Glow Word Books Blog

10 Surprising Things We Weren’t Prepared For With Our Baby

My wife and I did a lot of reading, classes and preparation for our son, but we still had many surprise/last-minute trips to the store because we didn’t have enough of something. Here are the surprising things we didn’t plan for:

Counter-top Space: When you have a baby, all the things you need to care for the baby and a drink or book for yourself, you need a lot of counter-top space. I had to buy an extra shelving unit and end table because we never had enough. How much do you have?

Diaper Wipes: We knew we needed a lot of diapers because they can easily soil a bakers dozen or more each day… but I wasn’t prepared for the number of wet wipes we also had to buy. Each diaper definitely took more than 1 wipe when we started. I swear the kid ate some of them because I have no other explanation for where they disappeared to.

Low Light: I’m a fan of 100+ Watt bulbs that flood the room with bright light… but that’s the last thing you want when it’s the middle of the night and you have to change or feed your baby… so have some soft, dim lights you can use in the middle of the night.

Small nail file: Our son was born with long fingernails that almost needed trimming before we took him home. I had hoped to bit them, but I couldn’t get low enough (and the midwife recommended against cutting them because they have skin under their nails). So I bought an emery board to file his nails. It’s worked the best for us.

Clothing with snaps: We didn’t know how we would dress our baby, so we bought a huge assortment of clothing… but our favorite has been one-sies with SNAPS. The snaps make it so much easier to take on and off when you’re struggling to figure out how to care for a baby. Newborn clothes should definitely have snaps.

Learning How To Swaddle: This is more of a skill than a product, but we definitely wished we knew how to swaddle better. For the first 24 hours, our son was a mini-houdini and able to get out of any swaddle we tried. But thankfully there’s a great incentive to get swaddling right (SLEEP!), so we figured it out. (The Happiest Baby on the Block method + Youtube helped us out).

Soothies: If you’re breastfeeding, soothies are not only comforting as your nipples heal from the first few days of figuring out how breastfeeding works… but keeping the nipples moist seem to help with the healing process.

Nipple Balm: Continuing on the previous entry, a nipple balm (like Wish Garden’s Nipple Salve) helped protect my wife’s nipples so they could recover before any really painful side effects of breast feeding reared their ugly heads.

Clean Tops: It’s hard for every pregnant woman to have enough comfortable shirts because their torso is constantly changing sizes… but we were surprised to have that trend continue after birth as well…. we had enough tops for pregnancy and she planned to wear them afterwards, but babies can dirty 3 tops in an afternoon… and we weren’t ready for that kind of shirt turn-around.

Finally…: These are all things we had plenty of, but we were surprised how much we loved them: 1. Aden + Anais Muslins – we used them for everything. 2. Easy diaper trash with super tight lid (because nobody wants to smell that). 3. Boppy – the most comfortable way to have a baby on your lap.

Writing What Kids Want

One of the best things about being an author is that I get to be playful and childlike. In most businesses, the importance of seriousness is expressed constantly by the formal clothes, sterile cubes and cheesy motivational posters.

But as an author, my job is to entertain. It’s really hard to remember that not all of life is dull!

The seriousness of being a grown-up always sneaks in. And for a moment, you think it’s a good idea to write about your characters taking out the garbage and doing other important chores that adults are saddled with because that makes your story more believable.

When I start writing about chores, I know it’s time to walk around, read something funny, IM a friend sit and smile. If a kid would find the topic boring, it’s probably not something to write about.

Babies have to learn a lot of stuff

Babies have to learn a lot of stuff, don’t they? I obviously knew that my son would have bad table manners and not quite know how to use a toilet when he was born… but it’s shocking to see how many other things he doesn’t know.

His grasp on world geography is shaky at best. His multiplication tables are horrendous. He doesn’t really know how to smile, use his hands or even hold his neck up. Sometimes he forgets how to fall asleep and it’s rumored he doesn’t even know I exist when he can’t see me.

Thankfully, it took me a while to grasp all of this (I’m told), so he’ll be fine. But man, it makes me realize just how far I have come — even if I never learned how to spell along the way….

The first dessert I remember

Rocky Road Pizza courtesy of Pillsbury.com

What’s the first dessert you vividly remember eating? My first was a rocky-road pizza my mother made for my 9th (?) birthday. I know I had eaten a lot of sugar by then, but for some reason I still can recall every detail of that cake.

It was the first time my mind had been blown away. How could a pizza be sweet? Can you just put anything on a crust and call it a pizza? I was enthralled by how the the rocky-road pizza looked so much like a pizza even though it wasn’t one. It was a textural sensation with chips, chunks and crumbles all held together with a marshmallow goo.

I can’t remember if I overly liked it because we never had it again. Chocolate chip cookies, ice-creams and little chocolates were much more the norm. But it made an impression on me and made me feel like the king of the world for my birthday — sometimes that’s all that really matters.

How to make your daughter’s first period special

For too many girls, their first period comes and goes very unceremoniously. They often feel alone, scared, and not really sure what is happening. Here are some ideas to help treat your daughter’s first period with the ceremony it deserves.

Go out to a fancy meal: Have your daughter dress in her fanciest gown and have a mother-daughter meal out at a nicer restaurant. She may feel bloated and gross, so show her that periods can be elegant and beautiful.

Buy your daughter flowers: Having your first period can be frightening. If she’s too embarrassed to leave the house with you or doesn’t want her brothers to find out, buy her some flowers and discretely leave them in her bedroom.

Write your daughter a letter: Getting your first period traditionally means that you are “now a woman”. So write your daughter a heart-felt letter about what being a woman has meant to you. Pass on wisdom, funny stories and show her she is supported.

Tell her about your first period: Get the book “On The Day I Got My Period”, which is filled with stories from around the world about women’s first periods. At the end of the book, be sure to write what your first period was like. She can read the book in the privacy of her bedroom and hopefully it will give her the courage to ask any questions she may have.

Buy her jewelry: Pick out a piece of jewelry that says “growing up” to you. Wrap it up nicely and explain why you got her the present and what the present means to you.

Plan a spa day: Treat your daughter to an evening of relaxing. Take her to a massage, hot tub, mud bath, or even turn your bathroom into a spa. Decorate it with tea candles, buy some bubble bath. Turn down the lights and let her soak in the tub. Maybe even take the rest of the family out so she can have some quiet time.

Go see a comedy: Sometimes laughter is the best thing to take your mind off of all the emotions of your her first period. Take her out to play or movie that will have you both rolling in the isles. (And don’t forget to treat yourselves to popcorn… it’s a big day!)

Remember every girl is different: Your daughter is different than every other woman (and all of your other children), so tailor the day to her personality. If she’s easily embarrassed, avoid anything that will alert the rest of the family.

The Basic Needs – As Seen Through Parenting

Parenting has forced my wife and I to come face-to-face with basic human needs. Not only does our son rely on us 100% for his care, but he has challenged my wife and I to meet ours… most noticeably: sleep!

It made me realize how much I have taken food, shelter, warmth, water, and sleep for granted. I have been fortunate enough that those things have always been available. For that, I am extremely grateful. When you are surrounded by people who have everything they need, it’s very easy to realize that some people around the world go without.

Everyday I spent with my son, I’m surprised by how much I have learned from him.

Don’t Forget to Inspire Yourself

Regardless of if you’re a writer, artist, mechanic or unemployed, I can’t stress how important it is to keep inspiring yourself. My life changed pretty dramatically when I followed this advice.

For a long time, I worried I wasn’t good enough to pursue the hobbies I love… or that I should be focused on more sensible activities… or that I didn’t deserve to do what I wanted to. But that is all rubbish spoken from the ugly heads of poor self-esteem.

When I started dancing, hiking, painting, writing and laughing more, I felt more energized. By taking time to fill my life with joy, I somehow ended up with more energy to do all those other projects I had been putting off. My mood also improved. It didn’t matter if little things didn’t go my way because the big things were all aligning.

I think there’s a lot of truth in the Dalai Lama’s edict that “the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness” (Art of Happiness) and that we’re meant to discover ours. So what’s stopping you?

How I learned to love dark chocolate

For thirty years I was a die-hard milk chocolate fanatic. I didn’t hurt that my grocery store was next to a movie theater and always sold cheap, sugary chocolate bars for a quarter. I didn’t understand why those la-de-dah dark chocolate freaks wanted to eat something so bitter.

Then I met a dark chocolate apostle who changed my life. Not only was he aghast by how much sugar I consumed, but he was equally worried about the percentage of milk chocolate I was consuming. He told me that anyone who loved dessert as much as I did really needed to try dark chocolate. It was just a fluke or sign of my culinary adolescence that I liked milk chocolate.

However, not being a fool, he put his money where his mouth was and purchased a different dark chocolate bar for us to share each week. He started me off easy with delights like Lindt Dark Chocolate truffles. The smooth bitterness of its liquid fudge dripped through my brain and clogged the milk-chocolate-loving sensors. We sampled Baci balls — hazelnut was a rare milk chocolate flavor and I found myself more intrigued by the strange nut than the bitter cocoa. He even appealed to my literary side with Chocolove poems.

Somehow between all the new flavors, discussion of what we were eating and his sincere offer to expand my chocolate mind, I realized I had never given dark chocolate an honest try. My last real attempt was a Hereshy’s Mini Special Dark when I was 8 (and loved to suck sugar cubes). There was a whole world of desserts, tastes and textures that I knew nothing about. It was like looking down at an industrious swarm of ants and seeing a new, exciting hive of activity you had never noticed before.

Ever since that fall, I have been hooked. I have attempted different cocoa percentages and learned many lessons the hard way (like 99% cocoa is inedible bitter)… and my life has been richer for it… not because dark is better than milk, but because you should always question everything you do. You never know when that curiosity will lead you to a great discovery, like it lead me to dark chocolate.

Glow Word Books Blog

Authors Steve & Natasha