Wish List Wednesday

I've decided to get more involved with the ladies on the national mom community I belong to, so I'm going to participate in my first ever Wish List Wednesday!

This activity is hosted by The Foster Family Blog



If you could meet anyone, who would you like to meet?

Right now, my mind is on all things baseball-related. No surprise there, since the World Series starts in just 8 hours! My Yankees are back again, looking to win their 27th World Championship. In honor of that, my list is definitely pinstripe-heavy :)

Of course, I'd love to meet all of the 2009 Yankees, but in the interest of narrowing the list here are my top three.

1. Derek Jeter



Of course he would top the list! While he might not be the most interesting Yankee, I love his appreciation for the history of the game and the approach he takes to playing every day.

2. Joe Torre



Torre will certainly go down in history as one of the greatest managers ever. I would love to hear his stories about managing the greatest sports franchise ever.

3. Billy Beane



So he's not a Yankee, but I would love to sit down with him and pick his brain about all things Sabermetric. Maybe he could even get me a job as an assistant GM :)

4. Mike and Mike



My two favorite entertainment personalities! I would love love love to be a statistician for ESPN and come up with all of the random facts they share over the airwaves. Mike & Mike have provided me with morning entertainment for years, including serving as a fantastic distraction when I was in labor.

5. Barack Obama



This one is very much a cliche, but I would be honored to meet our current president. It takes a certain kind of charisma to inspire that much hope in so many people.

Kids are Weird

I posted a few weeks ago about how bathtime had become such a horrific event in our house - the minute Baby C heard the water running he would throw a complete tantrum and scream and flail and stiffen his arms and legs so we couldn't easily get him into the tub, and refuse to sit down once he was actually in the tub, and scream throughout the entire ordeal.

Last night he ran over to the side of the tub when he heard the water running, tried to climb in on his own, splashed and played the whole time he was in there, and whined when it was time to get out.

How weird is that?

Memo Monday

Another H1N1 Thought

I keep hearing and seeing people complaining "If you're sick, you should stay home from work." While yes, that's true, you shouldn't be out and about spreading germs to the rest of the healthy people in your world, it's really just not that simple.

I'm incredibly lucky in that I have a good full-time job that offers paid vacation and personal days to use when I'm sick. I think those of us who are lucky enough to have that security tend to forget that there are millions of others who don't have that same luxury. The latest figures from the U.S. Labor Department show that, on a national level, 40% of private-sector full-time employees do not get paid for sick days. More than 77% of all part-time workers don't have paid sick days. So, while it seems intuitive enough to say "if you're sick, stay home," it's really not that easy for a large portion of our workforce.

I'm sure a lot of us have been in that position. Hell, it wasn't even that long ago for me, when I was in college (both undergrad and grad school!), having to make the decision between going to work sick and staying home in bed when I wasn't feeling well but forfeiting an entire day's paycheck. Not everyone has a savings account that they can fall back on, especially with today's economy, when so many are living paycheck-to-paycheck to support their households.

Unfortunately, there's no easy solution to this problem. Companies need to make changes to their policies. Paid time off for illness needs to be made available to the entire population, and sadly, that's not likely to happen any time soon. While not perfect, the Healthy Families Act is a step in the right direction. It's been sitting around since 2005, but has been resurrected. Let's hope that our lawmakers can come together and work something out that will benefit everyone.


For more information on this issue and similar issues affecting women and families, you can also visit the National Partnership for Women and Families.

Speaking of Hysteria

What's that in my Pocket?

A handful of broken Annie's Graham bunnies and a snot-covered tissue. How the hell did those get there?

How I Spent My Saturday Night

Are you jealous? God, I love October Baseball!

My Dilemma

This is not a life-or-death situation, but it's a mini-crisis of conscience nonetheless. I'm a big advocate of "voting with your wallet." If you don't like a product, don't buy it. If you don't like a company's business practices or social agenda, don't buy from them. Even though as individuals we have small voices, as consumers we can make those voices heard. I hear people complaining day after day about the evils of wal*mart, how they mistreat their employees, how they sell inferior products, how they circumvent the system and import goods from countries who don't have the same EPA standards. These people do a fair amount of bitching, yet they still continue to shop there. Why? Because they "don't have a choice." That's BS, there's ALWAYS a choice.

Anyway, I'm usually pretty good about where I choose to put my money, but now I'm up against a difficult situation. It took a lot of searching for us to find a daycare that we were completely happy with. 99% of the time I'm very happy with our center. I know Baby C is treated well and is in a caring and stimulating environment. I believe he's happy there, at least he's always smiley and engrossed in some activity when I go to pick him up. This is all well and good, but over the last few months I've begun to question their business practices. First I learned that they don't provide health insurance to their employees. I thought maybe this was the norm for care centers, but when I started asking around I realized that it's one of the only ones that doesn't. Care work (and, by default, care workers) has been de-valued in our society. I'm sad that these girls who care for my son every day don't have access to affordable health care. In addition to the health care issue, I've started to notice rumblings among the teachers about internal drama. I'm sure things like this are pretty much unavoidable when you have a building full of women, and I hope it's nothing serious, but I hate to think that infighting like this could spill over and affect the care that our kids receive. The third issue is pay-related. Again, I know that we don't place a high value on care work, but it's really sad that so many of these women (some of whom have children of their own, most of whom have college degrees) have to work two jobs because their primary job doesn't pay the bills.

So I have two choices:

1. Leave Baby C where he is and pretend I don't have a problem with these business practices

2. Find another center that aligns better with my belief system (unfortunately the organic/environmentally conscious/cloth-diapering center is too far away!)

On one hand I'd like to be able to say that I stand by my values, but on the other hand what good is pulling him out going to do? He would quickly be replaced by someone else, probably at a higher tuition rate once yearly increases are added.

The Handmaid's Tale

It's been a long time since I've picked up a book to read and not been able to put it down. I borrowed this one from a friend a few weeks ago but didn't have time to start it until Thursday morning at the dentist. I was hooked after the first two pages. I stayed up well into the night so that I could keep reading and made it just over halfway through. I used it as a distraction while the Twins batted in their half of the inning, and finished it around 1:30 this morning. Oh. My. God. Why didn't I read this sooner?



It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time.
Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control.
I was stunned. Everyone was, I know that. It was hard to believe. The entire government, gone like that. How did they get in, how did it happen?
That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on.
Look out, said Moira to me, over the phone. Here it comes.
Here what comes? I said.
You wait, she said. They've been building up to this. It's you and me up against the wall, baby. She was quoting an expression of my mother's, but she wasn't intending to be funny.

The last time I devoured a book like this was when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out, so that should tell you something.

Maybe it's because I just read two other dystopian novels for book club last month, but it definitely made me consider what track we're really on, and where our society will be 100 years from now. I kept wondering if this is what they felt like back when 1984 came out - knowing that it's a fictional work, knowing that the author went for the extremes, but still wondering in the back of their heads if it could, in fact, be possible. In fact, the most chilling part about this particular vision is that it's really almost a reversion to the past, when women were seen as property.

Parts of it were particularly heart-wrenching, especially having a child, myself, and knowing what the experience of labor and delivery is like. The thought of having to then hand my child over to someone else gives me an awful pit in my stomach. I want to go read everything else she's ever written! If you're looking for an excellent read (and if you're female, I suppose), then you should definitely check this one out.

O-S-WHO?!?!

This is a few days overdue, but I didn't had time to get Charlie's awesome UC picture off the camera until now.

The impossible has happened!



Your eyes do not deceive you, UC is ranked AHEAD OF ohio state!

Baby C celebrated by wearing his new Bearcats jersey to daycare on Monday.



I'm just trying to enjoy it while it lasts :)

Cheese Muffins

I'm not a loyal follower of the Pioneer Woman, but every so often I'll re-stumble across her page and find something I really like. A few weeks ago I happened to come across her recipe for cheese muffins. I love cheese, and I love muffins, so I figured I would love cheese muffins. I printed out her recipe, dubbed "Fig's Cheese Muffins," after the blogger DIZZLEFIG, who originally submitted it.


Fig’s Cheese Muffins

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt (plus 1/8 tsp if using unsalted butter)
3 cups shredded colby-jack cheese (I used cheddar for
1 cup milk
1 egg
1/4 cup melted butter (original recipe calls for salted, I used unsalted and added 1/8 tsp of salt to the dry ingredients)

Whisk together dry ingredients, then stir in cheese.

In a separate bowl, whisk egg, milk, and butter together.

Pour milk mixture into dry ingredients and stir with a spoon to combine.

Bake in greased muffin tins at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes. (Instead of using muffin tins I made them like drop biscuits. They spread a bit on the pan, but it actually made them easier to dip in my soup.)

Makes 12.




Another immediate hit with Baby C! He really enjoys these muffins, as do the rest of us. They went over really well with Husband C, too, who would happily eat half the pan for dinner if I'd let him. It's hard to restrain yourself around these!

Memo Monday

It's October!

You know what that means! Halloween decorations, costume-making, pumpkin picking, and apple cider. I love fall! It's always been my favorite season, even more so now that I'm past school-age and no longer have to balance my love of fall with my love of summer vacation.

All of the traditional fall treats are great and all, but the best part about fall is October baseball!

I'm so glad to see my New York Yankees back atop the American League East where they belong. Now we just have to sit back and wait for the Division Series to start next week. I know a good buddy of mine is still rooting on those Tigers to win the AL Central. She's pregnant, so for her blood pressure's sake it would be a good thing if they managed to clinch, but for my stress level's sake I'd much rather face the Twins in the ALDS.

If everything goes as expected it very well could be another Yankees / red sux ALCS this year. I don't know if I could handle the stress. Of course, games are played on the field, not on paper, so we'll just have to wait and see :)

Where is Fall?

One of the worst things about living in Cincinnati (aside from the fact that it's an NL market, which means the Yankees pretty much never come here) is that we don't really get all four seasons. Two weeks ago it was pushing 80 degrees and we were wondering when fall was going to arrive. I daydreamed about pumpkin spice lattes, caramel apples, and wagon rides through the pumpkin patch. Last week the unseasonably warm weather was replace with torrential downpours. This week, it's freaking freezing. It looks like winter outside, all gray and gloomy, and I don't think we'll hit 60 degrees today. Even worse, it's going to drop into the 30s overnight. We're under a frost advisory!

I wanted fall weather, but this is just ridiculous. Get with the program, Ohio!

That said, I feel like the month of September just flew by. The whole year, actually. It's hard to believe that in three months we'll be staring 2010 right in the face. Everyone always tells you how fast time goes when you have a child, but no one ever listens. We got out Baby C's long pants the other day and all of a sudden he looks so grown up! I don't know if it's because he's in jeans, or because he's gotten taller, but he's certainly not a baby anymore.



(Baby C celebrating the AL East Championship)

Memo Monday

Cloth Diaper Victory!

Two weeks ago I submitted a proposal for a cloth diaper trial period to our daycare director. I initially asked for a two-day trial, and she came back offering an entire week to try them out. Last week was our trial run, and I was really nervous about it - kind of that feeling you used to get before the first day of school. I had all of my BG3.0s packed and ready to go the night before, along with a wetbag and diaper pail. I went in early on Monday to give the teachers a quick demonstration. They were all shocked to see how easy they were to use - most of them were expecting the pins and prefolds. On Friday I heard back from the director and we're now allowed to cloth diaper Charlie full-time! This is fantastic news for us, and I feel like I've really succeeded at teaching someone something new and changing someone's mind about cloth diapers.

I'm still not going to be a "CD pusher," but I'm very excited that people are becoming more open-minded about the topic. I can't even begin to tell you how many negative comments I got before Baby C was born, and how many people didn't think I'd really follow through with my plan. I love them, and I'm so happy we decided to go against convention.

Mom Goggles

The other night C and I were looking through old pictures and came across the ones that were taken at the hospital when Baby C was first born. I remember thinking that he was such a cute baby, definitely way cuter than any other baby, and certainly not alien-like, as I had so often heard newborns described.

I guess it must have been the mom goggles.

Don't get me wrong, he's super cute these days, but oh my god, looking back at those pictures? Not so much. He was rather yellow and scrunchy.



And the conehead, my good god the conehead. How did I miss that?





He started to improve within a few days



(hey, everyone looks better in a Yankee hat)

A year and change later, he's definitely back to being one of the cutest babies ever.



I guess parent goggles just replace beer goggles once the college days are in the past :)

Books About Babies

A few weeks ago I reviewed the books that I read while I was pregnant, which were mostly about pregnancy and breastfeeding. I think it's only appropriate that I also review the books I read (or tried to read) about the first year.


The Happiest Baby on the Block (this one was also in my original post, but I found myself referring to it often in the first months) - this one helped a lot for us. GREAT suggestions for calming pissy babies! The 5 S's work like a charm on Baby Charlie. Baby C loved being swaddled. We had a few of the SwaddleMe wraps, 2 lightweight ones and a fleece one for when it got colder. Once he was done with the swaddle I was still too paranoid to put a blanket in his crib, so we bought Halo Sleepsacks - they're wearable blankets (he does have a blanket in his crib, now!).

Your Baby Week by Week - Same idea as Your Pregnancy Week by Week, a developmental account of where the average baby is at each week. I really like this one, too. My BA is in child psych and this book is basically an Idiot's Guide to the First Year from every perspective (social, cognitive, motor, etc). We started off reading it every week, but started to slack off as Baby C become more mobile and active. It was much more fun to play with him than to read about him. I probably should have kept up with it, but what are you going to do.

Girlfriend's Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood - I didn't pick this book up until we were on our first outing post-baby and I wish I would have read it before I had him. It's by the same woman who wrote "Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy," and it's written in the same informal but informative style. She's definitely into giving you all the good, bad, and ugly details about childbirth, breastfeeding, and those first few postpartum weeks. I recommend this book to all of my pregnant friends! It's a quick read.

What the Other Mothers Know - lots of good and practical info for the first weeks and early childhood, but probably not a "must read" before the baby comes. It talks about play groups, parenting, potty training, preschools, daycare, birthdays, pretty much everything that you don't think about until you're in the moment. I'm hoping it will be helpful down the road.

I wish that I had read some books on work/life balance, aside from the research materials I read in graduate school. I have a list of books I intend to check out on that subject, so once I get my hands on them I'll certainly put them up for review.

Memo Monday

Word of Warning to BFing Mamas

When I stopped EPing I was actually 8 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight. I know that when you're in "cow mode" you burn a ton of extra calories per day, so I knew that I would have to make some adjustments to my eating habits to avoid gaining back some weight. I must not have adjusted them enough, because I've gained 5 of those pounds back.

Moral of the story: Don't get overexcited and buy pants in your new, slimmer size. All you will get is heartache when you can't get back into them.

I'm not really complaining, because I'm still slightly under my pre-pregnancy weight, but damn were those pants cute.

Recipe Wednesday - Banana Pancakes

Baby Charlie LOVES his fruit. He also loves his pancakes. When I was little we had a DC Super Heroes Super Healthy Cookbook.



One of my favorite recipes of all time was Invisible Banana French Toast. I decided to try to combine bananas and pancakes, but not in the traditional sense of blending the fruit into the batter. Instead of mixing it all together and ending up with banana-flavored pancakes, I sliced the banana and dipped each slice into the pancake batter.

Banana Pancakes

Made using King Arthur's Simply Perfect Pancake Recipe

1 or 2 bananas, sliced into "wheels"

For the pancake batter:

2 large eggs

1 1/4 cups milk

3 tablespoons melted butter or vegetable oil

1 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 cup malted milk powder (or 2 tablespoons sugar)

1. Beat the eggs and milk until light and frothy, about 3 minutes at high speed, using a stand mixer or hand mixer. Stir in the butter.

2. Whisk the dry ingredients together to evenly distribute the salt, baking powder and malt. Gently and quickly mix the dry ingredients into the egg mixture. Let the batter rest for at least 15 minutes to thicken.

3. Heat an electric griddle to 350 degrees or heat a heavy frying pan over medium heat. Lightly grease the griddle or pan; it is ready if a drop of water skitters across the surface and evaporates immediately. Drop batter by the 1/3 cupful onto the griddle or skillet per pancake. Cook on one side until bubbles begin to form and break, then turn the pancakes and cook the other side until brown. Turn only once. Serve immediately.

This is where I deviate from the recipe. Instead of dropping batter into pancakes I slice up a banana or two, dip them in the batter, and then stick them on the pan. They usually take no more than 30 seconds on each side. I use the rest of the batter to make regular pancakes once I've made enough banana pancakes to satisfy the Minion.

The best thing about this particular pancake recipe is that it's very simple to make. You can do it start to finish in about 10 minutes on a Saturday morning. I imagine that the banana pancakes would freeze well, but there are never enough left to find out!

Memo Monday

The freezer is empty!

This morning I used my last bag of frozen milk. It was a little bittersweet, but I have to pat myself on the back for actually exceeding my goal. If you had told me 13 months ago that I would temporarily become a cow and be able to provide the best nourishment possible for my baby despite all of our breastfeeding issues, I would have thought you were crazy. I'm so proud to be able to say that we persevered and made it all the way through. Husband Charlie is just glad to have his freezer back :)

Memo Monday

Happy Birthday to Me

Birthdays aren't as exciting anymore once you pass the 21st. I remember how excited I used to get around birthdays - they were almost as good as christmas. You'd start getting antsy about it the week before, gleefully anticipating your big birthday bash, complete with your bestest buddies and (hopefully!) ice cream cake from DQ with the chocolate crunchies in the middle. You'd get no sleep the night before, as you imagined how cool it would be the next day when you got to serve birthday cupcakes to your classmates and maybe, just maybe, get a shiny iridescent pencil emblazoned with "Happy Birthday" to use for the rest of the month. Just that pencil itself could be good enough, with the unscuffed eraser and the unsharpened point. So much potential for great things out of that perfect pencil! The birthday kid always got special treatment, even if it just meant clapping erasers after lunch or being line leader or kickball captain.

I think companies should include your birthday on the list of paid holidays. That would add some excitement back into the day. I've gone from home birthday parties to roller rink parties to giant sleepover bashes to keg parties, and now I've arrived at the ultimate in adult celebration - a family-friendly trip to the ice cream shop, complete with my other mom buddies and their toddlers. Who needs a birthday tiara when you've got little chocolate-covered hands waiting to give you a birthday hug? I always hated being the center of attention, anyway.

Just when you think you know someone

Have you ever started reading a blog written by someone you know in real life? Sometimes it's weird, especially when it's someone who you thought you knew pretty well, until their blog provides you with a hefty dose of cognitive dissonance. I thought I knew a particular person pretty well, they've been in my life since my undergrad days and I see/talk to them on a regular basis. They went and started a blog a little while ago, and my perception of them has completely changed. Every time a new post appears I discover a little piece about them that I didn't know existed.

It's interesting, but kind of sad at the same time - hard evidence that we don't always know people as well as we think they do, and that maybe we all feel as though we have to hide behind masks at times. I guess that's one benefit of the interwebs - it gives us a place where we feel anonymous. Everyone can find an online niche.

I had a conversation with some individuals a generation ahead of me - they were lamenting the fact that no one communicates through hand-written notes anymore and it's all about IMing, emailing, and texting. Not only that, but OMG! People are making FRIENDS on the interwebs! People are becoming friends with people they've NEVER. EVEN. MET. What is this world coming to? Dogs and cats, living together?

It got me thinking - I'm not big on letter writing or phone conversations. I always feel awkward on the phone, especially when you start running out of things to talk about and then end up with those long pauses. I much prefer email and IM. I belong to a few online communities, too. In fact, when I really stop and think about it, a large percentage of the people I count as "friends" are people I've met through these communities. I've been lucky enough to find a wonderful group of local ladies, and we get together for playdates and gossip. I think the interwebs are a wonderful place for social introverts like myself, who don't do well in crowds and have difficulty making friends. A text-based screen gives us the chance to let our guard down without most of the social awkwardness. When you finally get together in person you already know each other, so there's none of that "will they like me" stress. I think that the interwebs help people make friends, and help people to communicate, regardless of what the older generation says about the "degradation of today's youth."

Of course, that's not to say that I want Charlie v2.0 to spend hours playing WOW a few years down the road. There are happy mediums everywhere.

Memo Monday

We're up to 12 teeth now!

Memo Monday on Thursday

Really, I have a good excuse!

Perspective

Yes, I'm stealing a post title from a good friend of mine, but she summed it up perfectly in one little word.

There's a blog that I've been following for a few months now - Three Cheers for Babies. It's about a couple and their very premature triplet babies, Lily, Charlie, and Annaleigh, who were born at 25 weeks. While the prognosis for babies born that early is generally very grim, the news was almost always good for these three. The doctors were optimistic, the nurses marvelled at how well they were doing, and the parents prepped a nursery for the three babies they would be bringing home from the NICU. After two months of waiting and hoping, filled with ups and downs, bad news and good, their lives were turned upside-down in the span of 24 hours. Last Thursday, their father posted some fantastic news - Annaleigh was breathing room air on her own. The joy and hope in that post was incredible - you could tell they knew it was only a matter of time before all three of their babies would be coming home. Only a short day later their blog followers were devastated to see a post explaining that little Annaleigh was deathly ill, and would not survive the weekend. She passed away on Saturday.

I, and so many others, have been following their story, and it touched me today in much the same way that it touched my friend - a heartbreaking sadness that only a parent could possibly understand. I can't even fathom what it must be like to be given so much hope - to see so much progress come from a bleak outlook, and to have all of your dreams ripped from you in a matter of hours. As the post title says, it certainly puts things in perspective. We are so lucky to have a healthy baby (toddler!) boy, so lucky that we, ourselves, are healthy, and so lucky to have the wonderful family and friends that we do. I am not a religious person, only spiritual - I do not subscribe to any one faith, but the only word that seems adequate to describe how lucky we are is to say that we are truly blessed. As human beings, we tend to get caught up in the mundane aspects of life - bill paying, work, house cleaning - let Annaleigh serve as a reminder to slow down and enjoy the time we have together.

Sleepless Night

Ever have those nights where you're suddenly flooded with random memories and you can't for the life of you get them out of your head so you can sleep?

A certain facebook comment I saw yesterday instantly shot me back to 13 years ago. I won't bother going into details about what my friends and I were up to back then, but there were good times and bad times, and I feel like I relived that entire summer in the span of a few hours. Sometimes I don't know if my picture-perfect memory is a blessing or a curse. I remember the most vivid details of the most mundane events. I think that summer will go down in my personal history as the best summer ever - pre-husband and baby, anyway :)

Recipe Wednesday - Baked Blueberry Oatmeal

Someone posted this link on one of my mom boards and I just had to try it out, since Baby C loves oatmeal and blueberries. Especially blueberries. He'd eat a pint a day, easily, if I'd let him. It's from Recipe Zaar.


Baked Blueberry Oatmeal

4 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup applesauce
1 1/2 cups milk
3 cups quick oats or regular oats
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon (or more, to taste)
1 cup blueberries


Directions

This is a "two bowl" recipe. In the first bowl, mix the butter, brown sugar, eggs, applesauce and milk. In the second bowl, whisk together the baking powder, salt, and cinnamon, and then mix in the oats. Add the dry bowl to the wet bowl and mix to combine. Stir in blueberries.

Pour into greased 9 x 9 inch baking dish. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 35 minutes. (You can make this a night in advance and refrigerate overnight, just add 5-8 minutes to the baking time)

This one went over well in our house. Both Charlies enjoyed it for breakfast, and then I cut the rest into pieces and froze them on a baking sheet. They aren't quite the same after being frozen, they take on a consistency that's more like oatmeal than cake, but it keeps me from having to make a fresh bowl every morning. I think this is going to be a winter staple for Baby C.

Jedi Baby

Memo Monday

Apparently the first memo didn't get the message across...

From memos

Swim Diaper

After reading my SIL's blog post about how bloated my nephew's diaper got after playing in the fountain, I realized that I never updated my cloth diaper posts to include the reusable swim diapers we found. I checked out a few different styles and settled on the Bummis SWIMMI, mostly because they had a velcro front and I figured that would work well for us since Baby C has no butt to hold up his bottoms. This was the only brand I found with velcro.




I ordered them from the sister shop of Nicki's Diapers - My Swim Baby. They specialize in swim diapers and everything summer related. These diapers have worked out really well for us. They've kept everything contained, so far!

A word of warning: Swim diapers (even the disposable kind!) are NOT meant to hold in pee, only to hold in solids. At the beginning of swim season there were tons of posts by moms who didn't realize that swim diapers let the pee flow through and ended up with soaked carseats or laps :)

We usually stick them in the diaper bag and put them on after we get to the pool. There are lots of fun prints to choose from, too!

The Trapper Keeper

Just out of curiosity I decided to see if they still manufacture Trapper Keepers. To my surprise, Amazon has a pretty wide selection. I briefly considered ordering one, but then upon closer inspection I realized that Trapper Keepers are not, in fact, all that and a bag of chips, they are merely crumbs at the bottom of the bag.

All they really are is a binder with a velcro (or magnet, in the 21st century) flap.

The technical details:

* Customizable cover.
* 2 interior storage pockets.
* 5 tab dividers.
* 1.5" binder.
* Magnetic closure.

They even look corporate now!



Where are the prints? The Transformers and Ninja Turtles? The Lisa Frank animals? Can't I get some Sanrio?

Really? I remember Trapper Keepers as sooooo cool! I could create the same effect with a rubber band :(

I guess this is just another example of how fuzzy memories can be.

I want to go back to school :(

Fall is right around the corner and everywhere I turn people are talking about back-to-school shopping, buying school supplies, and packing to go away to college.

I was always one of those losers who looked forward to the first day of school with great anticipation. For as far back as I can remember I would be too excited to sleep a wink the night before the big day. I think I slept better the night before our wedding than any night before the first day of school. I loved buying new school supplies - brand new pens and pencils, unmarked notebooks full of so much potential, BINDER TABS. Oh, and the year that Trapper Keepers were all the rage. I LOVED my Trapper Keeper. I wish I could buy one.

I wish I was going back to school next month. I loved the whole atmosphere of "back-to-school" season, especially at UC. The crowds at the bookstores, the excited freshmen scurrying around, block parties, Bearcat football, interesting classes, watching the leaves turn color around campus - I loved it all. I'm hoping to drag out my UC hoodie, get Baby C some Bearcat gear, and hit a Big East football game this fall. Maybe that will quench my thirst for campus life. ** sigh **

Pregnancy Book Reviews

I typed up some information for a newly pregnant friend of mine, and figured I would post some of it here, too. This list is about Pregnancy / Breastfeeding books that I read.


Your Pregnancy Week by Week

 Charlie and I read this one together every Sunday when I reached another weekly milestone. I loved reading that book – it was a nice ritual and was very informative without being scary. I liked the weekly measurement numbers and the “what is your baby doing this week” sections. It was nice to be able to follow along on the development track every step of the way.







The Complete Organic Pregnancy

This book has a lot of great information for those of us who are interested in natural living. It's presented in an easy-to-read way and includes information on both macro and micro levels - from the chemicals in our environment to the food that we put in our bodies. I enjoyed some of it, especially the recipes and the section on food, but it's a little over-the-top in terms of what it tells you to avoid. I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to recarpet and repaint the entire house :)







What to Expect When You're Expecting

I know this is one of the most popular and well-known books for pregnant women. I remember seeing my aunt’s copy on their coffee table 15 years ago when she was pregnant with my cousin. I bought a copy at a used book store and returned it a few days later – I hated it, though. I thought it was pretty alarmist and ended up stressed out about things I didn’t know I needed to be stressed out about. Apparently they recently released an updated version, so maybe that one is better. If you’re only going to buy one general reference guide I would go with the Week by Week book, instead. (as a side note, what is with the pregnant lady graphics on these books? you've got the crazy frumpy hat in Week by Week and this lady looks like one morose mofo)


The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy

This book has tons of practical information, but it's very funny, I would almost call it light reading. Vicki has a great writing style and is brutally honest about the good, the bad, and the really really ugly about pregnancy and the whole labor & delivery process. I learned more about the reality of pregnancy and birth from this book than any other. (She also wrote The Girlfriend's Guide to Surviving the First Year and The Girlfriend's Guide to Toddlerhood, both of which I also recommend.)






Baby Bargains 

This book is a must-have for picking out baby gear. It includes ratings and information on all of the brands who make baby-related products. They release a new edition every so often so that they can keep you up-to-date on changes to products and manufacturers. I learned a lot about the differences between brands and lines in terms of materials and quality. They grade every company that makes every product you can imagine and have a section that talks about exactly where products fall on the need vs. want continuum. They maintain a blog for updates between additions and notifications on product recalls.




Magazines – There are two free magazine subscriptions that you can sign up for – American Baby and Baby Talk. They’re both just kind of average, but free is free, and what pregnant lady doesn’t love reading about pregnancy and babies?


So That’s What They’re For

I would recommend reading this before your baby gets here. Actually, if you're planning on breastfeeding I would recommend getting your hands on as much information as possible before the baby gets here. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that when it comes to breastfeeding, the more information you have, the better. Everyone assumes that it’s something that comes naturally and should be easy, but it’s not. I learned a ridiculous amount of information that I never knew before. Even though BFing didn't work out for me and I had to EP I still used it as a reference for breast issues. It also has a lot of good info on the benefits of breastmilk, which inspired me to keep EPing even though it sucked sometimes.


The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding

 This book also had a wealth of knowledge, but I liked the style of So That’s What They’re For a lot better. This one wasn’t as easy to read, and I liked the informal, almost jovial tone of the first book. This one was a little too serious.








The Milk Memos

This one is about working, breastfeeding mothers at IBM (?), who share a pumping room and start a journal where they write notes back and forth to each other about how to deal with being a working mom and how much pumping at work sucks (no pun intended). It was a good read, but I wasn’t able to relate to it all that much, maybe because I don’t work in such a serious corporate setting and because my company is so much smaller. There were A LOT of things that didn’t apply to me. Not a ton of practical info, more good to have for the feeling of not being in it alone.




The Happiest Baby on the Block

This one helped a lot for us. GREAT suggestions for calming pissy babies! The 5 S's work like a charm on Baby Charlie. He loved being swaddled. We had a few of the SwaddleMe wraps, 2 lightweight ones and a fleece one for when it got colder. Once he was done with the swaddle I was still too paranoid to put a blanket in his crib, so we bought Halo Sleepsacks - they're wearable blankets (he does have a blanket in his crib, now!).

Memo Monday

One Year Ago

I was in the hospital watching Mike & Mike, waiting to meet Baby Charlie. It's interesting how I only remember bits and pieces of how the day went. I think the most vivid memory I have of the L&D process was the car ride to the hospital, which really sucked. It was horrible to be in that much pain and have nowhere to go. The other things that stand out are how freaking thirsty I was and how glad I was to see the anesthesiologist when I got the good drugs :p

I can't believe how fast time has gone by. Everyone always tells you that it goes by so quickly, but you just kind of blow it off as unasked for advice. Unfortunately, everyone who told me that was 100% correct. It's really unbelievable.

I want to catch the sand running through the hourglass and just hold on tight. Where is Dumbledore with his time turners when you need them?

I have a lot more I'd like to say, but what was the week from hell last week has spilled into this week, so it will have to wait.

Memo Monday

It's been that kind of week

You know, the kind where Friday seems to take forever to arrive, and you're so mentally exhausted by the end of it that you start to hurt physically, too? I'm mentally drained. I guess that's the flip side of being a numbers person. Sometimes you look at numbers and thousands of columns of data and hundreds of pages of output and statistics that you just want to pitch everything off the top of a very tall building.

I still struggle with the fact that I sold my soul to the corporate world. I wonder, if I was in an industry that was more meaningful, like policy research, would I enjoy it more?

To add to the irritations of my week, I have a huge amount of mommy-guilt right now. I really wanted to take next Thursday off to spend Baby C's birthday with him, but at this point it doesn't look like it's going to happen. I try to remind myself that he's too young to really know what day it is, and he'll have so much fun at his birthday party that it won't matter, and it's not like he's going to remember it, anyway. Maybe I'm more disappointed for myself than I am for him. I'm sure he'll have a fine day at "school" with his friends.

Donnie D is a Closet Yankee Fan

That's good stuff! If I was a single girl I would follow him everywhere.

Really NKOTB?

One of the only halfway decent songs on the album and you go and make a super cheesy video starring the ugliest MOFO possible?

The video is two actors playing out the entire story that the song tells. The story telling is interspersed with random shots of the guys swaying jerkily along to the beat in the green-screen created fog. It looks like the vocals are mostly provided by Donnie and Jordan, so every time they cut to one of the others they're just looking goofily at the camera as though they're not sure what they're supposed to be doing. I guess they're supposed to be looking soulful? Mournful? Danny and Jon provide the occasional "yeah" to go along in the background, but they're mostly seen from the back as the fab five spend the video dancing in a circle with their backs to each other. Of course, the focus is mainly on Donnie D (understandable) and Jordan (not so much), with some Joey Joe to mix things up a bit. Jordan's whispers of "wake up wake up" and "get up get up" are a little creepy, as is the scene with Ugly MOFO sitting in his car staring at this girl's house.

I happened to see an interview with the kids about shooting the video, and I guess it's supposed to be a work of art or something.

Not so much.

Breastfeeding is Offensive

Breastfeeding is Offensive

Posted using ShareThis

I'm always shocked to hear expressions of disgust when it comes to women breastfeeding in public places. This post by LilGirlLost on CafeMom does a great job at highlighting the hypocrisy of our society. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Memo Monday

We're "Those" Parents

Baby C uttered his first word last week! Well, I guess it's not a word, per se, but it's a verbal communication, nonetheless. He dropped a blueberry during dinner, looked down, and said "Uh oh." C and I looked at each other, not really sure whether it was an actual utterance or just some babbling. Those syllables aren't part of his normal babbling repertoire, but we decided we'd wait for replication. On Wednesday night he did it again! He doesn't say it when he's intentionally throwing his food (apparently the universal baby signal for a meal being over), only when he drops something he still wants, so he's actually using it in context.

Of course, the proud parents had to drag out the camera to catch it on film. What follows is a not-so-proud moment where we turn into babbling idiots trying to get Baby C to display his excellence for the world to see. Of course, it's much cuter when he does it unprovoked. (don't worry, it's short!)


Original Video - More videos at TinyPic

Memo Monday

Fake Blogs

I was Googling reviews on the book "Deceptively Delicious" and came across this nifty website full of fake celebrity blogs. If you need to kill some time, check it out.

My two favorites:

Deceptively Delicious, the book about nothing, by Gordon Ramsay

I Hate the Playoffs, by Alex Rodriguez

Secondhand Shopping

I'm a big proponent of buying secondhand baby gear, toys, and clothes. I don't understand why people insist on buying everything brand spanking new, when it's ridiculously overpriced and will only be used for a short period of time. I regularly scour Craigslist and yard sales for clothes and toys. We've gotten some great deals - brand new (with tags!) baby clothes from Gap, Old Navy, The Children's Place, etc. for 50 cents each! I scored a Fisher Price Laugh N' Learn Chair for $10. A Leapfrog Learning Table for $15. I have no problem putting in 20 minutes of cleaning and sanitizing to pay less than 25% of retail value.

Charlie doesn't usually have a problem with it, until yesterday when I went to the neighbor's garage sale. I scored 3 pairs of like-new shoes for Baby C, including a very cute pair of Adidas sneakers, for $1 each. I also sorted out some pants for the fall, also at $1 each. All name brand, all in like-new condition. Now he feels weird about it, because it's the neighbors. I guess it just doesn't bother me that much. They have twin boys a few years older, so why not take advantage of cheap but quality clothes?

I felt completely vindicated when I came across this article on The Consumerist from last week's New York Times, talking about how parents of all income levels are going the secondhand route for their baby gear.

Not only does it save cash, but it might even have a small impact on the amount of waste ending up in landfills. Communities like Freepeats (mostly baby stuff), Craigslist, and Freecycle make it even easier to shrink your consumer footprint. You can always sell it to someone else when you're done :)