During Rachel Wagner’s first pregnancy, the Federal Hill resident and elementary school teacher was lacking a network of new moms in the area to lean on.

“I didn’t have a group of pregnant friends to ask questions, so I was just Googling things,” she recalls. “I had all of these questions—about delivery, what it will be like to have a human come out of me.”

Three months after her daughter was born, while on an extended leave from teaching, Wagner saw an ad for a free fitness class for moms at the park down the street. Offered by Fit4Mom Baltimore City, a local franchise of a nationwide prenatal and postnatal fitness program, the eight-week course introduced Wagner to physical and mental wellness for new moms—and to the community she had been missing.

“I met my first mom friend who had kids the same age,” she recalls. “Going through that with a group of women was very powerful, and they are still some of my best friends to this day.”

The experience was so powerful, in fact, that in the eight years since, Wagner has become an advocate of the importance of finding a network of women as support throughout every stage of motherhood.

“Once you’ve gone through it, you just become willing to help everyone,” says Wagner, who purchased the Fit4Mom Baltimore City franchise in 2015. One of five franchises in Maryland, Fit4Mom Baltimore City offers six programs, from the prenatal-focused Fit4Baby to Stroller Strides, designed for moms with their kids in tow. “It’s comforting to hear from someone who has already been through it. And us moms are very much trying not to keep any surprises from the pregnant mommas.”

The Baltimore area is home to a wealth of resources for growing families, from top healthcare providers to support for parent and baby before, during, and after birth.

WHAT TO EXPECT: BY TRIMESTER
You’re pregnant. Congratulations! Now what?

Schedule your first doctor’s appointment for week seven or eight of pregnancy, says Dr. Shillena Peters, an obstetrician at the Baltimore Washington Medical Center and a Baltimore Top Doctor. You can start taking prenatal supplements right away, ideally one with iron included, and should stop smoking or drinking alcohol.

“Find a doctor you trust and feel comfortable with,” she says. “This is your pregnancy, you should feel like you enjoy the doctor and get something out of each visit.”

Expecting families should think about the care and delivery experience they envision to decide on the healthcare team they prefer to work with for the delivery (see our sidebar on providers for more info).

At the first appointment, the provider will conduct a sonogram to establish the pregnancy and estimate the anticipated due date. “You get to hear the heartbeat, and it gives them that reassurance that, ‘Yes, I am pregnant,’” Peters says. Additionally, the provider will typically order a blood test, confirm up-to-date vaccinations, and recommend genetic testing to identify any abnormalities.

Peters uses the first appointment to give women an overview of what to expect during the pregnancy, from the frequency of doctors’ visits—every four weeks until about week 26, then every two weeks, and then weekly from week 36 until delivery—to changes in diet.

She recommends writing down any questions you have in between appointments and bringing them with you. That way, Peters says, “when you come to the visit, we can have a discussion about
what is concerning you and you feel like you’re being heard.”

In the first trimester, from weeks one through 12, fatigue and nausea is very normal, Peters says, but tends to resolve itself by weeks 16 to 18. “Hard candy, ginger ale, nausea bands—these are all strategies to help cope with the symptoms until they improve,” Peters says.

Traditionally, finding out the baby’s sex is part of the anatomy sonogram at 18-20 weeks, but some providers, including those through Kaiser Permanente, offer genetic testing at 11-12 weeks that includes finding out the sex of the baby. “Patients love that they are able to find out earlier,” Peters says.

The first trimester is also when parents should begin researching and selecting a pediatrician, Peters adds, since they will need to bring the newborn to its first appointment just days after birth.

The anatomy sonogram is a big milestone in the second trimester, which takes place from weeks 13-26, Peters says. “They get to see the baby in full form with a detailed sonogram and have confirmation of the sex, but also can see the heart, brain, and all the different structures,” she says.

As the baby grows, moms should adjust their caloric intake, too, consuming an additional 300-450 calories daily in the second and third trimesters.

By the third trimester, from weeks 27-40, providers finalize plans for the delivery, including options for pain management or bringing in outside support like a doula, who provides physical relief, emotional support, and mental preparation for the birth journey.

Planning for the birth should be a collaborative process, Peters says, and she encourages patients to have a plan but stay flexible, especially when it comes to decisions like whether to get an epidural, a pain management procedure where a local anesthetic is injected into the space around the spinal nerves in the lower back.

“I tell patients to go in with an open mind—you’ve never been pregnant before or delivered before,” Peters says of pain management. “The anesthesiologists are there, you can ask questions, and they will go over risks and benefits of the epidural, and the decision is up to [the patient] to decide if they want to or not. We support them in terms of whatever they decide.”

Most importantly, Peters emphasizes women should see their doctors as part of their team, and not hesitate to reach out to them with questions or concerns. “We want our patients to trust us because the goal is to have a healthy mom, healthy baby, and safe pregnancy.”

GEARING UP FOR BABY
Where should new parents begin preparing for their baby’s arrival in a $30 billion baby products industry, where new innovations and brands target growing families each year?

“At a boutique like Wee Chic, everyone is an expert,” says owner Bridget Quinn Stickline, who opened the Green Spring Station store 14 years ago. “Not only are they parents themselves, but they are immersed in the product category. They can help to distill options for your needs and dispel myths for first-time parents.”

The diaper pail? “Nobody uses it,” she says of the trash cans designed to lock in diaper odors. It’s one of many products moms are told they need, but often find they don’t use. Another culprit: the wipe warmer. “We never see a second-time mom buying any of them.”

While parents may opt to register for bigger purchases like the car seat or consumables like diapers and wipes at chain stores, it’s worth it to go to a local boutique for clothing, Stickline says, which stocks higher-quality products and has expert staff to help guide new parents.

“Cottons are not made the same,” she says. “You’re going to be washing it very frequently, and the more you wash it, the more it breaks down.” Look for comfortable fabrics that hold up well, especially for the everyday basics.

“Often, we think about it backwards and spend on fun going-out outfits and scrimp on the onesie, but the onesie is going to be washed six times in a week,” she points out. “If the fabric isn’t high quality, it’s going to get pilly, uncomfortable, and scratchy on your baby’s skin.”

While higher-quality fabrics are more expensive, they have a longer lifespan, too, allowing parents to consign or save the pieces to use again for a second baby.

One of the most frequent questions Stickline gets from shoppers is about sizing. “There’s a lot of mental math involved,” she says with a laugh, pointing out that parents should account for seasons and climate as well as the baby’s growth when purchasing clothing. That’s where an experienced sales associate comes in handy.

Parents should expect to get primarily 3-6 month and 6-9 month sizes as gifts, but should stock up on a few newborn (up to 8 pounds) and 0-3 month footies and onesies so they are prepared to come home from the hospital and for the first few weeks.

“They don’t warn you before they grow,” Stickline says. “You go to put that onesie on and it’s like, wait a minute, what happened? It’s nice to have the footie pajamas ready to hop into for the next size range.”

Apparel brands have innovated new closures in recent years, Stickline says, like magnetic closures and two-way zippers that open at the neck and the foot. “It makes dressing and undressing much easier when you have lots of other things you need to manage.”

While online registries and retailers like Amazon offer convenience, shopping in person ensures you’ll get what you expect. “When you do this kind of shopping, having an expert in front of you is really valuable,” she says, cautioning against showrooming, where consumers look at products in a brick-and-mortar but then purchase them from large online retailers. “Spend the extra money, then if something goes wrong you can go back and they can help you.”

Over 14 years, Strickline and her staff support their customers as their families grow. “We meet people pregnant, then they come back with their baby and toddler,” she says. “We get to know them
like family.”

AFTER DELIVERY: THE “FOURTH TRIMESTER”
After the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists called for redefining postpartum care in 2018, an increasing number of practitioners are placing increased emphasis on preparing expectant mothers for the time between birth and 12 weeks postpartum, also known as the “fourth trimester.”

“It can be a tumultuous time and it’s an important time to put focus on,” says Eliza C. Gould, a certified nurse midwife (CNM) with Women’s Health Associates, a practice with two physicians and 10 midwives practicing out of St. Joseph’s Medical Center.

“You have just delivered the happy hormone factory called the placenta. There is quite a fluctuation of hormones. Especially for first-time moms, adjusting to a new way of being can be challenging.”

Add to that the physical recovery from delivery, sleep deprivation, and mental and emotional struggles ranging from trouble breastfeeding to postpartum mood swings or depression. “I really encourage communication, both with your partner and with your providers,” Gould says, noting that her practice often brings new moms back for a follow-up appointment two weeks postpartum, although common practice in the industry has been to wait six weeks.

At Indigo Physiotherapy, many of founder Dr. Samantha “Sam” DuFlo’s patients come to her practice during the fourth trimester. DuFlo is a doctor of physical therapy and certified Pelvic Rehabilitation Practitioner. The pelvic floor physical therapy practice advocates for whole-body health and caring for women’s bodies so they can feel good during and after delivery.

“We prep so much for labor and birth,” DuFlo says. “But you’re pregnant for around 40 weeks, you might be in labor for eight hours, and then you have a baby, so really preparing your body and your mind for that transition postpartum is integral—not just preparing for labor.”

While several weeks of pelvic floor physiotherapy is standard postpartum care for women in countries like France, New Zealand, and Ireland, “Our culture has really normalized so much of this as something women just have to deal with—like leaking when you sneeze, having pain, scar tissue, or the ‘mommy tummy’ postpartum,” DuFlo says. “There’s a fine line here—we want body neutrality and acceptance of our body, but also, while those things are very common, they’re all things that can be treated.”

As one of only seven countries that doesn’t mandate any paid maternity leave—the Family Medical Leave Act just requires 12 weeks unpaid leave—there can be cultural pressure to “bounce back” and return to work and other normal activity as soon as possible, DuFlo says.

“If you have surgery, it can take you perhaps a year to recover,” DuFlo says. But, comparatively, most women are cleared to return to normal activity six weeks postpartum. “We’re not always looking at these huge physiological changes that have happened in their abdominals, their hip muscles, their glutes,” she adds. “Getting people back to a physical autonomy where they feel really good in their body and they can do what they want to do, is really important to us at Indigo.”

I am a not a Christmas person. I think December is a super fun month because the long nights are cozy and exciting and there are lots of parties and lights everywhere, but the actual 25th part has never done it for me. I’m married to someone who shares this lack of enthusiasm, which means the extent of our yuletide glee is getting wine-drunk while watching Elf and then turning our attention to Rob’s birthday and New Year’s Eve, which are both the following week.

But now we have a child and we don’t get to be the terrible neighbors in Christmas Vacation anymore. We have to become the Griswolds.

In that spirit, we took our kid to meet Santa. (Step one of Griswolding is creating a file of proof that you actually did Christmasy things, lest your child’s future therapist sadly whisper to his parole officer: “If only they had celebrated the holidays more enthusiastically…” ). We headed to Rawlings Conservatory figuring, if we were going to stand in line with 400 people, it may as well be in a beautiful place. To our absolute delight, Santa was sitting alone in a room filled with poinsettias and he and Lou posed for pictures and got along swimmingly. We strolled through the desert room, fed the massive koi fish in the pond, and headed to Hampden to catch the tail end of the Mayor’s Parade. A dream situation for our first weekend of letting go of Christmas disdain.

Our hearts slightly thawed, we headed to Amuse Toys in Fells Point where we spent the morning playing with toys and chatting with owner Claudia Towles about gifts for toddlers. Below is a gift guide for the little ones organized by your role in the giftee’s life. May the dim light of our Christmas spirit inspire yours to burn more brightly.

Gift For Your Boss’s Kid or Another Obligatory Recipient

The prices are right, they invite both imagination and fine motor skills to the table, and they both say, “I thought of your child this Christmas season because I would like a raise in Q1 2017.” Yes, the music set makes musical sounds (and sounds are the enemy of sleep) but the card writes itself (“A gift for your brilliant little Mozart! xoxo, Your Subordinate.”) And puzzles are always, always a good gift.

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Gift For Your Best Friend’s Kid or Best Frenemy’s Kid

My life can now be organized into two epochs: Pre-Melissa & Doug and Post-Melissa & Doug. I don’t know them—maybe they’re unhappily married or divorced, but still good friends or siblings or pseudonyms for two of the Shiloh-Pitts—either way they’ve recently become really important in our lives. They produce a ton of children’s toys (check them out online, but definitely buy from Amuse because they seem to choose the sturdiest stuff and you should shop local, you animal) and we’re slowly building our toy stockpile with their wares. The Latch Board is perfect to keep little hands busy at restaurants or on car/plane trips, and the pots and pans are an incredibly devious way to ensure your friend’s local wine shop stays open.

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Gifts For Your Niece or Nephew aka Future Hand-Me Downs

If you’re related to them, you’ve got to up the ante. And more importantly, you’ve got to give gifts you’ll want to inherit when it’s your turn to have kids. This camera is beautiful and will teach your young family members that before iPhones there were other means of producing images. And the Thunderlane is just extremely cool. Lou has a race car version and zooms around the house using it as an extension of his hand. They’re gifts that stand the test of time and will earn you some major familial points.

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Gift For Your Grandkid or Own Kid, Which Will Basically Because Home Décor

Little kids are excellent scooters and bouncers. Indulge their talents with the Rody Horse (whose name says Horse but whose ears scream Donkey) or the Micro Mini. Both look super cool, which really starts to matter as the assault of primary colored-toys take over your home, and both will last a long time and grow with your child. The Micro converts from a seated ride to a big kid scooter, making the price tag much friendlier to your wallet.

(Big thanks to Lou’s buddy, Will, for modeling the Rody. And also thanks to Will’s mom for putting shoes on her kid, illuminating the fact that our child is in socks in December. We bought him shoes immediately after this picture was taken, I promise.)

Our kids are now 3 and 1, which means one of them has a slight idea about what’s happening on Christmas morning and the other will just be excited to watch her brother rip at wrapping paper and wonder why we’re all so busy so early. The holidays are only starting to be a big deal at our house (especially after years of not having kids or any sense of Christmas spirit), so I’m trying to get a head start on preparation.

I’m also committing to only buying gifts locally this year (and no, Amazon’s Dundalk fulfillment center doesn’t count), so each of the suggestions below are here in Baltimore. So go! Shop! Be festive! And do your best to spend your money right here in town.

Amuse Toys

My love affair with this store began immediately after our son was born and has only grown over the years. The toys are beautiful and require imagination, and the shopping experience is fun and well-informed. And, because kids love nothing more than playing with toys they’re 100-percent sure you didn’t spend money on, the Amuse Toys Quarry Lake location offers open play a few mornings a week. Grab a coffee, let them go nuts, and take a slight break from the holiday madness.

The Book Thing of Baltimore

My kids develop deep, emotional obsessions with books and just when they’ve broken my spirit and I’ve consigned myself to a life of reading nothing but Richard Scarry’s What Do People Do All Day, they lose total interest and find something else. Capitalize on this irrational behavior by clearing out your shelves while simultaneously choosing new-to-them, free books to give to your family.

Baltimore Chef Shop

Edie and Lou are still in the stage of life where food is optional at best and, when properly mashed, table art at worst. But if you’ve survived the early childhood years (good for you!) then perhaps an afternoon spent at the Baltimore Chef Shop would make a lovely gift for your kid who loves The Great British Baking Show. (And if your kid loves that show, again, good for you!) BCS is a beautiful kitchen in Hampden offering classes for 8-17 year olds and their parents on making donuts, dim sum, pasta, cookies, and other important food groups. There are also summer camps available if you’re the kind of long-term planning gift giver tweens love so much.

SIDESHOW at AVAM

Is there a more incredible gift shop in the world? Every inch of the shop is filled with fascinating, beautiful, useless, important, and affordable stuff. On a recent trip, I found cool rings and laser-cut wood earrings for $2; beautiful art coffee table books for under $20; a tiny drawer filled with plastic babies for 50 cents a pop; and a t-shirt offering an apology for the president in 14 languages. I highly suggest taking an hour (sans kids, if you can swing it) to wander through. You’ll check off most people on your list and walk out with the ultimate stocking stuffers.

Worthy Threads

Over the last few years, locally owned Worthy Threads has been popping up in Baltimore’s social media and retail worlds. Our friends gave us a sushi-printed pinafore dress (Sushi! On a dress! For an infant!) for Edie when she was born and it was so wonderful that I eventually cut the elastic in the waistband to eke out a few more weeks of wear. These clothes aren’t cheap, but they’re the kind that you treasure and begrudgingly-but-lovingly hand down to your favorite friend’s little one.

Shananigan’s Toy Shop

Similarly to the SIDESHOW gift shop, this is a store that will put your head on a swivel. It’s filled floor to ceiling with toys and games for all ages just as you start to get overwhelmed by decision fatigue, their knowledgeable staff swoops in and leads you right where you need to be.

Hi! Hello! Come in, friend with whom I spent 57 percent of my 20s, but now just text Mary Kate and Ashley GIFs back and forth with while we wait for our schedules to align. It’s so good to see you and really nice of you to agree to come to our filthy home for a drink instead of a restaurant or bar so that I didn’t have to hire and pay for a sitter. I left work early and spent 45 minutes cleaning in preparation of your arrival but I will lie to your face and tell you I just got home because it’s still incredibly messy. Here, let me put your belongings on this coat rack so that our cats don’t make a nest out of your jacket.

Please sit! But not there—that’s where Lou peed yesterday and it’s been satisfactorily cleaned for the purposes of our immediate family’s safety, but not yours. Guests can sit over here on this uncomfortable Ikea bistro chair which is high off the ground and made of fake wood and easily wiped down. Would you like a cocktail? Have some cheddar bunnies and watch me impressively make a Negroni for you while my beautiful children quietly play underfoot. Send word to the outside that I Have It All Together.

Actually wait. Our refrigerator has been broken for six weeks and Best Buy hasn’t been able to fit our new one up the stairs despite my husband sawing a portion of the stairwell away and these cocktails need ice. Please sit with my darling babies while I run downstairs for frozen water. Home ownership!

Here’s the ice. And there’s Lou’s butt. He doesn’t like to wear underwear at home, just please finish making these drinks while I convince my 2-year-old to put clothes on. Also, and I hate to bother you while you’re already doing me a favor, but did you happen to see Edie while I was briefly out of the room? Eleven months, walks furiously, looks like a Cabbage Patch Doll? Oh she’s climbing the stairs? Okay well please return to your safe area and sip your drink while I figure out how she escaped the gate again.

So anyway, how are you? How is your relationship/career/family? Please tell me because I miss you and really care but okay hold on because I just realized it’s 6 p.m. and my kids haven’t had dinner yet. I’ll turn on The Magic School Bus and, while I’m waiting for the water to boil for the mac and cheese, you can catch me up on your life. I am nodding and laughing and agreeing that I, too, can’t believe your sister/husband/coworker did that and Lou! You peed in the potty! Here is your jelly bean reward, please go grab the potty so we can clean it out before your sister gets to it except she’s already dumped it onto her legs and is playing in a puddle of urine.

You’re probably right—cleaning fresh pee off a baby in our kitchen sink isn’t super hygienic but I’ve fallen asleep with Lou breathing post-vomit breath into my face so I think we’re past formalities. May I offer you a glass of wine and the rest of this luke warm mac and cheese? I was going to eat it while standing over the pee sink later, but you’re the guest so you can have first dibs. Oh you’re going to dinner after this? Like on a date? Please tell me more about your decision to not have kids and what that lifestyle looks like because I know that three years ago we didn’t have kids but I can’t be more specific than that because I don’t remember. Your reservation is for EIGHT THIRTY on a WEEKNIGHT? That is wild, man.

Thank you so much for coming over and trying to take Lou seriously while he stood really close to you in only a hat, shirt, and shoes and told you about an air conditioner he saw from the car last week. He’s right, it was gray and could have been off or on. I’m pretty sure that in two years, when my kids are 3 and 5, I will be 15-20 percent more present in conversations that occur when they are around so please just keep being supportive and cool and willing to dive into the crazy with me—it means a lot. And here’s your jacket, I don’t know how the cat’s got it, but I took the liberty of putting a lint roller in your bag.

I am a worrier. A serious, anxious, sky-is-falling, doomsday scenario level worrier. Worrying is probably an important, biological emotion for parents to help save small children from themselves, but being a worrier in 2018 is pretty brutal. If you have an internet connection and access to social media or a news site (and I know you do, because this column only runs online), you run the risk of reading horrible, seemingly impossible stories about ways kids can get hurt.

Because of the World Wide Web, I know things that can’t be unlearned, like that toddlers can crawl into front-loading washing machines, close the door, and get stuck inside. Or that babies can fall head first into the toilet and not be able to pull themselves out. Or that button batteries are shiny harbingers of death, and the only way to combat them if swallowed is to feed spoonfuls of honey to your child while you race them to the hospital—but in your haste don’t forget that babies under 12 months can’t have honey because of botulism, so just don’t ever, ever let your eyes wander away from your kid.

It’s exhausting.

The mild irony to all of this is that I was not nearly as worried with my first kid. Lou is a pretty low-key guy, and as a young toddler he didn’t get into much trouble. We had a two-month spat of Lou falling directly onto the same spot on his forehead multiple times (resulting in a little divot he still has to this day), but otherwise we slapped a few plastic locks on particularly dangerous cabinets in the house and moved on.

Our daughter, however, is a nut. She’s fully walking at ten months, into everything, and has more energy than her three other family members combined. She’s illuminated household dangers we never considered during Lou’s babyhood. Our gas fireplace is filled with small rocks about the size of a toddler’s windpipe and we didn’t notice this until last week when she started pulling them out. I threw a blanket over them, making a mental note to remove it in December, but Edie outsmarted my complex solution by dragging the blanket out and returning to her rock gathering.

We also weren’t aware that the heavy, bulky stool in our kitchen might be a danger until she used it to pull herself to standing (at six months) and cracked her cheekbone as she and the stool fell in tandem. It’s very subtle, but you might notice the shiner in the picture below. As her doctor was leaving the exam we heard him say to the nurses, “Did you see the black eye on that kid?”

This child has forced my abstract fears into actionable items. We’ve done the obvious things like remove as many tiny toys as we can find and install a fenced-in area for the times we have to do things like cook meals or pour a fortifying glass of wine, but there’s more work to be done. Here’s a small list of items that will help protect your kid and ease your weary hearts, at least until the next story breaks about how baby-proofing will turn your child into a serial killer or guarantee low ACT scores.

Corner protectors
Protect your furniture and your kid’s eyeballs. We’ve stuck these on every right angle in the house and they’ve already downgraded multiple injuries from “Hospital Trip” to “Here’s A Popsicle You’re Fine”.

Toilet Paper Roll
Not only is this an easily obtained toy for babies, it’s also a free metric of toy safety. If your kid is playing with something that can fit inside of a roll, take it away because it means they can choke on it.

Portable Play Yard
As previously mentioned, sometimes you need a moment to yourself. The Summer Infant play yard is super light weight and can be pulled out or closed and shoved back into the corner in seconds.

Masking tape
This one isn’t super safety-related, but it’s another weird household item trick so I’m including it. Take a piece and roll it sticky side out, then stick it to your kid’s foot. If you’re lucky, they’ll find themselves in a fully-immersive ten minute crash course on how adhesives and chubby fingers interact, and you can tidy up or solve world hunger or do whatever it was you did before you had kids.

Play Mat
Ikea has a reasonably-priced version (and this fancy mat promises to not poison your child with unpronounceable chemical horrors if you care about that kind of thing). Play mats are squishy but firm and perfect for babies who are learning to crawl and walk. If your home has wood or tile floors, you might also consider interlocking foam tiles.

Door jams
Save tiny fingers from tiny splints.

OutSmart Locks
What I appreciate about these is the decoy button specifically designed to make your kid think they have a shot in hell at breaking into the cabinet and going to town on your Tide Pod stash. Take that, babies.

“EDIE,” I hear my husband roar from our bedroom. “GO. TO. SLEEP. PLEASE.”

I jump up from my sofa nest, grab a clean bottle from the sink, and shovel in three scoops of formula. Sprinting up the stairs, I make a point to avoid the especially creaky spots so as not to disturb our son, and then realize that perhaps his sister’s wailing is a bit louder than my footsteps.

In our room, my husband is still in bed with pillows over his head, clearly honoring our pact to try “crying it out” for a few nights. I take that as a cue to hold off on adding water to the bottle and crawl in next to him. We lay, not speaking, for 10 minutes. Edie eventually starts sucking on her fingers and her shrieks turn to whimpers, which turn to hilarious baby snores. Newly aware that sheets make noise if a human moves on them, I quietly kick Rob to see if he’s awake and am not surprised to find that he was able to drift off. My wired, tired brain makes the decision to sneak back downstairs and I fall asleep two hours later while my 43rd viewing of Arrested Development blares from the TV.

This is sleep training a baby. Or perhaps, more accurately, this is the undoing of two adults.

We took pains early on to create a good sleep environment for Edie. Our son was colicky and the first two months were rough, but he evened out into a decent sleeper. Not taking into account that human beings are actually quite different from one another, we assumed Edie would be exactly the same. To prepare, we drained our savings and hired a night nanny who would help us survive colic and get us through early infancy. Edie, however, never had colic and slept beautifully during the nights that dear, wonderful Miranda was in charge. Congratulating our foresight and willingness to forgo decent food in the name of sleep, we sent our fairy godmother on her way to help other, more desperate families.

We have not slept a full night since.

We call Edie the Party Sunshine Girl: I’d never seen a human smile with their whole body until she came along. She is happy and has tons of energy and always needs to be in the mix and it’s this formula that makes her situation a Möbius strip of wonder—she doesn’t sleep because she wants to hang out but how does she have energy to hang out if she doesn’t sleep? What dark baby magic fuels her?

I can tell you that her parents are low on fuel. We’ve read lots of books and scoured parent forums and asked friends, but nothing has really worked. On our best nights, she wakes up in the middle of the night to eat and then is up for the day at 5:30. On our harder nights, there is a lot of yell-whispering and passive aggressive sighing while Rob and I dissolve into the worst versions of ourselves. One night I slammed the door to our room, but it’s a pocket door so it bounced back open and woke everyone up. On the bad nights, we can’t even be awful very well.

Though I’m confident we’ll eventually find the right sleep advice (or that Edie will turn 18 and go terrorize her college roommate), right now we’re in the weeds. We have really fulfilling, happy moments as a family that are book-ended by one of us falling asleep on the sofa in the middle of making dinner, or having a fight because the other needs to catch up on work once the kids go to bed.

The hardest part about sleep deprivation is the relationship deprivation—right now our existences rely solely on someone we barely have time to connect with. But, we’ve been careful not to wish this time away. In the moments when the fog clears and we can speak with some clarity about our life right now, the good soars above the bad. Our kids are magic and being a parent is so much more incredible than I imagined.

But, oh, how we’d like to get some damn sleep, Edith.

My son Lou is standing next to me with no pants on and a finger in each nostril. “I can watch Magic School Bus?” he asks, as the snot drips down his finger onto his wrist.

“I don’t know, baby. We watched Magic School Bus a lot yesterday and—”

“Mama.” He steps closer to me and I silently applaud myself for not recoiling from the snot, which is now twisting around his forearm. “I can watch Magic School Bus.”

I realize he has already put the remote within my reach (When? How?) and I obey my orders. Lin-Manuel Miranda starts singing the theme song and Lou walks away and plays with his blocks, the television blinking and making noise at just me. As I marvel at his twisted mind, my daughter Edie begins to squawk from her rocker, indicating that the weird, 20-minute nap she takes every weekday morning has ended. She stares me down, wordlessly telling me to stop typing my work email and get the hell up and make her a bottle.

I make her second breakfast and realize I forgot to make Lou’s school lunch the night before. He notices me pull his lunchbox down and begins telling me that he is not going to school today and he needs a cookie. Edie cries and Lou runs to her telling me, “EDIE NEEDS MILK MAMA,” as if I wasn’t holding her prepared bottle while he argued with me about the lunch he requires for school, to which he won’t be going.

Lunch packed and baby fed, I wriggle Lou into his uniform and carefully stuff Edie into her Tauntaun suit and fold her into the carrier strapped to my chest. Lou loads his bookbag with toys and I quietly remove each one as we make our way to the door.

The half block walk to school takes seven minutes. As I leave Lou on his school’s playground, he stands at the wooden fence and kisses me through each rail.

Our nanny arrives and I leave the house. I debate listening to How Did This Get Made or WYPR on my run/walk to work. I opt for the former, despite the latter’s morning show being kind of important for my job. I reason that, because it was one of my favorite movies as a kid, I can’t not listen to the HDTGM crew dive deep into the inappropriateness of Rodney Dangerfield’s Ladybugs.

I get to work.

At work, I do my work.

My husband calls on his ride home and offers to pick me up. It’s raining and I’m tired, so I say yes. We walk inside and Edie beams at us and Lou comes running, talking over himself to tell us about his day. He mentions one girl in particular over and over and we try to be cool because it sounds like he has his first little crush.

The house is in such disrepair that I cant even think of a clever simile. We divide and conquer: Rob feeds Edith and fields questions from Lou, I pour wine for us both and start reassembling what was once our living room. I notice something brown next to Edie’s foot and brace myself for poop. It is, mercifully, leftover “breakfast cookie” (our term for waffle) and Lou pops it in his mouth. Someone gets dinner on the table; I think it’s me. And maybe “on the table” is misleading because that makes it sound like the coffee table and kitchen sink we’re eating over are actually our dining room table, which is currently covered in some laundry and a tool kit and a few cats.

I take Lou up to bed because he can play my husband like a fiddle. Mama bedtime consists of teeth brushing, two books, kisses, and lights out. Dada bedtime includes all of that plus a forty five minute bubble bath, four extra books, 30 minutes of rocking chair time, multiple glasses of water, songs, and promises of puppies and ice cream. Dada bedtime often includes caving and bringing Lou into our bed.

While Rob puts Edie to bed (she is six months and has not yet learned the art of manipulation), I fire off some more emails and finish cleaning up. It is 8:45 p.m. and Rob and I spend five minutes deciding if we should watch last week’s SNL or just go to bed. We turn on SNL and I wake up at 1:35 on the sofa. I turn off the TV (I think I made it to “Weekend Update”) and crawl into bed. I think about how busy and lucky we are. In my 20’s, I would have hated that my days are sort of monotonous and not at all my own. In my 30’s, it amazes me how much I love the routine, even when it means that there isn’t a lot of time left to be grownups.

We’ve had two kids for six months. I’ve never been happier or more drained or busier or more excited to go home.

Our daughter is set to arrive this month and I’m slowly realizing that we are, for real, about to have two kids under two. We’re about as prepared as we can be, and now it’s just a waiting game. I’ve been thinking a lot about the Lou’s birth and trying to remember what we needed, what we forgot, and what our friends brought us that made all the difference.

If you’ve got someone in your life who is expecting, I’ve compiled a list of suggested items to bring over when you meet their progeny. Be mindful that the first few weeks of parenthood are an exhausting, wonderful, confusing fever dream, so keep your visit short and don’t give anything if you’re expecting a thank-you note.

(And if I’m your friend who is expecting and you’re coming to visit us, please bring watermelon popsicles and stay for a while because I will be hopped up on painkillers and in need of a constant rotation of people to talk at.)

Seltzer water:
Before breastfeeding, I didn’t know it was possible to be thirsty while chugging water. When you are someone else’s sole source of nutrients, it feels like someone coated your insides with Scotchguard and you’ll never be sated again. Histrionics aside, when friends showed up with my favorite flavor of La Croix or a few big glass bottles of mineral water, I poured a glass over ice and lemon and felt more like a grown-up human and less like a bathtub drain. Showing up with some “not tap” water is an inexpensive and extremely useful way to make a new mom consider renaming her baby after you.

Food!
During Towson University’s spring 2008 semester, I had the good fortune to fall into platonic love with my best friend Lauren. The relationship paid off in spades when she turned her passion for cooking into a career, thus enabling me to brag about the joys of having a chef close to my heart. After I had Lou, she showed up unannounced with bags of groceries and spent an entire day cooking, packaging the food in Tupperware, cleaning my kitchen, keeping me company, and just generally making me feel happy that I transferred schools and met this culinary fairy godmother.

You can give a similar gift to your new mom friend without all the hard work. Get a few people together to spring for a week of food from Gundalow Gourmet (they’ll tailor the menu to her needs and drop the meals off in pre-portioned Tupperware—it’s amazing). You could also consider a Whole Foods or Uber Eats gift card, or simply call ahead and ask what she’s craving.

Booze!
I really surprised myself and my community by not wanting to drink alcohol until Lou was five or six weeks old. When my typical desire for wine returned, I was grateful to have a few bottles from friends already chilling in the fridge. My husband had popped a few bottles over the course of the first month—it’s not easy for dad’s either—and it was nice for him to have a little stockpile without needing to leave the house. Bring something you know both parents like, and feel good knowing your contribution will be enjoyed at the exact right moment they require some adult time.

Flowers:
This one doesn’t really need an entire paragraph, right? Bring something beautiful for her to look at that doesn’t poop at 3 a.m. or require the use of nipple shields. Bonus points if you toss the flowers in a simple glass vase. Super bonus points if you get up early and create a bouquet from Local Color Flowers’ Saturday morning studio hours.

Diapers, etc.:
This one is for family and close friends. Call the new mama and say, “I am standing in Target/Giant/CVS and I need you to tell me exactly what you need.” It can be really hard to suddenly accept help from every well-meaning person in your life, and telling her that you’re already at the store—and she just needs to say the words—takes away a lot of pressure and guilt.

Hand-me-downs:
It’s difficult to know exactly what your baby will need until you’ve gotten home and realized you really didn’t need that bottle warmer, but could very much benefit from a Rock’n’Play. If you’re a mom of slightly older kids and still have infant supplies in good shape, shoot your friend a text and ask if there’s anything she opted not to buy that you could drop off. We were foolish enough to think that we didn’t need a bassinet—I think we assumed Lou would sleep in his nursery even though I couldn’t stand up unassisted the first two weeks. So friend generously lent us hers. She saved us money and time, and gave us the added gift of getting to swap early parenting stories with someone who knew what we were going through.

If more kids are in your future, make sure to indicate you’d like it back. If not, it’s okay to tell your friend that it’s hers to pass on to the next mom, or to donate when she’s finished with it.

Something for the other kid:
You can opt to bring a small present for the newly displaced child instead of continuing the gift parade for the mom and baby. Crayons and a roll of brown paper (we recently taped brown paper to the entire surface of our coffee table and Lou has never been happier and we’ve never had more free time), dolls, sticker books, or Magna-Tiles are all good gifts for younger kids. For older kids, a $20 Amazon gift card gives them the freedom to pick something themselves and requires the attention of a parent to help make the purchase (which is what they really want anyway). Anything to make that transition to newfound sibling-hood all the easier.

To my beautiful boy:

Your world is about to be rocked. In less than two months, your sister will arrive and your only child status will vanish, and I won’t pretend it will be easy. You will have spent 22 months as the absolute center of our universe, and starting sometime in mid-September you will spend the rest of your life sharing that space. 

I don’t know how much you comprehend what is about to happen. Thanks to the Spanish your incredible nanny has taught you, one of your first words was “hermana.” Most mornings you pull my shirt up and offer hermana a kiss. Some mornings you offer her a spoonful of your yogurt and the ease with which you are willing to share makes heart feel like it has wings. Occasionally (and always in public), you’ll walk over to me and pull my dress up so everyone else can see your sister. Because my bump is enormous and I don’t always see you coming, I’d say about a quarter of the city has seen my underwear now, so thank you for that.

Your attention to my bump makes me think you have some idea of what’s to come, but you’re so little that we can’t really explain it. And even if you were older, I wouldn’t know how to tell you the million small ways things are about to change. Because a lot of our friends don’t have kids yet, you’re used to having the undivided attention of almost every adult you meet. I don’t think you’ve ever been denied a story when you grab book and back into the lap of whoever is sitting closest to you. 

We spent so many hours pouring over your 100 First Trucks picture book that while you can’t say your own name, you correctly identify and pronounce police cars, bulldozers, and tractors. Every week (and entirely unsolicited), you present your nails to be clipped like a well-trained poodle, and once the task is complete to your satisfaction you choose a temporary tattoo as a reward for your manicure. (Don’t worry—they’re made from vegetable-based dye and rarely feature naked ladies.) At night your dada gives you long, bubbly baths and then all three of us read books together, and, while you fall asleep in your crib, I rub your cheeks and hair and tell you all about the day we just had.

This fairytale, my friend, is about to change.

It took nearly two years to conceive you—and another 41 weeks after that to meet you—so, when you finally arrived, we were ready. You had been our shared, constant thought for so long that your arrival felt like we’d picked up a dear friend from the airport. (The world’s most painful, horrifying airport, but you can appreciate the metaphor.) Your sister, however, was standing impatiently in the wings, tapping her tiny toe, waiting for us to be ready for her. It still took some help from science, but her conception took exactly one month and my pregnancy has flown by. Because we were expecting another battle with fertility, I’m not sure your dad or I fully believe our luck yet, but here we are just a few weeks from meeting our baby girl.

I want to tell you that I’m so sorry that we’re shaking things up. We’ve got a good thing going, us three, and now some chick who is in the process of ruining my belly button is about to burst onto the scene. I’m sorry for the growing pains we’re all going to feel adjusting to being a family of four, and I’m sorry that you didn’t get a say in this decision. 

But, my love, I also want to tell you you’re welcome. I think once the shock wears off and we’re in a groove, you’re going to be so happy. You will have someone to talk to in the back seat of the car; someone to read your Spot books to; someone to roll your eyes with when you figure out how embarrassing your dad and mom are. You and your sister will challenge each other, fight each other, make each other laugh, and love each other and you’ll both be better people for it. I’m so excited and proud to watch you become a big brother, and I hope very much that you treat your sister with at least as much dignity and respect as you treat our cats.

I love you more than I’ll ever know how to show, Mama

(And Dada. I’m assuming he feels similarly.)

Greetings from me and the tiny human I’m currently growing in my uterus! Rob, Lou, and I are very excited to welcome a lady baby to our family in September. We don’t know a lot about her yet except that she’s healthy, looks exactly like her brother in her sonogram, and might be part hummingbird because I can’t stop eating sugar. 

I expected this pregnancy to be easier since I’ve done this before, and have been very surprised to learn that being two years older and having a toddler aren’t two factors that lead to a calm, enjoyable pregnancy. If you live in my house or work in close proximity to me, you’re well aware of my near-constant whining. If you don’t number among these unfortunate people, here’s a look at how different my experiences have been, for better or worse. 

I am tired all the time.
When I am pregnant, I don’t sleep. I spend my days in a yawn-filled fog, trudge through my evenings, get an ice cream-related second wind right after Lou’s bedtime, sleep for a few hours, and then find myself awake from 1-5 a.m. Rinse, repeat.

This was frustrating during my first pregnancy, but I wasn’t working a full 9-5 then, nor did I have a toddler, so I was able to rest or nap some mornings. This round, I am accountable as an employee all day and a mama all of the time—and I’m pretty damn tired. I’ve taken to sleeping on the couch a lot because the stress of waking up Rob and Lou compounded with my eventual desire to stare at something on Netflix has led me there.

In the mornings, I wake up to Rob and Lou making breakfast, which is lovely, but I secretly resent their cheerfulness from my nest on the couch. The only saving grace of this new sleep situation is that I am in repose at exactly at Lou-height, so each morning I’m greeting with a new offering. Last week I received an open mouth kiss, a dinosaur toy, and “MAMA!” screamed an inch from my face. This week he stepped things up and brought an open bag of coffee beans and held it near my nose to smell, which was so dear that I had tears in my eyes and felt momentarily grateful that months of insomnia had led to this moment. I might have Stockholm Syndrome.

Deflated interest from strangers.
During both pregnancies, the question most asked was, “Awwww, is this your first?” When it was my first pregnancy, I would blush in the glow of impending motherhood and unknowingly give the people what they wanted: a brand new mama. Now when people ask (after I get over being flattered that they think I could possibly look rested enough to not currently have a toddler at home), I tell them it’s my second and the conversation ends and I feel like I’ve let them down. Are subsequent babies less exciting? I mean I’m pretty excited about it. 

There is less stuff to buy.
We sat down to make a list of what we need for this kid, and it turns out we already have most of it. We’re buying a bassinet because not having one during my C-Section recovery was brutal; we’re looking into whether or not a double stroller is a sound investment for our city kids; we need to fill in a few gaps in her wardrobe of Lou hand-me-downs—and that’s kind of it. A far cry from the frenzied shopping spree we went on after months of research during my first pregnancy.  

I’m a little worried about having so little to do or buy in the final weeks of my pregnancy when nesting kicks in, but once this kid is out and snuggled up in her brother’s arsenal of long-ago paid for infant-ware, I think I’ll be okay.

I have more anxiety about the birth.
Lou’s birth was not pleasant. I was induced a week after my due date, labored for well over 30 hours, and ended up with a C-Section. His heart rate was decelerating after contractions, which meant I needed an oxygen mask the entire time leading up to the surgery. And, after breaking my water some time in the middle of the night, we discovered Lou had been floating in meconium (Google it if you’re unaware), which added a lot more stress to the situation. 

This time, unless I go into labor on my own, my doctors are planning for a scheduled C-Section, which is terrifying me. I agree that it’s probably the best course of action given what went down the first time, but it’s giving me anxiety to kind of know already that I’ll be having major surgery—while awake—some time in September. I very much liked the not-knowing of Lou’s birth. We made each decision as the situation unfolded and I didn’t have time to panic—we just made a call with the doctors and then did that thing.

Having long-lead information about the impending birth is not very suitable for my personality. A very badass friend of mine is finishing the nurse anesthetist program at Georgetown and every time I see her I ruin her precious free time with questions about work. I ask for specific, step-by-step details on epidurals and spinals. With absolutely no medical knowledge backing me up whatsoever, I throw out doomsday scenarios and she patiently explains why what I just asked is impossible. I have even suggested she swing by while I’m getting my spinal just to talk me through it (and keep an eye on the doctor), which is beyond crazy.

Despite my unrelenting whining, I constantly forget I’m pregnant.

Multiple times a day, I’ll be in a meeting or in my sofa nest and think, “Oh no, one of my organs is twitching.” And it doesn’t always occur to me right away that the “twitch” is the miracle of life forming just behind my belly button. Or I’ll find myself totally winded after storming up a hill on my walk home from work and wonder why I’m gasping for air. Or I’ll wake up flat on my back and not be sure why I feel panicked and nauseous until I remember a human is crushing an artery in my body and I need to roll over immediately. Or I’ll get dressed in the morning and genuinely wonder when I put on so much weight.  

I’m going to assume this unbelievable aloofness is related to my lack of sleep. But if you see me perusing crop tops at Forever 21 at the Gallery some time this summer, please gently lead me out of the store while explaining the physics of baby bumps.

One of the regulars at a bar where I used to work once told me, “In Baltimore, you can’t leave the house without a jacket until after Preakness.” It’s a message that bubbles up in my thoughts every May as I compulsively check the weather and stick my head out our window, daring myself to walk to work sans outerwear. (I know good advice when I hear it: I have yet to leave the house without a coat this year.)

As the distance to that magical, jacketless Preakness day quickly nears, I’ve been getting really excited about Lou’s first real nice weather adventures. Last spring and summer, he wasn’t yet able to walk, and while his immobility allowed us to have fun, low key days, we’ve been anticipating the beginning of doing fun toddler-friendly stuff. Baltimore has been a pretty great city to raise our kid in so far, and the older he gets, the more opportunities for fun emerge. Here are a few places and events we can’t wait to take advantage of once our coats are finally packed away. 

Center Plaza Play Dates

Center Plaza is an awesome green space in the heart of the city that not enough people know about. It’s protected on three sides by tall buildings, and set back enough from the street to feel quiet and cozy. Lots of events are held here (like free yoga and concerts), but this is the first year with dedicated children’s programming. The season kicked off last month with an egg hunt, and continues with a screening of Moana, workshops with Baby Beats with Max and Root, a tot lot with sprinklers, a family happy hour, and monthly Stroller Strides classes—all for free.

(Full disclosure: I am an employee of the Downtown Partnership, who produces these events. Even fuller disclosure: I am also a downtown parent who would take my kid to these events even if the presenting entity didn’t sign my paychecks.)

West Shore Park splash pad

On a recent warm day, I received a video from our nanny of Lou crouched down low, inspecting a mini-geyser erupting from the sidewalk. He vacillated between being totally elated and totally engrossed in figuring out how the hell water was shooting out of the ground and no one was stopping him from playing in it. 

The West Shore Park splash pad is located just north of the Maryland Science Center and it’s perfect for swinging by to cool off children on a hot day, and having their minds be repeatedly blown for a couple of hours.

Druid Hill Park

Obviously the main attraction in Druid Hill Park is the Maryland Zoo, but may I suggest an alternative use for the park? Bubble party. The park itself is massive, and even on a crowded day it’s not hard to carve out a little space for your group. Fill a tote bag with every kind of bubble/dispenser you can get your hands on, post up on a blanket with an iced tea and a book, and let your kids get lost in the dreamy world of floating, soapy orbs. Though he sometimes ends up French kissing the wand, Lou learned the art of blowing bubbles a few weeks ago. I found catnip bubbles and now our cats—once angered by his mere existence—follow Lou around like he’s a Beatle.

Breweries

Baltimore is getting super spoiled as our food and booze worlds keep improving. Take advantage of these riches by meeting friends at one of the many outdoor events hosted by our city’s breweries. Union, Waverly, and Monument City all have outdoor space and their events toe the glorious line between feeling like you’re still cool and part of the scene, but also a good parent who has brought their kid to an event they’ll actually enjoy. My advice is to show up on time and leave when you think you’ve caught your first whiff of unhappiness from your child. 

Throw some snacks and an activity they can share with the other kids (and there will be lots of other kids) like a large beach ball or those fabulous bubbles.  And be mindful that, even if your progeny is having a blast and on their best behavior, at a certain point in the evening the other adults in attendance have the right to continue the evening sans children. 

The other night I was lying with my head in my son’s Ikea circus tent, (he used to invite me in to read to him, but only the part of me that makes sounds and words is allowed in now) reciting the names of trucks in his favorite truck book, when he suddenly cocked his hand back and open-palm slapped my left eye.

My husband (also not invited in the tent) jumped up from the rocking chair and picked Lou up, admonishing his behavior while our once-sweet baby stared down at me. He humored Rob’s stern talk about being kind and never hitting anyone especially not mommy, and then crawled back in the tent to resume his mechanical studies.

Hello, toddlerhood.

It shocked me how long it took to not be mad at him. I understood, rationally, that my 16-month-old is inherently irrational and that his outburst had nothing to do with me and everything to do with the fact that toddlers are little raw nerves running around on chubby legs. We responded the way we’re supposed to—by explaining his bad behavior and removing him from the situation.

But what I actually wanted to do was create him a PowerPoint outlining the two years it took to conceive him and the second trimester insomnia and migraines I dealt with and the 31-hour labor followed by C-section followed by the recovery and sleepless nights of reverse cycling and cluster feeding and the low grade anxiety about something terrible happening to him that I will carry in my heart for the rest of my life. A proportional response, no?

What I did instead was get over it. Because he hit me again a few days later when we were snuggled together watching Sesame Street, and again when we were standing in the window pointing out all the cars driving by (a new favorite pastime). And, before you pass judgement and think my son is some kind of woman-hater, I know for a fact he isn’t because he’s hit my husband, too.

I’ve looked into this extensively and basically what I’ve learned is that toddlers belong in prison. They hit and yell and are sometimes belligerent—or even poop—in public. They show little remorse for their transgressions, and exhibit almost no signs that they are willing to conform to societal norms. It’s no wonder that nature made sure humans are at their cutest and funniest from the ages of one to four.

I should take the time to point out, lest Lou come across this article 20 years from now, that he is a dream 93 percent of the time. He’s curious and hilarious and loving and he deeply dislikes being upset. His tantrums usually last under a minute because he’s already a more realized person than either of his parents and actually works to breathe through his anger. He amazes me every single day, and fills our lives with joy.

But the hitting has got to stop.

The research I’ve done leads me to believe that Lou’s occasional outbursts have to do with one of three things: curiosity, communication, or crankiness. Toddlers do things repeatedly to see what kind of reaction they’ll get. When they drop food on the floor it’s not to give you a prematurely bad back from cleaning, it’s to, simply put, learn what happens when they drop food on the floor. Will it always fall? Will dad always pick it up? Will any more food replace that food? It’s the same principle with hitting. Lou will watch us carefully to see how we respond, and then he moves on to the next activity. By that logic, if we consistently tell him to stop, we can expect a hit-free home some time by the end of 2018.

Communication—or lack of the ability to verbally communicate yet—could also be the culprit. Lou’s got a few signs down, which really helps us figure out what he wants. But while we wait for his verbal skills to fully catch on, it’s got to be pretty frustrating. Kids his age will often communicate the only way they know how at that point, which is physically. And lastly, he could just be tired or cranky and not want to deal with his annoying parents.

The lesson we’re all learning here is patience. Because we were inexplicably blessed with an easy baby, we’re used to being a little gang who gets along most of the time. But now that Lou is working on becoming a person and we’re working on being the best parents we can, things are shifting into a higher gear. Our relationship will continue to evolve for the rest of our lives, and it’s been humbling to realize that during his first big developmental shift.

The real work of helping turn him into a productive, kind, curious person has begun, and I can only hope that my creativity in aiding this process develops beyond guilt-ridden PowerPoint presentations.

I would like to offer the following unsolicited advice to new parents: go out to dinner.

Your tiny baby is about to become a big toddler and your dining options will soon shrink to eating room temperature Annie’s mac and cheese over the sink while your husband hoses your child off in the shower.

While your baby is a tiny and immobile little loaf, the dining world is yours for the taking. We’d pack Lou and his arsenal of infant essentials into his stroller and post up at various neighborhood spots. We’d order wine and congratulate ourselves on being unafraid to venture into the world with our child, delighted in our ability to expose Lou—who was definitely asleep and wouldn’t have cared even if he were awake—to things like French food and the beautiful architecture of the newly opened Elephant. The first year of Lou’s life allowed our social lives to carry on fairly uninterrupted. If he got fussy, we’d walk him around outside or just head home, but overall he was happy to be in the mix.

And then, right after his first birthday, Lou started walking. We cheered him on as he threw his tummy out and stumbled forward, grinning ear to ear. We bought him his first pair of shoes and opened his world from our living room to outside. Freed from the oppressive shackles of his stroller, he was suddenly in charge (to an extent) of where he went and what was worth stopping to investigate: cracks in the sidewalk, dogs, people, excrement of dogs, a leaf, a missing glove. His little urban world was full of curiosities and his mission was to give each one exactly nine seconds of his undivided attention before moving on to the next discovery.

Proud as we were of all of this, his newfound sentience has put a major damper on our previous frivolity. He was happy to play with a book or toy in his high chair before, but now it’s no longer fair to ask that of him. He’s a ball of energy and needs to observe and touch and point to everything he sees, so our evenings are now spent playing with his toys or blowing off steam in the park. We still love him and everything, but oh how I miss meeting my husband and baby for an after-work glass of something.

So, brand new parents, here is an expansion of my advice from someone on the other side.

Go early. Some will argue that babies don’t belong in any restaurant at any time, but I disagree. Taking your baby to meet a friend for happy hour is a lot different than showing up for a late seating at Charleston. Happy hours are bustling and full of post-work energy. It’s the perfect time to fly under the radar with a wee one. We had a pretty good track record at City Café, Paulie Gee’s, and Barcoina.

Weekend lunches are also a fantastic way to get out of the house and eat a meal you didn’t pay an Uber driver to deliver. In our experience, places like Captain Larry’s, Little Havana, and Rocket to Venus were casual enough to make us feel like we weren’t ruining high tea, and offered excellent background noise, which simultaneously soothes infants and softens any cries they might feel like sharing.

Be flexible. Sometimes you’ll get to enjoy an entire meal and make eye contact with your dining partner and have actual conversation about non-baby things. And sometimes you’ll show up, order a glass of wine, and leave cash crumpled on an unopened menu as you head right back out the door to deal with a blowout. If your expectations are fluid (a kinder way of saying “lowered,” no?) it’s a lot easier to roll with the punches.

Be unafraid. I have no empirical data to back this up, but it seemed like the more relaxed we were about taking Lou out of the house, the more successful our outings became. A well-prepped diaper bag and an exit strategy are your two greatest weapons when venturing out into the world with a baby—arm yourself with these tools and let the rest go.

Love live the food hall. Lou has traversed almost every inch of the Mount Vernon Marketplace, and had logged some decent mileage at R. House and Cross Street Market. The setting in a market is casual, busy, and loud- an environment your toddler can work with. Be mindful, of course, of other diners, but these wide open, confined spaces are perfect for taking turns running laps while your partner enjoys a second of peace and perhaps a beer.

Be kind to yourself. Even if you have a relatively easy baby, your life is totally turned upside-down right now. It’s okay to want to reclaim something from your pre-baby days, and swinging by your favorite restaurant for a bit is a pretty reasonable way to feel like a grownup again. Make plans, show up, and if it’s not in the cards that night, try again another time.

Read the room. You don’t need to make any enemies. Think back to your pre-baby life and determine if your baby’s behavior would have annoyed you then. If so, it’s probably time to pack up and ship out. We’ve found that most people are cool with a momentary cry or excited shriek, but we don’t push it beyond that.

Oh, winter. The only purpose you serve is making sure we don’t take the other three, superior seasons for granted.

Last winter our kid was a tiny bundle that stayed put where we left him. This winter he’s a curious, fast-walking, babbling human being and we’ve had to adjust the daily schedule to keep up. In the warmer months it’s not too hard to fill the days—long walks, playing in parks, outdoor concerts, perhaps a nice dip if you have a membership or live near a public pool. But in winter, things get more complicated. I certainly don’t have the constitution of, say, the Scandinavians, whose children are required to play outside no matter the thermometer, which means Lou becomes a bit more of an indoor kid this time of year.

Below are some suggestions for things to bring into your home to alleviate bad weather blues, as well as three activities to consider when you can’t take being stuck in your house for another second. Obviously, attractions like the Science Center, Port Discovery, and AVAM are always great options, as are classes at your local Enoch Pratt Free Library branch, the Walters Art Museum, and the BMA. But the list below considers your interests, if your interests include being afforded the opportunity to sip coffee or fit in a workout or meet other parents.

Play Kitchen

This play kitchen was Lou’s Christmas present. It took a good two hours and as many glasses of wine per parent to set up, but this thing is solid. We filled it with cute wooden food and little kitchen utensils and pots and pans and he conducts his own live cooking show each day. He chats to himself and presents plates of food and holds out his spoon for us to taste his concoctions. I hide cheddar bunnies in various containers and let his own curiosity (and ability to sniff out food like a hungry dog) handle snack time.

If you have four feet of free space in your home and a desire to sit quietly, alone, for ten damn minutes, I highly recommend this purchase.

Ball Pit

This ball pit has been the work horse of Lou’s toys since he was able to sit up. It’s grown from a crazy new environment in which to rest—buoyed by 250 plastic balls—to its current iteration as a place to hide things like tiny Apple TV remote controls and unopened cans of cat food. Lou assigns tasks to himself like working spastically and doggedly to remove the balls, one at a time, placing them in another nearby location like his kitchen’s sink or along the sofa cushions.

He burrows down into the balls and covers his eyes with them and patiently waits for the adults in the room to wonder aloud where he could possibly be. He tries with absolutely no luck to coax our cats into the ball pit, and though he has failed to get them to physically join him, his consolation prize is the unbelievable amount of cat hair that floats in and static-clings to the balls. (I should mention that if you live in a home with no animals, or hairless ones, don’t fret-—your child will still find joy in this activity even without swimming in a sea of dander.) This toy is versatile and fun and will grow with him for the next few years. I hope.

Play Café

We discovered Play Café one morning at 7:30 when we’d already been up for an hour and a half, and we were hungry, bored, and needed to get out of the house. I think I Googled something like “activities in Baltimore for babies before noon and also I’m hungry and we could use more friends with kids” and up popped Play Café.

The space in Hampden is low key and set up with a little café with a simple menu on one side and a play area on the other. We ate bagels and eggs and fed bites to Lou while he played. We ran into a friend and sipped coffee in the sunny room without worrying about the balance of keeping Lou occupied and being overly polite to the diners around us. It’s a really, really great place to go with children when you have cabin fever but aren’t in the head space to commit to a larger activity.

Amuse Toys, Quarry Lake

On Wednesdays and Fridays at 10:30 a.m., the back room of Amuse Toys is open for play. The toy set-up is fantastic—there are six or seven stations with things like trains and blocks, and it’s served as a good way for us to see what kinds of things Lou likes (or is ready) to play with. Now that he’s getting older and we’ve switched from survival mode to needing to actually nurture his brain, it’s getting way more expensive to keep this kid occupied. It’s been nice to let him loose in the play area and audition different types of toys before making the investment. Plus, much like Play Café, it’s pretty great to grab a coffee and interact with other grown-ups while your kid wanders around a room full of toys.

Stroller Strides

I joined this group in the brief interim between being healed enough from my C-section to do burpees and going back to work. In the summer, these fitness classes meet outside in Patterson Park and on Federal Hill, but in the winter they move indoors. I attended workouts in the Science Center and It. Was. Awesome. We ran through the exhibits, jumped up and down on the benches, and raced the stairs near the dinosaur area. Lou was too young to appreciate what was going on, but if your kid is 1 to 3 years, I bet they’d love it. The workouts are intense and include the kids where appropriate, and it was really nice to be around other moms while I was adjusting to my new role. The classes are not really scheduled for moms that work full time, so if you’re a fortunate lady who gets lots of time with your progeny and wants to fit in a workout, this class is for you.

Being a parent in 2016 is incredible in many ways, but perhaps outshining them all is the access to smartphones. If my kid is sick, I can book a doctor’s appointment, add it to my calendar, text my husband to update him, and have medicine delivered to my door in an hour all while playing soothing music (which in Lou’s case is still, impossibly, “Hotline Bling”). The ability for one device to do all those things is amazing, but it is simply an embarrassment of riches that that same device can also take unlimited, professional-grade photos of my son.

I am in no way a trained photographer. I am simply a lady with a baby, an iPhone, and just enough free time to really dig deep into the vanity of documenting a child made partially in my likeness. Below are a few of my thoughts on the matter of photographing your kid. With the holidays approaching and cards to print and mail to family, frenemies, and coworkers, I thought it might be worth sharing some unsolicited advice.

Perspective

At a happy hour with a buddy of mine, we discovered our sons might not share the friendship we’ve enjoyed for over 20 years. Through tears of laughter, I got a shot of both their reactions to really seeing each other for the first time, and they’re among my favorite from Lou’s first year. Until these shots, I hadn’t considered capturing what Lou was reacting to, but now I make it a practice to include multiple vantage points—especially since most of the time it just means turning around.

Opportunity

The outtakes can be the best stuff. Each morning that Lou turned a month older, I’d photograph him in the same spot—a common practice, I know, but an effective one. This was taken at six months, when his life was dominated by learning to sit up and pointing his index finger. This picture tells you which skill he still needed to work on. As long as they’re safe and happy, snap a few more pictures once your intended shot is a bust. This image feels so incredibly Lou, and it made me step back from my Dina Lohan brand of crazy-mom photography and instead focus on capturing his silliness.

Reflection

Babies love their reflections. Mirrors are intoxicating to a young mind, but kind of terrible for picture taking, especially since there is a 100-percent chance I’ll be captured in the reflection looking crazy and covered in cat hair. Instead, keep an eye out for all the other remarkable places in which they find their reflection. Lou had recently learned to pull himself to standing when he was seduced by the glow of the dessert case at Marie Louise Bistro one night. We let him gaze in, and because it was way past his bedtime, I was able to get a shot flooded with light against a nice pool of darkness. The best shots I’ve taken of this kid are when he’s naturally drawn to something, even (or especially) when it’s his own face.

Pets

Since he came home from the hospital, Lou has loved and been loved by our cat Richard. They snuggle together, they chase each other around, and they often drink out of the same water bowl because I’m learning to pick my battles. I’ve probably taken 300 pictures of these buddies and this the only one that’s any good because they share a sixth sense that alerts them that I’m reaching for my phone. But, I’m not a quitter and I purchased more space in my Cloud, so after a few months of unusable flashes of white fur and baby rolls, I finally got this shot.

Simplicity

The best spot for Lou’s high chair happened to be against a dark wall in our living room, and it’s turned out to be a fantastic backdrop for pictures. If there’s a spot in your living or dining room that you particularly like—or even just a solid-colored wall—try moving your baby’s eating situation there. Babies are like drunk college students when they eat: the goal is to shovel it in quickly and without the irksome realities of polite society. And as parents, it’s our job to photograph the hell out of their messes and then pretend to be strict about better manners. Taking these pictures against a solid backdrop highlights your kid and has the added bonus of leaving out the clutter in the space behind you.

Negative Space

For the purposes of this post, let’s assume “negative space” means “any space without babies in it.” My initial instinct when photographing Lou was to get in close and document every curve of his sweet little face, but as he’s gotten older, I’ve pulled back the frame. Creating a sense of place gives you more reference points down the line because it’s hard to tell where the picture was taken if it’s entirely filled with baby face, cute as it might be.

Hey Mama!

Hello! You’re a lovely person who Russian-dolled herself for nine months and lived to tell the tale of human extraction, so get in the damn pictures with that baby. It’s really easy to forget to jump in the shot (and being sleep deprived and discovering pureed pear in your hair isn’t the most glamorous you’ve ever been), but your kid will one day look for your face in his arsenal of baby pictures and you should be in them. Sneaking a glass of wine during an unforeseen nap or conducting a feed on the ground of a parking lot won’t be the biggest moments in your lives, but there’s a sweetness in capturing the little stuff.

At 10 months old, our kid is doing everything he can to walk. And with only 10 months of parenting a previously sedentary baby under our belts, my husband and I are freaking out.

Lou recently plowed headfirst into a hot pink metallic piggy bank (that isn’t even his—it’s mine because I have no taste when I impulse-buy). He sustained a nasty gash to the forehead, which led to the first “does he need stitches?” conversation. After much deliberation, we decided a few Steri-Strips and a dose of Tylenol would suffice. We tucked him into bed and took a moment to survey his little kingdom.

“His room,” my husband said, gesturing to all the crap in his nursery “needs to look a lot less like this, and a lot more like a dojo.”

And so began the undoing of Lou’s thoughtfully appointed nursery.

As items are removed, we’ve marveled at the complete idiots we were a year ago. Like all parents, we got really into the creation of his nursery. Paint colors were deliberated over and cribs were given brutal analyses and pitted against one another in consumer-testing battles. We bought books with actual paper pages to fill his bookshelves, believing that he would respect and lovingly handle them. His B-list stuffed animals were tucked away in the closet, lest they clutter the visual calm we’d created for our child.

And for many months, we actually lived in this fantasy world. Infants have no idea where or what they are, and therefore can’t get into much trouble. As Lou got a little bigger and stronger, he’d occasionally manage to roll over or scoot a few inches, which caused total elation on our part and zero clutter on his. But in the past month, he’s gone from an adorable, gentle scoot to a crazed, rapid crawl and his room has got to keep up.

To illustrate the undoing that must be done, I’ve included a few images. Parents of toddlers: you are welcome to laugh. Your homes are already stripped of your design preferences and are now primary-colored monuments to play-learning and locked toilets. Parents of perfect, milky, inactive newborns (or soon-to-be parents who are spending quiet moments in your Pinterest-worthy nurseries): you no longer live in a home for grown-ups. That kid is going to take off one day and either break your stuff or break himself.

Almost all of these issues
have been addressed. The piggy bank that
broke Lou’s fall turned out to actually have money in it, so we cashed out and
invested in some child-proofing gear and a huge, hideous, amazing indoor fence
area which we filled with soft floor tiles, a ball pit, and all those
previously hidden stuffed animals.

In the gray chill of January, my husband and I planned a vacation. Our baby was approaching three months, and I was in the unhinged purgatory of eagerly awaiting my return to work, and sobbing as I wondered how Lou or I would survive apart. Close friends of ours had floated a trip to Italy by us at seemingly the exact right time. We were in new parent bliss, but July was so impossibly far away and Italy sounded so warm, so we said yes. The flights were booked late one Saturday morning as we sipped coffee and glanced anxiously at our sleeping infant, hoping he hadn’t caught wind of this transgression.

Four-hundred million cubic feet of snow fell and then melted, spring arrived and promised summer, and suddenly it was July and we were at Whole Foods and Target stocking up on supplies to last Lou the entire nine days we’d be away. My guilt and worry grew as we got closer to the departure. Lou, of course, came down with a fever the day before we left, and we watched his temperature rise and fall with fear and short-lived relief.

After an emotional farewell, our flight was delayed two hours. Once we finally boarded, I received a call from our friends watching Lou that his fever (a respectable 100.1 when we left) spiked to 105.1, but that the doctor said this was all part of the virus going around and it would break by morning. We stared at each other, crazed, while I blathered on that we needed to get off the plane and Rob pointed out that perhaps the highly educated doctor we’ve thus far trusted implicitly could be right, and, by the way, one of Lou’s current caretakers happens to be an EMT. We took off, and I spent the next eight hours tormenting myself with worst-case scenarios.

We landed to a message that the fever had significantly decreased, and that Lou was sleepy but fine. Fears calmed, we hopped in our rental and took off for the coast.

Italy, like most beautiful places north of the equator, is pretty busy in July, so our two-and-a-half-hour drive to Sorrento turned into nearly five. We sat in a backup in a mile-long tunnel, wound our way through throngs of drunk Italians partying in the streets, and by the time we were two miles out, we realized a street festival was blocking the only way up to our house. We rerouted with phones that had no International data plans yet (and a combined five-percent battery) and our car became wedged in an alley as we tried in vain to reach the street that would get us to our house. That street was named—I’m not kidding—after our son’s birthday. Tired, worried, and stuck, we were taunted by Via 4 Novembre as we un-wedged our rental from centuries-old architecture and went the wrong way up a one-way street to the house. Touché, Lou.

The place where we stayed was built 700 years ago, and so naturally someone decided to install an elevator in it. At the prompting of my dear friend Freya, we loaded our luggage into the elevator and, as I eyed the warning sign, she closed the door and assured me that she had used it a few times already. Between the third and fourth floors, the elevator shuttered to a stop.

When I wasn’t quietly panicking about oxygen, I spent the next 30 minutes grappling with the universe’s response to us leaving our child. I inhaled soupy air and thought about how well-deserved this was. Once I was released from this floating torture device and I’d downed a bottle of wine to calm my nerves, we’d just have to turn around and drive back to the airport.

Right before the air hit the CO2 tipping point, I finally saw a third pair of shoes through the quarter centimeter eye-level slot between the elevator’s steel door and the floor. After 10 minutes and some Italian shouting, I was giving my friend a boost as the men above lifted her out. I, however, needed zero help, as adrenaline and the consuming fear of being sliced in half gave me the power of flight. I catapulted out, hugged my husband, and proceeded to drink half the bottle of wine I promised myself. (But not before slamming the top of my head into the tiny door frame that lead to the roof deck. Twice.)

Upon my release, we FaceTimed with Lou and discovered he said his first actual, intentional word in our brief absence. It was caught on video, for which we are eternally grateful, but while I was getting in touch with my inner claustrophobic in an elevator 4,500 miles from Baltimore, we missed this huge milestone.

Despite our trepidation, morning brought clarity and we decided to stay. We’d been punished enough. And while the rest of the trip was lovely and without incident, I allowed the guilt to cast a small shadow over nearly everything we did. An hour or two would go by without internal self-flagellation and I’d tell Rob how awful I felt for not feeling awful. He’d either kindly tell me to get over it, or fish his phone out of his pocket and play Lou videos. I was equally grateful for both responses.

My husband and I are social, love to travel, and having a baby didn’t rewire those parts of us—so why did I need to make myself feel badly? When I allowed it, it felt so good to act like a grownup again. One night in Rome we got dressed up and sipped cocktails in the courtyard of a fabulous hotel and I felt like I had super powers. Rob and I were having actual conversations with each other—with eye contact and everything!—instead of staring at the baby and speaking to each other as him (which is a very strange thing that I believe all parents do).

The further we get from the trip, I can see that it was invigorating and energizing and made the very best parts of our marriage shine. We came home exhausted and happy and missing our routine and our baby. When I look at the amazing fallout of being alone for a bit, I feel foolish for letting the guilt in so much. Lou had a ball and (I was told with slight apprehension) didn’t seem to miss us in the slightest, that little extrovert.

My baby deserves happy parents, and if that means taking a break once a year, then maybe that’s not such a big deal. But next time, I’ll just take the stairs.

When I was pregnant, I couldn’t wait to put together my son’s baby book. I imagined sitting at our dining room table with a cup of mint tea, writing notes and gently pressing photos onto the high-quality paper pages. Lou would be sleeping next to me in his rocker and I’d smile at his tiny, tired form while referencing the calendar on my iPhone to be sure I was copying the correct date of his first smile/laugh/bath into this timeless keepsake.

Then I’d flash forward to his college years when he’d come home over winter break and we’d look through it together and have meaningful conversations spurred by the mere existence of this meticulously crafted book, created entirely out of love and acid-free archival glue.

Lou is now 8 months old and there is no baby book. The first weeks were a blur of C-section recovery and learning how to keep an infant alive. The next few months were spent actually enjoying this little person, and, by the time it occurred to us that he might be the first first-born child without a detailed account of his earliest days, we were kind of over the idea of corralling his memories into one place.

Instead, the History of Lou is scattered. Tangible morsels exist alongside those in the iCloud ether and the card reader in our DSLR. We have an unreasonable number of Lou artifacts—pictures, hospital bracelets, videos, notes scrawled to each other about the last time he ate and what his poop looked like—they just aren’t affixed to pages in a book.

Here are some quick, easy ways to document your baby that don’t involve endless trips to Michael’s or boring your friends to death:

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5 Year Diary
Babies are amazing, but they don’t hit milestones every single day. Traditional baby books are great because they prompt you to write about big things like the first tooth, word, and steps, but a lot of other tiny little things happen in between. I love the 5 Year Diary because it’s the perfect amount of space to write about the big stuff alongside the sweet little stuff. You get five lines, which is just enough room to jot down a few notes from the day, but not enough that there’s any pressure attached. If I fall behind, I’ll either skip a few days or my husband and I will challenge our sleep-deprived brains to remember what the hell happened last week.

And, not every entry is about him. Some days I focus more on our schedule, professional lives, or what’s going on in the world. Since each page will eventually have everything that happened on a given date for five years, it will be a unique snap shot of our lives for Lou to look through one day.

1 Second Everyday app
Continuing with the theme of quick, daily glimpses, the 1 Second Everyday app is just that. It pulls from the videos and photos on my phone, and once a week I go through the available footage and edit down my videos of choice.

At the end of this year, I’ll have a 366-second video of everything that happened in 2016, with minimal effort. I’ve already watched the compilation through June, and openly wept. It’s basically the opening credits of The Wonder Years.

iCloud photo sharing
Some itches need to be scratched, and for parents, sharing pictures of their kids is insatiable. And if you follow a parent on social media, it can be insufferable. iCloud picture sharing is a lovely, private space to share as many pictures of my baby as I want to people who (say they) actually want to see them.

Album followers can like pictures and comment, which makes it feel like Instagram without subjecting the random college friend I haven’t seen in 10 years to a roundtable discussion about how chunky Lou’s thighs are. (But omg, so chunky.)

Print Studio
I’m pretty terrible at sending thank-you cards, and having a baby has only exacerbated the issue. They’re always late, and therefore always begin with an apology, and therefore I always end up writing way too much to compensate. Discovering Print Studios has given my tardy, frantic thank you’s a chill pill. If someone has given us a gift, I make a note to snap a picture of Lou using and/or destroying it. Then, every month or so, I’ll upload photos to the app and await my package of actual, tangible pictures.

Tucking one of these bad boys into a late thank-you note alleviates some of the guilt because the gift giver gets a glimpse at how happy they’ve made my kid. Plus, I always print doubles to keep around the house or tack up in my office.

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So yes, we’ve got his memories in many different forms, and when he’s an adult and wants to know about his babyhood, he’ll have to be his own historical architect. But he won’t have to look hard to discover little pieces of his life mixed into ours: the CD Rob and I recorded with StoryCorps about becoming his parents; the tiny light blue cotton mitten I slipped in my purse to get me through my first day back at work; the sonogram picture that proved the little gummy-bear shape had a strong, beating heart and would grow into our son.

It might not all be in one place, but it’s all there.

Hello, again! The last time Baltimore magazine invited me to share my thoughts, I was packing my bag for the hospital. After going eight days past my due date, being induced, powering through a 31-hour labor, and ending with a grand finale C-section, we welcomed our healthy, chunky baby boy Lou. (And, if he ever tells you I don’t do enough for him, please show him that sentence.) Becoming his parents has been wonderful and exhausting, and I’m excited to share some of stuff we’re learning. Like did you know baby poop doesn’t smell until they’re eating solid food? Why has this been kept a secret? And where is my Pulitzer for breaking this story wide open?

The fact that parenting is still hard in 2016 is a testament to the fact that parenting is hard. We have instant access to so much information and so much stuff to help ease the brand new minds and bodies of our babies, and somehow I still found myself sobbing on the floor one night after our son pushed himself right to the edge of a colic diagnosis. (Colic is confirmed after three consecutive weeks of crying and Lou eased up a few days before that mark.)

I’ve created a list of the things that got us through the first three months of infancy. The first months are rough—you’re sleep deprived and in pain from the trauma of birth. Your entire existence now revolves around protecting someone you don’t really know or understand yet. Your relationship to your partner is tested in totally new ways and you have to find the time and energy to pay attention to each other. Leaving the house now requires a more organized mind than the architect of Versailles.

My list won’t work for every baby, but it worked for ours, and almost everything on here came as a recommendation from other moms. Also, almost everything on here came from Amazon Prime Now because, as I mentioned, it’s 2016.

Hyland’s Colic and Calming Tablets
I was initially skeptical of these tiny pills because they seemed like a guaranteed choking hazard, but after one use I was totally sold. They dissolve instantly and contain chamomile, which seems to gently take the edge off a screaming baby. They worked so well that we started to worry we were setting our baby up for the life of a mid-’90s Robert Downey, Jr., but our doctor assured us that they’re a safe, natural solution to colic, and Lou’s relief is visible when he takes them.

Windi
Oh, the Swedes. Only they could create such a perfectly packaged, streamlined fart stick. The Windi’s simplicity is brilliant. It’s just a small, beige tube that is gently inserted into your baby’s bottom and almost instantly relieves gas and/or constipation. After a particularly scream-y evening, I texted my friend, who is a new mom and a doctor (praise you, God of Friendship) and she advised me to buy the Windi. One well-tipped Amazon Prime delivery later, we had the Windis and a case of Orange La Croix (packaged separately), and were high-fiving over the whistling sounds of our son’s gas. The tube makes sure to let you know it’s working—music to our ears.

Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleepsuit
Our kid loved being swaddled. Some babies fight it, but Lou surrendered immediately to being live-action origami. We had about two blissful months of wrapping him up before he started to realize his arms were attached to his body and that their movements needed to be explored. We were equal parts thrilled that he was developing on schedule, and terrified that we could no longer safely bind his little body into slumber. Fortunately, we were alerted to the existence of Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleepsuit, which is a full-body suit made of thick cotton that mimics being swaddled. Traditional swaddling stops being safe after a baby can wriggle free and potentially cover their nose and mouth with the fabric, and the Michelin Man-shaped Merlin serves the dual purpose of being a worry-free swaddle and a hilarious photo opportunity.

Girdle
Because some celebrities suggested it, I had looked into post-pregnancy girdles to assist my waist in making its return trip to its pre-pregnancy size. Lucky for me, when you have a C-section, the hospital hands them out, so I avoided giving Nordstrom a hundred bucks for the privilege of keeping my organs in place.

If you end up having a C-section, take as many girdles as the hospital will give you. (I’m being dramatic. Two or three is plenty.) In the first days and weeks of recovery, these stretchy, Velcro wraps felt like they were holding me together—and, I’m not a doctor, but my instinct is that they actually were. They made it possible to lift and feed my baby, protected my incision (which meant I could wear clothes when visitors popped by), and they helped firm up my core as I healed. I relied on them so much that my husband had to explain that a girdle isn’t actually memento of Lou’s birth as I weepily held the last tattered cummerbund over the garbage can.

Sunglasses
We received these wayfarers as a baby shower gift, which I thought were really cool but not super practical. Then I had an infant and errands to run and I realized they are genius. Yes, Lou looks tremendous in them, but they also helped him nap longer when we were on the go. It sometimes felt a little Weekend at Bernie’s, but pushing that hip, slumbering baby around in his stroller made our first trips out into the world a little less scary.

Drake
Speaking of cool, our son responds really well to Canadian rap music. Other than his acceptance to a reasonably priced state school, our greatest hope is that we won’t have to explain the lyrics of “Hotline Bling” to him anytime soon, because it instantly stops his cries. I don’t know if it’s the bass line or that he’s pondering the motivations behind the Drake-Meek Mill feud, but Lou stops mid-holler and sort of dozes off. Interestingly, Raffi, another Canadian artist, is also part of our kid’s musical repertoire. No word yet on his stance on ice hockey.

Cradle & Swing
Our friends very kindly lent us their daughter’s arsenal of infant furniture: a Rock’n’Play, a bassinet, a Bumbo, and this swing. Known in our home as “Robot Dad,” this monument to sane parenting occupies serious space, but is worth every lost square foot. There comes a moment when your baby has stopped responding to the enormous volume of love, protection, and gritted smiles you are forcing upon him, and you realize he just needs to be put the hell down. Robot Dad would accept Lou into his loving, padded seat and rock him side to side to the soundtrack of bullfrogs (extra points to Robot Dad for giving our City Kid access to nature sounds.)

With its solid 75-percent sleep success rate, we came to rely on the swing in some of our darkest hours. And though Lou is a bit too big to fit in the seat now, it’s still perched in our living room, reminding us of our serious limitations as parents.

Megan Isennock is director of communications at the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore. If you like baby pictures, she’s got a few on her Instagram.

The last few weeks of pregnancy are by far the strangest. There are the obvious, physical oddities: watching the pupils of my friends’ eyes eclipse their irises whenever I turn to the side, the grunting and sighing sounds I’m apparently making every time I move, and the incredible amount of food I’m able to put away now that the baby has dropped and given my stomach the room it feels it deserves.

But the truly strange parts of being this late in the game are mental and emotional. There is simply no way to know what birth will feel like, or what seeing the baby for the first time will do to our brains. My husband and I can’t fathom how our relationship will change or what it will be like to add a new member to our decade-old gang. I trust that we’ll be good parents in terms of loving our kid and doing our best to keep him safe and healthy, but we could still really screw this up. For example, I’ve already admitted, out loud, that my feelings would be hurt if our son didn’t like Harry Potter. If that crazy thought doesn’t prove how easily this whole parenting thing can turn sour, I don’t know what else could.

Phantom literary fears aside, we’re hanging out in the pre-baby purgatory zone where everything is equally amazing and terrifying. Every sudden ache causes nervous laughter, every doctor’s appointment causes mild anxiety, and every time I see our baby’s closet full of tiny little outfits, I feel like I could burst open trying to contain how much I miss someone I still haven’t met.

To try to play it cool in these final days, I’ve found it best to distract myself with books, movies, music, and food. Here is a compilation of what I’ve been doing while waiting for this baby to decide to make some moves. If you’re super pregnant, too, I hope this offers some new ways to pass the time.

Listening

“Baby,” Devandra Banhart: When I hear this song, everything flashes forward and I imagine singing and dancing to it with my kid while he’s in that sweet spot between being old enough to remember lyrics and young enough to indulge his mother in hipster nonsense.

“This Will Be Our Year,” The Zombies: My husband has an annoying habit of sitting down at the piano every time we’re walking out the door, and this song is at the very top of his rotation. I can’t wait to introduce my son to the dance of pretending to be exasperated while secretly finding this delightful.

“Changes,” David Bowie: Turn and face the strange indeed, Mr. Bowie

“I’m Coming Out,” Diana Ross: I’ve been playing this a lot, hoping my kid will adopt it as his mantra and use it as inspiration to make his debut. Ditto for Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak.”

Fresh Air: The WYPR app is almost constantly playing on my phone, and I am eternally grateful for the “Fresh Air On Demand” feature. Terry Gross is a damn delight.

Reading

Bringing Up Bebe, Pamela Druckerman: Rob and I both read this and fully agree that it’s our ideal parenting approach and almost definitely impossible to achieve unless you are, in fact, French.

The Happiest Baby on the Block, Dr. Harvey Karp: This was recommended as a preemptive read in case your bundle of joy is also a bundle of colic. I read it, thought it seemed reasonably helpful, and then promptly forgot everything. I imagine it will make a comeback during desperate, 2 a.m. feedings.

Why Not Me?, Mindy Kaling and Sick In the Head, Judd Apatow: On the off chance that laughter is the best medicine for inducing labor.

Watching

Away We Go: This movie nails the way it feels to be on the precipice of changing from a couple to a family.

For Keeps: It makes me feel grateful to not be forced into ’80s maternity wear, but more importantly, it offers a pretty raw look at postpartum depression.

30 Rock: Because I believe in both the power of inception and Tina Fey.

Project Runway: I can’t explain my sudden obsession with this show, but I could kiss whoever put seven seasons of it on Hulu. I could also kiss Heidi Klum for hosting it, because I think she’s the only reason my husband hasn’t run over our Apple TV base with his car.

Eating/Drinking

Honey Crisp apples (or “nature’s Starbursts,” if you’re my husband): Best served directly out of the fridge. Avoiding cutting them up if you’re with company—friends are far less likely to ask for a bite if you’ve been gnawing off the rind.

Marshmallows with dark chocolate: No, not a s’more. Just alternating bites of an extra-large, room temperature marshmallow and a piece of whatever dark chocolate I can scrounge up in my pantry.

Iggie’s cinque formaggi pizza: Because hot cheese and carbs are appealing whether you’ve got a person trying to get out of you or not.

Raspberry leaf tea: My understanding is that it helps tone the uterine muscles for labor. What I don’t understand is why there isn’t a tea to do that for the rest of my muscles.

I’m signing off for a few weeks to have this baby. Thanks for letting me share my experiences thus far, and I’ll be back in early winter to foist my sleep-deprived thoughts on infant care upon you.

My husband Rob and I tend to do things all at once. We thought our affinity for semi-controlled chaos hit its peak three years ago when, in the course of ten months, we got engaged, planned a wedding, sold our house, bought a new one, moved, had the first floor renovated from a condemned former pharmacy into a living space, and then got married. I’m choosing to look at it as poetic that three years later, in the exact same January to October timeline, we’ve put massive home-improvement projects on our plate while preparing for a baby and dealing with my pregnancy. At 32 weeks, we had our roof repaired and re-tarred, and now, at 36 weeks, we’re building a new bedroom on our third floor so we can clear out the guest room for the nursery.

And while these upgrades are needed and it’s an exciting time, I’m sort of stuck—I’m experiencing the late third-trimester urge to nest, but my nest is currently a construction staging zone. After freaking out and then wallowing in our lack of preparedness, I decided to redirect my energy. And that is why my soon-to-be family of three will have the most kick-ass hospital bags any maternity ward has ever seen.

I’ve spent hours researching and cross-referencing blogs and baby sites, and then hours more online and in shops around town. I’ve imagined many different birth scenarios and used these to evaluate the usefulness of each packed item. In making this list, I’ve also realized that I am in total denial about what is going to happen to me in the hospital, so I hope that if you’re reading this and you’ve given birth, you’ll be kind to my Pollyanna packing attitude. My fear of giving birth has buried itself deep within and given rise to uncharacteristic optimism, so parts of this list read more like I’m prepping for a long layover in an airport, and not like I’m going to be cursing up a storm in a Catholic hospital.

For Me

Bag: Everlane

Robe/gown: Please know that I’m aware of the insanity in packing both a robe and the “birthing gown” I ordered off Etsy in a moment of sleepless vanity. Both purchases were cheap and made with the understanding that we may only know one another for the hours spent in Mercy’s maternity ward, but there is something very satisfying to my demented mind that I will have the option of a mid-labor costume change.

Slippers: Again, a cheap Target purchase, but this $7 investment means I’ll have warm toes and a layer of protection between me and floors that have most definitely seen some stuff my feet don’t need to know about.

Nursing bra: My nursing bras will pull double duty on the big day. I found a super comfortable sports bra/nursing bra hybrid, and one will be worn during labor and one will be worn post labor. Mine were purchased off Amazon, but I’ve seen great variations at Bare Necessities and, of course, Target.

Misc: Chapstick, sugar-free mints, Trader Joes electrolyte water, and purple Gatorade are apparently the only comforts I will be allowed during this process, so I have stocked up.

For Rob

Bag: From local company Treason Toting Co.

Overnight stuff: Toothbrushes, toothpaste, hair ties, shampoo/conditioner/face wash, make up (I mean, reach for the stars, right?), deodorant, and lotion. There’s no shame in wanting your familiar smells.

Lint roller: We are filthy humans who are outnumbered by cats in our home and I refuse to be distracted by a cat hair on my spouse or me while I’m bringing life into this world. I just will not have it.

Pillows: I bought two pillows for $4 each at target, and covered them with the oldest, rattiest pillow cases I could find. This way, Rob will have something comfortable to take a nap on until my disdain for being alone takes over and I wake him up to hang out with me/share his pillow.

Snacks: Rob will be delighted to find some snacks in his bag, but he will be cautioned to eat them out of sight and to brush his teeth with his (also lovingly packed) toothbrush before returning to me, as I am an unfriendly, godless heathen when I’m hungry. Somewhere deep down, I will find a way to be happy that Rob has pretzel chips, Kinderhook cookies, and trail mix to keep his energy up.

Misc: Deck of cards, laptop, Kindle, phone chargers, and camera. The only thing worse than being around me when I’m hungry is being around me when I have no activities.

For the Baby

Bag: Nat and Matt from Trohv

Going-home outfit: A tiny hat and a warm going home outfit, which will be simple, footed pajamas. (Unless the paparazzi get wind of our departure, in which case I’ll pack something from the North West for the Upwardly Mobile Infant collection.)

Mittens: So he can keep his little paws warm and not scratch his face

Swaddling blanket: Because I hear you should always have one around as they are endlessly useful

Properly installed car seat: It’s the law and I’d like the hospital to let us take our baby home with us.

Though I had absolutely no control over the timing, having a fall baby has provided a fantastic gestational fashion calendar. It was still cold out when I needed to hide my bump in the nascent pregnancy days, and with the help of belly bands, I cruised into the second trimester still wearing my favorite jeans. As soon as we went public with the news and the temperature promised not to go below 75 for a while, I ditched pants entirely and have spent the summer in dresses and skirts.

Initially, I was intimidated by maternity fashion. It’s a drop in the bucket, time-wise, which makes it difficult to figure out how to spend your clothing budget. But it’s also a really important time, during which your body becomes a science experiment and feeling pretty is both impossible and crucial for your mental health—so you’ve got to make something work.

Late in my first trimester, I tried on almost every dress I own, and with very little exception, I realized I’d spent the past few years accidentally padding my wardrobe with bump-friendly options. My clothes were loose and flowy to begin with, or had enough stretch to both accommodate and accentuate my growing midsection. It’s only in the past week or so that I’ve had to retire a few of my favorite non-maternity options, which is incredible considering I’m due next month and I’ve gained every bit of the recommended weight. I highly recommend taking inventory of what you’ve got; I realize not everyone will find that they’ve been walking around for years dressed like a pregnant person, but I promise you’ll see a few of your outfits in a new light.

Once you’ve assessed your closet situation, invest in a few basics. I purchased the “bundle” from Storq, and it has been become integral to my maternity wardrobe. They send leggings, a tank, a short sleeve dress, and a high-waisted skirt and I’ve been able to style each piece with components of my pre-pregnancy wardrobe. The skirt has become my favorite option because somehow, almost every shirt I own still looks good with it. Button downs get tied off above my waistline, flowier tops are a little snug but hang nicely over my bump, and adding a jean or leather jacket to the look makes me feel more like an adult and less like a baby-stuffed parade float.

For shoppers willing to stalk a good deal, Asos is a pregnant lady’s shopping mecca. Their maternity selection is massive and on-trend, and while overall I think they are reasonably-priced, their site-wide sales are worth waiting for. I’m being as patient as possible to for the next sale to see the prices on this sweater, this swing dress, and this coat, which will all carry nicely into my post-birth clothing collection.

For those of you who don’t love online shopping, try your luck at the Free People and Anthropologie sale racks. Their clothes tend toward the looser, more ethereal end of the fashion spectrum, which is perfect for your expanding torso. I snatched up a few flowy dresses (all for under $40) and, now that my bump has lifted the front hems a little too high for bare leg comfort, I’m excited to transition them into fall with tights and boots. Look for dresses that either have an empire waist or no waist (like a shift dress) or go a size up and purchase something formfitting but with a forgiving spandex-to-regular-fabric ratio.

Pregnancy has also taught me to embrace accessorizing. I spent seven years at an all-girls, Catholic school that adhered to a strict uniform code, and the experience left me wary of sparkly self-expression. (On my first day of college, I remember waiting for the professor to give detention to the girl next to me wearing huge hoop earrings and chewing gum.) Pregnancy has released those fears, however, and now I am super appreciative of the mileage a good necklace can give a simple dress or pair of jeans. Accessories have the added bonus of being just as effective and useful during pregnancy as after, so I deeply encourage using that rationalization while you’re shopping. Try Becket Hitch for clutches, South Moon Under for bold necklaces, and ForRent for comfortable but cool lady sneakers.

And finally, don’t be afraid to borrow. Pregnant people and new moms have so much stuff, and giving second lives to clothes and outgrown baby items is a relief. Take lunch over to your fashionable mom friend and let her reminisce about her pregnancy while you raid her closet. It’ll be good for your wallet and her new mama soul.

This post was initially meant to serve as a stroller-buying guide. I had a vision of a cool infographic with tiered pricing and flashy shots of cute babies in their tiny whips. But then I actually began researching strollers, and determined that I am in no way qualified to espouse real information on the matter until I’ve actually pushed my kid through the streets. I also determined that, like a lot of pregnancy topics, strollers can be highly divisive. I expected passionate responses to conversations about breast feeding, circumcision, co-sleeping, and names, but not about how to stroll your kid from A to B. I’ve talked to moms of one kid, moms of two kids, city moms, suburban moms, moms who own stores that sell strollers—and everyone’s take on the subject is totally different.

From what I can tell, the two biggest factors in making the all-important stroller decision seem to be budget and lifestyle, which, sure, but the sub-categories are subjective and endless. Because the price range of strollers can start at $20 and rocket into the low four-figures, it’s difficult to determine what the true “mid-range” options are. I’m a consumer who likes to start from the middle and work my way out, and I found myself tripped up as I tried to find the true median. Is an UPPABaby Cruz, at $460, a reasonable mid-range stroller? Or am I an aspirational fool who needs to be knocked down a few pegs to a Mamas and Papas Armadillo City Stroller, which retails for $270?

Once you get a handle on the price, you have to evaluate how you live. We’re Downtown folk who much prefer to walk rather than drive. I’ve lived in the city for nearly 10 years, and it’s turned me into such a fast, impatient walker that a very large man once stopped and threw his hands up because he thought I was trying to mug him. So the baby and I will need something agile and compact to get around in, but with enough storage to properly conceal our mugging booty. It would also be nice to be able to duck into coffee shops or meet a friend for a glass of wine, which means the stroller has to be space-conscious. (Read: it can’t piss off any waiters or baby-hating patrons.)

Since this is one of our (if not the) biggest purchases for our baby, and since I, like, respect his opinion or whatever, I asked my husband, Rob, to take a look at my uncharacteristically organized Google spreadsheet. I figured he’d spend five minutes reading Amazon reviews and then point to one. I did not expect him to attempt a full-fledged doctorate on the subject.

Dads, it turns out, get really into strollers. Maybe it’s because the stroller is baby’s first set of wheels, or maybe it’s because strollers are the most industrious and mechanical item on the registry, but something about this purchase is appealing to them. Rob got so absorbed in my stroller search that he left his friend (who had flown in from San Diego to spend the weekend with us) in another room of our house while he ransacked the stroller section of the Internet. His buddy actually fell asleep while Rob compared vlogs of women showcasing features of various stroller brands from their living rooms. When Rob finally came up for air, he was surprised and sheepish, but had narrowed our search down considerably.

After consulting my husband and the sage saleswomen at both Wee Chic in Greenspring Station and Corduroy Button in Kenilworth (they recommend the Stokke Xplory and the Bugaboo Donkey, respectively), I asked my small-but-lovely group of mom friends for their take. One friend, who has two kids under two and lives in the county, said I’m a fool to think I’ll only need one stroller. She listed brands such as BOB, McLaren, Chicco, and Kinder Wagon among her arsenal, and had truly reasonable applications for each one. Another friend, who lives in the city and has one baby, raved about her BOB Revolution jogging stroller. Among its shining attributes, she listed its durability on city streets, its smooth ride, and that you can pop a six-pack in the storage area. This last bit of advice was not pointed out in any of Rob’s mommy blogger videos, so I’m happy to be able to share it with you.

What I’ve learned in my research is that choosing a stroller has proven to be the most complicated pre-birth decision we’ve made. I had sincerely hoped to ramble my way into solid advice by the end of this article, but from what I’ve cobbled together, this is the magic equation for stroller purchasing:

Budget + lifestyle + opinion of spouse + opinion of moms you know + opinion of Amazon reviewers + opinion of knowledgeable stroller salespeople + your own sliding scale of “stroller coolness” = a good start to picking the thing in which you’ll wheel your kid around—that will soon become a moveable pile of crumbs and assorted detritus.

Happy shopping.

The two things I looked forward to most when my husband and I successfully co-mingled our gene pools were the kid and the food cravings. (If our son reads this one day, it will be good that I listed him first.) There’s a scene in Parks and Recreations where Ann lists a “huge trash bag full of mashed potatoes” among her cravings—and that’s what I wanted. Maybe not garbage potatoes, but I wanted my stomach to teach my brain cool new ways to articulate hunger. And yet, with 10 weeks left in this pregnancy, my only constant craving has been for peas.

In the late spring, when my pea obsession kicked into gear, I thought maybe my baby was some kind of food puritan, sent to force me to eat seasonally from the inside out. Peas were everywhere, and so I put them in everything. I ate them by the bowlful, once going through two pounds of the three-pound sack I purchased at the farmers’ market in less than a week. I learned how to make ricotta so that I could pair my delicious peas with fresh ricotta over pasta and even typing that, at 9:19 a.m., is making me want to weep because dinnertime is so far away from now.

I realize, fully, that saying peas are my greatest craving is obnoxious. They’re peas. I get it. Everybody loves a good crazy pregnant lady food story, and I’ve seen too many faces fall when I share mine. This pea rave isn’t meant to make me seem like a demure Victorian lady who denies human urges. I am always, always hungry. Making a person is a lot of work, and so I eat almost constantly. But I’m still holding out hope that some brilliantly vile food combination will sing its siren song from my pantry, but for now, here are the normal things I’ve been eating around town.

JFX Farmers’ Market and Bazaar
Everyone’s farmers’ market route is intensely personal. We all have very different food goals and methods to maneuver/cope with big crowds and long lines. I’m fortunate that in our almost decade-long relationship, my husband has mostly conformed to my psychotic market behavior. We get in, get coffee and a snack, do a counter-clockwise loop with minimal fraternizing, and we get out. Acceptable stops include: Farm to Face Falafel, where crunchy beets, cucumbers, and greens hold hands with hot falafel in a shallow sea of honey and Sriracha. The wrap presentation allows for face-stuffing on the go. McCarthy’s Farm is, I believe, where we fill up our pea sack, but honestly I’ve never looked up other than to politely smile at the pea-handler because I’m so focused on the end goal. Locust Point Greenhouse is where we stop for fresh flowers and plants (not technically a food, but I can’t have booze so we now have a constant rotation of floral arrangements). We’ll hit Reid’s Orchard on the way out for berries, and if we have any cash left and finished our falafel too quickly, we’ll pop by Blacksauce Kitchen for second breakfast.

Belvedere Square
One of my favorite things about pregnancy is the smugness I feel when I bounce out of bed early on a Saturday while knowing all of my friends are still fitfully sleeping off their hangovers. (This smugness is a façade built around myself to feel better about not also being hungover.) I very much enjoy being an early bird at Belvedere Square to split a humongous Plantbar juice with my groggy husband, supplemented with bagels from Greg’s, and coffee from Atwaters.

Taharka Brothers Ice Cream
If forced to make a decision, I’ve always been a person who would take a vat of hot, salty, vinegar-soaked fries over dessert of any kind. But now that I’m pregnant, I’ll take the fries and some ice cream, please. Specifically, I’d like a pint of Salted Caramel from Taharka, which is sold at the grocery store three blocks from my house, because sometimes things just work out that way.

Minato
I am fully aware that eating raw fish while pregnant is frowned upon. But pregnancy makes your brain want many things all at once, and sushi spots are the best for getting lots of little bits of things. Minato’s bento box special on Sunday nights has made me very, very happy. I split some edamame and spring rolls with my dinner date and then go to town on a platter of shrimp tempura rolls, sesame chicken, rice, and whatever else I can get them to throw into the mix. Also, if other restaurants could get into the game of selling food by the bite, that would be great.

The 800 block of The Avenue in Hampden
Going with the theme of sating the many palates I experience all at once, the 800 block of The Avenue has something for all of me. The chicken kabop wrap and tikki chat from The Verandah are so perfectly seasoned and toe the glorious line between feeling gluttonous, but also not being entirely bad for you. The Ma Petite Shoe Café offers delicious decaf drinks and a variety of crepes (the recent “Chicken Dinner” crepe special had stuffing in it. Stuffing. In August. What a world.) And, obviously, The Charmery makes the list because I’m not a fool.

Matthew’s Pizza
We used to reserve Matthew’s for super special hangovers—the kind that settle in deep and really latch on, oblivious to the Gatorades you’ve chugged. But now it’s reserved for just being hungry for pizza. Though dining in is lovely, I recommend grabbing a three-cheese with pepperoni to go, and using the car ride home to really let the aroma permeate while you sip on a Limonata San Pelligrino, like you’re on holiday in Italy. Then bring it back to America once you’re back on your sofa with a Netflix nosedive.

Friends and Farms
Friends and Farms is like having your cool, health-conscious parents do your weekly grocery shopping. They aggregate food from the region (small carbon footprint!) and source from ethical farms (feel good about your food!) and put it all together in insulated reusable bags (take that, landfills!). Every food group is represented, down to yogurt, milk, and bread, making light of any subsequent grocery store runs. Food pick-ups are once a week, and the friendliest people in the world dole out your bounty. Friends and Farms has been a wonderful resource for us this summer. Pregnancy brain is very real, and having someone curate a healthy mix of the food pyramid means we’ve eaten delicious, balanced meals, and not boxed Velveeta mac and cheese every night.

The day I found out I was, for sure, pregnant, I took the doctor’s call from the ladies room at the Four Seasons spa. My husband and I had booked a codependent couple’s massage, which was followed by some independent hot tub soaking and sauna-ing. We weren’t big spa people, but it was a Valentine’s Day/winter sucks/let’s take a personal day indulgence, and, had it not ended in me panicking about what a horrible mother I already was for exposing my three week old cell cluster to five minutes in a 90-degree pool, it would have been very relaxing.

I spooked myself enough to swear off spa treatments, but then some kind people gave me a gift card for a prenatal massage as a thank you present, and my interest was reignited.

Because this is my first pregnancy and I’m nervous about almost everything, I wanted to find out more about the safety, benefits, and red flags of spa-ing. And because I now write this blog, I had the perfect, non-crazy-sounding excuse to ask some experts to sit down with me and explain a few things. Two lovely women at Hampden’s Charm City Skin, Shannon and Camille, took some time to walk me through the prenatal waxing and massage experience.

First up is waxing. I have shied away from booking an appointment because, frankly, having my hair ripped out with hot wax while also uncomfortably pregnant sounded terrible, but I’ve since changed my tune. Shannon, an esthetician, admits waxing will be slightly more painful due to increased blood volume and sensitivity, but letting a professional handle your hair removal is the safer option. The bigger the bump gets, the harder it becomes to shave. Women are at a higher risk of slipping (I almost bit it in the shower trying to reach my ankle recently) and of cutting themselves. And if the pain is keeping you from tidying things up below the belt, consider a modified wax. There’s no shame in putting a hold on the Brazilian and opting for the bikini for now.

Shannon also stressed the importance of both sanity and sanitation when considering spa treatments during pregnancy. Women tend to see these treatments strictly as an indulgence, but making the time to take care of yourself and your appearance can have a great effect on mood and outlook. She also advises relying on common sense and feeling comfortable speaking up if you have concerns. If you see the esthetician “double dip” the stick, then you should leave. And this doesn’t just apply to pregnant women. Incubating a human shouldn’t be the only reason you feel comfortable advocating for yourself if you see something fishy.

Armed with a degree in Wax Safety 101, I headed upstairs for a prenatal massage with Camille. I feel I should disclose that my chat with her took place after my 70-minute massage, so there’s a chance that she didn’t actually say any of the things I’m about to share. I was a loose, gooey, vaguely human form, capable only of taking sips of lemon water and realizing I’d made my voice match the low lighting. (I believe this liquidity is the standard to which all people should hold their post-massage experience.)

According to my notes, which I appear to have scrawled with my left hand while blindfolded, Camille’s expertise is assisting women through pregnancy, childbirth, and post partum. She’s not only a massage therapist—she’s also a doula who can massage you while you’re in labor. (I recall being blown away by this. In fact, I wrote, “How can this be real?”) Her prenatal massage advice mirrored that of Shannon’s: Use common sense, speak up if you’re uncomfortable with anything, and treat the experience less as an indulgence and more as an investment in sanity.

What interested me most was her post-natal advice. Women spend their pregnancies gearing up for the big event, and, once the baby arrives, they tend to forget about themselves. Obviously, the eight-pound human you just birthed needs as much attention and love as you can give, but moms need to remember to take care of themselves, too. Massage can have incredible benefits for post-partum women. It can help with pain management, reduce swelling, encourage milk production, promote better sleeping patterns, and, obviously, provide overall relaxation. Plus, I have to imagine that getting out of the house for an hour does wonders for your sanity. It won’t be easy, but mamas have to keep their head above water somehow.

Pregnancy spa experiences can be expensive, but are worth consideration as you’re budgeting. My rationalization—other than the benefits for the baby and me—is that I’m re-energizing Baltimore’s economy. The money we used to spend at bars and restaurants has been burning a hole in our savings account, and it’s time we released it back into the wild. And if that means I have to lie in a bed of pillows while someone forces me to relax, so be it.

When I discovered I was pregnant, I assumed that my body would suffer, but certainly not my mind. Not this brain, that averages a book a week and can solve an easy crossword puzzle, and has never lost to my husband in Scattergories. (He doesn’t think that’s worth bragging about, either.) But then, there I was, three months pregnant, blinking at baristas when I couldn’t remember “decaf iced Americano, please” and dreading deadlines because whatever part of me used to write with ease had rededicated itself to the creation of life.

Finding out that the brain starts to jam up even before the kid is out was . . . alarming. And responsible, in part, for why it took me so long to figure out how to navigate being a pregnant lady in this city. My millenial sensibilities assumed some fecund hipster enclave would spot my bump at a coffee shop and welcome me into their group. They’d know all the best studios for pregnancy yoga and have a shared Google doc with thoughts on doulas vs.midwives, Lamaze vs. All the Drugs, and which organic vitamin shops carried prenatal vitamins with DHA.

If they’re out there, they never found me.

And so I had to create my own little network to figure things out. I even had to pick up the phone and call a few places. It turns out that most people love pregnant ladies, and were happy to help. This came as a surprise to me because I generally don’t like people—much less two people in one—but, fortunately, I’m the minority.

Here are a few things I’ve learned in my 21 weeks of gestation, either from asking people who know better, or from assuming I know best and then being shocked when I’m proved wrong.

Some yoga studios have pregnancy yoga, and some say they do on their sites, but actually do not. For us city gals, Charm City Yoga has it on Wednesday nights and Sunday afternoons in Midtown, and Thursdays after work in Fells Point. Classes are also offered in the Towson, Pikesville, and Severna Park studios, but I’m not sure I love my kid enough yet to fight 97 traffic to make it down there.

I learned from the gal at Whole Foods and from my mother-in-law that you want to look for vitamins with the least extra ingredients, and that DHA is a supplement not often found in traditional prenatals, so you have to take it separately. Try Rainbow Light brand from the Vitamin Shoppe in Canton, and Spectrum DHA from Whole Foods. I also learned from my own gag reflex that I was not built to swallow pills the size of June bugs, so I crush mine up and eat it with low fat Greek yogurt. Except I really eat them with ice cream.

I’ve learned that 99-percent of hospitals offer birth classes where you and your partner can go sit in horror in the name of education and self-advocacy. Given its proximity to our home and its en-suite hot tub situation, we’re going to Mercy for the blessed event, so it made sense to also take our birth classes there. If you’re planning a home birth or want a more alternative option, check out Informed Birth Choices in Catonsville. Apparently these living nightmares are super popular, so ask your doctor early on when and where you should sign up and if the instructors provide fainting couches or if you should bring your own.

These classes are also a good opportunity to meet other expectant parents. This is important, because you need pregnant friends. Non-pregnants quickly grow weary of talking stretch-mark cream and exhaustion, but pregnant people will be delighted to hear, again, about how hormonal you felt yesterday. I assumed I’d make friends at yoga, but it turns out it’s more about fishtail-braided top knots and concentrating on goddess pose and less about forming a sisterhood of traveling yoga pants. So get to know your hospital, find out what’s going to come out of you, and then make some buddies.

And finally, so far, I’ve learned that a pregnant lady without a snack is like a Real Housewives reunion episode: Someone is getting slapped. Always, always have something within arm’s reach to eat. I’ve found that apples and bananas fit nicely in my purse, and bananas get bonus points for coming in their own adorably speckled case. The day will come when you leave the house without a snack, and that will be the day you run out of gas in a field or get stuck in a meeting with your boss that won’t end. Your blood sugar levels will plummet, and you’ll shrivel up to conserve energy while relying on your memory of food to float you until your next meal.

Just pack a damn snack. It’s good practice for when that person you’re growing becomes a toddler, anyway.

Megan Isennock is a freelance writer and content producer for Shine Creative. Her baby boy is due in October.