I’ve been a mom for a little over four years now, which at 30, takes up a mere 13% of my life. The knowledge, experience, and growth I have gained in these past four years has saturated my mom-brain so much that I sometimes forget about the other 87% of my life (and that I brewed a pot of coffee 3 hours ago). After having my daughter, two years ago,  I realized that there were so many things I didn’t expect in motherhood, and wish someone had shared these things with me sooner. I’m here to share my motherhood badges of wisdom that I have gained over the past few years.

It’s completely normal to mourn the transition from one to two kids (and beyond).

In the months leading up to my daughter’s birth, this incredible mom guilt started to creep in on me. Once our second baby was born, I would no longer be able to give my full attention and care to my son. Would he resent me for this someday? How would he handle the transition? I had heard a mix of results from friends over how new siblings were received and I just prayed he would handle the transition well. Then right around my son’s second birthday, he qualified for speech therapy for expressive speech and his sister was due two months later. I felt even more emotional at that point. I just wanted to soak even more time in with him so he knew how much I loved and cared for him. It was around this time a friend of mine told me this wisdom: “It’s okay to mourn the ending for your single child days.” Knowing my sadness was not uncommon made me feel so much better – and yes, I cried. I made a point of having a mother-son date with him before his sister was born, which helped me cope better. Then, of course, when he became a big brother, all my fears and questions dissipated over time. He’s a great big brother, and although I can’t devote my attention to him 100% of the time, he’s growing, maturing and showing me that he’s doing just fine. In hindsight, I’m so glad I got my tears out – it helped!

Second newborns can be easier than firstborns.

Hear me out on this – once you’ve had a newborn once, you have a decent idea of how to handle another tiny human. You sway your hips back and forth when you hold another newborn, you make your tried-and-true shushing sounds and you realize how light as a feather they are compared to your other child(ren). You’ve survived the newborn stage once, but you’re in a brand-new stage with your firstborn. My son had just entered the terrible twos when his sister was born – I wish I had known sooner how much more difficult it would be to parent him compared to his freshly born sister. Don’t be afraid to grab a book from your local library, or join one of those free webinars on parenting toddlers on facebook; I’m not kidding, that’s what saved my sanity with my sweet son.

Grant yourself some grace on your hardest days.

Motherhood is hard, you probably know that by now. On the days where you are covered in spit-up, drank two cups of cold coffee, and managed to keep two or more kids alive and thriving, remember, you’re still  #MomStrong. Let’s be real – you’re doing one heck of a job raising little men and women who take time to learn and grow into who we pray they will be someday. It’s a process that can take a toll on your every fiber, so don’t believe for a second you aren’t worthy. As my friend Daniel Tiger says, “Do your best – your best is the best for you!” Give yourself some grace when that balance doesn’t come at the get-go. It took me roughly 6 months after having my daughter, before I began to feel like a balanced mom again.

Do NOT overdo yourself when you are pregnant and after childbirth – especially with second babies and beyond.

I know, I know – doctor’s orders after childbirth are to rest and let your body heal. This is way easier said than done, especially with second children and beyond. With your first child, (in my experience) there is usually more help offered, meals delivered, and more provided. However, once your second child is born (even though it’s equally as exciting), the aid offered just doesn’t compare. I found myself doing more dishes, loads of laundry, and chores because I thought I would be fine. Truth is – hauling the Christmas tree up our townhouse stairs, as well as carrying all the décor up BY MYSELF, was such a terrible idea. My super pregnant body couldn’t handle it, and I ended up with some rough sciatic pain the last few weeks of my second pregnancy. My last item on this list is the result of my overdoing taking down all those Christmas decorations AFTER I had my daughter. So please, ask for help with the chores; if it’s not a necessity, don’t stress over it. Your body will thank you!

Pelvic floor therapy is a thing – AND it’s wonderful!

As I mentioned, I may have overdone myself during my second pregnancy and after my second childbirth. After having my daughter, I had some repeat issues with scar tissue not healing, and I ended up going to my gynecologist a handful of times to get it cauterized (ouch, I repeat ouch)! Around the second time I decided it was time to address my insides. I had recently taken a mirror down below and got so freaked out that I almost passed out. What was happening and why did it feel like I had a tampon falling out all day long? Long story short, my bladder prolapsed. I do not fit any of the descriptions of people at risk for a prolapse so I was completely shocked and horrified. Thank goodness I asked questions and followed through with a women's health specialist who specializes in pelvic floor therapy. I’ve seen my therapist for 1.5 years now, it’s taken time (and work) but I am doing so much better now. My therapist was able to help me with my scar tissue AND bladder prolapse. I had no idea pelvic floor therapy existed until I asked questions and did a ton of research regarding my prolapse. Even without my issues, I’ve learned that it’s something that’s incredibly beneficial to any mom who has gone through childbirth. If you suspect you aren’t where you should be after having your little one(s), ask your doctor what your options are – I highly recommend therapy.

So you you're a hot mess mom but want people think you are THAT mom who over-achieves and makes the holidays extra special for your kids and family? Instead of cutting up your fruit and putting it all into a bowl you can just as easily create this super cute fruit turkey and meat and cheese turkey. These are great to use for parties at school or work.

Cheese and Meat Turkey

This is actually super easy to make. If you buy the cheese tray at your local store that is already pre cut, all you'll need to do is lay the cheese out in layers for the turkey feathers.

Ingredients

• 1 Package Tollhouse Crackers
• 1 Pre cut cheese package (Cheddar and Colby Jack cheese)
• 1 Package of pepperoni

Instructions

1. Arrange the crackers on the outer edge of the plate.
2. Next layer cheese in another layer on the crackers.
3. Layer pepperoni.
4. Continue layering cheese and pepperoni until you've reached the center.
5. Create a Turkey Face.
6. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Fruit Turkey

Ingredients

• 8 Cutie oranges- peeled and separated
• 1 Pear
• 3 Kiwis sliced
• 1 Pound Strawberries- cut in half
• 1/2 Pound Fresh Pineapple- cut into chunks
• 3 Cups Purple Grapes

Instructions

1. Arrange fruit starting at outer edge with oranges, kiwis, strawberries, blueberries, pineapples, and grapes.
2. Use half of the pear for the turkey body. Using pineapple for legs and beak. You can use blueberry or grapes to make the eyes.
3. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

If all else fails just bring all the ingredients in a grocery sack and hope that those wild things we call kids can fend for themselves. If they eat the skin of the oranges, kiwi or the pineapple, it's just extra fiber right? Let's just hope they are advanced enough to know not to eat the plastic that the crackers, cheese and pepperoni are wrapped in. Just remember to take the bag away before it becomes a toy...

Tips and Tricks For Putting on Your New Nageuret Premium Reusable Swim Diaper

I hear you momma. You're tired and you don't have enough brain power from lack of sleep (we’re pretty much there with you 24/7). So I wanted to give you a step by step guide on how to size your new Nageuret Premium Reusable Swim Diaper. 

Snaps and snaps and snaps and snaps

First things first there are two different sets of snaps:

1. There are snaps that change the size around the waist & legs and
2. There are snaps in the front that change the rise of the swim diaper so that it isn't bulky and baggy.

The leg and waist sizing snaps are the most important ones you need to pay attention to in order to avoid being the dreaded cause of a pool evacuation. Those are the ones that need to be snug and tight around the waist and leggies to prevent escapees. The rise snaps actually just help with the look of the swim diaper, they don't have any real adjustment on the 'seal' of the diaper.

How tight is “tight?”

You know that feeling you get when you have a brand new hair tie that you leave on your wrist for too long, the dark purple mark that it leaves, this is the type of mark you don't want to leave on your baby from a swim diaper. But the marks you get from new socks that are tight, so they stay up and not fall into your shoe. These are the marks that are okay to see on your baby and you probably want to see them so you know you had the swim diaper tight enough so poop doesn't leak out and then cause the pool to close.

Sizing for Newborns- size 2 Diapers (6lbs to 18+/-lbs)

For the smallest of babies wearing disposable diaper sizes newborn-2 you'll want to snap all of the snaps around the waist. You'll also want to adjust the rise snaps to all the way up. You'll want to snap the rise snaps before trying to put the diaper on. I often will snap one side for the waist as well, slide it on, make sure it gets into the crease of the leg (where the leg meets the groin) and then snap the otherside. You are welcome to put a swim suit over the swim diaper or you can just wear the swim diaper by itself. Beau is funny, he’s SUPER particualr so most of the time we wear ours under a swimsuit (unless we’re trying to advertise… haha) then put on a swim shirt.

Most babies at this age or either exclusively breastfed or are on formula. If you know your baby tends to have explosive poops that their regular diapers can't contain, neither will swim diapers. Please take this into consideration when going swimming with a baby who isn't on solid food yet. Whether your baby is still on breastmilk, formula, or has moved on to solids it’s essential that you are very aware of when your baby does poop so you can change them immediately before their liquidy poop is watered down even more by swimming. Some swim schools and pools require extra protection with a disposable swim diaper underneath a reusable until a baby has solid poop.

Sizing for between diaper sizes 2&4 (+/-18lbs to +/-27lbs)

The middle size two snaps on each side around the waist and the first row of rise snaps buttoned usually fits babies who wear disposable diapers size 2-4. Please be aware that some babies with thicker thighs may not fit this diaper. When we say it fits newborn-3 we aren't trying to mislead you. We have several customers who have a late potty trainer who can still wear this diaper at 3 and are 36lbs-40lbs, but they tend to be taller with skinnier thighs.

Sizing for diaper sizes 4-5 (+/-27 to +/-36lbs)

The largest size would be one set of snaps on both sides of the waist and no rise snaps buttoned. Beau (our son) is now 2 and he weighs about 32lbs and is about 36" wears the diaper like this. If we want the diaper to fit more like underwear under his toddler belly, we will snap the first row of rise snaps.

If you are seeing that the diaper is holding water in the bottom, you'll want to make sure that the elastic is in the crease of the legs. This will reduce the amount of water the swim diaper holds. Before you take your baby out of the pool make sure there's no poop in there and simply let the water release by breaking the seal around your child's leg.

Why we developed the Nageuret line of Swim Diapers

Paul and I developed and chose this design for our Nageuret line of swim diapers because I didn't want to have to keep buying a swim diaper every three months. It was important to us as an outdoorsy family that the swim diapers we made were both cost-effective for families on a budget (like ours) and were environmentally friendly. We wanted something that we could keep using over and over again, and that had the ability to grow with Beau. The elastic around the waist and legs is strong, but also soft so it doesn't create chaffing like the other brands.

At the time I wrote this blog we’re in the second stage of prototype testing a larger version of our Nageuret Swim Diaper that we’re aiming to fit kiddos between 20-55lbs. We’re really hoping that we can have this finished up by January or February next year so we can get it online. The only complaints that we’ve had historically are that (like I mentioned above) the swim diaper doesn’t fit our chunkier littles that use it, so this new larger size will meet that need.

Give us feedback!

As a small, family-owned and operated company your input and feedback is extremely important to us! If we didn’t hear from our customers that the swim diapers don’t fit the kiddos with chunkier thighs, we wouldn’t know and wouldn’t have been able to start developing the larger size (since Beau’s on the skinny/light side). So please, don’t hesitate to call us or email us with your ideas and feedback. If you have a product that you really need or want to see made, let us know! We really do value all of the input we receive and need that input.

To say Rachelle and I are excited to be able to watch the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) establish a dynasty is a bit of an understatement: We’re enormous fans – we even made a trip to watch them play in the group stage of the World Cup in Vancouver last summer, and for our 5th anniversary this summer we bought tickets to see them play Japan at Dicks Sporting Goods park here in Colorado. Watching this last game today vs Sweden today was both amazing and heartbreaking. It’s amazing that women’s sports have come so far in America and the world that the US team losing to Sweden is such the upset that it is; heartbreaking to see our ladies get eliminated so early. At least they made it to the olympics, unlike our men's team ;)

Our family has loved cheering the USWNT throughout this tournament and watching all of America salute some of our finest athletes. It’s also wonderful to see the amount of support the women receive when they’re in the Olympic spotlight, and to think about how many young girls they’re inspiring.

I’m sure players like Hope Solo, Julie Johnston, Mallory Pugh, and Crystal Dunn (and the list goes on) will continue to inspire another generation of girls to go out and try soccer – or swimming, or basketball or any of the other athletic opportunities available to them – but the U.S. Women’s Team’s reach extends far beyond the pitch. They’re a force for equality.

Beyond the Pitch

As the most decorated women’s soccer team in both Olympic Gold Medal wins and World Cup titles in history, the players’ tenacity on the field has been celebrated for years; but they recently shone a light into one of the darkest corners of the athletic world: gender inequality and gender-based discrimination. In April, members of the team filed a formal complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accusing U.S. Soccer of wage discrimination. Some of the biggest names in the game – Hope Solo, Carli Lloyd and Alex Morgan – are sick of being treated like second-class athletes. Despite being the most watched Soccer Match in US history, the USWNT is paid pennies on the dollar compared to their male counterparts. I don’t want to focus too much on the numbers, as there’s plenty to read elsewhere, but they face up to a 263 percent disparity in pay when compared to Men’s National Team.

That’s one heck of a glass ceiling, and I’d love to see them (cue the drum roll for an #epicdadjoke) bicycle-kick a ball right through the middle of it.

More Than Fandom

For Rachelle and I, US soccer, especially the USWNT, is more than a hobby. It’s a bit of a lifestyle. Like many girls, Rachelle saw youth soccer as an opportunity to have fun and make friends, and joined a youth program when she was a five-year-old. When she was 11, she was passionate and skilled enough to make the jump to competitive leagues. By high school, recruiters were looking at her as a scholarship prospect before she was even a high-school upperclassman.

A broken leg and a trio of concussions put the brakes on those plans, but she’s still heavily invested in the sport. Some of her former teammates play in Women’s Major League Soccer, and after growing up immersed in the culture, it is naturally a big part of our family life.

If injuries hadn’t sidelined Rachelle there’s a chance she’d be facing the same earnings gap as other female pro soccer players. Questions of gender equity in athletics have been around for decades, and it’s encouraging to see the women’s national team use their phenomenal success to bring us closer to getting answers.

A Future For Our Daughters

My mother is a huge influence on my life, she would always say, “If you can dream it, you can achieve it,” she was taught this by her mother, who was taught this by her mother, and so on. This belief is a bedrock of my personality and has influenced my life as an entrepreneur. Rachelle and I work to embed this belief in Beau, and while we don’t have a daughter yet, we hope that if and when we do, her opportunities and the rewards for her hard work and talent aren’t defined by her gender or restricted because of slowly shifting societal norms.

I can’t imagine that any of the dads of the millions of girls growing up in America right now would want anything different, either. It’s only natural that every parent would want the best for his or her son or daughter. That’s the keystone of parenthood: the promise of potential and our duty as moms and dads to do everything in our power to help our children achieve that promise.

The women wearing red, white and blue onto the pitch aren’t just soccer players or athletes. They’re not just women. They’re someone’s daughter, and as a parent, I can only hope they get everything they’ve earned. It’s what we should all expect for our daughters, isn’t it?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this issue so comment below! But please remember to be courteous, or else :)