My Favorite Baby Carrier

Just two or three months after I discovered we were expecting a baby, I started on a quest for the right baby carrier. I had been told by my mom that babies tend to get fussy in the evening just when you are tired, too, and trying to put together dinner on top of it all. Several women had told me how much they loved their baby slings because they could just put the baby in and nurse while cooking dinner and keeping an eye on the older kids. It sounded the perfect multitasking solution to me, so the hunt for the perfect carrier began!

I had heard from some friends that a baby Bjorn worked great for them, so I promptly found a gently used one on ebay and bought it last summer (my first purchase for the baby!). At first she seemed too small for the baby Bjorn, but when she was about 6 weeks old I started using it. It worked OK, but I wasn't exactly enthralled with it. I found a couple of serious drawbacks. First of all, I didn't like the time it takes to put on and get it adjusted. I had to look at the directions for the first 4 or 5 times I put it on, but eventually got the hang of it. Still, it seemed to take forever to put on and all the while Maria would be crying because she wanted to be held that very instant. The second drawback too me a while to discover, but I discovered the Bjorn becomes more and more uncomfortable the heavier your baby gets. My Bjorn was the kind with lumbar support and everything, but still it was uncomfortable. From many a backpacking trip I've learned that a heavy pack feels much lighter when most of the weight is on your waist and as little as possible on the shoulders. The Bjorn puts all the weight squarely on one's shoulders. With disappointment I continued my quest for the perfect baby carrier.

Determined to make baby wearing work for me, I purchased a used Moby wrap. It's basically a long piece of cloth that one wraps around one's body and the baby can fit in it an number of different ways. I used it some and it made some tasks like cooking or hanging out the laundry a little easier since I could take her with me. I never really got the hang of the wrap. It was time consuming to put on (same problem as the Bjorn), hard to put Maria in so we'd both be comfortable and as the weather heated up, wrap wearing was definitely out in our non-air conditioned home. Also, wraps are NOT manly so I could not realistically entertain the hope that Mark would ever find the wrap useful. Thus, the hunt continued!

After witnessing an acquaintance use her Ergo baby carrier, I was intrigued. I read up on it and watched the demo videos featuring folks who were WAY too happy about their Ergo carrier (check out the one on attachment parenting... I'm somewhat attachment oriented myself, but this is over the top!). Despite the gushing happiness of the videos, I purchased a carrier and have been overwhelmingly pleased with it! Some of my favorite features... it's very easy and intuitive to put on and it's COMFORTABLE! You can hold a child from infancy (with an insert) up to 4 or 5 years old so you need to buy only one carrier, also the carrier works in 3 different positions (front, back and side), it's manly enough for my husband to wear, and it puts most of the weight squarely on one's hips (unlike some other carriers I've mentioned). I could go on and on, but I'll try to contain myself! I use it around the house when Maria is fussy but I need to get things done. I've used it to go for walks on our uneven county roads which are not too good for pushing a stroller. Some of the highlight hikes with the carrier were at the Sleeping Bear Dunes in Michigan and the redwoods in California. In both cases a stroller would not have worked so no baby carrier = no hikes = sad Sue. Ergo baby carrier = nice, long hikes = happy Sue.

In an attempt to be balanced I will say that I'm not sure this carrier would be the best for a longer hike (6 or more miles) with an older (and heavier!) child. It holds the child right next to your body so it could get really hot and sweaty. I think one of the backpack style carriers might be best if you were planning on going to a national park, for example, and doing lots of longer hikes with an older child. Some of the backpack style carriers have sun and rain canopies and even bug netting which could be important in those conditions.

Trash the Dress!

On the flight back from a very fun trip to visit my sis in sunny CA (pictures will be coming soon!), I became aware of a new and intriguing trend in solving the wedding dress dilemma. Whatever are you supposed to do with it after the wedding? I had hoped to rent a dress to avoid this dilemma entirely, but the wedding dress rental shop in town had long gone out of business by the time I got married. The dress is hanging in a closet in the spare bedroom, but that room will eventually be needed when our family grows (just to make sure no rumors are started, we are neither expecting nor expecting to be expecting anytime soon!). Given my feelings about my mother's dress (a homemade mid-thigh number from 1970), I'm under no illusion that Maria will someday want my dress. I'm not particularly sentimental so I tried to sell my dress or give it to a friend, but to no avail. I could always drop it off at Goodwill, but somehow I'm just not happy with that option.

Now a whole new door has opened and I for one am excited! The airline magazine had a short article about a website called "trash the dress" featuring brides relieving the stress of their weddings by destroying their wedding dresses in various ways. The forum has even better pictures in my opinion and you definitely need to check out this video involving paint and an 80s dress with uber-puffy sleeves!

Mark and I were discussing the concept of destroying one's wedding dress in a spectacular way and while attracted to the idea, we both felt somewhat disconcerted by the wastefulness of the act. Why destroy a perfectly good dress? Just today a dear friend (who also happens to be a photographer) were discussing dress trashing and she had an awesome point of view. One can think of this as an act of creating, not destroying. You are creating art, creating pictures, creating memories. Since we aren't the original Creator, we must create out of something, and sometimes the raw materials are a bit costly!

This winter I hope to clean out some closets. And sometime this spring I hope to create some crazy fun memories with my dress, mud, daffodils and Maria! (Or possibly wait a few years and go to Las Vegas with Alicia, Judy, Christy and Marjorie to paint the town red in our white dresses, just like these ladies!)

No "Mom of the Year" Award for me!

It all started several weeks ago on a Wednesday when I couldn't get Maria down for her afternoon nap until 1:30pm. It was a struggle to get her down and so she fell asleep later than usual. Normally it wouldn't be a problem, but I really needed (conversation with other adults is not merely a want, but a need some days!) to go to the bible study at the next door neighbor's home at 2pm. And I didn't want a cranky baby.

So at 1:55pm I grabbed my bible and the baby monitor (thankfully a long distance one!) and started slowly walking toward the neighbor's house. Though the static increased, the monitor didn't start making angry out-of-range beeps until I reached Kathy's front porch. I walked inside and the monitor sometimes had contact and sometimes didn't. I was absolutely determined to make this crazy idea of mine work and so eventually located a particular spot on the banister of the stairs in the living room where there was reception. With a little help from some tape, the monitor stayed in contact and I stayed at the study until 3:30 when I heard happy, wakeful noises coming from the monitor. I ran back home, changed Maria's diaper and we both came back for the tail end of the study!

So yes, I left my baby at home, ALONE for over an hour! Thankfully I'm not Brittany Spears because the paparazzi would be all over this, not to mention DCFS. When I told this story to a fellow mom and understanding friend, she said "you won't win any Mom of the Year awards for that one!" She explained that this was a compliment and that her husband used this phrase to describe sanity-saving but unorthodox methods of caring for one's child. I totally love the phrase and have decided to chronicle some of these non-Mom-of-the-Year moments!

To top that episode, this weekend Mark, Maria and I went to Chicago to spend the weekend with a dear friend from Seattle, Alicia. We had a great afternoon walking along the waterfront, enjoying the warm October day. As evening drew near, Maria became fussy so we headed back to the Westin on Michigan Avenue (thank you, Priceline!) to put Maria to sleep.

The plan was for Mark to stay with Maria while Alicia and I went out on the town. As you can imagine, staying in a hotel room with a sleeping baby is far from exciting. Maria needs darkness and silence to sleep and she goes to sleep around 7pm, nixing all hope of TV-watching, book reading and the like. While we were unpacking and getting Maria ready for bed, I noticed that the closet was a fairly good size. Upon closer inspection, I discovered our pack-n-play (Maria's travel bed) did indeed fit in the closet!

To make a long story short, I left my baby in a closet (a 4 star closet, mind you!) while I went out on the town for some serious shopping and a scrumptious dessert with a dear friend! Mark was in the hotel room so we didn't leave her alone, but she did sleep in the closet all night! I have to admit I'd do it again in a heartbeat! And yes, I do know how lucky I am to have such an awesome husband!

Maria's First Modeling Gig

But it might not be her last, given that she was still in the 99th percentile for height at her 6 month check up! She's now 29 inches tall, 16.5 pounds and as of today has three teeth! Stats aside, a dear friend of ours is starting a photography business and thus Maria has become a model. See if you can find all four pictures of her on Leyla's website!

Here are some amazing samples of her work that didn't make it to the website...

Sunroom Sundries

It's been an interesting few days in our sun room. Happily it has been getting cool enough that we've been able to go out there in the mornings and evenings. Last night I noticed a praying mantis on the sun room door.

This morning it had been joined by another praying mantis... I took a closer look and indeed they were doing what bugs do on the Nature Channel. I dimly remembered learning something quite horrible in high school biology class about praying mantises and I was scared.

I hoped against hope that my memory was wrong. But I couldn't be sure if it was or it wasn't. The uncertainty of it all drew me (against my better judgment!) to check back on the mantises throughout the day.

At first they were continuing to do what they had been doing. Then the moment came when all my fears were realized. I don't think I want to fully explain what happened, but it involved cannibalism... go ask your biology teacher for details. After my dreaded suspicion was confirmed I no longer checked back, but I did hum taps for the male praying mantis.

The wikipedia entry on praying mantids was quite interesting. Apparently one can keep them as pets and feed them crickets. (Mattox, are you reading this?) I started thinking that might be a fun sort of science project to do with Maria when she gets older - keep a praying mantis in a little terrarium and feed it crickets. There certainly is no shortage of crickets here among the corn and soybean fields! But now I'm wondering if this feeding of crickets would be too gross and would scar Maria for life. I figure as her mother I'm totally doomed... no matter what I do I'll scar her for life in somehow, but I'd like to keep the damage as minimal as possible!

PS. This picture was taken before anything too terrible happened. The odd part is that the female was missing one arm, but that didn't stop her from doing what she did. Such aggressive little critters!

Food, Glorious Food

Last week at covenant group Maria was intently watching everyone eat and at one point tried to swipe a bread stick out of my hand! That's when I decided to start giving her real food in addition to her usual diet of "happy juice" (breast milk). Since happy juice requires no preparation, no cleanup, almost no extra packing when traveling and is virtually free, I hadn't been looking forward to complicating our lives with real food. But raising a child definitely isn't all about what's convenient for me, so I grudgingly bought some brown rice cereal and attempted the first feeding on Thursday.

Yes, feeding solids is horribly messy, but to my surprise I found that it's also completely hilarious and loads of fun when in the right mood! Maria made crazy faces, tried to bite the spoon and promptly evicted all of the rice cereal from her mouth with her tongue after every attempt. Things went about the same on the second day, but I discovered that she loves to play with the bowl and spoon. I'm going to give rice cereal one more try and then conclude that she just doesn't like the stuff. I tried some out of curiosity and it's pretty nasty... rather like bland, gloppy glue. Maybe she'll like pureed veggies better.

Maria paints Chicago pink!

Last weekend Mark's mom was in Chicago for a women's conference for the Covenant church. We decided that a 2.5 hour drive to see one of his parents was much better than the usual 9.5 hour drive and so the plan was hatched.

We had to ask directions to the hotel when we were less than a block away(!), but other than that the drive went well. Maria was a big hit with the ladies from Mark's parent's church, though she burst into tears suddenly after too much attention! Boy was her grandma happy to see her!!

We ate at a restaurant called Italian Village and after an exceptionally loud crying spell in the women' s bathroom, Maria finally fell asleep in the restaurant. We decided to order dessert to take full advantage of her nap. Tiramisu is always a happy experience!

From the restaurant we walked past a mosaic by Marc Chagall on our way to Millenium Park.

It was neat to explore Millennium Park since it's relatively new and because the two face fountains were especially refreshing in the 90 degree plus heat. Mark especially enjoyed taking self-portraits and unique pictures in the giant reflective bean.

From there we walked through Grant's Park to Buckingham fountain. We collapsed in the shade of a crab apple tree and watched all the couples taking wedding and quince (sweet 16) photos. I didn't realize that quinceanera girls not only dress up in a formal gown that rivals many wedding dresses I've seen, but they also have a tuxedoed escort and a court of 2 or 3 matching couples to follow them around, not to mention professional photographers! The parallels to a wedding party are downright uncanny! There's even a magazine devoted entirely to quince parties! I'll try not to go on a tirade here about the excesses involved in modern weddings, but I have to say my feelings now extend to quincaneras as well. Frightening!

Anyway, we had a wonderful time exploring Chicago with momma Nina (pronounced "nine-uh") and it was neat seeing her and Maria together!

WNBA Player or Lion Tamer?

At her 2 month appointment Maria was in the 99th percentile for height... that means she's taller than 99 out of 100 girl babies her age! It's kind of neat to have a tall baby, but upon further consideration it's odd to be proud of something I really didn't have much to do with. I did contribute half her DNA, but I had no control over how tall I am, much less how tall she is! I'm a bit worried about the height thing since it's bad for women to be too tall (and for men to be too short)... it makes it really hard to find someone to date. Call me superficial, but I never could date someone shorter than me. Happily, Mark has solved all my problems in that area! ( :

I figure if Maria keeps growing at this rate she can have a career in the WNBA as long as she takes after her daddy in terms of coordination. Then a few days (well, really weeks... I'm super behind on blogging!) ago she started hitting her little stuffed lion on the play gym. She was totally going to town and hit that poor lion until she was tired out. Later that evening Maria was fussing while laying in her play gym. Mark noticed she was looking at the lion and when he moved her within striking range of the lion she stopped fussing!

All of this is to say that our daughter could turn out to be a lion tamer or a WNBA player or anything in between. After teaching for 4 years at a magnet high school for the gifted, I've witnessed a lot of highly-driven and successful parents get pretty pushy about their children's math grades. They are at the top of a math related field and can't accept that their son or daughter may not be as adept or interested as they were in mathematics. Sometimes it's just a maturity issue on the part of the student, but often kids simply have different interests from their parents. After seeing the agony the "I'm good at ____, so you must be equally good at ____" attitude causes, I'm determined to be open minded when it comes to Maria's future. Admittedly this is easier said than done, but I'm trying to prepare myself for her falling in love with art or sports or lion taming or even advertising (yuck!).

A man, a bottle and a baby

Yes, this slightly delirious looking man succeeded in giving this baby the bottle pictured below. Why is this a big deal? Well, the aforementioned baby is known to be quite persistent in her refusal of bottles of various shapes, sizes and makes. Her tactics are brutal... she cries, screams, fusses and carries on for what seems like hours. Yet this amazing man succeeded in giving the baby a bottle last Saturday morning (yes, I'm behind in my blogging) and with very little fussing the formerly stubborn baby drained the bottle dry! I need to nominate this man for some sort of bottle-giving medal. After that I plan to celebrate by purchasing some tickets to an outdoor Shakespeare play (Henry V) since I now can leave the baby for more than three hours. Yippee! I feel very, very free!

Tuition Terrors

The other day our local paper ran a story saying the board of trustees approved a tuition hike for the '07 - '08 academic year. I didn't pay too much attention since tuition is always going up, but then I realized tuition for in-state students at our state university will be $8660 for the next academic year! On top of that, fees will add a whopping $2394 and room and board will total $7666. The icing on the cake is that tuition increased 9.5% over last year - yikes!

I started thinking... we want more children, but can we possibly afford to send Maria to college, much less any future kids? I started my calculations by assuming tuition and fees will continue to rise at 9.5% per year. This seems reasonable since states have been pushing more and more of the funding burden for higher ed back onto the institutions themselves. Universities have responded by raising both tuition and fees. I assumed that room and board would rise at the rate of inflation (which I assumed to be about 3%/year), that Maria would start college when she's 18, attend our state university (the cheapest option by far!) and graduate in 4 years. I further assumed that the policy of freezing tuition for incoming freshman would still be in place when she attends school. With a little help from excel, here's what I discovered:

Tuition for 4 years: $177,400 ($107,600 in today's $)
Fees for 4 years: $56,500 (32,800 in today's $)
Room and Board for 4 years: $ 54,600 (30,700 in today's $)
This would cost a grand total of $288,500 ($171,000 in today's $) ... much more than the value of our home!

If I make the scenario slightly darker and assume that Maria will need 5 years to graduate and the room and board in the university dorms will rise in a manner similar to tuition, it will cost more than half a million dollars for her college education! ($320,200 in today's $)

At some point one has to ask if education is worth this price tag!?! Remember, these numbers are not for a private ivy league institution, just in-state tuition at our local university. Encouraging our child to take lots of AP classes in high school or go to the local community college is starting to seem like a financially prudent move. I have read that one factor in the high cost of education is that loans specifically for school are available at low interest rates and therefore students do not pay much attention to the price tag for an education. The argument goes that if you raise interest rates on student loans, students will become more price sensitive when choosing institutions. I don't really buy this argument. I think the average person assumes education is a good deal regardless of what it costs and doesn't understand exponential growth well enough to realize how high interest rates affect the paying off of a loan. My only hope is for online education to come into it's own and offer some serious price competition for traditional brick-and-mortar institutions. Online dating has lost it's stigma, so maybe online education is next!

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream...

To clarify, I'm using this phrase to mean something different than Hamlet and this post is actually about sleep and NOT about death, thankfully!

Before I became a mom, when I would hear those who were parents discuss the sleep schedules of their offspring, I felt deeply puzzled. It simply did not make sense to me to impose what sounded like a rigid sleep schedule. I have even heard parents who do subscribe to sleep schedules described as "sleep Nazis" for appearing to prioritize the child's sleep schedule above all and dropping other amusements from their schedule.

Now that I am a chronically sleep-deprived mom, I have much more sympathy for these parents. I have purchased (or been given) not one, not two, but THREE books on the subject of children's sleep. I hope in future posts to summarize these books as well as my reactions to them. It should be interesting since they run the range from strong advocates of attachment parenting & co-sleeping to the full "cry-it-out" method.

As for our current sleep problem (if it is correct to define it as a problem), the little girl is very fussy in the evenings. We try to put her down, only to have her wake up crying 5 to 15 minutes later. For example, tonight Maria started seriously fussing around 7pm. I put her down twice, only to have her start to wail both times after the customary delay. Mark tried, failed and then passed her on to me for some nursing. She ate, but wouldn't sleep so I passed her back. After more fussing behavior and some sucking of Mark's bicep, he passed her back for a final nursing session at which she finally fell asleep and thankfully STAYED asleep! This whole process lasted until 8:45pm.

What are my current thoughts on sleep? It's confusing! Some say the problem is that babies learn the bad habit of only being able to fall asleep when sucking. Others say the problem is lack of sleep leading to the release of stress hormones. One friend said her babies slept through the night at 6 weeks, while another said hers didn't do that until 10 months olds. Some say mobiles and stimulating items in the crib are bad. Some advocate white noise, others counsel making lots of noise while the baby sleeps. What are the real problems? Are there any universal solutions?

I can see the appeal of a schedule because it allows one to plan the day. But at what age is it developmentally appropriate to expect a schedule? I want to be the parent and not let my daughter rule, but I don't want my own (usually selfish!) desire for control to rule either. I want to do what is appropriate and best for my daughter and I realize what is best will change as she matures. That said, I recoil from the idea of making a god out of a child's sleep schedule. There are some things that are more important than a sleep schedule, such as attending church regularly together with my husband and going to our weekly bible study. I also think that going out to socialize with friends is a legitimate need (in moderation!) and I refuse to give that up simply because we have a child.

Overcome by Cute Rays

When I was growing up I was definitely a tom boy... into climbing trees, skateboarding, camping and all that good stuff. And I was surrounded by 2 like-minded sisters. One time one of us got a Barbie-like doll for a birthday present from a friend. Not in the habit of playing with dolls, we somehow decided to take the doll apart (this most likely was Monica's idea!), probably to see how it was put together. We got all the limbs off and at some point I'm embarrassed to say the Barbie doll head ended up in the toilet! All of this is just to prove that I was a card-carrying tom boy and as one can easily guess, not a big fan of the color pink.

A friend had a girl in December. Before her daughter arrived, she went shopping for clothes and was dismayed to find that practically all girl oriented baby clothes were pink! I definitely felt her pain and said if I had a girl I definitely wouldn't want to dress her in pink either. Though I haven't gone to high end children's clothing stores, I hear they have a better selection of non-pink girl's clothes and better gender neutral clothes as well.

Then Maria arrived and somehow things changed. Maybe I was overcome by the cute rays or something, but the first time I went shopping for clothes for her I bought all pink clothes! Every morning I look in her closet and try to find the cutest outfit I can for her to wear, and yes, I often come up with something pink. I comfort myself with the thought that at least all these dresses aren't preventing her from climbing trees or anything like that. She can't even roll over yet! Even so, I'm left with the vague feeling that I've sold out on my tom boy roots. Maybe when she gets a little older and decides to rebel she'll ditch the pink and go for tree-climbing-digging-in-the-mud garb.

As a side note, my sister Monica remembers the demise of the Barbie doll slightly differently. She recalls actively hating dolls and that we actually sawed off the limbs using the vice on the little work bench our dad made for us! It's a miracle none of us have become mass murderers! Between the three of us we hold advanced degrees in physics, mathematics and electrical engineering... a hopefully more constructive channeling of our energies!

What I WISH I would have said...

So one day as I was changing Maria's diaper a friend noticed that we use cloth diapers. She asked in an incredulous voice why on earth we were using cloth. I came up with the lame answer that I had friends who used cloth and that laundry was the chore I minded the least. Not an answer that I'm particularly happy with since it makes me sound like a lemming, but it was what popped into my head at the time!

Here's what I wish I would have said... I've always wanted to use cloth. I don't precisely know why cloth diapers, but now that I have a child I'm finally able to act on this peculiar, long-held desire. I think cloth diapers remind me of visiting my grandma on her farm and seeing clothes hanging to dry on the line. There's something wonderful about any household chore that can be partially done outside, especially during good weather!

As for logical reasons for using cloth: they are cheaper (provided you wash your own), better for the environment (as long as you look at studies NOT funded by disposable diaper manufacturers), easy to use (diaper technology has come a long way, baby) and possibly better for babies' bottoms (disposable diapers contain chemicals no longer allowed in certain feminine products). As an added benefit, cloth-diapered children usually potty train sooner since they can actually feel when they are wet. Pretty cool!

When I was researching what sort of cloth diapers to buy I found out all sorts of interesting things. Did you know it's illegal to dispose of human waste in dumps? Basically everyone who has ever used a disposable diaper (including me!) is breaking the law! I can just picture some unfortunate police officer assigned to go through people's trash and write up tickets!