From the category archives:

Month 1

Activity #23: Drink beer

March 6, 2008

I was never much of a beer girl in my twenties. Blech, I thought. And then I got pregnant (with boys if that matters) and sipped a little iron-rich Guinness on St. Patrick’s Day and changed my mind to YUMMMM! Guinness is still my beer of choice. In fact, my mom was kind enough to [...]

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Activity #61: Count your friends

February 14, 2008

Whitney called me yesterday for advice about Scarlett’s nap and potential childcare arrangement and what to do about disrupting her sleeping mojo. I made up an answer and recalled how Milo got a funky nap schedule when he started “school” at 7 months old. If she liked what I said, she probably felt good about [...]

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Activity #324: Mitten up

January 25, 2008

Is that an expression? Well, if button up is… I figured I could use it. Anyway, when Holden was a few days old, Alec tried to give him is first manicure. This innocent ritual ended with snipping off the end of his little thumb and us putting mittens on him for the next three weeks. [...]

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Activity #226: Pretend you’re in Europe

September 10, 2007

This is an outing for beginners: go to your favorite outdoor breakfast venue. You have about five more months to enjoy cafe culture. For your sake, I hope that some of this includes the warmer months. Once your baby crawls, she will not tolerate your fondness for people watching or spacing out, so live it [...]

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Activity #474: Build a better Kleenex box

July 14, 2007

My cousin just sent me this link: MyKleenexTissue.com. You can order oval-shaped Kleenex boxes customized with a photo that you upload and decorate with borders and text. I played around with the tool, and it was pretty fun. You get to see a 3-D version of the box you’ve created. This would be a cute [...]

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Activity #16: Soothe that baby

June 17, 2007

Let’s face it: Before this kid was born, you had no idea that babies were so clueless about how to relax. Well, now you know. Your new roommate would like nothing more than to get back in the confines of the womb and forget this whole “birth” thing ever happened. If there is one piece [...]

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Activity #461: Compose a picture with your other babies

May 1, 2007

When I saw the web site of Janet Moran, a photographer in the Chicago area, I immediately fell in love with this image. Assuming that this family values their piano, I thought that it was a brilliant idea to include your first baby in a portrait along with your new (real) baby. Whether your first [...]

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Activity #460: Observe Fearless Friday

April 27, 2007

As part of the Mother Talk Blog Tour for Arianna Huffington’s book On Becoming Fearless, I wrote up my thoughts on the book and posted them on our blog. Huffington’s new book focuses on big picture fears, the ones that hold us back in life: fears of success, of heartache, of dying, of failing. Once [...]

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Activity #234: Assume the position

April 10, 2007

Our pediatrician recommended this baby soothing position that she used on her own kids. We thank her for demonstrating the move on Holden, and we did our best imitations of it at home, but it took some practice. I’m glad we kept trying because it miraculously helped with tummy troubles and provided that soothing suck [...]

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Activity #78: Count the minutes

March 30, 2007

Beep, beep. When Holden hears my watch sound, he knows it’s time to eat. At least I think he does, because he’s so dang smart. When he was very new and I was overwhelmed and sleep-deprived and couldn’t honestly tell you whether he had eaten 30 minutes ago or 4 hours ago, Alec started timing [...]

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Activity #34: Get to know your gear

February 20, 2007

We recommend you try using that baby carrier, stroller, whatever before you really need it. Whitney actually practiced using her breast pump on her leg when she was 40 weeks pregnant, and it was a good thing: she ended up needing to use it for real the day after she gave birth, which is no [...]

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Activity #269: Email your baby

January 10, 2007

There’s been some talk in the blogosphere about babies born with URLs already reserved for them. That’s fine and all, but there’s a reason to get your pre-reading child online that’s not just about reserving his or her Internet real estate. If you sign your kid up for an email address, you can send messages [...]

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