What Not to Say To A Pregnant Chick - Volume 1

If you are reading this, then you already know that pregnant chicks are very sensitive! Very Sensitive! Any many of us worry too much about pregnancy and baby related things that in the end will all work out just fine. We panic over little things and worry about "one in a million" types of scenarios happening during child birth... We have friends who tell us insane stories about their friend who gave birth in the hallway at home because they couldn't make it to the hospital in time... Probably a true story but the odds are soooo small! Yet we hear the story and we worry! We look things up online and read horror stories and we worry! 

Here are just two of the things you should never ever tell a pregnant woman:

NEVER TELL A PREGNANT WOMAN THAT SHE IS BIG, HUGE, OR THAT SHE MUST BE CARRYING A BIG BABY... She will dwell on it forever and you will make her so upset! During my first pregnancy, the thing I hated hearing the most from people (usually women of my parent's generation) was "Oh Honey, are you sure you're only seven months pregnant? You are carrying so low... you are so big! You poor thing!"  I was pretty big! I gained about 50 pounds with my first daughter. I wasn't great with my eating and hadn't discovered yet how badly sodium affects my body, causing me to retain ridiculous amounts of water. We ate restaurant food all the time. I was huge! All parts of my body were HUGE! My face was HUGE! My ankles were as big as my thighs (well close)... Every part of my body was HUGE! It was out of control! At any rate, I hated when people would tell me how big I was... I would spend the next hour worrying that I was too big and never going to lose the weight. I spent many doctor visits asking if they were sure I was okay - should they test me again for gestational diabetes? They would tell me I was fine and that some people just gain more weight when pregnant. Nevertheless I worried about it, and I worried about it because people felt the need to say something to me about it! It is hard being pregnant - especially toward the end when you can't see your feet, can barely shave your legs, and have trouble putting on your undies and pants! 

NEVER TELL A PREGNANT WOMAN THAT SHE IS SMALL, TINY, SKINNY, ETC.... She will dwell on it forever and you will make her just about as upset as if you told her she was huge.... When I have had the baby and its three months later and I am struggling to lose the baby weight, that is the only appropriate time during my prenatal and new baby time that it is okay to say I am skinny or tiny or thin! During this pregnancy, I have gained an appropriate amount of weight. With 6 weeks to go, I have only gained 25 pounds and I am proud of that! I eat healthy (sans the occasional chocolate or ice cream freakout). We eat at home for almost every meal and I watch my sodium intake like a hawk. I actually look like myself except for the giant basketball of a tummy in the front. Now I may balloon up here in my last month and a half, but for now, I am doing well! My pant size is only about a size up from normal.  I am one of those pregnant woman who doesn't look pregnant from the back - just a little wider than usual! I used to hate those pregnant women! At any rate, many woman at work (like five to ten of them) have recently told me how tiny I am! This makes pregnant women panic in the opposite direction... Am I too small? Is the baby growing properly? Is the placenta doing its job? Is something wrong with me or the baby?  I almost panic more hearing about how small I am than when they used to tell me how big I was! I know its crazy! Pregnant women are crazy! I told my husband that I was upset about people calling me tiny and he literally thought I was crazy! He said "You are upset because people are saying something nice to you?!?!" He is right! All of these women mean well! But still! I worry/panic that I am too small now! And this is a few days after a doctor visit in which my mid-wife told me I am measuring just perfectly! 

So the moral of this little blog tonight is that if you have to say something to a pregnant woman about how she looks, if you just can't contain your inner thoughts about her, just tell her she is adorable, beautiful, cute, etc! That works and adorable is nothing to panic about! We don't need to hear your opinion about our size! We just don't! Who are you to even comment on our size really? Just because you have had a baby or two or three doesn't make you an expert on pregnant women and what size they should be at eight months pregnant!!! If we type "adorable pregnant women" into google, nothing scary will pop up! There will be no horror stories for us to read about! Please just tell us we are cute and cuddly and all will be right with our pregnant little worlds!!! 

Over-the-Counter Meds for Preggos

Today, I will discuss over-the-counter medications while pregnant.

First off, being sick and pregnant is a huge bummer! You already feel awful and you are also worried about your baby! You already have trouble sleeping due to back aches and acid reflux and now you are adding one more complication on top of those! NO FUN AT ALL! But there is hope for you! I promise!!!

Many older women (my parents generation) have said to me while sick: “Oh you poor thing, sick and pregnant, you can’t take anything to help you besides tylenol! How miserable!” I am hear to tell you today ladies that this is SO NOT TRUE!!! YOU DON"T HAVE TO SUFFER! Maybe back in the day that was the case, but there are lots of fabulous medications out there these days that are perfectly safe for pregnant women to take if needed – this means that the product either doesn’t pass through the placenta to the baby or doesn’t harm the baby.

I have had some rough allergies for the last few days… My allergies tend to hit me in the lungs… I was up all night last night coughing (and then worrying that my violent episodes of coughing were going to hurt the baby or break one of my ribs or make my water break)… I described my symptoms to my Kaiser Mid-wife/NP and she gave me some suggestions of things I can take to help… Because it seams I have some sort of asthmatic cough due to allergies, she said Claritin or Benadryl are okay to take while pregnant to help fend off the allergens – these fit into the “antihistamine” class of OTC medications…  The other products that are okay to take for the cough are Robitussin DM and Mucinex DM (both have similar ingredients)… Pregnant woman can also take regular Sudafed for nasal congestion… for pain and fever of course there is always Tylenol, and for indigestionTUMs and similar products are okay…. 

My point in sharing all of this with you is that you do not have to suffer! Now, don’t get me wrong, I am no pill popper and won’t even take a Tylenol unless I am completely dysfunctionally in pain, but I need my sleep and I spent a good majority of last night not sleeping due to fits of crazy violent coughing… Not to mention my poor husband who had to listen to it! So, why suffer? It isn’t good for you or the baby for you to be sick and run down!

I will sum up what I learned about OTC meds today with a list:

FOR ALLERGIES:

Claritin and Benadryl: The medicine in Claritin is called loratadine and can be found in other brands and generic medications. I tried the quick dissolve tabs (dissolve on your tongue) and I already have less of that scratchy feeling in my chest and less coughing. I went for the 12 hour relief instead of 24 because 24 hour meds have always worried me. I know I am weird – but like I said, I am an anti meds kind of girl... except when it comes to child-birth! Epidurals are awesome (I'll remember to blog about them later).

FOR COUGHS:

Robitussin DM is okay for coughs… it contains guaifenesin (an expectorant) and some other sort of cough suppressant to give you a break from coughing. An expectorant is designed to thin out the mucus that is stuck in your lungs and make it easier to get rid of. Because of this, you should drink lots of fluids when you are taking any product that contains guaifenesin.

Mucinex has almost the same ingredients as Robitussin… it too contains the guaifenesin… there is also Mucinex D that contains an added nasal decongestant that contains the same active ingredient as Sudafed, so that kind is okay to take… Mucinex DM has the same exact ingredients as Robitussin DM but in pill form that lasts 12 hours.  Mucinex has been one of my favorite products for years. It is great for a teacher who needs relief from allergy or cold symptoms but still needs to be alert and functional. It just thins out all the icky stuff so you can either cough it up or blow it out your nose! 

FOR NASAL CONGESTION (due to colds or allergies):

Sudafed - only the regular Sudafed, nothing fancy!

and remember Mucinex D has the nasal decongestant and the expectorant, so it is wonderful!

REFLUX, INDIGESTION, & SORE TUMMIES:

TUMs or any other basic antacid are safe to take (I am not sure about any of those acid reducer products though – I would check with your Dr. on that one).

HEAD ACHES, BACH ACHES, FEVERS, etc:

 Tylenol is perfectly safe to take while pregnant... nothing else is! Tylenol contains acetaminophen, so any generic brand that only contains acetaminophen is okay to take as well. Tylenol is just the fancy name brand of choice.

melt downs happen - keep your chin up

Pregnant Mommy Melt Downs happen from time to time. It is normal, even though at the time it feels like anything but! I am having a melt down kind of day today. I am only writing through my melt down in the hopes that if this happens to you, you will remember my blog and think "I am not crazy... this happens to other pregnant women too!" or even "I'm not half the crazy bitch that Mindy is, so this melt down isn't so bad".

I woke up this morning super early feeling energetic and had lots of big plans for myself and my three year old. Within a couple of hours, my energy was already zapped and my back was bothering me. To make matters worse, I have a little cough due to allergies. I just don't feel right today mentally or physically! I know that these kinds of days happen as a pregnant woman but its extra tough when you have to put on a happy face for your energetic three year old and carry on with your day. Did I mention a very opinionated three year old who is very into testing my limits this week? 

My brain is moving fast - thinking of all these things I want and need to do before school starts in a little over a week and before the baby comes. My body; however, can't keep up with my busy brain and that can be a little bit of a downer.  I didn't realize that being a pregnant woman with a toddler is about 10 times harder than just being a pregnant woman! Women do this all the time, I tell myself... How do women do this? Why am I not better at it? These thoughts come into my head and then I feel like a total wuss and then my eyes start to tear up and the melt down soon washes over me! During the melt down, it all comes out... all of the worry... rational or not... How am I going to make it to week 40 if I am already this ridiculous at week 33?  How am I going to go back to work and teach for 4-6 weeks before this baby comes? What if they put me on bed rest? What if the baby comes too early??? I am not ready yet! My sub plans aren't finished - hell I don't even have a sub yet... my breast pump that I loaned out and got back is missing the tubes! What will I do without the tubes? Why don't Target and Babys R freaking Us cary extra tubes??? I need to order some dam breast pump tubes! The worries go on and on, but I think you get the idea! I don't want to make anyone else hyperventilate with me! It is ridiculous! I am a grown ass woman! I am strong and tough and should be able to handle all of this - right!?  I know that later I will calm down and figure out a way to make all of this work and all will be fine, but right now, this is how I feel. I haven't had a big melt down in at least a month, so I guess its my right as a pregnant woman to be a little emotional and crazy today. It is just such an icky feeling! 

My husband thinks I'm nuts and can't really understand what I am going through, well because he has nuts, which means that he is naturally pretty unemotional and insensitive! He can't help it really - its that dam Y chromosome! They can't understand why a person would cry at all, especially with no real reason! He is perplexed by this for sure! He has to be able to fix the problem or he can't deal. We have been together for eight years and he still can't manage in any sort of crisis that involves me crying! He had a couple of long-term girlfriends before me, they must have cried at some point, why didn't that prepare him for me? Girls cry from time to time! I even tend to believe that I cry less than the average woman! I don't get it... That is what exes are for! They prep you for the real deal! Right???  What a huge failure on the part of these girls!? I am disappointed in them! I should write them a note! 

Ok crazy ramblings of a broken down pregnant woman are done... I will try to post something warm and fuzzy for my Monday blog! If I have another bad day, I will just post a picture of a puppy and a kitten cuddling so that you don't have to read something like this ever again.

Some Random Favorite Baby Items

Since I am on this product review/recommendation kick for my blogs this week, and since I am feeling like a lazy writer today, I am just going to showcase a few items that I love. They are not the kind of items you really need or have to have, but they are just super cool! 

My first item is Twilight Turtle - No this is not a book about a vampire turtle who sparkles in the sunlight and falls in love with a regular turtle against the odds. Twilight Turtle is the coolest baby/kid item in the whole world. Its a great gift item too! We got one before Emily was even born and played with it all the time. It is a cute little turtle that has lights in his back... his shell has cut-out stars and a moon in the shape of actual constellations and when you turn it on, it projects the stars onto the ceiling! It has three different light colors (amber, blue, and green).  It has a 45 minute timer so that it turns off on its own once your kid falls asleep! This has been one of the best baby items in our lives to date! The light is soft enough that the kid will still fall asleep but bright enough to be used as a night light. When you go to check on your baby in the middle of the night and its super dark, you can just push the little button and its easy to see your baby without waking them up with bright light. On top of this, you can see actual star constellations! Is it necessary to the survival of your offspring? Absolutely not! But it is awesome and worth the $30 or so that it costs! They even have different animals if you aren't into turtles (like lady bugs!  You can find these cool turtles at most major stores including Target and Amazon. The brand is called Cloud B and they make lots of other cool and different toys! Pillow Pet just started making a similar product but I just don't trust those pillow pet people!

My next item is called a jumpy seat... There are similar products out there that do similar things, but this is the one we have and we love it.  It was given to us as a hand-me-down and it is so great that we would have payed the nearly $100 for one if we had to! This is something you can wait to buy or borrow until after your baby is a few months old. The idea is that they can sit in it and their feet touch the ground and they can just bounce around... they can spin around to various toy and teething items that are connected to their little saucer and just jump and jump... Emily loved this thing for quite a long time! When she was super fussy for no apparent reason, we could put her in the jumpy and she was the happiest baby ever! She was so cute watching her chubby little legs bouncing happily up and down while she giggled and drooled all over the toys. It is a really safe apparatus (assuming you put it together correctly). I hate to say this, but its like a little mini baby sitter! You and your hubby can actually sit down and eat dinner together while your 3 month old cheerfully bounces away (in the same room as you of course). There are lots of similar products that our friends have that don't bounce but are still an activity center type of toy, but we loved the bouncing! Can't wait to use it with baby girl #2!!! This is the one we have - its a Fisher Price Rainforest Jumparoo:

My final item(s) of the day is a sound machine... This is an item that you may want to wait to see if you need first. We started out with the Sleep Sheep... It is an adorable looking sheep stuffed animal that has a little sound maker in the back that sounds like ocean waves or a heart beat. The one we got was small and could attach to a stroller, car seat, or crib rail if needed! The purpose is for the baby to hear soothing and relaxing "white noise" type of sounds to fall asleep to. Some babies are just good sleepers and could go to sleep right next to a train track, but others (like ours) couldn't do it! We found that the "white noise" sounds really helped her to fall asleep on her own. Our condo is small and the baby room is right next to the kitchen and living room. She can hear everything that is happening and sometimes its just too distracting for her. Here is a pic of the cute little sleep sheep...

Sleep Sheep is another Cloud B item... he was great while he lasted but at some point after around a year of use, the little device just stopped working. We may have over-used him! Maybe he was a lemon! This does happen with any sort of sleep machine though with excessive use, regardless of the brand... we are on our third one for the very same reason.  We now use one that is a little more mature than the sheep... It has lots of different sounds and volumes, although we only use the ocean waves sound... This one is cool because you can plug it into the wall or use batteries in it for traveling (or if there is a power outage). We love love love our sound machine and will purchase a new one for the new baby. Definitely worth $25 or so if you find you have a baby that is difficult to put to sleep! 

Rubber Ducky You're the One PART 2

I will continue from my blog yesterday about bath items for babies.

My first item is a tub stool for moms and dads. This was another fairly cheap item (around $20) that we still use to this day. Its a stool that can sit at two different levels (a lower and a higher level). It is great for when your kid is in the big bath tub. You can sit pretty comfortably (better than kneeling over) on the stool and bathe your little one. When they get to potty training age, they can use the stool to put their feet on when they use the big potty! It is perfect! The other advantage to this stool vs a cuter wooden one is that you can take the top off and store bath supplies or toys inside of it! Its a stool and storage container in one! It really is a great buy and like I said, my daughter is 3 years old now and we still use the stool for bath time and for her to step up to the potty. 

Next up is "Timothy the Temperature Turtle"... This isn't really the name of the product but its what my goofy husband has always called him. You simply push a button on top and let it float around in the bath tub. It has a digital thermometer inside of it and will tell you exactly what temperature the water is. This is nice! It takes the guess work out of bath water temperatures. It will alert you if the temperature is too hot or even too cold. I love this little turtle! Its another cheap item that saves you a lot of worry! There are lots of similar products on the market and they all do the trick (for under $15)! Here's Timothy:

IMPORTANT: If you choose not to be as neurotic as I am with a temperature turtle, and you choose to test the bath water the old fashion way, don't test it with your hands!!!! Your hands are less sensitive to extreme temperatures than the rest of your body is, and you may not realize how hot the water is! Always check it with your elbow! Dip your elbow in and if it seams warm but not hot, you are good to go! The old Elbow-Dip test works just fine! 

BABY WASH and SOAP: 

I've tried a few different baby washes over the years and as long as you find a gentle one that isn't heavily scented, your baby will be just fine and smell "so fresh and so clean!" Johnson & Johnson's Head-to-Toe Baby Wash is a pretty good one (and cheap). You don't really need a separate shampoo unless your baby comes out with a full head of super thick hair. You definitely don't want to get something just because it makes your baby smell like apples or vanilla! The less scented the product is, the less likely it is to irritate that beautifully soft infant skin!  

A baby wash that I really loved at the beginning (but have trouble finding it now) is Method Baby: Squeaky Green Hair & Body Wash.  The lid is the perfect rinse cup! I still have the lids from previous bottles of this stuff that I rinse her hair with in the tub to this day! The product has a nice natural scent and they use all natural ingredients. I am certainly not an "organic" kind of mom, but this is just a great product, green or not!

THE BEST OF THE BEST and THE PRICIEST OF THE PRICY - At my baby shower for my first daughter, a good friend gave me a gift basket of Mustela Brand products. I had never heard of them at the time, but they are very popular, very expensive, and smell AMAZING!!! On top of this, the products are actually really good and gentle on newborns! The foaming baby shampoo was wonderful. The lotion was fabulous and silky and smelled soooo good! It smells so good that they have created a Mustela perfume spray for moms because they loved the smell so much! After I ran out, I never re-purchased these items because they are very pricy (the lotion is $15, which is a lot for a baby), but there is one product that was worth its weight in gold. It is the Mustela Rinse Free Baby Wash. It is a product you can put on baby with a wash cloth or a cotton ball between baths that keeps your baby fresh and clean. If they have a really horrible "blow out" type of poop in which poop goes everywhere and all they way up their back (IT WILL HAPPEN LADIES), you can use this stuff on your baby to clean them up if you don't have time for a full-on bath session. I used it after each poopy diaper when we were at home! It is sorta like hand-sanitizer! It's baby sanitizer! It is gentle on their skin and smells great! Its like giving them a quick and cleansing sponge bath! I love love love this stuff!

My last thought about baths for today is that you will need tons of baby wash cloths! They are tiny and cute and soft! You will use them for all sorts of things besides bath time! Get a few packs of them! I always kept one or two in the diaper bag! You never know what you might need them for! You don't really need a ton of baby towels, but they are very cute! Your baby will grow out of them very fast, so don't get too crazy with those tiny hooded towls! 

Happy Bathing! :)

Rubber Ducky You're The One... bath stuff part 1 of 2

Today I will cover the bigger bath time items like tubs and seats. Tomorrow will be smaller stuff like baby wash...

SLIPPERY WHEN WET! First off, I'd like to tell you that new born babies are very very soft! When they get wet, they are very very very slippery! I was terrified I was going to drop Emily when I picked her up out of her little tub for the first time! TERRIFIED! It is funny to think of now, but when you are a new mom, many things will freak you out!

BATH TUB OPTIONS:

I am sure there are tons more bathing options, but I will only speak of what I know.

The "Big Blue Boat" (what Emily now calls her tiny baby bathtub). For our first daughter, we had this little bath tub that fits perfectly into/over our kitchen sink. There is a picture below… We used it until she was too big for it. It was cheap, simple, and easy. You can fill it up with the kitchen sink faucet and there is a little drain plug that will drain the water into the sink when you are done. This method is easy on your back and there is no "slippery naked baby in a giant bathtub" situation to panic over. This tub came with this little padded net like attachment for suspending newborns in the little tub. It was weird and I never used it.  Maybe I didn't do it right, but it seamed like the baby wasn't in the water enough to keep warm and it was kind of like giving the baby a sponge bath instead of being submerged in actual water. We would bathe her in the sink bath tub and have a nice big soft grown-up towl layed out on the counter next to the tub with one of her cute little towls on top of it to wrap her up and dry her off. It was perfect for us and we will be doing it again in October with our new little one. New borns lay on the left side that you can see looks reclined, and when baby is big enough to sit up on their own, they sit on the right side and splash water all over your kitchen floor!

Some people use giant spongy things that can go directly into the big bath tub that you lay the baby on for a safe bath time in the big bath tub... I keep seeing this giant spongy frog whenever I go to Baby's R Us and it is so darn cute that I am tempted to buy it! How cute is a new born baby laying on a giant froggy sponge!? My main issue with this concept, aside from hurting your back leaning over the big tub, is that fact that your baby weighs between 6 and 20 pounds, and you are going to fill up a whole bath tub for them! It seams like a huge waste of water. You can always use one of these giant spongy frogs in a sink if you have a really big single sink basin! It would work really well – unless your baby poops in the tub (Oh yes, it will happen to you at least once). Spongy textures and baby poop don't sound like a good idea to me!

The final bath item I will discuss tonight is a tub seat for older babys who can sit upright (around 3 months old and up, I think). Its very safe and cool for babies who are too big for the tiny tub but too slippery and fragile to be sitting in a big tub all by their lonesome! We never used it with our daughter but had friends that loved it. This device can even fit in a large sink if needed. It takes the worry out of bath time and the baby can sit up and play safely! This one has suction cups on the bottom so that it doesn't slip in the tub or sink.

If you buy a baby tub, make sure it is cheap and that it can fit on top of your kitchen sink! 

Tomorrow I will talk about bath time products including "Timothy the Temperature Turtle" and the elbow method for checking the bath water temperature! Can't wait!

Baby Bottles!!!

Today I'll talk about the ever exciting world of baby bottles. Whether you are all breast milk (and pumping), all formula, or a combo of the two, bottles are important! The good news is that they are all pretty similar in the way of bottle technology so it is really unlikely that you are going to make a horrible decision about bottles! Just pick whichever one seams coolest and easiest to you and you will be okay! If it is a tough decision for you at the moment, I hope today's blog will help a little :)

With my first kid, I used Dr. Brown's Natural Flow 8oz. wide-neck bottles and Born Free 5oz wide-neck bottles... A friend of ours made fun of me for buying these fat bottles with such big nipples! He couldn't help himself making jokes about our bottles with the "big nipples" every time he was around.  The wide-neck bottles were new at that time, and the popular bottle on the market was Dr. Brown's Natural Flow (regular tall skinny bottles).  I loved the bottles I chose... below is a picture of our Dr. Brown's on the left, Born Free in the middle, and the new ones I am trying for baby #2, Avent brand on the right... Please note that the green and blue nipples for the Dr. Brown's and Born Free are not the baby nipple attachments; they are sippy cup trainer attachments for older kids. We still use the bottles as sippy cups sometimes for our 3-year-old because she wouldn't drink milk out of anything besides a bottle until recently, so the sippy cup "nipple" was the best we could do to get away from an actual bottle.

 The Dr. Brown's and Born Free were both great bottles. I saw no major differences between the two. One selling point for wide-neck is that the wider nipple is more like an actual breast than the skinny neck bottle nipples are. The nipple itself is pretty much the same size, but the "aureola" part (for lack of a better term) of the bottle nipple is wider on the wide-neck bottle and seams more like a real breast. The other great feature is that its easier to pour breast milk into the wider opening or even scoop and mix formula in them. I never had trouble with my baby having "nipple confusion" (I love that term, BTW)... She went between bottle and breast with no trouble. It could have just been her amazingness and my amazing breasts (LOL), or maybe these bottles actually helped! 

When I was taking inventory of what we have already for the new baby and what we needed to purchase, I realized that all of Emily's bottles were a little worse for the wear. Some of the numbers were coming off on the outside, and I just felt like starting fresh and clean with some brand new bottles. I decided to try a different brand and chose the Avent brand wide neck bottles because they looked cool and had pretty good reviews.  I ordered a 5 pack of 9oz bottles and an extra one came free with the pack... the free one is their latest bottle called Avent Natural. The "natural" one is supposed to be more like a breast than the other, but they are really really similar. In the pic below, the bottle on the left is the 4oz natural bottle with a level 1 nipple for new borns (has only one hole and flows very very slowly); the bottle on the right is their regular 9oz bottle with a level 2 nipple (slow flow for babies 1 month and up). I will admit that the natural one is definitely more breast like in feel (I even had my husband inspect it last night to confer). 

One thing I have already noticed about the Avent bottles vs. our old ones is that they are more simple! There are less parts to wash and less parts to lose... If you scroll back up to my first pic, you will see that the Dr. Brown's has two internal parts besides just the bottle basics. The Born Free has a different system, but still two internal parts. With both of those bottles, the interior parts are pretty hard to clean really well without using a tiny little bottle brush that they provide with the bottles.  The Avent brand just has that extra little ring for the regular 9oz bottle and no interior parts at all for the natural 4oz. bottle. The lid and nipple design for the Avent Natural is a little more complex, but still seams easy to clean and put together. 

See the simplicity:

The real test will be when the baby comes. We shall see if they do all that they promise! 

The down-side of my new Avent bottles:

1.) the nipples are specially designed so they aren't interchangeable with other brands. For example my Born Free and Dr. Brown's bottles used virtually the same nipples and they could be swapped. With Avent, I can only use the Avent brand nipples.

2.) This is just one of my weird annoyances... the box for Avent advertises that it reduces colic... when I last checked Colic was defined as new borns that cry for no reason, meaning that no one knows why they are crying and that they are just fussy. There aren't any known health or intestinal problems that are known to cause it. This means that a bottle can't have anything to do with colic. A bottle may be able to help reduce gas for a baby that has tummy trouble - I can get on board with that statement, but if Colic is just an umbrella that we group babies under who cry and cry for no reason, then a bottle just can't fix it! I don't like false advertising!!! Its like when a super model or famous actress endorses a cheapie make-up brand! You know they don't use Cover Girl or dye their own hair at home with a box of $10 Nice N' Easy! They have millions of dollars and use fancy special make-up that is top of the line! Its a Sham!!! 

I'll think of another baby product to review tomorrow since that seams to be my theme this week! If you have a suggestion, write it in the comment box and I will blog about whatever product you are curious about :)

Temporal Artery Thermometer

We just got one of those thermometers that you just scan across the person's forehead and it is AMAZING!!!  When Emily was born, we go an ear thermometer, but it is fussy and not always accurate! It also doesn't work as well on adults for some reason (bigger ear holes?). We often had to get a few readings and figure out an average. It is stressful when you are already worried about your steaming hot fever baby/kid!  We got the temporal artery thermometer today and it is very easy and accurate! It was pretty affordable too! I looked at a few reviews before I registered for one at Babys R Us and Target. The one I chose is called Exergen TemporalScanner 2000C... It is $50 at Babys are Us and a nice $35 at Target.com. It will be worth every penny! You can swipe it across the forehead or if their forehead is sweaty, you can just place the scanner behind the ear on the neck and it scans perfectly  there too! I keep scanning myself and my husband. I will torture Emily with it when she wakes up tomorrow! When you go to choose a thermometer, you really need to consider one of these! 

I will have to keep playing with it to be sure of its amazing-ness! What would happen if I scan our dog? My science teacher brain is always looking for experiments! I have already noticed that you can just aim it at the air and it will basically tell you the room temperature with some accuracy! What a nerdy mom I am!  

Aren't we lucky that in this day and age, our generation does not have to experience placing a glass bulb thermometer in a baby's butt??? I can't believe people used to do that! Eek! Its bad enough seeing the vet do that to our dog! They need to invent a doggy thermo-scanner! Poor Molly Dog just stands there with that awkward sort of humiliated look on her face while the vet checks her temperature. I have to look away every time! 

Tomorrow I will tell you about the new bottles we got for baby #2  

Pregnant Teacher/Mommy Panick

I am a middle school science teacher. My job is very stressful but I love it! I love those goofy hormonal 12 year olds! They aren't babies like elementary school kids, but they aren't quite like a teenager who thinks they are too cool for my nerdy science humor! I have had the summer off, which has been wonderful. It is fun waking up each morning to my 3 year old daughter yelling in her sweet little voice "mommy, its time to wake up!" Its more fun when that wake up call happens after 7am though of course. I love going into her room to open up the windows and see her beaming smily face as she asks me silly and random questions. This morning's question was "Mommy, why do monkeys eat bananas?" It is awesome. I am truly lucky to have a job that I love that also happens to give me time off to spend with my kid(s).

This summer was especially welcome because I spent February thru early June being super sick due to a terrible bout of "morning sickness".  By the time we got to June, I could barely keep it together at work! But that is another blog for another time. By week 22 or so of my pregnancy, I was finally done with the sickness and ready to enjoy the summer with my family and begin planning for the baby (nesting). 

School/work is now fast approaching... only two weeks left! I tend to plan and do work all summer long so that I am not rushing too much with last minute stuff in my classroom. At this point I am starting to panic though. Not only did I have to plan out my curriculum for my four 6th grade Earth Science class and two 7th grade Life Science classes (200 students total), but I also have to make plans for a long term substitute teacher to come into my classroom (my home away from home) for two months and take over my entire career. Eek! I am not really a "type A" control freak, but I am literally losing sleep over it! It is the fear of the unknown, the lack of control, it is killing me. The fear I have is that I will show up after maternity leave in early December to find that the sub has turned my well oiled machine into an anarchist free-for-all, in other words 6th graders gone wild! What about their grades? What about parent emails and concerns? What about all of my policies and procedures that are designed to keep me sane and turn these kids into responsible members of our society??? Hell, what about SCIENCE??? Can this substitute teach it in a meaningful way so that the kids actually learn something rather than zone out? Will they learn anything? What if this substitute single handedly causes a hatred of science in the hearts of these kids for ever??? Oh No!!!   It is a lot of pressure!!! 

So that is my blog for today! Just sheer panic! I am sure in the end all will be fine and I will have a great substitute teacher... just hopefully not so great that the kids see me on that dreaded day in December and say "Why did you have to come back? Mrs. Perfect-Sub is our most favorite teacher ever!" IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR? I want a great (but not perfect) substitute teacher who does exactly what I have instructed them to do! Thats all! No biggie!  

Nesting and Baby Rooms

I was just thinking about baby rooms. We have a two bedroom condo and that won't be changing any time very soon. With my first child, we emptied out our office/empty bedroom and excitedly prepared the room for Emily (our now 3 year old). We painted the walls pink and green (I even hand painted giant polka dots on two of the walls). We were given furniture gifts from family - a beautiful white crib, a dresser/changing table combo that is wonderful, and the ever popular glider/rocking chair that everyone feels they must have before the baby comes home. It was fun! I spent so much time putting away all of the tiny clothes in the perfect white dresser and putting lady bug sheets on the adorable white crib. It was a nice experience. Due to that nesting instinct, there was a little bit of urgency in having it all perfectly ready for my wiggling little 7lbs. 90z. of love. Heaven forbid we come home from the hospital and she doesn't have the right lamp or matching ladybug laundry hamper! The baby would surely suffer without a crib skirt or a sign on the wall that says E-M-I-L-Y in adorable pastel stripes and dots! OMG, will the baby be pissed if she doesn't have little white wall shelves with cute stuffed animals stacked on them?

Here is what I learned from this that every practical new mom eventually learns. We didn't need any of that stuff to be ready for the baby when she came home. We needed the following: a bassinet with a sheet on it (or similar sleep structure for baby to be near your bed), diapers, wipes, diaper cream, blankets for swaddling, lots of onsies (or something warmer if you have a winter baby), a place to throw stinky diapers away that doesn't stink or require much effor (I recommend a simple diaper genie), breast feeding products, bottles, and all the safety gear... Now I am sure I am leaving out lots of little items, but I think you get the idea... When we came home and for up to a couple of months later, we didn't need any of that stuff we just had to have. In fact, many of the cutsie items in her bedroom she didn't begin to care about until she was two.

This time around we are making space for baby in our master bedroom. There is no room for our giant crib that later converts into a toddler bed and later into a full sized bed! Baby Girl #2 will be sleeping in a good ole pack n' play. It is actually perfect. There is a bassinet attachment on top for when the baby is tiny. Once she starts moving around a ton, we remove the bassinet and she'll sleep in the main part of the pack n' play. She will be fine and happy. She will not suffer because she doesn't have a whole room to herself with perfect white furniture and wall decor. Eventually and by the time she even cares, we will likely have a bigger house and she will have her own adorable and perfect bedroom.

So, new moms on a budget (money and time), this is my point. First focus on the bare necessities for your baby - things they and you actually NEED! Pack n' plays are genius and are just fine for your baby to sleep in as long as they can fit in there. If you have the money or gifts coming from family, the pretty and cutsie bedroom stuff can come later! 

ALso, my recent annoyance in relation to baby bedrooms (nurseries if you are being pretentious) is this: babies and little kids like baby and little kid stuff! Hanging some elaborate glass chandelier in your little girls is really weird and just reflects what you wish your bedroom could look like if there wasn't a man sleeping in there with you (super girlie stuff)... Kids like animals and bright colors and sports stuff and princess stuff. They don't like perfectly striped pink and brown walls with artsy black and white pictures of themselves or framed writing about how much you love them. KIDS ROOMS ARE FOR KIDS! NOT FOR YOU! Decorate them with baby and kid stuff that they will enjoy! 

Welcome New Mommies and Mommies-to-be

In this blog I plan to share my honest and quirky (sometimes overly cynical) views on being a mom and share some of my funny experiences.  I will also try to share advice that I have found useful over the past 3-4 years of mommyhood. I may also gripe about advice that is not helpful at all! 

2 TYPES OF PREGGOS:

I have found there are two major types of pregnant women. One type, we will call Pregnant Polly Perfect (PPP). She has dreamed of babies since she was one, she always felt the warm & fuzzies over new born babies and pregnant women. PPP never gets sick during pregnancy and rays of sunshine are literally shining from her beautiful pregnant body.  She will often tell you about how she loves/loved being pregnant and how she would do it ten times if she could. When you are pregnant, PPP will stare at you with a look of whimsy on her face like you are the cutest puppy in the whole world.  She will even say "Don't you just love being pregnant? I loved being pregnant". This makes the other type of pregnant women (me) feel worse than they already feel from morning sickness and back pain! It makes us think we are bad pregnant women because we aren't like the PPPs of the world. The other type of pregnant woman is me, Hot Pregnant Mess (HPM).  I love kids! Babies are cute! I always knew I wanted a family some day, but it was not my focus as a child! When my cousin was pretending to be pregnant by stuffing a blanket in her shirt while playing house with her baby doll collection, I was crawling around on the floor pretending to be her puppy or kitten or even a veterinarian. I have always been more likely to get all warm & fuzzy over animals than humans and that remained my preference until pregnant with my first child. Even now, I don't stare at pregnant women or newborn babies (unless they are my close friends of course). I DO NOT LOVE BEING PREGNANT.  I had morning sickness and many other icky side effects with both pregnancies and will share them all on this blog eventually. Don't get me wrong, I love being a mom! I love my 3 year old and my new little bun-in-the-oven.  I love the idea of my 2nd little one coming out and seeing her for the first time, holding her, breast feeding her, getting to know her, etc. I just really really really don't enjoy pregnancy! I am starting to think its genetic! I come from a long line of pregnancy-haters! Anyways, if you are a PPP, you probably won't appreciate my blog... If you are a HPM or somewhere in the middle of the two, you may at least find it useful or it may even give you that "ok so this is normal" feeling of relief in a crazy fit of pregnancy panic. Yes, as a pregnant woman and new mom, you will panic more than you think!

I am about 32 weeks pregnant with my 2nd daughter right now. My older daughter is 3 years old and I am still in love with her! She makes me smile and laugh every day (sometimes yell and cry, but that is 3 years old for you).  I will share a lot about her in this blog too! 

I got the idea to blog around week 10 and starting typing up some ideas in Word. I was so sick all the time that it was just a pipe dream that never came true. I will try again now that I am no longer vomiting constantly.  The purpose of my blog is partially therapy for myself because writing things out and finding humor in life makes me feel better when things are crappy, and partly because it would be cool to be able to help other moms and make them feel like they aren't alone out there in the crazy world of being a new (or veteran) mom. Also, if you are a HPM, I want to help you feel good about yourself and less spiteful about the PPPs of the world.