New Parents? The early years...

Here is a compilation of things I think all new moms and dads should know:

Part 1: The early years

1) Stop taking/ listening to others advice.

2) Go do bed a a decent hour. Yes, I know the only time you have to yourself is 8-12pm ( usually) but you really should at least drag your butt to bed by 10 ( 10:30 at the latest) I write this at 11:24 knowing my 7 months old will be us screaming for me shortly).

3) Keep a journal of your baby's milestones. You'll want to compare them to your other children and it's really fun to look back at ( and very sentimental).

4) Take lots of video. Pictures are expected and very nice but when you watch a video it takes you right back to when you took the video and brings back so many emotions.

5) As a follow-up to #4, make sure you are in the picture. I'm am admittedly not in pre-baby shape and when the opportunity is there to be in a photo with the kids I often duck out. Here is what I have found. Even before I had kids and I was in great shape, I still disliked myself in photos and as I look back at them know I think to myself " wow, I looked pretty darn good". So just know that you will appreciate being in photos with the kids and more than likely as we age, we will look back at ourselves when we were young ( even with the extra baby weight) and think... " I look pretty good".

6) Know that everything is a phase. If your child isn't sleeping, it will pass and before you know it they will be teenagers and you won't be able to pry them out of bed in the morning!

7) Make the holiday's special. I bet you look back at a particular holiday and remember it fondly. Make sure your kids have those special things to remember. One for me is we always go out and pick out a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving and then spend the Thanksgiving weekend decorating for Christmas.

8) New -v- old: Not everything has to be new. When my son was born, we didn't have a ton of money but we weren't scraping by either. We were frugal by choice knowing we wanted to save money for their college. I loved getting hand-me-downs from others. Most baby items are used so infrequently that even if 1 or 2 kids used them before us they were still in practically new shape!

9) Don't underestimate the power of Natural toys. We can have a million toys in a room and what do you think the baby toddler will be most entertained by... a piece of string on the floor. Make sure you get outside and use what Nature has provided us to entertain your kids. As babies, both my kids were fiercely entertained   by the wind blowing through the trees and the sound the leaves made.

10) Don't forget about your partner. We are so busy raising our kids, working and getting little to no sleep that we forget to pay attention to the person we started this journey with. Remember, your children are priceless but in 18 or so years your kids will venture off to start a life and family of their own. You need to make sure you keep the connection so when you do have time to do things together, alone, with no screaming babies in tote, that you still enjoy the same things...for the most part!


Your kids are only small once and as I see my little ones grow I feel so privileged that I can be home with them and still have the flexibility to work. My days are tiring and often long but I know time time is so special. So whether you work full time in an office or are at home with the kids all day, try to remember how important it is to take 

Kid 2.0, the next generation of kids!

I find it amazing that my two ( almost three) year old can just pick up my husbands iPhone and start playing some of these games. His hand eye coordination is amazing and I hate to say it but I think he is really learning a lot from some of these Kid Apps. He plays memory, train games that test his logic skills, shapes games, color games and those are just to name a few. Now I have also caught him playing some of his daddy's games like Angry Birds or worse, a plumber game where you have to aim and shoot a piece of ice down the plumbers pants ( It's kinda funny actually).

I don't know if anyone else has given this lable to our kids but they are definitely the generation of Kid 2.0. He knows how to use a computer and mouse, laptop, netflix, Wii. He skypes with his grandparents in the UK and even with his grandparents that live an hour away. My, my how times have changed.

I often wonder if my parents thought the same of me and my sister. But we only had things like Atari, speak n spell and lightbrights. Somehow these things seem to pale in comparison to what my son does these days.

It just makes you wonder what this next generation of kids are going to be doing. I hope something amazing and good for society comes out of it and not the alternative...aahemm, the movie Idiocracy springs to mind!

Parenting 101

These last few weeks the word failure popped into my mind on more than one occasion. I have to admit that I thought doing this stay-at-home mom thing would be easy. The challenges come at me daily, dare I even say they come by the minute. But I don't sweat the small stuff. Yes, I occasionally lose my temper which I never did   as a working mom. Mostly because of the guilt I felt leaving my son so often. My toddler doesn't always eat the right things. We have had chocolate or something sweet as more than a dessert ( bribery baby!). But the most frustrating thing I have encountered thus far is no fault of my children...it's us as parents.

We love our kids so much that sometimes it's hard to say no but in talking with my husband we realized in many ways we were just being selfish. My daughter Katie somehow regressed and at 5 months decided she no longer wanted to sleep in her crib. Now I use sleep loosely because her sleeping stints were no longer than two hours but it got so bad that I couldn't even put her down without her screaming. Fast forward to age 7 months and Katie was comfortably snoozing and napping in her swing and then moving to our bed to sleep the remainder of her night away in the coziness of her parents bed. As much as I loved having my precious little girl beside be when I was sleeping I realized this just wasn't a great situation for any of us, especially in a Queen bed ( I'm 5'8 and my hubby is 6'1).

Yesterday evening we decided to let her cry a bit in her crib ( which we had tried briefly twice before). Miraculously after only 20 minutes of fussing, some of which was awful and made me sick to my stomach, my little angle fell asleep in her crib.

At least for the moment I can call this one a success.

Now I just need to re-evaluate our potty training plan for my toddler and get rid of his binky. The next few weeks should be challenging but I no longer feel like a FAILURE as a parent, we just have a longer learning curve :)

Yikes! A Teacher...

So as of Monday, March 5, 2012, I will no longer be just a stay-at-home-mom. I got my first teaching gig 3 weeks ago and I am super stoked about embarking upon this new career.

Do I wish I could just stay at home and not have to worry about working, kinda. But I have also found that I miss engaging, writing, talking to other adults. So hopefully this will help me keep my brain cells working and also keep me employable when I do decide these little munchkins can function without their mommy 24/7.

On that note, I am going to go downstairs and talk to my hubby ( during commercial breaks because tonight is his favorite show).

Here is hoping for the best!!