Side effect of multiple vet trips for or cat, appears to be …. fleas. FUCK.
We have yet to see any bugs at all, but the stuff in her fur was positively IDed as "flea dirt." She’s an indoor cat! Goddammit. Hopefully the Frontline kicks on soon….
1) Totally Geeky, but I am soooo freaking happy that Amazon has finally worked titles into their product URLs, because it’s been a pet peeve of mine for ages to see "I’m reading this book" and have the this link to Amazon, with a URL of randomly generated letters and numbers.
2) Ingrid has this book (Ha! Okay, it’s called Sweet Dreams), and it’s a taggie book, but of all the strategically placed tags ON the book? Which one does she choose to chew on? Yeah, the actual tag. Of course.
3) I think that this book will be my new baby-gift book from here on out, as it shows all kinds of families, all kinds of feeding, all kinds of carrying, etc. Of course, this pisses off the conservative christian wingnuts, which makes it an even better book to own. It shows a 2-mama family, and 2-daddies, and that’s cool, as well as adoptive families, multicultural families, and even babywearing! It’s also cool with the breastfeeding thing — I don’t like the breastfeeding books that are all "mama makes breastmilk! and if babies don’t get it, they aren’t loved and will be C students, if they are lucky!" — and this covers just about every possible baby situation, without making any specific family or choice seem freakish. It’s great. And it comes in the flavors of Hardcover or Boardbook.
Today was good. We got up early, got ourselves to Mother Goose, and
Ingrid loved it (as always) and I saw someone from my prenatal aqua
class, and another mom took my number and email address. From there,
we went to LaLeche League. Now, I debated it LONG and HARD, especially
while waiting for a modular home to pass so I could cross over to High
Street to get there, because I was really bummed by my first meeting. I
swear to god, did someone like, tip off LLL and pass my comments on to
the regional director, or what? It was weirdly totally different. For
one, no goddamn word find. For two, NO mention of "Artificial feeding,"
just "bottle feeding," and for three, the leader brought SLINGS to
show, when last time, everyone seemed amazed by my KKAFP. Seriously, it
was totally different, and enough to make me feel like LLL Henchmen had
been contacted.
So, that was good, and the leader started showing
off her various slings — all of them ring slings, and all of them
hideous. Well, one was a Maya, so that wasn’t so bad, but the HEAVILY
PADDED, FLEECE LINED, AMERICAN FLAG ring sling was awful. Just awful.
And it so happened that I had Ingrid all wrapped up in the
Storchenwiege, because I knew she’d be tired after storytime, and
wrap-naps are easy on her. I wrapped her when we arrived, and one of
the women said "wow, that’s a lot of fabric!" and i just smiled and
said "yeah, but it gets eaten up really quickly" and wrapped her up.
Then she started saying that she couldn’t use a sling with her baby
anymore, because he was so big (at 7months) and I was biting my tongue.
Finally, I said "have you tried a two-shouldered carrier? it helps
spread the weight…and, actually, let me go to my car."
I
brought in my sling-bag, and took over the LLL leader’s display of
Crimes Against RingSlings, and pulled out the KKAFP, and the meitai,
and my other pouch… and then Ingrid woke up, so I handed her off to
the leader, unwrapped, and showed the mom with the ‘too-big’ baby how
to wrap up her guy, and she was absolutely STUNNED at how comfortable
it was. STUNNED. She left with links to TBW and my website and
mamatoto, and damn if it didn’t feel GOOD to have that babywearing
advocacy moment. Yeah, it’s a lot of fabric. But it is SO. COMFORTABLE.
ANyway.
After that we came home, had lunch with dave, etc etc and I went to
class. My weekly class that meets, that isn’t practicum, is a middle
level course. The prof is really well-known guy in the field of middle
level, which means nothing to most of you, but he’s probably in the top
10 of the Middle Level Elite. Super nice guy, too.
Class is
going well, he really loves my responses, and I keep joking about how
jaded I am (which, technically, aint a joke…) but with every class, I
sort of…. miss middle school. For instance, today we were talking
about wellness education, and one guy showed his kids Supersize Me,
which reminded me of my fat/sugar lesson, so I described it quickly
"… and we measured out grams of crisco and grams of sugar for the
kids’ favorite snack foods, and then stapled it to the wall…" which
made everyone crack up, because 2/3 of the way into the semester,
apparently, I am the only one who would staple baggies of fat to the
wall.
After class, the prof stopped me and said "we really need
to talk… to find out what happens at the end of the semester." I
laughed and said, "I told you! I’m going to be the best ed tech ever!"
"well, that’s fine, but really — you need to be out there, working
with middle schoolers. You really do."
That? was cool. The more I
hear other people talk about their experiences and stuff, the more i
realize that dammit, I AM a good teacher. I WAS a good teacher. I
really was. Even now — a student in the class now teaches in MY old
classroom, and she was talking about teaching a particular unit, and I
told her what worked for me, and she loved it. ("Don’t tell Principal!
He’d die if he knew I was still influencing that wing.") I’m feeling
like, maybe, maybe, I could do… something… in a school again.
And
on top of that, our friends are back from their honeymoon, saw the pics
online, and the wife cried and said "I don’t care what the real
pictures look like, I LOVE these ones." Dave dropped off their real
gift after work, and they came by an hour later with a silk elephant
from Thailand for Ingrid (with the comment "this isn’t really a toy,
but more something you… have") and $100 for us, that Dave tried to
refuse, but they insisted he keep because of all we’d done for them.
So,
to recap: storytime rocked, I spread the wrap love, major props from
important ML guy, made a bride cry with my pics, OH and?
Dreamhost had backups and my website is totally fixed now.
KICKASS DAY.
Today was good. We got up early, got ourselves to Mother Goose, and Ingrid loved it (as always) and I saw someone from my prenatal aqua class, and another mom took my number and email address. From there, we went to LaLeche League. Now, I debated it LONG and HARD, especially while waiting for a modular home to pass so I could cross over to High Street to get there, because I was really bummed by my first meeting. I swear to god, did someone like, tip off LLL and pass my comments on to the regional director, or what? It was weirdly totally different. For one, no goddamn word find. For two, NO mention of "Artificial feeding," just "bottle feeding," and for three, the leader brought SLINGS to show, when last time, everyone seemed amazed by my KKAFP. Seriously, it was totally different, and enough to make me feel like LLL Henchmen had been contacted.
So, that was good, and the leader started showing off her various slings — all of them ring slings, and all of them hideous. Well, one was a Maya, so that wasn’t so bad, but the HEAVILY PADDED, FLEECE LINED, AMERICAN FLAG ring sling was awful. Just awful. And it so happened that I had Ingrid all wrapped up in the Storchenwiege, because I knew she’d be tired after storytime, and wrap-naps are easy on her. I wrapped her when we arrived, and one of the women said "wow, that’s a lot of fabric!" and i just smiled and said "yeah, but it gets eaten up really quickly" and wrapped her up. Then she started saying that she couldn’t use a sling with her baby anymore, because he was so big (at 7months) and I was biting my tongue. Finally, I said "have you tried a two-shouldered carrier? it helps spread the weight…and, actually, let me go to my car."
I brought in my sling-bag, and took over the LLL leader’s display of Crimes Against RingSlings, and pulled out the KKAFP, and the meitai, and my other pouch… and then Ingrid woke up, so I handed her off to the leader, unwrapped, and showed the mom with the ‘too-big’ baby how to wrap up her guy, and she was absolutely STUNNED at how comfortable it was. STUNNED. She left with links to TBW and my website and mamatoto, and damn if it didn’t feel GOOD to have that babywearing advocacy moment. Yeah, it’s a lot of fabric. But it is SO. COMFORTABLE.
ANyway. After that we came home, had lunch with dave, etc etc and I went to class. My weekly class that meets, that isn’t practicum, is a middle level course. The prof is really well-known guy in the field of middle level, which means nothing to most of you, but he’s probably in the top 10 of the Middle Level Elite. Super nice guy, too.
Class is going well, he really loves my responses, and I keep joking about how jaded I am (which, technically, aint a joke…) but with every class, I sort of…. miss middle school. For instance, today we were talking about wellness education, and one guy showed his kids Supersize Me, which reminded me of my fat/sugar lesson, so I described it quickly "… and we measured out grams of crisco and grams of sugar for the kids’ favorite snack foods, and then stapled it to the wall…" which made everyone crack up, because 2/3 of the way into the semester, apparently, I am the only one who would staple baggies of fat to the wall.
After class, the prof stopped me and said "we really need to talk… to find out what happens at the end of the semester." I laughed and said, "I told you! I’m going to be the best ed tech ever!" "well, that’s fine, but really — you need to be out there, working with middle schoolers. You really do."
That? was cool. The more I hear other people talk about their experiences and stuff, the more i realize that dammit, I AM a good teacher. I WAS a good teacher. I really was. Even now — a student in the class now teaches in MY old classroom, and she was talking about teaching a particular unit, and I told her what worked for me, and she loved it. ("Don’t tell Principal! He’d die if he knew I was still influencing that wing.") I’m feeling like, maybe, maybe, I could do… something… in a school again.
And on top of that, our friends are back from their honeymoon, saw the pics online, and the wife cried and said "I don’t care what the real pictures look like, I LOVE these ones." Dave dropped off their real gift after work, and they came by an hour later with a silk elephant from Thailand for Ingrid (with the comment "this isn’t really a toy, but more something you… have") and $100 for us, that Dave tried to refuse, but they insisted he keep because of all we’d done for them.
So, to recap: storytime rocked, I spread the wrap love, major props from important ML guy, made a bride cry with my pics, OH and?
Dreamhost had backups and my website is totally fixed now.
KICKASS DAY.
Today was good. We got up early, got ourselves to Mother Goose, and Ingrid loved it (as always) and I saw someone from my prenatal aqua class, and another mom took my number and email address. From there, we went to LaLeche League. Now, I debated it LONG and HARD, especially while waiting for a modular home to pass so I could cross over to High Street to get there, because I was really bummed by my first meeting. I swear to god, did someone like, tip off LLL and pass my comments on to the regional director, or what? It was weirdly totally different. For one, no goddamn word find. For two, NO mention of "Artificial feeding," just "bottle feeding," and for three, the leader brought SLINGS to show, when last time, everyone seemed amazed by my KKAFP. Seriously, it was totally different, and enough to make me feel like LLL Henchmen had been contacted.
So, that was good, and the leader started showing off her various slings — all of them ring slings, and all of them hideous. Well, one was a Maya, so that wasn’t so bad, but the HEAVILY PADDED, FLEECE LINED, AMERICAN FLAG ring sling was awful. Just awful. And it so happened that I had Ingrid all wrapped up in the Storchenwiege, because I knew she’d be tired after storytime, and wrap-naps are easy on her. I wrapped her when we arrived, and one of the women said "wow, that’s a lot of fabric!" and i just smiled and said "yeah, but it gets eaten up really quickly" and wrapped her up. Then she started saying that she couldn’t use a sling with her baby anymore, because he was so big (at 7months) and I was biting my tongue. Finally, I said "have you tried a two-shouldered carrier? it helps spread the weight…and, actually, let me go to my car."
I brought in my sling-bag, and took over the LLL leader’s display of Crimes Against RingSlings, and pulled out the KKAFP, and the meitai, and my other pouch… and then Ingrid woke up, so I handed her off to the leader, unwrapped, and showed the mom with the ‘too-big’ baby how to wrap up her guy, and she was absolutely STUNNED at how comfortable it was. STUNNED. She left with links to TBW and my website and mamatoto, and damn if it didn’t feel GOOD to have that babywearing advocacy moment. Yeah, it’s a lot of fabric. But it is SO. COMFORTABLE.
ANyway. After that we came home, had lunch with dave, etc etc and I went to class. My weekly class that meets, that isn’t practicum, is a middle level course. The prof is really well-known guy in the field of middle level, which means nothing to most of you, but he’s probably in the top 10 of the Middle Level Elite. Super nice guy, too.
Class is going well, he really loves my responses, and I keep joking about how jaded I am (which, technically, aint a joke…) but with every class, I sort of…. miss middle school. For instance, today we were talking about wellness education, and one guy showed his kids Supersize Me, which reminded me of my fat/sugar lesson, so I described it quickly "… and we measured out grams of crisco and grams of sugar for the kids’ favorite snack foods, and then stapled it to the wall…" which made everyone crack up, because 2/3 of the way into the semester, apparently, I am the only one who would staple baggies of fat to the wall.
After class, the prof stopped me and said "we really need to talk… to find out what happens at the end of the semester." I laughed and said, "I told you! I’m going to be the best ed tech ever!" "well, that’s fine, but really — you need to be out there, working with middle schoolers. You really do."
That? was cool. The more I hear other people talk about their experiences and stuff, the more i realize that dammit, I AM a good teacher. I WAS a good teacher. I really was. Even now — a student in the class now teaches in MY old classroom, and she was talking about teaching a particular unit, and I told her what worked for me, and she loved it. ("Don’t tell Principal! He’d die if he knew I was still influencing that wing.") I’m feeling like, maybe, maybe, I could do… something… in a school again.
And on top of that, our friends are back from their honeymoon, saw the pics online, and the wife cried and said "I don’t care what the real pictures look like, I LOVE these ones." Dave dropped off their real gift after work, and they came by an hour later with a silk elephant from Thailand for Ingrid (with the comment "this isn’t really a toy, but more something you… have") and $100 for us, that Dave tried to refuse, but they insisted he keep because of all we’d done for them.
So, to recap: storytime rocked, I spread the wrap love, major props from important ML guy, made a bride cry with my pics, OH and?
Dreamhost had backups and my website is totally fixed now.
KICKASS DAY.
Oh fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. I just totally hosed my hosted website, which makes me want to CRY. I have all the html and stuff, but the whole blog part, which was the backbone, is GONE. G-O-N-E GONE. I emailed support, in the desperate hope that it’s in the ether somewhere, but FUCKING FUCK. I want to puke.
ughhhh.
So, after posting about needing to update with the uni childcare, today, I got an email from the new center opening right around the corner, the one that name drops Montessori and Piaget and Emilio Reggia. Subject line is "CenterName Invitation" and my heart skipped a beat, and the email started with "Dear Centername Families," and goes on to invite us to a meet&greet, where we can ask questions and hear more, and blah blah blah. It sounds informational, but if we’re a "centername family," then does that mean maybe we’ll get one of the first spots? I mean, I applied within HOURS of the sign being hung, and I may or may not be on the priority list instead of the public list, but even if I was on the PUBLIC list, I’d have to be near the top. My other options have priority/public lists, and I’m public for both of those, and have been on there for AGES. The center in town that has a public list has people on there that haven’t even conceived yet, and I am so not kidding. I’m no longer technically* a student, so I’m on the public list there as well, but damn, I have to be in the top tier of the BRAND NEW PLACE’s public list.
Having childcare THAT close would KICK. ASS. I’ll figure out work around it; shift to days, move to subbing, whatever. Dave wouldn’t even have to stop to drop her off, just slow down a bit, it’s THAT convenient. Cross yer fingers, ey?
Also, Ingrid is so tall, she’s figuring out how to pop herself out of her Bumbo. (Almost, we are attentive parents and won’t let her, of course. We’re starting to consider high chairs — I like the idea of the Graco Contempo, or the Chicco Polly — that standing slim fold is tempting. We don’t really have enough chairs to do a booster, easily, so we really need a chair. Oh, and we have no IKEA. Any recommendations?
the dream that I didn’t want to wake up from this morning involved a secret multi-million dollar trust fund in Ingrid’s name, that then led to discovering a similar trust find in my own name.
This is what you get when you are worrying about career, money, etc, the same week that Dr Izzie Stephens clips an 8.7 mil check to the fridge to ponder it for a while. Sigh.
I bought the other stocking. I’ll spirit it away until it’s required, but the votes of not-eldest kids really convinced me.
And! AND! Ingrid totally survived her first restaurant outing. The closest thing to a restaurant outing was the time that my coteacher took us to a deserted pizza place (like, 3 on a Tuesday afternoon or whatever), because with the weather, we did a lot of takeout picnics and such. (And also, shoutout to Andy, who has been just about the best childfree friend a new mom could want, including sushi-on-the-waterfront suggestions WITH INGRID.)
Today, though, my cousin was flying in to drive my aunt back to Florida, and so they, my parents, and my aunt’s friend were all in town, and wanted us to join them for lunch at… Bugaboo Creek. Now, if you don’t have it, apparently it’s like the Rainforest Cafe (which we don’t have) in that there’s lots of animatronics and shit like that, that I don’t like, But, my aunt really likes it, and was on her way out of town, so it’s her choice, cool. Also, my cousin is 50 years old, and the next youngest at the table, and my aunt is 75, I think, so in addition to my own anxiety about baby’s first restaurant, I also felt a sort of generational pressure to have a ‘good baby,’ since it’s been a looooong time since any of them have had babies at the table. Plus, by the time we went, I knew she’d be hungry, and while I’ve nursed in public, not quite THAT in public.
And, of course, because of our party, we got seated at a big round table in the center of the section. Ingrid had her first highchair experience, which she liked well enough (and liked enough that I could use both! hands! to eat my sandwich) and she DID get hungry, but hot damn, I latched her on like no one’s business and she ate away, and I don’t think anyone noticed except the people at my table. And then she got tired (OMG, they all ordered a post-meal coffee, and I thought I was going to hyperventilate!) and she fell asleep on my chest, and I had a little fleece hoodie with us, so I sort of covered her head with that to buffer her from the outside world.
Anyway, now? I totally want to go to Chili’s or something. Especially since she can sit in a highchair now. It’s like another door just slid back open in our world.
Rug: I ended up buying a 6×8 remnant at a local rug store, unbound, beige, olefin, for $15. It’ll do for now, and something had to happen as Ingrid is digging the rolling, and she needed more than a 2×2 square to do it. Plus, woot, I bought local.
Sleep: First night was okay, last night was kinda rough as she took bedtime as a nap, which is what had been happening and pushing later and later, so there were some tears (I was working, Dave handled it) and pissiness, but they got through it with cuddles and rocking and such. Naps had some hollering (the no-tears variety) and tonight she went down at 630ish, with hardly any complaining, nursed up at around 9:45, which is totally cool, since she hadnt since 5, and has never been a nurse-to-sleeper.
I don’t think it was a growth spurt, as it was different from her teething nightwakings. Teething, she woke 6+ times to nurse, but really NURSE, and that was just two nights, and she was back to normal. Instead, it was more like bus-windshield-wipers … naps were shifting farther and farther ahead, and more and more feeding was taking place at night, over a period of a few weeks. She’s a catnapper — will take 3 30-50 minute naps a day — and doesn’t have much of a schedule (according to my Google Spreadsheets documentation) yet, but that’s cool, we’ll work it out. I also wanted to not let sleep get too far away from us before I return to work. I still have no idea when that will happen, but the older she gets the closer it is, and it’s easier to work it out now, with one of us at home, IMO, than waiting til we’re all going in different directions. Anyway. It’s working out fine for us.
On that note, I got paperwork to update our info at the uni childcare center, and I’m going to do that next week. It is SO. HARD. to find any care here, that I like to keep my options open. I still hope we can get into the place around the corner in january, but turning down a spot if it were offered say, after she was 6 months old, would be really hard. Even if we paid for the slot, and I could drop her off and work on my practicum (um, even though it’s due like two weeks after her birthday…) for a few hours a week, to work on the transition aspect, etc. And if she did get in there, and then the place here, I wonder if any of the teachers/student teachers from THERE would end up working here, so that maybe a caregiver moved with her. You never know.
With the "update your info" thing, the mail also included 3 (I think) things about my student loans, need to do the exit interview, etc… I think my grace period will go 6 months from August, since I technically took the two classes I’m doing NOW, then, which would be February… and also in the mail, the $851 bill from *JANUARY* for my 20w ultrasound, that my insurance has denied oh, half a dozen times now, and the hospital has recoded to their specifications, and they’ve still denied it, so I’m on the hook. SO PISSED. Anyway, the paperwork for the u/s, my student loans, and the childcare center felt Very Much Like a Sign.
Honestly, I never imagined to be able to wrangle it this far, the SAHM thing, and the phone job will carry me til January, anyway (and probably later, if I’m reading the signals right, and I want to do that) and then comes the "is it better to work nights and be home all day" or "is it better to use childcare and have family time at night" and I think there are pros and cons to both, honestly. If money were no object, I think my ideal situation would be to SAHM and have like a one-day childcare situation. (Of course, this is colored by my current school situation, so that might be different if I wasn’t feeling so much academic pressure right now…) i LOVE going to storytime, and I LOVE not knowing what freaking DAY it is, or being on a clock, or having to worry about getting both of us out of the house every morning by 8 … butI also love being with Ingrid and DAVE, and not just handing her off. Right now, I’m only working 1-2 nights a week, plus class on Wednesday, and a study night when it fits in, but that’s going to ramp up as the holidays near. And if I got into the Uni childcare before the end of the semester, and while I’m getting tons of hours, I could ‘afford’ to pay for childcare, even if I didn’t use it every day, all day. And honestly? I think Ingrid would go nuts in a room with other babies. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee it. She LOVES other people. LOVES them. Especially babies. (And cats, but they aren’t people.) Granted, she usually sees them from the comfort of a wrap these days, but still. She likes people. And a few hours of daycare during the *day* means that we get family time at *night.* Which is totally important, too.
Anyway. Lots of things to think about, eh?