By Cheryl Bac
E-mail Cheryl Bac
About this blog: I'm a wife, stay-at-home mom, home cook, marathon runner, and PhD. I recently moved to the Silicon Valley after completing my PhD in Social Psychology and becoming a mother one month apart. Before that, I ran seven marathons incl...
(More)About this blog: I'm a wife, stay-at-home mom, home cook, marathon runner, and PhD. I recently moved to the Silicon Valley after completing my PhD in Social Psychology and becoming a mother one month apart. Before that, I ran seven marathons including Chicago and Boston. Exercise is an integral part of my life. I hope to one day go back to long distance running and tackle the New York City Marathon. Right now I run after my one year old son. Although I am a stay-at-home mom, we are rarely "at home." My mom also stayed at home with my brother and me. She warned me that, although rewarding, it can be isolating. So, with her help, I learned the importance of getting out into the community and meeting other mothers. On the rare occasion when I am at home and have a hand or two free, I squeeze in time to scrapbook. As a new mom, many challenges are thrown my way. I hope my opinions, triumphs, and struggles help experienced parents reminisce, new parents cope, and parents-to-be get an honest glimpse of what the first years of motherhood can entail.
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I'm very lucky to be pregnant at the same time as two of my close friends. Our due dates are within just a couple of weeks of each other. The three of us met when our oldest were babies and we have gotten together for countless play dates, day trips and park outings ever since.
Being pregnant at the same time means that we are regularly talking about our pregnancies. What we hope relatives will do to lend a hand. How we hope to keep up with meal preparation and clean up. What baby items we still need to purchase. And whether our babies are letting us sleep and eat normally.
Most of the time our other kids are off playing and seem to have no interest in these conversations. But, I'm sure they are still picking up on just how often we are talking about baby.
Rather than cut down on the baby talk, I've decided to pay close attention to what excites our kids about baby's arrival and make sure to talk with them about those things.
At first, our kids enjoyed hearing how big baby was compared to different fruits and vegetables. Later they enjoyed looking at scrapbooks filled with their own baby photos. And going through baby clothes when I took them out of storage.
I recently invited friends over for dinner to celebrate that our little ones would be arriving soon. I didn't expect our kids to get excited about the dinner, but we had a lot of fun turning it into a "birthday party" for baby - we bought Finding Dory party decorations, baked a chocolate cake, blew up balloons and gave out party favors. I had such a great time that we may need to have a second birthday party with all three kids after baby arrives.
