Our Time-Out Rules

Time-out. That’s a common word around here. Frankly, with a toddler, it’s just the law of the land. I had no idea how to approach “Time-out” when I first started, so after reading up, asking friends and testing out several approaches we finally settled on something that works for us. These are our Time-Out Rues (And please know that it works most of the time…but man oh man, there are days when it all comes crashing down. But all in all, it works).

In preparation for time-outs, you should do two things:

  1. Set your ground rules and have everyone in the house agree and follow them. This includes parents, grandparents, nanny, etc. Once those are set, you have to absolutely stand by them, no exceptions. Example: No jumping on the couch, no hitting, no touching the tv, etc…

  2. Designate a time-out spot. Preferably one where there is no entertainment of any kind. You must be able to supervise too, so don’t make it too secluded. A wall or a corner works just fine. And remember, time-outs exist everywhere, you just have to use your imagination. (ie playground, someone else’s home, etc).

Continue reading “Our Time-Out Rules”

It’s All Coming Back to Me Now Breastfeeding Parody

Hey!

Soooo, breastfeeding sucked for me the first time around. I mean, like, really really sucked. Three torturous months of no sleep, 2 cases of mastitis, over supply of milk, leak pads, cabbage leaves, carrying breast milk everywhere, shitty bras and SO much pain. So I wrote a parody on the subject since now, I have baby #2 on the way and it’s inevitably “all coming back to me now”.

Here’s the story behind the video, if you’re interested:

My first born, Alfie, was born with tongue tie, a small water bubble under the front of his tongue that didn’t allow for him to latch on to my breast. Because of that, I pumped. The tongue tie disappeared after a week or so, but he was already used to the bottle, so he never latched on after that. No worries, since I was still providing breastmilk.

I kept pumping and pumping and pumping at the suggested intervals and after a month, I was tired. I was ready for all of this to be over. I had already gotten mastitis and the pain and leaking was just intolerable. I hated it. However, because of the mastitis, I couldn’t just drop the whole thing, or take a magic pill and be done with it. I had to wait another two weeks with antibiotics for the mastitis to clear out and then wean out, which would elongate the process further, much to my dismay. So I went with it. Continue reading “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now Breastfeeding Parody”

Why I Made the Transition from Full Time Working Mom to Stay at Home Mom

After being a full-time working girl for over 11 years, I am now dedicating my life to being a wife and mom. Whaaat?! After giving birth and coming to terms with motherhood, it’s crazy how priorities change. Everyone tells you about it but you can’t feel the weight of it all until it happens to you.

At first, I was hesitant about making this change. Can we afford it? Am I sabotaging my career’s future? What will I do with my time (what time?) It was a real internal struggle. There were a lot of tears, self fabricated excuses and countless conversations with my incredibly supportive husband who kept saying “whatever you want to do is fine with me”. How I love that man! I wanted him to give me the answer since I was so indecisive, but of course he knows better. The decision was entirely up to me.

The more I thought about it, the more sense leaving my job made. I wanted to enjoy my baby boy and my situation at the moment wasn’t allowing me to embrace that wholeheartedly. Work was stressing me out a lot and I had already experienced several instances or “signs” telling me that a change in career/life was coming.

Alfie and I at my previous job
Alfie and I at my previous job

I started digging deep and and asked myself some juicy questions like; Do I want to continue down this career path? What is the right thing to do? Will I be able to survive emotionally/mentally, without a full-time job? And then ultimately taking a deep breath and asking myself; Is this how I want to live my life? The answer was simply NO. Continue reading “Why I Made the Transition from Full Time Working Mom to Stay at Home Mom”

Don’t Leave Before You Leave

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg discusses women, leadership and success in her book Lean Inn released back in 2013. Among all of the important and valuable messages that she mentions there was one in particular that resonated with me simply because I thought it adequately described a particular situation I was going through. The message was the following; “Don’t leave before you leave.”

I heard this at the precise moment when I was dead set on resigning from my corporate job. She explains the phrase “Don’t leave before you leave” as the moment in a woman’s life when she thinks it’s time to give up her job because she sees not being able to attend to her future, unborn children if she remains working. In other words, it is “looking for the exit before it’s time” says Sheryl. Whoa. Light bulb moment!

The reason why it resonated with me so much was because I was going through both a future resignation and a plan to start a family. As I looked at my situation I thought, “Oh man! Am I doing exactly what Sheryl says NOT to do? Am I leaving because I want to start a family inthe future and I don’t see myself wanting to come back to this job?” It hit me hard and it started to take over my mind until I quickly decided to let it go. I realized that it was in my best interest not to fret and let time take care of it. Continue reading “Don’t Leave Before You Leave”

10 Months of Alfie

It’ crazy how fast kids grow. Everyone tells you but you don’t really get to grasp it until you see it unfolding right before your very eyes. In the last month alone, my baby has really surprised us with how quickly he’s growing.

A few days before Alfie turned 9 months, he started fully crawling. He would drag himself “boot camp style” all over our floors prior to this. It wasn’t long before he started lifting himself up and walking while supported/assisted. Now at 10 months he’s not far from balancing his little body on his own. He follows us wherever we go and we love hearing those baby hands slapping on the floor making their way around the corner. We crawl under the tables and chairs, we scare each other around every corner of the house and we laugh and laugh. Continue reading “10 Months of Alfie”

7 Tips for Traveling With an Infant

Hello everyone!

We are halfway through baseball amateur scouting season and boy has it been a fun but tiring ride!  Traveling with a baby is complicated enough (all the planning and prepping) but when the baby starts getting older and wants to crawl and move around and explore, it starts getting a little bit trickier, especially if you are flying solo. Having him on my lap for the duration of a flight or having him strapped to his car seat for long periods of time takes a lot more thought and planning. Been there? I feel ya!

It’s even worse when your plane was supposed to leave at 12:50 PM and you end up delayed with an actual departure time of 4:15 PM.  I’m one of those moms that’s always ready and organized, of course, until this time.  This was the one damn time when I figured there would be no need to take more than what we needed. I also had {still have} bad back pain so I wanted to avoid any additional weight in my shoulder bag/diaper bag/Mary Poppins bag O’tricks. Luckily, we were OK and I was able to manage Alfie’s hunger with what I had plus a banana and blueberry yogurt that I got at the airport. The little dude behaved like a champ. Whew! Continue reading “7 Tips for Traveling With an Infant”

5 Must Have Items for New Mom & Baby

Hey future mamas and papas! Listen up! In the short amount of time it takes to prepare for a baby that’s on the way, there are way too many decisions to make. What type of crib do we get? Which doctor will deliver our munchkin? What stroller best fits our lifestyle? How are we going to decorate the nursery? While it’s all very exciting, it’s also exhausting. As a new mom, I want to share my list of must have items that helped me a lot during the insanity of the first three months of a child’s life.

The sooner you prepare, the better. Life gets a heck of a lot more complicated after that baby comes into the world. Something as trivial as getting milk at the grocery store all of a sudden turns into an episode of The Amazing Race. Seriously. I hope the items listed below give you a bit more insight into post-birth must haves! Continue reading “5 Must Have Items for New Mom & Baby”

The Day My Life Changed Forever

It’s been about three months since I gave birth to our son. It has been such an emotionally overwhelming, difficult but beautiful experience! So much has happened in the last three months that I could write a whole book about it! It’s crazy how life changes in an instant. I love being a mom and every day brings new challenges. I would like to take this opportunity and share how it all went down the day our baby boy decided to join us. I’m sure you’ll enjoy this story too! Ready for this long post? Here we go…

On Monday June 8th 2015 I headed out to work just like every other day. My thoughts were on my husband, Frankie Frankie “FF”, and the importance of that day for his career. It was the first day of the 2015 MLB Draft. (For more info on the story behind my hubby’s career and how it affects the family you can click on this link here). He had already been in Arizona for two weeks at the Draft Meetings preparing for this big day and this was it. For all the marbles. All he needed were these three more days in Phoenix, AZ to start and finish the official MLB draft. I took a look at my maternity bag on the floor next to my bed but opted not to take it with me this time. (Of course). You think you know where this story is going…?? Read on…

Continue reading “The Day My Life Changed Forever”

Are YOU a Leader in Your Own Life?

On September 12-14 I had the pleasure of attending the Hispana Leadership Summit at the Disney Grand Floridian Resort in Orlando, Florida. This event promotes the importance of leadership in Hispanic women in all aspects of life. This event surfaced those conflicting and guilt driven conversations we have with ourselves. It brought to life the things we know and talk about but fail to put into action. Speakers, panelists and fellow attendees managed to share their wisdom and experience to help those women who need inspiration and motivation to get back on the horse.

Here are some quotes and thoughts from some of the speakers at the event that struck a chord with me:

“The pursuit of perfection prevents progress” – Luly Balepogi “Balance is Bull$h!t” www.LulyB.com @LulyBTweets

“Live life. Don’t let life live you.” -Bert Oliva “Body Talk” www.Bowaworld.net

“You are not your mind.” Cecilia Ramírez Harris, “The Power of Positive Thinking” Univision Networks “Nuestros Hijos”

“I’m dispatching trucks while tweeting to a fan who’s at Walgreens looking for deals. It’s all about the interaction with people and loving what you do” – Myrah Duque “Latina Blogger Success Stories” www.CouponMamacita.com

“Changes happen. Adapt and overcome” – Irene Zoppi “Courageous Leadership” Commissioner for the state of Maryland

You see, sometimes we lose ourselves in our work, in our families, in our relationships and in our thoughts. I’ve been there before and I bet you have too. We need to find a way to recognize those symptoms and then pull ourselves out and back in control of our life. The choices we make on a daily basis can get us there. Are you making yourself a priority? Are YOU a leader in your own Life? Are you happy?

Luly B. couldn’t have said it better, “Put your oxygen mask on first and then help the person next to you” Sounds simple, but can be so difficult to obtain.

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Feel good dancing during Bert Oliva’s talk
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Putting in my 2 cents during Luly B’s keynote

Take a moment to think and ask yourself; are you a leader in your own life?

Have a great day!

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Miss Ideas Webisode #3 – Buenas ideas para envolver regalos

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This is the third episode for Miss Ideas on Yahoo En Español. Here I teach you how to wrap gifts in three different and unique ways! You can get so creative with this and you’ll definitely get some compliments! It doesn’t take much time and it’s pretty easy to do. Just watch and learn! If you have any other suggestions or comments, please let me know below! I would love to hear what ideas you have.

Subscribe to my blog by clicking on the +Follow link at the bottom right of your screen to receive email alerts every time I publish a new post. xoxo

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Éste es el tercer episodio de Miss Ideas para Yahoo en Español. Aquí les enseño como envolver regalos de trés maneras diferentes. Es muy fácil y no toma mucho tiempo. Solo necesitas tu imaginación y ¡listo! Vean el video y dejenme saber si les gusta. Si tienes algun comentario o sugerencia, me encantaría escucharla! Escribelo abajo en la sección de comentarios.

Subscríbete a mi blog con hacerle click al link +Follow localizado a la derecha en la parte baja de tu monitor. Recibirás un email cada vez que publique un post nuevo. xoxo

Thanks so much for reading! ¡Muchas gracias por leer mi blog!

Z~
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