Everyday, everwhere babies are mixed with business

Yesterday I hosted a baby shower for one of my clients, a woman with whom I've walked both sides of the line between friendship and client/vendor relationship. I'm not always 100% comfortable with it, not because I don't adore her (I absolutely do) but because there are the inevitable awkward times when she can't tell me something because it's not appropriate for a vendor to know that, but at the same time she'd like my support as a friend. Whatever the issue, I let her take the lead and it seems to work, three years into it.

The shower was held at my client's house, since mine is a construction zone (still! still!) and she has air conditioning. Two of the other guests were pregnant with their first babies, as is my client. Two of the other guests were my client's mother and the mother of one of our friends, a women I'm guessing is in her late 60s. That left me the only woman present who is still in the chaotic throws of motherhood. There were all sorts of mothering experiences that I don't even think about any more that they had never considered. Such as:

1. Unbutton your shirt from the bottom up when you're breastfeeding in public. Also, you can't wear long dresses when you're breastfeeding. Only separates.
2. When you breastfeed a newborn, you do it every 2 hours. And that feeding can last anywhere from 15 - 45 minutes. That 6 hour car trip is going to be a lot longer than what you're used to.

And then there was the one that I kept to myself, that I'll bring up when I don't sound so self-righteous:

3. The Boppy sucks. Seriously. It never stays in place and it puts a lot of strain on your back and wrists. Take it back. Get a My Breast Friend. And it should never be used to prop up a baby that can’t sit on its own, like in the picture on the package. I’ve seen several babies fall over an conk their heads that way.

Blogger at a big chunk of the rest of this entry so I’m going to have to come back to it later. I have found a woman who may be a candidate for my panel of amazingly smart women who are going to give me great ideas. (Need to get a catchier name for this panel!) She’s quite young, and still doesn’t realize that for the rest of her life she will likely work with people who aren’t as smart or passionate as she is, but she wants to help businesses succeed and she wants to go out on her own.

And a very last note: I bought this book today: How To Organize Just About Everything by Peter Walsh. This author is on the reality TLC show Clean Sweep, one of my guilty pleasures. But he's also a former CEO, studied educational psychology, and isn't afraid to tell people what they need to hear. This book tells you how to plan and organize hundreds of things, and each topic is handled in about one page with no more than 10 or 15 bullet points. Perfect for me! I don't have TIME to read a whole book about much of anything.