Okay Internets, We Need Your Opinion

Our car has officially crapped out according to the state of Washington. It failed the emissions test and we can't get our tabs renewed. Why, oh WHY did THIS year have to be the year of the emissions test????

So what do we do?

Option #1. We take on debt. Probably around 10K. It would be about $150 a month. I would plan to work an extra shift per month to cover a car payment. I know our income would increase enough that I wouldn't have to do that forever. We'd probably look at a late nineties Subaru or a Volvo wagon.

Option #2. We don't take on debt. M. found a 1993 Ford Escort wagon. Seriously NOT the car of my dreams. But it's $1500 and we could pay cash. It's an automatic and has air conditioning. I'm assuming it would get decent gas mileage and it has 119,000. That's under 8K miles/year. But it's a Ford Escort and I have no idea how good of a car it would be.

Opinions?

A Really Easy Way to Know You Need a New Car

...your mechanic tells you.

Yeah, the crap-ass 1999 Purple Amethyst Dodge Neon went into the shop again. This time the wipers went out, as well as the brake lights (safe, uh huh) and that doesn't include the Service Engine Soon (SES) light that seems to be permanently on.

$340 dollars later we have a car with working wipers and brake lights, as well as a suggestion from Leo, our mechanic, that we consider a new car in the spring. If it counts for anything, he DID say it doesn't have to be a NEW car. Leo has approved us for a used one if that fits our budget. Ha ha.

The SES light is still on because we have a compression problem in the engine...Leo, bless his heart, was kind enough to suggest that we not spend the $1200 it would take to resolve the problem because it's more than the car is worth.

I keep telling myself that it really took eight years before we had ANY problems with our crap-ass neon. I keep telling myself that counts for something.

Ugh, I hate cars. With a passion.

The Concept of IN

Finn has figured out IN. As in IN things. It's funny because I never realized this was something that had to be learned.

He puts his whisk IN his bead maze. Then takes it out. Then puts it IN. He has a shape sorter and he finds his favorite round green block and puts it IN the box, then takes it out, then puts it IN, then takes it out. He puts his blocks IN his bead maze too, then takes them out...then IN....

It's the IN thing, all the kool kidz are doing it.

You get the picture.

Too freakin' ADORABLE. Except it's only a matter of time before he puts something IN something else, like our car keys or the TV remote, and we can't find where he put it.

There's this place called the LIBRARY...

Folk Playground, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

We are broke. Broke, not poor. It's the mantra around the house lately. Mat leave wiped us out and before that it was nursing school. Now we have a boy. It's a recipe for broke, not poor.

But there's this place...a magical place...for those of us who are broke, not poor. It's full of books and music, and you can take them home and for three weeks pretend they are yours.

I've gone crazy at the library. Especially since M. told me we can check out CDs as well as books. I love our Renee and Jeremy, but we needed something different and being broke, not poor, it's not in the budget.

I checked out Elizabeth Mitchell and The Bottle Let Me Down and New Orleans Playground. I'm waiting for some Beatles lullabies. But the absolute BEST we've come across is Putumayo Kids Folk Playground. I love the ENTIRE thing and highly recommend it.

Project Sleep

M. and I have hit the wall on Finn's sleep. We are officially dealing with our very first parenting issue and our son officially has his first bad habit.

It's the boob. Well, the boob in the context of sleep.

Finn loves the boob. I mean LOVES it. Nursing is a passionate exercise for him that involves a lot of yummy boob sounds and usually some acrobatics. He loves it so much that he wants to have it every single time he wakes up. Okay, except he wakes up pretty much once an hour or more often before M. and I get into bed with him. I spend around 20 minutes nursing him back down, then 30 to 40 minutes later I'm back nursing him down again...and again...and again.... He's started his wake/nurse cycle more frequently over the last couple weeks and he's also been starting to soak through his night dipe.

Time for intervention.

We sat down and talked it through. Crying it out is not an option for us so we needed to get creative as well as united. Would we deny him the boob? Would he get pissed? If I nursed him once we were all in bed together were we being inconsistent? Should we address just the constant nursing back to sleep or try to address that as well as the frequent wakings? WHAT TO DO?????

It took a couple days, and talking to various people, but we came up with a plan. I would nurse him when he woke but only for two minutes. I would then take him off the breast and soothe him back to sleep. Once we were all in bed he could nurse on demand.

We started last night. He woke 40 minutes after going to bed. I followed our plan. He woke ten minutes after the first resettle. I followed our plan. He woke an hour later. I followed the plan. He woke ten minutes later. I followed our plan, but I wanted nothing more than to feed our beautiful boy as he was crying in my arms, his tears soaking my shirt. I knew if I gave in our plan would be useless so I sang to him and rocked him and he did fall back to sleep. And I told him that we were doing our best, and that we loved him, and I cried.

Then he slept FOUR HOURS. He hasn't slept FOUR HOURS in a row for a couple months now

Tonight was easier. He only woke once an hour for the first two and has now gone past an hour. We decided it was mean to feed him those two minutes then jerk the good stuff away, so we're just settling and feeding only if he gets more agitated.

I have hope. Well, at least I have a project instead of feeling trapped by Finn's need to suck on my boob ALL THE TIME. I'm also once again reminded how lucky I am to have such a great teammate when it comes to parenting. It took a few conversations but M. and I found an intervention that we could both agree on.

And right now my boobs hurt because they're pretty full. Who thought painful, moderately engorged boobs would be a good thing.

Family

Family, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

Tired but happy! A boy and his moms.

Tag, YOU are IT!

I never get tagged, so thank YOU to Lynn (and Harris) at Family Style Love. He he.

The Rules:
1) Link to the person that tagged you.
2) Post the rules on your blog.
3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people at the end of your post and link to their blogs.
5) Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6) Let the fun begin!

The facts:

1. I don't like popcorn. I'll eat it every once in a long while, and it's okay if it has some sort of sugar involved, but in general I find it foul.
2. I have an embarassing addiction to dance music.
   
3. Once I threw a shot put into the air and it came back down and hit me on the head. I got up and walked home and no one took me to the hospital. Seriously wrong.
   
4. I love Jarritos.
   
5. I write fanfic but not under my real name.
   
6. Every morning I have to do my shower in this order: turn on water, get wet, soap hair, rinse hair, soap body, rinse body, wash ears, wash glasses, brush fingernails, wash and rinse face.
   

I am tagging

1. Anne at We Are Fambly
2. Trista at Accident of Hope
3. Cathy at Insane Animals
   

A Slow Deconstruction

TV Cabinet, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

Finn's world is an ever widening circle. He started so small, just mere inches around him, not even able to control his hands. He slowly learned to touch things, to grasp things, then to see a different perspective by rolling. He started to move, to scoot and finally to crawl and pull up on things. With each skill his world became bigger and bigger.

So did ours.

It seems so long ago we had that sweet little lap baby who you could leave on his play mat and return to find him...on his play mat.

Our house is undergoing a slow deconstruction as he explores it bit by bit. His latest...he's discovered that there are things inside. Inside the TV cabinet. Inside the drawers. Inside the dishwasher. He's starting down one of the many layers of life.

Yesterday he managed to pull open the bottom drawer that holds our dish towels, then scattered them all over the floor. Today he conquored the two doors above that. We know it's only a matter of time before he finds the cleaning products. We haven't baby-proofed so we watch him. very. carefully.

I love that he's discovering his world. M. and I don't hugely discourage his exploration. After all, we can clean up the destruction after he goes to bed. As long as he doesn't play with knives or fire, I want him to be able to experience things.

There will be plenty of time for rules later. It's Finn's world and I don't look forward to the day when we have to drag him into ours.

Yum!

Tomato Soup, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

I need a break...

originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

babycakes will resume blogging shortly

Weekend Cuteness: Boy Attack

Climbing Mommy, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

I'm back to work again. M. is picking up a couple new clients so we're back to our crazy-ass schedules. The boy is good.

Time to go to sleep.

15 Years: The Stats

Today is our 15 year anniversary. M. and I have been together since before she could legally drink. Imagine that.

Our fifteen year stats

Moved: five times.

Pets: five

Cars: four

Weddings: two

Honeymoons: none

Domestic Partnerships: one

DPOAs: One each

Jobs: about fifteen different ones between the two of us

Careers: four between the two of us

Full-series SIFF Passes: Once

Years we've planned to have a kid: fourteen

Fights: lots and lots

Laughter: countless

Television Appearances: One

Vacations: four

Experiences with fresh sperm in a syringe: approximately twenty four

Small boys we share our lives with: one

And about a million other things. It's a challenging thing to share your life with someone and I have to say that I managed to end up with the absolute best person I know. She's smart, intuitive, intentional, devoted and I'm honored to share my life with her.

I love my girl.

Nine Month Stats

originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

Head: giant, 47 cm, 90th percentile

Height: average, 28 inches, 50th percentile

Weight: okay, we knew he was a little guy, 17 pounds 8.5 ounces, 7th percentile

Meeting or exceeding all his developmental milestones. No shots and Finn had a great time talking to everyone in the waiting room.

How Much can One Baby Eat?

This morning:

6:40 breast feed 20 minutes.

7:30 breast feed 20 minutes

8:20 breakfast of 1/3 cup yogurt, 1/3 cup whole grain cereal, 2 tablespoons stewed apricots and half a graham cracker and water.

Seriously.

Does he have a hollow leg?

Spank me, baby!

Or don't.

There's a great article in the current issue of Mothering about discipline and toddlers.

Finn's been throwing fits for a while now. I hesitate to call them tantrums, or to even focus on them, because there is no reasonable way to discuss his behavior and no reasonable way to expect him to be different. He gets tired, we take a toy away and his little hands flail. He gets tired, we put him in the car seat and he lashes out. It's clear he's tired and it's clear he's not coping. Until we can all communicate about what he's feeling and work through how he can handle those feelings, I feel like any punishment for his behavior is inappropriate.

I know, this is surely the recipe for a brat.

The thing is, I don't believe that. This article finally gave me some reality to base this belief on. The author talked about how punishment simply sets up a power play, about how toddlers can't understand adult logic, and how tantrums and acting out are "an explosion of intense feelings that are frightening for a child to experience."

YES!

This is exactly what is happening to Finn. He gets tired and when we take his toy away, he gets angry. He doesn't know what anger is, or what to do with it, so his little hands flail. It's hard, as a parent, to watch your sweet child become out of control. It's even harder to not place judgement on his actions because they're scary.

I think there is SO MUCH pressure to discipline. There is this fear that MY child will be THAT child...you know, the one running around like a maniac, rolling on the floor and generally annoying everyone. Then you have Super Nanny and her naughty bin, with BAD parents put on display for the television audience to gasp in horror at. So the minute our kids get past being milk chugging, sleep sucking lumps and start indicating that they actually have an opinion about the world, our hearts freeze in fear. It's time to discipline.

Except maybe it isn't. Discipline will come. Right now I feel we just have to hold Finn tightly and help him through it.

Swim Finn

Swimming, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

Sometimes parenting feels a bit like a grind. Then every once in a while it really is rainbows and flowers. Seriously.

Today was one of those days.

Around 3pm I got this wild and crazy idea. Let's go SWIMMING. This is crazy because it's kind of late in the day for our early bedtime boy, AND we'd never taken him swimming before. So we put away our trepidation, packed up and headed to the YMCA.

This was no tame pool experience. It was open swim, filled with yelling kids throwing balls and splashing. Finn just shivered, held onto us tightly and stared at everything. After a bit, he relaxed and started to play. He did so well!

We came home and I really thought he'd head into a late nap, but he didn't. We hung out in his room and he played. Finn was playing with his bead maze and whenever he'd move a bead M. and I would clap like crazy and he'd grin. Then M. and Finn would high five and he would crack up. We spend half our time thinking this kid is so independent that our praise falls in deaf ears, so it was nice to have that interaction.

He was in such a great mood and it was so amazing to be together as a family. It was just a fabulous day. Rainbows and flowers all the way.

Culture of Men Part II

Postpartum isn't kind. Some days I feel completely devoid of any intelligent thought. Other days my brain is buzzing with a million ideas that slip away minutes later. It sucks. I managed to hold onto something I've been thinking about all day, so here goes.

There is NEVER a visit from my parents that doesn't involve some sort of comment by my mother about Finn being a boy. It is usually a reference to Finn liking something because he's a guy, such as a mechanical part or a beer bottle, or liking my dad more than the rest of us because they're guys, or having some sort of connection to my absent brother because, you know, they both have a penis.

I've been pondering the 'culture of men' comment my mother made during the f*ing circumcision discussion one day post op. I have always seen that comment as being only part of that horrid conversation where I had to defend my right to decide whether or not to circumcise our son. I've come to realize that it wasn't. It's how my mother views Finn in general.

He is male and in her eyes he will have to someday interact with other men...I don't know, smear mud, beat drums, check out each other's junk in the gym shower...something like that. We are women. We are innately unqualified and unequipped to raise our son as a man. Therefor she sees it as her grandmotherly responsibility to make sure Finn is raised in this MANLY way.

Like the circumcision discussion, my mother is again coming from an incredibly antiquated point of view. Finn will not be at a deficit because he is raised by two women. It is my sincere opinion that he will be at an advantage because he will not have the pressure put on him that a father often onto his son. M. and I don't really know what Finn needs to function in this mythological and sexist Culture of Men my mother is so concerned about, but we certainly know what he will need to function in the Culture of People. Compassion. Understanding. Kindness. Emotional maturity. Support. Family. Love. And we will do all in our power to set him free into this world with all of that.

In the meantime, if I hear another comment about Finn liking something or someone because he's a guy, I may possibly scream. But probably not. I'll just grind my teeth and know that ultimately it is M. and I who both are responsible and have the power to form Finn into the man that he will become.

The Nap Mom

M. is becoming The Nap Mom.

Finn and I get into the rocking chair, turn on the music, and the wailing starts. M. walks into the room and he starts reaching for her, sobbing, asking her to come SAVE him from this inept creature who has captured him in her arms.

And the cherry on the sundae? He chose bottle over breast this morning. It happens occasionally. I'm not too offended. Or whiny. Not too much.

We all have our ways of interacting. Finn and M. have a good interaction when it comes to going for a nap. I tend to be more impatient. But I'm definitely the night-time mom, because of the boob. Sometimes on my work-nights he just outright says NO BOTTLE, and goes to sleep without any nursing because he wants the boob.

I'm roughhouse mom. Finn and I jump on the bed and wrestle, swing around and bounce. M. wants me to add that SHE roughhouses as well. She does. I'm just trying to find something I do besides the boob.

It's kind of cool to start seeing what each of us is to our son. It's kind of sad too. It means that we're not equal, but in reality, we never were. We just work incredibly hard to uphold the illusion and always strive for getting as close to equality in parenting as we possibly can.

Happy Nine Months (yesterday)...

...to mommies and Finn. We've made it 75% of the way there. It feels like a year is just around the corner. Yikes.

It's a Twister...

Finn has a way of dismantling a room in a matter of minutes. We've taken to calling him Finnado, similar to Tornado but marginally less destructive.

This is how it goes.

Finn's Room: Pull out toys, dump toy basket, flip over Finn stool, bite letters, open and close door, pull books out of bookshelf, chase cats, proceed to...

Hallway: pull up on drawers, squat down, up...down...up...down...hey, outlet (mommy or mama remove Finn from outlet), paint cans...up...down...up...down...proceed to...

Bathroom: pull down toilet paper stand, unroll toilet paper, find bath toys and dump them on floor, pull up on bathroom cabinet, squat down...up...down...up...down...proceed to...

Vacuum: I love you vacuum. You're my best friend. You understand me. Clomb over. Pull up. Squat down. Up...down...up...down...one more time for good measure and proceed to...

Kitchen: climb in dishwasher, throw dishwasher rack, chase cats, pull items out of the recycling bin, eat them, chase squashed milk carton around floor, pull up on water stand, squat down...up...down...up...down...crawl under table, finger heat register, chase cats and now...

TIME FOR BREAKFAST.

NAP NOW!

One 17.5 pound boy can pretty much destroy our house in not that much time. The Finado hits pretty much on a daily basis.