Baby Hollman's Nursery

As promised, we're posting some photos of the nursery as it comes along. There are still a handful of things to add, but we like it already (although we are a bit partial). We've included pictures of the curtains I sewed as well as the new and oh-so-fabulous Dutalier glider. The famous (but a little spendy) Dutalier gliders are worth every penny! Its soooo comfortable! There's also a guest cameo of our little Samson. We were trying to take some photos and he was underfoot, so we put him in the crib, which he didn't like all that much. I imagine he thought it was one more way to cage him in.

In the land of 'baby ailments' my back pain has gotten considerably worse. So, in an attempt to make it at least moderately better I think I am going to make my first ever trip to the chiropractor to see if he, or she, can straighten things out. I'm looking forward to a night of sleep that doesn't wreak havoc on my entire upper spine. I'll also be starting some prenatal yoga classes, so hopefully all that stretching will help with the cramps and back pain. Together maybe I'll feel well again before the baby actually arrives!

You'll notice in the photos we were wise enough to block out Baby Hollman's name before posting the photos because, as many of you know, we are keeping it a secret until he's born. So, I suppose, the best you all can do is potentially figure out how many letters are in it, and for those of you confused by the photos, the big blue block on the wall is actually the baby's name spelled out above his crib with wooden letters hung on ribbons. For my family especially, who are just dying to know what the baby's name is, you can spend your time concocting names with as many letters as you think are in it, but as fair warning, these photos are as close to a 'hint' as you'll get before he's born.

We hope you enjoy the new photos and we look forward to your comments!

Bump Watch 2009, Installment 2

So, after many more requests to see my expanding waistline we've decided to post the next installment of 'bump watch', we are now at about 27 weeks, so just shy of the end of the 7th month. Next we start the 8th month, which really solidifies how soon we will be seeing baby Hollman.





It seems like I get bigger and bigger everyday, and now I'm noticeably uncomfortable when doing things like bending over, trying to tie my shoes and reaching. Who new I'd ever regret taking such menial things for granted. The space in there must be getting a bight tight for our little guy because he spends most of his time continuing to do somersaults and kick his way toward freedom. Nearly every night, about 10 p.m. he puts on a show displaying his unique talents. I hope this doesn't mean that he really likes to be up around 10 pm and will continue to do so once he's born.

150 and counting...

I woke up this morning and stepped on the scale to find myself weighing in at a ripe 150. Holy cow. That's a lot of baby weights. Samson now weights about 15 pounds. This means that if I attached him to my body and carried him around I still would need a 5 pound bag of sugar to keep up with the weight I've gained. Sheesh! I'm officially 20 pounds heavier than my typical weight and we're officially at 27 weeks, so just one week shy of the end of the 7th month. I am hoping the rapid weight gain slows down, but, I doubt it will since our little guy is now starting to pack on the pounds.

As a little update I thought I'd share all of the fun things that have happened along the way:

Holy Heartburn! This kid must have a whole head of hair if there is a even an ounce of truth to that old wives tale. Its a constant battle to taste anything but stomach acid. Then, beyond the heartburn is the acid reflux. Oh acid reflux, how I long for you to go away! Pre-pregnancy I couldn't even tell you what this was, now I have an oh-so-intimate relationship with actually tasting the contents of my stomach. I bet that paints such a vivid and enticing picture for you, dear reader...

A little back pain anyone? Now, I know that it makes sense, since I am carrying 20 extra pounds, but this is ridiculous simply because it interrupts my love for sleep. As many of you all know I love nap time, sleepy time, sleeping in, cuddling up in covers...you get the picture. My persistent and awful back pain makes it difficult to sleep anywhere but my bed, which makes my once favorite pastime, napping on the couch, a distant memory. My couch is feeling neglected, I think.

Leg cramps?!? What the heck is this all about. Severe calf pain. Middle of the night wake you up like someone is cutting into the muscle of my calf pain. I struggle to see how this is connected to being pregnant, but I rest assured that what to expect when you are expecting lists it as one of the many many symptoms. I don't understand why I have calf pain, its not as though I've ran 5 miles, or even 1 for that matter (or even walked 1 ?!?) but that's how it feels. I'm perplexed.

Snot face. At first I attributed this to the germ-y little kids that I spend my days chasing around schools. I thought, gee, I better start bathing in hand sanitizer, because clearly I am not using enough. As it turns out, I'm now fairly sure my constant runny nose (both with and without accompanying cold) is due to being pregnant. Once again, the old baby Bible, what to expect when you are expecting reports that the runny nose is a function of hormones, not actual germs.

So all in all, my fun, if not entertaining symptoms keep our house full of sayings like 'goodness gracious this is awful' and 'ouch, ouch, ouuuucccchhhhh....", which have turned, most likely, into music to Drew's ears, as he probably would think something was very wrong if I stopped complaining. So I'll keep it up :)

On the homefront, things are coming together. We are headed to the Riviera Maya for spring break to take an official (and much needed) babymoon. I can't wait for the warm sun, fantastic beach and all inclusive service. Before we go I've tried to get a head start on the nursery and things are going fairly well. I sewed the curtains this past weekend and hopefully our rocking chair and ottoman will come in within a week or two. Once the major items are in we'll take some nursery pictures and post them on the blog for your viewing pleasure. Finally, before we head off to warm Mexico we promise to post another baby bump photo. Bump watch isn't so much a 'watch' anymore as a 'holy cow, look out for her!" See for yourself later this week when we post the newest installments.

Thats all for now! Thanks for all of your kind thoughts and comments! We love reading comments!

Feathers Ruffled....Baby Plus or Baby Minus

Well, its apparent that I've certainly tapped into a world of people who truly love 'baby plus' and are trying hard to convince me and others that its worth it's while. Now, I'll admit my first review of this product was about an hour of skimming their stated research and website, and after reading two fun comments about how wrong I may be I decided I better do further research...

So, preceding my further thoughts about Baby Plus I figured I should lay out a few things that I thought were fairly implicit about our blog (but clearly are not).

First, this blog was primarily created for family and friends. As you can likely tell by my many grammar and spelling mistakes I don't spend a ton of effort on the posts. They are usually thoughts off the top of my head, experiences, or in this case pocket reviews. These features are intended for family and friends to likely laugh at, or keep tabs on our expectant lives. They are not scientific-peer-reviews that people should be consuming with the fervor of psychinfo articles. Relax.

Second, blogs are opinions. You don't need to defend to me why you like Baby Plus (or anything else; although I love comments from friends and family about suggestions or ideas). To each his, or her, own. As a consumer of research I am critical. Very critical. So, there is a good chance I won't agree, but that's okay. See more below.

Third, if you do really feel the need to defend your own position, fine. However, I don't think that sharing where your degree came from speaks volumes about your ability to consume research, therefore additional information of this sort is rather superfluous to me.


Okay, on to Baby Plus:
So, as a consumer of research the first thing I did was avoid the newspaper articles (Sorry USA Today, but I don't have much faith in you) and all articles published by a babyplus author/owner/investor (this means Dr. Logan; I'm going to gather that you are likely a bit biased) and searched for peer-reviewed journal articles on Medline. Entering the word 'baby plus', I came up with zero articles. Not such good news. But I persisted on. I changed the search terms to 'fetal sonic stimulation' both together and individually since the articles by Dr. Logan feature this keyword often. Another big zero for the sequence. I also tried PsychInfo, as the journal Dr. Logan printed in was Pre and Peri-Natal Psychology. After these attempts I was feeling a bit less than optimistic.
So then I moved on to the actual articles provided at baby plus.
First, the clinical trials article: (the Lazarev study).
Here are the issues I found:
- small sample size (9, 11, and 11 in each group) leading to possible misinterpretation and potential undue influence by outliers (one or two kids that achieved very high or low).
- NOT randomly controlled trial- or at least isn't described as one. This means its very difficult to make claims about causation.
- No reporting of standard error of measurement, measurement techniques (inter-rater reliability)or standard deviations of measurement. These issues indicate that there was no method for determining if Group A (Baby plus) obtained statistically significant differences from Groups B and C. Even though in the summary they say 'statistically significant' values were obtained (how so dear researchers? p value of what? etc.).
- No consideration of confounding variables. What about what child this is for the family? Parents who are having their first child may be more likely to 'spend time working with Baby Plus' curricula than families who already have children, or what about issues like gender, mother's level of education (outside of non-gifted-ness), access to prenatal care, access to proper nutrition, access to prenatal vitamins/urban and rural community support and the list goes on. These thing are all possible confounds that could account for some of the variance attributed here to the Baby Plus intervention.
So all in all I gather that there are correlations here, but its a stretch to say "Baby Plus improves cognitive performance".
Now, I realize the website has a summary of the article published, so maybe some pieces are missing, but if I were the folks at Baby Plus I would definitely put all of the important pieces of the puzzle in a place that can be viewed by the public (i.e. the website).

Then to the USA Today/Science Daily reference. The science daily article is a study about baby response to beats in music. Research indicates that detecting beats in music may be an innate trait. What it does say is esentially, "So it appears that the capability of detecting beat in rhythmic
sound sequences is already functional at birth"
and
"Therefore, although auditory perceptual learning starts already
in the womb (20, 21), our results are fully compatible with the
notion that the perception of beat is innate."
What it doesn't say, anywhere, or even suggest is "teaching babies specific beats will improve cognitive performance." This is a huge leap, and a faulty one at that, without further research.

So, based on this information I'm still not sold. I still don't believe that you will improve cognitive development (as suggested by the CLAM assessment outcomes- which has questionable links to later cognitive development- i.e. predictive validity) in infants by using Baby Plus. I also think the website is very misleading by saying, "BabyPlus children have an intellectual, developmental, creative, and emotional advantage from the time they are born".- Really? Again, back to my original statement- I think more correlation is going on than causation.

So, to all of you out there who think I harped on Baby Plus for no reason- I respond by saying the comments go unfounded and remain your personal opinion. As a consumer of research I understand, clearly, the theoretical background behind babyplus, and I do believe there may be benefits in determining the value of sound to infants in the womb- talking to your baby is a fantastic idea. I do not however, believe that by using this curriculum you can ensure developmental success (as many of the testimonials suggest), which is what baby plus tries to sell. This is the part I dub 'a monstrosity'.

When journals like Child Development, or researchers like Katie Thomas or Phil Zelazo start publishing research on Baby Plus I'll start listening a little more. Until then I still think its a poor choice to improve cognitive performance. There are about 100 other ways to aid in your child's development that can provide them with the critical elements necessary to meet developmental milestones, and I for one, will stick with the robust research on those facets rather than the sporadic research on this one.

So to end the ruffling of the feathers, I say Baby Minus. Just my opinion, as the blog suggests :)

20 Baby Products Great For Traumatizing Infants | Cracked.com

20 Baby Products Great For Traumatizing Infants. Diapers and milk. Anything else is excessive.

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You say we need what?!?!

So, after many requests, I figured it was about time that we needed to update the baby blog, and after long and thorough consideration I decided to dedicate this post to all of the items available to new items that 'every mom needs'. I snicker as I write this because what lies ahead is nothing short of ridiculous.
We ventured to the world of Babies R Us with our copy of baby bargains in hand to see what they had to offer, to register for the necessary items and to finally submerge ourselves in the world of 'swaddlers', 'snappis' and 'Bumbos'. Have no idea what these are? Neither did I until we entered this new foreign world. Here's a fun game: see if you can guess which photo is which?


Feeling well educated on product quality we thought we had it down. After all, we read Baby Bargains, registered for what we needed and thought we could get away without too much pain and suffering. However, we were in for quite an experience as we perused the aisles. Our inquisitive minds asked, "what the heck is this for?" which led me, with my background in research to go ahead and find out exactly what these things were and why they were needed. Enter our top 10 list of ridiculous baby items that every mom needs, or gasp, somehow your baby will experience imminent delays, traumatic experiences and withdrawal.

The truth about parenting is that anyone, and I do mean, anyone can find a way to be a parent. There are no rules for procreation, no 'license to create' or general set of guidelines. Its a free for all, and since so many of us out here are anxiously hoping that we somehow can ensure our parenting skills will at the very least 'leave no irrepreable damage' we look for guides, lists, advice and general ways to improve our odds. Enter the sneaky marketing folks from all of the baby industry giants. They thrive on our lack of confidence and try their very best to make us believe their product will ensure a positive end result in all of this parenting mumbo jumbo. So we read about the products, we consider them and in the end the marketing business wins 9 out of 10 times. Will we have a diaper pail- yes, how about a set of monitors to sooth our worries while we are less than 50 feet away, you bet. We'll also likely have lots of other unexpected items like a jumperoo, a boppi, even a co-sleeper. Do we really need them? Probably not. My grandma sure didn't. We've just convinced ourselves it will help us be better parents, so we buy in and the marketing folks win win win.
Alas, I digress, back to the real fun of this post! All of our products are real, as in you can buy them and be sold on their 'genuine authenticity', but for yet another list of real items that I hope no one actually considers buying check out the link at the end of this link to cracked.com. Rather disturbing and hilarious all at the same time. But, Here's our list:


TEN WORST BABY PRODUCTS


10. The Red Neck Pacifier. This is self explanatory. Just in case you hadn't planned to traumatize your baby by offering him ways to ruin his teeth in todlerhood, you can get a second chance to see how things will turn out with this dandy of a pacifier.
9. The hooter hider. Seriously. Some idiot named a piece of cloth used to be discreet while nursing the 'Hooter Hider'- because you know, that title just screams discreetness. Good lord. You'd think the people interested in purchasing something like this would be a bit more apt to buy something called a nursing cover, as generic as it may be.
8. Buster Vacuum cleaner for kids. For all those moms who just love to multi-task. Why vacuum your house when you can let your toddler ride their way to a clean carpet. This reminds me of those old-school Electrolux vacuums, you know, the ones with super suction from the early 60's. My grandma had one and I can remember riding on it while she pulled it through the living room. I also remember finding all kinds of debris in her house, that I am sure made it way into my little hands, and likely into my mouth. Just what every parent dreams about.
7. The baby toupee. Really. This is the real deal. You can purchase this for your baby and he or she will likely be relived of all anxiety due to being a little bald baby. There are colors, styles, even some Bob Marley style dreads. Whatever your heart desires. Just imagine, you could change your baby's total image on a daily basis. It makes me wonder who buys this thing outside of a few weeks before Halloween? Are there parents out there that really have that much anxiety about their baby being bald or being mistaken for a boy when its really a girl. I can't see this conversation happening:
"Honey, so many people mistake our beautiful daughter for a little boy. What should we do?"
"Oh, how about get her ears pierced. That should let them all know what gender they're dealing with!"
"Oh no, I could not put my baby through such tremendous pain and suffering. Besides, her little ears are difficult to keep clean and I worry about infection."
"Well, then, how about a toupee. I've seen plenty of fabulous ones on the toddlers at daycare. Little Penelope has a brilliant pink one with curls."
"Oh, what a great idea! I'll order one tonight".
Okay. Insert sarcastic gagging sounds here.

6. The wipe warmer. Scratch that. Warmers in general. Bottle warmer, wipe warmer, crib blanket warmer etc. Why does anyone need these. Specific, and mind you expensive products to warm things up that either a) shouldn't be warmed up or b)can be warmed up in about a dozen other ways that are much more inexpensive and efficient. Warm water anyone? By the way, I'm fairly sure, that in all the diapers that I've changed I've never seem a baby smile with glee in reaction to a warm wipe touching their rear-end. Regardless of how warm the wipe is babies generally go through a stage where they don't like it. I probably wouldn't like it either.... Life goes on.
5. Baby food dispensing spoon. For the amazingly lazy. As though its so difficult to move the extra 5 inches to the jar of baby food once you have a spoon in your hand? This thing just seems to scream 'pain in the butt to clean' too. So why would I waste my time. Some of these products I just don't understand. Seriously, am I alone in my convictions about convenience gone awry?
4. Baby tethers. We've all seen them. Frequent sightings for viewing pleasure are abundant at the mall of America. These are those ridiculous straps parents put on their toddlers like backpacks, only they remain attached by some sort of tether, so you know, you could reel your child back in if they were too close to the escalator, were about to wander in the wrong gender bathroom, or lets not forget the real selling point, you can aimlessly forget about watching your child because they are never more than 25 feet away. I cringe when I see these things. Why doesn't someone put a tether on the parents first to see just how fantastic it feels? Other thoughts to consider? Similar items fall into the retractable leash category for DOGS. As in your four-legged friend who has no opposable thumbs or verbal capacity. Similar categories? I think not.
3. Nursing stool. What exactly is a nursing stool? I don't even know. I know that you are likely not to sit on a stool when nursing because that sounds absolutely uncomfortable. If you google this it looks like a step stool. In fact, I think it is a step stool with 50 extra dollars tacked on for the word nursing. I can't even figure out what this is supposed to do, so I'm moving on.
2. Long-range monitors. Who needs to go 800 feet away from your baby and leave him unattended?!?!? Thats more than an 1/8th of a mile. That is longer than your typical city block? Why on earth are you more than that far from your house, with your baby alone inside? Holy crap. Back to my comment about anyone being able to procreate.
1. The Baby Plus, prenatal education system. Now being an advocate for early childhood education you'd think I would be very excited to hear about the ways to connect and educate my baby, but this product is RIDICULOUS. Here's a quote from their website:

The BabyPlus curriculum is a series of 16 naturally derived sounds that resemble a mother's heartbeat. The rhythm of the sounds increases incrementally as the pregnancy progresses. The BabyPlus sonic pattern introduces your child to a sequential learning process, built upon the natural rhythms of their own environment.

And, to top it off, when exactly do you start this curriculum? Anytime between 18 and 32 to week pregnant. Yep. This is for babies in the womb. There have even been clinical trials (which I bet are laden with misconceptions, inappropriate findings and correlations read as causation). This system preys on those women who are desperate to get ahead. Move over baby Einstein, you clearly aren't good enough anymore. If you want to get into an Ivy League school you should be using baby plus. To read more about this monstrosity see: www.babyplus.com. I could go on for hours about this curriculum but I'll refrain.

So, that's the end of our list, we hope you've enjoyed it. Baby Hollman is spending most of his time punching and kicking me on a regular basis, which we interpret as, "mom and dad, don't you dare invest in any one of these products. I'll be fine without them" and in our case we really think that baby knows best.

20 Baby Products Great For Traumatizing Infants | Cracked.com

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20 Baby Products Great For Traumatizing Infants. Diapers and milk. Anything else is excessive.

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