friend kidly

Having a little one robs me of the luxury of spending an hour+ in the kitchen baking. Knowing this, when asked what desert husband would like me to make this weekend he chose the quintessential summer dish, nilla wafer and banana puddin’…you know, the one Grandma used to serve. However, unlike Grandma I decided against using instant pudding and instead decided to follow the recipe on the nilla wafer box. This would mean homemade custard and meringue which would be more time in the kitchen but a heck of a lot more fun.

The end result was a bit different than the desert we remembered as children but just as good (I’m a sucker for meringue). I’m glad I tried the alternative recipe and we’ll definitely be having this again.

This morning’s conversation:

Me: “Ooh, I have a new saying for someone who’s “all talk and no show”.”

Husband: “What’s that?”

Me:  “That person’s all farts and no pooh!”

Husband: nothing

Me:  “Come on, that’s funny.  I thought of it because Charlotte was farting all day yesterday but wasn’t making a dirty diaper…it’s funny.”

Husband:  “Heh, you’re a mom.”

While listening to an interview with Peggy Ornstein on our local NPR station I was struck with a situational question that I haven’t given much thought to before.  How do women who are pro-choice deal with the loss of a child due to miscarriage?  Are they not supposed to grieve because they didn’t actually lose a baby but something that wasn’t a fully formed human being?

Ornstein was on Fresh Air promoting her new book Waiting for Daisy in which she writes about the six years it took her and her husband to have a child.  In the interview, Ornstein stated that she found it difficult to reconcile the grief she felt when she miscarried her 3 month old baby with the fact that she was 100% pro-choice.  Difficult?  Try impossible.  She admitted to using different terms for a miscarriage vs. an abortion; the former she used the term baby and the latter fetus…talk about confused.

It saddens me that some are unable to admit that abortion is ending life, not ending “potential” life.  Because of this, it’s important to remember pregnant women and their babies in our daily prayers.  O Lord, have mercy upon us miserable offenders…

My baby girl turns 5 months old today, thank you Lord. The time flew by and I can’t imagine life without her or rather I don’t want to. Our baby bird is such a blessing and has brought us lots of laughs over the past months. I’m really looking forward to all of the new discoveries and abilities she will be acquiring over the next months/years.

Although part of me wants her to be this age forever…

So this is what we would look like as characters on The Simpsons. They didn’t have an option to make a baby character so husband had to tweak the wee one in photoshop a bit. The most true to life figure is husband…I’m sure those who know him got a laugh. Unfortunately, the female choices were all a bit generic but it was still fun to do. Make yourself a Simpsons avatar when you have the chance…

A++

When my daughter turned 3 1/2 months I noticed that she was no longer content lying on her back to play but instead wanted to be in an upright position. Since she obviously wasn’t able to sit up on her own I looked into purchasing a baby seat. After a bit of online research I settled on the Prince Lionheart bébéPOD. Here’s a short review of the product.

I ordered the chair from Safe and Secure Baby which offered the lowest price I could find online. The chair must have been shipped immediately because I received it literally the next day. Others have complained of the product having a strange chemical smell which was not the case with our chair. There was absolutely no smell at all and I felt completely comfortable placing my child in it.

As you can see, Charlotte loves it and did so from the beginning. The chair works as a nice change in scenery for her and allows her to sit “like a big girl” with us which she gets a kick out of. Another complaint I have read is regarding the chair easily tipping over. My daughter leans as far forward as she can to reach for toys or her toes and has never been able to tip it over. The chair is very stable however, we do not place it on raised surfaces from which she might fall (excluding the above picture). Overall, the chair is well worth the price and if purchased at the appropriate time will get several months of use. We chose the chair in sage in order to be able to use it with our next child regardless of the sex.

Have fun shopping and let me know if this review was helpful…

…the magazine that is.

In the July 2007 issue of a certain magazine aimed at people with children there was an article that was worthy of an email to the editor. This article talked about protecting infants from various dangers such as falls, burns, poisoning, choking and suffocation. A worthwhile article that unfortunately contained some very bad information; read on and I’ll explain.

Upon broaching the topic of suffocation, the article plainly stated don’t sleep with your infant. “We just don’t know how to do it safely”, the expert Dr. was quoted as saying. How is it possible that we don’t know how to sleep with our infants? Did we somehow unlearn this as time progressed and houses got bigger? Is it something that the western culture doesn’t know how to do because in most Asian countries today you find it the norm for mothers to sleep with their infants without it leading to large numbers of fatalities. If they can do it safely that must mean that it can be done…right?

But, instead of going on to explain how to sleep with your infant safely this portion of the article only went as far as recommending that you place a crib or bassinet bedside if you want to be close to your infant. Well, that’s not good enough. If you’re going to tell someone that they don’t know how to do something safely I would think that you would want to follow that up by providing safety guidelines. So I felt the need to write to the editor and tell them just that.

It’s a fact that at one time or another most infants will be brought into their parents bed and because of this parents need to know how to safeguard it. If you would like more information on sleeping safely with your baby I recommend the reprinted Cosleeping issue of Mothering magazine found here (last selection on bottom of page).