Certain times I love having a daughter with a “spirited” temperament. When she’s happy, she’s super excitable and kicks her feet and squeals and makes really loud belly laughs. Of course along with this comes the same temperament for when she’s upset: she has major temper tantrums with an arched back, she screams at the top of her lungs when she’s mad, and she has a cry louder than any baby I’ve ever heard. This is why her nickname is “The Diva.” Unfortunately, because she’s too young to manage her angry feelings yet, I try to avoid doing certain things in the hopes of avoiding a major scene when she has one of her famous meltdowns (today she had 5 alone!). Usually the things I avoid aren’t too big of a deal that I feel like I’m missing out. I don’t go out to eat with her too much, but my mother-in-law likes to come over to babysit, so when she does, my husband and I try to go out to eat then. I wouldn’t take her to an all-day thing like the zoo or aquarium, but I think she’s too young for that now anyway, so no biggie. BUT…something happened last weekend over Easter that changed all my nonchalant feelings.

My cousin, who is my daughter’s godmother, told me that they have a timeshare in Maui, Hawaii and she’s going there the end of May for a week. They wanted to know if my husband and I wanted to come, along with my daughter (who just turned 14 months old). My jaw dropped for two reasons. First- I have ALWAYS wanted to go to Maui. Not Hawaii, but MAUI specifically. I’ve heard it’s breathtakingly beautiful. Second- MY daughter on a plane? The Diva who won’t even stay quiet or sit still for 30 minutes at a restaurant? A plane for at least 11 hours?! I think I had an anxiety attack right then and there. But, it’s Maui! I have never felt so torn in what to do. My husband and I kept going back and forth in trying to decide. A big factor was money. Even though we wouldn’t have to pay for a hotel since we were offered to stay with my cousin, we’d still have to pay for airfare from N.J., along with a rental car, food, and other little things like extra airline baggage (all those diapers, baby food, etc), a car seat rental, a pack-n-play rental, etc. We tried to figure out if we could keep her on our laps for free on the flight since it’s allowed for babies under 2, but I don’t think it’s possible. She would be 16 months old, she’s a huge child, and she hates sitting on my lap. I don’t know if she’ll be walking yet either by then, so letting her walk the aisles to let off steam might not be possible. So, her having her own seat would mean airfare alone would be about $3000 for us, and that’s more than any of the awesome cruises I’ve been on which include food! Plus, I know this sounds horrible, but I don’t know if I’d even get to really enjoy Maui while tending to a young toddler constantly. And the plane ride still gives me chills to think about.

In the end, we decided to pass on the offer, and hope that my cousin decides to go back to Maui through her timeshare in a few years. At least by then I could bring a dvd or something on the plane for my daughter to watch, and I can tell her how to behave and she can tell me how she’s feeling when she’s upset (instead of just screaming and me trying to guess what the issue is). I feel horrible about actually having to say no to Maui, but I think it was the right thing to do. Just another sacrifice of motherhood, right?

My daughter’s (The Diva) first birthday party was February 13th, and I think it went well overall. The food wasn’t ready in time because my oven just didn’t feel like getting into gear, the pretzel tray we ordered was late because of a mix up at the place, and while trying to pry off the top on a Sterno, the gel spilled all over the decorative table cloth and my new jeans so I smelled like alcohol/gasoline and had to change my clothes. But besides all that drama, it went well. Haha. The important thing is my daughter was in a good mood for most of it, which is a great thing since she’s almost always moody & fussy.

I knew ahead of time that she didn’t like her birthday hat because the prior week I kept trying it on her head and she’d quickly take it off. So when it was time for the cake/singing, I had someone ready with the camera so that they could snap a picture the second I put the hat on her head. Luckily that worked and I have a few pictures of her with the hat, but it made her mad enough to start crying afterwards, so she cried while everyone sang Happy Birthday. My cousin is a very talented baker/cake decorator, and she made The Diva a small personalized birthday cake, while the rest of us had ice cream cake. I expected The Diva to do the classic “face in the cake,” but she surprised me by delicately using her finger to swipe the icing off one finger at a time. This was her first time having a lot of refined sugar because we never gave her cookies or sweets before. She loved it. (Even though the next morning she had the NASTIEST, smelliest poopy diaper I have ever seen. It was gross and huge. It was like a horse went in her diaper!)

She got a lot of clothes which is great because it’s all Spring clothes which I haven’t bought any of yet, so this is perfect. I think her favorite gift was from my cousin: the Little Tikes Pink Cozy Coupe car, and she even included a mini personalized NJ license plate. At first she screamed about being put in the car by herself, but after everyone left the party she was more calm and we attempted to put her in it again. She loved it this time and we pushed her around in it and she squealed with delight. She’s not quite ready for us to remove the floor board so she can move it Flintstone-Style, so we’re fine with just pushing her around in it.

At the end of the night, I think the party was a success, but I’m seriously considering pizza and subs next year. It was just too much work cooking & trying to time all the food, and the sternos and chafing dishes were just too much of a headache. Next year she’ll probably be old enough to have other kids at the party also, so that would be even more people, which gives me more of an incentive just to get pizza. I can’t believe she’s already 1 year old. I guess she’s not considered an infant anymore, or maybe not even a baby (Is she a toddler now)?  It really is true that the time goes by really fast, so I try to remind myself of that all the time, especially when she’s having a meltdown and I tell myself not to get too stressed about it because soon I may actually be missing her meltdown days. Even though that seems crazy to me now.

At 6 months old, my daughter was starting to sleep pretty well at night, for about 5 hours straight (this was good to me). She was going strong with that pattern for about 2 weeks and then she went back to waking up 2 or 3 times at night. I didn’t know why this was happening, but I figured it was just her crazy ways.  Well, one night I distinctly remember her waking up EVERY 20 minutes all through the night. I’d go into her room, give her a pacifier, pat her belly, and she’d calm down and go to sleep. Twenty minutes later she’d be up and screaming again. I thought that maybe her teeth were finally ready to cut through, even though she’s been working on that since she was 3 months old (LOTS of drool; gumming everything). The next day I went out to buy some sort of pain reliever for her, and I had no idea which one to choose. Since I prefer natural things most of the time, I first tried the Humphrey’s Teething Tablets. I was a little confused on how to apply it because it says to dissolve the tablets in water and then apply it to the baby’s gums, but when I mixed it up it wasn’t thick enough to form any sort of paste (and I followed the directions) so it was more like trying to rub water on her gums, and it kept trickling down my hand. My daughter liked the taste, but it didn’t seem to help at all with her pain or crying.

I was really nervous about trying Orajel because I read somewhere about how the numbing sensation can close up a baby’s throat and make them stop breathing. I caved in and bought some Infant Tylenol, and the doctor assured me that I can use it. Well, the next night when she started screaming I gave her some and she instantly fell asleep. It was heaven! Normally I am not a medicine person. In fact I hate taking medicine and almost always refuse it. I barely took any pain meds in the hospital after my C-section and the nurses kept yelling at me to take it, but I didn’t want to because I really wasn’t in any pain, and even if I was, I prefer to work through the pain. BUT, in this case with my daughter, I was saying hallelujah to Tylenol and used it almost every night for a week.

After giving Tylenol to my daughter for a week straight, I felt uneasy about using it so often and took the risk and bought Orajel. To test it I gave her the tiniest little drop ever (to make sure her throat didn’t close up), and she was fine. Well, by week 2 of her crazy screaming teething nights, we were all fed up so she was getting Tylenol AND Orajel. It gave her the peace we all needed, so I was happy about that. Finally, a bottom center tooth popped through and one week later the other bottom center tooth came through. YAY!

Once that “first tooth” fiasco was done with, I really enjoyed my daughter at 6 months old. It was my favorite age so far because she was always laughing and a lot of fun to be around. This is the age when I finally was able to sit back and enjoy motherhood. I even talked with my husband about maybe having a second kid (gasp!). I totally understand now how easily you can forget about how hard it was that first month of having a baby, and how it’s a good thing you forget because some people wouldn’t ever have a second child if they remembered!