I have a secret......

Whoa what a day!  Busy busy.  I was running late this morning, so I barely got to take advantage of my "alone" time in front of the mirror to practice putting on my make-up.  I agonized over what to wear, despite picking it out the night before.  I second-guessed my choice until the last possible second when - I decided to wear what I picked out!

However - I was a bad blogger and did not take a picture.  So!  Let me clue you in to some nursing mama truths I have recently become reacquainted with:

A. You can nurse in pretty much anything, just remember that if you aren't able to access from the top, you will have to lift up.  Despite the great nursing covers they have out there, you will have a nice triangle of back (fat) showing to the world.  Stay tuned for my new invention - a nursing CAPE!  :)

B.  The grip of a 6 week old baby is STRONG.  See my baby's grip over to the right.  It can rip, grip and take apart.  Be wary of the flailing hands that grab onto necklaces, earrings, hair, etc.  That would be why I insisted previously on non-danglely earrings and am now informing you of this wonderful thing I just found out.  Lean in....closer....CLOSER......  At New York & Co, they will exchange broken jewelry!!  So they have great stuff AND it doesn't matter if that little sweet baby of yours rips it apart - you can take it back!

C.  When jeggings were invented I hated them.  Now that only my pre-pregnancy boyfriend jeans fit, and not a single other pair of jeans does....jeggings are my new best friend.  Buy yourself a pair.  A well-fitting pair, it may be a size up from what you were before, but do it.  Just one pair - bring yourself out of the sweatpants.... embrace the jegging.

And I'll leave you with that... embrace the jegging..... embrace the jegging.....  Have you got a pair yet?  Talk to you soon!

Casual Friday

I'm still working into full-time status at work post-maternity, so I had today off.  Yay!  I meant to go through my closet and get some stuff together but instead spent my day with a variety of other tasks.

1 - I read my Mom's blog Over Forty Style and found she had discovered a better way to put on foundation.  I'd already decided to do some shopping later today and thought why not look nice doing it?  And then I discovered a brilliant idea for those short on time - TAKE ADVANTAGE!  :)  My husband is home today as well, so he sat with the kids watching Disney Jr while I spent time upstairs perfecting my makeup application techniques.  As mentioned in my first post, I've never really been into clothes or makeup, so I have to practice at it.  I think I did an okay job.  My mom liked it, which means I must have!  So my plan is to take advantage of my husband's time at home, which will mostly be weekends, and do my hair (not today) and makeup.  I figure if I have some time to perfect and practice the task, I will get better and faster at it and then I will be able to do it at 5 am before the kids wake up (ok, ok - 7am which is the latest possible time for me to wake up and be out the door almost on time - but the GOAL is 5am so I don't have to rush).

2 - Take a look at my picture again.  See the earrings?  I usually hate non-dangly earrings.  But, as with most nursing moms, I've got a baby grabbing at anything close to her, so... not so much.  But do you know how hard it is to find non-dangly earrings that aren't hearts, butterflies, words, etc?  I just wanted something understated that will go with anything and weren't pearls.  I like these because they are not covered in crystals, not obviously flowers, and silver so they'll go with most of my jewelry.  Oh yeah, they also will work for dress up or dress down.  Here's the close-up from Target:

3 - Since Harrisburg, PA is void of a Nordstrom or Nordstrom Rack, I had to find a specialty lingere store to find nursing bras (or even regular bras) in my size.  I drove all the way to Camp Hill and was AMAZED at the service offered by Kim at Underneath It All.  She was just fantastic!  Two seconds to measure me and about the same to pull down a nursing bra that fit and separated the girls!  How fantastic!  She ordered a few more for me too since I intend to breastfeed until at least next year.  Please please please get a fitting ladies!  Even if you have no special considerations like my small ribcage, large boob situation.  I thought I knew my size, but that was after being measured 2 years ago.  Alas - they have grown even more. 

I should also add that because I was out only a little bit, I rocked the ponytail and yoga pants today - compression style does wonders for the pooch left by Baby Olivia.  I will definitely need to amp it up tomorrow because I've got service in the morning, a couple's date and then a baby shower to attend!  Till tomorrow! 

Day One

I spent yesterday trying to think of what essential pieces a nursing mom must have to create some semblance of a fashionable wardrobe.  If you're anything like me, you've been wearing yoga pants since the day your baby was born.  You may or may not be like me and lost all the baby weight and then some without even trying (don't hate me yet, did you read my first post and how it took 2 years to lose all the weight from my first baby?)!  But now that we've hit 5 weeks, I find myself in public more than ever, and yoga pants just aren't cutting it.

So I spent all day yesterday perusing multiple malls for essentials.  My goal: skinny jeans in my new post-partum size, a nice-looking cardigan, a nursing bra with underwire and whatever other nice nursing-friendly tops I could find.  The take?  Jeans - check.  Cardigan - check (although a little expensive for what I've been spending, I wore today and it is comfy and good quality).  Others - 2 colorful necklaces, 1 chunky bracelet, a black pencil skirt and a pair of earrings.  No go on the bra (they had a nice selection at Target, but not even close to my full-of-milk cup size).  These are the things I feel will get me through this transition period until I get back to my old clothes.  What, you say?  You can't fit into your old clothes despite being lighter than pre-pregnancy?  That's right, gained all the weight in my thighs, and my hips apparently spread to the ends of the earth!  :)

As part of my post-baby transformation, I've begun Power 90, a Beachbody program, and I've started to get my life together in the form of preparation and accountability.  Part of this is getting together everything I need for the next day ahead of time (usually the night before).  So I laid out everything I wanted to wear and managed to leave like this:

Cardigan, Nursing Tank, Earrings - Old Navy, Jeans - American Eagle, Flats - BCBG, Bracelet - New York & Co

Of course, I spent the day looking like this:

And even worse, most of the time I had my Moby wrap with baby inside, to make me look even more frazzled!

My intention was to have time to do my make-up, hair and experiment with tucking my tank in, leaving it out, putting a skinny belt around my waist or a wide belt in belt loops on jeans.  I also wanted to wear my oh-so-cute Steve Madden nude pumps, but in my rush out the door, ALL of the above was forgotten.... oops.  Oh well - Baby Olivia had everything she needed and my big girl Isabel was fed and ready for preschool.  Priorities people!

Oh - before I leave, I wanted to point out a few things.  1 - I apologize for the droopy uniboob the nursing top creates.  I'm placing my faith in Zappo's to get my new nursing bras in asap.  Unless you are tiny in the chest area, I suggest getting at least one underwire nursing bra, it helps the silhouette.  2 - Can you even see the bracelet I'm wearing?  It's stretchy, which I love because I have small wrists and I can't stand the sliding of a bangle.  It also doubles as a marker for which breast is next for the baby, I just switch it every feeding to remind myself.  Looks a little better than the hair tie I've been using, eh?  Alright - baby's crying - got to go!  See you tomorrow when I discuss the rest of my "essentials".

To Breastfeed or Not to Breastfeed?

What a question!  I bet if this is a current debate for you, you haven't even considered your wardrobe.  Well, I'm here to tell you to start preparing now - because I'm 5 weeks postpartum today and I find my closet lacking!

First of all, I am not a style maven.  I love fashion and have started to read some style-yourself type blogs, but I am not a very creative person.  I'm a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl and always have been.  Maybe it's because I spent my teen years riding horses in faded jeans, riding dirtbikes in dirty boots and gear or at the beach in a swimsuit; not much time for developing style there.  Then there's my body type.  Although as a young woman I still felt like I had the biggest boobs and hips you could fit on a petite frame, I appreciate the figure I had then as a 27 year old mother of two now.  Either way, the pairing of patterned pants with a certain top, belt, hat, shoes and hairstyle still elude me.  Don't even ask me about makeup!

However, having spent the first 2 years post baby #1 trying to get my body back, only to decide to try for baby #2 once I did, made me realize that a change is due.  Not only do I need to get back in shape, but I want to feel pretty in the clothes I wear, something I've never really felt in an everyday outfit.

I looked around online for some help, and found some great blogs and tips.  But not a single one was of a petite, nursing mom.  There are lots of unique challenges for the nursing mother that have not been addressed, and I intend to find a solution to every one. This blog will be a tell all of my journey into a more fashionable future.  I'll take you through the ups and downs, successes and failures of my nursing mama fashion efforts.

So here goes......

Let's Be Honest...

In light of recent articles regarding pregnant working mothers - Yahoo's New CEO Is Pregnant - I've really been questioning my motives for continuing to work.  If you are a first time mom, this has probably been on your mind for a while.

There's a couple of factors that I think weigh in when you try to decide - What Kind of Mom am I?

• Do I want to stay home?  This is probably one of the hardest things to consider, and depends a lot on how you were raised, what type of job environment you currently work in, and how you value yourself as a person.  For me, I grew up with a stay at home mom of 4, I was the oldest.  My mother was fantastic, the epitomy of all things "stay at home."  She baked, cooked, cleaned, taught (we began homeschooling when I was... 14?) and I still admire her for the strength she had to do so, especially with my dad in the military and deployed often.  So, there is a part of me that wants to provide this type of childhood (and not miss out on it) for my children.  But there is also another part of me that remembers the stress she went through, being around kids all day long (don't get me wrong, some people LOVE kids, but I value my adult interaction time).  Granted, I only have 1.5 children, but I'm just not sure me and my little monster ;) would get along all day every day.  I do still feel the pull to be home, but I love my job and want to keep at it.
• Can I stay home and our family remain financially stable? This is the biggie for a lot of families nowadays - is staying home even an option?  Remember when you are weighing the pros and cons to really dig deep to come up with all costs associated with staying home/working.  Remember you will need someone to take care of your children while you work, depending on where they go - there may be extra costs such as gas.  Often, daycares do not allow sick children (ie., What will you do if your child is sick, take off from work?  How will your employer handle that?).  Does your employer require a certain level of dress (ie., will you be able to shop for suits from discount stores or is Nordstrom the norm?).  Just some things to consider if you said Yes to the first question.

So - the whole reason I even headed in this direction was to talk about cost savings.  Unless you are Mrs. Yahoo CEO (see above article link), you are probably working to stay this much ahead of where you would be if you stayed home.  And in that case, cost savings is always on the mind.  Stay tuned - maybe I'll actually get around to posting about what I do in less than a week!

Approved!

So - after talking with my employers, they've approved my proposal for coming back to work with baby!  Fantastic!  Step one out of the way!  Shower is in 2 weeks, we'll see what we get then and what I need to bring to work with me.  I may be able to get some of the costs shared, since most employers are required by law to provide a place for a woman to breastfeed/pump that isn't the bathroom.  I'm thinking I'll need a nice plush rocker for that:

Nice huh?  We'll see, maybe I can find one on craigslist or ebay for considerably less.  I was also thinking about donating one to our meeting hall.  We have 3 women due in the next 6 months and no breastfeeding amenities!  Boppys, rockers, changing supplies.  I think I'll build a stash there AND here.

On another note - I know not everyone is as fortunate as me in being able to bring baby to work, or even get a decent amount of time off to bond with baby.  In case you've been looking for info, check out the working moms group here: http://community.babycenter.com/groups/a185/working_moms.  There are probably lots of other moms asking the same questions!

PS - If you are interested in more detail as to what/how to present to your employer who may be interested in allowing baby at work, feel free to message me and I'll be happy to share!

Leaving you with another Izzy @ work photo:

Childcare, Childcare, Childcare!

So here we go again - to my constant subject of childcare.  We're really getting down to the wire (I'm due end of August) and we still can't really decide what we want to do.  I'm leaning towards bringing baby in to work with me as I did the first one and keeping Izzy at home.  All preschools in this area are a little cheaper than what we pay my brother, and Izzy doesn't turn 4 until Nov anyway.  Plus, there's the "risk" factors.  Many childcare places will not take your child when they're sick, not past certain hours, etc.  And unfortunately our lives are just too unpredictable.  My husband works 3 hours away so I have no back-up if she should need to be picked up for whatever reason.  My brother said he'd be willing to stay on another year, which is great.  We are going to give her a little more structure and see how things go.
As far as bringing the baby into work, I was thinking of this:

• Four weeks maternity leave
• Come back to work alone 2, 3, 4, 5 days per week to extend over first month back
• Start bringing baby in for 5 days a week, 1st month
• 4 days a week 2nd month
• 3 days a week 3rd month
• 2 days a week 4th month
• 1 day a week 5th month

By this time baby will be 6 months old and I think I'd be ok leaving her with her sister and uncle at that point. I will be breastfeeding the whole time, so I'll probably voluntarily extend my hours to cover the extra time spent with baby.  Also hoping that my brother will have his own vehicle by then, giving me a little freedom if she needs to be picked up.  With this in mind, I now need to get together my proposal for employers.  They were so wonderful last time I really want to just lay out everything this time to show I am committed to my new duties and what to expect from me with the baby.  We have a few empty offices here, so I am going to ask to turn one into a nursery (and then I just freaked out because we don't even have a nursery ready at home yet!).  So I need to think of the things I will need to have here:

• Diaper Pail
• Diapers
• Wipes
• Breastpump
• Swing
• Extra Clothes
• Crib/Pack N Play
• Bouncer Seat
• Toys

I think I need to add some things to my registry!  I do think we have some stuff still in basement from Izzy, maybe those things will do for office items.   Oh dear!  I better spend the next 10 min or so looking over what I've got.  Meanwhile - here is a great pic of Izzy at the office when she was little, and yes, she is sitting in a file cabinet (it's work-themed Anne Geddes style):