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Archive for the ‘Rookie Behavior’ Category

Where Have I Been ?

Posted in Juggling it All, Rookie Behavior on December 9, 2011| 4 Comments »

I thought I could do it all. I’m Wonder Woman, after all. Of course I’m capable of juggling a career, a charity event, the holidays and a family. Big deal, right? Well, yes, Virginia, it IS a big deal. Much harder than I thought it would be to manage my time. It is amazing how little time I can actually carve out to do things like get my nails done, take a nap, write in my blog or even go grocery shopping (yes, I do like to do that)!

For the past few weeks, I kept saying “I’ll write a blog post tomorrow”. Quickly, however, that became a week, then two weeks. I really missed writing. I had so many ideas in my head, but they just had to sit there in DRAFT. I found myself downloading my blog application on our iPad, so I could write more portably. And then when that was a #FAIL, I downloaded the blog application on my iPhone. Sadly, I found that even I am too OLD to write whole paragraphs and edit on that tiny little screen. Not to mention, I have no clue how you would possibly attach a photo with a caption on that sucker.

Time for Family and Turkey

So, what the heck have I been doing with my time? In the past few weeks, we have been to a hockey game, we have been to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving and a cousin’s wedding, we have had end-to-end meeting-filled days at work, we have attended 2 charity events and a handful of holiday gatherings, we have had a house full of strep throat (everyone but Bella), we had girls-night IN (for Bella and Mommy) when Keith went to Tampa for two days, we went for our 6-month-old visit with Dr. Amy for immunizations and ended up with a low-grade fever afterward, we tried our first food (oatmeal) and we had a marathon sales visit from the hurricane impact window man from hell. All that didn’t leave me with a whole lot of time for bonbons.

But, I vow to write. Because I think the ideas trapped in my head give me a headache. Or it could just be a side-effect of the strep throat. But, also, because I have a new MacBook Air and I’ve downloaded the blog application. I’m Back!

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Check “SICK” Off Our List

Posted in Firsts, Rookie Behavior on December 7, 2011| 1 Comment »

Immunizations.  A surprisingly controversial topic.  And one that mother’s who are against them amazingly find loopholes so their kids can go to school without them.  To me, it’s a no-brainer.  I can immunize my child against a set of rare diseases and guarantee she will never get them or what?  Cross my fingers and hope?  Come on.  Being as anti-germ as we are, we decided to do them.  All of them.  We travel a lot and Bella is exposed to a lot of new people and places, so we are playing it safe and getting her pumped with everything they can think of.  At this point, she’s pretty much protected from everything but athlete’s foot and emotional instability.  For those, she is on her own!

Immunizations come with warnings about side effects.  For the first two sets, our Princess came through like a champ.  Happy as a clam.  This time, however, she didn’t seem to feel so great afterward.  Our normally happy baby was fussy and crying.  A LOT.

SICK. Not a Happy Camper

However, we also tried out our first solid foods that same day.  Oatmeal.  Seemingly harmless.  Did she have an allergy to oatmeal and not a reaction to the immunizations?  No clue.  All I know is that after she had BOTH, her cheeks turned red like Santa Claus, she got rashy-looking spots on her feet and she had a low-grade fever.  The doctor we called (Dr. Amy’s on-call replacement) pretty much laughed at us when we told him her fever was 100.8 degrees.  Apparently it’s not alarming to a doctor until it’s over 104 degrees.  To me, 104 degrees is “holy shit the baby’s burning up and about to combust” temperature, but I defer to him.  He told us to give her some grape baby medicine to reduce her discomfort and bring down the fever.  Thank goodness she slept like a champ!

Although we still don’t really know what caused her to feel bad, her symptoms seem to be going away.  By last night, her cheeks were back to normal, fever subsided and feet were clear and kissable again.  It broke my heart to see our munchkin in pain.  I know this is the first of many little illnesses and I can check “sick” off our list of FIRSTS, but I don’t think it will ever get any easier!

Just in case her reaction was allergic, I have irrationally banned oatmeal from her diet (2 days is enough on solid foods, right?).  I know she needs the iron in the cereal, but can’t she just get it from her formula?  I don’t want to chance having her feel crappy again just for a few oats.  I think Keith is worried she will be going to college and I will still be keeping her from oatmeal!  So, instead, next week we will try RICE cereal – it’s got iron, too.  Wish us luck!

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Airplanes Really ARE Disgusting

Posted in Firsts, Juggling it All, Rookie Behavior on November 27, 2011| 1 Comment »

Keith and I were faced with the challenge of air travel early in Bella’s life.  Sadly, Bella’s paternal grandmother, Miriam, passed away in Pennsylvania last August when Bella was just 2.5 months old.  We didn’t have time to panic about traveling, as we bought our tickets an hour before the flight took off, since we had to get there quickly.  We bought Bella her own seat, because we didn’t know what it would be like to travel with her and also because we wanted the whole row of seats.  I didn’t want any potentially sick strangers sitting next to us and breathing their germs on the girl-Princess.  Yep, germaphobia runs rampant in my head at ALL times.  We got so lucky – she slept the entire flight – in her car seat.  Not a peep from her the entire 3 hours on the plane!  Hardly believable, right?

MY seat!

Fast forward to November.  Bella was almost 6 months old.  We flew to Pennsylvania for Turkey Day.  Once again, she was a trooper on the flight there.  She ate well, she stayed mostly quiet.  All good.  On the way back, however, she decided to POOP as soon as we took off.  Now, mind you, she doesn’t mind sitting around in a dirty diaper one bit.  But, there was no way to hide what had happened.  I think the whole plane could smell Bella, 36 rows back!  I did a reconnaissance mission to the bathroom.  Yuck.  Maybe Double Yuck.  What ARE people thinking that join the Mile High Club?  I didn’t even want to take my daughter’s pants off in there (on paper towels over the diaper pad), so surely you will never catch me taking mine off in there for any reason!  I decided it had to be quick.  No time for the germs to attach.  Bella and I were in and out of there in record time.  All fresh and clean again.  and LOTS of hand sanitizer.  Everywhere.

This past weekend we went to Nassau, Bahamas.  We decided for a 26 minute flight it would be a waste to purchase a ticket/seat for the Princess.  It was kind of cute having her on our laps – for the first 2 minutes. She’s in a very squirmy stage.  She wants to be sitting up on her own, not being held.  Good thing we brought lots of toys and know EVERY animal noise possible for Old MacDonald’s Farm!  Oh, and apparently altitude is what makes her poop – couldn’t be a coincidence!  This time, we were on our descent into Fort Lauderdale, so I wasn’t allowed to get up to change her.  That damn seatbelt sign!  Our friends 10 rows back said they even smelled her!  There was another baby on the flight, so I blamed it on her… Of course.  Bella had to wait until we could get to the “uber-clean” (insert sarcasm) airport bathroom to get her bottom cleaned this time.  Pretty much just as disgusting as in the air.

Next month the three of us head to Las Vegas.  Bella is getting lots of frequent flyer miles!  She is a real pro at the security pat-down by now too, since I don’t want to put her through the X-ray machine (I had a hamster once that lost all its hair after going through one, so I’m not taking the chance with the baby).  I guess for the next trip, we just need to stock up on more diapers.  And LOTS of hand sanitizer!

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Instantly, I Get Competitive

Posted in Bella-isms, Rookie Behavior on November 13, 2011| 4 Comments »

Of course Keith and I (and her grandparents) think Bella is the best, brightest and most gorgeous baby alive. Who wouldn’t? Just LOOK at her. Duh.

See? Sitting.

So it’s a funny conversational “dance” when you talk to other mothers with children about the same age. You compare notes, complain about the post-mommy body changes, basically have comrades that share your woes. But then the topics move to the babies and the gloves come off. It’s a tit-for-tat, one-upping conversation about whose baby has mastered the baby-basics soonest, fastest, best. The books tell you not to compare, because all babies develop at different rates, but WE DO. We can’t help it.

I really didn’t notice it too clearly until yesterday when I was talking to the makeup lady in the mall, who has a baby one month older than Bella. Keith even saw the challenge being extended in my direction. She proudly relayed that her baby rolls over. Yeah, so does Bella. Her baby sleeps through the night. Big deal, Bella’s been doing that since she was 3 weeks old. Her baby sits up like a gorilla. Yep, check, we got that too! Her baby has a tooth and is starting to talk. What? Wait. Liar.

Fair warning to those that do not know me. I’m very competitive and think my angel ROCKS. A very proud Mama Bear, so you won’t win this battle with me. Bella is BEST at everything, of course. And I will tell her that for the rest of her life, so she has unfettered self-esteem. However, we HAVE immediately begun “talking” lessons with Einstein, so Bella learns to say “DaDa” in the event that I run into the makeup lady again next weekend. Game ON.

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Nighttime and Daytime Clothing. And Smothering.

Posted in Bella-isms, Rookie Behavior, Tools of the Trade on November 4, 2011| 2 Comments »

I look at myself as a very doting, loving extremely neat and clean mother.  I actually brag that I think my daughter has the cleanest booty in Broward County.  And I love making Bella look adorable at all times, dressing and undressing her several times during the day – cue the OUTFIT CHANGE!  Not just for pictures, mind you, there could be a very good reason.  Like throw up.  No girl wants to hang out in a onesie with vomit on it.  Trust me.  No matter what your age.

Daytime Clothing

That brings me to the “ease of clothing change” factor.  No one told me that the best outfits for infants are ones with snaps.  And lots of them!  Top to bottom, back to front.  That way you can open the whole outfit up, lay baby on top of it and then snap her into it, rather than having to SHOVE her into it.  Invariably, being snap-challenged, I get all the way to the top or bottom and realize I missed one along the way and I have to start all over again!  Another thing I learned is that footed outfits are great for newborns.  Nothing like having to chase a sock around the house all day.  Socks NEVER stay on babies.  Unless you get the 80s retro tube-sock kind that we put on Bella.  Yeah, she looked cool!  Maybe there is a million dollar invention waiting to be discovered in there somewhere, but in the meantime, I used the footed outfits most of the time.

Anyway, I digress.  Bella is 4+ months old now, so she has both “daytime” and nighttime” outfits.  And believe it or not, they ARE different.  Our nanny was not happy that I was leaving Bella in her pajamas all day.  She felt that she should be properly DRESSED during the day.  Daytime mostly consists of “real” clothing like dresses, tank tops, jeans, t-shirts.  And nighttime is still footy pajamas!  CUTE footy pajamas! 

However, the clothing that emulates “real” clothing often doesn’t have a lot of my beloved snaps.  Every morning when I try to dress Bella, I have to pull some kind of clothing over her head.  And every morning, on cue, she screams at the top of her lungs.  It starts as a low squeal and if I cannot get her hands through the armholes fast enough, she ends up howling like a wolf.  I find each day I treat it like a self-test to see how fast I can dress her to avoid the tantrum.  Keith can clearly hear the “Bella’s getting dressed” time from across the house.  It’s very strange.  I have no idea what gets her so upset.  I know she trusts me, she definitely can breathe, she even looks pretty darn ADORABLE when I am done.  So, I am left to wonder, does she hate the daytime clothing or does she think I am trying to smother her ?

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How Much is Too Much?

Posted in Bella-isms, Rookie Behavior on October 26, 2011| 4 Comments »

I LOVE PICTURES. Is anyone surprised by this ? Hardly. I have been accused in the past of being an over-sharer, but honestly I say “whatever.”

Hey Bella - Say CHEESE !

In this greatly expanded world, our friends and relatives are located across the United States and even on several different continents. Things like email and Facebook have really helped us stay in closer touch, even if there is no time to pick up the phone and make a call. I love how I can see real-time pictures from my mother, vacationing in Italy, within moments of her capturing them. It shrinks our vast world and binds us all a little closer together. Or at least I think so.

Now that Bella is in the picture, I feel compelled to capture every little moment of her life. I don’t want it to go by too quickly and lord knows I don’t want to miss a thing. Not a smile, a moment in the bath, a toe grab, a crawl. You get the picture. Literally. So, fairly regularly (OK, I admit EVERY MORNING), I send the “photo of the day” to our family members and also post it on Facebook. Cute outfits, cute poses, she’s just so darn CUTE! And I am not biased! It lets her grandparents and aunts/uncles/cousins see how our newest addition is progressing.

But, the other day, I was wondering… although I could look at Bella 24/7/365 and take pictures and videos of her constantly, did everyone else feel the same? Or, perhaps were they having Bella-overload? Did they find the impulse to hit DELETE as soon as they saw an email or text from me without even opening it? Or, like me, do they love to see that drooly, smiling face every morning? When it comes to photos and sharing, how much is too much?

I know there is no set definition or answer to that question. I know no one will tell me that they don’t want any more pictures of Bella. I also know no one has enthusiastically said “send more, I don’t get enough.” So, I will err on the side of assuming I am sending the PERFECT amount of Bella-Spam until I am told otherwise. With that… Hey Bella, say CHEESE !

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