Logan’s First Photo Shoot
April 27th, 2012 § 1 Comment
We were lucky enough to hook up with the very talented Christie Hobson who came to take photos of Logan. He was exactly 10 days old, and on the brink of being too awake to tolerate 4 hours of photos BUT he was a champ that day and Christie was amazing with him. Being a new mom drenched in hormones, you surely want a photographer that is patient, loving, careful and did I mention oh so careful? with your new baby, Christie was all that and more. We are so thankful we invested in amazing photos of Logan, ones we will surely cherish forever.
Mommy Must Have’s
April 25th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
When I was making up my baby registry I was lost. It reminded me of the first time I ignorantly purchased my first car off the lot when my most pressing question was, “what colors does it come in?” Knowing what stroller to purchase, what glider or swing to buy, how many diapers or bottles I would need all were much too confusing a process to navigate. Paired with the hormones, I was paralyzed with indecision. Now that I am a seven week old mommy, I don’t claim to be any less ignorant, but I am much more educated on what my little guy likes and the items that were all but wasted purchases. So, I thought I would share some of my mommy expertise on products I have come to love thus far:
Top 5 Mommy Must Have’s
It’s humbling to admit the amount of times that my post-pregnancy body nakedly bounced Logan around his nursery when his cries called me away from the middle of a shower. Let me tell you there is nothing worse than standing naked in any room, populated or not, when you are recovering from pregnancy. Add bouncing to that equation and there is a whole lot of shaking happening. We recently purchased this swing after trying bouncers and gliders only to be met with crying and fussiness. Once we put Logan in this swing he is in heaven. It not only swings forward and back, but it can also convert to a side to side swing too. The mobile moves in circles, which once your baby hits the 6-7 week mark and tracks objects, is a really nice addition. We love this swing, but most important, he loves this swing. Which keeps him happy and it keeps me free from naked bouncing.
2. Brest Friend: 
Not all nursing pillows are the same and nursing is no joke. The first few weeks of learning to breastfeed is a bleary eyed mess you’ll fumble in the hospital bed with pillows propped and stuffed into every crevice, trying to maneuver your new baby. The Brest Friend is the perfect shape and firm surface to help ease the difficulty of breastfeeding. Save your money, you may quickly find the Boppy is too soft and pillows just won’t do.
3. Mother Love Nipple Cream: I am not a fan of Lanolin, its thick and hard to spread and when your boob already feels like it has been razored off, the last thing you are going to want is to spread some chunky goop on it. Mother Love Nipple cream is soft and easy to spread and will provide great comfort to tender nipples.
This tub is brilliant! Soft, foldable and easy to store it beats all other tubs hands down. It folds up to fit in your sink and props babies up nicely so you don’t have to fumble with balancing a wet slippery baby.
5. Cloud B Giraffe or White Noise Maker
Every watch Shark Week on Discovery channel and see those crazy divers who touch the tip of a shark’s nose and it immediately puts a snapping ferocious monster in a trance? That is exactly what white noise does to babies. We take the Cloud B giraffe when we go out and put it in the stroller with Logan and it seems to always calm him down when he gets fussy. Have and iPhone? Download Sleep Machine, the white noise on this app sounds like a TV with bad reception but it is MAGICAL. If Logan is having a super code 3 meltdown, a little bouncing and some white noise from this app. calms him down and puts him to sleep. There is nothing like it!
Welcome to the Jungle
April 24th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
I’ve sat down to write about my first 7 weeks of motherhood at least ten times. Nine out of those ten times I was called away by an angry customer, upset their lunch wasn’t ready or that they pooped themselves for the second time in a row, and the other times I literally fell asleep while typing, I know this because the sentence went something like this, “Motherhood is amazing in so many ways and exhausting in so many otherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr3opruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuosfdlgh….”
Needless to say for someone who thought, “how hard can this be?” The universe is punishing me for being a pompous self-righteous jerk. Weeks ago I was nine months pregnant, balancing like a hippo on the back of my couch while precariously hanging hand-made curtains. I was running to Ikea picking up a mirror two times heavier than anything I had any business lifting and then hanging it over my couch. These are both tremendous tasks mind you, when your belly hits the wall before your hammer does. I reasoned that if I could remain stubborn and self-capable throughout my entire pregnancy, nothing would change a great deal once Logan entered this world.
And then he entered this world.
On March 3, 2012 in the wee hours of the morning, after trying as best I could to push a very unwilling and unyielding baby out of my lady parts, Logan was born after an anesthesiologist, OB and several nurses went in to get him. My suspicion that he was inclined to take up permanent residency in my uterus was correct. After 9 or so hours of labor the doctor told me that while I was 6cm dialated, the baby was still lodged somewhere between my throat and my chest. What started as a routine trip to the hospital for monitoring because he was a week past his due date, turned into a Pitocin hazed, unmedicated flurry of pain and hell. My hope for a non drug, no c-section, no Pitocin labor turned into a trifecta of everything I never wanted. It ended with me crying under fluorescent lighting in a stark white room with a team of 10 medical professionals and my husband all gazing at my exposed lower regions which were swollen, dimpled and glowing under horrible lighting as Logan was born via c-section.
The next few days are a blur to say the least. The first night I stayed up most of the time staring at Logan in his see through plastic hospital bed, watching his chest rise and fall, convinced that my staring was the only thing that was keeping it moving. Then there was breast feeding, which was more an exercise in torture and make-believe. The nurses assured me if I put him to my breast he would get colostrum, which from the best I could gather was invisible fairy dust that only he could see. Breast feeding is just as magical as they say, if magic is a nail that is gently driven into your boob. I cried and agonized over breastfeeding, worried I had already failed as a mom because I couldn’t produce any sort of liquid to provide my baby nourishment. I felt broken; worried that I missed some sort womanhood right of passage thinking maybe I just stood in the Period line and didn’t see the Magic Milk Lady line. I always hated lines.
Luckily, by the third day we struck oil, and while it was in limited supply…we had milk people! It was around this time I began mourning the life my boobs once had. Regretful they had never seen Spring Break, that they had never earned any beads, sad they had never gotten a free drink at a bar or flashed a passing truck on a road trip. I had taken them for granted when they were free to live a reckless life. Now, almost without warning, they were adults and they had adult jobs to do, like provide nourishment and be man handled by tired nurses who treated them like raw bread dough and a baby who sucked them like he was the nozzle of a Hoover vac.
No one talks about breastfeeding when you are pregnant, no one prepares you for the Boot Camp of Breastfeeding. One thinks it is natural and easy, but let me be the first to tell you it isn’t as easy as polar bears make it look on the Discovery channel. Your cute fuzzy blind baby doesn’t clumsily nuzzle up to your breast and begin suckling while you are none the wiser eating a mulberry bush. Your adorable, sweet, innocent new baby reluctantly and recklessly chomps down on your breast with the same clumsy way a junior high boy does the first time he goes up your shirt to tune into Tokyo, and with the same jaw force as a Great White Shark.
Breastfeeding is not easy. I never expected that my first try would set me on a 6 week journey through pain, fire, infection and tears…but if you are able to stick with it…it does get better and once it does, it will be night and day from the start.
