Babywearing for Dummies: A Tutorial

Babywearing is nice because it allows you to carry your baby in a hands-free fashion and gives you easy access to smother her head in kisses.

The real reason I wore Myla for the first time in a baby carrier was because I was too nervous that I wouldn't be able to figure out how to lock the infant car seat into the grocery basket the right way.  I had visions of myself standing in the Kroger parking lot struggling with the basket and looking like a total amateur.  (This was before all the online mama hype came out claiming that you should never put the infant bucket seat into the front of a grocery cart since "a running child might knock your cart over making your baby fall."  I shop at 8:00am, so it's just the Livingston girls and the senior citizens perusing Kroger at that time.  An elderly person has never been running through the store and rammed my cart!  I digress).

I liked to keep it simple with either my Balboa ring sling or the mei tai that my mother-in-law made (holla!).

 

Myla @ 2 months

 Piper @ 6 months

They were so little and cute back then!

Myla, on the other hand, takes a different approach.  Say you're hanging around the house with no pants and your baby is fussy.  Solution-- stick her in your shirt.

 

 I know what you're thinking.  "But what if I'm only wearing pants?!"  Answer:

Easy as that. 

Rooty Tooty Fresh-n-Fruity

     Unfortunately, Piper Joy is making her way to the picky eating stage (as evidenced by her picking green peas out of rice, yelling "no!" and placing them on the table).  I am hoping it never gets quite as bad as Myla's food aversions, though.  One thing is for sure-- she hasn't met a fruit she doesn't like.

 

     Before I had kids, I was a really good mom.  I told myself that I would never let my kids wander around the house while snacking.  Food is to be eaten at a table.  We aren't animals!  As it turns out, we actually are animals.  Piper can be a little disagreeable at times, and she seems to put a cork in it when we give her some grub.  Thus was born the wandering peach-eater: 

 

You just have to get her started with the first bite, and she's good to go for a half hour!

 Watching shows, snacking on a peach.

 Five second rule!

 It's the perfect traveling snack.  You know, if you ignore the part about the juices running all over your child and your home.

 In case you're wondering, yes, I did trim her bangs shortly after this.  Now she's all business in the front, party in the back.

I have never seen a person as passionate about watermelon as my husband until I met my daughter.  We have probably been through 15 watermelons this summer.  I literally watched my daughter gag up a little piece of watermelon from lunch (30 minutes prior) while we were grocery shopping and proceed to eat it again....

 

(Does that count as a five-second rule?)

 



Happy end of watermelon season!  Dave is now looking forward to apple pie season, so I guess you'll be seeing my thunder pie-thighs at the gym this fall!

Beach Bums

You can probably tell by the Livingston's pasty shade of flesh that we aren't actually frequent beach goers, but we did manage to get down to the gulf a couple of times this summer.  Our first trip was just to spend the day in Galveston to gauge how the kids would handle the beach.  The verdict: Myla has panic attacks about touching sand, and Piper is down for anything.

 

Can we just stop and look at this little cutie?  He's my friend's baby (obviously, since we don't create male offspring).  I would totally steal him, though, if I thought she wouldn't notice. 

 



How do we keep our skin so white, you might ask?  Well, we stay under a tent while other children are playing in the ocean.  Piper chilled in a kiddie pool since she wasn't walking yet (in June).  You can also see how Myla makes a point of resting her feet on the pool so as not to touch the sand. 

Not. touching. sand.

Piper's favorite activity was/is eating.



Myla's favorite activity was staying away from the sand.

ROUND 2.

We headed down to Port Aransas with some family and friends in August.  In true Myla fashion, she took her own sweet time but ended up enjoying the beach (even the sand!)  She would watch Piper and me playing for an hour or so then decide to give it a shot.  I'm sure we'll start all over from the beginning next year. :)

Here is some of the crew:

Bunnie is our friend who loves the beach.  She's 92 years old, and she'll still kick your butt.

 Alan and Kristen won the "Cool Aunt and Uncle Award" by taking Myla on her first fishing trip.  They also made a big to do about buying her a special pink fishing pole.  They let PawPaw come along for the ride but told him not to touch anything.

 I guess they let her drive.

 

 

 

 Proof that this happened:

(My child won't even touch a piece of broccoli without hyperventilating and throwing a fit, so this was a big deal).

 

 The guy who takes it seriously:

 Beach babes.

 

 

 We were just relaxing and having a grand ole time at the playa when the ice cream truck practically bombarded us and forced us to buy something!  Back in my day, ice cream off the truck was cheap, but these cost 3 or 4 bucks! 

Nana came armed with cash to buy the grandkids' love ice cream for everyone after she saw the truck the first day.  In an attempt to not take a step backward, I explained to Myla that she may have ice cream, but she needs to eat it in her own chair (i.e. her feet would be touching the ground.  the sandy ground).  I was firm on this rule.  As you can see here, Nana totally undermined my authority and let her eat while sitting on her lap!

Dottie Kemp, you're on my list.

She's not worried about bikini season at all:

Behind the Times: Mother's Day 2013

Remember how Mother's Day happened a few months ago?  Yea, that was one of those posts that I never wrote, probably because I was too busy watching the West Wing or something...

I am not sure if you have met my mother, but there are two important things you should know about her: 1) She's awesome. 2) Buying gifts for her is horrible.  She can't help it-- she's the girl who has everything!

So, Kristen and I spent some time trying to figure out what to do for her this Mother's day.  We decided that she enjoys experiences more than objects, so we planned the experience of a lifetime an afternoon of fun.  We kicked off the day with some bowling, followed by Chinese food....followed by fro-yo.  Yes, 66% of our outing centered around food.  What of it??

 "See that?  That's the butt I fell in love with." -- Jon Kemp

 

 Nana and Myla

 

 Mel had to come along to restrain Piper.

 

 Notice my form-- this could be why I received the lowest score of the family...

 

 The restraining is easier when food is available.

 

 Longhorn stud.

 

 Wait, did I say only 66% of our outing involved food?  Make that 100%.  Bowling is exhausting!

 

 Myla finally tried her hand at bowling while wearing her princess shoes.  Thanks for the hand-me-downs, Lindsay!

 

 I have never seen her more proud of herself.

 My brother from another mother.

 

 Mom and dad, cupping a ball.  I cut Dad's head off, because I'm a terrible photog.  Awkward family photo alert!

 

 Kristen killin' it.

 

 

 Love birds.

 

 Too cool for school.