My husband and I do not allow our kids to be watched by any man alone except him. I can certainly understand why people think this is overprotective and/or will cause our children to distrust men. However, I respectfully disagree. Our children spend time with their grandparents, uncles, family friends, etc. All of this is done in our presence or in the presence of another person (i.e. grandma AND grandpa time). We first learned that people have this rule in a child abuse prevention class. The teacher of the class has spent many years working with child molesters in prison. She knows what she’s talking about, and she and her husband have this rule for their own children. The fact is, most child molesters are male.

There are many things out of my control as a parent: my kids skinning their knees, getting teased at school, getting in a car accident, getting an illness, and so forth. I *want* my kids to get hurt and pick themselves back up, learn how to recover when someone teases them, make life mistakes and learn from them, etc. But if there is a feasible way for me to protect my kids from getting molested, I’m going to do my all to protect them from that particular evil.

It’s a personal choice, and yes I’ve gotten weird responses from people, but in the long run I think looking like the crazy overprotective mom is a small price to pay.

To the new mom worried about her son growing up being able to express his feelings in a healthy way and learning to respect women-I think you’re ahead of the game if you’re already thinking about it. You and your husband will lead by example.

As far as boy/girl toys go, I think I saw something on social media that said the test of whether a toy is a girl or boy toy is if you operate it with your genitals. If not, then it’s a toy for girls or boys. If so, it is not a toy for children.

Once someone told my son not to play with a toy shopping cart because it’s a girl’s toy. That is so ridiculous because men go to the grocery store too. Men also hold their babies and take care of them, so I have never understood why in the world anyone would discourage boys from playing with dolls.

To Elizabeth-I concur with the other poster. I always wore tanks with a sports bra or nursing bra, then maybe a button up shirt or cardigan over. Just pulled one side of the tank down-not the strap part, just the material covering the breast. I also always used a “hooter hider” or some similar product.

I love the show, and like hearing Andy as guest host too-especially since you are both at the beginning of the parenthood adventure. So fun!

I’m obsessed with the Blanqi Post Partum Nursing Cami. I highly recommend; not only do they cover your midsection while you lift your top up to nurse, they’re also supporting to help tuck in the extra around the middle.

http://www.target.com/p/bumped-by-blanqi-post-partum-nursing-cami-assorted-colors/-/A-14523025#prodSlot=medium_1_2&term=blanqui

Hey guys! I am a newish listener to the podcast(s) and had wondered recently if there’s an archived Totally Married where you tell the story of how you met. Then today when listening to the Totally Mommy podcast, Elizabeth mentioned knowing Andy in grade school? So! Now I definitely want to know the “how we met story”! Have you shared it before (if so, episode number please!) and if not, doooooo eeeeeeet. Love your show!

Plenty of “nursing” tops at motherhood (very giving elastic in the neckline) and nursing camis at Target.
Dairy can be a no no, but other “gassy” foods can’t really be “passed” through the breast milk. I went off dairy, but didn’t work for me. It was really her body just maturing and getting use to how it should be working. I tried to not lay her flat for 20 minutes after feeding, but I was falling asleep during or right after the feedings. I would just elevate her sleeping situation to help with any reflux or spitting up. Sleep for the baby gets much better from 6-12ish weeks, but changes at 4 months when they are more neurologically active.
I wish I would’ve known you needed a hearing test, I am in that field and could’ve setup a home visit. Any future hearing needs just put it out there on the podcast and I can email y’all info. Parental ear issues too 🙂

I’m not a mom yet, but I just pinned a tutorial for homemade nursing tanks. Which I now realize is an awful suggestion because I’m sure the last thing you have time do right now is make nursing tank tops. My bad! Maybe Target’s version would be better…

Love the podcast, I look forward to MWF mornings when I can listen to you guys on my drive in 🙂

GOOD: My 9 week-old started smiling at us last week. It is the BEST feeling in the world.
BAD: Body issues. The fact that I’m having a hard time accepting my post partum body is bumming me out. But I’m getting really tired of wearing maternity pants.
FUNNY: Last weekend my husband was changing a blow-out diaper and during this, the little guy started peeing on his own face (boys are fun). Instead of covering his penis like I normally do, the husband redirects the stream towards the floor at the exact same moment I ran up to help out. The stream was redirected all over my dress. Since it was the only dress that was fitting (stupid body issues), I just wiped it off and we went to church for Easter Sunday. I’m getting used to sporting bodily fluids on my clothes these days.

BAD from the past: A year ago the pastor at my son’s preschool was busted for child pornography. For real. And it wasn’t just slightly underage girls, but images of young children rape scenarios apparently. Microsoft ended up catching it through routine image scans on their cloud, where he had been saving the images. They alerted the police to conduct an investigation and the IP address lead them to the church preschool. He had been downloading them on his laptop in his office. The pastor was my age (35) and had a family and daughter who was in the second grade at the school. It was a tough situation…what to tell the younger children, etc. I never thought I’d have to sit my son down and ask him the questions I did, but fortunately, he was never alone in the room with him. And to the best of my knowledge, none of the children at the school were b/c of guidelines prohibiting it. Make a very long story short: the pastor was sentenced to a year in prison (a slap on the wrist if you ask me). The truth is it’s more common than you realize, it’s just the priests and teachers that make the news.

Suggestions for healthy food options!:

1. Avocados, just add salt and pepper

2. Frittata for the week made with ghee which has very little casein, the protein that most baby’s react to in dairy; use veggies like chard that are less problematic

3. Huge salad for the week: get one of those big cartons of organic greens and put the veggies you can eat raw on top with seeds etc. Scoop it up when you’re hungry and add olive oil and balsamic for dressing

4. Rice, beans, and quinoa: make enough for the week; make salads with them

5. Hard boiled eggs

6. Nuts and fruit

7. Soup! Try lentil or pea or whatever suits your fancy, look into crock potting (impossible to mess it up, fast, delicious, and EASY)

8. Sweet potatoes: roast a bunch in oven ahead of time then microwave and add ghee or coconut oil and salt n’ pepper

Andy:

1. Buy pre-made grass-fed hamburger patties at Whole Foods, buns and condiments on hand

2. Sausages, most delicious easy meal ever! Get your mustard on

Also want to mention that getting enough DHA essential fatty acids is imperative for Elizabeth and Baby Oprah’s brain health. This can be a challenge on a veggie diet, but taking sea vegetable derived DHA is a great option! Oprah has sucked your supply dry and replacing it will help your brain state as well as nourish Baby Oprah.

Best of health to you all! Thank you for the listening pleasure, you make me laugh by myself out loud.

I love your podcast! Actually, I love all of your podcasts!

I’m a first time mom due on May 28 with my little guy, and I just wanted to chime in with my good, bad, funny. I decided to go with a theme- pregnancy dreams. The good is that I have had LOTS of…um… sexy dreams. The bad was actually pretty terrible. I had the dream when I was maybe 12 weeks or so and was waiting for the results from the Harmony test (for genetic abnormalities). In the dream I learned that there was going to be a devastating meteorite impact about 8 hours away from where we live. The meteorite was not going to instantly kill us, but it was going to eventually cause mass extinction due to crop failure and starvation. Everyone was asking me if I was going to continue with the pregnancy only to watch the baby starve to death in the coming months. I could only say that if there was any chance that the baby would survive I had to try. I think this was about me struggling with the possibility of getting bad news from the Harmony test and how we would deal with that. It seemed so real that I woke up in a panic and asked my husband if it was really happening. Yuck. The funny involved me having twin boys (In actuality I’m having a singleton). I named them Pink and David, but David’s nickname was Stink. So I had twin boys named Pink and Stink.

We are super unprotective parents and that is the one safety rule we have, no kids alone with any man. Not even our brothers or best friends. You can fix a broken arm, it’s a lot harder to fix a molested child.