Mommy Stop Must Haves - Part 1

I remember registering for my baby showers when I was 6 months pregnant and having a legitimate panic attack as I drove away from Babies R Us. I had just spent hours tagging item after item that I apparently needed, ad yet I had no idea how to use any of them! I didn't have this same reaction after registering for my wedding, because c'mon - who doesn't know how to use a dish?
To give you pregnant moms some insight in to the items that you will absolutely love and use every single day, I've compiled a list of my favorite MommyStop Must Haves - enjoy!

1. Skip Hop Pronto Diaper Bag & Changing Pad

I don't think I realized how great this product was when I registered for it, but as Mr. L got older and we were heading out to run errands, or on weekend getaways more and more, this little gadget became invaluable. Before you have children, I bet most people don't take any notice to what restaurants and stores have changing tables and where they have them located. I've been dumbfounded more than once to find a perfectly great restaurant doesn't have a changing table in it's restroom - what do you do in a situation like that? Well, depending on how bad you need to change that diaper, your only option is to either use your lap (done it) or the floor (had to do it once my lap was no longer big enough for one chubby-wubby Mr. L) and the LAST place you want to lay your baby down is a public restroom floor. Bringing the Skip-Hop Pronto with you wherever you go will save you from stress every time you need to change a diaper in public!

2.  Cloud b Sleep Sheep On The Go
 Mr. L was only 11 weeks old the first time we traveled far from home for an extended period of time. My Mom had the bright idea to bring some things with him, especially sleep items, that he would find familiar when we were in a new place. Unfortunately, at this time in Mr. L's life, he hadn't latched on to anything particularly special. I was planning on bringing blankets that had a familiar scent on it, but I wanted to bring something more soothing. I stumbled upon The Sleep Sheep while out shopping one day, but it seemed humongous and just kind of annoying to pack and bring with us. The smart people at Cloud b must have known this would be many parents' opinions because they developed a smaller sleep sheep, called The Sleep Sheep On The Go which is perfect for traveling. We started using this device a couple of weeks before our big trip and when we were on our journey we used it any time Mr. L needed to go down for a nap and it worked flawlessly. Of course, there is one very large draw back to The Sleep Sheep - it has a time limit of 27 or 45 minutes which doesn't make any sense to me. I don't know why it doesn't just play and play and play until someone manually turns it off, and I know several children who have woken up as soon as it turns off! But for Mr. L that wasn't the case so I would definitely use this item again.

3. Aden + Anais Swaddle Blankets
At $49.95 for a box of 4 blankets, The Hubs thought I was certifiably nuts when I brought these home one day. But once I wrapped Mr. L up tight in the most perfect swaddle he'd seen since our days in the hospital, he was hooked on these blankets as well. Yes they're expensive (But I believe Target sells some now for a much more affordable price), but they are amazing. The fabric is so lightweight that you don't have to worry about your baby getting too hot while they are playing "baby burrito" inside. The quality is top of the line and even after using them day in and day out for over six months with Mr. L, they still look as good as new. Aside from being used to swaddle your baby, these blankets are so large they are great for laying on the ground for a picnic, or draping over the stroller or carseat to protect your child from the sun. Aside from their fabulous features of functionality, they are also adorable and whenever baby #2 comes about, I can't wait to have another set to wrap him or her up in!

4. Little Giraffe Luxe Blanket
We were given a Little Giraffe blanket at one of our baby showers, and when I felt it and saw how nice of a blanket it was, I laughed to myself thinking "why would I ever let a baby use this?" I assumed that having spit up, pee and other bodily fluids come in contact with this luxurious miniature throw would ruin it, but considering that Mr. L has used it since his first week in this world up until now and it's been covered in more substances than I care to mention and has been washed in the washing machine one thousand times and is still just as luxurious as it was the day I took it out of it's fancy little box, this item is a definite must have!

I've got more Mommy Stop Must Haves up my sleeve, but for now hopefully this will get all of you new Mommies some ideas for what goodies you'll need!

For you veteran Moms, what has been your favorite baby gadget? Leave a comment and let us know!

Raising Toddlers - More Difficult Than Raising Grade School Kids?

I had a long discussion with my BFF today, regarding a tweet I posted yesterday; "Wow someone needs to teach that kid to listen...oh..that's MY kid and that teacher is me." Yesterday was one of those days where Mr. L decided to test all boundaries (And my patience) and disregard all direction I suggested and any instructions I gave. It was beyond frustrating because while I know that he understands me and can hear me and when willing, can follow my directions, there was no way for me to reason with him...he's 20 months old! I can't say to him "Look, you need to get off your bike and walk to the car because we have to go to the grocery store so Mommy can buy food for you to eat so you can eat dinner and not go hungry..."...trust me, I tried. Yesterday was a day that I felt defeated. Every corner was another conflict and another tantrum. My friend tells me "Welcome to age 2". Great.
But, in talking with my BFF, we had to ask the question "Is raising a toddler REALLY more difficult than raising a grade-school child, a preteen or a teenager like everyone tells us it will be?" While yes, the thought of raising a teenager is enough to make a mother stay up all night in a panic, the thought of raising a child between the ages of 5 and 12 seems like it will be so much more do-able than raising a 1 to 2 year old child. I'm not saying it's not difficult to raise a grade-school or preteen child, I am sure that it is, but I think it's not necessarily hardER, just a different kind of hard, no? In my mind, it all comes down to having the ability to reason with your child. Having a child, who can understand the basic concepts of right and wrong, unacceptable vs acceptable - I don't think my 20 month old is there yet. Maybe he is and I'm just not giving him the benefit of the doubt, but I am just so looking forward to the day where I can lay down some solid consequences to behavior and actually get results.
I'm sure I will look back on this post in 5 years as I'm pulling my hair out as my 6 year old is doing something so beyond disobedient I never thought it was possible, and laugh. But until then, I'm asking you - what do you think is more difficult - raising a toddler or raising a grade-school/preteen child?

Baby Food Recipe Swap

Hello Mommy Stoppers! From the moment Mr. L started eating solids, The Hubs and I have tried very hard to make all of his meals. As he's gotten older, it's become a little more difficult and I blame that 100% on my limited pallet. I've been told for years that I have the food maturity of a 4 year old; which is funny and weird but I'm now realizing that my lack of food experience is hindering my own child! This is going to sound pathetic, but I bought Mr. L some snap peas the other day and cooked them per the directions on the package, but when I put them on his plate I realized I didn't know how to eat them! Was he supposed to just eat the whole pod? Should I squish out the individual peas from the inside? I was so close to searching for a Youtube video on how to eat them...seriously. So this recent train of thought got me thinking that maybe I should reach out to all of YOU and see what delicious foods you are feeding your little ones? Leave a recipe, or a dish description in the comments section and we'll all learn some new foods to feed our favorite little people!

The staples in our home for Mr. L are eggs (he eats 3 scrambled eggs every morning!), spaghetti (I still use the food processor to make it easier for him to eat), various pasta dishes, grilled cheese sandwiches, macaroni and cheese and various other healthy snacks (Apples, bananas, cheerios, cottage cheese, yogurt, etc)

My favorite dish to make for Mr. L is a Broccoli and Onion Quiche! I've been making it for him since he was about 8 months old, it's amazingly easy and The Hubs and I enjoy it as well! So whatever your baby doesn't eat, the rest of your family can enjoy! The recipe is from a great book by Anni Daulter called Organically Raised: Conscious Cooking for Babies and Toddlers. 


Leave your comments and let everyone know what your child eats every day!

Thankful for Moms Groups

We've been settled in the Bay Area for almost 3 months now and it's been great. We have more friends and family around us than we have ever had before. We've been so busy though, that we still haven't had a chance to see everyone we want to! Hopefully our schedule will settle down soon and we can throw a proper house warming party (oooh a party to plan! That will definitely be a post all of its own!). I have one really good friend who lives just 10 minutes away that I see almost every week - she has three kids and we all get along just great. So while I've been totally satisfied with just having that one social outelt, I know that I need to look elsewhere, make more friends and get more involved in the community for both Mr. L's sake and my own. So yesterday while at the park, fate stepped in. Mr. L and I were trying out a new park in an area that I love and within the first 10 minutes of arriving, a mom walked in with her young daughter. We casually said "hello" to each other and then continued to meet and talk sporadically as we passed each other walking back and forth across the park with our babies. She ended up telling me that she runs a playgroup for the local Mom's Group in the area. I told her I hadn't joined the group yet because it seemed so massive, which I was intimidated by. My Mom's Group in LA only consisted of residents of the small community we lived in and this group takes members from three surrounding cities! She agreed that it is a very large group when looking in from the outside, but she continued to tell me that the playgroup she coordinates has almost developed its own sub-Mom's group and they as a whole go out for dinners, pamper nights and other fun activities throughout the week. I was beyond thrilled and went home that night to join the group online. Upon joining, I realized that this group will be amazing! Aside from the playgroup I'll join, they have a lot of different subgroups for other interests their membesr may have - there's a golf group, a wine tasting group, a book club, a "Baby Mama's" group (which is for Young Moms - 35 and younger - genius!) and many many more! I am so excited to become a part of this community and get Mr. L involved with more young kids in his age group.
I am not someone to just jump in and join a group and I tend to feel very awkward when meeting new people, but I know that if I just keep Mr. L going to the same parks with me, and playing with the same couple of friends, he won't be developing as he needs to be. I often worry about not getting him enough social outlets since I'm staying at home, and before that he had a nanny - I think one big plus to daycare is that your child is around other children constantly from a very young age. I know that studies show that children don't really interact and play with each other consciously for quite some time, but I can't imagine that being around other kids for the majority of their day doesn't help develop some sort of social awareness.
If there's not a great Mom's Group in your area, I would look in to starting one! If you are craving a more entertaining, involved and adventurous group, I'm sure there are other Mom's in your area that are too! Remember, a group doesn't have to be 100 people, my Mom's group in LA started with 3 Moms who met in a park once a week at the same time, within 3 years that group had grown to over 250 members!

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words...

Doesn't this just say it all?

A Mother's Guilt about Doing it All

All week, I've been looking forward to attending a Mom's Group presentation that ws being held this morning.
However, last night right after midnight, Mr. L woke up in a screaming fit (it was as if he waited for Valentine's Day to be officially over so he could regain my attention). It took about two hours to get him calmed down enough to go to sleep. In case you missed that, he didn't go back to bed until 2am. And just to further clarify this situation, you must know that when he woke up at midnight, I hadn't been to bed yet so I was up last night until 2am...lovely. After finally getting Mr. L back to sleep, as I shuffled my tired eyes to my bedroom I was praying with all that I had that Mr. L would sleep in past his usual 6am wake up call.
No. Such. Luck. 5:45am came quicker than usual as I heard the faint calling for "Mama...Mama? Mama!!". Oh boy...here we go.
I continued through our morning routine still thinking that we would make it to the Mom's group meeting, and yet as I stood in the shower in a complete over tired haze, looking down at Mr. L staring at me, also in an overtired haze, from the bathtub (empty, of course) I knew we had to cancel our plans. Mr. L had had an off week as it was; he's gotten up so early each day, only taken one nap and by 5pm each evening he's so tired he lays down on the floor whispering "night, night". Break my heart.
Even though I knew deep down, we could not make the morning plans that I was so looking forward to, the "Do-er" in me still wanted to go. I was feeling sad that I wouldn't be able to see my new friends, I was a little angry that our night had gone as it had and I was so tired because of it, I was feeling guilty for thinking we couldn't go because it meant more time in the house for Mr. L and I (and I've been feeling like we've had WAY too much of that lately), and then I was feeling guilty for feeling angry that I was tired. Ayyy yiii yiii!
For as long as I can remember, I've been a do-er. I like to be involved with things, I like to see my friends, I like to DO things and when something tries to stand in my way and prevent me from doing, I usually just go right through it and get on with my originally intended agenda. But once you have that baby, a lot of that DOING goes right out the window. Its been a struggle for me to let that go, but as a Mom, I have to put what's best for my child first, what's best for me second and whats best for our family as a whole third. I knew that if we went to the Mom's group, Mr. L would miss his morning nap and be a complete disaster, with the week he'd already had I just couldn't let that happen. So, with a knot in my stomach, I texted my Moms Group friend and told her we'd be a no-show.
I was still upset about it, until right at 9am, which is exactly when I would have dropped Mr. L off at the childcare room, when we had our first meltdown of the morning. As Mr. L screamed and pouted over something beyond trivial, I knew I'd made the right decision for us both. And now, several hours later as my son is blissfully taking his 2nd nap of the day (his first 2nd nap in a week), I, again have confidence that I made the right decision this morning.

My overtired baby Laubster...still smiling for the moment

Though I'm still sad we missed out on what could have been a fun morning, it just wasn't right for us this week. We made up for it by spending some Mommy and Baby time at the park and my heart and soul were more filled by DOING that than they would have been by listening to a speaker talk at me for 90 minutes.

So the bottom line is that even though deep down we're still the girls we were before we had children, the fact is, we're Mom's now and one thing that comes with being a Mom is sacrifice. Whether it's something as small as missing out on a morning function, or as huge as cancelling a dream vacation or turning down an ideal position at work, we need to really do what is best for our children and best for us and once those two parameters have been satisfied, we will automatically be doing what is best for our families.

Happy Valentine's Day Mommy Stoppers!

It's a low key day here at Laubster Cove - though Mr. L and I are dressed in our V-Day bests (red for him and pink for me). Mr. L received his first Valentine's Day card this morning, as I was a horrible Mom last year and didn't get him anything! It completely slipped my mind to even get him or make him a simple card (Though I did have him wear the most adorable "Heartbreaker" sweatshirt from Old Navy all day).

My little heartbreaker on his first V-day 2/14/11

It's probably because I actually hate this holiday. Sure, it was fun while I was growing up, my parents would get me and my brothers fun little gifts, we'd exchange cards with our classmates and at night have a special family dinner or have a fun night with a babysitter. But as I got older, and remained single the holiday just seemed stupid. All of this time, effort and fuss put in to what - a holiday about telling someone you love them? I don't get it. So once I found my true love, The Hubs, my dislike for this holiday continued (lucky man, right?). So tonight, we'll do exactly what we've done for the last six years - we'll go have a nice romantic, cheap dinner at my favorite place, In-N-Out! It's actually the perfect place to go on a night like tonight because nobody is there! The employees all stare at The Hubs as if he must be on his way to the dog house for taking his lady to a fast food restaurant, but I absolutely love it. It's low key, fast and oh so scrumptious! I hope to continue this tradition as Mr. L gets older and take him with us. We'll continue to do tiny things on this day for our kids, of course, and we'll participate in all of the school card exchanges, but I hope that I can keep my kids level headed when it comes to this silly holiday. I hope I can steer Mr. L into finding a lady some day who wants nothing more than time with him...and a cheap burger in an empty restaurant!

My guy today - breaking hearts in his Bear PJ's 2/14/12

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Stroller Review Part 2: Trains, Planes and Automobiles

Ok, so maybe there weren't any TRAINS involved in my recent trip home to Seattle, but there were planes, cars and lots of packing/unpacking/lifting and hauling of our new stroller.
As you'll remember from my first stroller review, I am already loving the First Years Ignite - the price alone was enough to get me excited. It did great on the few trips I made with it around town, but I was waiting for our big trip North to see if it was actually as good as it seemed.
The verdict is in, and YES, it is!
This stroller is amazing. It collapses easily enough for me to do it with one hand on a handle, one hand on the arm of my toddler and one foot pushing the collapse bar up while in line for security at the airport. It's also lightweight enough for me to pick it up and place it on the security belt with one hand (Since my other hand is still holding on the arm of my Toddler who is trying very hard to make a break for it). 
Throughout the trip we had to put the stroller in different cars and pull it back out again time and time again and it was always just so simple. I have to keep commenting on it's weight (14.25lbs) because it was just so easy to move around. Maybe it's because I'm used to the 24lb UppaBaby Vista so I've gained SuperMom strength and this stroller seemed as light as a binky to me, but I loved it. No matter what car we were using it fit perfectly in either the backseat, trunk or hatchback without issue.
The stability and quality of it held up on any terrain we were on (It must be noted, this is NOT an all-terrain stroller. The only types of terrain we were on were paved, but it wasn't always super smooth paving). It's easy to maneuver and most importantly, Mr. L was very comfortable in it. He never napped, but I don't know that we were ever in it for a long enough period of time for him to nap.
I think there are only two negative features on this stroller that are worth mentioning: the first is the stroller does not automatically lock once in the collapsed position. While that's pretty common among inexpensive lightweight stroller, I feel that the locking mechanism on this particular one is more difficult than it needs to be. It's hard to see the locking arm, and it never seems to be in the right position to clamp down. Once you've done it a few times you can do it more easily, but at first it's pretty obnoxious. The second negative is the lack of storage space beneath the stroller. Again, this is pretty common in inexpensive lightweight strollers and I've been beyond spoiled with the storage space available by the UppaBaby Vista, but on this stroller not only is there barely any room for storage, it's nearly impossible to get anything into the compartment because the stroller frame is in the way. This inconvenience obviously wasn't a deal breaker for our family, but if I were a stroller designer, I would definitely rethink those two features before putting a new stroller on the market.
So the final verdict is that we love this stroller and it will definitely be traveling to Europe with us later this year! I may add some padding to the sides of the seat so that Mr. L can have something to rest his head on as we're moving through Italy, but other than that the stroller is good to go as is!

Ciao!

Missing Cat = No Blogging!

I'm sorry.

First I was gone all last week and didn't blog nearly as much as I had hoped. Then, on Monday, my 8 year old cat jumped our fence and has been MIA ever since. I've been searching during the day and in a funk at night...which has left me no creative juices for blogging.

I do have a couple posts just waiting in the wings that I plan to write up tonight and get sent out throughout the remainder of the week.

Just hold tight 'till LIFE gets back on track and then we'll be up and running to continue THE YEAR OF THE BLOG!

Our Trip Home In a Nutshell

Hello blog world! I'm back home and back at this blog thing - I'm sorry I took such a long break when I was gone. That was not my intention, but as those of you who have traveled with kids before know, vacations WITH children are anything but relaxing. While the trip was amazing, and being home for 10 full days was just the right amount of time to do everything we wanted to do and see everyone we wanted to see, Mr. L and I were on the run from day one through day 10. I barely had the energy to take my contacts out each night, much less think of a blogging topic and actually type it! So, I apologize and I promise the next time I go away, I'll plan ahead and schedule some posts to fill in my time away!
As I mentioned, the trip home was great, and what made it great was Mr. L being so resilient each step of the way. When we first arrived we stayed at my Mom's, after 24 hours there, we traveled North to my Brother's home after being there for 2 days we made it back down to my Mom's for the remainder of the trip. There were days we missed naps, days we went to bed late and days where we were at three different houses for three different play dates! I was so impressed with Mr. L through it all. He is such a great baby and just rolls with the punches at every turn.
While Mr. L is a fairly easy baby I think there were a few things that helped make the trip go as smoothly as it did. For starters, we were staying in homes the whole time. Meaning L was able to have his own space each night for sleeping. Secondly, we always had a kitchen to cook him food in, prepare his bottles and get him anything he needed. Had we been staying in a hotel, I think an extra level of stress may have been added as it would be harder to store all of the food we needed. Lastly, we tried to stick to a schedule as much as possible. Mr. L was always put first - if he seemed like he needed a nap, then a play date was canceled or rescheduled. We had to leave my Dad's place a bit early in order to get L home in time for dinner and bath time. The schedule is key at this age, and sticking to it as much as we did really made a difference for Mr. L. As I mentioned in a previous post, our flight TO Seattle was a little hectic. Mr. L sat on my lap and was pretty active the entire time. As we got off the plane I called The Hubs and told him we were definitely getting L his own seat for our long flight to Italy. On our way back to The Bay Area, however, the flight wasn't full so we were able to bring Mr. L's car seat on board and give him his own seat (for free!).

I was convinced that this would make it the easiest flight EVER. Wrong. At first, Mr. L was happy to be sitting in a chair and seemed quite content. Then he looked forward and realized it would be really fun to kick the seat back in front of him. I was NOT about to be "that mom" who lets that behavior go on, so I held his leg back so he couldn't kick. Then he started kicking with the other leg. The Hubs then got involved and held the leg closest to him so the kicking would stop. But that only made matters worse and Mr. L was a very unhappy camper. Then our engineer minds kicked in and we rolled up his blanky and set it under his legs so his feet were elevated and he COULDN'T kick, no matter how hard he tried. He wasn't thrilled with that set up, but it stopped the issue for the moment. After awhile, L just got restless and overtired and just started screaming and crying. The Hubs and I tried everything - snacks, books, Elmo...nothing worked. Finally, The Hubs took him out of the car seat and held him and miraculously that worked. He was excited to be looking around. He played Peek-a-boo with some very patient and kind passengers around us. He did get unhappy a few more times when out of the car seat, so I'm completely torn on what to do. It would be great to get a business or first class seat that reclines to a fully horizontal position and we could just lay down with him for that long international flight, but I don't know if that's financially possible.
If any of you have any advice on your experience of traveling a long distance on an airplane with a toddler, please let me know!
We have at least one more trip on the horizon before we head to Italy in May. We're going to Chicago in early March and are staying in a hotel the entire time. The only plan I've figured out thus far is that we will not be trying to adjust Mr. L to the time zone change. We will keep him on his regular schedule so while to us it will seem like he's going to bed 2 hours later, he'll think he's living life as usual. Should work out nicely for everyone!

Flying Solo with a Toddler

Yes, we did it. Mr. L and I flew a whopping 90 minutes from Oakland Airport to SeaTac airport. Did we survive? Barely.
As I noted previously, I was nervous for this flight. Not because I was flying alone with Mr. L, but because I was flying alone with Mr. L, who is now 19 months and mobile. L and I have flown several times together without The Hubs to assist us and it's gone amazingly well (The kind of well where you have other passengers telling you that they didn't even know there was a baby on board). I was worried about this flight because Mr. L is so active now. He's still a very well mannered little tyke, but well mannered or completely crazy, 19 month olds like to move and do not like to be held down - especially in their Mother's lap!
There were a few things working in our favor on the day of our flight:
1. We were flying Southwest and I was able to check in early enough that we were seated with the first group of passengers (This is something that leaves me dumbfounded in the way airlines treat families - Southwest lets 60 passengers board BEFORE they let families board - when I was pregnant I was able to board before families on this airline - wouldn't everyone prefer for families to be on the plane prior to them picking their seat so that they can choose how far AWAY to sit away from the kids??)
2. Mr. L did his bathroom business prior to getting on the flight (usually he leaves me with a nice blow out just as we sit down)
3. The flight wasn't full and we had a row all to ourselves (I may have manipulated this situation a bit by sitting in the middle seat as people were filing in and looked as miserable as possible...worked like a charm!)

In spite of those three factors, Mr. L was still a toddler for our 90 minutes up in the air. He did relatively fine, but nothing held his attention longer than 10 minutes and he certainly didn't want me to hold him longer than 30 seconds. Despite having brand new Elmo books, a slinky and more snacks than he'd ever seen in his life, there were still screams so loud they made me deaf for a few moments, still kicks and punches at the seat back in front of us and still spilled water everywhere.

So what did I learn from this? Toddlers will be toddlers. Keep your cool as much as possible or it will just be that much worse. And the post importantly, we WILL be buying a seat for him on our flights to Italy and Hawaii.

Ciao and Aloha!