Boobs and Poop

I laugh at myself every time I consider the fact that we live in Diamond Bar . It's not just that it's so suburban, or that we're living this totally boring family-focused life here. In my early twenties, I worked for a British curling iron operation. I worked for the heavily-scrutinized North American division, where under the guidance of an over-eager salesman-turned-CEO I drove to Diamond Bar from Westlake once a month to conduct sales meetings. It was one of those "many hats" situations wherein it mattered not that I was the marketing coordinator, I was convinced that the health of our business depended on my driving 120 miles round trip to deliver a sales presentation to a group of rowdy hairstylists each month. I was too young to question any of this then. Anyhow, each month as my coworker and I made the long trek to Diamond I'd joke about having to travel to "Bumble F**k Egypt" for irrelevant meetings. To my mind, Diamond Bar was not a pla...

I've been having a rough couple of weeks... I've been feeling a little lost and a little insecure about this blog. I've been up in my own head and not on the keyboard. I have written regular posts, but I'm kind of forcing myself to "get it out there" so that I don't loose momentum. I've been hounding myself with the usual questions: What am I doing with my life? Was this decision to stay home, blog and work on passion projects (while raising my baby) the right one? Should I have gone back to an office, and should I take the baby to daycare? My daily routine (or lack thereof) is nothing like I might have imagined just a short year ago... Connecting with other mommy bloggers has surely helped! I think I needed some inspiration and motivation.  Talking with Leah from And 1 More Makes 3 has helped me refocus and feel excited about creating more (and different) posts. There is a lot going on with me that's left me feeling anxious about the pres...

I recently had the pleasure of “e-meeting” a fellow mommy blogger and kindred spirit. Leah, the creator of And1MoreMakes3.com , uses her blog as a platform to discuss mental health issues, using her own experiences as a springboard into the larger discussion of mental health for moms and others in the UK. Her tone is frank, open, approachable and light. She makes the topic of mental illness less scary by virtue of her attitude about it. She suffered from depression and anxiety for over 10 years, and now considers herself a “survivor.” Her blog is an extension of her own journey to mental wellbeing, as well as a platform for sharing with other people that it is ok to feel this way and to get help. By using her own journey as the example , she shows her readers the benefits of facing mental illness and fighting it. She helps remind those who have forgotten that there is hope, and it is possible to take control. There’s no shame in suffering a mental illness, or an invisib...

This image is taken from an article on Mapleleafmommy.com . What a weird day. It's baby girl's 1/2 birthday - she's 6 months old today. I'm delighted. She's having a blast and we celebrated with some new toys from Target. Another interesting rite of passage befell our happy home today - I was "let go" from a job for the first time in my life. I've been wanting to write about how hard it's been to go back to work. After the events of today, I'll now write a completely different post. I'd never even come close being fired before this morning. And typically, any bad news (especially concerning my employment) is met with fear, defensiveness or confusion. But today I happily received a very clear message. There's no bitterness or self-loathing here. I did a good job, but a local person may be better suited for the work. I was working remotely and from a different time zone - and due to the nature of the work, that put me at a di...

Figuring out what I was going to do for "maternity leave" was so scary for me! I really felt lost. It took me a lot of research and talking through obstacles with friends before feeling confident that I'd filled out forms correctly and wouldn't somehow get penalized for taking time away from work for the baby. I was scared of being judged or perceived as lazy for taking too much time, or that I'd be an unfit mother if I didn't take enough time. And I worked for a company without a traditional HR department, so it was difficult to unearth the right information for me and hash out a plan. Actually, one of the main sources of stress for me was trying to create my plan for leave and ultimately returning to work. When I found out I was pregnant, I tried to wait until I'd made it through the first trimester before telling anyone at work that I was in the family way. But I can't keep my own secrets to save a life, so everyone in my department and a few o...

This image was taken from this list of offensive memes on mommyish.com .  After 5 months of exclusive breastfeeding and refusing to give the baby formula, I decided to bottle feed her formula last Saturday. It was weird, and I liked it. My husband was surprised and told me that from his perspective it seemed like I just flipped a switch, all of a sudden. Even when I got really sick two weeks ago and should have been on serious antibiotics, I just felt weird about introducing her to formula. But for some reason on Saturday morning, I was on fire and ready to try it. I mean I'd been thinking about it - mainly because now that I've been working again, I want to drink coffee all day. I've been so so so sick of having one measly cup of coffee in the morning and then worrying about my caffeine intake throughout the day. And now that our baby is sleeping like a champ most nights, I want to have wine with my husband on the back patio and enjoy my guiltiest of pleasures, an...

Some may be surprised that I decided to write about this. It's personal stuff. But after a lot of thought, I decided to share anyway because I found something really beneficial to my health. Anyone who knows me really well knows that I have struggled with anxiety and depression at different times throughout my life. Anyone who sort of knows me has probably heard me talk about this and been surprised. You may fall into that second category now. I'm naturally a fairly nervous person. What may seem very small and insignificant things to some can send me into a tailspin. I may worry over a mistake on a work project or something stupid I said at a party for weeks after the incident. I get stomach aches when this happens. I give just as much attention to worrying about the future as I do the past, and it results in even more stomach aches. In my late twenties, I was pretty sick of feeling sick to my stomach from all this worrying all the time. So I started seeing a therapis...

It has been hard to find good support groups and organizations for new moms out here in the Pomona Valley area! A lot of searching online lead me to La Leche League but I really couldn't find anything else. That is until I stumbled upon two groups using an app called Meetup . MOMS  (Moms Offering Moms Support) is an international organization dedicated to providing support to stay at home moms during the day, when moms are often isolated. I was surprised at how hard it was to find my local chapter (probably because members are busy being moms and not actively marketing the group...). I found a chapter for the next town over via Meetup and contacted them. They directed me to the MOMS web site so I could find the Diamond Bar chapter. I went to the web site, filled out a form and got a response within a few hours. There was some paperwork and a $25 (annual) fee to join. I took care of that part last week and attended my first group meeting yesterday at the Cal Poly Pomona pumpk...