This picture has nothing to do with the post. Just a little eye candy for you.

In the land of mommy’s and daddy’s everywhere there are lots of questions that arise in the pursuit of raising tiny humans. Like, LOTS of questions.

While my experience is limited, having 2 babies under 2 hardly makes me an expert, I still have to make daily decisions for my family that are sometimes hard.

That said, let me preface this post by saying that these decisions are best for our family. Never in a million, bazillion years would I try to impose these decisions on other people. Because, well, they’re your babies, not mine.

Here are a few examples of daily decisions that come up:

1. Should we allow pacifiers? Yes, Yes, Yes. I love a good paci. We stuck a paci in Brothers mouth when he was only a few hours old. He has never had any issues with nursing because of it. I am a believer. Bitzy will sometimes still use one at naps and bedtime, but she has never been attached to it really, so I see no need to take it away at this point.

2. TV. I admit that I am psychotic about how many “shows” (as Bitzy calls them) she watches. I want TV to be a treat, not the norm. The TV is never just on. It’s only on while she is watching a show. Most days she watches 1 or 2 25 minute shows and I’m okay with that. I admit that sometimes that 25 minutes is a lifesaver. I can feed, change, snuggle Brother, unload the dishwasher, make breakfast…you get the idea. But again, that decision is one that our family has made. Sometimes it would be much more convenient to turn it on and let her watch endlessly, but we really want to encourage active playtime rather than TV.

3. Food. Again, I’m psycho, I do admit.  But honestly, I think my psychosis has paid off. Bitzy is a VERY healthy eater. As an infant I made all of her baby food and only offered healthy organic choices. Her favorites foods are cucumbers, apples, blueberries, peaches, oranges, peas and turkey bacon. She didn’t have sugar until her 1st birthday and didn’t again until she was 18 months. We don’t give her juice, only milk and water. She doesn’t ask for sugary treats, she asks for apples and tomatoes. It’s awesome.

Those are just a few examples of things that we have faced as new parents and continue to enforce on a daily basis. Another decision that we have made as a family is for me to continue nursing both Bitzy and Brother. The technical term is tandem nursing.

If you’ll remember I thought about weaning around 20 weeks into my pregnancy with Brother and it just didn’t happen (Read it Here). Bitzy simply wasn’t ready and honestly, neither was I.

I wish I could tell you that I did mega research on the benefits of nursing a toddler and memorized all the stats and was a card carrying member of the Le Leche league, but friends, I didn’t do any of that.

I simply went with my gut.

My gut said that my sweetheart wasn’t ready to wean and boy am I glad that I listened.

Nursing them both has made the transition from one baby to two so much easier. It’s as if Bitzy knows that her and Brother are on the same team. They have equal footing. She hasn’t showed any signs of jealousy or aggression toward him at all and I can’t help but think that nursing them both has played a part.

While I am proud to say that I nurse them both I realize that it’s not for everyone. It’s a personal choice.

Just like it’s my choice to not breastfeed in public. I have never been comfortable with nursing cover-ups and I personally do not feel comfortable pulling my shirt down in public to feed so I leave the room and feed them privately. I am not ashamed, I just feel more comfortable in private.

Sidetrack: One day in Target I met a gal with 3 little boys, ages 5, 3 and 10 months. She had the infant in a baby carrier and he was crying as we chatted. To try to appease him she pulled out her breast and began feeding him. For her, it was perfectly normal and acceptable. For me, it was uncomfortable, I’m not gonna lie. But ya know what?  To each his own. Feed in public, feed in private- whatever dudes.

I guess the reason that I am writing this is to enforce that the quote “To each his own” is especially true in parenting. There are so many strong opinions about this that and the other and I just don’t understand why people get so bent out of shape. We’re all just doing the best we can, no?

Sure, if you see a child being abused it’s your responsibility to speak up, but otherwise I think it’s wise to remember that “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say it at all.” I am forever amazed at how people feel so strongly about the craziest things that do not effect them in any way and use harsh words to express their opinion.

Aren’t we all in this together friends? Raising babies is tough and we need to support and love each other, right? Can I get an AMEN?!

Thoughts? Comments?

In all of my dreams of being a mama, never one time did I imagine not breastfeeding my babies. Breastfeeding, for me, was a top priority. A, “I’ll do whatever it takes to make it work” priority. A, “I’ll take the bleeding, cracking, aching, overflowing, pumping” kind of priority. A “I’ll be up 2,3,4,5 times a night for months and months to feed my baby” kind of priority.

That probably sounds dramatic (shocker), but honestly, one of my great desires of being a mother was to nurse my babies for as long as possible.

Granted, I was never interested in my 7 year old unbuttoning my shirt and asking for milk from my “ta-ta” but then again, I never thought about the weaning process of nursing, just the nursing itself.

Truth be told, I’m not exactly what you’d call a “long term planner.” I’m more of a live in the moment kinda gal.

So, when we got the BFP (big fat positive) and I had to give Zach CPR, my first fear was that I would have to stop breastfeeding.  Not, “wow, I’m going to have 2 children under 2″ or ” how are we going to fit another tiny human into this house” or “no more sushi or me” or “how did this happen again?” Nope, my one and only obsessive thought was that I didn’t want to stop nursing my Bitzy.

So I began looking for loopholes/solutions/way to nurse my sweetheart as long as possible.

Dr. Google and I spent a whole lotta time together that night and there was many differing opinions.

Some doctors say to stop nursing immediately, some say, 8 weeks, some 12 weeks, some 15, some 20 and some say that continuing through pregnancy and then tandem nursing is just fine (tandem nursing is means that both the toddler and the newborn are literally sucking the life out of you at once) is fine too.

As you see, there are varied opinions.

So, after getting the BFP on Friday night, the following Monday morning I called my OB and asked his opinion, and he said 20 weeks was the maximum due to concerns about calcium deficiencies (in me, not the baby).  Then, I called my lactation consultant and she told me the same thing.

Not what I wanted to hear.

I wanted something more like, “No worries! Your sweetheart will just naturally wean herself around 39.9999 weeks right before your baby boy comes and she will sit on your lap and watch as your nurse your brand new bundle of love.”

Nope. They so didn’t say that.

Thing is, when I was 4 weeks pregnant, 20 weeks seemed so far away that it didn’t matter. Then, 15 weeks came and went and I started down the barrel of 20 weeks and I began getting a little nervous.

Um, make that a lot nervous.

And now, we’re at 24 weeks and I’m still nursing and am absolutely nowhere near ready to stop and even if I were I have no clue how to.

Turns out, that a “side effect” of pregnancy when nursing is that your milk supply lessens significantly. In my case, I went from feeding 6 ounces every 3 hours (7am, 10am, 1pm, 4 pm and 7pm) to now I’m lucky if I get 1 ounce every 4 hours.

One would think that my Bitzy would realize the difference and want to nurse less, right? But oh no. Apparently the milk was only a bonus for her. She just wants to be close to me, and let’s face it, I want to be close to her right back.

That’s why stopping is so tricky. It’s not like I can drop a feeding. I mean, there is no milk involved here people. None.

She wants to nurse and snuggle in the morning when she wakes up, when she goes down for naps (twice a day), at bedtime and then anytime that she falls down, feels sad, insecure, happy, hyper, full of joy…I mean you get it. The child wants to nurse 24/7.

And…I let her.

It’s true.

I love it. I cannot lie.

I realize that in a few short months I’ll have an extremely tiny human attached to my breast and who will actually be drinking milk rather than just using me as a human pacifier and that I should probably have some sort of action plan for stopping…but I just want to enjoy our last few months together.

Is that wrong?

Do I have a problem?

Wait, don’t answer that.

Anyone have any brilliant advice?

Be gentle.

Hold the phone: Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Joey from Blossom are teaming up for a little rememberthe90sTVitwassoawesome TV show! While I wasn’t a huge Sabrina fan, my friend Megan was/is a bit obsessed, so I am excited by association. But Joey, ah Joey. What with his leather jacket and manicured hairdo. He was and is dreamy. My only question is, does he have some kind of strong distaste for going by character names?  Does he always have to be called “Joey?” It’s getting kinda weird with all the Joey characters, right?

Somedays I am so busy that I feel like my brain is going to explode. I get so overwhelmed that I doubt everything that I do, feeling as it I’m never going to complete all of my tasks. But then, I pick up my sweet Bitzy Boo and all the troubles of the world fade away. There is no task, none at all, that are more important than soaking in every single second of my baby’s life. No emails, phone calls, news, nothing. They all can wait.

I’m addicted to Weight Watchers Cookie Dough desserts. They are only 3 points apiece and I could eat 20 of them. Please don’t challenge me to an eating contest, I will win. But wouldn’t that be sweet irony to have an eating contest with WW products? Who’s with me?

The news stresses me out. It makes me sad and annoyed at our world today. So, I choose to not listen and focus on the real news: People.com.

Speaking of, Sandy and little Louis are doing great (Read about our friendship here and here). Thank goodness that grody ole Jesse is out of the picture. I do confess that he makes me wanna vomit.

The other day I had a frozen bag of breast milk from the deep freezer in my hands and I dropped it on our glass top coffee table. Accidentally of course, I am a true klutz. The poor table top shattered all over the carpet, but more annoyingly the breast milk bag got a hole in it. That’s right all 11 ounces of my precious liquid gold was pouring all over the glass ridden carpet. Believe it or not, I was much more upset about the wasted milk than the glass. As you know, I take my milk very seriously, it is Natures Nectar after all.

By the way, after I told you all about my idea for curing all the aliments of the world with Natures Necture, no lie I heard on the radio the next day that researchers are now conducting studies that isolate the proteins in breast milk to cure cancer. Seriously? Are they that in tune with this blog that they read about my life changing ideas and immediately begin research?  People, we are curing cancer up in here.

Zach and I got new cell phones and I hate them. They are supposedly “smart” but I think they’re dumb. I want a Jitterbug and pronto.

The crawdad count is up to 32.  Don’t they hear the cries of their little brothers and sisters on the Duct tape? Duh, you stupid crawdads, don’t step on the tape. Their stupidity is just another reason that they must die.

Lastly, I want you all to know how much I enjoy writing these little stories and the community that we’re forming here.  Thank you putting up with my whining about the Sleep Wars and my crazy escapades.  I cherish every single visitor and comment…keep ‘em coming.

I am sort of an inventor.

As in, I think of cool ideas, I tell people, they act like I’m a crazy person and then 5 years later it’s on the shelf at Wal-Mart.

Not really, that’s never happened.  But wouldn’t it be cool if it had?

However, I do have my billion dollar idea (clearly, if I ever thought this would work I wouldn’t post it on the world wide web, but humor me).

It’s called, “Nature’s Nectar.”

Let me back up.

I believe that breast milk can cure all aliments.

Got a cut? Burn? Pimple? Scratch?

All ya gotta do is dab some breast milk on your boo boo and it’ll be better by morning.

(Or maybe it’s just that my breast milk is ultra powerful…hmmm…maybe I will make a billion after all).

What if the cure for cancer is breast milk?  While I do have a medical degree from Grey’s Anatomy I’m not familiar with whether my super human ultra awesome breast milk could cure the likes of cancer.  I’ll get back with you on that one.

But honestly, breast milk is the new and improved Neosporin in this household.

It’s like God’s special sauce.

Hmmm…maybe that could be the tag.

Couldn’t you just see this on the shelf, “Nature’s Nectar.  God’s special sauce.”

I like it.

Any investors out there?

PS: If you steal my awesome idea can you at least send me a free bottle?  Thanks.

PPS: After reading this little story to Zach he informed that I didn’t really explain whether it’s a pill, cream, etc.  Clearly, the details of this invention are still being hammered out. Duh.

There are 2 kinds of people in the world.

For my 28th birthday these were my desserts...that's right. My friends get me.

Salt lovers and Sugar lovers.

I am 100% unquestionably a sugar lover.

You can have the potato chips, dip, crackers, actually you can have every other kind of food in the whole wide world, just give me sugar.

And fruit.

I really like fruit…probably because there is sugar in it.

And the bad news about sugar is that I have no stopping reflex.  Normal people think, “I’ve had 2 cookies, that’s plenty” or “I had 3 Reese cups, I wouldn’t want to make myself sick” or “No, I shouldn’t eat sugar, I’m breastfeeding and I should eat spinach and brussel sprouts.”

Not me, I think “Wow, since I think I’m going to vomit, maybe I should stop eating these cookies”or ”I’m breastfeeding, maybe I should eat something besides chocolate today” or “Since these Milk Duds were a gift I should finish them.  I wouldn’t want to be rude.”

Ridiculous.

And you know the people with big bowls of candy on their desk?  They’re all skinny.  Skinny people can look at candy all day long and not gorge themselves on it.

I promise that if I had a bowl of candy on my desk I would gain 10 pounds in a week.

No question.

The saddest news is that as I sit on the couch and stare at Gracie, I think about how I simply must get this baby weight off as I’m eating milk chocolate chips.

I annoy myself.

I would rather eat yellow cake batter than almost anything.  Yes, I am aware that raw eggs could make me very sick. It’s totally worth the risk.

Gracie is the single most fantastic thing that I’ve ever done and I want about 30 more children.  I figure if I get pregnant every year for the next ten years and have triplets every time then it’s possible!  Then, I’ll have all of my 31 babies before my eggs dry up and just in time for a TLC prime time show.

I hate going to the mall.  I’ll take Target any day.

I have amazing girlfriends.  They truly are a blessing straight from the hand of God (wait, that’s not a confession. Sorry).

When I’m at home I hardly ever cover my mouth to sneeze.  I’m gross that way.

I loved my husband long before he loved me.  It’s true.  I was totally bananas over him in college and he broke my heart.  But don’t worry, I won him over eventually.  The lesson here is, girls never give up.  Stalk ‘em long enough and they’ll come around.

I love breastfeeding so much that I wonder if I’ll be the mom who is breastfeeding the kid ’til she’s 7.

I am kind of a hypochondriac.  The weird thing about this isn’t the “fear” of dying, it’s more that I want to know what’s happening with my body at all times.  This also correlates with my obsession with all medical shows.  I’m sort of a doctor.  Who need Medical school when Grey’s Anatomy is on?

Speaking of, every single time I have my blood pressure taken I get really nervous and I’m afraid that it will skyrocket and then the doctor will make me take medicine unnecessarily.  I know that this probably will never happen, but it still makes me nervous.

I used to love to clean and now I just can’t be bothered with it.  My house is dusty and dirty but I just can’t find the motivation or the time/energy to clean it.  So, I suppose I’ll continue to waste money paying someone to.  (Don’t judge me.).

I find it funny/odd that so many people take pride in being “sarcastic.”  I think that having the “gift of sarcasm” is just an excuse to be rude.

I used to love Duke basketball, but these days, I have no interest in it. Sorry Duke, it was a fun ride.

When I see things that remind me of something I often have to really think about whether I remember it from my own life, a dream or a movie.  It all gets muddled in my mind…. how old am I anyway?  Am I losing it already?

My favorite color is yellow (wait, is that a confession?  I don’t think so.  There I go again).

I accidentally borrowed (not stole) my parent’s car when I was at the ripe old age of 13.  And…I wrecked it.  And…then lied about it.  Not my finest moment, but a learning experience to be sure.

I think Snuggies are weird and scratchy…and they are made out of felt. I hate felt (unless it’s on a board and you’re putting up little Bible characters like Miss Jean did when I was in Sunday School).  Shouldn’t something called a “snuggie” be soft and cuddly and not feel like cardboard?

My mama and my husband are my two best friends.  They have to love me, they have no choice.

I have been told that I’m “so photogenic.”  I confess that I have spent an embarrassingly absurb amount of time practicing in the mirror. Sure, most of this happened when I was 13, but let’s face it, I have an occasional practice session. BTW:   If it’s true that I am, in fact, photogenic, does this mean that in real life I’m not nearly as attractive as I am in pictures?

There are many more confessions…stay tuned.