Today’s guest post comes from Angela, who not only is a frequent commenter on this blog but keeps her own fantastic mommy blog as well. In this piece, she talks about an article that made its rounds through various internet mommy hangouts last month. I remember reading the article as well, and feeling a mixture of sadness as well as relief. What was your reaction to it? (And if you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend that you do so now!)

Hi Readers!  I couldn’t have been more honored when Jenny asked me to guest blog while she recovers from the delivery of BebeDeux. I have been following this blog for a long time now and am a fan of her honest insights and quirky, varied interests. Who’s with me??

Anyway, not to put a damper on things, but I really wanted to blog about the New York Times article published earlier this month. Did anyone else read, “Notes from a Dragon Mom”, about how one mom is living with the fact that she will lose her son before he turns 3?  It completely shook me up. I think I read it every day the week it came out… the words were so powerful to me. I went to bed every night thinking about that mom and her baby boy. I wondered how I would’ve coped if I were in her shoes.

I would walk through a tunnel of fire if it would save my son. I would take my chances on a stripped battlefield with a sling and a rock à la David and Goliath if it would make a difference. But it won’t. I can roar all I want about the unfairness of this ridiculous disease, but the facts remain. What I can do is protect my son from as much pain as possible, and then finally do the hardest thing of all, a thing most parents will thankfully never have to do: I will love him to the end of his life, and then I will let him go.

Those words. I couldn’t (err.. can’t) take it. It was enough to make me run to my daughter and hold onto her with all my might. She must’ve thought mama had gone cuckoo. I rocked her and stroked her hair and said a long prayer thanking God for my healthy, beautiful baby girl.

Parenting, I’ve come to understand, is about loving my child today. Now. In fact, for any parent, anywhere, that’s all there is.

It reminded me of the most powerful and beautiful verse in the bible — “[Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:7-8).

Love.  Let’s think about that for a second…

As moms, we get judged/questioned for our choices often, but our biggest critic is probably ourselves. Methinks it’s time we give ourselves and each other a break. At the end of their life, they’re not going to remember if the house was in order or if we fed them organic. The best bedsheets and well-crafted toys aren’t going to make all that much of a difference if we weren’t present. What they will hold onto though, are the hugs, the kisses, the “I love you’s”. They’re going to look back and remember the time spent and the love poured down. We do what we can, the best that we can, and hopefully when they have children of their own… they will see that our sacrifices were made willingly and out of incredible, intense love.

How would you live if you knew that your days were limited with the person you love most in the world?What does it mean to live in the present and embrace our todays?

About the Author:

My name is Angela and I’m a first time mom to a 10-month old, rambunctious baby girl who I can barely keep up with.  Inevitably, babies are all that’s on my mind lately (whether I like it or not!).  I blog about my personal parenting experiences over at BabyChin — don’t be shy, drop by for a visit and say hello!

Weight Loss:
Like my pregnancy with Claire, I had gained about 50 lbs with this pregnancy. I stepped on the scale for the first time this morning since my last OB appointment, and it looks like I’ve lost 25 lbs in the two weeks since giving birth. That leaves ~25 lbs left to go.

I’m not too worried about the weight loss as I had lost all 50 lbs in 3 months the first time around. I just wish I could speed it up a little, especially with the holidays coming up!

Boob Juice:
The first few weeks following the birth of Claire were a blur of marathon pumping sessions to increase my milk supply. In stark contrast, I am having no problems whatsover in the breastmilk department this time around.

In fact, I feel like I’m producing too much. Just one week after birth, I was already pumping more than 12 oz at a time! (And this is on top of nursing.)

Should I not pump as much — right now I’m pumping 2-3x a day — so that my supply will decrease? Or just keep up my current regimen until Aerin’s appetite increases?

Boob Size:
On the subject of boobs, this is the one thing that bothers me the most: my humongous, gigantic breasts. Pre-pregnancy I was a large B or a small C — which I believe is already pretty large on my 5’1″ frame — and now that I’m breastfeeding, they have ballooned to DD’s.

None of my clothes fit, none of my bras fit, and I just feel so unattractive and out-of-proportion. My breasts constantly get in the way, and I’m self-conscious all the time. Nevermind the back and shoulder pains from these added weights…

Will my breasts settle down a bit as I continue to breastfeed, or will they remain this size until I quit? (I honestly can’t remember if my breasts decreased in size at all during the 3 months when I exclusively pumped for Claire.) I had been hoping to breastfeed for about 9 months to 1 year, but if they don’t settle down a bit by 6 months I may just reconsider.

And while we’re still talking about boobs, does anyone have recommendations for a good nursing bra for large chests? The ones I used with Claire — the Medela Comfort Nursing Bra — doesn’t seem to be cutting it anymore as it seems too constricting. I hate spending more than $30 at a time on undergarments, but I bit the bullet and ordered the popular Bravado Body Silk Nursing Bra and am crossing my fingers that this will work out!

Bleeding:
Still bleeding quite a bit down there. Depends — or the drugstore brand equivalents of adult diapers — are my best friends.

The Baby:
Aerin continues to do very well. She eats like the world will come to an end tomorrow, she pees and poops regularly (she poops up to 10x a day!), and her scrawny little figure is finally starting to fill out.

She is starting to get a double chin and chubby cheeks!

She has finally started to sleep in 2-3 hour stretches — hallelujah! — but still vastly prefers to be held at all times. As a result, for these first few weeks of her life we have been doing what we had sworn not to do: co-sleep at night.

(We never co-slept with Claire because we fed her from a bottle. But now that I have a baby who loves to nurse and often falls asleep while nursing, co-sleeping is so much easier!)

We’re still not entirely sure what we’ll do when Comang returns from my parents’ house in a couple of weeks, as he likes to sleep on the bed with us. I know that the Arm’s Reach Bassinet is an option, but I am reluctant to get another bassinet when we already have one. I guess that I will just have to do my best to transition her to the bassinet for her nighttime sleep (she sleeps in the bassinet during the day just fine).

It’s funny how Claire and Aerin looked exactly alike when they were first born, because now, comparing their pictures at 2 weeks old, they look vastly different! Claire looks more Korean and Aerin more Chinese…J still doesn’t see the resemblance, but I think she takes a lot after her father.

Claire Update:
And now, for a short update on our firstborn. Her fifth word is now official: baby. She will point to Aerin and say, “Beh-bee! Beh-bee!” She will even look for Aerin when she’s not in sight and call out, “Beh-bee? Beh-bee?”

Claire also seems to be a lot more aware of other children and babies now. Before, she would just ignore them…but now, whenever she goes out and sees other mini-humans, she will try to interact with them, and even call out “Beh-bee!” to them too. We can only conclude that this change in behavior comes from having a new little sister. 

I know that Halloween has come and gone. And I am well-aware that I already appointed the best baby costume of the year on my Facebook page.

BUT.

You tell me how I could resist this.

That’s right. What you see here is baby Rizden, whose photographer mom, Stephanie Read, dressed him up as Carl Fredricksen, the grumpy old man from the 2009 Pixar film Up.

I die.

So thank you, Rizden, for your adorableness…and thank you, Stephanie, for your creativity…and thank you, internet, for reminding me of the first 10 minutes of Up and making this overly-hormonal mother of a 1-week-old sob uncontrollably into her nursing pads.

Via Fashionably Geek. 

For the past four months, baby Arthur has been helping his mother recreate scenes from famous movies, with predictably adorable results. I can’t help but be reminded of Mila’s Daydreams, except with a funny twist.

 The Blair Witch Project:

12 Angry Men:

American Beauty:

Rambo: First Blood:

Close Encounters of the Third Kind:

The Seventh Seal:

The Shawshank Redemption:

The Rear Window:

The Shining:

Jaws:

Total Recall:

The Godfather:

Alien:

My favorite of the bunch has to be Jaws. Which one is yours?

Be sure to follow the Arthur Recreates Scenes from Classic Movies blog, because this seems to be an ongoing project that is sure to bring further bouts of adorable cuteness in the future!

Via Flavorwire.

Things have certainly gotten a bit easier on the homefront since my last update. Aerin has finally started to sleep in 2-hour stretches and my sore nipples are starting to toughen up some. Our new life — whilst typically difficult of ones with new babies — is admittedly easier than we had expected, so J has decided to go back to work a full 2 weeks early so that he could save up vacation days for the holidays and possible emergencies.

We took Aerin in for her first pediatrician’s appointment yesterday, and the doctor declared her as healthy as can be. The only possible note of concern is that Aerin has a very slight tongue tie. But the doctor told us that just as long as she is breastfeeding without any problems, we do not need to be worried about it at the moment. He warned us that she may run into some speech problems later in life, but that we can deal with it then rather than perform the minor yet unnecessary surgery on a newborn.

She had lost some weight when we were discharged from the hospital — down to 6.6 lbs from her birth weight of 6.11 lbs — but had gained more than a full pound in just 4 days! We can only credit this to her voracious appetite. I had no idea just exactly how much she was eating until a couple of days ago, when we began to feed her some pumped breastmilk — she can down more than 3 oz in one sitting!

I think our biggest struggle at the moment is her day-night reversal, which we had experienced with Claire as well. We’re trying our best to keep daytime bright and noisy and interactive, and nighttime dark and quiet with minimal interaction, but I think that only time will help at the end.

But because she is still only sleeping 1-2 hours at a time, and craves more interaction in the middle of the night, I still remain utterly exhausted and am eternally grateful that J’s parents arrive every morning to help with both babies. Luckily, I am pumping enough breastmilk for them to feed Aerin throughout the day, and so far there seems to be no sign of nipple confusion.

I still remain a bit envious of mothers whose newborns are mellow little things who want to sleep all the time…because neither of our children have fit this mold. (Aerin already has quite a pair of lungs on her — you won’t believe the amount of noise that such a tiny baby can make!) But for now, I am thankful for their health and well-being…and hey, Aerin’s only been with us for a week so things can certainly change, right?

Claire seems to be handling the adjustment pretty well. For the first few days, we had to avoid letting her see me hold Aerin, because she would get overly upset and jealous, but she is getting better now. She’s even tried sharing her toys with Aerin, and imitating her when she cries.

But the cutest yet has to be when we’re burping Aerin, because Claire will grab her giraffe and try to “burp” the giraffe too!