This Moment- A Friday ritual. A single photo- no words- capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor, and remember. If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.

Anyone else guilty of hopping on the computer to quickly check your e-mail only to find yourself hours later lost in internet world? I’m a huge link hopper and tonight stumbled across this little gem:

(Click on image for photo credit and to shop!)

Lately Harper has become somewhat of a Gymnurstic, only wanting to nurse in the most odd and uncomfortable positions imaginable. It’s been almost 9 rocky breastfeeding months of nursing, pumping, hand expressing, torture massages and lots and lots of begging and pleading with my little man to please please please eat and the only way to get through something like that is with a whole lot of humor!

This t-shirt is just too awesome to pass up don’t you think?

This Moment- A Friday ritual. A single photo- no words- capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor, and remember. If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.

I feel like i’ve been apologizing a lot lately for my absence but hey, I’ve been busy.

Busy taking sunset walks with my boys, digging my toes into the cooling sand while watching swaying palm trees overhead, picking grass off Harper’s dinner and learning that picnics don’t really work with an 8 month old.

We’ve been enjoying family from out of town, taking long afternoon swims that turn into evenings spent in the jacuzzi and nights sitting around the table watching the city lights dance across the water. When sleep calls we carry ourselves off to bed with chatter about tomorrows adventures filling the hallways until crisp sheets are folded down and the sounds of slumber soon fill the house.

I love being “absent”. I love the excitement and the energy that visitors bring to our days. I love watching Hawaii’s magic spell take over, the reminder that we are so blessed to call this paradise home and to share the island’s aloha with those we love.

I love stumbling across things like this and this that make me not feel quite so guilty for neglecting this space and all of you amazing readers.

The thing is as much as I love blogging and having a space to jot down my families adventures, special moments as a mama and sharing our life by the sea with all you, I love LIVING and creating stories to share more. Sometimes there is so much “living” that there is no time for jumping on the computer, downloading pictures and banging away on the keyboard.

I realize this makes me a “bad” blogger and truth be told our crazy lifestyle has meant I have had to realign my priorities, sometimes missing opportunities or fumbling them amongst the chaos of life. But i’m learning that it’s ok…my to-do list can be saved for later and the only missed opportunities that I can really regret are not being apart of moments like this:

This Moment- A Friday ritual. A single photo- no words- capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor, and remember. If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.

Between shitty sleep and blowout diapers during the day there is a whole lot of poop in parenthood. Luckily the folks over at the stir have put together a little poop decoder. Oh how I wish I had found something like this during the first few weeks of caring for my newborn. Right after Harper passed the meconium his poopys were always that foamy green…had I known this was a sign that he was only getting the foremilk while breastfeeding I could have talked to my pediatrician about why that was and maybe *maybe we could have caught the whole tongue tie thing sooner.

Ahh the maybe’s in life…best not to go there I think? Anywho…here is the link for the best poo directory out there.

Today Harper is 8 months old which means two things 1) My little man isn’t quite so little any more and 2) We’re going to celebrate him just like we do every month which means mama is most likely going to get some sort of treat. This last part makes me very very happy as I’ve been DYING for an excuse to pig out! I’m dreaming of cupcakes…peach cobbler…mint chip ice cream…lemon cookie bar…Oreo’s…and for some reason pumpkin oatmeal cookies…drooooool

Hold on…What was I saying?

Oh yes, Harper and the whole growing up thing. Yup, he is certainly growing up and growing up quick! Last month we praised him for his newfound crawling abilities and being able to push himself up from a crawl to sit position. Today?

Well, today he’s decided crawling is for babies and is all “ehh I think I’ll just go ahead and pull myself up here maybe take a little walk along the couch. No biggie.”

He’s also decided that magazines are the greatest thing EVER.

Terrorizing the kitchen is pretty rad:

General madness and mess making:

Teething is an absolute BIATCH who I would gladly take into the ring and knock the F$#% out if I had the chance. Really it’s not that bad, I mean who needs more than 20 minutes of sleep at a time? With two teeth down and a mere 18 left to go I’m thinking I might look something close to this by Thanksgiving:

Photo Credit

Other than the whole sleep thing, the disaster of a house (not to mention the whole hair pulling and nipple pinching obsession) things are going quite well. Hubs and I high five’d this morning and patted ourselves on the back for managing to keep all three of us alive and (minus the sleep thing) relatively healthy and happy. I think we’re doing alright at this whole baby thing…time for number two?

What? You thought I was just craving all that junk just because?

SO kidding!

Happy 8 months Mr. Man we love you so much we promise not to sell you to the neighbor like we threatened at 3am last night (unless you pull that s#@% again tonight AND they offer the right price).

I’ve had a lot of friends and readers ask me to recommend some of my favorite baby products and so I’ll start with what is in my opinion the number one baby necessity (other than boobs), a baby carrier. I’ve been lucky to try and own four different carriers that I’ve really enjoyed for different reasons and would recommend to any new mama.

The first carrier that I ever used was My Baby Nest. This carrier is great for newborns and younger infants. The concept behind the carrier is that it is a wrap-less wrap.

A what? Basically you get the same feel and benefits as a traditional wrap carrier but don’t have all the excess fabric and twisting and maneuvering to deal with. The fabric on My Baby Nest is really soft, pretty lightweight (important here in Hawaii) and flexible. I love how the weight of my little guy was so evenly spread across my shoulders and back and how easily he nestled into this carrier. We used our Baby Nest literally every single day and it is great for front carries, nursing and side carries as baby gets older. Although this carrier is advertised for babies up to 30lbs I found its comfort and support insufficient around the 15lb marker….a major bummer since I loved this carrier so much.

Once My Baby Nest became uncomfortable I moved on to the Moby wrap. I had this wrap from the very beginning but was too intimidated by the long stretch of fabric and seemingly complicated wrapping process to attempt its use. After watching several YouTube videos and getting a hands on demo from a friend, I quickly learned how to put on my Moby and absolutely loved the snug fit and distributed weight that it offered. The Moby is also a wrap that you can use in multiple positions: front carry, side, and hip and also has a number of different varieties of carries for each position. I really enjoy my Moby wrap now that I have the process down but still find the length of the fabric difficult, putting it on and taking it off takes more time than the Baby Nest and the fabric can be stifling in Hawaii humidity. With all these little things aside I would still recommend this wrap and The Moby Wrap’s reputation among moms and babies is a testament to how great this wrap can be.

The third carrier that I have used and own is the BabyHawk. The fun thing about this carrier is that I was able to custom design the fabrics making our Baby Hawk an original. I was super impressed with how fast our carrier arrived (especially since it was a custom made item) the quality of the fabric, stitching and overall structure. I was so excited to use this carrier with my newborn (and did) but found that my little guy was a bit too little. With the recommendation of a friend I was able to roll up a blanket and put this under babies bottom to help him fit into the carrier a little bit better. As he has continued to grow this carrier is fitting better and better and I’m really enjoying the back carry position.

With three different carriers you would think that I would be set in the baby wearing department but as my little man has chubbed out and turned into a monster I’ve felt the need for something else…That something has turned out to be the Ergo carrier and I am completely smitten.

Ergo is probably the leading carrier out there in the baby wearing market and for good reason.The Ergo is easy to put on and take off, the straps are comfortable, easily adjustable and fit my frame well. I LOVE LOVE that the Ergo had a little pocket built in front, perfect for tossing a few essential for on the go ( I hate carrying around an extra bag). This is now my number 1 carrier and it has been my best friend through airports, hiking down Diamond Head, at the grocery store and even as a lifesaver during my recent poo’splosion catastrophe.

My advice for anyone looking into a baby carrier is to try a variety of them on. I would definitely look into the carriers I mentioned above and hopefully you will find one that you absolutely love. Regardless of what type of carrier you end up with I hope that you find baby wearing as enjoyable as Harper and I have.

As always if you have any questions please shoot me an e-mail at mama@mamasurfs.com

* Ergo is now being sold at COSTCO of all places!