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 Yes, I’ve been a slacker. Being a new mom is not conducive to well, anything except nursing, changing diapers, and trying to sleep. In addition, we’ve been dealing with some digestive issues with Lillian that have necessitated me cutting out dairy and soy. Do you know how hard it is to avoid all dairy and soy? Really freaking hard. Pretty much eating out and any prepared food at all – anything that comes frozen or bottled – is out. I now have to read ingredient lists obsessively, call restaurants in advance and ask about what they cook with, and mostly just cook all my own food. And while this is probably way healthier than the plethora of junk food we enjoyed during Lillian’s first six weeks, it is very time consuming. I’m kind of over it. It’s been three weeks so far and there’s no end in sight. Some of Lillian’s more distressing symptoms are gone (specs of blood in the diaper, discomfort) but some remain (lots and lots of green poop. you asked).
Have you ever heard of soy lethicin? Neither had I until this happened. It’s in EVERYTHING. And so is soy oil. Crisco, margarine, and vegetable oil are all made from soy. It turns out soy is way harder to avoid than dairy.
On the plus side, we’ve re-upped our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture – weekly organic vegetables) subscription and have started shopping at the farmer’s market on the weekend. I’ve also become a huge fan of Jamie Oliver’s Food Nation. He’s right – there are way too many ingredients in most of the food we get at the store. Everything at the farmer’s market is made locally and doesn’t have ingredients you don’t recognize. It’s nice. We’re subsisting mainly on rice, vegetables, and meat. And that’s not a bad thing really. Because bacon is meat. Bacon is my new cheese.
Meanwhile, the baby is doing great. Her skin looks great, she’s sleeping great. She’s cute as a button. Well, cuter because who ever said buttons were cute? But she’s dang cute. She’s 10 weeks old, is hopefully approaching 10 lbs, and is 10x more fun than she was a few weeks ago. Lots of smiling, happy shrieking, scooting, and general trouble-making. And mama is having a hard time not buying her cute new clothes every day.
 Hanging out with Daddy  Rocking the Bjorn  Modeling the latest in Carter's Coture
 I can go several days with relatively little pain (though I won’t say discomfort – having a tiny person inside you is not always comfortable), and then all hell breaks loose and my body goes into full rebellion mode. Currently I’ve got some round ligament pain – it was bad yesterday, not so bad today – lower back pain, and my latest issue is hip pain while sleeping. I used to get this once in a while when I slept on a soft surface like a couch, and assumed it was circulation-related. That makes sense, since pregnancy messes with circulation quite a bit. But now I wake up with one or both hips burning every couple hours and have to stretch them a bit to get back to sleep.
At first I could mitigate it by using the dreaded foam roller before bed, but now it doesn’t seem to make a dent in the pain. Luckily, I have yoga tonight and a visit to the chiropractor tomorrow (which includes a blessed massage).
However, I’m going to have to resort to buying yet another horribly named pregnancy aid, the Snoogle. Who the fuck comes up with these names? Preggie Pops? Snoogle? Could they be any more annoying? I think not. Yes, pregnant women are kind of cute. I revel in my pregnant cuteness. But please do some market research on your audience and recognize that some of us still have two brain cells to rub together. /end rant
Next week we’re flying to Santa Barbara for Thanksgiving, baby shower #1 and other assorted revelry. I’m not looking forward to the flight, but hopefully it will go smoothly. And there will be much tasty food on hand that I can enjoy. Bonus!
 I’ve been asking around and it seems like all parents have one particular gadget that made their lives with newborn easier. So far I’ve heard about the papasan chair, a voice activated white noise and vibration gadget, the ergobaby carrier, and the drop in stroller. My goal is to stay as compact as possible, since babies are always developmentally cycling through everything and then needing new stuff. For example, in the interest of compacting, we’re going to ditch the traditional stroller and just get the drop in and the aforementioned Bob all-terrain. But seriously, if it lets me sleep or function, I want it. Tell me what it is.
When it comes to decorating, I’m allergic to pastels. This poses quite a challenge when designing a baby room. I’m not registering for many decor items because I’m hoping to refurbish or make many of them myself (with a little help from friends and family). The room “theme” (I hate themes) is eclectic with a little modern and some East Indian influence. And elephants. Can’t visualize it? Don’t worry, there will be lots of pictures when it’s finished.
On the pregnancy front I’m doing pretty well. The nausea and general squeamishness are mostly gone, except for isolated incidents. My appetite is better, but I’m still not gaining weight. I’m having intermittent round ligament pain and general lower back soreness, but am still able to walk a good distance so that helps. I have way more energy. I’m sleeping okay, though not nearly as heavily as the first trimester, but I’m having lots of vivid, creepy dreams. I could do without those. I had to ditch yoga this last week because of a conflict, so we’ll see if it kicks my ass this week.
So what gadgets could you have not survived early parenthood without? Leave me some ideas in the comments section!
 What baby wouldn't want this? God help me, I’m starting to have to physically restrain myself from buying kiddie stuff. The link from my last entry, Nerdy Baby, is full of the awesome. I’m going to have to get one of the prints for the nursery.
My mother in law bought me some totally adorable Carter’s onesie sets at Babies R Us today. All hot pink and purple and green with panda feet and things too unspeakably cute to mention.
But then there’s Threadless. I’m sunk. Where you can get this. And this. And this. Help!
Don’t even get me started on books. First, there’s shiny new copies of all the books I loved (and trashed) when I was a kid. And then there’s hip cool new books with Buddhist fables, and board books with Haiku, and Monsters! If I’m not careful I’m going to be dressing and diapering my kid in pages ripped from books because I forgot about everything else I’m going to need. Who needs a diaper pail when you have this?
I think I have some issues to work out.
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