Baby Products at One Month

I'm going to start endorsing products so that I can "monetize" this blog* and do it full time (a la dooce.com) or, more likely, because I have an outrageous number of pregnant and wanting to be pregnant friends and grandparents of the very young are probably my largest audience.

While I wander the streets of my small town, most comments I receive are that my baby is exceptionally cute (which is true) or scrawny (not true!). Beyond that, people envy the sling ("I wish they made those when I had kids"**) and Dianthus's stroller and tell me they didn't know I was pregnant (I clearly was).

The sling is a Balboa Baby from Target. The Mister and I both use it, and while it seems outrageously priced for a piece of cotton, two pieces of elastic and two plastic rings, I now think it is well worth the purchase price (thank you to my aunt and uncle who purchased it for us). Among other things, it can be used with a child under 8 pounds (unlike the Baby Bjorn, which we have not used yet), it is easy to load the baby in by oneself (a big difference from the Moby Wrap) and the Mister has a system of tucking in crying baby so that Dianthus can lie in the pouch contentedly sucking on a pacifier without losing it in frustration.

The stroller is a BOB revolution. BOB is a three wheeler (with air in the tires) off road or jogging stroller. The front wheel pivots and it has an incredible turning radius and handles beautifully. My parents had offered to buy Dianthus a stroller, and it felt like expensive overkill*** when I asked them for BOB (and the extra attachment that allows a small baby to use BOB by clicking in to his car seat), as I don't jog and don't have big plans for trail running. My town, however, is short on sidewalks and those that we do have are very crumbly. Dianthus and I have walked into the grass or gravel to avoid traffic on several occasions already. BOB is fabulous for here. Thanks to Mom and Dad for BOB.

Dianthus is awakening, and I've already written this post in four installments, so you'll have to wait for the next in this series for information on musical plastic, pacifiers, disposable diapers and the other things never planned to own.

*Blogger has a button for this on the dashboard and it makes my brother-in-law and me laugh.
**This makes me laugh, because the idea of strapping a baby to your waist with a cloth over a shoulder is probably as old as cloth. True, they weren't always available at Target, and if one used one in 1970 it would appear very ethnic or hippie, but the idea is not new.

***But given that there are $1000 strollers on the market, it's not so hard to justify $400 for a BOB.

Italian Beans III

Devoted readers of this blog have been relentless, "enough about the baby, what about the beans?" So I take this brief moment while The Mister has the baby, not to do something useful like take a shower or file medical paperwork, but rather to post photos of legumes in Italy.

Are leprechauns lucky?

I've always thought of leprechauns as mischievous imps that could turn the lives of non-magical folk completely upside down. The Mister seems to think they confer luck upon those who find them.

In certain lights (that evade photography, of course*), I could swear that I'm living with a little leprechaun and that both of the above-mentioned fates have befallen me.

That a being I gave birth to might be a blue-eyed red head fascinates me. Statistically, I know I carry all sorts of strange traits-- but red hair and blue eyes? Who would have suspected it?

*Particularly when photographed by me while attached to me.

Missing Things

First a confession: Years ago one of my favorite volunteer guides at the Morris Arboretum started describing his philosophy on life. He commented that he had only worked at jobs he loved and that every Monday morning he was excited to get back to work because he had missed it over the weekend.
I did not react by thinking, "Oh, I should pursue jobs like he had," or "I need to find my bliss", instead I thought, "poor man, how boring have your weekends been?"
I have been fortunate in having had jobs that suit me well. I love science, I love plants, I love teaching and I take great pride in jobs well done, whether they are paperwork or sales. Still, I enjoy my weekends and there have been very few times I wouldn't rather just stay in bed and read Harry Potter* instead of going to work.
This is all background for a prevalent question recently: "Do you miss your job? Are you ready to go back?"
When asked this, the school the Mister and I teach at had been back in session for exactly a week. In my very small department, we'd already had a student intentionally OD on Tylenol, a student withdraw from his classes because of cancer in the family, and alarmingly increased quantities of bureaucracy with a new department chair trying to adjust to new levels of middle management.
I did not give the full truth answer to the question, which is something like this:
"I miss regular showers and sleep.
I miss my parents, my friends, and everyone else.
I miss eating meals at the correct temperature at one time while sitting down.
I miss starting a simple task, like sending thank you notes, and knowing that I will be able to finish a part uninterrupted.
I miss desperately miss the time when my boobs and bras were not a dominant portion of my waking (and unfortunately also my sleeping) thoughts and
I very much miss the time when a day a did not cry (Thursday this week I didn't!) was not a noteworthy event**.
I do not, however, miss my job."

*A dear friend in graduate school was concerned that she wasn't cut out to be a scientist because, she admitted with trepidation, many mornings she would rather just stay in bed reading Harry Potter than go into the lab or sit in front of the computer. I think she was somewhat taken aback by my response to this confession, "Uh, who wouldn't?"

**Fortunately for the species, nobody who doesn't have a newborn can fully relate. Yes, I know, billions of people go through this all the time, but they forget. Heck, I've already forgotten the desperation of two weeks ago when Dianthus wasn't eating and my breast was infected and I had to pump after every feeding. In another month I'll have forgotten how hard it is to deal with a one month old still too small for carriers, chairs and swings but a little too big to sleep all the time.

Forgotten Books

I just finished the Pyrdain Chronicles (The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer and The High King) by Lloyd Alexander. As previously mentioned these books are physically small enough to hold in one hand or balance on "My Brest Friend" making them possible to read while nursing (although often I still need two hands while nursing and am considering audio books, a format I have never previously liked). Beyond their size, the Pyrdain Chronicles are wonderful because, well, because they are wonderful stories wonderfully told.

The weird thing (to me) is that I had completely forgotten the plots. I probably first read these in sixth grade and then again when I was sick in college, so it likely has been 16 years since I read them. Still, considering I found them great then and great now, I'm surprised that I while I was reading I couldn't even tell you which characters were important enough to reappear in other books (all of them, by the way).

In any case, parallels between the Pyrdain Chronicles, The Lord of the Rings and The Blue Sword have started me questioning how much of fantasy is universal story, how much is based on traditional Welsh folklore and how much is homage. Angharad, heroine of The Blue Sword, named for Eilonowy's headstrong mother, a queen of Welsh folklore, or just given a name that looks like it sounds awful? Luthe = Melynlas = Tom Bombadil: mere coincidence? How is it that elvish is so like Welsh?

Other nerds have anything to contribute?

Dianthus

Because my mother keeps calling our son the common name for Dianthus barbatus (or Phlox divaricarta, depending on who you ask) and Alloicious mervivian is too long to type, our son't blog name is now Dianthus (the image is not D. barbatus, by the way, but another dianthus from my garden).

Right Size Books

Due to "latching on" issues, I have not been able to read much while nursing Alloicious. Thankfully, I also have parents who not only will cook, walk the screamy baby, fix things around the house and volunteer to take in recycling, but will also chat with me while Alloicious is eating (the vast percentage of his waking time). Hooray for such parents!

None the less, I have found myself either reading or falling asleep during middle of the night feedings, and what I have read has been The Foundling by Lloyd Alexander.

The Foundling was absolutely perfect for my purposes: divided into short sections, large print, small paperback easily held in one hand and a collection of fabulous stories.

It has inspired me to read all of the Pyrdain Chronicles over the next while, as they all have similar virtues as to their physical size. It's also been long enough since I have read them that I opened The Book of Three at three this morning with only a vague recollection that it is about an assistant pig keeper. I am very much looking forward to it.

Here are the images of the book shelves that were supposed to accompany an earlier post. The rest of the room was prepared before the baby arrived and we found another shelf or two of children's books to include.