Our Family

I thought I would do an introduction to our family like Shannon did.  I have two children- Seth, age 3 1/2, and Elijah (Eli), age 7 months.  We adopted Seth when he was 9 months old, and he was the easiest baby in the world to care for.  He was ultra-content, slept like an angel, ate good and was just so easy to take places. In general, he is a typical three-year old now, but still super easy and has a great attention span.  This has been a blessing since the birth of Eli, who has been a very difficult baby to care for.  Eli was diagnosed with reflux when he wasn't even 3 weeks old.  He barely ever slept (most newborns are supposed to sleep 18-20 hours a day- we were lucky to get 12 in several 30-45 min chunks), and when he did sleep, it was restless and full of struggling.  He was never content, and just cried or squirmed and moaned when he was awake.  I don't think I put him down during the day longer than to change a diaper, because being flat on his back made it worse.  So we've been through medications, home-remedies, tests, visits to specialists, etc.  Add in a 6-day hospital stay at 6-weeks for RSV, and we're pretty exhausted.  But he is a lot happier now.  I'll go more into the reflux in a different post, but overall, he is doing well now but still has lots of difficulty with sleep.  So if you are an exhausted new mom, I can relate! We love both our boys and are looking forward to the day when Eli grows out of his tummy issues and they are both able to play happily together and we can do fun stuff as a family.  I work part-time (very part-time right now).  So I am trying to figure out the balance of life in general with two kids, and am just starting to grasp that idea! Hope you enjoy our blog and feel like you're not alone out there dealing with little ones!

Introduction to the Bush family

Since I am going to be a contributor, I thought a short introduction to our family would be in order. I am the mom of 3 kids, all with rapidly approaching birthdays. Stephanie is almost 11 and will be entering the 5th grade. Brayden is almost 4 and Katie is 10 months old. She will be one in late September.

With my first two children, I followed no schedule or routine. My parenting style at that time most closely resembled attachment parenting. By the time Katie joined us, I'd had the opportunity to watch some of my friends use the Babywise routine with much success. I decided to give it a try. In my own way I have used babywise with Katie since she was a couple weeks old. There were hard times, but mostly some really great times where I ended up with an extremely happy baby with a predictable routine. I will be the first to admit I have tweaked the concept to help it better fit my family.

I look forward to sharing our ups and downs and getting support from all my friends!