Essentials 1/10

Drum roll please...

I remember reading a list such as this when I was pregnant. It helped me a bit and also made me conscientious, during Ev’s first year, of our needs. Without further ado (since it’s 3 months late anyway. Who am I to make my readers wait?)… I present the ten things we could NOT live without for our first year of parenthood. I’ll post them one at a time because they’ve turned into quite lengthy little guys!

1. PumpEase. If there is one sole thing that totally changed my life during that first year, it would probably be this. If you are planning on nursing or are in the process of nursing (and pumping), run out immediately and buy one. Actually, you have to order it because mine came from the Ukraine or something but….if you live in the Ukraine, run out immediately and buy one. If not, order it STAT. I used to pump while holding the little sucker things onto me. I remember our fan was on and my hair was blowing softly across my face. It tickled so much but if I let go to ITCH MY FACE, the pumping would stop. That was the final straw. Wade and I thought we were doing something wrong. Surely people don’t just stop every time they have to scratch, sneeze, etc. One of my friends informed me of this jewel after about a month of pumping. I bought one that day thinking that it wouldn’t hurt to try. I strapped it on and my life was never the same. I got the T-bird red color because I figured if I was going to do this, I was going all out. I could pump and….change Shoog, read a book, change the TV channels. The possibilities were endless. Lindsay said that if there were an Olympic sport for pumping and multitasking, I’d have won gold. I ended up giving many as gifts and they were all first time moms. Each one looked at me and said, “Umm, thanks.” (With shoulders shrugged.) It didn’t hurt my feelings though because I was smiling on the inside thinking, “Oh, Girlfriend. You. Just. Wait.” Sure enough, each recipient thanked me profusely when they got to utilize that bad boy. I even had one tell me that, with her Medela backpack pump, she’d strap on that thing, plug the battery pack in, and unload the dishwasher, vacuum, etc. That, my friends, is gold medal material if I ever heard it.