Monthly Archives: April 2008

So far, so good.

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Since it was asked, here’s how we transitioned Ingrid.

First, we are big cosleepers here. Dave was initially way against it, and is now its biggest champion. Ingrid slept with us for the first 8 weeks or so, and then at 8w she started the night out in her crib, and ended up with us. We are still totally cool with that — we love the cosleeping, actually, and aren’t in a huge rush to end it, since we pretty much believe that Ingrid will spend most of her life NOT wanting to sleep between us, so we should enjoy the closeness while we can. We just aren’t CIO people, and never will be. It’s not what’s right for our family, it may be right for yours, but for us, it isn’t.

So the impetus for the big bed was both feeling like Ingrid was uncomfortable in the crib, as well as knowing we had a housefull of family coming. The last time my whole family was here, Kate slept on the aerobed under the christmas tree. With her coming to visit, and my parents thankful for a guest bed at all, but really wishing for a queen, and with Ingrid nearing the end of crib-ville, we went for it.

Ingrid’s been sleeping on a cot at daycare since january, when she moved up in rooms, so the only crib sleep she’s had in the last 4 months has been the first few hours at bedtime, and weekend naps. She goes to bed at 8, and between 8 and 10 we usually have to go up and replace a lost pacifier, or rub her back, and occasionally we have to move her to our bed before 10. Once in our bed, she settles right down, and I can walk away and leave her there, and she’s none the wiser. That’s one of the reasons we wanted to give her the full bed, and not do a toddler bed, because if I could lay down with her in HER bed and get that result, I wouldn’t have to worry about her falling out of our unusually high bed. Anyway, then by midnight, she’s in our bed — she wakes and cries, Dave fetches her, and we all sleep til about 6:30 on weekdays. It works well.  She doesn’t "sleep through the night" but she doesn’t really wake up, either, it’s not like we are feeding her or reading stories at 1am, we’re just rubbing her back or reassuring her, basically.

First night of Operation Big Girl Bed (OBGB), we laid her down at 8, she went to sleep, and we didn’t hear a word til 1am. No lost paci, no yelp, nothing. The next night doesn’t count because Dave hadn’t put her down for a nap because ‘she didn’t seem tired" so everything was fucked, as it happens in those situations.  The third night, she went to bed at 8, had one cry and I rubbed her back for just a minute, and then she ended up with us around 1 again. Last night?

Last night we put her in bed at 8. And she woke up at 5:55 and started talking to the pictures on her walls. No lie. I can count on one hand the number of times she’s slept through the night, and it’s never been that long. I know that sleep isn’t linear, that this doesn’t mean she will now sleep through the night forever, but her sleep has totally improved, IMO. And it’s been so great to be able to snuggle with her — on the Sunday where "she didn’t seem tired" Dave had to work at 3, and that’s about when she was crying to go to bed, so she napped for an hour and woke up crying, so I went up to her and could see she wasn’t ready to wake, so I laid down with her and we BOTH napped for another hour. It was pretty cool.

As far as the bed itself — we tried to make it as much like our bed as possible, egg crate thing underneath, pillows, blanket, etc, so it’s like the "Don’t" picture for cribs (and cribs shouldn’t have all that stuff, but she’s big enough now to handle that stuff)and it’s low, against two walls, and has a rail, so for her to get out will take some work. She’s pretty impressed though, calling it "Da Big Bed!" and all.

The transition is working well for us, but we don’t have any pressing need to transition her. If we were expecting again (and we aren’t) I can see being more concerned, but I’d probably have done this move and assumed that Dave would join Ing if she needed one of us, and I’d stay in our bed with the newborn. But then again, we are big ol’ cosleeping hippies.

Of course, my coworker had a baby in December, and before that she asked me lots of questions, and I did my usual disclaimer of "what worked for OUR family was XYZ, but it may not be right for YOUR family, and that is okay" and they were DEFINITELY not going to cosleep, no way, no how. And, like Dave, they are total converts. 🙂  When I told her today about Ing’s sleeping through the night, she was like "see? and you never did CIO, and they WILL sleep through the night!" It was kind of cool to be able to offer that ray of hope to her.

It’s all so personal though. Another person I know professionally is just ALWAYS complaining about her kid, who is the same age as mine, and it’s freaking out a pregnant mutual friend, but I explained to the pregnant person that… it’s all how YOU are. "For instance, Ingrid has never slept through the night. But I don’t bitch about it, because it doesn’t bother me, because I know she will someday." And the two people I was with were SHOCKED, because being childless, they had only ever heard people complain about the sleep issue, as the only response to "not sleeping through" is to be in a state of major angst and annoyance. For me, eh. She will. She won’t always be in our bed, she won’t always need us as much as she does now, so I want to be sure to give her all that she does need, while she’s asking for it. It’s not spoiling her, it’s meeting her needs. It works for us.

When she woke at 5:55, I wasn’t like "THANK GOD, she slept through the night!" but "Oh, she’s gaining her  independence!" (Plus, WE didn’t sleep through the night — at 4am it was decided I would be the one to make sure she was still breathing.) I wasn’t happy for us, but proud of her. That probably sounds twisted to some people, but that’s how it goes here.

ARGHGHGGHHH.

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I bought a mattress, a Serta that is being delivered on Thursday. I ended up buying a floor model that felt nice enough, figuring that if it makes it the next 5-7 years, I’ll be happy, which it probably will, since the one we’re one is 15 years old. 5-7 years gets us out of the infant (if we have another)/little kid stage and into our 40s (OMFG) when we might want one for our aching backs at that point, anyway. Worst case scenario, we swap out to bring back our old bed, right?

So, with the bed ordered, we moved Ingrid into her big girl bed this weekend. Really, it’s more like a crib that fits grownups, but a big step nonetheless. We put the former guest bed (a full size) mattress and boxspring on the floor, against two walls, with a rail up, so she’s pretty cozy in there. We have a gate on her door, so that she doesn’t wander down the Darwin stairs in the middle of the night or something, and it’s working really well, woohoo!  But our guest room had to be reconfigured to fit the queen size bed, and that’s still kind of a clusterfuck right now. The frame is assembled (I picked that up when I bought the mattress) and the disassembled crib is being stored under the frame, so that’s all there. We’ll move our bed into that room on Wednesday night, our new mattress comes on Thursday morning, and Th. afteroon I will get both beds made up with their respective bedding.  My parents and sister arrive Friday (my sister is in Maine, but working with my folks, so I won’t get to SEE her til Friday) and they will all be staying here. Parents in guest room (thrilled to be in a queen, I am certain of that) and Kate will probably tuck into Ingrid’s bed, with or without the wee one. We have the aerobed here, and she can sleep on the living room floor if she wants, but she’s game to sleep in the grown-up crib. We have a grad on Saturday, my folks will head home and Kate will stay til Wednesday, and stay in the guest room. You can see why I wanted to just Get This Done, eh?

But now I have a couple big projects ahead of me, namely, to tackle the closets. OY. Ingrid’s needs to be fully converted to be her OWN closet, and not half piles of fabric and craft supplies, and the hall closet needs to be organized into something other than "pile of duffle bags + wedding dress." I plan on moving this rolling cart that currently has crafty stuff on it into the hall closet, and restricting all of my craft stuff to it. I have a ton of stuff I probably won’t use, but I don’t want to get rid of my sewing machine or anything, so by having the sewing machine on the cart, I can just haul it out when I need to. In that closet, currently, is a big plastic rubbermaid trunk, that has old fat clothes in it, so I’m going to purge that, and use it to store Ing’s baby clothes. Again, with the "I can fill this but keep nothing else" motto. Goodwill the rest or whatever.

After that, we need to deal with the desk in the guest room, which is ugly, but Dave made it with found countertop and 2x4s and it was the first thing he ever made, way back in the Casa, but even he now sees that it needs to go. A simple desk/filing cabinet is all we need, we don’t have a desktop computer, and if we ever did, it would be an iMac which doesn’t require a CPU stand, so it’s hard to find a functional, pretty, small desk that isn’t 800 bucks at Pottery Barn. (They have basically exactly what we’d want, but, yeah, out of the budget.) I also figure if we have a second that we probably wouldn’t even set up the crib for a while, now that I have Dave on the cosleeping train, and we could probably put it in the guest room, if we did (though it would require unbolting the headboard/back wall of it from Ingrid’s room — pics to come) because, seriously, we give babies way more room than they need. Kids, too. Ing’s room is where she sleeps, for part of the night, and where her clothes live. She plays in the living room or outside, and while I can see us moving by the time she’s a teenager (into one of the two houses next door, which are slightly larger, have better garages, first floor bed/baths and yet are still on the awesome street with double lots — those two houses are basically the only place I want to move) if we don’t, it’s kind of nice to put the squeeze on her space and force her to hang out with us. 🙂 Seriously, the big roadblock to us having a second baby is money, not space. We can fit a baby in, easy. A second daycare payment, not so much. SIgh.

I’m pretty sure my upstairs will feel less chaotic by Thursday night, if only to get all the beds in place and set up. Get those closets done, and it’ll be even better. Here’s hoping!

Musical Beds

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(Down 3 lbs this week. yay, WW!)

Okay, topic at hand: Mattresses.

Ingrid’s nudging ever closer to Big Girl Bed, and I want to put the full size bed from the guest room into her room, put our bed into the guest room (queen size) and get us a new queen size bed. (Well, I’d love a king, but I just don’t think we can swing it in the weird stairway, and in our room.) I went and laid down on several mattresses at the Serta dealer yesterday, and… eh. They are all beds, you know? I like a firm bed, most likely not a pillowtop (and a eurotop seems to be just a different shaped pillowtop) and I don’t need a boxspring, I don’t think, because our platform makes our old bed so high, and new mattresses are even bigger.

My biggest concern is that it will sag or be weird too quickly, which is something you can’t gauge in the store. And since I’ve never laid down cash for a bed — always made do with hand-me-downs — there’s a big part of me that’s like "eh, fuck it, get one that isn’t too expensive or too tall, and call it a day."

On that note, anyone have any recommendations, or anti-recommendations? I’m all ears.

Points!

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Ahh, yes. I’m back to counting points. I mean POINTS(TM).

It’s cool though — I’ve been doing really well with the exercise — Group Power 2x a week, 35 min on the elliptical 2x a week (was 3x before the weather turned nice) and since the weather turned nice, I’m getting a good 20-30 min walk in during work, at least 3 days a week, and taking Ingrid for walks, too. But I’m still hovering around my post-miscarriage, pre-pregnancy, post-weaning weight, so I signed up for WW online.

I’m also trying to get my thyroid pill in every day. When I was TTC & TTSP (Trying To Stay Pregnant), it was easier, there was more motivation, etc. And through much of Ing’s first year, I got it in, because I’d accustomed to taking it in the middle of the night when I woke to pee (pregnant) or nurse. I really fell off the wagon when I was able to pretty much sleep-nurse, and I feel a difference, so I’m trying harder with that.

Anyway, I’d done really well with WW before, and I know the system, and I love the online tools. I had tried SparkPeople, but calories/fat/blah overwhelms me a little bit, and WW is like comfy Danskos for me — I know it works, it is familiar, and looks great with dresses. (HAH! Just Kidding. That one was for my girl, Jeanne, whose mission it is to rid the world of AWESOME CLOGS.)

Three months = $65, so I’ll reevaluate in 3 months and see where I am.

Pick a color?

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tv chest
Originally uploaded by gretchen04401

One of our spring projects is to do a DIY headboard, because the wall behind our bed is getting scratched up (by Ingrid mostly) and just dingy as walls-behind-beds tend to do. This is the general color scheme in our room (no real linens — the comforter right now is just a naked LLB down one, and the curtains I made from an old cover, and I’ll worry about those later, since I also want to do cordless blinds, which would mean I could have actual colored curtains…. long story), anyway, the wall behind the bed has no chair rail, and is just the darker green — Sherwin WIlliams Coastal Plains, which one website called “Fundamentally Neutral” when I googled it just now. I’m thinking of a coppery orange, but then again, I love orange. If you check my photostream, you’ll see a pic of the wall behind the bed, but it doesn’t really show the palette like this one does.

Anyway, any thoughts?

crossroads

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Here’s the thing: I was on the internet before the internet was cool. I don’t say that to be all "yay, me!" but to set up the backstory, here. I clearly remember trying to describe the World Wide Web to my parents, and I remember getting this book for Christmas, in 94, as a directory of the WWW — with links to fansites like blahblah.edu/~smithj/toriamos.html or whatever. (Not a real site, that was just how it was done then.) Part of that whole thing was that I was a big participant in a BBS (Olohof!) and was just totally, totally fascinated by the concept of instant communication on a global level. I haven’t used the word sysop in years, but in 94, it was part of my vocabulary. It was the beginning of everything else for me, really, because my whole technology thing is that it connects people and ideas, and I was kind of on the leading edge of that concept. Not like Al Gore leading edge, but there were only a handful of us using the computer labs for things other than word processing. I kind of wish I’d taken pictures. Anyway.

In all that, I formed one really tight friendship, with an Aussie named T. It was my first internet friendship, and one that ended up being absolutely essential when JT died, and then Aton 18 months after him, because when you Cannot Sleep because of insanely violent dreams, the Aussies are always awake when the US isn’t. Over five years, our friendship evolved from the BBS to letters and phonecalls and mixed tapes and audio letters. And when Aton died, I needed something to sort of carry me through, so I set this goal of being in Australia, overlooking the 12 Apostles, on 4/6/99. There had been too much death and sadness, and life was short, and goddammit, I was going to Australia, which was a country I’d been fascinated with since I was a little girl and had a picture of the Sydney Opera House taped to my wall.

I saved and saved and saved, and sure enough, I made it, and my IRL meeting with T was one of the most intense things I’ve ever experienced. I stayed with him when I first arrived in Melbourne, for a few days, then traveled the Great Ocean Road, went to Sydney for a week or so, and then finished back up in Melbourne, with T. I was sickened to leave, I cried from Melbourne to Auckland, from Auckland to LAX, from LAX to home, and for a few days after. (Remembering the emotion makes me want to cry, even now, it was that intense.) I came back to the US, got in my car and drove to Phoenix, where I was constantly making plans to figure out how to go back. I moved back to Maine, and found a work visa exchange program, and had the application filled out and was halfway to the $400 I needed to send with it, when I met Dave.

Obviously, you know which path I took. And as my relationship with Dave grew and deepened, I felt conflicted about keeping T in my life. I last talked to him on Halloween of 2001, (6.5 years ago?!), as Dave and I were moving into our first apartment. I cried then, too, just because… I did.

So last night, talking to Jeanne about spiders, I brought up the massive fucking house spiders that existed in Australia, my first encounter with one being at T’s parents house, where we had gone to celebrate his birthday. It was motherfucking HUGE, hanging on the wall behind the television, and when it moved I just about died, right there. (I’m almost positive it was a Huntsman, after some googling…scroll down for a good scale picture) And while I was thinking about it, I realized that, oh. It’s his birthday, today. 4/4. It’s actually the one we joked about, then, because of his Irish/Aussie accent, the th- sound gets clipped to a t-, and back then, he was turning twenty-four, after a year of being twenty-tree, and how tirty-tree was going to be totally made fun of, when it came. Here it is, and I have no idea where he is. It’s weird.

I google once in a while, and today I did again, and the best link I can find is his sister and brother on facebook, but beyond that, there’s nothing. And neither his sister or brother have him listed as a friend (and it’s definitely his siblings — apart from the names and locations, the resemblance is striking) which just seems…. weird. It makes me wonder if he reached tirty-tree at all.

I think everyone has those crossroads moments, and wonders about the road not taken. My wondering about T isn’t about dissatisfaction with Dave, not at all, but just… a wondering. With T, there was never time to be annoyed by toilet seats or dishes or perpetual lateness, there was no end, just a long beginning and an intense middle and one last phone call, where I waved from the road I chose.

In so many ways, though, I thank him — T kept me going, kept me believing, made me a better person, open to recognizing when the right one came along. T was there through the darkest days of my life thus far, without fail, and I know I made the right choice. Had I sent in that $400, who knows where I’d be, but I may be writing wondering about the Dave path, and feeling just as sentimental, and as curious. I could send a message to his sister, but I truly worry that I’d hear that there was no tirty-tree, and for now, I like to imagine him as he was at 24, bandanna around his head, book in hand, leaned up against a pole, waiting for a train, smiling, but only a little bit. Happy birthday, T.

shooting.

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Tongue
Originally uploaded by gretchen04401

I’m doing a photo scavenger hunt thing, to try to stretch a bit with my camera (and, to be honest, to get out into the pleasegodIhope spring weather and get more pics than of Ingrid in the house being cute) and part of that is to also try to do a pic a day, like so many others have done.

But, my achilles heel with this is carrying my D70, naturally. I know a few people out there are doing this, or I think they are, based on their flickr streams, and I just don’t get how that works. I brought my camera to work today, but it’s in my bag. No speedlight (which almost doubles the size) but for someone who doesn’t even carry a purse, never had a diaper bag, etc etc, it’s hard to figure out the logistics. Anyone?