RookieMoms Blog

For my birthday, Ryan bought me a TomTom, a portable GPS navigator system for my car. It’s superfun, and the fact that you can remove it from your car means that if a friend is trying to follow you, you can just give it to them and enter your destination. And, even if you sort of know how to get to your friend’s house way up in the twisty streets of the Berkeley hills, you can turn on your little sidekick, and get some reassurance. Love that.

Real Life Use Case #1: We asked my mom (who does not live near here) to drop us at the Greek Theater in Berkeley and then drive Julian home and put him to bed. Ryan drove the car up there, and then hopped out, set the TomTom to navigate her back to our house, and sent her on her way.

The TomTom shows you an image of the streets you’re on, and after you input your destination, guides you there with a map and audio alerts. Since I love to know how to answer “are we there yet?” I am constantly checking the countdowns on the display to see how many miles are left, how many minutes are left, and what time we are expected to arrive.

Real Life Use Case #2: Scarlett is screaming her head off in the car. I don’t know what to say and cannot think beyond counting down the seconds until we arrive. I glance at the TomTom every few seconds and tell her, “Only 3.8 miles left, Scarlett!”, “We’ll be there in 2 minutes and 55 seconds.” “Please please please stop screaming for the next 75 yards and then we’ll have reached our destination.”

The other cool thing is the POI or Points of Interest database that’s built in. You can navigate to the nearest Zoo, Post Office, or Starbucks.

Real Life Use Case #3: Driving from LA to Berkeley, a six hour journey of which four hours are on a very dull, remote highway, I was able to search for nearest gas stations and be reassured that we were just miles from the next gas station, not minutes from becoming stranded with two tiny children in 115 degree heat in central California.

Best birthday present ever? I think so. Check out the TomTom ONE Portable GPS Vehicle Navigation System on Amazon.com.

We received this helpful message from a local reader, rookie mom Andrea, who’s had varying degrees of luck and rudeness from different bus drivers. She dares to ask the question: Can I leave my child in the baby stroller while on the bus?

Here’s hoping that her research can help at least one other mom struggling to get on the AC Transit buses. The official policy is: The driver should provide you the lift if you ask for it. The driver by policy is not allowed to otherwise assist with the boarding or deboarding of strollers.

She shares with us her letter and some helpful links.

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I’m all choked up watching the final two episodes of Sex and the City. And I’ve seen them before. A few times. More than a few.

I’ve TiVo-saved them to watch whenever I want along with the one where Miranda’s water breaks on Carrie’s shoes and she has her baby.

I was watching the series during afternoon nursing sessions but now the little guy looks around too much so it’s been relegated to be my guilty double-naptime-pleasure. I’m a slurpy hormonal mess and it seemed like it was worth sharing.

File this one under “products I was hoping to really love but that I had such a bad experience with I couldn’t keep quiet.”

The Promise of Brugo is awesome
I first saw it when it was a Yahoo pick. I thought it seemed awesome and I wanted to buy one for my mom’s birthday, for my own birthday, and for everyone else as a go-to gift for ever and ever.

Seriously.

It comes in fun colors, promises a locking mechanism (so I could chuck it in my diaper bag, no doubt), and — most ingeniously — cools hot beverages to the right drinkable temperature with a patented method.

I thought that the tip-and-sip mechanism would work well with my desire to chug a cocoa or mocha before it has time to cool.

I ponied up the $22 it cost and had one of my very first post-partum outings as a drive to the tea shop to buy myself an orange one as soon as they came in stock.

The Execution of Brugo is a huge disappointment
Let me keep this short and sweet:
Locking. A failure, quite leaky.
Sipping. Hard to do.
Cleaning. Near impossible.
Fun color. Yeah, it still looks good.
Price. Ouch. I’m just glad I only got one and not the full case I intended.

What are y’all using out there that’s better and cheaper?

I was trolling around the Internets and decided to play “Thursday Thirteens” but what to write about? I decided it would be fun to capture some of the mystery and magic surrounding Holden’s first (transitional) week of preschool… some of the stuff that will be so old hat in a couple months.

1. Who will open his lunchbox at lunch? I like to assume he won’t just sit there crying.
2. Will he learn to ride a trike before the bigger kids mow him down on the yard? Does he care or is that just me?
3. Will I learn to change a poopy diaper while he is standing (like the teachers can)? Do I have to do this in order to reinforce all that good (included with the price of admission) potty learning? I feel like I need a headlamp, a hose a can of compressed air, and a box of Q-tips to do it without just flipping him over on a changing table.
4. How can we possibly learn how to get out of the house together in the morning? This is a big concern once I start working and when Milo needs to start eating breakfast.
5. The different age classes are named for animals with no apparent rhyme or reason. How am I going to learn all that preschool lingo in time? Is it “slug” before “sloth”? And, really, I guess it doesn’t matter if Holden knows and I don’t and he has to teach me, right?
6. How can a single adult be responsible for the health and happiness of four to six kids when I struggle with my two? What’s wrong with me?
7. What happens if I forget to sign him out again? How does this whole drop off pick up thing work? It looks so smooth as an outsider. Am I an insider now? When will I feel like an insider?
8. Will he be too hot for nap now that I’ve gotten him the totally wrong kind of sleeping bag? I got him the one for 45+ camping rather than 67+ communal naproom sleeping. And how soon will Alec let me buy a new one?
9. Will his placebo lovey (”new Leonard”) and pacifier do the trick for his debut at public napping? I can’t wait for Holden to master the “sleeping on a mat on the floor” skill but I’m skeptical.
10. Do I really have to label everything? I like labeling on a normal day but now I feel like I need to Sharpie his belly before I send him off in the morning.
11. Is he going to pick up a slew of new and bad habits from the alpha boys and girls in his class?
12. Since I’m sending Milo to the same place (starting next week), will I be able to survive the two-small-person size hole in my heart?
13. Will he still love me best?

My household is unusual in that my husband does the clothes shopping. He buys himself clothes and shoes and buys the kids clothes and shoes. Since having become a father, there is no time in his life for driving, parking, and dressing rooms, so he does it all online. Now I’ve left you with the burning question: does he do my clothes shopping for me? No. I buy my own clothes. But, a few times a year, I get surprised by my babies’ daddy with some things he’s bought for me unsolicited, from sneakers to maternity clothes. He has good taste, and is much better than I am at pulling the trigger. I fill up a (virtual) shopping cart and then close the browser, feeling uncertain that I had picked the right things.

“Where,” my mom and mother-in-law always ask, “do you find these things?” So I decided to make a list of my faves for babies and kids.

- We love the Small Paul brand. Find it at LittleBoyChic.com, BlackWagon.com, and OlieBollen.com. Sometimes at Amazon.com.
- Lucky Brand at their own online store always has sale items for babies and kids. I’m guessing our readers will think this is still too expensive, but allow me to remind you, this list is for Grandma.
- Paulina Quintana is also at the boutiques mentioned above. She does the greatest colors for hipster babies.
- Urban Baby Runway finds tiny brands that make baby stuff with rocker and rockabilly themes. If you are the type to dress your baby in black (I am), visit their store.
- Cool Mom Picks finds unique baby stuff and showcases a new pick each day. Just visit this site daily, and you’ll know about all these small manufacturers.
- Little Uni makes supercute personalized tshirts. Not at all cheesy. I LOVE the ones we got for Scarlett and Julian and swear that this is my new go-to baby gift.
- Glug, pictured above, is a local Bay Area brand of simple graphic tees. Find them at some of the same online boutiques mentioned above, plus egiggle.com.
- Soy Baby uses the softest cotton and great color combos. Their site has reasonable prices, too!
- MiniBoden.com has the cutest prints and color combos, superfun tights for girls, and adorable surfer style clothes for boys.
- Kate Quinn is another for your organic clothing wish list. Stylish and simple. Great newborn stuff like the infant sacques shown below.

In the end, however, one of a kind, handmade stuff is my favorite. Look at Etsy and MixtGoods to find jewelry, embellished shirts, and baby clothes. I love these hand-sewn felt baby booties and this toddler hairclip (how exciting that my baby girl has hair!) and these awesome appliqué tops and these delicious sundresses.

When I first heard about the new dad toolbox, I envisioned a real toolbox with actual things a dad might need. And what would those be? Earplugs, pacifiers, chocolate for mama, a razor to keep his stubble at bay, Purell no doubt?

Seeing the picture of the toolkit didn’t really change my expectations much — only now I figured there’d be different stuff in the kit: rubber ducky, baby bottle, baseball mitt, and a pacifier (got one right!).

But no, it’s a DVD. It’s not a box at all.

So I asked myself: Is this going to save new dads from misaligned expectations, general cluelessness, and paralyzing fear? Is this going to help the home of a new baby to be a more harmonious place?

I watched it myself in an afternoon. Armin Brott, AKA Mr. Dad, is giving a lecture to dads-to-be in an old classroom with a chalk board. The dads-to-be look on with interest and hold babydolls. Nobody speaks but Armin Brott. I found the information very helpful but wondered how much it would really benefit a new dad. How much of this does he already know? When would he watch this? When should he watch this?

In my own not-a-dad opinion, I would rather have The Expectant Father: Facts, Tips and Advice for Dads-to-Be or The New Father: A Dads Guide to the First Year (also by Armin Brott) because they would allow me access to the same information without having to devote an entire afternoon to watching it on TV. I could review the chapters as I wanted — with the benefit of the index and TOC — when I wanted. But I’m a new Mom not a Dad. So, I asked my husband, Alec, to watch it.

Having been the recipient of both aforementioned books, I expected Alec to agree with me. But, he didn’t. Nope. He said that it is great to watch a DVD. It doesn’t require as much time or attention as a book (to digest the information). He recommends watching it in five to ten minute chunks over the course of a week.

Rookie Dad Alec liked the overall content (”tons and tons of information”) — especially the bits about anger management and supporting the breastfeeding relationship — but found the lecture format a little dry. He thought was definitely full of topics that expectant dads would have “no clue” about presented in a realistic and calm manner.

The DVD could go further into connecting with a new baby (like you’ll have to really work at it to figure out your baby’s cries and that connection doesn’t always happen right away) and the emotional side of the experience. It’s also too bad the dads in the class aren’t given a voice.

Bottom Line: Rookie Dad recommends the DVD pre-baby (or within the first couple weeks), as a companion to the books - you probably won’t go back and reference this, but it sets a reasonable tone for ‘what to expect’…he suspects that you’d be able to recall 20% of it immediately afterwards, but once the baby is born a lot of it will come back.

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I was given a review copy of this DVD by Parent Bloggers. If you want to pick up this or any other title by Mr. Dad, check out mrdad.com and tell ‘em the rookie moms sent you.

I was just going through some papers sitting on our kitchen counter for the past two months (ok, who am I kidding– six months) and came across a packet of documents we brought home from the hospital. Within the many papers of useless information is a form that I apparently signed during labor. It is called Information and Consent for Vaginal Birth After Cesarean.

So get this. You show up at the hospital after nine months of pregnancy. You are in labor. You are presented with a piece of paper that says that “a successful, uncomplicated vaginal birth after cesarean section carries the lowest risk to both mother and baby”, LOWER THAN A REPEAT C-SECTION, this form says, but that you still must sign the form saying you want one.

I just can’t believe I had to consent to something that was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not. What if I did nothing? What if I just looked at them, pretended to be mute, let the contractions continue to ravage my body, and eventually, within hours, given birth, (even without signing something!)? Would I have broken some rule? Hospital Policy #2501: Do not let babies come out of your vagina without first double opting in via form #47.a Information and Consent for Vaginal Birth After Cesarean.

And, more: this form? It also has a checkbox for “I prefer Elective Repeat Cesarean Section.” So that’s good, right?

We all have choices and many of us will choose C-Section the second time. However… again with the form. The form implies that here you are, at 2 am, three days before your due date, and you might be making the wrong choice. Really, if the baby comes out, how can it be the wrong choice? Hmph.

Before Scarlett was born, I took a little class on preparing for a new sibling. The instructor shared a book list with us. I thought I’d share it with you.

I’m not saying that buying a new book for your child will solve all the challenges you’re about to face juggling two kids, but I do believe it was helpful to set Julian’s expectations about what the baby would be able to do. The Joanna Cole book is the one we read the most.

For your first child:

I’m a Big Sister, I’m a Big Brother by Joanna Cole

What to Expect When the New Baby Comes Home (What to Expect Kids) by Heidi Murkoff and Laura Rader

We Have a Baby by Cathryn Falwell

My New Baby (New Baby Series) by Annie Kubler

The New Baby at Your House by Joanna Cole and Margaret Miller

The Berenstain Bears and Baby Makes Five (First Time Books(R)) by Stan and Jan Berenstain

Mr. Rogers New Baby (First Experiences) by Fred Rogers

For the parents:

Twice Blessed: Everything You Need To Know About Having A Second Child– Preparing Yourself, Your Marriage, And Your Firstborn For A New Family Of Four

From One Child to Two by Judy Dunn

Welcoming Your Second Baby by Vicky Lansky

And Baby Makes Four : Welcoming a Second Child into the Family by Hilary Wagner