Already With the Complaining

We fetched the new car this morning. It is a lovely thing. I am most excited about the air conditioning, since both kids have decided that they hate wind now and my old 18 year old Volvo is hot and stuffy even with the windows down. Homestead Mama's favorite thing is the Fabric Coverage Plan. She is still cackling about them selling it to us with TWO TODDLERS right there with us in the showroom. All I can think is that I had used bibs for breakfast and they looked angelic and clean. For the seemingly low price of $300, for the next 5 years they'll come to our house and try to remove the stain every time Monito unscrews his sippy full of cranberry juice and dumps it down the back of the drivers seat in a fit if pique that Mommy won't stop at the ice cream stand. Or let's envision Pequita leaving some crayons on the seat as we park in the direct sun. Or say I have an uncharacteristically clumsy moment and slosh my coffee as I drive, drink coffee and answer a text on my phone while simultaneously fishing Monito's excavator off the floor of the car. If these Elves of house-call cleaning can't return our upholstery to like-new condition, we take it back to the dealer for a new seat cover or carpet. I'm actually a little excited about this too. I did bring up the MSDS and toxicity and potential off gassing of chemicals used to treat the stains to a crowd of black stares. Homestead Mama was undeterred as well. Spotless car, here we come. I do have fantasies of waiting 4.9 years and then calling them in, but we'll see how much I want to work the system.

I must say I HATE HATE HATE the big key. I love a low profile keyring; part of it is that I don't like a big bulge in my pants pocket, but the other part? If I lose it [which I always do] I have to pay $300 for a new one. I usually just make a handful of nice streamlined copy keys and leave one in the car, one I send to my mom - she always keeps my keys - and a pile in the house. This prima donna car won't start without the chip inside the bulky black housing; my nice cheap copy keys will get me in the door but won't start the engine. This really chaps my hide.

This picture is of the offending key was taken against the crumpled paper table cover at my REs office upon which I had just scooted up my naked butt and gotten the ultrasound wand treatment to check out my innards. I had a little extra time between the nurse drawing blood, the other nurse giving me the ultrasound, the insurance specialist coming in to go over my coverage, and the doc coming in at the end to give me a hug, say welcome back and let me coo about the existing babies. All is in order for a cycle of unmedicated FET whenever I want. I say bring it on.

First Hot Day

We had a really full, nice day. The Volvo was leaking oil so Homestead Mama took it down to get looked at this morning; the kids refused to be left behind, so she took them along and to a diner for breakfast. I slept in.

At 11am we attended the season opening of the local Children's Garden with some friends. There were festivities and lots of playing in the sandbox, watching the mating frogs trail eggs in the pond, playing in the tiny house made of straw bale construction, and building fairy houses. Pequita really got into this, and ours was rudimentary by my standards, but she insisted it have a bed made of cattail fluff, a picnic table and enough chairs for the fairy and her friends, a little walnut shell of water in case she gets thirsty, and some seeds for food. We built it at the base of a tree so we could do it in the shade, as it was eighty degrees and sunny. It was so much fun - this is definitely something we'll do around our house.

At noon we jumped in the car and headed to the closest Mazda dealer which is an hour away, ensuring the kids would nap on the way. We bought a car today, an 'O9 Mazda 5 micro-minivan crossover. Whatever. Consumer Reports loves it, and it gets great mileage for a car with 3 rows of seats. It is still under warranty, as it has only 6k miles on it; some Mazda manager had it as a job perk. It is superfluous that it is a beautiful red, comes with a spoiler, moon roof and - Homestead Mama's favorite thing - custom carpet mats. What really matters is that *I* will have to be the primary driver, as H-Mama's commute will blast through the warranty in a few short months, whereas my in-town meandering will take a lot long to reach 36k miles. I am going to make waterproof slipcovers for the seats, since they are pale beige it would only be a matter of days until the specific slick layer of toddler goo permanently marred the perfect interior. We'll go and finalize the deal on Tuesday. I have a doctor's appointment a few miles from the dealership anyway that day to start seeing about filling up the other seats of the car. More about that in another post.

We stopped on the way home for Mexican food and the kids were so good that we decided to give them the gift of their first A&W root beer float for dessert. Both H-Mama and I have really wonderful memories of going to A&W as kids, the wooden-handled mugs, the joyful treat of it all. Our kids loved it; you can still sit in your car and order food, but we sat inside at a table. You have to order your food from a phone hanging in your booth, which was the source of much amusement.

It was a super day. Full, sticky, too sunny, really busy, but successful on every front. The kids were asleep quickly, as will we be shortly.

It Might Kill Me

But Oh! how I'd love to own one of these. If you click on the link below, you'll help get me entered in the contest, so click! The drawing is in July.



I could haul the kids around without a car and with no emissions, other then the string of profanity left in our wake as I try to pedal us all up a massive hill to get to our house from town.

I have gone to take pictures of houses twice in the last week for my parents who might move to my gorgeous town. One was a no go, the other is really promising. They will live down in the flats of town; I could leave my Madsen bike at their new house.

D-40 Love

My first day with the D-40. Still have a lot to learn. Still, compare this pic of Monito at his work bench with the last post. No comparison. And this image of Grandpa commiserating with a tired Monito. The lighting is super. The ceiling in our dining room is still plywood. This is because Homestead Mama and I are in a standoff of design - she wants a pressed tin ceiling, and I would prefer wood or drywall. Why not put in hooks for a swing, eh? Anyway, it usually sucks all brightness from a photograph taken under it. Not with my nice new external flash.

It may not show up on the blog, but wow.

Treetops

I haven't been to our local nature center for a few years. It all seemed too old for my kids. Today, in a fit of not knowing what to do with us all, we went there. It sports a live animal display inside, as well as many skeletons and stuffed [eeeew] native animals. BORING. In the acreage behind the building, there is a butterfly house, a raptor cage and a 6-story tree house built by, I think, Bob Leathers. SIX stories of climbable tree house. Whatever made me think this wasn't right for a two year old?

The approach.
Climbing the ladders.In the attic six flights above the forest floor.
We all loved it. We will, I suspect, go there at least once a week through the winter in all but the coldest of times. It is relatively safe, and the babes can only fall 6-8 feet instead of the possible 6 stories. The stairs loop around all over, and there are ladders to each floor and some secret locations as well. It is all open to the outside but has 1" mesh screen cladding all exterior sides.



On the way home, we stopped at the consignment store and spent a few dollars on this very special chair. Oh, happy day. While it is ostensibly for both kids to share, Pequita didn't remove her heiny from it for almost an hour of dinner and Sesame Street musical DVD. She has found her cozy spot, and it is set for the winter. I guess I'm in the market for a wing back chair for Monito. Sigh.

Tower of Power

I happened upon a Learning Tower at the consignment store last week. I waffled at spending $80 on it, but it has been so worth it already. Miss Pequita LOOOOOOOVES it. She clambers up, clambers down, I can push it up to the kitchen island and she can help me cook, play alongside me, or torment her brother in his high chair. She likes to eat standing up in it, and regularly gets down to go fetch herself a bowl or spoon if she needs it.
She learned how to shuck corn using her tower over the weekend, and actually did a fair job getting the ears clean.
While I stand at the island making pies and fruit bread with all our summer abundance, she likes to mash her home made play dough into itself and move it from one container to another clearly mimicing my actions. It is an amazing structure, if you have the room in your kitchen. At the end of the day, it is super for playing forts.

The Sleep of the Childless

We received our new mattress - it is a base of organic latex, wrapped in a heavenly and healthy pouf of pure grow wool and cotton. It was delivered last Saturday, and is heavenly. In a moderately annoying move, the owner of the eco/green furniture store in town delivered the mattress only, forgot the pure grow wool mattress pad (absorbs ounce after ounce of baby pee/ooze/ etc, we were promised, thereby protecting our investment in aforementioned organic latex mattress) and only after loading our old mattress and box spring into his truck told us that the 4" thick wool topper we ordered hadn't come in yet, he'd deliver it in a week or two. (All at once now - PUTZ!) Come to find out, it doesn't matter that we don't have the topper yet. Both H-Mama and I have slept better on this mattress than we have in years. It is so very comfortable, we both look forward to crawling into bed. When I sleep, it is the sound and deep sleep of a normal person. This is good, since our nights have been chopped up into 2 hour increments with all the people hacking, coughing and wheezing in our bedroom.

Monito loves it so much he loses balance.


*Public service announcement: HannaAndersson.com has started their sale season. Note Monito's new hat & slippers. Selection is good now, but prices will keep going down until their after Christmas sale; it is when I stock up on staples for the comiong 12 months for both kids. Their clothing is hand's down my favorite. Much of it is organic cotton, their finishing techniques are superior (which tranlates into no opening seams, lost buttons or wearing out) and they are unbelievably sturdy. I know other boutiquey brands (Zutano et al) are supposed to be the epitome of fabulous, but as fiber person & seamstress, you cannot beat the Swedes.
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Consumer Overload

I went back up to Homestead Mama's work city for lunch with her and her friend from college. Her friend is a financial adviser, and may end up handling our investments. I need to do a little bit more research, but she seems good. She also has a colleague who is a CPA and is versed in LGBT issues - already, we have answers that the guy I hired to do our taxes this past year (I was overwhelmed with, you know, having a baby and a newborn already in our house) couldn't figure out, so we will likely switch accountants. We have our taxes, the birth of two babies, two second parent adoptions, a rental property that we own, and the likelihood of H-Mama claiming me as her dependent since I've quit my job. (More on that emotional roller coaster later, when I have time.) I don't want to be anyone's learning curve on lesbian tax law, nor do I want to have to deal with it right now.

After lunch with College Friend, we went to a big box baby store, taking advantage of the big city consumer options. We got many things that we needed, like childproof outlet covers, BPA-free pacifiers, and assorted things we couldn't imagine until we saw them. Pequita saw many things and loved them deeply until the next bright display caught her eye; she spent many long minutes removing each and every bottle from the shelves until she had a huge stack. Homestead Mama replaced them all while I shopped for the stuff we needed. Then she saw the push toys. I'll get film of her love for the popper toy soon, but suffice it to say that she learned its name immediately and pushed it all around the store, to the car, and into the house when we got home, all the while saying, "poppoppop poppoppop". She also made friend with Elijah, in the video below, who was old enough to know where to push toys to make magic noises happen. After a while of her following him about, he started bringing toys right to her, and even started to select the pink girly ones he wouldn't be caught dead playing with but clearly thought she would like.


We left when we had enough new toys to get me through the next few months of home care in addition to things to put away for Christmas, and all the other things we needed. Monito LOVES his new chew toy - I mean teething toy. We had nothing that interested him - boggling, but true - and he hasn't had a moment without it since we left the store. This is good, as he's spent a lot of time gnawing on my knuckles in the past few weeks.

After a 60 minute nap on the way home, Pequita was what we call 'full of beans'. She was into everything, a little aggressive and frantic. It is some of her cutest times, as she is nutsy but still snuggly.

Stick a fork in me, I'm done

With work, that is. I'm having ever increasing and sharper pains in my nether bits & abdomen, and this combined with averaging only about 3 hours of sleep per night have rendered me low-functioning at work. I cried "Uncle" with my OB. He was fine with me stopping work at this point in the pregnancy. I'll take it easy now, do a couple things each day and rest a lot. I have some sewing to do - we need another sling or two, Homestead Mama needs some pants hemmed, and I have a whole pile of fabric to turn into baby clothes. Maybe I'll be able to do this now. I also want to get the baby gates mounted at the top and bottom of the stairs so Pequita and her friends are better corralled, now that they are crawling.

This was hard decision, as I wanted to keep working as long as I can and it is hard to throw in the towel. To add insult to injury, I will be a bit housebound now as our 2001 Toyota needs a new engine (goodbye, $3000) due to a missed oil leak and a 100 mile per day commute by Homestead Mama. She's now driving my beloved 1991 Volvo wagon to and from work, and I'll be driving the Toyota (her car) as little as possible, mostly to get Pequita to and from daycare 2.5 miles away. The car makes a rather disturbing engine noise and according to my mechanic will die shortly. I can just see me at 9 months pregnant walking home with Pequita after the engine seizes. Harumph. I will leave the Best Stroller In the World in the trunk just in case.

Brand love

I love Phil & Ted. Witness, please, the best stroller in the world, and our new solution to a cumbersome high chair which kept tripping me and getting in the way.



We'll get another table seat/high chair for the new baby, too. It is so bloomin' convenient, 2 lbs, and travels really well.

Fools Rush In (or, Why Our Kids Will Be Born So Close In Age)

A friend online asked the following question:
Do you think it will be ok to have two very small ones? Do you worry at all about your newborn getting enough attention, etc, given there will be a very small big sister in the picture?

To preface, this answer is theoretical since the second kid is still in utero. I have, however, in my usual thorough (obsessive) style, read a great deal, talked to many friends w/ 2 kids, some with twins, to paint the most accurate picture of what we are likely going to experience. It would be interesting to hear from others with kids close in age about their experiences. (If it is really awful, don't comment, ok?)

Having 2 small kids close in age will be challenging. You skip or minimize some conflicts (initial jealousy of elder kid, kids not playing well together) and exacerbate other problems (how do you feed/ soothe/ diaper/ etc. TWO at ONE TIME?) For me, the key issues boiled down to one main and 6 sub issues.

My main concern: it took us about 4 years and around $20k out of pocket to get a live baby with Homestead Mama delivering. I am a little older now than she was when she started – if we wait until Pequita is 18 months or so before I start trying, and I have trouble… I was unwilling to let my eggs get older. I wanted lots of time to keep trying, if time is what it took.

Secondary issues:
1. How do we feel about having all our family at once? Will there be enough time for each kid separately?
2. Do we physically have room/ resources for 2 at once?
3. Can one of us be a SAHM / can we afford daycare for 2 at once?
4. How strong is the relationship between partners – can we manage high stress situations, emergencies on little to no sleep?
5. Do we have a local support system in place for the help we WILL need?
6. Is there a cute and well-designed stroller for 2 very young kids so we are excited to leave the house en famille?

Below will surely be TMI, but I have a few minutes, so here goes. For us, the answers were as follows:

1. We have always planned on each having one kid, for a total of two. (Here’s where you laugh at the concept of planning anything to do with fertility.) Since I want the option of staying home with them when they are young, clumping them together means I am out of the work force for less time. It means that home life will be crazy for a while. The house will be messy until the kids are old enough to be put to work. The pets might get a bit less attention (see post below). Saving for college would take on a different structure.
BUT.
The kids would be really close developmentally, socially and emotionally (hopefully). They’d share a bedroom until they hit pre-puberty and hated each other (or a little younger, maybe, if they aren’t the same sex). We’d get through stages a bit faster. We already have a pack mentality in our house (with 3 dogs, 2 cats, 4 parrots) and fly by the seat of our pants a lot. We are comfortable with minimal scheduling & winging it a lot. Homestead Mama and I have very different strengths, and feel like we’ll balance out well for the kids. We’ll need to make sure that each kid gets regular time alone w/ each mom, and with both moms together, but have the support system to manage that.

2. We’re mostly all set w/ space & resources. We never turn down an offer of hand-me-down clothing or equipment. Anything we can’t use (or refuse to dress our kid in - there’s some UGLY stuff out there) we gave away to others who might use it or we trade it in for store credit at the local kids used clothing/supplies store.

3. I have always wanted to be a SAHM / WAHM while my kids were young. We bought a house that we could afford on one paycheck with this in mind. Homestead Mama makes more than I do, and wants to keep working = perfect. We could also afford, in our small town, to put them both in daycare if we need to. Both of our jobs allow for the other partner to be added to a family health insurance plan, no small feat in this country.

4. In our short 7 years together, Homestead Mama and I have gutted & renovated a house together, bought a rental house & found tenants, and made it through 3+ years of (in)fertility appointments, treatments and surgeries during which our lives, vacation schedules, and finances were hijacked. We use therapy as a tool when we need it, and generally just get along well & compliment each other’s personalities. We haven’t crashed yet, and one of us always manages to offer fresh hands for the baby (dog, cordless drill) when the other is ready to explode.

5. We are very lucky & live in a very gay-friendly town. While we have no family in town, we have a great couple across the street who are itching to get their hands on the kid anytime we are willing to hand her over. (They gave us the felted strawberry hat seen in earlier posts.) We have a friend* with a flexible student schedule and no kids of her own who comes over 2 – 3 times per week to love on Pequita while we clean, sleep, or have a date. We have a large enough group of friends w/ young kids who are available for playgroups, babysitting, pediatrician advice, 3am calls about odd rashes, etc. Also, my parents are retired, and want to come for a week-long visit every 6 weeks but are also able to come for emergencies (like if (when) my back goes out again and we have 2 young babies). All this has taken work to create/maintain, but is worth it on so many levels.

6. Why yes, there is! Phil & Ted’s E3 with doubles seat. And it comes in orange! And so here we are. Pequita is 4 months old and I'm 21w1d, due June 14th. We've made our bed and are now just trying to find time to have a nap in it.

*This friend pointed out that she is much more than I described. She will heretofore be referred to as "Hottie Friend, a.k.a. Pequita's Fairy Godmother".