Baby, Bye Bye Bye

Yesterday we said goodbye to Freida's bottle.

Freida was born a mere 4 pounds 8 ounces, and was consistently below the curve ever since. Nursing her seemed to at least keep up the chubby-baby look - I felt good enough knowing she had plenty rolls, and I would be ecstatic when people would comment on how "fat" my baby was. Once she randomly decided to self-ween, her weight began to drop. I was planning on nixing the suckling altogether, but she didn't down milk from a sippy cup very well at all so I  transitioned her to a bottle, and sure enough the fat and calorie content delivered by 12 oz. of daily milk kept her pants up! :)

I know Doctors generally recommend giving up a bottle at around the first birthday, but I decided to keep her on it for as long as I had intended to breastfeed her: 2 years. At our most recent visit to the Doctor (for her first vaccination), he pronounced her weight and height "healthy". Took that as a sign to get on the road to banning the bottle...

This past weekend my husband and I made a point to speak to Freida about certain things being only for babies, and about the concept of growing up. I went on to name different (slightly older) cousins, friends etc. that don't drink from a bottle because they are "growing up" and not "babies" anymore. She seemed to like that bit, and later asked me "does Sima have a bottle? No. Does Dovi have a bottle? No." etc. That's when I figured she fully got the idea.

Yesterday morning I brought out a stack of old pregnancy/baby/family magazines, and we sat together leafing through the pages to spot pictures of babies and cut them out. Once we had a nice selection of "babies", I gave Freida some glue and an old cardboard box (I think it was from our esrog...), and had her glue the pictures all over the "baby bottle box". We added some tissue paper (can't hurt to bring some prettiness to a painful goodbye!), and Freida said goodbye to her bottles - for good. Once boxed up we gave it to the mailman - she loves the mailman! - (I obviously had him put it back in my mailbox so I could sterilize and store them away), and said farewell!

She went to bed last night without it, and was able to easily verbalize "gave my bottles to the babies", and woke up this morning sans bottle as well! She asked for it this morning, but she proceeded to tell me where it went... she definitely wasn't stoked about not waking up without the bottle relaxation, but with a bit of distraction she got up and had breakfast really easily.

Seems to have been a successful transition - thank God! - and I would definitely suggest using this method for getting rid on bottles/pacifiers/blankies etc. It involves the kids in such a hands-on way, and makes them feel like they are really part of the process - which is key to all successful good riddance! Good Luck!!

Monday Morning Foam

In days filled with melamine dishes and sippy cups, fine china helps keep a busy mom's morning coffee ritual sacred... Here's to rich, frothy sanity!!

Family Planning: Redefined

Began the process of switching myself (and my life) over to my new 2011 planner today. Most planners start with the last week of December, and I find it's a bit easier to break into once you get it going before the new year. I love transferring all my dinner menus, schedules, birthdays, save-the-dates etc. There's just something so productive about it... productive, yet calm. Organized! That's the word I'm looking for! It brings a sense of perfect organization, and it's wonderful. While I'm still using my beloved cult-object day planner from Gallery Leather (found a copper colored croc-embossed version last month at Marshalls!), I stumbled upon a truly personalizable planner from Erin Condren. This planner is the brain-child of a working mom, i.e. it delivers! With everything you need to stay organized and put-together, this planner features an assortment of specialty goodies any busy mom would love. My favorite feature is the separate spaces for each day's Morning, Day, and Night - because we all know that the real productivity takes place during the later PM hours... Some of the main features of this planner are; color coded "event stickers" (from play-dates to Vegas weekends), easy-to-navigate daytime planning space (because even planners manage to get cluttered!), "keep it together" pockets (for all those lose papers: invitations, coupons, prescriptions etc.), plastic zip pouch (keep business cards and photographs safe and sound), and built-in personalized notepads (for grocery lists that are meant to be ripped off).

Erin Condren Life Planner, $50.00

Happy transitions...!!

(For some more planner ideas and options, revisit this post on planning!)

Rain-ed Out!

All I can say is, at least we got some "post-rain walks" in... it's pouring again! Can't believe this rain won't let up... We had one sunny little stroll late Wednesday morning, and a rather puddly post-rain exploration of worms and snails on Thursday. Bracing myself for even more indoor activities... (If you're stuck at home as well, check out this post, and this post.)

Apparently our little California girl need one one of these:

Or, for even more splish-splash coverage, one of these:

Babysitter Board

Sometime during the past year I posted about the "framed glass = whiteboard" concept. A little while after that I decided to work the same feature into our Babysitter Info sheet. Now I've seen this sort of thing popping up all over the web, and thought I'd share the convenience.

Any good mom knows you have to leave information for the babysitter, it's just the content of that important information that usually gets neglected. In case of an emergency, when calling 911 it's much more efficient to know the address and phone number you are calling from. It's also important to know the legal name of the child/children in care. The parents cell phone numbers are obvious, and special instructions for the night are usually written down as well. Here's a simplified way to bring it all together...

Buy any picture frame (large enough for this amount of info), and either print out or write up all the most important things your sitter may need to know on a white paper in the upper half of the frame. Leave the bottom half of the paper blank, and you now have a dry-erase area to leave your babysitter with special instructions, or directions to work the TV/DVD player, password for the computer, where you hid your 7 year olds PSP until after dinner etc..

Any dry-erase markers will work on glass, but go with a smaller/medium point so that it'll be easier to write with in a small space.

Here's to making a busy-mom's life just a bit easier...!

* Had to go back and retouch that photo a bit - it dawned on me that I stupidly had my address and telephone numbers on the www! Sorry about the smudginess...