Tylenol Recall

Just thought you should know that the makers of Tylenol have recalled products from 2008 that you have most likely already used.

Birth Control

How to stop liking your partner, in 3 easy steps:

1. Have a baby.
2. Get no sleep.
3. Get a cold.
4. Have the baby get a cold.
5. Shake.

We were the picture of birth control a few mornings ago, as Finn gamboled about merrily while Pete and I lay on the couch and floor, respectively, in our underwear, moaning and lolling from lack of sleep.

Show THAT to your health class full of randy teens.

4. Finn has a cold. So do I.

I had a cold a month ago or so. Finn did not get it. His doctor says that if I get them first, it's less likely that Finn will get it because he gets antibodies from me while nursing. Bonus! The reverse does not work, however, so if Finn gets sick first, it seems likely that I will get sick too. Sick baby is hard enough. Sick mom and sick baby really blows. He's feeling better, and I guess I am as well, but it could be an interesting winter.

3. Pete's folks came to visit for the weekend.

Pete's Dad and Step-mom came to visit for a long weekend, and Pete and his dad demolished the stairs. With a jackhammer. I think they were really excited about this. Pete even sheepishly asked me if I would get pictures of him using the jackhammer.

Men.

As it turns out, I took no pictures, the whole weekend. Between all the visiting, demolishing, and furniture moving, none of our cameras made an appearance. This is rare for us. But I guess that every once in a while, we have to stop back from documenting the experience and actually live the experience.

2. We are getting new stairs on the front porch.

The stairs are done. They are wooden and pretty simple, but they are nice. I wanted them to have risers, but they are open. Pete may have to fix that. I can't remember if we asked for them to be there or not. Right now I am too tired to look at the contract.

Now I can clean all the crap off the porch.

This isn't interesting at all.

1. Finn now has his own room.

When Finn was born, he went into a plastic and metal transport womb. He was wheeled through a tunnel into the NICU, where he was placed in another plastic womb. He moved rooms twice, then moved into an open plastic womb, then back into a transport womb for a trip back through the tunnel, and into a metal and plastic crib. Then carseat, then home.

When he came home, he slept in a co-sleeper in the living room and on daddywhumpus or on me. Then, we moved the co-sleeper to our bedroom, and the boy slept on daddywhumpus or on me. We've shuffled back and forth between the bedroom and the guest room for a little over a year. In July, we set up his crib in our room, and a few weeks later, we instituted The Routine to try to get him to sleep better. It worked, for a while. Then we went away; then he got sick; and it all went to hell. We stuck to The Routine, though, and that was still working pretty well, at least the getting-him-to-go-to-sleep part.

His record so far is two nights in a row of 7.5 hours in a row. That was before the weekend getaway.

This past weekend, we moved his hutch and crib into the guest room and my dresser back into our room. This also involved some moving of furniture to the basement, and it was quite a production. Now, he has his own room, and we keep him in there at night. Instead of bringing the baby back and forth when he wakes up, the parents change places. Oh, and Fritz the old cat has taken to peeing in Finn's room. That's a refreshing burst of flavor in our otherwise bland lives, now isn't it?

Having Finn's room is really nice. His toys are in there, and this weekend, I am going to put up some pictures that my mother has cross-stitched or embroidered over the years. Cats and the like. His toys are in there on the floor, and he can go in and play with them at will. Except for the fact that we have to have the door closed so that nothing gets peed on.

He'll do it right in front of us, the brazen little pussy.

Safety/Crazy

Remember when I had a question about crib bumpers? Well, I was worried that he might spontaneously suffocate if I put them onto his crib. I still don't have crib bumpers, though daddywhumpus did point out to me that The Boy hit his head "at least five times" a few nights ago. We looked at bumpers at hideous Babies-R-Us (why don't they just drop the pretense and make it "Babeez" already?), and they are usually part of big sets, which are expensive and cloying. And I still don't want to get them. I don't REALLY think he will spontaneously suffocate, I just don't want to get them.

As I was searching for alternatives, I found these. I think they are called "Wonder Bumpers," if I remember correctly, not to be confused with "Wonder Bra," I hope. And they might work/might not, but they could be good for someone else's baby. I think mine's past this point:

Then the fun really began. While poking around on this site, I ran across numerous other safety items, and rather than write an H1N1 vaccine hysteria post, I'll write about these.

Item number one:

You read that right: home alcohol screening for breast milk. So that no one issues you a BUI (NUI, depending upon the state). Now, not to make light of the alcohol/breastfeeding issue, but a home test? It sounds more like a party trick to me. I am guessing if you have these, you are not one of the numerous people who recommend whiskey for babies.

THIS:
A shopping cart condom?
Really?
Are we raising generations of immune system deficient humanoids? Don't people already lug around enough/too much baby crap? Seriously, your child is going to get germs into its slobbery little gob, there's no way around it. Oh, and in case this is about protecting the noggin, it's going to crack it's head plenty, too.

This next one kicks it, if only for the visual factor. I have often had Finn in a public restroom with me, and no, I don't put him on the floor. I have perfected the ability to pee while holding him. When I write "perfected," I mean "I manage not to pee all over myself and get my pants up and fastened afterward."

Can you imagine your reaction if you walked into a public restroom and saw this?

I would think: hey, is that a dispenser? Like a quarter for a tampon? And if you really have to go, how much fun will it be to strap the kiddo into that thing? And how tempting would it be to use that elsewhere, like, not in public restrooms? Where's the kid? "Over there." (Point to child hanging from top of closet door, while trying not to spill glass of wine.)

It's an age-old question: how did we ever survive childhood without all these new-fangled safety devices we have now? Heck, how has the species survived?

1. Finn now has his own room.
2. We are getting new stairs on the front porch.
3. Pete's folks came to visit for the weekend.
4. Finn has a cold. So do I.
5. 8 of the 9 GOP candidates for governor "don't believe" in global warming.
6. I am breathing through my mouth and feeling very smart. Here's to Guinness and Benadryl.
7. Fritz (old cat) has taken to peeing in Finn's room. We have to keep doors closed now.
8. We are looking into buying a new car and getting rid of the two we have now. We'll donate the old one to The March of Dimes and sell the newer one.
9. I've been reading books about Ebola.
10. Finn is 19 pounds, 29 inches. He's all over the place.
11. I want to write; I miss writing; I can't seem to write.
11.a. I am also having a knitting block.

Thursday?

He has a cold, and we have not slept in two days. This will probably be day three, and we have a bit of a devil-may-care attitude about it: how much worse can it get?


Never ask that question.

State Fair

The weekend was a blur.

To Bump or Not to Bump...

...for babies, party people.

babywhumpus is an "active sleeper." That's a nice way to say that he's all. over. the. effing. place. Thrashing, crawling, rolling, hitting, kicking, you name it. In his crib, he repeatedly hits his head on the bars, and we think that's one reason he often wakes up.

We were thinking "bumper pads," but I have read that bumper pads are not safe. Now, I try not to be hysterical about these things; heavens knows we are not *gasp* very safe co-sleepers. (I know, we are not supposed to say such things out loud.) But I already have trouble sleeping if he sleeps for too long, convinced that he has suffocated. Clearly, if he is still asleep, he must have died. I am of the opinion that, knowing the recommendations, if I add bumper pads, I will be more jittery about my own sleep, which is the last thing this little family needs right now.

I am doing a little research, and I found pads that fit around every individual rail and a little wedge that runs around the lower edge of the crib. The first are very expensive and piss me off because I did not think of them and don't have time to make them myself. The second is probably more suited to Finn's headbanging tendencies, but though it says "odorless foam," it does not indicate whether or not it's synthetic.

What did you do, moms?