Ages & Stages

Fun story: my son caught his first cold the other day. He got it from my husband and I, and he woke up with a runny nose and a cough. I kept an eye on him that morning and he seemed to get worse as the day went on. By noon his eyes were glassy and he seemed pretty miserable. I called the pediatrician and the nurse said he had an opening right then if we could come into the office right away. So I quickly loaded my son into the car and sped off to the doctor, only to wait an hour and a half. And what’s worse than waiting forever at the doctor with a sick baby? Waiting...

As a mom to a two-year-old, I am learning very quickly that people aren't kidding when they say a toddler's vocabulary doubles overnight.  Judah is rapidly saying new phrases, sentences, words, and is making our home and car a much louder and interactive place to be.  But with all his new ways of communicating, he can be a little...demanding. Since I live a good 30 minutes from Baton Rouge, the car has become my quiet place to and from work.  I think about things, listen to music (or books!), pray for friends and family, but mainly I just tune out.  That is, until Judah is in the car with me.  When I get Mr. Chatterbox on board, he wants to...

Pumping at work. It’s a pain. A gift. A lot of parts to wash. Monotonous at the least. Sometimes I feel like I’m a slave to my pumping bag and schedule. And, heaven forbid I forget to put my day’s harvest into the fridge after work (like I did the other day).  Right now, I pump three times a day, roughly every three hours, and I usually get enough for three 4 oz bottles, give or take a couple of ounces. Here are some things I’ve learned about pumping at work: 1. Try to see pumping as a nice break from work rather than a daily chore.  I've come to enjoy my 15-20 minutes of pumping, three times a day, because...

I was going out of my mind. My son, William – my sweet, loving, adorable son – would not nap in his crib! At 6.5 months old, I was spending hours out of my day holding him while he slept. He would fall asleep nursing and then wake up almost every time I put him down. Occasionally, I was able to gently lay him on our bed or on the couch and he would stay asleep. But that still meant that I needed to hover over him constantly to make sure he didn’t roll off. So I was spending all day playing with him, feeding him, or watching him sleep. While there is nothing I love more than spending time...

I’ve never been a competitive person. It’s actually a running joke in my family that I never really cared if I won a board game, or a softball game. This isn’t to say I didn’t want to do well in school, or in other endeavors, but I was never someone who really compared herself to others. Until I had a baby. When I was pregnant, reading about “What to Expect” and listening to people’s advice, I heard a lot of, “every baby goes at their own pace” and “don’t get caught up in numbers.” But when you are focusing on your baby’s development, there are a lot of numbers: height and weight percentiles, sitting up by this age, crawling by that...