RookieMoms Blog

I work in an office with lots of women. Invariably, one of them buys a very fancy chocolate bar for the office to share in the afternoon. Each person breaks off a square or a row of chocolate and somehow it falls to me (the nursing mom?) to finish it off.

I’m not sure how I’ll squeeze my way into new hot mama jeans at this rate, but it sure is a nice tradition. It got me thinking of my favorite snacks and desserts:

1. Hot drinking chocolate from Sketch — now, tragically, in the midst of a remodel
2. Any kind of mocha latte cookie or our own chocolate chip oatmeal — a near-nightly event
3. Any molten chocolate souffle thingie — they used to have an amazing one at Scharffen Berger
4. Oreos and cool whip — every afternoon in high school
5. Creme brulee — cracking glaze with vanilla bean flecks and no bizarre fruit infusion
6. Ben and Jerry’s coffee coffee buzz buzz buzz or vanilla heath bar crunch
7. Chocolate won tons — AKA “pillows of heaven” from the now defunct Tin Pan in SF
8. 10 sugar cookies — almost every school day in lieu of lunch I’m ashamed to admit (sorry mom!)
9. Chocolate cupcakes with white or pink butter cream frosting from Teacake or Bette’s
10. My wedding cake — which we polished off in less than a week by eating at every meal
11. Junior mints — I’m not all fancy
12. Strawberry shortcake with real whipped cream — Heidi’s recipe
13. Hot apple pie with vanilla ice cream — still seeking the best in Berkeley

See more silly and serious lists at thursdaythirteen.com or make your own.

If you have spent any time with Heather in the past seven months, you are familiar with her stopwatch. She appears to be a normal person, but as soon as she puts Milo to her breast, she reaches over to her wrist and starts the timer. It’s all one fell swoop, the feeding of the baby and the starting of the watch. She says that this action is the embodiment of a geeky girl turned sleep-deprived mom. She transfers the info to a piece of paper later, and although I could never ever keep up with this system myself, it was pretty handy when I paged through it to see when Milo’s sleep began consolidating in order to remind myself that Scarlett was doing ok. (By the way, Scarlett slept through the night until 7 this morning, so, other mothers of three month-olds, go on and start hating me now.)

A month or so ago, I realized how blurry my days had become. I had absolutely no clue if it had been an hour or three hours since Scarlett’s last feeding, or if her nap was seven minutes or seventy minutes, or if, worse, she had been awake for seven straight hours. I bought myself this little device - the Itzbeen baby timer. I have not made a habit of using it consistently, but I used it a lot for a couple of weeks. Even though it’s been sitting on my shelf for a month unused now, I recommend it. Here’s why:

1) Simplicity of use. Start nursing? Press button with picture of bottle. Timer has started.
2) Belt clip. Keep it near you so that when you do one of the actions it measures - feed, diaper change, jiggle to sleep, you can press the button. I don’t like to wear things on my pants, but when I’m out and about and most likely to lose track of time, I can clip it to the inside of my diaper bag so it doesn’t fall to the bottom.
3) Great price. At $25, this is a good gift for your not best friend. Put it on your registry and someone will be excited about buying it for you.
4) Extra “wild card” button. Need to time something else? There is an extra button, with an asterisk icon.

Use cases that make this worth owning:

1) Sharing childcare responsibility. Keep the timers up to date before handing baby off to a grandmother and you don’t need to answer a battery of questions: When was she last changed? How long has she been awake? When did she last eat? Tell grandma to press the bottle button when she gives her a bottle, and you’ll be on track when you get the baby back.

2) Too many things to remember. Need to take motrin every three hours, nurse the baby every two hours, vicodin every six hours, and make sure baby gets put back to sleep within any two hour time period? Assign one of the buttons to your pain meds, and track everything else with the existing buttons.

Finally, a criticism:
I’m not always going to remember to push the button. But, if I do remember forty minutes later, I wish I could somehow back time stamp the activity. It’s simply not helpful if I glance at the timer, see that baby was last fed 2:09 ago and then have to add 12 minutes because I didn’t press the button until I got out of the shower.

And a wish:
If there could be a summary at the end of the day to report 9 feedings, 7 naps, 8 diapers, it would be super fun.

That’s the upside of Heather’s system. I envy her dedication.

Find it at Amazon: Coast Innovations Itzbeen Baby Care Timer

Once upon a time I met Alec and we dated and never fought. I was cute but not very trendy; on our first date I had the cutest shoes that were shiny, boxy, red loafers. And that was five years ago.

Since being sucked into the vortex of baby then children, I’m lucky if my clothes are clean.

For the past almost-three weeks, I have been back to work. And I just have to say: I have nothing to wear.

Here are some examples of my semi-tragic state of being:

• Just yesterday, I tried on my (very thin) friend’s maternity 7 jeans. They finally fit me. My youngest is seven months old and I am not pregnant. They’re the cutest jeans I own.
• Shoes. All my shoes have to be kicked off to get in and out of the house and in and out of the preschool (sometimes while wearing a baby). I have very few options and they’re not very fashionable.
• My maternity clothes (jeans notwithstanding) are probably the most current things I have right now since almost everything else is a good five year’s old.
• All my normal shirts are still half-shirts.

Ok, confessions aside, I kinda don’t know how to solve the problem. I want to be cute and stylish but I don’t want to spend a ton of money. I like Susan Wagner’s The Working Closet column but even that seems like too much reading.

Can someone please turn me in to a makeover show like What not to wear?

One thing I like is that being cheap and being green can go hand in hand. Unfortunately, being lazy doesn’t always. Here are some little things you can do without a ton of effort.

1. don’t take an ATM receipt
2. turn off the tap when you brush your teeth
3. bring reusable bags to the grocery store if you can remember
4. use a travel coffee mug instead of the paper ones - just carry it with you
5. throw a clothing swap
6. try swaptree to get rid of books you don’t want and get some new ones
7. buy or borrow the green book for hundreds of simple ideas big and small
8. get and use cloth napkins
9. make use of goodwill, freecycle, and craigs list to keep your crap out of the landfill
10. buy local toys
11. use greener cleaning products
12. make baby food or buy big jars of organic applesauce or containers of full-fat yogurt
13. walk, bike, use the internet (good job!)

See more silly and serious lists at thursdaythirteen.com or make your own.

Every year it’s fun to hear what gets added to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Examples from this year:

aerobicized or aerobicised
adj. (of a person’s body) toned by aerobic exercise: aerobicized Hollywood women.

crunk
n. a type of hip-hop or rap music characterized by repeated shouted catchphrases and elements typical of electronic dance music, such as prominent bass.
adj. US, chiefly black slang (of a person) very excited or full of energy.
– origin 1990s: perh. an alt. past part. of crank1 or a blend of crazy and drunk.

I heard both of these mommy-centric terms at postnatal yoga this week and loved them. Wonder if they’ll every make it into the big book.

Postpartum Pudding
n. Jello-like belly that a new birth mother is left with when the baby leaves her body. Typically lasts for nine to twelve months, with the first two months being the most extreme.

Hip-hop diaper
n. 1. Multiple inches of visible diaper sticking out over a toddler’s sagging pants 2. a more dangerous situation, a diaper that is exposing crack. On a newborn, this will definitely lead to what’s known universally as a “blow-out”, requiring use of the often forgotten back-up outfit and a plastic bag or two.

Fooey sale alert! Friends, this stuff is totally cute and at reasonable prices you don’t typically see at indie boutiques. In fact, the homepage promises that nothing’s over fifteen dollars. This awesome octopus-playing-instruments tshirt is ten bucks. As a mom of a boy, I am so over the truck-train-sports-themed-dog appliqued clothing. Bring on the creative screenprinted baby clothes!

This faux argyle t-shirt brought to my attention by My Mom Shops. Girl stuff at fooey includes tank dresses and peasant-style tunics with hand-drawn style animals.

Whitney has tagged me to join in the 8 Random Facts About Me meme. Well, not really but I wanna play too.

First, the Rules:

1) Post these rules before you give your facts

2) List 8 random facts about yourself

3) At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them

4) Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged

And now… my facts:

1. I have been living in the Bay Area for 10 years now. I thought for sure I’d be gone after four.
2. I hate mangoes. Hate all stone fruits. Ick. Must have been all those canned peaches I was offered as a little girl. But I make sure that Holden eats lots of good fresh California fruit and doesn’t share my aversion.
3. I am co-writing a book, due out in April 2008. I can hardly wait to see and feel the weight of it.
4. I love to have my toenails painted but I hate to have my fingernails painted.
5. I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
6. Breakfast is my favorite meal to eat out at a restaurant. As a mom, I like to get there right at 8am and beat the crowds, celebrating my status as an early riser.
7. I can’t dive in a swimming pool. I’ve always been afraid to learn.
8. So far, I’ve only not been pregnant or nursing for six weeks of my marriage. Yikes.

And I tag you:

Crystal or Harry from Hello Harry
Adrienne from BabyToolkit
Mike from Cry it out: Adventures of a stay at home dad
Lawyer Mama
Mama Tulip
SusieJ
Gretchen from the Happiness Project (if it would make you happy)
Dawn from Because I Said So