Hellobee

Last year seemed so wonderfully calm compared to this year. Relatives touched my pregnant belly and asked questions about how the pregnancy was going. I allowed myself to indulge a little more than usual because I was eating for two. How was this year different? More chaos, more scrambling, more bodies in the room. You would think that one teeny baby wouldn’t come with so much more chaos and pieces of furniture. Trying to juggle families from both sides, and trying to feed, nap and play with baby felt like spinning plates on a stick! Everyone wanted to hold the baby, everyone wanted a picture and my baby was getting sadder and more miserable by the minute. Poor new babies on Christmas!

Not knowing what to expect with Baby Pencil’s first holiday season, here are some tips I’d like to share:

– Be ready for relatives to insist on holding the baby and know your game plan. (Are you OK having everyone touch/kiss your baby? If not, what’s your go-to excuse?)

– Doing photo sessions and taking pictures of your baby in general seems to wipe them out! If you have a very new newborn, I would advise taking it slow with the photo sessions.

– Create signs to warn people of a napping baby. I taped a “Do Not Enter Baby is Sleeping” sign to the door, but people barged in anyway. Wah, wah.

– Be prepared that relatives will constantly give you advice. Like “you shouldn’t have to be quiet around the baby, just let him get used to loud noises!”

– You and your spouse will probably eat one at a time and won’t be able to help out as much with meals and cleaning up.

– When it comes to cooking, take it easy. We know you make amazing pie from scratch, but now that you are breastfeeding and handling a newborn, there’s no shame in picking up a few pies from Marie Callenders! (Seriously, what would we do without you Marie Callenders?!) And if you can’t even do that, offer to pitch in a few bucks to the childless couple or friend.

– Bring a cooler bag for your breastmilk and label it VERY CLEARLY to not discard or remove from the fridge! Things get moved around by so many hands and it would be a shame for someone to accidentally knock over or leave out your precious liquid gold. I had one just like this and it was great for traveling.

– Try to plan at least one female only, childless outing with your friends. Take advantage that this is a great time to catch up with out of towners, and enjoy a night off to actually enjoy the holidays independently!

– If you’re going to hang around a bunch of kids and people for long periods of time, your baby might get sick. Baby Pencil caught his first fever shortly after New Years Day! Beware of double dipping and hand washing!

– It may be worth getting some cute holiday jammies so that you can have them wear it all day. It’s nice to set them down for a nap without having to change them – one less thing to worry about!

– Try… oh try, to have a good time regardless! Yes it’s exhausting and people are annoying the pants off of you, but it’s the holidays and family is family. We’ll all look back and laugh one day… hopefully!

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When I saw that it cost $25 to take a picture with Santa at the mall, I decided that I would just purchase a nice Santa costume from Amazon and have my dad dress up each year. $50 can get you the whole get-up, from beard, boots and even the white gloves! Here’s Grandpa!

Baby Pencil: “hey… I think I’ve seen you before!”
Baby Pencil’s cousin, only 2 months old: “why am I hereeee…”

Did anyone else have a not-so-smooth-sailing type of holiday this year?