Here’s a little excerpt from the post (Note It’s a Q&A format):

When did you meet her? Do you think the timing of your meeting affected her impact on you?
I met Mary Lucy at Marymount Hospital (Cleveland, OH) around 5am on Sunday, May 1, 2011. I was moments away from tears because I thought that May 1st was going to be THE day I got to meet my baby, and instead I was being discharged for false labor. I was embarrassed, tired and extremely disappointed.

The first thing I remember Mary Lucy saying to me when I told her that I was going home because of a false alarm was: “Don’t you worry. I bet you’ll be back here tomorrow.” (And for the record, I went into real labor the very next day!)

What is inspirational about her?
As luck would have it, Mary Lucy was the first person to greet me the next day when I arrived for Round 2 of Labor and Delivery at 9am. She helped keep me calm the entire day. Mary Lucy not only told me what to expect during each stage of labor–how far I was progressing, when I was able to get an epidural or when my OB/GYN would arrive–she went well above and beyond that.

She helped me out with so many little things . . . Like bringing me red popsicles (because I mentioned to her that I was not a fan of grape or orange) or simply holding my hand when I transitioned and was shaking uncontrollably. Even though I barely knew her, having Mary Lucy at my side throughout the day was like having my best friend in the room with me.

Towards the end of my labor, I distinctly remember Mary Lucy mentioning that her shift was about to end. I will never forget when she came back into my room after clocking out for her shift at 8pm. She told me that she wanted to stay and help me through the actual delivery part. I was so moved by this small gesture. And sure enough, at 8:58pm, my daughter was born with Mary Lucy standing by my side.

Click here to read the entire CluelessMe Guest Post: Women Who Inspire Us #11: My L&D Nurse.

Literally, one year ago, I (half-heartedly) confessed that my radar for determining whether or not my husband was truly sick or faking it for attention was a tad defective.

In fact, I even nick-named myself the clueless caregiver when my neglectful bedside manner landed my husband in the hospital.

It all started three weeks ago on a cold, Sunday night. My husband returned from Home Depot and asked, “Did the food we had for dinner make your stomach feel weird?”

“No!” I shot back at him. “My new recipe was great, and so is my stomach thank-you very much.”

He limped around the house trying to finish up some things until he meekly said he was going to retire in the newly renovated guest room because he thought something was wrong and didn’t want to disturb me in the night.

2 am: I was awoken by the gentle sounds of a 31- year-old man emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl.

2:15 am: After I had fallen back asleep, I was awoken again by the sounds of my husband whispering sweet nothings into the toilet.

This continued a couple more times throughout the wee hours of the morning. And I felt bad, truly I did, but this also happened to be the second night in a row that the baby was sleeping through the night, so I admit, I was more pissed off that he disrupted my slumber than I was concerned over his well-being. I figured: He’s a tough guy, and sure enough all fell silent around 3:45 am.

The next morning, I woke up to check on him only to find him lying on the floor next to the bed.

“Uh…Are you OK?” I asked, kicking him slightly to confirm that he was alive.

“Ya, I just felt a little weak and fell down.” He replied, adding a little cough for dramatic effect. “Once I was down here, I didn’t have the strength to get back into bed, so I thought I’d just sleep right here.”

One trip to the ER and two IV bags of fluid later, my husband was hydrated, medicated and well on the road to recovery. I sheepishly apologized for not taking him seriously, and we lived happily ever after.

Karma’s a bitch.

As luck would have it, my loving husband passed that miserable stomach bug onto me (on purpose for me not taking him seriously, I’m sure). The next day and night we were trading turns worshiping the porcelain throne until I finally mustered up the strength to drive myself to the ER at 1 am. I had the same IV fluid treatment, then crawled back into bed feeling much better around 2:45 am.

Now here’s where Nikki Flores’ life really get’s interesting…

The next day, my husband and I quickly dropped the baby off at day care in the morning, so the two of us could get some much needed rest at home.

Three hours into a deep sleep, the phone rings.

“You need to pick up your child. She’s breaking out everywhere in a rash and has a fever. We have a hunch that it’s chicken pox,” the day care director told me.

We picked up our feverish, rashy baby, (who looked like she was on the losing end of a boxing match, mind you) and called the nurse line. Together, my husband, the nurse and I  tried our best to determine over the telephone whether or not our baby’s leprous-looking rash was indeed chicken pox. Yet, in the end, it took a quick visit to the pediatrician to determine that our baby was actually having an allergic reaction to Penicillin.

And just in case you’re curious about what an allergic reaction to Penicillin looks like, here’s a snap shot:

Loser in a boxing match or Penicillin allergy?

So there we were…Two clueless parents, incredibly ill by what could only be described as the stomach virus from hell, who had to pull it together to take care of our puffy, red-patchy and very itchy baby.

Now under normal circumstances, my husband and I do a pretty good job of backing each other up and pitching in when the other needs help. But neither one of us knew the best course of action in this scenario. Somehow, in-between small sips of ginger ale and taking turns napping, we made it. The baby’s fever went down, her rash cleared up, and we stopped vomiting.

Life went back to normal.

Only…36 hours later, I coughed. Then I sneezed. Then I coughed again. And again. And again until my coughing fit got so bad that I swore I heard a rib pop.

In pain, I thought to myself: This can’t be happening, and surely it couldn’t get any worse given what we just went through.

Then I heard my husband cough downstairs.

And then the baby, who had been happily playing in my lap up to that point, opened her mouth and promptly vomited all over me.

Great. Just great.

Well, I thought for sure that the biggest hurdle we’d have with our Kia Soul was my inability to drive a stick shift. Yet here I am almost three years later, a little less clueless about driving stick shift, but just as baffled about a new (ahem) dilemma.

Allow me to introduce you to Jefe Blanco’s new arch enemy–My 9-month-old daughter’s new car seat:

The hubby and I read all about the Safety1st CompleteAir 65 Convertible Car Seat when we put it on our baby registry about a year ago. It had great safety ratings, superb customer reviews, and it even comes with an attachable cup holder! Seems like the perfect car seat right?

There’s just one little setback…When installed properly, this magnificent car seat makes it virtually impossible for a passenger to ride in the front seat of our Kia Soul!

My husband, like the new proud papa he is, scheduled an appointment earlier this week with the local fire department to help with the install of this new car seat. Nothing could have prepared me for the phone call I received moments after it was installed…

“Uh, honey?” My husband said meekly into the telephone.

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“We need a new car. The baby’s car seat is too big.”

I burst out laughing. Clearly my husband had to be joking, right? I mean..Come on! How could our infant daughter’s car seat be too big for our car? I mean she’s not even a full 2 feet tall yet!

“Ha. Ha.” I replied. “Very funny.”

Then he texted me this:

I stopped laughing and immediately started Google-ing new cars with ample leg room.

I can’t believe two whole years has gone by since my good old blogging days as a Clueless Newlywed! I have to admit…I’m embarrassed that I’ve let this much time go by without a peep. And for that, I am truly sorry. It’s amazing how fast life passes you by if you let it.

But enough excuses. This is me…Nikki Flores…Telling you that I may not be a Clueless Newlywed anymore, but I still have a plethora of clueless adventures to share…

Let’s go back to where my life as a Clueless Newlywed really ended…Way back to the time my husband and I first decided to go house hunting in order to rid ourselves of the world’s worst neighbors.

I remember that we had looked at a ton of houses, but we were struggling to find a home that we BOTH liked. There were a lot of bungalows that were “move-in ready” that I liked, but my husband tended to like the houses that had more space, and needed what he called “a little love.”

I still remember the day my husband stumbled upon a foreclosed house that needed “a little bit of work” barely a mile away from our then-current duplex. Reluctantly, I agreed to look at the place, even though I swore up and down that I would NEVER buy a “fixer-upper.”

As we walked up the broken cement sidewalk, I remembered what all of my friends who had already gone through the first-time home owner’s experience had told me: “When you find the house, you will know it’s the one. You will know it the second you lay eyes on it.”

Well, let me tell you this…The first time I laid eyes on this house, a little voice in my head said “Oh hell no!”

“Wow! Look at that gorgeous door!” The hubby exclaimed.

Before I could say a word, I saw it in his eyes. He definitely had the “This is the house” feeling going on. No joke, his eyes were as wide as a little kid’s standing at the entrance of the Magic Kingdom for the first time. Immediately, he grabbed my hand and started pulling me up the broken sidewalk and crumbling porch steps…

Just so we’re clear, the so-called gorgeous door didn’t really fit the door frame correctly. So much so that I had to yank on the handle and give the door a firm kick before it would open. And the only way I could get it to shut was to turn the deadbolt. Nice, huh?

The next thing I remember after I manged to get the front door shut was my husband running to the right and saying: “Look how big and bright this living room is!”

Truth be told, I barely noticed the so-called bright room because my gaze immediately fell to the hardwood floors, and all I could see were tons of deep scratches and stains…

My husband must have noticed that I was trying to figure out what could have possibly damaged the floors so badly, because the next thing I knew, he had dragged me across the hall into the dining room and kitchen.

“Look!” He said, “A big dining room for the Sabbath and dinner guests…”

I stood in the middle of the room, my mouth agape. I started mumbling something about needing to carbon-date the blinds and chandelier, when he exclaimed: “And look at this HUGE kitchen…”

After I looked around the room, I remembered thinking: Yeah, it’s huge because the only appliance in here is that broken down stove.

Then, I gasped as I walked around and peered into the sink. Now I may not know much about kitchen sinks, but I do know the difference between a rustic sink and a rusty sink. And let me tell you…This one was definitely the latter:

And don’t even get me started on the plumbing…I mean, I know duct tape works in a pinch, but it’s not supposed to be an end-all-be-all solution to hold your pipes together:

My husband, sensing that I had seen enough, grabbed my hand and said something like: “Wait until you see the upstairs!”

I reluctantly allowed him to drag me up the staircase where I was greeted by six more doors. Three of which led to (tolerable) bedrooms, and one which went outside to what my husband referred to as a “good drinking porch with a bonus — The bonus being that he could easily attach one end of a zip line to the porch and attach the other end to a tree in the massive backyard.”

I groaned when I saw the nasty patch of mold growing on the bricks just outside the doorway:

Once back inside the house, I remember opening the fourth door and staring at what can only be described as the fugliest 70s-style barbie dream house look-a-like bathroom I had ever seen :

Oh and how can I forget the attention to detail (natural wood showing through) on the the second shower. (Yes, I said second shower. The first one, with all of the pretty Barbie pink tile, was sealed off and in-operable.)

It took all of my husband’s strength to hold me back from running back down those stairs and out the door at that point.

He literally shoved me up the second set of stairs up toward the finished attic, promising me that there was an elegant claw-foot bathtub. Oh, and when he said elegant, what he really meant to say was old, stinky, hideous green claw-foot bathtub:

Oh, and how could I forget this stained matching sink from hell…

And what nasty bathroom set wouldn’t be complete without a gross non-working toilet…

The basement was a blur to me, but I remember that it was un-finished, and one of the windows was broken. (I’ll save the pics for another post.)

My husband and I had a long conversation that night about the pros (according to him) and cons (according to me) of buying this money pit of a house. In the end, the only pro that I didn’t have an equal con for was that we both needed sleep. Badly. And we obviously weren’t able to get that with our current living situation.

It wasn’t until we were awakened for the ump-teenth time in the wee hours of the morning that night that I rolled over, tapped my husband on the shoulder and said, “Fine. We’ll buy the house.”

And thus began the whole first-time homeowner process, with many, many, many more clueless adventures to follow…

On the plus-side, I was recently asked to review a baby naming book. (Appropriate considering how I’m currently an uber-pregnant gal). More details on that review later. For now, check out the basics of my review below:

Imagine if you knew the exact date you were going to die. What would you do? Would you beg the “powers that be” for more time on earth? That’s exactly what Flora Rose did when she had a premonition that she was going to die in 25 years. Author Sherril Jaffe opens her book, Expiration Date, with Flora standing in the “prisoner’s box” in a heavenly courtroom, pleading along with her deceased parents and in-laws to extend her expiration date past her 60th birthday. Sadly, the judge (whom Flora never sees), does not budge on the decision.

Fast forward to Flora’s 59th year of life, and the novel takes an incredibly different tone. Jaffe jumps quickly between chapters, switching back and forth between the first-person perspectives of Flora and Muriel (Flora’s 86-year-old mother).

Wanna keep reading about it? Check out the full CluelessMe review on LuxuryReading.com.

Here’s a snip-it of the reivew:

Imagine a world in the not-so-distant future where Hispanic immigrants and American citizens are no longer living in harmony in the United States. In an effort to help control immigration, the U.S. government labels all Hispanics “class H” and forces them to live in dilapidated quarantine zones in Los Angeles. Fed up with their sub-par treatment and second-class citizen classification, underground Hispanic extremist groups are growing in momentum and plotting their revenge. Such is the world that Raul Ramos y Sanchez creates in his second book, House Divided.

Mano Suarez, his wife, Rosa, and their son, Pedro, have all been living in a war-torn zone for as long as they can remember. Influenced by the deaths of his two other children, Mano becomes a prominent leader of a revolutionary movement that’s fighting for the freedom of Hispanic Americans. With little progress being made, tensions mount among rebel members, and a gang breaks off from the group and starts lashing out on innocent non-Hispanic civilians. The young and easily-influenced Pedro is lured into becoming an active member of the terrorist gang, which pulls Mano in multiple directions as he struggles to simultaneously try to bring down the gang and continue his freedom fight without losing his son in the process…

Wanna keep reading about it? Check out the full CluelessMe review on LuxuryReading.com.

I had no idea that when my husband placed that wedding band on my finger, it inevitably meant that I would be put into a position where I would get up close and personal with vomit, whining and an overall sense of ickiness without any instructions on how to handle these types of situations whatsoever.

Allow me to introduce myself: My name is Nikki Flores and I am a clueless caregiver, or so my husband claims…

NOTE: I had the opportunity to guest-blog on a friend’s blog for this post, so if you want to find out whether or not I’m a clueless caregiver, mosey on over to Life in the Married Lane.

Given my current state (7 months pregnant and counting), I’ve reached the point where I can no longer contort my body into odd positions in order to paint my toenails. So you can imagine the predicament I found myself in this weekend when I realized that the pedicure I got for my birthday last month was looking a little shall we say, less than perfect. (SIDE NOTE: I don’t want to even go into details about how I was able to make this discovery. For now, I’ll simply say that I have a couple of pulled muscles, and a small bruise on my bum.)

Back to the problem at hand…My pedicure was wearing thin, and I couldn’t reach my own toes anymore to remedy the situation. What to do? What to do? I was pondering this very thought when my husband entered the TV room, paint brush and bucket in hand, ready to tackle the walls with a fresh coat of gray paint. (SIDE NOTE: My husband has taken the concept of “nesting” to a whole new level with his painting frenzy over the past few weeks, as he’s been busy painting every single room except for the baby’s. Seriously, our house has gone from boring old dingy-colored off-white dirty walls all throughout to various shades of cream, white, gray, black and brown.)

As my husband proceeded to spread out newspapers and dip his paint brush into the can, I remembered a conversation I had earlier with my co-workers regarding my funky-toe situation. Long story short, the consensus around the water cooler was that I should ask my husband to paint my toenails for me.

So I asked in my most sing-songy-I’m the sweetest-wife-that-ever-lived voice: “Hey honey…”

“Yes?” He said, raising an eyebrow and re-dipping his brush in the paint.

“Do you think, that is, could you do me a favor and maybe kinda sorta paint my toenails for me?” I rushed out in one fast breath because I thought for sure his answer would be ‘No.’

My husband dunked the brush back in the paint and proceeded to spread it across the wall. For a moment, I thought he didn’t hear my question, but then he finally shrugged and responded: “Well, I’ve been painting walls for the past few weeks…I think I can handle painting your toenails.”

Well, my husband was able to handle painting my toenails just fine. What he was not able to handle was my reaction to his “joke” that my feet smelled bad. For some reason (I blame pregnancy hormones), I burst into tears as soon as he made the comment that I needed to “wash my stinky feet before he would go anywhere near them.”

I’m not exaggerating in the least when I say that it took a full 10 minutes of my water works, followed by a good foot scrubbing in the tub and repeated apologies from my husband before I would let him touch my feet again.

And ya know what? He didn’t do half bad…Check it out:

I guess you could have looked at the fact that we couldn’t even FIND the registry desk as some sort of omen that we were two clueless first-time parents, but a nice Babies ‘R’ Us employee pointed out the massive sign that said “Register Here,” and my husband and I were ready to start scanning.

The woman at the desk was cheerful, and she handed us a questionnaire to complete. It was pretty basic stuff (names of the registrants, addresses, phone number, etc.) until we got to the Grandparents section. There was only enough room for two sets of grandparents. I know that most kids only have four grandparents, but our baby’s extra special cos she’s got SIX. (Think – Divorces and remarriages.) When my husband and I pointed this small fact out, the woman at the desk didn’t really know how to respond.

“Just pick out the best ones, and write those ones down!” She said cheerily.

Right. Ok….?

We scribbled down all of the grandparents names and handed over the form. The registration lady clicked on her keyboard a bit and then handed us a scanner.

“You’re all set. Here’s a list to get your started.”

I looked at the notebook, er “list,” and peered at my husband. “Well, let’s get scanning.” I said.

Naturally, the first item on the list was a crib. “Well, what’s the difference between this one and that one?” My husband asked me, pointing to two separate cribs.

I shrugged. “Well, a lot of things.” (NOTE: Truth be told, I didn’t have a clue what the differences between the two cribs were, other than the fact that one was white and one was cherry wood).

As we meandered around the store, stopping to investigate all of the so-called necessities our baby would need, I began to feel more and more overwhelmed. Everything on the list came with at least 10 different options. And all the while, my husband kept looking at me as if I was supposed to know why we needed one kind of stroller over another. (Although I’m pretty sure I convinced him that we needed the one we registered for because it had built in speakers for an MP3 player.)

Ironically, we did end up scanning quite a few items…Even if the best reason we could think of was that we liked the color.

I’m not due for a few more months, so I’m asking YOU, CluelessMe Blog readers, for some advice. What the heck does a baby really need?

“Um…What are you doing?” I asked.

“Do you know how many bras, underwears and pairs of socks you have?” He asked in a somewhat incredulous tone.

“Not exactly,” I hesitated. “A few.”

“A few?” He stood up and brushed a pair of underwear off his pant leg. “You have a lot more than just a few! In fact, you own 25 bras, 50 underwears and 50 pairs of socks!”

I stared down at the ground like a little kid being scolded, trying to come up with my defense.

“So…?” I said.

My husband when on: “So?! You realize that if we didn’t do the laundry, that means that you have enough bras to last you for a month, and enough underwear and socks to last you for two months!”

I looked at the pile of my intimates at his feet and shrugged casually, “Yeah, but you don’t understand…I’ve got different things for different occasions.” I explained. “For example, this (I picked up a lacy bra) is not for every day wear. Remember the lingerie debate we had a while back?”

My husband looked at me with a blank stare.

“And these socks (I pulled out a pair of grey hannukah socks) are usually worn around, well, Hannukah.” I said. “And these (I picked up a pair of underwear) I wear when I workout only because they’re the most comfortable.”

My husband shifted his weight, unconvinced that I needed each and every undergarment item lying in that pile.

“We’re trying to downsize to make room in our closet, hon.” He said. “Surely, you could choose some of these to give away to charity? I mean…Do you really need THAT many bras, panties and socks?!”

I was quiet for a moment before I answered, then I took a deep breath, stomped my foot down, and said: “YES!”

“No you don’t.” My husband disagreed.

Ladies, help me out here…Am I really bonkers for having so many unmentionables? Or do these items fall under the same category as shoes and handbags…In that, a woman can NEVER have too many of either of those.