Appliance woes

I don't think you want to be one of our appliances these days: you may be the next to go.

First our fridge broke.
Next our oven exploded.
And then our heat pump went out.

Hopefully bad luck comes in threes, not fours or sixes, because Austin and I are both done with broken appliances. So far we've only gotten one of three fixed successfully (the fridge.) When the repairman came to look at the heat pump that was installed only two years ago, he muttered ominously that though the part that broke was under warranty, the labor charges are not. He said he'd go back to the shop and advocate for us because the labor on that repair is really expensive.

As it happens, I'm about to take the kids and visit my favorite snow bird in Florida, leaving Austin for the second year in a row without heat. (Last year when I went to Florida with Tucker, we were out of electricity for several days from a big storm.)

Thankfully we have the wood stoves, and the heat upstairs, so it's not as big an issue as it could be, though when I came downstairs yesterday morning it was only 53 degrees. Molly enjoyed jumping in the kitchen just as much as usual, and Tucker complained about cold hands once. Otherwise it was business as usual.

What did you do for fun when you were 10 years old?

That's the question Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project blog poses today. Actually, she posted a video on the topic but of course I didn't watch it--one of my cardinal rules is to avoid watching videos online. At the speed of our internet, videos are about as fun as paint drying (possibly more because I enjoy a freshly-painted room.) Usually the only thing that filters up to me wanting to watch it online is the latest video of my niece Emery.

But I digress. One of Rubin's happiness discoveries is that you can choose what you do but you can't choose what you like to do. I've found this particularly helpful in thinking about how I want to spend my time in my new two-kiddo-but-no-paid-work world. Here are the things I loved doing at age 10:
-Reading
-Writing (I think I self-published my first serial novels in kindergarten, about monkeys)
-Making quilts (no joke, I used to march into my parents' room on a Saturday morning while they were asleep, and suggest helpfully, "Let's make a quilt today!")
-Playing with my dollhouse
-Swimming on a team
-Walking my dog
-Organizing things (like quotes, rocks, etc.)
-Playing kick-the-can with the neighborhood kids

The things I enjoy now are remarkably consistent. Give me a free day and what will I do?
-Read
-Write
-Do crafts/projects
-Play with my dolls, I mean, kids
-Go to the gym, preferably a class that recreates a demanding coach barking orders at a group of us
-Snuggle with my dog on the couch
-Organize anything that doesn't run away from me

The only thing I really don't do anymore is play kick-the-can. Maybe it's time to start. :)

I'm interested to know if this works quite so well for anyone else.

Wheels on the Bus

Many of Tucker's interests have evolved over the past couple of years, but the one interest that has endured totally intact is the Wheels on the Bus song. Tucker continues to be absolutely obsessed. It's the only CD he listens to when it's his turn to pick the music in the car (we do have other choices). He also has learned how to work a little portable CD player I keep out for him at home, and plays the CD constantly. It has become the background music of our lives. I actually am not adverse to it--see how I've become numb!--as long as it's on low volume. Unfortunately, Tucker is in a phase of wanting to turn up the volume on it, which quickly gets under my skin. I'm okay with the Wheels on the Bus subliminally, but not the Wheels on the Bus meets a megaphone.

What is going through his head when he hears this CD? Is it the aural equivalent of his duck lovey? Or possibly the early stages of childhood addiction? Or maybe just really bad taste?

Little boy, one day you might get married and if there is a mother-son dance I will have them play this song for us--what else could possibly express this time we're spending together?

Organizing. Still.

My latest organization project: creating a better clutter-reducing scheme for the kitchen. The first flat space you see when you enter our house is the kitchen island, which functions as our house's control center. What does this mean? The kitchen island becomes the repository for everything we're in the middle of. All the odds and ends of our lives magically flow downhill and end up there. Convenient, but not attractive. (Since the island is the center of the house, when it's cluttered the whole house seems like it's a mess.)

Instead of clearing things off ten times a day, I decided to change my tactics completely. Instead of sorting out flotsam and jetsam, I decided to just create a place to absorb it. Enter wooden bowl. Now whenever there is clutter on the counter, it takes 2 seconds to sweep it into the bowl. Behold, clean counter and no time wasted. Brilliant.

My other organization breakthrough: baskets for our entry cubbies. Similar problem: these cubbies were made for clutter. But the clutter just looked so... cluttering. It took me a long time to find baskets that were exactly the right size (these cubbies are almost two feet deep and apparently only one person in the world makes a basket of the required length and width).


I don't have a picture, but we also installed hooks on the other side of the cubbies for guests' jackets which also tend to end up on the island. (Do I sound overly protective of my island? Hmmmm....)

Siblings

All I can say is Tucker loves his sister. He is so good with her, and so attentive, though I do have to watch that she isn't overwhelmed with his affection. These are the toys that he brought her to play with. A little bit of a suffocation hazard if they fell on her, but otherwise absolutely darling.

Parenting: It's never an interruption

David sent me a link yesterday to a blog post by Paul Tripp of the Gospel Coalition entitled "Parenting: It's Never an Interruption." It was good perspective because, obviously, parenting IS always about interruptions. I can't even go to the bathroom without company in this stage of life, much less complete an entire task.

Why then does Tripp say parenting is never an interruption? "You and I must remember that our Lord loves our children more than we ever could, and his commitment to their growth and change is more faithful and persevering than ours could ever be. Because of this, in his grace and love, he will manufacture moments that expose the needy hearts of our children to us. He will faithfully employ the little moments of everyday life to expose to us and our children their need of rescuing and forgiving grace. And he will not do this only at the moments that you feel are appropriate and when you feel most prepared."

Basically, parenting is never an interruption because the interruptions are the most important thing, they are often our best opportunities to train our kids and speak truth to their lives. Unfortunately, they are also so darn inconvenient when my goal is to get groceries or complete whatever immediate but usually less important task is at hand. Tripp writes, "So I’m impatient, discouraged, or irritated not because my children have broken the laws of God’s kingdom, but the laws of mine. In my kingdom there shall be no parenting on family vacation days, or when I am reading the paper on my iPad, or after ten o’clock at night, or during a good meal, or . . . I could go on."

This is a great reminder for me today.

He's wrapped around her little finger already. Literally.

Molly has her daddy wrapped around her little finger, or at least the cord of his sweatshirt. No sense in letting some good attention get away from her!

Look at my new tricks! I can sit in a Boppy seat and bounce in a doorway jumper... sort of, until I decide it's more fun to lean over and suck on the side of the seat.

Firefighter Tucker

Tucker has been sick for the past few days with an awful croupy cough (a cough that sounds like a seal barking). Actually, the bark has gotten a lot better but it was bad on Sunday so we made up a game to help ease his cough.

One of the best things for a nasty cough is to be in a warm, steamy room. So we turned the shower on hot and steamed up the bathroom--but how do you get a three year-old to stay in a bathroom for an extended period of time? You play firefighter with the "smoke"!

Now it takes all our energy to get Firefighter Tucker OUT of the bathroom. But his cough is a lot better. :)

Why I am Stopping Using Cloth Diapers

I just explained how I made cloth diapers work for us. And now I'll explain why I'm ditching them.

Cloth diapers aren't bad, but disposables are definitely easier. The parts I dislike the most are:
1) Dealing with solids on cloth diapers when babies get older (there's a big gross factor)
2) Putting the diapers into the wash (yuck!)
3) Taking the time to stuff the inserts into the diapers after they're dry
4) I don't appreciate the cloth diaper aesthetic; they are bulkier to wear so it makes my babies look like pears.
5) The bulky diapers makes my kids grow out of their clothes faster.
6) Disposables do a better job of wicking water away from a baby's skin. Cloth diapers have cotton inserts which obviously are not the best at wicking and their skin just seems wetter when I change them using cloth diapers (result: more diaper rash)

I'm willing to put up with minor inconvenience for a good reason, but when I sat down to calculate my cost savings today from cloth diapers, I was simply appalled.
When I had been thinking about cloth diapers, I had only been thinking about the time cost, not the monetary cost of laundering. It turns out there is a not insignificant monetary cost associated with the laundering process.

Cost of disposables:
I don't use name brand disposables. I've found that the very best diapers you can buy are Pampers, but that Target, Costco and Walmart all have good store brand alternatives. The worst disposables in my opinion are Luvs or Huggies. The cost of disposables in sizes 2 and 3 (which should take us through between 14-18 months) is 14.5 cents a diaper.

The cost of laundering cloth diapers based on our electric rate of $0.08 per kwhr:
8-11 cents a load for detergent
7-11 cents a load for electricity for our well pump to pump the water
25-55 cents for one hot wash and four cold washes
30-40 cents for the dryer electricity

If I average it all out and divide by the average number of diapers in one of my loads (between 8 and 9), the cost for us to wash a cloth diaper is approximately 11.5 cents. This is a whopping savings of 3 cents a diaper from disposables, or 65 cents a week and $34 a year. (If you had to factor in the cost of buying the cloth diapers the equation would become ridiculous, since each reusable diaper costs about $20, though I got my stash on Craigslist for a lot less.)

When the diapers are bigger, the per diaper cost of disposables increases to about 19 cents, and the per diaper savings skyrockets to 8 cents, yielding a savings of $1.67 a week or $87 a year.

I just want to tell you that my time is worth a lot more than that to me.

Of course, this whole post so far is ignoring the environmental trade off between cloth and disposables. With cloth you're not putting the chemicals that are in disposables next to baby's skin. That's great--but not so great if you're giving them diaper rash by keeping them wet.

The big environmental problem with disposables is the space they take up in landfills. Definitely a significant negative. But a thorough life cycle analysis of the issue in the UK has discounted the landfill aspect of disposables, and found that the manufacture of them had bigger environmental impacts. Even so, the study found that given recent reductions in the energy required to make a disposable diaper, the carbon impact (ie energy use) of disposables is actually less than with reusables if you use hot wash water and if you use a dryer (both of which I do). Check out the UK environmental agency's very thorough report on the subject (scroll to the end for their conclusions): http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=WR0705_7589_FRP.pdf

It'd take more than that UK report to convince me that disposables can be better for the environment (depending on how you wash reusables). But it's interesting that the issue is debatable.

Regardless, this is my take on the situation: bye, bye cloth diapers.

Addendum: I think cloth diapers can make sense, if, like my friend Alison said in the comments below, you have big loads of diapers--two kids in diapers at once, and use them 100% of the time, and have a lot of the diapers so that you do loads as infrequently as possible. Big loads, cold water, line drying: that's what makes them work.

Using cloth diapers

I don't like spending money on diapers. They just go into the trash and you have to buy big boxes again and again for a couple years. In Tucker's second year I bought a batch of BumGenius cloth diapers from Craigslist and started using them. BumGenius diapers are a one-size fits all diaper (so you don't have to buy cloth diapers of different sizes as your child grows), and get among the best reviews of cloth diapers. They definitely cut down on the amount of disposables we bought, and diapering with cloth isn't as awful a process as it sounds. I just started using them again with Molly (there are more important things I was doing in her first couple months... like sleeping).

Our cloth diapering process:
We have a plastic storage bin by the changing table that accepts used diapers. If the baby is eating solids, any solids in the diaper need to be brushed off into toilet. If the baby is not eating solids, just put the diaper right into the storage bin. We haven't had a problem with odors because the lid seals tight, but you could put baking soda in there.

We have 10 cloth diapers, which takes me about 3 days to use, and is about 60% of our total diapering. I never use them for the first two diapers of the day, so that I don't have to deal with cloth diapers during our morning excursions... plus, the childcare workers in the gym get confused when they see a cloth diaper. :)

The wash process:
Front loading washing machines are great for a lot of things, but washing cloth diapers is not one of them. The problem is that they are so efficient with water, and cloth diapers are one of the few things that really do need a lot of water to get clean. It's not hard to get the diapers clean in a front loader, but it just takes more cycles.

Cycle 1:
Rinse/drain diapers to get the most offending stuff off (no detergent)

Cycle 2:
Heavy wash with hot water and cold rinse (detergent)

Cycle 3:
Heavy wash with cold water and cold rinse (no detergent)

It may seem counter intuitive, but a big reason a cloth diaper might smell of ammonia is if too much detergent is used. Too much detergent locks in the smell. That's why it's so critical to have the third cycle with no detergent. I've researched whether washing cloth diapers in a washing machine is sanitary, and the consensus seems to be yes and that bleaching the machine is not necessary. But I still feel better having that third cycle so that my washing machine seems more clean for the next load.

The other important part of cloth diapers is getting them completely dry. Because the inserts in the diaper are thick cotton, they often take more time than a normal load and they need to be done on high.

The laundering process sounds really involved, but now that I have it figured out, it isn't bad (we're around the house a lot in the afternoons and evenings which makes it easy to babysit the washing machine).

Happy Birthday, Ben!

My baby turned 11 years old today! I'm going to get a lot of flak for calling Ben "my baby" but he really was the original one--before Tucker, Molly, even Austin. To celebrate his birthday from now on, he's going to start turning a year younger so he can be with us at least another decade.

We celebrated by walking to the river on a long explore. Since the river was not frozen, Ben thought it would be a good idea to go swimming (I don't think he's ever not thought it was a good idea to go swimming), though icicles formed on his fur when he got out. He also found a deer jaw bone that he proudly carried back to the house while Tucker and I sang several rousing rounds of Happy Birthday to him.

This next picture is Ben waiting at our driveway. He waits there for me in the mornings when I'm out, and I find it totally endearing to see the yellow statue in the yard break into a trot when he sees us come into view. But in this picture, we're actually all at home and he's still waiting. He doesn't do this too often, but occasionally he sits at the base of the driveway, staring off into space with his soulful eyes, just waiting. At these times I think that he's taken up his station, waiting for his first master, my Uncle Brian, who passed on in 2004.

Quotes of the Day

"I only need a sock on one foot because only one foot gets cold." -Tucker

"The smoke is coming out of my head." -Tucker, upon transforming into a steam locomotive (which happens nearly every time we walk around the house together, especially going down the stairs).

The good, the bad

Sometimes the little things really make me smile. Let me rant and rave about a few different very little things.

The good:
1) The Flip-It tub stopper. I know, am I really blogging about this? But I hate those little plastic plugs that you use for the bathtub when you live in an old house whose bathtub stopper has gone the way of all things. This little stopper you wedge into the drain once and then just flip it open or closed to let the water in or out. And it's nice and shiny, not plastic and moldy. Oh, and it works!


2) A bent hinge. Seriously. All it takes to keep our door from being unable to close unless latched is a slightly bent pin in the hinge. The slight bend in the pin gives the hinge just enough resistance not to move of its own accord in our totally un-level house.

3) Non-slip rug spray. Whoever has heard of bath rugs that don't have non-slip coating on their back? It's ridiculous. This is what you need to make all your problems right.


And one rant to counteract all this positivity:
*Poly vi sol: Why in the world do you dye a vitamin drop for infants brown? Don't you know that infants spit up all the time, especially when you put non-milk items in their mouth? Not only is this drop brown, but it also stains. Good thinking, product development folks....

Quote of the Day

Austin: Look at the monster truck [really just an obnoxious pick-up truck on lifts] over there!
Tucker: Does it have a mouth? Does it eat?

Apparently Tucker was thinking more about monsters and less about trucks....

Things that make you go huh

Our friends arrived at the recycling center this week to find a new sign.

We no longer accept the following items:
Glass
Plastic
Metal
Cardboard
Paper

The center wasn't actually closed. The equipment was all in place. The only problem: what was left to recycle?

Things I'm doing in the New Year

No, not injection drugs: allergy shots. I never suspected I would say this, but it's true: I love allergy shots. I'm currently on shot 19 of a course of 26 (not counting 3 years of monthly maintenance doses).

If you've been around me in the past five years, you probably were sneezed on and I apologize. I was so allergic to dust that I could barely get through the day, especially during pregnancy and nursing when I tried not to be continually doped up on antihistamines. But even the newer antihistamines could only take the edge off the problem and reduce my Kleenex usage from three boxes a week to two (I actually never measured this, but it was an absurd amount). I had horrible allergy attacks without fail every Sunday morning when I put on my church clothes, and then at church because of the carpeting and fabric-covered pews. I felt bad taking communion directly from the cup because the person next to me would think I was getting sick when really I had just been sneezing all service because of the dust. One time I had an allergy attack so bad I had to leave work.

Austin has commented that he would never go to a doctor's appointment with two kids in tow. It's a bit bizarre, but my allergy shots have become an activity for us, much like going to the park or gym or library. On Tuesdays when we go, Tucker uses the chalk and plays with the trains. On Thursdays we have a picnic there after Bible Study. If they aren't busy and I get my shot really fast (and only need to wait there for the 20 minutes to make sure I'm not having a bad reaction), Tucker complains because he wants to play longer.

The shots start at 1:1000 concentration, then go to 1:100, 1:10, 1:1 and finally, 1:0.5. Most people only begin to notice a difference after two or three months of shots, once the concentration builds up enough that their immune system starts reacting to it. I had a systemic reaction on my very first shot (a systemic reaction happens in about 1 out of 1000 allergy shot patients, and almost always on a high-concentration dose), which shocked both my doctor and the nurse. After that rocky start, I have to take two types of medicine on days when I get shots just to tolerate them. But the good news is that I started noticing a difference immediately in my quality of life.

Today, a minor miracle occurred: I cleaned the attic with no antihistamines in my system and sneezed twice. It's a whole new world.

The people you meet

Yesterday Austin sold an extra filing cabinet on Craigslist. He finished redoing his office (he knocked a big opening into the wall overlooking the stairs, made a fold-down drafting desk, found an unused cavity in the wall for a small closet, and added a comfy chair). But the big filing cabinet was a space hog so it needed to go the way of all things: to Craigslist.

We've met some neat people on Craigslist, but none quite so unique as the gentleman that came to buy the filing cabinet. He told Austin he was going to use it for food storage. Austin replied that he had thought of using it in the same way (the metal would keep critters out of any food if we wanted to store stuff in the basement like a makeshift root cellar). The man might have thought he and my husband were a little bit more on the same page than they actually were. He started to explain a doomsday scenario connecting Hezbollah in Colombia and the fall of the dollar and insider knowledge regarding the US Treasury department, to the need for filing cabinets for long-term food storage.

Sometimes you just have to say "Huh," and scratch your head.

Yelling at the Light

Sometimes it's fun to yell at the light. Sometimes it's even more fun to wiggle and yell at the light. Molly isn't mad in this video, in case you were wondering, she is just yelling, one of her favorite wake time activities. In fact, at the gym nursery today one of the workers told me that Molly spent a good chunk of time yelling at her (in perfectly good spirits) and it made her laugh out loud.

The kids playing soccer and football

Tucker decided to play soccer with Molly today (later it turned into football). He made a "ball" out of legos and positioned it at her foot so she could kick it over and then he would yell "goal!" or "touchdown!" depending on what game they were playing. He was distracted when the camera came out so you only get the gist of it in this video.

It's bowl time in college football!

Two jokes for you, courtesy of Austin...

Q: What's the same between Virginia Tech and marijuana?
A: They both get smoked in bowls.

Q: What's the difference between UVa and Cheerios?
A: Eventually Cheerios will find a way into a bowl.

Catching Up

I got into a great posting groove a couple weeks ago and impressed even myself with my consistency through Christmas craziness. New Year's craziness did me in, though, and I know at least my mom is complaining of being blog-deprived.

Since my last post we had a fabulous long weekend in DC with my mom celebrating Christmas after our canceled trip to Vermont (note to self: never fly through Philly in the winter).

We hit a lot of major DC attractions, but Tucker told me on the way home that his favorite part of the trip (after GoGo's Christmas presents) was the hotel's swimming pool, complimentary breakfast and the picnic he had on the floor of our room one night. He did have some epic breakfasts--one day he ate three pancakes, four sausage links, cereal and two cups of juice. The next day he finagled FIVE sausage links from me and a chocolate doughnut. The day that we went to the Air and Space museum, he was almost too distracted to enjoy the museum because he knew we had a cup of Fruit Loops in the stroller (which we only took out of breakfast that morning so that the kid would agree to leave his hour-long feast!).

Tucker loved seeing the dinosaur bones at the Natural History Museum--I think it cemented in his mind what dinosaurs are, and how big they are (he watches Dinosaur Train on PBS so he is beginning to really like dinosaurs). His favorite out-of-the-hotel activity was riding the carousel on the national mall, though.



Tucker has aged well in the past couple weeks and developed facial hair.

Enjoying Christmas with my mom.






But that is only part one of our recent adventures. We've been planning on getting a new car by the Spring, but the trip to DC made me get very serious about replacing my Civic with something bigger. With a stroller, a pack-n-play, two kids, a husband, all our bags and Christmas presents, we were simply busting out of the car. And that is without trying to fit the dog! Our criteria for a car was pretty simple: good mileage (over 20 mpg), three rows of seats, AWD, not a minivan, and (preferably) blue, red or green. Unfortunately, there is only one car that meets all those requirements in our price range (or at least what we wanted to spend): the Ford Freestyle.

As I was looking at Freestyles online, I found a low-mileage Freestyle (only 15,000 miles) in Annapolis. Our area of Virginia suffers from a severe dearth of Freestyles, so neither of us had actually even looked inside a Freestyle much less driven it when we trudged up to Annapolis to potentially buy the car. But it was the perfect car on paper, so it was worth a try.

While Molly gazed adoringly at Tucker at Austin's parents' house in Annapolis (see below) we went out to brave the used car lot. After getting worked up all week about the bargaining process, it was actually splendidly simple. A family friend who knows cars better than us checked it out with us, he declared it a great car. Then we told the guy inside the empty dealership we liked it and what could he do for us? He said he could do $1100 off the list price. We were just about speechless as the list price was already really good and we would've paid full price if necessary. So Austin stammered something about replacing the two back tires which are showing a little wear. The salesman said no. So Austin said he'd pay him cash right now if he would do $1300 off. And it was done. It took approximately two minutes.



Our new car


Bonus pictures of Molly

Benedict the Yellow wins it all

My fantasy football team, Benedict the Yellow, pulled through a tough match up last night to win our league for the season. Thank you. I know, it was an impressive performance, probably made possible by the imposing picture of Ben that I have as my team's icon on Yahoo.

What I really want to talk about with this post, though, is my husband and fantasy football. I have been merciful all season long, choosing not to blog about the truly ridiculous things Austin says about it. But as the newly crowned winner of our fantasy football league, I think it's time for that to change.

In fantasy football, there is something called "smack talk" in which you apparently try to impersonate an ego-inflated NFL player and post insulting comments for all your other friends in the league. I am pretty sure this is Austin's favorite part of fantasy football, or at least the part that he is best at.

Here are some of his smack talk season highlights:

"John, does he have compromising pictures of you or something? How could you lose to someone who started 2 people who didn't even play?"

"No playoffs for you, husky rusky."

"Fantasy football is not supposed to bring a marriage together." (This he actually told me in bed one night instead of posting it on the league message board.)

"8-2, son." (In response to someone pointing out that he had just gotten lucky being in first place at that point as his actual number of points scored was 6th out of 8 in the league.)

"You better worry about even making the playoffs first. On an unrelated note, did everyone see that i already clinched a spot?"

When a good friend failed to make the playoffs like Austin did (top 4 spots) he rubbed it in, saying, "Great job on securing the 5th seed in the playoffs. I look forward to playing you. . ."

And of course today he tried to rob me of my hard earned victory, saying, "I taught her everything she knows." That is, of course, blatantly false--he's so competitive he has not offered me a word of help all season long!

But the very worst thing he said all season was the week we had Molly and we happened to play each other. While we were in the hospital his friend posted "what are the ethics about beating a women about to have your baby? Should you throw the game? Just a thought." Austin replied, "if she had bore me a son, I would have let her win."

Now do you see what I live with???!!! :)

Of course, the one redeeming factor of Austin's ridiculous bravado is that everyone in the league was glad when I soundly stomped him last week and went on to win it all this week. After all, they figured, who better to rub his loss in but me?

Merry Christmas

Christmas was quite a blur in our household this year. Austin was really sick for the whole week before and several days after (today is the first day he's getting better!), and our trip to Vermont got canceled amid the recent East-Coast snowstorm. Even though where we live and where we were going only got about 2 inches of snow each, it was nearly impossible to get from one place to another without passing through an immobilized airport or driving on a potentially sketchy road. There were definitely a lot of highlights, like Tucker's enthusiasm and Molly's adorable presence, and getting to see cousin Emery. So it wasn't all lemons, but it was definitely crazy and stressful at several points!













I think Molly looks like a little candy cane in this outfit.

Reasons why I love the gym

1) They take my kids.
2) I get an uninterrupted shower.
3) I have 30 minutes for uninterrupted reading if I use an elliptical machine (you might think this is not high-quality reading time, but this is not the case... I've read scholarly articles as well as Mark Twain's Joan of Ark and didn't enjoy either any the less).
4) If I take a class, there are other adults with which to have conversations that go beyond whether they need to use the potty or if they need their nose wiped.
5) They take my kids.

I may well turn into a gym rat.... :)

My son is certifiably nuts

... or at least he can eat them now!

Tucker ate peanuts for the first time yesterday, and again today with no ill effects. He is creating a long list of nuts and seeds that he can now eat: almonds, pecans, walnuts, sesame, cashew, poppy. It's highly unlikely now that any of the ones he hasn't eaten will be a problem.

He still can't eat sunflower seeds, but that is a much less daunting task to avoid than all nuts everywhere. I'm going to need to get him a Reese's peanut butter cup and feed it to him somewhere where he can't contaminate our house and put Austin's life in jeopardy. :)

Molly June Bug is Two Months Old

Molly had her two month check-up yesterday and weighed in at 13 lbs 0 oz (Austin won our bet on what she would weigh for the first time ever). That makes her a big baby girl (90th percentile)! As we were leaving the doctor said that he'd see us when she was 6 months old. I was surprised because usually there's a four month check-up as well. Turns out, he looked at her and had simply forgotten that this was only her two month check-up. Molly is a whole pound and a half smaller than Tucker was at this age, but she started out smaller, too--they both added exactly 80% to their body weights in the two months since they left the hospital.

Molly is still an amazingly easy baby. For awhile there it seemed like she was discontent a lot of the time that she was awake (not loudly discontent, just not super happy to be doing anything except being held), but that seems to be fading away. She's starting to have lots of the fun wiggling-on-the-ground-making-fun-baby-noises time, which I remember fondly from when Tucker was that age. She still doesn't take a pacifier, but we haven't tried very hard because she's not loud and demanding and in pain like Tucker was from his digestive problems. She does like to smack on her fist.

She is still a great sleeper. Her bedtime is between 6 and 7 pm and I'll wake her up to eat before I go to bed and she'll often go 7 hours now till she wakes up (last night it was 8 and a half!). That would be sleeping through the night for normal people who don't go to bed as early as we do. During the day she prefers napping in her car seat to the crib, but that's okay with me at this point. I think she is stingier on smiles than Tucker was, but it's hard to remember exactly... I know she will continue to wake up more in the next six weeks and I think we'll see a little more of her personality.

What strikes me the most about having an infant again is how much easier it is than last time. A lot of this is how different Molly is than Tucker was. But I think a significant part too is how less bewildering parenthood is the second time around. Last time it seemed so difficult to get groceries with an infant. This time I barely notice having an infant when I do errands, because it's so much easier than having a toddler. I may need to drag around a heavy infant carrier--but she never talks back, never has opinions, doesn't run anywhere, doesn't throw tantrums. And to top it all off, she's cute and a good snuggler. She's definitely a keeper. :)

Clutter, Part 2

My friend Alison in her comment yesterday has ESP on where I was going with the second part of this clutter post: kid stuff. Toys are a whole category of stuff that stumps me as a clutter-clearer. People who visit tell me that our house isn’t over run with toys like some houses they’ve been to. Maybe. I find this not a particular compliment for us, but more an indictment of how kids are growing up today. Too many toys aren’t a plus for parent OR child. Besides the parental frustration of an endless amount of mixed-up junk that gets piled around randomly or that forms a skim over all available surfaces, too many toys frustrates a child’s ability to focus and play creatively. There really is such a thing as too many choices.

I do the old take-toys-away-while-Tucker’s-asleep trick and have a stash of toys in the attic to cycle in as new every few months. I have gotten more merciless on culling for good the toys that Tucker has never been drawn to (though I make sure to ask the thrift store ladies not to put out our toy donations until we’ve left the store). I also am starting to be wiser about some categories of toys.

Trucks: really, all of these do the same thing in terms of play-value so only one or two favorites need to be out at one time, at least now that Tucker has other interests.

Art supplies: NEVER buy the 64 pack of crayons, at least for a preschooler. Fewer things means they are easier kept track of and better cared for and more easily replaced when they are used up.

Gifts: I’m trying to think more in terms of non-durable goods. For Tucker’s stocking I’m focusing on things that have a shelf life, like fun band-aids, punch ball balloons, animal crackers, glitter pens and coloring books… things that will be special and thoroughly enjoyed but won’t add to the sheer quantity of stuff in our house long-term. Another tactic is to give experiences or extra special clothes that he will eventually grow out of (ie Mickey Mouse slippers), and less of those things (however nice) that hang around indefinitely.

I may even institute a one-toy-in-one-toy-out policy except for Christmas and birthdays, and start engaging Tucker more in this process of giving things away. I also want to be more consistent in the New Year about teaching Tucker to take better care of his stuff so that sets of things remain together and can actually be used.

Quote of the Day

"Where is my football player's hat?" Tucker asked while he was still in bed this morning.

He peered under each bed in his room. "It is not under here," he announced. "I hope it is in the freezer."

Clutter, Part 1

One of Gretchen Rubin’s favorite activities in the Happiness Project is purging the house of clutter. She, like me, fit in that dubious category of people who enjoy organizing purely for its own sake. Clutter-clearing is her own addition to her Happiness Project; apparently, none of the sages of old (or even modern happiness researchers) has devoted time to the subject of getting rid of the stuff that weighs us down. Getting rid of clutter as a means to boosting happiness, is basically saying that our physical surroundings matter to our internal state. I think her words are that outer order leads to inner calm, or something along those lines. (To digress, this is actually a very Anglican idea, that the physical world matters to the internal world, that you are affected by whether you wear jeans to church or your best clothes, your posture during prayer, etc.)

She talks about different categories of items that shouldn’t have a place in your life. One is aspirational clutter: things you have because you’d like to be the sort of person who uses them, even though you don’t actually use them. In my case this might be a shirt that is a bit too fashionably tight or low-cut… it looks nice, but I never actually feel comfortable wearing it. I forget her catchy names for the other types of clutter but they include nostalgic clutter (the shirt you used to really love), washed-up clutter (the shirt that has stains on it), and duplicative clutter (five pairs of black pants when you only ever wear two).

Basically, the idea is to have high standards and not surround ourselves with things that we a) don’t like, b) don’t use, c) aren’t nice, or d) are easily replaceable (if a future need might arise). Obviously this is not brain science, but it’s amazing how many things I took to the thrift store using this criteria. The wedding present that was nice but I never used, which felt like a burden because I should have used it (because it was nice). The empty binders hanging out in my desk drawer even though I haven’t needed a binder in years and don’t currently have a need for a binder. The dog brush we never use because we got one that works better. It really is amazing and strangely liberating to let those things move on to their second life.

Christmas dilemmas

These days I can’t seem to complete a trip to the gym without nursing Molly in the childcare room. This makes trips to the gym inevitably longer than expected, but what doesn’t take longer than expected these days?

The women who work in the childcare room are across the board fun and welcoming. I enjoy our few minutes of adult conversation while I’m marooned in a nursing chair. Today the topic was Christmas.

One lady shared her three Christmas dilemmas. The first is trying to convince her three year-old son that Santa will be able to come down the chimney even though the couch is pushed up against the fireplace (to prevent their one year-old from repeatedly climbing into the fireplace.) Apparently the son is still not convinced so their furniture will be rearranged on Christmas Eve.

Secondly, she has put all the presents under lock and key in interesting hiding places to prevent said three year-old from wreaking havoc. I have never met this little boy but he sounds a bit like a terror—she describes him as “high energy”—and has shamelessly been opening any package he can find, even if she is in the same room.

Her third dilemma, the one that has her really stumped, is how to properly convey to her son that there isn’t a religious meaning for Christmas. “We’re not religious people,” she said, “So I’ve tried to tell him that Christmas could be any day. That people just picked that day to celebrate Christmas for political reasons. It’s just an arbitrary day; it doesn’t have any meaning.” This apparently leaves her son in a muddle, muttering confused statements about which days are which. Her husband tells her she is using two many words and trying to explain too much. But she is concerned. After all, his grandparents are religious—the boy might figure out that under the hubbub of presents and wrapping and sugary treats that the holiday is actually celebrating something more than Santa Claus and a mystical idea of generosity and love.

The Happiness Project

If you haven't read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, I highly recommend adding it to your 2011 reading list. The author spends a year synthesizing and digesting the latest research about happiness as well as the wisdom of the ages on the subject, and then tries to incorporate the findings into her life.

In case you're wary, this book is not of the self-help genre. It's an interesting, quick read about one woman trying to change her life without substantively changing her life (i.e. moving to a tropical island and retiring).

Some of her insights that struck me as particularly profound include:
*You can choose what you do; you can't choose what you like to do.
*One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
*Do good, feel good.
*If it takes less than a minute, do it now.
*And much, much more (of course).

[Spoiler alert.] She concludes at the end of the year that she is indeed happier, and that the single most important element of her happiness project was not any of her specific happiness resolutions but her daily chart to record how she was doing keeping those resolutions. If you manage what you measure, then you have to measure whether you're going where you want to be going, and that very act of measuring will do a lot to propelling you to where you want to go.

I'm not sure if this works for people who aren't type A. Why? I suspect it takes a type A sucker like me to be anal (some might say "particular") enough to make a daily resolution chart and actually use it. But if something works for someone else, I think it deserves a try before you dismiss it: the old if-you-want-what-we-have-then-do-what-we-do philosophy.

So, I've made my own resolutions chart and so far I'm liking using it. Knowing that I get to give myself the proverbial gold star at the end of the day if I do what I aspire to, really is keeping me doing the things I want to be doing. Ridiculous but true.

And if you're wondering about this recent flurry of blog entries that actually involve substantive thought, guess what? One of my resolutions is to write something every day. (Not necessarily on the blog, of course, but until I get a more substantive project I think more will end up here than has been here in awhile.)

Check out Gretchen Rubin's blog: www.happiness-project.com

Siblings playing

Tucker loves to surround Molly with toys so that they can play together. He's usually good about leaving space so that they toys don't fall on her and crush her (as you can see, quite a hazard).

Molly is quite content about the whole situation usually.

O Christmas Tree

We decorated our Christmas tree on Sunday, earlier than usual this year because we're going up to Vermont the day after Christmas to see my family. This is the second year that we've cut our own from a place an hour south of us that has trees so perfect it almost defeats the purpose of the holiday excursion. Last year we literally got out of the car and selected just about the first one we saw because they were all perfect. This year we decided to walk a little farther, just to make an excursion of it. The result, of course, was the same: a beautiful tree.

It's possible to select a huge one but I try to be restrained and pick a normal sized one... it's just so much easier to decorate and set up and haul around. I don't think I enjoy the epic ones any better anyway. Here's our photo journal of the tree trimming process....

Watch out for the pole vaulting mad man! (I don't think Tucker realized the long stick was to measure the tree with instead of jousting down the long tree aisles.)

Little Molly, you were a trooper in the cold.



Molly intently watched the decorating process with her adorable church clothes still on.


Christmas decorating is not complete without attacking Daddy!