Listmania: How to Survive Two Kids - Life with a Newborn and a Toddler

When I was pregnant with my second child, I spent a lot of time trying to wrap my head around the logistics of parenting two children at two very different stages of life. It's amazing how much a couple years between kids can mean a world of variation in needs, schedules, meals, preferences, abilities...the list goes on and on. I searched the internet trying to find advice from moms who had been there, but found there really was a shortage of practical information that I could put to use. I am starting this post 7 months into my life with two kids, and though I'm sure it is different for everyone, I think I have a perspective that can hopefully help others out there who are wondering how the heck they will get through this part of parenting. Maybe this will help...

Surviving Two Kids - Life with a Newborn and a Toddler

1. If you still have time before your second child arrives, do some preparation. I'm not talking about setting up the crib - I'm talking about sanity preparation. Start talking to your toddler about the new baby, and include terms like, "patience" and "fragile". 
2. Get your hands on as many big sibling books that you can find - we found "I'm a Big Sister" (brother version also available), as well as "Waiting For Baby" and "You and Me". These all show what life with a new baby will be like and should help immensely once the baby comes home.
3. Start stockpiling quiet toys that can be kept in special bins throughout your house. These can be used by your toddler during baby naptimes, nursing sessions, or when Mom just needs 15 minutes of silence (or almost silence anyway). Include items like books to read, crayons and coloring books, or quiet books (here's my version). To make the boxes even more exciting, only let your toddler use them when you need the quiet time.
4. Keep emergency items all over the place. I have a gallon-size ziploc in my car, my husband's car, and in my way-too-big-to-be-trendy purse. In these bags I have a will-not-be-missed change of clothes for each kid, a diaper for each kid, wipes, a disposable changing pad and a disposable diaper trash bag. At this point I do still use a diaper bag, but it stays in the car and I just pull things from it when I need too.
5. I always keep the following in my purse: A toddler-applicable snack. Stickers and crayons. An old (hopefully charged) smartphone loaded with whatever is the latest and greatest area of interest. I promise you will get caught somewhere, or need to buy some extra toddler happiness when the baby needs attention while you are running errands. A box of raisins always makes my older daughter happy when I need an extra 20 minutes to get everyone through a doctor appointment.
6. Solicit your toddler for help with the baby. This has been huge for us, and Bugga loves to feel important. Even at 2.5 she is able to bring me things like a baby blanket, a clean outfit for the baby, etc. if I just ask her. 
7. Grocery shopping with one kid was a breeze compared to two. In case you didn't learn this the first time around, your baby's car seat DOES NOT go on top of the shopping cart. Ever. And unless you are at Costco, the car seat will likely not fit inside the cart either, especially if you plan on actually shopping for anything, and definitely if your toddler is sitting in the kid seat. This is where the sling/baby carrier serves its purpose. Oh, and don't forget to park right next to the cart return.
8. Speaking of the baby carrier...that thing will come in handy a lot. I wore it all over the house. So did my husband, as for awhile that was the only place Bella would nap. (We do not miss those days AT. ALL.) I also wore it a lot outside of the house - besides shopping, it allowed me to still keep Bugga enrolled in her gymnastics class. She isn't quite old enough for a non-parented class, but I can't have the baby in the infant seat while Bugga is in class. But the sling was no big deal. And Bugga really needs that gymnastics class for a myriad of reasons, so I am so glad I did not have to suspend that from our schedule.
9. If your toddler doesn't use a sound machine, I would consider it at this point. My kids both have sound machines which are priceless tools when both at home and traveling. And now that you will have a new baby potentially screaming at all hours, a sound machine can muffle that sound so at least SOMEONE in your house can get some sleep.
10. Know that this chaotic mess of a life will not last forever. There will be tears of happiness and frustration several times over as you learn to adjust to everything. That first year of your child's life is HARD on a mom. And add a second (or third, or fourth) kid to it, and everything escalates. But your family will evolve into something that works for everyone.

*Note: For some reason I wrote this post and never published it, and I just found it now that my second child is 14 months old. I am happy to say we survived the first year (as you will) and things are definitely easier nowadays that we all know each other much better and have adjusted to life outside the womb. Hang in there!

Sometimes We Don't Relate I Guess

I remember when Bugga was about 7 months old and I was struggling with her sleep regression, waking up with her every night at random times, for 100 different reasons - she was practicing standing, her pacifier fell out of the crib, she had a stuffed up nose...anything. It always seemed to be something. I remember sharing my woes with a friend of mine whose son is about a year older. Her response, "Hmmm, oh well we never had that problem so I can't help. Sorry!" said with an inappropriately cavalier attitude. Guess how much I see this friend since this stellar understanding moment? Yeah, not much.

Was her son always an awesome sleeper? The odds are against it, but sure it's possible. Is that really the point though? The point, at least from my perspective, was to be just the teensiest bit understanding about my situation. I mean, we're both moms right? We've likely read a lot of the same books about parenting and know relatively the same general information about all there is to know about the possibility that our children might have some trouble sleeping at some point. And I was likely mentioning my strife for 30 lousy seconds of commiseration. Commiseration I didn't get.

We just finished a weekend of the initial move to potty train my 2.5 year old daughter. It was a long weekend of never leaving the house, with highs and (really gross) lows but we did make it out the other side. I am happy to say she spent the entire day at preschool today with ZERO accidents - and this is just Day 4.

Anyway, I was reminded of the situation above when I left the house for a lousy hour this past weekend to run some quick errands that included picking up more Frozen and Minnie Mouse underwear that have been helping to motivate my daughter, as well as restocking our supply of several small prizes for her successes. While at the checkout of one of the stores, I get into a conversation with the cashier regarding what I was in the midst of at home (nope, that stash of sequined $1 princess crowns are not for a party actually, but instead are poop rewards - hey you asked), making it pretty obvious that it's been exhausting. No joke, she says, "Ah yes...with my daughter she just put on her underwear one day and that was it. It was great!" Ughhhhhh, seriously?

So what is with the knee-jerk lack of empathy between moms? Is this normal? Has it happened to anyone else?

It's Not About Gwyneth

This is a repost from something I shared with my friends on Facebook. Hopefully my blog readers also know what I'm trying to say.

So this Gwyneth Paltrow working mom thing is all over Facebook. Yes, she said her job is harder than other working moms. And then a gajillion people responded that, no, their jobs are harder than that of a celebrity. 

On other days I see people post links to blogs about someone trying to attempt to equalize the struggles of working moms versus stay-at-home moms, and it just results in a Battle of the Miserable (seriously, read the comments on any of these posts). 

Am I the only person who is tired of hearing everyone try to tear each other down by one-upping others about how hard their life is? 

Of course the grass is often much greener on the other side, but everyone has their struggles, whether it be 9 months on a movie set away from your family, or working 2 daily jobs away from your kids to make ends meet, or struggling to find professional success. 

Yes, celebrities have a lot of money and freedoms that regular people might not have, but they are also people too, with families they can't be with all the time and marriages that fail no matter how many nannies they hire. Stay at home moms and working moms all have their own reasons to be jealous of each other's lives. 

I guess the bottom line I get from all this is stop spending so much time tearing down the Joneses and find your own happiness.

Ummm

So colic is fun...

Big Changes!

Okay, so if you are a reader of my blog, you might have noticed that the last couple posts have been pretty........spaced..........out. Not my finest example of my writing discipline, but I swear I have a good excuse! Well, excuses really.

For starters: We are moving to Canada. From Texas. Which at a glance did not seem like it was going to be a huge deal (other than the violently different weather, but I'm sure I'll have more posts about that later...). It turns out, it is actually QUITE a big deal because, after all, it is an entirely different country. With that comes all sorts of nightmares around customs and importing things like, I don't know, our FURNITURE and our CARS and all sorts of drama. Throw in some loonies and some toonies (yep, that would be the sophisticated name of our new country's currency) and our lives will pretty much be a-changin'. But to be fair to the Calgarians we will soon call our neighbors, everyone up there at first glance appears to be super friendly and at least I can say they have beautiful weather in the summer. I'm going to hold on to that thought as long as I can...

And then there's excuse #2. 

Our Required Facebook Announcement

I'm pregnant. Oh yes. Believe me I have wanted to type many a blog about how miserable I was during my first trimester, but since we didn't tell a SOUL until Father's Day when he hit the safety zone of the second trimester, I couldn't very well publish it all over the internet. Which I think is a total scam. Expectant moms are typically very ill during the first three months, and it just isn't fair that we aren't allowed to publicly whine about it, only because we are trying to do the responsible thing and spare our extended family and friends the grief should there be some complication or what not.

So because I had to suffer in silence (except for my husband, poor guy), you can at least forgive me for being a blog slacker. I swear I'll do better just as soon as the morning sickness cuts me a break - I swear I can see the horizon!

Splash Pad Throw Down!

OK, well, my first born made it to 17 months until her mommy got into a verbal fight with another mom. Should I be proud of that? I've thought through this confrontation over and over, and I'm confident that in hindsight I still handled it the way I believe I should have.

So here we are, kicking off a fantastic family vacation in Florida with a stop at Busch Gardens in Tampa. We pretty much stuck to the kiddo area with our toddler, which meant splash pad fun! Woohoo! Bugga loves these things, having just discovered them at home - she doesn't have to stress over blowing bubbles or not touching the bottom when she wants to.

Bugga and I were walking around the large splash pad area looking at all the fun water obstacles, as I noticed the posted rules included "Yield to small children." Perfect - that is us indeed!

There is an area that essentially has water "guns" that can be aimed at each other in 90 degree circles and directed to a variety of heights. As we walked past this with another mom and her stroller, a 5-year-old boy turned and aimed right at me and my 1 year old. He drenched me (and I was wearing street clothes) and hosed my daughter down in the face. His expression stated that he clearly knew what he was doing. The mom with the stroller was apparently his mother, said something to him along the lines of, "Play niiiiiiiiice" and then kept on walking, turning her back on her misbehaving son. He then turned right around, aimed at my daughter's face again, and sprayed her with the water while squealing, "Got you!!!!"

Oh it was on.

I gave the mother a stern, "Ma'am!" call, and she froze, as she clearly knew this had to do with her child. She turned around with attitude on her face and a "Yeah?" where I promptly told her that her son was out of hand and needed a parent to help him out. She immediately got all defensive and said, "Well you ARE at a water park, you should expect to get wet!"

Me: "What I don't expect is for my daughter to be attacked by such a mean kid that is 5 times her size."
Her: "Well you don't know what it's like to have a 5 year old boy and another child. We are working with him."
Me: "What I do know is that it is my job to protect my own child, and that I am responsible for what happens to her. As you should be for your children."
Her: "You don't know what it's like! He is a five year old boy!"
Me: "Then you need to not turn your back on him. Otherwise you need some help!"
I walked away with my daughter, as clearly this mom was missing the point.

Look, I get that kids have to learn things. And I also don't believe anyone at 5 years old can be that evil. But seriously, turning your back on your child's bad behavior? All I heard from this mom's reasoning was, "I can't handle being a parent." Honestly - if you can't be somewhere and be responsible for BOTH of your children, you either should not have left the house, or you need to bring another adult with you to help. There is no excuse for not being aware of (or worse, IGNORING) what your children are doing, especially when out in public.

About 5 minutes later the little boy came up to us and apologized for spraying us in the face with the water. I guess Mom thought I was right after all. I thanked him, left my daughter with my husband, and went to smooth things over.

I walked back up to the mom, told her I appreciated her sending her son over, and I was sorry I raised my voice. She then got back on her defensive soapbox and starting moaning about how "I don't know what it's like" and then I knew I shouldn't have bothered. Poor little boy - it's going to be a rough ride with that woman.

So - would you have handled it any differently? I would love to hear it!

Mom Competition

We've all apparently felt it. And heard the comments. And probably made the comments. Moms bash other moms ALL. THE. TIME. Why? I'm guessing it's because it makes us feel like we are doing that much less of a crappy job as a parent if you can point out at least ONE person who is doing worse than you. The problem is, this behavior/thought process/arrogance does no one any good, especially your children.

We are surrounded by judgmental looks on the playground, reality TV shows like "Dance Moms" where the parents spend their lives cutting each other down, and our own insecurities - it's amazing our kids can get themselves to school in the morning.

If you've ever read a thread on a parenting message board where a proud parent is asking if their 1 year old is "advanced" because of A, B, C, that parent will be shot down so fast it is like they were lurking in the background and waiting for this type of post. I have rarely ever seen supportive comments come out of that discussion, and I feel like it is all driven by competitiveness and jealousy.

It has to stop! Why not just say, "Hey, that's great that your kid can do that! You must be spending a lot of time working on X skill with your child." What is the harm in that? As parents, we rarely get reassurance we are doing things right, and a comment like that might just keep that household going one more day that week! Think of it like the basic compliment - you tell someone you like their outfit or their hair why? Because you have to? No, because you want them to feel good about it! What's wrong with someone feeling good about their parenting? It in no way takes away from how you parent, just like a hair compliment doesn't make you look any less attractive.

What I fear are those parents you see on reality TV (so they must be real, right?) who will take discussions with other parents as far as yelling and screaming, with the obligatory foul language - and right in front of their kids! That is child abuse if I've ever seen it. I still can't believe the networks don't get involved, but apparently you sell your soul for ratings.

Be a better parent. Make someone else feel like a better parent. Your kids will thank you.

Activity: Stacking Cups

My 14-month-old daughter is currently fascinated with containers, and things that she can put in them, while just as fast taking them right out. So we found a great way to make more fun with this.

Of course I spend a lot of my day in the kitchen, whether cooking and prepping meals, cleaning up the results, or racking my brain (seriously just had to look up whether 'racking' or 'wracking' is appropriate here and apparently the jury is still out) trying to come up with some food ideas my picky-ish toddler will tolerate. So Bugga spends a lot of time at my feet, and I wanted her to be entertained so I could still be productive.

I designated two lower cabinets to my less-valuable storage containers, all plastic. All other cabinets are of course locked (and she is fascinated by the locks, by the way, but anyway...), but these two contain two large blue tubs of fun. Though it's no Tupperware, the little plastic bowls you get with your Chinese takeout have made for the most fun. I somehow have an assortment of sizes and they all fit perfectly inside each other in any order.

Bugga loves to take these containers, fill them with her little toys, and then stack them up. Then she takes them apart, drags them to the living room, stacks them up again, and puts more toys in them. Then back to the kitchen for the game to begin again. She loves it, and I'm glad that she gets to practice her dexterity, her spacial reasoning, and will even listen to directions if I ask her to "please put that bowl back in the blue bin" or whatever.

I can't wait until she's big enough to help me mix ingredients!

Listmania: Parenting Ideas

This is yet another list for me to collect ideas that I will use somewhere down the road, and you are welcome to as well. As usual, please feel free to make suggestions, and if it is something I think has a place on the list, I will not only add it into the post, I will give you credit via a link back to your blog (should you have one).

Parenting Ideas

Description: Once in awhile, through all those suggestions that are thrown at you from everyone from the dry cleaner to the grandmothers, a couple gems float to the top. I want to remember how to be the best parent I can be, and I may not always remember the right idea at the right time. I hope this list helps me stay on top of my parenting game, even if just a little bit.

1. Going to the beach? Take along baby powder - it's a miracle worker with getting sand of everyone's legs and feet.
2. Bored Jar: If your child child complains of boredom, they have to pick a slip from the jar and do the activity, good or bad. It might be going for ice cream, it might be cleaning their room.
3. Leave love notes on your child's pillow when they least expect one.
4. Hug your child every day when they wake up and when they get home from school.
5. Timers set definite boundaries. For example, with a timer, you can say, "I'm setting the timer. I want your room cleaned (or your shoes on, or the dishes unloaded) in 15 minutes. If you haven't finished by then, your correction is…." This method not only spurs on easily distracted children, but it also leaves little room for arguing about a job that isn't finished and whether the correction is warranted.Say something great about your child to someone else, knowing your child can hear you (but not necessarily with your child standing right there).
6. Make fun shaped sandwiches for lunches using cookie cutters.
7. Set family rules. “Our family rule is that the room has to be clean by 5:00 each day. Either you can clean it or I will. But, anything that I find laying around will go into a box in the garage and be unavailable for the next week." If your son doesn’t have his uniform for practice, he’ll learn an important lesson when he explains to the coach why he’s not prepared. If you find that your kids don’t even miss the toys or clothes that you hauled out to the garage, that lets you know they probably have more than they need and it’s time for a big donation to Goodwill Industries. 
8. Come up with a secret word, phrase, or hand gesture that means "I love you" so you and your child can communicate without them being embarrassed in front of their friends.
9. Next time your child "forgets" to put something away, like video games or sports equipment, put it away for him. When he asks where it is, tell him that he'll just have to look for it. Believe me; he will learn that it's a lot more trouble to find something that Mom has hidden than it is to put it away in the first place.
10. Ignore phone calls during quality time, and make it clear you are choosing to be with your child instead.
11. Decorate your child's mirror with a fun surprise message.
12. Your words help your child build self-esteem. Tell her she is beautiful.  Praise specific features of her body.  Encourage her to wear clothing that makes her feel comfortable. Let her choose her hair length.  Allow her choices with clothing. Realize it's okay if clothing is sometimes wrinkled or mismatched. Be there with love and affection when someone teases her. 
13. Send your kiddo something in the mail with an actual STAMP! What could be more fun?
14. If time-outs don't work, try a "time-in." This can be accomplished by sending your child to a designated spot where he must complete a task that has a definite beginning and end. This could be putting together a small puzzle, stringing 50 beads on a piece of yarn, or tracing the alphabet. A time-in diverts his energies and encourages him to focus on something positive.
15. If your child likes to stomp off to his room or stomp around in anger, send him outside to the driveway and tell him to stomp his feet for one minute. He'll be ready to quit after about 15 seconds, but make him stomp even harder.
16. Use a WHEN-THEN routine. “WHEN your room is clean (which means I can see your entire floor and the horizontal surfaces are clear of clutter) THEN, you can have your TV time, or THEN we’ll leave or practice, or THEN you can join us for dinner.” Creating a When-Then routine in which the room must be cleaned before a more enjoyable part of the routine occurs – creates a natural incentive. If you follow a When-Then routine every single day- there’s no need to fuss or fight about it. As my mother-in-law says, it’s the law. It’s just the way we do things around here. That’s called “letting the routine be the boss” so you don’t have to be.
17. Watch what you say! Don't criticize your own body. Never make fun of the way someone else looks. Say that cosmetics make us look different or fancier not prettier.  Never say, "I wish I looked like her." Don't freak out if she gets dirty. Avoid fawning over beautiful models and actresses.
18. Lead by example: Limit access to media. Provide your daughter with dolls with dark and light skin. Don't always wear makeup. Provide healthy food to make it more likely for your child to have a healthy body. Encourage physically active play and activities. Wear a swimsuit even if you don't feel like wearing one, so you can swim with your child. Develop a social circle that expands outside your likely-homogenous neighborhood. Eat all foods in moderation.  Provide opportunities for your child to develop her unique talents. Celebrate exercise for making the heart healthy. Celebrate acts of the heart.

What else???

Sleep Stress

I've noticed lately that I have a little anxiety in the evenings regarding what that night will bring for sleep for the house. My husband has been out of town for business for the past 4 nights (only two more to go!!) and it has been challenging to say the least.

As I mentioned previously, Bugga is a pretty decent sleeper at night, but can't nap for crap. I take equal responsibility for this so I'm working on my parenting skills (back to that MBA in Baby thing again!). I still am in the habit of tracking all her diapers, sleep time and nursing time via my Total Baby app on my iPhone so I am well aware how much sleep she is (not) getting.

The first few mornings my husband was gone, Bugga decided that 5am had the most exciting events taking place, and she was not about to sleep through it. Ugh. I am not a morning person. Neither is my husband. We are hoping neither is our daughter, but, well...there's still hope for the future I suppose. I'm guessing this is tied to minimal sleep time during the day that results in her being overtired and having trouble keeping the longer stretches at night.

So by last night, I was so scared she'd wake up super early, and just never go back to sleep. I had her on track with feedings at least all day so I could get them all in with her going to bed a little sooner than usual. I have heard the phrase "sleep begets sleep" so WOW was I hoping this was right. But I was stressed out.

Usually I'll nurse her a bit before I put her in her sleep sack and then lay her in her crib. After that full meal she is typically pretty exhausted so it's all we can do to keep her eyes open until she sets her head to the mattress. But not last night...ugh the instant sweat on the back of my neck when I heard her fussing over the baby monitor as I finished shoveling down my dinner so I could go to bed immediately and stock up on my own sleep.

But then something miraculous happened - she fussed for about 10 minutes, with it never really making it to a cry and then ALL THE NOISES STOPPED. Had she really just put herself to sleep? I waited another 10 minutes before tempting fate and then snuck into the nursery. Yep, there she was, arms splayed over her head, out cold. Oh, the pride I felt that moment.

I did go to bed shortly after in case this was a fluke. I heard her singing at 2am (and LOVED THAT!), fussing at 5am and 6am - but each time she soother herself back to sleep. She woke for the day at 7:15am. I'll say that last night was a Total Win.

And tonight is a new night. But hopefully I feel a little less stress, to be replaced by a little more confidence in The Bugga.

My Master's Degree

In case you are wondering, the name of this blog (MOMba) stemmed from my attitude as I made the transition to being a stay-at-home mom. A few years back, I was attending a top business school for my MBA in Marketing, where I met my now-husband, married him and now have a baby together. And then decided to shelve something I very recently spent upwards of six figures and a lot of exhausting nights to earn (referring to the degree; the marriage was a business school perk for sure). As I was trying to wrap my head around how I could still be applying my business school skills, I would tell me husband and a select handful of friends that I was going to “MBA the hell out of this staying at home business”.

What I meant by this I suppose is that I am very schedule oriented. I’m not in the least bit bragging that I am organized (though I have pinned dozens of projects on Pinterest that I plan on pursuing sometime this year to help me get better at this). But I enjoy nothing more than economizing my time and making the most of multi-tasking where it makes sense, and focusing on a single moment in time when multitasking does not make sense. Like my daughter’s Firsts, for example.

So I plan to (attempt to) master my baby abilities so that I can reduce the time needed for unimportant but vital things like laundry and meal planning, while living in the moment with Bugga’s first steps, her trying to talk to me, the first time she sees a tree and other fantastically basic things that I get to re-appreciate with her help.

First Road Trip

My in-laws live about 4 states over, which amounts to about a 10 hour drive, sans infant. Being a new parent, I have noticed myself walking through a new event to understand how we would deal with possible issues as they arise, and then plan ahead accordingly. The biggest challenge I could see for a long roadtrip was Bugga’s feeding schedule. How does she get the meals she needs without us completely doubling our travel time?

My daughter is exclusively breastfed, though she does take a bottle like a champion. The problem is I have recently determined I am crap at pumping in the car. I’m not sure if it is the stress of the overall situation, or just the stress of manipulating the pump and all the annoying parts, but I have trouble producing much more than 3 oz and that does not a full meal make. So we compromised for this one once we got on the road. I pumped for two meals’ worth in between nursings, and I’d nurse while my husband would go in and sit down at a restaurant to enjoy food I typically detest (Waffle House, anyone?). Then I get to pick anything with a drive-thru and we make the most of our travel time. Not bad – but next time we should definitely check flights.

The other challenge with extended road travel is how much time my daughter needs to spend in her car seat. And she was great! In fact, as I had actually hoped, her daytime napping improved because, well basically she had no choice. Well, I guess she did have a choice – she could have screamed the whole way and she didn’t, so for that I am greatly proud of her. I’m typing this with about 5 hours left of the return trip so we’ll see how this affects her nap schedule when we’re back to normal tomorrow.

First plane trip in 3 weeks! Now I need to envision all the scenarios that come with that trip...

Rolling Over

When Bugga mastered rolling from back to front, all of us were SO proud. That is, until later that night when we found her in her swaddle flipped over onto her stomach against the slats of the crib at 5am. Which of course resulted in hysterics. Not on my watch, buddy!

OK fine, so no more swaddle. She has always been a Baby Houdini and managed to get at least one arm out, so we figured she could handle a regular sleep sack. Except while we thought the problem would be her hands getting in her face, that was not the primary challenge. After mastering this “half roll”, you could not stop her from practicing. We would lie her down on a quilt, and up those legs would go to throw herself over onto her stomach. And then she was stuck because she couldn’t roll back and eventually she would need to put her face down (gasp!).

We spent several hours early one morning repeating a frustrating (and yet somewhat adorable) cycle where I’d lay her on her back in her crib, she would roll right away onto her belly, doze off on her stomach, then stir about 20 minutes later and realize she was on her face, panic, and then scream.

So after scouring the internet at 3am for a fix to this (what DID we ever do without the internet, seriously) my husband and I rigged up a blanket that was tucked into the crib mattress that we would place across her legs, low enough so her hands couldn’t find a way to yank it free. For bonus points, we rolled up a second blanket and placed it by her legs on the side she rolls over on (only one so far!).  After this, she SLEPT. This child looked so cozy, and her four-month regression issues with waking in the night for no reason pretty much evaporated with this. Fist bump. For now anyway.

One Week In

Well, I was assuming that my first report of stay-at-home-mom-ing would be full of all sorts of great experiences now that my daughter and I can have endless quality time together. Boy was I wrong! My little one had different ideas...

About a week before I left work she suddenly started napping wonderfully in her crib for about 4 hours a day. A glorious thing since previously we had only known a 30-minute cat nap here and there. So with the knowledge that routines are power for babies, I tried to continue this.

She wasn’t having it, and we know who’s boss. I think Bugga took about 2 hours of naps ALL WEEK my first week on the job. Which all you in-the-know parents realize makes for a nice family nightmare of crying and crankiness – from both of us. Somehow she still slept pretty well at night, so I should consider myself lucky (which I do everyday, but I digress...).

So lessons learned Week One: We don’t have to wean from the pacifier just yet, naps in the bouncer are perfectly acceptable, and a perfectly-timed errand that allows for car seat napping is not (yet) a crutch for baby sleep.

Oh, and incidentally, Bugga decided to roll over back to front on Friday evening – perfectly timed for me to still feel successful for the week, and Daddy was home from work to see it.

Here We Go!

Welcome to my new adventure! I just quit my job last week after 5 challenging weeks back at the office after maternity leave. My reason is probably obvious. My goal? To master this parenting thing and give my daughter everything I can, while selfishly being able to be there to be a part of all her Firsts. I never expected I'd choose this path, but that 23 inches of smiles and giggles has changed everything else about our life - why not this too?

As much as it is a time for me to teach her everything she can handle, I am fully aware that I am sure to learn JUST as much.So that is what this blog is for...a journal of how we spend our days, which I am sure will be peppered with tear-fests (from both of us), lazy days, parenting mistakes, recipes and crafts, field trips, playdates and who knows what else!

Feel free to follow along - I might need some advice from time to time. And maybe I'll be able to help you out too! Thanks for reading!