Emma turned four and a half years old this week. (Insert exclamations of consternation and the how is this possibles and the where has the times gones here). I usually wax emotional about all things milestones, but instead of crying to you, I’ll just cry to myself while I look at baby pictures of her. But, for your enjoyment, I did a little interview with Miss Emma Badger in honor of her half-birthday.
What’s your name? “Emma W”
How old are you? “Four and a half”
What is your favorite food? “Strawberries and mac and cheese and pizza and milk and pink lemonade.”
What is your favorite color? “Um some of the colors. I don’t like all of the colors. Light pink, light purple, light blue, just purple, pink, and blue.”
What do you want to be when you grow up? “Just like you. Being like a mommy. They go to work and they go to a friend’s house.
Um, a dentist!”
Read MoreOver on Instagram, I asked what you’d like to read more about on the blog and someone said planner stuff. I do not know what I want my planner posts to look like quite yet, but I did my set-up for November and for the week of October 29 through November 4 and I thought I’d share how it turned out.
My monthly spread set up process:
Select and cut out main sticker color and design theme.
Add additional stickers to fill in important dates, events, and to-dos.
Fill in to-dos, goals, and prayer intentions.
My weekly spread set up process:
Select and cut out main sticker color and design theme.
Add additional stickers to fill in events.
Add dinner, reading, and prayer headers.
Fill in tasks, events, and to-dos each day and review nightly.
Read MorePicture me circa 2013. I was a third-year dental student just starting the clinical part of my education. I had just finished two years of intensive didactic learning. Every facet of my life was organized by folder. I was an expert PDF annotator. I could study for hours upon hours in my little bubble at the local Panera.
So when I found out I was pregnant with my first child, I approached this new experience much in the same way. I studied. I researched article after article on mothering, pregnancy, newborn life, the whole shebang. I had Pinterest boards dedicated to pregnancy and motherhood. I downloaded apps that walked me through each day of pregnancy. I researched monthly developmental milestones to make sure that my daughter was on target.
I had lofty dreams about sleep training and getting my pre-baby body back. I would exclusively breastfeed and only feed her organic food that I made myself. But now that I am four and a half years into motherhood, I can tell you that all the research in the world did not prepare me adequately for what would be the greatest joy, adventure, and challenge of my life.
Here are a few things I wish I’d known before becoming a mom.
Read MoreHere she goes again.
Throat clear.
So at 38 weeks + 2 days…
Let’s back up. Where to start?
Oh yes, false labor. Or prodromal labor to the medical folks. I call it you suck labor. For days, nay, weeks. It was like that for my first kids, so I don’t know what made me think that I could avoid it this time, but alas, a girl can only dream. For a good fortnight, I had regular contractions, especially during the day while I was working. I’ll tell you, prepping crowns and trying to do exams on squirmy two-year-olds is no fun when you’re contracting.
If I was more of a glass-half-full kind of gal, maybe I’d glean some life lesson from the waiting and wondering and patience and yada yada. Offer it up, Samantha. But nope. Impatience during the last month of pregnancy is sort of my deal.
But I was determined not to go to the hospital unless I was FOR. SURE. IN. ACTIVE. LABOR. Because being sent home with not-so-active labor but still contracting for baby number three would be #embarassing. I was also delaying packing my hospital bag because, although I am not superstitious, apparently 36+ week pregnant Samantha was convinced that packing the hospital bag would delay labor. I know, pregnancy brain is an interesting phenomenon.
Read MoreOur precious little baby was born October 5, 2018. We are still in the newborn haze and I am still working on his birth story. Pop over to my Instagram for daily photos of the pumpkin.
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