He Calls Me Moo

I have to admit something.

I need/want a break from my children.

Things have been a bit rough in the toddler department these days. I hate to say it, but so far the 'terrible twos' have kind of been terrible. I was really hoping that it wouldn't be that way. But for the last few months much of our days are filled with screaming children.

At first we understood the screaming. At first it was mostly due to misunderstanding her. Now however, screaming is just part of her language. Add crying and whining and repeating to that list. It is enough to drive anyone batty.

We have temper tantrums because we do not allow our children to jump off the back of the couch (or climb up the back of it in general). We have tantrums because we are not allowed in the knife drawer. We have a tantrum because she doesn't want to wear a diaper and use the potty instead. 10 minutes later is is because she wants a diaper. She has a tantrum over everything and believes that she should be ruler of the house.

The tantrums are not because she can not communicate with us anymore. We tell her that we don't kick cups around, or bang glasses on the table. She tells us to wait until she is done... I could not wait for her to start talking with us... now she is talking back to us... sigh....

We have tried to keep our cool, we have lost our cool with her, we have tired time outs, we have tired calming trying to talk to her about it, we have tried ignoring it, we have tried standing her in the corner. Nothing works. She just doesn't listen to us.

Before she started talking, our daycare actually asked us to have her hearing checked, because she couldn't figure out if E could not or would not listen. We were also refereed to a speech therapist. Then suddenly E started talking, we it was just she wouldn't listen.

We have even though that perhaps she was just not getting the attention she needed. Last week, she had to stay home for the week. We spent each day with her, doing things that she liked. Other than the 24 hours were she was throwing up, tantrums continued. We try and do one on one time with each kid every day. She is just a hard headed, stubborn little girl. In some ways, this is a good thing, but it sure doesn't make parenting any easier.

Add this to a new born and a one and half year old who cries and has tantrums because he can not complete communicated his needs yet, our house hold is a bit stressful at the moment. It is, for the most part, just me and my husband. We have no close family or friends that live in our city, which means no breaks for us. We are tired. We are frustrated. We are so very ready to be past this stage in our daughters life.

Some days I wonder why on earth did we decide to have 3 under 3. It feels like insanity. But then we have moments like these:

1. My children use the danish word for mother for me. It sounds like the word more. My son can't really say it. He calls me moo, which is both very cute and a tiny bit insulting.

2. Most nights the oldest two, just before bed time run around the apartment laughing and playing together. It is beautiful when the get along and like each others company.

3. Having E tell me she loves me melts my heart every time.

4. Olivia really saves the day lately, she is one smiley baby.

5. Toddler dancing. It's adorable.

It is those moments that make all the tantrums, screaming and tears so very worth every moment.

The Great House Debacle

If you are a long time follower, then you will know we had tried to buy a house last February. That fell through, so we decided to rent a house. I even wrote a nice long post about it.

Now, we did get an offer to rent one of the houses. BUT, then... I decided to start my own business. Part of this decision included accepting that we would have to make things work, and not move into too much bigger place, as we just could not afford it.

So we put our names on a list for a slightly bigger apartment. And we got offered one, but then the house thing came up again. So we decided to go that route again, and turned down the apartment (and another, and another house to rent... and one other apartment).

We spent our summer going back and forth with a realtor, and 3 different banks. We found a house that felt 'right'. Finally, after months and looking down every ally, we got an answer. We just can not buy a house right now. No way. Period.

The whole process was emotionally exhausting for me. We were kind of stuck in this limbo, as if we bought a house, we would be moving to another city. It is kind of hard to start up a business (Sommerfugl Photography), if you don't know where you are going to be living.

There were many tears and heated conversations over the whole process. I just wanted to decide one way or another and move on.

After we got our final answer from the bank (which they made us wait weeks for!), we made a decision. A final decision. We decided to stay in the city we were in and get and put ourselves back on the wait list for a rental house and be poor until my photography business picked up. This decision felt great. It was decided.

At least I thought so.

Either the same night or the next morning (I can't remember) we got a phone call from my husbands uncle. He informed us that him and his sons where going to try and buy a house that was for sale on their street. He wanted to know that, if their offer went through, if we would like to rent it. He invited us to come down and look at it before any decisions were made (I should point out, they had not had their offer accepted yet, but we were able to look at the house since they knew the people selling it).

The next day (or same day) we went down and looked. It is about the same size as our place, but with 3 bedrooms. It has a huge yard. It has a storage shed and a garage. It would be a little cramped, but we decided manageable for a few years. AND I could use the garage as a small studio for photography.

So we said yes, we would rent it if they bought it.

We were now waiting on that whole house buying process again. That night we got a call saying that their offer was accepted, and that they just needed to get the loan from the bank. We would have an answer by the 24th of November.

Last night we got good news. They bought the house, the loan went through. This means we are moving! We have the house from March 1st. Time to start slowly packing I guess.

Its just a little house, but it is a house, with a yard. The kids are going to love it. And see that garage. That is the future home of Sommerfugl Photography.

Friday's Letters - Nov. 16

I think it has been a couple of weeks since I did ones of these. I think it is time for another one. So here it goes.

Dear Flu: You are not welcome here. You have made my husband sick, which does not happen often. It seems you have decided to start getting chummy with me as well. Not cool.

Dear Husband: I hope you feel better soon. Also thank you for driving me around and supporting all the purchases I made yesterday to help get my photo biz up and running.

Dear Children: I love you.

Dear eCourse Students: I am so excited to be starting the Blogger Design eCourse with you this week! I am so excited to be working with all of you and teaching you how to design your own blogs.

Dear WordPress users: I am hoping to make a eCourse for you as well.

Dear Texture lovers: I have a new free texture on sommerfugl design today.

Dear Family in Canada: I miss you all very much.

Dear Facebook: Please stop messing around, or at the very least, update its users when you make changes so that they understand why they are no longer seeing posts from pages. You used to be such a great place for blogs to reach their readers. Now you have made it pretty difficult.

Dear Readers: I hope you all have a great weekend!

Breastfeeding Olivia so far

So if you read my blog regularly, you probably noticed me dropping hints that breastfeeding has been a bit of a up hill battle for us this time around. I don't think I have fulling blogged about it yet, so here it is.

Olivia latched and started nursing within the first 30 minutes of being born. It was so important to me that we get off on the right foot that I requested to be helped moved into a better position so that I could nurse her before then even stitched me. There was a moment of struggle, but she grabbed on right away and it seemed like all was good.

By the next evening I was in pain, my nipples were cracked and I knew something was not right, but I wasn't sure what it was. Olivia seemed to latch well, but it didn't feel quite right. It felt like she was chewing on my nipples. That night we noticed it looked like she was tongue tied. We had that looked at, and yes, she was very very tongue tied. Got it clipped, and it seemed we were on the right road.

That first week kind of sucked, as within those first 24 hours she had done a lot of damage, so I had a nipple shield because of the pain, and boy was it a pain. But we managed to get Olivia off that without too much trouble by the end of the second week. However I did end up with a painful plugged milk duct, which some sessions with my breast pump cured.

Then I got thrush. If you have not had thrush, it feels like tiny needles coming through your nipples when you nurse. It is very unpleasant. Me, not being a fan of my doctor, took a more natural route in curing the thrush. I used soda water a number of times a day as well as applied natural yogurt once a day and was pretty much topless to avoid moisture build up. This solved that issue. I think I had caught it just in time.

It had to only go up from there right? At this point I was pretty over the whole breastfeeding thing. I was tired, and tired of it being unpleasant. However, besides a few hiccups here and there Olivia was doing great. She was growing, and latching fine, and even though I was hating breastfeeding, it was still our 'thing', something that I was only sharing with her.. so I pushed on.

Then I has a small bought of mastitis. Having had it with Julius, I recognized the symptoms right away. I loaded up on garlic (my body does not react to antibiotics well, so again went more natural), and went to bed. I forced myself to stay in bed for at least 24 hours. This is a very difficult thing for me to do. I had stuff to do! But getting some much needed rest made a big different, and we got over that.

Since then breastfeeding has been okay. Due to my fybromyalgia, some days it is painful to feed Olivia. I also have painful letdown, which although painful, it is more annoying than anything. I always notice when my boobs leak, which is pretty much every 1.5hrs.

Speaking of leaking.. it just flows out of my right boob. Like soak my entire shirt regardless of how many nursing pads I have in there. I don't know how many times I have had people awkwardly try and tell me that my boobs are leaking. I just shrug my shoulders. There really isn't much I can do about it, and honestly I don't feel like having to change my shirt 10 times a day, so I just wander around in a wet shirt. When we are out and about I try to wear a sweater, but that usually gets soaked as well.

So other than the painful let down and the  painful days of feeding, breastfeeding is finally starting to go smoothly.

I don't know how long I will breastfeed. I think, as long as Olivia continues to grow, I will do it for as long as she wants to. I don't really have any specific goals other than to make it to 6 months. We will she how it goes though. I have some things coming up that require me to be away from her for a couple of hours, so we will be introducing a bottle to her, and that is a whole other story!

Wordless Wednesday - Best Little Model

Isn't she adorable?

Linking up with

Linking up with: Sarah Halstead Photography, Project Alicia, Live and Love Out Loud, Wittle People Wednesday, Jenni From The Blog, Yee Wittle Things, Sommerfugl Design

Inspired Tuesday - November 13th

<div align="center"><a href="http://blog.desiraer.com" title="Desirae R" target="_blank"><img src="http://blog.desiraer.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/inspiredtuesday.jpg" alt="Desirae R" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

I believe that all posts can inspire someone else. Blog hops are a great way to find each other, so I therefore invite you to link up your blog posts every Tuesday here. The rules are simple: link up any blog post, there are no required themes, and it does not have to be about photography. It can be about anything. I would appreciate if you could link back to me, but you don't have too. That's it. Looking forward to seeing your posts this week! Oh and the link up is open all until Sunday. Also if you tweet your posts.. it would be great if you could use the hashtag #inspiredtuesday :)

I apologize once again for missing this link up a couple of weeks in a row. Life has just been a whirl wind lately! There are some big things happening right now in our lives. I hope I can share what it is soon (no, I am not pregnant.. again). But I will give you a hint, here is my Christmas list:

Newborn hats

Soft blankets

Fabric

suitcases

crates

doll sized bed

baskets

lamb skin

I have also been super busy with the Blogger Design eCourse. The first class starts this week. I am so excited about it. As of the moment there are 18 people signed up, but I would love to have a couple more (11 more actually). So here is what I am prepared to do to fill the class if possible. I will give you a spot for 10$ if you 1) put a button in your sidebar while you are taking the course and 2)write a post about the course sometime within the first two weeks of the course. Just so you know, the access to the November class lessons is opened an extra month, so If  you don't have time to start this week, there is plenty of time for you to follow the lessons. If you are interested send me an email and I will give you a coupon code.

Okay, now on to this weeks  inspirational freebie. Here are a couple Facebook covers I made to share with you all:

These can be downloaded from HERE

I hope you all have a wonderful week.

I am also linking up with:

Letters To My Children - Nov. 11th 2012

Dear Elisabeth

I will admit, we have been having a rough go with you the last couple of weeks. You have been cranky. You have screamed. A lot. You have been a little rebel doing everything you are not supposed to despite the amount of attention we give you. You just have not been listening. Even daycare has noticed this little period of rebellion. You were even not sleeping through the night, often crying for your dad to come sleep with you (which he did, every night). We were all getting very frustrated with you.

Then, during on of yours screaming fits I noticed that you have teething coming in. And it all made sense. You have never been a good teether. New teeth has always made you a poor sleeper and a little monster when you are awake.

I can not wait for your teeth to finish breaking through. Seriously, I want my sweet little girl, that kind of listens to me when I tell her to stop and not run away from us in the parking lot. Or to stop hitting your brother, or to stop standing on chairs. Really kid.. we allow you to do most things, unless it is dangerous. Our patience is also wearing thin on your scream fits, where nothing stops them.

I sure hope it really is the teeth.

All this being said... you have also become a lot of fun lately. You really beginning to talk with us, and it is fun having little conversations with you. I have even noticed that you are able to separate English and Danish a bit, and will switch to English when talking to me if you feel I am not understanding you. I feel like we are right on the edge of a language explosion and I am just waiting for it to go. I can't wait to talk to you more!

I am also enjoying that you will model for me a bit when I take pictures. And I think it is adorable that you have become obsessed with dresses and skirts. I am not sure why, as we have never really dressed you in them, but you want to wear them all the time.  I am pretty sure it is because of the way the flow, since you call them dancers.

It is both a very frustrating and exciting time in your life for all of us.



Linking up with The Super Sunday Sync

I'm Getting Excited

The first class of the Blogger Design eCourse starts next week, and I am getting so excited! I really can't wait to teach the class. I love the idea of sharing my knowledge and giving other mamma's the chance to build great looking blog designs without having to pay the high costs of a designer, because lets face it, designers are expensive. I know this because I am one! But in truth, $25 is a lot more manageable for most than $100's. Plus there is also that feeling of ownership that comes with creating something yourself. I am happy that I will get the share that feeling with others.

As much as I am excited, I am nervous. I would really love to see this eCourse take off, however I have not filled all the spots for the November class and that makes me worry. It makes me worry that this will not be success. It makes me doubt myself. But then I try to remind myself, this is just the first class, and like anything else some things just take time to get going. The word needs to get spread, and sometimes that just takes time. Low class sign up or not, I will run the eCourse for the next few months before I determine the success or failure of this current business prospect. I am thinking it can be a hit though.. don't you?

Want to help me spread the word? Maybe you could by sharing this post, or tweeting, pinteresting, sharing etc this page: http://sfbloggerecourse.blogspot.dk/p/about.html I would be forever great-full!

A Wordfull Wednesday

So I have been a bit quiet these past couple of weeks. It's because I have been super busy, but In a good way. First of all, in the beginning of October we welcomed another babe into the family. My brother in-law and his wife welcomed their second child and I gained a nephew. I was also honored that they let me take their newborn photo's. This was kind of my first 'official' newborn shoot and it turned out well I think. Here are a couple samples:

This was really encouraging so I have been slowly getting things set up to finally launch my photography business here.

The other big that I have been putting many many hours in is my Blogger Design eCourse, that is set to start next week.

The eCourse got it's own homepage (you can check it by clicking the above image), and I am just about all set for the start of the first class next week. I am so excited about it! If you are interested in learning how to design your own Blogger blog, you should totally consider the course. My testing girls did a great job on their sites. There are still spaces left in the November class (which is running an extra month long due to all the things happening in the US right now), and the December class is also open for registration. Also, if you use the coupon 5off you can get 5 dollars, meaning it will only cost you $20. For more info on what is included in the eCourse, check out the website HERE.

So that is what I have been up to :) Happy Wordless Wednesday Everyone.

Linking up with: Sarah Halstead Photography, Project Alicia, Live and Love Out Loud, Wittle People Wednesday, Jenni From The Blog, Yee Wittle Things, Like Me on Facebook

Goodbye Co-Sleeping

There are a couple of different ways co-sleeping is defined. Some say it is when the baby sleeps with you in the bed. Others say the babe just needs to be in the room. In my mind, co-sleeping is baby in bed.

We co-slept with my son for 6 months. We have co-slept with Olivia since the day she was born. It has been awesome, and I am sure it is one of the major reasons I am surviving. It is so easy to just pop a boob in her mouth when she is hungry and doze off until she fusses at me to move away from here (she does not like to cuddle until the morning).

This morning, while sitting and eating breakfast, my husband asks me if I remembered sitting up then kissing Olivia on the head last night, waking her up. I have no memory of this what so ever.

My has been hinting the last week or so about moving Olivia out of the bed. He thinks she will sleep better. Apparently, this morning he worked up the courage to tell me the reason why Olivia is not sleeping longer than 1.5 hours is because I do things like kissing her in my sleep often.

This kind of freaks me out. Sure, it is sweet, I am giving her kisses. In the process I am disturbing her, waking her up, which in turn wakes me up. Not only does this not sound like a good cycle, but in some ways I think it may be a bid dangerous that I am doing these things in my sleep without any memory of it.

So as of tonight, Olivia will sleep in a crib. This has meant a bit of a rearrangement of our room, as there is no way I am dragging myself out of bed to go to another room (which we don't have anyways) to get her. She will probably still end up in the bed at some point in the night, but hopefully we will both get a better sleep.

I am a bit sad about this. Even though she is not a cuddler, I like co-sleeping. I like having her close. I was expecting 6 months of it. It has only been 6 weeks. However, if anything were to happen to her after knowing that I have been doing these things in my sleep, I would never forgive myself. Honestly I don't think anything would ever happen to her, but my husband showed concern, and he is also in the bed with us, and he does get a say as well. We decided together that we should at least try the crib, so we are.

We needed a crib to put her in, so this also means the older kids have a rearranged room as well. Olivia got Julius's crib. Julius now has Elisabeth's crib, which has been put into the toddler bed. Elisabeth for now, has a mattress on the floor. Yep.. this means tonight, we will have two loose toddlers in their room.

I have a feeling we may be in for a long night...