by Heather
Try out your big baby in a backpack carrier and hike around. If this is your first time using the backpack carrier, do yourself a favor and make the first hike around the house or the yard in case baby hates his new method of transport.
When you’re ready, hit the real world for some hand free walking or go on a real hike through actual nature! If you don’t want to go it alone or you’re at a loss for the best trails, East Bay Moms organizes regular hikes and activities. To be totally honest, I haven’t done any yet, but it’s on my list.
by Heather
When Whitney was a brand-new-rookie-mom, I brought over a half-cooked lasagne and a carton of Tom’s Cookies. I thought I was pretty darn smart. Unlike most other things I thought I knew before having a baby of my own… I was right about the cookies! You can bake them one (or two) at a time and have a freshly baked dessert 20 minutes after the mood strikes.
I like my hot chocolate chip cookie served over cold vanilla ice cream.
In the interest of full disclosure, Alec and I have also discovered the almost-as-easy DIY version. One evening a few weeks ago, while Holden slept, we:
- whipped up a full batch of our favorite chocolate chip cookies
- baked two hot cookies as a reward while we did the rest of the work
- formed the rest into cookie shapes on a cookie sheet (as close together as you can get ‘em)
- froze the little cookie dough wads
In the morning, we took our frozen cookie dough wads and put them in a large freezer ziplock labeled with the correct baking temp and time. Add about 2 minutes to the baking time for frozen cookie dough.
by Heather
Oh yeah! Our friend, Angie, at Baby Cheapskate offers five great tips to save hundreds of dollars on diapers. She estimates that parents will spend over $1500 on diapers before their child is potty trained and hopes these tips will save up to a third of that.
Go on, get yourself some cheap diapers.
Found on ParentHacks during a night-time feeding.
by Heather
Whether you do it on purpose (driving around town to induce a nap) or by accident (windows down, music blaring, begging baby to stay awake to no avail), sooner or later your baby will fall asleep in the car. Some people can get babies back to sleep after extracting them from the car seat, but that’s not the case with my kid. Sure, you’ll be delighted to see the blissed out look of baby sleep… but you might also wonder what the F*&k to do with yourself.
Here’s the tip: have a nap watching station all ready to go. With our house configuration, we can sit on the porch and keep an eye and ear on the car in the driveway. If you’re not so lucky, keep a lawn chair, cordless phone, and a stash of magazines (or your knitting), and a bottle of water handy. Instead of being frustrated, think of the blessed gift of time you’ve just been given!
Oh yeah, keep a close eye on the baby to make sure he’s safe and comfortably sleeping. 
