Month: March 2025

Why are so many baby carriers ergonomically stupid?

Seriously, who thought the terrible ones would be a good idea? And who bought them again and again, encouraging the production of terrible products?

I hate stupidity.

Ugh!

Post-a-day 2025

A local mom with kids aged two and four was talking to me about a baby carrier. She sent me the link to it, and we were discussing all the good things about it.

And then I commented on the photos for the carrier on its website. I said that I want to be trendy like the mom in the photos. She laughed and replied, “I can confidently say I never looked that put together.” I told her how I quite truly feel that I often look rather homeless when I go out right now. Nothing fits right, including the maternity clothes I had been wearing while pregnant. Rather, the few things that do for right are a massive hassle for nursing. So, I’m typically in a baggy t-shirt and pajama shorts right now. And my hair is in a messy knot atop my head, adding to the disastrous ensemble.

The tentative plan is to put hidden zippers – you know, the hidden style, not that they’re actually hidden fully – in my Mexican dresses. I wore them through most of the pregnancy, and my mom already added pockets to all of them. Might as well soup them up a little more and make them last for even more of the journey of parenthood. And that would be much nicer than my current use of them: shorts underneath, and pulling the whole dress up when the baby needs to nurse. Yes, in public. 😛

Anyway… I have been making a real effort to help myself emotionally and mentally by putting myself more together each day, and especially so when we go out. But it has been especially hard due to the whole fit-feed combo for everything. The things that do fit aren’t good for nursing in public, and sometimes at all. And looking a disaster adds to feeling like a disaster. Looking fabulous helps to feel fabulous. I am fabulous. Now I just want to look it again and feel it again.

God, help me to love myself. Help me to heal myself and my baby and my husband. Grant us your love and ease within our family. Help us to be the family you call us to be, the best we can be. Make us well, please, and keep us safe, always. Thank you for my husband and this life and our home and our baby. Be always with us clearly. In your name, I pray. Amen.

The mom:

And another trendy look from the page (possibly the same mom… but a different kid???) :

BabyBjörn link

Post-a-day 2025

My mom gave me a bag of outfits for our baby the other day. A couple of them were outfits I wore as a baby, the majority were new outfits – she needed short sleeved onesies, because the hand-me-downs came from summer-born babies, and their 0-3-month outfits are for cooler weather! – and one was an adorable cowgirl skirt. We tried to put the cowgirl skirt on her the day we picked up the bag from my grandma’s place. It wouldn’t even fit over the baby’s thighs; there was no way it would fit over her hips or head. It had me wondering, What was Mom thinking with this one?!

Turns out, she was giving it to us on the off-chance it might fit the baby. But she knew it wasn’t too likely, as this skirt was the matching skirt to one I had worn as a child, except that this was the one my doll had worn. So, no, no baby ever wore this skirt. Haha. No wonder(!).

However, when I went through the bag today to take off tags and get everything washed, I went ahead and just set the skirt on our sleeping baby, so we could get a sweet photo of her ‘in’ it. 😛 Notice how small that waist band is compared to her waist. Haha

Thank you, God, for the blessings that pour forth from my mom. She gives so openly and freely, it almost hurts, knowing how easily she sacrifices for our gain. Thank you for her love. Please, help us to be worthy of her blessings. Help us to love her as she deserves. Grant us your love in all parts of life, please, and help us to be truly loving with and to one another. Make us well, please, and keep us safe. Thank you for this life. Help us to grow well and to see clearly through our challenges. Thank you for our daughter. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

My husband got ready for bed first tonight. So, he was charged with burping the baby and putting her to bed. When I finished my showering, I walked into our bedroom to find that she was not in her cradle, but was happily sleeping next to my husband, both of them at a cockeyed angle across the bed, taking up most of the middle of the bed. Oh, and both of them half-snoring.

Basically, one of the cutest things ever.

Now, the only question is where I sleep. We have a king bed, but their sideways sleeping pretty much means I’ll have to do the same… weird.

Dear Lord, please heal our physical and emotional and mental bodies, and keep us safe. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

Today ended up being a spontaneous family day. My husband was working a shift at the rodeo until three PM. I was feeling decent when I finally got up – the baby slept seven hours straight suddenly, which helped immensely for me – so I checked in with my mom to see about hanging out with her for a bit. I’d be driving 20-30 minutes each way, but I would be out doing something, and I would be going to be with someone who could help share the tasks of having a baby. And the baby does well in the car, for the most part. The alternative was sitting at home on my own the next several hours.

So, I went.

And my mom called my brother, just to see if he and his wife wanted to join us to hang. Surprisingly, they did. They had been out late the night before at a crawfish boil, and my sister-in-law is pregnant (and she’s been nauseous and tired a lot). But they wanted to come out.

So, I went and visited my grandma briefly, and told her we’d be back later on, after her nap she was about to take, then headed to meet my mom. I got there and hung with my mom in the wine garden for a while, truly enjoying the great weather and being out and with loved ones. I sent a photo to my husband and invited him to join us once he finished his shift, if he felt like it. It took him a while to leave his shift, even after it was done, but he ended up joining us within minutes of my brother and sister-in-law having arrived. So, the six of us had a jolly ol’ time in the wine garden together for a while.

When we were all ready to go, we all went to visit my grandma for a bit. It was a silly but good visit. My husband was goofy with the baby, and he was definitely pushing limits a bit for my grandma’s kind of how to handle a baby. But my grandma did seem to enjoy the goofiness. 😛

All in all, it was a great time, made the more so by its unexpectedness. My husband and I didn’t have the steaks for dinner that he was going to cook us, but, fortunately, he can do them tomorrow instead.

For some reason, I am having almost pure liquid diarrhea in the middle of the night now… but, hopefully, it has finished itself and is gone for good now… no idea where it even came from, though it has to have been from the food today at the rodeo – sausage on a stick and brisket tacos… hmm…

Dear Lord, thank you for this day and all of the love I encountered within it. Thank you for my husband and for my family and for our daughter. Make us well, please, and keep us safe. And thank you for our home. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

Tonight, when my husband went to the gym, our daughter began screaming. Having been with her the whole day and already dealt with a version of it this morning, I really struggled. All I wanted to do was sleep a bit; I had lay down next to her to do just that, only a couple minutes before she started crying suddenly. Gas and digestion struck again.

And they struck hard.

I was checking in with my friend to see how she was doing after the car wreck she’d had earlier today. But the baby was screaming and wouldn’t stop – the gas just wouldn’t release. My friend and her husband were very supportive over the phone – they have two daughters already, the youngest having recently turned two – including when I started crying hard core, too. They decided just to come over and be with us. So, they did.

Of course, after almost an hour of crying and screaming, the gas suddenly shifted, and our baby was fine and passed out. Right before they got here.

Nonetheless, my friend’s husband took the baby right away and held her on his chest in the recliner, and my friend just hugged me and told me I was alright.

We then snuggled in on the mattress and put on a Bridget Jones movie for a bit before they told me to go do what I needed to do – they had the baby covered. So, I went and ate food for my dinner, then showered. I even shaved for the first time since birth. That was special. And still tender, despite its being almost seven weeks out. But it was great being able to take the time to do it, knowing that I wasn’t needed elsewhere immediately.

I got ready for bed, and only went back out when I heard the baby fussing for nursing. He patted her back to sleep for a bit, and all three of them were adorably passed out in the living room. I hear her fussing again now for nursing, so I’ll go see about taking her from him and nursing her, and letting them go home. Especially since my husband got home a few minutes ago. He’s in the shower now, probably also appreciating the gift of knowing our baby is being taken care of without our having to worry.

Okay, got to go!

Post-a-day 2025

I had wanted to stay for the Journey concert tonight at the rodeo. But we were going to have to stay for another hour and a half at the least in order to reach the start of the show. And the show only would be an hour long. I still wanted to stay. But I also was tired and didn’t feel like waiting around on my own (my mom didn’t want to stay, as she was tired, too).

So, we went home. And it was good that we did and I didn’t regret it.

However, it turned out to be even better than we had expected that we went home when we did. The concert started a bit late, maybe a quarter of an hour or so. So, I would have waited for an hour 45. And then, on the third song, the power to the performers’ stage went bust. As my brother put it – he was at the concert – “an electrical fire in the middle of ‘don’t stop believing’ stopped the believing and the show.” And he wasn’t wrong.

My sister-in-law happened to have been filming during it, and she sent me the video. All the power to the stage and the cameras and screens showing the stage suddenly turned off right as the lead singer encouraged everyone to sing the lyrics together. It seemed very dramatic and intentional, what with lights dropping and 75 thousand people singing in unison… until the band did not join back in… then people started to realize that something was up.

Sadly, everyone was informed after about 15 minutes of effort in the rodeo’s part, that the concert could not go on. They would reach out to all ticket holders with next steps in the coming days.

My brother thought they might try to add an extra day to the rodeo or do an early concert one day (more like a late concert on a weekend day would make the most sense, if they did that). However, it doesn’t seem too likely. But it is certainly possible. I said I figured they’d just do partial refunds, as the whole rodeo happened, and also a portion of the concert happened, but just not the whole thing. And the money is for scholarships, anyway, so they try not to refund it all. But they also usually aim to be fair and respectful. So, partial refunds in my mind.

What occurred to me after the conversation was the idea that the rodeo might not be able to get it all repaired before tomorrow’s concert… and that would be even worse.

So, we shall see what happens(!).

God, heal my daughter’s issues. Make her well, please, and keep her safe. Make my husband and me well, please, and keep us safe, too. Help us to grow well in our relationship with one another. Help our family to grow ever stronger and loving. Thank you for this life and this family. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

I feel and look fat. I don’t have flattering clothes to wear right now, which emphasizes that. I haven’t slept well or enough in a while, which makes everything feel worse. My hips hurt. My lower back aches. My shoulder and neck muscles have a burning ache in them. My nails are too long. I’m not sure where my daytime nail file is right now, but I desperately need it to be with me during the day right now. My hair keeps looking greasy. It also is getting way too dry from one of the shampoos or conditioners, but I’m not sure which. It also often looks gross. My groin alternates between a gently painful throb and a sharp, pulling sting. I can’t eat much easily due to allergens affecting the baby’s system.

Oh, and the baby screams terribly once or twice a day, and often when I am alone with her. It lasts for hours sometimes. I typically end up screaming-crying right alongside her before it’s done. I have terrible thoughts. I feel like a terrible parent. I can’t seem to accomplish anything other than nursing the baby and usually helping her burp and changing her diaper. So, I’m being a terrible housewife, and the house feels like a disaster. I’m miserable in my home, mostly because of that. I’m also being a terrible wife. My husband and I seem to be miserable together most of the time, mostly because of that.

And I still feel exhausted and beaten up. Not to mention all the pressure of that I should be better at any or all of this than I actually am, and that I feel like I’m just failing miserably at everything right now.

And I don’t know yet what to do about any or all of it. But I’m going to sleep for now.

God, help me to heal, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

Today, I took it easy most of the morning, thanks to my husband. Eventfully, though, I was not getting restful sleep, as the baby was crying far too intensely. So, I rolled myself out of bed and rushed to feed the crying child. She was in a baby carrier, it turned out, so she was pr ethically screaming right into my husband’s face while he worked… interesting approach, m’dear. Interesting approach.

We met virtually with a potential pediatrician for our daughter – I wasn’t s huge fan, though I didn’t dislike her – and then we ran some errands this afternoon. I learned the value of having enough of the right things, even if they seem silly beforehand. And I can barely keep my eyes open now, so we’ll finish there.

Goodnight.

God, be with us and keep us safe and make us well and whole, please. In your name, we pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

Today, I went with family to the rodeo for real. We walked a lot and saw and did a lot, and it was s great time. It was also too much time for me to be walking around, carrying the baby almost the whole time. Sometimes even carrying the baby and the very heavy backpack diaper bag. (I’m thinking I need to sort out a lighter bag for when I will be on my own with the baby and need to carry everything myself.) My cousin and I were all for my just using the stroller, but my mom really felt it would be easier not to have it, and she said she’d handle the backpack, so I accepted her desired plan of action. It didn’t always turn out, however, especially given that I carried both for the first hour-ish.

Anyway, it was a good time, but was very hard on me by the end. We went into the whole rodeo, though, so I feel fully satisfied with having gone in person this year – I don’t need to do it again. Perhaps we’ll go visit the club, but I needn’t go into the stadium again this year.

Anyway, I’m exhausted and must sleep now. Goodnight.

Thank you, God, for the good time and for the good and helpful behavior of our kids. Make us well, please, and keep us safe. Heal my daughter’s digestive issues, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025