I’m thrilled and honestly will admit, a little nervous about my first blog post.  I am excited that we get to share some of the humanity behind the Graco brand.  So many times you forget there are real moms (like myself…proud mother of a little girl, “Bear” turning 2 in January) behind companies. 

My husband and I have kept a journal for our daughter – we started the day we knew we were pregnant.  Recently, I was reading some of the early entries when Bear was a couple of days old…and I forgot about the fun we had trying to figure out the sleep schedules.  We read all of the books (Dr. Karp, Babywise, Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child).  Why is it during the 2am crying your husband pretends he is sound asleep and cannot hear the scream from the other room?  Either I couldn’t wake my husband during that time or he was holding me back from going in to console our daughter.  We tried the ‘crying it out’ hoping she would learn to calm herself back to sleep –that sounds great in the afternoon but at 2am you find your husband being the enforcer saying “we had a plan!” and “if you continue running in there and consoling her, she will never learn to calm herself back to sleep.” That’s the down side of making your husband read sections of the books and talking about “our sleep plan”.  We were fortunate…our daughter became a sound sleeper when she was swaddled with a pacifier in her mouth.  After reading the journal this technique of swaddling (with a little bit of scheduling & crying it out) resulted in a successful sleeping-through-the-night at 7 weeks- Bear slept from 9pm to 5:30am.  I think it’s fair to say every parent feels like a miracle has just taken place, the first night your baby sleeps for 6 consecutive hours!  I know we did.  Now I find myself going into Bear’s room while she is sleeping and remembering back to the day I would rock her and experience the calm and peacefulness we all desire – that moment when you rock your baby to sleep and you sit there staring at their tiny fingers & toes in total amazement of the miracle of life and the marvel of a sleeping baby. The things that parents do to create that peacefulness, especially during those first weeks.  I must say we have never looked back and wished anything were different – as a mother it truly feels like every moment gets better than the last.

“I wonder… if we will see this on their show!”

Here is a picture of Tori and Dean Inn Love… with sweetpeace! After a long day at the Boom Boom Room gifting suite, little Liam McDermott crashed out in sweetpeace for about 20 minutes while we got to hang with his parents. All in a day’s work…

Every Wednesday we’ll be sharing a photo showing off a little bit of wonder in the lives of our extended Graco family of customers, employees and friends.

And I mean that. I was told to expect a good time from the DC Metro Mom Bloggers and it wouldn’t be like this group to let anyone down! So a good time was certainly had by all. That’s always easy when you’re surrounded by good food and wine (yes- the wine makes it easy), a cool product to check out and talk about (they said it too!), and great conversations. That’s really the best part for all of us- the great conversation… I got to hear about Vicky’s rambunctious daughter who acts more like a two-year old boy than a dainty little girl, and Kristen whose son windexed his brother’s highchair mid-meal and Devra (a self-proclaimed Pack ‘n Playmate) who’s written an amazing book called Mommy Guilt as well as many other great stories.

Since the Silicon Valley and Chicago Mom’s Get-Togethers, Graco has launched this blog so I was able to rub shoulders with fellow (yes- fellow!) bloggers! Many of them were kind enough to give me the thumbs up while some I think are waiting to read it before they go that far.

We’ve seen a number of great posts pop up from the great bloggers since the meet up, here are some of the best:

• What a Night! - WhyMommy (and crossposted - with some great comments)
• D.C. Moms Gone Wild - LawyerMama (also cross posted)
• Wine, Women and One Incredible Baby Soothing Machine - Mommy Chronicles
• Graco Newborn Soothing Center - Julie
• DC Metro Moms Caucus - PunditMom
• I Love Y’all - Stimey
• Friday’s Fun Find - Graco Sweetpeace -Vicky
• Party in the DC - Momma K

The whole evening was just abuzz with a high energy that resembled nothing of a post-holiday wrap up party. Thank you ladies for ushering in the New Year with such umph.