. The vaccine drone had long since left the room so there was no time for more questions and what did it matter? She had already gotten her vaccines! Long story short, its been 4 days and baby is just fine! She was fussy and tired the day of the shots but other than that she is fine. So other parents out there, What are your thoughts on vaccines? During Baby's inconsolable crying that day I mumbled to myself, never again! No more shots! If Baby is going to go to public school some day (we are still undecided on the home schooling idea) then she will need these vaccines but do the benefits really outweigh the possible side effects? I just don't know!

So that's the "bad" but for the good/mommy... I just love co-sleeping. It has only gotten even better with time. My sweet little angel is so much more cuddly and sweet and happy and silly. Each morning she and I wake belly to belly and we stretch and groan and moan and then I look down and she looks up and when we see each other for the first time with the warm sun shining through the window we just smile. And then the giggling and super big smiles! It melts my heart! It is the best way to wake up in the morning! How can anyone have a bad day when you wake up like that? So after our sweet morning time I get up take care of business and then I hopped on the scale and (drum-roll please!) I am officially 10 pounds UNDER my prepregnancy weight! I was a little overweight when we conceived Baby and I gained 20 pounds during my whole pregnancy... actually the day I gave birth was the day I hit 20 pounds. So since giving birth a little over 2 months ago (with the magical help of breastfeeding and NOPE I have not worked out at all!) I have lost 30 pounds! I am still about 5-10 pounds from my ideal weight but I will celebrate this small victory!

"Elimination" what now??

All pregnant women want all the info they can possibly soak up before the little one gets here and with the Internet it seems the "What the expect" Bible (as so many people told me I NEEDED to have and no, I don't have one) is all but obsolete now! Google has become the new best friend to everyone and I don't know who utilizes google more than a newly pregnant or new mommy (or daddy... I have caught Mr googleing a few baby related things since She has arrived). But the Internet can be a scary place! During my pregnancy I Googled LOADS of things and during my searches on natural parenting choices I stumbled upon several things that I thought, ok that is just weird and hmmm maybe we will give that a shot. One of the "weird" topics was known as "Elimination Communication". Sounds complicated huh?

So I became intrigued and searched more... even found and flipped through a book I found at my favorite local health food store. But even after all that reading I decided then that I am just not that crunchy. (And speaking of crunchy, when did breastfeeding and cloth diapering become "crunchy") So the whole idea behind this "Elimination Communication" (or EC as its known in the Internet world) is that your baby from the second she is born tells you when she needs to go potty! Look here for more info I laughed at this thought while pregnant and giggled at the pictures in that book which depicted a woman holding a yogurt cup (empty of course) up to her babies bum to collect poo. How weird I thought.... what would possess a parent to try this? Well the EC world says that you are successful if you just avoid the usage on one diaper a day. I cloth diaper so for me its not like EC would save the environment from a diaper or anything.... just that I would be washing one less diaper. And really, in the great scheme of things, what's one more diaper!

When baby was only a few hours old we learned that OH YES babies can tell you when they need to go! We still crack up at the big production a poop is for our little one! Breast milk poo is pretty much pure liquid with some seedy stuff thrown in there but for some reason my little monkey still makes the face and the grunt and the sigh. She also only goes maybe once a day or even once every couple of days, which is normal for breastfed babies. Its normal for them to go with every feed or to only go every once in a while... this is because breast milk is digested more completely. Anywho, Often this face-grunt-sigh production happens several times before poo actually happens. Mr and I often take this time to talk to our little one and laugh at her silliness which usually makes her smile and laugh until BAM!!!! And I say BAM because it shoots out at mach 10 speed which we discovered last week when I was changing her and she apparently was not finished (she hadn't pooped in 2 days I guess she had a lot in there!) and it shot out and hit me square in the chest! Oh yea, she has range and pretty good aim! Caution new parents... this can happen to you! Wait til they are done before trying to change!

So two months of watching this whole big poop production and laughing about how its so obvious when she needs to poop I remember hey, there are crazy people out there who have their baby poop in yogurt cups and such. Well after the other day I know for sure my little angel's poop is so NOT fitting in a yogurt cup! hahahaha But it occurs to me... maybe we can try this and then I think, Oh God no.... I have become one of the crazies! And I am here to tell ya that as of this morning I am now one of those crazies! We woke up this morning belly to belly nice and happy (did I mention we co-sleep? no, we'll talk about that later) and I sat her up on my chest and we were talking and sharing a cute mother daughter moment when face-grunt-sigh! and I had a scary thought, its been 2 days! this is going to be bad! So laughing and talking to my little one, who is doing more grunting, face-making and sighs, I get up and bring her to our master bathroom. It took a moment to figure out how to position she and I so that we both didn't end up in the toilet itself! We have a 2 month old, the thought of one of those little potty seats hasn't occurred to me until now. So after some adjustment I get us both in a good angle (me kneeling facing the thrown and holding baby by the legs with her back against my chest hovering over the potty) and she continues her face-grunt-sigh until BAM!  We have success! And thank goodness I chose to attempt this then because there was no diaper on the face of this planet (or yogurt cup for that matter!) that could have handled that! She finished with a giggle and she and I then took a bubble bath!

Baby is now passed out on my chest (hey a poop like that will make anyone need a nap!) smelling like baby soap with super soft skin! I don't think I am going to be doing it all the time but hey, why not! She makes it very easy to try by being so obvious when she has to go. "Real" EC parents will say that you can tell even when your baby needs to pee. I am not sure about that for us yet but we do know when she needs to poop. I wonder if this will help us when potty training time comes! I am just a normal semi-crunchy mom and I never expected to try EC but I must say I don't know why I thought it was so silly. Maybe I was thrown off by the yogurt cup idea but now I don't see the big deal. I know she has to poop so why not let her do it where the rest of the family does! I don't think I will get too crazy into this but I don't see why I cant do it occasionally.

So other mommies out there... give it a shot... what's the worst that can happen? You save yourself a diaper or some laundry?

Fluffy buns?

That's right... fluffy. buns. I'm talking about Cloth Diapers (CD) people! All-in-Ones, Pockets, Prefolds, Covers, detergent, wipes..... where the hell do you start! Well let me make it simple for you - there is no right or wrong way to cloth diaper! Every baby is different and every brand has something else to offer so I can't tell you which ones you should or shouldn't use. I would say that I couldn't tell you to use them at all but I am just going to say it - you have to be pretty lazy to not cloth diaper. What really is the difference between throwing a diaper in the trash and throwing it in the washer? Oh wait, that's right... the difference is one goes to a landfill and sits there for basically forever and one is simply washed, dried, reused (sometimes for more than one purpose!) and maybe even put away and saved for the next baby! Opposer's to cloth diapering have a few common "excuses" to not use cloth diapers and these usually include the start up cost, the "difficulty" and the gross factor. So first off, that start up price is as high or as low as you want it to be! And it will more than make up for itself in the long run. We've invested about $350 in diapers and Mr (the mathematician of the family) has factored that when Baby is 3.5 months old we will break even and every month after that is just free diapers! Secondly, What's so hard, you put it on, take it off, and wash! Tada, you're done! Nothing fancy. Cloth diapers have come a LONG way since our grandma's day... gone are the days of pins and complicated folding and here now are the days of snappies and pockets and aplix closures! And lastly the gross factor, it isn't that bad! And there are SO many ways to keep the grossness at bay but we'll get into that later.

Ok, now that you have chosen to use cloth diapers (because its easier, cheaper, better for baby and the environment blah blah blah) where do you get started? You don't need to make a major life changing decision right away! It can be a bit overwhelming out there... SO many brands, SO many options, SO many different kinds! So think about it, what is important for you? Do you want something you can just put on and take off and move on? Then AIOs (All in one) are for you! But be prepared to deal with long drying times! Because the soakers are sewn into the diaper they will take a bit longer to dry. Do you have a few kids in diapers... maybe one heavy wetter and one not so heavy? Then Pockets may be your solution! You can customize them by stuffing each one differently. Most pocket diapers come with their own inserts but you can honestly use anything as an insert! But what if you want to be able to go between disposable and washable? Maybe a hybrid system for you. Gro-via and G-diapers are hybrid systems but you don't even need to do anything too fancy for that kind of option. The great thing about a hybrid system is how flexible it is! But perhaps you are just flat out broke... No problem! Prefolds and covers remain the most popular cloth diapering technique today! And most diaper brand out there are found in a one-size-fits-all (OS) option which can be a tad bulky on teeny babies but they will be most value for your dollar. Or you can buy specific sizes. Still not sure which is best for you? NO PROBLEM!!! You don't have to only use one kind of diaper! Don't put all your eggs in one basket until you are sure you really like them... and even then, you may grow out of those and start to prefer a different kind!

So now you have a better idea of what diaper system you are going for but what about maintenance? Well, there are lots of different cloth diaper specific detergents... the most popular being Rockin' Green or Tiny Bubbles. But you don't need complicated fancy detergent. Here's a site that tells you which detergents are good and which to avoid. http://www.pinstripesandpolkadots.com/detergentchoices.htm You can look up your detergent and see how it ranks in the cloth diaper realm. Now, aside from detergent just how do you wash cloth diapers? Well, if you are exclusively breastfeeding, like me, then all you do is drop everything in the washer, run a rinse cycle followed by a wash (temperatures depend on the type of fabric used in your diapers... did I forget to mention, you can get natural fibers-like wool, hemp, cotton and bamboo or manufactured fibers like polyester found in microfiber and microfleece) But for those with non-breast fed poop there is an extra step... but is it really extra? Look on your package of 'sposies... it says to dump the "solids" into the toilet doesn't it! So what do you do? Shake it out, dunk in the toilet, get a sprayer attachment... you can even get flushable diaper liners that let pee seep through but hold the poop so you just lift out the liner and flush! Then toss the diaper in the diaper pail. And speaking of diaper pail what do you do about that? Where do the diapers go when they are dirty? Well that's up to you! For me, we use a little trash can... nothing fancy, doesn't even have a lid. But you may want a pail with a liner and a lid and the whole nine yards. So how often do you wash? Well that too depends on you! How many diapers do you have in your stash? I have enough diapers for about 42 diaper changes which should get me through 3 days or so but honestly I am doing a load of "spit up" laundry or something every day anyway so I throw diapers in. I just put those in first run the rinse and then add my other stuff. And honestly it helps me keep up with all the laundry in the house doing it that way! You will need about 8-12 diapers for a day. But for newborns you may need more.

Now, my life with full time cloth diapering... I am VERY happy with my choice! I feel like I am doing my part, my baby is happy and clean and so far no rashes, and it really is easy! I have a combination of pockets, AIO, and prefolds with covers. Again, cloth diapering is all what you make it but for me my favorites have to be my prefolds and covers. And really if I had known how much more I would have liked these I would have invested maybe half of what I did. SO I will sell the stuff I don't use and maybe get more of what I do use. I have Rumparooz pockets and Lil Joeys and Thirsties duo wrap covers and some Diaper Rite prefolds (found at www.diaperjunction.com) and I also made some hemp/organic cotton prefolds. I will write a blog on how to do that later. I'd like to give the gro-via disposable biosoakers a try but honestly I take cloth with me when out and about anyway. Oh yea and I don't have a wet bag. I might make one but I haven't been able to justify buying one... I can just use my old food store plastic bags for now. Prefolds and covers are great for going out because I don't need to carry a million puffy diapers around with me... instead just an extra cover and several prefolds and I am good to go!

And for those who really want to reduce and reuse what about cloth mommy pads? Well I haven't had a cycle since January 2010 when I conceived but before then I used the Diva Cup (www.divacup.com) And I love that! It take a couple times to get it right but once you do its just as comfortable as a tampon! But some mommies choose to use cloth pads. Why not? Really what is the difference between washing a pad specifically meant for that purpose and your favorite pair of undies that you soak in detergent and desperately attempt to save? Nothing... they both have blood but one of them is meant to. Anywho that's my two cents on that! I will say though, one cloth thing you can't live without (if you are a breastfeeding mommy like me!) is cloth bra pads! And let me recommend hemp ones! Hemp is naturally antimicrobial so it combats mold and sour milk smells and such... which if you have ever worn the same pair of disposable bra pads for an entire day you know what smell I am talking about!

So give it a shot guys! Even if you only use one cloth diaper a day, that's one less in the landfill and more money in your pocket!

But Why?

So lets see... lots of things to explain and introduce.

Firstly- my name... EM2 Stewart's Wife. Why? Because I have always identified myself as being his wife, because I like being called "Mrs Stewart", because while, yes, my husband wont always be EM2 Stewart (which he always points out but I think that's just because he can't wait until he isn't EM2 Stewart anymore!) I am proud that he is, has been, and (some day) will have been that guy who sacrificed so much to get us started off on the right foot. But we'll talk more about that later.

Now- the blog title... Operation Stewart Family. Why? Because our road to starting a family has been like a carefully executed military operation. Complete with plans, training, testing, invasions, bombings, defeat and finally success! Our original "plan" included waiting until Mr Stewart was out of the Navy. Which meant that Mr would be 24 and I (Mrs) would be 23. Still young right? BUT little ol' me got a job at a daycare and COULD NOT wait til then! So the new "plan" meant trying to conceive (TTC) right then and there when Mr was 19 and I was 18! Really young huh?! But here I am at nearly 23 now and only just now have we finally become parents! We'll talk about the road to get here later.

Thirdly- Who am I? Well you already know that I am the wife of EM2 Stewart (which in case you weren't Navy savvy that means Electrician's Mate second class, oh and did I mention he is a Nuke? That means he is an Electrician who works on the nuclear reactor... on a submarine to be more specific! This also means that he is the first one on - first one off the boat... but enough about him for now!) and you know that I am an almost 23 year old mother. But what you may not know is that I met Mr way back in 9th grade and that same year he gave me a silver amethyst ring and said, "someday I am going to marry you". You also might not know that 3 years later when he graduated boot camp he asked me officially. And that 2 months later we eloped in front of a fireplace at the justice of the peace's (who just so happened to be the old mayor of Virginia Beach) house while his wife stood in as our "witness". And unless you followed me on I-am-pregnant.com, you probably don't know that for almost 4 years Mr and I struggled to become Mr, Baby, and I. We dealt with irregular cycles, months of TTC to no avail, (2) 6 month deployments and countless underways, 4 miscarriages, 2 D&Cs, doctors with horrible bedside manners, an HSG, hysteroscopy, God only KNOWS how many viles of blood!, and even a very awkward semen analysis complete with a crunchy doctor paper covered sofa!! Then we soldiered through meds, fear, excitement and even a little physical therapy, but it was all worth it! Now I am a MOM... wow... and not just any mom but a semi paranoid, breastfeeding, baby wearing, cloth diapering, stay at home mom!

And lastly, Why a blog? Well this one is easy... I have always kept a journal usually on paper but so often the book is lost so I resorted to computer journaling. During much of the combat of "Operation Stewart Family" I was a member of a site called I-am-pregnant.com (IAP as my friends and I call it). I found it while looking for a due date calculator when I got my first positive pregnancy test (aka BFP for those who are forum savvy) I joined the site and tracked my progress, failures and everything in between on there. I made many friends on there... most of whom I still talk to on a daily basis! Well, most of the friends I found on there and even I myself do not use the site like we used to. I had a blog on there and since I do not use the site that often anymore I wanted a new place to track all the wonders of motherhood and joys that being a part of this family brings me! I'd like to transfer my old IAP blogs onto here so I don't lose them but I think I have about 70 blogs on there and I don't know how much non-IAP people will want to read all the details... but we will see.

So that's it. I am EM2 Stewart's Wife. I am a mother. (FINALLY!) and this is my blog. Follow it if you want or don't I don't care... I am going to write it anyway!