That was a whole lot more excitement than I wanted out of my afternoon! I was just sitting here on the sofa, reading MDC and holding my sleeping post-nursing baby. All of a sudden I heard "bzzz. bzzz" very close to my ear. There was a drowsy bee INSIDE MY SHIRT!
I put the baby down faster than I ever have. He woke up crying. Meanwhile I'm trying desperately to get out of my tee shirt and pinafore dress without squashing the bee and praying that the bee does not sting me and the baby does not roll off the couch. Phew.
I left my clothes in a heap on the floor and cuddled the baby. While going through the kitchen to change Danny's diaper I saw the cat stalking something that must be under the stove or the fridge. Ugh. I'm going to leave *that* wildlife for Drew or the cats to deal with!

Next month we are going on a whirlwind tour of Britain, showing our progeny off to my extended family. We'll have long days, lots of car rides, and no access to a dryer or washing line. Danny will be 5 months old and has worn maybe 10 disposable diapers ever (free from the hospital). On our recent holiday in the Caribbean we were able to stick with cloth because we had clothesline access, hot sun, and a breeze. Our diapers dried in 2-5 hours. That's not going to happen in a hotel bathroom in England in October.

I bought a packet of g-diapers as emergency back-up but didn't actually use them. I'd like to use them in Britain but according to the website they aren't sold there. Does anyone know if there's something similar available? They're a disposable liner that goes in a reusable cover.

Short finding the UK-equivalent of g-diapers, what brands of disposable nappies do you like? Ideally something I can find at Boots or Waitrose/Tesco/Asda. We'll be staying in Chester and Aylesford.

Thanks!

Does anyone know of a baby swing that works up to 25 or 30 pounds? My 12 week old is about to outgrow his swing (weight limit of 17lbs). We really need a swing.

I left my office on May 1st with crampy contractions. I walked back in this morning after 12 weeks away. How'd it go? Pretty well.

This morning's home routine went very well. Danny had a good substantial feeding at 6:15 and a nibble at 8:15. Over breakfast I pumped a whopping 7 oz (my left side is an amazing producer. I may need a dairy cow shirt.). I headed out the door at 8:35 pushing a stroller but no kid. I had my pump and the big diaper bag so Drew wouldn't have to schlep it later.
Everybody was really happy to see me. I dove back in right away and I think we may well be on track to do our first concentrated turnover of apartments on Friday. I took a pump break at 10:45 and got Danny a good 5 oz for tomorrow. In the meantime Drew tells me that Danny required a whole lot of attention; he got about 30 minutes of work done all morning. And apparently my body had the right idea, as he ate all the milk I left.
Drew brought Danny over to me at 11:45. Danny was a sweet sociable kid. He did get a little fussy around 1:30 when he was full and dry. Katelyn, my boss's daughter and my maternity replacement, took Danny on a short walk for subs. The kiddo conked out. :) He was good the rest of the afternoon until about 3:15. At that point we were out of diapers and Danny was once again overtired. So I started to wrap up my work; we got out of the office around 3:40. We walked to the post office and then home, making it home by just before 4:30. At that point we were both hot and tired. We changed our clothes and crashed in our favorite nursing glider. Drew grilled dinner so I didn't have much to do.

Tomorrow I plan to take more diapers, which should allow us to stay longer. I also need to work out how to get Danny in motion when he gets bored and overtired. I may just need to rock the stroller or wrap him and sway. I'm not sure how to make that work with my desk job, but we'll get there eventually.

I have prepared for this morning as if it were the first day of school. Lunches were packed and clothing planned out last night. Danny woke at 6:15 as usual. After he'd nursed I got into the shower, then pumped while I ate breakfast. I am now on baby patrol while abernat gets showered and dressed. I have a whole hour to wash the pump horns, clean my teeth, do make-up, and pack the diaper bag. No problem!

I almost posted this to Facebook before deciding it's not for polite company.( A tale of baby poop )

Danny is 2 months old today. We weighed him on the Wii this morning: 14 lbs! And I think he's about 24" long. This child is growing growing growing! I have a big bag of clothes Danny has already outgrown.
He's quite alert now. When Danny is awake he's looking around, fascinated. Unfortunately this means that by the end of the day he's had it and we're starting to get over-tired fussiness.

As a child my favorite thing to do when visiting my Auntie Helen was to play tourist. She lived at the seaside but instead of taking a little plastic bucket and spade to the beach we took the kitchen mop bucket and a trowel. :)

Today I played tourist in my own town. John, Drew's (and by extension my) college roommate is in town for two days. Yesterday I showed him State Street and we sat at the Terrace and watched the lake. Today we went to the zoo, the Veteran's Museum, and the State Historical Society Museum. We had a really good time and it cost us maybe $10 plus lunch and a coffee break.

I was surprised at how much there is to see at the Vilas Zoo. We only saw half of it before we had to leave to meet Drew for lunch. The primate house was really interesting as was the Tropical Rain Forest House. There was this African bird that I swear looked like MC Hammer. It has a black plume that's sort of rectangular that it could puff up on the top of its head.

After dropping our inkjet printer off at the Computer Science department we met Drew for lunch at Ian's Pizza. This is our favorite pizza place in the whole world. Why? Best pizza. They always have several veggie options and lots of really unusual toppings. Drew and John both had a slice of beef taco pizza and a slice of macaroni & cheese pizza. I had spinach & feta and a penne pasta pizza.

I may never go to the Veteran's Museum again but I'm glad I went with John. John was in the Army Reserve and deployed to Iraq in 2003. There was a special exhibit on the current war which gave him lots of artifacts to explain to me. Then we went through the rest of the museum where I saw things that I knew the names of but had no idea what they looked like. All the classic (post-1850) armaments for example, which my guy friends seem to know about instinctively. Now I've seen a Tommy gun, a Winchester rifle, an AK-47, and a claymore mine. It'll help when we're playing more modern role playing games.

At the Historical Society Museum we went to the Odd Wisconsin exhibit. It was a lot of fun but the part that made the biggest impression on us was the very end. After tracing the history of unusual things in the state they showed a kitchen and living room circa 1992. We stood in front of the living room trying to see what videos, Nintendo games, and CDs they had. It looked very very generic and very very familiar. For the record they had a tape of Ghost, and Pac-man, Super Mario Brothers, and Duck Hunt for the Nintendo.

It's been a rough afternoon at Chez Bernat. I was awake and ready to go when Danny woke up at 5:30. But not at 7:30 and barely so at 8:45 when I finally levered myself out of bed. Danny ate and napped nicely until after lunch. Then he started fussing and nothing was going to make this baby happy for long. Hungry? Half the time it's not what he wants. Burpy? Too worn out to burp.  Wet? Yes, and again and again and again. I think he's just hot and overtired.

The funniest time was after one of the handles on the Snappi broke so the diaper wasn't fastened well. I had just changed him and left him lying on the table while I tied the wrap to put him in. I heard a squawk as my baby boy peed on his own head!

Finally I grabbed the pacifier and held it for him so he wouldn't spit it out. This kid has never taken a pacifier before; the only one we have is from the hospital. Most of the time he sucks on our fingers because his own are not satisfying. Well after 2 minutes of sucking the baby was out like a light. When I was ready to sit down I popped it back out to see if he'd wake up and nurse. Nope. Baby's asleep. Good. Maybe he'll wake up happy!

Baby Danny was born at 10:01 this morning after a very fast labor. I woke up to mild contractions at 5:15, my water broke at 6:30 and by 7:30 I was at the hospital. There was a lot of meconium but he has had no trouble from it (it just took a couple of shampoos to wash his hair).

Danny is 8lbs 8.5 oz and 19 inches long and of course an adorable baby. He started nursing like a champ right away and now has the hang of it!

Pictures at Facebook and more to come as soon as Drew comes back to the hospital.

I haven't been doing a lot of the cooking lately, but I did a couple of frivolous things today.

First I made yogurt. After scouring the internet I found the simplest method possible. Heat 4 cups of milk to 180F, drop it back down to just below 120F and stir in 2 Tbsp of yogurt. Pop that in a clean quart canning jar and put it in a small cooler with a companion jar of hot water. It should be ready later this evening. I did this with Sassy Cow milk, which comes from about 10 miles from my house.

This evening I went outside to tell Drew that we're in a tornado watch zone. Not a big deal, since as I was taught, it's the R in Warning that means Run. A watch just means "Clean up the back yard so that the sheets of foam board insulation don't end up down the street". As I was out there I noticed the dandelion greens. I came back in for a bowl and then picked a whole salad spinner full of dandelion greens. Tomorrow night I'll steam them and serve them with lentils and barley. Tasty and easy springtime dinner!

What I should be doing this evening:
1) Packing up Passover dishes and unpacking the regular ones
2) Packing my hospital bag

What I am doing:
Crashing in front of the TV.

I am so tired and crampy that I just have no energy to stand up and do this stuff.

Pixar's next movie is opening Memorial Day weekend. I've seen every Pixar film since  Monsters Inc in the theater, and I'm not a frequent movie goer. So I've just signed up for the email notification for the Tuesday morning parents matinee. I suspect that I'll be seeing Up in a movie theater full of babies.

The new Star Trek movie, on the other hand, we're hoping to get early screening tickets for. And in that case this kiddo better come after his due date so we can see it. :) 

The last couple of weeks Drew and I have been making an effort to have a nice dinner on Friday night. This week we weren't sure what we'd eat, but he asked me to make challah anyway. So Thursday night after dinner I started the challah. My current favorite recipe is the Czernowitzer Challah from A Blessing of Bread. It's very easy to mix up -- no power tools required. Unfortunately it starts with a 2+ hour rise, and it was pushing 8pm when I finally got it going. My Thursday night Facebook status was "Waiting for the challah to rise so I can go to bed". Eventually I gave up and just threw the bowl in the fridge overnight.

Friday morning the dough had risen nicely but I was a little concerned about it over-rising through the day. Neither of us had time to wait for the dough to warm and bake, though, so we went for it. Drew shaped the challah while I was in the shower -- a 4 strand braid that looks complicated but is as easy as a 3 strand. He covered it with a damp tea towel and put it in the booze cellar for the day. When I got home at 5:15 the dough was in nice shape -- not over-risen at all! I put my egg wash on and baked it.

And here's how it turned out!

From Blog photos

From Blog photos

Beautiful, easy, and it fit into my usual schedule! I am a very happy camper.

I know that my zombie-aware friends and my parenting friends don't necessarily overlap, hence the total lack of filters on this thing. Go read: Babywearing During the Zombie Apocalypse. Follow that up with Transporting Small Children During the Zombie Apocalypse. And be prepared to laugh. :)

ETA: Thanks to the folks over at The Babywearer forums who originally linked to these.

I've just made my second batch of laundry soap. The last batch lasted 7 months and I made this one with the remaining ingredients -- how's that for economical? :)
Today's version was inspired by my new copy of The Naturally Clean Home (Karyn Siegel-Maier). Since I have a front-loading washing machine, hard water, and usually wash in cold water, I thought I'd better stick to the gel method commonly available on the internet. So I used the ingredients in the book and the method from the internet. Which ended up going as follows:

Ingredients

• 1 cup grated soap (I use Zote brand -- in the future I'll look for something less scented)
• 1 cup washing soda
• 1/2 cup borax
• 10-15 drops essential oil
• A whole lot of water!
• 3-5 gallon container

1. Heat 6 cups of water, then dissolve the grated soap into it.
2. Once dissolved, turn off the heat and add the washing soda and borax, stirring until those are dissolved.
3. Put 4 cups of hot water into your storage container
4. Add the soap mixture to the water and mix.
5. Add another 1 gallon plus 6 cups (that's 22 cups) of cool water to the mixture. Stir to combine.
6. At this point the soap is cool enough to add 10-15 drops of the essential oil of your choice. I used lavender.
7. Let sit 24 hours to gel. Or you could pour it into old laundry bottles and then let it sit to gel.

This stuff is a little sludgy, like thick egg drop soup. I use 1/4 cup of soap per load and put vinegar into the fabric softener cup of my washing machine. It works well for us! I have seen notes that say not to use this formulation for cloth diapers since the soap (rather than detergent) can negatively impact the absorbency of the diapers. So we will just be using this for household laundry once the baby comes.

I just got back from dinner at Harvest. It's Restaurant Week here in Madison and they had a very nice prix fixe menu. I had the butternut squash soup, pasta, and panna cotta. Everything was SO good. Every time a new dish came out I had to stop talking and just focus on the flavors. The sauce on the pasta was amazing and the panna cotta was an orgasm on a plate -- like the best homemade vanilla ice cream only not cold. Even the coffee was really good!

I love that we were able to go to Harvest and eat what we liked. If it weren't Restaurant Week our $25 would buy us an entree. So I'd choose the cheapest thing on the menu, skip the appetizers, and share a dessert. The prix fixe menu gave us the freedom to enjoy our food without worrying about the money.

I'm listening to Talk of the Nation right now and they're polling people about their favorite Christmas specials. Mine are the 1964 Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer and A Muppet Family Christmas. Rudolph has the fabulous details of the elf who wants to be a dentist and the Abominable Snowman who makes sno-cones (who got a cameo in Monsters Inc). The Muppet one is a cross-over of Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and Muppets. The Swedish Chef is in charge of cooking dinner and wants to serve up Big Bird. Priceless.

What's your favorite TV Christmas special and what makes it so special?

 I love love love Listener Request week on Simply Folk. They just played a wonderful parody of On The Road Again called the Midwest Winter Driving Song. A few of the verses:

 Off the road again, looks like I just drove off the road again.
 Hit a patch of ice and I just buried my front end.
 But it won't be long 'till before I'm back on the road again.
 
 Triple A again, looks like I'll have to call Triple A again.
 Send a tow truck and please hurry if you can,
 'Cause I can't wait to get back on the road again.
 
 I'm in the ditch again, son-of-a-gun, I'll have to hitch again.
 I'm in the ditch again, there goes my skiing trip to Michigan.
 I'm in the ditch again.
  
 I'm in your yard again, took the curve too fast, I'm in your yard again.
 Knocked down your mailbox, I think this one makes it ten.
 But it won't be long 'till I'm back on the road again.

I'm listening tonight to see if they play my request, Rolf Harris's Six White Boomers (courtesy of YouTube). It was requested last December and they played it once the CD arrived in March. It's an explanation of how toys must be delivered in Australia where Santa would obviously get heat stroke. :-)

and in French. morganlf posted about OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies last weekend and tonight we watched it. Halfway through, I was emailing my Dad saying "You have GOT to see this movie!". It's a parody of early Bond and it's done really really well.