Seeing Eye to Eye with Britney Spears

Sydnie went to her first bday party - Sofia turned one so we went up to LA to celebrate. The drive up was great and although she was a bit overwhelmed with so many faces at once, she was pretty good. The return trip home however was a terrifying combination of LA traffic, clogged duct pain, and ear piercing/crushing my heart wailing baby! So here I am trying to soothe Sydnie with one hand, while strategically positioning myself away from the window and pumping with the other. To Steve's dismay, I ended up pulling a Britney Spears and pulled Sydnie out of her car seat. My clogged duct chose that moment to unclog (to my physical relief) but I was spraying milk like a busted fire hydrant so must make note to wash my sister's clothes before returning them... sorry Amenda. Back to peace at home =)
So here's another lesson learned... how come no one told me to avoid those wind up mobiles?!?! I seriously thought I got a defective one because mine lasted for just a couple minutes and I would have to get up and rewind it over and over again. I highly encourage anyone expecting to ignore the mobile that matches your bedding and go with the Tiny Love Symphony mobile... that is, if your purpose for the mobile is for it to be used to entertain your child so you can get a few things accomplished without feeling like you're neglecting them. If you don't necessarily care about that and just want something cute, then by all means go for the wind up mobile, but I guarantee you will be getting up every few minutes and feeling more frustrated than productive!
Early in the week Steve watched a report on GMA where it recommends parents speak 17,000 words a day to their baby although 30,000 is preferred! I read up on it further and it says that babies who are talked to more have higher IQ scores and do better in school... partly because smarter parents talk more to their kids. Well poor Sydnie has a mute for a mom at home so hope that doesn't imply anything! Of course you have to take all these studies with a grain of salt but according to this report, assuming the baby is awake 12 hours a day, that comes out to 42 words per minute nonstop every waking minute! I tell you - this parent thing really can be more than a full time job depending on how you approach it. Well thankfully our conversations are becoming more two-sided as Sydnie is becoming so much more talkative, so maybe combined we can reach 17,000 together! =)

appa & sydnie time