Balancing Act - 24 hours are not enough

Life has gotten pretty busy for me lately. Glow Baby is taking off and I've had a lot of great response to "Baby's First Journal". I am now working on journal #2 "Baby's First Foods". It is pretty exciting to have people embrace my journal and my hard work is starting to pay off.

While things are getting busy on the business side, life is also getting busier on the family side. Juliet is getting older (she's 9 1/2 months already!!) and she is so much fun to be around. Ainsley is also getting older (she's 2 1/2) and she is starting to drop her nap (Booo!!). A huge part of my day is spent seeing to their needs. I'm still breastfeeding Juliet so that is added to the equation.

My days are a blur. I get up, feed Juliet, take Ainsley to school, put Juliet down for her nap, (1 hour break to work if I'm lucky). Then we go pick up Ainsley from school, have lunch, play, feed Juliet, put Juliet down for her nap. Play with Ainsley and then hope and pray she goes down for her nap. Lately, Ainsley has not fallen asleep for her nap until 3pm and then Juliet gets up shortly afterwards leaving the evening hours the only other time to really focus on work.

Trying to fit everything in is getting tough and I rely heavily on my own organizational skills and ability to prioritize to get through my days. I am feeling pretty exhausted this week. I need a vacation but will have to wait until I finish breastfeeding. If only there were a few more hours in the day then maybe I could find some me-time.

Feature on Peekaboo Picks

Hello again everyone,

I am very excited that "Baby's First Journal" has been featured in Peekaboo Picks newsletter. Check it out http://www.peekaboopicks.com/2009/09/22/happy-fall/.

The Bump Blog Awards

Hello everyone,

The Bump http://www.thebump.com/ has just announced they have started their Blogger Awards. Please vote for me for the Best Working Mom Blog (for WAHM).

Thanks so much!!!

My Favorite Toddlerisms

Anyone who has had a toddler knows that the words that come out of their child's mouth is not necessarily the perfect pronunciation of that word. I love these interpretations of what Ainsley hears and thought I would write down a few partly because they are cute and partly because I don't want to forget.

Here are my favs for this week:

Actual Word V. Ainsley's Word

Smarties V. Parties
Music V. Me-Cass
Aunty Amanda V. Aunty Panda
Juliet V. Julielette
Tinkerbell V. Tinkerbelt

I love these special little words.

"Baby's First Journal" is going to the Type A Mom Conference

"Baby's First Journal" is on its way to the Type A Mom Conference. I responded to a tweet by Amy from Mom Made That and she has been nice enough to include a few copies of the journal at the market place event happening at this conference. I am very excited to have this opportunity for exposure of my journals to other mom bloggers.

I wish I could travel down myself, but as I am still breastfeeding, this year is not an option. Maybe next year?

Check out the link for some great products that Amy is taking with her. http://whrrl.com/experience/story/18424741

For more information on the Type A Mom Conference please visit http://typeamomconference.com/.

For more information on Mom Made That please visit http://mommadethat.com/

Site Focuses on Helping Small Businesses Breakthrough the Internet Noise

I was on one of my mom entrepreneur networking groups and found this new site. Tweet-A-Day Giveaway promotes giveaways for free to help small business grow.

Tweet-A-DayGiveaway.com sends out a daily email and daily tweet on giveaways is targeting the need of micro, small and medium businesses to breakthrough the internet “noise” by offering an easy way to get their promotional giveaways listed and out to the public.

Tweet-A-DayGiveaway.com is unique from other giveaway sites and blogs because it drives traffic to the company’s site not just the promoter’s site. Tweet-A-Day does not manage the giveaway or ask visitors to enter to win on their site like other giveaway sites do. Tweet-A-Day sends visitors directly to the site of the company offering the giveaway. Doing this brings more traffic to the company’s’ site. In addition, the company doing the giveaway does not have to send in the product for “review”.

Tweet-A-Day founder, Gina Robison-Billups, recognized the need for this service when she was promoting her own giveaway for MomsMakingaMillion.com. It was very difficult to find sites to contact. The submission links for most of them didn’t work, and their promotion of the giveaways just drove traffic and comments to their own sites, not hers. In addition, Moms Making a Million didn’t have a product to review with a picture because it’s a service. Service providers are left out in the cold when it comes to giveaway promotional opportunities.Tweet-A-Day Giveaway is also free. There are no advertising fees for posting giveaways, and no shipping of free products for review – a practice that has been recently scrutinized for tax implications and conflict of interest issues.The program is still in its beta phase, but the first week has seen real results. The Tweet-A-Day giveaways were re-tweeted to 12,000 twitter-ers in it’s first week of operation, and many of the companies offering giveaways have reported results and sign ups.

Visitors wanting to receive daily giveaways through email or Twitter can register alerts through http://www.tweet-a-daygiveaway.com/ or at http://www.twitter.com/tweetgive

About Tweet-A-DayGiveaway.com
Pure, simple, free, and easy promotion – Tweet-A-DayGiveaway.com gives small business a place to promote their giveaways and to breakthrough the internet noise.
Media Contact: Gina Robison-Billups, tweetgive@gmail.com

Check them out. Great concept. I will definitely be following.

Birthing from Within - A wonderful approach to labour

My prenatal class did not really prepare me emotionally for my labour or the post natal period. What it did was intellectually prepare me for delivery but we did not discuss what our labour plans looked like and how we would deal with a labour that did not go as planned. This cursory approach would be fine for someone who had a textbook delivery but for me, my worse case scenario happened and I was not prepared emotionally for this.

I believe that if I had done additional research into prenatal classes in Toronto and the different philosophies out there, I would have been in a better frame of mind.

I recently came across The Nesting Place http://www.thenestingplace.ca/ which is run by Amanda Spakowski who is also a doula. I met with her and we discussed her philosophy of Birthing from Within. As it says on her website "Birthing naturally means birthing in the way that comes naturally to you". This was a refreshing thought as Amanda prepares her parents-to-be for their ideal birth but also for the unexpected. The question of "How would you deal with your worst case scenario" is asked and parents have time to answer this question which in turn prepares you to handle the unknowns of labour.

What was also interesting in my conversation was Amanda's deep understanding of the difficulties of the post partum period and I was happy to learn that this is discussed in her classes as well.

Amanda addresses what you need to know about your delivery including:

•The stages of labour and labour support
•Specific techniques for pain coping, including compassionate use of epidurals and other medical support
•How to communicate with your health care provider
•Handling the unexpected during childbirth, physically and emotionally
•Birth art to explore feelings, fears and positive intentions
•Becoming a parent – the partner’s perspective
•Preparing for postpartum
•Caring for your new baby

I wish I had found her classes before I had my girls.

For more information on the Birthing From Within philosophy please visit http://www.birthinfromwithin.com/.

Wordless Wednesday - Mmmm Brownies

My weekend alone with Juliet

For the first time since Juliet was born, I had the opportunity to spend the whole weekend alone with her. Brett and Ainsley went up to the cottage and so I was a parent of an only child again.

Boy, is having one child easy. I had forgotten what it felt like to only have to focus on one little person. So Juliet and I went on walks to get coffee. We had a girls night in and I actually got chores done and the house did not look like a disaster zone.

Nights were tougher as I never sleep well when I'm by myself in the house despite our alarm system. I have an active imagination and I'm a bit of a worrier.

All in all we had a peaceful weekend together and Juliet started to crawl!!!

I definitely missed Ainsley. She called me each night and told me about her day. Thankfully she is getting old enough to be able to sustain a fairly decent phone conversation. I was very happy to see her upon her return today and I gave her TONS of hugs and kisses.

I think its important to spend quality one-on-one time with each child as they are both unique and deserve the undivided attention. I will definitely be planning more Juliet and Mommy days and Ainsley and Mommy days soon.

As a side note, I need a Mommy day!!! That's my next step. I'm thinking of an over night spa day once I have weaned Juliet. Ahhh....sleeping in....I have forgotten what that feels like.

Natural Mommie Review

A big thank you to Amanda from Natural Mommie for her review of "Baby's First Journal". Please check it out at http://www.naturalmommie.com/2009/09/glow-baby.html .

4BabyandMom Review

"Baby's First Journal" has gotten a fabulous review from Lauren at 4BabyandMom. Check it out at http://4babyandmom.blogspot.com/2009/09/keep-organized-after-baby-babys-first.html.

Thank you Lauren!