maman musing #7.

Blueberries are a huge hit without fail every damn time.

tip: jot down memorable moments.

If you are a new parent and you are anything like me, you probably have one of these lying around somewhere:

A beautiful baby journal that you got months before your due date. You probably spent countless hours fantasizing about recording your precious angel's every move.

Until you had the baby. Then the journal was abruptly shoved in that pile on your desk of white onesies you were going to decorate and ink pads you were going to use to imprint baby's hands and feet every week. Hah! Instead your life is a constant blur of poop and spit up and now pureed spinach you somehow find in your ears (how did they manage that?) and you have long forgotten that beautiful blank baby journal.

You know that saying. The best time to plant a tree was ten years ago. The second best time is today.

We don't all have time to get out there and dig the holes and plant the trees and make them pretty and make sure they're watered and maintained. And that's ok. While you're in the thick of this crazy whirlwind that is the first year of your baby's life, you aren't expected to spend hours you don't have filling out a baby journal. But at some point life will calm down a bit and you will have the time (or at least that's what they tell me), and when that day comes there is an easy way to remember all those moments that seemed to pass by in an instant.

Grab a simple crappy wall calendar from the dollar bin the next time you're at the supermarket, and jot down the memorable events as they happen.

Just a few words, shorthand, something to help you remember what was going on. Baby doubled their birth weight, baby sat up, baby ate asparagus for the first time. You get the picture.

Keep it in the room you are most often in when baby does something memorable; where you eat or play for example. Make sure there is a pen next to the calendar at all times.

If you are really on top of it, keep a camera next to the calendar, and whenever your sweet babe does something memorable, snap a few photos before you jot it down. This not only forever preserves the memory of your baby doing something exciting, but together with your calendar it can be used as a chronological reference later on for when the other bajillion pictures of your baby were taken.

Later you can easily look back at this and fill in that baby journal as if you never even missed a beat. I promise, your baby will never know you cheated and filled out the book when they were three (or thirteen)!

What are you waiting for? Make those memories, people!

tip: freeze milk flat.

We have had a lot of milk donations over the past seven months and it has taught me quite a bit about milk storage. I still remember the first time I thawed a bag of milk that had been frozen flat. The amount of time and water required was reduced by at least ten times what we were used to, and at that time we were feeding our boys exclusively donor milk by bottle. Between the two of them, we spent a lot of time thawing milk, and this significantly cut down on bottle prep time.

Most milk when it gets thrown into the freezer ends up looking something like this:

This hard nugget of milk takes incredibly long to thaw and its odd shape makes it a pain to keep the freezer even remotely organized. I think it often gets frozen this way so the number of ounces is easily visible with the markings on the bag.

Instead, mark the number of ounces on the outside of the bag in permanent marker along with the date and place it flat in the freezer so when it is frozen it looks something like this:

Having the milk frozen this way increases the surface area, which means when you thaw it under warm water, more of the water can touch more of the milk, helping it thaw faster. Plus its slim shape means it is very easy to store the milk upright chronologically, making it easier to follow a first-in-first-out milk-using policy (use older milk first).

This is the one of the simplest changes possible, takes zero extra time, and can make your life significantly easier.

Happy pumping!

you know you're a new parent when #6.

You become an emotional wreck any time there is a sappy child-parent scene on television, even/especially the over-exaggerated ones.

maman musing #6.

It is not worth giving asparagus to babies. They don't yet appreciate the seasonal importance and anyone who's ever eaten a bit too much in one sitting can only imagine the horrendous smell of their diapers.

haircut head.

trick: try side sitting.

Some babies just don't like tummy time no matter how you try to entice them. With special toys, laying on your chest, with snazzy books, on a play mat. You can make it seem like the most fun activity in the whole wide world and still they fuss and whine and cry it out any time you put them on their stomach.

The goal of tummy time is to work the chest and arm muscles in preparation of crawling and it may seem like the only way, but it's not. Helping your baby side sit is another great way to build the muscles of the upper body and help them get ready to crawl. Plus it helps them learn to eventually transition from sitting to crawling on their own later down the road.

Seat baby in front of you facing you.

Turn baby's right leg so their knee is down in the center and their foot is pointing out to their right, just like the left one. Position baby's body towards their left and place their hands out in front of them to the side.

The further away from their body the hands (and the closer their face to the floor), the more strength needed to keep them stable. Start with them close to their body and progressively move them further away to build strength. 


This is usually more tolerated than tummy time and it is easier to distract baby in this position by reading stories or playing with toys. It is also easier to do small little sessions of side sitting without causing a total upset - if baby starts getting fussy, simply move them back to sitting. It is less of a total transition from being on their tummies.

Make sure to switch sides to build strength equally in both arms.

Happy sitting!