Blog - Official Leeann Dearing Website
Blog - Official Leeann Dearing Website
If you love someone who just had a baby...
If you love someone who just had a baby...
She will cry during feedings.
She will cry in the middle of the night.
She will cry during commercials.
Tell her this is normal.
She will change the baby's outfit 7 times in a day.
She will photograph the baby 70 times a day.
She will then probably cry again about something else.
Tell her this is normal.
She will ask you what to do.
You may not know the answer. Make something up.
She will cry again.
Tell her this is normal.
She will tell you she can't do it anymore. Tell her she is wrong.
She will tell you ANYTHING ELSE. Tell her she is right.
The baby will sleep for five hours and she will smile again.
You will surprise her with dinner and she will smile again.
The baby will finish a feeding and she will smile again.
Then she will probably cry about something else.
Tell her this is normal.
She will cry during feedings.
She will cry in the middle of the night.
She will cry during commercials.
Tell her this is normal.
She will change the baby's outfit 7 times in a day.
She will photograph the baby 70 times a day.
She will then probably cry again about something else.
Tell her this is normal.
She will ask you what to do.
You may not know the answer. Make something up.
She will cry again.
Tell her this is normal.
She will tell you she can't do it anymore. Tell her she is wrong.
She will tell you ANYTHING ELSE. Tell her she is right.
The baby will sleep for five hours and she will smile again.
You will surprise her with dinner and she will smile again.
The baby will finish a feeding and she will smile again.
Then she will probably cry about something else.
Tell her this is normal.
Week 31 (1.14.12)
It’s week 31, home slice. TIme for some wicked stats. Weight- Up 18 pounds at week 31.
Baby Weighs- 3.3 pounds!
Boobs Weigh- I can't even talk about it.
Organs/ New Blood- 2-3 pounds
Sleeping- Thank God for my Boppy. Still waking up a few times a night to flip from left to right side.
My Overall Size- HUGE.
Mother and Fetal Happenings:
No more teeny tiny kicks and jabs. He has pretty much moved in to the baby palace we call my uterus, and has UNPACKED. This is the first week I felt the baby kicking my ribs.
We got our (final) ultrasound for the pregnancy, and the baby is SO beautiful I want to cry. I couldn’t stop gazing at his little pictures for hours. I was showing them to strangers. Conversations were a little weird.
Me: “This is my son.”
Stranger: “Oh, congratulations.”
Me: “Isn’t he beautiful?”
Stranger: “Yeah. Cute kid.”
Me: “Don’t you wish your infant was as beautiful as this?”
Stranger: “I actually don’t have an infant, but...”
Me: “Isn’t he THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BABY YOU’VE EVER SEEN?”
Stranger: “Don’t hurt me?”
The Nursery is coming along. By coming along, I mean we purchased a mattress and did nothing else since our last nursery update. We ARE about to finish the baby’s dresser this week, and that will be a huge relief.
Emotions -
The third trimester, to me, has been a return to a lot of the same feelings and emotions I felt in the first trimester. Optimism. Excitement. The desire to document each and every little moment of this journey.
I know most women experience their share of “ups and downs” when it comes to their pregnancy. One minute it feels oh-so-easy and perfect, the next moment you’re facing fears of parental competency. Essentially you are surrendering a life of selfishness in an instant. I need to be honest with you and tell you I’ve had more “down” moments in my second trimester than “up”. I’ve had more questions than answers. I’ve asked myself “Can I really do this?” about a hundred times a day.
Well, maybe it’s my ridiculously huge belly, or the new bassinet sitting in the master bedroom, but it just got very REAL to me that a baby is going to live at my house. And all of a sudden, that prospect once again seems awesome and fun. In the last few weeks I’ve really been cherishing my pregnancy. There are just over nine weeks left with my little man inside of me, and right now that feels way too fast. It’s struck me recently how PRECIOUS this time is with my son. How I will never get it back.
And all the tossing and turning, the kicking and jabbing, the back aches, the head aches, the labor fears, the weight gain...oh, it’s 100% worth it.
(Oh, and that beautiful baby I mentioned before? Prepare to fall in love.)
THE UGLIEST THING IN THE WOLRD AND HOW IT SAVED MY LIFE. (1.03.12)
I’m sure every pregnancy is different, but for most of my pregnancy, I’ll admit it. I was pretty smug.
“Back pain? What back pain? I have no back pain.”
“Swollen feet? Not me. No sir.”
“Missing sleep? Bahahahaha. Suck it mother nature.”
“Baby kicking the ribs? I’ve never felt that. No way.”
“Puffy face? Not yet.”
And then the third trimester happened, about a week ago. And it laughed at my hubris, and it kneed me in my ego and it hit me with EVERYTHING at once.
Worst of all, it took my sleep. My precious, precious sleep. Like the MOST IMPORTANT THING TO ME.
Suddenly I was waking up 4,5,6,7 times a night. Not to pee, no sir, but to re-arrange pillows around my aching back and sides. No matter how I contorted my body and manipulated those cushions, I couldn’t get comfortable.
And then a friend told me about the Boppy full body pillow.
Now if you remember from a previous post, I do not bring anything into my home that I don’t find aesthetically pleasing. I’m very serious about living clutter-free. But the situation got dire, so I headed to Babies R’Us.
This thing retails for about $55. I had a few of those $5 coupons from Babies R’Us. (Rewards points for buying so much stuff?) So it brought it down to just around $35. When I tell you that I would have paid that a thousand times over, I mean every damn word.
This thing is ugly. There is no way around that.
I mean there are a GAGGLE of angry bridesmaids from the 80’s who want their dress material back.
And it’s shaped like a kidney. It’s bulky, and difficult to store, and doesn’t look good on your bed.
But this pillow will hug your pregnant curves and put you in a womb of comfort ALL YOUR OWN.
If you can't sleep, buy a boppy. DO IT NOW.
Sophie The Giraffe Might Be From The Underworld? (11.21.11)
I was walking the aisles in BuyBuy Baby when I stumbled upon this thing. If you have a vagina, you probably know what it is. If you don’t have a vagina, you still probably might know. It’s Vulli Sophie the Giraffe. (Except for the flames. I added those.
And today we’re gonna talk about her. It. Whatever.
This is, apparently, the hottest baby toy thing to own ever at any time, and if you don’t have it you’re an unfit parent.
I just need to say this now, and say it loud and with conviction.
SHE HAS BLACK EYES.
Can we just PAUSE HERE and discuss the other sorts of things in life that have black eyes? I’ll give you a full and complete list.
THINGS WITH BLACK EYES:
Demons.
People possessed by demons.
THAT’S IT, kids. Nothing else in nature has black eyes except for Sophie the giraffe.
But because she's French I guess we're all just gonna give her a pass?
So I’m standing in Buy Buy Baby, scanner gun in hand, trying to reconcile this in my head when I hear a voice behind me.
Random Mom: OH, I loovveeee Sophie the giraffe.
Me: Yeah?
Random Mom: Sophie the giraffe is so great. Sophie is like a RELIGION.
Me: That’s...intense.
Random Mom: Sophie will help your baby teethe and soothe his soul and teach him spanish.
Me: A bilingual giraffe. Wow, that’s...
Random Mom: Oh my gosh you HAVE to get a Sophie the giraffe.
Me: Um...
Random Mom: Are you gonna do it? Are you going to get a Sophie the giraffe? Me: Yeah, it’s just the black eyes.
Random Mom: The what? Me: Well, her eyes are black. Like entirely black and kind of soul-less looking?
Random Mom’s head proceeds to seriously implode. I could tell that this thought had never occurred to her. Am I the only one seeing this?
So I walked around the store, holding the (demon?) giraffe. I thought, maybe I just need some time with her. It. Whatever. It is kind of cute. It doesn’t incorporate most of the garish colors that I’ve come to hate in baby toys. ( MOST baby toys visually offend me. Cool exceptions? Land of Nod. Haba. Plan toys. More on this in another entry)
I consult google. The google loves Sophie. The google is full of mothers crafting novellas about the benefits of this thing when it comes to teething time. Then I talked to other moms. The moms love Sophie. She is amazing. She is a necessity. She might be Ghandi incarnated into a toy. To question the integrity of “the giraffe” is like a scarlet letter on your mom-chest, barring you from all fun play groups and circles of friends.
So... (and I feel like I’m telling you I just accepted the mark of the beast from the book of Revelations)
...I let Sophie onto my registry. OH MY GOSH this feels like seventh grade where all my friends said light blue nail polish was cool, and I knew it wasn’t, but I totally painted it on my nails to avoid excommunication. This is bad. This is really bad.
Tell me a) that I’m not the only one to notice Sophie has no soul and b) that I’m not the ONLY mother to put something on her registry just because all her friends did.
I Throw Things Out (11.15.11)
What it is, ya’ll?
So you guys know I’m an actress. Grateful to still be working at 22 weeks along (thank God most commercials shoot from the front and not the side.) The Dearing Studio production team was approached to shoot a commercial for Schmidt Jewlers, and they requested me as talent. This is particularly sentimental for me, because my husband purchased my engagement ring at Schmidt three and a half years ago!
So as I was between shots today, I did a little perusing of the jewelry cases and decided I want a wedding band.
When we got married 3 1/2 years ago, we were broke as a joke. Like, really.
People would point and laugh and say “You so poor when you were kickin’ a can down the street I aksed what you were doin’ and you said MOVING!” And I would just nod and say, yup that is accurate. We are THAT poor.
So when we were planning for the wedding, I told my husband I didn’t need a wedding band; that the engagement ring would work just fine.
But now I kind of want one?
Then I looked at the engagement ring and realized, gosh, my tastes have changed in the last (almost) four years. If I were doing it again, I might have chosen a simpler design. So I asked one of the owners about the process of re-setting my ring. I don’t want a diamond upgrade or anything like that. Same stones. Same man. Same everything. I just kinda want to re-set it.
But then I felt guilty for wanting to change my ring at all. I felt like in the bad spouse bar graph (see below), that was nested somewhere between sneaky secret online purchases (nothing wrong with this) and withholding sex for bribery purposes.
When it comes to updating, renovating, throwing things out, de-cluttering, guilt is NOT a familiar emotion to me.
In fact, this may surprise you, but I am the LEAST sentimental person I know.
If I could describe my interior decorating style in three words it would be: Spartan, Empty and Die-Clutter-Die. These are synonyms, you will notice. I love empty closets, decorated with just 5 wooden hangers like in the model homes. I love counter tops that are free of appliances. I love drawer organizers and color coding.
I actually have rules about holding on to things and my husband will corroborate that this is so. If something is not:
1) making me money
2) aesthetically DELIGHTFUL or
3) Been worn in the last 6 months...
I THROW IT OUT. Game, Set Match.
This is my life philosophy. I do not hold on to things for “someday” or for “what-if-I-need it” comfort. I do not own “fat pants” or “skinny pants”. Just pants-pants. I hate novelty items, kitsch, chotchkies, excess chords, old exercise equipment, pens with no caps, anything with holes or stains, canadian money, etc. Some people would look at my garbage can and call it wasteful. I call it sanity.
I can't tell you how many times my husband has asked me where "that one chord went" or "my old gym shorts disappeared to". He asks the question, but he knows the answer. THEY'RE GONE, SUCKA.
(Another example: I sold my wedding dress a year after my wedding because I value clean closets and adequate storage over nostalgia. I also reasoned that my husband and I could create a new memory using the money from the sale rather than cling to a dress that may or may not ever see the light of day again. Plus I had the photos. That was enough for me. This idea HORRIFIED many of my friends. But that’s just how I am.)
So why, why, why when it comes to this ring am I experiencing guilt? I can throw ANYTHING out without feeling bad about it. What do you think? Is it okay to change the setting of the most important piece of jewelry I own because my taste changed a little? Or is that a bad idea? Thoughts?
Your favorite reverse-hoarder-friend,
Leeann.
23 Weeks (11.21.11)
Week 23 is all up in our collective grills.I just got back from the doctor, so I’ve got my vitals fresh in my mind.
Weight- Up 9 pounds at week 23.
Blood Pressure- 100/60. Which they tell me is good.
Baby Weighs- 1 pound
Boobs Weigh- A metric ton. Or 2-3 pounds
Organs/ New Blood- 2-3 pounds
Awesomeness- Full blown.
Motherly Gangster Swagger- I keep my pimp hand strong.
Awesomeness and Motherly-Gangster-Swagger are not actually things my doctor measures. They are things I measure. They are not science, but they are as important as science. They are units of street cred, and they matter SO MUCH.
Mother and Fetal Happenings:
Baby is perfecting the art of kicking. Daddy can CLEARLY feel i now. He is obsessed with his son, and really just fascinated by this whole pregnancy thing. When I’m hungry/thirsty he immediately asks “What does the baby want?” So cute. Yesterday I was laying in bed reading this book about what your baby REALLY needs (in terms of stuff) and I totally saw my stomach move while he kicked. I’m sure it’s happened before, but man. To see it really took my breath away. It reminded me of how big he’s getting. He was the size of a grain of rice, like, yesterday morning?
- IN NURERY NEWS: I found a designer to make my wildest nesting dreams come true. Her name is LaRicki and she’s going to change my life. Right now the babies room is just an empty space with a rocking chair, rocking horse and a fan that we hate. I’m trying to transform it into a vintage inspired paradise for infants. This takes some finessing, and far more design prowess than I possess. Enter Ricki.
I will definitely post some “after” shots. There’s not much to see now except a rocker, covered in the original plastic and the COOLEST vintage rocking horse in all the world. Seriously this thing is amazing. It was a gift to us from an art curator-friend. This rocking horse was crafted (yes, I said CRAFTED) by one of the most famous Victorian architects of all time. It’s super historical. The mere act of sitting on this horse will make my baby more cultured and refined. If you want to have your baby come over and rock on it for a few minutes, you totally can. I’m not trying to take up ALL the refinement. Just most of it.
That's it for now! More than HALFWAY there!!!
Victory Dance In My Maternity Pants (11.20.11)
Who loves maternity pants? THIS GIRL.
Maternity pants, it turns out, are the single greatest invention ever made. This is science. You probably thought the greatest invention was America, or fire, or maybe electricity, or the telephone or peanut butter. But the history books lie, and they omitted the real hero: Elastic waisted pants.
(Pair pictured here are from Pea In The Pod. So comfortable!)
This is coming from the girl who saw the Pajama Jean commercial and SCOFFED. “Jeans aren’t supposed to be comfortable,” I said with derision. And then I mumbled something about our lazy, elastic-waist-mentality nation.
I have joined the lazy-elastic-waist-mentality-nation. I have tasted the forbidden fruit. And IT IS GOOD.
I googled “Who Invented Maternity Pants”, because I wanted to know who to credit with the single most important invention EVER. But Google didn’t know. Probably it’s in cahoots with the history books to keep this thing under wraps. Because my women’s studies teachers said that men write the history books, so they probably also control the google.
So, in the spirit of innovation...I invented an inventor, and took the liberty of also creating a holiday in his honor.
The year was 1903.
William Edward Maternity the third came from a long line of dreamers.
His father, Walter Theodore Maternity had a series of failed inventions such as the Travel Pillow (now a beloved Sky mall favorite. Walter was really ahead of his time, considering he invented the pillow prior to the Wright brothers discovery of the airplane. I digress.)
Feeling the need to redeem the “Maternity” name, and wanting to offer an enduring contribution to the world, William set out on a year of self discovery and personal exploration.
In the year 1903, clothes were a hot topic. Men typically changed clothes three times a day. Their wardrobe consisted of waistcoats and striped trousers, restrictive lounge jackets with pointed lapels and various other frocks. William Edward Maternity always found he felt most comfortable in the nude, preferring the un-restricted feel of the cool wind against his bare buttocks. (See photo)
So he traveled the world and experienced other cultures. During his time with the hippies in Europe, he was quoted as saying:
“Nakedness was God’s original intent for creation. Why have we shamed His handiwork by covering it up with frocks and perverse garments?”
Anyway, William wanted to return home, but knew in his nakedness he could not do so. And so he began to ponder...what would be the closest thing likened unto nakedness, whilst still clothed?
Then, as if in a dream, it came to him. Pants with no waist.
William Maternity immediately sought out a seamstress and drew a crude sketch of his idea. The seamstress, who was great with child, inspired him. “These would be wonderful for a woman in a delicate way,” he cried out. And so the maternity pant was born.
On this, the 16th day of November each year, we celebrate William Edward Maternity and his legacy, his passion and his vision.
Happy Maternity Pants Day, everyone.
Maternity pants, it turns out, are the single greatest invention ever made. This is science. You probably thought the greatest invention was America, or fire, or maybe electricity, or the telephone or peanut butter. But the history books lie, and they omitted the real hero: Elastic waisted pants.
(Pair pictured here are from Pea In The Pod. So comfortable!)
This is coming from the girl who saw the Pajama Jean commercial and SCOFFED. “Jeans aren’t supposed to be comfortable,” I said with derision. And then I mumbled something about our lazy, elastic-waist-mentality nation.
I have joined the lazy-elastic-waist-mentality-nation. I have tasted the forbidden fruit. And IT IS GOOD.
I googled “Who Invented Maternity Pants”, because I wanted to know who to credit with the single most important invention EVER. But Google didn’t know. Probably it’s in cahoots with the history books to keep this thing under wraps. Because my women’s studies teachers said that men write the history books, so they probably also control the google.
So, in the spirit of innovation...I invented an inventor, and took the liberty of also creating a holiday in his honor.
The year was 1903.
William Edward Maternity the third came from a long line of dreamers.
His father, Walter Theodore Maternity had a series of failed inventions such as the Travel Pillow (now a beloved Sky mall favorite. Walter was really ahead of his time, considering he invented the pillow prior to the Wright brothers discovery of the airplane. I digress.)
Feeling the need to redeem the “Maternity” name, and wanting to offer an enduring contribution to the world, William set out on a year of self discovery and personal exploration.
In the year 1903, clothes were a hot topic. Men typically changed clothes three times a day. Their wardrobe consisted of waistcoats and striped trousers, restrictive lounge jackets with pointed lapels and various other frocks. William Edward Maternity always found he felt most comfortable in the nude, preferring the un-restricted feel of the cool wind against his bare buttocks. (See photo)
So he traveled the world and experienced other cultures. During his time with the hippies in Europe, he was quoted as saying:
“Nakedness was God’s original intent for creation. Why have we shamed His handiwork by covering it up with frocks and perverse garments?”
Anyway, William wanted to return home, but knew in his nakedness he could not do so. And so he began to ponder...what would be the closest thing likened unto nakedness, whilst still clothed?
Then, as if in a dream, it came to him. Pants with no waist.
William Maternity immediately sought out a seamstress and drew a crude sketch of his idea. The seamstress, who was great with child, inspired him. “These would be wonderful for a woman in a delicate way,” he cried out. And so the maternity pant was born.
On this, the 16th day of November each year, we celebrate William Edward Maternity and his legacy, his passion and his vision.
Happy Maternity Pants Day, everyone.
We're Buying A Crib. (11.19.11)
Where are my mother-in-law and I going?
Oh no where.
Just to go order my crib and crib mattress that she is totally buying my unborn child because she’s a ROCKSTAR grandma who ROCKS HARD and sells out stadiums. ROCKS.
Oh no where.
Just to go order my crib and crib mattress that she is totally buying my unborn child because she’s a ROCKSTAR grandma who ROCKS HARD and sells out stadiums. ROCKS.