I was paid for this but it doesn't mean I'm not genuinely interested Archives

Stealing Nemo

July 23, 2013 by Farewell Stranger ·

It’s tough being a younger brother. Especially when your big brother thinks your toys are cool and wants to play with them himself.

Poor Ethan. The older he gets, the cooler his toys, the more Connor steals them. We’ve taught Connor the art of distraction; originally intended to give him a tactic to use when Ethan has stolen something of Connor’s (find something else he’ll like and you can take your toy back), Connor has started using it to take Ethan’s toys so he can check them out. He’s not always terribly smooth, though, and we’re usually alerted to the heist by Ethan’s wail. Man, can that kid wail. I’ll have to try to take a picture at some point, because his facial expression [You stole that from me! How COULD you?!] is priceless.

I’ve started feeling a bit like a bodyguard for baby toys, but we had a bit of a win recently. A new toy for Ethan came in the mail, so he and I opened it while Connor wasn’t home.

I think he likes it.

Hey, there’s Nemo!

It’s the Disney Baby Finding Nemo Amazing Animals Rollin’ Round Ramp, and when Connor got home later that afternoon, he was pretty excited about this new toy too. He scooped Nemo up, rolled him down the ramp to make the starfish sing, and then tucked him behind the open-and-close door. He greeted Bloat and gave him a spin. (The magic of Disney is strong in this house, I tell you.) Ethan watched, enchanted by all the toy could do, but behind the curious eyes I could see the wail building.

Luckily I was able to use the distraction ploy on Connor: the jumbo-sized bubble wrap the toy was packed in was immediately appealing and we avoided any loud complaints from Ethan.

As long as I keep the bubble wrap handy I think Ethan will have Nemo to himself.

*****

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Disney. I received this toy and financial compensation in exchange for sharing it with you. Sharing the information, I mean. Not the toy. Because that’s Ethan’s. Oh, you know what I mean…

About the toy:

The Disney Baby Finding Nemo Amazing Animals Rollin’ Round Ramp is a fun play set for baby that features characters from Disney’s Finding Nemo, plus adorable tunes and SFX. The play set includes a brightly coloured Nemo character, complete with a fun roller-ball on his belly. The lively tunes & SFX are activated as Nemo slides down the ramp or as baby pushes the starfish button. The tote features an open/close door for put-and-take play, a roller-ball Bloat to bat at, and a seahorse slider. The richly detailed handle makes this play set perfect for play at home or on the go!

Filed Under: Stuff I like · Tagged With: family, I was paid for this but it doesn't mean I'm not genuinely interested

Freedom in a Bottle

June 28, 2013 by Farewell Stranger ·

I vividly remember the first time I left the house on my own after Connor was born. I went to a mall about 10 minutes from our house and it felt monumental. Significant. Almost like a prison break.

He was only two or three weeks old at the time, but we hadn’t introduced a bottle at that point and all I could think about was that I was carrying his sole source of food around with me. He was totally reliant on me and my body for his nutrition and there I was walking around a mall.

I got over that feeling eventually, of course, but breastfeeding made me feel tethered to him for a long, long time. He didn’t have anything else at all—no formula, nothing—until the day he hit six months and we gave him some rice cereal (and I cried because he was no longer dependent on me for nutrition. Apparently being a hormonal mom with PPD made me a little nuts in more ways than one).

We did introduce a bottle when Connor was five weeks old, and I remember the weird feeling of relief and pride. No, he wasn’t going to starve if I left the house and, yes, it was cool to see my husband feeding our baby. (And, oh, was he ever in love with giving Connor a bottle. I’ll never forget that first time.) Mostly, though, I was glad we had a way to feed Connor that didn’t require me to sit on the couch for an hour.

And then, when he was three months old, he started refusing to take a bottle. One night Rich did all the night feedings so I could sleep and after that, no more bottles for Connor. It was his way of protesting, I assume. He did start taking one again after we started solids, but the freedom ship had sailed at that point. For those months I was well and truly (and literally) attached to my baby.

With Ethan, however, it’s been totally different.

We started him on bottles slightly earlier and he has always taken them happily. I actually once came home right as Rich was feeding him and Ethan may as well have just said, “Hey, Mom! I’m having a bottle.” He was totally unfazed at me being there and finished the bottle happily. He’s still a champion nurser, too.

Naturally, I have taken full advantage of having a baby who will occasionally take a bottle. I’ll admit that I hate pumping as much as the next mom, but it’s been worth it in order to have some freedom.

In the early months, Rich gave Ethan a bottle in the mornings so I could sleep (and that right there is worth every single mooing sound the stupid pump makes). We’ve also used bottles a few times when I’ve gone out at night. I pumped when I got up or when I got home, and it worked beautifully. (The one Rich is using here is Dr. Brown’s, which we really liked – they’re easy to hold and easy to clean, and their bottle brushes actually get in all the little curves. My brother and sister-in-law have used this brand exclusively with their twins, if that tells you anything.)

But here’s where giving bottles has been really amazing: For the last several months Rich and I have been trading time off; we’ve each had two afternoons a week to work – time for me to write and time for him to work on illustrations. I wave goodbye to my husband and my baby and my freezer stash and happily sit at Starbucks. For, like, four hours. It’s new-mama heaven, I tell ya.

As I’ve sat there with my hot drink and my laptop and my headphones, I’ve often thought back to my time when Connor was a baby and wondered if I took for granted the freedom pumping and a bottle offered. Could I have bought myself more sanity? Maybe. But maybe not. We did what we could when we had the opportunity, but when a stubborn baby steadfastly refuses to take a bottle there’s not much you can do.

I try not to mourn the loss of freedom and sanity from that time around. I’ve just really, really enjoyed it with this one and I think, just maybe, it’s been one of the things that has made a difference.

Disclaimer: This post was generously sponsored by Dr. Brown’s, but the opinions and images are my own. And in thanks for the support Dr. Brown’s has given me, I have chosen Dr. Brown’s bottle-feeding supplies as part of my donation to community organizations helping with the recent flooding in Alberta, where I live.

Some of the key features of the Dr. Brown’s Natural Flow bottles, which are available at retailers across Canada:

Helps reduce feeding problems – The Dr. Brown’s bottles are known for reducing colic, spit-up, burping, and gas.
Proven to help preserve bottle milk nutrients.
Vacuum-free feeding helps digestion – Good digestion is essential for babies, particularly newborns.
Patented Vent System and silicone nipple work together – Controlled flow so babies feed at their own pace.

For more information, visit www.drbrownsbaby.com/.

Filed Under: Motherhood · Tagged With: gratitude, I was paid for this but it doesn't mean I'm not genuinely interested

Snail Mail and a Minted Giveaway

April 20, 2013 by Farewell Stranger ·

Did you see that thing going around on Facebook in the first week of January? A bunch of people were posting that they’d send something by mail to the first 10 of their friends to comment and commit to posting the same in their status. I thought that was cool—an actual something in the mail! My mail is boring – I don’t even get paper bills anymore so it’s mostly just junk mail— so I posted it too.

I’ve done nothing about it yet, not because I forgot but because I want to send something cool and haven’t been able to decide what. A postcard from my city? Lame. A photograph? That would be cool but I don’t even know how to get photos printed anymore (geez). But I figured it out. I’m going to shop Minted – they of the cool cards and art prints and baby announcements. And have you seen Minted wedding invitations? (If they had been around when we got married we probably wouldn’t have been printing our invites at the last minute. Oh, who am I kidding? We totally would have.) [Read more…]

Filed Under: Stuff I like · Tagged With: I was paid for this but it doesn't mean I'm not genuinely interested

I’m Turning Into Jennifer Aniston

April 1, 2013 by Farewell Stranger ·

Any Friends fans out there? Did you ever hear that Jennifer Aniston ate the same salad for lunch every day for 10 years? I’m totally turning into her.

(I wish.)

Okay, so I’m not turning into Jennifer Aniston, but I am on a salad kick and I’ve been eating the same one for lunch an awful lot lately. It’s totally simple:

Iceberg lettuce (stick with me here – there’s a reason)
Half an avocado
1 Roma tomato
Snap peas
Carrots
Cucumber
Ham cubes
Baby corn
Goat cheese
Sesame seeds
Ranch dressing

It’s not complicated and it’s not meant to be (otherwise there’s no way it would be a habit). I think it’s the avocado that has me addicted. I only started eating avocado in the last few years—I never thought to before because I had never really tried it—but my mom started putting it on salads and now I’m totally hooked.

So the iceberg lettuce thing – the reason I use it is that I’ve found it gets me to eat salad more often. It’s easy, I really like the crunch, and it gives me a nice base for a salad without overwhelming the other stuff. I’ve tried to switch to lettuce that actually has some nutritional value, but then I tend not to eat salad at all, so this is better, right? (That’s a rhetorical question. Please don’t tell me how lame iceberg lettuce is because I really like my lunchtime salad habit.) My veggie intake is way higher this way, and if I make salad to go with dinner I do use other greens, so I figure it’s all good.

My salad isn’t the exact same every day (which is probably why I don’t look like Jennifer Aniston yet) in part because I run out of avocado way too often (Pinterest tells me you can freeze avocados – has anyone tried?) but also because a certain small person who also lives here tends to hog some of the good stuff. (Seriously, that kid can eat a whole can of baby corn in one sitting.) His favourite lunch is ham cubes with carrot sticks, cucumber slices and broccoli florets with a side of ranch dressing (in a separate container please, not on the plate in case it – gasp! – touches the veggies before he’s ready to dip). That makes it really easy to make him lunch while I’m making my own, but the problem is that he eats it so much he totally hogs all the ranch dressing. But hey, he’s four and he’s eating his veggies so this mama’s not going to complain. As long as he doesn’t eat my avocado.

The Newborn Phase

March 21, 2013 by Farewell Stranger ·

You know when you find out a friend is pregnant with her first baby? And you want to share everything you know but don’t want to overwhelm her or be the one who tells her to sleep now because she won’t sleep again for years? I had that dilemma recently. I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no point trying to convey what having a baby is like to someone who hasn’t had one, because you really, truly can’t know what it’s like until you get there.

Luckily in this case, my friend wanted to talk baby stuff — strollers, cribs, nursery decor — instead of sleep or the frequency with which babies poop. And that’s all stuff I can talk about with great enthusiasm.

I have grand ideas about “doing” our house, but I’ve never done it. Not in any really deliberate way. But when it came to putting together baby rooms I was all over it. (And Rich was too.) There’s just something about having a room specially designed for the baby you’re about to welcome. When we did Connor’s room it was a little less deliberate – we had everything we wanted and needed except stuff for the walls, but I bought jungle decals in a panic a couple of weeks before he was born. Because there was NO WAY I could bring my baby home to a room that had nothing on the walls. (Never mind the fact that he slept in our room for the first six weeks.)

We had a ton of fun doing Ethan’s room too. We weren’t starting from scratch because, while we got rid of a lot of our baby stuff before we moved, we did keep the crib and changing table/dresser, which are two pieces we really like. And I was also smart enough this time not to buy a whole set including stuff we’ll never use (like crib bumpers).

So that’s what we talked about with my friend. We did a tour of Ethan’s room and talked about the wall decals. We gave our perspective on the changing table/dresser combo compared to the standalone change table option. We whipped out the stroller and talked about why we like ours.

Between that conversation and the recent sort I had to do on Ethan’s clothes (because the little bugger is growing out of stuff – why do they have to grow so fast?!) I’ve been feeling a bit nostalgic for the newborn phase. Especially, it must be said, because when he was a newborn he slept whereas now we’re having an increasing number of visits during the night. But I digress…

I guess that’s the nice thing about having friends who are having babies. As another friend of mine said, I don’t actually want another baby but I do want friends to have babies I can snuggle (and not at 3 am, preferably).

Do you miss the newborn phase?