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This showed up in my feed reader today and I felt compelled to respond: Can I tell you how sorry I feel for the child born of a mother who says she didn’t give birth to the kid? That s/he was “an extraction,” like an infected tooth or a cancerous mole? What is that going [...]

Every time I consider taking a walk with Wesley, I start thinking about how much I hate my stroller and what I’d pick differently if I could do it over. We received a stroller as a gift (which was super generous) and despite it being the accompaniment to our carseat, I didn’t really have an [...]

(Note: This happened a couple of weeks ago, but I didn’t have the post finished and then it was Wesley’s birthday and my family was in town, and then my in-laws, and I am just now getting around to posting it.) My first official day of being a stay-at-home-mom, and I go and lose our [...]

As most of you know, my pregnancy with Wesley ended in an emergency cesarean section due to pre-eclampsia. My kidneys had more or less stopped working, so despite feeling fine, I was told that it was time for things to get a move on. (Delivery is the only cure for pre-eclampsia.) Initially I was very, [...]

Ten months after Wesley was born, we finally took the plunge and bought him a crib. (This is the manufacturer’s photo – our bedroom is less photogenic.) Prior to this, he sometimes slept in his Arm’s Reach Cosleeper Crib, but mostly slept between us in our bed. It was getting to the point where his [...]

I just saw this “Mommy Guilt” article linked in a BabyCenter newsletter and one of the points about TV caught my attention. Here’s what that point had to say: But if you break this rule, you’re not alone: A poll of BabyCenter moms reveals that only 10 percent of moms with toddlers forbid TV completely. [...]

After stumbling across this Ask Metafilter post about approaching parents of a newborn to tell them their baby is making too much noise, it reminded me how absolutely stressed I was about this before bringing Wesley home. My main point of anxiety revolved around the neighbors not signing up to bring home a newborn even [...]

Those of you with babies (or tiny people who used to be babies) – do they watch any television? I ask because we don’t have TV. I mean, we have a television, one that we use for the Xbox and other gaming consoles and to watch DVDs and VHS tapes, but we don’t get any [...]

One of the more frustrating things about barely seeing my baby during the week is this: If he has a “bad” day (cranky, poor napping) on the weekend, I don’t get the benefit of the rest of the week to average it out. Wesley had the sort of day yesterday where I honestly feel like [...]

Even before I had a baby, babywearing just felt “right” to me – I bought a knockoff Moby wrap before Wesley was even born. It took me a few tries to get the tying and the tension right, but I was hooked. When Wesley arrived, we used it for walks, around the house, and on [...]

To co-workers discussing their lack of sleep re: their babies’ once-a-night wakeups: HA. AHA. AHAHAHAHAHA. At six months old, Wesley still does not sleep through the night. This is not abnormal; babies are not really wired to sleep through the night for a long time. However, at six months old, he probably does not need [...]

I’ve heard of the four-month sleep regression, but is it normal for a five-month-old to forget how to eat at night when they wake up hungry? Wesley used to start snuffling to himself to wake me up, I’d give him a boob, and he’d eat and go right back to sleep. I’d often fall asleep [...]

Even though I am personally committed to breastfeeding, I’m not crazy-militant about it. You know this. Basically, I firmly believe in doing what’s best for you and your family and if that’s breastfeeding or formula-feeding or just supplementing or whatever, GREAT. However, I have seen several breastfeeding-related things recently that made me very, very irritated. [...]

We started at our new daycare this morning and I have SO MUCH TO SAY ABOUT IT. Some backstory We enrolled in Daycare #1 primarily because it was the only place in our general vicinity that had an opening for Wesley. We started looking when I was 20-something weeks pregnant, and every single other place [...]

I am not generally a guilt-ridden person when it comes to parenting; I tend to do what’s best for me and my family and not worry too much about it. However, Wesley has contracted some kind of daycare-itis after less than two weeks there and has been coughing off and on for two days, and [...]