Snacks on the Go

For all of my pre-baby ambition to be a mama chef -- providing the girls only organic, home-cooked meal -- I've certainly ordered C her fair share of pizzas and chicken fingers. And let's not forget about the landfill's worth of jarred baby food (that is, until I found out that jarred food contains BPA). But then we fell in love with the fruit/veggie pouches -- Plum Organics being a favorite -- and life on the go seemed remarkably easier. And yet...the nagging guilt of contributing to the aforementioned landfill persists. Which is why I am so excited to try out the following product:

• http://thesilico.com/products.html

Sili Squeeze: reusable squeeze pouches! Blend up your favorite fruits and (boiled) veggies. Et voila -- squeezable nutrition on the go! Once I receive my Sili Squeezes, I'll provide an update. In the meantime, thanks, Andrew, for the tip!

"No More Tears", my a**

With all the organic baby product alternatives proliferating these days, it's a wonder why anyone uses Johnson & Johnson baby products any more. The information in the links below is somewhat old, but not THAT old. What's infuriating is that, as with M&Ms, manufacturers have been producing safer formulations for European consumers but fail to provide the same for American consumers. Blame the FDA, I suppose. And it's going to take J&J two years to clean up its act??? Eff that.

• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/17/baby-shampoo-toxins_n_1098803.html
• http://www.forbes.com/sites/amywestervelt/2011/11/01/as-report-reveals-toxic-ingredients-in-baby-shampoo-johnson-johnson-goes-public-with-plans-to-clean-up-products/

Stroller Madness, Part Deux

Now onto our 4th (yes, FOURTH) stroller, the Baby Jogger City Select Double.

• http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Jogger-City-Select-Seat/dp/B003O95UIQ

It's an incredibly well-thought-out piece of equipment, and I love that you can arrange the seats in any configuration you want (both kids facing you, both kids facing out, etc.), and I love the fact that L and C love napping in it. Speaking of, when we were looking at buying the stroller, the sales guy was doing his darndest to sell us the bells and whistles for an infant: car seat adaptor, bassinet, etc. Wary of making yet another purchase mistake, we passed on the extras, and good thing we did, too! For L, the newborn, we just padded the stroller seat with a Bundle Me and reclined it a little, and the moment we put her into it, we knew we had a winner. She absolutely loves it. Falls asleep in it every time. In fact, she loves it so much that, for a while, we were using it for all of her sleeping needs -- naps and nighttime sleeping. So, unless you live in the 'burbs and use a car seat all the time, don't bother with the car seat adaptor or the bassinet.

The downside of the City Select, of course, is the weight. While maneuverability is amazing, I often feel like Sisyphus, rolling that damn boulder uphill (even when I'm on a flat surface). On the bright side, I suspect my arms will be pretty toned in a couple of months.

And then I discovered this: http://kinderwagon.com/.

Ohmigod, did I make yet ANOTHER mistake, buying the City Select? Is the Kinderwagon Hop the double stroller of my dreams? An umbrella double stroller? Genius! But how many more strollers can a family take????

The Pain Sacks (a.k.a. "Boobs")

This is another one of those "for the ladies only" posts. Gentlemen, continue only if discussions about boobs intrigue you for some reason...

Anyway, another month, another post. All my ambition of posting weekly crumbled when confronted with the reality of managing two kids (even if one of them is only 7 weeks old!). Am still trying to figure out how this two-kid thing works, and, as I'm doing so, I'm realizing the truth to an observation a friend of mine once made: dealing with two kids is not doubly hard; it's EXPONENTIALLY harder. And INFINITELY harder when the entire family (including me) is as sick as dogs. Sigh.

So back to the subject matter at hand: breastfeeding. A true blessing, of course, though it can so oftentimes feel like a curse. If you're like me -- a hyper-producer -- you know what I mean: the constant engorgement, the blocked ducts, mastitis, the pumping schedule, the crazy letdowns (that gag your newborn), the soaked shirts and sheets, etc. With Kid #2, L, the whole process seems a lot less traumatic, for some reason. Perhaps because I've been sick, my body has been producing drastically less milk, which translates to easy feeds for L and no pumping (happy dance!). But in this post, I did want to write about something I discovered when I was breastfeeding C and dealing with constant, uber-painful blockages.

Ugh, those were awful: huddled over a table at 1, 2, 3 a.m., with one of my breasts dunked into a bowl of steaming hot water while I tried to massage the blockages out. And then, one night, in desperation, I turned to Google (to figure out if I needed to go see a doctor about what I thought was perhaps a bad case of mastitis). And there, in the magical world of the interwebs, y'all, I discovered a factual nugget that changed my life forever (or at least that was the hyperbolic sentiment I felt when I first happened upon it). MILK BLISTER: that tiny, miniscule flap of skin that grows over a milk pore, trapping the milk behind it, thus creating the uber-painful blockage. Why hadn't anyone told me about this???? I had to find out about it while scrolling through a comment thread of some obscure website. Of course, back then, I didn't know about kellymom.com.

Anyhow, the solution, it turns out, was a sterilized needle. You'd have to look for the blisters really carefully. Mine were just tiny white specks that looked like they could or could not be part of the nipple. But once I located one, I would just gently scrape the skin away, and...sweet, sweet, sweet relief, as the milk would just come gushing out.

kellymom.com has a lot of information about this here:

• http://www.kellymom.com/bf/concerns/mom/nipplebleb.html

Hopefully, this information will help some of you new breastfeeding mommas feel a little less like you have pain sacks bolted onto your chest. At this point in the game the last time around, I would have happily opted for "discomfort sacks"! Happy pumping...er...breastfeeding, ladies!

A Follow-Up to the Depends Post

For every woman who's been told that Kegel exercises are the answer to preventing/reducing incontinence, this is going to BLOW. YOUR. MIND.

• http://mamasweat.blogspot.com/2010/05/pelvic-floor-party-kegels-are-not.html

It's not Kegels (apparently counterproductive!). It's squats. The tighter the glutes, the less you leak!

A post about preserving your postpartum sanity and dignity

Note: this post is for the ladies. Gentlemen, no need to delve any further, unless you don't mind TMI.

So a week and a half ago, I gave birth to my second little angel. A beautiful girl with large eyes and a disarming lack of crying. She sleeps pretty much on command and seems pretty content with her place in the world. Sleepless nights? What sleepless nights? Last night, she woke up once for her feeding and otherwise slumbered peacefully in the crook of my arm. If only all parents could be so lucky.

The flip side, of course, is all those postpartum annoyances they DON'T tell you about. All that postpartum goop (sorry, Gwyneth) and...drumroll...full-blown incontinence. WTF? No one told me about incontinence! I never had it with C, so what gives? (After much thought, I've decided that the main culprit was the lack of exercise while pregnant with #2, among other things.) So, ladies who've just had babies, I have two words for you: ADULT DIAPERS. I don't know why I never thought of it with C -- dealing with those horrible disposable undies and bulky pads was just the bane of my existence (the constant worrying about leaking, etc.) -- but better late than never! As a new connoisseur of the adult diaper products, my recommendation would be Depends (Depends: because your dignity depends on Depends -- haha). But really, any adult diaper product would be better than what the hospital provides for you.

So there you have it. When life throws you a curve ball, get a longer bat.

Sneaky Spinach

So the summer is drawing to a close -- as is the deceptive illusion of perma-vacation. Ergo, back to a more consistent blogging rhythm...until Baby #2 arrives, that is (which, fingers crossed, should be around the end of this month). Although, come to think of it, I'm sure I'll have a whole host of new tidbits to blog about!

Wanted to post something about nutrition this time around...or the lack, thereof. There was a time, during C's earliest months (before the introduction to solids), when I had the most glorious fantasies about the immaculate diet she would be fed. Dairy-, sugar-, and meat-free and nothing but whole grains and organic veggies/fruits and plant-based proteins for this child! But C had other plans: namely, she turned out to be the worst eater on the planet. It got so bad that, at a certain point, I was just happy if she shoved a donut down her throat.

She has, since then, slowly morphed into a satisfactory, if not solid, eater (and, if at day care, a champion eater, apparently!), and I know that I have a repertoire of staples in my pantry/fridge arsenal that she'll happily eat whenever offered. Vegetables, unfortunately and not unsurprisingly, are still (for the most part) non grata. I figure I'm not the only parent with this dilemma, and I've shared the following trick with enough parents who hadn't thought of it themselves that I thought I'd blog about it. And all you need is a reliable pair of kitchen scissors!

I've discovered, basically, that I can sneak raw baby spinach (and ground flax seeds, come to think of it) into just about anything I serve C. As long as it's cut up small enough (ergo, the kitchen scissors), I can sneak it into her yogurt, her pasta, her eggs, her rice, her cream cheese (accompanied by cinnamon raisin bagel, of course), her pizza, etc. The sky's the limit! Somehow, the texture and taste of raw baby spinach are both innocuous enough that C doesn't seem to notice and/or mind the tiny green strips stuck in her food. Hallelujah! This trick has been the saving grace of many of C's otherwise "empty calorie" meals. I wish I could say the same for broccoli. Sigh.

Anywhooo, I figure that one of these days, when she's old enough, I'll have to force the confrontation with the dreaded vegetable -- undisguised and in its full-form glory. But until that day arrives, why make life difficult for all involved?

P.S. Feel free to share your own feeding tips/suggestions!