Team Cox

One Room at a Time

2012-02-11T14:51:00.000-08:00

I'm working on making the house feel more homey, and wanted to start with the kids' room. Decorating is definitely at or near the bottom of our life priority list, and we can live in a house with an ugly bathroom floor for a long time. But I feel like the boys room should look nice. For those readers who never saw our Boston house, I have to say, the boys' room was the highlight. Andy's mom did an amazing custom paint job to match the wendy belissimo bumblebee nursery set that I just fell in love with when I was pregnant with Owen. To this day, the thought of the new owners of the house painting over my nursery makes my heart ache and I prefer to delude myself by thinking that the 50-something lesbian couple that bought it were just so charmed by the nursery that they kept it just the way it was. Don't burst my bubble, friends, ok?

I'm not nearly as talented when it comes to painting and decorating, and sadly, the kids are really pushing too old for a baby nursery theme (although, had we stayed in our old house I probably would have kept them in the bumblebee room until they were 10 and 8. In retrospect, it's probably for the best that we left....) My lovely friend Jenna bought me an adorable package of transportation decals, so I broke out a level and a yardstick and made a line of them chugging around the walls of their room:

I used the royal blue curtains from our old dining room, and found a royal blue rug at home depot for $30, and I think that just those three things together (decals, rug, curtains) made the room look much more cozy. My mom had picked up a matching pair of multicolored striped blankets at Marshalls and gave them to me in the event I ever decided to change from pastels to primary colors, which came in handy:

Andy's mom had made wall decorations spelling the boys' names out of wood and painted them in a light green gingham-esque check to match the original nursery, and she's offered to repaint them in a royal blue and bright red, which I will take her up on. I think that once I put up those, the room will have a nice, finished look, good for the kids for a long while (I don't think Owen will be too cool for trucks until he's at least 8, do you?) but not too overdone. I'd love to paint the room, because I hate the bright white, but as you can see in the first picture the walls in all the bedrooms are textured, which the man at home depot advised me looks weird painted any color but white. So I think we might need to live with the white. Anyway, I feel good enough about this room to move one. One room down, 7 to go.

Diaper Free 2012*

2012-02-10T16:56:00.000-08:00

Are we not supposed to talk about poop in the internet? I'm not sure what the rules are with respect to future mortification of children. I'm going to use my self-imposed rule that matters related to bodily functions under the age of 4 are fair game on the internet, after that it behooves a parent to be more circumspect. But with that said: we're potty trained, folks! Don't give me any credit. Elias followed his brother's lead in deciding one day that he was ready to use the potty, and then he ran with it. Also like his brother, it was like a light switch. One day, not trained. next day, trained. He decided on Sunday he was ready for undies full time, and he's only had 2 accidents to date. One of these was a pretty impressive pooptastrophe tonight, but that one was mostly my fault for not realizing that he wasn't done going and taking him off the seat too early. He's even been dry during his nap at school all 5 days this week. I am surprised, but thrilled. I realize that I have been very, very blessed in the toileting department. Owen was done with diapers (also 100% his own doing) at right around 2, I think the June after he turned 2 in March, and Eli obviously turned 2 last week. I think it's coincidental that they both followed the same pattern, and I'm certainly not going to pontificate on whatever spectacular parenting technique I used to accomplish training without fuss. Because if there's one thing I've learned, it's that much of parenting is luck, or the absence of it. Just like I didn't do anything wrong and have a 4 year old that has slept through the night only a handful of times, I didn't do anything right to get my toddlers in undies. I am very grateful, though. I know potty training can be a huge and stressful ordeal and have many friends who struggle with it mightily, even with their 3 and 4 year olds. I also have many friends who found labor and delivery a breeze and had sunny, cheerful babies who slept through the night starting at 4 weeks. Parenting karma gets spread around unevenly, what can you do? tonight, however, I'm celebrating the end of diapers (and assuming we have no more kids, this is really the END OF DIAPERS.) that's kind of...crazy. and liberating! And a little sad. But mostly awesome. It's kind of like carrying around a 50 lb sandbag for 4 years. You get used to carrying it around. After awhile, you barely even notice you're carrying it. until you drop it, and you realize how awesome life was before you started dragging the damn thing around! diaper free....wheeeeee!

* A few people who read this blog will get that allusion, know what's funny about it, and hopefully find the juxtaposition of why it's funny to the actual subject at hand (potty training young children) amusing and not depressingly....adult.

For Elias, on the Occasion of Your Second Birthday

2012-01-25T16:38:00.000-08:00

Dear Elias, On Friday you are two! and I still can't believe it. In my head, you still look like this:

I don't remember your entry into the world as clearly as I remember your brother's. There was a lot of confusion, a lot of commotion. I do remember them wheeling me up to the special care nursery in the hospital bed, and I remember seeing you in the incubator.

I remember being out of my mind with worry on the way up to the nursery, until I spotted your gigantic, 9 1/2 pound self up there in special care with all the teeny tiny preemie babies and suddenly feeling better. Just look at you - I remember your dad and I laughing at how incongruous you seemed in that sea of tiny babies. I remember them bringing you down to me later in my room and saying you were going to be fine, and thinking "I already knew that". Besides that, it's a blur, but I can tell you your dad and I were so glad to finally meet you. you were an exceedingly laid back baby, which is hilarious because your pugnacious, extremely spirited 2 year old self has nothing in common with that baby. You used to just hang out and watch the world go by. At the time, I thought it was because you were just a mellow little spirit. Now I think you were just carefully observing your brother and taking notes on how to be a whirling dervish. Either way, you were chubby, charming, and deliciously cuddly.

This is you on your first birthday. You were adorable, but you weren't too sure about that cake. I'm fuzzy on the specifics, but I'm pretty sure you could walk but couldn't talk at 1, but you definitely already had a sense of humor.

You are a very funny guy, and we all appreciate it. Today, you told one of your best jokes. It goes like this: Eli: "Go seep?"Mom: "you want to go to sleep?"Eli: "yeah." (climbs onto the radiator and pretends to snore) "Eli seep on the radi-aty!"Mom: "no! boys don't sleep on the radiator!"Eli: Hysterical laughter. Hmm. maybe you have to be there. In any case, your brother and I think you're funny. Speaking of brother, I do know that brother was your first word - no wait, it was duck. Brother was your second word. No matter, it's still adorable. You and Owen will likely become mortal enemies at some point in the future, which is why I feel the need to point out that now, you are the best of friends.

I am frequently thankful that both you and your brother are boys, because as such you will likely care less than if you were girls that I have done absolutely no keeping-of-a-baby book for either of you. Many mothers (better mothers than I, I'm sure) carefully document each step, achievement and milestone, but I never got around to it, and now it's too late. So you'll have to accept this blog as good enough, and know that even though I have no idea how old you were when you got your first tooth, took your first step, or said your first word, I still love you immensely. You're the funniest marginally-intelligible guy I know. Much Love, Mom

Speechless

2012-01-17T17:18:00.000-08:00

I had a hard time getting out of bed this morning. I didn't feel well when I woke up, and as the day went on I started to feel worse. My face and forehead were aching with sinus pressure, and by noon my eyes were watering and I was practically putting my head down on my desk. I felt like reheated doody by 3:30, so I left my office, and drove home. Normally, I pick the kids up as early as possible, but today I took advantage of the fact that their school is open until 5:15, took some advil cold and sinus, and lay down on my bed for awhile. When it became clear I wasn't going to feel better, I hauled myself up, and looked in the fridge. I had planned to make a chickpea and raisin dish over rice for dinner, but I didn't feel up to cooking, and what's more I wasn't even hungry. Andy's working late tonight, so I only really had to get food in the kids. There wasn't much in the fridge in the quick and easy category, and what there is I need for the kids' lunch tomorrow. So I decided to swing by the grocery store before I picked up the kids and get them something that required minimal cooking for dinner. In the grocery store, I run into another parent I know from the daycare my kids attend. She says hi, I say hi. She makes a joke about running down the daycare clock to get dinner shopping done, and I laugh back at her. Out of the corner of my eye I see a woman in a bright white puffy coat listening to us chat. I don't really think anything of it at the time. I pick a box off the shelf and put it in my basket. A minute later, I'm standing in the tea aisle, looking to see if they have this particular kind of minty tea that I like when I'm sick, with a shopping basket over my arm. In the basket are the two things that I have decided to purchase for the kids for dinner. Internet, I am going to admit to you: those two items were a box of macaroni and cheese and a package of hot dogs. I know! I should be ashamed. At least, the woman in the white coat thought so. She comes and stands next to me, and studies the tea. Then, she looks at me awkwardly, as if to catch my eye. I've never met her, and I work with crazy people for a living, so I'm pretty good at not letting my eye get caught. As I am about to leave the tea section, she says "excuse me", so I turn around. Readers, what I am about to relay to you is 100% true to the best of my recollection, but I was so surprised by it that I can't remember exactly what she said, so I'm paraphrasing. She said "I'm so sorry, and I know I shouldn't say anything, but this is a subject I'm just so....passionate about... and I really think it's so important, for the children (yes! she said, "for the children"!)...I just noticed that you bought those organic hot dogs and macaroni and cheese and I just think it's such a shame, I mean, it's not your fault, you're just a victim of the marketing of the big corporations, but even if you buy the organic kind it's still hot dogs and macaroni and cheese, and it so unhealthy, it's killing our children, you might as well as feed them bleach and lighter fluid. I mean..." Perhaps it was the expression on my face but she trailed off a bit after she said the part about the bleach and the lighter fluid. To say that I was shocked is a bit of an understatement. It's not, actually, that I think she's totally wrong. In fact, I think she's mostly right. I had chosen a box of Annie's whole wheat shells and white cheddar and a package of Applegate farms 'the great organic hotdogs', but yeah. I get it. The difference between what I was buying and kraft dinner and ballpark franks is more or less that the items in my basket were more expensive. I am not under the impression that buying the organic version of processed foods makes them healthy, or that my kids should eat this type of food every day, or anything of the sort. Not that it makes a difference - last I checked, I'm free to feed my kids scrapple and chili fries three meals a day, if I want. I just thought it was funny. First, I totally see the irony of the situation and invite you to join with me in laughing at myself. I can be pretty ridiculous about food myself - I'm the person that buys organic milk for 9.39 a gallon (if my friend Joy reads that, she'll have a stroke) because I'm paranoid about hormones and antibiotics in my kids' food, and in fact I literally live here in Lakeville because Andy has built a career on making commercial food service more natural, local and organic. So to find myself on the receiving end of a lecture about processed foods in the grocery aisle is pretty funny. It's actually hilarious. I also have been guilty of judging other people's food choices - all the time! admit it, you do too. I used to shop at BJs (back in the day, when we had a BJs within reasonable driving distance. sigh). I've seen what people put in their carts. I've looked at an economy sized package of totinos pizza rolls and thought something similar. But I would never, ever, in a million years, even after drinking 5 margaritas and watching 'food inc' on netflix, SAY SOMETHING to another woman, in a store! It also gave me a smidge of insight into why many Americans don't like liberals (or progressives, as we like to call ourselves). Come on, lady. Bleach and lighter fluid? Giving my kids a processed dinner when I'm feeling sick is not a crime. Feeding my kids hot dogs and macaroni and cheese from a box every night? for months and months on end? Sure, we'd have a problem there. It would be a lousy nutritional choice, but even people who make lousy nutritional choices love their children and shouldn't be accused of literally killing them by serving them dinner. I have been accused of being a humorless scold countless times - not just about food, but about lots of things. But today, having experienced an ACTUAL humorless scold, I totally get it. I mean, I'm not going to run out and vote for Santorum or anything, But I get it. It's annoying. By the way, the kids both got green beans in addition to their hot dogs and macaroni, and both ate every bite.

Owen's at Skating lessons. Mom isn't.

2012-01-07T06:18:00.000-08:00

I'm super excited this morning that Owen is at his first class of the learn to skate program at the local arena. As my devoted readers will remember, I'm a big skating enthusiast and we had Owen on skates before his second birthday. I'm also, it turns out, a bit of a stage parent when it comes to skating. Every time we take the kids to the rink and I take Owen out on the ice, Andy needs to tell me to calm down. Owen's still not a strong skater (come on! he's nearly 4) which causes me great stress. If he's going to be great he needs to be doing backwards crossovers, like, yesterday....And this is why Andy is taking him to the learn to skate program, not me. Eli and I are enjoying some low-expectations Thomas the Tank Engine and coffee. And I am waiting eagerly for the report on the lessons. I really want Owen to love ice skating. I joke about making him a great figure or hockey skater, but the truth is I don't really care whether he ever gets any good at anything. Normal, moderately successful and happy are more or less the sum total of my goals for my children. But, I do hope that both of them enjoy ice skating because I enjoy ice skating, and it's something we can share. As a mom of two boys, and not likely to have any girls, I sometimes worry that in a house of 3 men Andy and the kids will have lots to share and enjoy together where as I'll be chief lunch packer, carpool driver and homework helper. I think part of pushing the kids into skating is so that we'll have something we can legitimately enjoy together. And of course, I do realize that I need to not push too hard! That's the best way I know of to get kids to hate whatever you're trying to get them to do and possibly you (Tiger Mother's opinions on the matter are not shared by me). But, I did recently join an adult women's hockey team (ha! yes, I really did. The Salisbury Stingers. I'm joining the season late but I skate with them for the first time tomorrow. We'll see if I can still walk afterward...) and I think it would be really fun if the boys do develop an appreciation for hockey. I feel like it's something our whole family can share. And I can't wait to hear how skating lessons went this morning!

Is this better?

2012-01-01T15:59:00.000-08:00

We spent some time today playing around with the arrangement on the furniture. Which living room do you like better? The original layout is in the post prior to this one, so you can check that out to compare. We did a "floating" room within the bigger room on the advice of my friend Kim. I think it's better. what do you think?

We also got rid of the TV from the front of the house and put it in the back bedroom. It makes the front of the big living/dining area look so much better, but we still feel like the dining room table doesn't look right in the front of the house. So we still have the awkward hutch issue, but I think it's less awkward now that the living room is rearranged.

Consider these the "before" pictures

2011-12-21T18:02:00.000-08:00

People keep asking me for an update on the house, and so I thought I'd put up a little virtual tour to show you around a little bit. I know I made it sound dumpy in the last post - it's not so bad, really. Actually, despite buying it with plans to fix it up, we really don't HAVE to do much. There are a few things we've known about since the inspection that are must-repairs, and the appliances were all basically shot. We've replaced the washer/dryer and the dishwasher so far, and the fridge and the stove have maybe 2 years left in them, so those are next on the docket (but hopefully can stay in the on-deck circle a little while longer. 3 major appliances in one month were enough, thankyouverymuch.) The major problem with the house is not how much space we have, it's how that space is arranged. So here's what happens when you walk in the front door. what you see right in front of you is the following:

That's the living room. It's fairly good sized, about the size of our old living room. you can see beyond it the entrance to the kitchen. we have a nice fireplace in the center of the room. Right now, our hutch is a bit awkwardly placed besides the couch - it's serving as a bookshelf and keepsake holder at the moment. we'll revisit the dining room issue shortly. Still standing right inside the front door, if you turn to your right, you'll see the space we're currently using as the kids' playroom:

the front of the house is very large picture windows - lovely design element but not terribly energy efficient when it's 20 degrees outside. that explains the large, floor length curtains. So, the playroom space is cute, and I don't mind it. But, the problem is what happens when standing in the doorway you turn to your left:

yeah, I know. Yick. Another large picture window, and this is where we've out of necessity put the desk and an enormous tv, that used to live out of sight in the basement. The problem, of course, is that we don't have a finished basement here, and we don't really have a good spot to put either the computer desk or the TV. the people before us had a plasma TV hung above the fireplace (that's A solution, but a pretty expensive one given the only thing we really use the tv for is kids dvds and for andy to watch sports) and their office area where we have the kids' playroom. they had their dining room table in front of the front picture window. It looked ok when they had it that way, but ours doesn't really fit in. they had a rustic style farm table with long benches....we have a formal mahogany table (matches the hutch) with upholstered seats...it just wouldn't look right right in the front of the house. But, of course, that desk/tv mess doesn't look good either, so it's a work in progress. suggestions welcome. moving on - here's the kitchen.

There are two sections to the kitchen. to take these photos I was standing right in between them. the first photo is of the sink/cabinets (forgive all the dishes, I've been making candy all afternoon). to the right are the stove/fridge. The second photo was taken with me turning 180 degrees. there you can sort of see the original-to-the house glass door built ins and the eat in area. our kitchen table is just a smidge too big for the eat in nook. Enough of a smidge that I think we may need to replace that too, unless we go with one of our plans that involves moving the major appliances to the nook and putting the eat in area at the back of the kitchen. but that's a different post. I didn't really take many pictures of the bedrooms, there are three. I didn't take photos of the master because it's a mess (but I did take a photo of the fireplace in the master, a nice touch) or the kids' room because they're sleeping in it. The guest room is in the back of the house and a total disaster. behold:

Finally, there's the bathroom. the bathroom, I like, actually. everything in the bathroom is fine with me except for the floor.

Yikes. what IS that? who would ever pick that for a floor? It's clearly original to the house. andy and I need to troll home improvement websites and figure out how we can replace that, because once we do I think the bathroom will be nice. I like the fixtures the previous owners chose (they replaced the toilet, sink and retiled the shower, I think) and we found a really nice piece at ikea that fits right in the space behind the door.

and finally, one more view, of Andy watching something on the poorly-sited TV. I'm standing back by the bathroom and the spare bedroom taking the photo.

hmm. that's a lousy photo. oh well. hopefully you get the idea. so, some general thoughts. first of all, the house is very, very white. every single wall is white. I wonder if the previous owners went through and painted it all that way to make it more of a blank slate for sale? In any case, we need color on the walls. I was advised we should paint before we moved in because it was easier that way, but I really didn't want to. We did that at our old house and I felt very rushed into picking out what colors I wanted, and with the exception of the kitchen and the boys' room I quickly regretted every single one, especially the master bedroom and the bathroom. I didn't want to have to commit to colors so quickly again. I'm a girl that needs time to think. I'm also a girl that needs the advice of more aesthetically inclined friends - design and decorations aren't my strong suit. So for now, white it is while we figure things out. Second of all, the layout is admittedly not ideal. The good thing about that is that there is a full, unfinished second floor (not pictured). So, if we get motivated, we could go ahead and finish it, putting a couple (or even three) bedrooms and a bathroom up there, and change around the layout of the first floor since we'd no longer need three bedrooms downstairs. We've had three or four contractors come through and give us as many different ideas on how to do that, so we need way more time to think about that, too. Ok, I have to finish my candy plate for the kids' school and my coworkers. more on the house later.

Update to Add....

2011-12-07T04:41:00.001-08:00

The dishwasher does not work. I would like a rebate on the home inspection now.

Moving Right Along

2011-12-06T16:38:00.001-08:00

So we moved into our new house, and although this new house has approximately 1 closet, 3 (total) electrical outlets and is crawling with mice, I couldn't be happier that we are no longer living in Copake. I will say that as moves go, this was a pretty brutal one, and it's not like we don't have practice. I realized this weekend that Andy and I have moved together 7 times since we've been together, and that's a heck of a lot of moving. In case your doubt my math: we moved in together to 2205 West Grace. Then we moved to 2 Avalon Drive in Marlborough. From there to 160 Stanton Ave in Newton, then a brief stint at 24 Lyons Court, then to 55 Cerdan Ave, then to 1501 County Rt 7A, and now, here, to Lakeville. And I'm not even counting the fact that just after we met I moved to a new apartment, and between us meeting and us moving in together, Andy moved from his apartment in Lincoln Park to a friend's condo downtown. However, as little fun as all those moves were (especially the one when I was 8 months pregnant) this one was probably the worst - both for me, because I had the one of the worst bouts of stomach flu I've ever experienced (the remnants of which are still plaguing me 3 days later) and for the people that actually did the moving and the watching of the children (if it were not for my tireless brother in law and our amazing friends Sharon and Erik, our heels would still cooling in Copake). The timing of the move was bad to start with - Thanksgiving the previous week so we were travelling, I just started a new job working a normal days schedule and have no ability to take time off for 6 months, and Andy was really busy at work the week before - and then when Elias got sent home from school on Thursday vomiting with scarcely a box packed (foreshadowing! foreshadowing!) we knew things had the potential to go off the rails. Which, of course, they did. Most of my perspective of the move is comes from with my cheek pressed to the floor of the bathroom tile, but I'll tell you that from there it didn't look like much fun. We were much less packed than we should have been, the truck wasn't big enough to get it all in one go (or even two), the kids were cranky and still had a touch of sick themselves, and so overall you can probably imagine, it was a bit of a situation. On the bright side, however, we're now settling into our new house in Lakeville, which despite being old, mousy and a bit hard to live in (storage and furniture placement are a bit of an issue at the moment) is very close to everywhere we need to go so the 50 minute commute I've been slogging through each way is now toast. We're now 2 miles from Andy's work and about 8 miles from mine, and the boys' school is 1.5 miles down the road. And, when Owen goes to pre-k next year, the town elementary and middle school is right across the street! Since we now live in a place where schools serve a VERY large geographic area, and you could be putting your kid on a bus for an hour to the "local" elementary school, I'm very happy about that. Also, we knew the house was a bit of a fixer-upper when we looked at it, and we think that it can be fixed-up (in a little while, not right away) in such a way so that it will be much more liveable (and hopefully much less mousy and with a few more electrical outlets) without too much disruption and money. I think those are probably on the list of "famous last words" but we're in the bright side paragraph right now, so I'm going to let it slide. We seem to be in a really great little neighborhood, and the house next door to us just got sold to a family with to babysitting age daughters which is another plus. I haven't taken any pictures of the house yet because it's still in complete disarray - I still feel badly and we had to go back to work on Monday after moving over the weekend, so we've scarcely had time to unpack anything but the most essential boxes. You know, the trucks, the bedtime stories and the fireman hats. The stuff we can't get through the week without. Hopefully next weekend we'll have some free time to put the house to rights and I'll post some photos of the new digs.

Some things to be thankful for

2011-11-27T08:29:00.001-08:00

As we pack up our house in preparation for the second move in 6 months (yay! not.) I'm reminding myself of all the things we have to be thankful for this week. Like, a brother/best buddy to play endless hours of fire chief with:

getting into the holiday spirit early decorating gingerbread men:

ymmy desserts and matching shirts on Thanksgiving:

Hallowasn't

2011-11-02T10:54:00.000-07:00

Well, Halloween was kind of a bust this year, and most of it is my fault. Luckily, the kids are still young enough that I'm pretty sure they didn't notice, so all's well that ends well. But I must admit, I feel a tad guilty anyway. Oh, well. We decided to go to Boston to celebrate the holiday because a friend of mine was having a giant halloween party Saturday night, and also because my parents' favorite holiday is and always has been halloween. Since trick or treating was on a monday (and my new job starts in a few days, marking the end of my weekday flexibility) we decided we'd hit up the halloween party in west roxbury and then trick or treat at my parent's house Monday night. Earlier this month Owen told me he wanted to be a firefighter for halloween. which I was estatic to hear, because we already had 2 fireman hats, and it's a pretty easy costume. I figured I'd make both kids firefighters and that would be that. Of course, while packing the car for our trip to Boston, I remembered the kids toothbrushes, their blankies, my work phone, my computer, a bag of snacks and distractions for the road, two pairs of shoes for each kid and every other damn thing in my house EXCEPT the firefighter costumes. Which is how I ended up in the Watertown Target at about 5pm on Friday afternoon staring at a very, very sparsely hung rack of halloween costumes. The other worst mother in Watertown and I were standing there dejectedly poking through the sad remains of witch costumes missing the hat, a few rumpled and returned costumes which looked worse for the experience, and a wide variety of dog halloween costumes (I spent a while debating how I could get Elias into one of the larger dog pumpkin suits without raising suspicion, but alas, it was not to be). Finally, I found a doctor costume that looked undamaged and said "fits most, ages 3 and up" on the label. perfect! Paging Dr. Cox to OR 3, stat! And that's how this happened:

Clearly, that costume is not designed to fit any 3 year old this side of the NBA. I couldn't figure out what had happened until I looked more closely on the label. Yes, in prominet letters it did say "fits most ages 3 and up", but in much smaller letters on the side of the cardboard was a little letter "M". On the back, I noticed that they had a size chart - XS, S, M, L, XL. Ahah. so in fact, you have to buy the size that corresponds with your kid's age, with XS being 3-4. duh. So the M was for ages 6-8. oh, well. we rolled up the legs and arms and just went with it. Eli ended up with the last Yoda costume in the store, which was pretty much just a robe, because he refused to wear the hat unless I was actively bribing him with candy:

and in fact, he only agreed to wear the robe for about 5 minutes. for some reason he really hated the yoda getup. I have no idea why. We're not big Star Wars fans around here (I've never even seen any of the movies) and so of course neither of my kids know or care who Yoda is, making it overall a flop of a costume. The above pictures are of both kids right before the halloween party. they both took them off immediatley, Owen because his was so huge he couldn't walk or hold anything and Elias because he was just being petulant. nonetheless, I convinced them both to try again to go trick or treating (read: bribed them with candy). Joke's on us, though - my mom's town cancelled trick or treating due to the storm. Luckily, my mom's next door neighbor called and said we could walk over and trick or treat there, and we left my dad at their house so they could go at both houses. This went a little better in the costume department - I mean, what life experience doesn't candy make better, really?

So in the end, it actually ended up fine. neither kid objected to only going to two houses, and I don't think they even noticed anything was amiss. which actually saved us from having 2 big tubs of candy which we wouldn't let the kids eat and then snarf after they went to bed.

A good time and plenty of m'n'ms were had by all. better luck with the organization next year, and in the meantime, happy halloween!

Eli loves beets

2011-09-20T16:47:00.000-07:00

Healthy for him. Messy for me.

Sometimes the hipsters are right. buy your kid a balance bike.

2011-09-12T16:43:00.000-07:00

So, about 2 years ago, I was standing at the playground talking to one of the Cool Moms I know. She was talking to me because none of her other Cool Mom friends were around - I'm definitely not usually hip, toned, well dressed or well travelled enough to make the cut. Anyway, a little guy zipped by on a kettler trike. "those kettler trikes are pretty neat", I mused. "I think I'll get one for Owen for his second birthday". "They are ok", said Cool Mom. "But what you really should do is get a balance bike. In Europe (side note: as far as I know she's from New Jersey and has never lived in Europe, but whatever) the children don't use trikes and they go right to riding regular 2 wheeler bikes without training wheels at age 3 or 4. They use balance bikes instead. I just bought one the other day".
Since Cool Mom's kid was, like mine, about 16 months old at the time, she didn't have the bike with her and I have to admit that I had no idea what a balance bike was. So I went home and googled it, and found the skuut website. I forwarded it to my mom. "this is what I think you should get Owen for his second birthday". I wrote. She was skeptical, and suggested she get a snazzy radio flyer trike. I persisted. "no, really. I heard that in Europe, they don't even use tricylces, they use these. And all the kids can ride a two wheeler bike at 3." She wrote back. "that is ridiculous. No 3 year old can ride a two wheeler bike. you didn't learn to ride one until you were 8." But I went ahead and got him the balance bike anyway - what can I say? I am susceptible as the next gal to Cool Moms, and a whiff of European sophistication. But I have to say, in this instance, whether Cool Mom has been to Europe or not, she was right. Behold, my barely 3 and a half year old cruising on a 2 wheeler like he's been riding all his life:

those Europeans and their balance bikes and socialized medicine. Always a couple steps ahead.

Hi Blog Readers. Who are you?

2011-09-03T05:15:00.000-07:00

I get a little email with stats emailed to me every Tuesday. I can't remember when or how I signed up to make this happen but I assume that at the time I thought it would tell me somthing about who reads my blog. It actually doesn't really tell me very much, just the geographic location of where my blog is accessed from. What's interesting to me is that the few people who seem to regularly read my blog I honestly cannot figure out how I might know them. There is one person (hi, whoever you are!) who reads my blog every time I update it from Canada. I have thought and thought and simply don't know a single person in Canada. On the other extreme, my own parents and husband do not read this blog, so I'm somewhat amused that there are people that don't even know me reading my posts.

Anyway, all this just sort of randomly to say that although I'm under the impression that almost no one reads my blog (and I still think this is largely true - I'm wondering if a lot of the blog 'hits' I get are from web bots or some other not-real source) I actually get over 200 page views a week. Again, people who actually know me (with some exceptions) tend not to read my blog, so I have no idea who you guys are - but whatever, if you like visiting my blog, great! that leads me into my real reason for musing about blog traffic....

I haven't had the greatest luck driving donations through facebook (again, trying to hit up people I know) so I thought I'd give it a stab with people I don't know! Hey all you anonymous internet friends....I'm glad you're here. Now that you are here, please take a look at my cute pictures and unoriginal thoughts on being a parent and while you're at it, could you please donate some money to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society? I'm trying to reach my goal of raising $2000 by October 2nd for the mission and I'm 80% of the way to my goal. If all of the 200 people that stop by here in a week donated $20 I'd be there! Your gift goes directly to patient services and research, is tax-deductible, and I really hope you can find a few spare dollars to donate. I am participating in an event with team in training in october (a half marathon in maine) which is the impetus for me raising this money, but the race is neither here nor there - the important part is helping LLS reach their fundraising goals. You can donate here: http://pages.teamintraining.org/ma/maine11/jcoxpa, and feel free to tell your friends!

If you don't feel like donating, but you do feel like introducting yourself, please do. especially my canadian friend. You've been with me since the beginning....here's your shout out. But a curious blogger wants to know...who are you? and will you make a donation to cancer research?

Well, we're here.

2011-08-27T18:31:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to be positive. I'm really trying. And believe me, that's not my usual MO - my ability to see the glass half empty is long and well documented. But since even I can figure out that refusing to give it a chance out here will end badly, I'm forcing myself to look on the brightside.

So, the brightside:

It really is beautiful here. There's a reason people buy second homes and take their vacations here - the scenery is pretty spectactular. Among the dozens of reasons I'm bummed that my camera broke is because I'd like to post some pictures to illustrate my point, but I'm sure your imaginations will suffice.

There's a pretty endless number of places for the boys to explore - between the abundance of state parks, rail trials, mountains, valleys, and all the cultural stuff the Berkshires has to offer (which is, suprisingly to me, a lot) it's not like there's nothing to do. Plus, we have a 5 acre backyard with a stream running through it, which so far has pretty much fit the bill as far as they're concerned.

You can get more house for your dollar out here. When we're ready to buy our next place (which may be sooner, rather than later, since our rental isn't really working out as well as we'd hoped) we'll be able to get a nicer house for less money.

For obnoxious food police like us - hey, it's true - this place is a heaven. We live down the road from the adorably named 'pigasso farms' which sells natural and pastured beef, chicken, pork and lamb and free range eggs. In addition to Piggaso, which is just the closest, there are I think three others on the 27 miles of rt 22 between here and the pike. There is a farmer's market with local and organic produce on pretty much every corner, and I'm loving the roadside stands with produce where you just put your money in a box. In the winter, of course, the fresh produce options will be less, but there are still some farms that make a committment to year round produce. there are several dairies we can buy direct from. It makes me feel less depressed that the nearest grocery store is 35 minutes from here, because the remaining things I need to get at a grocery store can be condensed into trips I can stretch out to two weeks or so.

There's no traffic. At least not around us. This is nice, especially coming from Boston. I can get 37 miles in about the time it used to take Andy to go 8, from Cambridge to home. On the negative side, of course, is the monstrous amount of gas we're going through. From someone who put less than 6000 miles on her car last year, this is a total culture shock. Drive 22 minutes to get to the playground? are you kidding me?? but people around here think that's nothing.

In terms of the bad things...well - you know, I think I'll just leave off here and try and focus on the good. Because of course I could go on and on (and on and on!) about what I don't like, but I think the wise advice to "bloom where you're planted" is appropriate here. Focus on the positive and eventually you'll actually feel positively, right? At least that's the plan!

Vacation

2011-07-22T17:44:00.000-07:00

We just got back today from our vacation to Newport, RI. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to show you, because the very first day we were there, the camera (which was in the beach bag) got sand in the autofocus mechanism and no longer works. I'm so sad about it, because I now don't have any photos of this vacation except for a few random shots on andy's cell phone. Which is ok, I guess, because although we went down there with grand plans to do all Newport had to offer, including packing our bikes and gathering data about local kid friendly attractions, all we really did for 4 1/2 days was go to the beach. So all of our pictures would have looked the same anyways. But the longer term issue of the camera being broken is a bummer.

Last summer, as you may remember, we went to Smuggler's Notch in Stowe, VT for a week. That was totally awesome, although it definitely fell on the once-in-3-or-4-years end of the price spectrum for vacations, and that was with both our kids being able to stay free and going during a "off" week to get a reduced rate. This year, we spent aa little less than half as much and rented a condo from a friend in Newport. And what did we learn? We learned that it's not how much you spend, it's the quality time that you spend with your family that makes a great vacation.

ha! Do you really think that's what we learned? no! We learned that you get what you pay for.

that's not to say the kids didn't have a great time - they did. But the bottom line is that whether you're doing it at home or somewhere else, taking care of a preschooler and a toddler is a lot of work and coupled with the threat that one or both or them might drown if you drop your guard, totally exhausting. Andy and I have decided that it would be more accurate to call it a "family experience" than a "vacation". I mean, it's lovely to spend your vacation at the beach. It's slightly less lovely to arrive at the beach at 7:45 am because your kids have already been up for two hours begging you to take them there. Pros: at 7:45, you have the beach to yourself, and the chances of getting a sunburn are significantly reduced. Cons: you're already at the beach at 7:45 am. Which means you're in for a really, really long day.

Both kids had a lot of trouble with thier behavior and also with sleeping the whole trip - I'm guessing from the combination of excitement of being on vacation, over stimulation, and being in a strange place. The first day, Eli refused to nap entirely, resulting in epic crankiness all afternoon followed by him passing out face first on the floor at 4:30 pm, and then proceeding to wake up at 4:15 am the next day raring to hit the beach again. Both kids were up multiple times each night, to the point where even I, the queen of all night waking suckers was ready to baby gate them in their room and put in earplugs. Owen's behavior could have been a lot better, and that's a charitable understatement through the rose colored glasses of motherly love. I also don't think it helped that the condo we were staying in had significant noise transmission issues to other units and we were on the top floor. We were constantly following the kids around hissing "don't jump! don't yell! no banging!" etc. I think it probably stressed them out a little bit.

We did do a lot of fun stuff - we rode a carousel, went to an aquarium, took the kids on a boat tour of Naragansett Bay (the point during the vacation at which the chances one or both kids would drown peaked), walked the cliff walk, went to see a yacht restoration shop, went out to lunch,etc. but overall we just beached it. I worried the kids would get tired of the beach after the first couple days, but it turns out there's no amount of beach that's too much.

As we were leaving this morning, Owen said "we have to go home? I want to stay on vacation forever!" which is high praise, I suppose. But Andy and I couldn't pack up the car fast enough. we've had enough family vacation, and we now need a vacation.

and I think we're opening a savings account for another trip somewhere like Smuggler's Notch in a couple years. Somewhere where part of the vacation experience includes babysitters.

we're famous!

2011-07-19T08:17:00.000-07:00

the cox family has made it onto another blog! for today only, if you click over to my friend Cara's blog (take one shot, in the sidebar -which you should be following anyway, because she's awesome) you'll see a preview of the pictures she took for us. I've only seen the two she posted so far, but they're adorable.

back to enjoying our week at the beach. I'd promise you pictures, but our camera broke yesterday. sniff.

Down on the Farm

2011-06-21T17:30:00.001-07:00

This week I've been inspired by the fear that we may have to move to take better advantage of all the fun stuff there is to do around the Boston area. Yesterday I took the kids to Castle Island, which is hands down the best day trip with young kids in Boston, I'm convinced. There's a huge playground, a fort, a beach, a french fry and soft serve shack - and it's free! Especially on a sunny weekday when the crowds are down, it can't be beat as a way to spend the day with your kids.

Today, high off my castle island success, I decided to take the kids on a trip to Ward's Berry Farm in Sharon. Ward's is the most popular of the local pick-your-own strawberry places, and Owen seemed pretty enthusiastic about the idea of picking strawberries, so I packed up the kids and went. Unfortunately, our Ward's trip was significantly less successful than our trip to Castle Island.

To be fair, I think it would have been ok had I brought along a second adult, but it definitley was not a single parent activity. At least not without any sort of baby contaiment device (of all the times in the past 3 years to be caught without an Ergo....)

We got started right away setting the tone for the failure of the entire trip. There are three choices of receptacle for berry collection at Ward's. They had little pint containers, slightly bigger baskets, and very large cardboard trays. As I was selecting 2 baskets, one for each boy, Owen asked if we would have enough strawberries to make strawberry jam. Looking at the baskets, I realized if we wanted to make jam we'd need a lot of strawberries, and should get the big tray. This, of course, was mistake number one. What Owen knows (or cares) about making strawberry jam comes entirely from a passing reference in one of his Berenstien Bears books, and furthermore, the sheer quantity of strawberries it would take to make an acceptable quantity of jam exceeds my own attention span, not to mention that of a 3 year old and 17 month old. Nonetheless, however, I forked over $20 for the big tray, which I then set out with toward the strawberry fields.

Halfway there, the not-such-a-great-ideaness of it all started to hit me. The promised "short walk" to the fields was, in fact pretty short. To me. To Elias, it may as well have been to Athens and back. He walks just fine these days, but at his own speed, which is best described as an amble, and an amble punctuated by frequent limp-body plopping to the ground when he's decided that he's either walked far enough or (more frequently) doesn't feel like going in the direction you are going. The hot sun was beating down on us as we slowly, slowly, made our way to the fields, with me awkwardly carrying the diaper bag, their lunch bag, my purse, the empty strawberry tray, occasionally Elias, and trying to keep Owen at at least an arm's length.

For some reason, I thoght things were going to get easier once we got to the strawberry patch. But Eli proved equally difficult to redirect within the confines of the strawberry field, with the added wrinkle of a complete inability to explain the finer points of strawberry picking to him. Oh, he got the whole point of the strawberry plants allright - that child is somewhat of an expert in all things edible - but he immdiately turned into a rampaging, strawberry-hoovering monster. Ripe ones, unripe ones, hulls on, rotten ones, berries out of other people's unattended baskets and trays - he ate them all. This occupied his attention for about 14 minutes, after which he had eaten his fill and got bored of the strawberry picking experience, and converted to just regular old rampaging. Owen, for his part, was a pretty good strawberry picker for the 14 minutes Eli spent eating every strawberry he could see. Unfortunately, because he's 3 (note to self) he promptly lost interest in the whole endeavor. For those of you keeping score at home, we had one very large strawberry tray, filled with only the contents of one 3 year old's pickings for 14 minutes. So, not very many.

I started to sweat. The tray looked cavernous and I realized I had no hope of maintaining the kids' saftey and/or attention for the time it would take me to fill the damn thing. I embarked on a mad picking mission, raking my hands throught the plants while desperately trying to sing any silly song or tell any silly story to keep the kids vaguely interested and hanging out relatively near me. Owen it worked out allright for, but Elias just trampled and terrorized the strawberry patch. Luckily, at some point he decided he had room for more strawberries and spent about 10 minutes sitting in the middle of a particularly berry-laden plant eating more. I was relieved about this for awhile, because it gave me more time on the clock to fill the tray. Relieved until Owen went over to check on him and yelled "Mom, Eli's eating more rotten ones. Really Rotten ones." I called back, "Ok, honey, it's probably fine. Just show him where the good ones are." To which Owen replied "and dirt. He's also eating dirt, mama".

Strawberry picking stopped seeming like the cute family bonding activity I had envisioned and more like the exhausting, backbreaking labor it actually it is. My tray, which I had optimistically recently judged as half full now looked closer to a quarter full. I was sweating and still trying to pick berries as fast as I could. Just then, Elias made a break out of the strawberry patch, directly in front of a tractor pulling a haywagon full of families. Owen started screaming "mama! Eli's going to get run over by the tractor!" and just generally losing his bananas, during which episode he capsized our half (quarter) tray full. In truth, Eli was in no danger - the tractor was a good 40 feet away from him and going approximately 1 mile an hour, and he was caught and returned to the strawberry patch well before the tractor even passed us, but it certainly added to the, er, general ambiance.

I instructed the kids to put all the strawberries that had fallen out of the tray back into it so we could leave. I clearly didn't give very good instructions because they heard "eat as many of these spilled strawberries as you can before we go". I gathered up what berries I could save from their maws and then was faced with the return trip to the car. This time, I had all the acoutrements of the way out (diaper bag, lunch bag, purse, recalcitrant and dawdling toddler) but ALSO a tray of strawberries that had to be carried in such a way that the berries would not go flying. It took us an embarrasingly long time to go approximatly 1/4 of a mile, at the end of which we were several strawberries the lesser.

When we finally got home, Owen was still very interested in making strawberry jam. I looked at him, looked at the berries, and ALMOST pulled out a big pot. Then, I thought better of it, asked him if he wouldn't rather watch an episode of Bob the Builder, and suggested that jam-making was really an activity better suited to be done with Daddy.

My Proud-Mama moment

2011-06-02T20:18:00.000-07:00

I know, shameless bragging about my kid. But come on, what did you expect coming to my blog? It was pretty much created for that sole purpose. Andy and I are so proud of Owen for learning to ride a 2 wheeler. And we're even more proud that he figured it out only the second time we let him try it.

here's the link to the video.

We had a feeling he'd be able to do it pretty much right away - he has had a balance bike since he was 2 and we noticed the other day as we walked (and he rode the balance bike) to the park that he could pick his feet up and balance/glide for pretty long periods of time. We figured that basically, this is pretty much what you need to master to ride a real bike, so we bought him the smallest one we could find, didn't attach the training wheels, and let him go for it. he still can't steer and he's not terribly steady, nor does he understand the hand brakes (this bike has both pedal and hand brakes) but he can unquestionably ride the bike. We're pretty proud of him.

But don't worry. On balance, there's probably more to be mortified by than proud of in the case of this particular 3 year old, particularly lately, and particularly in the behavior department. So let me have my small positive moment...I promise I won't let it go to my head.

Burnt to a Crisp

2011-04-23T18:16:00.001-07:00

If you're checking in to find out what the kids are up to, please, don't ask me. I have no idea, because I haven't seen them in a month. Not literally, of course, but I'm feeling like I may have finally reached my limit for how much I can manage at once. I generally like to think that in the 'keeping multiple balls in the air' category I'm above average, but I have met my match. To April, I say uncle.

Things started out ok, back in mid-to-late March. I have my normal work schedule (25 hours a week, Wednesday-Saturday, 6pm-12am and 5pm-12am on Fridays). I have the kids the rest of the time. Andy's been working a lot lately, usually at least one weekend day and several late nights, so we need occasional babysitters to cover the gaps, but at baseline, it's manageable. I've adjusted to getting less sleep, and though it's not ideal, it largely works. On top of that, the small business I've been trying to start with a colleage is actually taking off a bit, and we've generated ourselves a small but growing client base. Which is good, but layered on top of my normal schedule (so trying to meet with clients the three nights I don't work and on weekends) was making me feel like I had a bit too much on my plate, maybe. Right before we were supposed to leave for Phoenix we knew that the month was looking busy, but it still seemed manageable.

Then, right before we left for our trip, I got a call from my former boss. It's a long story, but let's just skip to the punchline, where she asked me to come back to my old job for a month. And how somehow, by the end of the conversation (a crack in the time/space continum? Momentary complete lapse in sanity? alien mind control?) I agreed to do so.

So, we return from Arizona, and the very next day, all hell breaks loose. Andy had a bunch of special projects and some staffing issues at work, plus he'd been away for a week. He essentially would need to live at work until late May. And I realized that I had signed myself up to work 32 hours a week at my former job, plus my regular 25 hours at my regular job, plus I had to keep all the commitments I had already made for our independent venture. Oh yeah. And the kids. Can't forget the kids.

I know. I'm with you. Nuts. Bonkers. Bat guano insane.

I generally am one that thrives off too much to do, and truth be told when I'm given too much free time I tend to put myself in predicaments just such as this one - it's somewhat of an inborn personality flaw. But this time I've really gone and walked a bit too close to the cliff. After three weeks of working a full and 2 part time jobs, plus doing the lions share of dressing, feeding, organizing, packing and transporting the progeny (who are remarkably flexible and having a great month at their old family daycare plus spending quality time with favorite babysitters, thank goodness) I've just about had enough. They say you can do anything for a short amount of time, but I think maybe "they" were thinking more like 5 minutes. One more week of this insanity and we can return to the regular, only marginally insane version of my life. And it can't come a second too soon, because for the first time I really understand what it means to feel "burnt out". I'm not sure I have more than another week in me.

The bright side, if there is one, is that I do get the whole day completely off tomorrow. The plan was that we were going to all go to CT where Andy's parents and my sister live for Easter. However, I had to work 9 to 5 today at my old job (daycare inconvieniently closed on Monday and full on Wednesday) and then 6 to 12 tonight. Much as I wish you could, you can't drive to New Haven in an hour, so we would have had to leave Sunday morning. But since I am still working next week, and need to be at work Monday, we would have had to turn right around and come back tomorrow night, and since tomorrow is the first day in the entire month of April that I didn't have one thing for any job scheduled....I just couldn't handle the thought of driving to New Haven and back in one day. So instead, the boys took a roadtrip to Grandma and Grandpa's, and I stayed home. And how will I spend Easter Sunday?

Cleaning. I trust you can use your powers of deduction to figure out what our house looks like right now.

Happy Easter, if you celebrate. I did buy the boys matching spring green plaid shirts, and assuming Andy gets some good pictures I'll post them when they return from their trip.

Lie to your children. It's good for them.

2011-03-11T09:46:00.001-08:00

I plagarized the title of my blog post which is funny in this case because it's one of the criticisms (among many) that was leveled at Jessica Seinfeld when she published her book Deceptively Delicious. And in general I would have to say that I agree the book is kind of dumb. First of all, it's not really teaching your kids to eat healthfully if you're putting spinach puree in brownies. You're still feeding your kid brownies, which you really shouldn't do very often if you want them to be healthy. Plus, putting 1/2 cup of spinach puree in an entire pan of brownies really isn't boosting the nutritional profile all that much. On the other hand, hey - if you were going to be serving a dessert anyway, at a birthday party or whatever, why NOT put some vegetables into your baked goods? I guess. But, making purees (and baking, for that matter) are not really things I have the time and/or energy for, so the cookbook never interested me much.

Until we started having our produce delivered, that is. And as anyone who has ever joined a winter csa knows, there is pretty much no limit to the amount of beets and kale those people will try and fob off on you. We have gotten to a point where we're trying to put away 2 lbs of beets a week - and hey, I like beets. But that is a LOT of beets. The kale I find much easier to dispatch, but I was getting to the point where I was actually consider trying to use the beets to dye fabric with.

I know. Pull myself back from the edge. But don't worry. Like I said yesterday, I can't find time to shower so I'm not dyeing anything with anything.

But I still have all these beets. And my friend had the cookbook, which is how I ended up making a quadruple batch of these pink pancakes and the kids LOVE them. I use hodgson's mills 100% whole wheat pancake mix and they come out really well. They also freeze really well, so I put 2-3 in a baggie and put them in the freezer and then just reheat them in the toaster for breakfast.

The best part is that I now have an excuse to avoid eating any more beets. They're for the kids!

The great debates

2011-03-09T10:25:00.000-08:00

I guess it's been a little while, sorry about that. I haven't had that much to blog about lately, or rather, I've had so much to blog about that I've had trouble finding things small and manageable enough to encapsulate in a post. But, in the spirit of not letting the blog get too far away from me I'll udate today just to get a post on the board in March.

First, I'm putting a new blog in the "blogs I like" section of my blog. I wanted to call attention to it because it's just been started by a friend and neighbor of mine. She and I met a little over 2 years ago through our knitting club, and bonded over the fact that neither of us had a very good idea of what we actually wanted to be when we "grew up" despite the fact that we both had full time jobs and pretty clearly defined careers. I'm really happy to say that she's found a passion in photography and I hope that she is able to parlay it into, if not a career, at least a wonderful and satisfying hobby. She's currently doing a project where she's going to take a photo every single day and post it. I am extremely impressed by this, because I can barely shower every single day. So, kudos to Cara and please check out her blog. I personally think she's extremely taleted!

As for me, as many of you know I've been spending the past couple years working toward a self directed career as well. I'm happy to report that, although I'm not ready to pull back the curtain on it yet, I think I'm only about 6 months away from being truly and exclusively self employed. I take my licensing examination on March 24th at 8am, and provided I pass it, the last puzzle peice will be in place and I will be independently licensed by the state of MA. It has been a pretty arduous journey to meet the clinical requirements while also having and keeping track of 2 kids, but I finally finished at the end of February. Now I just need to pass the exam. If I do pass, all systems will be go. I have a colleague, an office space, an idea...stay tuned on that front.

Finally, Andy and I have been agonizing (and agonizing is really quite an understatement) about our house situation lately. Should we stay in Boston (which we love, is best for our careers, is convienient and comfortable) or should we move to an area that has better public schools? we go back and forth on pretty much a daily basis now that Owen is 3 (next week? I can. not. believe it.) and pre-k is more of a reality with each passing month. We want to stay, but my parents really think we should move. Half my friends around here with kids are committed to staying and making school options in Boston work, and the other half are busy going to open houses every weekend. What we really want to do is put a second floor on this house and never leave, but that seems to be an option that no one thinks is a good idea. Ugh. and so the debate rages.....

Owen's birthday party is this weekend, the big 3. I'll try and remember to take lots of pictures to put on the blog.

I don't know about you, but.....

2011-02-18T05:43:00.000-08:00

I'm tired of opening up my blog page and seeing a picture of a toilet. So while I wait for inspiration to strike for my next post, please enjoy these photos of Elias on his recent 1st birthday.

PS: I've only been to the grocery store once since December 15th! I bought one carton of yogurt, one package of deli turkey and 2 loaves of gluten free bread. success!

What will they think of next?

2011-01-20T19:06:00.001-08:00

I can't get over the cleverness of this thing. After seeing it at two friend's houses recently, I just HAD to have one. This is simply an ingenious product:

A toilet seat with a potty seat BUILT IN. I love it. I love it most because it means we can now dispense with the disgusting potty seat that must be moved on and off the potty multiple times a day and best of all, Owen can now make the potty kid friendly all by himself without bellowing for me to retrieve the seat. Simply genius, I say.

Speaking of geniuses, Owen may or may not be one. Here's some evidence in the "not" column. Owen's new favorite game is called "trash pile". It consists of...well...

gathering up as many of his toys as he can and creating a heap with them. I have to say, the appeal escapes me. Also, slightly discouraged that we go to all the time and trouble to find toys that we think will be both entertaining and educational and the favored game involves making them into a....trash pile. Let's not dwell too much on that, shall we?

finally, how cute is this photo:

I hope you all are enjoying the snow as much as we are this winter.

Snow Day!

2011-01-12T14:14:00.000-08:00

As you may know we got about foot of snow in the city. I had to share these pictures of frolicking in the snow.

New Year's Resolution

2011-01-07T14:03:00.000-08:00

I admit it: I love self improvement campaigns (and self help books, although I've learned the hard way that most people don't love them as much as I do. While I would love a self help book as a gift, I've learned that most people....don't. Message recieved.). Anyway, as a logical extension, I LOVE new year's resolutions. This year, my resolution is to stop shopping for food. There are several reasons I really want to do this:

1) I hate shopping for food (or anything else) with kids in tow. I have 2 kids under 3 and no daycare. Need I say more?

2) I would rather have our family eat no meat than industrially produced meat; and although in the early years of Jenny and Andy Andy was willing to go along with my no-meat stance I've pretty much lost that battle now. So if meat we will have, then I don't want to buy it in a grocery store, unless the grocery store can guarantee the meat has no hormones and was raised humanely. Even if it can, see #1. '

3) I'm a pretty ineffective shopper, even without the kids. I only make a list 1/4 of the time, of the times I do go to the trouble, I without fail leave it at home on the counter. I usually wander around the store aimlessly and return with a random assortment of foods (mostly in the salty snack and frozen dessert categories) and nothing for dinner. I also always buy condiments that I'm sure we're out of, which is why we have approximately 8 backup ketchups in the basement.

I'm happy to say that a week into the new year and I think I'm 3/4 of the way to my goal. This is how I did it:

1) I'm continuing our weekly delivery from Boston Organics. We've been doing this since September and so far, I've been incredibly impressed with the service. We get a weekly box for $29 that is 2/3 vegetables and 1/3 fruit. Every 4th week I get a $39box for a little extra, and that mix seems to be exactly the right amount of produce for our size family. I love that the boxes are customizeable and that (unlike a csa) if you can't take your box one week (because you're away or whatever) you can just suspend your delivery at no charge. Also, I frequently make changes and deletions to my preference list and/or change my box size and they always get it right, customer service has been excellent. I haven't had to purchase produce at a store in 4 months.

2) we just re-enrolled in the Stillman's Farm Meat CSA. We were members of this CSA two years ago, and were really happy with it until we got three months in a row when the meat share was all or mostly pork. We had split a "full share" (20 lbs) with a friend, and as he noted when it was time to renew "I like the idea, but my freezer is starting to look like the US Congress." So despite the fact that we loved getting our meat directly from the farm, and being sure that it was all pastured, free range and hormone and antibiotic free, we didn't renew. But, I've confirmed with several people I know who are currently participating in the CSA that they've fixed this problem, so we're back with bells on. We again got a full share and are splitting it again with the same friend, so hopefully we won't be disappointed. I found last time that 10 pounds of meat a month is a little less than most families of 4 might consume, but because it's more expensive (the price per pound is about $7.75) than meat you buy at the grocery store, the overall meat budget is probably the same. I would much rather exchange quantity for quality, and Andy has fun making the meat stretch creatively.

3) I recently set us up with delivery from Thatcher Farm in Milton. In adittion to hormone and antibiotic free milk (but not certified organic) they also deliver all other dairy (cheese, yogurt, cream, etc.) as well as organic eggs, bread and other bakery products, juice and a few other items.

So, we've got produce, dairy, meat, and bakery covered. That leaves staples like grains, cereal, snack foods, canned goods, and laundry/cleaning items.

I have a peapod account, and I've used it. But overall, I'm kind of unimpressed with them. First of all, since there are so many categories of things I don't need to buy from them, my orders are small and don't hit the $100 mark where the delivery fee goes down. $10 per order for delivery is too much. I could order less frequently with greater quantity, but I've yet to get myself organized enough to plan what I need in these categories a month in advance (although, it's theoretically possible). Even so, they don't carry a lot of the things I like to buy when I physically go to the store, and they don't have a good selection of gluten free items, and they tend to only have one brand option of things. for instance there's a certain kind of saltine I like to buy for the kids that don't have soy in them, and although I can get them in the regular store I can only get standard saltines through peapod. So, I'm trying to figure out if I can use amazon prime (which has free shipping) to replace peapod. We'll see. I haven't actually tried it yet. Peapod is also OK for laundry/cleaning/housewares but again, they don't carry as wide a selection as I'd like and their eco-friendly products are limited. I'm hoping amazon is better.

Here's to 2010! I'm hoping to have to enter a grocery store less than once a month. So far, I haven't gone once since December 15th, but it's only January 7th so we'll see. What's your resolution?

some seasonal photos

2010-12-31T12:54:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd share some Christmas photos. There are approximately 1000 of them, so I just chose a few at random. I got a large quantity of photos but none of them are particularly great. But you can see their Christmas PJs (courtesy of grandma, of course) and some of their gifts on Christmas morning.

And lest you think I forgot, as promised I finally got around to making Eli a matching hat - a year late and in a different color because I ran out of the original blue, but whatever. I just cast on Andy's, so they will have matching hats this winter after all.

here they are warming up after a trip to the arboretum with dad:

Christmas, blah blah blah.

2010-12-22T19:10:00.000-08:00

Those of you know know me well know that I suffer from a chronic and serious dearth of holiday cheer (manic stocking knitting might provide evidence to the contrary, but the truth there is that I just really like to knit). Andy has managed to soften me up to it a little bit over the past several years, and having kids has done some work in that department too - but honestly, my inner core of grinch remains pretty intact. My anti-Christmas ire is complicated and not really worth exploring in this medium, but a Christmas hater like myself is put in a pretty tight spot when kids are involved. There are just certain things you have to do with little kids and I think pretending to be really into Christmas (provided you don't have a good reason to not be into Christmas, like being Jewish) is one of them.

So pretend I will (and do), but I have my limits. I'm not sure if this is the year I'm going to totally enrage everyone by refusing to get into Santa, or if I can put that off until next year. Either way, people will be enraged, you can be certain of that. I don't think Owen is really hip to Santa yet - he does recognize him (unfortunately, he's stopped calling him "Bobby" which he did all last Christmas season, and which I found hillarious) but the whole north pole/toy workshop/round the world in one night/naughty or nice list - I don't think we're there yet. I think we will be next year, and honestly, I just can't picture myself really going with it. I don't mind having Santa be any one of a number of fictional characters that we talk about/read about/watch but I don't see any reason that Santa can't be like Elmo. No one goes to elaborate lengths to convince their kids that Elmo is real, and kids seem to be pretty into Elmo all the same. And I'm pretty sure that my children will still be big fans of Christmas without us acting as if Santa is an actual real person. I'm not planning on denouncing Santa as a fraud, exactly, but the fact that Owen saw me purchase most of what is going in his stocking doesn't bother me one bit. If he has a tacit understanding that the presents he gets on Christmas are actually from me, so much the better, as far as I'm concerned. But then, as we've already discussed, I'm a grinch. A scrooge. Bah, humbug.

So anyway, here we go with the holidays. I'm tired already, and it's not even Christmas Eve. But for those of you with a more normal appreciation of the season, merry merry, happy, happy, cheer cheer, etc. etc. Lots of exciting things happening for Team Cox in 2011, or that's what it looks like from here anyway, and I'm genuinely excited about what's in store. So from our house to yours, enjoy the last few days of 2010 however you celebrate them (or don't), let me know if you didn't get one of our holiday cards and want one, and I'll be back in the new year with more misanthropy (and pictures of cute kids).

Add it to the list of things I did that my kids will never appreciate.

2010-12-11T12:33:00.001-08:00

and boy, are my arms tired.

as predicted, Owen is now demanding he actually wants the Santa one. No, the snowman. No, the santa. So for this year, I'll just not put names on them and when he makes a firm decision I'll embroider their names. This year I think assigning stockings just might be asking for trouble. And why I didn't just make them the same, I'll never know. Chalk it up to parenting being a learning process.

and here's a photo of them together:

I really need to put a face on that snowman. But I've tried a couple times and it keeps coming out cruddy. I'll try again, since the santa has a face it looks bad that the snowman doesn't.

Christmas Ambition

2010-12-01T06:19:00.000-08:00

So the good news is the stocking I've been knitting for Owen is finally blocked, sewn and finished (except for embroidering his name at the top, which I've been putting off in case he ends up wanting the Santa instead of the snowman). The bad news is that it's now December 1, and Owen's took me a good 2 months to complete. So my suspicion is that in the true second-child fashion, Elias won't have a stocking this year. Oh well. By next year...

edit: after I posted this I looked and the perspective is totally wonky in that picture. The stocking is actually a pretty good size but the foot is not that disproportionately big to the neck. I think it was the angle I took the photo at. Also, the colors look better in person. My phone is not the greatest camera.

Pet Peeves in Parenting, Chapter a billion

2010-10-11T09:30:00.000-07:00

One thing that drives me insane is the constant (constant! constant!) offering of snacks to toddlers. If you want to see my head explode, send me an email that says the following:

Hi Moms!
I got this list of people signed up for the 9:15-9:45 movement class on wednesdays. I was wondering if you guys wanted to take turns bringing a snack! just sign up for a week!*

Why must everything involve snacks? It drives me crazy. Today, when I picked up Owen from his Monday class (at the one hour mark they, obviously, break for snack) I was told that he didn't want the apple slices I packed him, but did enjoy the animal crackers that they had, and boy did he eat a lot of those!

Right. So I'm going to explain something to you about kids. Humans, really. The reason Owen did not want his apple was because he was not hungry. the reason he then partook liberally of animal crackers is because animal crackers are cookies. When you offer children cookies, they will eat them. This is really not brain surgery. And of course, Owen came home and proceeded to ignore the (nutritious - or at least better than animal crackers) lunch I prepared for him. surprise, surprise.

Now I am going to say something that is going to make YOUR head explode, so before I begin, let me disclaim it. The following statement applies to my toddler. Yours has hypoglycemia/sensory issues/has a doctors note explaining he can only eat mechanicaly separated chicken. I beleive you. No, really, I believe you. You know all the ways you got your kid sleeping through the night? They don't work on my kid, so trust me when I say I realize that sometimes you just get an outlier.

that said, my kid will largely eat what is placed in front of him at breakfast, lunch and dinner. And I think this is because he is actually hungry at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Because I don't give him a snack every hour on the hour. Which is not to say that I never allow snacks. I think snacks are fine, and I have trouble getting from noon to 6:30pm without one too. But the sheer volume of snacks, and the type of snack provided that seems to be around us all the time is really undermining. Thursdays drive me crazy, because after our (45 minute) music class, without fail, the kids are offered chocolate chip cookies buy the site host. The class ends at 12:15. Seriously, people? So I have 3 options: 1. refuse to let my kid have a cookie when all other children have cookies, thereby being "that mom" and causing my kid to hate me. 2. Allow him to have a cookie, let him then refuse his lunch and endure the tantrum that ensues at 3 because all he's had for lunch is sugar and white flour or 3) go even further down the 'that mom' road and refuse to participate in music classes and/or other contact with the outside world, and homeschool (home music class?) in a safe, snackfree environment.

None of these options are good, are they?

The thing is, there is some food that tastes better than other food. This is just a fact of life. Goldfish tastes better than broccoli. So although I have seen Owen eat broccoli on many occasions, it usually does not happen an hour after he's been offered goldfish. the other day at the playground another mom offered Owen some of the goldfish her kid was eating at 4:30 pm. Of course he's going to take some, and of course he's going to eat a lot of them. Goldfish are extremely tasty crackers. My question is, why are you offering your kid, my kid, ANY KID snacks at 4:30? Unless you eat at 8? And if you do, well, then, see disclaimer above. But dinner for kids is usually around 5:30-6pm. And when MY kid arrives at dinner hungry, my kid will eat whatever is served. And because I would prefer that he eat nutritious food, I get really peeved by snacks.

and yes. I realize that I already am that mom. you don't have to tell me.

* first of all, she's not really wondering. That email means "sign up for a week or be shunned" and second of all, usually someone chimes in with "my kids are allergic to eggs, nuts, dairy and soy so if you could remember that when you pack your snacks I'd really appreciate it :)"

there's a reason housewives used to eat Valium like candy.

2010-09-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

Some days, the three of us have great days. The kids get an educational - or at least engaging - activity or two, the house stays reasonably clean, dinner gets made, and no one loses an eye. And some days, days like today, I wonder what the hell I was thinking replacing my blessed daycare lady with...me. Sure, I am technically the mother, but we're living in a world of outsourcing. Why do what I can pay someone else a subpar wage to do? It's worked wonders for corporate America's bottom line.

Anyway, I digress. Actually, I was feeling a bit smug this morning when we left the house at 8:50 am. I had recently recieved an email from Portrait Simple saying if you brought your kids in for thier christmas pictures before September 30th, you would get 50% off your christmas cards. Well, sign me up for that, right? So I was actually congratulating myself as we headed out the door on being a together enough mom that I was actually getting my Christmas cards made...in September! and at 50% off! look at me, mom of the year.

Oh, how we all did laugh.

The pictures were a flop. After 45 minutes of trying to pig wrestle my two (adorable, by the way, but you'd never know it from the photos) kids into some semblance of a passable photo, I gave up. The pictures are actually hysterically funny in their bad-ness. you can check them out yourself at portraitsimple.com (online portraits, search cox, password is 2803). I think I'm going to go ahead and order that one you see mocked up as a holiday card - I think if you can't get a great picture, the only thing to do is to send a flat-out AWFUL picture...sort of a go big or go home holiday card ethos. But the amount of time and trouble the whole endeavor took left me needing a drink by 11.

After the pictures, I decided to head over to watertown to return some shelving for the playroom I had bought from Target the day before. I had bought some shelves for the playroom downstairs - the toys are out of control and we have only an old 3 drawer dresser to contain them - but Andy didn't like it and thought we should get one he saw at Ikea instead. So, fair enough, I troop all the way back to watertown to return them. The dang thing weighs a TON, and I had both kids to wrangle as well, so when I ever finally get all three of us plus the shelving system up to the service desk to find out that somehow I didn't have the recipt....so, moving on. let's say I was annoyed, yes?

Heading back home, now about noon, I get caught in some god-awful construction on arsenal street and end up spending 25 minutes sitting in traffic cursing fate. Normally, Owen would be interested enough in the digger activity to distract him from the car not moving, but he was starving and had to pee. Elias also, (I think, he can't talk) was starving. Either way, I was treated to a meltdown in stereo.

Driving back up Galen street, I pulled into the parking lot of a Bertuccis. I can still save this day, I thought to myself. I'll bring the boys out to lunch, everyone will pee and then we'll head home for a better afternoon. Well, remember the part about the kids having their pictures taken this morning? right. So what were they wearing? right. Matching white button down shirts. NEW. Matching. White. shirts. Bertuccis = pizza place. You do the math.

Feeling duly chastised by the universe, I brought the kids back out to the car.

Which doesn't start.

Yep. Dead battery. Oh, did I mention it was raining? And that I didn't have ths stroller in the car? So we had to walk to a nearby garage (thank God we were relatively near to one) and present our damp, sorry butts to the mechanics there to ask for assitance. After a jump and an assurance that I needed a new battery posthaste, we were finally on our way home.

hubris. It'll get you every time.

say it with me now....

2010-09-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

Awwwww.

Owen goes to a Pre-preschool program Monday mornings. It's a drop off class for kids ages 2.5-3.5. It's billed as "preschool readiness" (I know. the insanity). Basically they run around the gym at the y, stand in a line, have a snack, listen to a story, go potty and get picked up 2 hours later. It's great fun for him and he gets to bring a backpack, which is pretty much the highlight of the whole endeavor. Of course, all that's in there is a change of pants and underwear in case he has an accident, but it's the spirit of the thing that counts.

Here's my baby boy growing up before my eyes.

I'm still here!

2010-09-13T18:23:00.000-07:00

Once again, I've let my blogging fall by the wayside, but I'm determined to keep up with it - if for no other reason than one thing I know about myself is that I am not the baby book type. Heck, I'm not even the photo album type. Ever since the advent of digital photography every picture I've taken (which are remarkably few - I came back from my honeymoon with 15 pictures. 15. Total) is just in a jumble of files somewhere on this computer with easily archivable names like 1103329m4.jpg. So the blog functions as the baby book I'll wish I had 30 years from now. If they ever, I don't know, cancel the internet or something, I'll just have to go and print it all out beforehand.

So what's new? Nothing, really. Things are great. The kids are GREAT. Forgive me for getting nostalgic but Owen is such a big kid these days it kills me sometimes. He's (forgive my mom bias) smart and funny and remarkably coordinated. He's also 2 and a half, so he has his "moments", as they say, eupehmistically. Overall, however, he has fewer moments than he might have, and those moments he has are pretty funny. Today, I was vaccuming the living room sofa (why? because www.motivatedmoms.com told me to. Laugh all you want, I need structure, dammnit.) and after I unplugged it I let Owen play with it for awhile. When it was time to put it away, he wasn't having it, and yelled at me "you can't touch this! it's too dangerous! you have to be safe!" when that didn't work and I proceeded to continue putting the vacuum away he protested "don't touch that! it's really expensive! you might break it!" I find that my biggest parenting challenge these days is keeping a straight face.

Elias remains a joyful, snuggly pile of baby love. He is the most good natured and charming baby I've ever come across. When I was pregnant with Owen a coworker told me her 'decoy baby' theory. She said when you get a baby that is really easy and smily and laid back, you must be on high alert, because that baby is dangerous. He or she is a decoy baby. You'll be convinced that you should have 10 more babies - or at least another one. And when you do, that next one will have 10 months of colic, guaranteed. Eli is absolutely the most devilish decoy baby there ever was. I'm ready for a conversion van full of Elis. I am aware, however, that another Owen would probably cause total system failure, so I am able to keep my head about me in these matters.

I've gotten the swing of my new schedule and it's going well. We're packed with activities: We have something every day in the mornings. On Mondays, Owen goes to a 2 hour program at the Y called "kids club" which is really just running around the gymnasium like a maniac with 9 other 2 year olds. On tuesdays, he has swim lessons. Wednesdays, we joined a rotating-house toddler playgroup. Thursdays, we have our music class at the local Alzheimer's center (it sounds odd but is actually awesome. Both the kids and the patients adore it) and Fridays we go to public skating at the ice arena down the street. In the afternoons, we generally try to do playdates. all these activities alleviate my biggest fear about staying home, which was that I'd be trapped in my messy house going nuts with the kids bouncing off the walls, but really we're hardly home at all.

So in sum, I'm back to blogging and have resolved to do a better job of it. If I don't start updating twice a month or so, feel free to pester me.

Time is flying.

2010-07-15T18:57:00.000-07:00

So you (I) probably thought that since I'm now only working part time in the evenings, I'd have plenty of time to stay on top of the blog, keep up with email communications, keep my house sparkling clean, and pick up quilting. Well, you (I) would be totally wrong (just kidding about the house cleaning thing. I might yet pick up quilting, but it'll be a cold day in hell before my house is sparkling clean while Owen still lives in it). I'm finding I'm busier these days than I've ever been, and compounded by the working till midnight thing 4 days a week, I'm pretty tired. I have to say, though, of all the permutations of work-life balance we've tried so far, this is by far the best one. True, I could use a little more sleep. But I really think that eliminating just one element from my life - the daycare drop off and pickup and related stress about timing, etc. - has made a huge difference in my stress level. Things just seem so much easier now, late nights notwithstanding.
So anyway, a few quick updates (and sorry no pictures, the problem is that I usually blog on the computer we don't upload the pictures to, so in order to put up pictures I have to a) remember to update the blog and then b) remmeber to update it from the other computer. apparently a 2 step process is now beyond me. I blame the kids.)

1) potty training. we're done. that's a wrap, it was over in a week. Don't ask me how, because I had nothing to do with it - it was Owen's idea, and now he's a pro. He even is waking up dry in the morning, although I'm nervous about pulling the plug on the nighttime diaper and am keeping him in one now just in case, but I think another week of dry mornings and I'll let that go too. Don't ask me for any potty training advice, because I have none - all I know is that the kid decided he was done with diapers and that was it.

2) Our vacation. I'm not a paid shill for Smuggler's Notch family resort, but I'd be happy to be one (note to smuggs, you listening?) It was awesome. We had a condo, which relieved the two major reservations I have about vacations - the first being the need to eat out all the time, and the second the lack of laundry facilities. The fully equipped kitchen in the condo was the key to vacation success, in my opinion. I only like to go out to eat when what I'm really doing is going out to drink - I think it's fun to get dressed up, go someplace trendy, and order a $17 martini. I do NOT think it's fun to get food out just because I'm hungry. I'd rather buy a powerbar at a gas station and be done with it. And I'd rather have my toenails extracted than go out to dinner more than once in a week with 2 kids under 3. So the kitchen solved that problem and saved us a ton of money as well. And the laundry - well, again I mention we were travelling with 2 kids under 3. Do you know how much laundry they can generate in a week? Coming home with a suitcase full of clean and folded clothes felt like a vacation in and of itself. Beyond that, the place was just really well done for families. We spend 4 days with the kids and 3 days without, which was the perfect balance and everyone had fun the whole time. And for what we got, it was extremely affordable. I highly recommend it and if you want more details, please ask because I'm happy to shill away.

3) Being home during the day - or, as someone recently put it to me - so have you 3 killed each other yet? Surprisingly, no. We're all having a really good time. Part of me was kind of anxious about making the transition to home full time, and to be honest I was secretly reserving the option to put Owen back in half time daycare if I couldn't handle it, but it's actually turned out great. The one problem I've found is that we're certainly not lacking in places to go and things to do, but if we're on the go all the time Elias naps for crap. If we stay home all day, he takes 2 beautiful 2 hour naps in his crib from about 9-11 and again from 2-4, and then goes down at 7:30 and sleeps really well all night. But if we're out and about on the go, he catnaps here and there and is cranky and paradoxically up more in the night. Most of the time I say screw the naps (I'm exhausted anyway, what's a little less sleep at this point, right?) and we've filled our days, but the days we've been home have been really good for Eli's sleep. I'm still trying to work this one out.

So that's about all the news. I'll try and post pictures soon.

Potty Update

2010-06-28T19:35:00.000-07:00

because I know you're waiting with baited breath:

dry all day. No accidents. Still not down with #2, this apparently still requires a diaper. But hey - not a single pee accident? really? that HAS to be a good thing.

I'm still in shock. Do kids really potty train themselves?

the mind, it boggles.

2010-06-27T13:49:00.000-07:00

we had a great vacation - I will post about it in detail and with pictures later. But first, I simply must share this news: Last night around 8:30 Owen announced that he needed to use the potty. We pretty much ignored him, but he insisted. He walked over to the potty and started pulling off his diaper. So to humor him, Andy took it off. He peed.

He got up this morning, and did it again. And again. And again. In fact, he has not been in a diaper ALL DAY at this writing (4:51pm) and has had exactly one accident.

I have no idea what happened, but I think this is a very, very, very good thing.

What do we do without daycare?

2010-06-14T19:00:00.000-07:00

Why, we go to the cemetary. Of course. Isn't that what all the stay at home moms do?

My new schedule has begun - the new schedule being that I'm working 6pm-12 am Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. A pretty nice schedule for a working mom, (although admittedly not a great one if you want any sort of social life) and although the job is a bit on the boring side, it's compensated well enough and can be done from home. How can you argue with that? for the first time in 2 years none of the money I earn will be going to daycare, which is pretty fantastic. And the kids and I will now have plenty of quality time together which is....well, we'll see. Right now we're going with that's fantastic too. In case of emergency, I still have our daycare provider on speed dial.

Anyway, back to the cemetary. I was thinking that the kids and I should do something fun today, and figured there'll be plenty of time for me to yell at them to go find something to do while I watch soap operas. So I came up with a few ideas: there are 3 things Owen loves more than anything - games that involve balls, making a mess, and animals. I figured we could play baseball for awhile, cook something, and do something involving wildlife.

We had a bag of stale bread Andy was throwing away and I realized that we could take it to a duck pond and feed the ducks with it. But the only duck pond I know of is at Newton Cemetary. So, this afternoon, (after playing baseball in the backyard and making banana bread) that's where we went. FYI: those ducks are a toddler dream. They are the tamest creatures on the planet, and will come up within inches of a bread-proffering toddler. (they are, however, smart enough to shake a tailfeather when they sense the toddler is going to try and touch them). Owen had an awesome time feeding the ducks our stale brioche. And, really, turns out a graveyard is an excellent place to spend an afternoon. There's very little car traffic (and what there is is slow moving), there's plenty of open space to run around and explore, and, well, you're really not bothering anyone. I mean, really. The inhabitants of Newton Cemetary are probably the most toddler-tolerant folks out there, if you know what I'm saying.

Anyway, a good time was had by all, but I'm kind of out of ideas. I feel like I went and outdid myself and now have to figure out what I'm going to fill up all the time between now and preschool with. When do ducks head south for the winter, Octoberish? I'll need to figure it out by then.....

Assembling my mom portfolio

2010-05-23T05:05:00.001-07:00

Since it is a not-very-well-kept secret around here that I frequently toss Owen a few slices of deli turkey and an apple and call it dinner (which is a big improvement on the times he gets a nutrigrain bar and a yogurt)I thought I would submit some photographic evidence that mealtimes are not a complete mom fail all the time around here.

It's egg train toast!On a scale of 1 to original, it's definitely a -3 but Owen seemed impressed. He even said "chugga chugga chugga chugga CHOO CHOO!" which is high praise from a 2 year old. He then of course proceeded to eat one bite and announce he was all done. Oh well. It was fun to make, anyway.

New Family Photos

2010-05-22T16:23:00.000-07:00

Sadly, I can't post them, because I don't own them. But, if you'd like to see the professional photos we had taken today, you can go to www.portraitsimple.com click on "atrium" location and then click "online portraits" we should come right up. The password is 2803. It's going to ask you for a name and email address - all that does is add you to their mailing list so to avoid having to do that, just put in my name and email.

I think they do a really nice job at portrait simple, given that it's a mall chain. I get a little annoyed when they try do whatever their seasonal schtick is (right now it's red sox, at valentine's day it was rose petals, easter it was bunnies etc.) but then when they talk me into just letting them do the shots and I see the results, I always think it's cute. Given how into baseball Owen is, the ones with the ball are particularly appropos.

I didn't buy very many because they're expensive, but also because I seize up when I have to choose prints. I love them ALL. How can I choose? So I end up fearing I'll buy the wrong one, and don't want to have buyers remorse, so I don't buy any. So, I'll put it to you: which ones do you think I should buy?

Team Cox Win

2010-05-15T04:41:00.000-07:00

We implemented the plan Dr. Ferber sent home with us, with one small modification - we tried a 9pm bedtime instead of 10pm. This is because one time, Owen had the worst day in the history of his life - honestly a 12 hour meltdown, and I'm not exaggerating - and the only thing we could determine was different on that day from other days was that he had been up until 10pm the night before. So we're a bit gunshy on that front. However, we did everything else in the incredibly detailed plan for the past two nights: the suggested nightime routine, the baby gate protocol, the checking schedule. And amazingly, (amazingly!) both of our children slept 1)in their respective assigned beds 2) all the way until morning (which for Eli was 5:40am, but hey I'll take it because he went down at 7:30) 3) in the same room. Major win! I am a happy mom this morning. We're building good-schedule momentum here, I can feel it.

The Famous Dr. Ferber

2010-05-13T17:58:00.000-07:00

yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. It's been awhile. Frankly, my blogging has succumbed to faraway friend syndrome. You know how it goes - you have a close friend you don't see often. You try and talk regularly, maybe once or twice a month. But then things get busy and a couple months go by, and you keep thinking to yourself "oh, I have just GOT to call so and so". But then you realize you only have about 10 minutes, and that's not nearly enough time to catch up, so you put it off until you have "enough time". Then they call you, but you're just about to run in to an appointment, and you really want to chat for an hour but will have to get off the phone in in five minutes, so you send the call to voicemail....before you know it, you haven't talked to your friend in a year.

It's kind of like that. So, I've decided to just pickup where we are now, and if months 2 and 3 of Eli's life are lost to posterity, so be it.

Anyway, today Owen and I went to Children's Hospital for our appointment with Dr. Ferber. It's not every day you meet a world renowned child-rearing expert who's last name has turned into a verb in common parlance, so I figured it was worth blogging about. We certainly didn't leave with a silver bullet for Owen's sleep problems - it was more of an intake than anything else. Turns out working with Dr. Ferber is more of a process than one stop shopping. In retrospect, I should have realized this - what did I think he was going to do, give me a sleeping potion?

Before I go on, I have to tell this little Dr. Ferber story. A friend of a friend of mine works at Children's. She signed up for the same post-pregnancy core strengthening class as I am taking, and last Monday after class I mentioned we had this appointment with Ferber. She told me that one time, she was at an all-hospital event of some sort, and she was seated next to Dr. Ferber. When she realized who he was, she started talking immediately about her 6 month old, his sleep habits, what they had already tried, etc. She said that Dr. Ferber turned to her with a tired, bored look and said "Really, I don't...." he did not finish the sentence but apparently it was quite clear that the final word in that sentence was "care." And he referred her to his book.

So, yeah. Our appointment was a bit like that.

On the one hand, I see where he's coming from. He didn't say anything that isn't clearly deliniated in his book, which I have in fact read cover-to-cover twice and consult on an as-needed basis often. He probably spends 90% of his time telling parents with exactly the same problem the exact same things for the past 20 years. And by the same problem, I mean, they didn't read his book. He probably IS pretty bored. He's a board-certified pediatric neurologist, and his main function is telling parents to put their kids to bed later and stop giving them a drink of water if they wake up overnight.

On the other, being as we have read his book, and have been implementing the techniques faithfully for the better part of a year, I was a little disappointed. His message to me was that we just weren't following the directions in the book closely enough, because if we were, Owen wouldn't still be having sleep problems. Well, maybe. It's true, he did identify some small areas in which we were being inconsistent, and he did show me a pretty interesting chart explaining the amount of total sleep a child of a given age needs in a 24 hour period. But still, I think Owen's sleep problems are pretty resistant.

Ultimately, Dr. Ferber gave us a chart to record every minute of sleep/awake time Owen had for the next six weeks along with directions to keep a sleep log/journal about what we did, what he did, and how he slept. We're to go back at the end of June and he'll look at the charts, assess the situation, and I guess we'll go from there.

In the meantime, he suggests a bedtime for my 2 year old of 10pm. This seems wild and crazy to me, but he claims that most people wildly overestimate the amount of sleep children need and a 10pm bedtime is perfectly normal. Given that about 90% of my friends with kids are putting them to bed by 8 at the latest, this seems a bit suspect to me, but I guess Dr. Ferber would know.

After all, he did, well, write the book.

2010-04-10T18:21:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry. I'm doing a terrible job of blogging lately. But I did think this picture was cute and wanted to share:

bloggy?

2010-03-21T19:00:00.001-07:00

Why no blogging? I know the 6 people who check in with Team Cox regularly are getting impatient. With double the Cox-spawn trouble, and nothing to do all day since I'm still on maternity leave (ha, ha, ha), there's really no excuse. Especially because in the blogging hiatus, Owen has turned two (repeatedly, judging by the number of times it's been celebrated) Eli has grown massive (I have a 7 week old that needs size three diapers. No, I'm not kidding. Size THREE.), and the weather has finally improved giving the three of us the opportunity to spend more time doing fun things outside, like riding bikes and falling head first off the big slide at the playground (mom note to self: don't beleive the propaganda. 2 is not reeaaly such a big boy afterall). So anyway, my apologies. First blogging impediment is that we've misplaced the cord that can upload pictures from the camera to the computer. We misplaced it in one of our frantic "people are coming over, CLEAN UP THE HOUSE NOW!" fits and can't seem to figure out where we stashed it. And second, 2 kids is HARD, yo. By the time I get both in clean diapers and dressed int the morning, well, it's time to change the diapers again. And all three of us need a nap.

Anyway, I haven't forgotten about the blog, I'm just a little behind. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up soon.

numbers

2010-02-24T11:02:00.000-08:00

Today, Eli is exactly:

4 weeks old
12 lbs, 4 oz
23 1/2 inches long
100th percentile for weight
100th percentile for height

He's a whopper, folks. Dr. Y said, "Wow! Big! More big than his brother! I don't know what to tell you. This is not normal. It's good! healthy! Big boys! but not normal. Next time you have a baby I will not be surprised when he is 15 pounds after 1 month!"

Next time I have one month old 15 pound baby, well, I'll let you know when that'll be. Don't hold your breath, though.

Thanks for the help, honey

2010-02-19T07:14:00.001-08:00

If whatever form the internet is taking when Owen is 15 has the capacity to access such primitive technology as we have today, I'm sure Owen will kill me for putting this photo on the internet. However, it is just TOO FUNNY not to share. Yesterday morning I was changing the baby in the boys' bedroom, and I heard from the kitchen "turn on? turn on. turn on, mommy'. I couldn't figure out what Owen wanted me to turn on, but assumed he was mucking around with the oven, or worse, had climbed up on the counter and had gotten to the microwave. Imagine my suprise when I came into the kitchen and found that the appliance he wanted to me to turn on was my pump:

I have news for you, kid. The reason it's not working has nothing to do with it not being turned on.

I'm writing this post completely exhausted. Eli started out life as a fantastic sleeper (for a newborn) but has figured out the score: why sleep for extended periods of time, when you can hang with mom and nurse all you want? I recognize the limitations of working with a newborn on sleep, but I'm determined to do what I can to foster good (read: independent) sleep habits from the beginning. So, from today on, Eli's moving out of mom and dad's room and into...I haven't decided where. At first I was thinking straight into the crib in the room with Owen, but today I'm thinking actually I'm going to put him in the living room for a couple weeks. This has two purposes: first, not to bother Owen, who is (believe it or not) sleeping through the night reasonably well right now, and second, to allow me not to have to use the monitor. Having the baby right next to the bed keeps me up all night because babies are loud, even when they don't need anything. And the baby monitor is just as loud. If he's in the living room and our bedroom door is open, I'll hear him when he's really crying but, because of the white noise of our humidifier, I won't hear him when he is just fussing around or talking to himself. I'm also going to take a hard line with the all night mom-buffet. Eli is the size of your average 3 month old right now, so there is no reason, none at all, that he would need to eat any more frequently than 3 hours (and that's being generous). Owen I really did let nurse 'on demand' but Eli will only get that privelege during the day. I'm also trying to figure out if strategically deploying a bottle (which we need to introduce soon anyway, so as not to have a daycare disaster on our hands) can help discourage nighttime eating and encourage nighttime sleeping. This is a work in progress, and clearly I have a lousy track record, but we'll see how it goes.

Uncle

2010-02-17T04:23:00.000-08:00

I am still a staunch cloth diaper advocate, and after having invested in a full set of cloth diapers birth through toddlerhood I'm not about to give up and buy disposeables now. However, there is a limit when it comes to handling and laundering diapers, and I think I have reached it. 2 kids in cloth is one kid too many. So, this weekend the project is potty training. I got one of those 70's style "potty train in just one day" books, which promises me that 'any child of normal intelligence over 20 months can be quickly and happily trained, in an average of 4 hours'. I like the authors' style here: see what they've done? If the method doesn't work, it's not the program that's at fault, it's your kid, who is obviously cognitively impaired. Very crafty.

Anyway, who knows if it will work or not, but it's worth a try. Potty adventures commence. here we go...

No, really. Three weeks. Not even.

2010-02-14T05:30:00.000-08:00

A woman leaned over the bucket seat on the stroller today to peer at Eli while I was in AC Moore shopping for picture frames. "How old is your baby?" she asked me. "three weeks" I replied. Technically, he'll be three weeks on Wednesday, but whatever. Close enough. She looked closer at Eli. "Oh, I don't think so." She said. "are you sure?"

Am I sure? Am I sure about how old my kid is? What a weird thing to say.

Yes, I'm sure. He's 19 days old.

He just looks like he's 3 months:

Stage Parent

2010-02-14T05:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday afternoon I took Owen ice skating for the first time, to give him a chance to use the ice skates we bought him for christmas. It was a very surprising experience for me - usually I think my expectations are pretty in line with what is actually going to happen when it comes to Owen. For instance, when we go to the mall, I anticipate an hour of frustrated mom chasing Owen around, paying for broken merchandise, and dealing with eardrum shattering tantrums. I'm a realist. However, for some reason this generally accurate sense of life with a toddler did not extend to ice skating. For some reason, in my head, I had this idea that we were going to go to the ice skating rink, I would spend 20 minutes teaching Owen how to ice skate, and then he and I sould spend the afternoon gliding around the rink hand in hand.

So, that didn't really happen. Owen lasted approximately 4 1/2 minutes on the ice, 2 of which he spent crying to Daddy on the sidlines to let him get off. Turns out, it takes a little more than 10 minutes and a mother's love of ice skating to get a not-quite-two year old whipping around the rink. After I gave up in defeat, and we were walking back to the car, Andy volunteered that he thought it went well. After all, Owen let me put the ice skates on him without protest, enjoyed walking around the rubber mat area with them on, wore his helmet without protest and enjoyed the cup of hot chocolate he got. My first reaction was "Went well? It was a disaster!" My visions of having the next Brian Orser (I mean, Wayne Gretzky!) on my hands had been dashed. It was then that I got an inkling that perhaps my expectations were a tad out of line.

Anyway, the good news is, Owen has been talking nonstop about ice skating since we got home, and has spent the last 2 1/2 hours begging me to take him this morning. So all is not lost! Hell be Elvis Stoijko (I mean Patrick Roy! really!) before we know it!

Eli comes home

2010-02-02T12:23:00.001-08:00

Owen giving his new brother a kiss...

and a hug...

Eli's had enough loving for one day. Owen looks a bit surprised.

Welcome home baby!

Introducing Elias Andrew Cox

2010-01-31T17:41:00.001-08:00

So Eli is finally here. (By the way, to clear up what is obviously a bit confusing, no - there is not a strange, geographical cluster of children named Elias in my neighborhood. When we decided to name him Elias we figured we'd call him Eli for short. Then I discovered a crapton of kids named Eli, and that's what prompted the earlier posts.) He arrived on January 27th at 7:43 pm weighing a whopping 9lbs, 4 oz and measuring over 22 inches. He's a big guy, but as Andy rightly points out, he kind of needs to be given his brother's temperament. I felt somewhat justified in being as miserable as I was toward the end of the pregnancy when they told me how big he was. At 5'3'' I'm no Amazon. I'm amazed he managed to fit in there for as long as he did.

We arrived home from the hospital today. Unfortunately, I was not successful in bringing Eli into the world in the normal manner, so like his brother before him he was born by C-section. There are several regular readers of this blog who I have not managed to talk to yet, and I'm sure that I'll be asked to explain what happened several times over so I've decided to just put the birth story up here, to avoid the repeated retelling. It's pretty upsetting for me, because I tried really, really hard to avoid a repeat surgical birth. I took a VBAC class, I hired a doula, I dumped my original OB practice and switched to a practice of midwives with a 70-80% success rate with VBAC deliveries, I read every book on the subject I could find....and I still ended up in an OR.

The short version of the story is that I developed a fever after an hour of pushing that kept creeping up, and the midwife and the ob on call began to worry that I had a uterine infection. The fact that my water had been broken for over 12 hours didn't work in my favor. Eli's heartbeat started to react to my elevated temperature, and the OB said that it wouldn't be safe, given that their efforts to bring my fever down had failed, and given that they didn't know for sure if I had an infection or what kind I had and whether or not the baby was currently being exposed to infection, to have him remain undelivered for any more than a half hour. Also, since his heart rate was hitting 190-200during contractions in response to the fever, they were worried that he was becoming distressed. Based on his position - he was in a terrible birth position, face up and with his head cocked to the side - the midwife estimated it would take 2 hours or more of the pushing phase to get him out, and that he was still too high in the birth canal to make a vacuum or forceps delivery possible to comply with the 1/2 hour deadline. The OB told me that in her opinion, there was zero chance of me being able to deliver him within 30 minutes no matter how hard I pushed or what assistance they used, so I agreed to stop trying and I got sent into surgery. The worst part about it was that because this time it was an 'emergency' rather than just a plain old this-labor-isn't-going-anywhere-and-I'm-bored situation, they took Eli immediately up the special care nursery for his antibiotics before I could even hold him. I didn't get him back until almost 8 hours later. With Owen, I got to hold him while they were wheeling me into recovery and start feeding him before they had even taken the spinal out.

Later, after it was over, another one of the midwives in the practice (not the one that was there to deliver me) came to talk about the outcome. I thought that was really nice of them to send her, actually. When they have a failed VBAC, they send someone in to process what happened with you. She went over the whole chart with me, reading the notes entered by the nurses, midwives and doctors. When she got to the note where the doctor wrote that she didn't feel a delivery would be possible, I jokingly asked "and is that the part of the chart where it notes 'patient went psycho?'?" She laughed, but I notice she didn't really say no. I did kind of go a teeny bit psycho when it became obvious that I was not going to be successful. I know there are a lot of people who are mystified by how important it was to me to not have another C-section, and it's hard to really explain why but it just was. Besides my emotional investment in the whole issue, there was the entire problem of caring for a toddler and a newborn after surgery, which is about as bad as I feared it would be. Recovering from a C-section with your first baby sucks, but is ultimately not that bad. Recovering from one when your two year old wants to jump on you, be picked up, run around and play, and needs to be lifted about 50 times a day just to perform essential life functions REALLY sucks.

Ultimately, after 'processing' the whole experience for a few days, I've come to the conclusion that the problem lay in my decision to get the epidural. My research, and input from one of the pediatricians in Owen's doctors' group, indicates that while it's possible that I had a uterine infection (we will never know - both Eli and I were treated immediately with IV antibiotics and they don't bother finding out unless after the 48 hour course of antibiotics there is still presence of infection, at which time they figure out what it is and treat it further) I think it's more likely that the epidural was responsible for raising my body temperature to mimic a fever. And Eli's heartrate was elevated in response to my elevated temperature, not an infection of the amniotic fluid. Had I been able to go without the drugs, I would have a) probably had him much faster and b) probably would have been successful.

I'm dissapointed in myself that I caved and got the drugs (and so quickly, at that. Once my contractions were 2 minutes apart and more than 45 seconds long they said "how do you feel about getting some pain reli..." and I said "NEEDLE. IN MY BACK. DO IT.") I didn't even try to stick it out, really. And to that I have to say that it really was that bad. I'm not sure, that if you put me in that much pain again, right now, and you said that it was a do-over, but that if I accepted pain relief I would end up with a surgery FOR SURE but if I didn't take it I wouldn't have to have one, I'm not sure I would have been able to turn it down, even then. Because in that moment, I couldn't handle it. None of the techniques they went over in any of the two childbirth classes I took, nor the presence of the doula (who was amazing by the way - never go to a birth without one) helped me resist. So am I happy I tried? I don't know. I think I'm too sad about the whole thing to really be happy I tried. Given the outcome, I almost wish I hadn't, because then I maybe wouldn't be so dissapointed.

Ultimately, however, I just need to get over the whole thing. But that's not going to happen today, or frankly probably this year. It's very unlikely that I'll have a third birth experience, and if I do, there's almost a 100% chance it will be a scheduled c-section with no chance of a trial of labor before hand.

Luckily for me, I now have two beautiful and healthy children, so ultimately how they came into the world doesn't matter. And that is the last depressing word I have on the subject. From here forward, nothing but adorable pictures of Owen in his "I'm a big brother' t-shirt holding Eli (who is screaming his head off) for the first time. Stay tuned for those, tomorrow.

false alarm.

2010-01-22T18:47:00.000-08:00

Today was just awful. I went to TJMaxx this morning to pick up a spare set of sheets for Owen's bed - having only one set of sheets for a toddler, as we found out at 3am two nights ago, is a poor idea indeed. While I was in the store, I started having contractions, stronger than the ones I've been having all week and slightly closer together. Pleased, I went home and waited a couple hours. The contractions got a little closer together - about 8 minutes apart - and a little stronger, and I started to be pretty uncomfortable. finally! I was sure, being due tomorrow and everything, that I'd be at Newton-Wellesley right now, not sitting on my couch putting up a blog post.

But guess where I am. Yes, sitting on my couch, putting up a blog post.

I had an appointment with the midwife today at 2:30 anyway, so I called the office around noon, told them what was happening, and asked if I should still come in or wait at home for things to pick up. (at this point, I was completely convinced I was actually in labor, to the point where I had called Andy to come home from work, called our doula, and activated the Owen-backup plan). They said come in provided the contraction activity didn't ramp up to the point where I needed to go to the hospital. So in I went, and they put me on the monitor to see what was going on. Things looked promising at first: 'ooh' said the nurse. "Nice contractions right there, you see? looks good." Then the midwife came in and did her exam.

Results: Nada. Zip. Zero progress. Mind you, at this point I had been contracting not only for almost 6 hours, but on and off periodically for the past WEEK. And I am dilated to a....zero. I'm not even at a stage of readiness where I can safely be induced. I could hardly believe it, and the midwife didn't have much comforting to say besides that this sort of thing just happens. The contractions are real, they're just not nescessarily productive. She confirmed my web md self diagnosis of prodromal labor and said not to feel bad, because it can be really hard to tell the difference between prodromal labor and the real thing, but it was a little late to not feel bad. So, with Andy and Owen home in the middle of the day and all systems go for baby having, we...didn't. have a baby, that is.

What we did do was sit around for the rest of the afternoon while I continued to have contractions and cried my eyes out, because the likelihood of me having a baby this weekend now looks pretty low. Or next week, for that matter. They did offer me a c-section, first on Wednesday, and then later in the afternoon the midwife called and said there was an opening on Monday, if I wanted it. I turned it down, because the whole point of this dag pregnancy was to avoid another c-section, but now I'm starting to wonder if I did the right thing. My time off from work is ticking away, and due to the activation of my short term disability already I can't really go back to work on Monday and be all "just kidding! gonna keep working after all. disregard that letter my doctor faxed you last week saying I couldn't anymore." As far as my company is concerned, medical leave is medical leave - they don't care whether the baby has come or not, and I only get so much. Every day I'm out with no baby is a day I can't be with baby.

Basically, we're still waiting. They told me at the appointment today that February 3 is the latest date they're willing to wait - if I'm still pregnant at that point (10 days past my due date) they'll induce if that's possible at that time or do a c-section if it's still not. I don't know what's more depressing: having a c-section two weeks from now when I could have just had one Monday and been done with it, or the thought of still being pregnant in FEBRUARY.

sigh. yep, today was not the greatest of days. and the worst part is, I'm still having the dammned contractions every 15 minutes or so.

maybe tomorrow will be better.

tiiiiiiime....goes by......so slowly........

2010-01-21T14:05:00.000-08:00

So, no baby yet. I've spent the week waiting around for contractions to begin, and although they've begun a number of times, they never really get legs. I'll have contractions for say, three hours about 15 minutes apart, but they never get any closer together and they never get any stronger. The internet tells me this is 'prodromal labor'. My own personal term for it isn't polite and shouldn't be put on a family friendly blog.

It strikes me as cosmically unfair that a woman who goes into labor at 37 weeks is considered just as normal as one who goes in to labor at 42 weeks. Friends, that is a 5 WEEK difference. 5 WEEKS. If that doesn't sound absurdly long to you, then I can only conclude you have never been 9 months pregnant. 5 weeks is over a month. 5 weeks might as well be a century. And the really crappy thing is, because you know there are people that have babies at 37 weeks - I personally know three - as soon as you hit that magic milestone you start thinking 'well, maybe I'll go early.' And other women know about the 37 week thing, so they start telling you 'any time now!'. The 'any time now' is particularly galling, because you start to believe it, and then every day is excruciatingly long. While we're on the subject, I swear that if I hear the following one more time I am not responsible for my actions:
"the baby will come when he's ready!" this has to be the number one most annoying thing said to pregnant women, ever. Trust me when I tell you that if you've ever said this, the woman you said it to might have smiled and nodded, but she was secretly thinking "I hate you." And for some reason, people always feel the need to tell you this as if they personally are the keeper of maternity knowledge. As if pregnant women were walking around with the misguided idea that they had some control over when the baby came, or that on the first day of the 40th week a timer would ding and the baby would be delivered fully cooked.

Anyway, there's really nothing to report, other than (as is probably obvious from the above) I'm a bit cranky these days. Hopefully I'll have good news soon, because, you know,

Any time now!

Crafty Mama

2010-01-09T13:29:00.000-08:00

Andy has lots of good husband qualities, and one of them is that he is an excellent gift giver. While certainly not a required characteristic when looking for a mate for life, it sure makes things nice. Anyway, one of the things he got me for Christmas (I will note that the other one was a diamond bracelet: I'm sure he wants credit on the internet for that too) was a gift certificate to take a class at a craft store that I am obsessed with called The Stitch House in Dorchester. I know what you're thinking - Dorchester? - yep, Dorchester. Turns out Dorchester is gentrifying fast and the little neighborhood this store is in is full of pricey condos and cute bakeries and boutiques. And also, a super awesome craft store. Anyway, I spend way too much money there on yarn as it is, but they have tons of classes, workshops and clubs that I've never quite made it to. And while I do enjoy knitting a great deal, I don't find it particularly challenging. Knitting projects stop getting more interesting at a certain point and just get bigger. Not that I'm going to stop knitting any time soon, just that recently I've started eyeing new frontiers of different crafts. I've been dying to learn to sew for ages, and even had taken an adult ed class a couple years ago, but Owen kind of derailed my learning endeavor. So to give me something to do while I wait for this baby to arrive, I signed up with my gift certificate to the Saturday Sew Intensive, which meets two Saturdays in a row, 4 hours each. They offer it pretty much every month, and if you're interested I HIGHLY reccommend you go. I'd like to take it again - there were several people in my class today who were taking it for the second or third time. Basically, you pick a pattern and some fabric and bring it, and the instructor helps you figure out what you're doing. In the spirit of being 9 months pregnant, I bought a baby outfit pattern (hat, jacket, pants, booties) and some fleece. I finished the pants and got about 1/2 way through the jacket, leaving the jacket details (side seams, collar, cuffs and hemmed edges) as well as the hat and booties for next Saturday (provided I don't have a baby before then). Look!

I'm pretty excited about it, actually. It was a lot of fun and I learned an amazing amount in 4 hours. I can't wait to try my hand at more projects.

Thanks, Andy :)

Things that make you go hmmmmm....

2009-12-23T17:41:00.000-08:00

I saw my midwife yesterday because I mistook back spasms for contractions. This is kind of embarrassing, especially since this isn't my first baby and I've experienced contractions before so you'd think I'd know what they feel like, but I'm not going to beat myself up about it. If you're 35 weeks along and have episodes of severe pain across your lower back that come along every hour or so, you can be forgiven for thinking they are contractions. As it turns out, however, this baby is no closer to the light of day than he was a few days ago, but they were extremely painful. Anyway, the point of the story is that I left the office with a prescription for tylenol with codeine. Right on the prescription it says 'take every 4 hours as needed'. When the midwife suggested it I asked her skeptically if taking codeine was really safe while pregnant (editor's note: I am not actually planning on filling this prescription, assurances of safety or no) and she assured me that there was nothing to worry about.

Now, I'd just like to volunteer that it's a little odd that taking tylenol with codeine every 4 hours as needed is absolutely nothing to worry about, but caffeine, deli meat, soft cheeses and the occasional glass of wine are all on the official pregnancy forbidden list. I mean, really, makes you think twice about declining that turkey sandwich, or second cup of coffee, doesn't it?

Disaster Strikes

2009-12-22T04:11:00.000-08:00

First of all, thanks for all your input on my previous post. The decision has been made, the original baby name stands. I appreciated all the considered replies, and think the winning point in its favor was made by Ashley (hi Ash! miss you!) who noted that since it's what I've been thinking of the baby as for all this time, it's going to be really, really hard to completely switch gears and think of him by another name. For better or worse, the baby has been named, so if there are 20 boys with the same name in his 5th grade class....he'll live. Like I said, there were numerous other Jennifers in mine, and I'm not scarred by the experience.

Speaking of the other Cox spawn in the house, I have come to a decision, and that is that never again will I let Owen go on an overnight trip without me until he has reached the age of reason. This past weekend my parents helpfully volunteered to take Owen up to their house for the weekend so we could get the house organized and some essential projects finished before baby comes. That is, it was helpful until he returned home and every stitch of sleep training we have done and all the progress we have made was promptly undone and Owen and I (but not Andy, who somehow has managed to excuse himself from parenting duties that occur between 10pm and 5am) were locked in a battle to the death last night pretty much every hour on the hour from midnight on. It doesn't help that both he and I have developed bad colds, which further disrupted sleep ability. It's no one's fault, but the fact is that Owen is a very, very sensitive kid to changes in his routine and he just can't handle the disruption of us being away from him. This happened when we went to Florida too (only much, much worse - he was a disaster for almost two weeks afterward) and it's just not worth it. This is going to make the having of baby 2 very tricky, as I think for all our sake's, Owen is going to need to stay with a parent. This may mean that Andy doesn't get the full hospital experience this time and instead goes home after the baby is born to stay with Owen. I think that might be the best way.

A rose by any other name?

2009-12-18T17:21:00.000-08:00

This blog doesn't usually generate many comments, but I'm actually actively seeking opinions on this one. So if you have one, chime in.

The baby currently still cooking has been named for about 15 weeks now. After a surprising amount of debate, given our very quick selection and approval process with Owen, we picked a name that we thought had a good balance of uncommon and normal. That is to say, it wasn't Joe, but it wasn't Dweezil, either.

This not-too-common name, however, has turned out to be much more Joe-like than we thought. Despite the fact that prior to choosing it I knew only one little boy with this name, I have since met or heard of (through mom friends and friends of mom-friends, or seen written on cubbies at Owen's school) a total of 8 more, just in my reasonably small network alone. I'm starting to feel like now maybe our name is a little overnamed. Not that it's terrible to have a common name, but the whole point was to avoid a situation where what Jennifer is to 1980 my kid's name is to 2010, you know? Then again, I grew up as a Jennifer, and it was fine. I never felt super put out about having a very common name. But, I certainly did wish my name was Katrina for a number of years (number of Jennifers in my graduating 8th grade class: approximately 30. Number of Katrinas: 1). In retrospect, I suppose I am now glad my name isn't Katrina, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, without writing the name (although I am aware there are some readers who already know it), what do you think? Go with what is turning out to be a very popular name, because it was our first choice and we like it? Or go back to the drawing board and come up with another name that is normal, but a little more unique? 2 or 3 years ago when 1 in 3 girls were being named Madison I remember wondering what all those parents were thinking. Now I feel like we're in the same boat. The reason I'm not sharing the actual name is because it's not about the name, its about the relative popularity of the name. Meaning, I'm looking for objective opinions.

If we like the name, does it matter if it's really common? Or is it better to avoid the trendy names, and go with something a little more classic?

Still Celebrating the Season

2009-12-10T18:03:00.001-08:00

Tonight I took Owen to have his picture taken at the studio at the Atrium mall. The woman assigned to us was practically a miracle worker, as far as I'm concerned. Owen's behavior in general runs the gamut from charmingly rambunctious to birth control, and tonight he was an absolute disaster. We got to the mall an hour early because I was thinking I could maybe get a little christmas shopping in before our appointment. Fail. Owen would not stay in the stroller and did about $60 worth of damage at Williams-Sonoma before I managed to pig-wrestle him up to the indoor playspace on the 4th floor, where he could at least run around like a maniac without costing me anything. After 45 minutes of letting him do that, I started to think it was a brilliant strategy - he'd be docile and accomodating when it came time for the photos. Wrong. So, so wrong. When we got to the studio he was TERRIBLE, and I sat there cursing myself for even coming up with the stupid picture idea in the first place. Owen kept running away - not just away from the photographer, but OUT OF THE STUDIO ITSELF into the mall. When he wasn't doing that, he was pulling on the backdrop canvases, knocking over all her props, and sticking his fingers into anything even vaguely electrical looking.I did my best to keep him on task, but it's no easy feat to whale myself around these days, and I was pretty much doing a lousy job of toddler managing. So it was actually a shock, when she finally showed me the pictures, to see that some of them came out really well despite the mayhem. In 24 hours, you will be able to see the photos for yourselves (apparently they post them online 24 hours after the session, so start checking around 8 tomorrow evening). There are two separate sets of directions, for grandparents and non-grandparents, so pay attention.

Instructions for non-grandparents:

go to www.portraitsimple.com
select 'portraits online' followed by the studio location, which is the atrium mall in chestnut hill, ma
the password is 2803
enjoy

Instructions for grandparents

see above. However, when you get to the point where you have the option to purchace prints, I advise that you...don't. I am sure you don't think I had Owen's picture taken two weeks before Christmas with no intention of using said photos as Christmas gifts. Furthermore, if you don't like the prints I chose, I have it on good authority that there is a giant sale in January and all the pictures you had taken in 2009 are heavily discounted. Plus, we are now 'members' of the studio and if I go back and buy more prints, I get 10% off (even off the discounted January prices). So hold your horses until after the holidays, is what I'm saying.

Cards

2009-12-09T17:38:00.000-08:00

I finally managed to order our holiday cards, and they arrived today. I was so proud of myself for actually taking a picture, selecting a card on snapfish and ordering them before January 1 that I forgot when they arrived I would actually have to address and mail them. God, life is exhausting. Anyway, they're really not that cute. I thought they were when I ordered them, but the mockup on the snapfish website is just so damn small, that the expression on Owen's face that I thought was 'holiday excitement' looks more like 'surprise bordering on fear' on the final product. Don't worry, if you're one of my 10 faithful readers you're certainly on the list of people who will get one, so you can see for yourself. If I ever mail them, that is. Anyway, last year we ordered 40 and ran out. I distinctly remember feeling badly about several people who did not get one, so this year I ordered 60. And now that they're here, I cannot for the life of me think of 60 people that I even know, let alone need to send a holiday card to. I'm soliciting suggestions, so if you can think of someone who needs to be wished peace and health in the new year send me thier address. There's really only so many off-label uses for a photo holiday card.

Speaking of photos, I've been toying with the idea of bringing Owen to visit Santa this weekend. I'm very firmly of the opinion that my kids are not going to believe in Santa (save your outrage, people. It's not going to scar them. And if they want to do the whole santa thing with thier kids, I won't take it personally) so I'm not sure I really want to do that. But I guess you can get the benefit of the cute photo-op without having to explain Santa as anything more than a decorative accent to the holiday, like a Christmas tree. Especially this young. Anyway, so we might do that, and if that picture comes out nicely, maybe I'll scrap these cards and order another set.

Then again, that would probably result in 120 cards sitting on my counter making fun of me for not being able to get things done.

Updates

2009-12-03T16:23:00.001-08:00

A quick post to provide some updates:

1) Ferber: outcome excellent. I love him. If I wasn't married I would write a letter - better! rent a skywriter! - and ask him to marry me. In fact, I might do that anyway. We followed the plan, it sucked and then it worked, and now Owen is sleeping through the night. Until at least 5:30. I'll take it.

2) Big boy bed: see above. The remaining hurdle is, as predicted, naps. He won't nap in it unless I can get him to fall asleep first (for instance, driving him around in the car) and then transferring him. He doesn't sleep in a crib at daycare, though, so I'm not sure why the naps issue is such a no-go on weekends, especially when the night time bed is going so well. So, a mixed bag but mostly good.

3) Pregnancy: things could be going better. I'm much more uncomfortable than I was last time. The injury I sustained at 22 weeks to my left hip hasn't healed, and my back hurts a lot more this time around. I feel this can probably be directly attributed to the fact that last time I didn't need to haul around a 30lb toddler constantly. I also got diagnosed with gestational diabetes yesterday, which completely shocked me and is a total bummer (let's be real, the only upside to being pregnant over the holidays is the dessert table). I'm also now fearing a 14lb newborn. Only time - 7 weeks and change, but who's counting, really - will tell.

4) Christmas: I still hate it. Nonetheless we are now the owners of 3 (!) advent calendars and I am good naturedly going through the motions of opening them up one day at a time, so look what a good sport I am. This weekend we'll decorate seasonally, and we recently inherited enough Christmas decorations to outfit santa's village at Bloomingdales so I'm sure our house will be a sight in a few days. I'm even letting Owen listen to Christmas carols on the radio and Andy has forced me to stop lecturing Owen on rampant commercialism and manufactured sentiment. I might even take Owen to see Santa. I say again: look what a good sport I am.

5) Kitty: um, a handful. At dinner Andy asked me if the MSPCA is open on Saturdays. I didn't really ask him why he wanted to know, but well, Kitty, if you're reading this, I'd encourage you to get your act together. stat.

Sorry

2009-11-28T14:02:00.001-08:00

Sorry for the interruption in service. The blog settings got messed up. You don't need to be invited to follow the intrepid adventures of team Cox...I believe I've fixed the problem and if it happens again shoot me an email.

Blinded by love for thier offspring....

2009-11-20T19:35:00.000-08:00

Parents do really dumb things.

About a week ago, we acquired a small black kitten that seemingly had nowhere else to go. You could argue that the appropriate thing to do would have been to take him to the shelter, but it's hard to overstate the case when describing how much Owen LOVES this kitten. I swear the first day we had him in the house was the very best day of Owen's life - and how can you take away the root cause of the very best day of your child's (admittedly, short) life? you can't. Hence, we are now the proud owners of kitty the cat. We've tried and failed to explain the concept of proper names to Owen, so it seems that Kitty is, by default, the newest member of our family's name. Good thing we're not letting Owen name the new baby, or we would certainly end up with a child named 'baby'.

Kitty is remarkably patient with Owen. Owen spends most of his time chasing him, and probably catches him about 60% of the time. Clearly, Kitty is letting himself be caught because if he wanted to, he could camp out in the top back corner of the nearest closet and let Owen have nothing to do with him. Instead, he allows Owen to carry him all over the house (frequently upside down), kiss him wetly and repeatedly, roll around on the floor clutching him and giving him hugs, and chase him until they're both exhausted. Earlier this evening I took a series of pictures (which sadly, I cannot make Blogger upload right now) in which Owen manhandled Kitty to the point that I was sure any other feline on the face of the earth would have taken his face off, but Kitty purred and was a good sport the whole time. I have to say, all the reasons we shouldn't have acquired anything new to take care of right now - and you're right, there are many - become totally moot every time we pull up to the house now and Owen starts shouting "KITTY! KITTY! KITTY!". I've really never seen anything make him as happy. So yep, we now have to get a cat sitter when we travel. And with our luck, Owen will be off at college someday and we'll be giving insulin injections 6x daily to our geriatric, diabetic cat. And it will probably scratch up everything we own and shed and drive us nuts all night.

But really, HOW could we say no?

Dear Dr. Ferber

2009-11-19T11:52:00.000-08:00

Dear Dr. Ferber,

I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for calling you an overhyped quack who doesn't know what he's talking about. I know we've never met and so technically I could have gotten away without apologizing, but I believe in giving credit where credit is due and I feel badly for maligning your good name for the past 20 months. After a third reading of the revised edition of "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems", I have finally realized that I was not following your instructions precisely as laid out in your treatment plan, and so was judging the results unfairly.I have now learned that it is important to adhere to the letter rather than just the spirit of the program, and I also finally sucked it up and let Owen cry for 5 (yes 5) hours without breaking down and letting him get some sleep in either my bed or his. I even observed the full 10 minute waiting period before going in for each check in and back pat, a period of time which hertofore has seemed excessive and I have always capped at 5 minutes. Miracle of miracles, for the first time in almost two years, we seem to be making headway on the sleep issue. Last night Owen slept in his own bed for the whole night, with only two minimal episodes of crying and both times was resettled without a parent getting into his bed, just like you said would happen if we followed the program exactly as written. Amazing.
I promise to follow all your instructions from now on, even though it's going to make us far less flexible than we would otherwise be for the next 30 days. I will not doubt you again.

Your devoted servant and biggest fan,

Jenny

Revelations while playing hookey.

2009-11-17T10:24:00.000-08:00

I didn't go to work today, and the only thing that was on the to-do list was go to target, so I figured Owen and I would take a little field trip. And then I remembered that I had been hearing really good things about a new indoor playground that had opened in Watertown. A quick google revealed the indoor playground to be 5 minutes away from the target, so the fates were aligned. Early this morning, we packed up a bag and headed to The Inside Playground (100 Parker St., Watertown: http://www.insideplayground.com/). What a fabulous, fabulous idea. It was a huge indoor space, maybe the size of an indoor rec complex that can hold two hockey rinks or indoor soccer arenas filled with every toy you can imagine. Ride on toys, push toys, trucks, planes, legos, dress up clothes, play kitchens, a ball pit, a giant sesame street bouncy house (side note: One thing I am adamant about is that Owen not watch television. And no sooner than do we walk in the door he starts pointing at the bounce house and yelling, "ELMO!" Seriously? I want to know: how does he know Elmo?)plus a huge, 20 foot inflatable train. If you're two, this place is pretty much the best thing that ever happened to you. And I think it was perfectly priced, at $10. You can stay as long as you want - we stayed from about 9-12. It wasn't so much that it was prohibitive to go there but not so little that it was a zoo. Owen had a fabulous time, and I was thanking my lucky stars that I found it before the winter came and we face long, dreary days stuck inside. Anyway, at noon I decided I'd better get a move on if I wanted to feed Owen and run errands at Target before he started having a must-nap meltdown, so we left. It just so happens that there's a Friendly's in the parking lot of Target, and I thought - hey, why not. We're playing hookey from work and school, might as well make an event out of it. And so I set foot in a Friendly's for the first time since high school. I didn't have high expectations of the food, but was pleasantly surprised - the kids menu actually had pretty good choices. Yes, there was a selection of fried and cheesed items, but you could swap out the fries for broccoli, steamed veggies, mandarin oranges, white rice, applesauce, baked potato, etc, OR you could combine a bunch of healthy sides for lunch, which is what we did. (Owen won't eat hamburgers or hotdogs anyway, but can put the hurt on mandarin oranges). In that case, I felt much better about him eating the clown sundae (you know I couldn't take him to friendly's and not get this) that came free with the kid's meal. Add a salad for me, and it was overall a pretty good experience for $13.50. Go Friendly's. Who knew? We ran our quick errand at Target and hit the car just about 1:30, late enough that Owen's eyes closed the minute he hit the carseat. Perfect day out: Major success.

Our great day made me, oddly, appreciate being a working mom. You might think that I would be thinking, "Oh, I wish I didn't have to work! Wouldn't life be awesome if I was home all the time?" But instead, it inspired the opposite feeling. I had a great time at the indoor playground - really, I spent three hours chasing Owen on various ride on toys, building towers, and jumping in the bounce house, and it was a certified blast. But I can't sustain that level of interest in toddler pursuits day in and day out. There are people out there that can - and I am grateful that I can pay them to do so while I apply the talents I do have to another productive endeavor. I don't have the perfect job right now, but I certainly don't mind working. And I don't feel like I work too much. What I do feel is that I wish there were just a couple more hours in each day, so that I could spend just a little bit more time with Owen than I get to. But not a LOT more time, just a little more time. An hour or two. That would be nice. Short of that, I wish I could outsource more of the stuff I hate: cleaning, shopping, organizing, cooking. And if I could somehow do both at the same time? Well that would be perfect.

I know there are people out there who still think that being a good mom means being a full time mom (sadly, some of them are so rude as to actually make their opinions known in the company of working moms. Way to be an ass.) But I think that ultimately, staying home because you think that's what a good mom should do when you're not cut out to do it won't make you a good mom. I think it would make me a resentful, bored, and probably depressed mom. In fact, if I could make improvements to the situation I have now (which is truthfully, pretty good) I would get a MORE challenging (or at least interesting) job, work about 8 fewer hours per week, and pay someone to do the stuff "good" moms do - clean bathrooms and bake pies and make dinner and make sure the baby has had a bath in the past couple days. I know plenty of people who are staying at home because they like doing those things. For a long time, I think I thought that even if you didn't like those things, staying home and doing them ANYWAY was what you should do if you could. But I've been thinking alot about it lately, and today I realized that that's not the case at all. If staying home suits you, then great. But if it doesn't, you're still being a good parent. The trick, I think, is to find ways to maximize the quality time you do have while not feeling guilty about the mundane time you don't have.

Anyway, enough rambling. the point is, we had an awesome day, which has capped off a pretty awesome week for Owen. More on that later, when I get some pictures uploaded.

Norwegian Star Hat

2009-11-11T08:32:00.001-08:00

As a general rule, I don't like to make any knitting project twice. That would be boring, and besides, there are so many patterns out there that I want to make, I don't have time to waste going back and doing something I've already done. But I'm going to make an exception in this case. I made Owen this Norwegian Star pattern hat for the winter:

While I was making it, Andy said "when are you going to make me a hat?" and I told him that I would make one that matches this one. Because as you may know I have a weakness for anything that involves dressing Andy and Owen alike. And then I realized that in a scant 10 weeks I am going to have THREE boys to torture and embarrass by insisting they dress alike. So there's pretty much no option: if Andy's getting a Norwegian Star Hat, then so is the new baby. So stay tuned. Because those pictures are going to be awesome.

Big Boy Bed, Part 2: Night 1

2009-11-08T07:19:00.000-08:00

well. I'm as surprised as anyone - more surprised, actually, I assure you - that the reprot on the debut of the big boy bed is not that bad. Overall, weighted to the positive, even. I expected a disaster, and we actually ended up with a moderate degree of success. Not that I got any sleep - I was awake all night, anxiously anticipating the *THUMP* and subsequent screams that never materialized. I was so worked up about it I ended up getting up and making a cup of tea at 2:40, hoping that would work. But until a little after 4, I heard....nothing.

Now, we did stack the deck - we basically skipped his nap yesterday and then kept him up an hour and 15 minutes later than normal to the point where he was trying to put himself to bed on the living room rug, handing me back toys and saying "night night. night night". I figured this would make the boundaries of the cage-free sleeping arrangements less tempting to test, and to a degree it seems to have worked. He did wake up crying at around 11, but I went in and rubbed his back for awhile and was able to get him back sleeping and successfully sneak out.

at about 10 past 4, he woke up crying. I found him sitting up in bed, crying to be picked up. He clearly didn't associate that he could just get out, and I wasn't about to illustrate it for him. I got into bed with him, and he tried and failed to go back to sleep. He closed his eyes, but he embarked on the famous routine where he flails around, keeps checking to make sure I'm there, insists on wrapping his hands in my hair, and kicks like a donkey. He kept this up until 5:15, when he fell back asleep again. When I finally managed to nod back off, he was up for the day. Luckily, Andy was kind enough to let me return to my bed and sleep in until 9:45.

Overall, the score: Owen stayed in the new bed all night. He woke up MUCH later than he normally does (with the exception of 11:30, but I'm willing to discount that since I was still up, and he went back to sleep). He still ended up sleeping with a parent - not ideal, but at least not in our bed. He still has this weird, restless, half awake half asleep state that results in screaming if you leave him alone but prevents you from sleeping and also results in severe battery if you stay, which is bad. But on the bright side, I only had to endure it for about an hour rather than 2 or three which is what happens most night.

We still have a long way to go - I have no idea what naptime will bring. He's notoriously more resistant to naps then to bedtime, and might take that opportunity to just climb out. Also, as we have learned many, many times in this great parenting experiement, nothing is generalizable from one experience. We'll see how it's going in a week.

And ultimately, it can still be classified as an overall fail because I still ended up in the bed with him - not sleeping. But I really think it's a much milder fail than oh, say, the past year and a half. I call this making progress.

Owen gets a big boy bed

2009-11-07T15:32:00.001-08:00

Owen helping Daddy put the bed together:

We thought long and hard about what to do about the crib situation. We have one crib, two bedrooms, and 1 and 1/2 children under the age of two. Not bad numbers, but as you can see they don't exactly add up. We had lots of options. 1) do nothing. keep owen in his crib, put baby #2 in the cosleeper until 6 months, and deal with it then. 2) buy/borrow/steal a second crib; put it in Owen's room. 3) make the leap to a bed, toddler or twin.

I got lots of opinions on what we should do, mostly from people who've dealt with the 2 under 2 situation recently. And ultimately, we decided to go straight to the twin bed. There were compelling arguments for the others, but the deciding factors were these:

-unlike most 20 month olds, Owen still does not and has never slept through the night consistently. He does still end up in our bed every morning. We've tried so many things to break this pattern with no luck, so, baby steps here. First thing: No more coming into mom's bed. Mom might very well have to come into Owen's bed, but the pattern where he gets himself into our bed stops tonight. Bonus: small possibility that after mom comes in and lies down in new big boy bed, she can sneak back out once Owen is back to sleep. We'll see if this works. So, a toddler bed wasn't going to work for this.

-I feel like major transitions are best tackled separately. So, either we do something now or not till way after baby 2 gets here. I'd rather do it now to avoid taking Owen out of the crib one morning and putting the baby in it that night. Better to have him done with the crib before the little interloper even shows up.

- 2 cribs seems excessive. Plenty of kids transition to a bed between 18-22 months, we don't need another crib, especially since we probably won't have any more babies. It feels like a waste.

So, we'll see. We shall see. Tonight is the maiden voyage. Wish us luck.

Le bed du big boi:

Good news: I'm not crazy.

2009-11-06T14:03:00.001-08:00

For about the last two weeks, I've been feeling a little anxious about driving places. Recently, each time I've been in the car, I've been hearing...something. Something that sounds like a voice, but I can't tell what it's saying. It's a muffled, low sound that for all the world sounds like a man's voice. This sound is not loud, and a lot of times it's drowned out by the sound of general traffic, the radio or Owen chattering away, but at other times, particularly at night when it's quieter out, it's undeniably there. The first time I heard it, I was listening to NPR and using my GPS, so I thought it was a malfunction on the radio. I thought that there was some muffled recording error on the talk show I was listening to, and forgot all about it...until I heard it again on my way home. That's odd, I thought. They usually are pretty good about picking up and correcting technicial errors on air. Then, I promptly forgot about it again.

Then next time I heard it, I was listening to a CD, but using the GPS. This time, I figured it must be the GPS doing something weird, like repeating directions sotto voix or some other malfucntion. But what was it saying? To find out, I held the GPS up to my ear while driving to try and figure out what it was doing. Here's a tip: Don't do this. I was listening so intently that when the woman who normally barks directions at me spoke up to tell me to turn left, it was directly in my ear and scared me half to death. I almost caused a 10 car pileup.

After repeated experiments with and without the GPS, I realized it was happening even in it's absense. I looked all over the dash to see if something was wrong with the radio. I started driving around with the radio turned unescessarily loud. And I started wondering if maybe I was even hearing the voice at all. My job isn't excessively clinical, but heck, I am a licsensed and practicing mental health professional. If there's one thing I absorbed from two years of dozing through grad school it's that hearing voices is Not Good. With a capital N and a capital G.

So it got to the point where I was approaching the car pretty warily. I even skimmed parts of my grad school DSM-IV just to see if it said anything about a location-specific auditory hallucination (it did not).

Until today. I left work a little early, and on my way home I took route 9 instead of the Jamaicaway like I normally do because I wanted to swing by Barnes and Noble for a few minutes. As those of you who are local can attest, route 9 at 4 on a Friday is a nightmare, and it ended up that I had to stop short behind a truck that decided to make a break across the lanes from the Chestnut Hill Mall driveway. The car lurched forward a bit and all of a sudden, in an extremely clear, deep male voice, I heard:

RECTANGLE.

Rectangle?

For a second I was confused. My auditory hallucination was....a man saying "rectangle"? bizzare.

I pulled into the Barnes and noble parking lot, and the mystery was revealed. Tuesday before last, I had to bring Owen into my office for a little bit for a short meeting I couldn't miss. I brought along some toys for him to play with, which I took back out of the car when we got home except for a shape naming puzzle which apparently got stuck under the backseat. When I stopped short, it dislodged and was out in the open, so I could listen to it malfunction all the way home.

rectangle!
rectangle!
rectangle!

2009-10-31T19:09:00.000-07:00

Anyone know a toddler with a really small head?

2009-10-29T19:13:00.001-07:00

I made the toddler aran sweater from Tina Barrett's Natural Knits for Babies and Toddlers. I'm posting it because despite the fact that the pattern was written poorly, and despite the fact that it took me forever to troubleshoot the mistakes and make the body and sleeves come out correctly, I stuck with it because I really liked the pattern. Now I'm finally finished, and the neck is so small there is no way this sweater is going over the head of any child over the age of 6 months. So annoying! So, if you got here because you googled the designer name and the pattern, my advice is to skip it. There are plenty of adorable toddler cable knits out there, and this one is more trouble than it's worth. I'm supremely annoyed that I spent almost 3 weeks making this, and there's no way Owen can wear it. If you have any use for this, let me know. it's yours.

now I need to find another pattern - and buy more yarn - for Owen to wear at the holidays. knitters, any suggestions?

Edit to add: the color is really off in these photos. The sweater is actually not that putrid yellow. It's more of a cream. Dunno what happened with the camera.

Dr. Y solves all your problems.

2009-10-27T16:34:00.001-07:00

I've posted about it before, and I'll say it again: I love, love love Owen's pediatrician, Dr. Y. I also consider the good doctor to be the final word bar none on any baby health and wellness related issue. Sometimes, I'll admit it, I make appointments with Dr. Y just to talk about my baby. Oh, I give him a snuffle and a cough just to get it by the sniff test of the triage nurses on the phone, but Dr. Y usually knows as well as I do why I'm there. And he never minds indulging me, so after he's cleared Owen of his imaginary ear infection he says, "so what's going on with Owen?"

What is going on with Owen is that he doesn't sleep. He will not sleep through the night in his crib. I've posted about this extensively and I'm sure everyone is sick of hearing about it, but it is significantly negatively impacting our quality of life. I don't mind working, keeping up with a toddler and generally trying to keep my arms around life, but I do mind doing it when I can count the number of times on one hand in the last 19 1/2 months that I've slept through the night. Some nights are ok (one major wakeup), some nights are horrible (three or more). On balance, I'd say we're weighted toward the horrible.

So this is how I ended up in Dr. Y's office blubbering about Owen's sleep problems today. (Definitely not the first time I've blubbered in there. There was the infamous "my baby nurses every 40 minutes and I think I'm going to die" episode at 3 months. yikes.) And Dr. Y looked very seriously at Owen and said, "Owen, my beautiful boy, why you are not sleeping?" and then he asked me, "when he wakes up, what does he want? To eat? To drink?" I said, "no, he wants to be cuddled. He wants to come into bed with me." And this is true. Most of the time, I fight with Owen (unsuccessfully) to stay in his own crib for a couple hours before I eventually give up and let him come into bed with me, after which he is usually quiet until the morning. Not necessarily not bothering me, but quiet. (and yes, we've tried the hard line approach of just not. letting. him. in. bed. It doesn't work. He cries till morning on and off, and we get zero sleep for weeks until we give in and let him back in bed again). I told Dr. Y all this and more. It's been a long battle with the sleep.

Dr. Y said, "Jenny, I love this country, but there is one thing I do not understand. Why do Americans think their babies should sleep away from mama and daddy? Of course he wants to come sleep with you. You have a smart baby. He knows it is nicer to sleep with Mama. In my country we sleep with babies and we are not a country of psychopaths."

"well, ok, Dr. Y". I said. "It's not so much that I have an aversion to cosleeping. We've been doing it more or less since Owen was born, after all. And if everyone was happily sleeping, we'd keep doing it. the problem, though, is that after we bring him into bed, HE'S happy. But we are still up because he flops around like a flounder on the dock, kicks, squirms, wakes up every couple hours to find a better way to position himself and generally takes up approximately 3/4 of our queen size bed by 5am. So Andy and I are hugging the edges of the bed for dear life while he's snoring spread eagle in the middle. We really, really, REALLY need a way for everyone to get sleep, not just Owen."

Dr Y seemed, finally, to understand what I was saying. "Ah!" he said. "I got it. I know what you need to do."

Finally! I thought to myself. This is what I've been waiting for! I should have come and cried to Dr. Y sooner. He ALWAYS knows what to do.

"Jenny," Dr Y said, "what you need is a bigger bed."

trip to smolak farm

2009-10-06T17:34:00.001-07:00

we went to Smolak farms a couple weekends ago and met our friends up there who have a little boy the same age as Owen. Owen had a great time looking at all the animals and discovered the joys of "pick your own" - in this case, raspberries (as a side note, $7 a pint for raspberries is nothing short of usurious, but I guess you're paying for the experience). I was highly amused by our friends' son neatly identifying raspberries and delicately picking them one at a time from the bushes while Owen's idea of picking involved breaking off an entire branch and trying to eat it, stems, leaves and all. I'm a tad concerned about the amount of pesticides he probably ingested during this endeavor, but ultimately, I've let it go. He had a great time and at that price, might as well eat a few stems and branches, if only to get your money's worth.

knitting

2009-10-06T17:23:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I enjoy knitting. In fact, I've been extremely prolific lately and if I get around to it, I'll post some pictures of my latest projects. I've got some cute stuff done for the new baby (so excited he'll be born in the middle of the winter, when lots of knitted apparel is appropriate) and I'm currently making Owen an adorable cable knit sweater for the holidays. However, it's hard to really find the time to get any knitting done when Owen is so adamantly opposed to me doing it in his presence:

luckily that was some junky yarn leftover from some puppets I made and not the $12/ball hand dyed alpaca I bought the other day. but still - knitting is clearly an after bedtime activity.

24 week malaise

2009-10-01T17:28:00.001-07:00

I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I'm no fan of being pregnant. First of all, I don't do pregnant well. I'm insanely jealous of the women who manage to look like they swallowed a basketball the entire time, and I've come to realize it's a function of how long your torso is. I've got an extremely short torso, which means I get pregnant basically from my shoulders to my hips, where as women with more length tend to have the more recognizable, low pregnant belly. Yes, eventually (around 8 months) I get to the point where people can tell right away, but before that I could very well just be hefty and carry the extra weight in a really unfortunate way. Given the number of people I encounter that are genuinely surprised to discover I'm pregnant, I've been forced to conclude that's what people are assuming. Note: when someone tells you they're 6 months pregnant, "oh, REALLY? I didn't even realize! That's great! Boy or girl?" Is so, so, so not the right response. The last thing someone who has gained 15 pounds concentrated in the front wants to hear is that no one can tell she's pregnant. Aesthetics aside, I also tend to get testy. My normally misanthropic personality gets positively caustic in the presence of human growth hormone. If I'm the (pre redemption) grinch at baseline, pregnant I'm practically Voldemort.

So, anyway, I'm 24 weeks and sick of it already. Weeks 20-30 are in my opinion the worst. I'm big enough to be uncomfortable, far enough along that the novelty has completely worn off, but there's really no end in sight. This baby is coming near the end of January. That's three major holidays away. Four, if you count Halloween. There's no light at the end of the tunnel yet.

Moreover, I'm back to work full time. Which is crappy. But really, there's no good solution to the work question - any thing less than full time is no good for me professionally (especially if I'm seriously plotting a course out of the trenches and into administration, or looking to take my career in a more managerial direction) not to mention financially. At part time, I might as well have gotten a big sign that said "marginalize me" and pinned it to my (giant) shirt. At the same time, full time is a killer personally. Our quality of life was so much better at part time. We actually had something cooked for dinner more often than not. Cooked. for dinner! That's pretty unheard of when I'm working. Finally, I think (no, I'm certain, actually) what bothers me most about working full time is the fact that it completely eliminates the ability to go to the gym. I will be the first to admit that I go to the gym primarily for the mental health benefits. My mood is affected by exercise the way some people's is affected by prozac. It has a powerful effect on my outlook on life. But honestly, working full time just means it's impossible to fit in. The gym babysitting doesn't open until 8am. No good, as I need to be at work by 8. By the time I pick up Owen from school, we almost never walk in the door before 5:45. Then I have at most 1 1/2 hours to feed him, bathe him, and generally orient him to who his parents are before it's time to do stories and bed. Then at 7:30, I suppose I could go to the gym, but frankly, at that point - by the time I got there it'd be close to 8, and that's just too late for me. On most nights, I am ready to crawl into bed by 9:30 because (have I mentioned this? Ever?) my kid refuses to sleep after midnight. So Andy and I usually get a few solid hours between 9:30 and 12:30 and then we're pretty much awake with bursts of cat napping until 6 or so when it's time to get up anyway. If you can find a reliable way to get a workout in in this scenario, please share. Because I have failed miserably. When I was part time, we went every day. I worked out from 8-9, and then Owen and I either went in the pool or to indoor playground from 9-10. It was great. It's not a coincidence that I started to be extremely resentful of this pregnancy (see beginning) right around the time I transitioned to full time. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that one.

so, anyway. that's the update as of today. I'm large, cranky and overtired, which isn't a great combination. The only bright spot in the crank-fest is that we have weekends back now. My goal is to make sure we do something fun as a family every weekend between now and initiating the launch sequence of baby boy cox #2. Whether I feel like it or not.

Tremblin' Toads

2009-09-20T14:37:00.001-07:00

I don't know if they still do it, but at holidays Hallmark used to put out these animatronic stuffed animal type things that sang a song and danced when you pressed a button for $12.95 if you bought three greeting cards. My mother loves these things and never fails to get me one when they have a new one. Last year at Halloween they offered tremblin' toads, two little toads in a cauldron that sing and dance about the witch cooking them up for dinner. Owen LOVES it, and he likes to press the button and dance to the song. It's so cute that we had to take a video of it - but of course, the minute we got the phone out to record, he stopped. Just so you know, this happens all the time. I fully intend to capture a moment for posterity and then can't get him to do anything cute at all. However, we did get a reduced version of the song and dance, so here it is: and if he starts doing it later this evening the way he was doing it when we took it out of the box this afternoon, I'll post a new one.

Actual Conversation that Occured at 55 Cerdan Ave This Evening

2009-09-07T19:05:00.000-07:00

Me: well, I guess I have to go to the grocery store tonight.

Andy: yeah?

Me: yeah, I looked in the fridge and the cabinets and we don't have much food. I have to pack Owen a lunch tomorrow and we don't have anything he likes to eat. And he's going to have to eat Wednesday and Thursday, too.

*pause*

Andy: yes, honey. he has to eat every day.

Me. I know. Parenting is so hard.

The word is out

2009-08-27T09:20:00.000-07:00

I interrupt this blogging vacation to bring you this late-breaking news story.

It's a boy!

As we all were. See you in September :)

blogging vacation.

2009-08-23T18:43:00.000-07:00

Does anyone actually check this to see if I've posted anything? well, if you do, you can quit for at least another week because I simply cannot get up the interest to do anything productive in August. August is pretty high up there on the list of things I hate (Sample list of things Jenny hates: 1) Christmas 2) August 3) The dentist 4) people who don't believe in global warming etc.) and I can't get motivated to take photos, write witty (to me, at least. witty to ME. you don't need to write me emails letting me know I'm not as funny as I think I am) recaps of Owen's adventures, or even subject the internet to my outraged liberal ranting. A couple years ago - ok, I just looked up the article and was astounded by the date on the byline...ALMOST TEN FREAKING YEARS AGO - I read a great article called "august - let's get rid of it" by David Plotz. I couldn't agree more. So, rather than waste time on my blog, I'll direct you over there, and as for team-cox.blogspot.com...we'll be back up and operational in September. Which is a great month, by the way.

August: let's get rid of it

Backyard Candids

2009-07-31T19:09:00.000-07:00

In for it

2009-07-31T18:35:00.000-07:00

Today I arrived at Owen's school to pick him up at 5. As is usual in the late afternoon, his class was playing outside on the playground. It took me awhile to see him at first - I was distracted by the knot of well behaved toddlers climbing up and sliding down the plastic dinosaur slide with one of the teachers' assistance. I spotted Owen finally, in the far corner of the playground playing by himself in what appeared to be a giant pile of mulch, supervised by one of the other teachers. I called "Owen!" and his little red head whipped around, and he came charging towards me grinning like a maniac. Friends, when I tell you this child was filthy, I mean I've rarely seen the likes. He had dirt clinging to his nostrils and in his hair, and his clothes were soaking wet to boot. I looked again at the other, notably non-disheveled kids, still playing near the slide. I looked back at my child, who I then noticed was not wearing the clothes I sent him to school in that morning. The teacher, in the meantime, had gathered up Owen's things for me and sheepishly handed me a plastic grocery bag along with his diaper bag. The contents of the plastic bag were an equally filthy set of clothing, the same he had worn in the door that morning. She said somewhat apologetically "well, when he wants to do something, we just can't stop him!"

I smiled, did the figurative equivalent of picking up my toddler between my thumb and forefinger, and cheerfully waved goodbye. I couldn't help thinking, however, "you just can't stop him? He's sixteen months old". I am in trouble.

As we were leaving, the teacher continued to give us the report about his day. The last thing she said to me was "he ate a lot today! maybe he won't want his dinner. He had all his lunch, three big snacks and three glasses of milk".

When we got home, he ate more than half a package of buitoni 4 cheese ravioli (that serves 3. adults.), a package of chocolate bunny grahams, a whole peach, and over a cup of milk.

Summer Fun

2009-07-22T17:40:00.001-07:00

We took Owen to the Blue Hills state park in Canton on Sunday. It's actually a really nice place to spend the day, because they have hiking trails, a huge playground, and a sandy beach with a swimming area. We didn't get too many photos, but some of the ones we did get are cute. You may notice that I am in none of them; this is intentional and will remain the case until roughly next February because I have a personal rule disallowing photographic evidence of me pregnant. (since approximately 5 people read this blog regularly and all already know I'm pregnant, I figure we can dispense with the big announcement.) Some women are all into documenting the growing belly; I personally like to maintain the illusion that I fit into my favorite pair of jeans at all times. Without evidence, you can prove nothing.

All right, well, I'm not sure what's going on, but blogger is for some reason giving me a very hard time about uploading photos tonight. So, while this post was largely going to just be photos from our day at the state park, that will have to wait. So I'll tell you a funny story instead. Today, I had to work all day (which is unusual for a wednesday). So Owen stayed at his school until 5 instead of noon, which is when I usually pick him up on Wednesdays. When we got home, the second we walked in the door Owen was in a state I'd never seen him before. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, hitting me, throwing himself on the floor, banging his head on the floor, running full on into walls, and I was freaking out. I seriously considered bringing him to the ER because I thought the circuits were misfiring in his brain. I kept trying to soothe him by picking him up, hugging him, speaking to him softly, but all I got was more screaming, flailing, and a bright red bite mark on my left arm that is still there as I type this. I had NO IDEA what the problem was. While I was looking for my phone to call Andy at work to tell him we were going to the hospital, Owen ran over to the fridge and started throwing himself against it. I thought - could he be hungry? He doesn't usually eat dinner until quarter to 6 or so, and it was only 5:10, and supposedly he gets a snack at school at 3:30....but I decided that before I showed up at Faulkner ED with a raging case of "crazy toddler" I'd try food first. Well, clearly, food was the problem. Or not the problem, the answer. Owen ate: Almost a full cup of cottage cheese, two doctor praegers spinach pancakes, an adult sized serving of cheerios with milk, 5 saltine crackers and (when andy got home) a full slice of pizza. I've never seen the kid eat so much. He was so hungry that he was using both hands to get cottage cheese and spinach pancake into his mouth at the same time. I have no idea what happened at school today. Every time we pick him up, we get a little report and Owen ALWAYS gets "ate all his lunch". He had a solid lunch today: A cheese sandwich, a banana, and a pack of Annie's bunny grahams. Plus, they give them the snack I mentioned earlier. So, maybe he hit a growth spurt? Maybe he didn't get his snack? Maybe he hid most of his lunch in his diaper? Who knows. All I know is that the kid had a full on low blood sugar episode. Note to self: In the future, keep a snack on you at all times. I shudder to think what would have happened if we had gone to run errands straight from school instead of going straight home!

Uh, thanks.

2009-07-12T18:44:00.001-07:00

Sigh. While straightening up some papers, I just came across an (unopened) package of "first birthday" thank you notes.

Since Owen's first birthday was 4 months ago, and I currently have no other child who is either imminently celebrating or just celebrated a first birthday, you can do the math. I assure you I had the best of intentions, and I think that I may have even convinced myself that I actually sent and wrote them. Which I clearly did not. And quite honestly, the chances of me at this point ever doing so diminish by the second.

I'm not ruling out the possibility. If you attended Owen's first birthday you may at some point in the future receive a kicky, sports themed thank you note. But it probably won't be soon. Or before Owen can sign his name himself. So, I apologize profusely for my rudeness - don't hold Owen accountable, he's just slightly too young to commit major social faux pas. And thank you very, very much for coming out and celebrating with us and bringing Owen a gift, if you did. We all enjoyed seeing you and are as always, touched by your generosity.

Mother of the Year

2009-07-01T09:41:00.000-07:00

When I was still a few weeks away from having Owen, we put him on a waiting list at a daycare center that was extremely conveniently located to where I was (at the time) working. They cheerfully took our $100 deposit and informed us that there would VERY likely be a spot for him "sometime in the spring or at LATEST early summer of 2009." This sounded great, since Owen was due in March. Until I thought about it driving home and realized he was due in March of 2008. bummer. It was just as well though, because once I found out how much full-time care there was (an astronomical amount that I'm pretty sure only neurosurgeons and celebrity dermatologists could afford) I wrote them off. But, the fortuitous intersection of him FINALLY getting to the top of the waiting list and me reducing my hours to a point where I really only needed a small amount of childcare meant that I could actually start sending him there this summer. He goes for a half day on Wednesdays and a full day on Fridays - and it would not be any kind of exaggeration to say that Owen LOVES IT THERE. In fact, it would be pretty safe to say that he loves it there way more than he loves me.

Case in point: today. We get there at drop-off time. All the other toddlers are busy clinging to their mother's power-suited pantlegs, wailing and gnashing their teeth. Owen, however, as he has done since the moment he laid eyes on it, made a beeline for the sand table. (He loves that sand table so much that I briefly considered getting him one for Christmas this year. Then I realized, SAND TABLE in my house? AM I HIGH?) The daycare teachers chirped "say bye to mama! have a good day mama!" Owen barely looks up as he pours a container of sand mixed with glitter onto another little girl's head. Yep, that might be my cue to go. I return at noon, because Owen only gets to go a half day on Wednesdays. He was happily seated at the table with all his little turtle-room buddies, eating his lunch and swiping food from slower eaters when he thinks he can get away with it. When he saw me come in, he was initially excited. He stopped feeding himself his yogurt (which he is more than capable of doing) and demanded I let him sit in my lap and feed him the rest. Aw, sweet. makes me feel appreciated. We finish his lunch, and I start to gather his things up. Owen spies me holding his bag and freezes. I can see him doing the math in his head: "Why's she holding my bag? Why's she putting my lunch bag in there? Wait a minute. Why is she HERE, anyway?" He immediately broke eye contact and ran over to the shelf of plastic dinosaurs and started to play with them very pointedly. "Oh, that lady? Yeah, I know her, but I really don't have the time to be bothered right now because as you can see I'm VERY busy." Unfortunately (actually, very fortunately), 15 month old mind tricks usually don't work, so I went over to pick him up. When he realized my intentions, he started to throw the mother of all tantrums. I was pretty embarrassed. the preschool teachers were all "don't worry, Owen! You can come back Friday! we'll see you friday and you can play all day!". Meanwhile, I slunk out of there with my screaming toddler, trying to telepathically communicate that my house is not actually a dungeon of spikes and lashes.

The whole point of me working less was so that Owen would benefit from being home with me. Turns out all he wants to do is go to daycare. Figures.

The great pediatrician debate.

2009-06-25T19:08:00.000-07:00

When Owen was born, we were living in Watertown, a couple miles from Newton Wellesley hospital. At the time, my primary care doctor and my obstetrician both had offices in the green building at the hospital, so it only made sense (since I was delivering there) to pick a pediatrician for Owen that had an office in the hospital as well. This is how we ended up with Dr. Y. He fit the geographical criteria, as well as had the added benefit of having a PhD in pediatric gastroenterology in addition to his MD, which was attractive to me because of the strong family history of GI disease. He was also, to be honest, the last pediatrician anywhere at Newton Wellesley who was accepting new patients. At first, Andy and I thought there was probably a good reason for that. As much as I have come to adore Dr. Y over the past 15 months, there is no denying that he is one of the goofiest looking human beings on the planet. Combined with his odd mannerisms, a tendency laugh at his own (unfunny) jokes awkwardly hard, and an extremely strong chinese accent, Dr. Y is an experience. He's an excellent doctor. But he is definitely an experience.

Since we've moved, it no longer makes much geographical sense to have doctors at Newton Wellesey. In fact, of the realtor-advertised benefits of our location now is that there is a huge Harvard Vanguard Medical Centre 3/4 of a mile from our house. Andy and I have already switched into PCP practices there, and I have a new OB there as well. It's within walking distance, has a lab and pharmacy contained right inside it, and every sort of doctor from pediatrician to geriatrician, all within walking distance. Every week I think "it would make so much more sense to switch Owen to one of the pediatricians at the HV." But something always stops me. I just can't bring myself to do it, because I am so attached to Dr. Y.

Today, Owen had his 15 month appt. at Dr. Y's office. My plan was to ask the receptionist to fax his medical records over to the HV pediatrician's office. I had gone so far as to find out which of their doctors were accepting new patients, picked one, and decided to go ahead and do the deed. But once again, I was so charmed by Dr. Y's wackiness and obvious care for Owen that I couldn't do it. Dr. Y acts like he has exactly one patient, Owen. He remembers absolutely everything about him, as if he'd seen him yesterday instead of 3 1/2 months ago. He makes weird jokes that (amazingly, since Owen understands about 10 words total) make Owen laugh hysterically. He performs each part of his exam (each individual part: looking in his eyes, then his ears, then in his mouth, etc.) very seriously, and then each and every time looks at me, concerned, and says "hmmm....I think Owen is....Perfect!" and then bursts into laughter. His enthusiasm for being a pediatrician is at once confusing and infectious. You can't help having a good time when you go to his office. In addition to all the good times and hillarity, Dr. Y is almost suspiciously accessible. Sometimes I wonder if he actually DOES only have one patient. I have his pager number, which he carries at all times and encourages me to use at every visit (calling the office can take too much time for the message to get to him!). When Owen is sick or hurt, he calls himself to see how he is doing. When Owen was 3 months old, he called 4 days IN A ROW to see how he was responding to the zantac he prescribed. And he has never failed to spend as much time as I feel like sitting in his office on an appointment. We have twice had appointments run over 45 minutes.

But it's so inconvienient to get to his office! when Owen is sick or needs to see him at a non-regularly scheduled time, I always think how much easier it would be if we had a doctor at the HV. And when I think about the possibility of adding a sibling at some point (and start multiplying the enormous number of well-baby/well-child visits that kids seem to involve, plus all the times you have to go in for sickness) it seems silly to keep driving to Newton Wellesley. I should just switch practices and be done with it. But I probably won't. After all, what would Dr. Y do without his only patient?

Foolish

2009-06-17T12:11:00.001-07:00

I think I read somewhere (probably on a refrigerator magnet in spencer gifts or something) that the definition of a fool was someone who does the same thing and expects a different outcome.

Turns out when I said "lesson learned" about the blueberries last week, I hadn't ACTUALLY learned my lesson.

Sorry for the infrequency of posts lately. I'll try and be better about getting some recent pictures up.

Parenting lesson #205

2009-06-03T06:02:00.000-07:00

Unlimited access to blueberries has a significantly negative effect on a 14 month old digestive system. Lesson learned.

Things I don't love about parenting

2009-05-27T17:15:00.000-07:00

Most of the time, I'm pretty surprised about the things that don't bother me about parenting. For instance, I thought I'd be really annoyed by whininess and clinginess, and surprisingly it doesn't annoy me all that much. I was a little worried about how I'd handle the ick factor - between diapers, vomit and adventures in feeding, everyone knows babies can be disgusting. But turns out, I have a really high tolerance for bodily effluvia and general disgusting mess. Tantrums don't really faze me, and moving at baby pace (ready to go! Ok, wait - where are your shoes, did you take them off? Where did you put them? Ah, I see, you hid them in your wagon. Here we go, back on....what's that smell? Ok, let's change the stinky pants and then we'll go! Ready? Let's see, diaper bag, check...well, we'll probably be gone long enough I should bring a snack. Just one minute, let me get a snack to put in your bag. All right, here we go! wait, where are your shoes?.....) is ok with me as well.

But there are a few things, I have to say, I really dislike about parenting. Overall, they're few in relation to the great parts, but still. The end of sleeping in, for example, no amount of cuteness makes that better. On Saturday mornings, when I take Owen to the playground at QUARTER TO SEVEN in the morning, I exchange sympathetic glances with the other dejected looking women with one eye on their toddlers and the other staring glumly into a giant coffee. your kid was tearing your house apart at 5:15 too, huh? I feel you sister.

Then there's the paying for babysitters. Not while I'm at work, that I can get behind. For some reason paying someone to watch Owen while we're working seems entirely reasonable and does not bother me, but paying someone to watch him so we can go out to dinner really bothers me. I'm not sure quite why this is such a sticking point with me, but most of the time I choose NOT to go out because I have having to pay a babysitter that much, even when we want to go somewhere and can afford the sitter. I suspect this has less to do with some essential elements of parenting and much more to do with my incureable tightwaddery.

And really, that was it, until this week. And then I discovered the doozy, the first thing I really, REALLY don't like about parenting.

First Andy was sick, then Owen was sick, and now I'm sick. Andy has recovered nicely, but Owen's and my sick has overlapped, which has never happened before and I've suddenly realized reeeeeallly sucks. A sick baby is terrible, but a sick baby plus a sick mom is REALLY terrible. Especially when baby has decided that he can only be comforted by mom. When your throat is sore and your sinuses are blocked and you have a headache that you think will probably kill you before it gets better, a sobbing, feverish baby at 2am is pretty much the worst thing ever. And turns out, you can't explain that you're not feeling well. Babies, they just don't understand. It's been two days now, and although Newton Wellesley Pediatrics assures me it's just a virus (not the swine flu, call me paranoid but I did check) I'm starting to wonder if we'll both survive.

If this blog never gets updated again, you'll know that not-swine-flu got the best of us.

Best. Pictures. EVER.

2009-05-13T15:54:00.001-07:00

The matching outfits kill me. Happy mother's day!

Who taught you how to do that?

2009-05-03T13:38:00.001-07:00

It certainly wasn't me.

like a fat kid love cake

2009-05-03T04:54:00.000-07:00

One of the joys of parenting is getting to celebrate "first" milestones. Owen was feeling a little under the weather this weekend, and yesterday the weather was GORGEOUS, so we decided to take a nice walk to the ice cream store to get us out of the house and get Owen his first ice cream cone as a way of cheering him up a little.

Turns out Owen loves ice cream. really LOVES ice cream.

Here is Owen being presented with his cone. So serious. Owen approached the demolition of this cone with the concentration of a competitive eater:

After this photo, I decided that he'd had enough ice cream. First of all, they gave a one year old two enormous scoops. That's more than enough ice cream for an adult, despite the "kiddie" size claim. So I tried to take it away. This made Owen extremely upset. In the first photo you can see the anger and in the second, suspicion that I might get near him and try again.

Finally, he was making such an enormous mess with the ice cream melting all over him and the stroller, that I said I'd take the plunge and took the cone away, resulting in a total meltdown. Somehow, Andy got too close to the flailing ball of misery that our son had become and Owen swiftly liberated what was left of Andy's cone. Which we figured, he was entitled to having defeated us fair and square. So he happily finished eating that one all the way home.

Big Adventures & Beautiful Weather

2009-04-26T13:28:00.000-07:00

Owen's been having a great time since the weather improved! Some shots of his first visit to the Franklin Park Zoo as well as some we took in the Arboretum yesterday. I try and try to get good shots where he's looking happy/cute, but this kid is just so ON THE MOVE all the time that it's practically impossible. It's the best I can do to even catch him in the frame! I have some funny video of him running around the arboretum, throwing his hat on the ground over and over and yelling "Uh Oh!" (again, we're still working on the distinction between "uh oh" and deliberate mischief) But I'm apparently not smart enough to figure out how to make it post and play, so you'll have to settle for pictures until Andy gets around to posting them up.

what babies need.

2009-04-20T17:42:00.000-07:00

I have a couple friends who are pregnant right now, who are freaking out because the economy is so bad, and a couple friends who are deliberately NOT pregnant right now when they otherwise would be, because the economy is so bad.

And to all I say, chill out. Yes, the economy is really bad. But, the truth is, you've been led to beleive that babies are really expensive and they need a lot of stuff. I, too, thought that. Before I had one. And then I realized that babies only need about 5 things.

1) enough clothes to make it through 3(ish) days (depending on how often you care to do laundry)
2) diapers (I'm not going to harrangue you about cloth again, but disposeables are bad for the environment and a waste of money, for the record)
3) Something to eat in that he/she can be buckled into (The tripp trapp is the gold standard, but if you can't afford that, go for the keekaroo right height chair)
4) an Ergo carrier
5) a car seat

I can't think of a single other thing not on this list that if I didn't have over the last year, I would have missed. Don't get me wrong - I have a lot of baby crap - but I hardly ever used ANY of it. All the things I thought I NEEDED - nope. Just taking up room in my house. Crib? Ha. As if the baby sleeps in a crib. That baby's been in bed with me since day one. Swing? Used it about twice. Stroller? The last time we used our Graco stroller was Thanksgiving Day, and I've probably used it a dozen times total since Owen was born (I'm not talking about the specialized bike trailer/jog stroller - we do use that, when I want to go for a run or we want to take a bike ride together, but it's certainly not nescessary. That is a definite babygear luxury). Boppy? Never used it. bouncy seat? jumperoo? used each a few times, maybe. baby tub? The baby can take a shower while you do, and will love it. Toys? Owen has to date shown absolutely no interest in any of the toys lavished on him by well meaning grandparents and friends - but he's facinated by tupperware, pots, cardboard boxes, suitcases, and every other mundane household object that you could think of.

The one thing that you cannot live without is an Ergo carrier (or a Beco, or a Calyx, or any other soft shaped carrier). They are expensive, it's true - about $120 new (although we got ours used for $50.) It's pretty much the only baby gear item (besides a carseat, which is legislated) that we use every day and couldn't exist without. Owen spends a great deal of his life in the Ergo, and loves every minute of it. And ever since he turned 6 months or so, I've realized that he does actually need a high chair. (we originally had the chicco polly and ended up giving it away because it was so obnoxious - go for less bells and whistles instead of more, every time)

will we have to buy things as he gets older? certainly. Does daycare cost a lot? yep, it does - but if you can survive on one income, then it won't. your mileage will vary on that one. But I can honestly say that if we didn't have one single baby item besides the five on that list, our lives would be not a smidge different than they are right now, and Owen is a pretty happy guy. And the economy will either get better or it won't, but either way a baby isn't going to put you on the road to financial armogeddeon. At least, not for the first year. By sixth grade, when there's soccer fees and summer camp and violin lessons and every other stupid thing, then maybe. And by college, definitely. But in the near term, for the next two years?

breastfeed. wear your baby. cloth diaper. your baby won't cost you much at all.

In Retrospect,

2009-04-19T15:09:00.000-07:00

Cheering wildly and praising him for genius every time Owen messed up something/dropped something/broke something/knocked food off his tray and then appropriately said "Uh Oh!" might not have been the greatest idea Andy and I ever had.

my future's so bright

2009-04-15T17:08:00.000-07:00

...I gotta wear shades.

askmoxie.com, how I love thee.

2009-03-21T17:19:00.000-07:00

askmoxie.com is an amusing Q&A parenting blog that I read somewhat regularly, and today I came across possibly the greatest 2 paragraphs about parenting ever written.

You know, the more I think about this, the more I think your friends are giving you bad information. There is a ton of stuff that comes up in parenting that you have NO CONTROL over, so to imply that people who are "prepared" (and what does that mean, anyway?) are going to have an easier time with parenting is magical thinking. You can read every book, take every class, buy every product available, and be super-positive that motherhood is going to be the apex of self-actualization, and your kid might come out colicky or with reflux or with delays or trouble latching or high-intensity or any other thing that makes parenting super-challenging.
Honestly, it makes me a little angry that someone thinks everything's going so well for her because of something she did! That basically means that she thinks that people who have problems with their babies are having problems because they haven't done things the right way. That's insulting, misogynistic, and ridiculous.

yes, yes it is, Moxie. Thanks for reminding me.

The whole post is worth a read and can be found here:
http://www.askmoxie.org/2009/03/qa-having-a-baby-worries.html

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

2009-03-08T16:45:00.000-07:00

Owen turned one yesterday. One year old. It is so hard for me to beleive this, but here we are with one foot out of babyhood and the other dabbling in toddler. It's sort of surreal and terrifying and wonderful all at once.

I thought I'd take this opportunity to do a year in review, of sorts. Some things I'm proud of, some things I'm not. A recap of year #1.

Taking the wise advice of accentuating the positive, some of the things I'm proud of:

1. we're still cloth diapering and going strong. After the 523rd person told me "that'll last two weeks" when I announced my intention to cloth diaper while pregnant, even I started to doubt whether it would work out. But I'm happy to report that we're not only still happy with our diaper choices, I love that I have never bought a package of huggies.

2. I nursed until 8 months. I am enormously proud of this because it ALMOST KILLED ME. I'll spare you the gory details, but man, did it pretty much suck. I'm glad that I stuck with it though, because I have drunk the breast is best koolaid, and I really wanted to make it until six months. I choose to beleive that Owen will a)care and b) appreciate how difficult it was for me. I am also certain neither is true, but whatever. I'm impressed.

3. Owen has made it to his first birthday without ever watching TV. I'm happy about this because I had a professor in graduate school who terrorized my clinical practice with children class with study after study insinuating tv causes brain damage in children under three. The studies were not peer reviewed and the professor was admittedly unbalanced, not to mention that common sense would disprove this easily, but it scared the bejebus out of me. So I said no tv, and I've managed to stick with it.

4. We made it through a LOT in the past 12 months. When we had the baby I was smack in the middle of a semester of graduate school as well as working full time, Andy was working like a maniac and we were trying to buy a house, ...and things haven't slowed down much since. But we're all still alive, functional (at least, andy and I show up for work every day and Owen hasn't set any neighborhood animals on fire) and I'm really happy about that. It hasn't been easy, but it's getting easier.

5. Owen is a really sweet boy. He tries to hug and kiss everyone that crosses his path and he is, (in my admittedly biased opinion) turning into a genuinely nice little boy.

And now for the things I'm not so proud of:

1. It's much easier to give my kid a cereal bar than actually make him a balanced breakfast, and so I do it pretty often. Like every day. And if I'm being honest, I do it quite often for lunch and dinner as well.
2. I didn't even try to teach him baby sign language.
3. I let him sleep in my bed if he wakes up in the night. In fact, he's slept in my bed about 290 of the last 350 days. I keep setting arbitrary dates when I'm going to stop doing this, but the truth is, I'm full of crap. I am a complete wuss when it comes to crying it out, and I'm not going to do it now or probably ever.
4. Once I took him to the doctor because he had a rash and it turned out he had a 104degree fever and an ear infection in both ears. Whoops.
5. Sometimes my version of "playing" with him involves surfing the internet while occasionally looking over and making interested sounds. And by sometimes I mean, well, a lot.
6. Once, he dumped his whole dinner on the floor, and I was so tired that I just took him out of the high chair, moved him to the floor, and let him finish eating it from there.
7. I am totally unconcerned about germs. If he finds a six week old bite of food under the couch and wants to eat it, that's fine with me. It's very unlikely it will make him sick and I theorize it's good for his immune system. This goes double for anything he finds outdoors.
8. More than once in the first three months I contemplated giving him back, mailing him to Abu Dabi, or trading him for xanax. I'm definitely glad I didn't do any of those things, but I'm not going to pretend it didn't cross my mind.

So it's been a mixed bag, this first year. A little good, a lot stressful, a little terrible, a lot wonderful.

Happy birthday Owen. Mama and Daddy love you so much. We can't wait to explore year 2 with you!

I've kind of got my hands full.

2009-03-01T11:14:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the delay in posts. I think the evidence will show that despite my best intentions, my blog updating time is limited.

feedin' mah self

2009-02-16T17:04:00.000-08:00

I iz not so gud at it.

Everything is awesome today.

2009-02-16T08:53:00.000-08:00

You know the part in "The Music Man" where Marian sings 'till there was you? (no? come on, bone up on your musical theatre!) anyway, I'll provide the lyrics for you:

There were bells on the hill
But I never heard them ringing,
No, I never heard them at all
Till there was you.

There were birds in the sky
But I never saw them winging
No, I never saw them at all
Till there was you.

And there was music,
And there were wonderful roses,
They tell me,
In sweet fragrant meadows of dawn, and dew.

There was love all around
But I never heard it singing
No, I never heard it at all
Till there was you!

Anyway, I've always liked that song, A) because it's a pretty tune but B) because I think, for a short cheezy song it does a pretty good job of describing a feeling that everyone has once in awhile - when something good happens and all of a sudden you realize that everything else is good, too.

I've been absentmindely humming "'till there was you" to myself all day, because Owen is finally, FINALLY, sleeping through the night. And everything is better. Everything! Work is easier, it's more fun to play with him, I feel healthier and exercising is less of a chore. I am actually really enjoying my life right now and most especially my funny, charming, mischevous son. I can't even think of anything to be gloomy about, which is rare, because as you might know, I'm kiiiiind of a pessimist.

Don't worry. I haven't gone TOO far off the deep end. There's always global warming and the recession. I'll be back to my old self tomorrow.

In retrospect, am I sorry that I didn't take a harder approach and bring this day sooner? I know most people thought I should just put him in the crib and close the door, and leave him there till morning letting him cry all night if I had to. Eventually (or at least I assume) he would have gotten the picture and slept through, and maybe I could have been all roses and sweet silver meadows six months ago. But I guess sleep training is just not for me. I honestly feel that Owen couldn't sleep through the night until he was ready to, and that pushing him to do it sooner when he clearly was resisting it so strongly wasn't the right thing. I know there are lots of babies who are ready earlier, and for whom sleep training works quickly and without heartache on either end. But Owen wasn't one of those kids. The day I walked in after letting him scream and bang for 10 minutes only to find his mouth dripping with blood because he banged his face on the crib rail sealed the deal for me. Unfortunately I had a kid who was just not going to go gently into that good night. (man, I am FULL of these cultural allusions today.)

And so we seem to have made it. Owen's slept through the last 4 nights in a row and is waking up cheerful and babbling in the morning. And it's wonderful.

there were bells, all around, but I never heard them ringing...

too good to be true?

2009-02-14T06:32:00.000-08:00

for those of you who only check this blog for the photos, I'm sorry, because our digital camera is officially dead, so it might be awhile before we can replace it. But, I have some cautiously optimistic news to report: Owen has slept through the night (meaning, without waking up until at least 5:30 am) 4 of the last 7 nights. I, of course, have been waking up 4-8 times a night in a panic thinking he's dead, but I expect that fades.

He turns 11 months tomorrow. wowzers.