The Dander Makers - Part 1: The Canines

This blog has been unfairly focusing on the "cloth diapers" aspect and hasn't been giving fair airtime to the "kong" department, so it's time to introduce the other residents of our household.  Dogs first.

Reef is our princessy old lady of a Pit Bull.  She's 11 years old and has lived in 4 different states with me.  She's amazingly tolerant of pretty much everything and is one of the most adaptable dogs I've ever known.  She has a special relationship with her new heated dog bed, but shares nicely when she finds one of the cats curled up in it.  Shockingly, she even has patience for her bumbling "brother"..... Lucian.  

Loosh, Mush, Wooter - whatever you call him - he's a giant.  He's our 2 year old Dogue de Bordeaux (think Hooch ala Turner and Hooch).  He's the gigantic (160 lbs), sweet, drool machine who truly believes he weighs 5 lbs in his head.  He loves holding hands with humans, playing gently with stuffed toys and being groomed by the cats - seriously.

While I spend my days working with other people's dogs, these 2 are my family.  They're really fantastic beasties and are such characters.  We're not sure if they sense that they're going to be gaining a small human yet!

The Painting Finale

The Bun's nursery is totally painted.  If any other kid ever wants it another color they're going to have to paint it themselves from within the womb.  One of the walls is floor to ceiling shelving and this nifty corner tool was a lifesaver - seriously.

The kiddo's room is attached to our bedroom - convenient for quite a while and then we're going to have to turn the Room of Requirement (aka, the office) into a bedroom.

Home Again, Home Again

Our Ithaca trip was as productive as we hoped it would be.  We scored over a dozen cloth diapers, a box of Baby Bits Wipes Solution, Bun garb and spent a good deal of time with our friends and their tribe of kiddos.  Oh - we also ate at Moosewood.  If you're ever in Ithaca, I highly suggest eating there - especially if they're having a Mexican themed night!

While we were in NY we sort of discovered a house up there that fits everything we want in our dream home.  It's built in the 1800's, sits on 5.11 acres of land that backs up to a creek.  The property includes a barn and 2 paddocks and the house itself has a fireplace and a claw-foot tub.  It's a steal.  Unfortunately, the plan to move to the country so I can get some livestock and really start raising all our own food wasn't going to go into effect for about 4-5 years (give or take)...so who knows.  This house is amazing though.  Plus, Ithaca is home to some pretty fantastic stuff for kids - like The Anarchy Zone.

However, for now we're back in the city in our own late 1800's home with quite a large yard (for urban-dwellers).  Tonight I cooked dinner for our 2 of our good friends with tomatoes I grew from the garden, so at least there's that.  

1 week until the 3rd trimester. 

2.5 weeks until baby shower #1 (in our hometown).  Our friends are having one for us here in early December. 

Time is flying.  I'm still not moving fast enough.

Never Have I Ever

I never imagined that I would ever be so happy to have finagled our way into our pediatrician-of-choice's office.  We returned to her webpage a few weeks after making the final decision that she was the one we wanted to go with to schedule our meet and greet, only to find a disturbing bulletin that stated that she was no longer accepting new patients.  Moments of panic.  She was the one who seemed to be the closest philosophically with me and my wife when it came to our views of medical care, she had rave reviews of her bedside manner...no.  This just couldn't be.  So I mailed off a calm but pleading email and after a few very cordial exchanges, she agreed to take us.  I think she could smell the desperation of 2 first time parents through the screen.

I never could even comprehend that I would be so excited that our unborn child got into their first choice of pediatricians.  Welcome to my strange, new existence.

Frightening Baby Product - The Neck Floatie

I'm an on again, off again insomniac.  I've learned to embrace this trait by continuing my deep research into the wee hours of the night.  So of course, when we discovered The Bun would be needing all kinds of baby doodads, I switched away (mostly) from my explorations of the quietest and most docile chicken breeds and pretty much gave up roaming around the world of Skyrim fighting giants, and focused on baby gear.

Today I'm going to talk about one of the baby items I've discovered that just seems baffling to me.  Now, I don't know anyone who's personally used the "Your Baby Can Swim" floating neck collar, but it's appearance screams "who in christ's name thought it was a good idea to suspend a child in the water by their neck?"  Also, can you tell me what's happening in these promo photos? Especially the second one?  It's not a mirror image, so do they just have sink after sink of babies with collars on bobbing around?  This is the stuff of nightmares.

Don't worry, the happy dolphin will save you!

I think this looks constricting for chubby cheeked children.  

Field Trip - Ithaca Is Gorges!

Tomorrow we leave the pets (they'll have their own introductory post soon) with their live-in Manny and head off to Ithaca (It's Gorges!)!  We'll be visiting our friends and their growing family of fantastic and hilarious children and spending time shopping at Mama Goose (an amazing store that sells used and new children's clothing, toys and baby gear) and Jillian's Drawer's (it's like Mecca amongst the cloth diapering community).   

We knew we wanted to use cloth fairly early in the pregnancy.  I just couldn't deal with making so much more trash and putting weird chemicals against our kid's skin (yeah, we have raised garden beds and a composter in our yard too...urban chickens to come).   In the past few months we've gathered a small supply of hardly used G-diapers, a couple of brand new Tot-Bot's, a few Bamboozles and various covers.  We know we need a shit ton more - no pun intended.  

Maybe someday I'll have some readers, so I'll pose this question for the future - favorite cloth diaper?  Worst cloth diaper that people told you was awesome?  Of course all babies are not shaped the same, so  your milage may vary.

Being Grateful For Spilled Paint

I've been in the process of painting The Bun's nursery-to-be for 2 weeks now.  It wasn't supposed to be a 2 week job, but last week I was hit by an unlicensed driver while riding on my scooter.

I drive a 125cc Genuine Buddy.  Hank (yes, of course my scooter has a name) is shiny and black and was a wedding gift from my wonderful wife.  We're a 1.25 car household and I'm able to move from client to client swiftly and park in the smallest of spaces.  I ride year round, using rechargeable battery powered heated gloves and layers and layers of clothing.  I 90% all of our grocery shopping - carrying a bag on the built in hook and another in my custom installed luggage box.  Most importantly - I always wear a helmet.

Last Tuesday I was riding down a busy street that I've driven on hundreds of times before when a driver came from somewhere and hit me.  I remember feeling the blow of my back and head hitting the ground and then laying on my back on the pavement in the middle of the busy street while my scooter ran next to me. Someone was yelling "Don't move - you landed on your back" from the corner, but I was in the middle of a large intersection - Hell if I was going to get run over twice in a moments time.  I made my way to the sidewalk while a ever-growing crowd of bystanders rushed to my aid.  They pulled Hank from harms way and locked him securely, chased down the person who hit me hard enough to blow out a tire (he had driven down the block and switched places with his elderly mother - nope, not sketchy at all),called the medics, provided me with witness contacts and urged me to remain as still as possible until the ambulance arrived.  I wish I could thank each of them for what they did that day.

I was lucky.  After 9.5 extremely un-fun hours in the trauma unit (It's pretty much like one of those TV doccudramas), 7 of which were spent with my neck immobilized until my CAT scan cleared, I was sent home with heavy medications. My wife wasn't allowed in to see me until I was stabilized - that took 2 hours.  However they did come out and ask her if I had a living will.  Now, while I know this is hospital policy, maybe they should preface it with "LifeBlazesOn is doing fine, but we're required to note if he has a living will?"  Just a suggestion to reduce panic and unneeded stress.

Today was the first day I decided not to take the heavy medication for half of the afternoon.  I also attempted to paint some of the shelves in The Bun's room.  I spilled some greyish paint - The thunderstormy color we decided on for the walls of the room that will make whatever colorful things we decorate with pop.  The splash hit the plastic covering the rug and landed on the case of my new cell phone and my bare feet.  Under normal circumstances I'd be pissed, and for a second I felt the tirade of expletives about to be unleashed on the readily drying paint, but then I realized I was standing in the room that will soon belong to my child and I was physically readying it for their arrival.  If I wasn't wearing a helmet, I wouldn't be doing that.  If that car had veered a few more feet, I wouldn't be doing that; I wouldn't even be around to ever meet our baby.
What's a little spilled paint, really?

Post Zero

Welcome to a brand-spanking new blog.  I know you have many choices when it comes to personal outpourings on the internet, so thanks for stopping in.

In 16 weeks I'll be a father - something I've never been before.  You can read books on the subject but you can't really practice for a position like this one.  I think its going to be quite an exciting ride.

One of the reasons I decided to start documenting our pregnancy and parenting experiences is while both our lives are going to change forever with the birth of our first child, I'm going to be the one who stays at home with our infant after my wife returns to work once her maternity leave finishes.  Even though we're in a large city, there doesn't seem to be a network of stay-at-home dad's out there - so hey, we exist!

For the past decade my life has been dogs.  I studied pre-veterinary medicine, worked in clinics, run my own canine behavior business, walk dogs and have been the lead writer for a dog-centric website since '07.  I spend my days outside, moving from one canine client to another.

Life is about to get very interesting.  Stay tuned.