flu shots

The babe got a flu shot last time we went to the doctor, i didnt bother (mostly because although i finally have insurance i have no doctor) and now we are both sick
I think I brought something home from the snot nosed kids or maybe the babe eating everything at gymboree did us in. Either way having a stuffy head and a baby is not fun. My saving grace today was the fact that the hubs got laid off from work. That sounds more horrible than it is- he is a Union Carpenter and there just is no work for his company this week over 40 guys got laid off; which means he gets to stay home for an undetermined amount of time (most likely till the end of the week) and he can collect unemployment, and take care of me and the babe.
My day today consisted of a NyQuil induced coma and some tea and toast; the hubs went to the gym, went to the park and played with the babe all day. It is nice to have him home in times like this, but i give it until the end of the week to drive me nuts
and now to take the Jeopardy online test

two in one

Since I didn't post yesterday I am making up for it with two today!
I am still waiting for Freecycle to come through with a warm thing for the babe (one offer so far but the zipper needs replacing and even though it is free, I am too lazy to deal with it) and I never got around to purchasing pillows so,so far so good.Even though I haven't officially started yet as it is not yet February.

The one problem I anticipate with Freecyle is that we don't have a car, which makes it hard to obtain some of the items we are looking for (a bedframe, maybe a mattress, a dining room table) but since most of these items are not entirely necessary for us to live, I can't worry too much about it...

Milestones

Yesterday the babe stood up all by himself... with no help from anything or anybody! Of course when I clapped and hollered in excitement he promptly fell not to repeat this new trick for the rest of the evening
So do I mark it down as milestone reached or do I wait to see a repeat performance? I am torn and not sure where the half -assedly filled in baby book is so maybe I'll wait

explosion of

no not flavor; poop - an explosion of poop is what i woke up to this morning.

The Babe is not an early riser, he wakes up at about 5 to send the hubby off to work and then settles back down to sleep until about 830 or so; which is nice for this not so morning friendly mom. And today was no different, except for the giant explosion of poop.

This morning I walked into the Babe's room, where he was very happily standing, clapping his hands and throwing things at the dog to hear the loudest fart over his giggles. I thought it was the dog, then i thought maybe it was me, but no it came from the tiniest behind in the room....

The Babe was unfazed by the farting,and there was only a momentary pause in giggling and he plopped down waiting to be changed.

What was in the diaper was ungodly- and yet I sort of wanted to photograph it to document how nasty it was. I was reminded of a page in our Inappropriate Baby Book that asks "the first indigestible item that came out in my diaper was this...... and it looked like this" because surely I didn't feed the Babe anything that could have looked like what I was greeted with this morning.

Poop was everywhere; on the butt, on the diaper, on the back, on his foot, and tucked up into the boy bits.

Did I mention we cloth diaper yet? Yeah.

confession

In a comment to my previous post, Heather (a rookiemom) wondered about towels and sheets in terms of the Compact; I will admit that tomorrow (barring frostbite weather) I am purchasing new pillows and also possibly a super warm coverall thing for the Babe. We are in desperate need of new pillows and quite frankly I am very grossed out by even the thought of used pillows, (sheets and towels too, but not as much because of the ability to boil in bleach water) Even the idea of someone else's pillows makes me think of a mass scabies outbreak here at the Happiness Hotel.

And yet I am looking into hostels and house swapping for our trip

As for the super warm thing for the Babe, well I didn't buy one at the beginning of winter since it was soo warm and now nowhere has them; and all the other moms out there are using theirs, not selling them. So in the interest of not having the Gymboree moms call ACS on me I am on the hunt for warmth.

and besides the pillows are on sale....

cheapskates unite

This year we tried to do an all handmade Christmas. Everything I gave was either made by me or made by someone on Etsy (with the exception of books) and it really kept the cost down; plus I was trying to get across the idea that we would like thoughtful, handcrafted (read nontoxic, non plastic made in china crap) things for ourselves and the Babe. Mostly people didn't get it, but that's fine.
I've been thinking about how much money we saved over the holidays and I have come to the decision that we need to save more. Especially since we would really like to go to Ireland this summer. So I am going to try to do a modified version of The Compact similar to what can be seen on RookieMoms though my rules are geared more towards saving money than saving the environment

1) No impulse purchases- whenever necessary shopping needs to be done, a list will be followed and for each item bought not on the list 10 bucks goes into the JAR

2) No Take-Out- it's just as easy to cook something really and if we want more adventure we can eat out, which though doesn't save us money will get us out and about

3) No New stuff-borrowed, used, free only

We'll see how it goes. I'm anticipating some slip ups already, as the hubs wants to buy a car when the tax return comes in (though I'm guessing it'll be a leased used one so maybe it won't break the rules) and the Babe turns one in May (and the In Law wants some huge ridiculousness) and I am a sucker for the dollar section at Target!

thanks

Mary

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=29&entry_id=23485 this article got me thinking...
my hubby brings the babe to the local bar almost every week to watch gaelic football on sunday mornings. it's our local so they didn't mind him in the sling, and now in the arms and eventually he'll be on the bar stool with a shirley temple. We're in a no smoking area, and its quiet on a sunday morning and there are other kids there too. Its a nice family gathering. We've taken him out to live music events in bars towards the later side of the evening, but only when we know the band or i am dancing (irish step not pole) and it never has been a problem (and he has earplugs)
As a parent i want my kid exposed to the good and bad of alcohol, and i want him exposed to people in all sorts of situations; but as a young person who still wants to hang with the singletons in a rowdy bar, i dont necessarily want to mix my boozing with a baby. I dont want to have to check my language, or behaviour for someone else's kid so i dont relly want to see babies in bars.
BUT i really do think galleries and other such public spaces shouldn't be all that concerned with babes in arms (though i get the whole crying thing might turn people off) it is really the walkers that need watching. Kids who can walk can touch things and that is a concern in places where touching isn't allowed; but that is a whole other rant about people keeping their kids in line....

Gymboree

well it is monday which means Gymboree for me and the babe. I went to Gymboree with kids i nannied for and it was full of other nannies; the Gymboree near our house is full of moms. It is hard for me to go to Gymboree, I am the youngest mom there (and my ass doesn't seem to have expanded as much as the other women's either) and my kid is pretty active. At 8 months he is a full crawler, and he cruises on anything he can pull up on; he doesn't to sit still to listen to the songs, and he is too young to really play "head shoulders knees and toes" Sooo he crawls all over gettting into the other babies' faces while i sit kind of embarassed about it.
There is one baby who my babe loves. This kid is the one hispanic kid in the class (and that also makes him the only 'minority' kid in the class) and the babe LOVES him. As soon as we get there the babe crawls over to the kid (lets call him Paco for the sake of anominity) and they race around the play area, one leading the other into all sorts of places they shouldn't be. Paco's dad, the only dad in the class, plays with the two of them encouraging to them to race up the ramps etc and Paco's mom and I chat. Bit by bit i am learning about this family (though i don't know the parents' names) and slowly revealing our story as well.Who would have thought the son of a person who spent the last 7 years of her life studying the 'Other', would make the 'Other' his first pal?
The babe seems to have made his first friend but i can't seem to get 'in' with other moms. I can't figure out why it is so hard for me to connect with these women, they are all very nice and the kids are all about the same age so why can't i figure out how to navigate these mommy waters?

when queens meets ireland...

so this guy is my hubs' cousin... he got shipped off to boarding school in Ireland when he was a kid and since then has been making a name for himself in the comedy circles. He is currently working with folks to promote a return to tradition, namely learning Irish from early on, he's been using his youth and fame and funny to make the Irish language cool again.
But anyway this is what happens when you take a Queens kid and teach him to speak Gaelic...



yes it is " Jump Around"

and here he is in english..




Yup I am now related to this guy

Bob Barsky

First i should admit that i really enjoy bad television; horrible reality shows in the vein of America's Next Top Model, and When Animals Attack often fill up our DVR list. I also really like television from my youth. Kate and Allie is on the WE channel in the early afternoons and i got re hooked on it when the babe was little. I really enjoyed this show when i was younger and it hasn't lost its' appeal. So now i DVR it and watch it over tea while the babe sleeps.

But i am troubled. The Bob Barsky character, a retired football star turned radio announcer who Allie eventually marries, has shown up in the early episodes three times so far. and none of those times was he Bob Barsky. Today he was the ex lover of some cooking lady, last week i believe he was dating Kate, and I've seen him as some other random bit character.

This troubles me because it makes me feel like the writers/casting people doubted that they had a hit on their hands; as if they thought no one who watched the early episodes would watch the later ones and think "what a minute, i've seen that guy before" or these writers/casting people thought the audience were moronic.

I wish i could find a video of Bob as these multiple characters, or even remember his actual name...but all YouTube has is promos and the wonderful lesbian episode.

noah's ark

it's the name of a great deli/restaurant on the lower east side where i ate lunch yesterday. Lunch which consisted of a knish and corned beef sandwich cost me $21.25. I never understood why all the good delis cost so much. There was a great deli near where i grew up called (i think) The Mill Basin Delicatessen and my mom used to take me and my little brother there every so often. I think she took us there when she had a jonesing for good pickles and coleslaw because all we ever really ate was the hot dog specials (two dogs and a soda) and it was always crazy expensive. But there was unlimited coleslaw and pickles, and seriously they were the best hot dogs ever.

but anyway i really wanted coleslaw and pickles so i wandered into the deli and took a seat in the corner. At another table there were a couple of well dressed men in yarmulkes, a tourist couple (that were way to loud for the atmosphere) and an old man tucked into a corner. The well dressed men were conducting business over lunch , and there was an incessant tapping of a calculator; the old man in the corner was regaling the waitress with tales of the way the lower east side used to be. I resisted the urge to pull up a table closer to this man.

When the tourists left a middle aged man came in with a raggedly dressed older man. At first i thought the middle aged man was some sort of good Samaritan taking the older man (clearly down on his luck) for a good meal. The sat near to me and had the following conversation (loudly as if they were both hard of hearing)

middle age man: It seems you are doing much better

older man:

middle age: It seems you are doing much better

older man:

middle age: It seems you are doing much better

older man:.......It seems I am doing much better

It made me giggle a little to watch the men interact. Then the middle aged man said : Daddy do you want some soup?

The rest of the meal they were silent

it made me wonder if this was a weekly visit, maybe the older man coming from a nursing home or something. And suddenly i was sad, though the pickles kind of made it all better.

summer in the city

or at least that's what it feels like today. a steamy 65 degrees- somesort of record high the weatherman tells me...the babe is literally sweating so much there is a puddle on my lap. it reminds me of back in the day (yeah i said it) when the babe was first born and i was trying to boobfeed. I spent a few days with many puddles on many parts of my body (and also smelling of cabbage but that's another story) feeling sorry for myself that I couldn't boobfeed...
Don't let anyone ever tell you it's easy to nourish your kid through your own body cause it's not. You get through labor and delivery (again a story for another day) and you are overwhelmed with exhaustion, hunger, and likely thirst and suddenly there is a little rooting creature covered in what looks like cream cheese trying its' darndest to get something out of you.
For the time we were in the hospital we did it well, the wonderful scottish lactation specialist in our hospital visited us a few times and cheered us on; the babe happily sucked away and I was overcome with joy at proving I could feed my child. Nighttime fell, the babe was taken to the nursery and returned to me when he was hungry; he cried in my room and a voice from the other side of the curtain said "you know they can give him a bottle to quiet him" and I silently cried over my hungry little man, but I kept going.
What people don't tell you is your hormones drop drastically a few days after birth and you become a crazy mess (again). When this happened to me, I woke up with an overwhelming feeling of "get this child away from me." The hubs was getting ready for work and brought the babe to me; it made me sob. I didn't want to touch him, let alone have him attached to me all day. As I cried the hubs asked if i wanted him to stay home; I said no twice. On the third asking (and over the hunger cries of the babe) I said yes and thus began our journey of formula feeding. I spent two days with cabbages leaves in my bra and then there was no more milk from momma.
Is it weird that I am thinking of this because of the babe sweat in my lap? probably. But it is something I like to keep out there as a reminder to push past the obstacles; do I regret my decision? nope- the babe is happy and healthy and dang it the boy had teeth at 2 1/2 months!

waiting

today we joined Gymboree...it is the first time i have been to gymboree as a mom and not a nanny, and it doesn't seem to make a difference. I am still the youngest person there.

My friend Mary (http://maryasbach.blogspot.com) once said that 'if anyone needs a blog, it's you' in reference to a story I told her. The story was this:
Once a friend was having a bachelorette party and I was invited. It was to be a relatively tame affair involving a burlesque show and high class drinks at the Russian Vodka House. It should be noted that at the time of this affair I was about 3 months post partum, and hadn't been out without the babe yet.
The night started very sweetly with dinner, where I drank too much and may have had some other things that weren't so great for me...the burlesque show was amazing (though painful looking with the booby swinging and all) and the Vodka House was way to classy for me.
I sampled some dill infused vodka and wondered how i could market it to pregnant women (maybe remove the vodka but not just sell pickle juice somehow?) and as my head spun we left. There was a man outside looking to pick up passengers in his sleek black towncar, the price was right and i climbed in. When I told the Russian behind the wheel where i had been and what i had been doing he told me "No you need to go to real vodka house, come i take you." And he literally pulled the car around to the Vodka House across the street- the even more fancy one owned by Mikhail Baryshnikov. The ride around the block took all of 3 minutes and as we drove the man behind the wheel kept saying "no you'll like there is gypsies with music, come we dance and drink before going home to babies."
And we did. We danced with gypsies and I sipped glasses of water in between vodka samples. The hubs called me at about 4am asking where the extra diapers were and my night with the Russians ended. The man behind the wheel took me home (the whole way telling me we had to go to another vodka house in Brooklyn) as steady as the day he was born, while I tried to keep awake.

That was awhile ago. tonight I contemplated going to bed at 8 even though the babe is at grams' house, and I can't figure out if that makes me officially an old married mom or just tired.

where did the old year go?

2007 is over.
The hubs likes to think that 2007 was a horrible year for us, but I think it is all in his head. He can focus on the negatives: the loss of car, rodent filled apartments, hormonally crazy wife and scads of bills; but I like to think of 2007 as the year of change. I mean seriously, we had a wedding and a baby within the span of seven months how much more change do you need?

All of the changes in 2007 made me think about life; how fast it twists and turns and runs off course. And now I'll share it with you.