Sunny

Took the Monkey out to the pool today with BabyFrog in my Hot Mama Ink Sling. All the geriatrics came over to visit with us and fuss over the little girl and tell us about how babies didn’t go outside for 2 months back when they had their kids….BabyFrog was more fascinated with the sun on her fingers 🙂

Baby’s First Bath!!

I’m so excited – tonight we gave the BabyFrog her very first bath!!  I’ve been waiting very patiently (not!) for her belly button to fall off so that we could try out the Prince Lionheart washPOD that I snagged a few weeks ago. I must say that I expected a problem to begin with……not just because this was her first bath, but also because it was our first time bathing a baby like this.

With the Monkey, we had the usual baby tub and since there was no counter space anywhere in the house we lived in at the time – really, nowhere…..not in the kitchen or in the bathroom! – we wound up just putting her bathtub in the big bathtub…..not great on the back – ugh! But more than that, Monkey was flat on her back and the water hardly covered her…..so she was really just wet – not in water – and you know no matter how warm ya try to make a room, when you’re wet and naked it’s flippin’ cold!

When I first saw tubs like the washPOD, I thought it was crazy.  Why would anyone want to bathe their baby in this bucket???  But when I watched the video demonstration, I remembered Monkey’s first bath and realized how completely brilliant the concept is.  The washPOD is the only bathtub I had on my registry this time around.

We set the tub up on my kitchen counter, figuring it’d be easier to fill it up there, the counters are a good height and BabyFrog is already familiar with the kitchen – she hasn’t had much opportunity to visit either of our bathrooms yet.  I put some Johnsons Head to Toe in the water, grabbed one of her cool new froggy towels and a wash cloth and got her ready to go.

When her toes hit the water, BabyFrog started whimpering a bit….by the time her butt hit the water, it was a whine…..but as soon as her belly and chest were covered – nothing.  She looked at us, a little uncertain as to what was going on, but it took her no time to settle in.  She was calm and comfortable and warm. She was fascinated by the suds floating on top of the water…..she was distracted however by the water on her hand when she raised it out of the water….the whole time she was in the tub, she was pleasant and……curious, which was really cool to watch. She stretched out her arms and legs, even bounced up and down a little since she kept her feet firmly planted on the removable cushioned bottom of the tub – lol! When we took her out, though – yikes!  She was okay after a few seconds but, wow!  In the time it took to get her from the water to the towel – about 5 seconds! – she was not a happy baby. I actually had echoes of Bruce Willis in the back of my head, when he’s screaming “Put me back in!!” Ugh…a “Look Who’s Talking” reference…..I must be more sleep deprived than I thought.

The washPOD is pure genius….the concept itself is so simple – and completely overlooked! – but I especially like its design when compared to others like it. The cushioned bottom is perfectly contoured for little bottoms and I love the extra balance provided by the “legs” that other similar tubs are lacking – this is especially important, I think, for someone like me and DH. Both of us have back problems related to our jobs so we will both pretty much be using the tub while it’s on a raised surface – not on the floor or another spot where we would have to be in awkward sitting positions or leaning over – so the extra stability is a huge plus for us!

Not only do I wish I’d had a washPOD 11 years ago for the Monkey, I wish I could get one for all of my friends that are new mommies. If you’re expecting, add this tub to your registry….you’re friends might say you’re nutso – mine all did when I first mentioned that I wanted one! – but you’ll be the one with the happy bath-time baby ;^)

#WordlessWednesday: Happy Face, Happy Bottom :-)

Cloth Diapering: Dipping My Toes In The Pool

Well, this isn’t exactly how I expected my first cloth diapering entry to go, but there’s no point in narrating my adventures in cloth by starting at step two.

When I packed Baby Frog’s bag for the hospital, I wavered back and forth as to whether I wanted to take any of my cloth diapers to the hospital with me. Firstly, I didn’t want to be laundering diapers while I was in the hospital….as it turned out, that probably would not have been possible anyway. And really….I didn’t want those early, tar-ish poops to leave any permanent marks. More importantly than anything else, though, I didn’t want to wind up with the hospital staff having to take her off for some reason or other only to have her come back in a disposable diaper with no sign of my cloth or diaper cover.

As it turns out this was a well founded concern. At one point – in the middle of the day, when I expected there would be absolutely no reason in the world for anyone to have to collect her – we wrapped Baby Frog in a blanket that had belonged to Monkey when she was an infant. Sure enough, they did come in to collect her – I think this was when they did her hearing test – and when she came back the blanket was gone. Took them an hour to track it down.

Stuff – it’s what’s for dinner!

I was just going to make pasta and meat sauce for dinner tonight, but…..blah…..I wanted something different so I decided to throw together some “stuff”. I’m never really sure if “stuff” is officially the name for this dish (or those like it) or if it just sort of became the accepted name in my smart-alec household….”Hey, what’s for dinner?” “Stuff!!”

Tonight’s version of stuff was kind of experimental so I was taking pictures and it turned out awesome so I figured I’d share.

1. Get some water boiling for your favorite pasta.

Wordless Wednesday: EBF – so far, so good!!

BabyFrog's first well baby visit! 8 days old and she already grew 1/4in. from birth and is up 1/4lb. from when were discharged on Friday - for being exclusively breast fed, that's pretty awesome ;^)

Birth Announcement :^)

Well, just about this time a week ago, I was sitting in a chair in the delivery room with my feet up on the bed waiting for a nurse to come in and ask me again if I was sure I was comfortable. On Wednesday morning, I posted a pic of my new daughter from my hospital bed – technology is mah-velous!! Since then, of course, things have been a little…..different….mainly just trying to fix the schedule imposed by the hospital – lol! Things are coming along nicely now, though, but I’m still not feeling up to writing the whole birth story up just yet.

In the meantime, last night I took a few minutes to prepare some birth announcements to send out. Now, I’ve never used Shutterfly before but when I set up my Target Baby Registry, I received a $20 gift card toward a purchase from Shutterfly. Never one to turn down $20 in anyway shape or form, I got DH and Monkey and we all picked out a few card styles that we liked and our favorite pictures so far to add to the announcement and after playing with a few, we decided on this one:

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

Monkey is at that point now where – as we go along with Froggy – she asks if we did this or that with her. So she asked if we sent out birth announcements when she was born. I told her we absolutely did and it took me days to get them all out…..handwriting every single card with her name, weight, length and birth date, sticking a picture in each card and then hand addressing each envelope….I think I managed to get them all out by May – lol!

I was actually dreading the announcements this time and actually wondering if it would be bad form to send out e-mail announcements with instructions for people to share the news with their non-tech-ish friends and family….yeah….so Shutterfly saved me from some social awkwardness and now that I’ve used it, I think I’m hooked. I can totally see me getting my Christmas cards and invitations from thse guys ;^)

Welcome, Baby!!

She had a long day yesterday 😉

—> Rafflecopter Invite Giveaway!!

Yes, that’s right, I was lucky enough to snag one of the Golden Tickets in this contest over at Rafflecopter – woot!! Now, as I’m still just getting a feel for the system and I’m probably going to have a baby any day now, I need to unload the rest of the invites pronto and I figured what better way to do this than to offer them up for grabs and try out the system at the same time – so here it is, your chance to win one of 4 (FOUR!!) invites to try out Rafflecopter.

So far, I have to say that I think the folks over at Rafflecopter have really hit on something with this – I can’t imagine trying to manage a giveaway manually like so many of you do and really, God bless you for it! I know it’s kind of a short run here….but again, with good reason. Baby on the way and – hey! – more time for you guys to check it out in beta.

No complicated rules or anything for now. It’s pretty easy and I like to see lots of points on the board (that’s why there’s a bunch of 5 pointers! ;^)

Have at it!!

***EXTENDED THROUGH SATURDAY, 7/16/11***

Cover up that baby!!

Okay, it is my every intention to breastfeed our new baby. That is to say, that have all of my fingers and even my poor swollen toes crossed that everything works out and that her diet consists of nothing but breast milk. As I’ve already mentioned, bottle feeding will be a necessity.  I’m crossing everything – including my eyes – that she’ll be able to adapt easily to the bottle and still take the breast.

Having said all that, there is one other issue I need to consider.  Breastfeeding in public.  Now I’m not trying to start a holy war or anything; I think women should be able to feed their kids anytime, anyplace and however they so choose.  Right now, I’m thinking about my own personal modesty issues and nothing else.  I’m uncomfortable being seen in public in any top or blouse that goes much past my collar bone, in any direction.   Most of the time, I don’t sit around my living room in anything that covers less than a t-shirt!  That’s just the way it is.

But it still seems silly to me to wind up throwing a blanket or something over the baby in an effort to make sure I’m covered and comfortable.  I mean how do I know that won’t wind up giving her a complex or something so that she can only ever eat with a blanket over her head!!  I just have to figure something out….come August 1st, BBv1 starts XC practice again and soon after that she’ll be back to swimming – two things I never miss and I’m sure I’ll have to be feeding the baby at some time or another during a practice or an event.

So for months I’ve been on the lookout for some sort of compromise and may have found it through a giveaway over at One Smiley Monkey.

Angela has written a great review of The Baby Bond Flex and is offering the chance for one lucky reader to try it out for themselves!  I am so in on this, and will most likely be ordering one – easy enough to keep myself covered and no black-out for baby!!  Amazon offers the Flex, but the really cool bit is that Angela is also offering a code for 25% off at the time of check-out when you order your Flex directly from Baby Bond ;^)

Go check it out – and many thanks to One Smiley Monkey for bringing this one to my attention!!