Unsolicited Advice

I never understood why other moms are always offering their unsolicited advice about everything from pregnancy to potty training.  That is until I became a mom myself.  It turns out that most of the time you are so consumed with your role as a momma that you build up any new discovery as if it were the cure to cancer.  Usually you go the whole day feeling so overworked and unappreciated that you really just have to give yourself a monumental pat on the back as a reward.  So in an effort to refrain from attacking every expectant mother with my hard earned wisdom, I have decided to post some nuggets here so that I might reference them somewhere down the road. 

On Pregnancy

If you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant I would first recommend watching the film "The Business of Being Born" then taking the classes for the Bradley Method of Childbirth.  Both are life changing.  I don't want to offend anyone by saying this, because I'm sure that having a baby in any way or fashion whether it involved medicine or surgery is one of the coolest things you will ever do in your life.  But I just feel that every woman should have the opportunity to really feel the power and the sense of accomplishment of having a baby naturally.  I will forever cherish the experience of the labor and delivery of Chloe.  I wish that labor and delivery for every woman, because when I was done and was holding Chloe in my arms I knew absolutely without doubt that if I could do that, I could do anything.

On Stuff You Need, Don't Need, Or Is Just So Adorable You Feel You Must Have It 

Don't Need: Wipe warmers dry your wipes out.  You don't need a wipe warmer.

Need: Robeez are pretty much the only shoes that will stay on those little baby feet. Chloe wore holes in the toes of hers. They are amazing.

Don't Need: It pains me to admit that my sister-in-law, Kendra, was so right about not needing to buy baby bedding. She said "you only need a tight fitted sheet and a blanket." But I wanted the whole set. Now, supposedly the baby bumper is linked to SIDS, so I ended up buying a breathable bumper, and the skirting becomes less and less noticeable as you lower the crib. And I have four or five softer quilts and blankets than the one that came with my bedding. So she was right, but I'd still buy that whole set if I had to do it over again... just because she told me not to.

So Adorable You Must Have It: Is there anything cuter than a baby wearing leg warmers? The answer is no. Baby Legs are the best!

So Adorable You Must Have It: If you think that the monthly pictures I took of Chloe are cute, I got the idea from my sister-in-law, Shantel. The stickers are from Picky Sticky. Yes, those were stickers. I did not order a new onesie every single month. I will vow here to myself and to my next child that I will not torture either of us with these stickers. Chloe HATES when I do these sticker pictures, and most of the time we both end up wanted to cry because we are so frustrated with one another. But Paul says that every thing I do with Chloe I have to do with our future kids... ugh.  They were pretty cute, though!

On Breastfeeding

Nursing covers are great in theory, but an oversized scarf works way better.  Plus, they go with your outfit and are far more discreet.

If you plan to breastfeed your baby and you don't have, like, massive double D boobs to start with, you should buy nursing camis rather than expensive, uncomfortable, ugly nursing bras.  You'll want to wear a cami over your nursing bra anyway, because your stomach is all lumpy and muffin toppy, which defeats the purpose (convenience) of a nursing bra.  That being said, you should buy one with padding and a loose fitting tummy at the onset, switching over to a tighter fitting cami once you have a fat free muffin top.

Breastfeeding is a skill that cannot be learned overnight.  It takes weeks to perfect, and if you really want to do it, you have to give yourself at least six weeks to decide if you love it or hate it.  You will almost surly hate it before then, and will almost surly love it after that, but it all depends.  You just have to give you and the baby a fair shot at it.  You don't get your driver's license without a little practice.


On Advice

Lastly, people will want to give you advice every single day.  I know I am stereotyping here, but in my experience the meanest people are usually "old" people, like, your mom's mom type of old people.  They will say things like "your place is in the home, now," "you aren't speaking enough to your baby," etc., and they will almost always compare your baby to some other baby.  Old people almost always leave you scratching your head, like, did that sweet, little, unsuspecting stranger just hint that my baby is going to turn out to be an axe-murderer because she goes to daycare and I failed to inform her that "mommy's going poopy now."  Er wait, I don't think women from that era poop.  Or fart.  But, I had better start feeding my baby cow's milk at age 2 months, because that is what she did, and look at her kids! 

The second meanest group of people is often just as unsuspecting, and I like to refer to them as "mean mommies."  They are the type to always compare, compare, compare.  They usually end up making you feel terrible because they lost their baby weight within two days; they get to stay home and they just loooove it; their baby sleeps 12 hours at night and takes two long naps during the day; their baby had 30 words when she was only supposed to have 5; and they had a natural child birth, and think you can do it too!!  Oops.  I guess we are all guilty once in a while.  You get the picture.

So whenever anyone gives you a piece of unsolicited advice, you have permission to immediately dismiss the advice, because chances are that the person giving them to you is so old, so mean, or so freaking tired that she doesn't even know what she is talking about anymore.  I think that fact that I wrote this post in January just realizing today that I never hit "post" is a true testament to just how tired one working mama can actually be.

Easter Post & A Random Chloe Update

We had a great Easter 2011.  My parents came down Thursday night and watched Chloe on Friday while I was at work.  Chloe was so happy to have both her Grammy and Papa at her house for almost three full days!  On Saturday we went out for breakfast and then my Mom and I went shopping for some bigger clothes for Little Miss since she seems to have hit a growth spurt.  Paul and my Dad made a huge feast including spinach salad, shrimp bisque, prime rib, and twice baked potatoes.  I made a carrot cake cheesecake for dessert.  It was such a delicious meal, but Chloe didn't want anything to do with it.  She has eight teeth coming in right now and she isn't interested much in food unless it is a chicken finger drenched in ketchup.  Sunday morning we went to church and then Chloe got to play with her Easter goodies.  Here are a couple of pics:

While I am at it I might as well just post a few pictures of Chloe doing what she does best: climbing. This is what she does in a life sized grocery cart, as well.

On the topic of climbing, Chloe walks up and down the stairs upright and face forward now.  She has been for about a month now.  I was so worried at first and would always wait at the bottom of the stairs for her.  She fell down a couple of stairs twice, but it was on the carpeted part and she was fine.  No amount of coercing can get her to change her mind about going down those stairs like a big girl, so we just let her. 

She has been given a fair amount of free range around the house now, and she seems happier and less mischievous because of it.  We even let Chloe play and watch Elmo (her favorite) in the basement for a couple of minutes at a time while we are up in the kitchen or running to the bathroom. 
Speaking of Elmo, Chloe is totally obsessed with him and Sesame Street.  I always loved that show as a kid so my Mom started letting her watch it.  She gets to watch it every day now and she starts dancing and clapping whenever it comes on.  I actually think it is pretty funny to watch, and I love cuddling up with her and flipping it on. 

She can almost say Elmo and Big Bird.  Chloe isn't too interested in talking, though.  She says Mama, Dada, Papa, Dolly Doll (my parents' dog), uh oh, thank you, woof woof, moo moo, and tickle tickle.  Her favorite things to do are tickle tickle people, dance, and climb on Griffin.  Her tickle tickle is so cute because it is actually sounds more like lithel lithel.  She dances to everything from songs on the radio to songs on commercials to songs playing on her toys.  She'll stop everything just to dance.  Her moves are so cute and usually involve bouncing her butt as she spins in a circle while swinging her arms.  Chloe is just so fun right now!  Everything just keeps getting more fun as she grows and I'm so grateful for that, because it is easy to get depressed about how fast she is growing up. 

Dirt Café

Chloe has recently acquired a taste for the finer things in life.  In addition to her love of dog bowl water, dog toys, baby wipes, Kleenex, and any type of food that has fallen on the floor, her most recent craving is for dirt. It does have many of the same qualities as sugar - smooth, crystaly... wonderful - except it is missing a few important qualities like being sweet and highly digestible. Nevertheless she loves to sneak a mouth full whenever we aren't looking. (Or, in the spirit of documenting this phase, whenever we are looking.)



 

 



The Birds. THE BIRDS!

I feel like a murderer. 

I'm seriously considering taking down the wreath.  I wasn't even really considering it until my Mom started with her scare tactics.  First of all, we spent a lot of money on that wreath.  And she made that bow by hand.  And the birds will poop all over the wreath.  And birds have lice.  And the lice will come in your windows AND BURROW INTO YOUR SKIN. 

Okay, so she didn't say that last part, but when she said birds have lice I have to admit that I pointed my finger at her and laughed.  Birds have lice.  That doesn't even make sense.  I was fully prepared to make fun of her here, but before I did I did a quick Google search "wild birds lice" only to find out that wild birds can have lice, and when the birds leave the lice will crawl through your windows AND BURROW INTO YOUR SKIN!  I only looked at one website, and it had less credibility than Wikipedia, but I'm going with it. 

So before the birds make up an official letterhead and claim primary residence exemption, I'm going to have Paul take down the wreath.  As of this weekend we will no longer be those people.  In the meantime I'm going to be feeling terrible for possibly and probably killing a few baby birds.  I don't even like birds.  I swear, becoming a mother makes you sentimental as hell.

Easter Wreath

This is what happens when you wait too long to take down your Christmas decorations...

 

I don't even need to decorate it with Easter eggs!  Now, if only I could make a real "Birds' Nest" sign for the house... then maybe we would stop getting so many dirty looks from our neighbors.

A Mousy Makeover

I guess Paul and I have never really "counted" the basement as a livable space.  We had only really used it for extra storage, or for an extra place to sleep when we had guests, or for a short retreat from a super hot summer day.  The real problem is that someone living there before us had cats, and apparently they let their cats pee on the carpet once or twice, because the whole basement had a faint undertone of cat pee.  But then again, maybe it was just mouse pee.

Sick. 

We brought Griffin to the house before we bought it to see if he got any paranormal hits, but all he did was run straight to the basement and pee on the carpet.  I guess it smelled so bad to him that he thought it was the outdoors.  So my point is that we have always wanted to put new carpet in the basement and repaint the walls.  That is all we wanted to do.  Here is a picture of what the basement looked like prior to The Mice.

But the Lord works in mysterious ways, because after The Mice came to live at our house Paul decided that no way, never, not ever was he going to leave the poopy ceiling tiles in the basement.  I just told him to do whatever he wanted since I was so stressed out about the whole thing.  Tearing down the ceiling tiles and replacing the carpet soon turned into calling a contractor, bumping out a wall, replacing the electrical, and so on.  And when I returned from D.C. I came down to the basement to find this:

 

After I pooped my pants, Paul explained that after pulling down the ceiling tiles he realized the idiot living here before us thought he was an electrician and wired the whole basement himself.  There were all kinds of fire hazards and issues that needed to be addressed.  We couldn't quite afford an electrician at $80 per hour for three days worth of work so we called our brother-in-law, Chad, an electrical engineer.  To the entire Moore Family and God, I thank you again here for blessing us with your help.  The electrical work in our basement was really a threat to our whole family, and it turns out that if those mice had wings they would have been angels (or bats).  Chad and family came to our house on three separate occasions to help Paul with the wiring.  When they were done the basement looked like this:

Then my dad helped Paul replace an old pipe.  Then Michael, our contractor and friend, framed in our new walls.  Then came drywall.  The basement looked like this:

Paul and our friend Matt borrowed a paint sprayer from an old football buddy.  They sprayed the ceiling and then painted the walls the following day.  We were then left with this:

Let me just stop right here to say how lucky you are to get such instant gratification.  Paul slaved over this basement for days on end, tearing away layer after layer of old drywall, dust, mouse poop, and carpet.  Michael spent a month waiting for us to move all of the garbage from the basement to the garage to the trash can (and the neighbor's trash can and the other neighbor's trash can) all in an effort to save on dumpster and demolition costs, which, by the way, was a horrible plan.  And after a whole month of waiting he came in and finished the job in less than two weeks.  Even though both Paul and Michael were so amazing, I spent the same amount of time rocking back and forth in a corner, afraid of what would come next.  Everything looks so much less stressful on HGTV.  And it all happens in thirty to sixty minute segment.  I'm just saying, as a blog reader myself, I can appreciate getting to see the entire project from start to finish in less than three minutes. 

Where was I?  So Michael finished up the trim work on Wednesday, and we finished painting and patching the floors on Thursday.  On Friday the carpet was installed.  Now we have a finished product that looks like this:

When you live in a really old house with beautiful wood floors everyone says it is a shame to cover them with carpet, and for the most part I agree.  But after a while you realize that it doesn't matter how pretty those floors are, because they are cold and uncomfortable and creaky and... well, it is just really nice to have a room with carpet.  The whole family agrees.  Chloe was so excited that she could hardly contain herself.  She was doing laps in the room just screaming and laughing.  She kept falling over and rolling around.  Paul and I were making carpet angels, and Griffin was being all narcoleptic just curling up and falling asleep every three steps.  We are super happy to have a new room in our very old house!

*By the way, if you are looking for a great contractor in the area try Michael Triant of Sarafis Designs.   

Mom Scouts

Last Friday I earned two new Mom Scout badges: Bare-Handed Puke Catcher and Bathtub Poop Scooper. I guess I was pretty lucky to go over a year without earning those particular badges. It all started on Friday morning around 5:30 a.m., Chloe's preferred wake up time. We went downstairs to get a cup of milk like usual when all of a sudden she started to puke. Instinctively, I stuck my hands out to catch it. It was mostly mucous so I didn't think much of it, but about an hour later I sat her in her highchair for breakfast, and she started to gag again. This time I caught twice the amount of puke.

Unfortunately, some if it ended up down her shirt, so we went straight to the tub. I washed her all up and she was just playing like a good girl when my Mom said she would watch her while I went downstairs. Well about 30 seconds later I hear "Aaah YOU ARE POOPING!" I ran upstairs and sure enough there was something floating in the tub that certainly didn't belong there. I scooped out the poop and flushed it down the toilet. Okay I know this is a little graphic, but my point is that prior to 7:00 a.m. I had already caught puke in my hands TWICE and scooped poo out of the tub.

Chloe still wasn't feeling well in the afternoon. My Mom called and said Chloe was very off balance and was crying a lot. Her fever was about 102 degrees even with Tylenol.  I made her an appointment to see the doctor. Mind you, I was complaining the whole time, because it seems like every single week that my Mom is here we are going to the doctor. I am the type to never go to the doctor. In fact, I didn't even open Chloe's thermometer until she was about four months old. It seems like every Monday Chloe goes to daycare feeling fine, but by Wednesday she has a runny nose, and by Friday she has a cold that has got my Mom thinking a visit to the doctor is in order. This winter the doctor has told us about five times and about $400 later that Chloe has a cold. (I'm sorry, Mom, I'm not blaming you per se, but you are batting, like, two-hundred.)

This time was different, though, because this time Chloe had a double ear infection. Poor baby had to get an antibiotic. She is now about half way through the medicine, and is starting to feel better. At least she doesn't have a fever anymore. But she is turning into a bubblegum flavored amoxicillin junky.  The doctor said that most kids have had four ear infections by the age of one.  Good job, Chloe!

Anyway, I figured I get to add my new badges to my recent collection, which include:

Board Book Memorizer - for the ability to read Chloe's favorite books without looking at the words while doing a variety of daily activities.

Poop Inspector - for the instinct to do a quick once over on a poopy diaper to ensure there are no rouge pennies.

Booger Picker/Snotty Nose Wiper - for the successful removal of the stickiest of boogers and runniest of noses using a tissue, shirt sleeve, finger, and/or shoulder.

Early Riser - for waking up every single morning at 5:30 a.m. for over a year.

Sure, they aren't exactly glamorous, but I am quite proud of them!  Oh, and Paul gets an honorary badge.  I'm going to call it something simple and self-explanatory like... I-didn't-quite-get-all-of-the-poop-out-of-the-drain, so-when-Paul-took-his-shower-after-work-and-tried-to-figure-out-why-the-tub-wasn't-draining, he-stuck-his-finger-in-the-drain, wriggled-it-around-a-bit, removed-his-finger, and-proceeded-to-sniff-said-finger, and-in-doing-so-he-confirmed-that-there-was-indeed-poop, human-poop-in-the-tub.  I think that has a nice ring to it, don't you?