Yeah, I would lose my shit after 3 or 4 days of this, but some people are really dull and complacent and could probably hack it.
With enough novels? I'd probably be good for a couple of weeks. I don't think I could knit in that position, but I could crochet no problem. And I have a remarkable capacity for napping.
1: But how would you lose your shit? Literally, I mean. Do they allow bathroom breaks?
I'm guessing you take a dump through a hole in the bed.
Was this with the (I'm guessing) SCH thing a couple years ago?
It sounds awful. No wonder it pays so well for a study!
3,4: Is it even possible to shit without bending in the middle at least a bit? I've been used a bedpan or anything, so I don't have direct experience.
6: I feel like when asking people to participate in a study like this they should include a detailed explanation of things like that. Also, bathing: how will it work? And will one be in a hospital gown the whole time?
Does somebody want to try it and report back? Probably best if it is somebody single who travels a great deal because this is the kind of thing that might be better to try alone in a hotel room.
I have had a couple of weeks in hospital where I wasn't up and about much. Toilet breaks a couple of times a day. That was hard, but at least I could sit upright, and occasionally stretch my legs for a couple of minutes. Lying with my head down would probably kill me. I struggle to breathe -- as in wake in agony with my chest on fire -- at night if my head isn't slightly elevated. I don't need tons of pillows, one is enough if it's fairly deep, but if I sleep on a very shallow pillow I wake choking. I had a sleep study done recently, so I don't suffer from any kind of apnoea or hypopnoea and all is healthy. But I do have dodgy sinuses, so I expect the postural shift is enough to block them.
Do you have to stay in bed, or do you actually have to be lying down? Because the former would be awful, but the latter sounds like absolute torture.
7,8: I can only assume the purpose of this experiment is to test the feasibility of long-range space travel under some degree of suspended animation, so one way or another, the dumps would have to be taken in bed, lying down, right?
I didn't think anything like suspended animation actually existed, unless you count drugged stupors. But if we sent people to Mars they'd probably have very limited mobility, and the trip would take several months.
Why would we do a stupid-ass thing like sending people to Mars?
11
7,8: I can only assume the purpose of this experiment is to test the feasibility of long-range space travel under some degree of suspended animation, so one way or another, the dumps would have to be taken in bed, lying down, right?
I think one of the purposes is to simulate prolonged weightlessness. According to one of the links subjects lose a few percent of bone density which they may or may not slowly regain afterwards.
Was this with the (I'm guessing) SCH thing a couple years ago?
If this is to me, yes - the blood clot.
(It makes for a very strange memory now, because I was far more relaxed, medically, and uber-confident that nothing bad would come to pass to the fetus. The whole idea that I was pregnant was largely intellectual in a lot of ways. And now when I connect three year old Hawaii to that casual attitude, it seems faintly terrifying.)
Ha. When one of those clots happened to me, I was basically panicked (but not put on bedrest, as the objine said it wouldn't matter to the outcome).
Oh yeah, I'm due the day after you.
Cala, congrats!
(This is the 1st I recall your saying it--though you wrote some things that made me wonder.)
Congratulations!! I've been highly suspicious!
How has the pregnancy been going?
Really well. So far it's very boring, which is just fine.
Ha! Like everyone else, I had been wondering, but then after 5 in this thread I decided you were definitely pregnant. Who else but a pregnant woman would know what a SCH is?
Congratulations!
I can't even remember why I was wondering, but I'd actually gotten to the point where I was unsure whether there had been an announcement i'd read and forgotten. I can't recall what the specific clues were, but something.
I wasn't meaning to be coy -- just couldn't work it in without stepping on someone else's announcement or sad news. Thanks! BABYSPLOSION.
Congrats!
(I too had wondered. -- Can we make a survey?)
Congratulations! I've been typically clueless.
Congratulations! I had not been wondering. Not sure if I just didn't read the relevant thread or was clueless.
Is this going to split along gender lines?
I wasn't meaning to be coy
Then I should have asked you outright! There were a bunch of times when I almost did, but I didn't want to be pushy.
Might. Like I said, I don't know if I did pick up particular clues -- it might just have been that there are enough babies arriving this spring that I've lost track of them all, and Cala's in the right demographic for another.
I, on the other hand, just got the last birth control I will every have to deal with in my life. Replacement IUD, removal and installation again not significantly painful, and that gets me ten years, which at my age comfortably covers any remnants of fertility I may be concealing about my person.
I love my kids, but rather than thinking about babies, I'm moving toward envying the couple across the hall who had middle-schoolers when we moved in, and now have two tall handsome clever accomplished polite helpful kind young men who come home a lot. I don't want babies, I want sane, charming adult relatives, and the next decade is about helping make that happen (while the kids do most of the work themselves).
28.2: nuh uh I totally wondered even before I talked to Blume about it.
What? I did.
It's true.
that there are enough babies arriving this spring
What are we up to, eleven?
There's Blume, avonattarGcM .srM, Heebie, someone else I'm pretty sure but who's not coming to me right now, and now Cala.
What are we up to, eleven?
We forgot to tell y'all we're having sextuplets.
I knew 35, but 36 and 37? They're both having second kids?
Sorry, I thought it was just babies total. I'll be off soon.
We forgot to tell y'all we're having sextuplets
How you conceived your tuplets is none of our business.
YAY BABYPLOSION
I knew 35, but 36 and 37? They're both having second kids?
Not us!
Oh, Jane and the Katherine-let aren't even babies any more. They're both in the toddler/preschooler category by now. Anyone walking doesn't count.
If we were having sextuplets, I bet even more people would ask us if we'd been trying for a long time (because they'd assume interventions). I cannot believe the number of people who have asked that.
31: I've been wondering for the past few months.
I cannot believe the number of people who have asked that.
I am going to try to be super charitable and imagine that everyone asking that is doing so because they have had that experience themselves and are looking for company. And even so: dude.
SP's and Nathan's are both born, but not yet walking.
Ditto PGD's, I believe - little and not really moving around yet.
I vaguely have the impression that Katherine might be having a second kid? I may have invented that wholesale.
I am also hyperaware of Anon For This One and other readers who are trying and not pregnant, or finding this whole topic fraught for other reasons, and wish for everyone's situations to resolve happily.
Since I'm around only sporadically, allow me to use this opportunity to collectively congratulate all 82 of you with your impending reproductions. I'll be making a single donation in their collective honor to The Human Fund.
I cannot believe the number of people who have asked that.
Tell Sifu to stop dying his hair white.
Congratulations to Cala and anyone I missed.
I'll be making a single donation in their collective honor to The Human Fund.
IYKWIM.
43: I've been asked that a bit, too. I think it's the doctorate.
49: Indeed.
Yay, Cala! I was both suspicious and female. We have decided to open our home for potential heading-toward-adoption placement of a boy age 2-4 or so, but if that doesn't happen within the year we'll be finished. Lee is absolutely set on not taking Mara's siblings now that it has become something slightly more than theoretical, though they are currently safe with their great-aunt. Not the same as pregnant, but I'm throwing it out there since the conversation is happening.
57: Thanks, it kind of is! It's also increasingly likely that we (I) will be adopting Nia, though I don't know whether her case goal will change next month or not until late spring/early summer.
Lee just realized that a lot of what was holding her up about some of these other options was that she'd always wanted to have a boy. I hadn't realized how much it meant to her, but I could really see a younger boy working well with both girls without threatening their place in the family. We'll see. There's no way to know whether we'll end up matched with someone who works and with two other kids, we have to be very mindful about what we take on. But still, it feels really good to have a plan together.
Thus suitably bedrest I exited my apartments and headed out to dine.
I see I'm not the only one who keeps reading the post title as in 59.
When I returned I was disappointed to find that my sheets etc. had been torn up and my bedraggled.
So I guess I'm the only person who read the O/P and was like "where do I sign up?!"
I had missed Gabardine Bathyscape, not to mention Cala. Congrats!
I'm worried that hanging out here will make me pregnant too.
So I guess I'm the only person who read the O/P and was like "where do I sign up?!"
No, I did, too. 4x my current income, doing what I do whenever I'm not forced to do something else? Paradise!
people would ask us if we'd been trying for a long time
"At first we kept going for eye babies, but turns out this way was more fun and more productive."
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I am at a loss to describe this fully. Mammonite devotionalism?
So which of the Unfogged impending boom is due first? Congratulations to all those not hitherto congratulated.
Re: trying a long time
No-one has asked us, and I supposed they might (in a roundabout way) as we've been married 10 years. But no.
So which of the Unfogged impending boom is due first?
k-sky, maybe? GB?
For the moment I think we're last.
So, when do we start the seasteading project?
We're about 8 or 9 weeks away. It's starting to feel suddenly very soon.
71: oh, yeah, could be you guys, at that.
Congrats Cala!
I'd only started wondering a few days ago, let the record show.
I'd only started wondering a few days ago, let the record show.
Just missed your period or something?
75: I did, but then I remembered.
That link worked fine on preview. Second try.
No, that's your period. This is fake accent's.
British pregnant women miss their full stops.
We're in the t minus 8 or 9 week zone as well. I think (hope, pray) towards the 9 side, but it's all applesauce at the end there.
it's all applesauce at the end there.
Geez, I really should be reading these books more carefully.
Seriously. My childbirth class didn't mention applesauce.
Blume says no applesauce in the book she's reading, yet.
Well, if she's still reading it she presumably hasn't gotten to the end yet.
Our kid was 4 weeks early, so the advice I'm giving everyone these days is to not make the mistake we did and have your hospital bags packed, birth plan written, name chosen, etc. at least that far in advance. Oh, and pack more socks than you think you need.
Changing your socks in the middle of a hike is so luxurious.
I don't know what you think is in a birth plan.
87: Well right; the applesauce will go bad.
"Bring extra socks" has been surprisingly close to universally helpful advice in my experience.
Until you're trying to get pregnant.
That assumes nobody involved has either really cold feet or a sock fetish.
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I was sitting here being really confused about why I feel so drunk after one cocktail and one beer when I suddenly remembered the sake I had before the cocktail.
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Is this your way of announcing that you're pregnant too?
Given the friend I was meeting tonight, I guess I should just feel lucky we didn't end up causing an international incident by going to the wrong bar.
Cala, congratulations! And 49 gets it exactly right.
We're at t - 6 weeks, and this weekend is the ritual Painting of the Nursery and Assembly of Ikea* Furniture. I really hope this kid stays put for the time being, though. Kitchen is mid-renovation, name is totally up in the air, manuscript of doom is still not submitted.
* I don't think I've seen such a high density of pregnant women outside of prenatal yoga class. Madness.
I was trying to find the appropriate comment to link under "international incident" but I'm not getting any closer than this which is too long after the fact.
Oh right, here and here. Fun times, those were.
Did anything ever come of all that? I forget if there were any follow-up comments.
It may have prevented the local person from getting a faculty job in his home country, which was probably the goal from the outset, as someone had a grudge against him.
For the rest of us, a few days of confusion and weirdness, a pretty good story to tell, and some uncertainty about whether we'll ever be invited back to a conference in the country in question. (Also, the pleasure of hearing that when the local conference organizers complained, in an attempt to damage our career prospects, about our activities to their international co-organizers, including my former thesis advisor, the co-organizers cracked up laughing.)
Lemme know if you want to meet up at all while you're in town, essear. I mean, I assume you're busy with the stuff that brought you here, but if not.
re: 99
Yeah, we moved to a new house just before Christmas, so the 'baby room' is currently half full of boxes, a laundry rack, and my guitar 'stuff'. The ritual Ikea visit* (and the 'doing the rounds of friends cadging stuff') is next week.
* for baby stuff, given all the other furniture we've had to buy, it already seems like I'm never out of Ikea.
My least-intrusive piece of advice is to register at Target, because then:
1. you can easily exchange a bunch of stuff you don't want, and
2. people can easily give you gift cards
3. so it doesn't matter if you don't have any items picked out, or virtually none.
"Bring extra socks" has been surprisingly close to universally helpful advice in my experience.
- Until you're trying to get pregnant.
In some cases, it could be downright counterproductive.
Bedrest, bothered and bewildered...
Kitchen is mid-renovation
Oooh. I hope to see pictures when it's done.
Bedrest, bewildered, be...wovely?
Bemildred was always my favorite, I confess.
My baby-shopping advice is wait. What you need for the first couple of weeks is pretty minimal. Beyond the blindingly obvious -- crib/cradle, car seat, and so on -- anything that you're likely to need quickly is available at the nearest drugstore. Other than that, wait until you find yourself actually needing something before you buy it.
116 -- concur. Baby industry surpasses all in guilt and fear inducing needless.
It's insane the amount of things one is expected to buy. My only advice that I plan to pass on so far: don't register for clothes. You get them anyway. By the boxful.
We're only planning to get the first eight halloween costumes in advance.
But it's the "blindingly obvious" things that I have no idea about. We're inheriting a car seat, so that is one less thing to think about, but the entire realms of strollers and of sleeping contraptions seem impenetrable to me. For the stroller we'll probably see if there's one that you can attach the car seat to, and if so that will be an easy decision. And for sleeping you get a crib, obviously (and the cheap ones at Ikea seem fine), but I am completely flummoxed by this whole co-sleeper / bassinet / thing-to-put-your-kid-to-sleep-in-near-your-bed world.
And handmedowns from friends are plentiful -- everyone ends up with lots of clothes that hardly got worn, and they hand them around. But seriously, a new baby needs diapers, whatever feeding apparatus suits your plans, something warm to sleep in, and a towel to pad an empty dresser drawer with. Everything else is extra.
People have empty dresser drawers?
121 crossed with 120. For 120, the answer is gossip and mooch. If you know anyone with a year-old baby, they just had something of the sort, and they'll tell you what they liked, and there's a fair shot they'll want to get rid of theirs and will give it to you. (My kids started out life in a cradle handmade by their paternal grandfather from cherry wood and the hinges from the trunk of an old Chevy as the pivots so you could rock it. But there are other, simpler solutions.)
1 car seat, one stroller (with no need at all to get a super high end stroller), 1 backpack/Bjorn/sling thing, one co-sleeper or bassinet. You won't need a crib for a while and and Ikea is fine. Try to get a bunch of used clothes. Diapers. 1 swaddling blanket, but you can steal those from the hospital. I think that's it.
Sleeping for the first few months - you can honestly put the kid on the floor. Or in a drawer on the floor. LB is totally right. If co-sleeping works for you, or if it doesn't, or if you'd rather have a crib that's easily set up in several rooms - all that will be easier to determine after 6 weeks.
Not that it's not totally fine to get a cute crib and set up a nursery. But it doesn't need to happen in order to be a sound parent on day 1.
Pwned, but halford couldn't be wronged about the swaddling blanket. I have strong opinions about those.
126: stealing them is destroying the lifeblood of America's creative hospital swaddling blanket industry?
Strollers are an excellent candidate for waiting and trying them out with your actual baby. (I strongly dislike the ones you attach the car seat to, some people love them, at first they way basically nothing and you can carry them around anyway, why not wait and see?)
We got a crib ahead of time and used it approximately never. You probably do want something for a bassinet kind of thing for at first -- but we didn't have one and used an actual dresser drawer for the first couple of nights, then ordered something from Amazon that seemed like what we wanted. If you have a hospital birth, you'll have a couple of days with the baby where you aren't at home and can form notions and place orders (or wait).
I will tout slings as awesome and convenient, but someone should google because I think they're now disapproved of for newborns because of maybe possible smothering. But carriers are great if you want to get something done without hassling with a stroller.
I dunno, that swaddling-shushing thing was pretty critical for sanity preservation a few months there. Results not guaranteed.
Yes, and naps on the floor. Yay floor! We had a bunch of swaddling blankets ahead of time that didn't work for us, then ordered something we wound up loving a few days after we brought her home. Carriers are good too almost right away, but if you have a nice baby-stuff store near you, again it is easiest to go choose one in person with an actual baby you can try it out with.
Amazon Prime and nearby baby-stuff stores rock.
And you do want a bunch of swaddling blankets, but you steal the first bunch from the hospital like Halford says, and then you can get more as you notice you need them. I think you're going to want a million of them, but Sally was a constant fountain of spit-up (she wasn't distressed about it, just had a policy of retaining no more than 90% of any feeding) so I spent a lot of time swapping out dirty blankets.
Swaddling was very good for us also, but having only one is absurd. They get shit and piss on them all the time.
pwned, but I added more excretions.
You have to swap out dirty blankets? Fuuuck.
We're huge on swaddling. I just dispute that the hospital swaddling blankets are adequate. Awesome swaddling blankets are my go-to baby gift, along with the happiest baby video (and not the book, which doesn't count).
I think we got four copies of the happiest baby video.
I guess that was overkill. But one just doesn't seem like enough.
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I am at a cafe advertising a special called "lamb confit with orzo" and consisting as to the meaty part, per the description, of "slow braised lamb". Which is it, then? And close that compound, you curs; I'm sure the lamb was very bright.
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Since we're talking babywearing, the Ergo was great for Mara when she was 3, but I've seriously surpassed the weight and size limit now but sometimes still wear her around the house becuase it resets her sensory processing problems or whatever they are like nothing else. GHas anyone used the Ergo for kids up to 100 lbs? Would it be idiotic for me to get one, especially given that the parent with scoliosis and chronic back pain is the one who does the child-wearing? I should probably just start haunting Craigslist. I think it would be great for her, but then I'd have to carry Nia too, for fairness, and i guess it might be good for her emotional state as well. She's only 55 lbs or so to Mara's 50, so it really doesn't make a difference.
Oh, you know what was super useful for us for prepping ahead? Having a nice unified list of the versions of things people had said they'd liked, so when a need arose (like "god, I wish I had a place to put this baby so she could see me from across the room" or "god, I wish I had a better way of keeping track of when I last nursed her" or "god, I am terrible at swaddling with any of these allegedly great-for-swaddling rectangles") we had a good starting point.
For that matter, all braising is slow.
142: The quick ones are harder to catch.
Yeah you def need multiple swaddling blankets, and rfts is totally right about waiting for a stroller. Also -- personal peeve -- those super fancy strollers that bring the baby way up high are just stupid.
What you definitely don't need: a fancy "changing table," a "glider chair," new clothes.
I guess baby monitors are useful enough that you might get them early.
Re: 142, they just mean poached rather than braised. It's lamb en confit, same old same old.
I recommend getting the infant Tylenol right away. Not that you'll likely need it in the first weeks, but having it now means you won't have to send someone out in the middle of the night searching for the 24-hour Walgreens whenever that first fever unexpectedly strikes.
A pacifier or two is good unless you plan to/are content to let the kid latch on and stay there for a few months.
A & D ointment is probably also not that important right away, but was definitely something I was grateful to have on hand when Rory started getting butt/drool rashes. Also, first aid tape to cover metal snaps with if your little one should wind up allergic to the snaps.
Stock the freezer with easy to reheat meals for yourselves for the first week or so. Especially if/when mom is going to be home alone while dad is at work. Staying nourished is important, but sooo much work.
at first they way basically nothing and you can carry them around anyway, why not wait and see?)
But they don't come with convenient handles. And car seats are just the beginning. I see wide application for the idea of turning babies into little modules that you can plug into various appliances.
But they don't come with convenient handles.
None of 'em?
You'll want a few bags of the right kind of yarn, and some dried noodles of assorted colors, and you should really include that in your hospital bag.
152: No, but there are other ways to transport them.
Oh, and one of those little bouncer seat things. Bringing that into the bathroom was the only way I ever got a shower.
149: So the lamb confit, described as braised, is neither confit (as that term is usually understood when postfixed unprepositionally after the name of some kind of animal or animal part), nor braised, but rather poached. Check.
I actually doubt very much that they are serving poached lamb.
In all seriousness, items that made us very very happy:
1. vibrating bouncer seat
2. snot-sucker
So, just to recap, don't buy anything beforehand except snot-sucker, vibrating bouncer seat, yarn, noodles, frozen meals, infant tylenol, pacifiers, ointment, first aid tape, swaddling blankets, baby monitor, happiest baby video (x2, at least), bassinet, sling, car seat, stroller, bassinet, maybe crib, diapers?
Doesn't it feel nice to have a finite list?
It's amazing any babies at all survived on the veldt.
156: no, it is not quite a braise or poach but it is close, they ate just trying to expand on the name in a way that would be helpful if you don't understand what confit means in the context.
You can't do a canonical confit with meats like lamb, but you do essentially poach it in duck or goose fat with a similar approach.
Ink of it as a classic French naming along the lines of chicken fried steak, and if you really must be pedantic, just stick with the name.
So, just to recap, don't buy anything beforehand except
Car seat and infant tylenol, and I guess a couple of blankets and onesies if no one gets you any (ha ha ha not likely). And an Amazon Prime account, and a willingness to take things home from the hospital if they seem useful. Says me!
And diapers. And this paddle game.
In all seriousness, items that made us very very happy:
1. vibrating bouncer seat
2. snot-sucker
Yes! Only the snot-sucker was #1 in our household.
We got diapers ahead, but they were the wrong size. Everyone told us no babies fit into newborn diapers, but ho ho, the joke was on us. Having wipes ahead was good, though; they don't come in sizes.
What you definitely don't need: a fancy "changing table," a "glider chair," new clothes.
We will probably get some sort of "changing table" just because we will also need shelves on which to store stuff. Wasn't planning to get a glider in any event, but Mrs. Emdash recently pointed out to us that the stilted rocking-type motion that we do in our not-broken-in-enough Poäng (it leans forward too much) is exactly the kind of thing that soothes babies. Clothes we already have a few boxes of.
You guys are encouraging Tweety to get ideas about how he's not actually going to clear all his synths out of what is to be the baby's room. "I'll just do that at some later point!"
You guys are encouraging Tweety to get ideas about how he's not actually going to clear all his synths out of what is to be the baby's room. "I'll just do that at some later point!"
Oh, clearing stuff out of anywhere is a definite do before. Do befooooooore. I am speaking as someone who moved across the country when her baby was 4 months old, so we had to to rouse ourselves to do quite a lot of clearing-type stuff with an infant. Urgh!
I love the implication that Tweety has an entire room full of old synthesizers.
I mean, it also has bicycles in it. It also has me in it, at the moment.
Maybe not an entire room. Part of the room is taken up by random arduinos and LEDs and such.
And some of them are fairly new synthesizers.
No hats!
Should I move the swords before the baby gets here?
Eh, you probably don't have to worry about that until the baby has the strength and motor control to unsheathe them.
Assuming they are stored sheathed.
That's true. Perhaps Sifu has sworn a great vow never to sheathe his swords until he has slain all his enemies.
One of them doesn't have a sheath. That's the sharp one, too. I'll move them eventually.
Vibrating bouncer seat, absolutely. It's like infant propofol.
Just put the sword in a stone. Either the baby doesn't pull it out and is safe, or does and will grow up to be king of England.
But sheathed, unless you want another baby.
Although I never had a vibrating bouncer seat, and never missed it -- different babies like different things. Pacifiers, too -- some yes (Newt. Loved his.) some no (Sally -- wouldn't look at it. It was human flesh or nothing. Before she learned to get her thumb in her mouth, I spent a long time soothing her with a pinkie finger.)
But none of this is stuff you need to have when you get home from this hospital -- you can acquire it at your leisure, as you miss each thing. Real immediate needs are very few.
Also the vibrating seat is totally worth trying but in our case it didn't work at all, sadly.
you can acquire it at your leisure, as you miss each thing.
Man, post-childbirth nothing at all felt leisurely for months and months. I will concede this is probably because I wasn't very good at parenting a newborn.
I think having abysmally low standards for what I expect of myself helped me a lot.
187: I was very proud of myself the days that I bathed. High standards have never really been my problem...
Not if you haven't been already.
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Adding a small quantity of walnut oil to one's hot chocolate has pleasurable consequences for the drinker of said hot chocolate.
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It would be simpler and more accurate to say that drinking hot chocolate to which a small quantity of walnut oil has been added is pleasurable.
Also, you don't necessarily know what doesn't work for your baby until you buy it and never ever use it. Even if you get it post-baby-arrival.
And when things are going horrible and you can't soothe your little monster, it's hard to have the wherewithal to do much problem-solving and shopping.
So it's a little glib to say that new parents only need three items. Veteran parents can say in hindsight which three items were all they needed, but I wouldn't have found that very helpful ahead of time.
Also, you don't necessarily know what works for your baby until you buy it
I think most of the unfogged babysplosion people are growing their own.
We were thinking it might be nice to spike the baby with walnut oil.
I think most of the unfogged babysplosion people are growing their own.
But soon all comment threads here will be about babies all the time, so the rest of us might have to run out and buy one just to keep up.
We were thinking it might be nice to spike the baby with walnut oil.
A bit of clove oil in the milk will ensure that it's nice and relaxed when ikejime time comes.
I support the likely futile efforts of the anti-baby caucus.
I see that it is no longer possible to purchase a Beards Over Babies shirt.
Yeah, I think they discontinued that one a while ago. The one in 199 is available for babies themselves, though.
194: All I meant is that there's nothing much where if you find yourself at home, with a baby, without [X], you're screwed, and you're an idiot for not having prepared better. If stocking up beforehand floats your boat because you can't face the idea of acquiring stuff with a baby, then it's a good idea for you. But if you run out of time, and suddenly the baby's here but the Jolly Jumper isn't and you don't have a snotsucker yet, you and the baby will both be fine.
True Fact: I emailed Ryan North to ask if he could get the "I'm Made of Meat" shirt made as a baby onesie so one could be sent to Apo-who-calls-all-infants-"pork chop", and he said he'd look into it but nothing came of it.
In other baby-related news, it seems sex doesn't expedite labor.
I would bet good money that if you took a random population of women and half of them had unprotected sex regularly for a month and half did not have sex at all for that month, you would find that many more of the half that had sex went into labor about nine months later than the half that did not have sex at all.
Sounds like expedition to me. Who knows how long the sex-no-havers will have to wait.
206: many more of the half that had sex went into labor about nine months later than the half that did not have sex at all
So the sex quite dramatically delays labor! Fascinating stuff.
144: do you still have the said list, and would you send it to us if so? I promise kitchen renovation pics in return, always assuming the contractor gets over the fever that has kept him away for the last week.
203: Sure, there's no reason to beat yourself up for not having a warehouse of items when the baby arrives. And veteran parents tend to err on the side of creating overwhelming lists of must-haves for soon-to-be parents, so it's nice to have some counter-voices to balance that out.
Whenever people have a rough patch, they tend to get super dogmatic about what they needed to survive. That's certainly how I feel about swaddling and the how-to-soothe-your-baby video. But given that it is often a really rough patch, there's no reason for parents not to arm themselves ahead of time with a vibrating chair and pacifiers.
It was long long ago, obviously, but the jogging stroller we had for the second kid got a whole lot of use. (Pic in pool). They must still make something like this, right?
For soothing a fussy baby, it's hard to beat a bottle of Bushmills 10 (it only takes a shot or two, but who wants to take chances) and comfortable shoes, all the better to rock and sing.
And now to switch camps: a jogging stroller is a perfect example of an item not to worry about acquiring by birth-time, because the baby doesn't have the muscle tone to sit in there while you're jogging for a good 5 months.
(212 -- We didn't, and don't, actually jog. But the thing moved very well on varied surfaces, and the wheels popped off like bike wheels.)
214 -- ours was sling like. But certainly you don't have to buy such a thing ahead of time. They're expensive, though, so it's good to get that out there while other people are buying stuff.
What's the narrowest stroller you can get?
In fairness to babies, 5 months is a long jog.
What's the narrowest stroller you can get?
I think it mostly comes down to the handlebar width.
If you're going to go with a narrow stroller, I think having no brakes is kind of de rigueur.
I think it mostly comes down to the handlebar width.
It is also limited by baby width, I should think.
Hey, did someone say "bike thread"?!
Please. Get a fixie stroller or you're barely living.
If you go without brakes I'd hope it's a fixie.
Hey, did someone say "bike thread"?!
Hey what who what now
144: do you still have the said list, and would you send it to us if so?
It's in the form of a few really expansive emails from friends, plus a .txt file of little notes I'm sure I still have somewhere -- should be easy to compile and send your way!
221, 222: then you'll be strollin'
I actually figured it would be much easier than all that to find stroller tricks on the internet.
226: Try stroller at skateboard park. Fail. Non-fail. And there's a longish one.
On the "how much stuff to buy in advance of having a baby," I think it boils down to your answers to three questions:
1. Which do I find more stressful, owning unnecessary stuff or having to shop for something at the last minute?
2. What is more financially burdensome for me, paying for something I never use, or having to pay convenience pricing for something bought at the last minute?
3. Are there people in my life who, if not pointed in the direction of specific items via a registry, are going to get me useless and/or annoying stuff that I will hate owning?
If there are specific circumstances that affect factors #1 and 2 above -- such as your spouse being deployed two weeks after the due date, or your beloved parent coming to town for a month to help out when the baby is born -- those may also affect your decisions.
As with anything in life, I think it's somewhat hard to know which items you'll find indispensable until you're actually in the situation.
Except for point 3. The answer to 3 is comment 110.
No, but I acquired 5 nieces and nephews in 5 years. I spend a LOT of time around people with young kids.
230.3 is entirely compatible with 110. I would even say it complements it.
Which is not to say that the conclusions in 230 are terribly different than what we had come to independently. It was interesting to hear from people with actual experience, though.
There's no need to delay on either the whiskey or the comfortable shoes.
As an experienced auntie/godmother/birth partner, I highly recommend the Once Upon A Child chain for secondhand baby stuff. Also, pacifier clips.
You are going to buy things you won't use and you are going to run out and buy things because you need them immediately. Both of these things will happen. A lot. Om shanti.
239: we already have a roll of strapping tape; those seem like overkill.
Also, to reiterate, Amazon Prime/Amazon Subscribe and Save/ and the atrociously named Amazon Mom.
You are going to buy things you won't use and you are going to run out and buy things because you need them immediately. Both of these things will happen. A lot. Om shanti.
Fact.
One thing that we found very useful as new parents was a Costco-size pack of cotton shop towels, 50 or so. Wipe up anything around the house! Impromptu burp cloth, or changing pad, or anywhere else an absorbent but nearly-disposable bit of fabric is useful! And they're pretty cheap.
Swaddling and a bouncer seat worked well for us, but it's definitely YMMV territory. Having a yoga ball was also very helpful, and made bouncing to sleep possible in the first few weeks.
Sleep-wise, it's true that the crib is a little silly in the early days, though we did get some use out of it as just another place to safely put him down. A Pack-And-Play kind of device is also good for that. Our main sleeping solution until about month 5 was an Arm's Reach co-sleeper.
Meta-advice: Find the local online hangout for parents. Nearly everything can be had second-hand, and it's good to develop a sense of what's out there and how quickly they move.
Oh hai. For clothes, at the baby's birth we ended up with about 50 gift onesies and 2 gift pairs of pants. This trend continued for months. I'd say: try to have at least three separate garments that will cover the lower body before the baby is born. Three of everything that gets vomit or shit on it was our minimum.
The velcro-closing swaddle blankets get outgrown and the velcro wears out. Expect to buy new ones once or twice before you stop swaddling (whenever kid learns to avidly roll over).
We had no nursery until she was 10 months old or so -- a shared room with parents until 5 months, then a crib in a storage-type room. We spent all our time in the living room or outside. Tweety, seriously, if you're not in earthquake country your gear is probably ok in there for a while, and some of the synths may turn out to be amazing baby-distracter/soothers.
Slings are vital. For strollers, good smooth handling is really helpful. We used the mini co-sleeper, happily.
Yay floor!
My brother-in-law is Japanese, and he and my sister got us a special futon like the one their son uses. He's never had a crib - they put him to bed on the floor and just close the door to his room. His room is toddler-safe, and when he wakes up he just hangs out in his room.
Not sure how it's going to work out with us, since our baby won't be as Japanese. But who knows. We are on the verge of acquiring a house with one bedroom, so we'll be able to close the door at least. And keep the cats off the futon.
Nothing will ever heal the psychic wound I suffered when I learned that the Maclaren which makes push-chairs (http://www.shopmaclarenbaby.com/) is entirely separate from the McLaren which makes Formula One cars (http://www.mclaren.com/) and neither of them have anything to do with Malcolm McLaren, the godfather of punk.
247: yes, the barely street legal "Buffalo Baby" model fully-carbon fiber stroller will forever remain a beautiful dream.
Both Maclaren and Malcolm McLaren, though, have business relationships with people who scream incomprehensibly, vomit, soil themselves and are generally so unpleasant that people will pay other people to make them go away.
generally so unpleasant that people will pay other people to make them go away.
Ever so slightly unfair to Lewis Hamilton.
249: it takes a special breed to be an F1 driver.
Fuck. Teach me to make jokes about sports we don't have in this country.
We will probably have most of the furniture before the kid arrives, largely because I enjoy bargain hunting and will probably source most of it secondhand.
I hadn't thought of the Poang chair, but that's a great alternative to a glider/rocker, which to me seem to be ways to crunch tiny fingers.
I can't picture a Poang, but think about the arms -- you want them either padded, or arranged such that you have a lot of elbow room, if you're going to be sitting in there with a baby a lot. Half the chairs in our place were pretty useless for sitting with a baby, because they had hard arms in the right spot for the kid to clunk their head against.
Yeah, we got another Ikea springy chair, not unlike the Poang [can't be arsed to look up the model right now[. It's sort of posh-Poang. It was bought as a 'chair that Matt can sit in listening to music because Mrs M would quite like him to put the speakers in a bloody stupid place'* but it occurred to us too late that it's totally useless for any baby-coddling duties as the arms are pretty much perfectly placed to obstruct or bash against the occupant or baby.
* not that I have strong opinions about speaker placement or anything, oh no.
Mmm. I've been arguing 'no need to do elaborate shopping or prep', but one thing that would be nice to think about is, for anyone who's planning to breastfeed, having a well-placed spot for it. Comfortable chair with good back support and non-bashy arms, end table or something within easy reach so you have a place to put your drink, and preferably where you can see the TV or your passive entertainment of choice.
Yeah, we are off to Ikea next week to get a cot, a little chest of drawers/changing table,* and a chair for exactly that.
* although I am on team 'we can just do that on the floor'.
'we can just do that on the floor'
Weren't you complaining about various knee or hip pains? Really, not having to change diapers on the floor is a big convenience.
re: 258
It's likely that the changing table is going to up several flights of stairs from the rooms where we spend 90% of our day. So, while it might be handy at night, it's not going to save my knees any effort. Anyway, getting up and down from the floor is fine most of the time.
We had a changing space on both lived-in floors when he was really little. They excrete pretty much continually at the start.
I expect we'll end up doing the same. CHanging table proper upstairs, some sort of more portable makeshift thing down.
I'm not entirely unused to this, as I've lived in a house with a newborn before, and at that time we just had a portable changing mat. But I expect it's all going to be different as it's mine/ours.
I get that one won't die without a changing table, but I'm on Team Buy One So Shiv Will Feel Comfortable While Changing Diapers.
256: Looking around my place, I don't think we have a single comfy chair for lounging, as our old Poang somehow ended up as the lounge-in-the-garage/workshop chair. The Poang doesn't have padded arms, but I think it's wide enough for me to avoid conking the kid's head all the time.
Then we had to deal with diaper rash that required using a hair dryer (blowing unheated air) to dry the butt before re-diapering. My wife was really picky that I only use the specified butt drying hair dryer for diaper changing even though it was downstairs, her hair dryer was right there, and it wasn't as if I ever got excrement on the dryer.
some sort of more portable makeshift thing down.
From my recollection of my sister's infancy (12 years younger than me), that depends on how portable you consider your dining room table.
Random bits of diaper-rash advice, while I'm having flashbacks: what we were advised to do for Newt was clean him with damp cotton-balls rather than wipes (this isn't generally for all babies, just a response to rashiness) (and worked at the newborn level, rather than for an older/larger kid). Worked like a charm.
265: We used damp, square cotton pads. More surface area than cotton balls.
Actually, us too, but 'cotton balls' is what the doctor said, and it seemed easier to explain. Cotton pads you'd use to remove makeup, anyway.
We just bought these and changed him on the bed or the couch or the floor, etc.
re: 265
Standard advice in the recent books and NHS websites I've seen is to use only cotton wool/balls and water for the first while [weeks/months]. No wipes, no creams. Apparently avoiding anything other than water at first is meant to be a 'thing' now. Preventing rashes, eczema and so on.
Huh, who knew. Sally tolerated wipes fine from day one (and I'm pretty sure we didn't get any contrary advice), but it certainly made a big difference to Newt's comfort level.
Speaking of kids, I'm stay-at-home-daddy this month, and man, I am not very good at keeping a six-month-old entertained. I mean, he seems happy enough to watch me, or to roll around on the floor a little, but I feel like I should be more.... intentionally educational, or something.
We were told not to use wipes at the start, but I think we used diaper cream from the beginning.
man, I am not very good at keeping a six-month-old entertained. I mean, he seems happy enough to watch me, or to roll around on the floor a little
You are all set. You know what are great things to do to entertain a six month old?
- do household chores while he watches
- take photos of the child in question around the house
- strap child to your torso and go out somewhere you want to go anyway.
And that is why six months is such a pleasant age. Old enough to look at stuff and not cry all the time, young enough to seriously not have anything you ought to be doing specially for their sake.
re: 275
I can't watch those Andrex adverts for the 'Puppies on a Roll' without twatting on about Rabelais. I think my wife is probably sick of it.
strap child to your torso and go out somewhere you want to go anyway.
Non-smoking strip club with a dad/baby hour where they play Dan Zanes and Laurie Berkner.
Strapping him to me and going out I'd indeed on the agenda, I just have to plot my feeding strategy a bit.
(Aside from basic care and feeding, obviously.)
Other good activities:
- "OM NOM NOM NOM WHAT A PRETTY BABY YOU ARE OH YOUR TUMMY IS SO SOFT LET ME NUZZLE IT."
- "WHAT A PRETTY BABY YOU ARE LET ME NUZZLE YOUR NECK."
- "Here, you play with this crinkly empty pack of wipes while I read something."
Haven't read through everything, but we're going on 3+ years of diapers without a changing table, and it's fine. We have a little basket of supplies, and a plastic folding mat, and just sit down on the ground wherever.
I mean, he seems happy enough to watch me, or to roll around on the floor a little, but I feel like I should be more.... intentionally educational, or something.
This is largely what made staying home with Hawaii so awful: I felt like I was supposed to be interacting with her in some way, as opposed to just having her accompany me on my life. It was super awful and I felt horribly guilty or horribly bored. Also, she got bored being in the house and I found it exhausting to get out of the house, and we had a record-breaking number of days over 100° that summer which made it really hard to figure out where exactly to go to get out of the house.
With Hokey Pokey both of us were more complacent and it was lovely.
Hanging around with other parents/caregivers with babies of similar ages is a time-honored tradition, if you have any available. You watch the babies with one eye, and socialize with the rest of your attention. Trade off flattering and cuddling the other kids, drink some coffee, eat some muffins, and you're good to go. This works with other adults who have time to hang out and don't have babies, too, if they'll tolerate sitting around with you.
True: I didn't know any compatible mothers of babies then. Only mothers of slightly older kids or mothers I disliked.
Also I don't like a lot of people, so it was mostly my own fault.
I'm remembering now that my doula actually had a baby group meeting at a coffee shop for a time that summer, which in hindsight is incredibly lovely of her. But I detested the baby conversation and dreaded going.
I was really not looking forward to the "forced socializing with other parents" thing but then we went to this open house for this daycare co-op and it turns out that we might end up having a fair amount in common with people our age who live in our town and oh great now we're a type.
My neighborhood had a pretty good pack of parents/caregivers. I didn't get into it when I was maternity leave with Sally -- I was pretty happy bumbling around on my own for the first six months. But Nancy, our babysitter, got hooked into the network ASAP, and so when I was home with Newt I had a crowd of Sally-age toddlers and their parents to hang with at the playground or various apartments during bad weather. Not all of them were people I was naturally going to be best friends with, but it's nice for the babies, once they're old enough to notice each other, to have a mob of little ones to run around with.
287: Yeah, it's really not that bad. Again, you're not going to be best friends with all of them, but it's more amusing than staring at your living room walls while the baby complains, and your odds of hitting actually compatible people aren't terrible.
but it's nice for the babies, once they're old enough to notice each other, to have a mob of little ones to run around with.
They can hardly move a sword or a synthesizer by themselves at that age.
I find it much harder to get along with other parents than other people in general. Friends that I like a lot start to drive me batty when we've got our kids around and I'm watching them parent. Not all of my friends, but a lot of people.
Mostly there's a sort of sappy over-solicitousness and over-protectiveness that irritates the living fuck out of me. (I actually believe that this would largely not be present among Unfogged parents because of a shared sense of "let the chips fall" or let life unfold, or whatever.)
The 'forced socializing with other parents' thing, and how people react to it negatively, is funny. I generally hate humanity as a whole with a passion -- show me a social event and I'll wish I hadn't gone. But having an infant/preverbal kid around seemed to me to be one time when having other adults around being friendly was a huge plus even if they were objectively boring and annoying as all fuck in isolation: one adult alone with one baby can be a difficult, boring, stressful situation (isn't necessarily, but can be). Two adults with two babies, or n adults with n babies generally, is way, way, way easier.
It's not that they're your best friends because you're parents together so you have so much in common, it's that it's a circumstance where hanging out together is mutually quite useful.
292 crossed with 291. This may be something where my natural misanthropy serves me well --everyone annoys me bitterly all the time, so it's not really worse when I'm looking at them parenting.
oh great now we're a type
Babies are so SWPL.
292 has me convinced I would be a great parent of an infant. There is nothing I do better than being alone, tolerating non-sentient creatures.
I find that hanging out with parents here -- some parents, like folks I run into at the playground -- involves me in all sorts of gender stuff that drives me batty. The most common current version of that is O's long, curly hair. Super common baseline assumption: Oh ho ho! I bet his father hates that! We mommies love it because it is so pretty! Like having a girl! And I don't want to be an asshole, so I smile wanly. I only intercede when people start talking about all of O's future girlfriends. "Or boyfriends!"
When I see long curly hair on boys, I assume the family is Orthodox Jewish.
297: It's curly enough that you can't tell it's down to the middle of his back, but yeah, he looks a whole lot like my best friend's oldest son before he got his payot.
296: I entertained myself by calling other people's daughters strong and their sons good-looking. "Oh, look, how sweet -- he's rocking that stick he picked up like a baby!" If you look, there's going to be stuff to comment on. Also, starting friendly conversations about how deplorable aggressive gender-role stereotyping is, and how funny it is when people do it, before your interlocutor has gone there themselves, does a lot to make people nervous and edgy around you. In a good way.
Again, the point of socializing with other parents is to have someone to hand your baby to while you pour a second cup of coffee or go to the bathroom (and to return the favor) not that you have to like them much.
It's absolutely necessary to socialize with other parents so you gotta do it, but it's also very often a very annoying female bonding scene IME, and I am so sick of having to deal with it. But of course there are plenty of nice people you can meet.
wait, I was supposed to socialize with other parents? thank god no one ever told me!
Don't have to, but it can make life easier.
OH HO HO!
LOOK AT THAT LONG HAIR!
I BET HIS FATHER LOVES THAT!
ISN'T HE JUST THE MOST PIOUS LITTLE BOY
At their current ages, I don't mind socializing with other parents quite as much as I did when I just had the one baby. The kids run around together so well and have a good time, and it's fine if parents lapse into silence or whatever.
But with the one baby, the conversation...I just have so little patience for "HERE'S THE WHOLLY MANUFACTURED CRISES WE'RE SOLVING THROUGH THIS EXCESSIVELY COMPLICATED ROUTINE!" routine.
My sister's mom group meets in a bar during the day. Sounds about right.
The house I'm moving into has two good neighborhood bars 1.2 miles in either direction. It's a "transitional neighborhood," so I figure I stand to arouse some powerful hatred if I start anything like that.
There is nothing I do better than being alone, tolerating non-sentient creatures.
I'm not feeling that good about Eggplant as a parent.
OT: How bad does Tucson suck and does anybody know anything about the University of Arizona? I've been offered a chance to move in what is basically a lateral move for my work. I may not be able to move for family reasons, but I woke this morning not even knowing this was an option.
I have the vague, baseless belief that Gonerill might be able to give you advice on that front, if he happened to be reading here.
The caption of the first image in the Geography section of the Tucson Wikipedia page reads, "Tucson, as seen from space. The four major malls are indicated by blue arrows."
307: VW opined very briefly on the subject just last week.
UA is good in some things. Big party school, if you're into that. Few would look askance at flip-flops on faculty. Okay, maybe other faculty would.
I thought Arizona State was the big party school.
Tucson is plenty nice, if you're at all attracted by desert scenery it has some of the best in the world.
313: Well, ASU is the "BIG" party school. UA is just a "big" party school.
I grew up in Tucson and make it back once a year or so for family. There are worse places to live. The pulchritude of the desert cannot be described. The city big enough to have lots of good restaurants, if that's your thing. Voting patterns are moderate blue, more like New Mexico than, say, Phoenix. It is hugely spread out with no concentrated urban districts, so you spend a lot of time in your car with the AC on, staring down red lights. The university is historically good, though the current legislature is trying to starve it, and big enough to behave like an island against the rest of the city. Neko Case goes there to make her records. The only known jaguar in the US is, I believe, still prowling the area.
The only known jaguar in the US is, I believe, still prowling the area.
Consider yourself warned, Gerald!
I'm not fond of driving, but having open space around me would be nice. I've been sort of frozen at my desk wondering how to manage the, "I'd like us to consider moving across the country" moment when I get home.
Ah, so you're looking for arguments for moving. You probably shouldn't mention the jaguar then.
That's "only known wild jaguar" of course; I thought it might be a plus, but I guess it depends on your household. Hometown these days is borderline mountain lion habitat, and I'm always sort of hoping to see one, even though they terrify my partner. I know she's right; we have a jackrabbit-sized kid after all. And on the rare occasions that the lions do come into town, of course the police always shoot them.
My wife got her masters at U of Arizona and liked Tucson a lot.
The people I know who live in Tucson like it reasonably well. I mean it's no San Francisco, but it's also no Phoenix.
I endorse, but did not strictly speaking write, 316.
it turns out that we might end up having a fair amount in common with people our age who live in our town and oh great now we're a type.
I wish you luck finding consistent ways to socialize with other parents. Even the ones I met and liked, I rarely saw more than once or twice during the first year. Isolation is a real risk, especially if you're terribly averse to female bonding over gender essentialism and the other stuff described above.
Park scene: we show up during naptime, apparently, & child has whole playground to herself. Happy beyond measure. Two little boys show up, twins, 4?, and throw a ball around. A young dad arrives with a skateboard, a 2-year-old girl and her balance bike, and they play chase-the-skateboard and skateboard-chases-the-bike at great length. Child is transfixed, running after them wherever they go. I resolve to buy a skateboard. I edge towards the twins' dad to feel him out and see if he seems like the kind of fellow who would spot a stranger some sunscreen, and he tells me that boys love balls and he never believed that that stuff was innate until he had kids. It seems somehow meaningful that the skateboard dad is clearly having a blast, and the twins' dad looks bored and tired and a little beleaguered. Child does not get any sunscreen and goes home pink. Twins' dad and I have a long awkward talk about the sun and personality traits. At the end of it I cannot resist the urge to run away; I scoop my child up and wrangle her into the stroller, and we zoom off through the streets of richville to the train.
It's sometimes better than that, but nothing ever comes of the better interactions either. The park just sucks. It must be innate! To parks! I never believed it!
Personally I think the desert/mountain southwest is amazing beautiful. Tucson's still a few thousand feet too low to actually have a pleasant climate though. But even though it's in Arizona, my understanding is that you can nonetheless get New Mexican food.
It's only from May to September that the climate really hurts, and the consolation in those months is that you get lovely nights for sitting out on the porch with your preferred beverage. Also there are mountains on all sides, so you can drive 45 minutes out of town and be in pine forests, at least for the next fifty years or so.
Is lourdes kayak the new pseud of lurid keyaki or a copycat lurker? I like it regardless.
I found Tucson to be pretty great. Pretty easy place to live. The city is large enough to have a lot of city amenities, but has a pretty mellow vibe. Can you go check it out on a visit?
I would be checking it out in person before agreeing to move. I'm trying to decide if I want to explore it more. This isn't a decision I need to make this week.
Conceptually dependent on lurid keyaki, but ontologically its own thing.
We are signed up for classes in February. The big selling point [that our friends keep pushing] being that we get to meet lots of similar parents to bond with and do parent-y/couple-y things with. I can't say I feel a natural fit with that, but we'll give it a go and see how it goes, I suppose. I expect some of the things that heebie, Halford, and oudemia are talking about above will annoy me also. I did wonder if our class/'ethnic' backgrounds might make us not a great fit for those kinds of groups in what is a very middle class London area. But I wouldn't be completely surprised, judging by friends who live in the area, if half the people in the class will be similar.
The classes we went to were moderately useful in their instructional component, but we did not make any connections with any of the other couples. I'm not sure if that was because of or in spite of how close the SES match was (There's one same-sex couple we've run into at an infant CPR class, a cloth-diapering class, and at the pediatrician's office that I finally gave a card to - fate, or something. Haven't heard back from them yet, though).
deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp
deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp
deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp
The big selling point [that our friends keep pushing] being that we get to meet lots of similar parents to bond with and do parent-y/couple-y things with.
Our class consisted of me and Jammies, and a really nice couple who were 19 years old and took hocus-pocus really seriously, and were troublingly broke.
re: 335
We have the official hospital class this week, which is just a couple of hours. The ones friends have been pushing are NCT run [it's a charity] and it lasts a couple of days or equivalent over several sessions.