Checking In

If you read this blog on the regular, you will have noticed that I've fallen off a bit on writing.  Well, I've essentially stopped writing for the past few weeks, really.  I haven't given up on the idea of it, but writing in this space has simply slipped my mind, with all the other things happening around me.  Often when I do think about it, it's at a time when I'm busy with some task or another, or Fiona is up and about.  Since I've got that rare moment when she's asleep and I remembered the blog, I thought I'd check in.

Two things I like about this blog:
(1) People hear about and see pictures of my baby, which means when I see people face-to-face, they're often up to date on what's new in her life already, and I can avoid the same small talk dozens of times.
(2) It affords me an opportunity to reflect, rather than simply recount.  This advantage has been largely untapped so far, but I see the potential, and perhaps will use it a bit more in the coming months.

I've been told that people prefer several shorter blog posts over one long one, so I'll leave you with a bit of an overview, of what's been taking my time instead of blogging.

In my last post, I celebrated/ruminated on finishing my Master's in Music Education.  Since then...

010011001101010110011001
I've decided to start learning a bit about computer languages.  We use them so often, and so many of us have absolutely no idea what makes them do what they do - it's like driving a car without knowing anything about combustion or how to change your oil.  I doubt my skills will progress much beyond what an oil change does for the car, but it's a nice start.  I've decided to focus on things found on the web, beginning with HTML and CSS, and hope also to play with Javascript and Python.  Perhaps soon this blog will get a little facelift - stay tuned!

How am I learning this?  Code Academy!  It's free, and so far I'm very pleased.  Check it out!

Christmas
With both sides of the family in one town, we always travel for holidays.  This is much harder with a child.  I think my next post will talk about Christmas a little, but for now, I can say that it was good to see family, I successfully cooked my first turkey, and I discovered why people make such a big deal about their baby's schedule.

Living Room 2.0
We spent most of last year buying the odd Home Depot gift card and tossing them in a drawer, as a way of saving money towards replacing the carpet in the one room of our house without hardwood floors.  This picture doesn't show the stains too well, but you can see pretty clearly what animal claws do to berber carpet:


We finally got enough cards, ordered our carpet, and after Home Depot did an ungainly dance with our paperwork, someone else's credit card (the first time I went to pay my order was already paid for, by a card we don't own - they couldn't figure out the owner), and someone showing up to measure unannounced, after they'd already measured and ordered...we got carpet yesterday!  Also replaced the equally stained couches in that room.  They were $100 on craigslist six years ago, so they served us well.  We upgraded this time to a whole $250 on craigslist for a new pair...moving on up!

If you have pets, get this kind of carpet.

So that's a taste of what's been going on.  Yesterday was the big four months for Fiona: besides another terrible trip to the doctor (4 more shots), she's great.  And cute:

Master of The House

Well, I can cross one more thing off that "to-do" list:
Get a Master's Degree.
I guess technically I won't 'graduate' until next month, but it's all over except the paperwork.  I turned in my thesis last week, and now I wait for everything to be official.

Woo hoo!  At last, the long hours of reading scholarly journals and tweaking my APA citations is past. I'm so glad I've done all of that, it's finally cleared the way for...what was that, again?

At least so far, the biggest change I've experienced by finishing this degree program is that I'm not entirely sure what I should do with my spare time (not that I always used that time to study or write before, mind you, I just knew I should be doing that).  So two years and thousands of dollars later, I can say that I have precisely one extra (impending) piece of vellum to show for it.  Oh, and working about 30 less hours a week.  And one article that hasn't been picked up for publication.  And many more years of paying student loans.

Don't get me wrong - I really enjoyed the degree program I just completed.  I was definitely challenged in ways that my undergrad music education lacked, and I have undoubtedly emerged a better teacher because of what I just did.  There's real value in that.  And I might be able to use this new academic credential to land some work in higher ed...maybe.  It may prove to be just another step on the way to one MORE piece of vellum, a few MORE years of student loan debt...but we're not thinking about that part just yet.  Right now, it's nice to have the degree, and it's very good to have had the philosophical, intellectual, and critical experiences of Boston University to shape me into a better music educator.

In the end, though, being at home so much more than being in a classroom does sort of attenuate those feelings of usefulness and excitement to teach.  I just spent two years and over $25K on a degree, and I'm a stay-at-home dad?  If someone else told me they were in that scenario, I might judge them.

As you can see, I have mixed feelings.  That's true about a great many things these days, so I guess it's fitting.  In practical terms, though, finishing this degree means I need to create more structure in my life, now that one element of structure has been removed.  Stay tuned for how that's going.

How to Make Your Baby Cheaper

Since I'm still neck-deep in thesis writing, Tori's made a guest post about what she does best (well, one of many things she does best): make money work better.

So, while I don’t have any interest in starting a second blog for our family, I told Tim that I would like to share ways that we had a baby without spending a ton of money. This helped to make it possible for Tim to work part-time and for me to take part of my maternity leave unpaid. Tim is by far the better writer, so be glad that he is sharing his thoughts most of the time. So before I add a few more run-on sentences and overuse words like “really” and smiley faces, a list of ways to save $ when you start a family:

1. Start early. Once you know that you are pregnant, start planning. As is often the case, saving money will take time. The more time you have, the more flexibility you will have to bargain shop and make things yourself. The first step should be to decide what matters most to you. Maybe you really want a Coach diaper bag, a nice jogging stroller, a modern looking Pottery Barn crib or some nice video baby monitors. Similar to wedding planning, you need to decide what you want to spend on and where you are willing to be thrifty. If you are cheap like me, this is more about deciding what you need to have new and what you are willing to use second hand. The only things I required new were a car seat (for safety reasons) and a breast pump (gross).
2. Review health insurance & maternity leave policy. Make sure during your open enrollment that you have the best insurance plan for a hospital stay and if you can, fund an FSA or HSA to be able to pay the difference. Just as a frame of reference, we had a pretty normal, two-day hospital experience and before insurance the bill was around $15k. This doesn’t include the 12 or so doctor’s appointments I went to during my pregnancy (ultrasound = xrays in cost). Also look into your maternity leave policy. I haven’t taken a long vacation since 2010 so that I would have about a month of vacation leave saved up after my 6 weeks of paid sick leave.
3. Talk to other moms. More experienced people will tell you what they actually needed and used with their babies. They also may be able to give you these things if they no longer need them. I got most of my maternity clothes, a crib, a lot of Fiona’s clothes, baby gates, toys and some disposable diapers this way. This is free and in many cases doing families a favor because they don’t have all of this junk collecting dust in their house anymore.



Free crib (thanks Teri!)


4. Register. I found it helpful to go ahead and set up a registry early. That way you realize all of the things you will need, research the brands and types you prefer and can be on the lookout for sales and secondhand items. I ended up taking a lot of things off of my registry before I even had a shower planned. If you want to save your family money too, register on Amazon. It is the cheapest place to buy most things and you get free shipping on any purchases over $25. They also have a much larger variety of items than Target or Babysrus offer.
5. Go to church yard sales. Churches usually have nurseries, preschools and in our case, just a lot of children. Church yard sales are a great place to buy baby things, especially the ones you aren’t sure will get a lot of use. We got a humidifier ($3), a Moby wrap ($5), a high chair ($5), a jogging stroller ($25) and a variety of clothing and books this way.  
6. Repurpose furniture. Rather than buying nursery specific furniture, use dressers that you already own for your baby’s clothing and as a changing table. We got a nice set of dressers on craigslist for free and Tim stained them gray this summer. That way Fiona or one of our other children can use them for her entire life rather than replacing baby furniture in two years.



Dresser/changing table


7. DIY. In this era of etsy and pinterest, it is pretty easy to find some creative ideas with exact instructions on how to recreate these items for yourself. While that may up the pressure to have a theme party and a beautiful nursery, it also makes it pretty cheap to decorate. Tim & I made all of the decorations for our nursery. I also had several friends who offered to make artwork or even paint a mural, so if you aren’t crafty, you may have a friend who would be happy to give you something decorative in lieu of a shower gift. Same thing applies if you are good at knitting, sewing, etc.



art by tori

8. Breastfeed if you can. Formula is expensive. You can save as much as $3,000 a year in formula, plus decreased healthcare costs for baby and mother.
9. Use cloth diapers if you are willing. Diapers are expensive and though cloth diapers are also expensive, they are reusable – and you can put them on your registry! I was pleasantly surprised that both Target and Babysrus had the Bumgenius diapers we were planning to use. You will save over $1000 if you use cloth diapers.



BumGenius diapers that we use

10. Don’t buy (full price) stuff before your showers. While the little clothes are tempting to purchase, resist the urge. You will be surprised by the generosity of family, friends and coworkers and you may end up with gift cards that you can use to buy registry items you still need.



Fiona had more clothes than I do before she was born.

11. Don’t buy many clothes for future seasons.  That cute 6-month summer bathing suit you bought isn’t going to be very useful when your chubby baby wears 12 month clothing by May. If you do buy clothes for the future, try to stick with onesies, one-piece pajamas, etc. that could be worn no matter what the season.
12. Resell things. You may think that a baby bjorn is going to be the perfect way to carry your baby around while doing housework, but your baby may disagree. If you find that your baby hates the carrier, bottles, or bouncy seat that you bought, resell it on Ebay or Craigslist.
13. Avoid pink & blue. If you want to have more kids, buy gender neutral things, especially the big ticket items. Our car seat and pack-n-play are grey, our nursery is green, our crib is white.

A few other things I'm planning to do in the future to save money include: 

• Putting money into a daycare FSA so money spent on childcare is pretax. (Dominion has a program where you can put up to $2500 a year into this account. Check with your employer.)
• Making my own baby food
• Buy clothes at consignment stores. It is so easy to find baby clothes new with tags!

There are lots of other ways to save money, these are just a things few that we did. I would love to hear other ideas in the comments. I'm pretty sure that our kids will be glad they wore second hand clothes if it means that we can spend more time with them and maybe even pay for college. Also, for the record, babies only need food, warm clothing and a lot of love. They will never notice the rest of this crap. 

Finding a Voice

I didn't start this blog with the intent of making a chronicle of what my daughter is up to all the time.  It has more or less been that, partially because a huge part of what I do and think about necessarily has her at the center these days, and partially because writing this blog has served a practical function, and I don't have to recount what's new in Fiona's life as often when I see people - they just say, "I've been reading your blog," and we can skip all that.  So that's good.  But I'm still kind of missing the point of starting to write in this space, giving myself a voice without parameters.

Looking back at the posts I've done, it seems like I don't know what sort of voice I want to use here.  Sometimes I'm writing in hopes of sharing some profound wisdom or emotional thing.  Sometimes it's been from the "Man's Guide to Baby Raisin'" with all the blunt description that goes along with it, and every now and then I seemed to delve into the spiritual, or realize I was going to talk about my experience and not the baby all the time, so I mentioned music or teaching.

In a way, that jumble sort of makes sense, though, because I am all of those things.  Those voices, though disparate, are all authentic and make up how I view the world.  The good thing about a blog is that you don't need to use a consistent writing style.  Hell, you don't even have to spell things righte or talk good.  It's something I like and hate about the medium, and the fact that I'm exercising such flexibility in writing is probably going to limit me from ever having much of a following, should I ever start seeking that out.  Though apparently, you can stay at home and make some good money with a well-trafficked blog....

This space has also taken a back seat lately, because it doesn't have due dates, degrees, or loan payments included in the keystrokes.  I'm in the final weeks of writing my master's thesis, and until that's over, it really takes precedence over, well, a lot of things.  So I'll be back after Dec. 10 in more regular fashion, most likely.

In unrelated news, if you're a Richmonder and like beer, Hardywood Park Brewery has a gingerbread stout for the holiday season that tastes like Christmas - Beer Advocate magazine gave it 100/100.  Go get some.


Cheers.

Crib-Dwelling, the Northern Lights, and Transition Mode

All of a sudden, the crib isn't as terrible a place as it used to be.  This schedule thing, while it's not exactly a magic cure-all, has been pretty successful for getting everyone some sleep in their own beds at night, and for that, some credit needs to go to the genius of a lighted mobile:

Like the Northern Lights over an Alaskan glacier, these softly glowing and swaying orbs of cartoon animal mystique are a breathtaking and awe-inspiring sight for our beholder.  Turn it on, and she can go from restless shouting to immediate, wide-eyed stillness, and the shouting and screaming turns into little pre-verbal cooing as she talks to her glowing little friends dancing above her head.

And, it has a remote, so you can restart it without being seen.

The whole babies and mobiles pairing is not news to anyone, I know, but I never really appreciated it until we set hers up this past week.  And I have to say, I don't only appreciate its utility...I kind of want one myself.  Seeing it calmly float in the dark bedroom, gently turning on and off as the spheres shift up and down, it really does create a calming aura.  I understand the appeal.

Tori says we can put it over our bed when Fiona outgrows interest if I want to.

Mobile-makers: if you stumble upon this post for some reason, here are things I want that this does not deliver:

• An A/C power cord.  Nobody has C batteries, and I'm sure they don't last too long.
• With a constant power supply, I'd like an adjustable time-out, like my computer screen offers.  It doesn't stay on long enough, and I can tell that mine just went off because my child is screaming.  Be right back....
• The ability play music other than tinkly little lullaby crap all the time.  I just have it on mute, and play music from the ipod next to the crib.  But you should include an audio input, or wifi connection to play music from your computer.

I'd pay a few bucks more for that.  But really, the important part - the magical glowing - is spot on.

In other news, this is Tori's last week at home.  Tuesdays and Thursdays are gonna be Dad and Baby.  Work days are still a bit tenuous...need to figure out a long-term solution that better accommodates my voice students (and by accommodates, I mean, still makes it worth my while to have someone watching her and I actually make a little money).  Stay tuned, this is just getting good.

She'll be a little sore...

Babies go to the doctor a whole lot.  Makes sense - they're quickly growing and developing, and it's good to keep tabs on all that.  Fiona had her 2-month appointment on Monday, and she looked great by all measures, so that's good.  The thing that made the visit worth mentioning was that she got FIVE vaccines that day, and that's even with us opting to postpone the hepatitis B, so it could have been six.

Don't ask me what they were, because I don't remember most of them.  One was in liquid form, but the other four were done two apiece in each leg.

I found a new job I don't want: pediatric lab technician.  All you do all day is make children scream.

I took my unsuspecting daughter into the lab (unsuspecting only because she hasn't learned enough about social awareness yet to know that when other children are screaming and crying, things might go poorly for her, as well), and held her while she was stuck and stung by four needles.  Of course it was ugly, but I knew ahead of time it would not be a fun trip, and I figured I could handle it just fine.  I mean, most nights that I'm up with her, she screams at me for a while before sleeping - it would likely be a lot like that.

We took her home, and she wasn't herself all day.  She slept a good bit, but whenever she woke up, her legs hurt, and it pissed her off.  But she'd start kicking her legs, probably making it worse, and subsequently got more angry, confused, and upset.  It was a terrible cycle...but again, not unexpected, right?

I guess my reaction was really the only unexpected part.  It was really hard to see her in pain, especially being so young and unable to understand what's going on.  She has begun to develop more specific cry sounds, and the one for pain/confusion she used Monday was awful.  I know she needed the shots, but man it's going to be terrible when she needs more.





In other news, the whole "impending storm" thing about being on a schedule?  Kind of like Hurricane Sandy.  I know it's awful for other people, but we largely missed any real damage from it (at least so far).  We're already starting to get longer sleep spans at night - go scheduling!

The Gathering Storm

This might get ugly, at least for a while.  Today, we're starting Fiona on a schedule.

**DISCLAIMER**
In case I've never told you this in person, or you haven't read it before, I know you already know everything about child-rearing, and I will likely ask for your advice on things sometimes.  I also know that there are a great many differing opinions when it comes to babies and schedules.

This is not one of those times where I'm soliciting advice.  You probably did this differently than we are, and it probably worked out great.  If there's one thing I've gathered from hearing the plurality of parenting advice out there, it's that as long as you pay attention to the needs of your kid, whatever approach you use will likely work just fine.


So the idea, in brief, is that life will work in 3-hour increments, starting when Fiona wakes up in the morning:

• Get changed as soon as time starts, to help wake up.  
• This bears much resemblance to my dad's wake-up method when I was in school, which was to turn on the lights and pull my covers off, so I know it works.
• Eat.
• Stay awake until midway through the 3-hour cycle.  
• This could be tricky, but we're trying to do stimulating things right after eating - dancing around with music, tactile stuff, anything engaging.
• Ramp that down as you hit the 1.5 hour mark, then it's nap time for the second half of the cycle.
• This is tricky, too.  How do you make a baby sleep if they're not tired?  Especially one like ours who does NOT sleep in a crib yet?  In this first 3-hour cycle, the wrap did the trick.  We hope that, given a couple of cycles, she'll start getting tired when it's time to get tired.

There are two major snags in this plan: eating and sleeping (which are two of the three or so things Fiona does in life).  Right now, they happen whenever she wants.  Delays in either result in a pissed off baby, usually pretty quickly.  So for this to work, there will inevitably be times in the coming days where she gets really mad at us for things like putting her in a crib, or not giving her more to eat 45 minutes after she just ate.  The "rules" are not set in stone, of course, but we'll try to stick to it as best we can.

So knowing that this could get ugly for a couple days, we're going for it.  Hopefully the payoff will be a baby sleeping through the night soon!