DELILAH DIOR DOMINICA

W ell, I had great intentions to update you all frequently this pregnancy. Clearly that didn't go as planned as we are currently 7 weeks out from my due date! People warned me how different this pregnancy would be. They said the constant bump photo snapping, baby book reading and rest would be a thing of the past-they were right. We didn't find out the gender so we're looking forward to the surprise of a lifetime very soon. Oshiolema was born two weeks early so I'm prepared for the fact that we could potentially meet our new baby in five weeks or even less!  How far along:  33 Weeks. Total weight gain:  30 pounds. Maternity clothes: T here are upsides and downsides to being pregnant in the summer. One of the upsides has to be the clothing options. Since I gave birth in the dead of winter with Oshiolema, getting dressed is just so much easier than it was this stage in the pregnancy last time around! The only actual maternity clothing I've worn...

Newborn gifts have a sweet way of pulling at heart strings (of both the gift-giver and gift-receiver) and I wanted to share a few of my favorites for blessing the new baby. I have to say, putting this baby girl mood board together has me itching for a little lady in my life! Oshiolema will be a fantastic big brother either way and we're so excited to find out just who this baby is very soon. Fashion Book: I have been a huge fan of all the new fashion infused books for little girls being written lately. This Little Piggy Went to Prada seems like a precious addition to any little girl library.  The Laundress ‘Just for Baby’ kit: Though sometimes you just can’t beat the classics when it comes to laundering baby clothes, this new brand “The Laundress” Is something I can really get behind. All products are all natural, gentle and non-toxic, which surprisingly isn’t true for the detergent I swore by up until now. The packaging is pretty enough to elevate any laundry room and t...

I was fortunate enough to have my first baby at the same time as some of my dear friends entered motherhood as well. Though traditionally newborn gifts have been reserved exclusively for the expected bundle, one of my favorite things to do was surprise the new mama with a little something special for herself rather than just a baby blanket or stuffed animal. Of course I think it's important to respect the registry provided, but I also believe if you love someone and they have just brought a life into this world I say why not gift them with something that says "you're amazing!" It's such a tender time for a woman-we're sleep deprived, not really feeling ourselves, in full on sacrifice-and-serve mode and our normal routines are completely out the window. I've found a little elevated special something can really brighten our days in that newborn haze. Bubble Bath : This is my favorite bubble bath. The glass container elevates the whole experience fro...

The last time I wrote on my beloved blog, I was 8 months postpartum, knee deep in sleep training and carefully tiptoeing into parenthood. As I write this, my son-now nearly fifteen months old-is running around and I am resting my hand on my four month baby bump. (To those of you confused at the science of the months-along/baby bump size ratio...yea. this bump isn't messing around.) Looking back on all that I have gone through as a woman and wife and mother in the past few months I know I have had so much to share, but for what seems like the first time in my life, I wasn't compelled to . It truly was a special time. I have learned and laughed and cried in the past few months more than I have at any other time chunk of my life and yet all those defining moments are tucked away in my heart (and external hard drives) just for me. Just for us. My family. I've decided the best way to return to writing would be to share something incredibly personal that is long overdue; O...

July 2015 Today I had to slip on a sweater. Not because the air conditioning was too cold, not because I had a slight chill from overpopulating my water bottle with ice-cubes. No, the air had shifted. In one simple movement, I declared this beautiful summer over.  This summer has left me full of memories, lessons, love and blueberries. It was my very first summer as a mother and man, I can’t get enough of this stuff. The days passed quickly, as summers tend to do, but even more so than before because of the steps. The steps that get us from wake up to night-night are rhythmic and predictable and if I’m not careful they steal days right from under my nose. The “hi handsome’s” and “no thank you’s” and “kiss for mama?” and “the mama’s on the bus go shh shh shh’s” can mash together, separated only by new tricks. When this summer started, I could leave my son in the center of my bed and deliberate between outfits, brush my teeth, put on mascara and return to that find my swe...

My name doesn't have much meaning. In fact, I was almost a Stacy. My older sister Kristen and I have always said we should have switched names, for she is far more "Jill" than I ever was. I had lavish dreams of having a unique name-Azure, Jade, something that made people say, "one more time?" I decided if I couldn't change my own name, I'd just have to live vicariously through my babies. At 8 I filled my diary with "V" names for my 5 girls: Violet, Vanessa, Victoria, Valerie and Vivian. When I was 10 years old, one episode of VH1's Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous left me dead-set on naming my children Bentley and Bacardi, regardless of gender. Praise the Lord that phase was relatively short. My next phase was unusual spelling followed by unnecessary letters. This continued until I met my husband, Oshiomogho. My husband is Nigerian and I was told when we first started dating that the grandparents name the grandbabies in his ...

 (mom days before giving birth to her fourth baby) Growing up every single night once the clock struck 8:00pm and my mom had cleared dinner from the table and helped with math problems, she announced it was time for her bath. Some evenings as I walked down the hallway, now smelling of sweet soap and lotion, to say goodnight I would find her changing into her light blue nightgown baring her stomach lined with marks. Silvery purple marks lined the edges of her stomach, crawling a little bit up the sides and dancing around her naval. The older I became, the more I understood those marks meant she had been stretched. Stretched probably in ways she never would have imagined, and each stretching left visible evidence of its difficulty and her strength. Being the third oldest of seven, I saw the pregnancy cycle. Flat tummy, big tummy, baby. I knew at a young age and understood better than many of my friends that a woman has to stretch physically in order to bear a child. It wasn't ...