Monthly Archives: March 2007

Just Stuff

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Sinus Infection getting me down, man. Ugh. And I finally called my doctor to get it looked at, found out my doctor doesn’t practice there, and was annoyed from start to finish, which just reaffirms my decision to switch practices. (I’m in the midst of doing that, but I neeeeded to see someone since every time I blew my nose — a lot — it felt like my eyes and teeth might pop out.)  Now it’s moved a bit lower, with a dry cough. Ugh.

Aside from that, things are going well. Work is going well, I’m kind of surprised at how easy a transition it’s been… I’m still pumping 2x a day, because the mythical year mark is SO CLOSE (scarily close) but I will be soooo glad to wean from the pump.  Weaning Ingrid isn’t in the plans, though, as we all really dig the nursing thing still, and as long as all of us are digging it, then we’ll keep on keeping on. I can’t believe she’s going to be a year in 7 weeks. OMFG.

Daycare is going well for her … she’s still not crawling, but she goes to her belly on her own more and more, and kind of scoots backward (um, angrily) so I’m not really concerned, but as she’s the only immoble baby in her room, I think she’ll have more fun joining in than watching. My parents visited her there yesterday, and my mom said that she thinks she gets held a lot, which… awesome. I have no problems with that. Her caregivers love her to pieces, it’s obvious.  I joke that daycare is a better mom than I am, for lots of reasons… like, at daycare Ingrid will never end up watching yet another Sylvia Browne episode of Montel, and at daycare, if Ingrid gags on table food, there’s a fleet of First Aid/CPR trained adults to save her.

Tomorrow we’re going to the mountain — my mom’s birthday was yesterday, and we have reservations at a place for dinner, and I’ve called ahead and given them my CC # to pick up the tab in a discreet way. (And yes, I’m sort of skeeved by leaving my CC#, but it was the only way I could do it the way I wanted to, and I used our actual CC so that if some pissed off hostess steals it, at least it’s not accessing our credit union accounts directly.)  That should be fun. I wonder if I’ll be able to taste anything by tomorrow night.

Speaking of taste, my cookbook arrived, and we had Real Dinner all week. Not at the table, yet, or with Ingrid, yet, but it felt good to be eating Real Dinner and not Convenience Dinner.   Our new television has shipped (did I mention?) I solved the "I want a very expensive modern credenza" issue by just buying a new tv. Not anything fancy, not flat screen, not HD, but a bigger, digital tube tv with speakers that work, so we don’t have to do the tv through stereo necessitating wobbly speaker stands thing anymore.  Plus, it’s digital, which means we’ve added a channel to our cable-free lineup. (The CW, of course. heh.)

Also, one day this week, Ingrid and I were on the couch after her first nurse of the evening, and she was laying on her back on my chest, and kept whipping her head to the side so I would smooch her cheeks. It tickled, or something, she loved it, and was giggling hysterically. She just kept smashing herself into my lips, and it was such an absolutely perfect moment, that I totally cried. I love her so much. I can’t believe she’s almost one.  Where does the time go? Seriously?

10 Months

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Dear Ingrid,

You are 10 months old! I don’t know how that happened, each month sneaks up on me and races by, and I’m in a constant state of amazement whenever I look at you.

This month, books continued to enthrall you. You have a bin full of board books under our coffee table, and a bin full of toys, and you consistently go for the books first. You especially love books with flaps, and you open each one on each page. We’ve even had to repair your very favorite book, "Where is baby’s belly button?" because you got a little too eager with "Behind the Cup!"  You’ve discovered a haunted house board book that daddy got you at halloween, where each page has many, many flaps, and you like that one second best. And in some books, you get annoyed when a picture of a door doesn’t  turn out to be a flap. 

When we read to you, and there’s a cat in the book, you look for our cat. "Bear at Home" has a black and white kitty on each page, and when we say "where’s the kitty?" you look for FatKitty, and when we say "where’s the kitty in the book?" you point at the one on the page. It really blows our mind, how fast your brain is growing.

You started to wave this month, and in the car on our way to Portland, I could see you, seeing me, between our mirrors (vanity & carseat) and if I waved, you’d wave back.

You’ve been teething and still have a cough, and a fever had you home from daycare for a few days. I spent the first day with you, and Daddy spent the second, and it was your first day all alone with Daddy, ever. You both had a good time — while you’re sort of a crankenmonster with the teeth, you do well with distraction, and your trip with Daddy to the grocery store garnered lots of comments, I hear. You also went to the park for a (very windy) first swing of the year.

Your daycare teachers continue to comment on your sparkling personality, how you love books (there, too!) and love to dance. You love to eat your puffs, and you loooooove avocado, and now, bits of string cheese. When mama gets a string cheese from the fridge, you and the cat both vibrate with excitement. You also had your first ever Scholastic Book Club order form, which mama dutifully filled out and returned, of course.

You’re still not interested in crawling, something about looking at the floor being the most boring, awful form of torture, ever. But you pivot with ease now, and have a reach my former yoga instructor would revel in in terms of flexibility. You can dig your heels in and pull the bins out from the coffee table (Must! GET! BOOKS!) and if we stand you against a table (or, at daycare against the mirror) you will happily balance there (with supervision) for a while.  While you’re not into attempting to crawl, you are into attempting to levitate, and when you want to be Someplace Else, you will wave your little arms in the air and kick your feet, just hoping to fly to your next destination. 

You are growing so fast, your cheeks are starting to deflate and thin out, your body is starting to become more proportionate, and your brain is clearly growing at a rapid pace. I now understand why people are so fond of babies, because babyhood is such a flash, it’s like watching a train race by, trying to read the details on each boxcar. Just as you’ve read one, two have passed, and it’s impossible to keep up. Babies turn so quickly to toddlers, and then to kids, and this time is so sweet and fast, that everyone wants to try to catch a glimpse.

I’m so lucky to have so many glimpses, each day.

I love you, Ingrid.

Love, Mama

Next Step

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Thank you for all of the good suggestions, either in the comments or by email. I looked into menu-mailer services again, but didn’t want to commit, so instead I bought a cookbook from the 6 O’Clock Scramble. It has 52 weeks of menus, organized by season, and hurrah, a companion website where I can download the week’s grocery list. Apparently the big weakness of the Scramble is that it doesn’t have crockpot recipes, so to bump my order closer to free shipping, I also ordered the Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker cookbook.

When I browsed the grocery lists at thescramble, the meals sounded really good, healthy, tasty, and offered a lot of variety. And, if I decide not to make one of the five meals that is aligned with the grocery list, the grocery list is coded so that I can easily remove all of those ingredients before shopping. This appeals to me. It’s worth a shot for 12 bucks.

Confession

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I am overwhelmed by cooking. There. I said it. The whole concept of cooking a meal every.single.night makes me want to crawl into bed and go to sleep for four days and wake up with a pizza on my front step.

As Ingrid steamrolls towards eating Real Food and not just jarred food and cheerios, it’s becoming more and more important that I figure this shit out. Breastfeeding for me has been remarkably easy. Yeah, that first day with the flat nipples was kind of a pain, but since then? If she’s hungry, I feed her. I’ve not had supply issues, or nipple confusion, or … anything. I can’t eat broccoli, since it bugs Ingrid’s belly, but that’s it. Hungry, feed her, the end.

When it comes to us, though, I’ve struggled with this for years. Not helping is a husband who doesn’t like veggies and was raised on noodles and prefers to eat at 9pm. Also not helping is my paranoia about things being ripe enough, or expired, or anything related to food-borne illnesses like salmonella, e. coli, etc. The two have combined to make my kitchen a pretty overwhelming place.

I can bake! I love to bake! But cookies and hand-kneaded bread do not a dinner make. It’s cooking that has my stymied. Right now, we have our staple meals, with very little variety. I’ve been shooting for a different meat each night, with a pasta night, so here are our regular meals:

  • Fish + Veg + Rolls  (The fish is one of the seasoned varieties of salmon that Hannaford sells, the veg is a steam-in-bag kind, and the rolls are the fridge biscuits you cook two at a time)
  • Stuffed Chicken Breast + Potatoes  (Chicken by Barber Foods, potatoes are seasoned instant packages)
  • Pork tenderloin + veg + rolls (Pork tenderloin is again, some pre-marinated variety from Hannaford, veg+ rolls, see above)
  • Beef is trickier, because we eat it the least often, but we might make tacos, or a crock pot meal, or in the summer, grill burgers.
  • Ravioli + Sauce (Spinach Ravioli with a sauce with spinach, and sometimes with frozen meatballs added)
  • Nuggets & Fries  (Chicken Nuggets & plain potato wedges)

I also like to use the crock-pot, but get kind of grossed out when whatever we’ve cooked ends up just looking like… dog food.  I also have hated cleaning the damn thing, but the discovery of crockpot liners takes care of that issue. 

So, um, yeah. There’s my big dirty secret, I can’t cook and rely very heavily on prepared and processed foods to get us through the week.  Im sure half of it is not planning in advance, since dinner decisions are made at, oh, around 7pm every night, and even if you have regular ol’ chicken breasts in the freezer, 7pm is not the time to figure out what to DO with said chicken breasts, right? I also don’t really like cooking on the stove, I’ve found, because of the smells. Dave made burgers on the stove tonight, which we’ve done probably 3 times since we’ve lived here, and while it was neat to eat a burger, it stiiiinks. And he didn’t use the splatter guard, so it’s a mess.

He cooked though, so I won’t complain, since he’s even worse than me when it comes to cooking, in that he follows the directions on a box of Kraft dinner, to the T, including how many cups of water to start with. (Then he changes it when it comes to the end, adding no milk, and just a pat of butter, making it the driest KD ever. UGH.)  The prepared foods are easy to cook, too — they are all oven things, with directions that are clear, like "put in oven at xdegrees for yminutes, and yay, dinner!" — but I feel like we’ve been coasting on this way of life for too long, and I want it to change by Ingrid’s birthday.

Dave is in full agreement that we should have family dinners, at the table (yeah, not much table eating AT ALL here, yet) despite his penchant for late dinners. Even if it’s just to sit down with us and save his plate for later, if he has to, he is all about that being a standard expectation in Ingrid’s life.  I have cookbooks — many! — from "How to Cook Everything" to the standard Betty Crocker and Better Homes & Gardens ones. When it comes to making a meal from a recipe, I’ve occasionally picked a recipe and gone with it, but then I have all the leftover excess ingredients, that end up getting tossed because I don’t know what to do next, so I make something from the standard list above. I also, though, don’t want to spend all of my time between work & Ingrid’s bedtime… cooking. Sigh.

So, there’s my secret shame. I’m sure we could eat cheaper and healthier if I just knew…. how. And where to start. Maybe someone can help me?

Skype is Magic

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Yes, it’s taken me a long time to get on the skype bandwagon, but I had a good reason! iChatAV doesn’t work, apparently, unless you have an Airport router, which previously cost around 250, which was way too goddamn rich for my apple-loving blood. The AV part of iChat never worked with Netgear (and won’t essentially, I’ve tried EVERYTHING) and whatever, I don’t have a webcam either.

So, when I was that the Airport (not the new one, but the dome one) was selling for about 99 bucks, refurbished, at apple.com, I snapped it up, because long before Ingrid arrived, i wanted to get video chat set up. I also didn’t want to get hosed like I did with iSight — "Oh," I thought, "I’ll just wait to buy an iSight, because when everyone gets one in their new computers, used ones will be a steal!" Um. No. I am kicking my own ass, over and over, for not just grabbing an iSight for 129 (student discount) because now they are selling for AT LEAST 200 bucks on ebay, but up to 3 or 400. So, yeah, that plan didn’t work out.

ANYWAY, I ordered the airport, and started looking around for iSight alternatives, blah blah blah, and decided I’d download Skype, because, what the hell, with the new magic router coming, why not try everything. Long story short, holy fuck! Skype works with the Netgear router! My friend Amity, the only perosn I know that uses Skype with video, let me test my own setup, first with just audio, and later, running through our video camera, and I was positively giddy.

I emailed my sister, then called her, and walked her through installation and setup, and within MINUTES, she was watching Ingrid clap and dance and play peekaboo. She was also totally losing her mind — remember, this is my SISTER, who called Dave very recently to learn how to copy and paste (only she still doesn’t know that’s the term) because she "wanted an address in an email, that you can click on." Her mind was totally, totally blown. And really, so was mine.

I’ve long wanted to get video chat working for my sister, and since she got a computer for christmas, it’s been more of a possibility. Really, I was just waiting to upgrade the router to do it. With a MacBook Pro in my future (from work, but I’ve no idea when I’ll actually get it, academic budgeting, etc) I figured I’d just upgrade the router now and wait a bit to do the rest… maybe use some audio chat. But no! VIDEO! I ordered a webcam for my sister, and had it shipped to her, so hopefully in a week or so we can have a two-way chat.

Until then, I’m hoping my mom will check it out from Utah (they are on vacation, and she’s been terribly ill, according to a doctor there, she has pneumonia, so she’s been lying very low while my dad and their friends ski, so an Ingrid sighting would lift her spirits), and that my sister doesn’t have any problems installing the actual webcam when it arrives. And also? If you have an iSight kicking around, now is the time to triple your money on eBay. Seriously.

Another layer of personality

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(I’m testing new mobile post settings, so if anything is wonkified, let me know….)

Ingrid is so cool. It’s so weird how we can just see her brain developing, it seems.. for instance, the other night we had our first show of her wanting a specific food. I mean, she goes apeshit for her puffs, and we’ve tried all kinds of flavors and she’s eaten them all with no regard to anything beyond their shape and eatability, so the other night we did the usual routine of eating dinner before bringing out the baby heroin, and she got all excited, YAY PUFFS! and we put a few on her tray, and she ate two and freaked out. It took us a few minutes to realize that, NO, she did NOT WANT the Apple Cinnamon puffs, but the sweet potato ones, you maroons, and when we switched them out, she was totally happy again. I mean, she’s always trying to eat paper, what’s the big deal between apple cinnamon vs sweet potato as long as it’s a puff? A lot, apparently.

Last night, she was digging through her toy bag and came across a pair of shoes that are still too big for her. Dave and I were curled up on the couch, watching in absolute amazement as she looked at the shoes, and then her feet, and then she banged the shoes on her feet. She maneuvered a bit more, and managed to peel off the shoe that was ON her foot, and then she again was banging the new shoe against her foot, and because we are total idiots that’s when we were like “OMG. She wants the shoe on.” So, Dave got down and put on the new shoe and she picked at it and beamed at us, and then went back to digging in her toy bag. It was so… weird…. to see her actually having such complex thoughts, and trying so hard to make shit HAPPEN.

She still doesn’t crawl, but Dave and I are convinced it’s because she hates being face down, because face down puts you out of the conversation, and she loooooves being part of the conversation. She will stand if shes holding on to something — your hands, a low table, the baby mirror at daycare — so it’s not a leg strength thing, just a “wait, wtf? Looking at the rug fucking SUCKS, mom! Turn me over! Sit me up! I want to dance!”

Kids are cool.

Internet Baby Stuff

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I could not be a parent without the internet, I’m pretty damn sure.  All of my favorite products have come from the internet, and the rest were researched heavily online. Plus, hi, the mama boards.

Anyway, here is a roundup of Baby Stuff that makes me thank the Internet gods all the damn time.

1) Babywearing. My wraps, now, but earlier, my pouches. I would be just another person with a Bjorn had I not found thebabywearer.com and all of it’s less expensive (um, usually, I’m looking at you, Storchenweige) and way more comfortable than the Available at Target options.  My Storch, for costing as much as it did, is my desert-island purchase, as in it’s the one piece of baby stuff I could not live without. Period.

2) Our carseats. Everyone has their own parenting bugaboo, and mine is carseats. I got a Britax Decathlon when Ingrid was born, with money from my grandmother earmarked for such a purchase, and love it. We used the baby bucket less than a dozen times, and only once as an infant carrier. I had my IUD checked with Ingrid sitting on my belly, even, it was so not a big deal*.  When I started at work, I TRIED a well-rated seat (the Uptown) but it just didn’t work for us, my Britax threshold had been set, and I returned it and ordered Dave a Marathon. Technically, I could get these at Target, but we saved well over a hundred dollars by ordering online, before factoring in the tax-free savings.

3) Babylegs!  It actually took me a while to get on the babylegs love train, but  as winter set in, I did.  We have three pair, now, and are used primarily as a long-johns-esque layer, but on that warm day last week, I used them as tights.  Her daycare providers love them, because it keeps her warm but doesn’t add another diaper changing layer. I can see using them a lot more as it gets warmer this spring, under the handful of dresses she has.

4) Baby shoes… I have two pais of Robeez knockoffs from an ebay store, QQshoes, and they have been great. I also just picked up a pair of Isabooties from a swap board, and they are a little big but have a touch more traction for when she ends up on her feet. And when she starts walking, the girl is so getting a pair of Pedoodles, at least the orange runners, or maybe flower power, but maybe also the Ruby Janes.  But that’s a ways off, since she is still Just Sitting.

5) Breastfeeding supplies.  Mostly, my pump. I got a screaming deal on an Ameda Purely Yours, and ended up having to get the larger horns, and the manual attachment, but it was still light years less expensive than a Pump in Style, and as powerful and well rated. Actually, Lansinoh now co-brands the same pump, and sells it at Target and WalMart for about 150, and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a pump.

6) Nosefrida! My newest score.  Yes, it’s a snot sucker from sweden that is operated with your mouth. But no! It’s not gross at ALL! Well, not as gross as the bulb is, anyway, when you’re in the business of blowing someone ELSE’S nose, it’s going to have a certain level of gross. But, the bulb is hard to navigate, can’t be cleaned, has to be squeezed and squeezed and squeezed, whereas the nosefrida? You don’t have to keep plunging, or even get it IN their nose…. the filter means you don’t end up with a mouthful of boog, and it comes apart to be cleaned. Since you control the suction, you can get just about everything in one pass. As I referred to it earlier — it’s the Nose Dyson. Yes, I bought a 20 dollar swedish snot sucker. But I would’ve paid TWICE that if they’d done a demo in the hospital. Seriously, it ROCKS.

7) Cloth diapers. We’re not CD’ing anymore as with Ingrid in daycare it would take a long time to get a load together (uh, for the wash) but we used them about 85% of the time until she was almost 9 months old. I actually kind of miss it, and can’t bring myself to sell her current stash like I did her newborn stash, but um, anyway, the CDs worked well for us while we used them. Could not have found any of my supplies locally.

8) Our stroller. While we haven’t used it as much as I expected (see, #1) we do use it, and it’s a fabulous stroller. We used it almost daily over the summer, and only once or twice this winter. I’ve never used it inside anywhere, preferring to wear her instead, but it’s a great outdoor stroller, so I’m glad we have it.

9) Information. The aforementioned babywearer website, kellymom.com for breastfeeding info, askdrsears.com or drgreene.com are my quick references, and for car seat safety, carseatsite.com.

10) All of my friends in the internet, who have shared their experiences, their time, their story, their thoughts with lil’ old me and Ingrid. Can’t imagine it without the internet. Truly can’t.

*I’m actually really, really, viscerally bothered by bucket carseats now, in a way that I never could have seen coming.  The concept of never-touching-your-baby as ‘convenient’ is so backasswards, I just don’t get it. I hate going to Target and seeing babies in buckets, crying, and their parents like "WHAT COULD BE WRONG!" and not moving to pick up the baby. Or, if they DO, then they’re hauling around the baby AND the bucket, and that is sooo not convenient. I still wear Ingrid in stores a lot, but I feel like my impact of showing the alternative is wearing down as she gets bigger.  Also, now? Graco is making a swing that you can clip the carseat into. So, car, grocery cart, stroller, and swing… GREAT. And, as a disclaimer, I’m sure that there are good reasons that people use bucket seats, that maybe I never had to deal with, and it’s not individual parents that I react to, but this general thought that since the advent of the bucket seat, you are SUPPOSED to make sure your kid is in a 5-pt harness at all times, that a sling or wrap is less safe, or you’re ‘spoiling’ the baby, or it’s not NATURAL to want to hold your baby close. It bothers Dave, too… one of his coworkers brought in her same-aged baby and just left him in the bucket in the hall while she ran around the building doing stuff. It freaked him out, because our way of doing things is just so…. not like that. But, it’s what Everyone Does! Way to go, Graco Marketing! Sigh.

The Inverse

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An Aha! moment, earlier today, whilst whining to Jeanne about the tv situation… get a new tv! Our hand me down tv has been great to us, but we can spend less than three hundred dollars and get a bigger, better, tv with a digital tuner and good sound, thereby undoing the need for the damn stereo and speakers altogether. Dave balked, initially, until he went to bestbuy.com and checked them out, and now he’s going tomorrow to look at them. Hee. and also, DUH. I have a JOB. That’s like 2 days of work to buy a new tv and eliminate half of the childproofing worries in this room. Score.