My First Giveaway! Enter Enter Enter

For a while now I have been saying to myself how Gretchen needs a leash. She is a go go go girl and wants to explore everything. I had seem kids before with harnesses on but never really paid much mind to it since it wasn't my child having to keep up with. I had been debating where or not to try one until I saw a little girl at the grocery store with one on. I asked the parents what they thought about it. They said that they loved it and their daughter always wanted to wear it.

So I bought this 2 in 1 Harness Buddy from Goldbug. Actually I bought 2. One for Gretchen and one as my 1st Giveaway.

To Enter:

1)Simply Become a follower on my blog. For my friends who don't know what this is when you get to my page click on the Follow button and simply follow the directions.

2) If you are already a follower you can enter by leaving a comment about what you think of kid leashes or any critics about the site.

Entries must be in by Friday August 13 at 11:59 p.m.

I will announce the winner Saturday morning her on My MOMoirs.

Enter Enter Enter.

Giselle Bundchen

It you haven't read or heard about this on television or the Internet supermodel Giselle Bundchen made a statement that women should be force to breastfeed their children. WHAT? Excuse me?

I'm not against Giselle. I mean, she's pretty and I wish I was tall and had great hair like her but maybe she should keep somethings to herself. I breastfeed for 7 weeks and I commend anyone out there who breastfeed, even if it was just for a day. Breastfeeding has its pros and cons. Pro its cheaper, con its time consuming. Pro, it claims that it will help you lose your baby weight faster, no con to that. Some research claim beastfeed babies have higher IQ's and the antibodies will help them from getting sick. However, this isn't going to guarantee your child will be a genius ( and let me just say being a genius has its problems as well) or change its DNA to avoid any inherited disease like cancer.

Why can't mothers just be supportive of each other. Instead we think that we are experts in parenting, even with only one child, and have the right to tell people how to raise their children.

I get these ridiculous images in my head of what would happen if breastfeeding was a law. I image it would be a lot like Prohibition. Women would be making formula in their basements to sell to people. Women would be selling and buying breast milk from each other at ridiculous prices. It would be a hard thing to control. Can you image reading in a newspaper women getting arrested for feeding their babies formula? As my mom said, there are far too many more important issues that need to be addressed in this world other then breastfeeding.

I think that if you feel strongly about a cause then advocate for it. Instead what Giselle has done is make everyone feel that she is ridiculous and uneducated. She could easily be a spokeswoman and share information about breastfeeding. Perhaps even suggest to those women that produce enough milk to feed multiple babies to freeze and donate some of their milk.

If I could go back...

Being a new parent and having your first baby is a big learning experience. By your second, third, or 19th (like the Duggar's) you know what works, what doesn't, your parenting style, and whatnots. If Brian and I have another child (if we win the lottery that is) I would do just one thing differently. I regret not trying to use cloth diapers. I don't know if it was a fear of mine to use them but I should have tried. I could have easily traded most of my diapers that I got at our babyshower and bought cloth diapers or had just told people that I wanted to use cloth diapers. I still would have used disposable diapers when we were out in town to illiminate having to carry around poopy diaper though. Think about how many diapers I am putting in our landfills everyday. I really need a pop on the hand "No More" ,"Don't do that again." My question is now , can I start using cloth diapers now even though she is a year old?

Quicky Blog

Here is a quick one while I am multi-taskiing this morning.

For all of you that don't know I am starting back to school this fall. (Cheers! Applause! HIP HIP HOORAY!) Hopefully now that I am older and a mother I can settle down and finish a degree.

I was totally shocked yesterday when I realized that I was signed up for 6 classes totalling 19 credit hours. When I pre-registered I signed up for 4 classes and was on the waiting list for 2 more. I really didn't think I was going to get into the other classes but now that I did I was almost in a panic. Two classes are mostly doing crafts and puppets. So hopefully that will be easy. But I also need these classes and who knows wheren they will be offered again, right? So in a few weeks I will be a FULL FULL time student. Here we go.

Also, I have got my IDEA for my first contest. I need to go to the store and get it first though. But I'm totally excited about it. Can't wait! Contest soon!

My tribute to OTR truck drivers

Though all truck drivers play a big role delivering all our goods and materials to factories, warehouses, and stores I really want to focus on OTR driver. Over the Road drivers are one that drive 48 states and are gone for days or weeks from home. A truck drivers life is so different then a regular job. You sleep in the back of a truck, you eat out of a cooler or at a restaurant all the time, and your away from home for weeks. When you are home you are only home for a short while, maybe only a day or two. You have deadlines to meet, federal regulations to obide, driving hours to calculate, mileage to figure. At time you are super busy getting loads to where they need to go. Other time you may sit at a truck stop for a few days waiting on a load close to the area you in to take.

When I was 5 months pregnant with Gretchen I went on the road with Brian for two weeks. After a day or two you get used to the booping around in the truck. Being on the road made me come to appreciate and understand the life of a trucker. It can be exciting sometime. You get to visit different places and see different things. However at time all you see is interstate. Going through some states is so boring. All you see is fields and barns. Brian liked to start work early. You see a trucker can drive up to 11 hrs a day and ever so many days they have to take a break of like 35 hrs I think. So if we started around 6 am and stopped a few times to break then we could stop around 6 pm. This is the perfect time to find a spot at a truck stop. If you stop much later you might not find an empty spot and then you are parking on the side of the road for the night. But really a truck drivers life is crazy. For one thing if you want to take a shower at a truck stop its going to cost you $10. Brian even had a camping shower in his truck. Some towns out west don't have truck stops so we resorted to a cold shower in the truck. Eating at a truck stop can be expensive and the food isn't that great. The worst part of trucking is that up north most states won't let you idle your truck. This means that you won't have any air in your truck when its 100 degree weather outside. Some truck stops have these things you hook up to your truck called idle air that provides air and heat so you don't have to idle your truck but this is very expensive.

Finding a good trucking job with a good company isn't always easy. Because of cost of insurance most want experience. Some require different things. For example some need you to tarp your truck, maybe unload it, or deal with sales. For Brian the hardest thing was being away home. Now he has a job with Truck Services. He took a position working around 3 to 4 days a week. Yes he has to be gone but he is home on weekends to be with me and the kids and he gets more then 36 hrs off. There are trucking companies that 36 hrs is all you get to be home a week and then you are back on the road.

I love my truck driver. Everyone should appreciate truck drivers more. So next time you so buy a soda think about how a truck driver picked up those empty cans in Wyoming and drove 3 days across county to South Carolina to a soda factory where they put the soda in the cans so that you could have a refreshing drink.

My Blog

So what is my blog REALLY about? Partly about my daughter who is just pure awesomeness. I would really like to start adding some "how to" kid crafts and activities. I have a subscription to FamilyFun magazine. My mom got it for me for Christmas cause I kept stealing the magazines at the doctors offices. I couldn't help it, they have tons of really great crafts and activities to do. I now have a notebook full of possible projects. I want to do the projects and give parents a real critique. For example, cost of project, time, and difficulty. I would like to eventually do product promotions and reviews as well as contest. And of course I will add my motherly opinion about different topics. Believe me this blogging thing has been a work in progress. Eventually once I learn the "how to" I will get my site just the way I want it and it will be awesome.

Cupcakes are COOL!

Just read, OK skimmed, an article on Yahoo! about how the cupcake "trend" is going away. I didn't know that the cupcake was a "trend." I thought it was a birthday party staple. I can see some of the other things going out of style like Tuna Tartare or Communal Tables but not cupcakes. My mom has a great cupcake book that isn't old at all where you make a cupcake look like different kinds of dogs and food. A cupcake can be artfood. A cupcake is like your classic black dress or your set of pearls. It is never going to go out of style. As long as there are mothers' out there then there will be cupcakes! To the person out there who thinks he/she can say what is cool and trendy let me just say to you, Let them eat CUPCAKES!

Also, July is National Ice Cream Month. I know the month is almost over so enjoy some ice cream before its over. Just the other day Some friends and I had ice cream with pound cake, strawberries, and peaches in it. It was DELICIOUS!