Back to the reality

It's 5 am and I've been awake for almost 2,5 hours... Yeah, I woke up when my baby girl woke up and I had to calm her down back to sleep. She fell asleep, I did not. I tried so hard but after two hours laying on the bed trying to fall asleep I decided to do something else. I suffer insomnia. I have always had problems with sleeping. Since I can remember, I have always had a difficult time to fall asleep and go back to sleep. I still have this rhythm waking up with Isabella to feed her, even though I haven't needed to do that for almost 5 months. Any tips?

My insomnia right now has a very simple reason: jet lag. 10 hours time difference is a lot. They say that it is always easier to go to the west and harder to the east. I agree. And they also say that it takes as many days to recover from jet lag as many hours is the time difference. I agree that too.

So, we are back home and it's so good! We truly love our small home. We have made it exactly how we have wanted and it's awesome. It's so good to be back home. We were gone a month and it feels so long.

Our eating habits were totally different, read: worse. I didn't feel good at all, neither my husband. So I'm excited to go back to our sugar-free and wheat free diet again. Before I tried this "new" diet a year ago I didn't think that my body felt bad, but going back to the old diet I noticed the change immediately. I felt so much weaker, more tired and my guts weren't working. That motivates me to go back to the healthier diet again. It takes time to get the body to cleanse all the bad food I have eaten and it's not easy, but it's so worth it.

The funny thing I noticed during our trip, I didn't crave any sugar. And if I ate something sweet, I didn't enjoy it. I was so happy about that. I was a sugar addict and now my taste buds have changed! That's amazing. It has been a long road and it hasn't been easy but it's so worth it. I love the way I have changed. I'm thinking differently about nutrition than ever before. I also know so much more about nutrition than ever before and I am so excited to learn more and more. Recently we watched with my husband a documentary called "Food Inc." It was eye opening and put me thinking how much meat I should eat and what kind. Obviously, it was made in the USA and I don't believe the food industry is similar to Finland, but it made me think that I should start thinking about where I buy my meat and what kind. We can't afford only organic food, but if we ate mostly vegetarian and twice a week good quality meat, that could work.

I'm excited to go back to our own routines and start living healthier again. I also tried lots of yoga during the vacation and I feel amazing! It really helps my back pain and I also love the energizing feeling what I get from it. I love feeling stronger and I feel that I'm capable of doing so much more now. I highly recommend adding 10-15 minutes yoga for your day, it's amazing!

A healthy option for a cake: watermelon cake!

Meat pizza (the crust is made from meat).

Zucchini ham gluten free bread.

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

3.4.2017

It's amazing how much love you can have for such a small creature. Every day I feel so blessed by my own daughter. She gave me the ability to love in a way that I wouldn't have ever imagined. She is the most amazing thing in the whole world. Every day I look at her thinking "how wonderful little creature she is". Now she has discovered her tongue and she's showing that all the time and licking everything. It's pretty cute.

Even though she can be annoying sometimes and I'm often tired because of her, still every day she gives me so much joy and happiness. I could kiss her all day long and still feel that I haven't kissed her enough. She is so kissable! I could hug her and squeeze her so much but I have to be careful not to break her 😅.

Now when Isabella is already 7 months old, it's hard to remember the time when she was born. I have been going through her smallest clothes and realized how much clothes she had. I remember being stressed because I didn't have time to use all the clothes she had. Now I would know better how much and what kind of clothes would be good.

It's crazy how fast babies grow. A few months ago she couldn't do much and I was frustrated with her because she was getting tired laying on the floor. We had to carry her all the time. Now she is the totally different girl. She is the happiest baby in the world. She smiles all the time and giggles when I do something funny. The best moments I have with her when we laugh together. I laugh because she laughs and she laughs because I laugh. I love spending time with her. When she's fussy, I hold her and we go to the mirror and watch each other and make faces or I put her on the floor and sing to her and she enjoys so much. I can't wait to see what kind of personality she will have later. She is already showing a quite strong temper and I know that I might have a hard time with her. Oh boy..! At least we grow along with her.

It is amazing to realize how you can control your own child, most of the times... I mean when you realize what works and what doesn't. I have learned with Isabella, that I have to use a lot of humor with her. It also calms me down when I start singing something silly while she cries when I feed her. All of a sudden she stops crying and listens to my funny songs and finishes her food. Or if she's being fussy on the floor I might go play with her or start making funny rhythms and she gets so happy. My husband has started to do same because it works. Some outsider would think we are insane if he saw us 😂.  Well, we are just little bit different parents. It's exciting to see how our daughter will be like.

The Word You Want to Hear

19.3.2017

It's funny that nowadays when you can share everything you want in social media, you most often post things you have accomplished. Everyone likes compliments and it feels even better when you have done something and someone notices that and is grateful for it without you bragging about it. I do that very often to my husband. I love house chores and I feel very productive and proud of myself when I have cooked, cleaned, baked and done laundry within those 5 hours while my husband is at school. Then when he comes home I tell him what I have accomplished and he is proud of me and says thank you for doing all of that. I feel so much better, I feel that I have really done something very productive. Just a simple word "thank you" makes me feel so good.

Today I was feeling very energetic and started to cook and baked like crazy. Then I had so many things on my mind and felt like bragging to my husband what I'm doing and what I still want to do. But all of a sudden I felt exhausted and realized what I was doing. Whenever I have a need to list to someone how much work I have done and what exactly I've done it feels like bragging and whenever I stay quiet about my accomplishments it feels so much better when someone notices it without telling them.

So today I stopped myself when I went crazy with my thoughts. I was thinking to do so much and luckily I sat down and took a deep breath and relaxed. I still have this feeling that I need to do so much while Isabella is napping. I never know how long she sleeps during the day and whenever I have put her for a nap start thinking what I want to do when I have alone time. Every single day I have to remind myself that I need to calm down and do the things what I really want to do and some of the stuff I can do while Isabella is awake. Very often I find myself disappointed when I have taught how much I want to do and then I haven't done anything or enough. It's stupid.. But I realized that whenever I like doing something I don't need to brag about it, but if I need an encouragement I have to tell what I have been doing.

I love sharing recipes. When I was crazy about sugar I was baking all the time. Every time when someone came over I started to stress what could I bake. I had to think something that I haven't offered to that guest yet and needed to find an amazing recipe. Almost every time my guests were impressed by my baking skills and very often they left home with a recipe with them. I enjoyed that but at the same time, it was quite stressful. I made it stressful. When I started my new diet I noticed that I stopped stressing out whenever someone came to visit. It was such a relief! Now I bake less but cook more and it's fun! Now I just want to share all my recipes with my friends because the food I cook is awesome and it's healthy. The best thing is that I don't stress about it anymore. Besides, I started to plan ahead our meals for the coming week and that took one big stress away from me. My sister in law came to visit us and she got excited about the food I cooked. I promised her that I will share the recipes with her. Since I use mostly recipes from www.iquitsugar.com  or Sarah Wilson's books in English, so I started translating them into Finnish for her. I am a fan of Sarah Wilson 😁. She makes cooking fun and simple. One day I want to come up with my own sugar-free recipes, but I guess first I need more knowledge about all the different kinds of ingredients and how to combine them.

Our baby girl is growing so fast. All of a sudden she just became such a big girl. She learned to crawl two days ago and now she is very adventurous little human. She loves mirrors and her pictures. She loves her mom and dad the most that is for sure. She also loves guests. She loves when people come over. I hope that lasts. I'm trying to make her social but you never know what kind she will be when she grows. I love spending time with her. My favorite game with her is when I dress her up. Sometimes when I need to keep her awake I start dressing her up with all the dresses she has and making her look like a princess. Then we go to see a mirror and I say how beautiful she is and she can't stop smiling. I know what do you think, it's probably more fun for me than it's for her.. I loved playing with barbies and dolls when I was a kid and now I have a real live doll 😅! My husband always laughs and says to Isabella: "Is mommy playing that you are a doll again?". Then I take pictures of her of course.


Ps. If you are interested in cooking sugar-free or just like to try the recipes what I make, let me know so I can share those with you.

The Biggest Challenge

6.4.2017

Somehow I love challenges and very often I take the biggest challenge for myself and later I realize that it's too much and I can't handle it. Well, eventually I succeed with my challenges and become stronger and feel so good about myself. There are also times that I want some things to go easier but very often I find myself in front of a big challenge. In this case, I mean my baby girl.

I would have punched the person who would have said me four months ago that everything gets easier with your baby when she grows older (and many did..). At that time those kinds of comments didn't help me at all. Short nights and fussy baby during the day who didn't nap longer than 45 minutes was heavy for me. Nevertheless, I feel so good about myself that I survived. I didn't want to do what would have been the easiest to do, just because I am not like that. I have mentioned many times how I was thinking that I know "everything" about babies and know how to raise well-behaved kids, and I was thinking that I will be a perfect mom. I have learned my lesson and my feet got back to the ground in the very first month after I gave birth to our daughter. I wasn't perfect, not even close. I was disappointed with myself when I didn't know how to take care of my own baby. When our neighbors or some relatives were asking how is the motherhood and how is it going with the baby, I wanted to be honest, and every time I said that it is quite heavy because she is crying quite a lot. Every time the respond was that "yeah, well, babies cry". Really?? Then I had to add to that "yeah, but she's crying a lot, and doesn't sleep very much." And the respond was "time goes so fast, just wait and she is walking on her own and going to school, enjoy your time with the baby now!" I got so angry. After those kinds of comments, I felt that did I do enough? Do I do something wrong? Now I know that I did everything that I could. I was doing my best. Now when I look back that time I feel so relieved and I'm proud of myself how I survived from that time. And I know now that not all babies cry all the time. There is always a reason why a baby cries. Sometimes you just can't find the reason.

She is my baby doll 😁

It is hard to remember that time very clear and it feels that it happened a long time ago. Now I understand the comments that "time goes so fast" and "soon you will be annoyed when your baby girl wants to touch everything and is crawling everywhere". At that time when I was suffering my shoulder pain because of all the carrying with a colicky baby, that sounded so much easier. Only if my baby would give me a little break that I wouldn't need to carry her all the time. Now she's the happiest baby on the planet. She's exploring her world and touching everywhere. Just recently she started to stand up on her own and now the only thing she wants to do is to stand up on her feet. Every day I fell in love with her again.

Since I was a child, I wanted to be a mom. I took care of my dolls and pretending to be a mom. I always wanted four kids. I don't know why. I have two older siblings and felt left alone ever since I grew as an adult. I remember asking my mom could she get pregnant again, I wanted to have a little brother. I didn't want to be the youngest, I wanted someone to play with since I was too young for my sister and brother. I guess that is the reason why I always wanted to have four children so no one would feel left alone. I remember when we started dating with my husband that the very first day of I told him that I want to have four children and I have names already for them. At the same time, I realized and said to him that maybe we have to think about the names again since they were very Finnish and hard to pronounce for my husband. I never thought to marry a foreign guy😀! Now I have changed my mind about a number of children. I can barely handle one child! Every time when I see moms with more than two kids I look at them and think "how do they do that?!". At the same time, I am disappointed with myself how come I can't be like that? Don't get me wrong, again I love being a mom and I wouldn't change this time for anything else, but being a mom has always been my biggest dream and I have to learn it through the hardest way. Now I enjoy so much being a mom and I am so proud of my little princess who is charming everyone where we go. She has the cutest toothless smile and she is so curious about everything and is very calm. Totally different girl than a few months ago. Now she sleeps like an angel, long naps. Of course every now and then she is moody, but that's normal.

The number of the kids has been a hard topic for me. We discuss that with my husband quite a lot. I have this obsession to have four children because it has been my dream but finally, I can admit to myself that I am not that kind, it is too much. It is such a relief to admit and realize that it has been an obsession for me to have plenty of kids and understand that what are my abilities to handle things. I have to be gracious for myself so I can enjoy my life fully. I like it like this. For now, this is good. Let the future take care of itself.

In the meantime, if you are struggling with a newborn right now, hang in there sister, I feel you! I won't give any "wise words" because that just feels annoying, I just want to say, that I understand you. You don't need to be strong, you can cry along the baby. That's what I did when I couldn't handle the baby's crying anymore and didn't know what to do when my husband wasn't at home to help me. And those moms who have more than two kids, I admire you, seriously! I just can't stop thinking "how do you do that?" (in the kindest way possible of course!).

Give a Little Mercy to Yourself

I have always thought that because I love cooking/baking, I have to like throwing parties as well. I have forced myself to like it and pretended that it's fun. I have never thrown a party for myself. My mom and my sister love planning parties, so I thought that I need to love it too. But just recently I have realized that I don't like it. It's too much stress and planning. Yes, I love cooking and baking, but just for a small amount at a time. Every time when someone says that I have to throw a party I freak out. I don't like inviting a bunch of people because I feel like I can't enjoy that time because I have to host so many people at the same time. I love having guests, but just a few people at a time.

I would want to be that kind of person who enjoys throwing parties but it's a relief to finally admit that to myself that I'm just not that kind and it's okay. My husband is this very American person who enjoys having people over and hosting and there are not that many times that he wants to do something on his own. He loves parties and wants to encourage me to host as well. I am the opposite. I'm very Finnish. That's an opposite itself already but to open it up a little bit, I'm quite shy and I like privacy and my own space. In Finland, there's not a thing called "awkward silence". We can be a group of people and be silent at times and it's not awkward. I know that sounds really weird for a non-Finn, but silence and privacy are quite important things for Finns. During this two years that we've been married, my husband has taught me hospitality. I admire American hospitality and I've wanted to learn to be a good host but it has been really difficult because it's something that it's out of my comfort zone. My husband has been a very good teacher and been very encouraging and patient with me. Now I can say that I'm doing so much better.

Still, I'm freaking out a little bit if I need to cook for more than two or three people. I don't know why, but I think it's because it's hard for me to be in charge of the whole situation. I'm afraid that people won't enjoy their time or there will be this awkwardness. I would like to learn out of that. My husband is so natural with people, for me it's not that natural. He loves inviting people for lunch or dinner. Every time when he meets a new person, he wants to invite that person for a dinner and I freak out. I don't even know this person!! Yeah, well that's how you get to know that person, he usually responds to me. For a (shy) Finn that is not normal to have people over for dinner who are strangers. In Finland, it is very common that you get to know someone first quite good until you invite them over. A home is a private and comfortable place where you can relax and be yourself. Finns need to gain the person's trust first before they can share their comfortable and private home. This is something where I'm very Finn and I would like to grow out of. Well, I'm learning. Thanks to my loving husband who makes friends everywhere where he goes.

My husband and I love to travel and getting to know different cultures. My husband has been studying Finnish and his class is full of people from different cultures. I have had many friends all over the world and I'm used to different cultures. Sometimes even for me, it is even easier to get to know foreigners in Finland than Finns. That's because foreigners talk, Finns need to gain the trust first until they let you come closer, but when you have gained the trust, Finns are your loyal friends forever. The people who are used to foreigners and know different cultures they are more friendly and easier to get to know. Here is very common not to know your neighbor.

We got lucky when we moved to our current apartment. We enjoy our neighborhood and we have got to know our neighbors. Mostly, thanks to my husband. When we moved he wanted to invite everyone for coffee and introduced himself to every neighbor who he saw. To me, that was a little bit embarrassing, because I'm not used to that. You get to know your neighbors later if you get lucky. If he sees some of our neighbor who he knows already he is in a rush to go to talk to them. I am the opposite, I try not to notice them if I'm not in a social mood. But I've realized how important and nice it is to get to know your neighbors. We have got good friends from our neighbors and we do stuff with them. We help each other and invite each other to do sports or just hang out. That is totally new to me and I enjoy that. Little American comes out of me slowly. Life is fun and sometimes challenging living in two cultures.

6 Month Milestone

Today is the day that I've been waiting to come six months. Haha, you read it right. Our baby girl is today 6 months old. Why have I been waiting for this day to come since she was born? Well, let me be honest with you, she hasn't been the easiest baby. Now she is a bit more predictable and we have more tools to make our daily life easier and we are able to have more fun with her.

She has now started to explore her world more and it is fascinating to see her growth and development. It is also amazing to watch how the smallest things can be so adorable. Her finding her feet, her rolling over after weeks frustration, her eating solids, her playing with a pacifier and putting that to her mouth on her own and her discovering trash on the floor and trying to crab it without any success. She is now very curious of the outside world and every time when I'm pushing the strollers she wants to see where are we. That's the cutest thing ever! She still can't sit on her own and crawl but it's just matter of time when she finds out how that works. We have already lost our bets with my husband when she will crawl, but it's just so close!

The Americans 😆

I love going out with our little princess. I constantly set dates with my mom friends and going to different mom groups because I enjoy it and Isabella also loves it. I have found a totally new side of myself; being socially active :D! Who would have thought that a baby can encourage you to do that? I have been very shy child and started to come out of my shell when I was already in my twenties. My husband is the opposite of me. He loves social situations and I love that about him. He can make friends so easy and doesn't have problem asking people over. If it was up to him, we would have guests every day :D. But I'm too Finnish and I need some alone time. I hope our little one is having her dad's social skills so she wouldn't need to learn those social skills as an adult.

I have had for a long time this "getting rid of stuff" -mood. I feel like we are constantly buying stuff and thinking that "we need it". Our favorite store is this Red cross salvation army second hand store where you can find anything. It's so clean and well organized and they test that everything works before they put them for sail. We have bought furnitures, (most of the) baby stuff, dishes and much more from there. We go there weekly just to look around what they have. And almost every time I find something cute for Isabella (surprise!). So I got inspired by my cousin to have a break of buying clothes for myself. She said that she had a year break that she didn't buy clothes for herself and my reaction was instantly that how did you do that?? Her answer was simply that she stopped going to the clothing stores. I started to think about that and was excited to challenge myself to do the same but wasn't sure if I could do it. A year without any new clothes, that's insane! But at the same time I have my wardrobe full of clothes and there is lots and lots of clothes that I have never used. How stupid is that..? So what's the point of buying new clothes all the time if you don't use them, I asked myself. Now I'm thinking still should I do the break and the more I think about it the more excited I become. So this is closer to that step that I want, at least no more clothes for me.

Motherhood

Being a mom is one of the most challenging things I've ever done in my life. But at the same time it's the most precious and wonderful time in my life. Sometimes when I have hard time with Isabella, I'm thinking that how my life would be without her, and I realize that it wouldn't be the same, it would be boring and I would have this longing what I had and disappeared when I had Isabella. I wouldn't change this time for anything.

I have grown with her so much. I even told one friend of mine that I think I've grown 10 years, that is how I feel. My body, my face and my thoughts are older and more mature and I don't know what to think about that.

In this baby stage where we are now, there's no stability. That I have noticed for sure. When something starts being easier, there's coming something else after one or two weeks. We had hard time with her sleeping, it took a month and all of a sudden everything changed and she slept so good waking up only once a night. One night she slept through the whole night waking up after 11 hours! My husband and I were hurraying, but maybe too soon.. Now we are in this stage that she's rolling over on her crib and starts wining because she's stuck or then in the middle of the night she starts playing and she's so energetic so I have no other ideas than feed her so she could calm down. So we are back to the starting line.

One of my friend who has two toddlers said that the first year with the baby is constant changing. Going through different faces. There's so much developing in the first year so nothing is stable. It's exciting but sometimes exhausting.

Barbecuing at a nearby farm.

I've enjoyed my long maternity leave so much. I'm enjoying all the things that I can do with my sweetheart. I've kept myself (and Isabella) quite busy and it's good. I've never been like this before and I'm excited about how I've changed. First time in my life I'm social and trying to get friends and I think it's easier than ever before. Who would have thought? I'm going to different mom groups and sharing how're things with the baby and very often we have same struggles. It motivates me and helps me think that I'm not a bad mom or I haven't failed. Very often I feel that I'm glad we don't have those problems when I hear other moms' struggles. But at the same time trying to help them if I can.

Every face is very special and precious with your baby but you always wish your baby to be little bit further until you realize that it's over and you miss the baby time. Right now Isabella is rolling over all the time and gets frustrated because she can't crawl yet. She's really trying but doesn't have the ability yet. Just this week I heard many moms saying to me that be happy that she stays still. Then I said that I'm looking forward that she starts moving so it would be easier and could entertain herself little bit longer. We always want something else we don't have, right?

What comes to my well being. I'm doing so much better. I don't crave sugar anymore. I love good and nutritious food. I love cooking and exploring my cooking skills. I'm constantly looking for new sugar and gluten free recipes. I feel good in my body and now I have started to exercise as well little bit more when I'm not hurting anymore. It feels good to feel your muscles working. I feel alive. I just feel more tired than ever before. I feel that my hormones don't help me anymore to keep me going. Can't wait that I can sleep first night after almost 6 months.