After a year of trying to conceive, enduring multiple miscarriages, and a miserable pregnancy, I thought the hardest days of becoming a mother were behind me. I was ready for the happiest time in my life. Everyone loves their new babies, right?? I had no idea what I was in for. I had a tough time going from spreadsheets to spit-up, my baby refused to sleep longer than twenty minutes at a time, I tried and failed at breastfeeding, and I was super uncomfortable with post-birth medical issues.

But the one thing that really destroyed my new-baby euphoria was how absolutely distraught he always seemed. He cried inconsolably for hours every day, and I had no special mommy powers to help him. “He has colic,” my pediatrician said, and I looked at him blankly. Say what? What’s Colic? I could tell at the time it was something tummy related – when he cried, he pulled up his legs, and he sounded like he was refluxing, too. He hated to eat, he hated to sleep, he hated… well… everything. Being desperate for peace, for rest, I ordered everything I could find that made promises to eliminate colic. From gas drops to a contraption that attached to the crib that made it seem like the car, to a trip to a chiropractor, I tried it all.

Did anything cure it? No. But here are the top 5 things that helped us survive:

What worked for you?

Plus, more from The Bump:

Moms Share Their Tips for Surviving Baby’s Colic

15 Ways to Deal With a Fussy Baby

Tips for Treating Colic?

I’ve successfully worked at home for the last six years. Because my work is quite literally in my bedroom, I basically have zero work/life balance. Somehow, though,  it works! With the time I save in commuting (especially in LA), plus the quiet time to focus (I do miss out on those office cupcakes), I find I put in significantly more hours in this setup than I did commuting to the office. So that’s a win for my company. The big win for me, is that I get some extra, pretty special time with my kids (even if half of it is disciplining and referring). Here’s a typical day:

6:30am: Rise and shine! With bleary eyes, I check work emails on my phone (darn that time zone difference!). Shower…sometimes.

7:15am: Drag (and I mean drag) my two kids out of bed. Send one to the shower (he’s 9), carry the 7 year old half asleep to the breakfast table (is it sick that I love her morning breath?). Set out a wall of cereal boxes in between them to eliminate morning bickering. Make sure each kid has an equal quantity of cereal box backs to read so they won’t accuse me of loving one of them more.

7:30am: Yikes, 9 year old is still in the shower. I yell down the hallway he better get out or I’m tossing his syrup…um, I mean pancakes. He appears wet headed (whether he actually washed it I’ll never know). Set the timer and make the lunches while they eat.

8:00am: I’m not really sure what happens here – it’s a blur. There’s usually yelling about teeth brushing, arguing about shoelaces, outfit choices, filling last minute water bottles (cleaning of ice that flies out all over the floor, every. single. time), and signing progress reports. Off to school we go!

8:30am: Brew a mug of coffee the size of my head. Thank you, Katie Keurig, for being so lovingly supportive. Commute to work (which is located in a small corner of my bedroom). Resist the urge to go RIGHT BACK TO BED THAT IS RIGHT THERE BEHIND ME. I don’t have a problem at all resisting the the laundry pile as tall as Kobe Bryant next to the bed.

1:30pm: During a conference call, the dog starts barking like crazy over the menacing looking pest control guy outside. Mute! Mute!

3:00pm: “MOMMMMMYYYY!!!!!!” OMG. They are home already!? I haven’t gotten up from my desk or eaten! They jump in my lap (even my 9 year old!) and this could be my favorite part of my day. How lucky I am to greet them after school! Time for a coffee refill as I chat interrogate the kids about their day.

3:15pm: “Okay, mommy’s going back to work now, you know the rules.” What should happen: they go into their rooms and work on their homework, only interrupting for important questions. If my door sign is showing “On a Call”, they are to slip a note under the door. What actually happens: “Mommy, can I go poop in your bathroom?”, “Mommy, can I go outside to play with the neighbors?” “Mommmy! Sophie just ate 7 Thin Mints and a drumstick as her snack!” The Evil Mommy voice arrives: “MOMMY IS WORKING! IF YOU DON’T STOP INTERRUPTING YOU WILL GO SOMEWHERE ELSE AFTER SCHOOL!” (Hmm, now that I’m thinking of this threat, perhaps they would prefer this?)

5:00pm: Husband enters my room to change after work, and I tattle on the kids and the way they drove me crazy. He takes over and starts dinner.

6:00pm: “Dinner’s ready!!” Okay, okay, I’m coming, just one more email!

7:00pm: After a dinner (where my husband and I stare at each other and wonder just how much noise two children can make and why our daughter still eats with her hands), we clean up. The breakfast dishes are still sitting out! We check homework.

7:30pm: Shower time for the youngest and this is never, I repeat never, met with an “okay!” Call in the Whine Police.

8:00pm: Reading time! Right now we’re reading the Narnia series together. This is another highlight of my day, as I get to share my love of books. But, then they argue about who is getting more real estate next to our dog, start hyper correcting each other’s pronunciations, and I call it The End of Reading Time.

8:30pm: “Snuggle time” = 1×1 time with each kid. This goes waaaaay too long but it’s the first real, quality, one on one time I’ve had with them all day. This is where I find out the real deal about their friends, their loves and hates, and I get to think of new crazy ways to describe how much I love them (louder than all the screams on all the roller coasters ever built combined!)

9:00pm: I think I might be done with bedtime…but no. There’s still ice water, I can’t sleep, my music doesn’t work, it’s too dark, fill up the humidifiers, it’s too bright, my P.J.’s are itchy, I forgot to do my math homework, I have to go potty, I need one more hug, I’m scared of the dark/smoke alarms.

9:30pm: Grab a Skinny Cow ice cream and sit back at my desk to finish up on work.

10:30pm: Commute to my bed just behind me and curl up with all my “With Friends” games to unwind.

11:30pm: Husband joins me in bed after his class or zombie show. We hold hands while we read. As I fall asleep I think this (in no particular order): “I am grateful for a job I love. My kids who are healthy and safe in their beds. My husband who I like so much I wish I did see him more. My house that I’ve made a home. My dog who follows me everywhere. And Katie Keurig.”

Plus, more from TheBump.com

A Week in the Life of a Stay at Home Mom

How I Knew I Wanted to Quit and Stay Home

What Being a Working Mom is (Really) Like

Heeeey, funny bab-y! My day, month, life has been made with this hilariously sweet video of a baby waking up from her nap when she hears her favorite tune (and it’s no Wheels on the Bus). I thought my son was the only one (still) obsessed with this song. The only thing cuter than the baby’s car seat dance moves is her big sister laughing so hysterically her face is beet red.

What’s your baby’s favorite song?

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been a mess since last Friday’s Sandy Hook shooting. A conflicted, sad, fearful, desperate mess. I’ve been trying to have a normal day – but so many times a day a single move or word will make me stop and, not just cry, weep. In a single motion of putting a blanket on my sleeping daughter (7), in the image of a child skipping into school, or while volunteering in the classroom when rather than focusing on the gingerbread house I’m helping to build, I’m looking around the room from a teacher’s point of view and concocting an escape plan. I weep for the parents who will never have a normal day again. At times I even feel guilty ever enjoying any of these moments when others are suffering so greatly.

I have been searching for a meaningful way for my family and I to reach out, and after a friend of mine whose son is a student at Sandy Hook posted a request from their PTA, I have the answer. I wanted to share this with everyone who might also be looking for the same thing.

It’s snowflakes. Beautiful, pure, snowflakes, which will decorate the new school that Sandy Hook students will attend. Here is why this speaks to me:

They represent the lives lost: no two are alike

They are a representation of the irreplaceable and unique people that are no longer with us but have had an impact on every person they touched.

They are a symbol of hope and beauty

They will provide a visual support that I can be part of. The kids, the staff, the parents can look at them every day and see how many people are out here pouring our love into their community.

It will be easy to explain and do with my kids.

I’ve struggled with what to tell my kids about the shooting. For now, they know a group of people, including children, were killed in Connecticut last week and the person responsible also died. They don’t know it was in a school. I feel comfortable having our entire family make snowflakes together and telling them that they are being sent to the school that the kids were from to show our love and support.

Here is the address to send your snowflakes by January 12, 2013:

Connecticut PTSA

60 Connolly Parkway, Building 12, Suite 103

Hamden, CT  06514

For more ways to help the Sandy Hook community visit the Connecticut PTA.

Plus, more on TheBump.com

Pediatrician recommends no TV after Sandy Hook shooting

We’re All Hugging Our Kids Tighter Today

Mom Reactions to Sandy Hook shooting

The sound of my kids coming home from school today has never sounded sweeter. Their bickering, their loudness, their messes and their interruptions have never been more welcome. I will be hugging them tighter, longer, and they won’t know what has gotten into me today.

In a world where it doesn’t seem like anything has shock value these days, the news of the Sandy Hook shooting has left everyone shaken to the core and hearts breaking everywhere. As parents, we know the feeling of having our hearts outside our bodies and what it would mean to lose them. Many parents had to learn what this was truly like today. This tragedy questions so many things, but most importantly 1) How could a human being do this 2) Is there no safe place in the world for children? I have no answers.

What I do have is infinite tears for the truly innocent souls lost today and the parents who will mourn their losses. How the holidays will forever be a reminder of the last time they said “have a good day at school”. To all of those parents and families involved I want to say we are all thinking of you, holding your hands, sharing your tears. I hope you feel our love.

Plus, more from TheBump.com

Sandy Hook Shooting: Parents React With Fear, Sadness and Empathy

As excited as I was to hear about the royal baby on the way yesterday (I’ll admit it, I squealed), I couldn’t help but wonder how Kate and Will were feeling about letting the world in on their intimate news. They may have had to share the news about their baby on the way a little earlier than they might have liked, due to Kate’s hospitalization with hyperemesis gravidarum.

In my first pregnancy, I had all the naïve faith in the world that unprotected sex = pregnancy = you have a baby. I excitedly shared my pregnancy news with my parents, in-laws and friends at 6 weeks. Everyone was over the moon for their first grandchild! But, I was about to learn a big lesson: sometimes things don’t go the way you dream. Sometimes pregnancy sucks, sometimes your baby cries all day and you want to check yourself into an asylum hotel, and sometimes pregnancy doesn’t last at all. Literally, the day after I shared the news, I ended up miscarrying. Not only was that heartbreaking and difficult to bear, but I had to also go “un-tell” all of my loved ones. It felt like I had played a cruel joke on everyone — I had given them an amazing gift and then I had to take it away and feel their pain over the baby’s loss as well my own.

A tight-lipped year later, and on my third pregnancy, I waited the full first trimester before announcing the baby. I’m not saying everyone needs to wait that long — but for me, it was easier to wade through those first uncertain weeks with as much caution tape surrounding my hopeful heart as I needed, without having to explain to anyone why I wasn’t jumping for joy quite yet.

So when anyone announces their pregnancy before their first trimester is up, even though I know statistically it will probably be fine — my joy at the news is always is tinged with an internal pang and hope that everything is going to be okay.

When did you share the news you were pregnant?

It’s safe to say that 34 year old Christine Schleppy didn’t have “deliver during a hurricane in a mobile medical shelter” in her birth plan. But that’s exactly what happened after she started having contractions last night at 6 p.m., just as Hurricane Sandy was hitting her New Jersey neighborhood, reports ABC News.

Christine was 35 weeks along when her labor started, and when her contractions got intense, her husband, David Schleppy called 911. During the dramatic trip through water and debris toward the hospital, the ambulance got stuck in the mud, and the Schleppys had to be transferred to a fire department SUV. Sounds like a scene from a movie!

“It was definitely stressful,” said David to ABC News. “She wasn’t happy [with not having an epidural] but ultimately the main concern was to have a healthy baby.”

And a healthy baby and a happy ending they got, with the help of Dr. Herman Morchel and the Hackensack University Medical Center’s Mobile Satellite Emergency Department shelter team who delivered Liam Alexander Schleppy, 5 pounds, 2 ounces, at 11 p.m. We’re guessing that five hours of labor felt a lot longer than that.

Another superstorm Sandy baby was little Marianna Harutunian, a 7-pound, 5-ounce girl born 8:38 p.m. The trip to the hospital was not one they’ll soon forget, either. With  trees on the roads and winds whipping against them, “it was a little bit of a roller-coaster ride,” new dad Vartar Harutunian said.

Plus more on TheBump.com:

How to Know You’re in Labor

20 Babies Saved During Hurricane Sandy

More Amazing Birth Stories

You may know Bill Horn and Scout Masterson, “The Guncles,” from Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood. They’re the adorably warm couple who, as the first gay parents on reality television, gave the world its first glimpse into what parenting as two dads is really like. Bill and Scout chatted with us candidly about the terrible twos, their funniest dad moments and their (free!) adoption mentoring program, Hold My Hand.

The Bump: Simone turned two in June. Have you experienced the “terrible twos” yet?

Scout: She loves practical jokes and trying to trick us, so we’re very careful about falling into those traps. When we put her down at night, about an hour later, she’ll get up and say, “My tummy hurts,” and, “I need to go to Daddies’ bed.” The first time she did it, we said of course! Then she asked us to kiss it to make it better and proceeded to lay down with her arms behind her head and said, “Ooooh, so much better!”

Bill [laughing]: Yeah, we caught on to that one quickly. Going through these terrible twos, we say, “Use your words.” One of the most annoying things is when she goes from 0 to 60 over the fact that she can’t reach her juice. We don’t want to make a huge deal out of [the tantrum], but we definitely want to put the kibosh on it.

TB: It’s hard to know sometimes that it’s not actually a nightmare or a tummy ache!

Bill:A tip for parents: Don’t be afraid to put the kibosh on something you know is wrong. I’d wake up at 4 a.m. and she’d be at the side of my bed, screaming, “Let me in the bed!” One night I went to bed snuggling our Chihuahua, Jessica, and when I woke up at 5 a.m., I was spooning with Simone.

TB: Do you guys have good cop/bad cop roles in parenting?

Bill: Scout could disagree, but I think I’m probably more of the bad cop.

Scout: I do have Bill put Simone to bed. He does the final shutting off of the lights, and he always says she’s going to hate him for that. When I do it, I find myself in the “Okay, what else do you need?” mode.

TB: How do you guys split up responsibilities at home?

Scout: In our home, we pick up where the other one leaves off and keep everything moving forward. We don’t leave something sit and say, “That’s your chore.” We have my mom as our “granny nanny” who comes a few days a week while we’re working.

TB: How do you make time for each other now that you’re parents?

Scout: Well, we work together…so we see each other plenty! We’re on the show regularly and out there publicly doing events together, which is just the two of us, so there is a break.

Bill: Honestly, we’ve found we’d much rather do something new and exciting as a family.

TB: Simone has her own fashion blog! Is there anything Simone loves to wear that you can’t stand, or vice versa?

Scout: She has an opinion about everything she wears, and she’s very fashionable. She won’t wear sneakers without pink in them. Shopping for shoes is hard because we’re not into the light-up shoes and shoes with 75 colors of glitter on them.

Bill: It’s been funny to see her gravitate toward pink. We didn’t push it or do a lot of princess stuff as a baby, but she’s really gravitated toward it. We have our own dad sign language when we’re in a store shopping, where I point to Scout and he’ll block the shoes before she can see them.

TB: That’s so funny! Okay, I want to talk about Hold My Hand, your adoption mentoring program. Can you tell me more about what you guys do and how people can get your help?

Scout:It started when we went through the adoption process with Simone [three and a half years ago] on Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood. We found ourselves getting a lot of emails and questions from people in the [adoption] process. We launched Hold My Hand officially last November during adoption month. Since then, we’ve helped about 100 families! We handle everything from helping people assess their situations and get the process moving to helping pick things out in a nursery. We’ve gotten emails in the middle of the night with the first pictures of adopted babies we helped place, which is really exciting. We have our amazing daughter now, and we want to help others make their dreams come true too.

TB: Do you have different advice for same-sex couples adopting, or is it the same process that everyone goes through?

Bill: Generally, the overarching process is the same, except there are different rules in different states that are more accommodating to gay couples than others. You just have to do your research and know what the law is and what the hurdles will be.

Scout: We’ve helped, and love to help, all kinds of families. Anyone who reaches out to us, we will help them. Same-sex couples, single moms, families who have had other children naturally and want to expand their families, single gay dads…all kinds of families. We’re starting the process of adopting again, so we’re right there with them.

TB: We all go through similar things as parents, and from what I can tell, your family is just like mine, but are there things that are unique to being two dads?

Scout: Our home is a lot like everyone else’s. Now that Simone is in school, we’ve definitely had to explain she has two dads and other people have a dad and a mom. But another classmate of hers has two moms. That’s one of the reasons we love doing a reality show, is that we get to show people we’re just like everyone else. There are examples of gay families on television now that are so exaggerated, that I’m glad that as a reality-based show, we’re able to show the way it really is.

Bill: I think there are two things that are really different for us. One is some of the reactions we get from the outside. We get questions like, “Who’s the female and who’s the male?” Most of the time, it’s coming from a good place, but it can be hurtful. Also, one of our biggest hurdles is potty training. Obviously, she can’t go to the ladies’ room by herself, and when men go to the bathroom, they’re pigs [so we don’t want to take her in there]. So we got this little portable potty that pops up that she can use.

Scout: We get irate when we go to a place and they don’t either have a changing table in the men’s restroom or a have family restroom. It’s not about us being gay parents; it affects all dads. The message is to women that it’s your job to change the baby — it’s 2012, and our families are operating in all kinds of ways.

TB: Besides your must-have on-the-go potty, are there any other baby gear items that you can’t live without?

Scout: I don’t know what we’d do without our Origami stroller.

Bill: We’d have to fold and unfold the stroller ourselves. Who wants to do that?

Scout: Well, yeah! And we use Skip Hop products every day. Simone walks into the school with her Skip Hop backpack and is currently packing her Skip Hop Zoo luggage for our weekend getaway.

TB: What’s been your funniest dad moment?

Scout: We were at Target last week and we were looking for a new kids’ shampoo. She’s decided her shampoo needs to smell like strawberries. So I’m looking at the section and I’m saying, “I don’t know, Simone, I’m not seeing anything like that,” trying to get her over to the Burt’s Bees ones. So she said, really loudly, “Bend over!” I said, “What?” She screamed, “I SAID, BEND OVER!!” Everybody in the section was looking at us.

Bill: I gave Simone water at bedtime and she said, “I don’t want water. I don’t like water. It sucks.” I have to watch what I say!

To follow The Guncles, find them on Twitter at @TheBillHorn and @ScoutMasterson. For more information on Hold My Hand, click here.

Plus, more from TheBump.com

Tiffany Thiessen on the Best and Worst Things About Having a Toddler

Adoption: What are your Options?

Tia Mowry on her Favorite Baby Products and Favorite Family Traditions

Once upon a time, there was a boy and his best friend, a blue monkey named “Ah-ah”. For years, they were inseparable, like a real life Woody and Andy. One day, the kindergartner lost his Ah-ah while camping! Now, every mom who has a kid with a lovey can relate to the panic of this situation! (We do have a back up Curious George in our house now). Sadly, the monkey wasn’t found and life moved on. The boy, now a third grader, has probably forgotten about Ah-ah and is much too old to care about silly stuffed animals, right? Wrong. When after three years he sees his beloved sidekick again, he’s overcome with emotion and becomes that wide eyed, attached little boy again.

As moving as that is to witness (especially with a 9 year old son of my own), it isn’t what touched me the most. It’s the mom. Sure, there was a lot of luck involved in her finding his monkey, but the point is she was still looking, three years later. In the choked up moment when she shows her son his long lost love, she becomes the face of all of us moms who have obsessed about, searched for, found or fixed up the things that are special to our kids. It sums up the entire experience of motherhood for me. We go through every heart wrenching feeling our kids do.  And we’ll do anything we can to make them happy, no matter how long it takes.

Do your kids have loveys? Have they ever been lost? 

Plus, more from TheBump.com

Biggest Toddler Problems, Solved

Funny Ways Kids Say I Love You

Best Toys for Babies and Toddlers

The #BumpProud mama Tori Spelling is now #BabyProud as she announced the arrival of baby Finn Davey McDermott this evening! The mother of now 4 kids (bless her!) tweeted, “It’s a boy!” and posted this touching shot of Finn’s hand.

Born August 30, 2012 at 5:39pm, Finn weighed 6 pounds, 6 ounces and was 20 inches long. Tori tweeted, “It’s a boy!”

Finn, an Irish name meaning “fair” is a Bumpie favorite for boys!

Congrats to the whole McDermott family!

Plus, more from The Bump

Crazy Celeb Birth Stories

Celeb Maternity Fashion

Giuliana and Bill Rancic’s Baby Arrives!