21 February 2013

What Up?

Hey there, internet!  How have you been?  It's been so long.

Life has been quiet around here lately.  I've basically grown to the size of an orca and am having a less than fun time waddling around the house and school.  Eight and a half more weeks. . .

I'm in my final push of productivity at school.  Lots of extra stuff going on, and I'm working hard to get all of my ducks in a row so that I can be all "Peace out!  See you in August!" come baby-having time.  But it's hard work, and my body isn't so keen on hard work these days.  It'll be fine.    Eight and a half more weeks.

Hmmmmm, what else?

Yeah, I've really got nothing.  Unless you want me to gripe about how stupid the season finale of Downton Abbey was* or gush about what a wonderful husband Matt has been lately** or fret over how we will ever handle two tiny people in our house at the same time***  Oh, and we visited our faves last weekend and got to watch Charlie and Pip be hilarious together.  And I finally got a new ipod.  And I learned that the sex of an alligator is determined by the temperature of the egg during incubation, and it kind of blew my mind.

So that's what you get.  That and pictures, which was the real reason for me to do a post.  Gots to keep dem grandparents satisfied!

(You were probably smarter before you read this post.)


 You might think he is waving, but he is not.  He is dancing.  Charles refuses to wave.






And in case you were curious about how a yogurt-eating dinosaur sounds:





*I mean, seriously?  It made me ashamed to watch the show.

**A husband who gets flowers is nice, but a husband who buys you a Publix sub and has it waiting in the oven for you all hot and melty when you walk in the door after work?  Well that man is a prince!

***Answer: you gotta do what you gotta do, I suppose.  Also, wine.

11 February 2013

This and That

Hola!

Hope you're having a good week!  We're having one of those smug weather weeks, one where we go online and see that it's all cold and snowy everywhere else, while it's warm and beautiful here.  Well, actually, it's raining right now, but it's warm enough that I have all of the windows open and quiet enough in the house that I can just listen to the rain.  I'll take it.  Plus, we can totes be beach-bound in like a month (maybe earlier!), so there will be a hole in the sand with my [giant, giant] belly's name on it.

And everything else is good.  Mitch no longer has mange (!!!!!!!!!), which may have been such good news that I cried a handful of happy tears.  Charlie is just a busy little learning machine.  He's started incorporating periodic cuddles into his daily regimen of never stopping moving, so that's fun.  I mean, they each only last for like five seconds, but it's nice when he puts down the piece of Milk Bone that he found on the floor to come over and give you a quick hug or snug.  We take what we can get around here.  

I had a minor scare last week when my doctor's office was worried that I may be in pre-term labor (which I'm not, but that was a fun two hours of freaking out in the inside while trying to keep cool and teach 16-year olds how to pass the Georgia High School Writing Test).  The verdict?  Not pre-term labor, but it looks like I'm going to be hella uncomfortable for the next couple of months.  Yesterday marked 30 weeks pregnant--70 according to Matt.  And I think I'm just going to tell people that from now on.  Yep, 70 out of 80 weeks down.  FOR LIFE.  Oh, and I'm not allowed to ellipt right now, which really sucks, because even though I spend about 23 hours of my day coming up with ways to avoid ellipting, I'm always really happy and proud of myself for actually doing it, and it was helping me not to be so uncomfortable or be such a worthless slug.

We had another little scare when our sweet baby bug got a 103.3 fever.  It turned out to break pretty quickly and be fine, but it merited a late-night phone call to Dr. Grandpa, and had us worried and doting on Sir Charles for the next day or so.

Other than that, our days have been filled with Chicken-Fil-A cookies and cream milkshakes, rewatching Parenthood (I hate Sarah Braverman with my entire heart and soul--and Matt's lucky that Zeke is a fictional character because if he wasn't then our marriage might be in trouble), and playing and playing and playing with toys. 

Here's what it's looked like around here.


 Redipulous sandwich.  Redipulous, bacon, and ciabatta (from Back in the Day Bakery--a super act of awesomeness by a super husband.) (Also, do we feel like the noun form of awesome should be awesomity?  Let's make that happen, the internet.)

FREE MANGE DOG!  Uh, I mean, MANGE FREE DOG!

Plotting.

Amazing yard sale score.  Former neighbor who died last year, Alma, had this in her house.  She used to make me pick figs from our back yard and bring them to her.  When delivering the figs one day, I saw this picture, and noted how awesome it was.  Her son was having a yard sale on Saturday, and I randomly heard about it.  So I threw Charlie in the car and went there and kind of begged for the picture.  Best $10 I've ever spent.  And I think it's going to look pretty awesome in our nursery, don't you?


 BOO!

 I got so pissed and felt gypped when I ordered these cookie cutters and realized they were missing the 9.  "Oh, what?" I thought, "Is there just like another number that looks like a 9 turned another way?"  It took a few minutes.

Charlie's getting political on us again.  I think he's going to have to stop going to those Tea Party rallies with Mitch.

 Price of admission for begging for chicken orzo soup?  Orzo fur.

 Worth it. (Says Mitch)

An attempt at having better lunches at school.  They're pretty, at least. 

Hope you're having a fun week!  And please tell me that you also can't stand Sarah Braverman.

02 February 2013

Crap You Need for a Baby


It's hard to mire through the insane amount of baby shit that's out there, and one of the things I've realized this last year is that most of the baby crap that I obsessed about needing while I was pregnant was stuff that we only used for, like, a day.  This post is about the items that we found to be useful in the long-term.

So in the same vein of the "crap you need while pregnant" post, I wanted to do a quick "crap you might need or want for a baby" post.  Again, everyone is different and every baby is different and we all have different preferences and all, but here are the things that have been crucial for us these last ten months or so.

1.  Nursing tank tops.  These certainly made it much easier for me to be somewhat modest when whipping out my boob seven hundred times a day (what is this, college?).  I wore one pretty much constantly for the first six months of Charlie's life, and while I was pretty happy to pack them away afterward (see: please, oh, please can I wear clothes that aren't contraptions?), I really loved them and they worked really well.  Mine were from Target, but you could certainly buy fancier ones.

2.  Nursing pillow.  We used a Boppy and then I got one of the My Brest Friend pillows.  Honestly, we use the Boppy way more (and it was also helpful when Charlie was first learning how to sit up--and Matt still uses it when he gives Charlie a bottle) and it's much more versatile than the MBF (can we abbreviate so we don't have to keep saying My Brest Friend?).  There was a time, though, that I was obsessed with the MBF and its awesome storage pocket and the way it saved my arms and lower back.  Had it not been for an effed up latch and weird positioning requirements and a host of other breastfeeding issues, I probably would have used it longer.

3.  Aden and Anais blankets.  These are the greatest and there's a reason you see them on basically every list of crap you should get for a baby.  They're especially great for warmer climates.  They're warm enough to keep warm, and they breathe enough to keep baby cool.  They're big enough to use as a nursing cover, they're great for swaddling, they're absorbent, and they're, oh yeah, like insanely cute.  You'll want at least 4.

4.  Medela pump (or a good breast pump).  Make sure you have the right size cone-shaped-part-thing that you'll be hooking up to your ladies to keep you from being a bellowing cow (phalanges?  what are those things called?  okay, according to Amazon they're called breastshields, but I swear the lactation consultant called them phalanges).  This is totally one of those things that you don't want to be skimping on, since you will be spending way more time with the pump than you ever wanted.  Mooooooooooooo!  (Also, any amount of time you spend with a breast pump is way more than you ever wanted.)  I have a manual one, too, and I wouldn't really recommend it because it's just not powerful enough, and whenever I used it I would get clogged ducts (the opposite of fun).

5.  The grass.  I originally registered for this because I thought it was really cute, and I certainly didn't expect it to be as useful as it has been for us.  We use the Dr. Brown's bottles and they have lots of parts, so it's really great to have a spot for them.  We haven't yet lost a single part, and I think it's because of the grass.

6.  Awesome stroller.  This depends on what your needs will be, but it's one of the purchases that you're actually going to use for a long time, so it's great to have a nice one.  We have a snap-n-go that we used when Charlie was still in the infant seat, and it was really convenient for quick trips to the mall and such.  But for longer day trips, for the beach, for going downtown and to the park, we've been in love with our BOB.  I got it from Craigslist for $100, too, so it's not even like you have to drop a small fortune on the stroller if you don't want to.  Also, as much as I hate to admit it, if I had a cheap or ugly stroller, I would totally have stroller envy every time I went out.  For baby #2, we're upgrading to a different type (have heard the double BOBs can be pretty giant and cumbersome), but I think we'll actually hold onto the single BOB because we love it so much.

7.  Cloth diapers.  You don't have to be a cloth diaperer, of course, but we love the crap out of them. (See what I did there?)  Our favorites are the Bumgenius, and we have been using them since Charles was a month old.  For the last couple of months, we've been putting him in a disposable when he's sleeping, but we still love using the cloth diapers.  I will spare you the entire cloth diapering post because there are like a bajillion of them out there on the world wide web, but we love them and plan to use them with #2 (haha) and love not having to spend a small fortune on disposable diapers.

8.  Plain white baby socks.  As much as I love the little tiny socks that look like tennis shoes or mary janes (why so cute, seriously?), mother eff is it easy to lose those things!  We have a big pack of the plain white Osh Kosh grippy bottom socks, and they're pretty much the only ones we use.

9.  Angel Dear lovey.  Truth?  I thought these things were stupid until Charlie taught me that they are comforting, super soft, super cute, would keep him from screaming, and would help him to sleep longer.  We love this particular brand because they are supes cute, have a ton of animal options (baby girl gets a racoon!), and get softer and more lovely with every wash.  Also, the heads on these are pretty small so they're easier for tiny babies to cuddle.

10.  ipod touch/iphone.  If you know me you know that I am like the most easily distracted person on the planet.  And when I had to plant my ass down for 27 hours a day nursing, it was imperative that I had something to entertain me.  Now, I don't have a smartphone because of the ADD-ness and because when I did have a smartphone I was constantly looking at it and messing with it and I didn't feel like it was prudent for me to pay $30/month to be more annoying and to be on Facebook more often.  BUT!  While nursing, the old iphone that a friend gave us was a godsend.  Later, we used the white noise app to play for Charlie while he slept.  Sadly, it recently broke (GASP!--also, do not let your baby suck on the phone), but I'm planning on getting another before our girl joins us because otherwise I'll go mad.

11.  High chair you love.  Ours is the cheap IKEA one, and I love it because it has a small footprint and is super easy to clean (also easy to take to someone else's house when we're on a trip).  There are lots of cool options out there.  Just make sure you like it and it's easy to clean.  I'd avoid anything with fabric on it because babies have like the worst manners ever and they make a huge mess when they eat.

12.  Amazon prime.  Here's the thing about having a baby that everyone tells you but that you don't believe: shit's hard to do with a baby.  So that Target trip for one thing that you used to take just because you could? I mean, you can still do that, but it's going to be a huge production and you'll have to time it just right so that your little sweet baby spawn doesn't have a meltdown in the middle of the store because he's tired or hungry (thereby making you a person that your former self would have rolled your former self's eyes at).  And driving to ten different stores in town to find the perfect one of something?  Yeah, have fun with that.  Amazon prime is $80/year (free if you have an edu email address!) and gets you free 2-day shipping on most items.  It also gives you free streaming on a bunch of stuff, and a free borrowed Kindle book each month.  I mean, it's like $7/month.  Get it, and then you'll never believe you ever didn't have it.

What did I forget?  Was there anything you couldn't live without when you had a tiny baby?

Okay, look at pictures of my babies now.  They're pretty cute.
















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