The post is brough to you by the number “9”

9 Things I Loved About Month 9 With Spence

1. He’s all toothy now. He got not 1, but 2 teeth.
2. He motors everywhere on his belly. He’s our little commando.
3. He gives his teddy bear kisses.
4. He crawls to the bathroom because he wants his toy frog that "lives" in the bathtub. How can he remember it’s there? I can’t even remember what I ate for dinner an hour ago.
5. Speaking of eating, he eats EVERYTHING. He still has not refused a food we’ve offered him. He’s tried yogurt, melon, mashed potatoes, and rice & beans. And that’s just this week.
6. He dealt with 10 hours in the hot car last weekend like a champ. Better than his mama did.
7. He handled being passed around from babysitter to babysitter all month like a champ. Better than his mama did.
8. He still curls his toes and hates shoes. See – he’s still a baby!
9. {{{drumroll}}} HE SLEEPS! OMG. HE SLEEPS! He goes to bed every night on his own and sleeps through the night. People told me this day might come. I was skeptical. I’m so proud of him. And relieved for me. {{{happy dance}}}

Happy 9 months, Spence! You’re growing up so darn fast. Slow down a bit – ok? Mama needs time to take it all in.

Have you seen her?

Lost: 1 Nanny
Last seen on July 18
Last heard from on July 22

Yea, so after all our benefit of the doubt and trying to be compassionate people about the nanny situation, I’ve reached my limit. She’d totally be fired right now if I could find her. I haven’t heard from her since I called her on Sunday. I’ve left many messages on her home phone and cell phone. I’ve tried calling her hospital room, but always get a busy signal. Today Spence and I went to the hospital to visit and apparently she was discharged last night. We went to her apartment, but she’s not there. I have no idea where she is. I have no idea who is going to watch Spence next week.

I’m sad when I think about the conversation that I’m going to have with her. I really like her and think she’s a really sweet woman – granted one that lacks some communication skills. But, our family needs some stability. I need to know that I have reliable childcare for my sanity. Most importantly, I really think Spence needs some consistency. He’s doing so well with his sleep and stuff, but everyone who cares for him does things a little differently. And he’s dealing with separation anxiety issues so every time someone new cares for him, he takes a while to warm up to them.

Luckily we live in an area with more nannies per capita than pretty much anywhere (or so I’d guess). So this afternoon I’ve lined up 4 interviews for tomorrow  with nannies who are available to start immediately. Hopefully we’ll find anyone we like. This sucks.

(BTW – We don’t think she’s got anything contagious – otherwise the decision would obviously have been easy to let her go because we’d never put Spence in danger.)

Everyone, repeat after me…

I will not buy another Volkswagen.
I will not buy another Volkswagen.
I will not buy another Volkswagen.
I will not buy another Volkswagen.
I will not buy another Volkswagen.

Dear Readers,
Heed my advice. Volkswagens are not worth the trouble. This is coming from someone who loved VWs so much she didn’t even look at other cars last time she bought one. Never again.

Our service saga continues. Since Memorial Day, we’ve had the car into the shop 5 times for the AC and spent $2500. Each of those trips to the shop equals 2 hours of driving (1 hour each way) for a total of 10 hours of driving. (The VW dealership near us closed in June.) We’ve now taken 4 road trips with 8-month old with no AC because of the incompetent service.

This morning we picked up the car again – It appears the last issue with the AC was because they "forgot" to hook up the $1200 part they said we needed to replace. So, now the AC works. But halfway home we realized that the CD player which worked when we dropped the car off on Monday no longer works.

I am so extremely frustrated and angry – to the point of tears. I called the VW Customer Service line to explain our situation and they told me that I have to work directly with the incompetent VW dealership. And that even if I take the car somewhere else to get the CD player fixed, they will not reimburse me for the trouble.

Wow. So, incompetent service. Spotty cars. AND shitty customer service. Stay far far away. We will be shopping for a new car this weekend – clearly VWs are not on our shopping list.

PS – I’m ASHAMED of Wilco (my favoritest band) for licensing their music to VW. 😦

I’ve got lots of lemons, but having a hard time making any lemonade out of them

Remember last week when I said this?

We NEED a car with air conditioning this weekend because we’re driving
to DC – I can’t do another long one in this heat. I’m seriously melting
just thinking about it.

Well, I mispoke. Apparently, we didn’t NEED air conditioning to drive to DC, it just would have made the drive much, much, much, much, much more pleasant. On Friday morning we picked up the car after paying $1400 for the repairs. This was on top of the money we paid the 3 other times this month they "fixed" the AC. How could it still not work???

I called the dealership from the Verrazzano Bridge absolutely livid. How is it that I haven’t driven 5 miles and there is no cold air? Oh God. My face is all scrunched up and tense just writing about this.  We had no choice but to continue on our trip. It sucked. The car is back at the dealer. They know they screwed up. They will not be charging us another cent. They better do something nice for us too. Or, there will be more photos like this one:

In other news, our nanny is in the hospital again. We’re in a really tough position – do we wait for her to get better or find someone else? She’s only worked 4 days in the past 4 weeks. We’ve both missed a lot of work and spent a lot of money on backups when we could find them. It’s not a question of whether she’s really sick – they don’t keep you in the hospital this long if you’re not REALLY sick. The question is more when she’ll come back to work and what obligation we feel to her. Because, she really is great. And she loves Spencer. And I know good childcare is hard to find. But it’s very stressful to keep scrambling. Bleh.

Oh my lordy. Life is just too easy sometimes – right?

Why Every New Yorker Should Have A Prozac Prescription

I walked down the stairs and out the door of my office building. I immediately sensed something was going on. But, like the New Yorker I’ve become, I ignored it and walked on towards the subway. When I got to Park Ave, I couldn’t ignore it any longer. There were no cars going north on Park Ave. That was most definitely not normal. Then an unmarked police car sped up the street sirens on. That’s when I got scared.

I decided not to go down into the subway. If something really was wrong, I didn’t want to be stuck underground. So, I started to walk south in the general direction of home. I caught snippets of conversation: "A man on a building", "an explosion", "Grand Central". Of course, thoughts of terrorism immediately entered my thoughts. All around me people stopped on the sidewalk with cellphones to their ears. I got mine out and tried to call home. Luckily Ian had gone home early today. But, I couldn’t get through – All signals busy. I’ve only gotten "All Signals Busy" twice before – the blackout and 9/11.

I kept walking and noticed people looking north. I turned around. A huge plume of smoke was in the air right over where Grand Central would be. I kept dialing home and eventually I got through. With a crackling voice, I asked Ian to turn on the news and tell me what was going on. The news crews had just gotten there and didn’t know exactly what had happened but they were talking about an underground explosion. No mention of terrorism.

I shakily walked on. My plan was to try to find a train that ran up the west side – I figured I’d have better luck finding a train running if I got to a line that didn’t run through Grand Central. A few steps away from the subway entrance, 5 police offers ran by me. The officer in the lead was taking long draws on a cigarette while he hustled down into the subway. I decided not to follow them. Who knows what was going on down there?

Instead, I did what any good New York woman would do. I went shoe shopping. I bought some cute gold peep toes with a slingback. Then I ventured down to the subway.  And I made it home without incident. 

Now I’m watching the news and seeing the huge gaping hole on Lexington Ave. It appears it was a steam explosion. But, I still cried a few tears now that I’m safe at home and can relax. Living here can be so stressful. And these scares are just so much scarier when I’m trying to get home to my baby. I’m so happy to be on my couch.

Things that go on and on and on

YEA!
Spencer finally got his first tooth this weekend after months and months and months and months of anticipation.

NEA!
The air conditioning in our car still doesn’t work. We’ve now done 10 3-hour plus drives without AC. It’s been to the service station 4 times. We’ve paid 3 medium sized bills for replacement thingies that were supposed to fix it. One big price tag to go. Seems they are just going to replace the whole shabang now. We spent last night frantically trying to decide whether to buy a new car or suck it up and pay. We’re going to be suckers. We NEED a car with air conditioning this weekend because we’re driving to DC – I can’t do another long one in this heat. I’m seriously melting just thinking about it.

How the pros do it

Spence and I had some professional photos taken for my Mother’s Day gift – I wanted to share the results. I’m really happy with them. I take like 10 zillion photos a week, but I’m no pro. These really capture his personality.

Photos courtesy of Roberto Falck Photography

All aboard the sleep train

I’m scared to write this post. Every time I’ve written anything remotely positive about sleep, bad things happen. But, here it goes…

We started sleep training last Friday when we got home from vacation. I’m not sure what "method" we’re using – we just came up with something we’re both comfortable with. Bedtime goes something like this:

1. We go into our bedroom and lie on the bed together, reading books and having Spencer drink his final bottle (8 ounces).
2. When he finishes his bottle, we carry him to his crib and put him down with his Ugly Doll and pacificiers. (Yes, plural – just in case one falls out of his crib).
3. We give hugs and say good night and leave him…
4. After X minutes, we go in and check on him and give more hugs and make sure he has his pacifier. The first night we went in after 2 minutes, 6 minutes, 12 minutes, 20 minutes, etc. The second night we went in after 4 minutes, 10 minutes, 18 minutes, etc. And now we go in every 10 minutes.

The first night he cried for 40 minutes. Any parent who’s tried sleep training knows how excrutiating those 40 minutes were. It’s hard. Really hard. Night two he only cried for 15 minutes. Since then we’ve been in the 10-15 minute range.

Here’s the kicker – since we started doing this we’ve had some unexpected side effects.

1. He is generally sleeping through the night. We’ve had two nighttime wake-ups, but otherwise he doesn’t get up.

2. He’s going to bed earlier and earlier. We had originally picked 8:30 for his bedtime because we thought it was a good compromise between the 9:30-10:30 when he was going to bed and the 7:00-8:00 time when we thought he should go to bed. But, he’s sooo tired when I get home at 7, that he’s been in bed by 7:30 and asleep by 7:45 every night this week.

3. And, he’s waking up later. Most mornings he’s not waking up until 7:30 or 7:45. And even when he wakes up he still seems tired. (Is this normal?)

My husband and my nights are so different now too that we’re not spending the night trying to get him to sleep. We can eat dinner slowly and at the same time. We can watch TV with the volume on and closed captioning off. We can talk, not whisper to each other about our days. Cool!

The negative is that we don’t get to spend as much time with Spence. A little time before work in the morning and a little time at night when we’re reading books. But, that’s it on work days. Sad.

But, I know this is all for the collective good of the family, so we shall soldier on as a well-rested family.  Hip, hip horray for sleep training!

Science or Religion? An 8-month old weighs in.

Now that Spence can crawl, he has the independence to make his own choices. Carpet or hardwood? Magazine or newspaper?

And yesterday he got to make the ultimate choice – Science (represented by the Albert Einstein doll) or Religion (represented by the Jesus doll). Which did he choose?

PS – You are probably wondering why we had these 2 dolls. You are right to wonder. I bought them for one of those white elephant Christmas gift exchanges where you try not to get screwed with the bad gift. The gift exchange never happened and so Jesus and Albert have been living behind my couch for the past 7 months.

Vacation Recap

5 Things I Loved About Vacation:

• Dunkin Donuts drive-thru – Iced coffee without getting out of my car!
• Price Chopper – Yes, the grocery store. It was so much fun to walk the big wide aisles and fill up my full size cart. Grocery shopping in the city pales in comparison to the ‘burbs. (Which is why I order my groceries on the internet and have them delivered)
• Having 2 bedrooms – Hubby slept in the room with Spence and took care of him through the night. Every night of vacation! It took me 2 nights to get used to it and not wake up throughout the night anyhow. But, then aaaaah! Sleepy Bliss! (Thanks babe!)
• Swimming in the chilly creek – So refreshing. And the burn. The burn! My first exercise in about 2 years!
• Eating yummy, organic meals. Raw bar. Scallops in Green Thai Curry. Jumbalah,   Cheesecake. Peach pie. Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp with Candied Orange Ice Cream. Mmmmm.

5 Things Spence Loved About Vacation:

• The mirrored closet doors
• Pounding on the heating vent
• Eating the New Yorker
• Bathing in the sink
• The mirrored closet doors

Vacation has been over for 24 hours, but still feeling a bit more relaxed than when we left, thought life is trying it’s best to erase the vacation’s effect. Our nanny is still sick – she was in the hospital for 4 days and is home now but not strong enough to come watch the mad crawler. She found a backup though, so we should be covered next week, but it’s still stressful to be dealing with someone new.

Oh, and did I mention the crawling? It’s crazy! Spence is into everything. We just got back from Target buying some emergency babyproofing supplies.

And just to make things more fun and relaxing  – we started sleep training last night. I just can’t take the 2-3 hours of rocking my 21-pound babe every night anymore. It’s becoming a physical issue – my wrists, my shoulder, my back – they’re all calling out for a change. Not to mention the fact that my husband and I don’t get any downtime at night since Spence isn’t going to bed until 9:30 or 10. So, we let him put himself to sleep last night. It took 40 minutes of crying, but he did it. Those 40 minutes were excruciating; I drank wine and ate large quantities of fudge to get through it. Today I put him down for both his naps while still awake and he put himself to sleep – once with about 2 minutes of crying and the second time with no crying. So, I hope we’re on the right track.