With a baby who wants to nurse pretty much every waking moment, I find myself sitting down a lot. So I turn on the TV. No surprise I watch a lot of the cable news channels. I constantly flip between CNN, Fox, MSNBC and Headline News.

The political reporting is what I especially enjoy. I minored in political science and started in TV news covering the Iowa caucuses for KIMT in Mason City.

How cool that John McCain picked a woman for his VP candidate. I have never heard of Sarah Palin, Alaska’s first female governor, until today but what a story! She has five kids and her 4-month-old has Down Syndrome. She is married to a commercial fisherman.

As a working mom with two little ones, I pretty much already love this woman. And I am a Hillary Clinton fan, too, but I can’t say I would have voted for her as I am more of an independent as a local news anchor.

I admit I like these two politicians because they are females. No, gender should not be the deciding factor for a voter but how powerful for all the young girls with low self-esteem to witness these two. It’s a good day to be a woman in America.

Posted under Baby Thomas: Month 1

As is always the case in life, tragedy could be waiting just around the corner. As my family celebrates a new addition, we are now faced with the loss of a loved one.

Early yesterday morning my 44-year-old first cousin died from a massive heart attack. He was a truck driver and collapsed at a truck stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan apparently after leaving his cab to go for help. Jimmy had a history of heart problems and obesity.

Sadly, the first time many of my relatives will see baby Thomas is at Jimmy’s funeral this Saturday in central Illinois. I think about my aunt well into her 60s losing her son, her baby.

No matter how many years God grants us here with our children somehow I know the pain is as real for her so many decades after Jimmy was born as it is for the mother of a young child.

I have heard it said many times and I understand it better when it hits close to home: No mother should have to bury her child.

Posted under Baby Thomas: Month 1

Thomas is gaining weight… but is it enough? I will call his pediatrician to confirm. Okay, I will stop boring you with these paranoid parent rants and entertain you with some ultra-personal facts.

I know all children are miracles. But to me my two are especially because my husband had a 14-year-old vasectomy reversed to conceive them. It’s true.

I planned on possibly adopting but a world-renowned urologist in Houston was able to perform the 5-hour reversal surgery in January 2005 and in August 2005, three weeks after our wedding, I got pregnant naturally with Charlotte.

So many couples struggle with infertility that I thought I would share our story to offer a bit of hope. I thank God every day that he blessed me with two children when I never counted on the possibility.

So I won’t complain that I haven’t showered since Monday or that it’s tough to type without getting a cramp when you’re doing it over a nursing baby!

Posted under Baby Thomas: Month 1

Concern has arisen about whether Thomas is gaining weight. Actually it’s just his daddy and me being paranoid because Charlotte was not initially getting enough to eat due to my low milk production.

Once we started supplementing she was fine. But this time the exclusive nursing has been going almost too well, I thought, until we came to the conclusion that maybe he wants to eat all the time because he’s still hungry.

Then there’s the bottle issue. He needs to start taking one so Daddy and the day care ladies can feed him when I go back to work in five weeks. Guess what? I managed to pump three ounces for Daddy to give him and he didn’t really like or take to the bottle. Great!

Another try proved more successful later in the evening, thankfully. The challenge is to find time to pump when I am feeding him or holding him on my lap pretty much around-the-clock.

We will take him to the hospital to weigh on a precise scale. Holding him and weighing him at home on our bathroom scale is not the most reliable!

Posted under Baby Thomas: Month 1

My first morning alone with Charlotte and Thomas has been interesting!

Daddy left for work before 6 and, after spending part of the night upstairs with Daddy, the kids and I ended up going back to sleep on the downstairs couch for two more hours–thank you.

Then Charlotte woke up and the following happened before I took her to her first day of preschool/day care (Daddy will pick her up at 3:30pm): she pushed her feet against her brother’s head when he was nursing, she climbed on the kitchen table, she rubbed yogurt on her arms and face like lotion, she picked out nineteen rocks from the backyard and counted them while sitting on the patio table, she climbed the rockwall on her swingset and got wet on the slide, she threw the previously mentioned rocks one at a time back into the flowers they surround, she took a bath and dumped out half the liquid soap, she rubbed baby lotion all over herself and Mommy’s feet and arms, she tried to bite me twice and she claimed her pull-ups were really "like diapers" and will likely use that excuse to have an accident in them at school.

As crazy as this may sound, overall she was pretty good so I rewarded her outside with two freezer pops and before we left with three mini jellybeans! The reason so much of these antics were carried out–90% of the time I was nursing her brother and had limited mobility as a result.

Oh, in the car we listened to "Hot Potato" by the Wiggles four times before she said to turn it to "Shakey, Shakey". Yes, my 2-year-old is my current boss!

Posted under Baby Thomas: Month 1

Eating is my favorite hobby. I have always known this and tried to embrace it. But once I hit the college years I realized even at 5’11 I couldn’t overeat the rest of my life and stay slim.

So I became an aerobics instructor and kept eating big. Post college I continued to work out and tried to keep all the bad stuff out of my apartment as much as possible.

Then I got married, gained ten pounds on the honeymoon and another seventy when I got pregnant two weeks later!

After Charlotte was born, I lost twenty pounds the first two weeks purely from all the fluid my body was retaining. Then my weight didn’t change.

I breastfed for seven months and it did not help me shed the tummy. So I wish Hollywood moms would stop citing nursing as the ultimate weight-loss method!

I eventually lost thirty pounds through the Y’s Biggest Loser program. So still thirty pounds heavier than I wanted to be I decided to have another baby. And I stopped dieting or exercising much.

The good news is I only gained fifty-five pounds with Thomas and I have lost twenty-five in the first few weeks as I did after Charlotte’s birth.

But guess what? I am nursing now exclusively and the weight is no longer coming off. It’s time to get to work, Tara. But I am so tired and food is such a comfort and energy booster. It’s so much fun to eat but not to stare down a closet full of clothes that don’t fit.

Posted under Baby Thomas: Month 1

Everyone says it gets easier by the day with a newborn… but I still have my setbacks. Today Thomas has a stomach ache, or so it seems, but before I realized this I kept nursing him thereby making it worse.

Finally his Nana was able to get him to sleep. It took getting him away from the breastmilk to make it happen! In the meantime, I took Charlotte upstairs for her nap. I fell asleep, too, but was jarred awake by the silence, actually.

Two kids taking a nap at the same time? Wow, it CAN happen. Now maybe I’ll have time to get out of my pajamas, brush my teeth, check my email and what? Thomas is rooting again? Back to reality, I guess.

Posted under Baby Thomas: Month 1

So I miss my husband. I can’t recall being away from him this long since we got married.

Prior to tying the knot, we spent way too much time apart doing the long distance relationship thing for more than two years. That’s no fun. But if you have a set date when you’ll eventually be together, which we did, it makes it easier to cope.

Dave and I are the kind of couple who do everything together. My friends who are big on girls-only events probably don’t get why I would rather stay home if my husband isn’t going. He’s my best friend. I don’t have as much fun if he’s not there. That’s why I married him.

Now we have two kids, a mortgage, opposite shifts and so many other responsibilities but we’re still close–in fact, closer.

Marriage is a lot of work and things change when kids come into the picture. But I only love him more when I see him being Daddy.

I am reminded of why I married him in the first place. Because I knew if we were going to try for this whole married with kids and full-time jobs thing he better be able to handle all of it and still love me in the morning.

And be able to handle me when I’m tired and not at my best!

The nicest thing he probably said to me lately unknowingly was that he thought I had already put my make-up on when I had not even really washed my face. It’s the little things women appreciate, right?

Posted under Baby Thomas: Month 1

Daddy’s back at work today so I packed up the kids and we came to Papa and Nana’s house in Peoria for the week. Not quite ready to go it alone with two!

My husband drove us halfway to meet my parents yesterday. It took us much longer than it should have to get home because we had to stop three times so I could nurse the starving newborn.

Yeah, right! He just uses mommy nursing him to soothe himself–not because he’s hungry.

He’s been sleeping for nearly three hours! I need to wake him up but it’s nice to have an extended break from being hunched over a Boppy.

Another 2 1/2 hour stretch last night where he was wide awake and wanted to be nursed.

I am officially hitting zombie mode from sleep deprivation. Another nap today will hopefully help. And I complained when I only got six straight hours of sleep while pregnant with him? That was heaven looking back!

Posted under Baby Thomas: Month 1

We made it to the baby’s 2-week check-up pretty much on-time. That is a huge accomplishment when two adults have to shower, a toddler has to be dressed and fed and a newborn has to be bathed, dressed and nursed all in time to get in the car and get there at the scheduled moment.

Weight looks good. He has a strong grip. All the things you’re happy to hear.

All the while Charlotte is playing nurse with a pen and chart the ladies at the front desk gave her. She managed to make marks on her hands, legs and my shirt, too. No problem. It already has milk stains on it and it just got washed yesterday!

Now come the stickers. Charlotte has Jasmine, Cinderella, Spiderman, Snow White and dinosaur stickers up and down her legs before we leave the office. I’ll be finding them stuck in the car and around the house the next few days.

Hard to believe my little girl is now the "big sis" who was concerned about the doctor hurting baby Thomas!

Posted under Baby Thomas: Month 1