mommy's favorite gifts

So I've been remiss in thanking people for gifts since Bridget was born. We've received a ton of clothes (most 6+ months, which justifies my having bought clothes yesterday), some music, gift cards, etc. If you're one of those generous people, thank you! But today I want to thank two people in particular, one for a gift we received shortly after the baby shower, and the other for a gift we received shortly after Bridget's birth. These two gifts make up mommy's favorite unregistered-for, non-clothing items and I highly recommend each for new moms.

The first gift came from Michelle and is a handy-dandy little gadget called an itzbeen. Trust me, moms, you'll find this gadget invaluable. It's a hand held set of four timers: one for diaper changes, one for feedings, one for sleeping, and one miscellaneous timer (I use it to time how long it's been since the last time I pumped--that way I can freeze any leftover milk before it goes bad). It's about the size of a baby monitor and has a clip on the back of it in case you want to hook it onto your jeans or diaper bag or something. But I've found that it's easy to figure out what's wrong with Bridget (oh, time to eat!) and to keep track of how long she's been sleeping just by looking at my timer (if I can get Al to use it--that's the one problem; he forgets). It also has alarms and stuff on it, but I don't bother with those. The timers and the handy-dandy light at the top, which I use as a flashlight in the middle of the night, are good enough for me!

The other gift was actually for Bridget (imagine that) and came from Nikki. It's a kid's personalized music CD. We have the Jesus Loves You CD, but there are other, non-religious CDs, too. This collection of ten Christian songs and verses actually contains Bridget's name in both spoken parts ("Bridget! How old are you? Really? Did you know...") and in the songs themselves ("You're one of a kind, God is with you all the time, Jesus knows you and he loves you, Bridget"). It's so much fun and I find myself playing it and singing to it in the car all the time. Poor Neil Conan of Talk of the Nation finds himself minus one listener a lot these days (I am an NPR junkie).

So those are my two favorite non-clothing gifts. But I can't write a blog without writing about Bridget. I got to dress her in cute new outfit number one today (would like to keep changing her clothes and have her model them all for me, but I don't think she's old enough to enjoy that yet), pictured in this blog. But one of my favorite things about my baby is the just-waking-up routine she goes through in the mornings. I get her when she's starting to fuss but not upset yet, and one of the first things I say is, "Good morning, Bridget!" She gets the cutest little looks on her face as she's opening her eyes, focusing on me, yawning, and getting in her first morning stretches. She's also got that I just woke up look (a bit sleepy still) around the eyes. And she's usually so happy--until I go to feed her and have to put her down again because Mya wants in or out (Mya has an instinct about bad timing when it comes to things like this). But it's all good once she starts eating.

Until tomorrow (if Bridget and Al let me, of course!).