Mom Musings:
Last school year I was one of six women at work who had a baby. I currently have four friends who are pregnant. Apparently I have officially moved out of the life-phase when everyone I knew was getting married and I’ve moved onto knowing tons of people who are procreating. I was thinking about this recently as I start to organize baby stuff to pass onto friends who are about to become parents. Before I had kids I was invited to several baby showers and, of course, I bought gifts. Here are some of the things I bought:
- Books like “The Cat in the Hat”
- Cute newborn onesies
- Stuffed animals
Here are the “baby” gifts I have given to others after having my own kids
- A gift card to a cloth diaper shop
- Lanolin (not glamorous, but I really did give this to someone)
- An Ergo carrier
The difference? Usefulness. Before having kids I did not know about babies at all!! Seriously. I thought you might read something like “The Cat in the Hat” to a five-month old. Which I have since realized does not work since a five-month old’s goal is to get as much random stuff into their mouth as possible. Including nice little paper book pages.
Anyway, after having two kids I still don’t know much about babies in general. But I know my kids. And I know what I used a lot with my babies. Those are the kinds of gifts I want to give. I appreciate that being a parent and gaining a bit of parent knowledge might allow me to help someone else out the way that my parent-friends helped me out when LP was born. Being able to give a useful gift makes me feel a little bit more useful. It also makes me feel a bit more knowledgeable. Which is nice, because so much of parenting makes me feel totally un-knowledgable (i.e. bumbling idiot). So, I’m excited to put some gifts together for my new-parent friends that will, hopefully, be as useful to them as they were to me!
Notes on the Year of Family
Vegan Goodness:
Today we ate:
- Breakfast: Blueberry smoothies and toast for Dad and LP. Mom had some peanut butter toast on the go.
- Lunch: Quesadillas for Dad and LP. Mom enjoyed some indian food with a friend
- Dinner: Over several courses we enjoyed carrot ginger soup, foccacia and chocolate chip cookies. A fun Saturday night dinner!
Money Matters:
For part II of our groceries (and lunch out for Mom) we spent the following:
- $14.65 for lunch
- $20.11 at Whole Foods
- $55.17 at Trader Joe’s
I’ve been wondering what Vegan mamas do re: lanolin. I’m not judging, of course– I still wore wool and ate honey and all that as a vegan, but I’m going back and forth on lanolin now. Thoughts? I don’t know many other vegs, and I’m fairly certain not a single vegan mama other than you, so I particularly enjoy your blog for this reason. Looking forward to joining the ranks of Veg Mama in June, hence my pondering lanolin now 😉
First of all CONGRATULATIONS!!! I’m sooo happy for you!! Keep me posted on how things are going, how you are feeling, etc!!!
The lanolin issue is something I also went back and forth about. When the hospital gave me some when I had LP I didn’t even know what it was. I just followed the lactation consultants directions about applying it to my nipples often and the cracking and bleeding went away. Then, when I was pregnant with IP I looked into alternatives like this: http://www.earthmamaangelbaby.com/breastfeeding-support/natural-nipple-butter.html I really wanted to get some on one hand, but on the other hand I remembered how crazy those first few weeks of baby were and I was afraid that, if this stuff didn’t work, I was going to have to make an emergency lanolin run. So, I bought some lanolin – that I never used b/c I barely needed any the second time around. Go figure. Anyway, the natural nipple butter I linked to above does have good reviews in vegan circles and I’m sure it would work well.
Ok, I’m still soooo excited about your news!! You have a copy of Becoming Vegan, right? It has a good pregnancy/lactation section.
Thank you!! Really, thanks for the reply, this is really sweet and helpful. Second trimester is night and day better than first trimester. I could go back through your archives, but– did you have food aversions during your pregnancies? I was super vegan, drinking my super smoothies, eating/drinking a head of kale every day through Week 5… then… I couldn’t stand anything green. Now I’m slowly coming around to it again. I’m also finding I have not-quite-cravings, but a preference for non-vegan things that I’d long gotten over (mostly dairy– eggs seem grosser than ever, and I actually used to love those). I’d like to get back on track. Did you have that? How did you deal? I can take this offline too 😉
Great tips, I don’t have Becoming Vegan but I see it’s available for Kindle… Earth Mama Angel Baby is now on my list, thank you!!