Recently in Parenting Category

We are now overflowing with seats. Seats for a baby. Seats and seat covers for a baby. Just to warn you this post is mostly about baby products and if you are not interested I suggest you scroll down and enjoy the pictures of the baby. I own all of these seats. I chose the Profile Travel System (Tahoe Print) by Baby Trend as our infant seat stroller of choice. I chose color based on what matched my Excursion. Steven chose the brand and model due to safety. Every other brand of stroller with baby seat if you grasp the front with baby seat attached the babyseat would tilt and the stroller would slam to the ground. Not this one. This stroller is heavy. It has rubber tires not plastic formed wheels. It is not as easy to fold and stow as it takes 2 hands and you can pinch your fingers if you arenot careful. I wouldn't trade it for any other stroller. It has served us very well. The baby seat also has the car seat base with latches that hook to the frame of your vehicle. This thing isn't going anywhere once you have it installed. I have never felt better about having my baby in a car. Roomy undercarriage for lots of shopping bags. Steven is now over 20lbs and 29 inches long. He is too big for the baby seat. We now have had to buy a bigger infant/toddler car seat that can be rear or forward facing. In Virginia a baby has to be 20 lbs AND 1 year old to ride forward facing. I have a Brittany Spears problem because my baby is too big for an infant seat and too small for the regular carseat. He is already too big for a rear facing seat at 6 months old. His feet push against the back seat. Time for a new seat. I have purchased the Triumph DLX Convertible Car Seat in Marimba Print by Evenflo as the new car seat for the next stage of growth of my baby boy. It has a cup holder! He will eventually out grow this seat and I will have to purchase yet another car seat to accomodate him but no expense is too much when you are talking about the safety and life of your child. I do not have a review of this carseat as we have not used it to be able to base our opinions an every day experiences. This seat was chosen for comfort, Consumer Reports rating (as good as ifnot better in some cases than the far more expensive Britax) and the fact that is it rear and forward facing and should contain my son safely for the next year or more. Next in our musiucal chairs line up is the Bumbo Seat. Who invented this thing? It is fabulous! NEVER WALK AWAY AND LEAVE YOUR BABY UNATTENDED!!!! DO YOU HEAR ME????!!!!! Once your baby is old enough to hold his head up without wobbling you can put him in this foam support seat and the baby will be able to sit upright keeping your hands free. It is perfect for those times when you really need to do a few things but the baby is crying to be held or to be near you. Folding laundry is easy as pie when you put this on the table top right beside you and put the baby in it. NEVER WALK AWAY AND LEAVE YOUR BABY UNATTENDED!!!! DO YOU HEAR ME????!!!!! The baby can sit on the countertop or tabletop or on the floor while you are doing immediate chores. NEVER WALK AWAY AND LEAVE YOUR BABY UNATTENDED!!!! DO YOU HEAR ME????!!!!! If you have a new baby or will be having a new baby put this on your list of items to have. You will be glad you did. We also have a floppy seat. Oh, the floppy seat! No more germy shopping carts! I get so grossed out when we go places and see the nasty shopping carts. I refuse to let Steven anywhere near one. Now that he is able to sit up on his own I purchased a floppy seat so I won't have to gag and cringe at the thought of putting my baby in a filthy shopping cart seat. Steven loves his Johnny Jump Up. The first few months of his life the Carter's Bouncy Seat was heaven sent. Nice soothing colors. As he got older and before he could sit up we used the bouncy seat in the upright position to feed him and to let him play. One thing about this seat though is the vibration does nothing to sooth a baby and the music makes you want to scream. They should continue to make this seat without those things. I chose this seat because I hate loud garish colors for baby things. Primary colors are great for toddlers but they overstimulate babies and no one needs an overstimulated baby. We have lots of other seats. The high chair is used from when J. was a baby and the grandparents had the seat at their house to use and they gave it to us. It is not attractive but perfectly functional. Steven sits in it just fine at meal times. The walker he is using to scoot all around the house is from when Gracie was a baby. It works just fine. No need to buy a new one. The bathtub ring is awesome! It is also from when Gracie was a baby. It is the FisherPrice stay n' play. I don't think they make these any longer. Hence why I saved mine. I was always hoping to have one more baby. Maybe one could be found on ebay if you want the retro baby goodies. (Yes, I am a saver of things. I even have Gracie's pack n' play. The original portable play pen. It is still in excellent condition.) Tapioca at bath time - yummmmm! There are things I wish I had never wasted money on. The biggest being the Circle of OverStimulation and Frustration. After about 10 minutes he is completely over wired by this thing. It is for ages 4 months and up. At 4 months he hated it -and still does. Two other seats we have ordered have not come yet. We chose a very inexpensive (yet safe!) standard rear bike seat for Steve's bike and for myself I got the european Bobike Mini seat so Steven can ride up front and I can keep an eye on him. Plus he can see where we are going and not my big old butt. Do we need this many seats? Heck no! But they sure make life a whole lot simpler and easy. BTW, my baby is not in a seat all of the time. Many days we use only 1 seat and maybe even no seats. Over time we have collected these things. The bouncy seat is now put away and not used. The bathtub ring will soon be retired as he can now sit on his own. Steven plays in the floor with his toys and he rolls over and flips on his tummy and gets mad when he can't sit back up but does a good job of struggling to try to sit up. Any day now I suspect he will be sitting up from his laying down position all on his own. When he sits up if he can get a grasp of a solid object he tries to pull himself up. I do wonder if he will be like Colby and walk at 7 months or more like Gracie and walking at 8 1/2 months. P.S. A baby bathtub is a big waste of money and does nothing but take up space. I learned that with Colby, tested it again with Gracie, and proved myself right with Steven. All my kids hated the exersaucer type things.

Want to know how I know that I married the world's most perfect man? Want to know how I know that no other man in the world would do for me the way Steven does? Want to know how I know how much he loves me? I'll tell you how I know ... I do the breastfeeding ... And he? ... He does the 3am burping and rocking of the baby boy. If that isn't love I don't know what is ...

Meconium and breastmilk are acidic. They can cause the skin on your babies bottom to break down. To prevent this: Mix together A&D Ointment and Maalox/Mylanta (original flavor) and use as a cream on your babies bottom. The A&D coats and heals. The antacid nutralizes the acid. Recipe: 1 tube A&D ointment 1 small bottle antacid Squeeze the ointment into a small dish. Heat the ointment in the microwave for 10 seconds at a time until it is just beginning to melt. Add antacid a little at a time and mix well until you reach a substance with the consistancy of a nice rich cream. If you get it too thin because of too much antacid you can add some vaseline to it. This makes the best cream for your babies bottom. It works better than any of the zinc creams or butt pastes. My mother has been here visiting. She left yesterday. I'll post Steven's birth story either this evening or tomorrow. We are doing fine. He had his well baby check-up yesterday. Everything is perfect. Here is some yumminess to feast on in the mean time. My Valentine

Growing up all I ever wanted to be was a mother. In high school I went through all the career goal stuff and picked journalism and law as directions I might someday seek. My love of history came much later. Deep down I just wanted to be a momma. Secretly I had this dream. A most perfect and rose colored image of what my life would be. I would marry a great guy with a simple yet beautiful wedding. He would work and I would stay home and raise my babies. We would get through life together and in the end we would find a away to be financially stable. Our children would grow up to be intelligent people who traveled and saw all the things in the world to see and would come home to tell me about their lives. I would sit on the front porch and rock my grandbabies. Life would be perfect in an imperfect world. I was 18, young and dumb. I had this image of motherhood that was live and in technicolor. I would be a most loving and gentle earth mother. I would grow vegetables and herbs. I would tend my flock of children, teaching them all the things I knew. We would do homework at the family table. We would take summer vacations. Life would be grand. Then I got pregnant at age 20. I still had the ideals and dreams of this life that was to come. Dear heaven, someone should have told me in advance what was to come. I might not have believed them but someone should have bellied up to the bar and shed some light on real life! Being pregnant was not easy. I was so god awful sick. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. ALL. DAY. LONG. No one warns you about being sick! I was so sick I could hardly hold my head up. It took most of the day to motivate myself to do anything. Laundry piled up. Dishes didn't get washed everyday. I was drowning. The least little thing would set off my gag reflex. I dreaded brushing my teeth. I knew it would make me physically sick. I had to brace myself and plan for teeth brushing. I had to prepare myself for the sickness to come after and then brush my teeth again. It was a grueling ordeal to wade through. Then one day I wasn't sick anymore and everything was almost normal again. The morning and all day long sickness is a filthy trick Mother Nature plays on a woman. The next six months was spent making baby clothes and blankets, pulling together a nursery and planning for this beautiful little creature that was coming into my life. People were generous with showers and gifts. It was indeed a lovely time. I read all the books. I understood exactly what was happening to my body and the complete development of my baby. The earth mother thing kicked in again and I was determined to do it the old fashioned way - no drugs. Just learning to breathe to control the pain. Natural childbirth was my choice and I was determined to carry it through to the end. Did I tell you I was young and dumb? The night I went into labor I realized what a big damn mistake I had made. Natural childbirth is not pleasant. Holy hell I would have killed someone for drugs to make the pain stop. At one point I remember begging for just a little something because I knew I was going to die and I didn't want to die screaming and writhing in pain. I did not scream. Not one time. I clench my teeth together to the point I broke one and later ended up having a crown put on it. Mother Nature might be a bitch but there is a God in heaven. He saw my misery and delivered me from the pit of hell that childbirth pain is. In no less than two hours and fifteen minutes what had started had come to a full end. I held my new baby in my arms and then AND THEN the doctor gave me something for pain! He also explained to me that at a certain point there is no turning back and pain medication shouldn't be given. I think they tried to tell me while I was begging but it did not register at the time. Within hours I had lost my mind again. I went home 36 hours after Colby's birth with all of these glorious plans of the perfection of motherhood I would carry out. Somebody should have taken my rose colored glasses and stomped on those damn things until they were nothing but crushed metal and shards of glass. Hours after going home I was in a rocking chair crying my eyes out while this red faced baby screamed and nursed. The image in my mind is likened to huddling in a corner with red eyes and rocking back and forth mumbling mindless babble. I kid you not! No one told me about stitches. No one told me about constipation. No one told me about blisters from letting a baby nurse at will. What was I supposed to do? A baby that is nursing is a baby that is not screaming. To top it off I was scared to death! I was scared I would break her! I was scared I would do something so wrong she would be scarred for life. No one tells you anything! Babies do not come with instructions! How is a young woman to know what to do? Thank God for my mother who came to my rescue. Every evening after work she came to my house. She did chores. She helped me take care of Colby. She taught me how to bathe her and burp her and she brought me cream for the blistered nipples that were an ungodly sight. Now there is more to this than just telling you a story. I have been following a couple of blogs written by soon-to-be first time mothers. God save these young women. They know NOTHING! They think they know what to expect. Oh no, they don't know jack and are in for a rude awakening. I actually feel sorry for them. There is no class that will ever prepare them for motherhood. There is no book that will tell them that lettuce and broccoli and onions will give their breastfed babies so much gas that they will screaming for hours. There is nothing that gives them an acurate picture of things to come. No one has told them that $300 diaper bags are a waste of money. No one told them that a $700 stroller is throwing money at foolishness. No one has told them they would be better off using that money to hire help to come in for at least a couple weeks to wash dishes and clothes and floors. I see the obsession with skinny bodies and fear of stretch marks. No one has told them that in a few months they will be more concerned with using a tucks pad and A&D ointment. No one has told them the fear of peeing for the first time knowing there is a string of stitches in the area. No one has told them about cramping until you think you will go blind. No one has told them about the weeks after when there is bleeding like no period they have known before. Some have been warned about a babies need to breast feed every two hours. They have no idea how extremely tired they will be trying to recover from birth and then getting no sleep because a baby needs to feed. They don't seem to understand you better catch some sleep while the baby is sleeping. Even more so they don't realize how assinine they look dressing their pets up in baby clothes pretending how it might be. Every birth story is unique. We women share them like battles fought. The basics are all the same, no matter who you are. Childbirth is hard on your body, mentally and physically. You do not go back to work after a week. You don't pick up where you left off. Everything changes. Unless maybe you are independently wealthy. You know what the saddest part of it all is? You can tell them EVERYTHING and they think you are kidding or exaggerating. Some even reply with "Ewwww." Even sadder are the ones who are giving advice about birthing and motherhood. How can you give advice about something you don't know anything about? Thank God we do not stay young and dumb forever. One more thing. To all the soon-to-be mother's who might read this. No one wants to see photos of shit covered babies. No one wants to read about the shit and the puke. Stop now before it starts. You will suffer a major loss of respect. Plastering the internet with those types of things makes you look like ghetto trash. It is not pretty and it is not funny. It is the MOST disrespectful thing you can do to your new little family. Thank you in advance for not doing this.

When I was a kid Father's Day was observed the same as Mother's Day. As I grew older it became something more of an expected, unfeeling, obligation to fill. It had and still has no meaning to me. I have never experienced a relationship with a father or a dad. My parents divorced when I was 3 years old. I never saw him again until I stood over his casket in 1980. He was my father but only because people told me so. My mother remarried when I was 9 years old. My step-father was not a father nor a Dad. To him, as he voiced more than once, we were the damn kids of his current wife. Nothing more nothing less. And certainly NOT his kids, as he told many people in front of us. As far as father's and dad's go we were nobody's kids. Yet we were expected to observe the day as if he was the life support system upon which we were dependant. We were expected to give the sentimental cards and some foolish gift to honor his mean drunk assinine self. It was not a day I ever looked forward too. I often wondered what it was like to have a real dad. Someone who loved you and stood beside you come what may. To this day I have not and do not have a male figure in my life that was anything close to my need and expectation of a Dad. As far back as I can remember I would tell myself that when I grew up my children would have a Dad, a REAL dad. Everything would be happy and hunky-dorey -the Hallmark sentiments would mean something when given. My ex-husband is a complete ass. He never filled that role for my children. I always felt so badly, full of guilt, that I had not kept my promise to myself and my children suffered for it. I did not choose wisely as far as husbands go and therefore had failed my children in giving them a great and semi-perfect father. I am 38 and still wanting a Dad. I want someone who I can pick up the phone and call, asking to speak to Daddy, and hearing the voice on the other end who really loves me in that way that only father's can love their children. It will never happen. There is no one to blame. Some men just aren't Dad's and never will be. Steven came into my girl's life and stepped up to the plate to be a Dad. It was very easy for them both to stop seeing him as Steve and knowing him as Dad. I honestly do not think Gracie remembers anything much about her father. Steven is her Dad and that is that. I believe Colby has chosen not to remember anytime before now and Steven is her Dad. I find it very comical, yet so very deeply heart felt, when she greets him in her Italian, French, English, proper Brit and even hillbilly voice with "Papa". Each of them, Colby, Gracie and Steven, have stretched and grown into the skins of daughters and father. He has met the mark and surpassed it in their minds and hearts. I have watched the relationship grow and fill out over the past year. I stand in awe of the man who loves another's children like his own. In his heart he IS their Dad and that is that. Colby has this irritating habit of placing 'what if' situations on the table and wanting answers to her scenarios. What if something happened to Momma? Would we stay with you or go to granny? What if you and Momma separated? Would we still get to see you? I know she is seeking confirmation that the place she is now is safe. That she can give even more of her heart knowing it won't be broken. If something happens to me Steven will still be Dad and this will still be home. Nothing will change. There is no chance Steven and I will ever separate so the point she is trying to make is completely mute, but she has a need to know that no matter what the future brings Steven loves them both dearly and even without me he will still be Dad. I wonder when she will no longer need confirmation of the solidity of their relationship. On this Father's Day this is my message: Thank you, Steven for being the Dad to my girls that I always wanted for them. Thank you for stepping up to the plate and being the man that you are and reassuring my children that they and their hearts are completely safe with you. Thank you for loving them as if they are flesh of your flesh. Thank you for unknowingly easing my guilt from all the years past. Thank you for being the Father my children needed. Thank you for being the Dad they both so desperatly wanted. I love you.

Yesterday's post was in response to questions asked from this post. Thank you all for the lovely comments. This is not an advice column but today I am going to give some advice. I firmly believe life is what you make. I built the life I want to live. 1. If you don't like your life: Change it. 2. Stop giving other people permission to take away your joy. No one can take anything away from you unless you give them the power to control you. Those who choose to live life depressed, sharing sadsack tales with the 'oh woe is me' attitude, blaming everything and everyone for what they think is wrong with themselves has given permission to another person to take their joy. No one can take anything from you unless you let them. 3. For those who are married: You owe it yourself and your spouse to get your shit together. No one wants to carry your load all the time. Marriage is a shared relationship of responsibility. Sometimes it is your turn to carry the burden. Don't wait to be asked. Get in there and do your part and don't gripe and complain about it. Good marriages do not just happen and are not pulled out of thin air. They are built day by day. You have to work to have a good marriage. It does not come naturally. A marriage and each person in that marriage needs to be nurtured and cared for daily. 4. For those who have children: You owe it to your children to break the cycle. So you didn't have the perfect childhood. Get off your ass and give your children the idylic childhood you missed out on. 5. If you can't get your act together on your own, seek help. If you need therapy - get it. If you need medical intervention - get it. A nervous breakdown is not a pretty sight. Get help. Stick with the treatment and work through it to accomplish a happy healthy outcome. Thank you.

Dear Colby, Tonight at 12:25am, May 18th, you will have become 18 years old. In the eyes of the world this will make you legally an adult. You will have new choices to make, new paths to follow and dreams to catch in your net like butterflies passing on the wind. To the world you may be seen as an adult but to me you will always be my baby, my first love, my heart, my little girl, a beautiful young woman, a part of me that no one can ever take away. From the moment you were given life until the end of time and evermore you will be my child. When I am 100 and you are 80 and we have forgotten in our old age who is the mother and who is the daughter I will still be your mother and you will still be my baby. I was 20, not much older than you, when you entered my life physically. Before that, for nine months you had been a dream, a wish, a prayer, real yet still unreal, a whisper of the future, a physical part of my body, flesh of my flesh that can never be undone. You are the reason I decided to grow up. You are the reason a girl became a woman. Not because I gave physical birth to you. Giving birth does not make you a woman or a momma. Please always remember that. If I have taught you anything this I have and I want you to never forget it. You will not completely understand it until someday you have a child of your own. As a woman I understood the responsibility of having a child. I wanted to be the very best mother that had ever been or ever will be. I wanted to be the woman that taught you everything. I have always prayed I was an example of a woman that you could rise up and call blessed. Not for selfish reasons or pride but because I wanted to be a Godly example for you. I held you in my arms, tears streaming down my cheeks, within moments of your birth. The entire world was shown to me in your tiny face. I even said to the doctor, "I am holding the entire world in my hands at this moment." I fell in love with you then and I am still in love with you now. You were the most attentive and active baby I had ever seen, that your Granny had ever seen, that your Papa had ever seen. Within 6 months you weaned yourself and demanded a cup. At 7 months you walked, all on your own, holding onto nothing. You went from sitting up to walking in a matter of days which in many ways did not surprise me at all. The day you were born you were the topic of conversation by the nurses in the nursery. You were the newborn who could lift herself with her forearms and look from side to side. You were eager to know what the world was all about. Before that first year was over you were talking in sentences and potty trained. In this year you also suffered in a way no child ever should. You were horridly burned while being left with your father's parents for a total of two hours. I have never in my life felt so completely helpless and out of control. I stayed by your hospital bed only leaving one time in the entire two weeks to go home and pack a bag. You slept on my chest every night. I went with you daily to therapy while they scrubbed your hands that had no skin whatsoever left on them. I understood this had to be done but the entire time I wanted to kill those people who were hurting my precious baby. Colby, God answers prayers. You are a living example of answered prayers. When you are at the end of your rope and feel you have no where to turn, please remember what I have tried so hard to teach you, God is always there. You are never alone. God was with us the night they told us there nothing left to do for your hands. He listened to my prayers. There is no other way to explain the miracle of millions of skin cells forming on your hands overnight, in less than 6 hours from the time the doctors made evening rounds and returned early the next morning for your skin grafting surgery. God answered my prayer and you never needed that surgery, you needed nothing but God's power and He healed you. He always will. It is my prayer now that you will continue on the path we have traveled together. Lean on God for everything. Seek his will. He will never leave you. I know you think I have been hard on you as you have grown up. I know I have been hard on you. I never demanded more from you than you could give and you have always exceeded my greatest expectations. You have grown into a responsible, moral young woman who will someday be an awesome wife and mother. The man who wins your heart will have the greatest treasure known to mankind. I hope you choose well. We have often talked about this and I believe as I think you do, God has been preparing the perfect man for you. He has been grooming him all these years. Do not be in a hurry to get married and have children. In His perfect time the man of your dreams, the man worthy of you will come along. Please do not let him pass you by. Time passes quickly as we grow older but I remember as if it were just yesterday everything about you. Birth and crying all night.Tea parties and baby dolls. Dress-up and lipstick. School books and pony tails. Piano lessons and school bus stops. Make-up and perfume. Sunday school and summer camp. Salvation and baptism. Homeschool and baby sisters. Good times and bad. We have been through them all together. We have so much more to do together. I am so sorry for things in the past. I am sorry your father was not the Daddy you needed him to be. I believe divorcing him was the best thing I ever did. Some may think I was saving myself and in a way I was but in my mind I was saving you. Saving you from the bitterness and ugliness of a man who had lost his grip on life. Saving you from heartbreak and disappointment of watching a man who could never be what you needed him to be. Through this you and I came out together. As the years of just us passed I do know how out of control you felt when Steven came into our lives. I know how difficult it was to share me, to share us, with someone unknown. I know your expectations were high where he was concerned. I believe he has surpassed them all. He may not be your biological father but he has proven himself in this one short year to be your Dad. He always will be your Dad. In the beginning I admit to being jealous and hurt when you turned from me to him when you needed a shoulder, a friend, a Dad. I quickly learned I had lost nothing and gained everything in this man who loved my child as much as I love you. He will always be your ship in the storm of life. Please know that Steven loves you beyond anything your father ever felt for you. I know in your heart you think only of him as your Dad. I know you think he pushes too hard at times. Perhaps he does. In his heart he is doing his best to be the man you need to see as a role model. He only has the very best intentions for you in his heart. I know you know this. I also want to thank you. Thank you for being the most perfect daughter a parent could ask for. Thank you for being the example of everything a sister should be. You have raised the bar. Gracie can only grow-up to be an incredible young woman because she has you to follow. Your footsteps are her guide. During the times when we had nothing except each other thank you for helping me. Thank you for digging in, for using up and wearing out, without ever complaining. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for being my daughter. I have often played this day out in my mind. What will I say to you that will give you the confidence you need to take the step forward, away from me and into your own world that you create. This is all I have ever been able to think of: I love you. I have always loved you. I will always love you. I love who you are. I love everything about you. As long as there is breath in me I will be here for you. Never hesitate to come to me. Nothing you can ever say will change my love for you. Perhaps we may not always agree. You have your own life to create. Regardless of your choices I will always be here, waiting, watching and loving you, just as I have every moment of your life, from your very first breath. There is a poem that I have lived as my motto. Do you remember it? Cleaning and Scrubbing Can wait till tomorrow For babies grow up We learn to our sorrow. Settle down cobwebs, Dust go to sleep I'm rocking my baby 'Cause babies don't keep. Every word is truth. You didn't keep. You grew up. What a beautiful moment I have been blessed to witness. My mother never understood how or why I could leave dishes in the sink and laundry in the basket, forgettting them so that I could play with you. She never understood how a bed could be left unmade and the carpet not vacuumed every single day. I hope when you have your own children you will remember those little words and you will forget about your chores for the moment and spend those minutes sharing, caring, loving your own children. Dishes can be washed and laundry can be folded after little ones go to sleep. When the time is gone you can never get it back. I hope you will never get so wrapped up in the details of living that you forget how to live your life for every moment. So on today, this is my wish for you: May you find the path that leads you to the life you want. May you find the courage and the strength to create the world you want to live in. May you find true love and happiness in one man who deserves you. May you have children who rise up and call you blessed. Happy Birthday, my darling girl. Love, Momma