Even in utero I knew my daughter would be strong and tough like her Dad. It was easy to envision my future olympic swimmer as she kicked and prodded me with all her might. But when she arrived 5 weeks early with all her delicate appendages, I babied her to pieces. My husband, on the other hand, has spent every waking minute with her trying to “toughen her up.”

At first it wasn’t easy to watch him fling her around in a pillow fight or flail her around, but she absolutely loves it now.…

Hannah, my six month old, just got her ears pierced! She is rocking her birthstone, Alexandrite, which is a cute pink gem. My ears were pierced with Ruby Red Garnets, so I thought it would be a fun way to continue the tradition. Of course, her Dad wanted to get her diamonds since he's crazy, but he came around when I showed him that I only had one of my first earrings left of the pair. And that's perfectly OK since they are the cheapies! On the rack, the stones looked so small, but they…

Today is "World Prematurity Awareness Day." The March of Dimes has asked parents to share their experience raising premature babies as a group today.

As you know, Hannah was born 5 weeks early and just made the cutoff of preterm birth. At 5 pounds, 13 ounces, she was a healthy, good sized baby, but the early days brought many unique challenges. The main concerns for babies in this age range are iron deficiency and weight gain. Full term babies arrive with stores of iron and fat to get…

It’s no secret that the main reason I stumbled into an eco lifestyle is because I am cheap. Fortunately, I found many more benefits that encouraged me to supplement my suburban lifestyle with green living. The first choice I made was to cloth diaper my baby. She just outgrew the diapers I bought for her newborn phase. It’s time to see how they stack up and which brand brought the most bang for the buck. I’m comparing the price of the three systems to each other and to disposables. Overall,…

One of the first books I read about raising a baby was called The Happiest Baby on the Block. In between morning sickness and exhaustion, reading it made me feel more prepared for parenting and confident about how I would care for my child during the first three months. The book not only explains how to create a "womb-like" experience for baby, but also why it works so well. It made sense to keep baby in a familiar environment at first. Plus, the two world cultures that continue to…

I had my first homemade baby food breakthrough. It was the moment I had been hoping and waiting for. All along, planning and preparing meals at home sounded like a good idea, but it wasn't giving me the satisfaction I thought it would at first bite. Finally, the delicious aroma of pears hit me square in the nose and I was so delighted about Hannah's next meal, I practically sang about it!

Using nature's best tastes of the season to help my baby grow and learn about eating is a…

Ok, my husband called me out on the whole cleaning thing... I'm not doing a bad job, but he thinks the house should be kept to a military standard of clean. The thing is, I really only blog when Hannah is napping because she's not a very sound sleeper. It gives me something to do that doesn't make a lot of noise. The issue has never been that I've blogged away all my time, it's that LO wakes up to the sound of a pin and my cleaning time goes out the window! Fear not, dear readers, I'm…

This is a recent post on http://5weeksearly.blogspot.com/:

Hannah has been an awesome sport trekking along with me through my coupon madness this week. You see, there's a great sale at my local grocery store for cereal and I figured I'd give the whole drug store reward program thing a try at Rite Aid. If I thought I knew anything about coupons before, the past few weeks have been an eye opener. I've been using the website…

Baby's First Bites

Learning to eat must be such a challenge for babies. Sure, they observe us eating and have some reflexive actions that guide them along, but that still leaves a lot to figure out. I was a little overwhelmed to start Hannah on foods even though she was clearly showing an interest in eating. Let me tell you, feeding babies and feeding your own baby are two totally different ball games. There is also a big learning curve preparing baby meals from…

Maternity Shopping Tips

I just pulled my last pair of maternity pants out of my closet to stow, and I have to say I'm a little sad to see them go. I LOVED wearing maternity pants! The first time I tried them on I squealed with excitement from the fitting room. Shopping for maternity clothes is no easy business, and there's a lot of poor advice online. Think about it; you're shopping with an expanding waistline for 3 seasons. Pregnant…