AmyWest.co

That damn elf is just EVERYWHERE right now. (That's a link to my friend Kim's hilarious Inappropriate Elf contest entry for this year, but I digress...) Ava was playing with some stuffed dinosaurs this morning. Lunch time rolled around and I told her the mac & cheese was ready. (Hey, I'm pregnant and food that [...]

Sometimes, being pregnant really, really sucks. I'm talking way beyond the usual aches, pains, indigestion, and so forth. (Because frankly, any day that's just got me feeling really tired with a side of some stabby round ligament pain is a godsend.) I had migraines during my first pregnancy, from about weeks 9-19. I don't get them when [...]

Infant sleep is one of those hot-button parenting topics. Is your baby sleeping through? Co-sleeping? Bed-sharing? Sitting up in bed with her head spinning like the kid in The Exorcist? (If it's the latter...that is really beyond the scope of this post. Heh.) There are piles of research and even bigger piles of advice. What's [...]

First off, in case you didn't see on Facebook... The day after we found out, Josh, Ava, and I were talking boy names together in the car. Among other [normal] suggestions, Ava said we should name him "K9 Christmas." K9 Christmas West. That is going to be embroidered on some baby gear, y'all. Priceless. Aside [...]

I feel a little weird saying we have a cleaning lady. Only rich people have maids, right? WRONG! A maid IS a cleaning lady! (At least in my brain, but apparently, a maid and a cleaning lady are different. The internet schooled me on this and I'm sure they'll help you out if you don't [...]

I was pretty much operating at grumpiness level Scrooge when it came to Halloween this year. I put off getting Ava a costume, we decorated here and there over the course of three weeks. (And that was really mostly because my mother-in-law sent Ava a big box of awesome Halloween decorations that she was excited [...]

Someone shared a post called, "The Literal Nanny State — Breastfeeding And Public Health Officials" on Facebook and (perhaps foolishly) I clicked through to read it. (The tagline of the piece: "Some breastfeeding programs are very unfriendly to personal liberty"...really?) This piece pretty much gets it wrong from start to finish. Let's talk about it. First, [...]

We've hit the 12 week mark! Sayonara, first trimester. I won't miss you. At. all.  We had an ultrasound today at the OB's office. (I'm seeing the OB periodically throughout pregnancy to make sure everything is good going into my homebirth.) Brining Ava with us meant the ultrasound tech took extra time identifying all the baby [...]

There's this great little Jim Gaffigan bit where he talks about having four kids, all homebirths. It's funny, have a look-see: Some choice quotes (including the title of this post): "Why wouldn't you have it in that germ-infested building where sick people congregate?" "Didn't your wife want to give birth in a gown someone died [...]