I know my son had a blast because as soon as we got in the car to head home he was knocked out. With all the running around, playing, eating and dancing going on with the other kids he was exhausted. I just loved watching him see all the new toys, books and clothes he received as gifts. I know he is still young but I think that he really did understand that the day was for him and that the new toys and books were all for him to play with.

Now I just can’t wait until he is old enough to really enjoy the entire day and really grasp what we are celebrating. Then we will start getting some more games and bouncers for him and his friends to enjoy.

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Now I get to witness another miracle of God great design. Our bodies weren’t designed to just carry a baby and give birth to them, but to also nourish and sustain their life through the production of breast milk. If you stop and think about it, it is truly an awe inspiring privilege for someone to be able to do be able to naturally produce food for another person with lifting a finger or exhausting your resources. It saddens me to know that some women are unfortunate to not be able to participate in this amazing blessing. For those of us that are lucky and have experienced it, we should be thankful and appreciate the time that we have bonding with our little ones.

I have such respect and admiration for this process that I feel to try and hide it or cover it up only dismisses its power. While I do not feel it is appropriate to expose my body to any other man but my husband, I have no problem with feeding my son in public and unashamed of its beauty.While some well meaning friends and family offer a cover or to relocate while I am feeding my almost toddler aged son, I always decline and say I am not concerned about what people think or feel about my feeding my son in public … I AM PROUD!!!

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I guess some where along the line I didn’t take it to seriously when the instructed me to start preparing my body 3 months before pregnancy the first time. I took for granted a lot of stuff that I did, ate and thought about and prepared for. While there are some things that are out of my control and very likely inevitable to happen again, i.e. my cervix being weak and dilated way to early causing me to be on bed rest for most part of my pregnancy, there are some things that I can start to prepare for an eventually avoid completely if done right.

Weight Gain

The biggest thing that I would like a better handle on for the next pregnancy is my weight gain. By charts standards and certainly my own personal opinion I gained far too much weight during my first pregnancy. I went up a total of forty five pounds from conception to delivery. That is ten plus pounds more then I should have. I am sure that it didn’t help that for the last 16 weeks of the pregnancy I was confined to a bed, that was no excuse. I know what I ate and what I didn’t eat and I did not make the wisest dietary decisions.

Perineum Tearing

So they say that once it happens, it is bone to repeat but I want to prove them wrong. My husband and I did start some of the recommendations for stretching and preparing the area for delivery but I don’t think we started early enough. Plan of action for baby number two, start from the first day that I pee on a stick and it smiles back at me.

Labor Plan

I know no birth experience will ever go 100% the way that you plan or hope but it is far better to enter with a plan than to wing it as things go. My husband and I did have some what of a birth plan made up about a month before delivery but I don’t think we did as good of a job expressing the plan to our delivery staff.

Emotional Roller Coaster

While it is literally impossible to be completely prepared for all the emotional changes that come with baby, a little forethought goes a long way. My life dynamic and living situation is going to be completely different for the next baby as it was for my first. While life is ever changing and evolving I will have to be in a constant state of preparation and looking ahead to how the timing of the pregnancy, whenever it happens, will effect what life circumstances I am facing and quickly adjust. My personal readiness, how the new baby will impact our family, my marriage, and work are the overwhelming factors to consider in advance.

Sibling Rivalry

Tied in with the potential emotional roller ahead is the fact that not only do my husband and I have to prepare each other for the welcoming of a new person into our family but we will have to educate and prepare our son also. I have to consider what age they will be when the newborn comes home. I am hoping that he will be old enough to understand and accept the family change. But that may not be a realistic expectation because each child is different. I do know for myself that I do not feel I am capable handling two young children that are at very close in age. I can barely handle the one right now.

Work Related

The last time I was pregnant I had the benefit of staying home throughout the entire pregnancy and for the first five months of his life I was a stay at home mother to my son. However that has all changed now. I can’t predict the future but I feel pretty secure in my current job and do not foresee be being a stay at home mom any time soon. So when we are expecting our second child we will have to look at and reconsider how the work force dynamic will change how we prepare and plan to bring a child into the world.

These areas of life are the different concerns on my heart right now. As time goes on this list may change but I think it is a good start. How did you prepare for your first or second child? Did you do more or less preparation with a second child? Would love to know what others did differently.

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I started to read over their website to see what they believe and how they are supporting breastfeeding mothers.

The WBW 2010 rationale are:

* Health care facilities play a vital role in the establishment of breastfeeding.

* The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding provide a supportive pathway enabling women to achieve their breastfeeding intentions and guiding the training of healthcare workers in breastfeeding support.

* World Breastfeeding Week this year commemorates the 20th anniversary of the Innocenti Declaration that called for implementation of the Ten Steps in all maternity facilities.

* During these 20 years, more than 20,000 maternities, or about 28% of all maternities in the world, have fully implemented the Ten Steps and have been certified by the Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI).

* During this time, rates of exclusive breastfeeding have increased significantly.

* However, reduced BFHI programming worldwide, inadequate training, and weakened compliance with the Ten Steps in accredited maternities are contributing to stagnant or declining exclusive breastfeeding rates in many settings.

* It is time to revisit this approach and to determine where we must go from here.

The WBW 2010 Objectives are to:

* Draw attention to the role of the Ten Steps in improving breastfeeding rates.

* Renew action by health systems, health care providers and communities to make breastfeeding the easy choice for women.

* Inform people everywhere of the risks of artificial feeding, and the role of breastfeeding for children’s development and lifelong health and the health of mothers.

* Enable mothers to enjoy full support for breastfeeding in health care systems and beyond.

As I think about my breast feeding journey with my son I am over whelmed with all the positive experiences I have had. While most mothers in my area do not fully breastfeed, I am really encouraged by the mothers I encounter that have breastfeed. Almost all the mothers who decided to breastfeed their children all did so for at least 18 months. I am hoping that I can continue to breastfeed my son for at least 18 months and knowing that I have so many mothers around me to provide that support is really a blessing.

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You get home get your shoes off, maybe have the chance to change your clothes before … it happens.

Screaming down the hall way comes crawling your little one. Somewhere between the the car and the front door your child discovered that they need their mother right now. It has suddenly become unacceptable for you to do anything but hold, play with, talk to or breastfeed your child.

That has been my story every day this week. I hear stories from the childcare workers that he is a perfect little angel, hardly ever crying . However, once he sees mommy it is a totally different story. If I am any where in the room with him and he sees me, all attention must be on him and I am not permitted to do any work.

I feel bad because even when daddy comes home it is still all about mommy. He will play and laugh with his father but I still have to be in the room. Once I try to exit, even to the kitchen where he can still see me, I am in trouble. I have been forced on occasion or two to just allow him to cry for a few minutes while I do what I have to do. I hate it but he must eventually learn that I still love him and I am not neglecting him.

I do hope this stage doesn’t last too long. I so love my time with him and want to make him happy … I don’t have to clean everyday … but there has to be a compromise … Right?

Am I being a mean mother by not constantly holding and playing with him?

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Well you can only imagine the collection of books that I have already started for my son, and I haven’t even scrapped the surface of the books I would like to get for him. I have collection after collection and countless different series in mind that I can’t wait to get my hands on and share with him.

I feel that taking time out to read to your children is vital to a their social and mental development. You will find that they not only learn how to read earlier, but they will learn how to enjoy it and look forward to finding and reading more books.

For this summer I am a mission to engage my son and have good story time fun each week. While he is still young and may not fully understand what the stories are about, I feel getting him used to the practice now and understand that the pictures and words in the books mean something is extremely important. Starting off this young can only make future summers more exciting and enjoyable for the whole family.

What summer reading plans to you have with your family this year? As a part of the TwitterMoms community I have the privileged of sharing this information with you regarding their latest blog post contest “How do we get our children to embrace summer reading.”

“I wrote this blog post while participating in the TwitterMoms blogging program to be eligible to get an “I Can Read!” book. For more information on how you can participate, click here.”

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Children who mature into stable young adults almost always have had a caring adult figure who has been a positive model in their life. – Doug Fields

This week’s journal question was … A love one who inspired me … My heroes are …

Growing up loved ones who inspired me were both of my grandmothers. I was always admiring how they both worked so hard for their families and always seemed to be able to provide everything for everyone who was in need. It encourages me to think of how resourceful they were. They both came from a place and time when it was common place to make your own clothes, grow your own food and create your own forms of entertainment which didn’t involve a computer or television.

My heroes are … I had to think about this one for a while because I can’t recall having any heroes growing up. Not that I didn’t have any, or that there were any influential people in my life because there were many. I just can’t remember any right now. How today I have many heroes, mostly the strong ministry leaders and pastors in my church.

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Well I have reached a point in the book that I now need your help. It would mean so much if each of you could take the next five to ten minutes to help me complete this book by filling out the survey I have prepared. This survey touches on topics that are discussed heavily in my book.

Find Parenting Survey Here

This project can not be completed with your help and to show my appreciation all who complete the full survey and leave a comment on this blog post will be entered to win a fifty dollar ($50.00) gift certificate to Starbucks. Even if you don’t enjoy coffee, they have other beverages, pastries to enjoy along with some pretty cute mugs.

Here are the rules.

1) Enter and complete my Parenting Survey found at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HTH7GCQ you must answer all questions, with valid responses. Due to the content of the questions you must have had at least one child to participate. Be sure to include your name and email so I can connect it back to this blog post.

2) Return to this blog post and leave a comment letting me know that have completed the survey and would like to participate. Completing the survey alone does not constitute an entry. Be sure to leave the same name and email addressed used during the survey so I can connect you to the responses.

You can only complete the survey once. Completing multiple surveys will not increase your chances. However for extra entries you can do the following:

• Tweet about this contest and survey then leave a comment with the link to your tweet.
• Post this on your facebook page and again leave a comment with the link to the post.

The survey will be closed on August 1 when all responses will be collected and a winner will be chosen using Random.org.

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Right now we have started off pretty slow with one date night a month. Sometimes we go all out and get dressed and head to a fancy restaurant. But that doesn’t have to be every month. Last month we just through on some comfy clothes, grabbed some Sushi and caught a movie.

While I love my son tremendously, it is so nice to be able to head out of the house, just the two of us and be alone again. And I don’t want it to stop. I want my son to know that mommy and daddy value and appreciate their marriage. Even when we aren’t out on date nights but just taking a moment each day to spend some personal quality time together catching up on the days activities, I want our son to know that this time is important and a must have for our family.

We are blessed to be surrounded by so many loved ones and family members that we have never had a problem trying to find someone who is available and we trust to watch our son.

Now the next step is for me to get comfortable enough to venture further than 5 miles away from where ever my son is. I have this desire to always want to be near and accessible which can be really limiting when it comes to choosing how we will spend our date night. I am working on it though and I am sure that with time and as he gets older I will loosing up a bit.

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I must give much thanks and appreciation to the many other mother’s out there that were willing to share their personal experiences just like this. It was because of their posts, forums and comments why I made it through my first pregnancy.

With that being said I wanted to share with you that after eighteen long months of peace and and freedom … my dear ‘friend’ has returned to my life. While I so enjoyed these past un-interupted months, I must admit that I did miss its every 28-30 day visit.

I went through a mixture of emotions within the first few minutes that I discovered its return. It began with shocked. Although my son is just over 9 months for some reason I just wasn’t expecting it to happen yet. From what I have been told by my doula and lactation specialist fully breastfeeding a child does help in delaying or slowing down the return of ovulation, but of course each women is different so there is no real way to predict when it will happen.

My next emotion was sad. I was sad that I now had to re-learn the life that is sanitary napkins, tampons and cramps. While it had been 18 months ago, I did remember that this wasn’t my most favorite time of the month. While this time isn’t a huge inconvience, it was one less thing to have to plan and think about each month.

Following sad was relief. It was the welcome return of a system that God designed and serves an amazing purpose. The power and ability that we have to as humans to come together and produce another human being is phenomenal and just beyond truly comprehending. While many women can tell you their stories of being able to have a child without a regular cycle (IVF, Implantation, etc.) when you are blessed with a normal cycle you should be relieved and appreciate the gift.

And finally my last emotion was worry. I worried because not only am I now physically ready to carry another child, it truly isn’t it my families plan yet. But it now going to be on my mind and in my thoughts every month. Each month I am going to get a little tingle in my stomach considering the possibility that I just may be pregnant again. And conversely when I discover I am in fact not pregnant, I am going to have a day or two of walking around being slightly disappointed. Weird I know, but I am almost certain that many other women are doing the same exact dance everyone month also. We don’t necessary want to be pregnant just yet but the excitement of the moment just can’t be resisted.

Well I just wanted to share my moment with you and see how you all handled the return of your long lost friend.

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