Her first face

Z drew a picture of her baby sister today, the first drawing she's made that's recognizable as a person. And the one she did after this one was even better!

Pretending she's backsliding

We've been warned that older siblings are likely to backslide on potty training and resent the new baby, but so far Z's reactions, all of which have happened as we cuddle before bed, have been all talk...and remarkably inconsistent.

Z: Who did we give my diapers to?
Me: Mari and Leo.
Z: And Vi-Vi too?
Me: I guess so.
Z: I want them back. Let's get my diapers back.
Me: But you're potty trained. And you're going to go to school. Besides, I'm sure they've been used by now.
Z: I don't want to be potty trained and go to school. Let's ask Daddy to buy me some diapers at the store.
Me: I don't think so.
Z: I need to go pee-pee. In the potty.


Z: I don't want a baby sister anymore.
Me: Baby A is here to stay. We love both our girls.
Z: I don't want her to be here.
Me: What do you want her to go?
Z: I want to throw her away.
Me: But just minutes ago you were giving her hugs and kisses.
Z: Let's go give her night-night kisses!

CPGs pretty up for sales

I've always been a sucker for great packaging (Method cleaners, I how I love thee), and now consumer packaged goods companies are taking their product packaging seriously in an attempt to drive sales. Check out this article in the NY Times.

She's a keeper

I'm almost afraid to write this for fear of jinxing myself, but Baby A slept all night last night. And not just the five hours that some baby care manuals define as "sleeping through the night." No, she slept straight through from 10pm until 5:45am. In her crib. In her room.

Bliss, baby, bliss.

Could it be the perfect baby carrier?

I have a love-hate affair with both my baby carriers. The Over the Shoulder Baby Holder padded sling is cute but my back hurts after wearing it for more than 30 minutes. Franny loaned me her Baby Bjorn Active, which is an improvement over the classic Bjorn but not entirely perfect.

Enter the Hug-a-Bub. I'd seen my friend and ubermom Deb wear her daughter in it for hours, so I dropped her an email asking if could give it a try. Later this afternoon it was sitting on my front porch. I put A down for a nap in her crib and popped in the instructional DVD. Low and behold, just as the movie gets to the part about putting in the baby, A cries out (I guess she wanted in). I placed her in the carrier and she's been sleeping peacefully in it ever since.

More importantly, I'm comfortable wearing her. Perhaps this will be our sanity tonight. Last night an overtired, distraught A fussed and refused to fall asleep until close to 11pm.

Just a garden variety malapropism

Said Z this morning, "Can I bring my swimsuit that's a zucchini to Adriana's house? My zucchini is kind of like underpants."

You can't stop the beat

Gloria and I took our babies to a showing of Hairspray today. It's the first time I've taken a baby to the movies and only the second time I've taken a child (we took Z to see Ratatouille a month ago).

Relatively speaking, it was a piece of cake. I left the car seat and stroller in the car and put her in the sling for the walk to the theatre. Once inside, I loosened the sling so she was cradled in my lap. She wanted to nurse through the previews, but slept through 95 percent of the film. I missed one song-and-dance number to change a diaper, but otherwise I was able to enjoy the movie from my seat. My friend was not as lucky: her 2 month old wanted her up and moving so she spent most of the time standing in the back of the theatre.

As for the movie, it was pretty good. Cheesy as expected, but enjoyable. I really liked the art direction and costumes. And John Travolta? That man has no shame.

It's hot...

And the humidity is no picnic either. Stay cool everyone.

Postpartum fashion: What I'm wearing right now

It probably isn't a lot of fun to design clothes for the postpartum gal. We've got massive breasts, saggy stomachs and our hips and asses are wider than ever. We need quick and easy access to said breasts and with piles of soggy onesies, you better believe we're not prepared to deal with dry cleaning or ironing. And since spit-up a daily--sometimes hourly--occurrence, our clothes must be wash and wear. If they can disguise stains with ease, all the better!

And did I mention we don't want to look like whales any longer? At three weeks postpartum, I've still got 15lbs to lose, but I'm down 25lbs from my delivery date and I don't want to look at my maternity clothes any more, much less wear them. I don't want to be mistaken for knocked up, thank you very much!

So last week I packed my new addition into her stroller and walked across Oak Park to Majamas (909 S Lombard Ave., 708-524-9668), maker of cute clothes for new moms. They've expanded into maternity wear, but what really distinguishes this local gem is their nursing clothes. They make cute tank tops, shirts and dresses with built in flaps and support that make nursing bras redundant. You can breastfeed discreetly without worrying about positioning a blanket over your kid's head and, best of all, the poochy stomach stays under wraps. I wear my Majamas gear--particularly my three dresses--more than anything else these days. They're comfortable, stylish and effortless. And they're built with the new mom's body in mind.

As Baby A grows, I trust I'll continue to shrink. And perhaps then I'll have the guts to try on regular clothes in a regular store. Until then, I'll just thank my lucky stars that this cool company is headquartered in my home town.

Second time moms weigh in

I posted about my weekend as a Lollapalooza widow on the Chicago Moms Blog and solicited advice from more experienced mothers of two. Check out all the great advice from women who've BTDT.

What a mom wants

Nearly all of my mom friends had their second baby before A arrived, so they really know how to treat a new mom the second time around. Last weekend Gloria let Z spend the afternoon at her house so I could attend BlogHer and last night Julie saved my sanity by taking her to a concert in the park for an hour and a half with her daughter. During which I made dinner and jiggled a fairly fussy baby without whiny interruptions. And then, when the hot, sweaty, overstimulated girls returned, Julie held baby A while I bathed Z.

Lollapalooza is over, so the next few days should be a piece of cake.

Welcome to the witching hour

With Josh pressing the flesh at Lollapalooza all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I'm learning what it's like to take care of two kids at once--all by myself. During the day it isn't so bad, but last night's bedtime routine was a disaster. Baby A fussed continuously from 7:15 until 9:45, and I had to squeeze Z's bath, tooth-brushing, pajamas, stories and cuddles in between the screams. By the end of the evening my breasts and all stores of patience were sucked completely dry.

Another massive recall

Cheap jewelry, Thomas the Tank Engine trains and now this. Mattel is recalling nearly 1 million popular toys due to lead paint. I'll bet you can guess where the dangerous toys were manufactured.

Check this list of recalled toys and make sure none of the Dora, Elmo or Cookie Monster playthings are in your home.

Can we say enough already?

Feeding on demand

My 2 week old daughter is on a feeding schedule. Not one I've imposed, mind you. Rather, she's ready to eat when I'm...
a) Sitting down to any meal, preferably a hot one
b) About to accomplish a task with my older daughter, be it giving her a bath, reading her bedtime stories (which can be done with a nursing baby), or taking her to daycare
c) Pulling onto the highway or stuck in traffic in a sketchy neighborhood

But when I hear her grunt and fuss in the middle of the night and I turn a light on and feel my boobs start to leak as I sneak over to her bassinet? Then she's fast asleep.

Sisterly love

While we've had a few "Mommy, pretend I'm a baby" moments, Z is already showing real tenderness for her baby sister.

BlogHer download

So, what was BlogHer like? It wasn't the exclusive gathering of hipper-than-thou bloggers I feared it might be. While there were a couple of celebrity mommybloggers on hand, most of the women I met were there for the same reasons I was: to meet the faces behind the writing on our favorite blogs and learn a little bit about how we can improve our game. And it was a lot more diverse than I anticipated. Instead of a bunch of hipsters with red hair and cute laptop bags, there were women from 16-65. Some were professional bloggers, some wrote crafting or cooking blogs. At least two blogged on behalf of nonprofits. Still others hadn't even started a blog yet!

I attended a few sessions on the Business of You and learned that while I'm probably not going to make a fortune from online advertising, I'm too ethically driven to head down the pay-per-post route.

But I learned about other professional opportunities available to bloggers. Some are freelancing as corporate bloggers, some are parlaying their expertise into speaking gigs, and others are expanding their blogs into books. I also heard again and again that the best bloggers--like the best brands--are micro-targeted, covering a particular subject or intersection of subjects in depth.

Which has me thinking. I started this blog as a reflection of myself: a marketer and a mommy. I didn't do it to advance my career, but it has given me insights I've been able to apply to my work and my clients. Do I continue in this line, flitting from product review to customer service rant to birth story, in spite of what I've learned at BlogHer? Do I start a more professional blog that focuses exclusively on marketing to moms and cultivate my reputation as an expert in the field?

Tough questions to wrestle with, huh? Good thing I've got great swag to distract me. Two enormous bags of swag, half from the conference and half from my connections at the Chicago Moms Blog. My favorite items? Chicago Moms Blog and VOX t-shirts (neither of which will likely fit until I quit breastfeeding), The BabyCenter Essential Guide to Your Baby's First Year, FLAVORit medicine flavoring kit, CleanWell natural hand sanitizer, Jif Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter, Innobaby's Packin Smart baby snack stacker, the BusyBodyBook calendar/organizer and a ScrapBlog onesie for A.

I'm stuck on Mabel's labels

Z starts Montessori preschool this fall, and her supply list arrived in the mail along with a snack list and a stack of medical and dental authorization forms. In addition to requesting specific brand name colored and #2 pencils (sharpened please!), a box of tissues (white Kleenex brand!), 2 pocket folders (make sure they're blue!), slippers (Crocs are okay!) and two sets of extra clothing in marked boxes, we have been instructed to make sure everything is labeled indelibly with her name.

Easier said than done. I've discovered that masking tape is a one-day deal and Sharpie marks disappear when you run a sippy cup through the dishwasher. And in this age of tagless t-shirts, where am I supposed to write my daughter's name?

Enter Mabel's Labels. The company, founded by four equally frustrated Canadian moms, makes a variety of different personalized labels. They sent me a sample of their classic sticky labels, which I pasted onto Z's sippy cups and sent along to daycare. Two weeks of daily trips through the dishwasher, and none of the labels are any worse of the wear. Even our daycare provider is impressed!

Mabel's also makes classic iron-on labels for clothing, as well as a stick-on clothing label for the parent too time-pressed for pressing. Container Store fanatics will go nuts for the household label packages; there's a set for crafters, one for cord control and neat freak kit that lets you put a colorful, cute label every last one of those spice jars and 30 gallon plastic tubs.

I haven't caught the cutesy labeling bug, so I'll leave my storage bins marred with masking tape. But I will be ordering clothing and shoe labels before September comes.

Not without my doula

Check out my Chicago Moms Blog post on how Tricia has got me singing the praises of doulas to everymommy.

It's blogtastic

It's going to take me a little while to comb through my swag bags, digest everything I learned at the panel discussions and check out links to the all bloggers I've met, but I'm happy to say I made it BlogHer with a newborn and a mild case of bronchitis!

One week old Baby A was a super conference attendee (and by far the youngest one there). With her on my lap, there was no possiblity of live blogging the event, but I think she successfully igniting baby lust in all the women who came over to admire her. Perhaps we'll see a BlogHer baby boom in 9 months?

Anyway, check out Beth's pics from last night's Chicago Moms Blog/Silicon Valley Moms Blog pre-BlogHer party.

Gasp, BlogHer's almost here!

The world's coolest female bloggers are descending on my fair city for the BlogHer conference tomorrow, and honestly I'm a little bit panicked. It's intimidating enough to see my favorite bloggers in the flesh and potentially talk to women I've only communicated with via comments sections and email, but socializing and attending panel discussions just one week after giving birth? It feels crazy.

Baby A is a boobaholic and we've given the old Over the Shoulder Baby Holder a dry run, but neither of us has that cool nursing on the go know-how that comes when the kid can latch on by herself and--I don't know--hold up her own head! I'm afraid all anyone will remember of me from BlogHer is my nipples. Plus, do I bring a stroller? It seems like too much bulk, but I'm afraid I'm going to look like a bag lady if I try to juggle an infant, a sling, a diaper bag full of clothing changes and try to collect business cards, product samples and tchotckes. (There will be samples and tchotckes, right? It is a conference after all.)

But before the conference gets going, I get to have dinner with my fellow Chicago Moms Bloggers as well as many of the contributors to the Silicon Valley Moms Blog. I'm sure I'll look really cool and put together what with my poochy postpartum tummy and enormous, leaky breasts. What am I wearing? Whatever fits and camouflages spit-up.