Cheerios Explosion

The baby and I were at a Corner Bakery today meeting with a group of other 2008 moms. I whipped out his bowl of Cheerios and before I could scatter some on the table, he slapped the bowl and sent the cereal flying everywhere.

I used to think I would be mortified when things like this would happen to me, but as I heard a woman at a nearby table giggle at what happened, I just had to look up, smile at her, and tickle my baby as "punishment" for making such a mess.

Simple Abundances

It was raining when I awoke this morning. I love morning rain and the cool breeze it brings. Next to me was the baby, quietly drifting in and out of sleep. And at the other end of the bed was my husband, whom I haven't seen much of the past few months due to a crazy work schedule that keeps him away from home.

Life as a new mother gets pretty crazy (especially now that he's mobile), but moments like this morning make everything worth it.

And The Things People Do

It really fascinates me how people interact with mothers and their babies in public.

The other day, while we were at Target, the baby was sitting in the shopping cart. A couple of young women were nearby, and as they passed us, one of them reached out to the baby to tickle him.

Again, I appreciate that people think my kid is cute, but I just wonder if people believe that when it comes to babies, there's no such thing as "personal space"? A mom in one of my moms' groups told a story about how a stranger came up to her at Costco and peeked inside her sling to look at her baby. Hello, privacy?

So yeah, strangers. While we were at the checkout line in Target, both the cashier and the lady behind were saying hello to the baby. Of course, social smile-happy baby that he is, he's grinning from ear to ear. The lady behind us comments, "look at that, he's flirting with strangers already!" I respond by telling her he flirts with all the ladies, to which she replies (quite unnecessary, I thought) "oh, I come with too much baggage."

Sheesh.

The Things People Say

As I was loading the baby onto the shopping cart at Trader Joe's today, a lady a few feet away from us commented that he's such a cute baby. I smiled, and she followed with, "Good job!"

I felt like I was given the thumbs up for popping out a good-looking kid.

Babywearing

The baby and I just tried a mei tai for the first time yesterday and WOW. Comfy!

We've tried a Hotsling first, which was fine when he was smaller because all he would do is curl into a little ball. Once he started getting bigger, it just felt like he was squished in there. Then we got a Moby wrap, which is also pretty comfy, but all that fabric just got too hot, not to mention it's a little cumbersome to put the thing on. So I decided to try a mei tai.

I found a used (but in good condition) BabyHawk from another mama over on the FSOT boards on Diaper Swappers. It arrived yesterday, and I promptly tried it on. (I had to check out some videos on YouTube for visual instructions.) I wore the baby around the house for about half an hour; I walked around, sat, got up, etc while talking on the phone with my parents. For the entire time, I was comfortable, and just as importantly, the baby seemed comfortable. Or, at least, he didn't seem to mind since he was calm and quiet the entire time. (Normally, my kid is blabbering and extremely fidgety when he's on the floor or sitting in his high chair.)

The mei tai I got has a minkee lining, which I wonder if it'll make things hot. We have a few things to do outside today, so it'll be the perfect chance to really try this out.

Bad Parenting Moment

My son, for the most part, has been a fairly good sleeper at night. It was really only in the early months that I had a lot of trouble with him. However, last night, I just couldn't get him to sleep in his crib. He would start wailing as soon as I left his sight. I was so exhausted that I gave up and brought him to our bed. I laid with him until he fell asleep, then went downstairs to load up the dishwasher, make some applesauce, and maybe workout for a bit.

Next thing I knew, I heard a THUD from upstairs, followed by a very loud cry. I ran to our bedroom to find my son on his back on the (carpeted) floor. I scooped him up and consoled him, then returned him to the bed. I quickly poked and prodded him to check for anything that might be sore, but he seemed fine. After a few minutes he quieted down and fell back asleep. I guess he had woken up, crawled around the bed, and somehow crawled around the pillows and off the bed.

I know I'm not the only parent to have kids who fell off couches and beds, but I still feel horrible. We're at another stage, one where my baby is now much more mobile than he's ever been, and I'm trying to deal and figure out how to deal with things. My kid is now always bumping into things and furniture, grabbing things he shouldn't be and putting them in his mouth (like mom's indoor slippers and the cat's tail), and some days it just makes me so exhausted.

And this is just the beginning!

Going Out in Public

After having a baby, going out in public has changed. While there were always those who would nod or smile at you in the event of eye contact, I've noticed that the rate of this happening has increases when I am out with my baby.

(Gee, what a way to make me feel invisible when I'm not mom.)

Today at the grocery store, an older lady stopped us in the aisle to express her surprise that my baby can sit up so well, "seeing how small he is." Now, because my son was born seven weeks early, he IS small, and sometimes I worry about his growth. His pediatrician is always trying to remind me not to worry about it, but it's just something I can't help. I wanted to reply to the lady, "Thanks for reminding me that my son is a runt." Instead, I figured I'd play nice and told her how old he is and that he was born prematurely. We chatted a bit about babies' development before parting ways.

Earlier, at another store, we were in the checkout line when my son had leaned over to the side and was gnawing on the fabric of the shopping cart cover. All of a sudden, the lady in front of us came around and grabbed my son to pull him back upright. I was a little shocked and caught off guard; while strangers have certainly patted my son before, this was the first time someone grabbed him. I think she was trying to tell me not to let them lean off like that, and I told her that my son was fine, he just wanted to chew on something. I thanked her anyway and stuck a clean cloth wipe in my son's drooling mouth.

We were at another store a few days ago, when another mom with her baby daughter stopped us in one of the aisles. She asked me how old my son was, to which I replied with the usual, "eight months, but he was born seven weeks early." I then felt obligated to ask her about her daughter, which was awkward. She then asked if my son was "half." I knew what she meant -- is my son bi-racial? "Yes," I answered. I looked at her very Asian daughter. "Yours too?" I asked. "Yes, his father's Japanese," she replied. "Ah..." was all I could say. "I think half babies are the best looking ones," she continued. Obviously, I'm biased, so I nodded in agreement. She continued to chat and I tried to keep listening, but either she spoke too quietly or my hearing is worse than I thought. She eventually started walking away as she was saying something, so we turned around to go back down the aisle. "Well, have a good afternoon," she quietly called out. "You too!"

Our Lazy Saturday

Having a lazy Saturday afternoon at home.

After breakfast and his morning nap (gee, all 30 minutes of it), I took E for our regular Saturday morning trip to the farmers' market in Irvine. He still has a lot of food in the freezer, but it's like gas in my car: at some point I like to refill before the idiot light comes on. We just picked up some peaches, pears, apples, sweet potatoes, and some vegan dinner rolls.

Afterwards, we went over to the courtyard so I could get my usual order of crispy tofu and boba tea while E had his lunchtime bottle. I gave E some Cheerios to play with while I ate, but somehow felt compelled to give him some of my white rice. He had a few bites which I fed using my chopsticks. Some other mom was giving me a weird look while I was doing this. It's not unusual for moms to feed their kids using the same utensils, right? I mean, I'm with my son ALL THE FREAKIN' TIME so whatever germs I have, he's likely gonna have. (And it's not like he hasn't tried to stick his hand in my mouth/nose after he's been chewing on his fingers.) Meh.

We walked around for a while after eating, and I saw that Jamie Lee Curtis was going to be at the children's bookstore for a signing. I got excited, but it wasn't for a few more hours and I needed to bring E home for his afternoon nap. He zonked out on the drive home, so once we got there I dropped everything on the kitchen counter and carried him up to our bed. He woke up for a bit, but we both ended up passing out and napping for a good hour.

Now the baby's getting some floor time and every few minutes I'm wrangling him away from something he shouldn't be grabbing/putting his mouth on. I think maybe I'll take him outside for a little stroll (depending on how hot it is) before we start winding down for the day.

Eve Ensler on Sarah Palin

Yes, yes, I know. Another post about Sarah Palin. Obviously, her supporters have every right to do so, but that doesn't change the fact that the idea baffles me. (And I'm sure there are those who feel the same about Obama's supporters.)

So I came across this on an LJ Community and on HuffPo this morning, and I just had to repost. Eve Ensler -- writer, activist, feminist, best known for her play The Vagina Monologues -- wrote a piece on her thoughts about Sarah Palin. As a woman and feminist myself, Ensler -- and Gloria Steinem before her -- have expressed and described a lot of my own feelings about Palin. (Except I'm not having nightmares about her. Yet??)

Drill, Drill, Drill
by Eve Ensler
September 8, 2008

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Songs and Lyrics

Taking a break from being an angry liberal here ...

My son LOVES it when you sing to him. He can be cranky and whining, and as soon as I start singing, he quiets down and pays attention. Sometimes I think I even see his mouth move, as if to mimic my own while I sing. Singing to him has been, so far, the ONLY thing to work when we're in the car and he's cranky. I've been known to sing extremely long versions of Old MacDonald while driving. My throat may be hoarse by the time we get home, but to me, few things are worse than a screaming baby in the car so it's all worth it.

As such, I'm always trying to add new songs to my repertoire. One day I remembered Do Your Ears Hang Low? and tried singing it, only to realize that I could barely finish the first verse. After a bit of searching online, I came across this site with a HUGE collection of children's song lyrics. BusSongs.com has collected over 1,600 lyrics and words of children's songs, lullabies, and nursery rhymes for the past five years. What I love most about the site is how easy it is to get around. You can browse for songs by Category (Halloween, Silly, Sports, etc.) or by the first letter of the song title. They also provide lists of Top Rated, Top Visited, and Recently Added songs.

BusSongs.com goes beyond just providing lyrics and words though. They also give as much background information on each song or rhyme, any known alternate words, as well as options to rate, give feedback on, and print the words. Some of the songs also come with free ringtones for your cell phone, a downloadable MIDI version, or a video.

When it comes to children's songs, I don't know if a more comprehensive site exists. The best thing about BusSongs.com is that it's totally FREE! Now excuse me while I learn the lyrics to Camp Grenada.

McCain's Distortions

Feigned Outrage and Lies

So the latest "controversy" to come out of the wonderful world that is the 2008 elections is that McCain has asked Obama to apologize for his sexist "lipstick on a pig" remark because it was obviously about Palin. Except ... it wasn't. Obama was referring to McCain's economic policies, which in context of the phrase, means that it's more of the same 'ole thing.



I'm perplexed at how McCain can cry sexism now, when he's been well documents in using the term himself, with regards to Hillary Clinton no less. Please help me understand this ... is it just that McCain and his advisers don't remember his use of the term in the past, or that they don't consider his remarks to have been sexist (as opposed to Obama's which they do)? Or is it they're hoping their supporters don't remember or that they'll agree that McCain using the phrase and Obama using it are TOTALLY different?

Also ... I just have to get this off my chest. I'm really quite annoyed that they are still using the Bridge to Nowhere and the jet sold on eBay to pump up Palin to the public. (And what I find scary is that it's probably actually working.) So here's my question for this: for those who are glad that Palin said "no thanks" to the Bridge to Nowhere and that she sold the jet on eBay for a "profit" ... what do they think of the arguments against it? What do they think when they hear that Palin was actually FOR the Bridge to Nowhere before it became an unpopular topic? Or that the luxury jet actually DIDN'T SELL on eBay and that it ended up being sold to a contributor for a loss?

I don't expect people's minds to be changed. I just want to hear their POV and explain some of these things that the Republican party is being called out on.

Palin Might Make a Mistake

Todd Harris, a GOP strategist, slips up (?) and admits on MSNBC that the reason for Palin's press silence could be because she might make a mistake. So ... they need to groom and prep her to the point of a practical gag order?



Oh, and the bit about her asking before if someone could explain to her what exactly a VP does everyday ... because, you know, she's used to "being productive and working real hard." Nice tone there, lady. Seems like this woman doesn't think much of jobs other than her own, considering she's mocked Obama's community work and the job of vice presidents.

Seriously, GOP, WTF?

I found information about this new group from a friend on LiveJournal. Community organizers are fighting back against some unflattering comments recently made by the GOP.

Community organizers across America, taken aback by a series of attacks from Republican leaders at the GOP convention in St. Paul, came together today to defend their work organizing Americans who have been left behind by unemployment, lack of health insurance and the national housing crisis. The organizers demanded an apology from Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for her statement that community organizers have no “actual responsibilities” and launched a web site, http://organizersfightback.wordpress.com, to defend themselves against Republican attacks.

They provided some interesting quotes as well:

-Former Governor George Pataki said: [Barack Obama] was a community organizer. What in God’s name is a community organizer? I don’t even know if that’s a job.”

-Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani said: “On the other hand, you have a resume from a gifted man with an Ivy League education. He worked as a community organizer. What? [Laughter]…I said, OK, OK, maybe this is the first problem on the resume.”

-Governor Sarah Palin said: “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.”

Unless these have all been misunderstandings, I just have to ask how can this NOT sound obnoxious and elitist??

(For the record, my parents are very active within Catholic communities. They help organize events and fundraisers to help people in need. I just don't understand how you can mock people who do selfless things?)

Love for Vinegar and Dr. Bronner's

For the past week I've been using some homemade concoctions as all-around household cleaners. Taken from posts on the Green Families forum on Diaper Swappers, I've taken to task the following recipes:

Spray Bottle #1
1/2 white distilled vinegar
1/2 water

Spray Bottle #2
1-1/2 tbs OxiClean Free
16oz hot water
2 tbs Dr. Bronner's (Peppermint)

I've been keeping bottle #1 downstairs and #2 upstairs. Since I have to wipe down the baby's high-chair and kitchen counters several times a day, I'm more comfortable using the more natural of the cleaning solutions. (Vinegar is non-toxic and kills most household germs and bacteria. Plus, vinegar is super cheap!)

The smell of vinegar does dissipate eventually, but I can smell it while cleaning and shortly after. Still, while it's not the greatest of scents, it hasn't been overpowering and it's a small, small price to pay to be able to clean things naturally and economically.

With bottle #2 I've tackled mostly the bathrooms upstairs. So far, so good. The toilets and counter tops look (and smell good). My only complaint is that the chrome fixtures are a bit streaky. I think maybe I need a different cloth to dry them with.

Overall, I've been happy with both cleaners. Even though I had already been using "green" commercial cleaners before (like Method and Seventh Generation), now I clean without worrying every time my kid chomps on his high-chair tray.