Nora turned one month old the past Saturday. ONE MONTH!!!! I have to live each day and sleepless night hour by hour or I think I might go crazy, so it’s nuts to think that a whole month has already passed. Granted, it’s been the longest month of my life, but time marches on. We go in for her one month check up later today, andI can definitely tell that homegirl is much bigger than she was when we brought her home from the NICU. Exciting!

Anywho, there have been a few items I’ve reached for again and again to help me survive this past month. And trust me, the first month is all about survival - baby’s and yours.

My Brest Friend

Dumb/kind of funny name, awesome product. I started using this on day 3 three of Nora’s stint in the NICU. It’s when they took her off her IV and let me start breastfeeding her. It was essential for saving my back on those long days at the hospital and I continue to use it at home. I like the support it offer during the day, but it really shines during the night time feedings when all I want to do is pass out in the glider. My brest friend saves the day night by supporting the baby and my elbows.

Baby Connect App

It’s $5, which is $5 more than I normally pay for apps, but it is SO helpful tracking her feedings and diapers (and a million other things, but I just use it for those two), so I don’t look like a doofus who doesn’t know anything about her baby at the pediatrician’s office. Also, this app is crucial in letting me know which boob was the last one used. I can’t keep track.

Online Grocery Shopping

I use the service at Harris Teeter, but Lowes Foods also has one. It has been a total game changer. I just add all the items on my grocery list to my virtual cart, select my pick up time, they call me when it’s ready and I drive over to the grocery store. They have a special lane for online orders and bring all my groceries out to the car and have a portable credit card machine so I don’t actually have to ever get out of the car. I was little worried that my produce items would not be the ones I would have necessarily selected but I am pleased to report that my bananas have been satisfactory and they haven’t given me a single rock hard avocado. Extra bonus: My orders are saved so I can see what I bought last week and any week before, which makes reordering a breeze!

Motorola Wireless Baby Monitor

This monitor is the jam. It’s wireless with a video monitor and sound, so I can tote it around the house during the day and know what Nora is doing at any moment. It also has a feature so I can talk to her through the monitor which is especially handy if say I’m on the toilet and she starts crying so I can sing her a little song and let her know I’m coming ASAP. She naps in her pack and play and it’s nice to have a little freedom to get ish done (when I’m not napping myself) with two free hands while being able to keep an eye on her without actually having to be right by her side at all times. It’s also great at night because Nora sleeps in her own room, so if i hear her start moving around, I can check on the video monitor to see if she’s legit awake and hungry and just doing her newborn squirms and cooing.

Target Nursing Sleep Bras

Speaking of sleep. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! When I take my more appropriately named evening naps, these Target nursing sleep bras have been so great. I wear these and some boy shorts and am comfy, the girls are contained, and it’s pretty easy to get myself arranged to feed Nora with minimal effort.

New Mama Bottom Spray

It was just last week that I stopped wearing maxi pads every singe day. Did I mention my daughter is a month old? Anyway without getting TMI, I received this as a baby shower gift and I much preferred it to the spray stuff they give you at the hospital.

Swaddle Me Wraps

I have about six of these and I would say that’s a good number to have. Nora gets swaddled up all night which helps her sleep a little better. I mean, she still wants to eat every three hours, but I think swaddling her nice and securely helps her stay asleep the full three hours (most of the time). You can swaddle with regular blankets but  newborns are like mini Houdinis and the velcro closures on these swaddle me wraps are nonnegotiable to make sure the little bugger stays put. Oh, and six might sound like a lot but when you factor in spit up that will get on it and diaper blowouts, you want to have plenty of backup!

Aden and Anais muslin blankets

These are just all around great blankets. You can use them as receiving blankets, swaddle wraps (I swaddle Nora in these during the day using a loose swaddle that she will inevitably break free from. I like to think that the different swaddling helps  her distinguish between night and day a little better), baby blankets, burp cloths, or anything else you might need a piece of fabric for your newborn. These will be your go to blankets. And I’ve washed mine a bunch and am pleased to say the prints on them are just as vibrant as they were the day we got them.

The other essentials (Netflix, the internet…) and some are things that you can’t buy - drinking TONS of water, COFFEE, a fantastic support netwrok (I would not have survived the week of Nora in the NICU had it not been for my family, friends and neighbors that brought over lots of food, warm meals, and warm words), and making a little time for yourself, even if it means just getting to brush your teeth while the baby cries for a teensy bit.

What was essential for you to survive the first month+ with a new baby?

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• baby

Today I went to my first support group meeting. 

A breastfeeding support group. Because breastfeeding is hard, y’all.  Like really hard. I’d even venture to say it’s harder than actual labor and delivery. Not as painful (though sometimes that’s debatable), but definitely harder because it lasts for days, weeks, months. You need a level of endurance and perseverance that I hope I have.

When I finally decided to have a baby and put on the “Mama” hat, I set a personal goal to make it to 6 months of breastfeeding. There have been more than one occasion that I want to throw in the towel and just go to formula because it seems easier (but seriously what do I know… grass is always greener, right?)

However, the reality is that I am lucky enough to produce enough milk to meet Nora’s needs and she is a champion latcher/sucker, so the only reasons I’d give up breastfeeding would be for selfish reasons and I’m not going to do that. I mean there I times I really, really want to, but I’d feel guilty. And I’m Catholic, so I already have enough guilt going on. Two nights ago, we/I had the hardest night I’d had since bringing her home. Homegirl was waking up 30-45 minutes after I’d put her down wanting to nurse again. She did that from about 10 pm until 3 am. I thought there was no way I could do this another day, let alone 5 more months!

So, I hightailed it to the interent and found a breastfeeding support group full of other moms with babies like mine and older than mine. It was SO nice to hear that yes, it does get better, and hearing some of the struggles the other moms go through with their kids (one kid was 4 months old and still eating every 2 hours on the dot, round the clock. omg.) really helped put things in perspective and give me the encouragement I need to press on.

They meet every week and I plan on going as often as possible. If you are breastfeeding and interested in a support group, here’s where I found mine and they have groups all over the country.

This has officially become a TMI blog.

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• yes this has been a post about boobies
• baby

Coming up with a name for our unborn child was not a task we took lightly. I mean, they are kind of stuck with it for the rest of their life and don’t get a say in the matter. So, it was really important to us that their name have some meaning behind it and be something that would look just as good on a 3 year old as it would on a 30 year old.

Girl names were much easier for us to come up with that boy names. Mostly, because we really wanted to use a family name and had lots of good options on the female side. Thank goodness we had a girl because if we’d had a boy, we would have had some serious decision making to do.

Anywho, we always knew that the middle name of our daughter would be Lee. Most of the women on Jason’s mother’s side of the family have the middle name Lee and it’s also the middle name of my maternal grandma and grandpa. Then, it was just a matter of picking a first name that we liked to go with Lee.

When I was about 4 months pregnant, Jason randomly commented that he really liked the name Nora. I did too, but there was a catch: No one in our family had been named Nora. I mentioned this to my mom and she corrected me and told me my grandpa Ron’s mom’s name had been Nora. I had never met my great grandmother Nora but she is the mother of my grandpa Ron that went missing a year and a half ago, so it seemed like a nice tribute.

Hence the name: Nora Lee.

I love it (and her).

And lo and behold, another fabulous Nora Leah pointed me in the direction of this totally fitting Wilco song for our own Nora Lee born on the first day of spring. Needless to say, Wilco has themselves a new fan.

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• baby
• Nora
• name

The day we brought Nora home from the hospital after her stint in the NICU. Most definitely the happiest day of my life.

I don’t quite know where to start this post, but I’ll start by saying I’m not really sure I’m emotionally ready to disclose the details of Nora’s stay in the NICU on the blog, even though you all know she was there for a week. And I’m not sure if I’ll ever be ready. Looking back at photos of my baby hooked up to more monitors than I know what they do, still brings tears to my eyes.

For now, suffice to say that despite being an awesome pregnancy and a relatively easy labor and delivery with just 11 hours of labor and 15 minutes of pushing (side note: God bless whoever invented epidurals), Nora was too early for her own good. I never thought that the day I got discharged from the hospital, I would leave my baby there. I never thought my baby’s entrance to the world start with a hefty round of antibiotics and feeding through an IV while test after test was performed to determine the cause of why she would just stop breathing and pokes and prods and monitors and cords were connected to her tiny body. I never thought my hands and forearms could be drier than sandpaper because I had to wash them for three minutes upon entry to the NICU using a scrub brush and surgical grade soap every time I entered. I never thought I’d spend my first week post partum sitting in a chair in the NICU for 12 hours so I could be there for her daytime feedings every three hours once she got her IV removed. I never thought I’d spend my emotional and physical post partum recovery in public restrooms. 

I never thought I could love one little person so much and be so, so, so happy that she is here and now healthy. My heart swells every time I see, touch and hear her and I only hope that she lives her whole life knowing just how much I love her.

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• baby
• pregnacy

I’ve pretty much squared away the final finishing touch on the baby’s nursery – art. I wanted something that was sweet, but didn’t scream BABY in your face when you walked in. So, anything involving too many primary colors or cartoonish drawings was out. Also, since we don’t know the sex of the bambino, we wanted to stick with stuff that was pretty middle of the road and/or could work in other places in our house once the baby is old enough to voice his/her own preferences about art hanging on their walls. 

Anywho, here’s what we picked out. And if you are looking for some cool art that won’t break the bank, maybe this will help you out.

The “biggie” purchase for the babe’s room was a set of four 11x17 prints from Sharon Montrose that I plan on hanging in a grid format. In my nursery mood board, I went with the safari animals, but ultimately decided to go with a set of forest animals, mostly because I love the fox print and I wanted to keep all of the animals in the same ecological system. However, I also loved the little baby giraffe so I ordered a small one of those to hang somewhere else.

I wasn’t really sure what to do about the frame situation since these prints don’t come framed but I needed an inexpensive solution, so I contacted the folks at the animal print shop and they directed me to these Dick Blick frames. These frames are so great for the price. I am really happy with them and you absolutely can’t beat $15 unless maybe if you live near an IKEA, which I do not.

Okay, moving on… so there were a few other spots that needed some pictures. (ha! NEEDED pictures… you like how I’ve moved that to the need column?), so I hit up my “favorites” on etsy. I’ve learned that the best way to navigate etsy is just to peruse it every once in a while and favorite the things I like. Then, when I’m ready to purchase art, jewelry, crafts, etc, I check out what I’ve “favorited” over the past months and see which one(s) best fit(s) the bill.

So, I added this abstract print from seller Brittany Bass and hoo boy, it is awesome. It looks so much better in person than on my screen if you can believe that, and is a perfect mess of perfect swirly colors. I love it. 

I also picked up this little dancing bear print from The Black Apple because it serves as an important reminder for all children everywhere – “Be Good”.  I often tell my baby belly how important it is that s/he not ever cry and always sleep through the night, and never disobey what I tell her/him and always pick up after her/himself and if s/he could learn to cook dinner too and take out the trash without me having to ask 500 times like I do with your father, that would be great. Time will tell if the munchkin has been listening, but if not, hopefully this print will really drill down the message into their brain.

Some other art resources I found but I wound up not purchasing from just because I had to stop myself at some point are:

Sofia Minkova. She has a wide variety of stuff, but my favorite was the fox…. again.

If we knew for sure that we will be having a girl, I would have loved to have gone with some of the fashion illustrations from Leigh Viner.  I think they are super chic.

I also really like this picture I found on pinterest featuring the alphabet print with an elephant.

But then I realized 1) the blogger that featured this image did not include a source and 2) half the alphabet is missing… It took me a couple hours to realize that. Who made this print missing half the alphabet and confusing children everywhere?

Oh, also, I really enjoyed perusing the selection of nursery art on art.com. However, there were just too many choices to pick from and I found myself totally overwhelmed after about 3 minutes so I had to click out. However, I do think these are pretty cool and if you are better at making decisions than I am, I’d recommend art.com fo sho.

Zebra 

Duckling 

Dream

Any other etsy sellers or art sources I need to know about?

• Tags
• nursery
• art
• baby

An interior designer I am not, but I thought I’d share how I’m planning on decorating this little one’s nursery. Behold, my attempt at a mood board:

I’ve actually made really great progress on the nursery so far.

The crib is something we have on hand that’s been stored at my parent’s house. My grandpa made it many many years ago and it’s such a special piece. The crib in the image above is not our exact crib, but it’s close.

I’ve already got the curtains and rug and the wall paint has been slapped up. We also ordered the glider a couple months ago and are just waiting for it to come in.

I have loved these baby animal prints by Sharon Montrose for a long time, and the hardest part is just narrowing down which ones to choose. These three are my favorite. I think.

Oh, and that is not the dresser/changing table we have. We are using one we have on hand and will just be painting it white (or more likely, we’ll be paying someone else to do it because ain’t nobody here got time for that). But in my nursery fantasies, I would be changing poopy diapers atop a white campaign-style dresser.

And I am obsessed with jelly cat stuffed animals. They are so cute and have so many fun options. This flamingo makes me laugh, so I know she’s a keeper. She’s so spunky with that hair-do!

And that’s about it. I’m sure there will be some more touches we’ll add as we go along, and I’ll be sure to share photos once the space is all done. This is actually the first room in our house that we are decorating from scratch and it’s been so fun to pick out each piece specifically for the space rather than try to make what we already have work. Now, if only money grew on trees. c’est la vie.

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• nursery
• life
• baby

I originally thought I wouldn’t take bump photos but then all of a sudden I started having a bump, like there is a baby in there or something, and I thought it would be fun to document how this tummy of mine changes over the next 23 weeks. So, bump photos it is! I’m going to try to post these every Monday and I think that when this baby comes it will be neat to look back over the photos. I also thought I’d answer a few questions that I came up with off the top of my head about how things are going. If you have a specific question, leave it in the comments and I’ll incorporate it next week.

Weight gain: 6 pounds, but I lost 2 pounds during the first trimester, so my weight gain from my pre-pregnancy weight is 4 pounds.

What I’m eating: Candy! And prenatal vitamins and yogurt and granola and chicken and lasagna and ice cream and tacos and vegetables and cake and salad and soup and bread and more candy.

What I’m wearing: I pretty much live in leggings on the weekends and I’m lucky that so far I’ve got a selection of clothes that are still working for work. This outfit features spanx tights, a LOFT dress and a cardigan from the Limited. So far, I have bought one pair of maternity jeans and a belly band so that I can extend the wear on my work trousers. I’ve also bought some maternity underwear which I feel deserve their own post.

How I’m feeling: Great! I’ve reached the point where I feel like people pretty much guess I’m pregnant when then look at me, but they’re not sure if they should ask or risk an offense of the largest proportion. That is to say that my bump is growing, but it’s still manageable. I’m sticking with my Tracy Anderson Pregnancy Project workouts and it makes me feel really good when I’ve finished one. I’m sleeping well, and my skin has calmed down after some serious pimples and random bouts of dryness.

How is the baby: Fantastic. S/he is about the size of a turnip. I had my regular check-up this past Friday and even though it was a quick one, I got to hear the baby’s heartbeat and the doctor said everything sounds perfect. At my next appointment, we’ll get to do an ultrasound and find out the baby’s gender. Right now, we’re still planning to wait.

• Tags
• baby
• pregnant
• 17 weeks
• life

Today, I thought I’d share a little glimpse of the latest family photo to grace our fridge. We couldn’t be more excited how this photo turned out.

I’d caption this photo “The reason my blog has been lame the past four months.”

Or

“The only ultrasound photo you will see. I promise.”

Or

“Making me tired since July 2012.”

Or

“Get ready for your life to change in April 2013 but you really have no idea what to do to prepare.”

Or

“I haven’t read a single pregnancy book and don’t plan on it. Is that bad?”

Or

“We are really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really excited.”

Our little cookie is 14 weeks old and will be making its debut in the world in April next year – April 11 is my due date. Here are some answers to the top three questions I’ve gotten from friends and family since we shared our news:

1. How are you feeling? I feel great. All of August and September, I was super tired – like going to bed at 9 pm and dragging myself out of bed at 7 am for work. It’s not the kind of tired you feel after staying up too late a few nights in a row. It’s more like a complete and utter exhaustion at the cellular level. Luckily, I haven’t really felt too sick - no vomiting or anything and the little nausea I had early on quickly passed after a few minutes. Now that I’m at 14 weeks, a lot of the exhaustion has subsided which is great.
2. Are you going to find out the sex? I don’t know why everyone asks me this because it never has occurred to me to ask other pregnant women this question (not that I find the question rude or anything, I just was not prepared to answer it so many times), but nonetheless, it’s been a popular question. And right now, the answer is probably not. I love good surprises and I can’t think of any better surprise on earth.
3. (As a follow up to #2) Well, how are you going to plan for it? Ummmm… I mean… I’ll just buy some baby stuff I guess. Even if we knew the gender of the kiddo, I probably wouldn’t go all pink or all blue, so I figure I’ll just plan for it like people did before ultrasounds could tell you the gender. My mom didn’t know I was going to be a girl and I turned out okay. I think.

So, that’s my news and the main reason my blog has been on a vacation for a while. But now that the secret’s out, I hope to resume some regular posting because I can talk about the things that have really been on my mind like how awesome my boobs are looking these days and how I don’t really look pregnant yet mostly just fat and how you’re not supposed to eat cold deli meat when you’re pregnant. I was totally unprepared for that one. RIP sandwiches.

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• life
• family
• baby
• our little cookie