To rule them all...

Not much going on around here.  Getting ready for the tournamament this weekend.  They sent me the player cards by email this morning and coaching passes, so it seems as if we are legit.  For now.  That can always change. 

I am pretty tired this week, from dealing with all the soccer stuff and trying to finish this damn paper.  The paper is under consideration for inclusion as a book chapter.  In a book that is going to be published.  The first draft of the chapter had approximately 384737437 tables in it.  One of the best things I have done to the table is combine some tables so that its only there are only three.  The 384737435 tables that I combined into one is pretty awesome.  One table to rule them all!! Can I still drop that reference if I didn't watch the LOTR trilogy?  Oh, you think I should get a life?  Mmmm. 

I dont think I get any money for it, though.  At least, no one has said anything about money.  I guess that is a pretty sweet deal, if you are the editor.  I think I am going to do that too one day... invite people to submit their papers to be chapters, so I dont have to do any of the actual work... then not give them any of the moneys.  I think it sounds like a briliant plan. 

So a friend (who may or may not be reading this) is pregnant.  She (Margot) and her husband (Mike) had us over for dinner a few weeks ago.  She had mentioned that she was in love with the Amy Butler's Poppies in Fuschia- she got bedding for Margot Jr. in the poppies.  I educated her on *Alchemy* on etsy.  Then proceeded to get a diaper bag for her made in Amy Butler's fabric.  I trust that most of her days right now are spent obsessively folding onesies and napping and dissertating, so I feel comfortable posting a picture of it here:

I am hoping to include a scrappy patchwork baby quilt and some hand dyed onesies to complete the baby gift.  The baby gift to rule them all. 

The thing is?  I love the bag.  she uses this amazing turbo interfacing that keeps the bag from getting all floppy-tastic.  And it is MASSIVE.  Like hold my laptop and the 200 pounds of stuff I carry around massive.  One bag to rule them all!! 

I think you know where this is going.  Yeah, you do.  I know, I am so predictable.  What happened to that bag I had made with the Amy Butler green and blue fabric?  I still have it.  I just ummm.  Nico uses it for his stuff all the time?  Oh.  But imagine it made with this:

Oh yes.  That is Michael Miller's Dogwood Stripe. You think I need to stop judging Nicole for her thing with LV, when I clearly have a problem?

Hey!  What's that? (as I point over your shoulder). 

Now I am running away.

Good to be back here...

So I am about to finish the book, "The Baby Whisperer" by Tracy Hogg. She is British and is apparently widely regarded as the Baby Whisperer. Of course reading it has got me questioning everything. Thankfully I have been down this road before and I have decided to consider our circumstances and our life before incorporating baby advice into our life.

She's anti "attachment parenting" which is apparently, mostly what I do (on accident- turns out a lot of hippie-types do) by virtue of the fact that I wear this little guy. She has this philosophy called EASY (Eat, Activity, Sleep, You) and says that bad habits are really easy to learn. She even gives a check list as to how sleeping problems occur. Aparently, Dave and I are on a run-away train on THAT track. Let Nico fall asleep on us? Check? Rock to sleep? Check. Developing a sleeping problem? WIN! For real, though... Usually by 8 or 9 at night, I am so exhausted that I will do anything short of giving him gin to make him go to sleep quickly and with as little fuss as possible.

There are situations like today, where I tried to go with the EASY method... feed him, lay him in his crib to chillax, hoping that he'll drift off to sleep. He doesnt. He lays there for a while, I am walking in and out, putting away diapers, blankets, etc. Eventually he gets pissed. So then I move onto another routine- put him in the bumpo chair, the swing, the papasan chair. Set him on my lap as I look at Failblog.org and Facebook. Nope... still pissed. Because I cant just sit around all day hovering over his crib, I bite the bullet, put the baby wrap on, put him in the pouch, go for a walk around the block and the next thing you know, someone is sleeping up a storm.

Of course, I would love to do her EASY method. It sounds so easy and wonderful. But a little unrealistic at this point. Exhibit A: soccer season is still going on. As long as I am taking him down to Wakulla with me, I think its unrealistic to train him out of the sleeping on us habit. Mostly because when I take him to practice, I put him in the pouch or in the Baby Bjorn. That = sleep. Also- guess who is teething? Yeah. For real. Homey is drooling like his name is Richard Droolfess. I shouldnt really be shocked at this... I have three sets of wisdom teeth. Okay, so I am not sure that is relevant, but thought it would be an interesting anecdote.

So now we have a cranktastic baby who doesnt self-soothe, who only sleeps when he is on one of us. Add to that, he doesnt do pacifiers. WHA-WHAT? How is this possible? Yeah, he wont keep them in his mouth. Literally, we have at least 10 pacifiers, none of which he could be the least interested in. The most recent purchases were two teething pacifiers, with flat textured "nipples" that he is supposed to chew on to help relieve some of the pain of teething. At least that one has a bigger handle thing that I can sometimes stick his fingers in to keep it on his hand.

This brings me to my point: the third hardest thing about having a kid (behind the sleep and the only having two arms thing) is that there is so much advice out there on how to deal with various baby problems, that its hard to know what to do. The book "Happiest Baby on the Block" (which was a boon for us) got us in the habit of rocking, swaddling and shushing. Now this "Baby Whisperer" is saying that sets up bad sleep habits by training a baby to be parented to sleep. So I am back to the drawing board of "Doing whatever works for us." Its good to be back here.

On a completely unrelated note- I have taken to calling Nico "Baby Head". This comes from what Dave and I call the boys sometimes (Dog Heads) and what I sometimes call Drake in my sleep (Dog Fish Head- a micro brewery), but think it comes originally from Doug and Bob McKenzie, who called their dog Doghead. Coincidentally, "Baby Head" has the same number of syllables as "Spider Pig" (of Simpsons Movie Fame). I think you know where this is going:



"Baby Head, Baby Head, does whatever a Baby Head does.
Does he fly through the air, no, cuz he's a Baby Head."

Okay... so now that I have accomplished the ever-important blog for the day and now have 45 minutes left till I have to leave for Leon (game tonight)... this is fantastic! Never mind that I have approximately 10 job applications that need to go out this month. Lets talk about the state of my desk.... not one bare spot. Its covered with all variety of items- thank you notes, ipod accessories, papers, books, pens, cartridges, old bills that need to be shredded, etc. Seriously, what Dave and I need is a stay at home wife. Of course, now might be the time to resurrect talk of starting a commune with some of my friends. I am thinking of a set up where I dont have to work, nor do I have to clean or cook. I was kind of just hoping for a set up where I could hang out with my kid and watch TV all day and do some crafting type things, and someone cooks meals for us, makes the money, pays the bills and does the cleaning. That's a commune, right? No? FAIL!!

Snug as a bug...

So the conference weekend got better (sort of). I nailed my talk on Saturday morning. Its so strange- but I felt so chill about it. Which was a far cry from when I gave the talk three weeks ago (at the CDPH brownbag). Even crazier, is that the three guys who wrote a pretty important book on mortality ("Living and Dying in the USA") were all in the session (one is currently a professor at FSU (retired), one is at CU-Boulder and the other is at UT Austin, but got his PhD from FSU). So I feel like I should have been a lot more nervous than I was. But Ike told me I did well, and I felt pretty good about the talk.

We left Saturday afternoon after grabbing lunch from a place called "Gaidos", a really old restaurant across the street from the beach. Then we took the ferry (instead of going back up through Houston). Really glad we did, because we got to see dolphins swimming along side the ferry. We ended up staying the night in Lafayette, after having one of the best meals ever. We ventured away from the high way in search of Cajun food and food a place called, "Randols", which was complete with a dancefloor and a zydeco band. It was pretty great.

Sunday, things to a turn for the worse when we went to get going and the 4Runner wouldnt start. Long story short, turns out the battery was completely dead... so we got a late start out of Lafayette. I didnt make it back in time for tutoring :(

How was Nico's first road trip? It was good. He was awesome. He got a tad crantastic at the end (when we were about an hour away from Tallahassee), but other than that, it wasnt too bad. Exhausting dealing with all the logistics. And all the stuff...Its amazing how much crap it takes to keep this kid clothed and in clean diapers. Absolutely amazing.

So we are trying to get back into our old routine. Practice and job market and whatnot. Speaking of whatnot... check it out:So I have been trying to figure out another possibility for hanging onto Nico while doing chores, being at practice, etc. I love the Baby Bjorn, but its hard to do chores around the house, because it doesnt stay close to my body... so when I am leaning over the kitchen sink doing dishes, Nico just sort of dangles there. Not very comfortable. Plus, its hard because I keep knocking his legs when I sweep the floor. One of the hippie blogs I read talks about "baby wearing"... and I was intrigued. Turns out you can take a 5-6 yard piece of knit fabric (20-30 inches wide) and wrap it around your body in a special way that makes the most comfy carrier/wrap thing. You slide the baby in the top, so you're tummy to tummy and pull this band up over him, and Voila!

I have gotten a lot of comments about it- mostly about how ingenius it is... but also about how comfy Nico looks. We went to the grocery today and a bunch of people thought it was cool that he was in there, snug as a bug.

It was pretty sweet.