GETTING BACK ON THE HORSE, CONFESSION OF A ROOKIE MOM’S night OUT

It was Mama’s night out and you have no idea how badly I needed it.

My husband,Tyler, had just returned from being out of town for work and would be leaving again in a few days. I love my baby, don’t get me wrong, but being alone with a 7-week old, around the clock, tends to make me a little crazy, so I jumped at the chance for a night out before the hubs left town again.

Tyler and I made a decision to do dinner and drinks with friends. That alone wasn’t going to be enough to satisfy my craving for adult interaction though so I made a decision to take it up a notch.

You see, I pointed out I had a 7 week old. That indicates that I had recently had my 6-week check up with my midwife (while my spouse was out of town). As I’m assuming you mommies know what that means….the all clear for sexy time.

But here’s the thing: just because your doctor says you can “do it” doesn’t indicate you (A) feel like it or (B) could find the time even if you wanted to.

But my husband, God bless him, deserved it. He hardly bugged me once over the course of the 6 weeks after our daughter, Piper, was born (probably because I told him to go take matters into his own hands). I felt like it was time to give him the best 30 seconds of his life.

So what did I do…..?

I paid for sex

No, not like that you weirdo. who do you think I am?

You see, I had figured out that getting busy with my spouse was hard to make happen at our house. Our kid fusses like crazy in the evenings (holy witching hour). By the time that is over, I’m exhausted and the last thing on my mind is bumping uglies.

And while we’ve gotten a babysitter before, she pertains to our house and it would just be odd to run off into another room (though the thought has crossed my mind).

So, I made a decision to get a hotel room. for what [turned out to be] around 30 minutes. $110 hotel room, 30 minutes, that’s $3.67 a minute (not including taxes)!

My “night out” started out “normally”. We met up with our pals  (also parents of a young one) and I had my first Moscow Mules. In a year. and yes, they were delicious.

The pals that we met up with are pregnant with their 2nd child, so naturally the conversation centered a lot around babies. It’s funny how that happens. I’ve turned into “that woman”. before I had a kid I hated talking about other peoples kids for a lot more than five minutes.

But what about the sex?

I had made a decision the day prior that I was going to do this whole hotel thing. However, planning this stuff is difficult with this newly acquired kid.

We have our babysitter for a limited amount of time and I’m going to need to pump at some point. So instead of eating dinner at my favorite restaurant downtown and then driving across town to a hotel, I just shortened the whole thing. I booked dinner reservations at a restaurant that also happens to be in a hotel (I’m efficient!). considering that it’s a restaurant we’ve eaten at, it wasn’t suspicious to my husband.

Now, it absolutely wasn’t as good of a restaurant as my normal downtown favorite, but I got to eat a hot meal and there was no baby crying. So I’ll take it.

After dinner I busted out a room crucial and gave it to my husband. Boy, he was ecstatic (and surprised!).

Without going into too lots of details, it was absolutely better than I expected. but still slightly painful.

We checked in around 8:00 and made it home by 9:00 with a quick stop at Trader Joe’s on the way home.

Was it the most romantic thing I’ve experienced? probably not. However, often you just got to jump back on the horse. You see if you weren’t hungry, you’d still eat at some point during the day. Well this is kind of the same thing. now that we’ve got that out of the way, I’m sure there will be much less anxiety about future “sessions.”

It was fun, it was refreshing, it was exactly what I needed.

Now I want to hear from you! In the comments below I’d love to hear your best idea for keeping the romance alive post-baby. We could all use some inspiration!

A poor MAN’S PHIL & TED STROLLER

I just saw that mod*mom and our pals at Babyccino have been blogging about the Phil & Ted stroller, the slickest buggy around for a two-kid family.

Both Heather and I debated whether this was a (major) purchase we needed as we had our second babies. We both made a decision to skip it, although it sure does look nice. Instead, we usually wore the small baby in a Bjorn and pushed the toddler in a stroller.

Pic by wayne

As the small baby got too big for the Bjorn, s/he got promoted to the stroller and the little dudes had to walk.

Then one day Julian made a decision he would get in the undercarriage of my cheap-o universal stroller, and we both loved it! It is so much faster to get two kids from a city vehicle parking space to a destination two blocks away (in San Francisco, two blocks distance is considered a pretty good vehicle parking space) when I am not counting on the little man walking on his own two feet. Julian says that it’s his clubhouse.

Who needs Phil & Ted?

PAINT YOUR expecting belly FOR THE holiday

When I saw this photo of Caley’s belly on her blog, I laughed as well as asked her to explain what she’d done.

She wrote:

After visiting the pumpkin patch a couple of weeks back as well as having a complete stranger comment that I’d “better pay for that pumpkin being smuggled under [my] shirt! Ha, ha!” I decided, Why not? I’ve seen TLC’s A infant story a gajillion times as well as they’re always doing things like belly casts or painting their bellies, as well as I didn’t do anything like that with my very first pregnancy. I figured it’d make a adorable picture, as well as be something fun to do with my toddler.

The safest paint to utilize is an FDA approved, water-based paint. any type of paint identified as “face paint” should work, as well as you can get them at Target or Walmart or such. Or you can go with some type of “professional” paint, such as this one. (However, I’m not an professional on paints, so don’t quote me on this. This site has some great tips; like it says, just since a paint states “non-toxic” does not mean it is risk-free for skin!) Or you might just purchase a kit.

My hubby put the orange paint around my belly with a sponge, as well as since we only bought the one color (I wasn’t going to buy a separate container of brown just for a bit part like the stem), I provided him permission to do the stem as well as the lines with washable Crayola markers. My toddler, on the other hand, desired absolutely nothing to do with our bit job as well as busied himself by getting into things while both his parents were occupied. So much for bonding over household Craft Time, right?

I washed the paint off soon after taking a picture, however faint Crayola lines stayed for a day or so, just to remind me of exactly how pumpkin-esque my belly truly is.

Thank you, Caley! as well as congratulations on ending up being a foursome!

THE story BEHIND OUR PUMPKIN patch photo {ROOKIE moms challenge #36}

The Challenge: get A Pumpkin Photo

Back in 2009, when I first met my now husband, Eric, he was playing banjo for a bluegrass band in Connecticut; one of our first weekends together he took me to see a show, and the leader of the band said, “You better not take him back to long Island for good!” We had just started dating, so it was slightly embarrassing…but low and behold, 5 months later we moved in together, on long Island.

Five years later, we decided it was time to head back to the vineyard and see the old band; luckily, our visit to Connecticut was during the harvest Festival! We were excited to introduce Weston to everyone, eat some BBQ, and see pumpkins. On the ride to the vineyard it dawned on me that this was the perfect time to complete Rookie moms challenge #36, take a pumpkin photo! Heather and Whitney claim that you can’t take a bad photo in a pumpkin patch, and I’m going to one-up them and claim that you can’t take a bad photo in the Autumn! The green grass, the leaves, the perfect setting sun…everyone looks their best (even with BBQ sauce all over their face!).

Mommy’s little Extrovert

Weston was a dream baby in the long automobile ride, and once we got out at the vineyard, his eyes opened wide: children, pumpkins, llamas! We met up with Eric’s old band, and it felt wonderful to finally introduce the little one to people who knew us back when we were newly dating. We planted ourselves right near the band and got some delicious pulled pork to eat for lunch. Weston happily sat in his stroller, pushed up against the table (highchair hack), and when the band started to play, he clapped and shouted like a regular!

However, the poor kid nearly lost his mind when Daddy unzipped his gig bag and took out his banjo. Weston started yelling, “gra! gra!” (Which, I think means guitar and is his word for any instrument?). He struggled to get out of his stroller, and when Eric started playing with the band, little monster boy ran right up to his dad on stage! everyone in the harvest festival thought he was hysterical, and when Weston danced, everyone danced with him! Talk about raising an extrovert”¦

Stop and eat the Flowers

After Eric played a few songs with the band, we all went to check out the llamas together. Weston got to pet them, and kept looking back at me with “this is not a dog?” eyes. since there wasn’t an actual pumpkin patch to wade through, we made the most of the large green field of pumpkins out and about.

Weston thought it would be a good idea to go over to a pumpkin and play, but when I looked back at him, he had a flower in his mouth. The poor little purple leaves sticking out; he made a disgusted face, and I nodded, yes, that is disgusting. We did get him finally, to sit and take a lovely fall photo with the pumpkin…it took a little prodding, but now we have photographic evidence of our wonderful autumn afternoon. And, really, does life even happen if you don’t have photographic evidence to post on Instagram? I think not.

[All photos: Olivia lovely Howell]

Find more baby activities for any season with the 52 weekly rookie mom challenges.

If you’re already participating, use hashtag #rookiemoms on instagram or twitter so we can cheer each other on.

LINKS ROOKIE mothers ought to understand about (FEBRUARY 2015)

Our buddy Lindsay at Suburban Turmoil is always hilarious. If you are overwhelmed by the world’s public obsessions with Paleo, Crossfit, eco-friendly Smoothies, HIIT, as well as other cult-like dedication to healthy habits, her parody is funny.

Retroj.am is so much fun! go into your birthday as well as get a playlist of the top songs from when you were in second grade, high school, as well as other milestones. outstanding nostalgia.

If you have kids old sufficient to checked out as well as use YouTube, you may understand exactly how offensive the comments can be. Here’s exactly how to hide them. Thanks, awesome mother Tech.

I wrote a little primer on infant classes for lifetime Moms. (Hint: It’s about satisfying the other moms.)

Design mother has four girls sharing a room. I loved this trip of exactly how the room is set up as well as styled.

My buddy Lynn’s sister Jill Santopietro is a chef, food editor, as well as mother, so her publish about making infant food is full of fantastic tips.

More on that topic…You have to F**king Eat

is the comply with up to cult smash “children’s” book Go the F**k To Sleep. This author gets me.

WHAT’S the very best guidance YOUR mother has provided YOU?

Over the years, my mother has provided me a great deal of advice. I desire I might quickly put my finger on the extremely finest however everything has a tendency to swirl around me as well as with me. Some I listened to, some I ignored. If only she had had a blog, right? then I might browse for her assistance at just the best times.

Before I had my second baby, Whitney made me a fantastic scrapbook of suggestions as well as guidance from our mother buddies with two or much more babies. including my own mother. Mixed in among my girlfriends’ recommendations to “let some things go” as well as “hold onto purchase even much more tightly” was a bit blast of guidance from the seventies.

We lovingly phone call this piece of guidance from my mother God bless the rocking chair (because that’s exactly how it starts), however the nugget of wisdom I many appreciate is to spend one-on-one time with my kids as frequently as possible.

I believe that the time we spend together doing what they want is a foundation for their pleased youth memories. Whether its playing a silly board game during naptime, building an legendary fort, or producing a LEGO comic strip out of Q-tips, they will keep in mind me as a mom who plays (at least I hope!).

I purchased a comfortable glider like my mom told me

As for the very first part of her advice, I should make sure to get a comfortable huge glider for those snuggles before my kids are as well huge to curl up with. I desired one that might work in other parts of the home when breastfeeding days are done. Time will tell if I selected wisely. Microfiber is a great material for getting rid of milk as well as dirt stains.

Related links:

Bonding with each kid by Gina Osher

Cozy gray glider

Tips for having two under two

What’s the very best guidance your mother ever provided you?

Spring-cleaning Special: Allergy-proof Your house

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If you’re one of the much more than 50 million people in the U.S. who suffer from some type of allergy, you don’t have to resign yourself to misery this time of year. “There are plenty of things you can do to cut down on the amount of mites, mold, mildew and pollen in your home,” says Dr. Janna Tuck, a physician and a fellow and board member of the American college of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. Here, her top suggestions for keeping your home as allergen-free as possible. If you need help then consider contacting house cleaning services for professional assistance.

1. Don’t track in pollen.
When you come inside, make a practice of taking a shower, washing your face, brushing your hair and changing your clothes. (You ought to also throw your clothes in the washing device as soon as you take them off.) If you or anybody you live with is allergic to pollen, these moves will avoid you from spreading them throughout the house.

2. dust off your duster.
It’s essential to dust and vacuum at least weekly to keep the mold, dirt and dust in your home to a minimum. “Ninety percent of many home dust is actually your own skin cells,” says Tuck. “If you’re decreasing that, you’re decreasing what the dust mites eat.”

3. consider redecorating.
If you have a dust mite allergy, not doing some furniture and carpet cleaning could be aggravating the problem. Tuck recommends switching from carpeting to tile, linoleum or hardwood flooring and swapping out cloth furniture for leather. If a whole-house remodelling isn’t in the budget, Tuck says your bedroom is the first place you ought to either do some enormous carpet cleaning or ditch the carpet. “That’s the room that I ask clients to try to focus on because it’s the place in your home where you spend the most time,” she says.

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4. check for leaks.
Water leaks are a potential source of mold and mildew, and you probably don’t check for them frequently enough. At least twice a year, make sure to examine the water hookup to your refrigerator and under your kitchen sink. “Most people don’t think about those pipes because they don’t see them very often,” says Tuck, “but if you spot a leak when it’s small, you can avoid a potential mold or mildew problem before it happens.” The twice-a-year guideline also applies for the plumbing in your bathroom. If you’ve checked for leaks and still suspect mildew, call plumbing experts to check the venting.

5. Mind your mattress.
People who are allergic to dust mites ought to invest in allergy-proof cases for pillows, mattresses and box springs. I have been really exhausted the last few days and have been trying to figure out what time ought to i go to sleep. another good guideline of thumb when it concerns the bedroom: Don’t let animals spend significant amounts of time there. even if you’re not allergic to Fido, he can carry mold or pollen in his fur. To avoid animals from making your symptoms worse, brush your pets’ fur and bathe them weekly — and make sure to do it outside.

By Robin Hilmantel  

Robin Hilmantel is an associate editor at Food Network Magazine. Her work has appeared
in Cosmopolitan, USA Today and Maxim, among other
publications. 

Link to this post:Spring-cleaning Special: Allergy-proof Your House

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