Maisie Lucille. When people ask me what Daniel and I named our baby and I say “Maisie Lucille,” many times we are met with “Oh, that’s interesting. How did you come up with that name?” They aren’t saying it to be mean, I think they are more saying it because they haven’t ever met a Maisie or heard that name used often.

Before we got pregnant whenever I heard a name I liked I wrote it down in my phone. I have Zooey, Heidi, Leighton and Willow, among some other boy names. I really leaned toward Willow, however Daniel wasn’t was into it. We kept discussing names and when we for sure found out she was going to be a girl, Daniel suggested Maisie. One of his grandmothers was known as Grand Maizy and the other was Byrdie Lucille. As much as I love Byrdie, I am sure my kid would have killed me had we settled on that. So when he suggested Maisie Lucille, I fell in love with it. It’s quirky without being too crazy and means something to our family.

Now, how were we going to spell it. There are several ways to spell it – Maisie, Maizy, Maizie, Maisy, and the list could go on. We discovered the British spelling – Maisie – and it felt right to us. No other reason other than it looked and sounded nice. It is the same spelling as Maisie Williams, Arya Stark, on Game of Thrones, but I promise you we didn’t pick it because we are big Game of Thrones fans. We also found out that there is a children’s cartoon named Maisy Mouse! How perfect for her to enjoy as she gets older.

We didn't really tell anyone outside immediate family what we were going to name her, because everyone always has an opinion. Most people aren't going to tell you to your face they hate the name but you can read people's faces. I never wanted to second guess her name once we picked it out and someone's adverse reaction could have made me second guess it. It's harder to hate on a name when it's attached to a cute little baby.

Here’s the lowdown on Maisie:

Maisie, a hundred-year-old favorite, meaning pearl or child of light. Spelled Maisy in a popular children's book series, Maisie is rising in tandem with cousin Daisy. While Maisie might be short for Margaret, Mary, or even a name like Melissa or Marissa, it stands perfectly well on its own.

In literature, Maisie is the name of the precocious young title character in the Henry James novel What Maisie Knew, and is also the main female character in Rudyard Kipling's The Light That Failed. And to bring things up to date, Maisie is a half-blood character in the Harry Potter series.

Maisie re-entered the US Top 1000 in 2014 at 658, making it one of the fastest rising names of the year; she's still got a way to competing with her English counterparts - in the UK, Maisie is in the Top 50.

I can’t wait to see how she grows into the name and makes it her own.

Oh, and it’s not May-C, it’s May-Z. 

Daniel and I are really lucky to have his mother watching the little one until she is six months, but that means we need to find a daycare soon as the months are ticking by fast!

We went and toured Bright Horizons near our house and while it’s beautiful with great curriculum and SO convenient, the price is outrageous. I don’t think the location can justify paying so much.

We have two others to tour, both currently have a waiting list with one fairly close and one further than we would like, but both with everything we are looking for in a daycare. Both come HIGHLY recommended but each come at a cost. Daniel and I will just have to discuss what we can and cannot give up when it comes to a daycare. Before we had Maisie, daycare was one stress that slowed me down from wanting to have a baby. How crazy is that – daycare?! It’s the cost. Everyone wants to give their kid the best and when you can’t afford to send them where you want to send them it’s stressful and sad.

It’s so maddening how much daycare costs. I was reading a book before Maisie was born called “Bringing Up Bebe.” The book is written by an American woman who raises her daughter in Paris. She goes on to explain several differences in how the French women raise children. While I don’t agree with everything in the book, the daycare part really stuck with me.

“The French have all kinds of public services that surely help make having kids more appealing and less stressful. Parents don’t have to pay for preschool, worry about health insurance, or save for college.

Many get monthly cash allotments—wired directly into their bank accounts—just for having kids.”

They don’t have to pay for preschool and daycare is subsidized by the state on a sliding scale for people based on income so everyone can afford it. The author goes on to say she had her reservations about a government program for her child, but that she was pleasantly surprised with the care her daughter received and ended up sending three kids there. Want to read more from her on daycare in the United States? Read here.

So we continue our search and although it might put us in the poor house, it’s all for the babe and that’s really what life is all about now.

I wanted to share Maisie’s bedroom as Daniel and I are pretty excited and proud of how it came out. Many baby rooms are very pink or very blue based on gender and very baby.

It started when I found an Orange Bird pillow at Disney early on in my pregnancy. Daniel and I knew we wanted to build the room around it. I wasn’t sure how we would do it but we started collecting anything Orange Bird. It was easier to envision it because a lot of the Orange Bird stuff is no longer around nor is it available anymore.

First, why Orange Bird? Orange Bird is significant for Daniel and I because he represents Florida and Disney. Daniel and I are both native Floridians and our daughter would also be a native so we wanted to pay homage to our love for our state, but we also wanted the room to represent our love for Disney, without being all characters or princesses. If you aren’t familiar, Orange Bird was the mascot for the Florida Citrus Growers back in the 1960s & 1970s and then became a mascot for the Sunshine Tree Terrace within Adventureland at Magic Kingdom. Daniel remembers back in the day visiting and interacting with Orange Bird and so he has always held a special place in his heart. Want more on Orange Bird? Click here.

So we had the pillow, next was to find other things we could build the room around. We learned that in Japan, Orange Bird was HUGE. Disney brought the character back and a lot of merchandise. I found a baby Orange Bird stuff animal and purchased that. We also found on eBay a record from in the 1970s that was released with songs from the Sherman brothers. There are a few records on eBay, however so expensive! I was lucky enough to find a decently priced one that I framed as a focal point in the room. A friend found another Orange Bird stuff character at the parks and grabbed it for us (we hadn’t been to the parks after it got too daunting for me to walk around in the heat).

Since we also wanted this room to be very Florida, we hit up some souvenir stores on International Drive to find “very Florida” gifts. We bought an alligator head, shark in a bottle, Florida map plate and Orange Florida paper weight. We hung IKEA shelves to put all these knick knacks on display and added a few other things that are special to us.

All the little things began to come together. But what about the big area behind the crib? Daniel woke up on a Sunday morning and told me he knew what he wanted to do. He gathered up several old Florida posters and even some old Disney posters and had them reprinted. Once we had the posters he used wallpaper paste and we made a huge collage behind the crib. I love how it came out and it really represents our personalities.

Later down the road we were gifted an amazing carved baby Orange Bird from our friend de Tiki. We also received a cool Orange Bird ornament from China, as well as an official Sunshine Tree Terrace poster from the parks. Thank you to everyone who helped to make this room special!

The furniture (dresser, bedside table and toy box) was build by my great grandfather in the 1960s from wood he gather on his land in Tennessee. It has been passed from family member to family member and I am very lucky to have it. It even has a queen bed that we will move into the room when she is big enough. I used and IKEA organizer for the closet and baskets that made it look like orange baskets. And of course, the crib is new! Luckily, we didn’t have to paint the walls and the carpet was fresh.

Daniel and I really love the room and it is our hope that as Maisie gets older she will love it too and keep it forever! Ha.

Colic. You Bitch.

You have taken what is supposed to be a great bonding time with my newborn and made it so stressful!

If I never heard the word colic ever again it would be too soon. Most people know colic as the endless crying from a newborn, but I am not sure many people have experienced the epic, hours long crying I have to deal with almost on a daily basis.

It’s work to deal with a colicky baby. As I write this she finally went to sleep. It’s 3 p.m. and she had been up since 7 a.m. No nap, two poops and several ounces of food. So what did she do in the middle of all that? Mostly cry. She’d cry if she was in one position too long, she would cry if she was set down, she would cry if she was held, she would cry sometimes with the bottle in her mouth, she would cry if she had a clean diaper… endless.

The terrible thing about colic is there is NOTHING. YOU. CAN. DO. There are things that help – the gas drops and probiotic but most of the time it’s you just trying anything and everything to have her not cry. Bouncing, walking, rubbing, soothing, anything! But it’s hard when your baby doesn’t want a pacifier. We’ve tried the Happiest Baby on the Block, but as I have written about before she hates the “traditional” swaddle and pacifier, so I am down two S’s.

It’s so sad as a parent to go through this. At some point you end up just crying with them. Because there is NOTHING. YOU. CAN. DO.

My only solace is that colic doesn’t last forever. At some point I will have my baby back. I will have time to bond with her and love her like I thought I would from the get-go. There is a light at the end of the tunnel but when you are in it, it’s so hard to see. My visions of us strolling through the mall or outside before I went back to work are gone. Colic usually lasts three months, sometimes more and I go back to work when she is three months. It is just too stressful for me to go out and worry if she is going to “explode” into a fit. People look at you, they judge you and they wonder why you can’t control your kid. I know I shouldn’t care what people think, but I am not going to go out to eat and ruin someone else’s dinner or time outside. I’ll just wait it out.  

I thought before I had her I would host a ‘Sip & See’ so friends and family could come over and we would snack and show off the baby. Once I realized what was happening I quickly removed that from my calendar and thought process. I have put off friends from coming over because having a constantly fussy baby is not only tiring, it is embarrassing. Why? Because again it makes you seem like you don’t know how to be a parent. And so many people will say, “Don’t talk like that! She’s a newborn, they cry.” It’s more in my head. It’s hard to visit and show off a baby who is screaming bloody murder. And I don’t want people to see this beautiful little girl act like a monster. I’m tired, I’m worn out and then she’s a crazy person. So if I have put you off coming to see her, know I am sorry but it’s hard right now.

For those friends that have been there and reached out, thank you. To be able to commiserate helps. To know it gets better helps.

So let’s get real – instead of only posting smiling and sweet sleeping baby pictures, this is what it is mostly like:

Just because I needed to read more about what I was dealing with here are two blogs that I screamed yes, yes, yes to when reading. Everything they talked about, I felt like I was writing it. So if you feel you want to put yourself in my shoes read this and this. Even though with the second I am not post-colic I still feel a bit of jealousy when I see or hear people enjoying their sweet baby.

Ps. She woke up 30 minutes into writing this.. more crying.. from 3:30 until when I bathed her at 8 p.m. and she finally went to sleep… this is my mom life.

Let’s talk about what is working well for us! Yay, happy things.

Love to Dream™ Love To Swaddle UP

            We tried the traditional swaddle. We wrapped with blankets, we wrapped with the easy-to-use Velcro swaddles – nothing worked. This girl screamed BLOODY MURDER every time we got her in one of those things and then wiggled so much that the hands were out and the swaddle failed in 10 minutes. We knew we needed to swaddle for her sleep and ours. I went browsing around Buy Buy Baby and ran across the Swaddle UP. I think one of the big reasons swaddling wasn’t working for us is that she wanted her hands up. When I was delivering her we had to wait while the doctor moved her hand that was up near her face so I could push her out. Every sonogram we have, her hands are near her face, so of course, she wants her hands up. Even when we swaddled with her hands up, they weren’t high enough. I cannot rave enough about the Swaddle UP. It’s easy to change her in it and she still can have her hands near her face. I actually just ordered the next stage of this swaddle – the UP 50/50. So when she can start rolling over you zip the “wings” off, but she still has the bottom wearable blanket.

HoMedics SoundSpa Lullaby Sound Machine

            Why I didn’t have a white noise machine before I had her, I don’t know. I think I believed that because Daniel and I sleep with two fans, which are seriously loud, that we would be OK. No, not OK. I bought this sound machine at the same time I bought the swaddle and it helped with sleeping so much. I run it on the ocean sound because it sounds the most like white noise and it’s loud. When I turn it on, her eyes immediately get heavy and start rolling back in her head. She now knows that it means sleep. I really don’t know if Daniel and I are going to be able to sleep in our room without it. It has a built-in projector to put things on the ceiling, but we use this strictly as a sound machine for now. There are some bad reviews on it because of that projector but it’s a great little sound machine.           

Gerber Soothe Probiotic Drops

            When we switched to formula she had bad gas. She worked really hard to try and pass it but was uncomfortable a lot of the time. The doctor suggested we put her on a probiotic to see if that helped soothe her belly pain. After being on them a little more than a week they seem to have helped her. We still have one episode a day where she appears uncomfortable and takes a while to pass a poop or gas but these drops, expensive (really expensive for how small this bottle is) as they may be, have helped us take a turn in her fussiness.

Placenta Pills

            If you don’t like hearing about placentas skip to the next! After her birth I had my placenta encapsulated by Amanda, my doula. I think this really helped me keep a level hormone balance in the days and weeks that followed her birth. As mentioned before I had some issues with breastfeeding and I think my issues with that could have been a lot worse had I not had the pills to level things out. I highly recommend women to do it to help with your hormones. I have some left that I will take when I feel crazy or at my first period.

Ergobaby Original Collection Dewdrop Baby Carrier or baby wearing in general

            I really wanted to baby wear. LIKE REALLY BAD. I was given two slings, I bought a Solly wrap, was gifted an Ergo and a Mei Tai. When M was born I tried to use the Solly right away and it didn’t go well. She cried and hated it. I was so sad because I wanted to do it. Next time I tried the Ergo and she loved it. She fell asleep and was calm in it. We use it to walk to the mail box or calm her around the house if she’s fussy. I haven’t used it out yet because we haven’t really gone out, but I can’t wait to try it. Last week I tried the Solly again and she did well in it. I think I was wrapping wrong and now I have it down. I need to keep practicing with baby wearing because I know she likes to be close to me. I am taking this as a win, even if it hasn’t been tested to its full potential.

Schedule

            I know babies don’t really have a schedule. Like none at all. Well last week a friend reached out to me to tell me about how she got her son to sleep through the night. She uses Moms on Call. It’s a book and way to schedule your baby’s day. I implemented it, without reading the book, last week and our days have gotten way better. She’s still not sleeping through the night, but the days are good. She’s taking naps and not just catnaps and eating well. At night we are getting longer stretches of sleep so I am going to take that for now. I am going to give it another week or two and if it continues to work I am going to grab the book. I don’t want to be tied down too much to a schedule but it is making our lives much better.

Do you have your baby on a “schedule”? I’d love to know more about it.