Andrea's Round Table

The Miracle Blanket

andrea — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 04:15:35 +0000

If I could look back at my biggest mistakes of parenting from my first two children it would be swaddling. I stopped after the first week. My reason for doing so? I didn’t have a big enough receiving blanket. Those things never seem to get the job done. Especially if you have a long baby! My babies tend to have the body type of gumby. Long and lanky with crooked heads. Hey you try looking alright after living inside total darkness for months. If anyone tried to do this after they were born we would put them in a home. With baby Charlotte I was fully prepared to a fussy baby, hey, I had two in the past. This time I made sure to use my miracle blanket and follow through with swaddling. In the past, after I swaddled, I would loosen them up when the became too fussy. Rookie mistake. You swaddle to help calm them and to keep them calm. Many babies startle themselves away. Hence hold their arms at their sides like a baby straight jacket. Here we are six months later and my baby is sleeping light years better than her old siblings. If she is able to sleep better than Aiden and Madeleine there is no telling what else she will be able to accomplish; cleaning her room, speaking in an indoor voice, eating her dinner without complaining, endless possibilities.

Another Awkward Experience

andrea — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 04:08:09 +0000

I have been making goals for myself. The most important one is this site. It scares me. I have so many ideas for it including allowing me to write honestly what is on my mind. Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to be honest with myself? A struggle I face daily because I am my own worst enemy (who isn’t). Avoiding this site is an option for me, instead of doing something with it I can pretend it is not here. The issue with that? This site is always on my mind. I really want to review products and write helpful information for other moms. I also want to tell people what to do with their lives. I mean in this era of loss and confusion someone needs to have their act together. Why not me?

To start myself out I think it’s best to refer to my last posting. Remember that mom who wanted to send her daughter to Aiden’s school again? The one that could not afford it and let me know all about ? I saw her right before Christmas while I was at Target (My new home away from home, which was having a fire issues last Sunday when I needed something from there. You better believe there is going to be a complaint filed). Again, she started in with her daughter having a hard time in school. I truly wanted to stay away from giving advice but I could not help it. She was contemplating pulling her daughter from school. Instead of exchanging pleasantries I was doling out advice I most definitly did not have business doing. But I did it. And I will do it again because it’s me and I tend to stick my nose where it is not needed. Except it was needed and I stand behind what I said. There, that wasn’t too bad. I wrote a whole post and was completely honest. Win Win.

Awkward

andrea — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:01:47 +0000

Took the kids to a party yesterday. I really don’t like kids birthday parties. They have a limited control factor over them especially when the other parents are involved. I know most of these parents from the kids school. And since they are Annapolis parents there is a level of competitiveness that is associated with the area. I mean really the whole city is filled with haves and have nots. Awesome. A mom asked me if I was doing the school again next year. Yea, I am. Both kids will be there. Thing one will be there all day everyday. His sister thing two will be there three mornings a week. The other mom begins a long explanation of how they can’t afford the school. I nodded with agreement that school was expensive. Christ, everything is f’ing expensive. It was so uncomfortable how she kept going with the whole expensive thing. I felt like apologizing for being able to afford it. When really how we do it is our business. So I just sat there trapped, listening to her life quandary. Getting it, I really do. I get that its hard. With everything falling apart now, do you every feeling like justifying what you can afford?

When You Do As You’ve Always Done…

andrea — Sat, 03 May 2008 02:19:27 +0000

You get what you’ve always gotten. This quote can be a direct reflection of my life. Last Wednesday, I completely lost my temper with Aiden and spanked him more than I intended. Truth be told I never intended to spank him because I hate the idea of hitting. But I lost it and after it was done nothing was accomplished. The incident took place before a gymnastics meet and I spent the rest of the evening disappointed in myself. Friends of mine, who don’t have children, kept telling me to get over it. Over and over I heard how they were spanked and they are fine. Well in my mind, there are direct problems with this thought. Aren’t we supposed to do better? Just because something was done a certain way doesn’t mean it is the right way. If that were the case and that type of thinking was acceptable, progress would never have been made. I firmly believe that we are supposed to use discipline as a tool to teach and not to dominate our children. How did I come out ahead by scaring my child? I proved to him that I was stronger and bigger. Nothing was learned or accomplished from this situation. I am sure there are a million people out there who would love to tell me how wrong I am. Please don’t. I have had two days to think about this and my mind is made up. There are more effective ways to look at punishment and I fully intend to exercise those ways.

Pedestal Are For Objects

andrea — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:07:02 +0000

This past week I spent some time with my mom and grandma. Of course, memories come up and without guiding them there often times we can remember the bad choices a person makes. The person in question is my grandfather. He has been gone for 13 years now. Bringing my children to visit my grandma only seems exacerbate the fact that he is gone. He died very young and missed out on weddings, college graduations, high school graduations and new babies. I know my grandfather was not a perfect man but when someone passes on they slowly move to a pedestal. I have such a hard time listening to anything negative my grandma might share. I know this isn’t only true for our loved ones who have passed. We all have those people in our lives that we don’t really see as humans and God forbid they should disappoint us. My sister and I have put our dad up there. This is why it makes it so hard that he left me at ballet once for an extra three hours and my poor sister almost had to walk home from gymnastics…she was five. Tell me, who have you put up there?

Mr.Jealousy

andrea — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 02:20:24 +0000

Dear Andrea,

My boyfriend of two months is completely jealous of my past. What’s the deal? Is this a red flag? Should I be apologetic of my past?

Sincerely,

A chick with a past…

Wow, we need to apologize for things we have done before we met someone? Unless you were involved in a criminal act against him or his family members, it seems ridiculous. I would think it was a red flag if he were following you around in his spare time and constantly checking your cell phone. Otherwise he is just being annoying. He needs to get over your past and you need to stop talking about your past because it is well, the past.

And We Are Updated

andrea — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 02:08:38 +0000

Its been a long and arduous winter. March is here, I am six months pregnant. Which by the way, makes me incredibly nervous to speak of being pregnant online. I have fear of someone coming after me and trying to take my baby. To combat this, I am laying low online about the pregnancy and I keep a dog with me a lot. I have three of them so it isn’t too hard. In fact if I were not pregnant and married, I would probably be the crazy dog lady. Actually, I might already be there. Even though my blogging skills on this sight have been lax, I have a lot of my own questions running through my head on parenting. Recently, my children have begun to try every nerve in my body. The constant twitching is par for the coarse now. Obviously, this does not stop me from giving advice about parenting to my friends. Because well, I am completely an expert. In reality we are all flying blind trying to figure out how to raise this next generation of children. So in terms of discipline we are trying to stop a behavior while teaching them a lesson. I guess my question is what works? What’s the currency we use to entice our children on how to do the right thing, while teaching them a lesson? Better yet, what is the lesson? I feel like many teenagers now are missing the point of doing the right just for the sake of doing to right thing. How do we prevent this from happening with our children?

Maternity Business

andrea — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:20:21 +0000

So I am pregnant and finding things are a little different this time around. When I was expecting my first two I put up the ultra-sound pictures and did not mind spilling my guts all over the place about the baby. Here is what I found; when you spill your guts too much you have nothing left inside to run on. This time around I don’t want the pictures up, I don’t want to know the sex, and I don’t want to discuss names with anyone. I have found all sorts of widgets I can put on my various pages discussing the baby, showing the baby in his or her growth stage. Not of that appeals to me anymore. Half of me is terrified someone will stalk me for my baby and the other half wants to just keep the information to myself. I’m wondering if this is a third child syndrome or a mental breakdown I am going through. Do you think too much information is being shared now about our children? Is there a line we should draw before putting all this information out there?

Step Away From the Black Liner…

andrea — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:14:08 +0000

Why do young teenagers insist on wearing thick black eyeliner? Chances are if you visit a middle school you will run into dozens of young Avril Lavigne lookalikes. One of my closest friend’s daughter loves to do this. If you give her a an inch she will paint of mile of black eyeliner around her eyes. The real kicker? She looks amazing without the eye liner and yet she prefers it. I think it must be the idea of hiding who they are under who they really want to be. That must be it. When I was 13 I tried so hard to make my hair look like everyone elses. I really did. Here is an example:

I had no business having bangs, and yet there you go right in the middle of my head. Bangs curled in obscene directions.� By the way I am not the one in the lime green sweatshirt. That is Karen and she also had silly bangs. I think she wore black eyeliner and black tennis shoes. We all had to look exactly alike, if you were different you had nothing to hide behind. And lord knows you can hide anything behind black shoes. Tell me, what trends do you think teenagers are using to hide behind? Is anyone at this age really accepting with being an individual? I realize that the era of Myspace pages claims to recognize individuality but honestly do teenagers really accept this?

Seasonless Dressing

andrea — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:51:22 +0000

Two weeks ago I cleaned out my closet, which was a six hour ordeal. My closet is something to behold and quite possibly be ashamed of. Before you minimalists start shaking your clear coated nails at me…I did donated four garbage bags of clothes. As a former resident of Michigan I am used to clearly defined seasons, which does not always happen in Maryland. It usually goes something like wearing sandals from May until the middle of October and then suddenly pulling out those winter boots. Granted a very nice mild winter. As a result I have never changed the clothes in my closet from season to season. What I have is out all the time. Ok, I do have some space for it but not a ton. Having plenty of friends who change their closets every season I was more than interested to read an article about seasonless dressing…http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article3041049.ece. So my question to you all is how many of you rotate your clothes? How many like the idea of being able to wear everything you have all the time? Or is it a great surprise to pull out those clothes you haven’t seen in awhile? I also have a challenge to you all; grab a friend, pull them into your closet and have them help you weed out all those close you never wear. Make sure you grab someone tougher than you are because letting go of those clothes can be like losing a limb. A friend of mine also suggest turning all your hangers in one direction and them turning them back as you wear a piece of clothing. Anything you did not wear during the year needs to go. Alright get to it.