Crane Humidifiers: not scared of futureworld

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Long story short, my Hello Kitty humidifier kicked it. I emailed the company asking for a replacement, and they said sure — all I have to do is cut off the cord to the humidifier and send it to them (to protect them from scammers, I imagine). I emailed back and asked if I could take a video of me cutting off the cord, instead of having to buy a mailer, pay for postage, and hardest of all: lug my baby through the sloshy streets to the post office.

I figured there was about a 25% chance of them saying yes. If I was right that they wanted the cord as proof that the humidifier was not going to be used again, a video should do it. That being said, I could imagine a company having a rigid policy that didn’t allow for anything but what they’d stipulated. Or they required the cord for some other reason.

I was pleased to get a response saying they’d be happy to accept a video, as long as I made sure the whole humidifier was in the shot. Easy peasy with my Mac computer. 80 is napping, so I just shot the video, edited out the end where I lunge for the pause button (once an AV geek, always an AV geek), uploaded it to Youtube for your enjoyment, and blogged this all in about 15 minutes.

Quick, before it’s too late

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Now that I have a child, every time I see an ad for a restaurant I never made it to, or an event that sounds like fun (but I know I wouldn’t have gone to), I think that if I had just known what life would be like post-baby, I would have been a little more carpe diem.

That’s not to say that I live in a fortress of solitude.I do go out without a baby strapped to me, and I have a great support group who babysit (also paid babysitters, which are fine but OH MY GOD $15 an hour is so much more than I made as a babysitter) so I can do things like go out for dinner (like we did last week for a very belated birthday) or kayaking.

Just now, as I quietly opened a beer in the kitchen (80’s room is next door), I had a realization. I was pondering why I hadn’t been more adventurous in going out to events pre-baby. The realization is that the impending baby feeling didn’t hit us until I was well into pregnancy. I’m sure this serves an important procreative purpose, since thinking about diapers and colic too much would probably put usall off having a babies everl.

The downside is that I only realize in retrospect how much more fun I could have been having. If you would have asked me two years ago if I wanted to go across the city on a school night to see an author speak at a bookshop, I would have probably passed. Now, I’d say “OH MY GOD YES, AND ARE YOU WILLING TO BABYSIT TOO?”, because getting a break from family life is a Real Big Treat now.

So, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, to quote Joni Mitchell* in the original, ungrammatically correct line from “Big Yellow Taxi”. You don’t want to scare yourself out of having a family, so don’t think too hard about this (unless you have children, in which case, I’d really like to hear your thoughts en-comment).

If I could turn back time**, I’d let not-yet-mama Sonya know that taking weekend trips outta town, or going to skillshares are easy and a treat, that they will be missed in the future.

For now, I do get to say that I THOROUGHLY enjoy any outing I get, and I’m sure there are aspects about life right now that I’ll wish I could freeze. Hmm. Like, perhaps, the fact that my child has never yet intentionally defied me.

*It’s been said more than once that Mitchell’s my celebrity doppelganger.
**I’m not going to bother quoting Cher, since it’s a lot less poignant.

I leave for five minutes …

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DSC_0789, originally uploaded by sundaykofax.

In the background is the recycling bin (and the litter box). In the foreground is my baby, my visiting brother and a catalog (now human hamster nest). They had a blast, and I got to have a leisurely shower.

Things have been rough for me, and it’s great to have my brother visiting. I think I’d like to write more about what’s been going on, because it’s exactly the stuff that no one tells you when you have a baby, and yet it’s not totally scary where I’d not want to talk about it for fear it will end human procreation.

I’ll work on that post, and continue to post cute pictures in the meantime. My new camera is inspiring to shoot more, although we put most of the pictures on our private Flickr account. If you know us, you can find us as Wadsgreen, and we’ll befriend you.

Let’s just scrap February and call it March

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February suuuucked. My back went out, there was rampant pukey flu and much momentum was lost. Finally, finally my back feels better and neither 80 nor I are puking.

Backpack baby

A few days ago I bought a new camera, which I’m using as the springboard for my photography business. It doesn’t hurt to have a new, slick gadget to help gain momentum. Now, to take some test shots and get comfortable with it …

Empathy, or mocking

Noooo! Not the pukey flu

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Since I last wrote, 80 came down with a virus. Our pediatrician said there’s a bug going around that involves a lot of puking and diarrhea for about 24 hours. Push liquids, but not too much at once. If no wet diaper in 24 hours, call her back.

I can do that. This is doable.

Happy 3/4 of a year!

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Parents always say that the first year goes by quickly. I think they (wait, we) say this because:
a) it’s been our experience, and we’re incredulous that time has, indeed, flown by.
b) we’re trying to warn parents of newborns, so that they:
i) feel reassured that the endless minutes won’t feel like this forever.
ii) they take time to revel in the fact that their baby will never be this young again.

Take 80 for example. She’s 9 months old today. You’re probably thinking “wow, yeah, I can’t believe she’s getting so big, it seems like yesterday that I saw the liveblogged birth pictures.” You may feel a sense of satisfaction in seeing pictures and video of her looking like what we think of as a baby (sitting up, finger in the mouth, babbling) rather than the half-baked exofetus she was for the first bit.

Imagine that feeling times ten, and you’ve got how I feel. Jason and I will express this by saying “we’ve managed not to kill the baby!”

Just look at her. We’ve avoided all the scary things we read about (although it’s easy if do said reading), and she’s thriving. She’s like the best houseplant ever!

Back to the future

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Quick update: J’s mom came for a week, to help out while I recovered from my back injury. She leaves tomorrow, and I’m confident I can handle 80 solo. My back feels about how it did before the injury, which is to say still kind of twingy, but I’m going to physical therapy so I can get back to feeling like a 32-year-old, not an 82-year-old.

Up until recently (or maybe secretly still) my mom would do a cartwheel on her birthday, just to prove she could. I don’t think I could do a cartwheel today (and definitely not on my actual birthday), so that’s kind of my goal. Plus I want to find a community cheerleading class.

Kidding.

Birthday wish

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I have a birthday wish. I want to blow the roof off my real-life superhero friend’s fundraiser.

You may remember me asking you to donate to the Walk for Hunger1 in years past. I walked as part of Team Civitron, and although I’m not likely to walk any part of it this year2 I still want to raise money for the cause, and support Civitron. Are you in? Would you give up a tenner to help feed hungry families?

Donate here, please!

1 it’s actually a walk against hunger.
2 seeing as I can’t walk at all right now.

When I’m 64/2

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It’s my birthday. I have a raging back injury. I’m feeling particularly old.

That being said, I still had trouble falling asleep last night due to birthday anticipation. I’m quite proud of my childlike ability to get excited about life. I wonder if it’s what makes me such a happy person, or a symptom of it. Either way, it’s my birthday, and I have plenty to be happy about.

A’Nova is coming over today to help out, which is wonderful because I’m not really able to do it myself yet. Also, if you asked me if I’d like Nov to hang out all day for my birthday, I’d say yes.

Tonight J’s mom is coming. She runs her own greenhouse, so she can stay for a week and help out while I finish healing up, and give me a chance to catch up on everything I’ve not been doing this past week. She doesn’t need to start planting seeds till the end of the month. While she’s here, I’m hoping we can talk about what I should plant in my garden.

So it’s going to be a good birthday. 80 just went down for her nap, and by the time she’s awake, Nov should be here. This morning for the brief time after J left but before 80’s nap, we put her in the baby jail. She’s safer in there, since I can’t keep up with her. I’m glad we have it, for just these situations.