We Interupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programing...

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programing of fart stories and letters to the rubber ducky maker people to introduce you to an awesome new blogger. The Mama Shannon is one of the funniest women I know. Her ability to retain her sense of humor (and amazing style) in the face of some extremely challenging circumstances really gives me something to strive for. Shannon is a single mother of two beautiful children. Her oldest, Olin, now 6 years old was diagnosed with sever autism at the age of 2. Instead of wallowing in self-pity she has risen to the occasion, learning everything she can about autism and becoming her son's biggest advocate and cheerleader. Shannon also has a daughter named Ruby who is 2 going on 22 and her antics are priceless.

So, how did I come to recommend you add this blog to your probably already over crowded Google Reader? Well, Shannon is one of my best friends although we've never actually met in real life.

The short story is: she used to be married to one of Jay's old Navy buddies.

The long story goes like this: Shannon married one of Jay's best friends in the early years of his Navy career. Jay spent many nights hanging out at Shannon's house and she was kind of the designated Mama of all these ragamuffin sailors. Olin is like Jay's adopted "first born" since he spent so much time at their house and helped out a lot after he was born. Shannon even introduced him to the girl he was seeing when we got together (or that I stole him from depending on who you ask). ;-) This combined with the fact that Shannon and her family had moved back to California before I moved to Virginia combined to mean that we never actually met. Over the years though, through Facebook and text messaging. We've gotten to be very good friends and it's a little scary how similar we are. One of us will post about how we like something totally obscure (and usually dorky) and the other will comment on how much we like that too. She's really introduced me to the autism issue and I've gained so much knowledge and understanding through reading her posts and the things she links to. It's because of her humor and perspective that I'm so glad she has decided to enter the world of blogging. Hop on over to her blog My Not-So-Mundane Life and see what you think. You won't be sorry.

Bringing Home Baby: A Pregnancy Must Have List

I just found out that one of my besties is pregnant with her first. I decided to put together a Survival Kit for her and it's got me thinking about the things I learned through out my pregnancy and what I recommend for others. I decided this would be something fun to post about so that I can reference it when other friends get pregnant.

1st Trimester


Prenatal Vitamins!!!!!!!!

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This should be one of the first things you think about after finding out that you're pregnant. Consult your doctor about which ones are the best but anything is better than nothing. My doctor wrote me a prescription but you can get them at many stores. If you think they are making your nausea worse, consider trying a different brand or type or taking it at a different time of day. Some of the girls I know had good luck with Targets gummy prenatals. I set an alarm on my phone and it helped me take them almost every single day I was pregnant. Always consult your doctor though!


Cracker Packs!

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I've said for a while that the pregnancy test people should get with the Lance Cracker company and make a combo pack because if the test is positive you should go ahead and put a couple packs in your purse. ;-) The first few weeks the nausea was pretty bad, but I could manage it if I kept something in my stomach. Eating every couple of hours became very important. I also found cereal to be really helpful because I could eat a little or a lot. If we were meeting friends for dinner but wouldn't be eating for a couple of hours, I could eat just a small bowl when I got home from work and it would keep me from getting too nauseous while we were waiting for a table. Also, servers are usually pretty helpful and will bring you some crackers or something if you need it. I had to do that a few times while I was figuring the whole thing out.



Jolly Ranchers or Preggy Pops

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Some people find sour things settle a nauseous stomach. I found that they made me want to throw up even more. But a lot of girls I know swear by them!


Gatorade

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This was probably my way of incorporating something sour, plus I got dehydrated really easily. This was my go to when I knew I needed to up my fluid intake, plus it's caffeine free. The premeasured powder packs were awesome too!



Ice Water with a Straw

Don't ask me why this seemed to help the nausea and why it was one of my biggest cravings. But since I'm a non-water drinker when not pregnant, I was just thankful!



SLEEP!

Growing a human is E-X-H-A-U-S-T-I-N-G! Get as much sleep as you can and don't apologize for it. If you partner doesn't want to go to bed that early then get used to going to sleep by yourself. I know it's not very romantic but trust me, you'll be glad you did when you can function the next day.


Pregnancy Books

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I definitely recommend that you pick up a book about pregnancy, if not 30. Learning about what my body was doing helped me feel more in control. BUT... be careful which you you read. The most popular, What to Expect When You're Expecting should really be retitled What to Freak the Freak Out About While You're Expecting. I found it to be way too anxiety producing. My doctor gave me Your Pregnancy Week by Week and it was much better. In my opinion, pregnancy is kind of like water. If you're going to be on it or in it, you need to understand it and respect it but not fear it. If what you are reading is making you fear pregnancy and childbirth talk to your medical professional or other moms and find an alternative.


2nd Trimester


BeBand (Bella Band or other brands)

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This thing is awesome and a life saver! When you start showing it allows you to wear your pre-pregnancy pants (unbuttoned) for a while longer. Plus by the end even your maternity shirts will have a hard time covering your bump and the waist band of your maternity pants. This extends your shirts and helps you feel all covered up.



Body Pillow (Regular and Pregnancy Specific)

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I just got a regular body pillow from IKEA, but there are many options. I thought mine was ok but since I didn't have any others I can't really compare. The pregnancy specific ones get really expensive but seeing how important it was towards the end, I can see investing in it. As your belly gets bigger it needs a little bit of support to make sleeping possible. A body pillow supports the belly and also helps with hip pain. Whether you buy a pregnancy specific pillow, a standard body pillow, or use multiple pillows you'll need something by the time you get to the end of the second trimester/third trimester.

A Good Body Lotion

People swear by different things but from the research I've done stretch marks are genetic. Either you are going to get them or you're not regardless of any products you use, so I don't recommend putting too much time and effort into finding that miracle cream. I didn't have any problems, but some of my friends had problems with their bellies itching and burning as they stretched to accommodate the growing human, so a good, basic body lotion really helped.

3rd Trimester

TUMS

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During the 3rd Trimester, my biggest complaint was indigestion. I really had to start watching what I ate and cut out as much fried food, anything with tomatoes, vinegar, or too much grease which cut out almost everything I eat. Oops. By the last few weeks I was beginning to wonder if one could live on nothing but TUMS. I recommend buying a few small packages so that you can have containers in different places. I had one in my office drawer, one in my car, one by the couch downstairs, and one by my bed. After you get your smaller containers start buying them in large containers and just refill your small ones or you'll go broke. Note though that you can overdose on TUMS so don't eat them like candy. Plus they'll back you up for realz which most pregnant women don't need any help with. ;-)


Baked Potatoes

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The only thing I found that would consistently not give me indigestion was baked potatoes. I guess in the grand scheme of things that was a fairly healthy thing to crave. I think the starch calmed down the acid but that's just my guess. Most people don't know that Wendy's sells various baked potatoes including a broccoli and cheese one. I think I single handedly kept the Wendy's by my office and house in business. I probably had a baked potato 5-7 times a week. Thankfully Jay's Irish so he loves anything made from the potato. Don't know if this will help anyone else, but it certainly helped me.

Classes and Hospital Tour

This is the time for taking as many classes as you can (in my opinion). Check with your hospital to see what they offer but you can also take classes other places. I'm a big fan of classes. I took Breastfeeding, Infant CPR (should have been renamed, 1001 Ways Your Baby Can Die but still good), and the Car Seat class through our hospital and then we took the Hypnobabies Childbirth class. I'm glad I took the class, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it to a first timer. It focuses on eliminating the pain of childbirth through hypnosis to the exclusion of everything else. So, if the hypnosis doesn't work for you during labor, you don't have a lot of techniques to fall back on. Regardless of whether you decide to have an epidural or not, I highly recommend a childbirth class of some kind. Childbirth is difficult and painful no matter how you approach it. Even if you get an epidural you will most likely feel contractions for hours before you can get it so knowing how to cope is essential. Plus it is unlike anything you have ever experiencing and that unknown can be very scary if you don't understand what's going on.

I think that's the best advise I can give. I'm sure I'll have to do another post soon because I'll think of a million other things. It's amazing, it's only been a few months since I was pregnant, but it feels like another lifetime. I can't even imagine a time when Turtle wasn't with us.

Ok, Mamas. What's your go-to pregnancy items?

Bringing Home Baby:

1) Introduction

2) A Pregnancy Must Have List

Fireworks

In honor of the end of 4th of July week, and because I discovered it this morning... I present Katy Perry's Firework for your Friday enjoyment.  I am both pained to admit that I like Katy Perry and embarrassed that I'm so late to the party.



I want to raise Turtle to be a firework. I know that will mean she'll probably bump heads with me first, but that's ok. I want her to know how to speak her mind and express herself. I want her to be someone who stands up for what she believes in even if it's not popular (and even if it's not what I believe in).

'Cause baby you're a firework.
Come on show 'em what you're worth!

Oh! And I want purple hair like her's!

Dear Rubber Ducky Maker People

Dear Rubber Ducky Maker People,

On a recent trip to my local Target (long live Target), I decided that what my baby daughter desperately needed to make her bath time complete was one of your delightful products. My eye was immediately drawn to one I thought was a female superhero. Upon further inspection, I realized that she was in fact a cheerleader. Ok, not the role model I'd like to have for my baby daughter's bathtime, but no big deal. As I looked for alternative "girl" ducks, I was shocked to find my options limited to the above mentioned cheerleader, a princess, and a mermaid (complete with seashell string bikini top). To my horror, I also discovered that the "boy" ducks were a fire fighter, a police officer, and a cowboy (all fully clothed). Now, I know I have been accused of being one of "those" feminist types, and sometimes a rubber ducky is just a rubber ducky, but I am appalled by your pigeon ducky-holing of young girls into roles based primarily on their looks while encouraging boys to be heroic and productive members of society. I am outraged by your utter lack of postive female role model rubber duckies! I demand that this problem be resolved!

Sincerely,
Concerned Mother

Needless to say, we went with a plain, old fashioned, yellow rubber ducky. Which Turtle seems to have no interest it other than chewing on the packaging it came in. :-/

To Sleep, Or Not to Sleep... (Weeks 18 and 19)

That seems to be the question around our house! We've gotten a handful of nights were Turtle goes down at 8ish and doesn't even stir until 6ish when we wake her up to eat. And then in between there has been a few nights where she doesn't want to be in her bassinet at all and she tosses and turns in my arms all night alternating between spitting out her paci and whining for me to find it. It's been super fun! (You know there really needs to be a font to indicate sarcasm. Could someone please get on that!)

Thankfully, I think we've gotten the no-sleeping thing figured out. We really need a dual a/c system for our house, but that cost moneys and we don't have moneys right now because we have a baby and it seems like you can only have one or the other. Anyway... in order for the upstairs be cool it would have to be down right frigid downstairs, so we usually just deal with it being a little warm upstairs. Apparently we hadn't realized that it had gotten a little too hot upstairs in the last few days. So, in a fit of desperation, I discussed the possibility of the temperature affecting her sleep with Jay. He agreed and bumped the temp down a little. (I do not touch the thermostat if possible. This comes from years of being yelled at by my dad (and ex-husband) for turning it up or down too much. It's a thing. I should get over it. I don't really care.) Anyway, we also turned the ceiling fan up a notch and ta-da! Like magic she slept through the night! Woohoo! Just like her Mama, she can't sleep if it's too hot. Lesson learned.

This weekend was also monumental because Turtle laughed for the first time ever! Now she's a very happy baby and has been squealing and making happy noises for a long time, but I've been waiting for that rolling laughter for a long time. On Sunday I went to Dunkin Donuts for a quick chocolate fix (read: chocolate overload!) and when I came back Jay said, "Please don't be mad!" Hehe. I wasn't mad. I was so happy, and so happy that he got to experience it. Apparently, the puppy had been scratching on the couch trying to get to one of his toys. Jay snapped at him to stop and Turtle thought it was so funny. Well, needless to say we spent most of the evening snapping in an effort to get her to do it again. The poor puppy is so freaking confused. She only did it one more time and it was, again, when the puppy was getting into something and Jay was snapping at him to stop. It was the best sound ever!!

One of the other things we've been trying lately is eating at the dinner table. We put Turtle in her high chair and let her play with her toys while we eat. It's been so fun to interact as a family of three and gives me a glimpse of what it will be like in the years to come. We don't do it every night. It really depends on whether or not I got to see Jon Stewart's The Daily Show before we sit down for dinner. :-) Priorities? What are those?

We also got Turtle an Exersauser this weekend. She wants to stand up all.the.time! This gets old. So, I figured it was time for a big, obnoxious, over-priced, plastic thing to help her do that. So, we went to the local consignment shops and found one in good condition. She loves it. Well, for about 10 minutes at a time, which I can sympathise with because that's about as long as my attention span is too. Poor girl.

I also started experimenting with putting Turtle in the shopping cart and restaurant high chairs. It was a huge success! She's not quite sitting, but she does pretty well with a little help from us. We do have to teather any toy she's playing with otherwise we end up spending half the time playing the pick up game.

I think that about hits the highlights for the past couple of weeks. I've taken lots of photos though, so get ready for cuteness overload!

We love our Bumbo. I know some people aren't fans because they can be expensive and the babies grow out of them so quickly, but we got ours at a consignment shop for about half price and it's been well worth it. I take it to restaurants so that we don't have to hold her all the time. (Although this weekend we put her in the highchair and it seemed to work pretty well.) My mom also uses it a lot during the day at her house since she doesn't have a high chair yet.

"Red White & Cute" How cute is that onesie?!?! I loved it so much that I had to get a few pictures of it. And I love having Daddy help with the photo shoots. You can see in the first picture that I took by myself that it's like she loses me when I put the camera up in front of my face. In the second one she's looking at Daddy. Oh how I love that!

She's also starting to do this thing called "tripoding".  It's when they sit up and balance themselves on their arms. It's a pre-sitting milestone and helps them learn to sit up. She'll be sitting before we know it!

These are a couple I got in the yummy morning light in my craft room. I realized thought that if we ever get the guest room cleaned out, that will probably become my studio because it gets the most light of any room in our entire house.

Have a great week everyone!



Happy 4th Everyone!

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July! Even though it didn't go as planned, we did at our house. But I know you are all chomping at the bit to see our Old Navy Flag Shirts 4th of July Family Picture! Well... maybe chomping at the bit is a little bit of an overstatement.  Anyway... here it is!

Yes, I'm well aware that you can't really see all our shirts. But when we started taking pictures we realized that besides matching t-shirts we were also sporting some matching pudge and so as the Super Parents we are, we decided to stick Turtle out front and we'd just hide behind her. Baby fat is cute anyway, right? We did discover that getting a 4 month old to look out at an empty yard and a camera on a tripod while her parents sit behind her is a challenge to say the least. I thought we were going to have to call Grandma to come help, but eventually I started sticking my fingers out in front of her and clicking until the last possible second. I think next year we'll try to enlist some help though. :-)

We had big plans to meet friends for fireworks. We'd even bought hot pink ear protection for the babies so they could enjoy the fireworks. But that was not to be had. Right as we were heading out, the weather turned bad. By the time we got to our favorite little town the heavens opened up. We ran into the Bojangles to sit out the ran, hoping it would just blow through. But by the time our friends got there, we could tell that even if the rain did stop, it was going to be too wet to do much of anything. So, we hugged and assured each other that we'd entertain the babies with the bubbles and sparklers next weekend. The upside was we got home at a much more descent hour.

So, how was your 4th of July?

Happy Friday

I puffy sparkle heart Fridays! In fact they are one of my favorite days of the week. Saturday is my actual favorite day of the week, but Friday doesn't run too far behind. Why you ask? Because every Friday is payday for me. I'm lucky enough to work in an office where we get paid every week and boy do I take advantage of it.

See, I REALLY don't want to be working. I mean, it's not nearly as bad as I thought or feared it would be and I definitely like being able to go to the bathroom by myself whenever I want and staying relatively spit up free all day, but if the oportunity presented itself for me to be a stay-at-home-mom, I'd jump on it in a heartbeat. With the bills we have and the access we have to affordable childcare (i.e. Grandma) it's really not an option for me to stay home right now. Because of this unexpected turn of events (I always assumed I'd be able to stay home after having children), my husband and I have made a deal.

Every Friday, either at lunch or after work, I get to go buy something small for Turtle, most likely something she absolutely dose not need in any way, shape, or form (I mean, how many paci's could a kid possibly need??? Says my husband,)... and I don't have to justify it or feel bad about it. Last week it was new paci's. (But, honey, these have a Turtle on them and she doesn't have one that has a Turtle on it, duh.) This week... I'm not sure. I'm thinking about a new outfit.

Happy Friday everyone! Have a safe and wonderful holiday weekend! We are hoping to take Turtle to see fireworks on Monday so I'll let you know how that goes!