Category Archives: Moms & Dads

Pregnancy at 18 weeks

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Pregnancy at 18 Weeks

Pregnancy

Mom-to-Be:

You may find that you are more hungry now during pregnancy…choose foods that are nutritious to snack on so that you are not gaining too much weight from sugary or salty favorites.

Larger clothes may be more comfortable as your waistline changes. In addition your cardiovascular system is changing dramatically to accommodate your growing fetus. Your blood pressure may be lower so try not to get up to fast from lying or sitting down as you might feel dizzy.

It will be better for you and baby to lie on you side when reclining or be at least tilted to one side. In a flat lying position your uterus can compress a major vein leading to decrease in the blood return to your heart. A pillow placed behind your or under one hip may help with positioning.

It might soon be time for a second trimester ultrasound to see how your baby is developing. They will check the placenta and umbilical cord and your baby may be sucking his thumb at this viewing.

“If you’re finding it hard to get through the afternoon at work without a little nap, find a place you can escape for 15 to 20 minutes (close your office door, use a conference room, even sit in your car). Bring a small travel alarm clock and set it for 15 minutes.”

– Laura

via Your pregnancy: 18 weeks | BabyCenter.

 

Baby growth:

  • Your baby is about 5 1/2 inches long
  • He weighs around 7 ounces…and is the size of a bell pepper
  • He is very busy exercising in utero and you will be feeling his movements more and more
  • Blood vessels are able to be seen through his skin at this stage of pregnancy
  • If you are having a girl the uterus and fallopian tubes are formed and in place, if you are having a boy, his genitals are visible although he may hide them on ultrasound
  • His ears are in place now and myelin is starting to protect his nerves

Pregnancy at 18 Weeks

Mom’s Fitness:

If you are healthy and your pregnancy is normal you can continue to exercise, making modifications for your growing belly. Moderate exercise avoiding jarring motions, sudden changes of position and lying on your back should be okay. But always check with your healthcare provider.

If you have not been exercising you might want to begin gently with short periods, a few times per week. Walking is a good place to begin, many women enjoy swimming or yoga. Remember to check with your caregiver first.

Kegel Exercises and their importance during pregnancy:

What are Kegels?

Kegels are exercises that strengthen the muscles of your pelvic floor — the ones that support your urethra, bladder, uterus, vagina, and rectum. Kegels help prevent urine leaks during and after pregnancy and may even help you in the second stage of labor. What’s more, Kegels increase circulation to your rectal and vaginal area, so they may help keep hemorrhoids at bay and speed healing after childbirth if you receive stitches.

Here’s how to do them:

Tighten the muscles around your vagina as if trying to interrupt the flow of urine when going to the bathroom. Use a “squeeze and lift” technique, working only your pelvic floor muscles while keeping your abdominal and leg muscles relaxed. And be sure not to hold your breath.
Hold for about eight to ten seconds, then release. Do them in sets of ten, and try to work up to three or four sets a day.
via Baby Center

 

Your pregnancy is almost half over and baby is developing steadily. Second trimester is a great time to get things done as you should be feeling pretty good.

I am so happy to have had a little vacation with my daughter this past week. She is more relaxed during the past few weeks of pregnancy. I am lucky to enjoy this time with her.

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TGIF-Weekend Reading

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Weekend Reading:

Weekend Light

Sunshine

 

Spring Break has come to Chicago. As we approach this holiday weekend of Easter and Passover, family time takes over. Many of us will be enjoying food, and visits with relatives and friends as we celebrate and relax and spend some “quality time” with each other.

………………………………………

Parenting and boundaries…do you embarrass your kids or do you shame them on Facebook or even in your blog? As parents, we probably should learn some boundaries when it comes to “talking” to or about each other on social media.

 

We as parents do terrible things to our teens all the time. Our fashion humiliates them, we hold their hands in public or try to kiss them goodbye in front of friends. These are hurtful actions to our teens who are sometimes awkwardly maneuvering into adulthood while trying on different hats. Sometimes it’s slow and plodding, sometimes it’s at breakneck speed but always it is a path they are attempting to make for themselves and though we’re invited along for parts of the ride it’s appropriate for us parents to stand back a little and let them explore their worlds.

I love cooking but on any given day it can be a challenge putting dinner on the table. As a young parent, I definitely had more energy to accomplish this task, but as a grandparent it has become difficult with maintaining weight management and making healthy choices for three generations in the meal planning. I really related to this new mom, who wanted to have  home made dinners but cooking was no longer a relaxing time for her in the kitchen.

 

This became a habitual meditation — imagining my pre-baby dinner routine every time I sat down to feed my baby. Cooking had been my relaxation habit for years, the chop-chop-chopping of onions and the swirl of oil in a pan my fragrant, rhythmic ritual for slowing down after a hectic day. I loved it, and the memory of it calmed me when I needed to be patient with my fussy eater.

“Quantitiy vs. Quality Time” is always a parenting discussion. Do you use weekend time as quality, quantity time?

 

As an exhausted parent who doesn’t get enough time to work out, who hasn’t seen a grown-up movie for months, and who wishes that date night were an actual night rather than an idea, I understand why so many of us might seize on studies suggesting that we should take more time for ourselves. Perhaps we should. But we should do so without relying on misleading research. Far better that we make our parenting choices informed by the broader set of more reliable studies, which Ms. Kalil summarized for me as suggesting “that when parents spend high-quality time with their children, their children are more likely to succeed.”

Of course, you can’t have those transcendent moments unless you’re together — to some small extent, quantity begets quality. And that’s where this research should come back to reassure parents. We are spending time with our children, particularly when you look, not at one bad day, but at a week, a month, a year, an entire childhood spent together. When we are questioning ourselves, we tend to look not at the cumulative sum of our time, but at what we fear we’ve missed. We don’t need to spend every minute with our children, or every minute engaged in intense togetherness. The time we spend apart (sleeping, working, studying, building blocks, playing sports, staring into space) brings something to our interactions, too. It’s time to look at our family calendars as half full, not half empty.

Hoping that you all have a restful, enjoyable weekend!

Pregnancy at 17 weeks

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Pregnancy at 17 Weeks

Pregnancy at 17 Weeks- Fetus is the Size of a Turnip

Baby is the Size of a Turnip

 

  • Your baby’s skeleton is changing now to bone from soft cartilage
  • the umbilical cord is stronger as well as thicker
  • he or she weighs in at about 5 ounces and is about 5 inches long
  • baby is moving all his/her joints

So many changes…

How is your life moving along at this stage of pregnancy?

  • believe it or not your center of gravity is changing because your belly is growing
  • you may be a little unsteady on your feet
  • try to avoid situations where you could fall, wear low heeled shoes
  • a fall could hurt your belly and be dangerous for you and your baby
  • your seat belt needs to be belted under your growing belly
  • your eyes may feel dry, over the counter lubricating eyedrops may help
  • contact lens wearers may have to limit their number of hours of wear.
  • you may even want to switch to your glasses while pregnant

“I made a simple chart of the basic food groups and posted it on the refrigerator. At the end of the day, I checked off what I had eaten. Then, for my bedtime snack, I tried to pick something that would fulfill whatever category was lacking — yogurt (or a bowl of ice cream!) if I needed more dairy, for example, or an orange if I needed more fruit.”

– Anna

Dream activity during pregnancy may heighten due to high emotions that may very well range from joy to apprehension on any given day. Pregnant women are known for having shorter REM sleep which is the cycle in which dreams occur but because you may wake up during a dream the memory of the dream is more vivid.

pregnancy-fetal-development-week-17

This week’s activity
Start a baby name list. Make a list of ten names you like. Have your partner do the same. Trade lists and each cross out one name on the other’s list that you dislike. Keep taking turns until you have a set of names you can both live with. Talk about why you like and dislike certain names. Many couples even create ground rules, such as no names of former girlfriends or boyfriends and no names that have ever been used for family pets.

via Your pregnancy: 17 weeks | BabyCenter.

As the weeks go by our family anxiously awaits our new little grandbaby. For me, I find myself remembering what it was like being pregnant in the 80’s when there was not all this information available about the growing fetus. Moms communicated with each other on the telephone which was in my case tethered to a very long spiral cord so I could multi-task around my kitchen and watch my 1 year old daughter.

I could not shop online or do too many comparisons when it came to baby gear but I was no slouch when it came to shopping for baby clothes in person whenever I could. I remember one of my favorite shops in Florida, where we were living at the time, was the “Purple Turtle” in Palm Beach. It was a always a treat to stop by and see their beautiful items…it was a shop where many grandparents shopped for their grandkids and now I am that grandparent.

Pregnancy generates many memories and now it is my joy to make new memories by remembering the past but enjoying the present.

Pregnancy at 16 Weeks

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Pregnancy at 16 Weeks

Pregnancy at 16 Weeks

How your baby’s growing

Your baby is the size of an avocado about 4 1/2 inches long and 3 1/2 ounces.

  • his head is more erect
  • legs are more developed
  • his eyes have moved closer to the front of his head
  • ears are closer to their final position
  • scalp patterning has begun
  • toenails are starting to appear
  • his heart is pumping 25 quarts of blood each day

Life and pregnancy:

  • the top of your uterus is halfway between pubic bone and your navel
  • your round ligaments are thickening and stretching as your uterus grows
  • there is probably less nausea, few mood swings and glowing skin
  • overall there is a sense of “well-being”
  • soon you will be feeling your baby’s movement
  • you may feel the movement between 16 and 18 weeks but maybe not until 20 weeks
  • the early movements might feel like gas bubbles or little flutters

fetal-development-week-16

You probably will gain about 12 to 14 pounds this trimester, with a total gain of 25 to 35 pounds if you began pregnancy at your average weight. Follow the guidelines of your caregiver.

As a couple you might want to plan a romantic getaway because we all know how hard it will be for you to both getaway for even a weekend alone once your baby arrives. By your third trimester, the time might be flying so fast and you might not feel like going away or you might not even feel too romantic. Even planning a stay-cation might be just what you need during the second trimester.

via Your pregnancy: 16 weeks | BabyCenter.

TGIF Weekend Reading

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Weekend Reading:

Weekend in Spring

Despite the weather here in Chicago this weekend, I keep thinking Spring…soon…wait for it!

Meditation is not difficult to learn and practice. For me it has been a journey over many years through my own pregnancies and it continues as a grandmother. You can do it for a moment or you can do it for an hour. I hope you find time to try it for yourself…maybe even this weekend.

 

 

From stress reduction to improved attention and memory, meditation is a practice that yields a large number of health benefits. Mediation has slowly been gaining in popularity in recent years, garnering a number of scientific studies to determine the specific effects the practice has on the body. It has been found that meditation and other forms of relaxation and mindfulness not only change the immediate state of mind, but also alter the actual structure of the brain.

 

What is the “Grandparent Deficit”? When you have children later in life the chance of them having “vibrant” active grandparents changes and many times diminishes. I feel somewhat on the cusp of this as a grandparent myself. I want to do so many things with my grandchildren but I find sometimes my energy level just cannot always meet my expectations.

 

She and my two daughters are among a growing number of kids who will see their grandparents primarily as people in need of care rather than as caretakers. They are the leading edge of a generation whose mothers and fathers had children later in life. They’ve seen us juggle our jobs, their school schedules and their grandparents’ needs simultaneously–one day missing work to be at the bedside of a parent who’s had a bad fall, another day trying to call an elder-care aide from the back row of a dance recital.

This link appeared in my feed this week and it took me by surprise that a Lego Magazine would incorporate something like Emma’s Beauty Tips into its pages. What do beauty tips have to do with Legos? Well, see for yourself how this mom felt when her 7year old daughter became concerned about the shape of her face! YIKES!

 

My 7-year-old wants to know if she has an oval face. Why? Because “oval faces can often have almost any style haircut because almost everything looks great on this face shape!” Her sudden concern with her hairstyle “looking great” comes courtesy of her new Lego Club Magazine, which included “Emma’s Beauty Tips” in the March-April 2015 Lego Club Magazine.

 

The weekend remains precious to me. Sometimes, I am able to recharge by having dinner with friends along with great conversation…other times I am able to grab a few extra hours of sleep or reading. Whatever it is you do on the weekend, I hope you make a little time for yourself.

Pregnancy: 15 weeks

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Pregnancy at 15 Weeks:

I am excited this week because my daughter is expecting our second grandchild. As a maternal child nurse, I was always in awe of the miracle of life.

Thirty plus years ago, we did not have all the ultrasound pictures that new parents-to-be have today but the miraculous changes and the sound of the fetal heartbeat thrilled me just the same as it does now. I particularly love the “fruit” comparison when it comes to the size of the fetus…it makes it all so real in terms of how small and tiny a being is developing right from the beginning of conception. It also amazes me how such a tiny being can physically affect a mom-to-be so soon after conception.

Journey with me and my daughter through the 15th week of gestation.

So much is now going on with your baby. He is around 4 inches from his head to his rump and he weighs all of 2 1/2 ounces. He is the size of an apple!

Pregnancy at 15 Weeks

Here is what is happening with your baby:

  • amniotic fluid is moving through his nose and respiratory track
  • legs are growing longer than his arms
  • there is movement in all of his joints and limbs
  • his eyelids are still fused but baby can sense light
  • taste buds are forming
  • you might be able to see if your baby is a girl or boy if you have an ultrasound this week, although he will have to cooperate and not be curled up hiding his identifying parts from you

Pregnancy and fetal-development-week-15

What is happening in your life:

  • you have probably gained about 5 pounds
  • you may be experiencing a stuffed up nose, “rhinitis of pregnancy”…and yes, this could be from hormonal changes and increased blood flow to you mucous membranes
  • if you are having an amnio then it might be done between now and 18 weeks
  • the first trimester is over and you may be feeling overall better, that is a good thing, so enjoy yourself with your significant other

Things for you to do:

Bonding with your baby can begin very early in your pregnancy because of ultrasounds so now, believe it or not you can you can begin to “talk” to your baby. Read a book to your baby and share some of your secrets with him. You might even want to start a blog to keep your family members up on your progress. When your baby is born he will know you better if you play music and talk to him while he is in utero.

 

via Your pregnancy: 15 weeks | BabyCenter.

TGIF-Weekend Reading

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Weekend Reading:

Weekend Daffodils

Spring is almost here…

Looking forward to the weekend? I surely am, even though some are equally hectic or even more so than the weekdays when everyone is doing their own thing, work and school. Signs of spring are all around with weather warming here in Chicagoland. Time to get outside.

I felt sad reading this post in the NYT because I can’t even imagine how I could have dealt with my husband being away and possibly out of touch when my kids were young. This young mom has a “moment” with her 2 year old son that is more than touching. What must her weekend be like?

Bedtime around here is the time I feel my husband’s absence the most. We generally tag team dishes and bath, so once the kids are asleep we can enjoy some precious alone time (we also have a 4-year-old daughter). With him gone, I keep holding out hope for a fairy godmother to come do the dishes and fold laundry while I handle bedtime.

Narcissism is a word making the news lately. In psychology, this is not a nice label to have associated with you or your children. How does one develop narcissistic traits? Well, this study gives you some ideas about over valuing children and yes even your grandchildren.

 

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Ohio State University suggested that parents who overvalue their children raise children who overvalue themselves — narcissists, in the commonly used, nondiagnostic sense of the word. That overvaluation was evaluated in ways obvious and more subtle (if you thought your child had a working knowledge of all of those topics, you’re overestimating him or her — because several of them don’t exist).

Coffee and wine on Facebook refer to wake up and relax. They appear in mom feeds very frequently. Interesting discussions recently about the exhaustion of constantly multitasking.

Why do moms always talk about coffee and wine? Referencing the fact that talk of both beverages constantly fills up her Facebook feed, Kristen Schrotberger says she’s over the rampant liking of posts that reference the need for more coffee and wine. Her very matter-of-fact post on Scary Mommy sheds some light on why any conversation about alcohol and coffee is instantly popular. It’s because we parents are so exhausted from the constant multitasking we need to relax. Coffee picks us up, wine helps us wind down.

via: Kids in the House

 

Yet another weekend is upon us. I hope you enjoy some time for yourself!

Pregnancy at 14 weeks

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Pregnancy at 14 weeks:

Pregnancy at 14 weeks

Your Baby is the Size of a Lemon

 

Here is what your baby can do this week:

  • squint, frown, make faces, pee, and maybe even suck his thumb
  • he has brain impulses that are developing which allow him to make faces with his facial muscles…isn’t this incredible?
  • his little kidneys are making urine, he is actually making urine which he releases into the amniotic fluid around him
  • he may even suck his thumb because now he can grasp…WOW!
  • he is the size of a lemon and measures a whole 3 1/2 inches
  • his body is more in proportion now but his legs have a little catching up to do yet
  • ultra-fine hair called lanugo is beginning to cover his entire body
  • his liver starts to make bile, and his spleen starts helping him to make red blood cells

This is an exciting week and the beginning of the second trimester of your pregnancy!

It is true, your life is changing but it can be more than manageable, here are some links at my favorite site for moms and babies.

Your food diary
Secrets of maternity dressing
The basics of good sleep
Great pregnancy exercise: Swimming

Here is what you can expect now that you are in the second trimester.

  • your energy is possibly returning
  • your breasts may not hurt as much
  • nausea and morning sickness may subside
  • you may be starting to show, with a little tummy

A little worry is not uncommon, but try to focus on taking care of yourself.

baby at 14 weeks gestation

Baby at 14 Weeks Gestation

 

Boy or Girl?
Decision Guide: Should you find out the sex of your baby?
Boy, girl — or big surprise? Sixty-four percent of mothers-to-be in a BabyCenter poll said they wanted to find out the sex of their baby ahead of time, while the rest preferred to wait. “We decided that the surprise of ‘it’s a boy!’ or ‘it’s a girl!’ is the same surprise at 5 months as it is at the birth,” said Jessica. Michael disagreed: “I think the old-fashioned way is the best. Finding out before birth is like opening your Christmas presents before Christmas!” If you’re still on the fence, here’s a look at the pros and cons of each side. A word of caution: If you want to keep your baby’s sex a secret, let your provider and the ultrasound technician know right away so they don’t inadvertently blurt it out in the middle of an ultrasound exam or while reviewing your test results.

via Your pregnancy: 14 weeks | BabyCenter.

 

I am so excited by this series of articles because we are expecting our second grandchild! Baby Center is a wonderful resource for moms and dads to be.

Daylight Savings and Kids’ Sleep

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Finally Daylight Savings is here!

daylight savings

This popped up in my email today from Jen and Jill at Sleepy Planet. They are two of the best people I know to help parents and kids with sleep and Daylight Savings is one of those times.

 

Spring Ahead Without

Falling Behind on Sleep

 

Daylight Savings this Sunday, March 8

 

Before bed, turn clocks ahead 1 hour.  If your child normally sleeps till 6:30 AM, the next morning she will likely sleep till 7:30 AM.  Her entire schedule – naps and bedtime – will then shift one hour later.

If you’re happy about this change, great!  Just protect her room from too much light in the early morning (use room-darkening shades if necessary), and use white noise so she won’t wake with the birds.

If you’d rather help your child get back to her usual schedule, try the following:

1.  Put your child down at her regular bedtime, say 7:30 PM, on Saturday night.

2. Set your alarm for 6:30 AM (according to the new clock) and wake your child at this time.  To her, it will feel like it’s 5:30 AM, but don’t worry.  She’ll be tired, but she’ll adjust.

3.  If your child naps, put her down at her normal nap time according to the new clock and resume a normal schedule from there.  Don’t allow her to nap longer than usual.

4.  On Sunday night, put her down at her usual bedtime according to the new time.

 

Excerpt from The Sleepeasy Solution: The Exhausted Parent’s Guide to Getting Your Child to Sleep — from Birth to Age 5.

 

Happy Daylight Savings!

TGIF-Weekend Reading

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Weekend Reading:

weekend chicago

Chicago

 

OMG…this weekend we may see the temperatures rise above freezing here in Chiberia (Chicagoland) and just perhaps some of this snow will melt and the ice on our stoop will disappear…FINALLY!

So many interesting articles appeared in my feed this week. I am excited to share some of them with you.

Morals, values, opinions and the Core Curriculum currently a hot topic is discussed here. This article really got me thinking. See what you think!

 So as a parent, I will teach the morals, the values and my opinions. The schools will teach my children to question me. In that way, we all end up on the right side of history.

Moral facts or mere opinions that vary from culture to culture, what do you think?

The Convent of the Sacred Heart Greenwich Middle School Parent Blog is on my favorite list. There are always some great posts that generate a lot of thought on my part about what my grandchildren will face in the future.

As a philosopher, I already knew that many college-aged students don’t believe in moral facts. While there are no national surveys quantifying this phenomenon, philosophy professors with whom I have spoken suggest that the overwhelming majority of college freshman in their classrooms view moral claims as mere opinions that are not true or are true only relative to a culture.

 

For me, sleep comes fairly easily and now that I am a grandmother, when I awake during the night, getting back to sleep is not usually a problem. But for many moms and women in general, this is not the case. Are you too stressed or worried to sleep well? Or do you know someone that is…then this NYTimes article may shed some light on why sleep is so evasive.

Why all the angst over bedtime, the one part of the day that, barring nightmares, ought to bring deeply needed peace? Many believe that sleep deprivation among women has worsened. In the “Women and Sleep” study, 80 percent of women reported being just too stressed or worried to turn out the proverbial lights.

Another weekend, my husband and I try to have dinner out on Fridays, most of the time with friends but sometimes just the two of us. We unwind at a local restaurant, where the waitstaff knows us and where we can enjoy eating and relaxing. I have to plug the Lettuce Entertain You restaurant group because they have been a dependable favorite of ours for so many years here in Chicago. They do not disappoint!

Weekend

Lettuce Entertain You

 

 

Enjoy a meal with your significant others this weekend!