I love Pinterest…as a matter of fact I am thoroughly addicted. It’s a problem really, but one that I am OK with admitting to you all. But with this addiction comes a hard realization that I am less of a human being than some of these people who post out there. How can they make such wonderful things? Sometimes, Pinterest just makes me feel bad about myself.

Sometimes, I think “Wow! I love that rug!”…then I find that someone PAINTED it! Or a piece of wall art I am just dying to buy only to find that someone MADE IT THEMSELVES! How do they do it? Even with the tutorials I am at an utter loss. With each step I find myself scratching my head even more.

How about the outfits that everyone posts. Every time I see one put together I get excited and go to the link to find out how I can actually BUY the pieces. I am quickly reminded that I won’t be spending $500 on shoes or $1500 on the bag. Sweat pants are just as good right?

The recipes seem to be something that I can do…so that’s a positive, and I am loving all the activities being posted to do with my son. Out of everything I pin I think those two things are the things I can be good at and accomplish. Everything else? Not so much…

Don’t get me wrong, I love the site and will continue to PIN daily. But I also now realize that I have to be OK with the fact that I will never be a DIYer, or get to wear those fantastic outfits. Each board is more of a DREAM board and less of a REAL board.

Maybe I can convince the DIY people to let me PAY for them to make it for me!

As women we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be everything to everyone. The perfect wife, the best mother, the best friend, co worker…the list goes on. One of biggest things we worry about is how other people see us, because sometimes, that is more important than how we see ourselves. But why do we do it? If we did everything because it made us feel good I’d say more power to ya! But personally, I think most people try so hard for everyone else. I think it’s time we as women say that we are done trying to be 110 lbs (if you aren’t supposed to be)….done wearing ridiculous high heels….done getting our hair down every couple of weeks….and here’s my favorite….feeling pretty damn good in a pair of sweat pants. Why? Because…

This Woman’s Body…

Gave birth to a son… That’s right! I carried a baby around in my belly for 9 months! That changed my body and I’m OK with that.

Gained weight to nourish the baby in my belly…It took 9 months to put on that weight. Why do women get so hung up on losing it right away? It takes time, and that’s OK!

Nursed my son for a year…that means my breasts will never be the same. The Captain is polite about it but I can see that they are different. It’s weird, but that’s OK!

Wears sweatpants most days…Of course I do! I sit on the floor every day to play with my son. Should I be wearing a skirt and heels? No way! Why not roll and play in comfortable clothes? I know he doesn’t mind one bit, and neither do I!

Loves flat shoes…Sure, it’s nice to dress up and wear heels to feel pretty, because let’s face it… A women’s leg looks 10 times better in heels. But day to day who can bare it? Not this girl! I am pretty positive not many women can rock the heels and still manage to cart a 13 month old up and down stairs, or maneuver through the grocery  aisle while distracting that same 13 month old from throwing themselves out of the cart….but I digress…

Gets no mani/pedi…It’s not that I CAN’T do it, it’s that I just don’t have the time or even want to. Even if I did get my nails polished like I used to weekly, I can pretty much guarantee that they would chip in a day. And you know what? Who cares if my nails aren’t painted? I don’t! And I don’t find it relaxing either…so I stopped.

I promise you I like to get all prettied up when the time comes. I love to look pretty for my husband on a date night, and it’s fun to feel good when going out with my girlfriends. But on an every day basis I try not to worry about it. Maybe I should care more but I don’t. Who am I impressing at the grocery store? The answer is no one important!

So we as women need to feel good about the body we have NOW. Not the body we wish we had, or the body that we had 5 years ago. It doesn’t exist in the now…so move on. Do what makes you feel good….put on those sweat pants and breath a nice sigh of relief…put on some flats…I know your feet will thank you…..and enjoy your day!

The bottom line…do what it takes to make YOU feel good about yourself. Life is hard enough with out you beating yourself up daily.

What makes you proud about your body?

We all know my son is a busy little boy. Most of the time he won’t sit still and will play as long as you will let  him. But every day before naps and during feedings I get to sit in my glider and just hold him. He lays very still and just gazes up at me, and most days it is my favorite part of the day. It is my time to just sit and rock my son, and I feel blesses that he still lets me do it.

I probably am setting myself up for future problems, but I do rock my son to almost sleep for both naps and bed time. He is so active that it really helps to settle him down. Plus, I truly enjoy this down time with him. Sometimes, he just lays there looking at me and talking. Sometimes it’s more like singing. It’s so very sweet.

I currently am nursing 4 times a day, and for each of those feedings I bring my little man up to his room to the rocker. Here, we have less distractions, and we both have a calm spot to enjoy the feeding. After our morning feeding we spend a precious 15 minutes in that chair playing games like “peek a boo” and “so big”. Well, maybe it’s more like me playing and him laughing at me, but you get the idea.

I feel so lucky to have this time with my son every day. I feel that most of the day we are on the go, and it’s always nice to have a few minutes a day of snuggle time. Even if I am setting myself up for future going to bed problems, I have to think it’s worth it. It’s only so long that he’ll let me cuddle with him…I might as well cherish it!

For most of my life I just couldn’t understand peoples love of coffee. The taste disgusted me, and I just had no use for it. That is until about 4 years ago when I started drinking it for my wedding diet. It started by forcing myself to drink it in the morning. What started as a chore soon became a daily routine. I loved my coffee in the morning! But never before have loved coffee so much as to now, when my mornings are early, and my days are busy. These days coffee is my best friend, and now that I am nursing less I am able to indulge more, and coffee is one of my greatest friends!

I refrained from coffee pretty much through my entire pregnancy since I was worried about how it would affect the baby. I will admit that in my third trimester I did have a few cups here and there, but other than that I stopped cold turkey. Then, when I had Christian I worried about drinking coffee due to the fact that I was nursing, and again didn’t want it to affect the baby. I knew that I could have caffeine in small amounts, but I didn’t want to risk to make a newborn fussy due to coffee. You get enough fussiness without adding to it!

Finally, after a couple of months I gave in and had my wonderful coffee. It was necessary! Sometimes I was just so tired, and I was take a few sips and BAM!! Super Mommy!!! Ok, not really, but coffee certainly gave me the energy I needed to give my son all the attention he deserved. I allowed myself one cup in the morning…it was wonderful…

Then that one cup turned to two. One cup in the morning, then one in the afternoon. Once I realized that it didn’t seem to affect my son, I figured it would be OK. I got my little kick in the morning, then one in the late afternoon. Just enough to keep me going! I even bought a Keurig! That way I could get my cup of coffee even faster! It really is one of the best inventions isn’t it? One cup at a time?? And you can pick which coffee/tea/hot chocolate you want…but I digress…

The bottom line is I love my coffee. I never thought I would be a coffee drinker, but now there is no turning back. I worry about staining my teeth, but a happy and awake mommy is more important! Yay for that and yay for coffee!!!

I dreamt of summer since the last time it was over, and now that fall has officially started I am forced to start dreaming about summer all over again. Don’t get me wrong, I still like fall, but fall leads quickly into winter and that my dear readers I am already starting to dread.

I hate the winter. Yes, it’s a blunt statement, but it’s the truth. The only thing good about the winter is the holidays, and they go by way too fast only to leave us with bitter cold slushy months. Do you see how I jumped right past the fall?

I do my best to focus on the good of the fall. The mild temperatures, pumpkin picking, fall colors and Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes. All very good things, but all I can seem to do is focus on the things I miss about summer.

Goodbye to the beach, goodbye to the warmth, goodbye to the nice long days. I can see the shorter darker days already beginning. Soon enough it will be dark by 4:30 and I will be sad. When it’s nice The Captain, the baby and the dog all take our night time walks , and soon we will lose motivations due to the dark and the cold.

So Bye Bye to summer….you will be truly missed, and until next year just know I will be longing for you daily. Tear!

Over time I have taken After The Alter from a marriage blog, to a TTC blog, to a pregnancy blog and now to a mommy blog. That’s right dear readers….I am officially a Mommy Blog!

I know, I know, that’s not anything new. You all have known this for some time now, but now After The Alter is now listed on Top Mommy Blogs.com and that means I need my readers to vote for me as…you guessed it…a Top Mommy Blog! How do you do that you ask? Well all you have to do is click on that pretty little banner I have on the top of this post! Easy right?

I now will also have this badge on my side bar (go ahead, look over on the left!), so if you ever are reading and catch a glance of it, I would appreciate it if you go on over and click on it. That gets me votes, and that gets me moved up on the top mommy blog list. Who doesn’t like to move to top? You can do it over…and over…and over…ok, you get the picture. The more times the better!

Thank you so much for your loyalty and support! Vote for me!!

When you have a baby it’s amazing how long it takes to get back to feeling like a normal person again. Each baby step towards that goal feels like a HUGE accomplishment. Now that I am entering the home stretch of the first year of motherhood I look back and in awe at how far we’ve come.

I remember the first night my son slept in his crib and not in the bassinet in our room. I felt so many emotions but remember feeling thankful that I could now turn on my bedroom light and read a book without worrying that I’d wake him. Such a small thing but at the time it was huge!

The days before I pumped I was pretty much attached to my son 24/7. I had trouble leaving the house for longer than an hour because I was feeding on demand and never knew when he’d want to eat again. After a few weeks I decided it was finally time to pump so that my son could be fed, but I wasn’t always the person who had to do it. Even though I never left him for long, just having the freedom to know I could go a few hours made all the difference.

Fast forward to the 5 or 6 month mark and I had reached a whole new world. My son was steadily sleeping through the night, and we had a bit a schedule. He even was taking 2 naps a day! Although I never wanted to be rigid about a schedule, this schedule made me sane. And sanity is a good thing!

I have been a milk machine for about 9 months now. Although I would never change that, I will never tell you that it was easy. The motivation for this post came the other day when I finally put the pump away. Well, not for good, just away from daily use. See, up until now I was pumping at least once a day, and was currently pumping one time at night before bed. I did this to make extra bottles, and mainly so that milk could go in his cereal. But I hate to pump. It drove me nuts every night even though it didn’t take long. For some reason it was a burden. I felt so much guilt, but I had to do it for me. I wanted to stop…so I did. And doing so was so freeing! As sad as it sounds the act of just “going to bed” is phenomenal!

So let’s recap…at 9 months I get to turn the light on in my room at night to read, am able to have someone else feed my son, sleep through the night (well, most of the time!), get some “me” time during nap time, and now no longer have to pump daily. All of that sounds pretty great to me! If anyone reading this is struggling in the early weeks/months of motherhood just know that it gets easier. You will someday soon feel more like a person!

Wooo hooo! Irene came and went, and all is good in After The Alter Land! As a matter of fact, if I didn’t have the news running constantly I wouldn’t have really known anything was going on at all!

I must say the weather people got it pretty right this time though. The storm did pass right through NYC like they said, and by the looks of things a lot of people got hit pretty bad. I feel horrible for that. Although it’s not right, I sometimes have an out of site out of mind attitude. Like, since it didn’t affect me all is good. But that is not the case. Some people lost so much, and I have to remind myself of this so that I can remember to be thankful for all that I have.

Captain Awesome, the baby and I stayed in our home on Saturday waiting for the rain. Funny thing was that it didn’t really come! Not till the night time that is. I was very nervous to go to bed because I worried about something big happening while I slept and it affecting our son. To remedy my anxiety I drank wine. Sometimes wine can solve all of life’s problems….it may only be for a few moments, but I still believe it helps! This time it helped a lot. I was able to fall asleep and stay asleep. By doing this I think I missed much of the storm! I am sure it was bad, but luckily no damage was done to our home.

So many people lost power including my parents and in laws. Funny thing was that we didn’t lose it at all! Thank goodness to that! Sad as it is to admit, I would’ve been pretty lost with no power.

I feel so sorry for the people who’s homes were damaged in this storm, and I feel so sorry for my friend who was supposed to get married Saturday night. Although he may not see it now, at least he will have a great story to tell right?

Hurricane Irene has made her mark in history, and we luckily came through unscathed. To those of you not as lucky I continue to pray for you. Mother Nature can be so cruel!

Within one week my son experienced his first earthquake (and hopefully his only), and if the weather people are right, he will experience his first hurricane. Irene seems to have Long Island set in her sights, and soon will be making her appearance. Am I worried? Yes! Am I a bit scared? Yes! But only of the unknown, and only because I now not only have to worry about myself and The Captain, but now I will worry about my son.

Although I complain alot about the cold winters in the North East, and I always threaten to move south, I will admit that when it comes to dangerous weather we are pretty lucky. The biggest threat are blizzards, but thus far I have never felt in true danger. We don’t really see hurricanes, tornados, or earthquakes. If they do happen they are mild and few and far between. Now, we may be facing the first direct hit of a hurricane in the last 100 years!

Normally I think the weather people make a huge deal out of nothing. How many times do we hear…”we are going to get a food of snow!” only to get 2 inches. Everyone runs to the stores and panics. Then nothing comes. That is how I saw this storm. I didn’t think much of it because with one small change in the wind we’d get nothing at all. But this time it seems they were right! Who knew!?

My parents asked me to come to them in PA, but I felt that was dangerous too. With all the evacuations I thought being on the road was even more dangerous than staying put. People all around us are being evacuated which is very scary, but I think we are in a good place. Of course we didn’t have a flash light and everyone was sold out, but The Captain came through and found a store that had them (phew!). We have candles and everything we need here (I hope!). So now we just hunker down and wait and see. Will it be as bad as they say? Who knows! What I do know is they don’t shut down the MTA, subways and evacuate millions of people for nothing. For that reason I worry……

Here comes Irene!!!!

Even if I wanted to go out and party I know I would regret it the instant I heard my son wake up at 6:30 (and could be even earlier). Even if I had the best time EVER I still don’t think the hangover would be worth it. It would be a VERY long day, and it would take a VERY long time to catch up on my sleep. There is no more sleeping in. My son needs a lot of my attention, so wallowing on the couch all day in self pity isn’t an option any more.

In no way shape or form do I miss the hang over portion of a long night out, but I do sometimes miss going out and letting loose. I miss not having to think about the consequences of my indulgences. But that is the reality of the situation. I am a mom, and my son deserves my full attention. That doesn’t mean I don’t go out…I do…but my “night out” is extremely different than in the past. I don’t plan on partying “Jersey Shore style” anytime soon. Weird to think about…but true.

I’ve been there done that…..nights out that were all about shots and drinking games now involve a glass of wine or two (if I’m feeling crazy). And you know what?? Most of the time I prefer it!