diapers and skinny jeans

Hey there, I'm Ashley and I write over on  The Stork & The Beanstalk . I contacted Kate some time ago about doing a guest post over on my blog as I'm out recovering from some pretty major back surgery. Kate was kind enough to invite me to guest post here as well, so thank you, Kate, for having me on your lovely corner of the worldwide web. Kate wrote a post a while back, prior to the birth of her beautiful Alba, about her fear of loving a second child. It was something that I related to so deeply to on so many levels as I had experienced the same fears. I am the mother of two boys; Hooper will be three in November and Van turned one in July. Ready for a dose of honesty? It took me longer to love Van than it did Hooper. I was a bit surprised by it because everything I read, prior to giving birth, talked about how your love multiplies rather than divides and blah blah blah. It wasn’t like that for me; not right away, at least. When I was hand...

I can say to you all that, without a doubt, 2011 has been the craziest and most action-packed year I've had yet.  I mean really- who gets engaged, then married, and also has a baby not only in the same year, but crams these three MAJOR LIFE EVENTS all in the same WEEK!? Sometimes I still can't even believe Erick and I DID that.  We made it through all of what I like to remember as, the time of 'the joyful chaos.' THE PART WHERE I LEARNED ABOUT WEDDING CAKE I reflect back and realize we may not have done things the socially acceptable "right" way, and still, I think there are things I would have done differently had I been given the chance to do it all over... (IE actually invite people to our wedding and have a stupid wedding cake to eat!)  Totally didn't realize how much I actually wanted all of those traditionally 'normal wedding things' until my melt-down last night as my brother and sister in law ate their wedding cake with family.  I ...

Let's face the facts- I have a lot going on.  It seems everyone these days forgets (or just doesn't really know) what it means to be a parent.  Both Erick and I make a lot of effort to make sure Sofia has the best life, love and affection, and necessities she needs to grow up in a happy home.  Both of us working full time jobs... on top of freelancing... on top of previously mentioned 3 month old... it adds up to be one big neverending whirlwind we call "life" now. Our week is compiled with me waking up at 6:00AM every morning, changing the baby, feeding the baby, barely making the time crunch to get ready for work, sitting in rush hour traffic, working an 8 to 9 hour day, sitting in rush hour traffic AGAIN, maybe squeezing in a few miles of a run (if I'm lucky), make dinner or find another option, feed baby, change baby, play with baby, take a bath, swaddle her up and put her to bed, work on freelance projects until my eyes droop over, sleep, then repeat FOR...