End of the Journey

For the entire month of June I have been using Twitter to micro-blog my mommy adventures and competing against 29 other very cool moms for a grand prize! To start the Sling and Swaddle adventure Hotslings supplied us each with our very own baby carrier and Miracle Blanket gave us two swaddling blankets. In return, we were to be tweeting and blogging about our experiences day to day with our newborns! I had never used Twitter before and wasn't sure how it worked. It was a little confusing and overwhelming to figure out how it works but now that I use it... I kind of like it... well okay Love it sometimes. :) I have been trying to keep up with my tweets and occasionally posting info. on this blog for the contest. Hopefully you all have enjoyed the information that I shared! I know at least the family loves seeing any new pics of the kids. I realized I have more pictures with Charlotte and I together than I do of Luke and I when he was a newborn and mostly that is because of this contest! So that's a great gift for us in the future. I also was just dipping my toes into the babywearing pool when I bought my Sleepywrap carrier. Now that I also have a Hotslings carrier and have been tweeting with other moms, there are several styles of carriers that I would love to try out! Seasoned babywearers say you can never have too many types! I find that when I am wearing Charlotte, her head is up close to me so I naturally talk with her while I am walking around and describe what we are doing. Great for speech and language development! She gets a good view of the world around her instead of being stuck in the carseat stroller...which by the way she usually hates to ride in! If I try to just carry Charlotte while I go in a store or play outside with Luke, I notice how quickly my back starts aching. The difference is amazing! Wearing her in the Hotsling allows her to be comforted and feel close to me while I am able to tend to Luke, clean, or shop! I love having two free hands when it gets busy around here. Babywearing is beneficial for baby, convenient for mom, and Hotslings makes it fashionable.

I definately have also seen the benefits of swaddling your baby. Dr. Harvey Karp lists it as one of the 5 S's for infant sleep solutions! http://www.colichelp.com/shop/happiestbabyontheblock.html
I never had any luck with the swaddling blankets that use velcro that you can buy at Target or Babies R Us. They never stayed tight and the velcro was loud enough to disturb the baby. The Miracle Blanket did look complicated at first when we got one for Luke, but once you get used to it, it literally goes on in seconds. Charlotte is still wearing hers and she has yet to wiggle any body parts out of it. I think I mentioned before that I love how it stays in place and I don't have to worry about blankets or covers coming up around her mouth. That takes a huge worry off of me at night when we go to sleep. Our little girl has spent all but one night at home swaddled in her Miracle Blankets. :)


I was a little skeptical of this Twitter journey at first but it has ended up being very fun. I have met so many great moms from all over the place that love to laugh, share, support, and offer advice on any subject! It's a great way to connect and not feel so isolated if you are a mom facing the day to day challenges with your kids. The hardest part is fitting what you want to say in 140 characters or less each time! Since we have our computer on most of the day, it has been fun to type a little message quickly as I walk through the dining room or check what other's have tweeted! I will be tweeting as Shera_Mama from now on, but probably not as often as I have been (JW will be glad for that! haha) I'm thankful to have met my new Twitter friends including the Sling and Swaddle mamas and hope to stay in touch as our babies are all close in age! This contest has offered a lot of new experiences and created some great connections! Thanks Hotslings and MiracleBlanket and all the sponsors!
www.hotslings.com
www.miracleblanket.com
www.slingandswaddlejourney.com

"Babies Don't Keep"

Babies Don't Keep

Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo

The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew
And out in the yard there's a hullabaloo
But I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren't his eyes the most wonderful hue?
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

- Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

How time flies. I love this poem because it reminds me of what is truly important in day to day life. I don't want to spend all my time cleaning and stressing about what to make for dinner. I want to live in the moment and enjoy my children while they are young and still WANT to be around me! Trying to enjoy each minute with these two! :)

8 GLORIOUS Years!

Thursday we celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary. Hard to believe huh? We were so young... and now we are so old! Ha! Most of you already know that JW and I met on the internet back in 1998. He lived in Holland at the time and we were fortunate enough to be able to meet each other in person several times and then married in 2001. Since we had to wait on a fiancee' visa, then had 3 months for him to move to the U.S., and then 3 months to get married it would have been hard to plan a wedding! We decided to combine a wedding and honeymoon and go it alone. I was still an undergrad at the time and JW did not have a job lined up in the U.S. so we had to save what little money we had to our names. With help from in-laws we bought flight and hotel package and that was it! We flew to Oahu 3 days after J.W. arrived from Holland (talk about jet lag!). I think the ceremony, including flowers, minister, and photographer cost $50.00. I got my dress for $15.00 and his outfit at Old Navy. We rented a car just one day in Hawaii and that was to drive to the beach we were to be married. Lucky for us it was beautiful and isolated with no one around. We had arrived early since we didn't know exactly where we were driving and had fun taking pictures of each other and got sunburned before the minister even arrived. The ceremony was great although I couldn't stop laughing that the minister called Janwillem "Jan" with an English J sound instead of the dutch Y. Things were said in Hawaiian that we had no idea what they meant- could have been calling us stupid tourists for all we know but hey it was romantic! For us, it was perfect. We longed to be together and there we finally managed to pull it off.

Anyways, as I look back at that day it seems sooooooooooo long ago. Who would have imagined we would live where we live and be lucky enough to have two beautiful children and still have each other. We take it for granted a lot. We try not to bicker over silly things. We try to cooperate to make a happy place for a family to grow and thrive... but marriage is hard sometimes (I don't think anyone would disagree with that statement!). Sometimes I wish it was as easy and simple as it was back then and sometimes I don't. We have wonderful memories of the last 8 years...or as JW put it last month (sarcastically- mind you) "8 GLORIOUS Years!" with a smarmy smile that made us both bust out laughing. I still appreciate having him in my life (even if I forget to show it sometimes) and he is a good daddy to Luke and Charlotte. Let's hope we do what we promised to do and stick together forever!


**Geez did we need tans or what!!!

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