From the category archives:

Month 2

Ariana’s Fearless Friday

October 1, 2010

Woohoo! It’s our first Fearless Friday post. (Send in your own; instructions are here.) Without further ado, Ariana shares her Adventures of One Very Small Boy and One Rookie Mom: I gave birth to our first child, Lars Magnus, on May 11, 2010. Since then upstate NY has been unbearably hot. I like to think [...]

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Breastfeeding resources for rookies

September 6, 2010

Annie (@phdinparenting) compiled an extremely helpful list of go-to references for nursing moms and moms-to-be. She has been blogging about the art and science of parenting at the PhD in Parenting Blog since May 2008. Nursing mom picture via flickr christyscherrer Here are Annie’s top six resources: Kellymom: Kellymom is the one of the most [...]

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Kristi and Nora’s Very Rookie Summer

August 20, 2010

We’re happy to share the eighth edition of our Very Rookie Summer series. Kristi is sharing three short stories (the final one is a love story) about a great big green ball. Her daughter, Nora, is 6 weeks old. They live in smokin’ hot North Carolina. She blogs at Here we go… This story is [...]

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Erin’s Two Very Rookie Summers

July 30, 2010

Time for the fifth edition of our Very Rookie Summer series. Erin Goettsch shares two different days from her life as mom including her lessons learned the hard way taking a baby swimming. Baby Nathan taught his mama how to treat a baby at the pool; baby Anneliese benefited. Read more from Erin at her [...]

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Activity #347: Photograph a nasty crying jag

May 17, 2010

Argh! A crying infant. It breaks my heart a little every time… I’m going to give him four minutes and then go in there and let him out of the crib for a while. Ok, but first, I’m going to take his picture. That might piss him off more, but that will work for this [...]

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Activity #84: Smile

April 30, 2010

I have heard — and totally believe — that babies give their first real smiles right when you don’t think you can go another day without one (like you’re starting to joke about how you want to leave junior out by the dumpster, ha ha?). When your baby smiles, praise him and smile back to [...]

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Reduce postpartum stress

March 25, 2010

Amongst my memories of high school, some of my fondest are laughing so hard that I cried (mostly in inappropriate situations, such as Psychology class or Yom Kippur services). One of the people who was frequently responsible for this behavior is Alison, pictured below. I was not at all surprised to learn that, as an [...]

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Activity #566: Find out who else is up all night

March 22, 2010

Though it might feel like it, you’re not the only ones up all night. Find the places that are open all night and who will deliver to your home; keep a running and accessible list of nearby pharmacies, grocery stores, take-out joints, etc. and have these numbers readily available. Program these fantastic vendors into your [...]

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Brace yourself: The zero to ten scale

March 12, 2010

The best advice Ryan and I got during our first days with Julian came from a source that I can no longer remember, perhaps the pediatrician who made rounds in the hospital.  It was this: Babies need to go from 0 to 10 on a daily basis. A sleeping baby is at 0 and may [...]

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Remember your kegels

February 2, 2010

Sorry rookie dads, this one is for the ladies. So, we’re all supposed to do kegels, right? How we’re supposed to remember to do them with all the other stuff new moms are juggling is totally beyond me… so I came up with a brilliant little technique that I can share with you. Do one [...]

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Activity #224: Take picture of sleeping baby

December 11, 2009

Sometimes young babies make annoyingly weird faces when you’re trying to take a picture to prove to the world how cute they really are. In the first couple months, I found that Julian was actually a very good model while he slept. He didn’t cry or cross his eyes or make a rooting face. He [...]

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Activity #35: Learn baby massage

October 26, 2009

Whether you’re a total zen mama or a skeptic, I highly recommend learning a few techniques of infant massage. You can enjoy some quiet time and get to know your baby’s tiny developing body AND often get the kid to chill out and go to sleep. Win win. I took a short workshop in baby [...]

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