My friends Hayley (Maxwell) and Trisha (Jamal) have both had their babies this week! I am very excited.
More so now due to the fact that at the last gathering of our pre-natal group there was an intense discussion on the "ethics" of conceiving children past the age of 35. One woman had been told that she would be unethical to have a child past the age of 25 due to the percentage of genetic problems!
That being so ridiculous, I piped up and pointed out that many women I know below the age of 25 are not mature enough to have children.

Well... most of them turned to me and stopped talking. Then one of them asked me, "Dear, how old are you?"

humph.
I'm 29 years old. Now, granted all these women are over the age of 35 (youngest besides me is 37), don't I still have a valid opinion?

I am on a quest to help Frank sleep in his crib for longer then 20 minutes. It seems that without some sort of motion he can't make it through his sleep cycles. He is fine when he sleeps with me in "the family bed", also known as "co-sleeping" but in the crib on his own is an entirely different matter.

I have read "Nighttime Parenting" and "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" so far. I am trying to implement the suggestions as we speak. I'll let you know if things get any better.

It's not that I don't like sleeping all together. In fact, D and I both really like it. There is nothing like waking up to a smiling baby playing with your nose and saying "muh muh". Nevertheless, I would like to be able to have the bed for just the two of us once and awhile (wink wink nudge nudge).
As well, baby-sitters will have a hell of a time with the little guy if we don't get this figured out.

My absence has been due to an emergency trip to Microtech Computers for a little computer overhaul. Thank-God everything is OK now. Our display driver had something wrong with it and everything looked so terrible it was almost not worth it to be on the net - almost.

We have finally got a settlement on our van... $3246.50.
Is that how much our van was worth? Absolutely not. On the other hand, it is a good amount of money for a 16 year old vehicle. It just smarts because we took such amazing care of it. We are pretty sure we could have sold it for about $2000.00 more.
But to be practical about it, we weren't planning on selling it so that doesn't really matter. It only matters that we are now without a vehicle and although we have one hell of a stroller and a very good public transportation system, it can be quite limiting.

On the great and ever so sneaky side though... the car seat - which was in the van when it was stolen and tossed out somewhere so was never found - is covered under our insurance. That actually took some convincing on my part, they weren't too keen on doing that for us. We have been able to borrow a car seat from some friends and so we plan to buy the next size, a forward facing seat with the money from the insurance. I thought perhaps I could get one that can change into a booster seat once he grows out of this new one.

Well, still no word on the van. Luckily we have four weeks of rental covered under our insurance. We got this little, silver, two-door Hyundai that is so crazy small it is hard to squeeze the car-seat (that we have borrowed from friends) into the back seat.

Things could be worse I suppose.

On a brighter note, spring is definitely here. We went on a beautiful walk around Elk Lake on Saturday. Everything smells so great.
Frank has learned a new sound that is pretty special. He likes to grunt. It's especially funny when nosy people walk by and wonder if our child is OK and try to casually check up on him - only to see him smiling away...
I'll have to see about recording his babble and putting it up here.

Seriously though, there is not very much quiet time when the little guy is awake. He is even babbling when I'm trying to feed him. Of course, my nipple fills his mouth up but the rice cereal is a blast. He grabs hold of my hand and directs the spoon to is mouth, like he's trying to show me the correct way to feed a baby. All the while he is babbling and babbling.

At first, we had such a good attitude about this stolen vehicle. We thought:
"It's only a material possession, we live in a city with pretty good public transportation, everyone is safe... blah blah blah."

Well, the police found our van - it had gone out in a blaze of glory. After an all weekend robbery spree of several houses and parking metres the thieves took the poor van on a police chase which came to an abrupt halt by smashing into a tree.

D went to the station to see it and although the stereo is still in there - they must have liked our music?!?! - it is probably not ever going to be in running condition. I saw it from far away in the tow lot yesterday. I experienced some pretty strange emotions seeing our van we have spent so much time in and bought together in such terrible condition.

We got a phone call from the insurance agency this morning and Happy Valentines Day to us - they are only going to give us $1800.00 for it????

Lets just say they will be having a lengthy discussion with one meeeean Mama on Monday...

Our van was stolen on the weekend - from right in front of our house!

I had a ton of outgrown reusable diapers inside that was worth quite a bit of money but is not covered under insurance. Frank's car seat was inside the van and fortunately will be covered.

This computer is about to blow to smithereens.

Our brand new scanner requires an USB port which our almost blown-to-smithereens-computer does not have.

ah well - at least we are doing well, that's the important thing.

Yesterday I took my friend to a La Leche League meeting. She is due at the end of March and is a little worried about her breastfeeding capabilities. Of course, watching me go through my little nightmares probably didn't help much.

No matter what happens though, I think it is important for her to know that breastfeeding does not automatically make her a good mother. If it doesn't work out don't let a single soul make you feel guilty about it. Sometimes I feel like I missed the good times of Frank's first months due to my tunnel vision with the whole thing.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love breastfeeding Franklin and I intend to do it for at least a year - if only for the amount of effort that it has taken me to get this far!
Nevertheless, if I see another new Mom sticking it out like I did, through four mastitis infections, I will bonk her over the head. Formula is amazing these days and no one (NO ONE) should feel like they have failed for deciding that breastfeeding isn't working for them.

I wonder if Franklin will be as stubborn as I am...

On another note, I was reading greenfairydotcom and couldn't believe this article from The Guardian!

Sure, it's funny but oh my God, it's so sad it's ridiculous too. Mr. Blair and the rest of his lot should be suspended from school.

I have missed two yoga sessions so to make it up I went to a regular yoga class this morning - with Frank...

Actually, it was a blast. Frank likes to lay around on the floor kicking his feet everywhere so he was pretty content. The instructor was very good about him too - even when he was squealing so loud it was hard to hear her instructions.

Then, near the end, while I was doing a shoulder stand with Frank playing with my hair (ouch!) he let out a rip roaring fart.

Like Father like Son...

Well, Frank is a healthy, happy, Gerber baby.
(I have new photos that I am going to put up later tonight hopefully.)

He was alert and flirty as ever with our doctor. I'm so proud.

It's such a nice day out though, I don't want to miss anymore of it so we're off.

Have you ever noticed the strange head proportions a baby at four months has? I swear Franklin's head takes up about half of his height.

We have our doctor's appointment today - the four month check-up. Our doctor is quite snazzy - wears knee high black boots and mini skirts. Franklin likes her a lot.
I think D does too...

I'll write more after we get back...