5 Surprising Things About Motherhood

Here we go, more pearls of wisdom from my first month of being a parent ;-P

Seriously though, as much as I thought I was prepared for this whole parenting this there were still a number of things that turned out differently than I expected. Here are my top 5.

1. Breastfeeding in public. I really thought this would be an issue for me, I worried about how to do it discreetly and thought it would make me uncomfortable. I don't know if it's just the lack of sleep but I've found that I could really care less about making other people uncomfortable by breast feeding in public. If other people have a problem with it, then it's, well, their problem. I'll feed my baby when and where I like thank you, there's nothing wrong with it.

2. I know I said this before (and that I am terrifying all my pregnant friends) but it is sooo hard at first! The first two weeks were rough for me. No amount of people telling you how hard it is can prepare you for the long, sleepless nights, it just can't. The other surprise was how quickly things started to improve though, now that Echo is sleeping for up to 6 hours in a row at night I am much better able to handle things that get thrown my way.

3. My body image. I kind of expected pregnancy to ruin my body, but, aside from the odd stretch mark here and there, I really love my post pregnancy figure! I now have amazing curves and I've actually never felt better about how I look. The glow of a new mommy who is completely in love with her little one probably helps too.

4. Money matters. I've always heard how expensive having a baby is. Well, at least so far, having a baby is saving us money. We don't go out to eat as often and also find that we aren't spending money on frivolous things or just because we are bored because we are so busy taking care of our little one. I know she will be more expensive latter on once we start signing her up for ballett and and art classes (or soccer, or whatever) but for now we are enjoying the financial benefits. There are also a ton of free activities to do with kids in our area, Marietta is about as family friendly as it gets so I'm not anticipating a huge financial impact any time soon. September and October have been our lowest spending monthes to date!

5. How the loves grows. This is sooo cheesy sounding but i am amazed at how much more I love her every day. It wasn't instantaneous for me, it took me a while to bond in fact. But the more I spend time with her and get to know her the more head over heels I fall. Just when you think you can't love them any more than you already do they smile at you and you absolutely melt. I am loving my life right now getting to spend so much time with my sweet little girl and it's getting better every day :-)

Motherly Advice

I know a ton of people who are pregnant right now. It seems like this is the year of the baby, practically every day a new announcement pops up on facebook that someone else is expecting a baby in the near future. That being said here is my advice after surviving the first few weeks with a newborn.

Echo in her cloth diaper, sans the diaper cover

First of all I wanted to share my favorite baby products of all time. The single most important thing I purchased for baby Echo is the boppy pillow. It's a nursing pillow and I seriously don't know what I would do without it. It helps support the baby while you nurse and saves your aching arms and back, those little babies get really heavy really fast! I don't know how my parents generations survived without these, they are the best!

Secondly I want to rave about cloth diapers. I wrote a post about these before and told you I would update you on how we liked them after we started using them. Well we began using them a few days after we got back from the hospital and we love them! I had no idea the sheer quantity of diapers we would go through before having a baby but let me tell you we go through a ton! Using cloth is saving us so much money and we also feel pretty good that we are cutting down on the amount of waste we produce. We love them so much that we also got cloth wipes and are enjoying those as well.

We have found that cloth is so much nicer and softer than disposable and we haven't had any problems with blowouts or leaks. I also want to give a rave review to the snappi diaper fasteners we've been using. You can kind of see it in the picture above, it's the pink thing on her diaper. These things are so much easier to use than pins and have made diaper changing a breeze. We are doing a lot of laundry as a result of cloth diapering (although I should mention we still use disposables overnight) but we would be doing tons of laundry with a newborn anyway and I really feel it is worth the extra effort.

Next on my list of advice is to make yourself take naps. This is sooo hard for me! I've never been a fan of napping, I feel like it is a waste of time. Especially now that I have a newborn I really don't want to nap because I want to take advantage of the time when she is sleeping to get things done like dishes and laundry. However I have noticed that I have a much easier time of it when I force myself to take a nap, I feel so much better and it really is worth the time you take out during the day to do it.

Lastly I would advise new parents to make sure you take some time to yourself and get out of the house. After being stuck at home for the first few weeks (aside from visits to the pediatrician) I was feeling like a basket case. I had such bad cabin fever, I had to get out! See if you can get a family member of friend to watch the baby while you go to the store. Just having some time away can make you feel like a new person, even if it's only for half an hour.

Anyway, that's all I can think of for now but I'm sure I will have many more pearls of wisdom to pass on in the baby department as time goes by. I'm wishing all you mommas to be happy and healthy pregnancies!

I'm a Mommy!

So it's my first post after bringing Echo home from the hospital, the first post of mommyhood. Never have a I felt so simultaneously exhilarated and exhausted. I am finally starting to feel like myself again however, and settling in to some sort of routine and I wanted to share my thoughts on my birth experience and the first few days of being a mom.

First of all I want to let people know that it's really really hard. Not to scare any of you off of having kids but that's just the truth. It's totally worth it, but it's incredibly difficult and I really don't think there is any way to prepare yourself for that. Echo's birth was extremely painful, I chose to go all natural and didn't have any drugs through the entire process and wow did it hurt! I can honestly say it's the worst pain I've ever felt and at times I didn't think I could do it (of course by that time I didn't have any choice but to do it, lol). I can't even begin to describe the emotions you go through after you finally finish pushing that baby out though, it's incredible! The feelings of relief and joy are overwhelming and there is nothing quite as surreal and wonderful as holding your baby for the first time.

I will say this about going the natural route, I feel like my recovery was so much quicker than it would have been otherwise. I was able to go home from the hospital after only spending one night and I was never so happy to be back in my own home. Of course then I had to figure out how to care for this amazing, new little person that I had brought home with me. I have to give major props to single moms after my experiences during the first few days at home. I honestly don't think I could have done it without the support of my amazing husband, not to mention my parents who were there to help every step of the way. Having a support system is so incredibly important when you are going through this difficult time.

There are many reasons that this is the hardest thing I've ever done. First of all, your body is totally wrecked and has literally been ripped apart. Ideally you would have plenty of rest and relaxation after going through something as traumatic and difficult as giving birth. Wrong! Instead you will never get a good night's sleep again! Newborns need to be fed every 2 to 3 hours so there will be no sleeping through the night for you any time soon. In addition to the physical pain and sleep deprivation you are also on an emotional roller coaster and your hormones are going crazy. This all makes you feel moody, irritable and/or depressed. On the plus side you also experience moments of extreme joy and will burst in to tears just looking at your baby because "she's just so beautiful!"

I can also assure you that as hard as it is, it gets better. It gets better relatively fast in fact. After just two weeks my physical pain is far less (although still present) and my emotions are leveling out. I'm starting to be more comfortable taking Echo out with me which has really helped my cabin fever. It also doesn't hurt that people oh, ah and generally carry on over her wherever we go :-)  It's amazing how quickly and how deeply you can fall in love with this strange little person that has come from you and your partner.

Being a mom is incredibly difficult and incredibly amazing. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world though :-)

Homemade Pita and Hummus

Since I am on a huge baking and home made condiment kick (and have been for the last few months) I have really wanted to try making my own hummus and pita bread. I think fresh hummus is sooo much tastier than store bought and I had heard it was easy so I thought I'd give it a try. 

hummus topped with kalamata olives and paprika 

For the hummus I used this recipe from The Partial Ingredients and for the Pita I used this recipe from Under The High Chair. Overall it came out really well but I think I would make a few tweaks in the future when trying these two recipes. The hummus had a great flavor and was super easy to make. i used dry chickpeas instead of canned so it took a  little longer but was still no big deal. My only complaint was that it came out a tiny bit dry. The Lebanese woman who I bought the tahini from for this suggested adding some plain yogurt for creaminess so i might try that next time.

The pita bread was yummy but it didn't puff up quite as much as I would have liked, this is probably due to some error on my part though. I used white flour so it ended up tasting a lot like pizza dough to me, in fact I used my extras to make some yummy pizza pita pockets. I think i might try wheat flour next time since I usually get wheat pitas and tend to like the texture better.

In any case it was definitely well worth the effort and I will experiment and try both of these again. Even though they didn't come out perfect they still beat the pants off the store bought stuff. 

My First Sewing Project

Ok, it's not really my first sewing project but the first one I've attempted in many years. When I was a kid I was fearless with the sewing machine. I attempted to sew my own clothing all the time and then insisted on wearing my creations out in public (I have to thank my mom for having the curage to allow me to do this). Why is this machine so much more intimidating now that I'm a grown up? For my first project I wanted something really simple that I could use to practice and boost my confidence. I found an idea for a simple reversible scarf on Martha Stewart's website and I was off.

it's reversible, yay!

Cute fabric I got from the remnant bin at Hancock Fabrics. 

I used fleece on one side and cotton on the other. The material cost about $4 total and I have lots leftover. 

This is too closeup to see very well but i had my 35mm lens on and was too lazy to change it. Anyway, you get the idea ;-P

This is pretty much the easiest thing you could possibly make, I highly recommend it for beginners. All you have to do is choose one lightweight fabric and one heavier, warmer fabric (I did cotton on one side and fleece on the other), cut to your desired length and pin the right sides together. Then you just sew up the whole thing leaving about a 2 inch gap on one of the short ends. Flip the whole thing inside out and iron it and then use a slip stich to close it up and you're done! My scarf turned out so warm and cozy. I can't wait for colder weather so i can wear it out. 

My New (Old) Vintage Brother Charger

My new sewing machine!

I recently purchased a vintage Brother Charger 031 sewing machine at Good Will for $18. I have been interested in getting a sewing machine for some time but I didn't want to invest a lot of money because I wasn't really sure how much I would use it and I didn't want to necessarily do any big projects, just a bit of mending here and there. I knew Brother was a decent brand (they use it on Project Runway after all) and I liked that it had all metal parts, I have heard that vintage sewing machines are better because of this and less likely to break down. I figured for $18 it couldn't hurt to give this one a chance.

Well after I got it home I noticed that it was missing a presser foot, screw and bobbin case so all those needed replacing. Luckily sewing machine parts haven't changed much in the past 50 years so I was able to get replacements for all my missing parts for about $22 (more than I paid for the machine but oh well).

After getting all the parts I needed I realized I had no idea how to thread this thing. I am not an experienced seamstress and while I used to sew a lot when I was a kid it's been years since I have made anything using a sewing machine. This machine is also different from others I have used because it is so old. I searched online and couldn't find any instructions on how to thread this particular type of machine. Finally through trial and error and with some help from my mom I figured out how to get it up and running. I am now posting instructions on how to thread a vintage brother charger sewing machine both for my own reference (in case I forget how I did it) and for others who might be trying to figure this out.

1. put your thread on the thread spool on top of the machine (duh, right?)

2. pull thread through the thread guide on the top of the machine.

This is where it gets tricky. This picture is a bit confusing (my apologies) but this is the left side of the sewing machine. 3. bring the thread down from the top of the machine and wrap it around the tension spool going front to back. 4. pull the thread through the lever as shown. 5. Pull the thread through the little wire thingy (not sure what this is called). 6. Pull the the thread down through the thread guide on the side of the machine. 

7. Pull the thread through the second thread guide on the side of the machine, moving down toward the needle.  8.  Pull the thread through the last thread guide, this is the small wire one just above the needle. 

Sorry this is all blurry, it was a low light situation. 9. Pull the thread through the eye of the needle. 10. Slide the thread through the middle of the presser foot and pull it off to the side, leaving about 2 inches spare. 

I'm so happy I figured this out and I can finally use my new machine! Next up I will show you my first project that I made. It's super simple but being the novice that I am I'm quite proud of it.

Spinach Nectarine Salad

So the last time I had blood work done at the doctor they told me my iron was a little on the low side. Oops! Could this be a result of my recent cutback in meat consumption? I guess pregnancy isn't the best time to make major changes in your diet. So in response to this I am trying to up my intake of dark leafy greens like spinach and broccoli, not always the easiest thing to do but not so bad if you get creative. I came up with this yummy salad the other day and thought the recipe was worth saving. It is such a pretty salad and delicious as well!

I made the croutons by cutting some leftover ends of sourdough bread in to cubes and toasting them in butter until the browned slightly. Other than that this salad is pretty self explanatory, I just combined the spinach, crumbled blue cheese, dried cranberries, one sliced nectarine, and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Delicious and beautiful! Yum! I have another doctors appointment tomorrow so hopefully my iron will be back up to where it needs to be :-)