Fruit in my dessert

Happy Not to be an MLB Wife

I have always liked baseball and I married a man who counts baseball as his religion. We don't like the same teams - I won't get into that here - but every once in a while we imagine what it would be like if he were in the Majors (sadly, his promising pitching career ended in eighth grade). Okay, what we really imagine is what it would be like if we lived like a Major League family - mostly the cash part...and the jets (can you tell which team I love?). We're not young or inexperienced enough to think that all that money would buy happiness, but a jet would be nice. On the flip side, the schedule would stink. I have trouble with BH's travel schedule now. Baseball players play 162 games a year, half on the road, and that's not counting spring training or play-offs.

The one detail I had never thought about before now was paternity leave - and how they basically don't get it. In Baby On Deck, an op-ed (yes, another op-ed) by a former major leaguer in the NY Times today, I learned that the unwritten policy in baseball - and I'm guessing all professional team sports - is that if you have a baby during season you get to make sure everything is okay and then go back to work. I know a lot of professions and jobs do not have paternity leave and a lot of those dads make a lot less money and have a lot fewer perks at work and in life than professional athletes, and I think that is criminal too, probably more so. The piece made me feel bad for the ball players though, because while I think there's hope in changing laws to help the other dads out there, it's highly unlikely it'll ever be okay for a baseball player to take time off unless they simultaneously get suspended or go on the disabled list. Maybe some angry major league dads will spit at an ump or break their own finger just to spend more time with their new babies. Luckily, I'll never have to find out if BH would have been that dedicated crazy.

Phthalates, Shmalates?

So, I was just starting to stop worrying about all the cancer-causing plastic in HD's life when I read the op-ed in the New York Times yesterday that explained, in brief, the new bill that Congress is trying to get passed, to increase regulations and bans against lead and other dangerous chemicals in children's toys. Part of me is sad that a bill like this is even necessary, but part of me is glad that, if it passes, there will be one less issue related to child safety that scares me.

I still don't know who or what to believe about which plastics are bad and which are okay, what I should throw out and what I should keep, in part because every competing interest has its own thinly-veiled Web site or interest group that says something different. In the same moment I'm impressed that I have wooden toys for HD and nervous the paint is going to make him sick, and then I feed him out of a plastic bowl with a plastic spoon and he chews on his likely-vinyl bath books that have the words "non toxic" printed right on them. I look around at the increasingly plastic wonderland that is his home and tell myself that it can't be that bad, because if I let myself believe that it is, I would be too overwhelmed and feel horrible for not knowing what, if anything, is truly safe. So, we have a BPA-free sippy cup and a handful of wooden toys to complement his mostly not-BPA-free eating and drinking utensils and toys and hope this bill gets passed so I can stop flip-flopping on whether to be nervous or not about this one particular thing. Although, the fact that there is a bill - and quite frankly, a NY Times op-ed - makes me nervous.

How do you puree frozen pizza?

So my latest obsession is baby food. HD has been eating the real thing (i.e. not just sucking on me) for over two months now and I am in constant conflict about what and when to feed him. Many of my baby mama friends are making their own food and freezing it. I've pureed a few random fruits for him, but he doesn't seem to like that nearly as much as the jarred organic goodness I'm giving him. This could be the more "exotic" and strong tasting nature of the items I've chosen to puree: mango, avocado, blueberry.

The food book I got says there's a way to avoid the obsession between making and buying food - just feed them from the table. Only one catch, what's on my table, when there IS something on my table, is often frozen, pre-made, or take-out. And I still haven't given up visions that BH and I are going to outgrow this kind of eating by the time HD can tell what we're eating so he can develop super-fabulous eating habits as a young child. And, since I've been home with him, I have actually cooked things that can be considered meals on occasion. He, however, is not quite into any kind of texture yet, and if the face he made when I put a Cheerio or tiny piece of tomato in his mouth wasn't so cute, I probably wouldn't try to do it nearly as often as I do.

My more experienced baby mama friends (read: those who have babies at least one month older than HD) tell me he'll be into the textures soon enough. Like many other things, the switch will just flip one day. Lucky for me, the frozen pizzas we have make it easy to pick the little pieces of veggies right off the top. In our family, that's what we call a win-win.

Can you kill that bug?

Dialogue from the middle of a not-so-pretty argument that BH and I had the other night:

ME: There is a large bug crawling on the ceiling. Can you get it?
BH: What? Where?
ME: (Pointing) There.
BH: (Grabs toilet paper, kills bug)

Fight resumes. Intensity of fight resumes.

Is it odd that I found it very comforting in the midst of a pretty icky fight, that we could both step outside our nasty selves to communicate about something as small as a bug, particularly since I'm usually the bug-killer in our house? If only we had both been smart enough to use the bug as an "out" to end the fight altogether. That would have been way too mature.

Love it: Totseat

My favorite neighbor - a mom to two tween-aged boys (can boys be tweens or only girls?) - sent me a link to  this cool seat featured on Daily Candy way back in November, actually 2 days before HD's birth. I was finally cleaning out my email from months of build-up (a daily stress for me as the list gets longer and gmail does not allow me to categorize or create folders to clean up my mess), and I found the email, checked the seat out on-line, including lots of positive reviews, and ordered it. I don't usually make purchasing decisions so quickly but I was drawn in by the positive reviews and yes, I was wooed by the fact that it was a "European thing." I love it already and have used it at other people's houses and a restaurant. We travel frequently and now I don't have to worry about bringing HD with us to places that may not have high chairs or places where the high chairs are all in use (as was the case this weekend). And so far, HD likes to hang out and play in the seat too. He becomes more mobile every day and I do wonder when he'll just hate being "tethered" no matter how cool the seat. I'll keep you posted.

Lowering the crib and raising the bar

Sunday was a big day for us. We purchased a window AC for HD's room after standing in the AC stacks at Home Depot for 30-plus minutes trying to decide (I was the one hemming and hawing as usual - will someone be able to break into his room? do we really need it? will it be too cold?). At home later, BH was installing it and I was trying to keep HD distracted because we were post-bedtime and I said, "maybe we should lower his crib too while we're here." Turns out BH and I had the same frightened, paranoid thought about newly crawling HD the day before and neither of us said anything - now that he's on the go and pulling up on occasion, will we go in to find him dead on the floor one morning because he's stood up and flipped himself out of our fancy low-bar Stokke crib? So, my husband moved nine small screws and the crib was lowered. I didn't cry or anything but it did seem like a big deal. We also took out the bumper (yes, I know bumpers are controversial). At the end of it all, BH said, "so we've lowered the crib and raised the bar." We've provided another challenge for HD to meet and now I am excited and nervous for the morning I go in and finding him standing in his crib waiting for me to get him out. Sniffle*.

*I am not yet over the fact that I am emotional about these almost-milestones and that I can be heard saying, "it goes so fast," several times a day. On another note, I'm loving the AC in his room and now am considering one for the main floor - it is HOT out.

Commodities Trading

After salivating over the end of season 3 of Weeds last night, I checked my email and for a moment got to imagine what it must have felt like to be Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker's character) when she realized Conrad would look out for her if she ever got into trouble - excited and secure at the same time. My drug friend was one of my BMFs (Baby Mama Friends) and the drug was Earth's Best Oatmeal. It's been off the shelf and out of stock at several local grocery stores for several weeks and there's been lots of buzz among us local moms about the possible reasons why. If you know, let me know. Anyways, I got a text from a friend two weeks ago that read: X MKT on Y ST HAS EB OATMEAL! But by the time I got there a week later - nothing. We'd resorted to rice cereal (gasp!) after skipping it when HD started on solids almost two months ago. BH (Best husband) found single serving packets that got us through a few days in the middle but that was short-lived. It's been rough.

So, the email from my BMF said that she just got back from a trip five hours away (said trip was for family fun, not just to search for oatmeal) and found the oatmeal...and she bought a box for me and another BMF of ours. How nice and cool is that?! We've known each other for 15 minutes and only know random facts about each others' lives but she got me oatmeal. If only the whole world worked like this.

This is not the first time we've had this happen to us. Another PCF (parent couple friend) sent us a thank-you note for our infant/family new years' eve party and included a bubble-wrapped bottle of Mylicon, another wonder drug from our pre-smiling baby days because we'd had a conversation about how hard it was to find.

It might seem silly but I think these are valuable life moments to cherish and to continually pay forward - and not just to parents, although we are a needy bunch. Speaking of paying it forward, remind me to post about our gas & time saving trip/good deed to Ikea last week.