You Get What You Give (TOMS Books For Bloggers)

Maybe it's because I'm pushing thirty or because I'm the mother of two children who are becoming increasingly aware of the world around them, but I began to feel like I wasn't doing enough of anything worthwhile with my time. It's what drew to into finding my purpose and in turn what drew me to Blake Mycoskie's book, Start Something That Matters.

By now we have all seen those cute slide-on shoes with TOMS stitched on the back. We know they're simple in design, relatively inexpensive, and somehow always manage to be in style, particularly on college campuses worldwide. Unfortunately, if you're anything like me, that might be just about all that you know. But not for long. 

The first thing Start Something That Matters lets you in on is that Toms is not your typical company and wild-haired, board-short-wearing Mycoskie is far from a typical CEO. An acronym for Shoes for Tomorrow (which above all finally solved the mystery as to why a guy named Blake would have a company called Toms), Toms ensures that with every pair of shoes purchased a child in need receives a pair of shoes too. It is instant charity for a generation of people who want to give but usually don’t have the first idea how to go about it. The simplicity of the concept is incredible; one for you, one for me. When you really stop to think about it, it’s amazing that no one thought of it before. What might be more amazing is that Blake Mycoskie doesn’t want to hide his secret to success, but rather he wants to share it in hopes that everyone will be inspired enough to start something of their own that matters. Which brings us to me.

Last summer I decided to start a book club. I realize that this isn’t the world’s most original idea and that on paper a book club might sound boring and old fashioned, but I like to read and frankly I needed some kind of social life in the worst way. To be honest, I tend to join things rather than start them, so even beginning something felt like a huge obstacle. I set up the meetings to be once a month and the first meeting was held in July. Two meetings later and we were up to twenty people. Because of our shared love for books and wine we decided to call ourselves Reading Between The Wines. We are a diverse group of women from all different walks of life, ethnicities, religions and political parties who get along amazingly. That might not sound like that big of a deal, but the thing is, typically women aren’t very kind to each other. The sad reality is that movies like “Mean Girls” are more fact than fiction and all you have to do is turn on any reality TV show to see the image of women as catty backstabbers, who see each other as competition rather than friends. Women have fought long and hard for so many years for equalization and to be seen as being just as intelligent as men, but turn on the TV and it’s hard to find anything other than Kardashians or The Real Housewives of Wherever displaying not much more than woman-on-woman hate. And yet, once a month I sit in a room full of women who could have easily let their differences get between them but instead chose to focus on what they have in common, in our case a love of great books and great wine. It gives me hope that together we can change the grotesquely inaccurate stereotype of women and bring the importance of intelligence and friendship to the forefront.  

 I don’t have a product to sell or give away (at least not right now), it’s attitudes and prejudices that I want to change. We have big plans for the coming year, including a book drive in January with all books to be donated to the library at the Women’s correctional facility, because women should be kind to each other no matter what their situation in life is. In addition to our New Mexico branch, we have expanded to Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, and Oregon with hopes of more branches in the future. It’s still pretty fresh, but I already owe much of my inspiration (as well as figuring out the practicalities of a non-profit) to Start Something That Matters.

Start Something That Matters is enlightening and informative, and my only complaint is that it has a tendency to drag at times.  Mycoskie recounts the start-ups that inspired him and cites quotes and passages in a way that can often read a lot like a college term paper. If you’re expecting a biography of a man, Mycoskie is quick to let you know that this is the story behind the company, not the story behind the story. In fact, very little of his personal life is revealed at all, aside from an occasional short, well-placed anecdote.

Whether you want to start a for-profit business like Toms or change the world in whatever way you choose, Start Something That Matters is worth a read. Mycoskie offers up so much information, advice, and even free sites to get you started that literally all that’s missing from the book is his hand reaching out to physically shove you in the right direction. This isn’t taking business advice from Donald Trump or any of the hundreds of questionable CEOs of questionable companies, this is taking advice from someone who is truly practicing what they preach (so much so that he recently trimmed down the unnecessary excess in his own life and now lives in a two hundred square foot sailboat. Can you picture Donald Trump living on a tiny boat? Yeah, me neither). Start Something That Matters is equal parts refreshing and inspiring and will undoubtedly leave all aspiring entrepreneurs shaking in their Toms. 

Thank You

I don't know about you guys, but sometimes I get so caught up in all of the day-to-day madness that I turn into a giant ball of stress and forget that I have a lot to be thankful for in my life. Since it's Thanksgiving, the national day of stuffing your face and remembering what you're grateful for, I thought I'd share a bit of what I'm grateful for with all of you.

First and foremost, I'm grateful that I married such a great guy who is willing to put up with me, because ten out of ten ex-boyfriends will all agree that I'm a giant pain in the butt. Someone loving you for exactly who you are with no exceptions is something no one should ever take for granted, even though I know I sometimes do. I like to think that if Josh and I were a celebrity couple, we'd be Marge and Homer Simpson. It's not always perfect. We get annoyed with each other sometimes, but at the end of the day (whether that day was good or bad) we're still a team. And, like Homer, Josh can always get out of trouble by making me laugh. He's the guy I've loved for a decade plus one, and it doesn't get much better than that, kids.

I don't know if there will ever be words to properly describe how incredibly thankful I am for Ben and Layla. They are the reason why I work hard, strive for more, and try to be the best possible version of myself. They've taught me a lot so far, the most important being how to love completely unconditionally. It will be a long time before I can sleep in, travel lightly, be spontaneous, go to the movies to see something other than a cartoon, or sit on the couch without being climbed on, and I am one hundred percent okay with that. I'm thankful that I'm lucky enough to spend every day with them, watching them grow in every way possible. My only complaint is that they are both growing up way too fast.

I'm thankful this year to have such an amazing family and family-in-law. I lost my dad this year, but I gained a little brother and a sweet little nephew. I had a lot of ups and downs this year but I always felt like I had my families to help me through. Thank you for all of the support. I love you guys!

Last, but certainly not least, I'm thankful for all of the great friends I've made and all of the old friends I've reconnected with this year. I went from being isolated on Mom Island to having a really amazing group of friends. I've spent a lot of my life feeling like I was more of a guy's girl than a girl's girl and I really feel like I'm appreciating women's friendship for the first time in my life. I'm also thankful for the book club (and all of its wonderful potential) for providing me with a cause to strive for and further direction in my life. I love the unwavering enthusiasm of all of the members and how quick they are to not only support the cause, but to make sure we all have more fun than any book club before. You rock, ladies!!

Husband, kids, family, friends...I may not have the most creative list of things to be thankful for, but I'm incredibly thankful nonetheless. This has been a year of love, friendship, and opportunity, and in many ways it's also been a year of struggle and loss. But good or bad, I wouldn't trade my life for anything in the world.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Stairway To Heaven

Last night I had one of the craziest, scariest, most realistic dreams I have ever had.

In the dream, I was in the middle of a big open field that was completely empty except for a single flight of stairs going up. Naturally, a mysterious flight of stairs in the middle of nowhere is too tempting for someone as nosy as me to resist, so I started climbing up. I climbed and climbed until the railings disappeared and I was just surrounded by clouds. I looked further up and saw that the stairs led to a giant slide even higher up in the sky.  Like the stairs, it had no railing and was surrounded by nothing but clouds, nothing to protect you from falling right off. It was at that moment that I realized I wasn't the only one there. I was surrounded by people and they were all falling off, either on the stairs or the slide. People fell right past me and I could actually hear the woosh sound they made as they passed by my ears and a sickening thud as they hit the ground. Terrified,  I decided I wasn't curious about the stairs anymore and I wanted to turn around and climb back down. But I couldn't. As I had climbed up each stair it disappeared, leaving me with a steep drop-off and absolutely no way to back down. As it continued to rain people around me, I sat down the step I was on, paralyzed with fear. Do I give up? Do I risk climbing all the way up only to fall off?

Luckily, my alarm woke me up before I had to make the decision, my jaw aching and my mouth covered in gritty tooth fragments, a sure sign I'd been grinding my teeth in my sleep yet again. My stomach was still in knots and my mind was still just as full of "what ifs" as it had been when I went to bed. The question in my head remained; How can I possibly pull this off? 

But, as usual, I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's back up a bit.

A few weeks ago I was on Facebook and I noticed that TOMS shoes was holding a contest called Books For Bloggers. Their Chief Shoe Giver (AKA founder) Blake Mycoskie recently wrote a book called "Start Something That Matters" and they wanted someone to review it, someone who not only blogged, but was also trying to start something of their own (be it a business, organization, non-profit or whatever). To enter, I had to write about what it was I was trying to create as well as why my blog would be a good place to post the review. So not only did I have to articulate what it was I was trying to accomplish (when I'm still not entirely sure what it is) but I also had to talk myself up. A lot. And for someone who has a blog dedicated to basically writing about their life, I really, really suck at talking about myself.


Not only that, but I'm really picky about what I have to say and how I choose to say it. I edit and revise to the point of driving myself insane. In fact, the very words you are reading right now have been read over and over until I was practically cross-eyed. I really can't say why, but the day I decided to enter the TOMS contest, I just sat down and wrote. And wrote and wrote. I didn't create a word document to save and revise (and obsess over). For once in my life I just wrote without consciously thinking about what I was writing, like my fingers on the keyboard were a separate entity from the rest of my body. I was inspired, sure, but I somehow managed to get out of my own head for a change, and if you've known me for longer than five minutes, you know what an amazing thing that is.

But here's the thing. Everyone and their mother is on Facebook holding different contests every day, and they all manage to fly under my radar. This one felt like a hand reached out of my computer and slapped me across the face. Not to sound like a total crazy person, but it felt like it was created to motivate me.

As you might recall, in my last blog, I wrote about our book club and how, while it's a really fun, social thing to do, I want to turn it into something bigger and more meaningful and I've spent the last few weeks obsessing over how to do that. The contest caught my attention because I love the story behind TOMS shoes, love that it was created by a young college dropout who yes, wanted to start a successful business, but also genuinely wanted to help out others. At the core of my motivation to enter was pure curiosity at how this guy managed to pull it all off. In other words, I probably would have bought the book anyway, but the contest gave one away for free, and free is always good. Plus, if I won, it might be good publicity for both my cause and blog. I figured I had nothing to lose except actually losing the contest and since I didn't even tell anyone I entered, no one would know I lost.


And then, amazingly, I won. 


My first reaction was to say "I never win anything!" which is true, technically, but the truth is, I never win anything because I never enter anything. That's right, you heard it here first. I'm a big fat chicken.


Which brings us back to the dream. How lame am I that I freeze up with fear in my own dream? I mean come on, we can do anything in our dreams. We can fly in our dreams if we wanted to. So why didn't I? Generally, I try not to read too much into dreams, but this one feels different. I've already mentioned that I tend to let fear get the best of me (see above re: big fat chicken) and I don't want to (and can't) let it get the best of me now. 

Winning this contest is a huge eye-opener for me. I want to be a writer and this project has great potential for exposure to my blog, but even more than that it's motivated me keep trying to find my greater purpose in life, which I've blogged about a lot this past year. I feel like I have great ideas, I just need the courage to share them. More than that, I need the courage to realize that not everything I do has to be perfect and not everyone will like whatever it is I hope to accomplish. Not being liked is inevitable, but it's so much easier in theory than when someone isn't liking something you believe in. Failure is always an option, lurking in the dark corners of my brain with its buddy Fear, and the two of them constantly team up to try to tell me that I can't do this. I don't have time. I don't have resources. I have no clue what I'm doing. There are a million other things I should be focusing on. It doesn't help that all of these things are true.


I have no idea to overcome fear. Like grinding my teeth at night, it's something that I really don't want to be doing, but have no clue about how to stop. I guess for now I can only hope that, unlike my dream, I don't freeze up in real life. All I know right now is that I have to keep climbing the stairs even when, especially when, I feel like I'm about to fall off. 

Reading Between The Wines

Last summer it dawned on me; I have no social life.

It's not surprising when you think about it. I'm a wife, mother of two, and full-time student. But it wasn't the absence of free time that bothered me, it was more about what I did in the precious free time I actually did have, which was absolutely nothing. Somewhere along the line I became ship-wrecked on Mom Island. Don't get me wrong, my family is the most important part of my life, but I wasn't even making an effort to have a life outside of them. Even all of my classes at the time were online. I was becoming a Grade A hermit, and it was staring to show. And not in a good way. I had less patience than usual (which is scary because I have so little to begin with!), little things bugged me more and I just had an overall aura of irritation. I was not very popular at my house, to say the least. When I began this blog, it was intended to be the hobby that I needed (and in a lot of ways it is) but it was still something I could do within the four walls of my house. I needed to get out.

For as long as I can remember, I have always loved to read. I love the idea of traveling to another place or time period within a book. I love getting lost in a really great book, when all you want to do all day long is to pick that book back up. I love to write because I love to read. With the exception of my sister-in-law (who can literally read a book a day), I didn't know if there was anyone else out there who felt the same way I did. But I knew I was willing to find out. So I started a book club.

To call it a book club right off the bat would be generous. What it was initially was an unnamed Facebook group comprised of myself, three friends I thought might actually be interested, and about ten other people, basically chosen at random, in hopes that at least one or two of them may be interested in joining. To be social, but remain responsible to my family and school priorities, I decided that the book club would meet monthly and try to accommodate as many schedules as possible. I assigned the first book, "Julie and Julia" by Julie Powell because I had read it for a class and was really inspired by it. And also, to be honest, since I had never organized or hosted a book club before, I wanted to be able to focus on planning for it instead of worrying about finishing the book on time. Five people had RSVP'd yes to the meeting and I was beginning to get nervous. What would we talk about? What if people didn't get along?

As it turns out, I needn't have worried. No, not because everyone showed up and had a blast, but because thirty minutes until go time, my phone started to ring off the hook with everyone saying they couldn't make it. I was crushed, to say the least. There's nothing that makes you feel more pathetic than sitting in your house fully prepared to host a book club when it was evident that that book club isn't going to happen. It;s the party-hosting equivalent to being all dressed up with nowhere to go. Then, just when I was really beginning to wallow in being a book club failure, there was a knock on the door. It was my high school French class friend, Marla, out of breath and an hour late, but there nonetheless.

The funny thing is, I hadn't actually seen Marla in about ten years. As I mentioned, we became friends in high school French class and I adored her back then, but, like most people after high school, we fell out of touch. So in addition to being the first book club meeting, this was our first time being face-to-face in about a decade, although to be honest, it only felt that way for the first ten seconds. Marla is the same sweet, strong and hilarious person she was in high school, only even better. She's Marla 2.0 and I think we've made up for ten years worth of time in just the last four months (but more on that later!). We wound up spending hours catching up, and of course, talking about "Julie and Julia", which she loved and was equally inspired by. That night Marla became my partner-in-crime and official co-founder of the book club (and we decided that if our book club remained a book club of two, that was just fine with us!). I consider Marla the co-founder because if she hadn't come that night, it's highly likely that I would have given up on the idea of a book club entirely and gone back to being Crabby Hermit Mom. There would never have been a second meeting (or third, forth, five, and so on) without Marla.

We regrouped, licked our wounds from the first meeting, and set about organizing the second. Our second meeting went much better. We had a group of five and it turned out that people really did have legitimate reasons for not making it to the first meeting. By the third, we really hit our stride.  Our book club is equal parts intelligent conversation, side-splitting laughter, and group therapy. We enjoy our books, our wine, and each others company. After only a couple of months, the book club was snowballing. I had other friends emailing me wanting to join and out-of-town friends who wanted to start their own book clubs. We began talking about possible names and prospective members. About this time Marla and I began the first in a series of endless conversations about accomplishing something important in life (thanks to Julie Powell and "Julie and Julia") how well the book club was going and where it had the potential to go.

Here's the thing: I hate the image of women right now. It's all about Snookie-style drunken cat fights, talking behind each others backs, and an overall focus on being hot, sexy, scandalous, blah blah blah. This isn't news to anyone, myself included, but for some reason, the image has effected me more in my twenties than any other time in my life. Maybe it's because I have a daughter and she is getting old enough to really take notice of the world around her, and it's becoming clear to me that it's just not enough to not fall into the stereotype of women myself. I want her to see an emphasis on intelligent women and for her to learn that putting women from different backgrounds with different beliefs in the same room does not have to result in a vodka-infused hair-pulling contest. Long story short, the growing, fun, diverse book club was beginning to run parallel with the incorrect image of female friendship. That's when we realized that this could be more than reading a book and drinking wine with friends once a month.

We want every woman to have a positive image of not only herself, but other women in general. Every time I leave a meeting, my sides hurt and my outlook on the world is a little brighter, and I want every woman to experience that. We don't have to be part of what we see on TV; we can be better. We can all be different people and have intelligent conversations but we can also joke around and enjoy our wine. No one is out to impress anyone else, so we can let our guards down be exactly who we are.

What began as a hobby in an attempt to regain a social life has evolved into something that feels like it could be a whole lot more. I don't want to come across as cheesy (although it may be too late for that!) but I think the world is only as good as what you contribute to it, and fighting the negative image of women with a positive one (even if it's only within our own community) feels proactive. We are encouraging anyone who is interested to join our chapter locally, or start a chapter in their area, wherever that may be.

I truly believe that together we can change the world, one book at a time.

They Say It's Your Birthday

The night Ben was born, he didn't cry. Layla came out screaming her head off, but Ben didn't make a peep. He just looked around at everything with his big eyes, yawning contentedly. When the nurse handed him to me, he looked at me like he knew exactly who I was and why we were there, reached out and grabbed my finger with his chubby hand, and squeezed. I swear I looked into his eyes and saw his soul.

Of course, that could have just been the drugs talking.

Tomorrow is Ben's second birthday and I can't shake the feeling that he's somehow lying about his age. In other words, to say that the last two years of my life (and the first two of his) have flown by would be an understatement of epic proportions. It's more like they passed like the speed of light. One day I was finding out I was pregnant, and the very next day I had a walking, talking, Toy Story-loving, block-building actual human being. He's a funny, sweet, occasionally obnoxious, always cuddly, little boy.

My baby's not a baby anymore.*
(*I feel it's necessary to the story to tell you guys that after I typed that sentence I stared at it for a few seconds, then proceeded to bawl my eyes out for the next ten minutes while cradling a visibly terrified Ben and whimpering "My baby, my baaaaby" over and over. I'm okay now.)

Don't get me wrong, Layla has grown up fast too, but for some reason, Ben feels faster. I think it was because she was first and I worried about things like hurting her when I changed her diaper, and obsessed over every milestone. The first time she farted, I wrote about it in her baby book. True story. It felt like there wasn't time or need to obsess over little things with Ben as much. By the time he came around I knew that putting a onesie on a baby in no way hurts them, and I understood that milestones are just basic guidelines, not set in stone as the name suggests. I loved him just as much, but worried so much less. Also, when someone would ask how old Layla was, I would always have a really specific "Three months, 2 weeks, and three days" kind of answer. Ben was plain ol' three months. The second I stopped functioning as a human calendar, the faster time seemed to go.

And now I find myself the day before his second birthday, watching him "fix" the case of the second season of Entourage with his red plastic hammer, occasionally running over to the window to yell "Mama! Look! Balloons!" as colorful hot air balloons float lazily by.  His bright eyes are so full of wonder and curiosity and looking at him I can't imagine him ever encountering an obstacle he can't overcome. He's the perfect man, and all I had to do was give birth to him.

Happy Birthday, Benny.

Good Day Sunshine

People will tell you that the first year of marriage is the hardest, but that's a lie.

The first year of marriage is unbelievably awesome. You spend the entire first year not being able to get over how cool it is to say "husband" and "wife".  Everything they do is adorable and you can't contemplate how couples will nag each other about tiny little things like leaving dirty socks on the floor. But the truth is that beyond that first year, little, insignificant things will bother you too, no matter how much you try to fight it.

And so, the following is my little, insignificant thing.

I love Josh, I really do. But he is such a relentlessly sunny morning person that so often my very first thought in the morning is, "Must. Kill. Husband" (in case you're not picking up on the obvious here, I am not a relentlessly sunny morning person). He whistles while he shaves and hums while he irons, whereas I need a good 45 minutes and two cups of strong coffee before I can stammer out a coherent sentence.The most annoying part is that I pretty much have to suck it up and deal with it, because what could I possibly say? "Stop being so cheerful"? or "Knock it off with the good mood!"? I'm the grumpy one! He should be annoyed with me! He's not, of course, but then how can he be annoyed when he's practically spinning around our room being dressed by songbirds like a Disney princess? Josh, however, claims he's not really that much of a morning person. He says he's not a morning person, he just "see's every morning as a new possibility".

Gaaaaah.

If you're thinking right about now that I should find something legitimate to complain about, you're not alone; I think so too. We have our pointless little fights and sometimes more meaningful fights just like every couple I know, but at the end of the day, Josh could teach a class in what it means to be a great husband. Especially considering the fact that he's a great husband to the great big old mess that is his wife. I recently read a hilarious quote (and I'm sorry to say I don't remember who said it, so let's all hope I don't get sued for repeating it uncredited!) that said "I don't have to smoke weed to eat an entire box of Triscits and worry about whether or not people like me", which I feel sums me up pretty well. And Josh just rolls with it. And I complain about him being a morning person. Anyone feel sorry for Josh yet?

The point is that no matter how much you love someone, they're not above annoying you, whether your annoyance is legitimate or not. Right now, I can admit that the fact that Josh is a morning person is actually pretty admirable and even a little sweet. But it's nighttime right now. When the alarm goes off in the morning, I'm sure I'll feel differently.

(Please Don't) Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman

A friend of mine recently wrote a really great blog about childbirth and what people consider "right" and "wrong". It got me thinking and I thought I'd throw my two cents in.

In my limited birthing experience of two, I had one child completely drug-free and the other completely drug-full, and the differences between the two experiences are incalculable. When I was pregnant with Layla I read all the books just like everyone else, and decided that I wanted to have a completely drug-free experience. The idea of bringing my baby into the world in a calm, chemical-free manor was hugely appealing to me. But here's the thing: There's an enormous difference between theory and actuality, and about forty-five seconds into the very real pain of labor, I changed my mind. I wanted drugs, lots of them, preferably waiting in the parking lot for me when I got to the hospital. Only, when I got to the hospital, I was initially refused drugs because my "birth plan" indicated that I wanted a natural childbirth. By the time I finally convinced the doctors that I was out of my mind when I settled on my birth plan, it was too late and I had to forgo a natural  childbirth whether I wanted it or not. I'll spare you all the gory details, but because Layla was a huge baby (9 lbs 12 oz) the birth was not only hard on me, but it was hard on her too, and involved the aid of both a vacuum and forceps just to get her out. My "calm, chemical-free birth" quickly turned into an agonizingly painful experience for both me and my child.

Ben was a different story entirely. I made it clear from day one that I wanted an epidural and that under no circumstances was my child going to be forcibly sucked out of me. Despite the fact that he was also a big baby (8 lbs 12 oz), my experience with Ben was the calm, drama-free birth I had hoped for with Layla. It's amazing the difference that giant needle in your spine can make.

Amazingly, in spite of my horrible experience with Layla, I was credited endlessly for having a natural child birth. I was told I was "brave" and "selfless" and that I had "given my baby what was best". I've never seen those comments as anything other than a total load of crap. I'm not trying to knock natural childbirth at all, but the fact that everyone told me that that was "the right way" and having drugs with Ben was "the wrong way" has always irritated me. Who decides these things?!

"Natural" is such a buzz word. If it's "natural" then it has to be good, right? No! Layla and I both suffered an unecessarily painful experience because "modern medicine hasn't been around forever and women used to just squat behind their wagons to give birth". Yes, they did, and up until the early 1900s, 40% of women died during child birth (seriously, google it), but no one ever mentions that fact in squatting-behind-the-wagon theory. Yes, modern medicine has pumped out its fair share of lemons, but it has also had some amazing advances and personally, I'm sick of hearing nothing but bad about it (I'm not even touching the vaccination issue, that's a whole other tangent that I could easily devote an entire blog to). Think of it this way; if someone told you that you could cure chronic back pain, or cancer, or diabetes by having a single shot in your spine, would you  do it? I'm willing to bet that your first instinct would be yes, right? But then this group would come out with a study that says it's bad, and another group would say it's selfish and immoral, and it would be likely that you would seriously question the shot, no matter how credible (or incredible) the studies and theories are.

It's the same with epidurals. Women of the world: it is NOT selfish to have an epidural! It is selfish to put your child and yourself through something that your body can't handle, just because are told that it is the "right" way. There is no right or wrong way. No one is keeping track, or grading you, or handing out brownie points. If you choose to go the natural route, my completely unprofessional and unsolicited advice is to know your body and do your research. Don't do it because society, or your doctor, or your friends are whispering in your ear and if you change your mind, speak up, because those birth plans are practically set in stone. If you go the epidural route, don't let anyone tell you that what you're doing is wrong. At the end of the day, it is your body and your baby and you know what's best for both of them.

I'll leave you with this: as much as you parent with your heart, you also parent with your gut instincts. Listen to them. The only person who knows what's right or wrong for you is you. 

If you'd like to read the blog that inspired me, please visit my friend Megan Lewis' blog at Livingthelewislifestyle.blogspot.com.