Only In Dreams

I have dreams about him.

In my dreams, he is a composite of himself: He's wearing the ivy style hat and long coat he wore to his teaching job every day of my childhood, but his face is older. He's holding a briefcase, but wearing sneakers. His hair and beard are fully gray, but thicker than it was at the end, after the chemo. The glasses he's wearing are from some fuzzy, unspecific point in between. 

They are not happy dreams: "What are you doing here?" I asked him in the very first one, bubbling over with joy.

"Your mother died," he said simply, and walked away.

W. T. F?

I immediately woke up and texted my mom -- something unrelated and upbeat, just "cuz" -- and then sat in terror as the hours went by without a response and I wondered if I could fake it through a phone call without letting on that OH HI YOUR DEAD HUSBAND TOLD ME IN A DREAM THAT YOU DIED BUT YOU ANSWERED THE PHONE SO I GUESS YOU'RE GOOD OKAY SO NEVERMIND.

Kind of a day-ruiner of a dream, to put it mildly.

Since then, his presence in a dream unsettles me. I'm afraid of what he'll say; I'm afraid that he simply won't say anything and disappear. I'm afraid of waking up because when I wake up I lose him all over again, I once again feel the full weight of he's gone, he's really gone, and I will never see him again.

Except for the glimpses of this mixed-up shadowy phantom. Who even in my dreams I know doesn't exist anymore, doesn't belong there, and who even in my own dreams I cannot seem to go up to and hug and say the one thing that was left so painfully and permanently unsaid. 

"Hi Daddy, I have someone I want you to meet."

Five Weeks

Baby Ike! Is five weeks old!

He weighs nine pounds! And five ounces! Holy cats!

HE IS STILL VERY CONCERNED ABOUT MANY THINGS. 

ALSO SKEPTICAL, BUT MOSTLY JUST OF YOU.

Anyway, in honor of this momentous occasion, I thought I'd go all service-y and listicle-ish and whatnot and tell you about some of the Shit We Bought That Ensured Everyone's Survival During The Past Five Weeks. But don't worry, I'll keep inserting random baby pictures for those of you who could not give less of a crap about the wordy word parts of this blog.

IKE'S FIRST FIVE WEEKS WERE BROUGHT TO YOU BY*:

1) Miracle Blankets and Aden + Anais Swaddles: Technically, we only really swaddle in the Miracle Blankets. No matter how hard I try and how many time I've re-read the instructions, Ike can break his arms free of the Aden + Anais blankets. This would not be a problem if say, he PREFERRED to have his arms free, but instead, he fights the blanket and frees his arms in 15 seconds flat and then three seconds after that he's all, OH MY GOD HORRIBLE ARM-FLAILING FREEDOM THIS IS TERRIBLE HALP. 

Exhibit A, Babies Make No Goddamn Sense At All Sometimes

Thus, Miracle Blankets for the swaddling WIN, second baby in a row. But we use the Aden + Anais blankets for just about everything else, from an extra layer in case of over-the-top air conditioning to an impromptu nursing cover to just general around-the-house half-assed bundling. Every other receiving blanket we've...uh, received has basically gone unused now that we have a set of these oversized, lightweight suckers. 

2) Padded car seat handle cover. What? What the what? I KNOW. I'd never seen nor heard of such a thing, until I saw a mother with one about two weeks before my due date and practically threw myself at her head in order to find out where she'd gotten it. Surprise! Etsy. Crafty, crafty Etsy. 

If you've ever lugged around an infant car seat before, you know. YOU KNOW. Eventually you have to like, USE YOUR HANDS to find your keys or open doors or reassemble a Very Important Lego Creation That Has Just Come Apart On The Sidewalk And Someone Is Refusing To Take Another Step Until It's Fixed. So you carry the car seat in the crook of your elbow, like a purse. A really heavy purse. A tank with a strap, basically. The padded handle cover won't help you with the weight, obviously, but OH MAN, does it ever help reduce those horrible red marks and bruises and burst capillaries you can get from a pinchy handle otherwise. 

There are several Etsy shops that sell them. I bought mine here, along with a matching set of strap covers. Because: MATCHY. The seller was lovely and shipped my order super extra fast once I admitted that I was like, days away from my due date and was going apeshit from the nesting and the thought of NOT HAVING THE PROPER CAR SEAT HANDLE COVER IN PLACE BEFOREHAND OMG. 

3) A cornucopia of slings, wraps and carriers. Look, I know every pregnant woman out there wants to find and purchase a singular, perfect sling. (I sure as hell did.) They're expensive! They're an investment! They're two whole trimesters' worth of shopping obsession right there! And so you ask your friends and blog readers and Twitter tweeple and random ladies in the supermarket for their recommendations. And then your HEAD PLUM EXPLODES, because you will never, ever get a consensus or even see the same recommendation more than twice. Moby! Maya! Ergo! Babyhawk! Infantino! Bjorn! Pockets, pouches, wraps, Mei Tais, recalls, oh my god make it stop.

Yeah. I've bought a lot of slings, over the years. I've returned one (a super-cheaply-made pouch bought sight unseen online) and given two away (a badly-sized Hotsling and a secondhand Maya). I had a Bjorn at one point that mysteriously vanished, much to my husband's dismay (it was his favorite), but I think I may be blocking out some Machiavellian sabotage there, because I didn't like what I was reading about front-facing carriers and hip and spine development and maaaaaybe had a hand in the disappearance. 

Currently, we have three that actually get regular use. A Mei Tai from Anna Carrie Baby on Etsy (top picture), a resizeable pouch from RockinBabySling that brilliantly adjusts to fit me and Jason (second picture) and our trusty, intrepid, bulky-ass Ergo (not pictured, but dig through the early Ezra archives and you'll realize I carried that child around backpack-style for at least a third of his life). And each one of them STILL has its own list of pros and cons and while I could probably do an entire separate post going ON and ON about said pros and cons (I wish I'd gotten the "extra long straps" option on the Mei Tai, for example), it's likely that MY pros and cons would look nothing like YOUR pros and cons. If that makes any sense. 

In other words, carriers are awesome! Except for one that you will inevitably end up buying. That one probably sucks. 

4) My index finger. Pacifiers? You mean all the Soothies, Avent, Playtex things we tried? And then that weird European one that someone gave us as a gift (Natursutten? Natureosucking? Something like that?) that Ike loved for about 48 hours so we ordered a boatload more of 'em and then BAM I HATE THESE THINGS SO MUCH I MAKE ANGRY FACE IF I SENSE ONE WITHIN SIX INCHES OF MY FACE? 

Yeah. He likes my finger better. So if you come visit and find me awkwardly crouched next to the swing with one index finger crammed in my son's cryhole and the other attempting to type an email on my iPad, please don't judge. WE ARE JUST TRYING TO NOT LOSE OUR COLLECTIVE SHIT OVER HERE.

5) Cloth diapers. Speaking of shit...

I've lost track of how many emails and comments I've gotten demanding to know how the whole "cloth diapering a newborn" thing is going. I guess this is because y'all view me as either:

    5a) An inspirational, aspirational lifestyle guru whom you hope to emulate and/or model your entire life after, including your diapering choices, or...

    5b) A shining example of someone whom you are constantly surprised has managed to get through her day without dying and/or getting hopelessly lost in New Jersey on the way to the supermarket, thus epitomizing the idea that hell, if THAT MORON can cloth diaper, so can I. Like if Snooki took up canning, or something.

Anyway. I will be doing a whole THANG about the cloth diapering experience over at AlphaMom in a couple weeks, but suffice to say: On the one hand, it's really no big deal. It's an extra load of laundry every other day or so. We've had zero diaper rash and hot damn, they are cute as all hell.

HOWEVER, on the OTHER hand, it turns out I kind of fucking hate prefolds. I wanted so hard to love them, but I am totally over the leaks and the blowouts and nobody else in the house knowing how to fold them correctly except me, like come on. Have more or less switched to fitteds with covers and could not be happier. 

6) Oh hell, the baby is waking up, so never mind. Five things it is! One thing per week of his life! Let's just pretend I planned it that way, and that in this picture he is giving that little hint of a first-ever smile to HIS MOTHER, THE ONE WHO GAVE HIM LIFE AND TWO FULL POUNDS OF WEIGHT GAIN IN A MONTH VIA THE POWER OF HER BOOBS, instead of what he was actually looking at**.

*Nothing in this post was sponsored or donated by companies or PR firms or anything like that. There are a couple Amazon affiliate links, and I'm thinking of offering up my index finger for advertising space via tattoo. 

**The underside of our kitchen counter, for the record. Whatever.

It's Tradition, Dammit

Hey, so you know what happens when you get an email from your blog provider that reads, "The credit card on your account expired. Please provide a new one within X number of days or else you won't be able to post on your blog?"

And then you forget to provide a new card within X number of days? You totally are not able to post on your blog! Just like they said! I know, right? 

And then you're like, OKAY FINE, WHERE'S MY WALLET and you can't find your wallet and you're like, SCREW THIS, IT'S A HOLIDAY ANYWAY and you put it off again and  then you find your wallet the next day and finally update the card information...only to realize that this exact anecdote about mildly suspenseful credit card hijinks is the ONLY INTERESTING THING YOU HAVE TO TALK ABOUT ON YOUR BLOG. 

And then you're like, I REALLY SHOULD REEVALUATE MY LIFE. ALSO STOP USING CAPS LOCK SO MUCH.

But hey! I've been saying both of those things since I started this blog back in 2003. And hell, if I can't even be bothered to find my wallet within a perfectly reasonable, specified time frame, I'm probably not going to do anything that requires much more effort than that. Maybe by the time this current credit card expires. In 2015.

It's nice to have goals, I think.

***

We took the kids to see fireworks last night. But the actual fireworks were waaaay less exciting than the part where they got to sit on the roof of the car. 

Seriously. Experience of a lifetime. Next year we're staying right in our own damn driveway. I'll throw some glowsticks and shit from the shredder basket in the air or something.

Ike watched the fireworks from my lap in the front seat. And by "watched" I mean "completely ignored the copious amounts of commotion and BANG BANG BANG and WHOOOSHEEEEE noises and a bonus crazy lady wandering around the parking lot yelling at all the double- and triple-parked cars (of which we were one), all YOU CAN'T PARK THERE YOU CAN'T PARK THERE."

We ignored her too, actually. Bitch, we've been double-parking next to this same dumpster in the same back corner of this same semi-suspicious-looking gyro shop every Fourth of July for five years now. This dumpster and us go waaaaay back. We call her Smelly. Don't you be hassling us about Smelly, okay?

Anyway. Ike nursed and stared into space for awhile, and then Noah and Ezra got bored of the roof and decided they'd rather sit in the driver's seat and honk the horn, like, yeah, MORE NOISE IS WHAT WE NEED HERE.

Also: Hair. Has anybody seen all my hairs? I had some a month ago and now I haz no hairs. Woe.

And when the fireworks were over we came home and put everybody to bed and then I ate some Advil. The end. Happy Fourth!

Brotherly Warfare

Yeah, yeah, right. They're all cute and cherubic until one of them skips his nap and a full week of all-day summer camp starts to wear on the other one and there's an attempted drive-by head-smacking incident at the dinner table and the next thing you know the little one has both fists full of his older brother's hair and is kicking him repeatedly in the face and you're like, WHAT THE FUCK, GO TO BED and they whine and protest (because clearly, they were having SO MUCH FUN) but then they go up to their room and you hear...

THUMP

    THUMP

        THUMPTHUMP

            *waaaaaaaiiillllllll*

...and you run to the stairs and the little one is howling from halfway down (I ROLLED! I ROLLLLLED!) and the older one is standing at the top and you're like, EXPLAIN YOURSELVES, YE MONSTERS and he's all, WHAT UP I KICKED HIM DOWN THE STAIRS and no sooner than you get that crisis sorted out and scolded and life-lessoned do you realize that yet another full-contact wrestling match has erupted in the bathroom over a Lightning McQueen toothbrush (OF WHICH WE OWN TWO, BY THE WAY) and you start wondering if this is a situation that requires spankings or an exorcist or spankings from an exorcist but instead you just send everybody to bed with the gentle reminder that YOU FREAKING LOVE EACH OTHER, OKAY, AND THE BUNK BED IS NOT BEYOND THUNDERDOME.

In other words, Ike is totally my favorite, and the only one I would not sell.*

*Until about 4 am. Then we can talk.