It Takes a Village to Raise a Child. I cannot find a village, will my social media community suffice?

I recently joined a parenting group on Facebook called Pink and Blue Baby. I took a quick look through some of the threads in the group and right away got a feel for what the purpose of the board was – to be a resource for first time parents.

What gave it away? Questions such as; At what age is it okay to take my baby out for the first time? Will my baby ever sleep? When can I give my baby “real” food? All the questions we sorted through just over 6 years ago with our first born son, aptly referred to as Linus on my blog (for the fact he carries a blankie and constantly has his fingers in his mouth). But upon further review of the threads I noticed this board is more than that. It is also serving the purpose of helping parents with their current questions, such as; Looking for play-dates, recommendations for thank you notes, loot bag suggestions, and much, much more.

I couldn’t help but think about how much the times have changed since we had our first baby, Linus, who will only be 7-years-old in just over a month. When he was a baby what did we know? As soon-to-be first time parents, we took advantage of whatever opportunity we had to learn how these things called “babies” worked.

The first class I remember us taking was at the hospital we were giving birth at, North York General Hospital, and if I recall correctly, it was called “When Baby Comes” and looking back now, it was pretty scary. It was taught by a registered nurse and was very descriptive and technical. After Linus came – I was fortunate to be off on parental leave from my job for 9 months, – my wife and I tried to figure out what to do with a child who slept, whenever, ate a lot and pooped a lot. It was hands-on learning.

My wife found a registered nurse in the area who taught classes to a group of local moms, and these moms formed the baby group that our son grew up with. All the kids were around the same age (one born mere minutes after our son at the same hospital) and it was this group that served as our resource for the first year, to year and a half of Linus’ life. Food, fitness, health, growth spurts, etc were all discussed in the class, and then with these moms. The moms, became the dads and the dads would all get together, head out for wings and beer and talk about our kids. It was great. With this group came the siblings for most of the parents and with that the purpose of the group became clear. Play-dates, birthday parties, all kinds of questions, and much more were discussed through this group in person and via email.

While my wife was increasing her knowledge on the baby front, I was using my parental leave to work on my MBA. I found the evenings worked great because I wanted to be around to help out as much as possible. I would take Linus for long walks each day – he would score me free shwag all over the place, especially at the local Starbucks. I did as many diaper changes as necessary; I loved feeding him and reading books to him. It was trial by error on my side and a lot of research on my wife’s side. Why don’t these kids comes with instruction manuals?!?

Looking back, how did we ever get through baby #1 without the benefit of a cool group like this one I just joined?!? Well to be honest, it was all my wife. She read the baby books, she surfed the net looking for resources, and with her mother’s intuition she did all the rest. She got Linus on a schedule after reading that babies need structure. She arranged for cloth diapers after reading that it helps kids potty train sooner, and she made his food instead of buying it because with her science background and as a budding nutritionist she knew the added chemicals were not good for him. She sought out and then checked out kids’ furniture. She also found a great resource online which detailed Linus’ progression and explained what we could expect from them at that age on a week by week basis.

After putting in all this work, child #2, Stewie (named on my blog after the baby from Family Guy because we thought he was trying to kill us by getting up every 2-3 hours for the first 10 months of his life, without fail) was a breeze. Armed with plenty of resources and almost two years practical hands on experience we were ready for anything.

Linus, you see, was a textbook baby. We knew this by reading the textbooks. So was Stewie, and so far our third (and last) child, Berry fits that mold too. These kids follow the models laid out in the text, so the more we read, the easier it was to predict their next growth spurt, or when their teeth were set to come it. It made life much easier for us.

One think I noticed as we both headed back to work was that we now had a family of 6 (3 kids and a nanny) and running the household was that much more challenging. With work, schedules, school, programs, and meal planning and preparation there was no time for anything else outside of being a parent. Where was the time for us?

Fear not new parents, it gets better… (No, really it doesn’t). It cannot get better than being surrounded by children and the more kids, the more love, the more poop, the more shmootz, and the less sleep. If it’s not one kid getting up in the middle of the night, it’s one of the others.

Needless to say parents; no matter if you’re a first time parent or a 4th time parent, it’s all the same. Our kids will continue to grow and we will always have parenting questions. We will worry about them and in doing so forget about you. It’s okay, it’s natural and we all do it. Just keep asking those questions on this message board and when you get more experienced, you too will share your thoughts and observations about what it was like for you, as I have done tonight too, and do with regularity on my blog.

If you want to read more, you can find this urban daddy at www.urbandaddy.wordpress.com.

 

 

So so Smooth… I could learn from him.

Man, what a smooth talker!  I could learn from this one.

Stewie, I’m referring to.  5-year-old Stewie.

You see, he wore a nice shirt to school for his class picture but at some point in the day he got hot and took it off.   Of course, he forgot to put it back on which meant his individual SK picture will be of him in an army green t-shirt that reads, “Mom’s Cabana Cutie” on it, and not in a nicely chosen shirt.

When I commented to his mother that at least the shirt was accurate – he LOVES his mother, he looked down at his shirt and commented;

“Does my shirt say Mom is terrible???”

We both looked at each other, very puzzled and shocked that he would say that.

“Do you think your mother is terrible?” she asked him.

“No”, he replied with a smirk on his face.

“Do you think your mother is terrible?” she repeated?

“No” he said again, a little more seriously, still with a smirk.

“What do you think of your mother?” she asked him.

“Mom is pretty” he replied, looking very proud.

“Mom is smart”, he said right after.

Man, he learns at such an early age, eh?

Happy wife = happy life.

Happy mummy = happy tummy.

I could learn from this kid!

 

Please do not call your child a “Dumb Ass”

I accidentially called my son a “Dumb Ass” on the weekend.

Not because he opened the back door before the house alarm was disabled, not because he constantly makes his brother cry out, “NO LINUS”, and certainly not because he puts more effort into being a pain in the ass, than being a good kid… I actually don’t know why I called him that, I think it just slipped out.

To be honest – that excuse sucks – “I don’t know”. It’s an excuse I hear from him all the time.

Me: “Linus, why did you try to push your brother off the kitchen stool?”
Linus: “I don’t know”.

Me: “Linus, why did you push that girl at school?”
Linus: “I don’t know”.

Me: “Linus, why did you use a screwdriver and etch your name into your brother’s wall, then blame it on him when you know he can’t write?”
Linus: “I don’t know”.

Well, I know why I called him that and why he frustrates me so much. IT’s because he reminds me too much of me when I was that age – save for the fact that his is smarter and way cuter.

I don’t want him struggling through life being the class clown – with people laughing at him instead of with him – then getting older without having any friends and having people look at you like your a giant loser / idiot / dumb ass day in and day out. It’s hard work!

The main differences I see right away is that this boy has a LOT of confidence and we encourage him to ne his own boy, but he has got to be respectful, which I was, but he is not! That is my only must for him. He must behave and be kind. I expect it from him and we battle over this. His biggest issues to date surround respecting others personal space.

But enought about Linus…

In general, feel it IS better to be a dumb ass than a smart ass, right?!?

So who else is a dumb ass… Let me tell you who. The woman in the Tim Horton’s drive-through who parked on the other side of the path and walked over to the microphone to place her very LONG, complicated coffee / lunch order. If she really wanted to walk, and order something that crazy, she should have gone inside. It’s called a drive-through, not a drive in, park, get out, order and hold up everyone else-through… dumb ass.

Then again, when she went to pick up and pay for her food, she parked far enough to the side that she had to again get out of her car to grab her food and pay, but close enough that when she opened her door she smashed it up against the brick wall. Ouch. Dumb ass indeed.

And then there was a family a Home Depot… I was there to get a key for our house for our nanny who lost hers. While there I saw they had some beautiful raspberry and grape plants that were huge, on sale, and already flowering so I picked up 6 of them.

They are heavy.

I went to the checkout line and witnessed this exchange;

An elderly woman who appeared to have severe athritis was in line with a potted flower and 2 bags of soil.

A very tall, pretty woman walked over to her with a packet of seeds in her hand and asked the woman if she would mind, if she went ahead of her.

The elderly woman agreed.

Then once in line, this womans father rolled up with his trolly full of plants and soil and together they explained to the elderly woman that they were together.

The elderly woman was frustrated but let them go ahead, the whole time I was behind the elderly woman holding 6 heavy plants.

Man these people took forever. The cashier was in training and once they were finally checked out, this family – now 4 of them – needed help getting their stuff to their car. So after much debate (I would have said, take your fucking plants to your fucking car and get the fuck out of here – or something like that), the son went and got their car and did what I have never seen anyone do before…

He backed his SUV up over the sidewalk, in between the aisles of plants and right up to the exit of the garden centre so that neither he, nor anyone else could get out.

Then he opened the trunk and sat inside while they waited for someone to come put their stuff inside.

After a good 5 minutes, the father grabbed the stuff and tossed it inside, but then the entire family went back inside the store.

Dumbfounded, we all stood outside realizing that no one could escape the garden centre until the truck was moved and the new cashier was going to shit his pants because now the elderly woman needed help getting those bags of soil to her car.

Finally someone much more senior showed up, saw the car, freaked out that it was there, then proceeded to walky-talky the store to have it removed.

By that time, but the woman and Ihave managed to wiggle though the plants area and escaprre for light, fresh air and food and water.

That, my friends, makes this family a family of dumb-asses.

Agree?

 

Get your hands off my f*cking kid. And the other joys of strangers judgementally parenting your children on your behalf.

I was aproached by a blogger-friend of mine about guest blogging on my blog after she saw my Thursday Thirteen last week was done by a friend.  

If only she knew that I was just too lazy to write it so I farmed it out. LOL

So of course I said okay to her, and below, you will find here contribution to this blog, and while I could toss out a disclaimer about the views in this post being hers and not mine, I noticed that she did not link to her blog so I will keep her cover and post it in it’s original form.

So here it is;

“Let me begin by saying I’m a blogger. Not an every day blogger, but when the mood strikes me. My blog is about finding the joy in the mundane, and truthfully, what I need to let out here and now has nothing to do with joy, or finding the sweet with the bitter. This rant has been six years in the making, and the straw that broke the camels back happened in just the last 10 days, at of all places, my kids’ karate dojo – and I’ll get there.

Please be advised, my ranting tends to go in different directions at times, but I seem to always be able to tie it up with a pretty feel good ribbon at the end. Except this time, I expect there will be no pretty ribbon at the end.

Quick disclosure – I know Urban Mommy and Urban Daddy through the vicious social collective of the late 90′s and current era known as the baby group. And clearly it was a relationship that has lasted, and so you may truthfully infer that whatever I write aobut baby groups in no way reflects on Urban Mommy in particular, because if she was a judgemental parent like the ones I’m about to rage about, we would clearly not still be friends 6 years out.

Furthermore, Urban Mommy pretty much represents what I wish I HAD met in baby groups, and mostly didn’t. But I met her, and that still stands as pretty cool (being true to self, had to find one piece of joy to throw into the spew).

I argued with myself as to should I be linear in this guest blog, or should I start with the last week and then take you into the distant past to give you perspective on what finally led to my belltower moment. While my husband is a purist for linear, I believe there’s dramatic effect in hollywood movies when you see as the first scene of a flick something clearly out of context as scene 1, and then you flip to script that says -4 years earlier – a la Inception which was in fact a great flick, despite my hatred of Leonardo Dicrapio (spelling error intended). So I’ve decided to go with the Hollywood bait and switch. You can tell me afterwards if the effect was all I’d hoped.

Let us begin last week. IronLady (Irnldy on twitter) signed her kids up for karate at the lovely dojo near her house. Older daughter took right to her class, no cajoiling needed, having a great time. Younger son, refered to ironically as Easy-E was not faring so well. He’s been reticent about ‘new’ since he came out of me a few years back. And generally his hobby of choice will always include hanging off of me or ironhusband, while we struggle to walk a balance bean with 35 pounds of toddler attached to us. So after all our experiences with Easy E, we knew what we needed to do to get him to go into his dragons karate class.

First and foremost, for success, we needed to not be in the room with him. He did ok for a few minutes, and then began bawling his head off to the extent that the entire dojo was staring wondering what the f*ck was up with that KID. As I am his mom, and I know him best, and have at least 3 visibly scars to illustrate that I know his strike zones, clearly I had an idea of what I’d do in that situation. There were two paths:

PATH A – I get down on the ground, hug and kiss and soothe. This path looks good to other parents, it says I love and I care and I nurture. But in Easy E’s world, it means it’s over lady. I get to quit and never come back.

PATH B- I stay standing upright, I listen to him, and then encourage him to rejoin. Again and again. Don’t want to rejoin? Ok, I want to go watch your sister. Followed by more crying. Sound bad to you? Maybe, but don’t judge. Because in our case it happens to be the right thing to do and I’ll get there later.

Choosing path b, clearly, I continue this until a “Perfect Mommy” breaks in. “How old is your child?” “Oh my, he’s so young, how can you expect so much from him??”. Then, gettting down on one knee, begins to stroke Easy E’s face and tell him it’s ok, he doesn’t have to do anything, and essentially negating every word I just said. This goes on, while I bite my tongue and stay upright. Until finally the sensei comes out of the room to see what’s up and also gets down on one knee to talk to young Easy, while the other mother is still offering of course all the love that I had vicisously (obviously) held back, all whilst giving me nasty looks. He tries to talk to Easy but can barely be heard over Perfect Mommy’s coooing to my boy. Finally, I say to PM – “he can only hear one voice at a time, and I’d like it to be the teachers’, thanks”. All while seething.

Needless to say, the exchange pissed me off. When we returned for attempt #2, there she was again, in full Perfect Mommy glory. LOUDLY EXCLAIMING to all nearby that sweet little Easy E was ONLY THREE FOR HEAVENS SAKE. And wondering out loud to herself and those in earshot “I just can’t understand why some people push a young child so hard, it’s just so unfair”.

Now needless to say I’d three days to rehearse what I’d say to her if she had the nerve to strike again, and boy did those rehearsals come in handy. And I quote myself here: “You know, you have a lot of opinions on what I’m doing wrong here, and how I’m damaging my son for life – which means, I can only guess, that you have brilliant never fail parenting suggestions at your fingertips that will be equally useful for all parents, regardless of the type of child. And that’s fantastic. I also would have to guess, given that you have attempted to take over the poor parenting of this child, that you will also be offering to take over all of the financial obligations related to him, and furthermore will be staking out his educational path from here on.. No? In that case, BACK OFF and stop talking to both of us, and while you’re at it, stop talking ABOUT us to everyone in the dojo.

She backed aways, and I continued my approach of getting Easy E some independance of his own for the first time in his life – and guess what? On class #3 he went in, on his own, did the whole class, and loved it. Same with class 4. Lesson learned bitch? I KNOW MY KID. YOU WILL NEVER KNOW MY KID. GET THE F*CK OFF MY KID. And take your superior feeling, stick it where the sun don’t shine, and feel the glory in knowing that YOUR children are perfect, and will never make scenes in public, and you’ll never have to feel judged by 100 pairs of eyes on you……….. or will you? Because if there’s one thing mommying has taught me, is that the judgemental glare escapes no one.

Enter the BABYGROUP:

These are time honoured traditions. Newly glowing mothers coming together as a community to form a baby oriented coffee clatch. Where I assumed it would be a relaxed varietal of women with babes in arms, discussing literature, fine food, movies, anything. Which we didn’t. In fact, ad nauseum, we discussed babies. Pooping, eating (organic??? yes of course!!!! to do otherwise would be murder as irnldy hangs her head in shame) Sign language? Baby Einstein??? Week after week, I kept thinking we had all the baby issues out of us, but we never did. What I did learn was a whole lot of what I did wrong, thanks to the perfect mommies in my 2 separate groups:

1. Only breastfed for 3 months the first time, switched to formula. Selfish, robbed my child of precious mother antibodies, robbed both of us of sking to skin bonding time. Will eventually explain it when she’s diagnosed with dissasociative personality disorder, and is unable to form meaningful relationships while she needlessly fights RSV and flus and hepatitis that my mothers milk could have saved her from.

2. Did not babyproof the house until well AFTER daughter was walking. A death trap. A baby group was actually cancelled by another mother scheduled to be in my home because of my lack of vigilant baby proofing, followed by a smug email informing me I’d be taken off the schedule if I didn’t take immediate action to fix the problem. I never did. My kids are still alive.

3. I raised issues other than feeding/diapering/burping/cooking organic baby food/shopping for useless baby shit, labeling me the mother who didn’t give a shit about being a good mother (or their view of a good mother). I was supposed to be feeling guilty about using jars of mass produced baby food – I didn’t care, and even the not caring got me in deep with the mommy police. When I raised other issues, it was “anyone gone OUT without a baby lately???” which wasn’t to say I don’t love my kid – it was to say that we still need to be thinking and functioning intelligent people outside of our reproductive prowess. This was met with stone wall silence.

4. At one of my daughter’s early on drop off classes they had parent volunteers on the roster. One day, I get a note from my parent volunteer that day telling me she spent the entire time watching my strange little girl, and truly felt I should know my daughter is Autistic. She’s not. (and yes, we eventually did have her tested and dealt with her speech and language issues, and she’s not autistic). Can you imagine getting a note from some judgemental volunteer with no credentials who was supposed to be helping server juice telling you she did nothing but sit and document how WEIRD your child is, and then offer a diagnosis what would shatter most parents???? Can you imagine ever having the nerve to do that to another human being?????

I have 6 years worth of these saved up,and I could hold hostage urban daddy’s blog a long time to get it all out, but I think you’ve got the gist. The truth is people, we are not a village raising a child anymore. We are tiny fiefdoms unto our own homes, and our impact on others is neglible at best, and bearing that in mind, wouldn’t you prefer knowing that at least your impact caused no harm that day? And how about all the judgementals out there, on the day that YOUR child pulls his pants down in the middle of Metro, screaming at the top of his lungs I DON’T WANT TO GO HOME AND I DON’T WANT PANTS AND I WANT TO RUUUUUUUUUNNNNN NAKKKKKEEEEDDD - what will YOU hope the other people around you do???? Because I can give you one certainty – every single one of those fuckers is judging you, judging your weirdo kid, and will tell at least 2 people about it while refering to themselves as a parent that NEVER would have allowed that kind of thing because their own parenting was so very spot on perfect to begin with.

I’m just saying. And to the lady who started this rant, when she got down on the floor and stroked my son’s cheek – When you’re moment of public humiliation parenting comes, I can only hope I will be there to soothe your perfect children the way you soothed mine. You may also be interested to know – Perfect Mommy, if you are reading this, that Easy E loves karate, and every day wakes up demanding to know if it’s dojo day. Because I did what I knew was right FOR HIM. Respect it, or back the f*ck off.”

Thank you IronLady! I’m going to look for Perfect Mom at the dojo this weekend.

So with that, I pose this question to those of you who made it through this post, if you have been put in a position where your parenting choices have been questioned by a stranger, or if someone has made reference to something you have decided to do in a judgemental manner.

Curious to hear the feedback.

 

A trip to the dentist – Big eye opener!

I have a confession to make…  I love to floss my teeth.  I’m kind of addicted to it, but I was not always like that.

When I was 26 years old I got my first cavity.  Two of them actually.  They were in between my back two molars, where the teeth are very tight together and were the result of not flossing regularly.

Having them filled hurt – even though my dentist gave me laughing gas to help out, so I swore to not let that happen again and started flossing my teeth. 

I had containers of dental tape all over the house – and would floss in bed, in the bathroom, in front of the TV… It was never ending. 

So I made sure that I got my wife and kids to the dentist as soon as they needed to be there to have their teeth cleaned, get that toy from the toy chest and let the family know that going to the dentist is a positive experience. For the better part of 20+ years, I have been going to Bayview Hill Dental Centre (way up at Major Mackenzie and Bayview Avenue in Richmond Hill) and it’s been a long time since anyone in my family has been nervous going to the dentist.

What I did not know, however, was that my 5-year-old son had tight back molars like I do (he’s lost 3 teeth already and another on the way so his teeth are shifting around) and that he needed to floss his teeth at 5 years old.

But boy, do we all know that now!

His first trip to the dentist in a year had a shocking twist as he has 6 cavities! 6. Of those six, only one is a serious cavity that needs to be filled right away, but there are 3 others which have broken through the enamel and will probably be done too. The last two are to be watched as they are in his back molars which don’t fall out until he is 12 years old.

I wonder how he is going to handle this filling of the cavities as he doesn’t even really understand what it means to have a cavity. At least he will now learn how to floss his teeth, and the importance of brushing twice a day and not eating sweets before bed (not that he does that, like ever).

The hygenist tought him how to floss with this little sticks and with the dento-tape / floss and now he’s a pro. He is scheduled to have his teeth filled next week – 4 of he can handle it and at least 2. He will get laughing gas.

The first thing he did whenever he saw anyone was to tell them about the 6 cavities. Geez. But this is a kid that does not eat sweets in a household where we do not eat sweets. It’s just a result of food getting stuck and rotting…

On the bright side, we now floss as a family every night…

It’s actually quite fun.

And now I know why his breath was slightly off for the better part of a year…

Duh!

Update:

He had 2 teeth filled and the other 2 are on the watch radar for now. We all continue to floss and brush as a family every night.

Watching him in the dentist chair was funny. He asked a TON of questions and even after the nitrous oxide mask was put on his nose, he still took it off to speak. Once the gas was on, he was giggling and laughing, it made me laugh so I had to leave him there with his mummy.

After the dentist him and mummy went out for dinner – just the 2 of them – and she let him order. He LOVED it! They even brought me some leftovers for my dinner (yummy Chinese).

I think this whole experience and the dinner with mummy is a good way to teach him that as he approaches 6-years-old, he needs to be accountable for his actions and if he’s good, he gets special treats like a date with his mummy.

 

Justin Bieber

Who or what the fuck is a Justin Bieber?

I heard a song on the radio and thought it was a pre-pubescent girl.  Good thing the announcer said it was this Justin-thing.  It irks me to hear children singing about love and relationships.

All along I thought Justin Bieber was just a link to a gay teen porn site…

I learned something new today.

 

Your baby cries in the middle of the night… Who gets the kid in your household?

This is one of the most discussed topics for all new parents and until you figure this one out, it can cause some stress in the relationship. Then once you sort things out, along comes baby number 2 and you have to re-think your plan and start again.

Scenario: It’s 3:30am and the baby cries. Who gets up to rock him or pick him up?

Right away, I would say the father, especially if there are 2 kids, because mommy needs her rest so she can take care of them during the day and so she will have enough breast milk so she can feed the baby without falling asleep.

So what happens if baby wakes up at 3:30am, then stays up until 5:30am, and daddy has to get up at 6am for work?

You have to talk to your spouse.

Now toss in the scenario that you, the daddy has to go to the office and mummy is sick and cannot get up in the night, or worse, once she is awaken, she cannot go back to sleep?

So as a newbie dad of now 2 boys, I asked this question; Who is better at calming the baby? Is there not a person that can be hired to do this? What do you do in a case where the baby gets up but both parents need to sleep? Take turns? I really don’t know.

What I do know is that for the past week or two, we’ve both been getting up and lately it’s been the UrbanMummy who has been taking care of the baby and letting me get my 5 hours sleep. She has been awesome for me in that way.

Not only has she been taking care of the night wake-ups but I came home from work today and found that she had, taken the kids to the doctor, taken Linus to a drama program, worked on her course, made dinner AND baked a banana bread. WOW. How impressive is all that.

Too often we neglect what our spouses do in a day for us, for our kids, and for thmselves especialy when you know they are as exhausted as we are.

I guess the real solution is to get that little ball of joy to sleep through the night. Yeah. Stewie you must sleep! Good luck. I’ll just try to get through the day on 3-5 hours sleep. I’ve been doing that for a couple years already since I began my MBA and Linus was born. What’s a few more months, right?

Yawn.

Excuse me, I feel tired.

ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

What I forgot from one child to the next

After child number one, Linus was born, every little thing was new and amazing.  So now here we are the second time through and Stewie is 5 days old and he’s already doing things that I do not remember.  As well, there have been some really nice, supportive people who have appeared in our lives to make things a little easier.

For example;

I don’t remember Linus trying to roll over at 4 days old, like the new baby, Stewie does…

Or, Linus smiling at me at 4 days old (eventhough UrbanMummy insists it is just gas)…

Linus did NOT breastfeeding this well…

I do not recall having so much food in the fridge and freezer (thanks to some great planning by UM so we’d have food I could make so we can actually eat)…

I totally do not remember the belly-button cord stinking so horribly as it rots and falls off. UGH.

The first time around there was no one so thoughtful as to bring by bran muffins for UrbanMummy for after birth issues. Our neighbours and friends brought by a batch of them – still warm – and they were “warmly” received. From this day forth, we will try to so the same for new Moms. What a thoughful, caring gesture…

So many offers of “anything we need, anytime”, from so many friends, families and fellow bloggers.  For example, the very kind Haley-O of Cheaty Monkey fame has offered no less than 4 times.   She rocks!  Once she de-toxes, I see a coffee visit, since I am off work for the next 3 months…

I don’t remember UrbanMummy being this proud about something she has accomplished (since making it down the aisle). She was AWESOME! The next day she was up and walking around. This woman ran a marathon and came out on top. She worked hard this pregnancy to make sure the birth was not as complicated as Linus’ and because of her determination, it was no where near as difficult.  A home birth with no meds… Way to go UM!!! I’m so proud of you…

It’s nice to not care about what is going on at the office and getting back in touch with so many people that I lost touch with since Linus was born, 22 months ago.

Is it possible to be so damn happy and so very stressed at the same time?!

 

Some First Child Musings

Some musings about our first child as he approaches 2-years-old.

I love the honesty of children.  In the past few days Linus has taken to pointing at my stomach and saying, with great enthusiasm; “BIG Daddy”.

The more we laugh together, the more he tries to stress the word ”BIG” in that phrase.

I like to reply to him with; “Little Happy Boy”, as I point at him.

He loves it.  It makes me laugh that he’s able to distinguish between little him and very large me.

********************************

Months and months ago UrbanMummy bought almond butter at, like $17.99, for Linus to try.  Of course, as gets more and more picky about what he eats, he did not like it.

We tried to give him just a little to try on a piece of toast, but after touching his tongue to it, he shook it off and said, “no” to it.  

I actually don’t like it either.  I like raw almonds, and smoked almonds, and peanut butter, but not almond butter, so we used almost the rest of the jar in a very yummy noodle dish that UrbanMummy created.

Well doesn’t it figure that the other day Linus pointed at my sandwich and he said “Linus, Eat”, (it was a peanut butter sandwich) so I ran downstairs and brought him a piece of bread with almond butter on it and gave it to him.  

Sure enough he ate the rest of the piece and even asked for more.

Too bad we all but finished the jar – had just enough for that one piece.  I think we found something else for him to eat that he likes.  High in protein, organic…

More musings to come.

 

We adopted a kitten for our son (and ourselves)

Kittens. Crazy. But who knew? I certainly didn’t.

This past Sunday, which happened to be father’s day, we took our son to the humane society and picked out a kitten for him. We had three cates (they came with the wife) until 2 of them died, both within the past 6 months and both at great ages.  One was 19 years old and the other 15 years old.

Having only one cat turned out to be very odd for me after spending 6 years together with three of them.  As Urban Mummy put it, “the cats to people to square foot ratio was very good. Now, not so good.”

We got this kitten to help the ratio and because Linus loves cats.  He named his own kitten Owen.  We’ll call him that too…

Well Owen, is crazy. After 3 days, he wont leave me alone. While I was working on my laptop, the little critter was doing laps of my head, running around my neck sometimes stopping to look me in the eyes. Then he followed my feet around. Stopping inbetween them, trying to stay close in case I left the room, or so he could get a good run at my shins. Crazy.

At 2 in the morning I could her the rattling of the cat toys as they moved from one side of the bathroom across to the other. He was playing. Awwww.

He’s a little cutie!!!

Welcome to the family, Owie!