Generally, I don’t feel comfortable handing out parenting advice — after all, I’ve only had one test subject so far, and what worked for her clearly might not be universally-sound advice! (On that note, it will be interesting to see whether any of our successful tactics are reproducible with number two — will keep you posted, I’m sure :))

But, I know that I love learning from the experiences of people I trust, even if I usually adapt their advice for our situation. That’s the heart of where this post is coming from — not offering a prescription to get your toddler to eat well, but offering some insight into what has worked for us!

Because as luck or intention would have it, we have a very good eater on our hands. June is a more adventurous eater than I am, in many ways, and so far we have not encountered more than mild skirmishes over food at the dinner table. While I’m sure this is in part due to her nature, I think we set her (and ourselves) up for success in a few ways. That’s what I wanted to chat about today, so let’s dive into four things that have worked for us!

1. We all eat the same meal at the same time. From about 15 months on, June has been eating the same meal as John and I at the same time, sometimes in a slightly different form (like, we might drain most of the broth out of a soup, or give her all of a salad’s fixings without the lettuce). From about one year to 15 months, she ate some purees, some of our food, and some additions (like Greek yogurt or Cheerios), and would often eat with us but sometimes eat earlier if we couldn’t get dinner on the table fast enough :)

If she refused a food, we would encourage her to try it, but never forced her to. We also never offered her another option if she DID refuse a food (she never refused a dinner entirely). In fact, to this day, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t even realize that’s an option, since she’s just never seen it done! I think through the visual of John and I eating the same thing as her day in and day out, she very quickly learned that that’s simply how it works in our house.

2. She has eaten adventurously from the beginning. Indian food, pickled vegetables, asparagus, spinach in pasta, chick pea shawarma, beef stew… these have all been a part of her diet, in some form or another, from the time she started eating solid food. Even in utero, she was exposed to a variety of (spicy!) things through my diet, which probably didn’t hurt! Of course, there are things she doesn’t love and will refuse (chunks of meat can be enemy number one), but for the most part, she is game for a wide variety of textures, flavors, and compositions because it’s all she’s known.

3. We don’t keep things in the house we don’t want her to eat, and we don’t eat things in front of her we won’t let her have. I’m sometimes gently confused by parents who complain about their kiddos eating this or that — after all, aren’t we the ones with the money and car to go to the grocery store? Like screen time, we try to cut off potential disagreements at the source by simply not bringing food we don’t want June eating into our house (juice, for example).

Likewise, if John is eating chips and salsa before dinner while June is playing next to him, I don’t think it’s fair to expect her NOT to want to join in – so it’s on us to either make sure she’ll still be hungry enough to eat dinner if she joins in, or to pack up the bag (despite our own wants) if she won’t be.

On the subject of desserts: you all know I have a sweet tooth :) If John and I want to have a dessert (especially because, you know, #pregnant), we will have it after June goes to bed. She has her fair share of sweet things – when we have guests over, for a special family treat, at a birthday party, etc. – and we’ll never NOT let her partake in a dessert that’s happening in front of her. On a regular basis, though, we keep them out of sight.

4. We encourage snacking while cooking. June is very into helping me cook these days, and often wants to taste ingredients or snack on the raw vegetables she sees me chopping. I am all for this — first of all, because raw things generally have the most nutrients, and second of all, because I think having a hand in the prep (even if limited to taste-testing!) piques her interest in and buy-in for the final version of the meal.

To wrap up, I know our experience is not relevant for everyone — maybe your kiddo has an allergy that precludes her from eating the same meal as you, or maybe you can’t eat dinner all together due to your schedules. Likewise, I’m sure you could do all these things and still end up with a selective eater. Either way, I hope these thoughts at least give you some ideas if you’re a little bit behind us in your parenting journey!

And now, let’s all cross our fingers that baby boy loves food as much as June does :)

P.S. Because I know some of you were curious after I mentioned June eats pretty much the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day, here are our go-tos. Breakfast is oatmeal (sometimes with berries or chopped fruit) and water. Lunch at school is milk, either a turkey and cheese quesadilla made on our Griddler or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat bread, plus three of the following: applesauce; berries/chopped fruit; goldfish; carrots, bell pepper sticks, or cherry tomatoes (sometimes with hummus); and plain graham crackers. There are wild cards sometimes, but those are the staples :)

Friends, I am SO EXCITED for June!! As you’ll see below, we will be traveling for two weeks, and our trip promises to be full of some of my most favorite things: family, our dear high school friends, the New England coast, beloved restaurants, beach days, boat rides, evening walks, and so much more. Is it weird that I’m even looking forward to the 10- and 15-hour road trips we have ahead of us?? I just love going on adventures with my people! :)

Despite being gone for half of the month, I’ve got an ambitious list of things I’d like to tackle. Let’s take a look…

On my calendar this month:
— A week in Connecticut for a dear high school friend’s wedding (John is a groomsman!)
— A week in Maine with my family
— Father’s Day
— Blueberry picking at our favorite local farm, hopefully many times!

What I’m loving right now:
— I made this chocolate cream pie for a pool dinner date with neighborhood friends, and it was SO GOOD. The recipe might seem a little intimidating, but I found it to be pretty foolproof!
— I promise we eat lots of healthy things, but over Memorial Day we also had Trader Joe’s chocolate croissants as a special morning treat, and they were delicious! You let them rise overnight, so they seem pretty legit :)
— As a step in this year’s ongoing photo organization project, we purchased this external hard drive (and this case) to be our photo back-up back-up (we also back up all of our phone photos with Amazon Prime). Relieved to cross this step off the list!

What I read in May:
— We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations That Matter: I read this for my neighborhood book club, but didn’t love it. If you’re looking for a book that helps you have more effective conversations, I would highly recommend this one instead!

Revisiting my goals for May:
Make a plan for new baby’s nursery (hope to write a post about this soon!)
Purposefully plan for Memorial Day, since we’ll be staying local
Do something nice for June’s teachers for Teacher Appreciation Day (May 8th!)
Fill out the two-year-old section of June’s baby book
Inquire with three more designers/services about e-design (inquired with one, or rather, they actually reached out to me! We shall see what develops…)
Decide which baby book to use for new baby (Not yet! I’m stuck!)
Organize my 2018 personal photos into my new organizational folder system (made progress on my overall photo project but moving this to June!)

June goals:
— Prepare entertainment for our long road trips (my tips for traveling with an infant are here – planning to write the toddler version later this summer!)
— Photograph our backyard to share with y’all! Finally!!
— Attempt to DIY some maternity photos… should be interesting :)
— Make a master list of things to do before baby boy arrives
— Upload all random digital photos/videos and sort them into external hard drive folder system
— Cull and edit all 2018 iPhone photos (thus far) and categorize them in our external hard drive folders
— Decide on a blog series for after baby boy arrives and start working on it
— Finish organizing baby boy clothing
— Film June in June, Volume 3!!

Whew! Again, that is a LOT, but the clock is ticking on baby boy’s arrival and I’m feeling ready to roll my sleeves up and get to work! If you have goals for the month (or something you’re loving right now!), I’d love to hear in the comments!

P.S. Would you be interested in a pregnancy update? Now that I’m in the third trimester, I finally feel like I have a few things to share, ha! I actually only did one official update last time around, too… let me know what you think!

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Hello, friends! I hope you had wonderful Memorial Day weekends! Ours was great — we stayed local and filled our three days with some of our favorite things and people. We also visited two new-to-us spots that will definitely be making it onto my forthcoming Raleigh city guide, including our new favorite pizza!

I’ve got a fun little bedroom update for you today. You may recall from this post that I was on the hunt for a pair of small dressers to replace our bedside tables and house June’s clothes, which we keep in our bedroom for simplicity’s sake. After much internet searching and deliberation, we finally pulled the trigger, and I wanted to share! But first, the before:

I am not even going to show you John’s side, because it was a HOT MESS of books and electronic cords.

After considering many options, including this gray petite option (too short for our bed height), this weathered piece (wasn’t sure if the wood would look cheesy), this pretty modern piece (too expensive), this simple Ikea piece (maybe a little too modern), and this lovely navy piece (John wasn’t sold on the blue), we ended up going with a pair from Birch Lane.

Sadly, I can’t find them on the website right now, but they were about $500 for the pair and from a company called Longshore Tides.

That corner is looking much better, no?

Here’s John’s side — thankfully, the more solid dresser hides his cords!

Inside, I have a few personal items in my top drawer, but all three are filled with June’s current wardrobe (anything out of season or that she’s waiting to grow into is stored in her dresser upstairs).

John’s side will store baby boy’s clothing — his drawers are mostly empty for now!

So happy to have everything off the floor – only took us two years!!

Now, here’s where I need your help: I’m not in love with the drawer pulls, but am not sure what to replace them with…

Simple antique brass?
Simple white?
Beautiful milk glass or clear?
Floral? (Probably too girly…)
All white petals?

Any suggestions or favorites, my friends with excellent taste??

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Three years ago, I wrote a post about preparing financially for a baby (my most-requested Marvelous Money topic at the time!). I promised in that post to revisit the topic at some point in the future when I actually had children, and I’m so happy to do so today! My angle: what it actually cost us to add a baby to our family in the first year.

Several of you have shared that you think of me as a “big sister” going a few steps ahead of you, which is wonderfully sweet and a title I take seriously. I want to share these numbers not because you’ll be able to copy and paste them into your own life, but because if you’re thinking about having children and wondering how it will affect your finances (hand of my younger self raised high!), it is incredibly hard to find useful numbers.

I hope this post offers some hope, helpful perspective, and fodder for conversation with your spouse! :)

First, a few details about the parameters I chose:

— Our daughter was born in January, which is excellent for sharing numbers, since we budget every dollar on an annual basis. I’ve included all of the June-related costs from 2016 here (unless otherwise noted), as well as the June-related costs from 2015 that we incurred while preparing for her arrival.
— I have not included the retail price of gifts we received, items we borrowed, etc. here — just what we actually paid out of pocket. Obviously, there is a HUGE range of prices for everything baby-related, and it can make a big difference how much you buy used or buy at all. This is not meant to be a universal cost breakdown but just a glimpse at one family’s expenses based on our unique circumstances and priorities.
— I did not include any healthcare costs, as those were paid for by savings in our HSA and I don’t consider them “out of pocket.”
— I did not include “shelter” costs (i.e. our mortgage) or transportation, since we would have had those anyway. I also did not include any portion of our grocery budget, because it did not change in June’s first year with us.

That should cover the preliminaries! Here’s the breakdown, with explanation following…

Birth: This included our birth class and our doula.

Books: I bought four pregnancy and parenting books – my favorites are here!

Childcare: This is by far the largest portion of the total, but I have not even an iota of regret about spending this money! There is almost nothing I would rather spend on than making sure June is safe, loved, and well cared for when we’re not with her, and we were so happy with the school we sent her to for her first year. This covered about eight months of care post-leave.

Clothing: We were incredibly lucky to receive LOTS of hand-me-downs from Nancy and my sister. The majority of the rest of June’s clothing was purchased at my favorite twice-a-year consignment sale, with a few additional special items here and there. I think this is a category where we saved a lot of money, especially considering we had a girl – ha!

Diapers and wipes: We almost exclusively used Water Wipes and Up&Up diapers and were very happy with both.

Feeding: This included our Kiinde supplies and some formula. Thankfully, breastfeeding dropped this category wayyy down!

Gear: This category included everything that we didn’t borrow or receive as a gift, including our baby monitor, our bassinet, a console for our stroller, a convertible car seat, baby gates, and more. You can read about some of our favorite gear at different ages in these posts!

Nursery: This was the only category whose total surprised me a bit, but we did have several large expenses that added up! The good news is that these purchases were the LEAST important, so they could easily be forgone if you’re on a tight budget. Larger purchases included the light fixture ($120); the glider, fabric, and upholstery ($475); a quilt for the twin bed ($110); and the Liberty fabric for the crib skirt ($154 – that stuff ain’t cheap!).

Personal care: This category included diaper cream, Nose Frida supplies, burp cloths, a thermometer, body wash, toothbrushes, and other toiletry type things!

Toys, gifts, and fun: Thankfully, babies don’t need too much to have fun :) This category included her beloved action stackers, a few books (we received SO many as gifts!), cups and a ring stacker, and the ukulele we got her for her first Christmas.

If you’re a visual person, here’s the breakdown in pie chart form:

And one with the major categories besides childcare:

There you have it! If you’d like to share, I’d love to hear how our breakdown stacks up to your own spending, or where you were able to save if you also have a sweet baby! Thank you, as always, for being so kind and thoughtful, friends!

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