A Baby Grows in Brooklyn

The other night I had Ivy sitting on her play mat, otherwise entertained by baby blocks and other toys while I proceeded to pull all the little fuzzies out of her hair that tangle up into little tiny baby dreadlocks. I had only just noticed that one of her cute little curls on the side was starting to dread up, so I had to take action.

And as I sat there un-dreading my 7 month olds hair, it hit me. Someday in the not very far off future (god help us) we are going to have a little girl that we are going to be responsible for getting up, groomed and out the door for school. And not just her hair brushed, face washed and dressed, but breakfast fed, teeth washed school things together ready. And by "we" I mean "me" because based on the existing trend of me getting up with Ivy every single morning to change and feed her before I start getting ready, I can't see Jon deciding to start jumping out of bed at 7 am just because she's started school.

This is a frightening prospect. You see my morning routine goes something like this; I set the alarm an hour before I actually have to be up, in order to allow for adequate snooze time, and then I sleep in anyway. I then spend the hour I have getting Ivy settled and myself ready by running around like a crazy person. The end result is that I usually still end up forgetting a step. Today, I failed to put any makeup on. Some days, I run out of time before I can make a lunch to take with me.

But back to the subject of hair, which I am especially terrified about. As someone who tells her stylist to cut it as short and low maintenance as possible, with minimal need for a blow dryer (because I only blow dry when it's cold out and I'm running late) the possibility of having to do someone else's hair is enough to give me chills. Throw in the fact that Jon has really curly hair, and it looks like Ivy's might go that way too and OMG! HALP!! Also adding to my terror is the time honored truth that hair is important to little girls. I remember having long hair and being so proud of my pretty ponytails and braids that my mother did for me. So, uh I can only hope for Ivy growing up a tomboy and wanting short hair like her mommy. Or her dad somehow proving to have skillz when it comes to hair, but I think we have a better chance on the first one. Also: OMG school! I can't even think about it without my heart breaking a little. I'm glad that this is still many years in the future, and not just because I'm scared of doing her hair.

We had a trip to the pediatrician for a checkup today. Because we're bad parents* this was what was supposed to be her 6 month checkup, so there was another round of vaccines involved, which Ivy actually handled pretty well. She got more upset when the Dr. was poking around in her mouth for teeth (there are none) than when she got the jabs.

And what we were all dying to know was how much does she weigh now? and is she still of the charts? And the answer is; yes, yes she is. She weighs in at 22lbs and measures 29 1/2 inches long. I think her head was something like 46 or 49 cm (I never remember this one). The Dr. marked her stats on the growth chart and she is still weigh above that curved line, but he said her weight is on target for her length, followed by "She's going to be a tall girl"

Everything else went well. It was cute when he was asking about her developmental milestones (sitting up, rolling over, etc.) she took her binkie out of her mouth with one hand and transfered it to the other and he was like "Oh I see she can transfer objects from hand to hand". No crawling yet, though she does turn herself around in a one eighty kind of circle, and has on occasion scooted herself backwards. The Dr. didn't seem concerned that she wasn't crawling or scooting yet (she IS only 7 months old- though he did say sometimes big babies tend to develop faster than the rest) and just said to make sure she gets plenty of tummy time.

In language milestones, she babbles away and now even makes little 'sentences' with her babble. Her biggest 'word' so far is dada or, as she likes to say dadadadadadadDADADA!!! But she's also a fan of Bababababa. She's just figuring out the 'S' 'T' sound and we think that the actual first word she says that she knows what it refers to is going to be 'cat' because every time Frank or Stella come around we say "cat" and she goes "Tttttt" or sometimes "dat". Another thing she's learned - raspberries and fart noises. She will sit sometimes for like 20 minutes going brrrrrrrp and ppppppppp, which is cute. We were in th grocery store the other day and someone looked at her and said "Oh my what a cute baby" and her response was a ppppppppttt.

Something very new and cute that Ivy does now (that we didn't actually discuss with her Dr.) is give 'kisses'. She's done it to me a handful of times, she grabs my head, and plants one on the cheek, with her mouth open in a little smile. The first time she did it was when I had just gotten home from a long day and work and I picked her up and she gave me a kiss, then my heart promptly exploded.

All in all, she's right on target and hasn't even been crabby today after the vaccines !!

*We're not bad, we're just busy. We wanted to take her in Dec when she was closer to 6 months before we went to England but because of the vaccines it had to be exactly 2 months or later in between so we had to wait until we got back. Then we got busy, and well, the peditrician totally understood.

Ok so I know I should probably post about "Baby's first Christmas" but there's a lot of pictures and frankly, the story isn't as exciting as her first new years eve, so look to my Facebook page for an album on that one. In March.

For New Years Eve, Jon's parents took us to Prague. My family is Czech and Slovak so this is like the motherland for me. In fact, Ivy's great great great Grandfather came from Prague (Dad, if you are reading this can you confirm that I in fact have the correct number of greats in there?). My family history aside, it's an amazing old city, with buildings that were built in like the 12 and 1300's. Our hotel was in the Old Town Square, which is one of the two places people gather to ring in midnight.



We booked a table in the restaurant downstairs,called U Zlate Konvice, which was an old roman cellar. I saved a card for Ivy's memory book and it boasts "Roman Cellar - Grilled Meat- Pilsner Urquell - The Best Moravian Wine".The decor was, uh, interesting there was lots of taxidermy and weapons. We had dressed Ivy in her party pajama's figuring she would just fall asleep. She was in her stroller drifting off, when a band came in and started playing some traditional Czech music. She was still drifting off, despite the fact that there was a 3-piece band playing which included an accordion. Then we noticed the people sitting across for us were all smiling in our direction, and Ivy had just sat herself up in the stroller and was swaying along with the music. She was hilarious!



We decided to go into the square to count down to midnight. I had wisely ran the stroller up to the hotel room to trade it for the baby carrier. I'd like to mention here the hotel was in such an old building there was no elevator to our room. My father in law counted 107 steps. It made me not feel so bad about the excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages and pork products at every meal.I strapped Ivy into the ergo, which was easier than carrying her up and down all those steps anyway. By the time we were back down to the restaurant and on our dessert, Ivy was passed out happily on my chest, despite the fact that the band was back and people were at this point very festive. Part of the menu included a small bottle of champagne, so we brought this outside with us. The open container laws basically don't exist there. Earlier that day (I mean like 2:30 in the afternoon early) I had seen a drunken band of students passing around a bottle of Jaegermeister.

Now I've never actually done anything like this for New Years Eve - Times Square always seemed a bit to manic and annoying to actually be fun. So out we ventured into the square and it was packed. I mean so incredibly packed that we could barely make it outside the door of the restaurant. We basically parked ourselves there and waited for the big countdown. At this point Ivy woke up and was all "Hey is there some sort of party happening here? Whats going on?"



Then it was midnight and champagne corks were popping and fireworks were going off all around us, literally. Haaaaappy New yeeeeear...



It was pretty insane. Lets just say I bet the Prague ER has to deal with a lot of alcohol poisoning and burns (from the fireworks) when the revelers wake up on New Years Day. It got a little crazy crowd wise, but at least they were considerate drunks, and everyone gave us plenty of room when they saw I had a baby strapped to my chest. I will say that I'm pretty sure Ivy was probably the youngest reveler in that crowd.

We headed back downstairs for the final course that came after dessert. It was pork! 2 kinds; ham and roast sucking pig. It was yummy. We finished our champagne and Ivy stayed up to socialize a bit.



We stayed at the restaurant for a while, hanging out with our new Norwegian friends until it was time for bed.



It was so amazing ringing in Ivy's first New Year in such an old city. She will have great memories in her baby book for us to tell her about when she's older. It was one of the best New Years Eve celebrations I've ever had.

We stayed just over 2 weeks with Jon's family. Before we left I wasn't sweating things like formula, baby food and diapers (or nappies as the Brit's would say). I mean, c'mon it's England it's not like I'm traveling to a 3rd world country. How different can things be?

And the answer is...pretty different! First, the formula. We feed Ivy the Similac ready mixed stuff. We brought a few bottles with us, plus a small jar of similac powder. She's never had powdered formula before, but when we went to the supermarket in England, thats all we could find. Oh, and they call everything 'milk' which was kind of confusing. Like, they have "Infant Milk" "Follow on Milk" and "My First Milk". It's not like Formula from birth to 12 months which is what my bottle of Similac says. I was so confused. According to her age Ivy should have "Follow on Milk" but what the fuck is follow on milk?!?! It compliments the weaning diet according the package.I got her this, I mean she eats solids 3x a day and sometimes has a little diluted juice or water, so thats a weaning diet I guess.

Then I went to the actual baby food. I did get a few things to cook, just like at home, sweet potatoes, apples, etc. but since we were going to be traveling for NYE, and just for ease I figured I'd get her some baby food as well. Oh, the Brits and their food. When I buy the packaged stuff here I can get little pots of carrots, squash, pears, etc. Not in England. Everything was some sort of combination. Nope, not just carrots but carrots and potatoes; or how about some chicken and vegetables AND rice? The one that cracked me up was cauliflower cheese. I mean, really? Can infants even eat cheese? Cauliflower cheese is something you should have with a pork roast on Sunday, not feed to your 6 month old. For the record these foods were all marked as "first foods" and the age said from about 4 months. Further confusing me was the selections that included pasta, and the fact that even the fruit "puddings" contained rice. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but I was under the impression that babies first foods should be simple, single easy to digest things like pureed apples, carrots, sweet potato, etc.

Because I have a lot to cover in this post and also because I try to avoid in depth descriptions of baby poo I will not get into exactly what the combination of powdered milk and a starch heavy diet did to Ivy's digestive system. I will let you know that it ended in several desperate overseas call to her pediatrician, a glycerin suppository and much to my delight and dismay, lots and lots of poop on our plane ride home. Yes, she waited until we were on our way home to have a proper poo. I say dismay because Jon was sleeping most of the time home and I had the joy of 3 very full diaper changes in the airplane toilet .

Nappies were pretty much the same - they have Huggies, but not the Huggies pure and natural which I use here, but that was no big deal. The most annoying thing about nappie changes was not having my usual set up and constantly bending over the bed to change her, which by the end killed my back.

Ivy slept in a pack and play type sleeper, and much like her current situation in the co sleeper at home, she wasn't very comfortable. Even with a few blankets to make the mattress soft, it just wasn't comfy for her. Add in baby jet lag and she wasn't sleeping well at all. Although you could probably mainly blame this on the jet lag. Oh my word was that difficult at first. As I explained in the plane ride post, Ivy hardly slept on the way over. So, by the time we landed, we had a punchy over tired baby. We got there and spent an hour or so hanging out with Jon's parents. Ivy was pleasant enough until she got past the tired but happy mark. We then slept for 4 hours, in the middle of the day London time but early morning according to our home clocks. She napped throughout the rest of the day, and then when it was night time and Jon and I were ready to pass out, she was wired. This was probably around 11:00 pm London time, and I was melting melting melting with fatigue. But not Ivy! She was giggling and shouting and just generally not calming down. When she finally did, it was 2:30 am. Lucky for me she slept in until 10 the next morning. After few days, we thought she had regulated as she was going to bed around 10 and waking up around 8. But then she'd throw us for a loop and be up every two hours all night long for no apparent reason. She didn't want to eat, her diaper wasn't wet, she just didn't want to sleep. By the time she seemed to settle into the time, it was time to come home. We then spent several days at home waking up at 3:30 am hungry and ready to start her day.

It was a great trip, and I have lovely pictures for Ivy's first Christmas and family album, but it was harder than I thought being abroad for an extended period of time with a baby. I guess part of this was also because we weren't home. Obviously Jon's parents made it as comfortable as possible but it wasn't Ivy's stuff and out normal every day setup, which I take comfort in (and I'm sure Ivy does as well). We went to Prague for New Years Eve and it was in some ways easier. We spent so much time outside walking around that Ivy was absolutely pooped by the end of the day and went to sleep and stayed asleep like a dream. She was really good too, we were out and about, in restaurants and cafes and she just chilled. We even put on her party pajamas and took her out to dinner on New Years eve. We also took her to the square to ring in the New Year, but that my friends is it's own post (which I promise to try and write sooner rather than later). All in all, it wasn't totally impossible being in another country but it sure did make me miss the comforts of home.

So we're spending this holiday season in the UK with jon's parents. I have a lot to post about in terms of traveling with a baby, being in a foreign country with a baby, and staying for a prolonged period of time in a house that is not your own, with a baby.

But first, lets start with the journey here. It's a 7 hour flight from NY to London. We took a red eye, meaning we left at night to arrive the next morning. We do this all the time when we travel, get on the plane, have afew drinks, watch a movie, pass out and wake up in London.

I was aprehensive about the flight with the baby, but figured that taking a red-eye would mean she'd sleep for most of it. When we were checking in we were happy to see the couple next to us had a toddler and a baby about Ivy's age. While we waited for boarding, we met another couple with an 8 month old. Never in my life had I been so excited to be on a plane with 1/2 a dozen infants. Since this was transatlantic, we had to pay extra for Ivy. This meant we got to sit at the bulkhead, and got a little 'cot' for Ivy which snapped into the wall in front of us for her. On takeoff and landing, we had to hold her on our lap and snap her into a special seatbelt. Right after takeoff, she fell asleep and we thought 'YES - she's going to sleep for the whole flight now'

How very wrong we were. While she slept through the meal and for the first hour, she woke up after that. She was so impossibly tired, but even when i picked her up and tried to rock her, someone behind us on the plane would make a noise, and she would pick her little head up off my shoulder and start smiling like 'Whoa check out all these people!' We even bust out her little speaker and tried Bob Marley, but to no avail. The flight attendent seemed to understand, and would come over and offer us drinks every time she would act up. Since there's that roaring noise on the plane noone seemed to mind much that we had a fussy baby with us.

The funniest too was the baby communication that seemed to be going on. It would be quite for a while, then one of the babies would kick off, and the others would all start. And, at the end of the flight all the parents met up bleary eyed while we waited for our gate checked item; strollers, car seats, etc. And while walking from the plane to customs, the elevators were filled with parents and babies.

All in all, it wasn't that bad flying internationally with her. We'll see how the flight home goes - that way is always longer. But just wait until I post about Baby Jetlag!!

I'm big on fancy shower gels and lotions, especially now that I get seriously little time to relax in the shower, it's all about making those sacred minutes awesome, with scents and of course, positive results. One thing I can't stand is fruity yummy smelling lotions and bath potions that either don't deliver on the moisture front or worse, dry out your skin. Bath and Body Works is a big offender in that last category. I think the first ingredient in their lotion is actually alcohol, however much sense that makes. It smells great, but actually has an adverse effect on your skin.

On a recent shopping trip to Sephora to pick up something to bring to England for my mother in law, I decided to get myself a little something. I gifted myself with The Winter Escape Philosophy gift set. I have been pretty much obsessed with their all-in-one shampoo and body wash as a shower gel for several years. It started with The Hot Coco flavor, then to Vanilla Ice Cream, and on to Chocolate Chip Cookie. This gift set has a small Peppermint Hot Cocoa body wash, a small Melting marshmallow 'Body Souffle' (fancy talk for lotion) and a Melting Marshmallow lip shine. The body lotion and lip stuff are the be all end all of personal care products. While their products are not super cheap - the gift set was $19 and has small sizes of each product except for the lip shine, and their 16 oz. shower gel is around $16- they are super worth it for a simple shower time indulgence. Which is why I've been pretty obsessed with Philosophy's products. Because not only do they smell lovely, they are actually really rich and good for my (dry) skin. And it's not just like, oh yummy smelling. It's like when you put this Marshmallow lotion on you are floating in a cup of hot coco and you look up in the steam and there's a rainbow above you and unicorns and fluffy kittens floating around with you. It's that good

I also like the 'Bodycology' line which they sell at Ulta and some drug stores (Duane Reade carries it). It's not as rich as Philosophy, but it's pretty good, and has some good 'flavors'. I'm a big fan of the Coconut Lime shower gel. I used their Vanilla Buttercream body butter when I was preggo last winter and suffering from seriously dry skin, and an itchy stretched out belly. It was really rich (I think the first ingredient listed is shea butter) and smelled like a bakery, which was an added perk. An added bonus is, these products won't empty your wallet - I think a 16 oz shower gel is around $8.99 and the lotions range from $10 - 12

If you really want to indulge, there's Korres natural products. All I can say is oh my god about their Guava Body butter. It smells like a tropical vacation and it's suuuuper rich and does amazing things for dry skin. I used this when I was pregnant also. As far as indulgence, it's as good as it gets. You mid as well be on a beach in the Caribbean sipping fruity rum filled drinks while you're being fanned by palm tree leaves. This is the most indulgent but also the most expensive. At $29 for 8 oz, it's, as the English would say "Quiet dear", but so worth every penny you spend. It's also free of all the weird chemicals and has very few ingredients, which is nice. Needless to say, this one is my favorite, though I usually buy Philosophy because it's a little easier on my wallet.

But for now, it's all about the man with all the toys....

The term "working mother" makes me want to spew or punch someone in the face. I don't know why - maybe because even stay at home mothers work their asses off. But mostly because it describes me and I wish it didn't.

Since September I've been back to work but not yet on a full time basis. Starting in January, I'm back to my regular 40 hours a week in the office schedule. I've been struggling with two major dilemmas associated with this 'working mom' status.

The first is feeling guilty guilty guilty about not being with Ivy all the time.Oh-my-god would I die if, lets say her first word happens while mommy is sitting at her desk instead of with her. I also feel badly about coming home from work and being too tired to really enjoy Ivy, not to mention the fact that by the time I actually get home I have about an hour and a half before Ivy's bedtime. She gets up about an hour before I leave, and most of that morning time I am running around trying to get ready for work. So, on days I spend all day in the office this means I only get about 2 1/2 - 3 hours of Ivy time if I'm lucky . I know these early years are going to fly by - the first 6 months are already over and I feel like I've blinked once since giving birth- and I feel like I'm missing them already!

The second is, I feel like I'm not as good at my job now that I'm back. Pepper in some sleep deprivation with the fact that my mind is already preoccupied with thoughts of solid food; crawling, teething, etc. and I'm just not as together as I used to be. My job is pretty demanding (I'm an executive assistant for a very busy person) so I really can't walk around in a mommy fog all day and expect to hold it down. This has been getting better since I've been "back" for a few months now, but still I feel like some days I cannot take another day full of calls emails and closely scheduled appointments.

I had all these delusions before my maternity leave was over that my job would be flexible with me and my hours and working remotely, but that's just not the reality. My job is the one that provides our health care, so there's that to consider as well. Also, hi, we live in NYC it's not exactly a low cost of living place so there's no way we could ever afford our lifestyle if one of us didn't work. Aaaaaaand I work for a pretty cool non-profit and it's not like I'm slaving away for some corporate schmuck. But still, I wish there was a way I could 'have it all' - the satisfaction of doing my job and pulling in a steady paycheck while getting to spend sufficient time with Ivy so I don't feel like I'm missing out. Maybe this will get easier over time, although I'm not counting on it. I suppose you do what you have to do in order to provide for the family.

There is a "city" smell that whenever I encounter it it takes me back to my childhood. It's that burnt smell that wafts around pretzel vendors. Whenever I smell this I am immediately transported back to my trips into the city with my parents as a child. I'm holding my dads hand and looking up at the gloriously tall buildings with a smile on my face. I'm stomping my feet to scare the pigeons (I still do this actually). I'm taking in, with the innocence of child, the city around me - asking my mother "what that icky smell is" or "what's wrong with that man?" as a drunk tries to pick himself up off the street. I'm marveling as the suits rush around me and the buildings start to glow with the setting sun as the workday ends and the commute home begins. I'm staring so hard at the lights of the skyline on our drive home that they're like glitter. Since my dad has always worked in the city my parents took me in quiet often. This led to my everlasting love affair with New York City, which made me proudly declare on class trips to the Empire State Building or the Brox Zoo "You know, I was born here." and was probably one of the main reasons I moved here and stayed here after college.

There are other sights, songs and smells that take me back. The smell of dough will instantly transport me back to my grandmas kitchen. It doesn't matter that I make pizza dough once a week. Every time I get yeast and flour together I'm 5 years old and standing on a chair pulled up to my grandmothers counter top watching her measure and mix ingredients while she explains the recipe to me. Holiday baking especially makes me recall those days leading up to Christmas (or Easter) when my grandmother would teach me how to make her special fruit pastry roles or bread. Now when I bake before the holidays I always feel her with me while I sift stir and mix the ingredients.

And of course, there's music. I do not have the time right now to post about every single song that "takes me back" to my youth, because there are so many memories in my mind that are associated with music. Dancing around the living room with my mom to The Doors, singing "I think I Love you" by The Partridge Family at the top of my lungs in my friends car (What?), finding my dad's single of "A Boy Named Sue" and having my little mind blown after listening to it, wondering how a song that was so old could be so cool .

There's one particularly funny song that has 2 memories; it's "Gloria" by Laura Brannigan. When this song came out as a single from Flashdance (Hoo boy I'm really dating myself here) I Loved it. I had the 45 which I used to rock out too with my toys on my little ladybug record player. Yes, record player my young friends. Not a cassette or a CD a record player . As in vinyl. You can google it if you're not sure what that is. The second memory comes later in my adult life, when I first moved into the city and was out celebrating my birthday with my roommate and a group of friends. Me and my roommate decided it would be fun to split a hit of acid to make the night more interesting and after a very long night of underage drinking we came home to find Flashdance on TV and collapsed in a fit of giggles as the song in her namesake serenaded us to sleep out of the tiny TV we shared. I'm not sure I'll share this particular story with my daughter until she's much much older.

I wonder what kinds of sights, smells or music will take Ivy back to her youth.

....it's not easy being green! I try my best so here's a list of ways I am and am not green.

Ways I am green
* We use environmentally friendly/biodegradeable cleaning products almost exclusively. My kitchen, floors and furniture are all cleaned with products like Citra - solve and Murphy's oil soap (which was 'green' before it was cool). There are a few exceptions to this rule: I use swiffer's to dust and every few months I have to break down and use one of those bad for you bad for the environment shower foamer mildew remover jobbies. Because the 'green' way to scrub away all that crap takes too much elbow grease and sadly isn't as effective.

* We recycle what we can, and are very good about giving away our gently used stuff on free-cycle or to the thrift shop

* We walk a lot of places or use public transport. Yes, we drive more than most New Yorkers but we definitely offset our driving by taking public transport most places.

* We buy in bulk. Giant containers of laundry detergent; dish soap; mayo, you name it. If they sell a giant container of it at cost-co and I use it, chances are I buy it in bulk.

* As far as baby care, I use chlorine free baby wipes from 7th generation, although these are not biodegradable. Neither are the scratchy brown chlorine free 7th gen. diapers (which I don't use). All of her products like lotion and baby wash are also all naturally. Aside from the environment I don't really want to wash my baby in stuff that contains parabens and Laureth-sulfates among other scary ingredients.

* Diapers can really go into both categories. I am thinking of giving the g-diapers a try again since her poops are not so, uh, explosive but for now I'm using Huggie's Natural Care which are made from organic cotton (but are probably bleached and definitely are not biodegradable). They are however less plasticky then regular diapers, but they still do result in lots and lots of garbage.

* When I do laundry I never use the dryer. Actually I am kind of forced into this because we don't have a dryer in our apartment and there isn't one in our buildings laundry area. But still, it's green. We have a drying rack and also a laundry line out our back window.

*Ivy's stuff - we tried really hard not to nuts with a ton of gear. We bought some of the nursery furniture from a baby consignment shop, and a lot of her toys are cloth and wood. I plan on keeping a lot of stuff for the next baby and have been giving the stuff we're not keeping to my friend with new babies.

*We use reusable shopping bags when we can and re-use our plastic bags for tiny trash bags.

Ways I am not Green

* See above about the diapers. Mountains and mountains of trash are created weekly from one little baby.

* My personal care products. Aside from a few token Burt's Bee's products, and some organic shower gel and body lotion my mom gave me, most of my health and beauty aids are not in any way shape or form green. They are laden with chemicals and not biodegradable.

* I don't use environmentally friendly laundry products either. I tried some, but most of these things contain lavender, which I can't stand. Also, I don't feel like they clean as well.

*Oh my god, batteries. The bouncy chair alone has consumed so many batteries it's insanity. But I can't seem to find any re-chargeable D batteries (that's what the chair uses). I have kept the past few batches until I can find a place to recycle them.

*Oh, and the car we drive? It's a '63 Buick Skylark. Not exactly fuel efficient.


So actually, when I look at the list it doesn't seem SO BAD. I'm sure I'm "greener" than most but I think i still have a long way to go. What's your biggest 'green' downfall?

I'm not sure anyone out there can know exactly how I feel, but I am completely, utterly in love with CVS. And not CVS in general, but a very specific CVS. That would be the CVS on 9th Street in Park Slope Brooklyn.

I'm not sure exactly why, but there are 2 very good reasons for this love affair. The first, is it's open 24 hours. While we haven't had to use this perk just yet, for some reason it comforts me to know, should I suddenly run out of diapers at 3 am, I can go there. Should the baby need a prescription filled at 4 am, I can go there. The second reason is, it has a parking lot. Yes, this matters and I'll tell you why. We live on 40th Street. This CVS is on 9 Street. That's 31 blocks away and I can tell you right now we never walk or take the subway there. So the parking lot makes us very happy. Not to mention there is also an HSBC (our bank) and a grocery store right on the block, so we can go into CVS for one thing and not feel bad about parking there while we bank and pick up some groceries. These kinds of things matter!

While this specific branch of CVS isn't very big and doesn't stock as much fun stuff as the brand new Duane Reade in Sunset Park, for some reason it has totally won over my heart. And then I singed up for the CVS extra care rewards card, and all of a sudden I'm getting coupons for $ off my whole purchase. It's 2% cash back on ALL of your purchases - even prescriptions! And I can go online and print coupons for things i actually use like toilet paper and diapers. That little tag on my key chain is getting me something. And now I can also refill prescriptions online- not to mention the fact there's also a CVS 3 blocks from my office, so if I feel like stopping by on my way home, it's easy and on my way to the train.

I'm not sure exactly when I started to get excited about these little details but there it is. ANd I love you CVS.

As you know from reading this blog, I have a very big baby. So big in fact that about a month ago we noticed she was sucking down her bottles like it was nobodies business. When we asked her Dr, he said we could introduce solids at this point since it seemed like she needed to start getting her calories from a variety of foods, not just breastmilk and formula. So we started with Rice Cereal. Earth's Best organic rice cereal to be exact and boy was she ready. I had been letting her 'play' with her little baby spoon a few times, so the first time went amazingly smooth. After the first few spoon fulls she was opening her mouth like a little bird waiting for that cereal.

That was about a month ago and since then we have tried bananas, sweet potato and apple puree. The banana didn't go so well at first, but once we figured out we have to let them get very soft (and sweet) and NOT mix them with any kind of breast milk or formula she was all about the 'nana. The sweet potato didn't go so well either, and we are still working on this one (there's an icecube tray of pureed sweet potato in our freezer right now waiting for her).

Today we tried pureed apple and boy did she LOVE it. Not that I thought she wouldn't but I wasn't expecting such an enthusiastic response. After a few spoon fulls she actually grabbed the spoon from me and shoved it into her mouth. A bit of the puree had dropped down onto her and she picked it up and put it in her mouth. No kidding this child was crazy about apple. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that during the early stages of my pregnancy I was crazy about all things apple.

I can't wait to expand her palate. I'm excited for both avocado and peas, although I'm not sure these are as palatable as the apple and banana. But we'll see. The funniest thing about her "eating" food now is that when we eat food she watches us so intently and opens and closes her mouth like "Oh hi mom can you just spoon some of that tuna salad in here? Thanks"

On the flip side, there is of course the poop factor. Yeah, I'm gonna go there. Because you know we have to deal with it. When she went on her 'poop strike' a few months ago the pediatrician said we could give her some diluted juice to help, and we did, and boy did it help. So you can imagine the effect that these new fruits have on her. Not to mention the, er, consistency of what comes out. I'll leave you with these thoughts but I just hope this one potty trains early. Oh God potty training .

This was the first Haloween I can remeber that i didn't dress up or have a Jack O'Lantern. But I guess life has been a little crazy lately. But it didn't matter because I had a litte chilli pepper with me!



This pic is actually from our morning photo shoot. That evening my mom and I took Ivy to the Park Slope Childrens Halloween Parade, which ended up being a lot more fun that I thought. there were giant floats and puppets and the whole thing ended with a steel pan band! Oh and Chuck Schumer was there! He was the public option for healthcare. He's not dead!! (That's what he said anyway)

I will post some more pictures when I have a chance to downlaod the camera, but I did want to get a Halloween post with her costume before, you know, Thanksgiving.

I think I am getting schooled for bragging all the time about what a good sleeper Ivy is. And I had bragging rights because she was a good sleeper. I think going to bed at 9-ish and sleeping until 7-ish is considered good. She hasn't woken up for a middle of the night feeding since she was like a month and half old.

Lately it seems that all this talk of a 'good sleeper' has come back to bite me in the ass. For the past week, it seems that getting her to sleep at her 'bedtime' is becoming harder and harder. Last night she didn't go to sleep until midnight! I was yawning and wanting to go to sleep and she was wailing away because, well, she was tired. A few nights before that when bedtime rolled around she wanted to laugh and play and giggle the night away.

She still has been more often than not going to bed at her normal time, and sleeping through the night. Here and there she'll wake up at odd times, but she doesn't usually stay awake for long. A few nights ago I woke up and heard her cooing away in the cosleeper at 3 am, but she put herself back to sleep with no intervention from me.

As soon as we fix the door to the nursery we are going to start putting her to bed in the crib. Right now we can't do this because the door can be easily pushed open by the cats and Frank thinks the crib is his bed. Hopefully this transition goes well.

But I have picked up one hell of a bad habit since returning to work post baby. It's the diet coke habit. One could actually point the finger at caffeine in general but I don't feel so bad about the cups of coffee I consume while at work. But the diet coke kills me. It's gross! I don't know why I feel the need every afternoon to crack one open, but there it is. I hate the taste of aspartamine but for some reason crave diet coke like clockwork.

My justification goes like this: we all need a little afternoon pick me up. Since I have a cup of morning coffee I just don't want it later in the day. A can of regular coke has way too much sugar, so enter it's evil diet counterpart.

I guess I shouldn't feel so bad about it. I mean it's not like I'm smoking cigarettes or partaking in the desk gin mid-day. It's just a little fake sweetener, it never hurt anyone. Right? Right!?!?

I am dying to post here all about Miami and Ivy's first adventures in the great big ocean, but to do so requires pictures and since both my camera AND computer are now broken this will not be happening anytime soon.

So I'll post instead about music. We love music in our household. My parents exposed me to a wide variety of music growing up, everything from classical to classic rock. Jon is the same so needless to say baby Ivy is exposed to a wide variety of tunes. She was, after all, born to Bob Marley.

After reading about it on Bebehblog, I got the Rockabye baby Lullaby renditions of Metallica CD. This is probably the only "kids" music we have on file right now.It's so great - totally soothing for Ivy and Jon and I have the best time trying to figure out just which Metallica song we are listening too.

Ivy has a playlist of reggae she falls asleep to almost every night. It contains awesome mellow songs like "Ketchy Shuby" by Peter Tosh which I LOVE to sing to her,"Hush Darling" by Gregory Issacs; "Young Generation" by Desmond Dekker and "Mellow Mood" by Bob Marley which is like a lullaby anyway ("Quiet is the night....please...turn out the light....I'll play your favorite song...darling...we can rock it all night long darling...'coz I've got love darling...love sweet love darling"). Sure, as she gets older I may want to rethink lulling her to sleep with "legalize it" by Peter Tosh, but for now nothing puts her to sleep faster than some soothing reggae.

But she's not just a tiny rasta in training. She loves the Beatles (Hi, Octopus's Garden, Piggies and Rocky Raccoon), The Ramones, and the O'Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack. Our daytime playlist contains everything from Billy Idol ("Dancing with Myself") to Beyonce and she's been known to sing along to "D'yer Mak'er" by Led Zeppelin (Oh, oh oh oh oh oh...)

And you can adapt just about anything to a silly song for baby. Case in point "Come on Eileen" which I change to "Come on Ivy, oh I think you should sleep, 'coz I know that you're tired so come on Ivy...look at those eyes, oh they're starting to droop, so come on Ivy"

So, until she's ready for whatever tween sensation Disney is pushing on the children (God help us) she's pretty content to Rock out with Mom and Dad.

Going back to work and having an incredibly limited amount of my old work clothing to wear has made me feel like I want to start getting bitten by the fitness bug. Also adding to this: the fact that I am going to Miami, a beach place and will still be wearing my maternity bathing suit (It's not that bad I just haven't been motivated enough to go buy a new suit and there is no way in HELL that I would try to wear one of my older suits)

However, there are several obstacles to this, the most prominent of which is my time. As in, I don't have any of it to dedicate to working out the way I used to. See, long before I got preggo there was a time when I was pretty fit. My gym (crunch) offered a wide variety of great classes, and I was an avid yogi with a weekly dose of something hard core like either an ultimate conditioning class, or something way crazy like cardio tai box or yoga ride - which was 45 minuted of beginner spin with 45 minutes of yoga following. I peppered that with a few days of cardio on the machines or circuit training.

But, several months before I got preggo I got lazy and was paying crunch alot of money for a little workout there. In the early stages of pregnancy I tried working out, but as I chronicled here, I was so damn tired that even 20 minutes on the treadmill was too much. SO I froze my membership (until December actually).

But the problem with the old routine is that there were very specific classes at exact times. These days I am lucky to get out the door at a set time even when I plan for 2 hours of getting ready. I think I should get a medal for just getting to work at the required time every morning!

And also, there's childcare while I am working out. Maybe I could get to the gym once or twice a week, but not the 3-4 times a week I was used to. Unless I get up super early in the am (like 5 am), but that's just crazytalk.

Now, you may read this and think I am just making excuses for being lazy, but I'm not!! I do have long walks with the baby at least 3 times a week, which is good.

Tonight I decided I'd give Wii Fit a try. I yelled several times at the set up " I just had a freaking baby" as it took in my height and weight and told me my BMI makes me obese, and my Wii fit age is 41. Yeah, what? 10 years older than I am Did I mention I just had a freaking baby?

The workout itself was kind of annoying and I can't wait until I 'unlock' the part where I can do an actual continuous workout instead of isolated strength training or yoga. I did have tons of fun with the hula hoop game, and believe it or not my old obese ass* actually worked up a sweat. The Wii cyber trainer they give you is weird and annoyhing and repeats herself a lot. I also feel like some of the excerise might be weird to do on that little balance board -but we'll seee.

Since the Wii fit is at home I can work in (out) when it's convenient to me which is a big bonus I guess. I gave myself a reasonable 'goal' to be healthy according to Wii, so we'll see how I do.

*hahahaha I crack myself up

In a few weeks, Jon, Ivy and I will be going to Miami for this. Yes, this means taking the baby for her first plane ride. I had the choice of purchasing a seat for Ivy that I could strap her car seat base into and have her travel that way. Since we waited until the last possible minute to book though, we chose not to do that. If the flight isn't fully booked we will get a seat next to an empty seat, but if it is, then it's infant in arms for us. Although, to keep me rational I am going to have her strapped to my chest in the ergo baby carrier. I've been carrying her around the house in it so she can get used to long periods of time in it. We are seeing her pediatrician so I'll ask him for any tips and suggestions for flying with the baby.

It's not so much the flight that is bothering me as it is the stuff I am going to have to travel with and how the heck am I going to get it all there - especially since I'm sure we will have to pay for every bag we check.We are going to be in sunny Florida for a week. And there's so much stuff! A week with no washing machine!

It's hard enough to go away for a few days. I am packing the entire back of the car when we go see my mom for just a weekend. And the real challenge is, some of the things I can just throw in the back of the car are not as easy when it's air travel we're talking about. I guess we will have to do without the bouncy chair for a week. How can Ivy go an entire week without her beloved bouncy chair? I guess we may have to figure out how to dismantle and pack it. But the bags can't be too heavy or else the airline will charge the shit out of us! And we still have to bring our stuff for the week. Did I mention no washing machine? I guess I am going to have to find a lundremat or something because I'm not sure the three of us (or Ivy and I at least) can go for a week with no laundrey.

But it should be fun and I'm looking forward to a week near the beach! Even if it's going to be drastically different than my last beach vacation in Florida!

Starting last week I have been going back to work on a not really full time basis. I spend most of the day in the office on the 2 week days that Jon is off, and for now, on the days he works I go in early and work until 12:30. Then I go downtown and meet him at the tattoo shop, where we do "the handoff" with Ivy. After I pick her up, I usually head back to Brooklyn, and try to do some work from home. I say try because since this routine has started, my little girl has become one seriously fussy baby in the afternoons. Luckily, most of what I do is emailing, so it doesn't matter if she's crying in the background.

Being back at the office has been ok. The hardest thing is trying to fit in my pumping schedule while trying to get as much done as I can in the short time I'm there. My boss has been away so I've been using his office which is hilarious to me. One of my co-workers had a baby a month before me, so she set up one of the unused offices (with a locking door) as a pumping room which I'll have to start using now that my boss is back in town.

It's nice to see all my coworkers, and today Jon dropped the baby off at the office so everyone could meet her and talk in really high-pitched voices to her. I guess the hardest thing for me (and probably Ivy) is being away from the baby. I miss all our cuddle time, and since I'm usually already up and getting ready when she gets up, Jon handles her first am feeding and gets her when she's the most pleasant. I'm also kinda pissed I can't watch Days of Our Lives anymore (shut up).

I am also finding that not as much is getting done. Actually, let me correct that: the little that was getting done when I was home is now no longer getting done. So basically, nothing is getting done. Jon does great with cleaning and laundrey on his days off, but the rest of the week the place is in the shit can.

Another challenge is my wardrobe. My maternity clothes are getting too big, and also, they're mostly summer things but I'm not yet fitting into my old stuff (or even close for that matter). I have one pair of pre-pregnancy jeans that fit, and a few shirts but that's it. I suppose I should just break down and buy new work wear in bigger sizes, as drawstring pants and loose t-shirts are not really office appropriate.

It's not that pleasant taking her home on the subway either. There's an elevator at the stop nears Jon's work but not at our home stop in Brooklyn so that means carrying my 15 + pound baby and the 17 pound stroller up the stairs, not to mention all the crap I carry around for me and the baby. And nobody ever offers help! Actually once this old guy offered help but I had just seen him drinking whiskey on the train (at 1 in the afternoon!) so I told him I was fine, thanks.

Hopefully soon we can figure out some kind of schedule that doesn't involve 3 days of this, but for now, Ivy is a commuter. She's the classic New Yorker too - she sleeps! I guess soon I'll have to get her a tiny iPod :D

So Breastfeeding never worked out the way I hoped. It was a combination of latching problems, which I solved with the use of a nipple shield, and the fact that Ivy is a lazy nurser. She snacks! Like, she'd spend 20 minutes nursing, fall asleep or otherwise become disinterested, and then 20 minutes later would be hungry again.

I'd been pumping and giving her bottles so we eventually just fell into a pattern of bottle feeding pumped breastmilk with the occasional formula bottle thrown in there. I just felt like when I was trying to nurse her exclusively I constantly had her attached to me. Now I'm back to work and it's been like a month since I've even tried to nurse her. I suppose I could have tried harder to stick with it, not offering bottles and getting her to nurse constantly until she "got" it. Shoulda, woulda, coulda didn't .

I'm not super down about it, the most important thing to me was that she got breastmilk because of all the benefits, and we're accomplishing this. Yes, it is sort of a pain in the ass to be pumping all the time, and don't even get me started on waiting to warm up a bottle that's been stored in the fridge while Ivy wails away in hunger. Not to mention the cleaning and sterilizing bottles or making sure I have enough milk with me when we go somewhere.

But all in all, everyone's happy. Ivy certainly isn't having any problems growing. I don't feel like I cheated her out of an important thing - she's getting breastmilk, growing like crazy, hasn't gotten sick or an ear infection and now daddy and other family get to feed her while mommy goes off to relax.