breastfeeding question

In the past week, I have had pasta carbonara twice. Both times, about an hour after I had some, Nathaniel got super upset. Something in the pasta must disagree with him, but I don't know what! Here are the ingredients:

- spaghetti noodles
- eggs
- parmesan cheese
- olive oil
- bacon
- granulated garlic
- salt
- onions

I'm assuming it must be the onions--but here's the problem. I have cooked onions in just about everything. We have tacos like 2x a week (love those things). Ground beef n' rice pie. Regular spaghetti.

He's never had a problem with garlic, bacon, eggs, noodles, onions, salt, or cheese separately. But the combination seems to just drive him crazy. Any ideas? I guess I just won't have any more carbonara (sadday!) but I'd like to know if there's anything else I should be avoiding.

Baby D and the Eye Infection

Ever since he was born, Baby D has had eye problems. Mostly just green gooeys, which I figured were normal. Over time, the gooeys dried up and stopped being a problem--in the right eye. Three days ago, though, his left eye got way worse.

When I saw "way worse," I mean that he had so many gooeys that unless I was washing them off his eyes every hour or so, he couldn't open his eye because his lashes were glued to his cheek. Also in the mornings he would wake up with just a giant encrusted line of green goop, dried, on his lashline. Poor kid.

But this morning it seems to have cleared up. Here is what I did:

1. Prayed

2. Dripped breastmilk into his eye every time we breastfed, and also used it on tissues and cotton balls to clean out the goopies

3. Massaged his tear duct every time we nursed (I tried to at other times, but he wouldn't hold still--but given a choice between nursing and having his tear duct rubbed or not nursing and not getting it rubbed, he picked nursing)

I will say that we only started the tear duct massage yesterday morning after some Google research, but it seems to have worked.

Yesterday I took him over to my mom's house so she could see him, and while he was sitting in his little chair his eyes got all goopy. So I used a tissue to wipe all the goo away. He didn't cry or anything, and he didn't really move that much. My mom noted this and said, "He trusts you."

That kind of melted my heart a little bit. She's right. This baby does trust me. Every time he gets goo in his nose I grab the nose bulb and suction it out. He hates it but he'll just look in my eyes and hold still while I do it, despite. I'm so glad he knows, at the tender age of, what? eleven weeks, that I only do things he hates because they're good for him.

That level of trust has come from a bunch of things: our breastfeeding relationship in which I feed him with my own body every time he shows signs of hunger (I try to catch it before he has to cry). Our bedsharing that means we basically cuddle all night long and he never has to be cold or lonely or scared or hungry in the night. Our showers together. How promptly I try to change his diaper (he hates being wet there so much!). How I carry him all the time, either in my arms or in a sling or wrap, so he never has to be lonely or bored.

And really, all those things have made my life infinitely easier. He rarely cries, because he never really needs to. It makes things way less stressful around here. I'm so glad I stumbled across natural parenting. It has been a real blessing.

laundry thoughts

Back when I lived in Springville, UT, my ward at church was heavy-duty into emergency preparedness. I loved it because I, too, am heavy-duty into that sort of thing. Anyway, one week, a friend there found a deal where we could order these guys for cheap. Cheaper than they already are.

Here, a picture from that website:



I ordered one way back then. For the past almost three years, it's been chillin in storage. But when we moved, I decided I would keep it in our laundry room just in case. I made it a goal to try it out.

It basically works like a plunger. You put the things you need to wash in a 5-gallon bucket, add your detergent, and plunge away.

Since we started cloth diapering,--which I still need to write about--I decided I would try using this washer on the dirty diapers.

So far I've used the mobile washer twice. It's worked pretty well--no worse than the washing machine. Even the dirtiest diapers have turned out as white as the ones I put in the machine. Actually, the biggest problem has been drying the things: when I hang the diapers to dry, they end up drying stiff and, well, crunchy. I searched online and found that the problem can be mitigated by the addition of vinegar to the washing water, so I tried that last night and we'll see if it worked.

The other problem has been rinsing. I put the diapers in the bucket, fill the water up to cover them, add my detergent (and now vinegar), and then plunge for a few minutes. Occasionally I reach down and rearrange the diapers, just to get them in a different position for cleaning. They turn out looking clean and smelling clean, but then I have to rinse them out. Or, at least I feel like I have to rinse them out. That makes sense, right? Neither the reviews nor the instruction manual mentions rinsing, but I feel like it's still a good idea. So I rinse each one out in the laundry sink again, squish out as much water as I can, and then hang them to dry.

We have enough diapers to last between two and four days without washing, but I like staying on top of things. There are so many things in this world to worry about, clean diapers does not have to be one of them. So if I can make this work as part of a daily routine, that would be awesome.

Although--

To go back to the rinsing thing. I rinse each dirty diaper in the sink, and I always squish some soap on it and agitate it a little with my hands just to get out anything super gross. I imagine that once the diaper actually hits the pail, it's already relatively clean. I probably use two or three times too much soap with the mobile washer, now that I think of it. That's why the rinsing thing has been so disheartening: I've been using almost the same amount of detergent as I would for a full load in the washing machine. That's silly.

I guess I'll try it again next time with less detergent and more vinegar and no rinsing. I'll let you know how it goes.

Even with the extra rinsing, this mobile washer is pretty darn portable and handy. It's also a good way to squeeze an upper-body workout into a daily routine. And at under $15, it may not be a bad investment for those a) living in a place with no washing machine, b) cloth diapering, c) wanting to save money on water and detergent and electricity, or d) all of the above.

revelation

We're having some new people in the house tonight and I've taken it as motivation to get as much done as I can around the house before I run off to watch my brother.

I've been putting off cleaning the kitchen floor until I had the wet swiffer things, but today I decided I needed to just get it done. So I got on my hands and knees and did it the old fashioned way.

And it occurred to me: this is a workout. I don't need to exercise separately today. I already spent 30 minutes scrubbing the floor on my hands and knees. And vacuuming everything with my twelve-pound two-month-old tied to me in his sling. That involved some lunge action. And carrying tons of boxes around (ugh, yes, we are STILL not done unpacking) was working out, too.

I guess the revelation is that I could be in way better shape if I just cleaned more. Also, perhaps it's better all around if I just use my washcloths and cleaner spray instead of getting swiffer wipes.

Debate thoughts

On Thursday night was another GOP primary debate. I watched it then, and then watched it again last night with Carl, since he hadn't seen it.

My thoughts:

- I like that Johnson is all about the FairTax--me too! But other than that he sounded like a broken record: "I promise to balance the budget," over and over and over again, regardless of the question.

- I LOVED that Perry and Romney were at each other's throats the whole time. Here's to the two of them taking each other out of the race!

- Huntsman still creeps me out. Carl and I decided that he's like Mitt Romney if Mitt Romney were created in Mordor.

- Michelle Bachmann's all right, I guess.

- Loved Paul's response regarding the 10th Amendment. That's really all it comes down to, folks: the executive branch has got to veto all bills that violate that amendment. So simple.


Overall, my favorite from the debate was Herman Cain. Right now, I would be happy with a Cain-Gingrich ticket.

But I read last night that Chris Christie is reconsidering his decision to abstain from the presidential race. If that is true--if he actually throws his hat in the ring--then I will be Christie ALL THE WAY. Oh wow. Carl and I spent like a full hour last night watching him on YouTube. He's been my hero since just about Day 1 of his gubernatorial stint in New Jersey, and I always wished he would run, and now that he actually might--ah!!

I'll admit, I've got my hopes up. Carl even said that if he does run, the day he declares we can donate him some money (Carl doesn't typically let me donate to campaigns).

Go Christie!! <3 <3

"with at least five toes"

Carl and I were just trying to remember how to play "This Little Piggy" with Baby D. Wikipedia helpfully reminded us, and added the following useful bit of advice:

Although the game is usually played on a baby, it can be played on anyone with at least 5 toes.

Thanks, Wikipedia!

i guess baby d likes cloth diapers

Baby D HATES hates hates to be wet. The minute he pees, we all know it because he screams like the world has ended.

Strangely enough, he enjoys hot showers, warm baths, and cold rain.

Anyway, we've been out and about all day, and I packed 3 diaper shells and maybe 7 inserts. We use Best Bottom diapers and I for one really love them. They are so easy and so cute.

I have been a little bit worried, though, because I've read accounts of babies not liking cloth diapers because they are too thick.

Well, today the baby and I were out and about. We visited my mom at her work to help her set up a facebook page for her business, and then came home to take care of my handicapped older brother. We went through just about all the diapers, and I decided, what the heck, I'll use a disposable diaper, rather than go home to pick up another insert.

I diapered up my little boy in his Size 1 disposable, and that lasted, oh, maybe 3 minutes. I had just enough time to feed one cat, and on my way down to feed my parents' other cat who lives in the basement, the screams began.

At first I assumed he was hungry, because that kid decides he's starving to death and all hell breaks loose. But he wouldn't nurse.

So in a moment of inspiration and happy fortuitousness, I dug around in my diaper bag and found a final shell and insert to use. I stuck them together as quick as I could and got to changing this kid.

The second the 'sposie was off, he calmed.

When I snapped the final snap on his Double Chocolate diaper shell, he stopped crying altogether.

All was well in the world once again.

So, I guess that's the end of sposies for him. I'll admit I'm pretty relieved. Cloth diapers were a bit of an investment but if he genuinely prefers them AND they save us money in the long term, I'm happy with it.

why i love cosleeping

I mentioned in my last post how so many people freak out when they find out about our bedsharing.

I urge you to read this article and if you don't have time for that one, this article. To sum them both up a little bit, examine the following quotations from the first article:

Mother–infant co-sleeping represents the most biologically appropriate sleeping arrangement for humans and is both ancient and ubiquitous simply because breast feeding is not possible, nor as easily managed, without it.

***

Most USA and other western infants die from SIDS or from fatal accidents during solitary sleep outside the supervision of a committed adult. Moreover, the overwhelming number of suspected accidental overlays or fatal accidents occur not within breast feeding–bedsharing communities but in urban poverty, where multiple independent SIDS risk ‘factors’ converge and bottle feeding rather than breastfeeding predominates.

***

Surely, the fact that in Japan safe bedsharing and futon co-sleeping is increasing as SIDS rates decline to unprecedented levels should raise some doubts about any singular or predictable positive association between bedsharing and SIDS rates. Moreover, data on recent Asian immigrants in the USA lead to an interesting observation: the longer different Asian immigrant sub-groups live in the USA and presumably begin to adopt American life styles, including placing their infants in cribs for night-time sleep rather than co-sleeping, the more the SIDS rates of these ethnic groups begin to rise to match the higher rates of SIDS among whites.

****

Almost all SIDS deaths associated with parental bedsharing occurred in conjunction with a history of parental drug use and occurred in association with the prone [on the tummy instead of on the back] sleep position or sleep surfaces such as a couch or waterbed.

Anyway. Basically I feel that, having done the research, bedsharing is really the way to go, at least for my family. We don't do drugs. We don't smoke. Our mattress is firm. We breastfeed.

I love our sleeping arrangements. I never have to worry about how Nathaniel is doing because I can just look at him in the night if I wake up. If he's hungry, I can read the signs before he even wakes up and I can nurse on my side. He sleeps while he eats and I doze until he's done. I can monitor his temperature easily, and turn up or down the ceiling fan if he seems uncomfortable--not to mention that when he is so close to me, our biology means that his body attunes to mine for temperature regulation and breathing. My breaths cue his; my temperature influences his.

When he has gas in the night, as he has every night this past week, I can help bicycle his legs, or rub his tummy, or supervise a quick nighttime tummy time to get out all the gas so he can get back to sleep.

Don't knock it til you rock it--or at least do the research. Seriously, check out that first article. It is a scholarly article through the University of Notre Dame entitled "Why babies should never sleep alone: A review of the co-sleeping controversy in relation to SIDS, bedsharing and breast feeding" (the second article I linked discusses this first scholarly article). Essentially, bedsharing can be very safe--as long as you follow the precautions. But there are too many variables to recommend bedsharing for everyone.


Overall, we personally both sleep better because of it. I honestly believe that Nathaniel gets the best, most, and safest sleep within a foot of my person. I'm sure he believes that too. Bedsharing isn't for everyone, and I'm not trying to say that it should be. My parents definitely didn't bedshare and I turned out all right (right? or maybe this means you SHOULD bedshare! :^P). But I'm so glad I stumbled across the blogs of women who were brave enough to admit that they cosleep like this. When our culture is so set against it, reading the accounts of other women who bedshare really opened up my mind to it and I'm so glad I did.

So this is me sharing my account of my bedsharing choices. I imagine I would be far more stressed and tired if my baby were in a separate room in a separate bed, and his only chance of waking me up to feed him, or comfort him if he were lonely or scared of the dark or fussy from gas, was to scream for me. For me personally, this is the way to go--and I never would have known it except for a few brave bedsharing bloggers. This is me joining their ranks.

why we chose attachment parenting

Nathaniel has slept so strangely tonight I just can't sleep. Strangely in a mostly good way--he went to sleep at 11 pm and has only gotten up once to nurse. But that's unusual, and my body is up, and so I'm blogging at 5:30 in the morning.

I've been meaning to blog about attachment parenting for a while. It's something I randomly discovered online while I was pregnant, and I am so glad I did.

Attachment parenting has seven basics, seven B's:

1. Birth bonding (bonding with the baby immediately after birth)
2. Breastfeeding
3. Babywearing
4. Bedding near the baby
5. "Belief in the language value of your baby's cry"
6. "Beware of baby trainers"
7. Balance

We did the whole birth bonding thing, and now we've been doing breastfeeding for a full 10 weeks. I wear Baby D pretty frequently in slings and my Moby wrap, and we co-sleep. I always try to remember that he only cries because he needs something, and I find myself ever more wary of those who say to put my baby on a schedule, or let him cry it out, or whatever. I feel great about all these choices, and I think Carl does too.

I picked attachment parenting after a lot of incidental research. I first stumbled across the idea on a random blog my friend sent me to on a day we were both bored. From there, I researched it a lot. For me, right now, this seems like the perfect parenting style. It addresses everything I didn't like about how I was raised, and in a way that I feel is easy and instinctive.

Breastfeeding was hard for the first few weeks, but every day it gets easier and it is one thing I truly cherish about my relationship with my baby. I feel like I wouldn't know him as well as I do without that.

A lot of people gasp in abject horror when they find out that our baby sleeps in our bed with us, but I wouldn't have it any other way. My body has been so attuned to his from the very beginning that there is no chance I would ever roll onto him. It was a million times harder to sleep when he was apart from me, in the hospital.

Attachment parenting isn't a checklist of steps to do or anything like that; it's a guide, or an approach to parenting that is all about helping your kids form an attachment to you.

To me, it's about helping my baby establish trust. I want him to always know that he can come to me and I will help him. To me, that means not pushing him away if he comes to me in the middle of the night with a nightmare when he's older. It means nurturing him with loving touch even when he's not a baby anymore. And right now, it means keeping him close to me always. My body is his natural habitat right now. I am his only source of nutrition, I am the one who reads his cries for what they are, and I am the one who changes and washes all those diapers. I am his safety.

I think we all like it that way.

nursing is awesome

I was just nursing Nathaniel. At one point, he let go and started cooing at me. When I cooed back, he erupted into the biggest smile ever, and stayed smiling for such a long time.

It melted my heart. <3

a promise of pictures, and other things

I have a ton of pictures I need to upload. I'm going to do it soon, promise! I keep trying to capture Nathaniel's little smiles, but by the time the camera actually takes the picture, his smiles have flickered away. The good news is that he's cute anyway.

Here are some various thoughts related to Nathaniel:

- I keep trying to be better at nursing him, but I'm afraid I have a hard time with it. With being relaxed, I mean. My neck and upper back have turned into the most gigantic gross-out knots. I use the Boppy my darling aunt Beth gave us, and I make a conscious effort to relax while I nurse him, but still my body locks up. It's ridiculous. Ow.

- Lately Nathaniel's stopped sleeping so nicely. Sometimes I'll have to nurse him 5-7 times in a night. Fortunately he's quiet in the night, so we don't wake up Carl, and he doesn't seem to want to play or anything once the lights are off. But anyway. Today he was up from 8 am until 10:30 pm, with maybe a total of 3 hours of sleeping in between. For real. That's... what? 11 waking hours? That's a lot for a tiny baby. Maybe he'll sleep well tonight. I could use some uninterrupted sleep. Of course, when my sleep is uninterrupted now, I wake up out of confusion, wondering why I haven't been woken up yet.

- Nathaniel is almost too big to fit into his 0-3mo pajamas. I'm really excited to retire them and move into the fun realm of 3-6mo pjs. We have some real cute ones for him!

- Totally bought him a cow costume for Halloween. Prepare yourself to behold THE cutest cow in the world. Only a few more weeks, peeps. Be excited. I'm excited.

- Nathaniel's started reaching for toys. He doesn't know what to do with them once he's touched them, but it's cool that he's interested enough to reach for them.

happy birthday, dad!

Today is my dad's birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!!

My dad is pretty much my favorite guy. Besides, you know, for Carl and Nathaniel. Here are some things I love about my dad:

1. He is a hard worker. He does a ton of stuff. He works countless hours at his actual job, then spends his other time taking care of my handicapped older brother, as well as a bunch of single mothers and widows etc. in our ward at church. He is a serious hero for all the work and service he puts in to make this world a better place.

2. He loves nature. My favorite memories from growing up involve him and this beautiful Earth God gave us. He would take us camping in the forest and on the beach. He took us canoeing and kayaking and rowboating. He taught us how to catch crawdads in the creeks near our house, and helped us catch salamanders and insects galore. No matter where we go outside, it's guaranteed he'll see tons of wildlife out there. I feel like he knows what most of it is that he sees, and he tells us about them all. Spending time with him in nature is enlightening and amazing.

3. He is up on current events. He always knows what's going on. I really respect and admire his opinions on things. He thinks through what he believes and he acts on it. I think this part of him has really influenced me.

4. He is a loyal guy. Even when things have been really hard, he's always been there for all of us in my family.

5. He is a sacrificing person. I learn a lot about sacrifice watching him take care of those around him even when it hurts him personally--like when it hurts his back to lift my brother, but he still does it day in and day out, because someone's got to do it. My dad sacrifices so much for those he loves, and even for those he probably doesn't love. I admire this so much about him. I hope I can always give as much to others as my dad does.

6. I feel like my dad has a very open heart. Over the years I've kind of collected a wide variety of friends, and I feel like he and my mom have really welcomed them more or less into the family. I remember once one of my friends left our area, and kind of ran off and got into some trouble, and my dad offered to pay her way back here where her support system was. Can't remember if she took him up on it or not, but I was really touched that he would offer that. At the time I don't think she and I were really talking, and I was in college so I missed all the drama.

7. He is super handy. I'm pretty sure he can fix anything. He fixes all sorts of stuff. Refrigerators. Lights. Walls. Bathrooms. Electronics. He finished our basement almost single-handedly, as I remember. He is just fantastic with tools.

8. He is a great cook. I guess that in his youth he worked as a cook at a Mexican restaurant or something like that, and it shows. I can't remember eating something he made that I didn't like. He just always makes great food.

9. He is a spiritual rock. He knows his scriptures really well--and if you'll recall, as Mormons, we have like 10x as much scripture as anyone else around. If you know your scriptures well in our culture, it's really saying something. But he is up on those guys. He doesn't talk about his testimony a lot but he lives it every day.

10. He is a great dad, and now he's a great grandpa. I love my memories of playing "Monster" with him on the playground; he would run around and pretend to try and catch us. He could always move faster than we could but he would pretend he couldn't. Now I love watching him with Nathaniel. It makes me so happy to see them together. I hope he will help me teach Nathaniel to love nature as well as he taught me to.

My dad is amazing. If you don't know him, you're really missing out. He's the best.

Baby is growing!

Baby D went to the doctor today. Stats:

Head circumference of 39.5 cm; 50th percentile

Weight: 11 lbs 11 oz; 50th percentile

Length: 24.5 inches; 95th percentile

He is long and skinny!

He got two shots this morning in his legs. This afternoon, after a little nap, he woke up screaming. I've never seen him so inconsolable before. I gave him some baby motrin and put an ice pack on his legs. Poor baby. He's asleep now. I have felt so badly for him.

Overall he's doing well. The only things the doc wanted to see were social smiles and relaxed hands. He's got that and more! My sweet boy.

Two Months!

Two months ago, Baby Doozit was born!

Today I met some new friends in the neighborhood, and they looked at him for like 5 minutes and announced that he MUST be breastfed because of his temperament and sheer awesomeness. They were right.

Being a parent has been fantastic. I think it helps that we ended up with a fantastic kid to parent. But so far, it really has not been all that difficult. I guess a lot of that has to do with the fact that he can't move anywhere or talk, which I imagine will complicate things a bit, eventually.

So far, though, it's been great. Carl and I love it all.

Nathaniel, you're awesome. <3 <3

picture dump!

Here's a bunch of pictures from the past two weeks, in celebration of Nathaniel's birthday--he's 2 months old today!

Hooray!

Nathaniel asleep on his monkey changing pad, wearing a monkey-themed outfit:



Nathaniel with his second cousin Ceci:



With cousin Gigi:





With Gigi, Garrett, and Ceci:


In a photo taken without flash:


Asleep on my bed on his 2-month birthday:

fontanel revelation

Whoa. So just now, Baby D's fontanel started pulsing. It was right after his little cousin "lovingly" "patted" his head, so I kind of freaked out.

But I looked it up online, and it turns out that pulsating in the fontanel is normal, and not only normal, but the reason for the name "fontanel": it means "little fountain."

So anyway, you learn something new every day, I guess!

Just ordered a set of cloth diapers from here. I already have a few of those, but it'll be good to have more. They are so cute! Ah!

RAIN etc

The rain it raineth all around, upon the just and unjust fella, but chiefly on the just, because the unjust stole the just's umbrella

Well, we've all been drowning in the rain here in MD. It just keeps coming. Yesterday a neighboring county got 10 inches of rain in 12 hours. If it had been snow instead of rain, it would have been 8 feet of snow.

PS, I'm typing this one-handed while cuddling this silly baby, so please excuse any weird typos.

Anyway. Yesterday I had a thought. I was watching my 4 cousins (ages 2, 5, 7, and 8-almost-9), my own 8-week-old baby, and my 25-year-old severely disabled brother, and everything was about as crazy as you can imagine. The 2-year-old wouldn't nap because he missed his mommy. The hospice nurse had to come visit James because he hasn't been doing well. The older kids bickered about what to do and watch. Nathaniel wanted to eat every 5 seconds (approximately) and when he wasn't eating the other kids were trying to play with him (...yikes).

And it was raining like crazy.

Earlier in my life, I noticed that my moods were really tied to the weather--on cloudy and rainy days, I was just down. I hated it.

But what I learned from yesterday was that the influence of the weather is nothing compared to other influences in my life. When I was working a job that I abhorred, in a black hole of incompetence, a rainy day just made everything bad worse.

But yesterday I was WAY busier and more stressed than I have ever been at any job, probably, except maybe the bakery. And the rain didn't seem like a big deal. And I wasn't really down. It was a crazy, crazy day, but it was a good day.

Anyway, this baby just fell asleep and watching him is making me too tired to remember what the point was. Here's a point, if the rain getting you down, consider that the rain might not be all there is to it.

Republican Debate #3 - Carl's Thoughts

The Third Republican Debate

It's time for a re-rematch! The venue is the Reagan Library, apparently in the Aviation section, as there's an enormous airplane hanging from the ceiling. Not a celebration of 9/11, right? The players:



Mitt Romney: The Romneybot plugs along, focusing on its protocol to become the President of the United States. (I'm still not sure if he's the prequel to Terminator: Salvation, or to The Matrix.)

Newt Gingrich: Still the parent chaperon of these candidates. While the other candidates keep talking about Reagan's days like it was King Arthur's Camelot, Gingrich is like Merlin--the only surviving guy who actually worked with Reagan on anything.

Herman Cain: Absolutely not a politician yet, and proud of it. Not sure if this is good or bad.

Rick Santorum: I won't back off my earlier theory that Rick Santorum is simply a Tim Pawlenty sock puppet. You never see the guy's legs. Everytime the camera goes to him, he's behind the podium! They'll show Romney walking around, or Huntsman, but not Santorum! This theory also explains why Tim Pawlenty was so eager to leave the race. It was getting awkward having to debate while he also worked the Santorum puppet. Your minds are blown.

You see any human legs here? Me, either.


Michelle Bachmann: Okay, let's get this straight: the Tea Party is not an actual political party. On your ballot this year, there's not going to be: Republican / Democrat / Tea. She's just gone to a bunch of Tea Parties. By that logic, calling her the Tea Party candidate would be kind of like calling Jon Hunstman the Tanning Salon candidate, or calling Rick Santorum the Muppet Show candidate.

Jon Huntsman: He's got oily, slicked-back gray hair, a smile that makes you want to take a shower, and his skin looks like a dish you could order at Red Lobster. I'd expect this guy to show up at my door trying to sell me a home security system, or worse. He's the Uncle Rico of these candidates. Liberals love him, but something makes me guess that they probably wouldn't love him as much as they love Obama.

Rick Perry: New to this Republican primary: the governor of Texas! There's no way the media would portray him as the new Bush in the general election!

Ron Paul: So here's a genuine question: who is the more popular old person, Ron Paul, or Betty White? He's no longer the most popular Texan in this race, and it obviously irks him quite a bit, and I'd like for him to at least win something.

I missed the first 35 minutes or so of the debate; my wife said it was simply everybody making fun of Ron Paul, which frankly was probably a lot like the other twelve hours of my day.

But from what I saw, it was a fair and unbiased debate. The topics ranged from immigration, to the death penalty, to why everyone should hate Rick Perry.

Immigration

Everyone got their shot at solving immigration, with the apparent provision that it only takes three steps.



The MSNBC moderators pulled out all the stops here, nailing Michelle Bachmann with the reasonable, reality-based smoking-gun inquiry: “When the border is absolutely secure and the immigration system is no longer corrupt and gas is $2 a gallon, what THEN, Ms. Bachmann? What do you do with all the illegal immigrants over here?” She answered that it probably depends, case-by-case, on things like family, employment, and criminal history, to which the moderator repeated the question. BAM! Smoking gun TIMES TWO. You got 'er, MSNBC! You killed Michelle Bachmann with your tough, truth-finding questions!

The Death Penalty
I got shivers down my spine when Rick Perry explained that, in Texas, if you kill a cop, a child, or a regular person (along with some other crimes thrown in), you will face the ultimate judgment: execution. It was said with such conviction and finality that I didn't know whether to cheer or be terrified. Make sure to throw out your cop-and-baby-killing Halloween costumes, folks.

Why Everyone Should Hate Rick Perry

This moderation topic was headed by a very creepy looking bald guy with a morbid fascination for asking questions (ex-Gitmo?). He had candidates answer varied questions such as “Why do you hate Rick Perry,” “Why does Rick Perry hate old people,” “Exactly how much does Rick Perry hate science,” and “Why did Rick Perry turn Texas into an uneducated, citizen-slaying, freedom-hating dystopia.” The two people most excited about this topic, other than Varys the Eunuch, were Ron Paul and the Rick Santorum Sock Puppet. Perry just seemed confused.

The ancestor of Politico's Brian Williams. From a fictional universe.

DEBATE WINNERS:

Mitt Romney: Never seemed flustered or out of his element. More importantly, when everyone was ganging up on Rick Perry, he basically said “give the guy a break, he's learned his lesson,” immediately making him look 1) gracious, and 2) ahead of Perry.

Rick Perry: He definitely got flustered by finding himself as the focus of an irrational hate-fest, and he had a real hard time answering questions with his prepared stock answers. But I almost feel like he came out the better for it, because all fake niceness left him and he was left with nothing but conviction for all the stances he had to defend, and he backed them all up, even going further on some things, like calling social security a “ponzi scheme.” (Which, when you look at the SEC's definition of a ponzi scheme, is actually pretty tough to argue with.)

Newt Gingrich: Anytime he answered a question, I got the feeling that the moderator had just interrupted him from reading his newspaper. Gingrich threw in historical political details like it was nothing, answered eloquently and intelligently, and then went back to his crossword puzzle. I'd say that he won the debate, except that it looked like he didn't even care.

Herman Cain: When Romney and Perry were arguing abstractly about exactly how broken or unbroken social security is, Herman Cain interrupted and presented a concrete solution to social security that was broken down simply and backed up by history (the Chile solution). I never get the feeling that Herman Cain is short on ideas (hullo, Rick Santorum Sock Puppet).

DEBATE LOSERS:
Jon Huntsman: I knew it was over for him as soon as they asked him a policy question, and his answer had nothing to do with his actual policy, but with his ability to not be conservative and therefore get more independent votes in a general election. I don't know that anybody can smugly brag that they're less conservative than everyone else in a Republican primary and end up winning.

My wife compared him to a slimy cheeto. (Dis-favorably, to be clear. We're not college students anymore.)

Ron Paul: Let's be fair—this guy was a loser before the debate even started.

Rick Santorum Sock Puppet: You know how, in football, there's that guy who's always the last one to jump on the pile? It took Rick Santorum Sock Puppet about ten minutes late to realize that hating Perry was cool. But he sure did it. And how! Awkward!

STILL A CHICK

Michelle Bachmann: Now that Rick Perry's in the race, Tea Partiers who are also sexist no longer have to vote for Michelle Bachmann. She's lost some of her novelty, but her answers were more intelligent this time around. I'd say she lost some ground from Rick Perry, but picked up some ground with consistency.

In the end, let's just say that when Republicans debate, America wins.

CAPTION CONTEST!

I don't know how this picture happened... have at it.

Winner gets HIGH PRAISE!

Baby D being cute

This one reminds me of this song (only because of that clip from the Psych episode where they are Black and Tan the models... best episode)(Baby D is the one with the looks):

sleep!!

Two nights ago, Baby D slept from 8:30 pm to 7:30 am and only woke up to nurse once, around 2 in the morning.

Last night, he went to sleep around 10 pm, and then woke up to nurse at 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 9.

X.X

He just fell asleep again though.... naptime!! yay!!!


UPDATE: ... I pressed "post" on here and immediately this baby woke up. I think he just doesn't want me to sleep today.

baby thoughts

Assorted things I love about this baby:

- He recently started licking my arms when I hold him. I find it so hilarious. Maybe it's actually gross. But I don't mind it. I just think it's funny that when I hold him, he just wants to lick my biceps.

- His hair is super curly when it's wet. But then it dries straight and fluffy. He's very fluffy right now.

- I love his little conversational vocalizations. He is becoming a very verbal baby.

- He smiles now--started yesterday at Carl's work. He is getting more and more smiley and I love it.

- He loves to try and hold his head up, but it's so big and heavy, after a while he'll give up--his head drops, but then he swings it back up to where he had it in the first place. I hope I can get a video of it sometime. It's so funny.

- If I wait too long to nurse him, he starts snorting when he cries. I can always tell if he's hungry because he snorts. Then, if he's had to do hungry cries for more than a few seconds, when I finally do nurse him, he makes these funny sad noises while he nurses, like he wants me to KNOW that even though he's eating now, HE ALMOST STARVED TO DEATH. I think it is so funny and cute.

- Sometimes he goes to sleep and is so out of it that his whole body is floppy and you can move him wherever and he doesn't wake. He is very cute asleep.

Hmm. I probably sound like a lovestruck mother, but what can I say. I have one awesome baby.

baby bath pictures!

Okay, misleading title!

None of the sinks or tubs in our house seem to plug properly--so giving Nathaniel a bath is hard. We only did it twice in his first six weeks of life, in fact, for that very reason.

However, the other day I decided to try taking him into the shower, and that worked fantastically. He actually really enjoys showering with us, I think.

I went ahead and took some pictures of him fresh from the shower, wrapped up in his cute shark towel from our darling friend Emily:

exhausted in the best way!

Whew!

Just got home from a fantastic day downtown. Carl's work wanted to meet Baby D, and I needed to take the boy down to my old work, so we went ahead and braved the Metro. Baby D was awesome. He only cried twice the whole day, for maybe 10 minutes total. What a rock star. And it was so good to see all my beloved friends at my former place of employment! 53 weeks ago, I left that work to pursue a different career at another sort-of-think-tank, and I will say that my new job just about killed my soul. Every day, I have missed THF. Being a SAHM is fantastic and I love it, but going back to THF today made me remember how wonderful that place is, and how much I adore everyone there. I really miss it.

I wouldn't trade what I have now to go back, but I am just so grateful for the year I spent there and the beloved friends I made.

So, today was exhausting. Fantastic, but so tiring. And yesterday was just plain old tiring. I spent the whole day running around, trying to get things done. We did 3 loads of laundry, and the dishes, and cleaned random stuff, went grocery shopping, made a casserole for a homeless shelter, cleaned out the car after the casserole leaked all over the place as I took it to the drop-off for the homeless shelter, and watched Project Runway and tweeted for Josh. Whew. And uploaded pictures to this blog. So busy.

All in all, the past two days have probably been the busiest and craziest since Baby D was born. But they were great, great days.

Exhausted, but in the best way. :o)

sad day!

Well, I mentioned recently that I got back on Twitter for my friend Josh, who was a contestant on Project Runway.

Tonight he got voted off forever. Sad day! I can see why the judges voted him off, but I was sad to see him go. I'm really proud of him for how far he's come.

Anyway, so I may or may not stick around on Twitter. I still think it's a relatively pointless thing and I don't enjoy tweeting, but it felt useful to do it for my friend. Now that he's out of the competition it would take a serious miracle to keep his hashtag even vaguely trending in the Project Runway circles. It's really too bad.

I was really impressed with how gracious Josh came off on the show. He's a gracious guy, so that's not what's impressive about it--I was just impressed that the people editing the film always chose to keep his remarks to the winners in, and add subtitles. He just comes off--and rightfully so--looking like a upstanding dude.

Good work, friend.

pictures, more recent

AAAAAH he is SO CUTE WHEN HE SLEEPS:



Baby D awake, a few weeks ago when he still had his baby acne:



And finally, some pictures from today while I was doing the ironing and he was asleep and yawning on the floor (note his awesome shoe-socks--thanks, Aunt Lisa!):

More pictures: Baby D at 3 weeks

Baby D with Grannie Annie and his daddy:



I love this picture of him, all floppy and cute:



Here he is, looking at the world:



Ignore his demon eyes. This is Baby D's turtle face:



Daddy cuddles:



More Daddy cuddles: