July 2014 - Page 2 of 2 - Tales from the Mommy Trenches

Monthly Archives: July 2014

Wren: six months?!!

Dear Wren,

Today you are six months old. I know this is the common refrain among parents, but where does the time go?! You’ve grown from a newborn to a full-fledged baby!

Milestones: You are rolling around like a champ. Much sooner than your sisters did. You are ready to catch up and start playing with them! You babble and gurgle up a storm when someone is talking to you. You love grabbing your Sofie the Giraffe and shoving it in your mouth to gnaw on it. You also love splashing the water with your little hands in the bath and getting all startled when the water hits you in the face. You are not sitting up yet, but you are close! You also just started eating solids a little bit. You are undecided about whether you like them or not.
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Reading List for my little girls

I remember being really disappointed in my reading lists when I was in middle school. My teachers avoided the classics like the plague and stuck to some really bleak stuff. They seemed to labor under the delusion that all you need is a lot of depressing with a healthy helping of hopelessness, add a dash of licentiousness and congratulations! You just made the middle school reading list! No wonder teenagers these days tend to be so jaded and sullen. All of the books they have read merely communicated to them that life sucks and then you die an untimely death. read more

A letter to my childless self

Hey you! Yes, you over there with your tiny full term belly, wondering how your life is going to change once this baby comes. Let me tell you, this baby and the ones that come after her are going to rock your world, but in the most amazing way possible. However, there are a few things you should know and appreciate before they arrive.

1) Stop obsessing over getting the best parking spot possible. There will come a time when you will have actual physical obstacles to overcome when you park somewhere. Try searching for a parking spot when you have two babies and an enormous pregnant belly, or three babies in tow. Toddlers are as slow as molasses, and you are constantly terrified that their little hands will slip out of yours and they will immediately be hit by a car. (Side note, stop speeding through the parking lot! Toddlers escape easily and are hard to see!) Also, car seats with babies in them weigh about two tons and are about as easy to lift into a shopping cart as a baby grand piano. So, relish your physical freedom, park in the back, and enjoy a leisurely stroll to the store. We moms will be forever grateful. read more

Instagram cracks down on . . . Moms?

I breastfeed, but I would not consider myself a “lactivist.” I usually can’t wait to wean, and am surprised at myself every time I feel sad about weaning when it is time. With my first baby I would go into another room by myself to nurse, as I remember all my aunts and parents’ friends doing when I was young. By the time my second came along, I was tired of hanging out by myself while all my friends and family members enjoyed each other’s company, so I started using my nursing cover. Missing out on all the fun because my baby is hungry? Forget it. Now with my third, I have been starting out a nursing session using a nursing cover, but poor Wren just gets so hot and sweaty and uncomfortable, I usually discreetly remove it once I feel her getting drenched in sweat. I never in a million years thought I would be that mother who was unabashedly whipping out her boob in public when her babe was hungry, but I think by the fourth I will be at that point. I’ve got three under three. Go find somewhere to hide so I can breastfeed? Ain’t nobody got time for that! I still haven’t yet reached the point where I am putting photos of myself nursing on Instagram, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the beautiful photos of breastfeeding when I come across them. Photography can be an art, and as a mother, I love the Cassatt depictions of breastfeeding too!

Young Mother Nursing Her Child Mary Cassatt read more

Our little flower girls

My brother’s wedding was this weekend, and it was a destination wedding in the college town of Athens, Georgia.

My (now!) sister in law very sweetly asked if my two older girls would be flower girls, and of course I agreed. Ruth will be three in September and Rose will be two in October, so I was a tad bit anxious about how they would perform come the day of the wedding.

We traveled up to Athens on the 4th of July for the Rehearsal Dinner. When we had settled into our cute cottage on the grounds of the wedding venue and attended the Rehearsal Dinner, Ruthie promptly sat on a lit match and burned a hole in her dress. We like to start things off right. The rest of the Rehearsal Dinner was uneventful, other than the fact it was outdoors and the mosquitos ate poor little Ruth alive! read more

Baby Sleep Woes

When Ruth was a baby, my husband and I would wonder what all the fuss about sleep deprivation and babies was about. She was already sleeping five hours a night when we brought her home from the hospital. She was sleeping eight hours by two months, and twelve by four months. “We are the best parents ever!”, we congratulated ourselves. “All of those parents that don’t sleep at night must be doing something wrong,” we smugly opined.

Then, Rose was born. She wouldn’t sleep for more than three hours at a time until she was four months old. Our faith in our parenting abilities was shaken. That was the longest four months of my life. Until Wren was born. read more