How to (Try To) Keep It Together As a New Mom

REMEMBER ME? 

I'm so happy to report that it's 10:21 AM as I write this post, and I'm sitting at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee while my dog AND my son sleep (one at my feet, one in a motorized-robot-swing in the next room. You can decide which is which.).  

It's good to be me right now.  

There is so much to report, so much to say about the last few weeks of life in the Scott house. The short version is, December 15, we had a baby boy. His name is Mac, and he is amazing, and I have already become the person who posts way too many pictures of their kid. It is here that I will invite you to be patient with me, because, I'm learning, it is actually impossible NOT to be obsessed with your child.  

Or at least, that's my experience.  

So it turns out that motherhood is a REALLY BIG FREAKING DEAL and changes pretty much everything about the way you live your life. A full 24-hours a day at this point (yes, all 24) are spent either getting ready to feed Mac, feeding him, burping him, or thinking about the next time I'm going to feed him. He's an animal and eats like one. Time is a commodity that I never knew the limits of - at least not in this particular way - and so the three-ish hour stretches when he's sleeping are of crucial importance now. Sleep when the baby sleeps? Good joke.  

I've been thinking a lot about the ways in which I'm trying to keep my head screwed on in this new season of "Your Boob Is Permanently Tied To Another Human Being," and all the anxiety that can go along with my new schedule, new identity, and new responsibilities. That anxiety has the potential to drown me in its rip tide if I'm not careful, and anyone who's been a new mother knows exactly the feeling I mean.

But the truth is, at least for now, I feel pretty great.

My recovery is going well, my baby is so sweet and snuggly, and, though I'm definitely sleep-deprived, I'm really happy most of the time. Sure, I cry every few days about something completely ridiculous, but come on. I'm pumped full of more hormone than Jane Fonda. So I thought I'd share some things I'm doing to combat that that overwhelmed, crazed feeling in hopes that it'll help another new mama out there reading, and, if not, will serve for hilarious reading material when the other shoe drops at some point. 

The tips: 

 1. Do something "normal" every day.
 Every morning during Mac's 9-12 nap, I get a shower, do my hair, do my makeup, and make my bed. Those four things are a myst for me every day. I have never been a person who leaves the house without makeup, earrings, or my hair done, and being a new mom wasn't going to turn me into that person. There's nothing wrong with that, of course - what I'm trying to say is that there for me, there needed to be some carryover from who I was pre-baby to who I am post-baby, and those things allow me to bridge that chasm. The house might be a disaster, there may be spit-up all over my shirt within 5 minutes, but having this small morning ritual makes me feel like ME and allows me to tackle what's happening on any given day with a little more sense of self.   

2. Remember that everything comes in waves. 
 Of course, this may not be applicable if you're someone who is suffering from post-partum depression, in which case my heart bleeds for you and I am here to talk if you need an ear. Because DAMN being a new mom is hard work. There is not a thing wrong with feeling bluesy or overwhelmed or any of that, so please hear this is as my own experience and not a rule of thumb for everyone.

If you're having an experience like mine that is less post-partum-y and more "generally overwhelmed about every 5 hours," then this one's for you. 

It's been really important to remind myself that everything comes and goes when it comes to these first few weeks. The baby WILL eventually stop crying. The house WILL eventually be cleaner. I WILL eventually not feel like the world is caving in on me.  

In moments when I find myself crying or overwhelmed about something that wouldn't normally overwhelm me (ex. Jordan takes longer than 5 minutes to respond to a text message and I need help RIGHT NOW and the dog is barking because there's a car that just drove by and Mac is crying because he just blew out his diaper - just for example, you know) I try to take a deep breath and remember that there will be an end point to this moment of insanity. It sounds small, but it really helps me refocus and not get totally swept away in what seems like an endless sea of things to worry about.  

3. Keep in mind that you're probably doing a great job. 
 Hey, guess what? 

If you've had a baby recently, you are INCREDIBLE. Seriously. Not in the "weird Instagram affirmation you scroll past and dismiss kind of way" - you are TRULY amazing. Let's talk about why:  

- Because your body has just GROWN A HUMAN LIFE.
 - Because now your body is capable (whether you're breastfeeding or not) of sustaining that life with food it makes BY ITSELF.
 - Because, if you are breastfeeding, your boobs are a war zone, as are other parts of your body that we shall not discuss here in polite company. 
 - Because you have to get up in the middle of the night and still be a decently friendly and pleasant person the next day. 
 - Because you're navigating a world of having a totally different body than you had before, and probably aren't able to exercise yet, and look at yourself in the mirror only to find that you don't recognize that person. 
 - Because breastfeeding hurts like a bitch and is really, really hard (but worth it, in my opinion - but also, really hard at first). 
 - Because there are 1,000 different opinions about anything you might choose to Google frantically in the middle of the night. 

And for a million other reasons. 

Listen.  

Ancient man did not have Google, and we still survived as a species. I'm trying to trust my instincts and just do what feels right, and I encourage you to do the same. It's impossible to be perfect. There's no such thing. I caught myself freaking out the other day because Mac was 15 minutes off on his sleep schedule. ARE YOU KIDDING ME, LADY, GET A GRIP. (This is what I said to myself in the mirror.)  

Basically what I mean is, it's just all going to be okay. Take a breath. You are probably absolutely killing it. If your child is breathing, fed, clothed, and feels loved, congratulations.  

 4. Set boundaries for visitors.
 This is actually a piece of advice that one of our mother/baby nurses in the hospital gave me, and it's brilliant. Set hours for people to come see you in the first few weeks after the baby is born. We went with 12-2 because that's after Mac's lunchtime feeding and he'll probably be asleep. 

I threw this out the window last week and accepted people at all times of the day, one day seeing two separate sets of visitors during nap time, and it was a disaster for both Mac and for me. We were exhausted and cranky and I remembered why I had set those boundaries in the first place. Trust. This is a game-changer. 

Also, you don't have to let people hold the baby if the baby is asleep. Also a lesson from experience.

 5. Ask for help, then accept the help without feeling guilty. 
 Yeah, so you can't do this by yourself. Ya just can't. No one can. 

The amount of meals that have been delivered/paid for to our house is staggering and completely necessary for our survival. My mom doing our laundry and cleaning our house has been essential. Jordan doing skin-to-skin with Mac every morning (before he went back to work) so that I could have some coffee and breakfast was crucial. 

I do not like asking for help, and, as I bet you Southerners can relate to, I feel incredibly guilty accepting help. I want to do it all on my own and people's generosity overwhelms me and shames me. But this is a moment to embrace the community in my life and understand that people are offering these things out of pure love, not expecting to be paid back or thanked promptly. This especially goes for the women in my life, who've surrounded me in a way that is so emotionally and logistically supportive that I feel humbled every single day.  

Special shout out here to my mother, who has cooked, laundered, cleaned, folded, ironed, shopped, fed, decorated, re-decorated, burped, rocked, walked, played, and generally spoiled every human and canine member of this family for the last 2 months. There is no way to explain the debt of love and gratitude I owe her. 

Get an April in in your life.  

6. Retain your sense of humor. 
 This is similar to #3 in its "just keep swimming"-ness, but y'all, so many things about new parenthood are hysterical if you can just laugh at yourself instead of crying.  

An anecdote:  

- Two weeks ago, I was changing his dirty diaper. The second I took it off and removed it from under his little bottom, he pooped EVERYWHERE. 

No, listen.  

EVERYWHERE. I caught his poop in my hand.  "JORDAN! HE'S POOPIN' IN MY HAND! POOPING IN MY ACTUAL HAND! COME HER!"

And just when we thought he was done, another stream shot out. Jordan described it this way: "Like a soft-serve ice cream lever at a Ryan's." 

At that point, I was still in the early days of recovery from my C-section, so I couldn't laugh hard because it hurt my incision. Picture Mac pooping everywhere, bewildered and guffawing Jordan standing with a clean diaper, and me with one hand on the changing table (still full of my son's poop), and the other bracing myself on the floor because I had to fold in half to keep my insides from popping out as I was HYSTERICALLY laughing. 

That could've been a moment where we decided to just call it and take the baby back to the hospital, but laughing through it made it one of my favorite memories so far.  

(The poop is now cleaned up and we're doing okay, but we're still accepting condolences. No flowers, please, you can make your donation to Clorox Bleach in Mac's name.)  

All in all, this is a tough and wonderful gig, ladies. I'm learning that it's okay to be a mess, and it's okay to be real about how gritty things can get, and it's okay to talk to people and say, "I am really sad today because I don't feel good at this," or, "I need you to come over and help me," or, "I feel like my hair is really pretty today and I just need to tell someone that. Good for me." And I'm also deeming it okay to be totally over-the-moon ants in your pants crazy about your child, which I (very publicly) am. 

It's all okay.  

Love you guys. See you soon. 

(Oh yeah - here are 800,000 pictures of my beautiful angel child.)  

Pregnancy Product Recommendations

Happy Tuesday! 

OH MY GOSH DOUG JONES FREAKING WON THE SENATE, PEOPLE. HE WON. A DEMOCRAT. IN ALABAMA. IT'S A HUGE DEAL. HUGE. ENORMOUS. 

Mmkay.

Since I'm just sitting on "go" waiting for this baby to be born, I thought I'd record a short(ish) video recommending some products that have really worked for me this pregnancy. I got lots of helpful tips from girlfriends of mine, and some things I just trial-and-errored for myself. 

I've included links to all my recommendations in the text below the video, so if you know someone who's pregnant, click around! I can guarantee a big ol' hug if you were to gift your pregnant pal any of the following things. 

(In the future, it'd be great if someone could remind me not to shoot a video of my extremely pregnant face from a low angle. Holy double chins, y'all. W/e, I'm too pregnant to care!) 

- Mama Mio Boob Tube and Tummy Rub Oil

- Micellar water, tea tree oil, and peppermint oil

- Belly Bandit Bump Support Leggings

- Babylist.com

- Expecting Better by Emily Oster

Roy Moore, Groupthink, and The Grinch

In my freshman history class in Decatur, Alabama, one of our weekly assignments was to bring in a news clipping from the paper to discuss. It’s not an unusual assignment, but this was an unusual day because I actually remember the clipping I brought in. It was a headline about our then-Supreme Court Justice, Roy Moore, and how he’d managed to move a monument of the Ten Commandments into the rotunda of the judicial building in the dead of night. It wasn’t just any old monument - this was 2.64 tons of a monument. No small feat. This was in 2001, when I was 14 years old. I remember thinking that this was embarrassing behavior for an elected official, for a grown man. Nearly 16 years later, Judge Moore is now a very likely candidate to win the election for United States Senate.

Typing that last sentence makes me feel really weird and gross, neither of which are particularly professional or shiny journalistic terms, but both of which accurately describe where I am. In these moments of emotional yuck, I like to deep-dive and ask myself: what’s the root of this problem?

A few weeks ago, Sarah Silverman, in a clip from her new show I Love You, America, spoke out about her longtime friend Louis C.K. in light of the allegations that had surfaced against him:

“It's a real mindf-ck, you know, because I love Louis. But Louis did these things. Both of those statements are true, so I just keep asking myself, ‘Can you love someone who did bad things? Can you still love them?’ ...So I hope it's OK if I am at once very angry for the women he wronged and the culture that enabled it, and also sad, because he's my friend.”

I found myself choking up a little watching this clip, and, because it wasn’t a particularly emotional one, was confused as to why (please feel free to blame it on the fact that I am, as I type this, 39 weeks and 4 days pregnant). As I looked inward, it occurred to me that the reason her words were so striking is that we don’t often hear grace and compassion alongside a harsh rebuke. This sort of duality of sentiment is not of our time.

It is decidedly safe to be unambiguous, even fundamentalist in one’s beliefs. It is much easier to take what we’re handed and stuff it into our collective back pockets as a given than it is to scrutinize, to carefully overturn, to discover just where the breaks are and where water is beginning to leak out.

This is precisely how we ended up with a President whose behavior disappoints many of us on a day-to-day basis. We stopped asking hard questions of ourselves because we got tired. We said, “The Access Hollywood recording is bad, but it isn’t as bad as voting for a liberal.” We became lazy and frustrated and weary of being asked to parse through the fine print of analyzing people’s character, gave up, and voted red straight down a ticket so that we could sleep at night knowing we didn’t promote a pro-choice candidate.

This era of American culture loves social media for the reason of mindless allegiance. We shuffle around the Internet, aligning ourselves with groups who mostly share our beliefs, even if they express them in ways we wouldn’t. Even if they are cruel and unrelenting. Even if they don’t account for the fact that you’d be hard-pressed to find a single soul who hasn’t uttered a racist remark, whose iCloud hasn’t housed a lewd photo, whose fraternity brothers haven’t witnessed an act of hazing, whose heart doesn’t burn with shame at the memory of a misdeed. We are, all of us, guilty. But how much simpler is it to stand in the coliseum, pointing down at the thing we certainly are not, than it is to sit silently, deciding what it is we are?

To close, as I opened, with a pop culture reference: this dichotomy - the easy stance versus the nuanced one - is everywhere. As my husband and I finished up How the Grinch Stole Christmas last night, I found myself relating to Jim Carrey’s fuzzy green villain-turned-hero as he stands atop Mount Crumpit wondering how the hell those Whos, these simple-minded people who deserved no joy or gifts at all, could still be enjoying Christmas despite his best attempts:

And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! "Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store." "Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more!"

On this election day, my Alabamian sisters and brothers, I urge you to look inward. Don’t let this age of zero tolerance get the better of you, no matter how much it wants to. Don’t be fooled by falling into line with people who excuse a candidate who not only stands accused by multiple women of child molestation, but who boasts a hefty professional history of bigotry, religious discrimination, and thwarting the law of the land while serving as a judge, simply to say that they voted Republican. Please don’t stay home. Please don’t write someone in who can’t win. If you are a Roy Moore supporter and a person of faith, and it’s likely that you are, then you, too, can employ the art of nuance in the same way that Sarah Silverman did: you can love him, and pray for him, and you can still not vote for him because he has no place in the United States Senate.

If voting for a Democrat sets your teeth on edge for reasons of Supreme Court picks or abortion law, I encourage you to read this brilliant piece written by my evangelical Christian and Republican friend Dana Hall McCain, who lays it out more beautifully than I ever could.

Nuance is hard and groupthink is easy. But there are lives and livelihoods at stake. There are freshmen all over the state who are expecting better of us, and we can’t afford to phone it in. Not again. Not after the year we’ve had. Maybe we all need some time to puzzle, our feet cold in what was a miraculously unusual Alabama snow, and who knows? If we step away from the crowd atop our own Mount Crumpit, we may find out that our opinions weren’t always right after all. We might feel our hearts grow three sizes.

Even better, we might just follow them.

Holiday Gifts for Neighbors and Colleagues!

HEY EVERYBODY, REMEMBER ME? 

Yeah, it's been a minute. I've just decided to give myself some grace about updating since I am exactly 9 days (at the most) from giving birth. Which is a sentence I can type and understand in theory but really is melting my brain into a puddle of Gak on the floor. 

(Nickelodeon Gak? Anyone? Anyone?) 

ANNNNNNNNYway, the point is, I have my entire house decorated for Christmas and my nursery done. My hospital bags are packed. I am completely ready to go, which means that for the next little while until this baby decides to make its debut, I need things to occupy myself. 

Enter: a project! 

I usually bake things for my neighbors at Christmas, but this year (with the help of my mom, as you'll see in a moment), I thought it would be fun to do more of a crafty gift. The idea of these cute lil' guys it that the recipient can dump out the contents of the jar into some water, simmer it on the stovetop, and make their house smell like Christmas! Once you've gathered all your ingredients, this is an incredibly easy and fun project that makes your OWN house smell delicious as you work on it. It's also really kid-friendly, so if you have young babies at home, they can easily help in assembling your jars. 

You will need: 

• An assistant who has graphic design experience and make your tags adorable, if you're 9 months pregnant, will go pick up all these ingredients for you and bring them to your house along with lunch. (Okay, you don't REALLY need that, but it sure does help!)
• Halo or Cutie clementines 
• Whole cranberries 
• Christmas tree clippings
• Mulling spices (available at World Market!) 
• Mason jars 
• Festive ribbon 
• Cute gift tags 

Then just work from the bottom up! Start with your mulling spices, which is really the key to making this smell so dadgum fabulous: 

Next, add a handful of cranberries: 

One or two clementines, depending on the size of your jar: 

And then fill the top with Christmas tree clippings: 

Seal off the jar, tie some ribbon around the top, and add a cute message along with some instructions, to the tag. Voila! 

(Sorry about the extra text here - this was downloaded from my Instagram story because it was the only photo I had of the tags. Oops!) 

It's so colorful and fun AND functional - the best part about these jars is that, as the water boils/simmers out, the recipient can just add more water and leave the same ingredients in your pan. Get creative if you don't have mulling spice on hand - you can use cinnamon sticks, cloves, ground nutmeg - all scents of the season. 

Hope you enjoy! 

Nursery Tour

YEAH YEAH YEAH it's doooooonnnneeeee!! Or....almost done. I mean I'm pretty sure it's done.

(I have no idea what I'm doing.)

Man oh man I'm so excited to share this with y'all - mostly because I'm also so excited that it's finished. I've never really designed a room from top to bottom like this - everything I've ever done has been cobbled together out of mine and Jordan's collective furniture over a number of years - but this was such a fun opportunity to go nuts. 

As nuts as a white girl who decorated in neutrals could go, mind you. 

Here we go! 

SO!

This little corner is probably my favorite in the room. My overall goal for the nursery was to keep everything as affordable as possible and as neutral as possible in terms of furniture, then use the art and books we received as the color in the room. We were so blessed by sweet family and friends who provided us with a lot of our bougier items (Mamaroo, crib, changing table, and crib bedding), so what we were responsible for were things like our glider, rugs, shelving, lighting - all things that we could easily do at a reasonable price. 

We wanted to prioritize our glider, crib, and car seat as "bigger" expenses, so we went with a Babyletto chair that is the most comfortable thing ever. Lots of folks told me that they'd gotten a recliner, but wished they'd gotten a glider, because when they reclined, they couldn't rock the baby since their feet weren't on the floor anymore. These are the things no one tells you! It's a perfect color and is totally snuggly in every way. That gorgeous quilt was handmade for us by an incredibly special Pure Barre client of mine. 

The bookcase is from Target and serves both as a shelf and a side table for me when I'm nursing. I thought that it would be convenient to have something at the height of my arm to reach for a drink or my phone while breastfeeding in that chair, so we went with this multli-level bookcase! It has been such a sweet pleasure to fill it with the books our friends have given us. This baby may be a lot of things, but it will not be dumb. I love, love, love the gorgeous paper cranes made for us by an amazing neighbor (hey, Jan!) and swirling gently in the air-conditioned breeze.

The print of the animals is one of my favorite pieces in the room, as it was given to us by Jordan's sister Kaitlyn who is an amazing artist. She carved these animals out of rubber and then colored the stamps (I think I have that right?!) and made us this one-of-a-kind piece of sleeping animals. GET OUTTA HERE IT'S SO CUTE, RIGHT?  

Keepin' it real here at Chez Scott, that dust ruffle needs to be steamed and hasn't been but I mean...here we are. Life is life. 

My parents gave us this BEAUTIFUL crib. I am so thankful that, despite the dark wood and grey/white bedding, this is still a room that reads as pretty gender-neutral. If it needs to be frou-frou'd up if we have a girl, then we can easily do that! The baby's name won't start with "O," - the wreath is just pretty and I needed something to fill that wall above the crib. But I thought it would be cool to put the baby's first initial (in a gold block letter) in the center of the wreath after he or she arrives! It came from Michael's. And then...I stuffed some moss in it. 

Also, yes, I'm aware that bumper can't hang out in there with the little beeb. It's just cute for the pics, ya feel me? I'll take it out, blah blah blah, no one panic. 

Last wall! Okay maybe THIS is my favorite. Are you kidding me with that pig?! THAT PIG IS THE BEST. 

This is another Pottery Barn piece, the same line as the crib. We did an extra-long changing table so that I could have some space at the top - apparently so that I could put a fake plant there? I'm sure all you mamas reading this are LOLing at the fact that that plant will probably stay there for 4 and a half minutes and then get moved out when the baby comes because it's inconvenient. And you're probably right. But let me have my pretty plant and all my illusions. 

These animal head prints are the thing I've been most looking forward to getting up on a wall. I bought them from this fantastic Etsy vendor who has probably 60 or 70 different photos to choose from (making the choice was damn near impossible!) - we went with these six! Three neutral, three colorful. The frames came from Michael's and Jordan spray painted them gold, rather than shelling out for $40/a piece gold frames.

The drawers in the changing table were organized according to this blogger's advice, and I found it to be so enormously helpful. If you're a new mom, I highly recommend buying drawer organizers (ours are from Ikea) and using them to help you not lose your ever-loving mind over all the teeny tiny baby socks! We don't have tons of baby clothes right now, but what we do have is organized by length, style, and color, making it easy for me to grab as I need to. 

And there you have it! 

I'm so ready for this baby to come I could SCREAM. I'll be 37 weeks on Friday and I feel big as a house and so ready for this angel to come into the world. GET OUTTA ME AND LET US LOVE YOU! 

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all. So much goodness in the world. 

You Need To Be Watching Great British Baking Show.

Listen, people, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, allow me to introduce you to your new favorite thing: 

English people, in a beautiful tent on an estate, baking. But not like, "American competition baking." No, no - good, clean, honest, kind, excellent baking. 

"But I hate competition shows!" 

No you don't. Walk with me. 

No one is mean. 

Ever. Never ever. It's not like mean American television in which producers pit contestants against each other and create characters - the antagonist, the bitch, the underdog, etc. These are just a bunch of really nice folks who want to do a good job. They encourage each other, they help each other, they mourn for each other's disastrous bakes, they celebrate each other's wins. They cry when people. IT'S SO NICE AND PLEASANT. 

It features the jauntiest score of all time. 

You'll become invested in the storyline while watching this clip, but go back and watch it again just to appreciate the music. Whoever is writing the score for this show is a damn genius. It's so twinkly and British while also being suspenseful and hilarious and just the general best. 

Mel and Sue; Mary and Paul.

Mel and Sue are the hosts, Paul and Mary are the judges. Mel and Sue are basically the best friends you never had but always wanted. They were part of an English comedy troupe and, for four delicious seasons (RIP Mel and Sue and boo to the new hosts who I refuse to watch), hosted GBBS. They're pun-ny, they're witty, they're goofy, they're smart, they're multi-lingual, they're the best. 

Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry are bakers extraordinaire, using their fame across the pond to help the contestants along throughout the show. Mary is about 1,000 years old and a real stickler for the classics, while Paul is more of the Tom Colicchio (Top Chef, anyone?) of the show and uses his piercing blue eyes to distract and intimidate bakers into excellence. 

(I don't normally have a thing for the big, burly type, but Alec Baldwin and Paul Hollywood are exceptions to that rule. Get off me, I can't help it. They're totally hot.) 

The G-rated sexual innuendos.

I mean, it's just like...you could watch these things with your grandmother. It's not that salacious. It's hilarious. And weird. And so British. 

It's basically eye porn. 

It's just incredible thing after incredible thing. And they're ALL FOR EATING. Quick story - we were watching this show and Jordan decided he could bake. Went into the kitchen and whipped up the best shortbread cookies I've ever had. Ever. Just like, who are you and what have you done with my husband?? He was a man possessed. And he crushed it. 

This show inspires you to greatness, people. You can do it! And you can drool over it in the meantime. 

Four seasons of this show are streaming on Netflix right now. Watch it with your families over Thanksgiving. I'm telling you, it will not disappoint.