Back in the s(w)addle again

My Miracle Blankets arrived yesterday. It's so ironic that this happened now. As longtime readers (hi Mom!) know, I recently stopped swaddling Ava. It's not that I don't have love for the swaddle. When I was in the hospital after she was born, one of the things I most looked forward to about going home was swaddling her with the technique I learned for Jonah (the Super Swaddle) in our own stretchy blankets. I don't remember exactly when we stopped swaddling Jonah, but I think he was at least 5 1/2 months old.

But Ava wriggled her way out of the swaddle with considerably more ease than he did. When it was clear that the Super Swaddle was no longer enough to contain Ava, I was at a crossroads. One path was to stop swaddling. The other was to try the Miracle Blanket. But I didn't want to shell out when I had no idea if it would work (and when she'd only be swaddled for a few more weeks or months anyway), so when we implemented the Great Baby Move of 2009, we stopped swaddling her, thinking we'd do all the sleep transitions at once.

Enter the Sling and Swaddle Journey, and I find myself in a pickle. Do I go back three weeks, and start swaddling her again? Or do I let these fabulous blankets languish in a closet?

I figure, as long as I have them, I might as well take them for a test drive. It's only sleep, after all!

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Slinging and Swaddling My Way Through June

Note: I had originally scheduled this to go up on June 1st, but delayed it to post yesterday's installment about Dr. Tiller.

Follow me at http://twitter.com/Mom_04!

Today marks the first day of the Sling and Swaddle Journey, a contest of 30 moms who are tweeting about their lives with their babies. I was so excited when I learned that I had been chosen to be one of the 30 moms. You can read all the details at the Sling and Swaddle website, but basically, all 30 of us have been set up with Twitter accounts, and we'll be "tweeting" like crazy from now until June 30. (We also got two Miracle Blankets and a Hotsling to help us along our journey!) The mom who has the most followers, the most updates, and the most creative content will win a fabulous grand prize package.

Since I got the word that I'd been selected, I've been practicing over at Twitter, as well as stockpiling some blog post ideas (and clever tweets!). And I've discovered that I have a lot of ideas about things I could be writing about, aside from the standard "update the grandmothers" photo shoot kinda post. I've been saying I don't have time, but really, I just need to make the time to do this instead of something else. (Something else has lately been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD.) Anyway, it's given me a whole new perspective on things, and I thought I'd start this journey by sharing a few of the things I'm planning to write about, as well as a few of the new things I'm going to be trying in the next 30 days.

Things I want to write about:

• Sleep (you knew that was coming, right?)
• Gender roles (as they relate to my kids)
• Losing baby weight (hello, Weight Watchers!)
• Easy meal ideas
• Parenting two children

Things I'm going to do (or try to do) this month:

• Blog twice a week.
• Start the 100 pushups training program. I learned about this from a friend almost a year ago, and tucked it away. It's time.
• Implement more FlyLady stuff. I started this with gusto in April, but I've sputtered a bit.
• Make progress on my grad school application. Yes, I really am going back to school to become an accountant.
• Hire a contractor to remodel our bathroom.

Seeing it all spelled out like that is kind of scary, but also scarily motivating. It's going to be a busy month. Buckle up!