baby

Leave a comment Posted on October 8, 2015October 8, 2015 Health, parenting, Spirituality, Storytelling, Uncategorized

Dear Holly or Logan: You’re Due on April 21, 2016

12 weeks.

Dear Holly or Logan,

Where should I begin? First of all, let me officially proclaim it: You exist. In about 6 months, you will be meeting your family face to face.

You are a human being with a soul. You are currently 12 weeks old.

God has created you and is knitting together in the womb as I write this. He has placed you with us, the Shell family; you will be the newest and youngest member.

It sounds so cosmic, doesn’t it? But I suppose it really is.

By the way, I am your Daddy. I will serve as your guide, your mentor, and ultimately, the narrator of your life.

You will learn so much from me. But I can’t fit it all into just one letter. That’s why I’ll be writing you at least once a week, for the rest of your life; just like I have for your brother since several months before he was born.

Speaking of, you have an older brother named Jack, who will be 5 and a half years-old by the time you are predicted to be born on April 21, 2015.

And of course you can’t forget Mommy; you’re actually in her tummy right now. She’s taking good care of you.

Oh, you should know this: There’s actually a decent chance you and I could share our birthdays, since I’ll be turning 35 the day before your due date.

Right now, we don’t know whether you’re a girl or a boy. If you’re a girl, your name will be Holly; and if you’re a boy, your name will be Logan.

We should know for sure around the first week of December, which is 2 months from now.

Until then, I’ll just refer to you as “Holly or Logan.”

Now that you have met your family, you should take a look at yourself. That’s what all these black and white pictures are. That’s you.

It looks like you have a halo about you, as you can see. Apparently that’s the yolk sack, and it’s completely normal.

But it’s fun to think of you as a tiny little baby with a halo.

So there’s what you need to know for now. We should be seeing you in about 6 months. Until then, I have plenty more to say to you in a lifetime supply of letters to come.

Love,

Daddy

P.S. Here is a fun video I made with your brother, which helped tell everyone about you coming into this world.

Leave a comment Posted on August 30, 2015August 30, 2015 Health, parenting, Uncategorized

Baby+Co. 10 FAQs & Walk Through Video (Nashville Location)

It definitely was an honor this week when Baby+Co. invited me to come check out their new facility in Nashville, which just opened a couple of weeks ago.

They sought me out, knowing that based on the content of Family Friendly Daddy Blog, I am passionate about… keeping things real.

When my wife had our son nearly 5 years ago, she went through a midwife at Vanderbilt. Coincidentally, the Clinical Director of the Nashville Baby+Co., Margaret Buxton, who you’ll see in both of my videos below, actually was the one who delivered my son.

Our family visited the new Nashville Baby+Co. facility yesterday in the 2015 Toyota Avalon we are reviewing.

Once we got there, I kept the camera rolling. I wanted to make the most useful videos I could for curious people of YouTube.

As a YouTuber myself, I know the importance of making walk through videos, walk around videos, and unboxing videos.

So I made a walk through video, with Margaret Buxton giving “you” the tour. Here it is:

Being the Millennial (Generation Y, born 1981-1997) I am, I showed up to Baby+Co. without a specific game plan; a life habit that so far, that has seemed to work out for me.

I sat down with Margaret Buxton CNM, DNP to ask 10 frequently asked questions. The goal was to help other people to know whether Baby+Co. is right for them and to help them know what sets Baby+Co. apart from hospitals.

In this FAQs video below, you will see me ask the following 10 questions:

How do I know Baby+Co. is right for me?
Is it safe to have a baby outside of a hospital?
How is a birthing center different from a hospital?
What does a hospital have than Baby+Co. doesn’t?
What is one-to-one care?
How much does this cost?
Where are the prenatal appointments?
What do the classes consist of?
Where are the Baby+Co. locations?
What is the vision of Baby+Co.?

I love it that for our generation, we have other options now; including the way we choose to do childbirth.

By the way, it would be an understatement to say that the facility is like a spa. So elegant.

Below is the link to the website for Nashville’s Baby+Co.

http://nashville.babyandcompany.com/

Our family had so much fun visiting the new place! I hope you enjoy these pictures and my videos… and my little jingle I wrote for Baby+Co. as well.

And thanks for reading!

Leave a comment Posted on July 1, 2014 Uncategorized

7 Reasons a Vacation with a Baby is No Vacation

December 15, 2011 at 10:09 pm , by Nick Shell

One year.

The term “family vacation” may simply exist as a hilarious oxymoron; especially when you have a toddler. While planning a road trip across Florida recently, my expectations were exactly where they needed to be: low. And as I expected, I therefore wasn’t disappointed.

Though it was very tough flying all the way to Sacramento with our son when he was only 8 months old, at least we had plenty of family awaiting us to help out. (My wife is the 9th of 10 kids.) But when you don’t have family to help soften the blow, an attempt at a vacation is simply that- an attempt.

Taking a vacation with a baby is like winning a free iPhone with a cracked screen. Or getting off work early due to inclement weather and then getting stuck in bad traffic. It’s like eating a trendy $4 cupcake but it being your least favorite flavor: Butterscotch.

Perhaps the best word for a vacation with a baby is “adventure,” which promotes the idea of excitement of the unknown and as well as the great possibility of setbacks. Here are 7 reasons a vacation with a baby is no vacation:

1. You can’t sleep in. Man, the thought of waking up lazily at 8:30 AM on my own, without a baby alarm clock is simply, unimaginable. Nice thought, though.

2. The irregular schedule throws off your baby’s sleeping patterns. We’ve been back for over a week now and our son still hasn’t quite adjusted back to not only Central Time, but also actually being able to sleep when he’s ready to.

3. You can’t ever mentally relax; even while you sleep. It’s more likely that your kid is going to wake up in the middle of the night. And while you’re awake, there is no pause button with your child.

4. You become stressed out about finding meals. When you have to synchronize your own hunger cues along with your child’s, while finding an appropriate restaurant to stop at, it’s not too surprising having driven yourself all the way across the Florida Keys without lunch. A sleeping baby in a car overrides the growling of two adults’ stomachs.

5. You and your spouse barely have time to talk to each other about anything other than the stress of the trip. When you do, it’s smarter just to fall asleep. So much for quality time.

6. Planning activities wears you out. You want to see all the cool tourist spots, but you also want to be able to relax. But you can’t relax anyway (as mentioned in #3) so it becomes easier just to distract yourself with the vacation activities themselves.

7. You become aware of the fun you’re missing out on as adults. So much for a simple date night at the bar of the hotel. It’s easier to settle for a bottle of Boone’s Farm from the gas station down the street, enjoyed in the splendor of two glass cups from your hotel’s bathroom counter.

But hey, this is what we know as normal now. I’ll sleep in when I’m dead.

Leave a comment Posted on June 30, 2014 Nostalgia, parenting

How Not to Be “That Mom” or “That Dad”

November 20, 2011 at 7:39 pm , by Nick Shell

One year.

There are basically two ways to be “that parent.” You can be over-involved in your child’s life; actually encouraging separation anxiety for them by drawing out goodbye’s by petting them and crying with them whenever you leave them at daycare.

Or you can be under-involved; letting your child run free in the grocery story, occasionally tossing them empty threats of “time out” when you get home.

Neither extreme is good. That’s why we normal parents do our darndest not to be “that mom” or “that dad.”

But this gets complicated because it’s no secret what a challenge it is to balance our parenting expectations with practical reality. It seems that to some degree, we all are “that parent.”

It’s necessary that I turn the question to myself: How am I “that dad?”

I am weird because I won’t let my son watch TV until he’s at least two years old. Plus, I am really strict about what he eats: No processed foods- that means no fruit juice.

Oh yes, what a cruel, demented, over-the-top man I am to keep my child from things I had when I was his age back in 1982. But I’m not going to change; I’m always going to be kooky like that.

So I guess I fall into the category of “over-involved.” Some of my critics could probably say that I am ironically depriving my child in a subconscious effort to declare my authority as an active and effective father.

Maybe I am. Because I don’t want to be “that dad.” I mean, the other kind of “that dad.” The kind I’m not. Or at least the kind I think I’m not.

As long as other parents are critiquing my parenting style, which they always will, I will always be “that dad.” I would say that I don’t care what other people think of me anyway, but I have observed that people who usually say that actually really, really care what people think of them.

It’s like a 14 year-old girl who says, “I’m so over him now.” No, no you’re not. If you were, you wouldn’t have to go around saying that to your friends, who are all wearing black Breaking Dawn t-shirts.

So in conclusion, I believe no matter what you do, you are “that mom” or “that dad” to the very parents who you yourself perceive as “that mom” or “that dad.” Get it?

In other words, the title of this post is misleading. There is no way to refrain from being “that parent.” You already are.

Leave a comment Posted on June 30, 2014 Nostalgia, parenting, Storytelling

My Baby on Wheels Learns to Walk

October 23, 2011 at 11:52 pm , by Nick Shell

Eleven months.

Yeah, I know; that’s a pretty weird title…

My eleven month old son, Jack, is learning to walk. Up until now, he has simply been a “baby on wheels,” trampling over anything and everyone in his way. I think of how cartoons, like the Road Runner, had legs that essentially transformed into wheels once they got moving.

Jack also reminds me of a toy I had back when I was 5 (in 1986) called The Animal, a toy SUV that had tiger claws than came out of the tires when it needed to climb over a surface.

But over the past couple of weeks, Jack has been experimenting with standing and walking. He can stand on his own for close to ten seconds and can take up to six steps before he falls; not that I’m necessarily in a rush for him to gain more independence.

Of course, his further independence means my further responsibility. When I think of all the milestones of a baby’s progress, the first steps are definitely pretty high on the list. I feel like so many camera commercials capitalize on this event.

I am fascinated by the way he falls- in safe, slow-motion. It’s just funny because I know if I were falling down after walking a few steps, it would be fast and furious, possibly with a Tokyo drift. As for Jack, each time he breaks his walking stride with a fall, he’s as graceful as a cat landing on its feet.

Seeing Jack walk is almost as weird as if an animal were to start talking to me all of the sudden- it’s just thatenchanting and seemingly unnatural. My “baby on wheels” can crawl and use toys to skate around the floor with, but… walk?

Baby steps, baby steps; that is what it will take- for me to finally get used to see my infant walking instead of crawling.

Passing the Mic:

How old was your child when they finally started learning to walk? What new tricks did they start doing that sort of freaked you out?

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