Welcome!

I'm a stay at home mom with a 2 year old little boy, Gage, and I'm pregnant with baby #2 due October 3rd. My husband and I love animals and have rescued each of our animals from shelters or foster homes. I've owned my horse for 8 years and I consider him my "first born" child.

My husband and I are raising our son as a vegetarian and we have such a good little eater on our hands! I started as a veggie many years ago, and when I met my husband he ate meat. When we became pregnant with Gage, we were faced with the decision of how he should be raised- to eat meat like the "norm" in society, or to go with the option of being a vegetarian like his mom. Both Stuart and I are big readers, so we began reading whatever we could get our hands on about raising a vegetarian child and spoke to our doctor and nutritionist. We came to the conclusion that it could be done, easily, and that it was the best option for us. Stuart gave up meat (willingly, without a fight or my asking him) and we've never looked back! Hopefully we can meet some families doing the same as us, I know they are out there! We're big believers that knowledge is power, and we never make decisions without looking at both sides of any argument first. We never thought we'd have such a difficult time defending WHY we decided to raise Gage veggie. Mostly we encountered issues with the older generations of our families. Luckily, they all can easily see what a healthy boy our son is and how he'll literally eat anything you put in front of him. We aren't vegan, but we do what we can with our favourite meals, when we can. I find that the city we live in makes it difficult to be a vegan, and expensive.

Gage is growing so fast! I know I'll look back on this entry later on and remember how little he was at this time but I'm just so excited about all the little things he learns every day. He's stringing together sentences, and he picks up little sayings (good and bad) from those around him. He's a funny little guy, and sometimes he's just so weird! Today Stuart and I went grocery shopping, and my dad came to pick us up from the store to bring us home and to have a visit with Gage. The first thing he said was "Holy Crap!" at all the groceries we had... not a second later Gage repeated with "Holy Crap!". Way to go Bop!

As I mentioned earlier, I'm pregnant with baby #2 (10 weeks along). When I was pregnant with Gage, I had HORRIBLE morning sickness. I was throwing up for 9 months straight, and even had fainting spells. I swore off babies after all that. Then I started thinking "well, everyone says every pregnancy is different, so if we had another baby, I'd probably not be sick at all!".... boy was I wrong! So far, it's been the exact same as my first pregnancy. I can hardly keep anything down, even after being prescribed the "morning sickness pill" (diclectin). I lost 10 pounds within 2 weeks. With Gage, I only gained 12 pounds throughout the whole pregnancy (a lot of woman get jealous when hearing that, but I swear it was NOT COOL... I would have rathered gained 50 pounds!) and everyone was expecting Gage to be this tiny little baby. Then he was born 9 pounds, 1 oz. Not exactly small.

This time around, after a mediocre experience in the hospital, we have decided to go with a midwife and do a home birth. I'm hoping to be able to do a waterbirth, in a birthing tub. I've done so much research and compared all the pros and cons and it's so exciting! I hated being somewhere that wasn't my own bed after I gave birth to Gage, in a ward full of woman overnight etc. This time around, I can't wait to get up, shower (wash my hair!), get into warm comfy pj's and crawl into bed with my new bundle of joy. It makes me so happy to think of that, compared to before! I watched the movie made in part by Ricki Lake (everyone remembers her, right?!) called "The Business of Being Born" and I highly recommend it to all my friends. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DgLf8hHMgo

If anyone has any tricks on how to get rid of this morning sickness, I'm BEGGING them to PLEASE share. I'm desperate and will try anything. I'm so sick of being sick!

When I sat down to start this I thought to myself "hmmm I hope I can think of something to write about...".... ummm.... yup! No problems there! I feel like blogging is a bit of a therapy, and a break from talking "toddler talk" all day long!

Will post again soon! :)