Hibernate Blog

I was never Homecoming Queen. Wasn’t President of the Class either. I did go to Homecoming, though my date stepped in dog poop outside my house, which proved to be a telling barometer for the future of our relationship.

Tonight I saw a little something that had me feeling as if I were at Zaepfel Stadium circa 1990 being crowned Homecoming Queen, The Nest has posted a SaraBear diaper caddy giveaway. Now, I can’t promise that winning will make you feel like a queen, but if you send me your address after you win, I’ll send you a tiara*.

Now, go sign up!

*We know tiaras at my house.

I remember the warnings as I announced my pregnancy, “Watch out, your memory is the first thing to go” and “You get a baby and you get stupid.” These comments were almost always followed by crass asides about the physical things that would never be the same. I am here to tell you that the physical changes, though difficult in the weeks and months immediately following delivery, are nothing like I imagined. My body is my own, still strong and increasingly lean, prudent choices during pregnancy and an active lifestyle have seen to that.

My memory? Oh mama, it is gone. Gone, gone, gone. I can multi-task – painting a porch while breastfeeding, blogging and rocking a seat with a barefoot, telling a story to two snacking toddlers while doing the dishes, making dinner and drinking a cup of coffee? You bet!

Remembering what I need to buy at the store? I forget that I need lunch meat even as I stand in line at the deli. And my coffee habit? So many times I’ve remembered the filters and not the beans, or the Coffee Mate, but not the filters. It’s devastating, particularly when I forget that I forgot and then pad to the kitchen and realize that my day will not enjoy the boost of a Starbucks jump start.

Last night before heading to the store, I told Sean and the girls that we needed wipes. I also made a list and underlined wipes twice. As I locked the house up I repeated over and over, “Wipes. Get wipes.” Then, owning the fact that I would probably forget the list or simply not look at it, I grabbed a Sharpie and did the deed.

It’s not pretty, but it’s undeniable, I’ve got mama brain and I’ve got it bad.

You ever look up and realize that you’ve been going, I mean really going, for as long as you can remember?

Between kindergarten graduations, potty training and giving birth, to logo updating and website redesigns, we have been busy around the clock. Just last week we just sent designs for new collateral materials to the printer so that we could have them to Christina Hudson at Peas & Honey in time for the show in the second week of July. Later this summer we’ll have another run done for the ABC Kids Expo. Throw all of these things together with new offices, new retailers and new countries (in the UK we sell “nappy caddies”), it can be easy to forget how it all began.

Crying, lots and lots of crying. Mostly baby, but maybe a little mom.

These wonderful baskets with their appealing colors and fanciful patterns? They started as a solution, a weapon in the fight against colic and chaos. It was one woman throwing down the gauntlet, refusing to succumb to the staggering futility that can threaten to squelch everything as a baby cries inconsolably. She looked around as her murmurs and her kisses did nothing to quell the cries. What she realized was that if she couldn’t fix it, she could ease it.

The things that prolonged a crying jag, or the things that exacerbated an already fussy baby needed to be eliminated.

Diapers – check!

Wipes – check!

Diaper rash cream - check!

Burp cloths, gas drops, tissue – check, check, check!

No more searching, no more struggling, never again would she stretch and disturb a finally quiet baby. The diaper caddy was born and every day after she used it.

Until last week. We spoke in hushed tones as Fin napped:

“Nate made it through the night.” She told me proudly.

“Really? That’s incredible.” I gushed.

“I know, but you know what? Benny is super excited and I’m kind of sad.” Then she was quiet.

The milestone rocked me, her last baby was finished with diapers and the product that she invented single-handedly would no longer be a necessity for her family. Her daughter will use a caddy for hair ties and Barbie clothes, maybe Nate will use one for Matchbox cars, but never again will Melissa use her caddy for diapers. She’ll continue to improve it and promote it, but from here on out she’ll be producer and not consumer.

Holding Finley in my arms and thinking of the two caddies at home, stuffed to overflow with 3’s and 6’s, I felt a lump in my throat knowing that the day will come for me too. One day my babies will be out of diapers, kids. I looked at Melissa across a room filled with baskets and liners and sketches with new ideas and I smiled. The legacy of Melissa’s babies will live forever in these caddies. The diapers that she brought in, no longer needed in her house, will come to mine. We are linked, Melissa and I, as we journey ahead watching our babies become children and as our product takes flight.

Lift your head up from all that you are racing to complete and go have a moment with your baby, whether he’s in diapers, or whether she is practicing on the potty. Live in this moment.

Ever tried to get things done, I am mean really getting things done, while working from home in the company of a breastfeeding infant, a 2 year old with a broken leg and a project loving three and a half year old?
No?
Really?
Well, if you haven’t occasion to run to the DMV at noon on the eve of a holiday weekend, this is the next best way to slowly lose it. I kid.

Last week I had several things I very much wanted (and needed) to get done in conjunction with the launch of the redesigned SaraBear website. I knew that I would need to be aggressive in my activity planning to keep the girls a) less aware of the unrelenting Adirondack humidity and b) relatively out of my hair in order to cross some things off of my list. I knew that my greatest chance of success lay in my successful choreography of a project that would put the big girls in plain sight of the littlest girl.

Successful projects when working from home, in my experience, tend to involve the weaving of said project into your work. Now, even though my girls can steer a mouse through iTunes and sing their abc’s, they have not yet mastered HTML, helping was out of the question. Parking them in front of the tv or computer, while occasionally effective, always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Taking my laptop outside fails as the glare from the sun is too intense and the dirt that Avery gets into and the water that Briar splashes in, put the baby and my computer in peril. Sigh.

Looking at my mountain of things that I take to and from the office each day I spied my research, magazines. A collage? No, that would mean 2 projects rather than 1. It needed to involve both girls and, quite honestly as much structure (read: less choices) as possible to allow more “project-doing” and less bickering. I grabbed a magazine and sought inspiration, it came in the form of water-colored sketches of women in Real Simple, a magazine that I love for its reassurance that everyone is really just trying to figure it out the “it” being managing work, family and organization.

I quickly snipped the heads off the illustrations as the wheels in my head turned, we’d make a garden.

No pipe cleaners…Cardboard from the discarded Huggies box could be stems.

No pots…The diaper caddy could house the garden.

No activity…once finished they could “water” the garden and “pick” the flowers.



I alternately wrapped green construction paper around strips of cardboard while oohing and ahhing over the faces the girls picked and drafted a press release for Eve Gumpel at WomenEntrepreneur.com. The nature of the project allowed for little fingers to assist with positioning and taping and for little sisters to watch while kicking and gurgling.



Now, I may not have found a way to change the world, but I did find a way to get three kids to pass an afternoon without screaming, crying or fighting, while I managed to get things done. All in all, for this working mom, it was a pretty perfect little world for a little while.


A job well done.

Did you know that a SaraBear diaper caddy can do more than hold diapers? There are several pockets along the inside, one is a tiny little compartment perfect for gas drops or an i-Pod. I use one to keep a bottle of water handy and another for tucking my glasses in at bedtime. If you’d like you can use the whole thing as a breastfeeding caddy, instead of diapers and wipes you can store your nursing supplies, from pump to storage bags and pads.

‘Course, if you do that, someone else may find another use for your nursing supplies…