Allow me to share Sophie’s joy at getting to sit next to daddy at the table like a big girl & share his french fries!
Exuberance Personified
I’ve Got a Fever…and the Only Antidote is IKEA!
Emily and I have embarked on many adventures together as cousins. As youngsters, we braved the Skylab and Adventure Express rides at Kings Island. As young women, we worked together in non-profit at one of the most difficult jobs on the planet. From there, we took the plunge into pregnancy and motherhood together, having our first children within 8 weeks of each other. After we showed motherhood who was boss (ohh I crack myself up. Really. I am crying.), we started this blog together.
But we have one more adventure yet to come. And it’s a doozie.
Three weeks from tomorrow, we are embarking on an epic journey. It will take us down I-75, past Jeebus and his pal the anatomically correct Trader’s World horse, and into the depths of a swiggity-swank suburb. We are going where no cousin mommy-bloggers have gone before (probably).
Hold on to your hats, ladies. Emily and I are going to the grand opening of the new IKEA!! (No, we are not crazy enough to camp out and go on opening day. It will have been open for two days already. But the grand opening lasts all week.) Yes, that’s right, an IKEA is opening up a mere 35ish miles from our places of residence and we…are…going! You see, Emily’s baby not only has no gender, it also has no bedroom furniture. So Emily took a day off work to go purchase the baby’s furniture at the most fabulous furnishing store in the world, which coincidentally, is opening up 4 weeks before this baby is due to come into the world! Deeming it unsafe to send a 35.5 week pregnant woman into a brand new IKEA alone, and because I am pretty much the best cousin in the world, I volunteered to go with her.
So here is what I predict for our epic adventure: there will be laughter, tears, stops at the IKEA concession stand, Braxton-Hicks contractions, and many, many, many photos taken.
And there will be an enthralling blog post in it all, I am sure!
Stay tuned!
WFMW: Bebe Belay
One of the many, many, many challenges my darling daughter has given me is the challenge to keep her clothes clean at mealtimes. Girlfriend is an anti-bib baby. She is 15 months now and about 5 months ago she started bib-ripping. First it was just the disposable bibs she could jettison from ’round her neck with ease, then she got good at getting the cloth bibs off. For awhile, she’d keep them on if I put them on backwards, but eventually she outsmarted me there, too. So I resigned myself to using a LOT of detergent and Clorox 2 until…
(angels singing, bright lights shining from heaven)
…the Bebe Belay came into my life!
The Bebe Belay was invented by a mom and is one of those simple but genius things I wish I would’ve been smart enough to think of! It’s basically a cute, adjustable ribbon with two very sturdy clips on each end. It can be used as a pacifier holder, a baby bootie connector, or what I’ve been using it for – to create an instant bib out of a napkin, paper towel, dish towel, or burp cloth. Here’s Sophie with her Bebe Belay holding up one of my (very attractive) dish towels as a bib.
I’ve been using this thing three meals a day for a week and she hasn’t bothered with it ONCE! She acts like she doesn’t even know it’s there! And she’s no longer getting food all over her clothes! It’s a miracle!
What I like best about the Bebe Belay is it’s cute, it’s small enough to easily slip in your purse or diaper bag, and it stays put. The clips are very sturdy and they don’t slip. I also like that it’s affordably priced at less than $10! Well worth it for the time & energy I’ve saved stain-treating Sophie’s clothes. And it’s much nicer to make a bib out of a Bebe Belay and a napkin when you go out to eat than it is to pull that crusty bib out of the diaper bag from LAST time you went out to eat! Click here for a list of places you can buy your own!
The Bebe Belay works for me! For more Works for Me Wednesday ideas, check out Rocks in My Dryer.