My Mommy Mentor

This evening, the four of us descended en masse upon our local Jungle Java. This was a fundraiser for one of our mom's club members who was recently diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease.

While Liesl played in the Toddler area (and Tom supervised,) I was free to strap Ava on and socialize with other moms and babies. Amongst them was a new and very wonderful friend of mine, Christine, mother of 3 absolutely beautiful, bright, and well-behaved children. Christine is, to me, the epitome of what a mom should and can be. We share the same midwife and met in our midwife Jess's office while waiting for appointments: Me for a prenatal appointment, her for her six-week postpartum appointment. After my appointment, we sat on the floor of the waiting room with her then 6 week-old baby and discussed the merits and convenience (really!) of cloth diapers.

Christine is an engineer who became a full-time mom when her children were born. Christine was my inspiration to finally buy cloth diapers for Liesl last summer; she breastfeeds her children and prepares mostly organic, from-scratch foods to her family (including whole-grain cranberry-nut muffins...the recipe for which you still owe me, Chickie!) She birthed all three of her children naturally. She sews, she cooks, she jogs, she gives up chocolate and fried foods for Lent, and she leases a cow so she can feed raw milk to her family.

To top this wonderful package off, she is super-nice. I am in awe of all she does for her family, and how friendly, humble, and fun-loving she is. I am so very blessed to have the kinds of friends I have in my life, and Christine is definitely one of them!

Baby-wearin' moms

Sweet little Amalie, 7 months old and extremely expressive! :-)

Quite the duo

Ava snoozing in the Maya Wrap

The Maya is much easier for me to manage now that Ava is holding her head up more. As a tiny newborn, I had a hard time managing her in the "newborn positioning" of this sling.