Sprinkle Sprinkle Little Star

Early in this pregnancy, I mused about having a shower for second babies. Wow, there are a lot of opinions about this! One friend was candid enough to say, "You're not supposed to because it means you're greedy."

Well perceptions be damned! I went ahead and had a shower for this baby but we didn't call it a Shower. We called it a Sprinkle... as in the mommy is given a "sprinkling" of gifts that the baby might need.

In my family, we always threw showers for every baby, first or fourth. So naturally I wanted one too but I was also nervous what people might think of me. In hindsight, I could care less. My new baby deserves the same "ooohing" and "aaaahing" that my oldest had. So we Sprinkled!

Some suggested that I not register. Well, that seemed a bit silly and semantical to me too. Why split hairs? If we are doing a gift-giving event, can't I choose a few things that I want for this baby the same way I did for the first? Nathalee has gone the more PC route and created an Amazon Wishlist, which is the same concept. Her new baby needs things. Shouldn't she be able to choose the right ones?

When we sent out invitations, I wondered if our guests would understand the name of the event. They figured it out. Most people brought small items like burp cloths and toys, which are much appreciated, and told me that they understood the concept. 

We had games and prizes and food, much like my first shower. We also had activities for the kids because there were a lot more toddlers present this time around - including all the BabyBetas!

I printed some blank onesies and bought crayons and stickers for the kids to decorate and that was a hit. An even bigger hit were Annie's Cheddar Bunnies. The BabyBetas couldn't get enough of these! My mom called them the star of the party!

My sister and I had found these really cute favors on Pinterest that inspired us to make bags of popcorn that said, "Ready to pop." My sister made homemade kettle corn and we handed them out to guests as they left. 

My stepmother made a punch with rubber ducks floating in it - another Pinterest find! And we ordered Mexican food and a red velvet cake at my request - one of the main reasons I wanted a party in the first place!! After all, what is the fun of being pregnant, if you can't have some cake to celebrate??

So second (or third, fourth, fifth) time mommies, reject the convention that says you can't have a party for subsequent pregnancies. Of course you can! Anyone who finds that offensive is not your friend! You have a new person coming into this world and that new person deserves celebration in the same spirit that your first child was celebrated. So I hereby say: "Let them have cake!"

Is Sugar Toxic?

A very worthy watch from this week's 60 Minutes: 

While I agree that added sugar is very bad, I am also weary of over-villifying one nutrient over another because it leads us towards over emphasizing others. The low-fat craze is one example of that: it led us towards insane foods like fat-free Entenmann's cakes that we thought we could eat with impunity. 

I think a better use of our efforts for our children and for ourselves would be to avoid processed foods, rather than just sugar-laden foods. This will naturally lead us away from sugar and other genetically modified substances we call "food."

Still, it is shocking to see the science behind what sugar alone does to us. I don't really buy foods with sugar and now I know why! Read those labels, fellow mommies and daddies! It DOES make a difference! 

Win it! Dropcam (AKA The Coolest Baby Monitor Ever!)

UPDATE: Congratulations to Susan, our winner of the Dropcam! Thank you all for entering! This week we are giving away a diaper pail and other goodies from Munchkin and Arm & Hammer. Enter here!

This week's giveaway is a Dropcam! This is my favorite non-baby baby monitor and you need have no baby to win it!

Dropcam hooks up to your home broadband connection and allows you to login to  your camera from anywhere at any time. When I am at work, I sign in to my camera and see Baby Mo with his Daddy or nanny. When I am on the go, I can open the app to see the same thing through free smartphone apps for iPhone and Android.

Dropcam also functions like your home DVR in that you can go back in time to see what has gone on in your home throughout the day. You can then take that footage and download it if you'd like, such as the video embeddd in this post - a 30-second clip that I took from our Dropcam that points towards our driveway.

You can also invite friends and family to your camera's feed so that they can see what is going on in your house - although we have elected not to do this. My husband Clayton made it a point to say, "Don't go sharing these camera feeds with our families! It's weird!" I tend to agree, I don't need my family casually watching the goings on in our living room.

I selected Dropcam as my main baby monitor instead of one of the specifically-designed baby monitors because of all of these awesome extra features. And you don't have to be a tech journalist to use this. It is the easiest thing to set up, believe me! Take it out of the box, plug it in, log into the Website, and type in the code that comes clearly printed on a card in the packaging. I promise you will be able to use this! And ladies, your man will be SUPER impressed with you when you send him an invite to your Webcam from work!

We are thrilled to be giving one of these away to a lucky winner this week! The product retails for $199 but you will get it for free if you are our winner. Here is how:

• Like us on Facebook.
• Post a comment in the comments section of this blog post (not on Facebook) about how you currently monitor your baby/home/spouse/dog/shoe collection/whatever. And if you don't currently use any kind of home monitoring, tell us why you want this and what you plan to monitor. Again, no babies required! 
• Like Dropcam on Facebook. Not required for entry but worth doing anyway!

Contest rules are here. This contest ends on Thursday, April 14 at 11:59 p.m. EST. Good luck!

Mommying The Mommies

Before I was a mother, I never visited a mommy blog. I might have even thought that that they were obnoxious.

A friend recently wrote me inquiring about the value of the mommy blog for non-mommies. I thought it was a very sensitive question coming from a woman who is not yet a mother. I would never have asked that before I had a baby!

In hindsight, I don't think I was sensitive to people who had babies before I became a parent. I had no concept of how hard it could be and I thought that people who talked incessantly about parenting were self absorbed and unilateral. It was a snooty attitude, I admit.

When I told my mother I was going to have a baby, one of the first things she said was: "This will humanize you." I like to think that my brilliant mother was right.

I started this blog, not because I thought that my own procreation story would be so fascinating, but because I wanted to join a community that I knew could help me figure out what parenting is about. That is still my motivation for writing here. It has been so helpful that I think I owe the collective mommy blogosphere an apology for my bad attitude when I was single and childless. 

So back to my friend's question. If you are not insensitive like I was and really do care about helping out your friends who are parents, here is how you can make yourself useful.

• Come to me. It is hard for me to get out of the house, with or without baby. Come over. Bring snacks. Or invite me somewhere close to my house. The Lower East Side is just too far and Brooklyn, forgetaboutit!
• Offer exercise dates. I have a pretty fancy City Mini stroller and it needs mileage. Ask me to go on a walk with baby. I'll go!
• Grande skim chai tea latte. That's my preferred Starbucks order. Hint, hint.
• Mani/pedi babysit dates. Oh how I would love you if you came over during nap time and sat with Baby Mo while I went for a mani/pedi, massage, or shopping trip.
• Tell me about you. Don't let me monopolize the conversation with talk of diapers and poop. I am probably bored of it myself but I just don't hear myself droning on about these insipid stories. Butt in. Tell me about you. Break the spell a little. 
• Don't invite me to things that start at 9 p.m. I'll feel guilty because there is no way that I'll be able to stay awake for an event like that. I'm pretty much a babbling idiot after 8:15 p.m. and am sound asleep by 9:30 p.m.
• Clean my house. This is only for family or Friends with a capital F. Casual friends should not do this but when my mother and sister cleaned my apartment a week after Baby Mo was born, I cried tears of joy. The housework will swallow you whole during motherhood. If you are really close with a new mommy, help her clean up a little. She will love you forever.

This is all I could come up with for now. Other moms, anything to add?

Cloth Diapers: YES! Cloth Wipes: NO!

Last fall I committed to 30 days of cloth diapering. Three months later, we are still going with no intention of going back to 'sposies! I am a proud CDer!

But we are not CD purists. We use disposable wipes. Gasp!

The diaper companies that supported my cloth diaper trial sent us enough cloth wipes to last through Baby Mo's diapering life but I did not try them right away. I had just as many questions about cloth wiping as I did about cloth diapering so I waited a few weeks. I figured we would try cloth diapers first, cloth wipes next, and if we got crazy, maybe even family cloth.

Actually no, I'm kidding. There is no way I could talk my husband into family cloth. This means that the whole family uses cloth wipes, diapers or otherwise. Props to those that do it! I love Mother Earth but not enough to handle and wash my own poop.

After about a month of cloth diapering, we were ready to try the wiping. I watched this video about storing cloth wipes in a pop-up dispenser and bought a spray bottle. They just did not work for us. They smeared the stool around baby's behind without really getting it clean, even if we used a spray bottle to lubricate. Also, I started to notice Baby Mo had a small rash. Whether it was directly related to the wipes, I can't say for sure but the wiping experience was unpleasant enough not to find out.

I'm now using our huge stash of cloth wipes to clean spit up and baby's goupy cheeks during meals. I have more than I'll ever need so if anyone is interested in unused but washed cloth wipes, they're all yours!

So my cloth wipe trial was a big fat fail but my cloth diaper trial was an overall success! I am still SO glad we did this! CDer for life! Meanwhile, I hope the environmental purists will forgive me for using disposable wipes. It's like my dad used to say: "No one is perfect but we try to do a lot of things right."