Prior to bringing home baby, I had approximately zero experience with a newborn, (sheesh a baby or child for that matter).  I wanted to share some things I learned in these three weeks that might help another clueless new mommy.  I did do a ton of reading when baby was in utero but some of these things are really ‘on the job training’.

I had bought a bunch of onesies, what I learned is that it is incredibly frightening pulling a onesie over a squirming and crying newborn’s head and then trying to get her arms through the long sleeves? It feels as if I am disassembling a time bomb.  I only had one side snap onesie from the hospital, I ended up ordering a lot more.  I recommend the side snaps, it will prevent melt downs for both you and baby, even side snap shirts are a good idea!

The baby hates getting her diaper changed, it’s cold and shocking for her, I don’t blame her.  Invest in a wipe warmer if your baby screams bloody murder when you change her/his diapers or see if a friend is willing to donate one they aren’t using any longer.

Baby wearing is a God send! I bought a Solly wrap and she falls asleep within minutes of being put into it. It allows me to work, cook, clean (yes, clean).  I love having her close to me, as I feel an insatiable need to make sure she is breathing at all times (this seems to be a common phenomena amongst first time mom’s).

Do what makes you feel a little ‘normal’, meaning what made you feel good prior to baby moving in.  I thrive in an organized home, it makes me feel better to have a clean house. I make my bed every day, it’s a little thing but it makes me feel less chaotic and believe me adding a baby to the family is instant chaos! You don’t need to clean the house, but do one thing that was part of your former routine and it will make you feel less precarious.

Buy The Happiest Baby on the Block DVD, it’s a little dated visually but the techniques in the video work for both pre-term and term babies!  It was my saving grace in the hospital when I was feeling so overwhelmed and out of control it gave me a sense of confidence that I could help soothe my crying baby.

Have you heard of cluster feeding?  No?  Me either, until baby arrived.  The baby eats almost every hour around the clock, it is really exhausting, this supposedly is very common with pre-term babies (but newborns in general can do this for periods of time), it’s something worth mentioning since it was a shock to the system and I am not sure how you can get yourself physically prepared for it, but if I knew it existed maybe I could have gotten myself mentally prepared.

Newborn’s do not sleep through the night, they need to eat every 3-4 hours, so don’t get frustrated, just resign yourself to the fact and go with it.  I have my husband do the last morning feed (around 5 a.m.) and it makes a huge difference for me to get a solid hour of sleep. sometimes he will even do the next feed, but I have to pump often (because of how often she eats) and that means I don’t get to sleep during that one.

Speaking of sleeping, we bought a mini crib we thought it would be a great compromise from a bassinet or co-sleeper, well choose the latter, she rarely will sleep in her crib it’s large and flat and she freaks out in it.  We are looking into some other options, I’m thinking a rocking/vibrating bassinet but my husband is leaning towards a co-sleeper that goes in the bed.  It makes me nervous to think about sleeping in bed with baby, but it has to be better than staying up all night with her in my arms (did I mention I am SO tired?).  I am so open to any advice on sleeping options for baby.

And that my friends are some of the things I have learned in these 3 weeks, I hope it can help a new mommy and I hope the veteran mommy’s will chime in and offer their experience to this list!

Thank you all so much for your warm wishes and great advice, it was so greatly appreciated. I haven’t had a chance to go through every one of the comments yet, but I plan on it!  I went back to work this week and even though I was so tired I thought my eyes would bleed, but I went back with gusto.  I have to.  As you know I was super sick and wasn’t able to work for nearly six months and we have medical bills that are astronomical so maternity leave is not an option for moi, we are are two income household. I have been putting the baby in her carrier and work in 1 hour to 1.5 hour increments.  It’s amazing how efficient you can get when you have to be, I thought I was efficient before but you don’t even know how organized I have become, I’m like a very tired, but efficient machine.

I thought I would have at least 3 more weeks to get some of the new offerings up in the shop for holiday, but I was only able to get some of the new stationery offerings up before baby.  I didn’t want to add stationery until I had the perfect stock, I am a little nuts about paper and I love either extra thick or onion skin thin, not in between.  I am using a beautiful luxe cotton cardstock and having the sets professionally printed, they are perfect for gifting!  I had been asked about the monograms being turned into stationery forever and viola, here it is! I also have the wax seal, a clean modern type and a glamorous typeset one.  I will soon be adding the striped bow (one of the most popular designs). I have some new stamps that I think will be a welcome addition, but I haven’t figured out how to shoot product in the tiny window of time I have.  Gosh, I have so many things I want to add!  I can’t wait to share with you.

I am weary to do a giveaway because I haven’t had the winners claiming the prizes which makes me sad, lol, but in the spirit of holiday and being so very grateful I am absolutely going to do a giveaway of one of the sets.  So I will make this super simple and ask:

What are you grateful for this week?

Answer the question by Sunday, December 1, 2013 and I will announce the winner on Monday, December 2, 2013.  December already? Wow! And because Black Friday is around the corner I think a little discount code is order, THANKS2013 for free shipping on orders over $40 (international too!) until November 30th. Good luck!

Hello friends!  So she is here and she has a name!  I will reveal it later, pinky promise!  Sheesh, now that I am a mom I have gone exclamation point crazy, I’ll to to curb my enthusiasm for the exclamation point!  She came into the world early and weighed a scant 5lb. 13 oz, 18 inches with a full head of dark hair. I will forever feel guilty that I couldn’t carry her for the entire duration, especially since she is so very tiny.  It was a risk we decided not to take to continue to keep her in my belly, it could have resulted in an emergency delivery and we didn’t want to bring her into the world under such stressful circumstances.

I have had many a revelation since she came into the world. My first one is tremendous respect and awe for everyone that has come before me and did this, I have found the sleep deprivation and the uhm, pumping to be the most difficult part, no scratch that, those are difficult but just everything being so terrifying is the most difficult.  I have never been in such a state of panic.  I have worried about doing everything wrong and even though I have been told that it is normal I am still feeling that ache of inadequacy.  The baby has been very hungry and eats like a little champ, she is very curious, I wasn’t expecting that from a newborn but she is constantly taking in her surroundings.  She still looks a little like a sumo wrestler, just a little more lean that an traditional one.  She has her daddy’s lips, which have a pronounced cupids bow and are very red. Speaking of daddy, I have never felt more in love with him, he is an amazing father and she seems to love being in his arms.

I promise this blog won’t go to the babes, but I am going to be begging for any advice on the newborn stage and dealing with sleep deprivation.  I read a lot, but somehow of have developed amnesia.  I can’t remember anything. Swaddling?  I must have watched a million and one videos on it and watched the nurses at the hospital too every time, but I just couldn’t get it.  Everything is so big on her, we bought these great ready -to-wear swaddlers but she is too small for them, even the Aden + Anais swaddler is way too large.

I want to thank you all for the well wishes, I haven’t had a chance to go through them yet, but I so appreciate that you all took the time to stop by and leave a note, thank you!  Since I hadn’t planned on her coming so early, I was planning to get all my posts done for December in November and now I think I may be a little behind on all that, please know that I am thinking of you and my little home on the web and can’t wait to get back!

Ah, best laid plans…Today was my husband’s day off and we had a laundry list of errands to run, it was to be one thing right after the other and we were bracing ourselves for a day of busy + mundane.  That is not how the universe saw fit for us, nope.  On this very fair (and rare) date–11.12.13 the stars aligned and conspired to throw us a surprise–a birthday no less.  I had wanted this date as a potential birthday, but it was too soon, it was a passing thought in, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be so cool if she was born 11.12.13?’  The next time this date will come around is 100 years from now, a sort of Halley’s comet of birthday’s.

Early morning plans changed radically, instead of heading off  to the market and planning dinner I was whisked away to the hospital and told that today is the day.  So, I guess I did work up until delivery, albeit I thought delivery would be in three weeks from now, which seemed so soon and now look at me?  In an hour I will be going in to have her and yes, I am acutely aware at this most private and special of times, I am on the internet blogging, so 21st century of moi and possibly gauche, but I am not in my right mind and it seems like a perfectly normal thing to do at this moment. We still don’t have a name, today we were planning to nail that down, but as you can see nothing went quite as planned.  Since I have never done anything remotely close to this before, I don’t know how long I shall be away from my little hub on the web but I will be thinking of my ‘home away from home’ and can’t wait to share her name and stats with you. We are about to embark on quite the adventure, indeed….

I have been working like a mad person round the clock, I am trying to figure out when will be the best time to stop, but I am kind of hoping I can work up until the due date, do you think that is totally unrealistic? The only thing that I think will stop me is being able to bend, who knew I did so much bending in my line of work?  Packing parcels is labor intensive!  I have been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to properly sit down and watch Jessica Hische’s class-Introduction to Lettering which just started (a class  I have been anxiously awaiting).  I ended up just playing the videos while I worked and listened to them, it’s definitely a motivating class, I am going to highly recommend it and can’t wait to actually sit down and be able to watch it.  It motivated me enough to break out my sketch book. I re-drew the narwhals above (well, one narwhal) from an antique engraving I had, but I was sorely disappointed with the result as it actually looks just like the original drawing so what was the point? Grrrrr.  I am going to keep practicing, I really would love to make them more naive which seems like it would be easier but not for me (I am currently loving this artist) . I just started learning how to draw a couple years ago, I love the Ames book series, they are made for children but I think they are a great for any age novice to have a modicum of drawing success.  I also like to recommend this book, it’s for more realistic drawing techniques but I don’t know of any books that help in developing your own drawing style, do you? I guess that just comes with more practice. And for the record I do believe anyone can learn to draw, yes, some people do have innate natural ability (I am not one of them) but it is a skill that can be learned!

In other news, I have so many great finds that I thought you may be interested in so I decided to share and do a quick round up for you. Yes, they most definitely run the gamut so there should be something for everyone!

Round postage stamps?  What took them so long? I think this idea is so fresh, I hope we see more designs in the near future.

I have been planning our meals for the month, mostly doing it the old fashioned way (pen + paper) but I signed up for a free 30 day trial at this clever little company. It allows you to store all your recipes you find on-line in one place, create shopping lists based on the ingredients for said recipes and will also send the list to your phone so you don’t get to the market and cringe when you realize you forgot your list on the kitchen counter.

Speaking of meal planning if it’s not easy I am not making it, sheesh, I can barely stand without toppling over so easy meals like this lentil soup are a time + life saver! I make my own lentils, but the recipe uses canned ones, both ways are super easy!

I wrote about pie last week, Elizabeth Colling was generous to share her recipe I have added it to the post!

Anyone have a gel manicure lately? I haven’t since I became pregnant but I use to love how they looked (and how long they lasted).  This new product claims to be very gel like without the hassle of going to the salon and special UV lights, my interest is peaked.

Wow, this must be the month for new font releases, there are some lovely ones to consider-Chameleon is a unique font family where each font is different but made to go together, interesting concept (I especially like the capital ‘H’ and ‘L’ on the Chameleon basic), Aleka is currently on sale, it’s a modern calligraphic font that has a distinct handmade hand to it, I can see this becoming a popular font. I would love to see a talented designer use String in a project, it’s so delicate yet doesn’t take itself too seriously. Eduardo Recife of Misprinted type is just a super talent, his Mercy font is a true calligraphic font and would be perfect on invites and envelopes, it is just gorgeous.

Speaking of fonts have you heard of the Typism conference?  If you are interested in lettering you should stop by their site to view a few of the videos from their last get together, I especially liked the vid on brush lettering.

Because I will get a few dozen emails on this, the font I used above is my beloved Jacob Riley by Magpie Paper Works.

This is so random, but this company has created faux wishbones so everyone at your Thanksgiving feast (vegans included) can participate in making a wish. I think it’s a charming idea!

Winners!  For the Modern Calligraphy book Pamela P. (I thought it was sweet she wanted to get  copy to her daughter), and the wreath monogram giveaway last week-Lauryl, I loved all your answers but hers included a squirrel mention.

P.S. It’s Veteran’s day here in the states, thank you to all the individuals that make it possible for me to sit at home and write about such frivolity (as witnessed above), I don’t take it for granted and am highly appreciative of the sacrifice.