This was our first year to participate in Cow Appreciation day at Chick-fil-a, but not our first time to to get free food from them. I have always been a fan of their waffle fries and lemonade, but I think they really stole my heart when I went through the drive thru with my yellow lab in the back seat and they had a doggie treat to give him! How thoughtful is that? I sent them an email expressing my love for all things Chick-fil-a, and what did they do? Send me a coupon for free food of course. I have gotten free food on multiple occasions when they are promoting a new menu item. At the end of last year I went on a night where you got a green receipt with your order, which was good to use anytime in 2010 to come back and get the exact same order for free (which I did). From the looks of the Life As Mom blog the San Diego area offered free dinner every night last week! Many restaurants have a weekly family fun night where kids eat free or if you really want to go all out you can be one of the first customers at a new chick-fil-a location and get free chicken for a year. I don’t know how they can afford to do so many freebies, but it seems to really be working for them. The best way to find out what is happening in your area is to sign up for the email or text insiders at chick-fil-a .com

We had so much fun dressing like cows. We got 3 meals for free and left without paying a dime. It definitely makes me want to eat more chicken.

This post is linked to Frugal Fridays at Lifeasmom.com

SJ’s latest discovery has been her thumb. I was a thumb sucker once. I remember my best friend being a nail biter, me being a thumb sucker, and our parents being desperate to get us to drop our habits. This soothing ritual lasted until I was preschool age, but I have heard many stories of children being dependant on this method of comfort well beyond kindergarten. I admit to panicking at the sight of SJ with her thumb in her mouth. All I could think about was years of struggling to get her to stop, endless orthodontic problems, and everyone else’s criticism on the subject. But in the midst of all that I am looking at a cute little baby, a baby that seems peaceful and content. That’s when I pulled out my stash of books about babies and hit google to find out as much as I could on the subject. Every Doctor, author, and expert said the same thing, “stop worrying and let your baby indulge herself.”*. Apparently I am not the only mother who has had these concerns.

Not only is it suggested that baby thumb sucking is okay there are even some advantages to using a thumb over a pacifier.

1. Baby thumbs never roll under furniture or a shelf at the store to party with dust bunnies and dead roaches.
2. Thumbs are readily available to a baby when they are in the back seat and you can’t reach them while driving.
3. Thumb sucking babies sleep through the night better.
4. On a shallow note, it’s cuter than the big green silicone Soothie that I am used to.
5. It makes for a happy and independent baby.

After all the research that I’ve done about whether it’s okay for my baby to suck her thumb, the answer was a resounding yes! The only time for concern is if a baby is sucking instead of eating when they are hungry, which if you have seen my 15 pounder this is not a problem. Also if the child is thumb sucking in the formative years of permanent teeth. This scares me a lot, but I am going to go with the experts advice which is to calm down and cross that bridge when/if we get to it.
I may be jumping the gun on labeling my little one when she is still in the experimental stage, but we’ll see.
Any other former thumb suckers out there, or maybe parents of one? Advice and expertise welcome.

*The quote is from What To Expect The First Year

The first Toy Story premiered in 1995. Think back 15 years. I was only 12, a scrawny little middle school kid that had just moved from Kentucky to the Atlanta suburbs. I saw Toy Story in the theater 3 times. It was the first time most of us had ever seen computer animation and we were all enthralled! I couldn’t believe how life like it all seemed! I loved it so much that when it came out on VHS I had to own it. The 2nd Toy Story premiered 4 years later. Do you remember what you were doing in 1999? I was a busy, wild, but not too wild 16 year old living in the Dallas suburbs. When I saw Toy Story 2 I was with my family and my future husband. Of course we were just friends back then, in fact the second time I went to see Toy Story 2 I was on a date with another guy. I just checked my journal to verify this, because I would not have remembered it otherwise. Now here we are 15 years later in 2010 and I am about to be 28. I just saw Toy Story 3 for the first time yesterday with my parents, husband, and two children.

It was Z’s first movie theater experience and it was a good one. Throughout the film the whole audience would simultaneously erupt with laughter, gasp at the suspense, and even fight to hold back tears. Some could argue that the movie itself wasn’t terribly dramatic, but it evoked a lot emotion in me. I’ve got history with these toys. The beloved characters that taught me so much. In the first movie I learned about being true to myself and realizing my calling. The second Toy Story taught me about loyalty and this last movie was really a lesson in growing up and letting go.

From being a kid myself and experiencing computer animation for the first time, to watching my kid light up at the sight of the toys on the big screen for the first time, the Toy Story movies will always be special to me I guess you could say to infinity and beyond.

BREAST. There I said it, not nursing and not just feeding. I am actually becoming a little more comfortable with people knowing that I do in fact have breasts and I do use them to nurture my baby. I remember meeting some friends at a restaurant as a first time mom and when we got there I told my husband “I need to feed the baby, but you go on ahead. If they ask where I am tell them I am nursing. DON’T say breastfeeding!” It actually came up in conversation with the group later and ended up being a funny topic that we could all laugh about.

I wondered how my son would handle the whole thing with me breastfeeding his baby sister. He is a very observant little two year old and I almost feared what kind of questions he would come up with. It’s been three months now and he has adapted to the whole process quite well. A lot better than his mother who has possibly become jaded by a culture that looks at the female anatomy as a strictly sexual commodity. The funny thing is he gets the words “eat” and “feed” mixed up so he always says “Oh No mama! She’s cwying. You need to eat her.” or “are you eating my sister?” One time he actually tried to nurse a baby doll. He said that the baby was hungry and then lifted up his shirt, but after wrestling with the position he dropped the baby and said “he’s too heavy”. Thankfully I don’t ever have to worry about him taking on that responsibility in real life!

I have a friend that has 7 kids and one day she was in the nursery and when doing a head count asked one of her children “where is Seth” and the child responded “mom you’re feeding him”. Yeah, true story. I am not THAT comfortable with the whole process yet. I don’t want to give off the impression that I go around pulling out my boob everywhere, and yes I still say nursing when I feel it’s more appropriate. In the end though it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Here I am thinking it’s some bazaar behavior that will freak out my son and he just looks at it as a part of life, like it’s natural, and he’s right.

I don’t even know how to put into words how I felt at the end of the Lost series. In the past 3 days I must have transitioned through all 5 stages of grief in regards to the finale episode. I think that I have maybe come to terms with the fact that I will not have all the answers and that it is just a show. When Jimmy Kimmel predicted that the end would be the smoke monster spelling “Gotcha Suckas” in the sky I should have known!

The Lost obsession began with my husband and I renting the DVDs from Netflix. Gradually more and more of our friends started to join until there were a dozen Lost fans piled in the living room on the edge of our seats watching one episode after the other into the wee hours of the morning. I was listening to podcasts with recaps and theories. I even had an autographed photo of Terry O’quinn the actor that played John Locke!

My aunt and uncle live in LA as actors and writers believe it or not and they are good friends with Terry (can I call him Terry since they do?). I mentioned my obsession with the show once while visiting them out and California. My aunt told me that next time she talked to Terry she would see if she could get me a souvenir or something.

A month or so later I get a manila envelope in the mail hand addressed to me with a return address from Hawaii. I was perplexed as to who would be sending me something from Hawaii. I opened it to discover this…

“To Natalie, with best wishes. I remember Waxahachie, Places In the Heart, 1983. All the best to you Natalie. Terry O’Quinn- LOCKE”

I was so excited about that photo. I ran around the house screaming like a 13 year old girl at a Jonas Brother’s concert. When my aunt talked to Terry she just asked if she could get something to give to me, and he volunteered to send something himself. When she gave him my address she started to spell Waxahachie, and he said, “Oh, I know how to spell Waxahachie” because he was in a movie that was filmed here. Since then Terry O’Quinn has managed to have a character stay alive on LOST, which if you watch the show, that is a feat in and of itself. He also won an Emmy in 2007 for his role as John Locke.

After 6 seasons of Lost viewers started loosing interest and much like the cast members that were killed off in the show, our little fan club dwindled over time. However for the series finale we made a special effort to get together and celebrate this momentous occasion like old times. My friend made some rockin’ t-shirts. Mine said LOST on top and had the Dharma logo then at the bottom it said “we want answers 5-23-10” we have since joked about inserting the word “still” now that it’s over. SJ’s onesie said “I’m a little lost”.

We had mango quesadillas and fruit on a fish platter as part of the island theme and we all piled in the living room one more time to watch the final episode on the same little square tv that started it all 5 years ago.

Regardless of the ending, I don’t know if any show will ever captivate me like Lost did and I don’t know that I would want it to, but for those of us that were faithful to the end there is some sort of camaraderie. We will always be able to remember the good ol’ days when we were all LOST.

If you follow this blog at all you know that when I write I call my husband J and my son Z and since we have had this latest addition in our lives I have just been calling her by her name (Sedona) because S didn’t sound right. I thought about doing two letters, but all I could think of was “baby Sedona” or “baby sister”, but “BS” was certainly not an option for my daughters nick name. This was almost as hard as choosing her real name (not really). Now that she is about to be 6 weeks old I think I’ve got it!

I watched The Blind Side for the first time last night. I know I am behind, but movie watching isn’t exactly on the top of my list of priorities right now. Anyway, I absolutely loved it and in the film (and in real life) there is a boy named is SJ which stands for Sean Jr. and I liked the way it sounded and since it is her initials from here on out Sedona Jean will go by SJ. I am not worried about anyone seeing our names, especially since I am no longer “writing for the masses” or participating in memes and blog carnivals. I have decided to keep the nicknames though because it’s easy, and I’ve been doing it for nearly two years now.

You’ll be hearing about SJ a lot these days because with Z he had his own website that I kept up with until he was two and so I am kind of substituting that with blogging. Here is a copy of the birth announcement we sent out of our little miss SJ…

I definitely will be posting more details and photos in the future, but I wanted to make a quick announcement. I had my baby last night (well technically this morning) at 12:40 am. Sedona Jean weighed 8 lb 7 oz, was 20.5 in, and as healthy and cute as can be. She latched on pretty much right off the bat and so breast feeding has been easy, other than the postpartum contractions which just make me want to pass out!

Everything about the birth was amazing. The intense labor lasted less than an hour so things progressed very quickly! It was a little scary at times, with plenty of unplanned events (let’s just say I didn’t wear my birth gown during the birth), but it was everything I could have ever dreamed of and more.

More to come my friends, more to come…

All week I have been talking about women and the ongoing struggle with body image. I know it’s a sensitive subject, but it’s a big issue and if it isn’t dealt with it has the power to destroy lives. That is why as a woman I feel I have some responsibility in changing the way women define their self worth and it all starts with how I view myself.

There is a quote by Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth, that says:

“A Mother who radiates self-love and self-acceptance actually VACCINATES her daughter against low self-esteem.”

I remember the first time I heard this quote, before I ever had any children, and it just resonated in me. I need to have love for myself, not in a way that is proud or self-seeking, but as David said in the Psalms to recognize that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. To stop obsessing over how I look or feel like I am perceived and start to focus my energy outward. I always felt like someday I would have a daughter and I could tell her how pretty she was all day long, but if I had a hatred toward myself and my body then my efforts to encourage her would be useless.

Earlier this week I found out that we are going to have a girl! I feel blessed and honored to have a daughter. Her name will be Sedona. In 2006 we traveled to Sedona Arizona and absolutely fell in love with the place.

For someone who has spent their whole life in the suburbs it was refreshing to be in a place that is surrounded by natural beauty. We didn’t have any children at the time, but we felt like if we ever had a girl her name would be Sedona. If you were to look up the meaning or popularity of the name Sedona you probably wouldn’t be able to find much information. Believe me I know because that is what I did.

It is not a very common name, which just makes me like it that much more. It means a lot to us though because the name represents the beauty of God’s creation and as Sedona grows up and goes through good times and bad I want her to know she is in fact a beautiful creation. Even as she stays nestled in my belly right now every part is coming together as the designer has intricately formed and created her to be. What a miracle she is. What a miracle we all are. I can’t wait to meet my beautiful little girl.