The Snarky Momma occasionally (okay, sometimes) reviews products on her review blog related to parenting, domestic goddess-try, and personal care. Her opinions are honest, based on her own experiences, and will be published even if she does not find the product satisfactory. She will always disclose how she got a product and whether she was compensated to talk about it. If you want to send her a product, contact her via email at tiffany [at] snarkymomma [dot] com.
Monday, August 16, 2010
I made that: Death by Sugar
Okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. It’s not THAT much sugar, but still enough to feel on your teeth.
Sometimes I get a yen to bake something just for the hell of it. That means I’m not baking for some special event or because someone asked in their sweetest voice for something. (There’s a waitlist for free cake, by the way. A very slow-moving waitlist. Some people have probably forgotten they’re on it. It’s their own fault. They should check my Twitter for clues that I’m baking and then just show up at my house before the goods are gone.)
The most recent yen was brought on by the new cupcake pan I bought. A.C. Moore had all of their cupcake-making stuff on sale last week and I gave myself permission to buy one. I’ve wanted a mini-cupcake pan for a while but just couldn’t justify buying any more kitchen shit. The truth is that those mini pans are really useful! For one thing, when you tell your three-year-old they can have ONE CUPCAKE, you don’t feel like you’re committing child abuse when you give them something that small. The amount of icing on it is negligible. Plus, it takes them a while to figure out that “Hey…aren’t cupcakes supposed to be bigger than this?” They don’t really care at first because IT’S A CUPCAKE! SUGAR! NOMNOMNOM! Also, the mini-cupcakes are a helluva lot easier to store in closed containers because they’re just more compact and can squeeze them in really well without squashing too much.
The above cupcakes are nothing special - chocolate cake with white frosting. WHITE frosting - not vanilla (Wanna know what’s in white icing? No, you don’t. It’s nothing too disgusting, but nothing particularly glamourous.). Scott’s choice. I wanted yellow cake with chocolate but Scott declared that lame and told me that I always make that (no I don’t). He used up his one “Nice Tiffany” token already for the week since I did it his way.
The recipe I used for both the cake and frosting aren’t top secret. I don’t always like to share my recipes or where I find them, but these recipes are ones that probably everyone has. They came right out of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook—the red and white checkered one that every woman who can do a bit more than boil water has. I don’t tweak the recipes much or at all for stuff like this. Sometimes you want just a simple cupcake, not a delicacy. (I save the fancy stuff for events and such.) It’s comfort food, you know? I did drop a couple of chocolate chips into each cupcake before putting the pan in the oven as a bit of a textural surprise, but other than that I didn’t mess with the flavoring. I like my homemade cupcakes to be simple and not too rich. And I ate about ten of them yesterday.
It’s ingrained into my being that I busy myself with planning for things that won’t happen for months (see yesterday’s post). As of today I’ve started giving some serious consideration to what we can do for a 2011 vacation…you know: because I don’t have anything else to do.
I should make the disclaimer that by “vacation” I mean getting far enough from home that a pretty significant amount of travel is involved, but not so much that I’d need to board a plane. Me + planes = nope. Me + 2 kids + planes = hell nope. So, if we can drive there within 12 hours it’s on my list of places to consider. Also, “vacation” in my mind means warm, sunny weather. That means no ski trips or intentionally visiting places that are cold and rainy (e.g. the Pacific Northwest).
I’m looking into cruises again solely for the fact that they’re basically all-inclusive. We’d have to pay for travel to the embarkation point, obviously, and for incidentals like drinks (free on some lines), but for the most part you pay in advance and it’s worry-free. You get to visit multiple places without having to do any extra work. Plus, it’s sort of an ideal situation for a child who’s under the age of one: if they get fussy, your room is five minutes away.
The ~10-hour drive to Port Canaveral wasn’t completely miserable when we took our Disney cruise this year, but I’m curious about cruises that depart from ports that are closer. My sister and I have always discussed our families vacationing together (okay…actually, what would really happen is a lot of drink-fueled hell-raising, but anyway…), and a more northerly port would be more convenient for her. I did some research today and found that there are at least three lines that leave from Norfolk (closest), Charleston, or Baltimore. I’ve also found that the trips from those parts tend to be longer than we’ll probably be able to cruise (obviously the Mid-Atlantic is further from the Caribbean than Florida is). Bermuda might be feasible, but the weather there is pretty much the same as it is on the Outer Banks of NC: not somewhere you want to sun yourself in late winter or early spring. Plus? Those cruises are kinda expensive. We could drive to Florida (yes, Scott, drive AGAIN), spend the night in a hotel, and cruise out of there for less.
At this stage this is all a lot of wishing and researching, but you’ve got to get through that to start the decision-making process. There are so many cruise lines to look at and compare [to Disney]. Since Scott is so non-committal about everything it’ll take three months to get him to make a decision about it, anyway.
I feel like I’ve discussed this before. Has it been a year already? Huh.
I’m starting to stress out again over whether or not Rosco will be having a birthday party this year.
When kids are really little you can get away with not doing a party—they don’t know or care that they didn’t have one. Once they become three and four they’ve probably been to enough birthday parties themselves to connect the dots.
What really prevents me from wanting to host a party is that, well, I’m a shitty hostess. Sure, I’ll feed you and all that, but I’m not so good at going around making conversation with everyone and ensuring that every single person is having fun. I’m not that social. That makes my skin threaten to break out into itchy hives. Also, I get hung up on who should be invited and not wanting to snub anyone. Ideally I’d just put out an open invitation (well, discreetly using only the most reliable of grapevines) to anyone who wants to show up. Rosco probably doesn’t care who eats his cake as long as they don’t try to leave with any of his cars.
I’ve got about three months (or less?) to work this out. He’s old enough that we could do a party at the science museum and let them handle all the fun-making…or I can just wait for him to ask about a birthday party and go from there.
Today I had my six week postpartum OB appointment. Don’t worry - this post won’t be filled with TMI. Or maybe it will be. Peruse at your own risk.
The first thing I did was filled out a survey that was meant to assess whether I have PPD (post-partum depression). I don’t. Hormonally I’m actually pretty even keel right now. (I’ll be back to being a stark-raving bee-yotch when my monthly friend returns, I’m sure.)
Next was a discussion about birth control.
Yes, birth control. You’d think that having a six-week-old would be birth control enough, right? Well, no. Apparently there are some women who have showed up at their postpartum appointments PREGNANT. HOW?! I mean, I know how, but HOW!? I feel pretty good, but if Scott comes anywhere near me with that special twinkle in his eye he might get his head smacked.
Since I’m nursing Em full-time the chances are good that I have a few months before my period returns. If memory serves me correctly, Rosco was at least eight months old when Flo came back…and that’s when my milk supply went to crap. Anyway, it’s possible to ovulate before you have a period so there’s really no way to guess whether or not you’re fertile up until then. That’s kind of why the doctors push birth control so hard on women. I’ve been pretty successful with natural family planning methods, but the docs always give you the fuzzy eyeball when you tell them that’s what you intend to do.
I’m seriously considering getting an IUD. I don’t know if Em is going to round out our family or if we’ll decide that the household noise level isn’t loud enough and have one more kid. Either way, I don’t want to have another child until at least one of these young’uns has a foot firmly planted inside a kindergarten classroom—fall 2012 at the earliest. I also don’t want to use any birth control methods that’ll cause a long rebound period after I quit them.
I don’t want to mess around with hormonal methods for a variety of reasons (number two being that they blow me up like a blimp), but have learned there are IUDs that do not secrete hormones, e.g. ParaGard. Mirena is also an option. It does release a small amount of hormones into the uterus, but shouldn’t be enough to completely screw up my ability to pretend to be sane. I’m leaning heavily towards ParaGard, but I like that Mirena can minimize how miserable my periods are. Lots to think about.
I might not be an ideal candidate for an IUD for two reasons: the first is because of my uterine septum. If it dips down too far it would prevent the IUD from being seated where it needs to be. The doctor is going to look at my old ultrasound films and see if it’s a problem. The second issue is because my uterus tilts pretty backwards (“Not as far as 90 degrees, but…” the doctor said.). That would make inserting the damned thing a potential nightmare.
Anyway. Then I had a very short pelvic exam. Everything is on the up-and-up. Healing this time was completely different. I don’t have all the pelvic floor and abdominal weakness that I had with Rosco…which is interesting since Em has a much bigger head than he did. Now UNC Hospitals can submit their massive bill to Blue Cross Blue Shield…who in turn would probably be very happy to pay for an IUD for me. $647 is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of having a baby.
I have no idea how I found these, but when I saw the pattern on Ravelry I couldn’t resist the temptation to knit them.
They’re wool nursing pads!
Okay, I thought they’d be a great idea. Wool is naturally water-repellent and if you lanolize them every now and then you amp up that quality. When they get soaked, you can just take them off and let them dry out - you don’t have to wash them unless they get dirty. Great idea, right? Since I was going through a crapload of nursing pads (the thin cotton ones) I just knew this would be my salvation. And for a couple of weeks, they were! I knit them to a size that’s better for my…er…fullness and they contour really well under clothing. You can wear them forever without having to dry them out.
Well, here’s the problem: they make me itch. You can’t really go around with your hand in your shirt scratching down there, you know? I thought it was just itchy because of having to wear a bra non-stop, but then I realized that I stopped itching as soon as I took the pads out.
I’m not especially allergic to wool (or else I wouldn’t knit with it), but I think it’s one of those things you really don’t want to wear in such a delicate area unlined. After some brainstorming I figured that the best thing I can do, since they are extremely useful, is to put a thin layer of something non-wool under them to provide a barrier - maybe one of those cheap-o cotton pads. I’d still have to change out the cotton ones, but at least I won’t leak all the way through my shirt anymore (and I get leaky just thinking about a baby).
I think Rosco should pull his weight around here, and that includes contributing to my blog habit. So…I made him the subject in today’s video post. It’s a short interview that demonstrates his three-ness. Enjoy.
The general consensus I heard before Em was born was that going from one child to two children is hard - two to three (or more) is a cinch. It’s that whole been there/done that thing.
I’m finding the transition to be pretty hard. Not in the “OH MY GOD I’M SO STRESSED OUT” kind of way, but in the “Am I dividing my time the right way?” kind of way.
Rosco is at the age where he doesn’t need constant handling, so for the most part he plays independently and stays out of my hair. Every now and then he’ll want attention of some minor sort and I have to decide if I’m willing to give it. That is to say that I have to decide if helping Rosco find a missing die-cast car is more important at that moment than me loading the washing machine. While he doesn’t show it, I imagine he can feel pretty neglected with enough of those unintentional snubs.
We went to the park yesterday—just to get out the house for a little while—and I was hoping the splash pad was turned on (still hot as Hell here). It wasn’t on, so there wasn’t much to do at the park but play on the equipment or throw the frisbee I’d brought in the shady area. He wanted to play on the swings, but I said no. I couldn’t hold Em and push him at the same time. Rosco got bored prematurely and we left without drama. I felt bad about it, though. He didn’t want to play at the park by himself. He wanted someone (me) to follow him around.
Lately I can’t get anything done unless it’s on a list. If it doesn’t go on the list, it’s not “important.” I’ve even had to write “What’s for dinner?” on my list. Here’s today’s list:
-[Freelance stuff]
-Blog post (got that checked off, huh?)
-Wash diapers
-laundry: cold load
-Meal plan/grocery list
-Declutter and dust front room (back to that again)
-Library visit
The library visit is really more for Rosco’s benefit than my own. I still have a book checked out from a couple of weeks ago that I haven’t read. The sad truth is that the library visit will probably end up being scratched off the list if I feel myself being overstretched. It’s just not a priority the way other things are…but it should be.
That’s the learning curve when going from one child to two children: making the right things priorities.
Whew, got this one in just under the midnight wire! I have two computers. The first is an Apple laptop I use for general puttering around and for when I need a super-reliable internet connection. The second is an HP desktop that I use for stuff that requires more RAM (video and photo editing - stuff like that) and stuff that necessitates the use of a real mouse. The desktop’s monitor is basically garbage and needs to be replaced: it doesn’t always turn on. I’m JUST NOW getting a working screen long enough to type this.
Anyway. This post was supposed to be about clutter, so here it is:
(If you click through to the photo page you can roll over the notes and see what some of that stuff is.)
I’m sick of clutter. Which leads me to realize that, hey, maybe I have too much shit. Pretty much every flat surface in our house looks like those two shelves you see in that picture. I swear: I am NOT a packrat. It’s just that every now and then I’ll hold on to something because it’s “too good” to be thrown away. Or maybe it’s a book I promised myself I’d read again. Or perhaps it’s some paperwork I haven’t trashed because the moment I do I’ll need it. Whatever the excuse, it’s all starting to wear on my sanity.
In addition to the clutter we’re also drowning in dust. Even the dust has dust. The CATS have dust, and they’re sorta kinda moving targets.
As cute as Em’s little sneezes are, the dust situation is getting really ridiculous. However, in order to dust (properly, at least) I need to move all the crap out of the way (and on that train of thought, I can’t even vacuum until I dust). I figured that if I’m going to be doing all that stuff-shuffling it’s as good a time as any to get rid of some of it…or at least find more appropriate storage for it. There’s no reason for Rosco’s Play-Doh to intermingle with my decorative items, ya know?
I’m okay with getting rid of stuff and re-organizing. In fact, today I took a bag of stuff from this room to Goodwill. The issue is finding time to do it with a newborn being in the house. The only time she sleeps in a reliable stretch is during the day, and I’m using that time to do laundry, chase Rosco, putter around on Twitter - you know: important stuff. Today I managed to de-clutter and dust just one of those shelves you see in the picture above. Now I just have an entire room left to do.
You know, I really don’t need any more projects right now. Cleaning service? That I do need.
Em just had one of those massive blowouts where the amount of the contents could rival a California mud slide. You’d think I’d be prepared for that seeing as how I have an older child, huh? N00b mistake.
In case you didn’t know: breastfed newborns pretty much poop after every meal when they’re wee little things. It’s just a bit of staining, really. As they get a little older and their digestive systems become more mature the frequency decreases (although the output increases).
Em is at the point where she poops two or three times per day. It’s not predictable yet, so I can’t guess when it’ll happen…or how much there’ll be.
I was sitting here at my desk, reading an email from a neighbor while nursing (multitasking is the name of the game), when all of a sudden Em emitted a couple of little toots. Then a couple of grunts and a couple of larger toots. I finished reading the message and looked down to discover that there was poop on Em from head to foot and on the leg of my favorite stretchy pants.
How did she get it in her hair? Simple. She touched her torso where it had spilled up to and then her head. How I managed to carry her into the bedroom without leaving a yellow trail between here and there—I don’t know. I don’t even know how I managed to get her off my boob and bra pulled down without smudging my upper body. I cleaned her up the best I could with dry wipes and then Rosco called out from the bathroom “I’M DOOONNNNNE!” Perfect timing, that kid has. He always needs to be wiped when my hands are full.
I set Em on a towel on the floor, went to wipe him, and then took Em into the bathroom for an unscheduled bath.
So, that little crisis has passed, huh? The only casualty is the laundry basket because it’s chock full right now. It’s cool. I got to put Em in this little sleep-and-play outfit she’s going to grow out of soon. See? Hula monkeys!
So. Word to the wise: poop. Lots of it. Be prepared. Unless your baby wears plastic pants with elastic at the ankles all the time, there’s no way to prevent these inevitable blow-outs.
Oh! And by the way? These things:
are AWESOME for bathing squirmy little babies. They’re $5 and you can get them at Target. It’s just a piece of foam with a contour cut into it to set the baby on top of. I like it much better than using a infant tub for babies who can’t control their necks or sit up. Because it’s a huge sponge it takes the temperature of the water in the sink; it’s not cold all the time like a hard-shell tub. Em is outgrowing the bathroom sink, but I can just move the show to the kitchen.
My girl is five weeks old today. She’s out of that fragile little newbie stage and into the “Awwww, my precious *snugglesnugglesnuggle*” stage. She’s good snuggler. She’ll even let Scott snuggle her. (When I let him. Ahem.)
Let’s review. Your Baby’s First Year has milestone lists for each week, so I can stress myself out as efficiently as possible. Here are some of the 5th week items:
“may bat at objects”
Yep. Mostly at me, but she’ll also swat at hanging toys.
“more easily calmed by a female voice”
Er…dunno. She doesn’t need much calming…except at night (I’ll get to that.)
“can quiet self by sucking on fingers or a pacifier”
When she can find her mouth, yeah, that works.
“quiets when held or when she sees faces or hears voices”
Moreso the former than latter.
“prefers to watch a person as compared to an object”
Yeah. She’d much rather watch Rosco walking by than her yellow flower rattle being shaken in her face.
Other stuff:
-Baby acne is running its course. I think it started showing up about 10 days ago, and it’s aggravating a bit more now. Rosco had a pretty bad case, so I’m crossing my fingers that she doesn’t have to go through that.
-Her hair is shedding at a pretty rapid clip right now. I hope it grows back quickly ‘cause that “male pattern baldness” look isn’t so cute on little girls, you know? I was reviewing pictures of Rosco last night trying to determine when his hair loss peaked, and it wasn’t until the 4th month. That’s also when his cradle cap really started to act up. His scalp was mostly hairy again by the end of 7-8 months. Don’t know how that’s going to play out with the girl, but I suspect I’ll need to buy her some headbands to disguise that shiny top soon.
-Sleep? Girl looooooooooves to sleep. Problem is, she wants to do all that sleeping during the day and getting her to bed when I want to be sleeping can be a challenge. I’m trying to keep her awake for longer stretches during the day by keeping her in bright rooms and stimulating her, but hey, guess what? She doesn’t like that. So…hopefully she’ll transition soon.
-Any fears we may have had about her hearing not being normal can probably be squashed. I think all that newborn congestion worked its way out at around four weeks as that’s when she started becoming startled at loud noises (like me coughing). She’s not sleeping through every damn sound anymore, which is good and bad depending on whether she’s supposed to be asleep.
-Temperament: for the most part, Em’s a calm, cheerful baby. If she’s in a great mood she’ll smile at you (if I let you hold her, that is). She might even talk to you. “Ah?”
More updates next week.
In the meantime, if you notice crazy things happening with the blog don’t panic. I’m probably going to accidentally break some stuff while making upgrades over the the next couple of days.
I’d rather think about fun stuff instead of making a grocery list, so I’ve been making mental wishlists.
What would you do if you got an unexpected windfall? $100? $1,000? $10,000?
Okay, assuming there are no pressing bills to be paid, with $100 I’d probably buy more diapers (maybe some fitteds), a couple more Snappis, and of course some yummy wool to make soakers with. We have enough that more aren’t a necessity, but I’d like to increase the amount of time between loads of laundry. I had no idea Em would be pissing every 15 minutes and she burns through the diaper stash like you wouldn’t believe.
A spare $1,000. Hmm. That’s a little harder. If I were completely selfless, I’d put it towards a new home computer for Scott. His PowerBook is older than our marriage (we’ve been married since 2002). Although he has enough Apple devices to keep him satiated (or should, anyway), it’d probably be a good idea to upgrade that machine before it goes kerblooey.
I’m not that selfless when it comes to stuff only one person in the house is going to use, though. More than likely I’d use the $1k to finally get the chairs I finagled from my granny reupholstered. The cats have claimed them as their own for far too long and we really could use the extra seating. I’m thinking leather.
$10,000, oh yeah, that I could really do something with. First, a cruise to Bermuda. I’ve been wanted to visit ever since I saw an episode of This Old House renovating a property there. We could cruise out of Norfolk (preferable) or Charleston and it’d cost the four of us way less than $3,000 for six days if we book in advance. Scott mentioned that he’d like to do Oasis of the Seas, but hot damn that’s way too many people on one boat for my comfort.
What’s left of the $10k would probably be used to upgrade the Honda to something…well…something else. Poor car has been hazed and abused in the past year. It’s been broken into, pelted by tree limbs, and the windshield has been mysteriously broken. If Scott’s going to drive to work every day he needs something a bit more vandal- and thief-proof. Like a tank.
What about you? What would you do with a little rainy day money?
I took Em for her one-month physical this morning. Today she’s 22 inches long and exactly 10 pounds.
That means she’s gained 2 pounds + 7 ounces and 2 1/2 inches since her first pediatrician visit at 3 days old (she had lost about 7 ounces between birth and my milk coming in).
Wow! That’s a lot of growth. No wonder she sleeps so much. If I were busy growing bone and stockpiling fat I’d probably fall asleep every chance I got, too.
In case you’re curious about percentiles, that puts her at 75 and 75. She’s slightly smaller than Rosco was at two months, but I don’t know if this growth pattern is going to hold out. She might just be making up for that last cramped month in the womb and may slow down in the next four weeks for all I know. We’ll see. Regardless, Rosco is projected to reach about 6’2”. At least if Em stays in the 75th percentile for height, when they’re teenagers and trying to beat the shit out of each other their size difference won’t be so huge. :-\
Puffy is weird lately. She’s a weird enough cat in the first place with her apparent kitty schizophrenia, but for the past several weeks she’s been stranger than usual.
When we brought Rosco home from the hospital after his birth the first thing Puffy did when we walked through the front door was approach the carrier, sniff it, and then hiss at him. From the very beginning I’ve taught Rosco to avoid Puffy (and thus her maulings) and Puffy for the most part steers clear of him.
Fast-forward 3-1/2 years. We brought Em home and the cat didn’t react at all. She didn’t sequester herself in the laundry room. She didn’t circle around and hiss. She just sort of stood off to the side and watched.
It’s been about four weeks and I’ve been carefully observing her temperament and behavior around Em because she’s acting unusually. When Em cries Puffy comes up close, waiting and watching, sometimes meowing and rubbing against me. I don’t know if she’s pissed that Em is crying and is planning to attack her for it, or if she’s trying to get my attention to tend to her.
When we’re on the floor and Em is playing (as much as a 1-month-old can play, anyway) Puffy comes up and stakes out an edge of the blanket. She just lays there. Maybe she’ll stick her head out for a rub if my hand is nearby, but that’s it. That’s really more of a behavior of the other cat—the overfed attention whore. It isn’t in Puffy’s disposition to willingly share attention with someone.
I don’t know what she’s up to, but I don’t trust her.
It may be that Em smells more like me than Rosco did (estrogen and such) and so she doesn’t find her offensive. Dunno. She’s definitely on my radar, though.
It’s pretty hard to do crafty stuff when you have a baby attached to you for much of the day, especially when those crafts have to be held close to your body to be worked. If I didn’t need to be doing crafty crap right now, I’d be spending my time on the sofa, feet up on ottoman, eating sunflower seeds, and patting Em on the head. Em needed more diaper soakers that actually fit, though (I overestimated how big she would be—she’s pretty slim around the middle), so a-knittin’ I go.
This was made from an appropriately named pattern: Frantic Mama Knitted Soaker. The wool is from Knit Picks. It was my first order from them, actually. I’d been using the Paton’s wool available at places like A.C. Moore, but their color selection always sucks so I wanted to try something else.
It’s in the sink being lanolized right now (I’ll explain what that does and how to do it at another time). By tomorrow I hope to be able to get it onto the baby. I think I like the pull-on soakers a little better than wraps right now and they cover the leg/butt transition well enough to prevent blow-outs.
We didn’t do a lot of babywearing with Rosco. He was kinda heavy and most of the time the stroller was easier to use. Every now and then we’d go somewhere that strollers were hard to navigate in, such as the pumpkin farm, and would strap him into the carrier then. He was an absolute back killer. I think part of that blame is due to contraptions like the Snugli, though. It doesn’t distribute weight all that well (at least as far as my back was concerned; Scott’s mileage may have varied).
With Em, I knew I’d need to do something different as far as carrying goes. Rosco needs pretty consistent management (‘cause he’s sneaky and kinda destructive), and I can’t set Em down somewhere without risking her being carried off by the cats. I can’t just sit here and hold her all day, as cute as she is, so if I plan on getting anything done she has to be worn some.
While I was pregnant I researched different products that would allow me to wear Em without breaking down my back, and that lead me to things like Mei Tais, ring slings, pouches, and wraps. I focused in on the Moby Wrap because it’s one-size-fits all, the amount of fabric ensures a more even weight distribution, you can breastfeed while wearing it, and because it doesn’t have any seams or fasteners. You can position your baby in several different holds and it doesn’t look completely crazy when you wear it without a kid inside.
I ordered a hot pink one and it arrived Wednesday. Yesterday I took it out of the package and washed it per the recommendation. Was a bit skeptical here - the thing is really. Really. Long. Like, longer than our station wagon long.
While Em took her afternoon nap I practiced wrapping and tying it using the handy dandy instruction booklet that came with it. It takes some doing to get it flat and snug against your body, but once you’ve done it once or twice you’ve basically got the maneuver memorized.
The hard part is getting the baby into the pockets you’ve made.
I was pleasantly surprised by how secure Em felt in it. If you load the baby in properly it’s a hands-free device. The problems I’m encountering, though, are that Em doesn’t like having her head inside the wrap and that she won’t tolerate it at ALL if her diaper is wet. And, well, she’s a non-stop pisser, so when ISN’T her diaper wet?
She did take a pretty good nap in it last night, though, so this may simply require some practice. Really she has no choice but to be worn, though. I’ve been holding her for the past two hours or so in my arms because she can’t nap and it’s taken me that long to type this post out. I can’t make lunch until I put her down (I don’t want to put her in the sling for her long nap because it’ll limit how active I can be). Hopefully she’ll take it in stride and keep her expressions of displeasure to a minimum when she has to go in this evening.
