PSA for Strangers: Top 5 Dos and Do NOTS for People with Kids

It has occurred to me that many people out in public do not know how to treat parents, especially those with a new baby. I don't mean that they don't know hot to treat their wives, friends, family, or coworkers. I mean absolute strangers with babies. I'm talking completely random people at the store or restaurant.

Part of my realization came when I had my first son, part when I had my second, part developed from events I've witnessed out in public, and quite honestly part of this list stems from the mistakes I made before I ever had kids. I probably shouldn't say "mistakes I made before kids" because if you don't have kids, you don't always know what you are doing is actually considered inconsiderate. Instead I should call these things, "Things I didn't realize I shouldn't do to people who have kids until I had kids of my own", but I didn't because that's a long title.

Since I wanted to stay true to my "Top 5" Friday theme, this is an incredibly short list that could basically be endless in length. Therefore I welcome your comments on what you would add to this list and/or agree with from my list. And remember, this is purely based on my life and observations (in addition to a few horror stories from friends and family).

5. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE; HONOR IT!

Dear Strangers:  When you encounter a parent of a newborn (especially one that appears frazzled) work as quickly as possible and do not try to make small talk. New moms who get the luxury of being out in public for any amount of time are on the clock. Every second is like a ticking time bomb. Remember your role: You are a stranger. New mom hasn't even had a real conversation with her husband in weeks, she doesn't want to talk to a stranger for any length of time! She also doesn't need you to awkwardly end your stranger conversation with the phrase, "Be sure to take care of your baby" as if she's trying not to. (Ok, I'll be honest ... This one stemmed from my first time in public with Landon. At a Meijer. By an old lady selling Margarita mixes, which I eagerly took two samples of... Hey, even though they were dixie sized nonalcoholic samples they were the closest things I've had to a real drink in ten months. And who knew grapefruit margaritas would be so delicious?)

4. EXERCISE COMMON COURTESY

* If there is ever only one item left at the store and you will not die without it, let the new mom have it. This may just be her only trip to the store in months. These things include, but are not limited to: a loaf of bread, Mylicon, dish soap, bottle of wine, shopping cart (yes one of my friends once lost a battle over a shopping cart WHILE SHE HAD HER INFANT CARRIER IN HER HANDS!!!)

* Give up your seat in a waiting room or waiting area at a restaurant.

* If you are waking INTO a store and need a cart anyway, considering taking one from the Mom/Dad who just emptied theirs and have three screaming kids buckled into their carseats. That would save them a trip to the cart coral, which is never located close enough on the days its proximity matters most. And Dear Babies R Us: Invest in some cart corals. Of all places, you would think a baby store would have them!

* Hold the door for someone who has a baby carrier, stroller, army full of small children, or any other kid-related situation that looks stressful. And people in wheelchairs and walkers for that matter! And the elderly! Or healthy people who just so happen to have their hands full! In general, the American public should just think about holding more doors. Surprise someone today by holding the door for them and witness how it changes their demeanor! Then try counting how many doors you hold for other people per day. I believe every American should make it their goal to hold at least one door per day.  Now I know this isn't asking much, but it could really start a behavioral revolution. Plus it's just common courtesy! Ok, sorry about the tangent but I'm passionate about this topic even when I don't have the little ones in tow. When going to work, I always have my hands full and after an entire year of high school only TWO kids ever held a door for me. Granted one of those two held the door for me numerous times.  However, most teenagers just walk around with their heads down and earphones on, but that is grounds for an entirely different top five post on another day...

* And additional note:  A pregnant chick will ALWAYS be grateful to you if you let her go ahead of you in the long bathroom line.  Or even a short line.  Or even when there is no line at all.

3. DO NOT COMMENT ON NEW MOM'S APPEARANCE

* If a new mom is wearing decent clothes and seems to have her hair done (aka looking anything better than thrown up in a sloppy pony) then she is probably doing well that day. Reaffirm her confidence and tell her she looks good. On the flip side, if new mom is wearing sweats and seems as though she just rolled out of bed (even though it is more likely that she has been OUT of bed for HOURS) do not comment at all. If you say she looks nice (in this condition) she knows you are being fake and feels worse about herself. If you say anything negative about her appearance, she might just start bawling because odds are she knows this is not her best look but she had to run out to the store for a butt cream emergency or because there were no groceries in the house and she probably barely even made it out of the door with all of the blow outs and clothing changes.

* Never comment on a woman's weight, unless it's positive. And even then, take note of your surroundings and only comment nicely if there are no other new moms around who you are NOT going to say something nice about. And above all else, abide by the golden rule of womanhood: NEVER ASK ANYONE IF THEY ARE PREGNANT!!! Especially if they have a newborn with them. This, fortunately, has never happened to me but I did witness it once. 

2.  NO BABY/KID TOUCHING ALLOWED! (without permission)

* Never touch a random baby or child. Know your role: You are a stranger and this is plain creepy. More than anything, do not touch a child without permission, especially the bare skin of a child ... ESPECIALLY if you are a male sitting on a bench in the mall and the kid is a little girl wearing a skirt and you touch her legs. (Yes this is a true story.) In addition, moms typically want to keep their sleeping child sleeping out in public and do not want to go through the process of getting baby out of his or her car seat just so you can hold or see them.  And a special note in honor of all the pregnant chicks out there:  Hands off the belly!! Strangers should not randomly rub pregnant bellies.  This has happened to me way too much and I would like to put a stop to it.  I NEVER care if a friend or family member wants to touch my baby belly, but to the lady at the grocery store picking out a pumpkin back in '09 - your greasy hands did not need to wrap around my belly while my oldest son was it in.  Although yes, I'll admit that it was nice of you to tell me that my baby bump was the best pumpkin in the aisle.

1. KEEP YOUR COMMENTS TO YOURSELF

* Under no circumstance should you ever disrespectfully comment about a stupid act that the new mom did. She has a case of what's called "Mommy Mind" which is piggybacked off of a nine month case of "Belly Brain", yet added on top of "Great Guilt", "Complete Confusion", "Extreme Exhaustion" and "Emotional Overload" so step off your high horse for a couple of minutes and keep your inside voice INSIDE. Know your role: You are a complete stranger. She doesn't need to hear your advice because she gets enough from her friends and family. (NOTE: Disregard all of this in the event of an emergency or in an extreme case when said mom actually ASKS for stranger's advice.)  

* And yes, we new moms all know that the great moms before us did everything better and more efficiently... so there is no need to remind us. We are already busting our tails hard enough just to make ourselves look remotely normal doing something we have never done before.  Cut us a little slack and just understand that we are trying as hard as we possibly can.  After all (I'm talking to you lady at Meijer with the margaritas) we generally WANT to take care of our babies.

All in all, I hope that this little PSA will serve as a reminder that although many of us have gone through pregnancy and motherhood, we still do not have the right to infringe upon a random stranger's life. And maybe, just maybe, we can make it a little better by staying out of the way when necessary and helping out when necessary. I decided the other day that when I get old enough and these days are far behind me, I want to randomly pay for things for new moms who look stressed out at grocery stores and restaurants.  After all, it would be good to pay it forward because in general people HAVE been very good to me too. :)

Thanks for reading.

Top 5: What I "LIKE" About Facebook

As all (or at least almost all) of you know, I am a Facebook junky.  It took me a while to jump on the bandwagon, so I am not going to act like I was there from the start.  I even remember visiting a good college friend in Columbus post-college who was on her Facebook site and I was just surprised that she liked it.  It seemed so streamlined and boring, with very little color compared to my at-the-time obsession with MySpace.  Ahhhhhh, MySpace, that was so "early 2000s".  I have come a long way since that day in that apartment.  I started with trying out Facebook "incognito" about 5 years ago and have since opened myself up to my friends and family members (still no students - current or former and my security walls are still high) and I am now sitting at 716 friends and counting and I probably haven't signed onto MySpace since before my wedding, over four years ago.   Therefore, I would like to take a minute and dedicate this "Top 5" post to Facebook, the world-dominating website.

 

In no particular order, here are the things I "like" most about Mark Zuckerberg's social-global network:

1. No matter what time of day it is, someone is ALWAYS going to "like" or comment on something I do on Facebook, whether it is a picture post or status update.

2. Every single time I feel like I am alone in the world and make the feeling public by posting about it, dozens of people comment enough to reassure me that I am not.  Praise God I am not a TOTAL weirdo!

3. Facebook has allowed me to become super lazy about Googling or researching.  (I guess I need to consider this when I am talking to my students about research!)  Whenever I want a review on something, I go to the people I trust the most - mainly my MOM friends.  It's like my own personal GMA segment on Mom-tested items.  Does anyone know what I am talking about?  I also like to hear from all of my friends and family members.  It's very interesting to get a variety of opinions about a topic!

4. It's fascinating and heart-warming for me to see people ranging from my family members to former teachers to coworkers to high school buddies to sorority sisters all converse and/or even debate about anything and everything I ask questions or random polls about.  It's a room full of people that will never ever be in a room together anywhere else! 

5. My "Facebook Family" is always there to give me a HUGE hug and a ton of support whenever I need it.  There are people on my wall (oh, excuse me, TIMELINE!!!) that I rarely ever talked to in high school due to our "social class differences" (i.e. far more popular than me) and family members from around the nation that I have only ever met a handful of times.  Some of these people have been my greatest supporters over the course of the past few years.  Other people who I love dearly and would not get to catch up with nearly enough without Facebook are also huge parts of my life simply BECAUSE of this website.

Thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg.  I'll be honest with you; I watched The Social Network once and it confused me.  (Possibly because I had a hard time accepting that Justin Timberlake was playing the role Sean Parker.) I still don't know who to believe in this crazy story about the creation of Facebook, and frankly I don't care.  All I know is that it has truly changed my life and my attitude and it continues to do so every single day.  That's what matters to me, and I sure LIKE that an awful lot.

Top 5: Must-Haves for Our New Home

People often ask about the features of our new home, and I tell them that there were certain non-negotiable criteria for our second house. We knew we wanted the following amenities in our new home, so we didn't even receive information about homes that didn't have all of these. Therefore, all of the houses we went to see had at least these characteristics:

• FYI - Although I usually make my "Top 5" list in order of least to greatest importance, these five things are listed in no particular order. They are all relatively equal.

1. 4 Bedrooms - Wait! Let it be known that we are not opposed to having our kids share a room at all! In fact, we WANT them to share a room (after all we both had to and it made us... well, who we are today).

• Since we are still planning on having three kids, at least two of them will share a room because we are keeping a guest bedroom. We knew when searching for a new place that we wanted a bedroom for our many guests. We love having visitors and we love the fact that we are able to offer them some place to stay when they need it, instead of having to pay for a hotel room.  And our friends and family mean too much to us to make them sleep on a couch or an air mattress (unless of course TONS of people are crashing at our house, which is fun... but rare.) 
• Having said this, if baby #2 is a girl there may be a time when each kid has their own room because the youngest will be in the nursery. If baby #2 is a boy, we will most likely buy bunk beds for our two boys and then use the nursery for baby #3, keeping the guest bedroom in tact. Regardless, in the long run two of our kids will share a room and we will keep the fourth bedroom for our family and friends!

2. Attached Garage - Oh man, this will be nice when it's snowing and/or raining. I've NEVER had the privilege of parking in a real garage before! I feel like such a grownup. How exciting!!!

• I picture a much easier winter with a carseat now that we will have an attached garage.  When William was only 3 1/2 months old, I slipped on the ice after stepping down from our side porch steps and sprained my ankle.  Having an attached garage isn't going to keep me from spraining an ankle, since that can happen anywhere, but I am thankful I won't have to worry AS much.  The best benefit is not having to scrape my windshield in the morning, not that I did that much anyway... thank you honey!!! ;-)

3. Fireplace - It will feel more like Christmas now that we have a fireplace! Although Dom would have preferred a wood-burning one, I'm happy that the home we're buying has a gas one... Easy on, easy off!  It's like magic!

4. Master Bathroom - Honestly this will come in handy during all of the middle-of-the-night pee sessions for my third pregnancy... and possibly early morning or late night barf sessions as well. What? Was that too much info? Hey, you're the one who chose to read my blog!  And let me tell ya, morning sickness doesn't just occur in the morning.  That's a fallacy!

5. Basement - Chalk this one up to the eternal fear of tornadoes that has been instilled in me and add it on to the fact that I loooooove all the extra living space a basement provides. I could never buy a home without a basement. It's just not in my blood.  This is the only feature of the five that we currently have in our home, but the basement where we are headed is MUCH larger.  It'll be a nice additional living space.

* A bonus of the house we are buying that I wasn't banking on ANYWHERE in Perrysburg, but that we lucked out with here is something I knew I definitely wanted one day - * MORE LAND AND A SWEET BACKYARD!!! *

• In Perrysburg, many houses are backed up by other houses, a major high-way, or a railroad track.  There aren't many ideal pieces of backyard property (at least within our price range), so we worked with what we could get.  We ended up finding a home with a beautiful private corner lot with mature trees (mature trees were pretty much must-haves for Dom.) The downfall of this house is that the turnpike runs behind it.  A plus is that you can't SEE the turnpike from our backyard, but you can definitely hear it.  OK, so we can't have our cake and eat it too... we'll get used to the sound and hopefully it'll serve as sort of a sound machine for our kids!

Top 5: The Five Most Uncomfortable Aspects of Being 36 Weeks Pregnant in June

Here are my "Top 5 Pregnancy Discomforts" for the moment:

5. Over the past two days my right side/pelvic bone area has been throbbing after I sleep.  Maybe I am putting too much weight on that side.  Regardless of where the pain originates, I wish my girl Jackie would come up and massage it again like she did in Dayton a couple of weeks ago.  I know, right?  She's such a good friend to me!

4. Being SUPER hungry, but then not being able to eat much at all because the baby is taking up so much room that food doesn't fit... so then I'm super hungry again in 20 mins. 

3. Having to pee 100 times a day... especially in the middle of the night when getting up from a horizontal position has become a chore of its own.  Sometimes it hurts my entire body just to sit up.  Typing that makes me sound COMPLETELY out of shape, but I swear that's not the only reason.  This baby belly is out of control.

2. Shooting pains in the lower pelvic bone.  I actually asked the doctor about this at Thursday's check and he said that these pains were new for me during this pregnancy because my bones are already loosened from the first baby.  (I guess this is better than my thought that being pregnant in my 30s is 10x more challenging than being pregnant in my 20s.  I feel a little reassured that age isn't a factor here, since I am still planning on having another kid and I'm not getting any younger!)

1. The swelling in my feet.  I know that this is the stupidest thing to whine about, but I feel as though when my feet are in pain my whole body is in pain.  I can't even remember what it feels like to wear regular shoes, because my feet haven't fit into anything other than Crocs sandals for about 8 weeks.  I think that my feet are so swollen that anyone with a needle could pop them in an instant.  In addition to the swelling on the tops of my feet, I think the enlarging of the feet PLUS the sandals have callused my feet so bad that now I have tiny razor-blade like cuts all over the sides of my  heels.  These small cuts are like paper-cuts, tiny in nature but extremely powerful and annoying in pain.  I think that wearing socks could be beneficial, but it's too hot for that.  Therefore, my only real option is to shut up and bear it for the next 3-4 weeks.  I have to keep reminding myself that the light is peaking through at the end of this tunnel.  It won't be long now!

I know you were all waiting for me to complain about the heat, but that really hasn't been TOO big of an issue except on SUPER hot days, and the worst part of the super hot days is that my feet are EXTRA swollen.

* Despite all of this, I know that I am super honored and blessed to be able to have this miracle growing in me and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. <3

Top 5: Top Five Things We'll Miss About the South End

Since we have MOVING on the mind (with our imminent closing date for both the sale of our current home and the purchase of our new home), I thought it would be best to share the top 5 things that each of us will miss about living in the South End. Here they are!

Dom's Top 5 

5. The big trees in our neighborhood (after all we are in a neighborhood named after trees!)

4. The uniquely designed homes.

3. Walbridge Park

2. The Sanchez Family and the closeness of Amber, Jeremy, Mandy, and Tim.

1. The awesome neighborhood to run through and around from our front door.

Lavender's Top 5

5. Our proximity to Monnette's Market, the Toledo Lucas County Public Library System, Walbridge Park, and three amazing ice cream places - Lickity Split, Toozers, and Penguin Palace!

4. The sound of the motorcycles on the Anthony Wayne Trail in the summertime and the sounds of relative city-silence every other night.

3. The unique designs of the homes, gardens, and flowers in our neighborhood.

2. Living in the "14". I've been in the South End since the late summer of 2003... almost 9 years!

1. Our proximity to Amber & Jeremy and Mandy & Tim... :-/

William's Top 5

5. The firetruck at Kroger (however, I think there may be one in Perrysburg too!)

4. Our proximity to both Chuck E. Cheese and the "Giraffe Store" aka Toys R Us (even though we have only ever taken him to these places TWICE each!)

3. "Joel's House"

2. Walking around the neighborhood, picking up sticks.

1. Beverly Park within walkable distance!

Baby's Top 5

1. He or she

2. won't

3. miss

4. anything.

5. Yet at the same time, he or she will miss everything.