Last year I wrote a letter to my friend. She was pregnant with her first child and there I was with two of my own, certainty an expert by then (ha!), so I filled her in on some things I wish I knew before becoming a mom. Well, a year has passed since I wrote that letter and today my friend
Tag: new mom
Before I had my sons, I was certain I had the whole parenting thing figured out. I’d studied education in school, taught young children for my job, and read parenting books by the dozens. I was so ready for this. Reality check: Newborn babies were nothing like I thought they were. That sounds so silly to say, but I was the
A few days ago, my six-year-old son was rifling through my closet in an effort to further procrastinate putting on his clothes and getting ready for school. He pulled out an appointment card from an old purse and handed it to me: it was a reminder card for his own two week check up, back in 2008. It suddenly
When I became a mother, I was the first of my close friends to do so. I’d never seen anyone in my circle of friends go through this enormous life change, and nothing I’d read had prepared me for it. Even having a former career as a teacher left me wondering what I was supposed to
This Thanksgiving was a whirlwind of low-level drama. It started with the terrible weather on Wednesday and a slow, slick drive up to my parents’ place. Thursday my daughter woke up in super-crank mode. She was crying at nothing and everything, alternately refusing and demanding food, and wanting constantly to be held – but only
On the day my daughter was born, my bladder woke me just after 5:00 am. I was alone in bed; my lawnmower-caliber snoring had driven my husband away again. I was still over two weeks from my due date and not yet feeling any urgency about having my baby or feeling “done” with pregnancy. My urgency
When I became a mother, I knew it would be a lot of responsibility and a lot of caretaking. After all, I had owned a number of cats and dogs over the years. You have to make sure they are fed, kept warm, given the opportunity to perform bodily functions, taken to the vet once
Our friends and family were very kind and generous when it came to my baby shower. The shower itself was a beautiful, birdie-themed event, lovingly and thoughtfully hosted by the Aunties and Grandmas. They seriously left no detail out, and much of what decorated the shower ended up decorating our nursery because it was so
I’ve used my son’s diaper cream for my own body. Baby Boy has this great-smelling, creamy petroleum jelly diaper cream that I carry around in my diaper bag/work bag. I’ve used it in a pinch to moisturize my dry legs while at work, as a lip balm for my lips severely dehydrated due to breastfeeding,
It makes an excellent night light. I’ve used my phone’s flashlight app numerous times in the middle of the night to change a sleepy baby’s diaper, to make sure a sleepy baby has latched on properly, and to make sure I can see enough so I don’t wake a sleepy baby as I leave his
