One tiny baby, so many accessories.

I did have intentions of updating this blog more often, but I had a super cute baby girl on January 28 and have been quite distracted since then. Miss Becca is doing wonderfully, as are Shawn and I, and instead of boring everyone with a typical “here’s what my life has been like the past three months” post, I wanted to do something a little different. Several times since Becca’s arrival, I’ve been asked what baby products I’ve found that I just couldn’t live without, and since I know a lot of mommies/soon-to-be mommies, I thought I’d blog about some of my favorite products that I’ve found over the past couple of months and why I love them so much.

1. The Newborn Rock n’ Play Sleeper by Fisher-Price

This is a must-have! I asked for one of these after my friend Brittany used one for her son, and I am SOOO happy that I did. There are so many reasons to love this product. It’s comfy for baby: its hammock-like shape keeps baby snug and comfy (especially if you put down a couple of extra blankets before lying baby in it). The inclined back: great if baby is congested and is also good peace-of-mind for parents concerned about their baby spitting up at night. It’s also nice when baby starts to become more alert because they can lie in it and still see what’s going on around them. I bring it into the kitchen all of the time and Becca watches me cook. It’s very portable: the metal rails on the bottom act like skis and you can glide baby anywhere throughout the house without waking them! I like to rock Becca to sleep in my recliner with the sleeper next to me so that I can put her in it quickly and then push the sleeper into our room at night. Also, because it’s so lite and easily folds up, it’s great for taking to friends and family’s houses when you know you’re going to be there for a while.

 
2. The Boppy Pillow

Whether your nursing or bottle feeding, this pillow makes it all so much more comfortable. Yes, you could just use a plain old pillow to prop your arm/baby up while feeding, but since that’s not what they’re designed to do; they never quite fit right and tend to be cumbersome. The nice thing about the Boppy is that it’s designed to fit around you. Added bonus? It’s nice to prop baby in for playtime and tummy time.

3. The Mini Diaper Bag

This was something that I did not ask for (in fact, didn’t know existed) but was given to me by a co-worker. She gave me her used one and said that she’d loved it with her kids and since it was still in good shape, wanted to pass it on. I’m so thankful that she thought of me! At first I wasn’t sure I’d ever use it. Since I’m a classic over-packer, I assumed I couldn’t possibly get everything that I needed in there, but I was wrong. It’s great for daytime outings when you don’t need “everything but the kitchen sink.” In mine, I can easily fit two bottles, formula, a change of clothes, four diapers, travel-size wipes, burp cloth, pacifier, and a small receiving blanket. I measure formula for the two bottles into two tiny Tupperware containers instead of bringing the whole travel can with me. With the small diaper bag, you can still carry your purse and not feel like you’re packed for a weekend trip. Plus, it fits in my stroller basket A LOT easier than the big one does.

4. The Bottle Drying Rack with bottle and nipples brushes

We got this at one of our baby showers. We didn’t register for it, and honestly, I did not think that we would use it. I intended to nurse and thought that I wouldn’t use enough bottles to warrant an actual drying rack, but when the nursing did not happen as I’d intended, I was SO happy that we had this! It helps keep everything nice and organized while allowing the bottles, nipples, etc. to dry without taking up my entire sink. Plus, the bottle and nipple brushes that came with it make washing SO MUCH easier. I’m actually thinking that soon we might have to upgrade to a new one that’s more similar to this.

5. A Car Seat Cover

Now, ours does not look like that, it’s more similar to this one except that ours isn’t lined on the inside. These products are great for two reasons. First, since Becca was born in the middle of winter, it served to keep her warm so that we didn’t have to constantly try and keep a blanket over the car seat. Two – and this is why the one that isn’t lined for extra warmth is a great option – it keeps baby covered from crazy people in the grocery store who will touch your baby without asking…seriously, people are crazy. Plus, it just helps ease a worried mommy’s mind when you’re taking baby out when they’re teeny tiny.

So, those are my Top 5 for now. I’m sure there will be many more gadgets to love as she continues to grow, and maybe I’ll keep reviewing and recommending.

The Metaphor of the City Bus

I was stuck in traffic a few mornings ago while I was on my way to school.  When I say that, I don’t mean I was in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the interstate, I mean that I was on a two-lane road that the school is on that happens to get clustered in the morning.  Generally every morning I will be stopped for a small amount of time – school busses are picking up kids, the City Bus is picking up working adults and college students, plus there are usually about 15+ vehicles belonging to parents who are dropping off their children.  This morning was different.  I still don’t know why, but for at least five minutes I was stuck behind a City Bus and could not move.  “They must be picking up someone with a bike,” I thought, “that always takes longer.”  However, after a couple of minutes, I realized that the hold-up was not the City Bus and must be something in front of it.  “What could it be?” I thought.  I found myself pondering all of the possibilities.  School bus?  No, they don’t normally take this long.  Car accident?  Possibly.  Is the traffic backed up all the way from the school?  Surely not.  What could it be??  There were so many scenarios, and I was stuck behind a giant bus that I couldn’t see around!  In the middle of all of this frustration, I vividly remember thinking, “If only I could see around this bus and know what the problem is, this would be so much better!”

Then I had to take a mental step back and really give more thought to what I had just been thinking.  How did that make any sense at all?  I had already deciphered that the issue could not be the bus itself, so how could seeing around it make anything better?  It’s not as if I could magically see the problem and fix it from my car.  I would still be waiting, regardless of whether I knew what was making me wait or not.

How often do we think things would be better if we could just see past the City Bus?  For instance, I’m doing this right now in my own life.  Our first little bundle of joy was due yesterday, but so far, he or she is still a no-show.  I was very aware that this could (and probably would) happen, but I still had hope.  For the past two weeks I’ve been consumed with this date.  I tried hard not to be, but it was something I could SEE, so therefore I latched onto it like that sticky tack that you used to hang posters up with when you were nine that will literally never come off of your parents’ wall.  After seeing that date come and go, though, there will be a City Bus in my way.  I will have NO IDEA when this baby will make its arrival, and I’ll keep telling myself, “if only I knew the actual due date, everything would be better,” even though that makes no sense at all.  I would still have to wait the same amount of time, and I would be just as anxious.  Yes, I could possibly plan my absence at work out a bit better, but in all honesty, I think I’m over-prepared as it is.

I’ve had to turn to the Lord with all of this.  I’ve had to ask Him to remind me over and over that with every day that He keeps my little one inside of me instead of outside, He’s making them stronger.  I’ve asked Him to remind me that there are women out there who gladly deal with the anxiousness and the pain of being nine months pregnant if it just meant that they could have their own child.  Then I remember that this is a blessing – every little pain, irritation, and frustration is leading to the great gift of life.

I wonder how many times I have asked God to remove a City Bus from my life.  “Lord, if only I could see Your plan, could know what You’re doing with these circumstances in my life; I know I’d be more grateful, more willing.”  I’m sure this makes Him laugh, and with great love, He pats my head – treating me like the child that I am – and asks, “How would things be any different if you could see around this part of your life?  Time would not go faster.  In fact, it would probably go even slower as you wait and wait and wait, and then you would miss out on so much!  You’d be so consumed by the waiting that you would inevitably mess up the glorious plan that I have for you.  You would try to take charge to get there on your own, and I cannot have that.  After all, it is I who know best.”

What would have happened if I could have seen around the City Bus on that morning?  Would the wait have been any shorter?  No.  Would I have sat there and stewed, getting more and more upset with what was making me wait?  Probably.  Is there a possibility that I would have tried to haphazardly drive around whatever was causing the hold-up, perhaps creating more of an issue?  Most definitely.

So maybe God puts City Buses in our way for a reason.  Yes, they’re frustrating, but we’re the ones who make them that way!  Maybe if we saw them for what they are, we’d be happier for them: the Lord’s merciful way of stopping US from botching up the wonderful plans that HE’S made.

Public Puking – Embarrassing whether you’re 5 or 25.

It seemed like a normal day.  I was teaching a kindergarten class in the computer lab, and though my patience was being tested with the continual cries of need and complaint, I was used to it and knew I could handle myself.  What I could not handle, however, was what happened next.

I heard it before I saw it, and when I turned around, one of my worst fears had come true: Little Sam had thrown up all over himself, the table, and the keyboard.  It was chunky, smelly, and its appearance left me with no doubt that lunch had been eaten not too long ago.  We both seemed to be staring at the mess in shock and awe until he turned his small face up to mine, tears lining his eyes, and started sobbing.  He looked confused and embarrassed, and though I wanted to comfort him, I had to get over my own gag reflex first.  As I made it through my first dry heave, I realized I needed to grab the trashcan, but before I had time to set it down next to him, he’d hit round two.  I felt something rise in my throat, but I managed to keep it down in order to get the trashcan to him just in time for his third and final attempt while I rubbed his back, trying to reassure him that everything was okay.

By this time, all eyes were on him.  I had to quickly put myself together and use my best I-mean-business voice to get the kids to sit down and work on their computer program.  The puking seemed to be at a standstill, so I ushered him over to the sink to wash his hands while I made the appropriate phone calls in order to have everything cleaned up and Sam sent to the nurse.  I thought I’d made it through the darkness and into the light.  “It’s all going to be okay,” I silently assured myself just as I had done for Sam moments earlier…I was wrong.

I turned from my desk to check on the hand washing, when the scent hit me like a ton of bricks.  I’d been out of it for too long, and its sudden reappearance in my nostrils hit me too hard and too fast for me to be able to put any sort of defense up.  Before the thought of the trashcan even crossed my mind, my hand was over my mouth and it was coming up whether I wanted it to or not.  Out of my hands it spilled, down my chest and into my shirt, onto the floor; I felt as vulnerable and embarrassed as Sam had looked.  Don’t let him see you upset, I had to remind myself before looking at him and saying, “see, everyone gets sick.”

Soon Sam was off to the nurse and the janitor was there to clean up the awful mess.  He was so nice and sympathetic, simply giving me the advice that it was best not to look at it.  I ran home to quickly change my clothes so I wouldn’t smell the rest of the day, and called my husband and my mom on the way so I could relay the story to them – as traumatizing as it had been, I had to admit that it was quite funny.  I suppose it doesn’t matter how old you are, no one wants to puke in front of the class.

 

*I’m not quite 25 yet, but the blog title worked better with 25 rather than 24.

Oh wow…I’m actually having a baby.

I should preface this entry by explaining that I have not had many of the “crazy pregnant dreams” that you hear so many women talk about, and for the majority of this pregnancy, I wasn’t remembering many dreams either, but as my due date has started to approach and my nightly trips to the bathroom have become more frequent, I have started to remember my dreams more often.

Over the past couple of weeks I have had two very similar dreams, with the biggest difference being that they involved different people.  In both dreams, I had to marry someone else even though I was already married to Shawn and he was at the wedding ceremony.  It’s important to note that though the dream never made it past the ceremony, there was an understanding that we were not going to be married in the “Biblical sense,” if you catch my meaning.  It was more like one of those marriages between friends when one of them is a U.S. citizen and the other isn’t but wants to stay in the country…without the citizenry part.  I kept getting the sense that we were just getting married because they needed someone to marry them/a person to care for them…then I’d wake up.

I’m not typically one to look into dreams too thoroughly unless they’re particularly odd or leave an impression, and the first time I had this dream, I brushed it off as if it weren’t a big deal.  Having almost the same dream a second time?  Well, that has to mean something, right?  Now, I don’t consider myself a Joseph by any means, but I’ve interpreted the occasional dream here and there, and I’ve usually done so fairly accurately.  I thought I had this one pinned: obviously, it was about my concern that Shawn would feel left out once the baby’s born.  That’s why Shawn and I were still married in the dream when I was marrying the new person and why the new marriage was about me having to care for someone else.  I told Shawn this the morning after I had the second dream, and he seemed to agree, though his tone seemed to suggest that he thought I was looking way too far into this.

I went off on my way that morning, still plagued by these two dreams, something still not sitting right.  It wasn’t until a couple of hours into my morning that I realized what it was: in the dreams, the guys that I was marrying were friends of Shawn’s than they were friends of mine or both of us.  The first was his friend Kyle who I see occasionally and who I would count as a friend, but who I definitely know because he knew Shawn first.  The second, our friend Tyler, who I have known a longer time than Shawn has and who I would certainly count as a friend, but he’s also one of my best friends’ little brothers and therefore has always seemed like a little brother to me whereas Shawn sees him more as a friend.

This all seemed odd to me; out of all of the males that we are mutually friends with, why two who aren’t?  Then it hit me!  The dream isn’t primarily about Shawn feeling left out, it’s about me being concerned that once I have this baby it’s going to suck all of my time and energy – like having two husbands would do.  The question in my mind was not only would I be able to give enough attention to both Shawn and the baby once it’s born, but will I get enough attention from myself?  Will I be so consumed by the needs of this baby that I will become nothing more than its mother and Shawn’s wife and never have enough time to think, “What does Darcy feel like today?”  Obviously, I know that changes are coming, and I’m sure that everything I feel like I’m giving up will be worth it because it’s my baby and I will love it and maybe it won’t even feel like giving things up because of that, but I needed to voice this.  I’m not alone here, right?  This is a reasonable first-time mom fear?  I’m hoping that the answer is yes and not that I’m the most selfish person on the face of the planet.

Please don’t misunderstand, I am very excited about this baby, but as it gets closer to being here, I start realizing that it’s a reality and not just something that will be here at some point in the far future.  It will be life-changing, and though I’m sure that it will be life-changing in the best kind of way, it’s still scary.  I’m going to be responsible for taking care of another human life…for the rest of my life.  Am I qualified to do that?

Attempt #1

I’ve been trying to start this blog for quite some time now, but I just haven’t been able to get there.  I think part of my procrastination lies in the fact that even if I’m to post one entry, there’s no guarantee that any will follow, and I don’t want this blog to turn into a one-hit-wonder (not that this is worthy of being called a “hit,” but you understand what I mean).

When I really sit and think about it, I do have a lot to write about, but none of it links together.  It’s all one long strand of random thoughts: babies, teaching, cooking, Jesus, faith, marriage, pregnancy, home-ownership, etc.  The only thing that links them is that they’re all parts of my life, and therefore I end up spending a lot of time thinking about them.  So, if you’re looking to read a blog about a specific subject, you may want to continue searching, but if you’re looking for “thoughts in no real order from my everyday life,” you’ve surfed to the right place!

Hopefully, a blog on a real subject will follow this one.  If not, Attempt #1 was a failed mission.