The Testing Panel

You can keep Consumer Reports. We have Consumer Re-purr-ts*.

All-around fine folks Chrissy and Glen (fellow delusional nutjobs who are attempting to raise a child in Trenton) recently unloaded on us a treasure trove of baby stuff, used either lightly or not at all.

Recycle, folks! Nobody - and I mean nobody - knows (or cares, I should hope…or do I really have a lot to learn?) that your kid was not the first to wear that tiny little powder blue leisure suit. OK, bad example, but you know what I mean. The fruit of your loins is going to drive you into the poor house anyway; you may as well forestall the inevitable, by outfitting your kid in gear that someone else’s tyke wore four or five times.

Anyway, combine that with plenty of awesome gifts from generous friends and family, and we are pretty well sorted out for our new arrival. So we think, anyway.

Among the hand-me-downs was a sweet car seat, which will fit perfectly inside the new stroller we received as a shower gift. They say you should be very careful about making sure these things are in working order, before putting your precious cargo into one for the first time. Fortunately for us, we had a testing panel of two volunteers, who didn’t even need to be asked to lend a hand, because they are always willing to pull their own weight around here.

It took Mekare about three whole minutes to hop into this thing. She is an old lady who seems to get bored easily, but she did enjoy this seat for a few days or so. As you can see, it really brings out the green in her eyes. I would say she liked it more than melted vanilla ice cream, but less than leftover salmon scraps from the dinner table.

On the other hand, Lucky (which is short for “I am so Lucky these people pulled me out of a snowstorm and let me stay”) is a whole ‘nother story. Since discovering it, Lucky spends roughly 13 hours per day in this seat, leaving it only for biological necessities, or to camp out for the night atop the new bassinet (which I smartly thought to cover with a sheet of cardboard; there’s already plenty of cat hair in our lives, thank you very much). He is in for a rude awakening when we have to use these things for an actual human being.

So, I think we have a winner. Our new-to-us car seat is purr-fect* for our needs, and we helped keep a couple pounds of PVC out of the landfill for a couple more years.

*a little part of me died when I wrote that, it really did.

Earning a Living in "The Guilted Age"

Greetings, friends! I address you while “enjoying” my final business trip as a childless dude. I left beautiful Shreveport, LA, earlier this evening. As of the time when my connecting flight punched its way into the Memphis twilight, Sara had not yet gone into labor. I’ve never been so happy for anything in my entire life, though who knows what surprise awaits me when I stumble in at 1:00 tomorrow morning? If I don’t forget about the new bassinet at the foot of our bed, I just might crawl into the sack without waking up Sara. This is much more important than it was weeks and months ago, as my darling wife is not sleeping nearly as well as she used to; you know, before she was 8.5 months pregnant.

Anyone who knows me knows that I spend a good bit of my life on the road. Here’s a quick rundown on how glamorous it is, for all you “Must Be Nicers” out there...

On an average month, I drive to and from Philadelphia International Airport four times, board maybe a dozen flights, use about six rental cars, spend eight nights in hotel rooms, and eat only-God-knows-how-many slices of shitty airport pizza. To a man, this is an ass-load of travel, though in the universe of Road Warriordom, it’s mere chump change; putting it in baseball terms, I’m a Triple-A player, who has had a few cups of coffee in “the show.” Ryan Bingham I am not, nor would I ever want to be. Still, it’s a lifestyle I willingly accepted eighteen years ago; what bright-eyed, recent college graduate would scoff at a chance to indulge his wanderlust and get paid for it? As an added bonus, it’s provided a decent living over the years (though you would not know it, to drive through our neighborhood).

How does Sara feel about this? I would say that our five-year relationship has survived my lifestyle quite nicely (that’s the sound of me jinxing myself, isn’t it?). Not unlike my love affair with the drum kit, the way I earn a living is what health insurers would term a “preexisting condition.” Sara does not have to like it (and oftentimes does not), but she is low-maintenance enough to accept things as they are. Hell, there are far worse “pre-existing conditions” one could bring in to a relationship. “Closet Crackhead,” “Human Immunodeficiency Virus,” “Mafia Wiseguy,” “Into the IRS for $200K” and “Secret Family Nobody Knows About” comprise a short list, just to get you started.

Still, a goodly chunk of my self-employed livelihood requires that I jet off to Kingston, Jamaica, in the middle of August. Or Winnipeg, in the middle of January.

So I do it.

I must say that I love how some people talk to us about our impending parenthood, and then ask/tell me “SO! I guess YOU ain’t gonna be travelin’ no maw!” (almost always intoned as if my official job title is “Strip Club Critic”). Yes, of course! I was planning on shutting down my business of 13 years, since babies hardly ever, you know, need stuff. LOVE will keep a roof over our heads, you know!

Much has been said and written of the so-called “golden handcuffs.” I am wearing them. Short of completely reinventing myself (and moving in with my brother or sister until we get “back on our feet” in 15 years or so), it appears that this is our situation, for the foreseeable future.

Obviously, the game is soon to change, and in the biggest way imaginable. What will not change, sadly, is the need to keep the green rolling in. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, I have learned, does not really care that we’re new parents.

So, as I see it today, I’m soon to have two extremely important jobs:

A. Be the best father our child(ren?) could possibly hope for.
B. Provide for my family, to the best of my abilities.

Sadly, these are not mutually exclusive. Sure, you can do B without A (and please do tell me in 15 years how that worked out for you), but it’s pretty damned hard to do A without B, no?

As it stands, dumb luck would have it that I am able to work just enough to keep the lights on, until a time where I can get on a plane and disappear for two nights, without being greeted by divorce papers upon my return. This means that I am done with planes, rental cars, hotel rooms and disgusting chain restaurants until late June or early July, depending on a variety of factors.

That’s all good and nice, but here’s where it gets tricky…

“…jeez, it’s been hard enough for me to pack up and leave Sara, these past five years. Now you’re asking me to leave a month-old BABY behind, as well?”

“…damn, this kid sure does seem to wake up – LOUDLY – every two hours or so. When I check into that Courtyard, next to the Waffle House, by the interstate off-ramp, I will not have to change a diaper, and will probably get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep…”

“…I will not find it particularly awful to pass out at 10:30 pm, and not open my eyes until my alarm clock goes off at 6:30 am or so…”

And so on. If you’re close enough to me to understand The Spaulding Guilt™, I need go no further. For the fortunate outsiders who are still hanging in there, it goes a little something like this: Guilt for leaving in the first place, guilt for sleeping all night while my beloved wife is being awoken and milked every 75 minutes, and guilt for actually enjoying the peace and quiet. It’s all guilt, people.

With apologies to Mark Twain, I can safely say that I’m entering the “Guilted Age.”

Answers

Peter: I’ve learned that pregnant people find themselves answering the same questions over and over again. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m probably a little bit too late to execute this brilliant idea, but I thought more than once about making Sara a tee shirt that says the following:

1. May 26.
2. We’re not finding out.
3. Yes.
4. No, we’re not saying.
5. I would prefer that you didn’t.

Anyone care to kick it “Jeopardy” style and give me the questions that precede these answers?

Them's the Breaks

Peter:

You haven’t lived until your wife calls you at a bar. By “calls you at a bar,” I’m talking old school, as in:

1. A phone actually rings (yes, there’s an honest to goodness BELL inside it)
2. Several men say something to the effect of “If it’s my wife, I just left five minutes ago.” I do that, too; because that line was so funny the first seven hundred times, I just know it’s a classic!
3. The bartender picks up, says “Stinky McDrinkington’s” or whatever, pauses for a moment, and calls out “Is there a [First Name, Last Name] here?!?”
4. Some guy either plays the “Not Here” game, or sheepishly takes the receiver. Regardless, he’s gone in five minutes.
5. Somewhere, at some point in the near future, hell is eventually paid.

Ah, childhood.

But today? I mean, who gets a call from his wife at the official bar telephone number anymore? Beat up old rummies who can’t afford a cell phone, right? That’s what I thought, until that fateful evening of March 16; that no-man’s-land of a day that’s stuck hard between “Luck of the Irish” and “Being Brutally Murdered by a Gaggle of Your So-called Friends.”

“Is there a Peter Spaulding here?” It doesn’t even register.

“Is there a Peter Spaulding here?” I sit there mute, unable to believe that there are two Peter Spauldings in this bar, at this very moment. Uncanny!

With assistance from my ManDate (it was far too early in the evening for me to have forgotten my own name, thank you), it eventually sinks in that Sara is trying to call me on the house phone at Al’s Airport Inn; I think the bartender telling me “call your wife” was the clincher. Which, if you know my laid-back, low-maintenance wife, means she’s either bleeding to death, just found a foot of water in the basement, or (God help us) went into pre-term labor. After all, if she wants to annoy me (Kidding, honey! Kiss-kiss!) while I’m out with friends, she knows she can always call my cell phone…which, as I learned the hard way, I can’t hear when the thing is stuck in my coat pocket while I tool up Route 29, rockin’ out to the National Public Radio. Damn you, Robert Siegel and ME-shell Norris.

It turns out that the following text message, sent some 20 minutes earlier, before I left The Mill Hill Saloon, is the reason I haven’t been sleeping in the garage for the past three weeks: “This place is lame. Goin to Al’s for some shuffle bowling.” Therefore, I will pause here to say this: all you men who think that checking in with your wife is the bailiwick of henpecked milquetoasts can line up and Bite Me.

I called Sara to learn of the very real possibility that she broke her wrist, having slipped halfway down the stairs. She seemed pretty calm, all things considered; I would learn days later that this apparent Midwestern stoicism belied the increasingly frantic voice messages she left on my phone, which culminated with “PETER!!! ANSWER YOUR (unprintable, for I am a gentleman) PHONE!!!” I ran out the door, leaving my ManDate with 11.75 ounces of frosty-cold Budweiser, and made it home in 15 minutes.

Yeah, Sara’s wrist seemed to be pretty well mangled. And it hurt like hell, given what I know of her pain tolerance. So we drove on up to Capital Health, Trenton’s lunar landscape of a roadway system coaxing some or other unprintable out of Sara every block or so. Hell, I was just happy not to have the car destroyed by a pothole on Calhoun Street, leaving the two of us at the mercy of the local thugletariat.

The ER at Capital was pretty quiet; it was thoughtful of Sara to sustain this injury on a Tuesday. As soon as we were called in to triage, I learned something that I guess I knew viscerally, but had never experienced firsthand:

If you want to feel like a top-flight scumbag, take your pregnant wife to the ER with a possible fracture.

I couldn’t help but believe that every staffer we encountered that night looked at us and thought “Yup, textbook wife beater. Of course she won’t admit it, she’s carrying his kid, isn’t she? Yup, we’ll be seeing HER again, I am so sure!” And so on.

I would learn something else, a week or two later:

If you want to feel like an even bigger scumbag, when you take your pregnant wife to the ER with a possible fracture, you should sit there worrying about what everyone thinks of YOU.

We eventually learned that Sara’s wrist was, in fact, fractured; though, as wrist fractures go, not a horrible break. Nope, not horrible at all; tell that to the very pregnant woman who will have to wear a cast on her dominant arm for the next six (to eight!) weeks. Because some measure of bodily trauma was sustained, Sara’s OB sent us up to the L&D as a precaution, to find out what was going on with Our Little Miracle. Fortunately, the little almost-tyke was just fine. Once we learned this, we decided we’d much rather watch that episode of “The King of Queens” in our own living room, than in the comfort of a spare maternity room. However, we couldn’t be discharged until the attending physician came by with his blessing, so we were able/forced to watch the rest of TKoQ, which is by far the shining star of the “Fat Slob with Impossibly Hot Wife Sitcom” television genre….

Three weeks later: Sara is suffering the cast as gladly as one could reasonably expect (read: not gladly at all). I recently reminded her that she was “halfway there,” and…let’s just say that Sara definitely considers that particular glass to be half empty. I know because I asked for confirmation. And received it. Without hesitation. And I can’t blame her. All things considered, however, she is doing rather great, for someone who is learning to squeeze every drop of function to be had from an arm that’s cast in fiberglass from knuckles to elbow. Pregnancy tends to spawn many an unforgettable story; all in all, we'd have preferred one slightly less painful.

Fetal Thought Monitor - #3

Hey, Klutz? Thanks for last night - SUCH a great time. I really enjoyed falling halfway down the stairs. Couldn't you just feel my excitement? I think I'm gonna grow up to be a thrill seeker of some sort: roller coasters, Bungee jumping, starring in the 2030 revival of "Jackass?" Bring it ON!!!

What I DIDN'T much care for was the three-plus hours we spent in the hospital last night, so you could get your, how do you say, "broken wrist" tended to. You see, I've been in here a reeeeeally long time, and I've just about had it. While it's still quite dark in here, I was able to sense...freedom last night. I could just about taste it, I wanted it so bad. Still, I stayed put, realizing that I'm perhaps not quite as ready as I should be. Also, I couldn't help but overhear that we walked by some place called "Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit," on our way to make sure I was OK. I don't know exactly what that means, but I sensed that I probably would not like it there. Neither would you or the old man, I figured, so I decided to stay put. So yeah, you got a free pass from me last night. Enjoy it; it's probably your last one.

Long story short: Next time you take me to the hospital, I'm coming out. Whether you want me to, or not. That is all.

While We Still Know Everything: Parental Position Paper #1

Hippie Diapers!!!

Peter: If I must pick one thing we’re enjoying most about this pregnancy (aside from Sara always being Designated Driver), it’s all of the unsolicited advice we get from family, friends and complete strangers. Coming in a close second would be the ridicule we sometimes get when telling folks of our intentions for our future progeny. Here’s our first installment; have a nice laugh on us!

Sara: So, we’ve decided to go with cloth diapers versus disposable diapers. Gasp! That’s right, no disposables; Pampers, Huggies, Luvs…nope, nada. We’re going old-school (which, not unike vinyl records, seems to have become new-school): cloth! Interestingly enough, the people with whom I’ve discussed this have opinions on the matter - go figure! I’ve heard enough about on the subject that I feel the need to justify this decision.

When people find out about this, I hear a lot of doubt and skepticism in their voices, or perhaps a “she’s-just-nuts” look. But honestly, I don’t quite understand why. I get that for some, disposables seem “easy,” but disposables are really quite gross, if you stop to think about it. Mmmm… human excrement, wrapped up in gel (yes, there’s a tasty absorbent gel in those lovely diappies). Later, the paper and plastic is tossed into your garbage, where it festers until it’s collected by the local waste management syndicate, trucked to a landfill and dumped. Quickly covered over by tons of other trash, it never sees the light of day or gets any air…which means it doesn’t biodegrade. Why? Because decomposition doesn’t happen in a vacuum; it requires air and sunlight as well as micro-organisms. And there your precious crap-filled plastic nuggets sit, for hundreds of years.

Now think of how many diapers your precious little angel goes through in a day, a week, a year. Yuck. That’s quite a crap mountain, no? And guess what? Before you wrap up those lovely “easy” diapers, you’re actually supposed to flush those delightful deuces down the toilet…didja know that?! How many parents actually do that? And think of this: how is OK dump baby’s boom-boom in the trash, while all others must flush theirs down the toilet? I mean why not just poop in a bucket, wrap it in a plastic bag and put it in the trash? Cuz it’s gross, right? Also, isn’t that how they do it in faraway lands where dysentery and cholera carry the day? I thought so.

Anyway, in case you didn’t figure it out, I don’t really like that idea. So we’re going with cloth. Peter seems ok with it—at least that what he says!*** So, we’re going to give it a try. Several friends have gone this route and liked it****. On the advice of one of these cloth-diapering friends, we’re going to try a couple of different brands to see which one we like and works best for us. Can’t hurt to try, right?! And if we do use a disposable, it’ll probably be an “earth-friendly” variety.

Also, keep in mind that cloth diapers have come a long way since the foldable, pinned, rubber-pants variety that swaddled my behind. Those still exist, but there are also cloth one-pieces that Velcro or snap; they’re fitted with elastic at the waist and legs—flush down the brown, place it in a diaper pail and wash the entire load (heh heh, load…) when it’s full. There are also pocket diapers with a fitted cloth outer-pieces and an absorbable inner liner. When it gets dirty, just remove the liner, toss it in the diaper pail and if outer cover is clean, insert clean liner and voila! New clean diaper on baby! They’re pretty much as easy as disposables!

The list of reasons why we decided to go with cloth is actually much longer, but I won’t bore you with it all-I’m sure I’ve been preachy enough! Suffice it to say, I’ve done as much research on the topic I can, short of actually having my own child in them. I’ve read the info (see below for some of it if you’re curious!), I’ve looked at different types and styles of cloth, and I’ve talked with friends who have used cloth diapers. So, I feel pretty confident this is the right decision for us and our baby. If not, we’ll mix it up…and I’m sure we’ll hear a few “I-told-you-so’s,” or get those “mmm-hmm’s,” combined with the “crazy-first-time-parents-don’t know-what-they’re-doing” looks!! It’s all good!

***Peter says: What’s a “diaper,” and what on Earth will I be expected to do with one?
****Peter also says: “Liked” it?

http://www.realdiaperassociation.org/diaperfacts.php
http://www.sustainabilityinstitute.org/dhm_archive/index.php?display_article=vn321diapersed
http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/diapering-a-baby-9/diaper-choices
http://www.copperwiki.org/index.php/Disposable_Diapers
Older article, but still relevant: http://libaware.economads.com/ddiapermyth.php

What ARE We Thinking?!?

Because our first pregnancy didn’t seem like enough of a challenge by itself, we decided to put our house on the market, back in November. Intelligent, huh? We figured we’d put it out there for six months, and if it doesn’t move by May, just hold tight for a while.

This decision is to the relief of the hand-wringers within our circle, who seem convinced that our child is forever doomed, should he/she so much as breathe the air in our Trenton neighborhood. When sharing our glorious news back in the Fall, one of the first questions we’d hear from people was “So, you’re leaving Trenton, right?” People confuse Trenton with Sierra Leone on a regular basis. While that’s a discussion for a blog that I may one day start, suffice it to say they’re generally wrong, though there is a grain of accuracy in their perceptions.

Nonetheless, our neighborhood can get…how do I say this politely…vibrant, in the spring and summer months. In a nutshell, what you’re dealing with is many people who are driven outside by a lack of air conditioning, for whom most every night is Saturday night, and who prefer the front stoop to the back yard, for revelry purposes. I mean, if passersby can’t see you drinking that bottle of Hennessy out on the sidewalk, you’re just wasting your money, right? Therefore, it can get annoyingly loud outside, at an hour where members of productive society prefer to sleep.

I hear that babies frequently wake up at all hours of night. Am I close on that one? So, how do you think another summer in Chambersburg will work out for us?

Baby or no baby, we’d recently decided that this house, purchased by me in 2003, and made into a home by Sara three years later, has served its purpose. Built-up equity in the current domicile – combined with a silly buyer’s market for real estate – makes this probably the best time in human history to upgrade the living quarters.

As you probably know, a buyer’s market is great, as long as you’re not a seller at the same time.

Bad! A grand total of three (3) prospective buyers have traipsed through our urban paradise in the past three months.
Good! One of them made an offer.
Bad! The offer, if you could call it that, was just slightly north of “insulting.” Our counter-offer will probably not be well-received.
Good! Our Realtor thinks, with some concessions on our part, we can “make a buyer out of them.”
Bad! Our attempt to meet the other party halfway was scoffed at.
Good! Our Realtor concocts a counter-counter offer, which he believes should be good enough to bring the two parties together.

As of press time, Bad! And Good! are tied, 3-3. Stay tuned.

On the other end, we’ve looked at maybe one half-dozen houses so far, neither of which both of us fell in love with. Our desired geographic area would be a crude triangle, the points of which are Ewing, Hightstown and Burlington City, but you may be interested to know that Trenton is not “off the table,” as far as the search is concerned. That’s the sound of my mother having a heart attack. We’re definitely looking for a less “urban” living experience, which eliminates all but three Trenton neighborhoods, but the architecture and price values in Capital City are very hard to ignore.

“But but but…what about schools?!?!?” come the cries from the hand-wringers. Yes, Trenton Public Schools are a fetid cesspool, and with New Jersey property taxes being what they are, you should be able to live in a town where sending your kids to the public schools is not a dereliction of parental responsibility.

Thankfully, Beloved Reader, that’s not your problem.

As our Realtor pointed out, buying a home “for the schools” is a decision that often leads to disappointment. This, from a guy who has every motivation to steer us away from Trenton, and into its (more expensive) surrounding suburbs! Also, we don’t especially want to live among people who decided to put down roots in a particular town just “for the schools.” We just don’t. Rest assured, we will find a way to turn our children into well-mannered, non-violent, educated young adults, no matter where we happen to raise them.

At any rate, our immediate future in real estate is just so much conjecture at this point, so just relax.

What I do know, is that Sara will probably go into labor in the moving van. I don’t see myself living that down, well…ever.