Happy Halloween

Gentleman Bug, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

Trick or treat! Have a good one everyone. I'll be working.

Weekend Cuteness: Wrap it Up

Spooky Sling, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

Since I was talking babywearing, here's our Hop panama with M. and Finn. Loverly.

Finn has started saying mamamama. He does it when he cries and it's the most adorable, pathetic thing ever. Wahhhhhh mamamama wahhhhhhhh mamamama. So sweet.

Tiny Pig

It's not really nice to call our son a pig, but the boy can EAT. M. keeps track of his intake while I'm at work and his record so far has been 35 ounces. THIRTY. FIVE. OUNCES. This is EBM and formula, and doesn't count my morning, evening and overnight breast feedings.

The typical amount for a baby his age to take in a 24 h ours period is 24-28 ounces.

Tiny, tiny pig.

You would think he'd be a ginormous baby, but he's not. Where does it go? Does he have a hollow leg? Is he hoarding it somewhere to donate to the other hungry babies of the world?

Yet anther aspect of our little boy that totally amazes me. I love my little pigaletto.

Hard Decisions

Isn't parenting supposed to be filled with hard decisions. I guess so, but that doesn't make things suck any less.

M. and I have had to make one of those hard decisions around Finn's bedtime. He's giving us signals that he wants to go to bed earlier and we've decided we need to follow them. Seems harmless, except he wants to go to bed at 7 pm and I don't get home from work until 8 pm. We've been keeping him up until I get home so I can nurse and those hours between 6pm and 8pm have turned into the witching hours, and then he's often happy to see me and doesn't get to bed until 9pm.

The choice became between me seeing Finn or having a screaming little boy with zero coping tools left. We chose him over me. It's the right thing to do, but I'm sad. Maybe it seems like an easy decision, but what it means is that when I work I won't see my boy for 48 hours.

I already miss him.

Thank You Blogosphere!!!!!!

Finn won the photo contest and we get a family picture. Yay! Thanks to all our readers. We are very appreciative toward everyone who is sharing our journey.

The Stroller Thing

I was at my favorite outdoor shopping center and witnessed a woman with a newborn in a stroller. The baby started that so sweet, so sad newborn cry that rips your heart out and the woman made a shushing sound and pushed the stroller back and forth, then went back to her shopping. The baby cried again and she did the same thing again...shush...push the stroller back and forth...shop. This happened four times total before she finally turned to the stroller to actually sooth her baby.

I'll be honest. The stroller thing. I don't get it.

M. and I are babywearing fanatics. Yes, we do own a stroller, but I think I can count on two hands how many times Finn has actually been in it and he's almost seven months old. To be honest, I love our stroller. It's a luxury beast with incredible suspension, but the only time I use it is when I've been wearing Finn all day and I'm too tired but still want to go for a walk.

I love wearing Finn. I love having him all snuggled up against me. I love feeling him breathing while he sleeps. I love looking down right into his eyes and having him right there with me all the time. Yes, it's hot, and back breaking, but he won't be little forever and it won't be long before he's running ahead of us.

I guess I don't know why, outside of physical limitations, people don't wear their babies. The stroller seems to somehow be the ultimate accessory, some sort of right of passage into parenthood. All it seems to do in my eyes is to reinforce the seperation of parent and child, and in extension the isolation of children from the adult world. We function up at our level and they are kept down at theirs. In their stroller.

Finn the Foodie

Pumpkin, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

Our boy loves food. I mean LOVES FOOD. He loves to watch us eat. He loves to watch us cook. He loves to eat the food himself. He'll stare at us while we're eating and air chew. He grabs whatever we're putting in our mouths.

So far he's eaten pear, apple, nectarine, whole grain cereal, banana, advocado, yogurt, ice cream, rice, honeydew, blueberries, rice pasta, chicken, potato and pumpkin. Least fave to far is advocado and faves are nectarine and pumpkin.

Tonight I made rice pasta with chicken, and roasted potatoes. Finn had it all right along with us, and he loved every single bite.

We do finger foods so feeding is a very messy experience with a lot of goo ending up on the floor. We got this amazing contraption with the charming name of Piggy Platter. It's a clear, hard placemat that sets on the table. Love, love, LOVE IT. He can mess it all up and we just wash it clean.

Table foods are a lot of work but also a lot of fun. I love watching Finn explore every aspect of his food, from the taste to how it feels mushed up in his fingers. I hope this is the beginning of a long, healthy love affair with foods.

Weekend Cuteness: Waiting for the Bus

Waiting for the Bus, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

I've been into public transit lately. It's nice to not have to haul Finn in and out of the car seat and I like that time just sitting on the bus. Today I put Finn into the wrap and we went up to the pharmacy to pick up meds. It actually took a long time and the weather was pretty ick. I had my requisite hat and the umbrella. We had lunch, read a magazine, then met M. for Thai food.

It was all good.

Non-Kid Releated...

Okay, sort of kid related.

When I was pregnant one of my biggest worries was how having a family would affect my career. I think I've said this before, but I like what I do and I want to work. I wouldn't mind working less, but that's not possible at the moment.

I've made what feels like a big decision. I work as a acute care medicine RN. For those in the biz, it's the dreaded floor. I've always thought I would spend a couple years on the floor then make the leap to critical care. I've been wavering back and forth since I returned from maternity leave on applying to the ICU and I finally decided that if I really did want to apply I would have done it a long time ago.

I'm staying put.

My career is still important to me, but I've come to realize that I'm actually happy where I am. It's a hard job and I'm working the trenches, but I really like it. A lot of nurses use acute care experience as a stepping stone to what they see as bigger and better things, leaving the floor filled with new grads and burned out nurses.

I'll re-evaluate in a year and in the meantime, I'm planning on kicking a lot of ass and taking a lot of names.

Best. Day. Ever

Finn's Top Model Pose, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

Thank you to everyone who is voting for Finn. We appear to be ahead, but still a few days to go.

Finn and I had just about the best. day. ever. yesterday.

We took the bus to our support group, which requires leaving an hour earlier than we usually do, but that's find. Mr. Bo Finner was tired but kept his eyes open and watched everyone until his little head just dropped onto my chest and he slept all comfy in the wrap.

At our support group he proceeded to escape my grasp while I was changing his dipe and he "dashed" across the quilt with his bits dangling. The object of his obsession...another baby's toy! Then a friend who is also a babywearing enthusiast showed me a new tie for our wrap which I LURVE.

We then headed home and I stopped at work for a bit so I could breastfeed. Finn was ADORED by my coworkers. He really likes them, and one said it's because he heard them all that time when he was invisible in my belly. Cute.

Bubble tea was our next stop. I used to have a coworker who brought me bubble tea when I worked weekends and he left while I was on maternity leave. I love bubble tea...so does Finn. Well, at least he loves the cup because I got NO PEACE as I was trying to drink my bubble tea. He almost flipped himself out of the wrap trying to grab the cup.

It was a blustery day of incliment weather, Finn got to feel breeze on his face and loved it. We finally got home and I decided we needed to go take some pictures at the park, so I popped Finn into the stroller and we headed out again. I think the pics turned out great!

The downside. Well, NOTHING got done around the house. I'll make up for it on Friday, but in the meantime I loved my day with my boy.

Vote For Finn!!!

Finn Contest, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

M. entered this picture of Finn into a photo contest put on by a Seattle photographer. If we win we'll get a free sitting with her. Soooooo,babycakes readers, if you're so inclined....

PLEASE VOTE FOR FINN!!!!!!

The voting closes this Friday, October 19th at 5pm PST, so vote now!

Dashing through the room...

I like my job but being at work means I miss my boy. I don't work that many days per week but when I work, my hours are long and I basically get to nurse him to sleep at night. I end up feeling like I barely see him. I guess he's really starting to move. M. put it this way...he saw something he wanted and then proceeded to dash across the room.

He he. Dash.

Now that Finn can move we can see his thought processes a little more. It's so much fun to watch him move from toy to toy. He'll decide he wants to play with the round block. Then the triangle stripey block. Then the orange square block. Then back to the round block. He loves to play with the wheels on our office chair and on the china cabinet. It's amazing what can fascinate a six month old baby.

But the dashing...I can't wait until I'm of tomorrow and get to see the dashing.

Food, Glorious Food!

Table foods are officially part of Finn's world now that he's reached six months. The problem is that mommies feel just a bit overwhelmed with this addition to our already overwhelming list of responsibilities. So we've decided that we will feed the boy but not regularly or consistently. One day he may get table foods, the next day none. One day he may get brekkie, the next day, lunch.

Good plan, right? I mean, until one year, food is really about tastes, and we're not really ready to go insane.

Except that Finn seems to disagree.

The boy wants to eat. Everything. All the time. We cannot eat in peace because he spends the entire time grabbing at our food. M. was eating potato chips in front of him and he kept grabbing and grabbing until he just leaned right in and gave her a big open-mouth kiss in an attempt to get just a little but of what mama was eating.

Time for Plan B. We can't eat unless we give Finn something. Enter a good supply of toast fingers and apple slices. I just got a set of bib clips so I can feed him on the go...so far with one use they seem to work well. Today when we were shopping, I had yummy crunchy rice and chicken salad and Finn had pan fried carrots with paprika and orange juice (from Pasta & Co) and we were both VERY happy.

Breakdown!

You know there comes a moment when you think the universe just has it out for you. M. and I have been feeling like that lately.

It started last week when M. and I finally were home together and it wasn't after 8 pm so we decided to put together the new portable crib we'd bought for our little crawler, only to find it was cracked and broken in three places. It appears that the warning on the cardboard box that states "For Baby Do Not Drop" was flagrantly ignored.

Then Monday night. M., who is one of the most responsible human beings on the planet, did something that I would have expected from ME, not her. She washed her cell phone. No, not a bath. Washed in the washing machine.

Wednesday came around and M. decided to go to our support group because she and Finn had been having a really tough morning. She got into the car...it wouldn't start.

Then...the housekeeper showed up and cleaned the house. Right before she finished, our really nice expensive awesome kick-ass vacuum...stopped working.

And during this whole thing, four lightbulbs burnt out. Do you know how insurmountable it feels to change a freakin' light bulb when you have a baby who now takes only three to four short cat naps compared to his previous six to seven and you never see your wife? Pretty close to asking us to climb Mt. Everest.

OH MY GOD!

Everything in our house is freakin' breaking down.

The story doesn't end too badly. Because the phone is less than a year old, by one month, we only have to pay $50 to replace it. We had the car towed back to the mechanic and the car trouble turned out to be a bolt they hadn't tightened properly two weeks earlier when they replaced the starter. The vacuum repair won't cost anything which is one of the benies of shelling out a crap-load of moola on a vacuum. The crib is our last outstanding issue, and I'm going to exchange it at Babies-R-Hell tomorrow.

But the lightbulbs are still out. Oh, and did I mention the dryer vent that fell down...

Creeping Along with the Crawling

For some reason I thought Finn would just start crawling one day. It would be like Tuesday he wasn't crawling then Wenesday he was. I never expected this to be such a long process.

We now have forward movement. And sideways movement. And backwards movement. He can get up on hands and knees and hands and feet, even hands, one knee, one foot. Just no bonefide on the hands and knees crawling at high rates of speed.

He has accomplished near-crawling, which is a bit like near-beer: just not quite beer, just not quite crawling.

The good news is that with even a little forward movement, Finn's level of frustration has gone way down and mommies are happier. The bad news is that he's already into EVERYTHING, so bonefide crawling strikes fear deep in my heart of darkness.

The horror. The horror.

Winterizing

Finn and Mama in the Rain, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

I'm one of those people who never wear a coat. I can pretty much get through a rainy Seattle fall and winter with a ratty old sweatshirt. Now that I'm postpartum, I'm rarely even cold.

Which is why I took Finn out yesterday entirely underdressed. I felt like The Dad. You know, the guy who shows up with the baby dressed in shorts and mismatched socks when it's raining outside and the mom makes that "tsk" sound then tells her girlfriends how silly her partner is.

Dressing your baby sounds simple but I swear, it's not. Sweatshirt or no sweatshirt? Jacket? Long sleeves? Socks? Mittens? It's also complicated by car seats that can't take too many layers and carriers that add an extra layer of warmth.

Bottom line, we have to buy Finn a coat. And he can't spend the entire winter in short sleeves like I do. And I have to pay a little more attention when I dress him for going out.

Babies Laugh at the Funniest Things

When our house was broken into the nere-do-wells took off with our video camera. It took us a couple days to figure this out. I was sitting in the break room at work and all of the sudden I saw a vision of the empty space on Finn's dresser where it had been sitting and realized it had been stolen.

M. and I were heartbroken. There was a bunch of footage that I hadn't downloaded that the intruders took off with, and that kind of stuff can't be replaced. There's no insurance for memories.

Then on Thursday my parents showed up at our house with a brand-new replacement camera for us. WOW!!!! We were both blown away at their generosity.

In honor of our new video camera, here's some footage of Finn laughing at M. ripping the velcro on one of his bibs. Funny, strange little boy:

Six Months of Finn

Six Months of Finn, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

Since I've been nagged about photos, here are six months of Finn. He's so grown up, our little boy. Right now he's playing with one of our old cell phones and quite content.

Six Month Checkup

We went to see Dr. G. this morning. Finn is 25th percentile weight, 50th percentile height and 90th percentile head. Big head baby! It was a really good checkup until the shot happened. he screamed louder than I've ever heard him scream. Now he's sleeping for a bit, but he's been edgy all day. Poor little boy.

We're just waiting for mama to come home so we can spend some Little Family time together tonight.

Six Months, Yo!

Tuesday was Finn's six month birthday. Wow. We're halfway through. M. and I spent a very long period of time sitting on the floor Finn's room last night watching him pick up blocks. It's amazing the things we find amusing now.

Where is he developmentally?

Crawling. He is still working on crawling and can now not only scoot backwards but scoots sideways as well. He's much less frustrated with his inability to move forward, so as long as he's not spending hour after frustrating hour on his hands and knees yelling, he can have all the time he needs.

Sitting. He sits. And sometimes he still falls, but not as much.

Rolling. He rolls. Like a crazy boy. Changing his diaper is sometimes close to impossible. We think it's his secret plan to be naked as much as possible. He refuses to stay on his back in general.

Grabbing. Finn can grab things with one hand or two hands, transfer from hand to hand, and shape his hand to fit the object. He's showing signs of the pincer but still mostly uses the palmer grip. He's starting to grab at us when he's on the floor and we're walking nearby and he is showing signs of asking to be picked up.

Food. Okay, we're a little overwhelmed by the whole feeding solids. We're sporadic, but our boy LOVES to eat when we actually feed him. So far he's had pear, banana, apple, nectarine, advocado, yogurt, applesauce and homemade whole grain baby cereal. He constantly grabs at our food and drink.

Overall, he's a happy, happy boy. Except when he's not. But that's okay. He's the best, EVER!

The Return of Man Camp

M. and I have started our evening parents support group (clearly, we love to be supported in this parenting thing considering how many groups we go t0). We do a check in then discuss a preset topic each week. Last night we learned that we will again experience the joys of...

MAN CAMP!

This is the completely-useless-for-lesbians-seperating-of-the-group-by-gender so the boys can beat their drums and the girls can trade beauty secrets.

We've run into Man Camp before: when M. ended up with The Dads during our birth class, when we did some sort of listening circle during our pre-baby relationship workshop. M. has declared that she will NEVER be part of Man Camp again.

I haven't felt as is0lated from our heterosexual counterparts in parenting as I did when I was pregnant. Then things like Man Camp happen and M. and I get the joy of having our time wasted and getting nothing out of our support group for two whole meetings. I realize this is a byproduct of being a minority in a heterosexual world, but I still long for some degree of sensitivity toward doing things in a way that includes us in the group instead of sacrificing our experience for the straight people around us.

I want to give the leader the Bitchy Lesbian Smackdown. M. has told me that I'm not allowed. Maybe I'll just do a few Dad Power Fists to the guys in the group to salve my wounded soul.

*thanks to Dr. Phil for the term Man Camp

DtD Flies Away

Our original boy, DtD, is officially gone for a year. M. and I are both really sad and we'll miss him so much.

He is one of the best people I've ever known. He was that way from the moment I met him. He's a great friend and has been there for us over and over again - he takes care of us. He gave us his sperm and stuck with us for eight long tries. He's part of our beautiful son and we love him because of that.

When I first thought of using DtD as our KD I dismissed the idea entirely. I can't believe how far things have come since then. He has been better than we ever expected.

He'll be back in a year and we'll jump on the TTC rollercoaster again. I think the time will be good and we'll be excited about adding to our little family. I'll be especially happy to have our friend back. In the meantime, we're going to have BF over regularly for meals and take care of DtD the best we can from a distance.

Wah!