Mommin' It Up!

May 9, 2008

Everyone’s a-twitter…

About Twitter. Except me. I don’t get it! I signed up for it about one day before I had Sam, and I stared at the screen for a few minutes before giving up, and I haven’t been back. I keep getting emails saying people are “following” me on it, but that must be pretty thrilling because I’m not going anywhere. It must be fun, though, because it seems like everyone’s doing it. So will someone explain it to me?

I am hoping to get hooked on this Twitter thing, because my current internet addiction has become the victim of an upgrade. Has anyone been on Urban Baby in the past 12 hours?? W. T. F. No one has had an idea that great since New Coke. I’m seriously upset by this, but it’s a good thing I am on maternity leave or I would be staging an uprising. So if you UB dummies are reading this, which I’m sure you’re not, PUT IT BACK.

And in other completely random news, does anyone think that The Office hasn’t been as good after the writers’ strike? I hate to say it, but it’s true. Except for when Jim said he bought an engagement ring a week after he and Pam started dating… that was about the sweetest tv moment ever. But in general, I think The Office is spending too much time out of the office.

And that, my friends, is as deep as my thinking gets these days.

May 7, 2008

WFMW: Itzbeen Timer

(Ok, so I now realize that we were supposed to post about what DIDN’T work for us on this Works for Me Wednesday. But I forgot. And I am too tired to think of anything else at this point. Sorry!! I blame Jenny for not telling me. So you’ll have to hear once again about something that DOES work for me!)

If you order your list of baby care items from most important to least important, the Itzbeen timer comes right after carseat and right before… well, everything else.

The Itzbeen Timer is the perfect solution to the lack of brainpower that comes with parenting a newborn (or a toddler… or a teenager). It’s so simple, yet so useful! We all know that we’re supposed to keep track of the last time the baby ate, had a diaper change, or how long he’s been asleep, but really, all that math is a little much for my fuzzy brain to handle.

Until now… because I have this:

The Itzbeen Timer keeps track of all of that for me – and on which side I last nursed the baby. Pretty cool. All I have to do is press a button each time I change or nurse the baby, and the timer keeps track of how long it’s been since the last time.

If only I had had this when we brought Sam home from the hospital! My sweet husband created a chart on our dry erase board, but that wasn’t very portable and didn’t help me much in the middle of the night. Not to mention the fact that it required me to do subtraction when really it was all I could do not to fall asleep with half my body draped over the bassinet and half of it in bed. Not that that happened or anything…

In addition to the diapering, feeding and sleeping buttons, there’s an extra one for random things. This button makes the timer useful even after the first few weeks. I can see using it for keeping track of things like giving medicine or taking temperatures.

The Itzbeen Timer is part of Target’s line of parent-inventor products, and you can buy it there for $24.99. It would be a great shower present! It definitely works for me.

For more Works for Me Wednesday tips, click over to Rocks in my Dryer.

May 2, 2008

A Month of Sammy

Today is Sam’s one month birthday. Forgive me if this post isn’t as eloquent as the occasion calls for, but I am currently nursing him and typing one-handed on a wireless keyboard that’s about out of batteries and requires me to hit each letter 86 times before it shows up on the screen. Maybe I’ll use text message shorthand. Oh wait, I don’t know any.

I can’t believe he’s a month old already. I scares me how quickly time passes. My maternity leave is 1/4 over… a thought that makes me want to cry.

I have absolutely loved this past month with Sammy. I don’t know if it’s because I’m already used to being a mom or if it’s just the way the hormone cookie crumbled, but this initial post-partum time has been much easier for me than it was the first time around, and I’ve enjoyed it so much more. (Kate, someday when you read this blog, know that it wasn’t you, it was me. Really.)

Sammy has taught us a thing or two during the past few weeks, though, I never dreamed pee could actually travel that far. He’s hit the curtains, the wall, and his parents more times than I can count. He is also quite the spitter. Kate spit up a total of about 4 times in her life, so this is new to us. But Sam spits up all the time. So much so that he’s had two baths today. It’s funny how quickly I’ve become accustomed to being covered in spit up. Actually, since Sam still spends at least part of the night on my chest, some mornings I can’t distinguish the spit up from the pee from the breastmilk that’s covering me. Nice, huh?

It’s been fun, too, to see Kate take on the role as big sister. She’s generally been great about the whole thing, but we’ve had to threaten her with time out if she continues to bother her brother while he’s sleeping. Not that I don’t want her to love on him or anything, but for the love of God leave him alone while he is asleep! But really, it is so sweet to see her want to hold him and help us with his diaper changes and baths. I look forward to seeing them become good friends.

Kate’s take on breastfeeding has been pretty amusing. She called me in her room at 3:00 one morning and said “Mommy, how do you actually make milk for the baby?” She has also offered to “help” feed Sammy by “squeezing out the milk.” She’s anxious to give him a bottle, and I’ve tried to explain that that requires me pumping, so she keeps asking me when I’m going to “put on the machine.”

I don’t know if it’s just that I realize how quickly time passes now that I’ve seen Kate grow up so much in four years, or that, to borrow the phrase from Mom-101, this is baby number last, but I have had a strong desire to spend time with Sam holding him, nursing him, or just looking at him in a way that is new to me. It sounds so corny, but every day has been precious. I love him so much.

And as I got all sentimental there for a second, I look down at him adoringly. He looked up at me and proceeded to up chuck all over my lap. It’s a good thing he’s so cute.