Natural Parenting

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Yeah, that’s roughly how it works.

To be clear, #2 is not on the way. That is not what I’m saying.

But frames one, two, and three roughly capture our parenting experience so far.

I think I don’t really groove on Cherios for breakfast.

Given a choice, I eat leftovers. It does not matter if it is mac and cheese or a spicy curry—I prefer “real food” to any cereal-based breakfast. I enjoy the occasional bowl of oatmeal, but I won’t make it for myself before heading out the door to work.

This is because I am a “morning person.” I wake up and am ready to go. Right. Now. I prefer a glass of juice to coffee (although have been doing the latter, in part because it is something warm to drink while walking to work). Traditionally, I find it annoying to wait for others in the morning, because I don’t “require” time to wake up, read the paper, etc.

(All of this, to some extent, assumes I’m well-rested. After a week or two of nights with six hours of sleep or less, I’m less excited about most everything. That said, waking to even the most gentle of alarms has never been a problem for me.)

This is not what Carrie was talking about. But… tasty?

So, Carrie just pointed me at this great suggestion regarding the production (and freezing) of tasty breakfast burritos. Clearly, once we have a chest freezer, I’ll have to whip up a batch or two of these. I have the home-made salsa in the freezer from this summer, and using some of that for these would make a very tasty (spicy) way to wake up in the mornings.

Mmm… breakfast burritos…

The hardest thing about preparing for a new member of the family is all the spam you get.

Consider:

I don’t know how this person got my address, or what they want, but it is exactly this kind of SPAM that slows you down during the day. I mean, really. Where did we sign up for this?

For those three or four of you who follow along here, we’re doing well. Carrie is, according to a website she likes, carrying a baby that weighs roughly the same as a cantaloupe. We’re approaching “full term” at the end of the month, with the official date being sometime in late March. I’m starting to look at Carrie as some kind of life-changing, biological time bomb. Very scary.

Several weeks ago, Carrie’s parents and her sister and brother-in-law descended upon the house and, in three days, we painted the nursery, finished the furniture that was sitting in our livingroom, and took care of a number of other small things that have been lingering as “to do” items. The week after (or thereabouts) we got the hardware on the furniture, brought it upstairs, and now (listen to this!) we no longer keep our clothes on the floor!

This weekend, we bought a car seat as well as a bunch of stuff that we needed around the house (but had never made time to pick up). A colleague pointed us to a consignment store in Erie, PA that specializes in baby/kid stuff, so we picked up a few baby-sack-crawlie-things in which to clothe Chainsaw upon arrival. (“How many of these do we need, Carrie?” “Depends on how many the baby can spit up on in a day.” “Oh. Oh. Good thing they’re $2.50 each.”)

I’ve encouraged her to sign up for a massage or two for Valentines Day. In terms of school, I’m not quite fully on top of things, but I’m not behind, so I can’t really complain.

I think I have no idea what kinds of changes are coming, however. The stories my friends have told me in the past 6 months to a year make it clear that I have no way of really preparing for what is coming. Sadly, you cannot bank sleep.