theparkerfamily.org

Tag: Sparklet

  • poppies

    [Baby Bedding, Washington, DC]
    whatever I said about the crib being the hardest decision to make, I lied. it was just the hardest, most *expensive* decision.crib bedding sucks.

    we’ve been all over the map. we looked at cute (insects, butterflies) and bold (letters, primary colors) and girly (toile, nursery rhymes) and natural (rainforests, coral reefs).

    and the worst part? we would decided on each one in turn, only to rollback the decision the following morning. and then, after we had ruled out everything else, we decided on just a solid color … moments before we figured out that solids don’t hide stains very well.

    after about a month, we finally found carousel designs baby bedding which seemed to have a lot of “normal” looking baby bedding. and you could buy whatever they had piece by piece, so no paying $100 for a baby bumper that you didn’t want.

    (speaking of … wow. didn’t realize the crazy wacko emotions that baby bumper use triggers. i will bring up women’s reproductive health at a party before bringing up whether baby bumpers are safe and / or effective.)

    in the end it was a coin flip between two sets we saw from carousel — one with pink paisley and another with red poppies.

    eventually, we chose the latter … mainly because the pink would have seriously driven everything in the room into a level of “pretty, pretty princess” that neither of us were sure we wanted to go. if baby sparklet decides to go down the princess path herself, that’s more than fine … but the paisley option seemed like a shove down the path to big hair and pageant sashes that she might not otherwise take.

    the next controversy is paint color, and i am (obviously) excited to have yet another decision of seemingly little significance suck up a month of our lives.

    when do we get to the part where we don’t have any decisions to make because our child won’t listen to anything we say? i’m so there.

  • and the winners are …

    ECPA20090805_0762
    today, the lady sparkler and I started spending the $340,552 it’s going to take to raise baby sparklet until she graduates college.

    I feel strangely proud.

    we’ve been futzing around for *months* on the three “big” purchases — the crib, the stroller and the car seat — going baaaack, and forth, and baaaaack, and forth. but today, after nearly two months of researching, six weeks of trips to the suburbs, and three weeks of dithering, we finally pulled the trigger. on something. eventually.

    and the winners are …

    bonavita_peyton_07116_2bonavita peyton classic crib — a lot of decisions about baby sparklet have terrorized us, but none quite like this one. we’re in a small, small space in the city, so wanted to avoid all of the giii-normous “lifestyle” cribs on the showroom floors.

    unfortunately, all anybody sells are giii-normous “lifestyle” cribs.

    occasionally, you would see a couple of normal looking cribs in a store. in the back corner. under a sign that says “you hate your baby if you get one of these.”

    living in the city, the tween edition of baby sparklet is going to need a loft bed, or is going to have about 2 square feet of floor on which to play. getting a lifestyle crib that converts into a twin bed is of no use to us.

    eventually, we found a crib we liked (bonavita peyton) that had a version (classic, not lifestyle) that was just a crib. not a burr grinder. or a lifeboat. just a crib. it seemed very sturdy in the one showroom (out of six) which featured the model that did *not* convert into a dishwasher.

    the issue that sealed the peyton classic for us was that it was made from good, hard wood … where most of the competition had soft finishes, and were seriously scuffed up from people window shopping. (really, if a crib can’t survive life in a showroom, what’s it going to look like after a couple of years of teething?!?)

    41LiILMKDBL._SL500_AA280_city mini stroller — got a super recommendation from a friend on this one (mightybabyboig) as the stroller they wished they had bought back at the very beginning. it’s light, folds up ridiculously small (important for the bus) and has one of the narrower wheelbases (important for navigating the drunks passed out on District sidewalks).

    another crib, the uppababy vista, went deep into our decision making process when it got a strong plug from the baby bargains book (the guardian of my sanity for the last two months) as the best stroller for “hip urban dwellers.” the vista *was* pretty freakin’ cool as a full strollerpalooza system (included with bassinet, raincover, blender, etc.) but was much wider (2″+) than the mini and no where near as compact folded (might need to be strapped to the roof on a city bus).

    so, i’m not sure how the city mini didn’t get the top pick for my demographic (maybe its just a definition thing — i’m pretty sure we aren’t hip) but i guess it’s a little much asking one little book to make EVERY decision for me.

    of course, none of the stroller models we looked at had either (a) air bags or (b) a star wars missile defense shield, so I’m sure we are recklessly sacrificing baby sparklet’s safety every time we think we even think about leaving the house.

    ECPA20090817_0033graco snugride infant car seat — ah, yes. the Honda civic of car seats. the snugride was at the top of every ranking, and the only thing we really did was shop for the color.

    the lady sparkler hinted that having a car seat that matched the stroller would be a good thing, because apparently the two can plug together into some sort of voltron-like super-combo-robot-stroller.

    speaking of … i wonder if they sell flaming sword attachments? if they did, i’m thinking it would capture the “early-pubescent teen daddy” market that seems to be blooming lately. just a thought.

    on the more boring side, the snugride we got appears to have side impact protection … which is great, because I am pretty sure our car (which cost 200x more) does not.

    i take this fact as yet another sign that I hate my unborn child, as we haven’t dropped everything and bought a tan Volvo station wagon … yet.

    but, then again, tan wouldn’t match.

  • nice rack

    photo
    the lady sparkler and I had a very early realization once we got pregnant — that our poor little Jetta was going to have problems coping.

    first, we have the smallest trunk in the free world (or so it seems…) as when we put two small roller bag in the trunk, there isn’t room for much more. and by “much”, i mean “anything bigger than my self-esteem.”

    next, we have a sick cat whose meds require that she travel with us every time we leave for more than a day. that means a procession of (at minimum) a cat carrier, a cooler for meds, a litter box, a water fountain, replacement litter, not to mention the vaguely mental cat at the head of the entourage (who i am beginning to think has a future in pop music).

    now, we are facing a new baby, the very thought of which fills our back seat and trunk with crap: strollers, clothes, books, bags, diapers, not to mention whatever mommy and daddy needs to not be naked and insane.

    suddenly, getting an SUV doesn’t seem quite so crazy.

    we love our little (fully paid off) Jetta, and specifically how easy it is to street park in DC (and how fully paid off it is). so, instead of downgrading our beloved to a big suburban monstrosity, we decided to experiment with a roof rack for some added storage.

    to date, we just have the a “base” unit that you’d find at REI — a couple of poles running across the roof which other stuff is lashed down to — but we have a low-profile basket (which we can remove and store in the trunk) shipping to us in the next couple weeks.

    the system (it’s a Yakima) is admittedly a little pricey, but we figure we have a long way to go before we spend the cost of a new monthly car payment, so it’s worth a shot.

    here’s hoping.

  • found: portrait of baby sparklet

    []
    ECPA20090724_0002, originally uploaded by [ecpark].

  • sibley memorial baby-birthing resort

    ECPA20090726_0753
    i learned two very important things today: our delivery hospital (sibley memorial hospital in D.C.) has valet parking, and the lady sparkler isn’t anywhere near the craziest baby momma in the District right now.

    we went out to sibley for an official hospital tour this afternoon. it’s not any closer than it was before, but wasn’t any farther away either (funny, that buildings don’t move around much). it took about fifteen calm, serene, scenic minutes to make the trip, which i am sill having difficulty reconciling with the unbridled anarchy i know is just 15 weeks away.

    during the tour, we saw first hand sibley’s range of post-partum recovery rooms, and some of the private rooms (including the delivery rooms) are just ridiculously nice. one wing has deep hardwood floors, flat screen televisions, mp3 player hookups, arm-chairs that fully recline into beds for tired partners, baby blanket warmers, etc.

    they may have mentioned something about medical facilities, it was only an afterthought … and i think i must have been distracted when it finally came up. did i mention they have valet parking?!?

  • family’s reunion

    ECPA20090725_0752
    quick trip to williamsburg, today. brother and best man Pop Culture Examiner was down for his 239th high school reunion, brought to you by “facebook” and the “national association of lafayette high school alumni who have been gone long enough to have forgotten why they left.”

    we came down because we haven’t seen him (nor wife, niece and nephew extraordinaire) since the lady sparkler got us pregnant. needless to say, we wanted to see them — the little ones especially — to better transition into that little bundle of joy they are going to be expected to coo about over the holidays.

    that night, grandma, grandpa, the wee ones, and the sparklers did a very special dinner at Sonic (lady sparkler’s fast food crush) while the reunion festivities raged over at “the hospitality house.” the niece and i got into a pig-tail measuring contest (she won) and super-nephew tried to get in on the action as well.

    which makes me wonder … have my classes had reunions? i haven’t heard of one, but then again … if i was throwing a reunion, i probably wouldn’t invite me either.

  • the ‘burbs and the baby

    photo
    for the uninitiated, i really can’t explain the horror that is Babies ‘R Us.

    our m.o.h., foster mom, is in town this weekend, and we’re taking advantage of her unbridled enthusiasm to travel across the vast wastelands of the D.C. suburbs looking for baby crap.

    the store seems to have been organized via the detonation of a low-yield nuclear weapon, and then ravaged by whatever rampaging, post-apocalyptic hordes survived. there is no sign of intelligent life to explain to you what you really need, just clerks saying what will happen if you don’t buy the most expensive device they have in stock. to make matters worse, only the most overpriced items are readily available, and all the “reasonably priced” merchandise is either out-of-stock, or hidden in some dark ghetto corner-of-shame in the store.

    admittedly, i might not be qualified to judge fairly — i hate the ‘burbs, i hate driving in the ‘burbs, i hate big box stores, i hate backward “R”s, and i get claustrophobic when surrounded by lots of 200 lb pregnant women using strollers as cow-catchers.

    none of this affords me an unbiased platform from which to judge.

    that being said, there is at least one good thing about these monuments to baby-spending-excess: you can touch the items. before you put them back down. and buy the same thing online. for 20% less.

    fortunately, friend and co-worker Papa Bradstein (unwittingly) gave us sage advice about a book called Baby Bargains, which is a kind of Consumer Reports for baby stuff.

    (actually, Baby Bargains is better, because while CR rates baby products, they don’t give much insight into why they rated one product better than another.)

    the book has been great, and i’ve been reading it non-stop … taking away solid info on not only which particular product is best for us (ie. one car seat vs another) but what types of mass-marketing bunk we can avoid entirely (diaper-stackers) without it triggering a child endangerment persecution or (worse yet) nasty looks from our parenting peers.

    luckily, as we slog through the baby shopping, the lady sparkler and i are on the same page about this breed of baby consumerism and she is every bit as exasperated/angry as i am.

    the only difference? i know more about breast pumps than any human possibly can with out getting his man-card forcibly revoked.

  • the summer of sparklet

    IMG_0702
    well, i’m pretty sure that the lady sparkler is pregnant. like, really *really* pregnant. like, duck-out-of-the-way-when-she-turns-around pregnant.

    she’s a total trooper, but is just now starting to slow down a bit and get some of those typical symptoms of pregnancy (well, symptoms other than me saying “duuuuuuude, you’re HUUUUUGEE” daily). she’s getting a little tired, little sore (back, ribs) and is a little more dedicated to her naps and early bedtimes.

    oh, but thank god for the el niño moderated summer temperatures this summer in the District. we’ve had a total of one day over 90 degrees since we got back from vacay this spring, and i think that is way better than we had any reason to expect.

    turns out that while my beloved is incubating, she isn’t so interested in being incubated herself.

  • karma: chinese zodiac

    chinese_ox
    the lady sparkler and i did our second consecutive date-night tonight … a movie (“up”), then dinner in Chinatown at one of the few real Chinese restaurants left in the city (“full kee”).

    the food was great, but the best part was the chinese zodiac place mats, which gives little personality sketches based on the year of birth. obviously, this got us thinking about Baby Sparklet’s personality, which
    (apparently) will be guided by the chinese sign of the Ox.

    Bright, patient and inspiring to others. You can be happily by yourself, yet make an outstanding parent.

    feeling like we were on a roll, when i got home i found a couple of sites that walk through the signs a little more. that’s when things got interesting:

    Ox people are hard-working and persistent, they can stick at a task longer and go at it harder than anybody. They believe in themselves and tend to classify almost everything into two basic categories, bad and good. They hold up their high standards as a model and severely judge those who don’t aspire to maintain these same ideals.

    Although appears to be tranquil, in fact, Oxens are ponderous but impulsive when angry. They are capable of fearsome rages, therefore, it is better not to cross an Oxen. Ox people are observant, they have remarkable memories and are good at reporting on absolutely everything they observe.

    that’s one heck of a way to start the description, but the rest gets a little better (“kind, caring souls, logical, positive, filled with common sense”) … right up until the end where it says that the Ox’s “childhood and youth will generally be without incident.”

    note the use of the word “generally.”

    for the record, it turns out that I am a Rabbit (“quick, clever and ambitious”) and, while my money was on the lady sparkler being an Ox — just like our baby girl! — she ends up being a Snake (“not to be ignored”).

    and while their “compatibility” estimates are really designed for life partners, it turns out that an Ox, a Rabbit, and a Snake can live pretty happily under one roof … so long as the Rabbit (me) and Snake (the lady sparkler) aren’t romantically involved.

    can’t wait to see how that all pans out.

  • date night / mini golf

    [Mini-Golf, Jefferson Park, Falls Church, Virginia]
    we constantly complain about the lack of mini-golf courses in DC, but it turns out that we’ve just been looking in the wrong place. around here, they seem to be in municipal parks for some reason, not in tourist traps surrounded by chain restaurants.

    for the record, the lady sparkler was able to swing the club around her growing belly … well enough that she shot her best round ever. she said something about pregnancy limiting her option for freaking out and doing crazy things with the putter.

    Explore the Photo Set:
    Mini-Golf, Jefferson Park, Falls Church, Virginia