1.  Gear that lasts and lasts (giggle): Heather tells us which items in her aresnal of baby products have had the longest lives.
2. Is it okay to announce a birth on Facebook? (babycenter): Whoever checks Facebook the most frequently will be the first to hear about your new baby, right?
3. Organizing the kitchen for kids (closet factory): This post seriously needs comments and suggestions. If you have a big kid, please join the conversation!
4. Forcing motherhood to be more fun (babycenter): Heather describes how following her own advice is tougher than it looks.
5. 5 tips for dating, new parent-style (giggle): Just in time for Valentine’s Day
6. Great idea: Eventbrite for school events (510families): If you are an organizer of groups and gatherings, you should know about this tool for selling tickets — even if they are free.
7. Please! No more gadgets! (babycenter): Whitney worries that the next generation will never make eye contact again.
8. A good idea: Earth Baby compostable diapers (510families): Heather has gone greener with her third baby.
9. 4 easy tips to hosting another family (babycenter): What should you know before you agree to have Heather’s family come stay with you? She shares her wish list.
10. My life as a blog (blogstar): Heather confesses that her youngest child may have been conceived as blog fodder. MAY have been.
11. Sh*t urban moms say (babycenter): This one is pretty funny, yo.
12. Teaching our kids about money: Whitney sums up what she learned at a parenting lecture for those who are concerned about raising a responsible citizen.

I saw this on Pinterest and felt moved to share it. Someone else blogged it with the title “Good parents are good.” I loved that, too.

Do you have a tattoo with meaning? Do you plan to or already have your child/ren’s names on your body?

via iwastesomuchtime

Whitney and I have been friends for more than 15 years. Like her, I’ve been surprised that working together has been so easy. But I’m not surprised it has been so fun. The girl can walk on her hands and do cartwheels in either direction after all.

We go together like butter cream and cupcakes

Since she said all those nice things about me last week, I present seven of her posts that stuck with me:

I am a holiday card ho this year. (Ho ho ho!) — ok, seriously, who does this?

The one where we all judge Tom and Katie (and yet I’m the one thrown under the bus?!)

Inside our closet: What’s in my kids’ dress-up boxes, Whitney has an eclectic array of costume choices for her littles. It is fun to peek.

Moms on bikes (part deux). I love that she featured moms around the world cycling with small children, including one of my longtime buddies in Denmark, 9 months pregnant.

Create a Modern Family picture, this activity is based on a funny outing we did together. In an ironic twist, Whit lost all photographic evidence and sent her sister out to repeat.

3 parenting tips that have completely failed me. Because we live in the real world and not a magazine.

On housecleaning and toenail clipping.

Whitney wants our photographs to be beautiful but our words to be realistic. For me that comes through in this mixed bag of blog posts. What do you think?

Last year, you guys seemed to really like the opportunity to win books from Barefoot Books, so I asked them to give us another chance to giveaway books. In the post-holiday reflections on STUFF, it feels really nice to give away BOOKS. Though you do have to put them away and decide carefully how to add to your collection, they hold their value for much longer than other playthings, don’t you think?

In honor of Chinese New Year on January 23rd, we’re giving away a copy of The Great Race, along with four other books of the winner’s choosing from the Barefoot Books shop. I’m totally in love with the artwork of Clare Beaton who uses hand-sewn collages in her books.

(Also, did you know that if you are truly passionate about children’s books, you can become a Barefoot Books ambassador — a work-from-home sales job.)

The Great Race introduces the Chinese calendar and signs of the zodiac.

How to enter: Usually we do one entry per person, but this time we’ll do two. Get one entry for your comment telling us your child’s current favorite book, and a second entry (optional) if you click over and LIKE the Barefoot Books Facebook page and come back to comment that you have done that. (Don’t cheat — we’ll check!)

On Wednesday Jan 18, we’ll close the comments and select a winner. The winner will be able to pick four other Barefoot Books to receive from this catalog.

Heather has very strong opinions about certain things, and that, next to her hair, is one of her best qualities.

Tell her about a concert for preschoolers scheduled during naptime and she will tell you how misguided that is. A meeting during lunch hour that doesn’t include food? She will rant for the rest of the day. And if the food offered at the meeting includes cilantro, she might just walk out in the middle.

As her business partner of the last several years, I’m surprised how few arguments we’ve had. Mostly, her fiery convictions make me laugh. And smiling is one of my New Year’s Resolutions.

I hope one of Heather’s New Year’s Resolutions is to document more of her very strong opinions. Here are some that I enjoyed in 2011.

• Do NOT take your little one’s to see Cars 2
• Yes I am. Top 10 reasons Whitney should have suspected I’m pregnant
• What to expect when traveling with a baby
• My very strong feelings about baby socks
• On introducing allowance
• What we REALLY want for Mother’s Day

One more flashback item for the road. Here is my friend Heather posing for a picture with a total stranger, whose permission I do not have to share his picture.

This was ten years ago, and Heather and I had decided to stay out all night in San Francisco, hopping from location to location until dawn. This guy worked at the first restaurant we stopped at, and agreed to model for a picture as if he were on a date with her. Perhaps he is now a dad of three himself? The camera I carried that night was NOT EVEN DIGITAL!

My December round-up is all about clothes for mama and baby.

The Baby:

As Sawyer outgrows some of the precious newborn and 0-3 month outfits, I want to reminisce about the teeny tiny wee little newborn clothes. giggle has some seriously adorable 100% cotton clothes in their Better Basics line. If you’re in favor of soft organic clothing (and/or allergic to characters on smallest people), you’ll like them too.

I love the “kimono-style” wrap around onesies and shirts for babies that are so blobby you don’t even want to lift their heads to dress them.

These kind of stripes always make me think a baby looks French:

Oui, skull cap only $10

matching jammies in any size, perfect for big sibs too

the little dress I do not need... sigh

The Mama:

Whitney has been my post-partum fashion champion, telling me that I look great and normal (and reminding me when my belly is hanging out in public). In addition to the steady trickle of confidence boosting comments, she reminds me NOT to buy an entire new wardrobe as each week passes. Here, on our giggle parent talk column, she offers What to Wear: Postpartum Edition for everyone else’s benefit too.

ha! I'm actually wearing this now!

Hop on over to giggle GAB to read the rest of her suggested wardrobe finds. And step away from the sweat pants.

Snapfish recently challenged me to to solicit reader suggestions and make a cool photo book. So, not only did the ideas have to be interesting, but they had to also be easy enough for me to execute. Based on your great ideas, I picked the easiest one: One Fun Day.

Alissa commented: Did you do something fun as a whole family this year? Even just a one day thing at home, like raking leaves? I took a gazillion pictures of us playing in the leaves this fall, and if I had the gumption that would totally make a fun photo book – all of us playing and having fun on one simple day in our front yard. I took some photo close-ups of leaves and fall colors, so I’d use those as background (dunno if Snapfish allows you to do so, but it’s really cool if they do) and put photos on top. Maybe a little prose to describe the fun you all had, and you’re done! A fun way to remember a great day had by the family.

Using a basic template, I uploaded pictures that my friend Eric took of a recent holiday cookie decorating party. Eric always takes such beautiful candid shots, I figured that the book would be lovely and simple (in addition to kicking ass in the multi-blogger contest so I could win you guys some photo books of your own).

Here is the cover showing the front on the right as a full-bleed photo on hardcover and the backside on the left.

Here are a few interior pages:

I was able to add images easily from my computer. From experimenting with other concepts, I also could import images from my friends’ snapfish albums and directly from Facebook. Creating my photo book was straightforward once I selected and uploaded all my images. Designing and ordering the entire 20-page book took only one hour. I could drag them and move them around any number of layouts. For this concept, I selected only one photo per page.

I’m excited to receive the book and am sure that my boys will enjoy looking at it! Thanks clever rookiemoms readers and thanks snapfish.

Disclosure:

This post series is sponsored by Snapfish as part of the “Your Creative Lens on Life” campaign. Photo book credits will be awarded if my book wins the contest to all commenters on my previous post. Stay tuned.

I was at a board meeting for Help A Mother Out when I met a lovely rookie mom named Catherine. The topic of Huggies’ holiday Santa diapers came up as we sat around the conference table (HAMO is a diaper donation advocacy organization, after all) and Catherine excitedly reached for her purse to reveal her family’s holiday card. Take a look. If this doesn’t charm you, I’m not sure what would!

I thought this was a brilliant greeting card design (do you see his *belt buckle*?) and asked her if I could share it with you.

To replicate this photo shoot, here’s what you need:

• One adorable baby or toddler who wears a diaper size 3, 4, or 5
• One long-sleeved red shirt
• One Santa diaper by Huggies. (As of this writing, packages of these diapers are 40% off on Diapers.com. You’re welcome.)
• One small Santa-style hat, available for a few dollars at any drugstore

Obviously the Photoshopped background pumps up the graphic impact of Catherine’s card, but I bet you’ll figure out something that works for you.

P.S. If you can afford a package of Santa diapers, consider buying an extra package to donate to a homeless shelter or food bank this holiday season?

P.S.2. As part of the Huggies blogger ambassador team, I have been hired to help spread the word about diaper need and the Every Little Bottom campaign. All the genius ideas I post, however, are either my own or belong to someone I admire.

One of the best parts about getting older is that the accomplishments of my peers continue to be more amazing. It is with no small thrill that I share the news that my blogging peer, the talented illustrator known Secret Agent Josephine is launching, not just one children’s book, but three!

And not just on one platform, but lots! That’s right, you can access her super fun children’s books electronically, because hey, it’s the future.

iPad/iPhone: ABCs, Colors, and Numbers.

Kindle: ABCs, Colors, and Numbers.

Nook: ABCs, Colors, and Numbers.

Paperback: ABCs, Colors, Numbers.

To celebrate, she has designed this complicated scavenger hunt book tour all over the Internets and I encourage you to follow along because there are craft templates and lovely images everywhere, plus mucho chances to win a print from Secret Agent Jo, who in real life is known as Brenda Ponnay. We are honored to brag that Brenda was an early reader of Rookie Moms and that she didn’t even get mad when we borrowed this illustration from her website. It is one of my favorite visuals ever.

That’s me her trying on pre-pregnancy jeans.

Secret Agent Alert! You can win the R IS FOR ROBOT print for your child’s room or your classroom!

Our print is the Letter R , but if you want to seek out a different letter, you can use Brenda’s site as a jumping off point to track down all the giveaways, each a different letter of the alphabet. You see, you ARE a secret agent! The best chestnuts are to be found on Pigalle Square.

To enter our Secret Agent Sweepstakes, simply comment below telling us your favorite R word. I’ll go first: I’m torn because my husband is named Ryan, but my ears prick up every time I hear the word ROOKIE used in conversation. I would love this print myself! Ok, your turn!

(On Monday, December 19, I will select a winner with the help of a random number picker thingy. Only one entry per adult human, please. U.S. shipping addresses only.)

I cannot tell a lie. Over the course of this year, at various blogger events, I collected three different $50 gift cards to customized paper goods companies, and I was determined to use them all.

My annual mailing list is about 75 households long. Hence, I uploaded the same photo to Minted, Paper Culture, and Tiny Prints, and split my order three ways.  So… spoiler alert: if you are on my real-life friends mailing list, you’re about to see what our 2011 holiday card picture looks like. (BUT still, a surprise remains: which version will you receive?)

Version A) The Tiny Prints gift card was given to me at a luncheon the Bay Area company hosted for bloggers in November. I let my children choose the card. It looks a little more Happy Gay Pride than Happy Holidays, but I love it.

I put a picture of me and Ryan on the back which looks a little random, but hey, when you’ve got a nice picture of your hot husband and yourself (wearing make up and contact lenses and earrings all at the same time!), how can you not show it to everyone you know?

Version B) Next, we have the Minted card I ordered. A $50 Minted.com credit comes in the Citrus Lane mom-to-be gift box. I was doing some work for Citrus Lane, had lunch in their offices, and went home with this card. (Thanks, Citrus Lane ladies!)

I chose this one:

Minted seems to have a new promo code every day, so I’m not going to post one here, because it might expire before you read this. When you shop Minted’s 2011 Holiday Card Collection, look at the stripe at the top of the page for a discount code. (These cards are expensive, but you already may have guessed that given that I said that I spent more than $150 on a total of 75 cards.)

Version C) Paper Culture slipped a $50 credit into something I picked up at this year’s BlogHer conference. I was first seduced by Paper Culture because of their rounded corners. I am obsessed with rounded corners.

Save 20% at Paper Culture with the code I just got in the mail: TYPMN9. Ends 12/31.

Pro tip: My crafty friend Jackie gave her sharp-cornered cards this premium look with a handy corner clipper. I love this thing!

In Kindergarten, Julian’s Special Person of the Week poster was 100% rounded-cornered photos, and boy was I pleased with myself. (If you stuff your own stocking, grab the corner rounder for $6 on Amazon!) Some of the card companies charge an extra $0.10 for rounded corners. I say if you find a great deal, order square ones and then do it yourself.

Note: My kids’ unisex red-and-white-striped jammies were provided by Polarn O Pyret, and you might see more of them this month because Heather’s boys all have a set as well.

On the giggle website, where I noticed today that shipping on holiday gifts is free, as is gift wrapping (score!), I noticed that they put out a very appealing holiday catalog that you can browse online. I didn’t receive it in the mail, which I might say is a mistake on their part, because if I’m not the target audience, then who is? (Ok, maybe someone who is a little more trigger happy when it comes to pulling out their credit card.) Seriously, I think that as someone who doesn’t have a baby in my house, I am maybe MORE likely to splurge on the cutest newest STUFF for little ones, because I am not distracted with financing the necessities like diapers.

So let’s play the game IF I had my own tiny baby, what would I buy on giggle?

For my imaginary 0-3 month old baby:

I love this activity mat from skip*hop, which is great for tummy time. My stepmom just gave it to a family friend and I saw it at her house last week. I’m already ruining this game because I wouldn’t buy this for MYSELF. (Who spends $75 on their own playmat? No one, that’s who.)  But I would easily buy the matching mirror because I know how much my babies loved their little activity mirrors. (Also great for promoting tummy time.) This mirror is $17 and adorable.

For my imaginary 4-6 month old baby:

Time to start thinking about food. I loved our clip-on feeding chair and will be handing it on my kitcheniest friend when she has a baby because she’s got a kitchen island that makes this the most space-saving solution for solid food-eating babies.

I’m not sure if that feels like a gift for baby or for his parents, so I’m going to throw a second option in for this age group. This cozy, organic striped sleeper comes in a girly (below) and boyish (click) color palette. Cute, right? You can also get the same look and feel in a 2-piece outfit.

For my imaginary 6-12 month old:

I am a strong believer in the power of the lovey. My kids were both attached to small blankets like this one, and I promoted their attachment by placing their loveys-to-be in their carseats with them every day from the age of three or so months. My four-year old daughter is still sleeping with three of them. (If you are going to move forward with a security blanket strategy, buy three of the same one upfront, and rotate their usage to reduce trauma when one gets inevitably lost or forgotten.)

For my imaginary toddler:

I’m having trouble narrowing down amongst the push toys. I’m thinking the combo of pushing AND blocks is pretty awesome for a toddler.

This art-to-go box is only $10 and is a super convenient way to introduce colored pencils and pastels to your child’s art vocabulary. My son’s pre-K teacher specialized in art education and was a huge advocate for getting kids into pastels, something many of us would not come upon naturally. We have a case very similar to this (must be a deluxe version) and love how it all packs up together.

That’s the end of my product picks. Here’s what Heather posted on the giggle GAB blog this month:

My hospital packing list. I have been to the hospital for childbirth three times now and I’ve concluded that packing almost anything is a nice-to-have with the possible exception of a car seat for the babe. That doesn’t mean I arrive empty-handed, however. In fact, during my third pregnancy, I began tucking away little odds and ends into my hospital bag about two months before my due date. Just in case. (Read more >)

Note: We are employed by giggle to contribute to their blog in a column called ParentTalk. When we tell you about those posts, we like to throw in a few pretty pictures, hence the length of this post, in which I clearly got carried away.

We are delighted to share our space with Christine Koh today. She is our second guest blogger on the topic of having a second child.

When I saw Heather and Whitney post their reader query about whether or not to have a second child, my immediate thought was, If only it was as simple as deciding yes or no. I come from a large family (seven kids) and conceived my daughter Laurel quickly once my husband and I decided we were ready to start a family. However, our decision to have a second child was followed by several years of confusion and heartache when I couldn’t conceive. I felt like a failure, particularly whenever Laurel begged me for a sibling.

I “came out” about my infertility on my personal blog in one sentence, but the process of writing that post and putting it out there, then absorbing the subsequent outpouring of love and response was truly cathartic. Not long after that experience, I made my peace. I donated my baby gear. I happily ramped up my client work. I was content.

And then I learned I was pregnant. Of course.

To say that I was shocked is an understatement. The day I learned I was pregnant, we were overrun with family visitors and I was on my way out to an event. I literally handed my husband the pregnancy test, curtly said “We can discuss this later,” and walked out the door. There was no jumping up and down, only shock. Jon and I didn’t even have a chance to talk about it until a few days later. By this point I had taken another couple of pregnancy tests (including one at an already scheduled annual checkup). It took time for my husband, 5-year-old daughter Laurel (who also made her peace after I told her it didn’t seem like I could grow more babies), and me to move from shock and confusion to joy and anticipation.

Only you will know whether you are ready pragmatically (e.g., Can we support a second child?) and internally (e.g., “Do I feel ready?”) to expand your family, but here is what we have found in having a second child:

• I worried about Laurel having had our exclusive attention for 6 years. We were so entrenched in our routine and time together. Would I have enough to give to another baby? To Laurel? The answer is yes, there is always enough love to go around.
• If you decide to wait and revisit the topic of expanding your family later, don’t worry. Big gaps are good. Laurel and Violet are 6.5 years apart and it is fantastic. Laurel helps with Violet, she’s old enough to take instruction and help herself to things (e.g., if I’m nursing and can’t get up to help her), and she’s also old enough to have her own playdates and special sleepovers with her grandparents, which I think is a contributing factor to why we have not seen any jealousy issues so far.
• Yes, the first month is hard. For me, it wasn’t so much about sleep deprivation as it was about coping with the freakish boob fluctuation associated with nursing, and the recovery following 58 hours of labor. But you do come out of the fog, and there’s this chubby, smiling baby gurgling at you on the other side.
• People are incredibly generous and will help you. We were immensely touched by the kindness as people came by with meals, to snuggle Violet so I could nap, and to pick up Laurel for playdates to save us the trip and to give her a little extra attention.
• You don’t need to spend a lot of money to prepare for a second baby. We had next to nothing since I had given most of our baby things away. We received tons of baby clothes and gear at my secondhand baby showerand after Violet was born, people came by with more things to fill in the gaps. Honestly, I have barely spent any money at all – the only baby-related things I think I have purchased since Violet was born include breast pads and Seventh Generation diapers and wipes. For real.
• Bizarrely, even though I run multiple businesses, I wasn’t terribly worried about keeping up. I didn’t schedule formal maternity leave and winged it. It all worked out fine. Part of this is because I love my work so it didn’t feel onerous getting back to it, and part of it was because Violet slept so much in her first month that it was easy to poke in and keep work projects moving.
• It is possible to maintain relationships — you just have to make it a priority and enlist help. My husband makes it possible for me to visit with friends and travel for work. My mom made it possible for Jon and I to go out on our first date not too long after Violet was born. And we have a couple of great babysitters too. If money is tight, consider swapping sitting with other mom friends – watch her kids one night and she can watch yours another.

So there you have it. I suggest that you evaluate the pragmatics and internals. If the pro column outweighs the con column, take the goalie out of the net, as it were, and put your faith in the universe. If the con column outweighs the pros, live your life as a family of three to the fullest.In my eyes, it’s win-win either way.

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Christine Koh is the founder and editor of Boston Mamas, the designer behind Posh Peacock, and writes a personal blog at Pop Discourse. She lives with her husband Jon, 7-year-old daughter Laurel, and 7-month-old daughter Violet in the Boston area. She tweets about it all at @bostonmamas.