Guest Author No. 2 - Mrs. Nicole Hall
(Week 4 of 4)

Transcript From Our Guest Author Parenting Interview With Mrs. Nicole Hall

This page represents week 4 of 4 of our second of many Guest Authors to come.

I would like to once again thank Mrs. Nicole Hall for the time and consideration she has shown during her visit with us on this website.

To end each of our Guest Author’s visits, week four is always dedicated to an open, honest, and very much impromptu parenting interview between me and our Guest Author.

Let me remind our website visitors that this Parenting Interview and the opinions expressed herein are offered for entertainment purposes only. Reliance on information presented in this Parenting Interview is at your own risk. Please review this website’s Disclaimer Page for further information in this regard.

Decisions on how YOU raise YOUR children are left wholly up to you and to your parental wisdom and personal discretion.

And now, without further ado, let me welcome back our second Guest Author Mrs. Nicole Hall. We hope you find the following Parenting Interview both useful and enjoyable.

PTTPAG – I want to thank you Nicole for agreeing to spend some time with us today here in your home talking about parenting in general, and early child parenting in particular. Hubby is also here with us and your young daughter is safely tucked into bed for the night. It should also be noted that Nicole is currently 8 months pregnant with her second daughter at the time of this interview.

Nicole – It’s my pleasure.

PTTPAG – Can you tell us a little bit about your family?

Nicole – We’ve been married for about three years and we met while attending college. About 3 of 4 months into our marriage we decided that we were going to have our first child and now she is 2 years old, and we’re expecting another one.

About a year and a half ago we moved away from family and people we knew to a new family in another state, here in California.

PTTPAG – Can you tell us a little about your two year old daughter?

Nicole – Yeah, she’s great. She’s a handful; she’s fun, she’s excited about life, she’s adventurous, and she’s a typical girl at the same time.

PTTPAG – What is it about being the mother of a newborn and up to two year old child that you enjoy, and what are some of the challenges that this age group presents to young mothers such as yourself?

Nicole – One thing I really enjoy right now is seeing her discover things on her own, and learning. That’s really fun just to put her in different situations and have it click in her mind of things that she’s starting to learn. So that’s one thing I’m really enjoying right now cause she’s at that age where she can do that.

Difficulties as well is she’s starting to have opinions and preferences, and she’s helping me realize that she’s a person, and that she likes things a certain way (and certain ways that I do not like), so that can kind of clash and be a challenge for us sometimes also.

PTTPAG – What do you like most about being a mother?

Nicole – Wow, that’s a good question. I’ll tell you the time of day I like the best – When she has just woken up and she’s in her crib saying “Please Mommy . . . Please Daddy”, wanting to get out. So it’s just a great way to start the day and I go in there and she’s excited to see us and everyday’s a good start; we can guarantee that about being a parent.

PTTPAG – What are the challenges of having a two year old daughter?

Nicole – During the day when she wants to do things, sometimes the challenge is that I don’t have the energy to follow her around, or to help her get something. Especially being pregnant I can’t always do everything that she wants like go to the park every time she wants to go.

So the challenge is meeting her wants and needs, and knowing which is a want or a need, and which things should take priority at the time.

PTTPAG – You mentioned that you are currently pregnant. How has the pregnancy been going?

Nicole – It’s been going well. It’s been a lot different from my first pregnancy for two reasons;

1. You just feel differently once you’ve already had a child, and

2. When I was pregnant with my first child I didn’t have another one to look after or to run after.

And so that’s been hard to not be able to sleep when I need to sleep or do all the things that need to be done.

Also at the same time it has helped me to realize that there’s basic things that need to get done during the day and anything outside of that can be pushed aside for another day or another time. So it’s helped me prioritize and do the right things, and to do the best things and not just good things.

PTTPAG – I’d like to ask you about whether or not you’ve had any morning sickness, and how your current pregnancy compared to your first pregnancy in this regard?

Nicole – Personally I’ve never had morning sickness bad enough to be throwing up and vomiting. Although with my first pregnancy I was really nauseous for the first three and a half months.

I think that is pretty typical and so that really affected my eating and how I felt; and my energy levels. As I got into the second trimester and the third trimester I felt a lot better and I was able to continue to exercise.

With this pregnancy I never felt too nauseous but my energy level has just been at a low hum for a long time. At first I thought we were having a boy because this pregnancy has been so different, but it’s a girl and still everything has been almost opposite of what the first pregnancy was like as far as symptoms go and things like that.

Oh, and I never had any sensitivity to smells either.

PTTPAG – Have you and your husband thought at all about baby names yet?

Nicole – We have looked at all of the websites and have looked at tons of names – a hundred list here and a hundred list there – Top 10 of 1998, Top 10 of 2009 – But the main thing is the both of us liking the same name.

I have lots of suggestions and my husband usually says either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, so he really doesn’t offer a lot of suggestions.

PTTPAG – Can you share with us the process you used to figure out what you wanted to call your first baby; the daughter whom you have now?

Nicole – Sure. Ever since I was a young child in school I wanted my middle name to be Rachel. I just had always liked that name and I was never given a middle name myself, so when people would ask me throughout the years what my middle name was, I would say “Oh, it’s Rachel”.

Even though that wasn’t really my middle name I really liked it and so I took it on and said “Sure, Rachel is my middle name”.

That’s where it started but then as we came together and thought about names that was definitely our first one, and then we found out it was actually both in of our ancestry’s lines, pretty far back.

PTTPAG – What else can you share with us about the parenting of a toddler, or of the parenting of a first child?

Nicole – On thing is, I’ve had to learn a lot about a first child, and what that is like, because I was the last child. And so with my daughter being the first child in our family, I think she’s had a lot of experiences that I could never really understand since I didn’t go through them.

Things like, when you are the only child at home, the home is pretty much quiet, and there’s not children around taking your toys or anything like that. So when we go out in public, or when we are at play groups or in other classes I can see this being a struggle since she has never been in that situation.

I think that whatever number your child falls in, they get different challenges as they go along. So our second child will always have our first child to be with, so she won’t necessarily get all the challenges in the way that Rachel did.


PTTPAG – Being married, do you feel that the parenting roles are evenly divided between you and your husband, or not so much?

Nicole – I feel like they are evenly divided, although our roles are different and separate. Since I’m with her all day I can read her and judge more of what she needs since I know what her day has been like.

My husband has the skills that I don’t have that can compliment that. His strengths are, if we are ever in a stressful time, he can always pull us out of it and bring in the light attitude and the humor that we need.

Sometimes I’ve been with her all day and I am almost up to my limit sometimes when he gets home, so he compliments that. By coming in and throwing her around and playing with her, she just is totally a different child when he gets home.

PTTPAG – Are there any particular challenges that you would permanently delegate to your husband if you could?

Nicole – Diaper changing, and finding something for her to eat that she will eat.

PTTPAG – How would your parenting role be different if you had to do it alone; if you were a single mother?

Nicole – Wow. Well I would obviously have to work outside the home and have her be cared for by someone else. My role of discipline, and the love that she needs from me would be shifted to someone else for the daytime hours.

I know that tons of people make it work when they have to.

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