’tis the season

And not the happy season.  Summer is around the corner and we’re going to start seeing stories about parents leaving children in their cars.  This is one thing that can be prevented.  Leave your purse or wallet in the back with the baby.  Or better yet get one of these http://babyalert.info/home.php

Marble Cat

Marble Cat has always been one smart kitty.  The first night she was home she stole a chicken McNugget by waiting on the sidelines until everyone was watching something else.  Now what she was planning on doing with that McNugget I’ll never know because it was bigger than her head at the time.

She continued that smart problem solving.  She figured out how to open doors at my mom and dad’s old house.  The doors didn’t latch properly so she played around until she found out if she stuck her paw under it she could bat at it until it just opened.  For doors that opened in she knew she could toss her weight on it and BAM! it would open.

Getting into the garage was always an adventure.  She knew the timing on the door.  So, as you would leave the house you had to do this mad dance to get out and get the door closed before she could shoot through it into the wondrous play ground of the garage.  And when we moved here she saw the garage door attached to the kitchen, something she’d not seen in 4 years, and knew what that was and began her pleas to go into the play land.

She’s also figured out how to use her body weight to wedge windows open wider so she could get into them.

She is also a creature of habit and when those habits are changed she will make her displeasure known.  Generally but peeing on the bathroom rug.  But sometimes by coming by you in a head fake of love.

But she’s never been fond of children thanks to my youngest niece.  Lex never wanted to leave the cat alone even when we’d tell her and move her time and time again.  So she, Marble, figured out that if she hid in a few choice spots the baby couldn’t get to her.

She’s a little standoffish, more than a little snooty when she wants to be but she’s my baby girl and I adore her to bits and pieces.  I love those quiet times when I settle down to sleep and she lies on my chest and she purrs.  And oh my she can purr.  Like a little motor.  She sits and she waits for me to come to bed on my pillows and once she sees me start to move she walks up my legs then onto my chest and she settles in until I fall asleep.  Then she moves between my knees or behind them and spends the rest of the night there.

Obession

Oh man I love GHIII.  I love the songs, I love the challenge.  I love playing.  I love it love it.  About the only thing I could possibly love more is Rock Band.  But I won’t know until it’s out on the Wii.

Oh I loves me some WoW.  A lot.  I log in and see my little gnomes pink buns of doom and I smile.  I try to sneak an hour or so in a day now, back in the Pre Kyle days it was hours on end but he’s far more important to spend time with even when I could put him down in front of the TV for a bit.  I want to enjoy him.

But he loves GHIII too.  When I was pregnant with him I’d start to play and he’d start to dance.  Oh man I’m so proud.  Even now I’ll rock him and talk to him and Jason will be rocking out and he’ll smile and try and watch the colors go by.  So sometimes I let him watch for a bit.  Or I’ll let him watch as I play “Stinky Feet” or “I’ve got your tummy!!” with him.  His little face just splits wide open.

I was very sad the other day though when I arrived home and saw that Evil Mean Paul had taken his guitar home with him so I can no longer rock out with Jason as a band when the baby sleeps.  I shall cry when I see him next.  Probably at church on Sunday morning.

Things you don’t expect to see

A $65k Esclaide with a Domino’s Pizza delivery sign on it.

The geek in me says “Squee”

When Jason got a Blackberry I was like “meh”.  I mean, sure I knew they could do all kinds of neat things but I just didn’t see myself needing one.  But the more he did with his the more I coveted it.  Then I had Kyle and I realized how useful the phone could be.

Now, Jason got his free because the company that makes them gave them to Sprint to give to some members of their tech crew and Jason and his boss were among those.  But those things are costly and while I was now salivating over it the price tag kept me from really asking about getting one.  Even with J’s discount and the credit we’d get because I’ve had my phone for 2 years it was still costly.

Then J told me his boss really didn’t like the phone.  My ears picked up.  That was until he told me that the data package that made a Blackberry a Blackberry was $30 a month.  Granted that’s not a great deal of money but I just couldn’t justify that cash outlay on what amounted to a toy for me.  Though the geek in me still cried out for the ability to really gain net access and IM as well as have a scheduler and mini computer at my fingertips.

Well now we are adding J’s mom to our account because it’s much, much cheaper for her for way more options thanks to Jason’s employee status.  While he was doing that he found out that the data package is free on <i>any</i> account attached to the employee not just the employee phone.  Oh.  My.  Geek.

So if his boss still wants to unload his phone it’s mine.  Squee

Isn’t it funny that…

Pre Baby:

It took all Saturday to clean the living room, mop the kitchen and put a load of laundry away.

You’d hit the snooze alarm 3 times.

You’d never leave the house with out a shower, hair done and a full face of makeup.

You refused to touch anything remotely ‘gross’.

An average shower lasted 15 minutes.

Post Baby:

You can clean the living room, mop the kitchen and get two loads of laundry put away in 1 hour.

You’re showered, dressed, make up, hair done and the baby is clean, changed and fed all before your alarm used to go off.

You now think nothing of leaving the house with dog breath to get a replacement for the favorite paci that got eaten one of the cats to sooth a crying child.

You can pick a booger or clean up spit without blinking an eye.

You can now shower in 5 minutes flat.  Including a shave.
But:

Sometimes you don’t get anything done because you don’t want to put the baby down.

You enjoy the quiet of the morning when he falls back to sleep.

Nothing comes close to the joy you get when you can give your baby the one thing that will make them happy.

You still long for the days of a long hot shower

The breastfeeding guilt trip.

First I want to say outright that this is not meant to be a rant or bash on breast feeding.  My friends and family will tell you I support mothers who want to breastfeed and I do think that almost all the time it is what is best for baby and mom.

But, isn’t there always a but, a mother on a board I visit often posted that her 4 month old was suddenly losing weight, was always hungry and crying for food and that she was only getting 2oz at a feeding.  She’d tried just about every medical and housewife remedy for her low milk production.  She was frustrated and sad but said “I feel that I’ll be a bad mother if I don’t breastfeed my daughter.”
At what point do we women stop judging other women and our mothering choices.  Oh sure there are points where we need to draw the line.  Not putting a baby in a car seat, smoking around small babies and children.  Hell even stepping up to the plate and stating Pepsi in the bottle is probably not the best of ideas.  There just seems to be this feeling that we must judge other mothers for our choices.  Breastfeeding or bottle feeding, co sleeping vs. putting baby in the crib, attachment parenting vs letting grandma take the Peanut over night.  These are choices.  Doing one verses the other will not put the baby in danger.

Babies, as I’m fond of saying, are like people because they are people.  Each has their own likes and dislikes as well as mom and dad.  I’ve never been fond of locking myself into one position or another when it comes to parenting.  Oh, I knew what I did or didn’t want to do but you have to adjust.  I did not want Kyle to sleep in our room, but guess where his bassinet is?  At the foot of the bed.  He just flat out sleeps better if he can sense me around, why make us all miserable?

Believe it or not some baby’s hate being swaddled and cuddled.  Even at the tender age of weeks they know they are independent and do not want to be bound up.  Why fight that?  Because a book told you it was ‘best’?  Or because all the other mommies make you feel as if you have grown a second head and that head is smoking an unfiltered Marb while discussing the latest recipe for cat?

Guess what?  Books don’t have all the answers.  They have a lot of great ideas and advice but they aren’t some sort of bible that if we deviate from the prescribed path of baby salvation we’ll damn our offspring to hell.  You can make choices.

And breastfeeding is just that, a choice.  It’s a choice you should lean heavily to choosing of course but every mom must consider at some point it’s not the best one for everyone.  And other mothers need to put their little ones paci’s in their mouths when the bubble up that urge to tisk and tell her what a bad choice she’s made.

And trust me, in this day and age not breastfeeding is quickly becoming the harder of the two choices.  Between looks from strangers on the street to your doctor’s sigh when you announce your decision to bottle feed it’s a brave women who says “I’ve weighed the options and I know this won’t work for us.”

It’s also brave to say that you will commit to breast feeding your child knowing that there is a good deal of pain at the start, that daddy won’t be able to take on any of the night feeds when you feel like if you don’t sleep right that moment you’ll die.  Actually that’s a braver choice than deciding on an un medicated birth.

And it’s a good mom who makes her choice and lives with it.  It’s a great mom to bend to the needs of her small child to ensure that they thrive not that mom doesn’t have to deal with other mother’s who need to feel better about their own choices by demeaning hers.

Damn Darcy

This last summer J and I had a friend staying with us.  The short version of his sad tale is that his mother is insane.  I’m not sure it’s clinically insane but I do know the women is one crayon short in the box.

And so Darcy stayed with us a summer to try and think without her yelling at him in Mandarin at the top of her lungs while she gave the dog thing she has an ice cream cone.  Somehow the PO got the idea in their minds this meant Jason and I moved.  It took us a while to notice the problem because almost all of our mail continued to make it to us.  Our car bills, WE, Time Warner, and bank stuff.  You know the letters you run out to get.
Meanwhile stuff was being sent back.  And suddenly we figured out even that wasn’t consitant.  I have gotten cards that have two envlopes.  One that got to my mail box and the second with the yellow sticker stating we’ve moved and we have no forwarding address.  All the packages our most generous friends sent us for Kyle arrived.
The final shove is two fold.  Our insurance cards have not yet arrived even though I’ve called 5 times and we are now stalking the mail box for Kyle’s birth certificate and his social security card.  As it’s now 6 weeks we are getting nervous.

So I call our insurance company in a good pissed off mood and ream the rep out that yet again our cards are not at our doorstep.  A manager finally called me back today and she finally told me that our cards are being returned saying we don’t live where we live.  Well now I get even more pissed.  Mostly because it took 5 people to tell me something as simple as that.  I mean, really, how hard was it to do that?  Yes it took longer than saying “Well Ma’am, I’ll send them out again.”  Fucking lazy people.  Also I’ve fired reps on the spot who have spoken to me the way I was spoken too over the course of the last 5 months from those people.

So anyway, before I get off on a rant I can’t control, I called the Post Office and the lady there said that it wasn’t anything they’d done on their end.  Someone at the main branch here must have decided that, but she did agree with me that it’s more than weird some stuff is getting through.

So what does this mean?  Jason or I, most likely him, will have to go to the court house to get another birth certificate for Kyle then take that to the social security office to have them reissue his social security card because without these things we can’t get him insured.  Given that right know the kid has cost us almost $8k in medical bills if we had to pay them out of pocket, we are sort of in a bind to make sure it’s done.

So all this mess I lay at Darcy’s door.  In fact blaming Darcy for everything is somewhat of a sport for me and our friends.  I think this one might win the weekly “What was Darcy’s fault” pool.

The other two

My house is home to two people one baby and two cats. The cats, Peabody and Marble, feel that even though they don’t have educations or jobs, they should run the place. Just now I was dealing with a very pissed off Kyle and they sat on the coffee table staring at me. Why you ask? Because I was late serving their canned dinner. Both aren’t enamored with the new member of the house and less so when he causes their dinners to be delayed.

To be fair Marble has been with me since before I met the husband so she may have a small point in the “I was here first” war. Peabody just resents anything or anyone that prevents me from doing anything but petting him for hours on end.

They both also have a very annoying habit of sleeping on me or right at my knees. This became a problem when I was pregnant. You try moving your legs around two cats who refuse to move and then over a beach ball.

Now when I have to wake up to answer the urgent cries of my son they both continue to refuse to allow me to get out of bed then give me a look that I can only guess is the cat equivalent of the evil eye when I attempt to get back into bed. Little punks.

Yoda baby

Ok so I’m going to move my blog here.  Well one of them anyway.  For some reason I just don’t like Blogger anymore.  Perhaps it feels too much like it has training wheels.  I might proclaim my self a geek in the blog title but I’m not really one you want to call to fix your ‘net or your computer.
Today my mother told me she’d yelled at my father because he’d started calling Kyle “Yoda”.  I told her that I’d started calling him that a couple of days ago.  See, when he’s really studying you but he’s sitting up his little cheeks hang and, mommy has to face it, he’s got sort of large ears for his head.  While they aren’t elf pointy they do look less rounded than mine do.  My mother just looked at us both like we’d grown two heads that I would dare say my son looks like Yoda and my father, his grandfather for whom he’s named, would agree with my reasons for calling him that.
The best part to me was that I’m debating him being R2D2 for Halloween or Yoda.  I’d started thinking about that before I noticed the resemblance.  Now the decision is made.  Jason wants him to be Darth Vader.  I’m thinking I want to put off my child being an evil overseer for a while.