Murphy's Laws for Moms

There are a lot of professions that take years upon years to develop the skills, intelligence, intuition, and abilities in order to properly function in the profession.  People take thousands of hours of classes and practicums.  They spend decades developing and advancing their technologies and furthering their professions.  These professions are truly amazing.  They're not meant for the average person. Motherhood is similar to these professions - except that you're not given years to prepare or thousands of hours to perfect your skills and enhance your knowledge.  It's a "learn by fire" career.  And, yes, it is a career.  If lucky, you're given nine short (although they may seem long at the time) months to prepare. Some may say that a girl prepares all her life to be a mother.  But, is this really true?  From a young age we "play" mom, and we may even babysit or work as a childcare provider.  But, is this truly learning how to be a mom?...

I just visited a local baby store this week.  It's a half consignment - half local mothers' sewing club store.  I fell in love with it!  Granted, my husband may not have fully appreciated my purchase...I didn't make it much past the front counter with all of the beautiful handmade hair bows, clips, and hats.  But, my baby girl is now the proud owner of a hair accessory to match every possible outfit! While in the store, another customer was asking questions about cloth diapering.  I couldn't keep my mouth shut.  She and the owner of the store had never tried cloth diapering.  The owner had tried selling cloth diapers previously, but said they weren't that successful.  Then, she showed me the diapers she had tried to sell and no wonder!  These weren't the pull-on pants, but they were close.  I could see leaks happening within minutes of diapering my baby. Thankfully, Thirsties knows how to prevent leaks!  As with my favorite diap...

Mondays are a difficult day for me.  Not only is that the first day of the week that I need an alarm clock, but it's also the day that I have the most errands to run with the least amount of energy.  Mondays seem to drag on and on and on.  Well, in the Pacific Northwest, come September, Mondays become even longer...the rainy season has started, the days are getting shorter, and my "Happy Light" returns to my office desk.  I don't look forward to Mondays in the fall. If you add being a mom to my September Mondays, then things get even stickier.  I can no longer take my time running errands because my time is taken up with each errand and the fact that I now have someone else to care for besides myself.  I remember when it used to take me five minutes to run into the bank.  Now, it takes me five minutes to get Baby out of her car seat, five minutes to go into the bank, five minutes for everyone to talk about Baby, and five more minutes to get Baby back i...

Every woman wants to feel sexy.  The definition for each of us may be slightly different.  For some, it's wearing stilettos while doing dishes or taking an hour to fix your hair that way you love to fix it, but never have time.  Others may feel sexy while dancing to that favorite song that you and your college roommate danced to while getting ready for a night on the town.  For me, it's what's underneath that counts.  Yes, I'm talking about the undergarments. Let's face it, during pregnancy and afterward, it's hard to find nice bras and panties.  The nursing bras feel more like sports bras or the kind that your grandmother would wear.  You can't wear any Wonderbra, Very Sexy, or other bras that keep things in place.  No, you're relegated to the no underwire, no push up bras that don't cause clogged ducts and are padded - not for the sake of enhancing, but for the purpose of absorbing milk should you decide not to wear nursing pads.  The panti...

Ever since becoming a mom, I've realized just how great it is to be a child - especially a baby.  Think about it...you have someone else taking care of your every waking need.  You're fed, changed, warmed, loved, burped...it's one gigantic party!  Well, since it is Baby's party, I guess that explains why sometimes she just wants to cry.  This week has been no exception! We've had a busy week. Not only was it time to get more shots, but we're also getting ready for more family to visit, a possible move, trying to finish up end of the fiscal year work, and started eating solid foods.  All of these things have truly affected Baby's sleep schedule and Momma's sanity. We've also learned a new thing this week...Mom is going to have to let Baby cry a little longer sometimes!  Now, I am probably not going to be the mom that does the whole Ferber method.  Fifteen minutes is about as long as I can go before I'm in tears too.  But, I did come to realize tha...

Brigitte Bardot said it well when she said, "I am not finding pregnancy much of a joy.  I am afraid of childbirth, but I am afraid I can't find a way of avoiding it."  There are a lot of fears that come with childbirth.  One of the biggest fears that faces many women is the amount of pain during labor and delivery and whether or not to get pain management - either in the form of narcotics, an epidural, or simple pain coping techniques. During one of our childbirth classes, my husband and I were asked to separately answer a simple question about our idea of how to manage pain during labor and delivery.  We were given a piece of paper which had a scale of 1 - 10: 1 being "I want no pain at all.  Give me the epidural as soon as I enter the hospital" and10 being "Under no circumstances do I want any type of pain medication."  For me, I chose # 3, "I'll go a little bit with pain, but I want an epidural!" and my husband answered # 7, "I...

I'm a huge fan of purchasing all things organic.  It's nice to know that it's still possible to purchase items without synthetic materials or chemicals.  But, I'm also a big fan of function and guaranteed performance.  Sometimes, it's possible to have all of these things in one item and sometimes it's not. In the case of the Imse Vimse Organic covers, I have a mixture of opinions.  The design, durability, and feel of the covers is excellent.  The leg gussets guarantee that no mess will squeeze through the cover as my baby is moving all over the place, plus the soft texture of the organic materials allows for movement of Baby's legs and torso without restriction. But, because there is no plastic layer within this diaper cover, wetness can - and does - occasionally seep through to Baby's outfit.  I also have found that it's best to switch to the next size earlier than the weight chart says.  My baby outgrows these covers about two pounds earlier than t...

I look at my daughter every day and think, "Life would be great if I could just return to being a baby!"  Think about it.  People want you to sleep.  They fix your food for you and even feed it to you. They're happy when you burp, fart, poop, or pee.  You get praise for simply saying "ma ma" or "da da", smiling, laughing, sitting up, standing up, crawling, walking, or even just doing nothing at all.  Plus, you've done a full day's work after simply playing with toys all day.  Oh, this is definitely the life! A mother's day, on the other hand, is never finished.  We spend all day taking care of our loved ones, making sure they have everything they need, fixing broken toys or mending torn clothes, reading stories that rhyme, singing songs about farm animals or the wheels on a bus, and then try to find time to sleep to have the energy to do it all over again the next day.  This is not to mention that some of us also have "day jobs" t...

We often think of pregnancy the way that we see it in the movies: happy, cheerful, and finished within two hours.  But, the reality is - just as Dickens wrote - that pregnancy is both the best and worst of times.  Pregnancy is filled with excitement, curiosity, worries, fears, weight gain, and more.  I'll never forget the second that I knew I was pregnant.  It was not due to a positive pregnancy test...that came later.  It was due to my becoming absolutely furious with my husband because of some trivial thing that I cannot recollect.  My hormones were raging, and I knew that something was different.  So, I took the test, found out my suspicions were indeed correct, and immediately was ecstatic - did I mention those hormones??? My husband and I decided to wait to tell people that we were expecting.  That's easier said than done.  I managed to do this (after only telling a few people that I knew wouldn't let the secret slip), but it became hard...

It's been seven long years since I started this blog as a place to look for cloth diaper reviews.  In that time, my family has grown to a party of five.  For a variety of reasons, we didn't do a lot of cloth diapering with our middle child, but now #3 is here and the cloth diapers have come back out!  With so many new options for cloth diapering, I thought I'd take a look back at my original reviews and update as needed. So, let's start with the Bummis Super Brite!  I am still a big fan of this diaper cover.  Not only does it provide excellent coverage to minimize blowouts and leaks, but it is also easy to use and stylish in it's super brite colors and new designs in Cactus, Tampa and Circus. However, there is one point to note.  My baby #3 is not a tiny baby as my previous two children were.  He likes to eat and his size shows it.  So, as we've re-begun using cloth diapers, I've noticed that they don't all fit like they did on his siblings....

Since I assume that most of you reading this are either mothers or women who want to eventually be mothers, then we each know that our child (or child-to-be) is the brightest and most well-developed child out there (who wouldn't agree?!).  Our prodigy child wants to see and do everything - especially at night.  And, as mothers, we all know who gets to wake up during the middle of the night to teach Baby that, when the moon is out, we sleep...us!  A mother's physical need for sleep seems to diminish during the first months after Baby arrives.  But, our mental need for sleep is still ever present reminding us - day after day - that we are exhausted. Well, establishing night time sleep isn't impossible, and this blog will tell you how I did it and had my baby sleeping through the night by nine weeks old (which, for her age, was six hours of blessed, uninterrupted sleep). I read many books prior to Baby's arrival about establishing a good sleep habit.  On Becoming ...