RookieMoms Blog

Here are my criteria:

• Ends with a vowel or an R
• Probably 2 syllables maybe 3
• Definitely not in the top 20, hopefully not in the top 100
• Sounds nice with “Holden and”
• Doesn’t sound like a dog’s name

That’s it… please help me. I love one name and my husband doesn’t love it (yet) so we may be screwed. Sure, if I have another 44-hour labor, maybe, just maybe I’ll get my way… but I’ve gotta cast a wider net in case that doesn’t happen!

I was prepared to not like the Bella Band. Heather had already been pregnant for 4 months when I became pregnant, and didn’t have much positive to say about it. However, I was excited about any invention that came into existence since my last pregnancy, albeit skeptical. If this is such a great thing, why didn’t we have it in 2004? It wasn’t exactly the dark ages back then.

My friend Quyen, (who gave birth this week to Baby Jack!), gave me her Bella Band and said it wasn’t useful. I put it in my top drawer, thinking I’d check it out when I started showing. Or not.

A few short weeks later, I was showing, and having lunch with Joanne, who raved on and on about her Bella Band. She has three. She wears them AND sleeps in them. Then, my cousin’s partner, Layla, a pregnant woman with a supermodel’s body, pulled hers up and revealed to me that her designer jeans were not maternity, but simply unbuttoned beneath her Bella Band. And so I was sold.

I got mine out of the drawer and slid it on over maternity jeans that are still too baggy around the hips, but that I fully expect to grow into as my ass expands over the next 5 months. Problem solved.

This thing is useful, but not perfect. You may be yanking it up every 20 minutes, but perhaps that is half as frequent as you’d be yanking on your ill-fitting clothes without it.

In summary, there are four scenarios for wearing the Bella Band:

Scenario 1- You want to wear your favorite normal jeans, but they are too tight due to the bun in your oven. Solution: Wear the jeans, but don’t button and/or zip. Wear the Bella Band over the jeans. You still have the wash, pockets and length of the jeans in which you feel the best.

Scenario 2- You are anxious to wear your maternity pants, but they are too baggy around the waist. Solution: Wear the maternity pants, but with Bella Band over them as a more snug waist panel that will keep your pants up.

Scenario 3- Your belly is so enormous that your waist is far larger than your hips, and no pants will stay up. Solution: Wear Bella Band as an extra snug layer to keep your pants from sliding down the mountain that your lower torso has become.

Scenario 4- Your belly has begun to take over your entire body and no shirt on this planet is long enough to cover the whole thing. Solution: Wear Bella Band around your waist to cover that skin that lives in no man’s land between your pants and shirt.

And finally, I can foresee a post-partum period where I wear the Bella Band for support around my newly flabby, spongy belly, especially as my maternity pants get too big. And, especially if I have a C-Section, it will be comforting to have the extra layer.

P.S. It comes in green. I like that.

Sometimes, I want to eat up all the advice flung at me with a huge spork. I want to memorize and internalize every piece of random information falling from the lips and fingers of moms-of-more-than-one. Come to think of it, I was this way before Holden was born too… I obsessively watched Whitney (or so I thought) and I read more than my fair share of books… only too be completely shocked and flabbergasted at how being a mom actually felt.

With that defining experience behind me, there are some days when I want to interview all of my friends who ever birthed more than one baby, read Ben & Birdy til the cows come home, and pour over advice in websites. And then, I feel shocked and exhausted and realize (more than the first time), that it will be what it will be… that not every word needs to be memorized and not every (different!) great idea followed. We will find our own way. And, yeah, it will be super hard.

My pal, Whitney, knowing about all these quirks of mine, made me a beautiful book of wit and wisdom of from the moms-of-two that we know. She included sage advice from our real life friends and some online friends too.

And, I got a surprising extra dose of good advice from an unlikely source this morning: Fisher Price: My Mommy is Having a Baby. Read it and weep.

… some days you can eat lunch at 10:30am and that’s just fine! Yum, chicken parm before 11, I’ll be on to chocolate before noon!

We want to tag the following good sports for “5 Things You Do Not Know About Me!”: Our real world pals; Sunny, Darci, and Lesbian Dad plus our Internet pals; Lisa at Baggermania and Damselfly at Growing a Life.

Ok, my turn:

1. The officiant at my wedding was my grandfather - as in California, anyone can get a license for a day to perform a wedding.
2. I was in third grade the first time I tried to smoke a cigarette, thanks to some super-mature sisters, Amy and Lisa Weber, and a social force now known as peer pressure.
3. It took me over one year to acheive each of my pregnancies. Details available to friends, family and strangers only on a need-to-know-basis, which means that if you have problems of your own and want to compare notes, I am more than happy to share my experiences, but if you are simply curious or nosy, then you don’t need to know more than that.
4. I wish I were an artist.
5. I can’t sing either (see Heather’s list below) and was asked to be more quiet during group singing in elementary school because I threw others off-key.

First, let me say that our blog isn’t as bloggy as some… so this is the first time we’ve been tagged for anything. How exciting, then, that Angel from 1smartmom thought we should join the fray. Here goes…

1. I went to Clown Camp in junior high. Twice!
2. I met my now-husband while I was running a half-marathon, but I was a little too focused to care. Whitney was running with me at the time and she paid him no notice either.
3. Caffeine makes me crazy. I bounce off the walls. Alcohol often has a similar affect.
4. I can fall asleep almost anywhere… standing up on a bus, in a bar, at a concert, mid-conversation — no problem.
5. I can’t sing but I love karaoke!

I think for this to be correct, Whitney needs to go next. Too bad she outed her pregnancy already…

or How I’ll be remembered by the good folks over at Hand Picked Pumpkin…

Hand Picked Pumpkin is an adorable clothing line where the shopper gets to customize the clothes with different colors, prints, and other options. Each item is then custom-made in Chicago.

I was invited to submit a quote and story as part of the Hand Picked Pumpkin January 2007 journal [pdf] and I decided that “Always make new mistakes” (as said by Esther Dyson) really sums up my Rookie-Mom philosophy. Have a read!

And since I’m too cheap to buy any of their stuff, keep in mind while you’re there, I’m accepting little boy clothes in all sizes.

I was very fortunate to receive a gift pack of New clothes for baby #2. New for baby claims to make clothes that are soft, well-designed, and perfectly proportioned to fit a newborn. Without having my newborn-to-be around as a babydoll just yet, I can vouch for the softness and total cuteness. I appreciate that the clothes snap easily up the front allowing for easy dressing of a floppy baby.

I can also say that I was disappointed that the Bringing home baby kit, for $55, did not come with any pants. Even in California, we need to put the kid in more than just a onesie for a first-car-ride home. Don’t get me wrong… I love the colors, love the styling, and can’t wait to see my baby in the little hat. I just think it’s better to nudge your parents and in-laws in the direction of splurging on these clothes than to spend your own money on them.

I’m just that cheap.