The Daily Fuss

Smashed Fruit (and Veggies) Revisited

I've previously mentioned my love affair with baby and toddler fruit purees here and here and I thought it best to post my annual update.

We still love these innovatively-packaged wonders. And, we still have a giant wooden salad serving bowl filled with several different brands in our favorite combinations. It's stocked at all times.

It's worth mentioning that in the two years since I wrote the first post on what we affectionately refer to as "Mish Mash" no matter the brand, there are so many more options - more veggies - more combos - more fun!

We still hit the Plum Organics and Happy Baby pretty hard. We've also added Ella's Kitchen and some Earth's Best into the rotation. All have more stages and more vegetable combinations than ever before.

We do a lot of smoothies too with cow, soy, coconut and almond milk. Mairin needs a few alternatives because she's a bit sensitive to dairy all of the sudden. Fresh food is our first option, but we also blend in a mish mash when we don't have enough fruit or veggies in the house. Plus, it's winter in the midwest and selection of good fresh food can be limited.

To the companies who make these wonderful on-the-go treats.

Keep it up!

And, thank you!

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To Mairin, From Mama: Boobie Dish Haiku

 

 

I kiss tiny feet

while peacefully you do eat

on my lap so sweet

Polite Conversation

As a mother of a five month-old and a two year-old, I am definitely in a place in my life where many of my daily conversations revolve around boobs and poop.

I'm sure one day, Ryan and I will be sitting on the couch enjoying a glass of wine, and one of us will say, "Wow. We haven't talked about boobs and poop in such a long time. I really miss having little kids."

I'm not saying that I don't enjoy having wee ones. I absolutely do. I'm simply commenting on the frequency with which I say those words - "boobs" and "poop" on a daily basis. It's stunning really.

The whole "boobs" talk has everything to do with breastfeeding. They're either sore or exploding or Leighton just jumped on my lap and kneed me in one of them or they don't fit in my shirt or I need to pump while driving my minivan to the city for a meeting while taking a conference call and putting on my makeup. Kidding, of course.

The "boobs" talk will terminate when Mairin turns one year old. I will cry like a baby on that day and I can't really go there mentally, so right now I refuse to take the "boobs" talk for granted. Mairin eats like a champ and has since the day she was born. Many moms and babies struggle with breastfeeding and we don't. So yay for small victories and yay for boobs.

As for the "poop" talk, Leighton has been completely and totally potty trained for a while now. Still, most of the time, she tells us what she's doing on the potty when she's about to do it, is doing it or has already done it.

Lei has no idea that the running commentary on her business is not polite conversation. It's so normal for her to announce to everyone in the room, "I have to poop" - mostly because we've been making such a big deal out of it for some time now. And, because we have no less than eleven books on the subject. When she first started using the potty, we would cheer and clap and call grandmas and grandpas and tell anyone who would listen "Did you know Leighton poops on the potty?"

So yes, of course she believes that our neighbors and friends want to hear about it. They do, or they should, because the fact that my twenty-seven month-old poops on the potty every day without fail is AMAZING.

I am a proud mama. I celebrate the simplest things and tiniest victories - several of which involve poop and boobs today.

Indoor Cat

 
Name: Mairin Isabel

Disposition: Cheerful, talkative, doesn't take herself too seriously.

Skills and Activities: Fluent in jibberish, expert at tummy time, can nap nearly anywhere and suddenly will Houdini out of just about any swaddle.

Enjoys: A good wet razz, long soaks in a warm tub and being tickled by her sister.

Dislikes: Sun, clouds, wind, rain, humidity, lack of humidity, bugs, nature, wildlife and basically anything having to do with the out-of-doors.

Latte Batte

I weaned Leighton from her bedtime baba in one protest-filled evening last August,  in much the same way I recently helped her break  her pacifier habit. 

She's been able to drink from a straw since eight months. This little trick came in handy when I forgot to pack an extra bottle or was out and about for a longer stretch than anticipated. And so, we replaced the bedtime baba with warm milk in a straw cup to be consumed prior to brushing teeth and heading up to bed.

This beverage started as straight whole milk, but somewhere along the line, we began adding a splash of Very Vanilla Silk to add some interest. On the rare occasion we were out of Silk, I substituted with hazelnut coffee creamer. It's nuts, I know. This sophisticated version of the nighttime baba was Leighton's evening latte - or batte (bah-tay) as it came to be called.

To add to the ceremoniousness of the whole thing, I would make a cup of hazelnut decaf for myself half hazelnut creamerand Lei and I would sit on two bottom stairs and drink our latte/batte while recounting the events of the day. Both Lei and I looked forward to our latte/batte ritual.

Notice I said "looked" as in past tense. There's a reason. Let me explain.

Leading up to the potty training fiasco, Leighton and I discussed the difference between "Big Girls" and babies and listed many of the activities in which a big girl may or may not engage.

A big girl articulates her needs using her words. Babies cry and babble.

A big girl dresses and feeds herself. Babies need lots of help doing both.

A big girl drinks from a cup. Babas are for babies.

A big girl sleeps in a bed. Preferably her own. Babies sleep in cribs.

A big girl doesn't need a nukka. Pacifiers are strictly for babies with no teeth.

Most obviously to suit the purpose at hand, a big girl wears underpants. Babies wear diapers.

Come on Leighton, you're a big sister now. It's time to start acting like one.

Leighton communicates better than some adults. She dresses herself and buckles her shoes. She feeds herself and drinks from a cup. She moved from a crib to a toddler bed without flinching and although it was painful at first, and she's likely holding a bit of a grudge, she lets her sister sleep in her old crib without a fuss. 

Lei reluctantly ditched her baba but made the best of the batte substitution. By the time she was forced to forfeit her nukka, the big girl sacrifices and big-sister talk began to seriously piss her off. Once we added the underpants pressure, Lei reached her breaking point.

All of this "big girl" talk intesified the difference between baby Lei and big girl Lei and the way she sees herself. The flat out refusal to potty train is my toddler taking a temporary stand on that issue and putting the breaks on growing up. However, she added a few big girl objectives of her own and met them at once with nothing more than self-imposed restriction.

Leighton stopped asking to be carried up and down stairs. She quit asking for her silky ribbon blankets (we have at least fifteen that my mom made) in bed, in the car and even at nap time. And, perhaps to punish me by depriving me of one of my favorite Leighton/mom rituals, she just gave up the batte. Bummer for mama.

I'm still hoping she changes her mind.

Nukka Detox

I believe we're good parents. We try to follow the rules. We make sacrifices to ensure that our kids eat well, sleep properly and are stimulated to the level required by their individual dispositions.

They appear to be intelligent, well-adjusted, happy and doing the things they should be doing at their respective ages.

Except that we let our almost two year-old suck on a pacifier when she's sleepy. Shame on us. 

We introduced it to her way back when to get her to sleep, since she was never much of a self-soother. By six weeks, she was hooked.

At our year dental and doctor appointments, we were told to wean her from it, but we were weak. She gave up her baba and eventually her crib and almost her diapers. But the nukka ... come on!

The recent faceplant incident brought about the change we needed. Because she caused trauma to her front gums and teeth, she couldn't have the nukka anymore. Holy hell.

I knew that first nukka-free night wasn't going to be a walk in the park. We got ready for bed, brushed our teeth, gathered up our best books, took some Advil and climbed into the big bed. The big bed is our bed - the bed she's been falling asleep in and sleeping all night in since Mairin came home.

Once the books were read and we'd called for a cup of warm milk and we went potty three times and inquired as to Mairin's whereabouts, Lei began begging for her nukka like a crackhead for her pipe. "PUH-UH-UH-LEASE can I have a nukka mama?"

It was so sad. She sobbed and wailed for 97 minutes before finally accepting my explanation that the booboo to her mouth would get much worse if I let her have her nukka. I explained that babies can have them because they have no teeth - they need them. Big girls don't.

"I'm not a big girl MAMA. Sniff. Sniff. I'm a toddler."

A solid point, but not one that would sway me, unfortunately.

She wore herself out at minute 96, wiped her tears, rolled over dramatically on her tummy and said, "Tickle my back." So I did.

And she fell asleep.

And that was the end of that.

The next day, Dr. Yum explained to her, as I had, that a nukka simply wasn't appropriate for a toothy toddler - especially one with an injury like hers. This appeared to help her make sense of her loss and she didn't mention the nukka all day.

Later that evening, as we prepared for bed I (and what I was sure would be another bedtime catasrophe) Leighton handed me one of Mairin's nukkas (that she stole right from her little mouth) and said "Here mama. It hurts."

Brilliant. I thought of trying that, but what if it didn't hurt that bad and the whole thing backfired? Then I'd really be screwed. Still, I'm glad she gave it a shot and nutching that damn thing was too painful to continue, because Leighton went to bed that night without asking once for the addictively soothing little device.

And so did Mairin. I prefer NOT to go through that 97 minutes of nukka detox hell ever again, if possible. I'm proud to say that Little Sis is already learning to self-soothe.

What the Fuss? Burpy Bibs

This week's obsession is the Aden and Anais Burpy Bib.™  I have always been a huge fan of the swaddling blankets. In fact, I have eight, and rotate them between swaddling and burping.

Almost nothing beats a giant, muslin burp cloth. The soft, fluffy fabric can be tucked into nooks and crannies while providing great coverage to soak up spitty quickly and spare our clothes. The large size can get a bit cumbersome, but I didn't see much of a choice.

Until Little Sis was born.

When I saw these fabulous, bean-shaped burpies, I knew I had to have some. I added two to my regular order from diapers.com for $7.99 each. These Burpy Bibs did not disappoint.

Aden and Anais says: Great form meets versatile function in our soft, absorbent burpy bib. Our special shape keeps things clean whether used as a bib or a burp cloth. Natural, gentle muslin is as easy to care for as it is to use. And no aden + anais® product would be complete with our chic, exclusive prints.

The clever bean shape covers you when you burp and can quickly be snapped around baby for use as a bib. Clean and modern prints are an added bonus. Simply genius - an instant Fussworthy must-have. 

I definitely wish I'd thought of this.

Mish Mash Stash

Last February, I enthusiastically acknowledged the squeezable, organic fruit revolution.  A year later, we keep a stash of  squeezables on hand next to the Luna bars and fruit on our counter top. Leighton happily eats one or two a day for her snack or to tide her over between meals.

Plum Organics is responsible for the original Plum Tots Mish Mash. However, Lei refers to all squeezable fruit or fruit and veggie combos as "Mish Mash" and we don't correct her. It's the best name anyone has invented to describe the dilectible, organic, pureed contents of an ingeniously designed pouch.

I choose to single out Plum Organics products because they have rapidly expanded their baby and toddler food and snack offerings beyond any other company.

For babies, Plum Organics has first and second fruits and blends, training meals, cereals and puffs. And, for Tots, they offer Mish Mash, Fruity Fingerfuls and Fiddlesticks.

Leighton likes everything on the menu, but most importantly, doesn't split hairs on baby versus toddler squeezable snacks - we keep the big wooden salad bowl filled with all the flavors - up to thirty pouches, ready for picking, at any given time.

 
Unadulterated fruits and veggies that keep fresh, can travel anywhere and are packed with mighty vitamins - our kids can snack on them until they're in high-school for all we care.

JUST fruits are a perfect first food introduction for your budding eater. Simple fruit purees with smooth textures offer your baby the very best flavors and nutrition. Using only organic fruit and nothing else, the gently cooked fruits are naturally preserved in a convenient, resealable pouch that's perfect for flexible portions.

Apple, Mango, Banana, Pear, Peach and Prune.

 

Plum Baby second blends come in seven varieties: Blueberry, Pear & Purple Carrot; Sweet Potato, Corn & Apple; Spinach, Peas & Pear; Pumpkin & Banana; Pear & Mango; Peach, Apricot & Banana; Apple & Carrot.

I feel great about mixing these in with the fruit-only varieties. Sometimes it's tough to make sure a toddler gets her veggies.

 

Plum Tots Mish Mash fruit blends are pefect for toddler hands and make great on-the-go snacks. Throw a few in your bag and you are never caught without a healthy snack.

These blends come in Strawberry, Peach and Banana.

 Whole Foods carries the Plum Organics brand and so does Babies R Us and select Toys R  Us stores.

The Highland Park Toys R Us doesn't carry anything other than Gerber products, so I order Mish Mash by the six pack (or palate) from Diapers.com. They come out to about $1.50 each for a considerable amount of organic goodness. It's a good value in my book. Plus, the fact that my kids eat what we eat (just without hot spices and blended in the Beaba Babycook to suit their specific age) means that we aren't overspending on prepackaged baby food in general.

This product review conforms to the Fuss Formula.

Have you tried squeezable smashed fruits and such? Let us know what you think. Please leave a comment and share your fuss with us.

Unlikely Tourist

I saw this on Dooce today and simply could not resist. Right down to the fanny pack, it's too much.

  

Don't Tell Dr. Weissbluth

If you would have told me that, unlike Leighton, my second baby would be a "sleepy baby" I wouldn't have believed you. Unless you also promised me that, unlike Leighton, the little deuce would be difficult to feed. That trade-off may have captured my attention as decidedly plausible.

From her first night in the hospital, Leighton has never been much of a self-soother and we never did get up the nerve to let her just cry it out. 

At twenty-two months old, she still loves her nukka at night. She also still prefers her "cozy" spot comfied up a "certain way". And, she still comes into our bed at 2am and drills us with her little toes and elbows until 6:30.

However, she maintains 11 hours of sleep at night plus a two-hour nap during the day, making her incredibly well-rested and happy. And Lei has always been a SUPER good eater. Bless her that curried mango-glazed salmon, steamed broccoli and shitake mushroom risotto is her undisputed FAVORITE meal. I cannot wait to take her, and her rather sophisticated palate, wine tasting in twenty years.

You win some. You lose some. The sleep experts wouldn't advise you based on some of our tactics, but it's working for us in more ways than it isn't.

For her first two weeks on the planet, our experience with Little Sis has been just the opposite. We were all well-rested in the hospital and it continued initially when we got home. Mairin will sleep through the night, every night (at least for five straight hours) unless I wake her for feedings. Her startle reflex is fierce, so we still employ the time-tested practice of swaddling. In fact, last night's swaddle was so award-winngly amazing, I would have taken a picture for you had my camera been handy. I felt like a pro.

With our "sleepy baby" comes a few unforeseen issues that are actually, kind of a pain in the ass - all of which are related to feeding our sweet little bug:

1) Even if Mairin sleeps longer than three hours, I still need to wake her to feed her. If that doesn't work, I must get up to pump or suffer the unpleasant consequences. I figure, at least everyone else can wake up fresh in the morning. I'm on maternity leave, so waking up every three hours is actually in my job description. Bummer.

2) In light of #1, I must tell you that it's ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to wake Mairin to eat. We tickle her, change her diaper, wipe her little cheeks with a cold baby wipe, talk to her, walk around with her ... Even when I get her to start eating, she usually falls right back to sleep a few seconds later. Thus, dragging a ten minute feeding out for sixty more.

3) The tomfoolery involved with #2 sometimes leads me to fall asleep sitting up at the Boppy, inadvertently soaking Mairin, her PJs, the Boppy and any nearby blankets once she dozes off too. At this point, I can only put towels on the bed or try to convince Ryan and Leighton to get up so I can change the sheets because (as you will see in #4 below) sleeping in a bed soaked in wet breast-milk is wholly unappealing to me.

4) Even when I do manage to get the requisite amount of milk into the baby, she falls asleep while I burp her. If I don't get a good burp out of her, then she spits up, repeatedly, for the rest of the night. Because this grosses me out completely (I was like Leighton and never would have been able to sleep in damp, stinky spoiled-milk pjs) I change her, then she poops, then I change her diaper, which causes her to spit up again and the cycle continues until she's actually awake and hungry, at which point I will feed her and most likely fall asleep at the wheel again anyway.

5) If I just let Mairin sleep (which is what you've been mentally wishing I would do while reading the first four items of my sad little list), please know that I probably won't wake up to pump, thus soaking the whole bed eventually anyway. Or, she'll wake up just after I've put the freshly-pumped bottle in the fridge, thus dragging my nocturnal experience out another forty minutes. Either way, I will curse myself for not trying to wake her.

Letting her sleep just isn't that cut and dry of decision. Plus, my ability to make sound decisions is heavily warped by my lack of sleep and I just can't be held responsbile for my own inconsistent ballyhoo until I come up with some sort of solution.

6) If any of this ridiculum wakes up Leighton, then she needs to kiss her baby sister, make a trip to the potty and spend a few minutes begging to watch Annie. She will finally compromise on the movie by having me tickle her back with her blanket ribbon until she falls back asleep. 

This routine can last for quite some time. In fact, this very set of circumstances escalates the evening to a "Code Red" for which no amount of training can prepare you and no amount of red wine and girl scout cookies can fix the next day. Only irrational bickering with my baby daddy, a profuse shedding of tears and a four-hour nap will right this ship. Good thing the "Code Red" is incredibly rare so far.

Sound familiar? Have any advice? Please leave a comment and share your fuss with us! I'd love to hear from you.

Self Evaluation

At three this afternoon, the overall score for the day was nothing short of promising. Most importantly, Leighton's little barely-slept-a-wink self was at school and would most certainly be too pooped to wreak any real toddler havoc when she got home.

I caught up with the laundry, made progress on a legal publication I'm spearheading, finished a post, showered AND dried my hair, made hair and massage appointments, pumped an extra feeding, snapped a few pictures of Mairin, cleaned any messy aspects of the house and remembered to feed Lue and let her out the requisite number of times throughout the day. A few gifts were delivered for Miss Mairin, as well - driving the score even higher.

Ryan returned with Lei shortly thereafter and the circus promptly began. Here are a few things that fall under the auspice of what I like to call "toddler mayhem":

Squeezing little sis around the middle and/or hugging her by the head whilst I'm feeding her - out of love, of course.

Spontaneously bursting into song in an attempt to avoid answering a direct question.

Finishing my sentences incorrectly to suit her needs.

Bedtime battles and temper tantrums - most of which include "the noodle" where she raises her arms above her head and her shoulder blades turn to cartilage and it's impossible to find any place on her to grab hold and successfully pick her up. (How do all kids know how to noodle instincitvely? The phenomenon needs to be studied).

Getting naked for no real reason other than to mess with me.

Putting anything other than potty, in the potty.

Doing artwork anywhere other than on paper while nodding and telling me "paper only" and "keep it on the paper, mama".

AND MY FAVORITE ...

Slapping me (more like controlled flailing as if to say "I'm going to swing my arm around fiercely and you best not get in its way") followed by profuse apologies, patting me on the shoulder or back, caressing my face and telling me that "everything will be okay mommy" in a slightly Munchausen by proxy sort of way.

The list goes grows daily with some new goofiness, but these incidents don't last long and they aren't as frequent as I'm making it seem. Leighton is really a very sweet little girl, it's just that she sprung the mayhem on us suddenly a few weeks ago and it's still throwing a monkey wrench into what was a very happy and well-managed daily routine. She's a toddler and this is totally normal. We get it. I promise. Still, it doesn't make it any less exhausting or hilarious to us.

Tonight, Leighton can add pooping in the bathtub (I think it was more of a gambled-and-lost, toot-confusion situation rather than an act of defiance, but it counts) and needing to wear a tiara to bed to read The Princess and the Pea with babies, silks and blankies strewn about her special sleeping spot to take the daily score down just a smidge.

The real point deduction for the day was all on me. I spilled several ounces of freshly pumped sweet juice all over the dining room table and on to the floor. What a MAJOR EFFING DISAPPOINTMENT. If this were my first baby, I would have been inconsolable for at least an hour. But, I'm over it.

The daily tally buoyied again late in the day. By 7:39pm, everyone was fed, and everyone under the age of two was asleep. At this point, the television remains off and Ryan just opened a bottle of red. There will most definitely be few spitups, wakeups, feedings and trips to the potty over the next several hours. But overall, I'm pleased with our team's performance.

I give us a solid 10.

Awesome Foursome (and a little dog too)

So little sis was born just AFTER the biggest blizzard in the history of Chicago weather situations since at least 1967, if not EVER. We left the Marriott downtown at 3pm on February 2nd, only to make the chilly, unplowed, white out, nary-another-car-on-the-road return trip at 1am. Figures.

Although I was (once again) hoping for an annoyingly uneventful labor and delivery ... it  simply wasn't to be. Well, the labor part anyway.

Due to the outrageous and unrelenting dumping of snow the day before, inductions, c-sections and various other surgeries had been postponed. No one was available for break my water for five hours after I caved on the epidural. How annoying.

Still, it was worth it in the end. By 7:44pm, after insisting someone check me again, it only took two pushes, 180 seconds and NO STITCHES to meet the littlest Freeman.  I fully consider this a pleasant alternative to the 90 minutes of pushing and painstaking needlepoint involved in delivering Leighton.

Mairin Isabel was born at 7:45pm with a full head of shiny, black hair (no real clue where that comes from), big sister's giraffe eyelashes and a dimple in her chin to match both mommy and Leighton. She was just too cute, right away.

Leighton was super pumped to meet little sis for the first time and never misses a chance to kiss her and hug her and tell her just how much she loves her. Sometimes, she loves her a little too "hard" but we've learned to manage the hard lovin' to some degree. If we can't lock it down completely, Mairin might need a helmet - at least until the soft spot closes up.

Luella didn't seem to need much of an adjustment this time. She's relatively chill and actually appears to love the newest member of our squad - most likely because she has witnessed, first hand, how rambunctions these sweet little people can become over the course of twenty-two months.

In this house, the infant is the easy one. Mairin is a sleeper, which feels crazy to us. We keep checking to make sure she's okay. Lei needed constant entertainment and sleep management - she still does to some degree. A sleepy baby is so completely different than the toddler who WON'T GO TO BED.

In fact, Lei's recent behavioral outbursts have risen to a level of toddler mayhem so cleverly calculated that they seem unlikely to have come from said toddler. Last night, she managed to fight sleep until 1am by bargaining for drinks, trips to the potty, crying, screaming, flailing and pulling random stunts. I was ready to poke my own eyes out by 12:45am, but am happy to report that last night's shenanigans seem but a distant memory at this point.

In fact, Ryan and I are enjoying a few blissed-out, mommy/daddy moments of simultaneous maternity and paternity leave with Mairin sleepily cooing in the living room bassinet as we blog and google our way through the next thirty minutes until it's time to pick Big Sis up from school.

What happens after that is anyone's guess, but I'm guessing you'll hear about it tomorrow.

Mini-Vain

I've never wanted to own a car, much less two - which is where this post is headed. 

Well, maybe I had a few delusions of car ownership when I turned sixteen, but I stopped giving a rip about it relatively soon after that. Borrowing my parents' car suited me just fine. Two years later, I arrived at the UW in Madison, Wisconsin where I definitely didn't need a car AT ALL.

I moved to Chicago after graduation, where the cost of all car-related expenses is legitimate deterrent, thus relieving me of any desire or real need to own an automobile. A decade of cab fare doesn't rival the cost of monthly parking and guaranteed parking tickets - not to mention the fact that my twenties involved plenty of cocktails, making driving illegal much of the time. To this day, I'm convinced I played it right - no need to own a car in Chi-town.

Until Leighton was born.

I didn't marry Ryan for the sole purpose of inheriting co-ownership of his Jeep grand Cherokee. However, I will admit to falling head-over-heels in love with her over the years. She's was fully loaded in 2000 and even after a decade, still purrs like a kitten. She's been good to us.

Her looks belie her 120k-mile experience. With still-supple leather, functioning heated seats, new shoes, fresh brakes, new air conditioning/heating block and nary a scratch on her silvery-taupe exterior, she's a sweet ride. Sure we're missing a few key features of the latter part of this decade - like the latch system, to name one - but, Leighton sits content, rear-facing in the back-middle spot and we all get along just fine.

What's the problem? The problem is that once little sis comes along, the Freeman family will no longer physically fit in our beloved Jeep.  < PLEASE INSERT THE MOST DRAMATIC SIGH YOU'VE EVER HEARD RIGHT HERE>.

Ryan is a tall drink of water. At six-foot-five-inches tall, you can't squeeze a car seat behind his seat, lest you chance jamming up his incredibly long shank, thus forcing the vehicle into a light post on your journey. He's too careful to allow the possibility of such a scenario, so we're in the market for a new family car.

In the search for suitable transportation, our criteria is limiting. We need enough room for Ryan to drive comfortably, space for at least two car seats, room for baby/kid gear and any presents we will undoubtedly accumulate at either of the grandparents' houses, the ability to move around the vehicle with relative ease on a long road trip to St. Louis and some entertainment for little ones.

"Get a minivan, dumbass,"  is the obvious answer to this dilemma.

The prospect of minivan ownership actually doesn't bother me at all. I've demonstrated my couldn't-care-less-edness about the whole car thing, so "whatever works" is fine with me. I swear.

Ryan, is another story, another breed - the kind that swore to NEVER EVER own a minivan under ANY circumstances whatsoever. Probably because minivans didn't exist back in the day when his parents were hauling three giant man-boys to various sporting events, but the underlying reason doesn't much matter. He's cemented his position even moreso after spying the 2011 model of our beloved Jeep and, after seeing it for myself, I can't find a reason to NOT show up at the nearest Jeep dealership with two car seats in tow - ready for a test run.

The millennial counterpart to our trusty transport is nothing if not gorgeous. I think it would be a stretch to shoehorn this family into it, but I'm willing to try. The girl who finds cars to be an incredible waste of money is now faced with a monthly car payment (something we haven't had in years) so the giant mass of metal we choose better bring the goods.

Any advice you have, dear readers, is most welcome. To minivan, or not to minivan is the ultimate question. Please post a comment and share your fuss with us.

Maybe Baby

We went for Leighton's 18-month checkup today. Everything was great. She's tall, thin, smart, sassy and didn't cry for her shots - like a mini supermodel with a mild temperament and sweet little mullet on her 82.5 percentile head.

On the way out, we passed a freshie in the waiting room. She was an adorable little Chinese peanut with a shock of black hair and that typical far-away newborn gaze. And, for the life of me, I could not remember Leighton ever being that tiny.

Ever.

I put Lei to bed a little while ago and came straight downstairs to peruse photographs from the first six weeks of her life in a concerted effort to find evidence that she was, in fact, the drooling, gurgling, can't-hold-her-head up baby that she certainly must have been. Right?

Sure, there are a few pictures where she's staring blankly and intently on a shadow in the corner of the ceiling, but the other seven thousand eight hundred fifty two shots show an incredibly alert kid. At this point, I'm even having trouble remembering her not talking - probably because we've been able to communicate since the moment our eyes met.

And, they met seconds after she was born. They put her in my arms and she stared calmly and confidently right up at me. Leighton's gaze instantly destroyed and reinvented me. Then she did it to her dad, grandmas, grandpas ... everyone. It was nuts. I made them wait before administering those gooey eye drops because I couldn't stand to end the hour of continuous eye contact.

I started thinking about the insane amount of thought and hope and anticipation and expectation wrapped around my first-born, and realize that my memories are gilded to some degree. But, I will say that the picture above was taken at four days old. Those are the eyes that locked mine that first day - the day she let me know just how much she expected of me.

Now, I can't help thinking about Little Sis. For baby number two, much of that anticipation is gone. We know what babies are like and how many diapers we'll change and what to feed her and when she should hit which milestone. With Lei, we've been (and still are) anxious to see how quickly she can learn things and in some ways, it feels like we're speeding her along to the next phase, always looking forward. If little sis is our last, then maybe the reverse will be true - that we'll always want to see her as a baby and always will.

It stands to reason anyway.

Family placement and its affect on each of us has always intrigued me - probably because the whole "only child" thing is foreign to most people and doesn't fit comfortably into the discussion of traditional family placement. Come February, little sis will put me well outside my sphere of knowledge on the topic and that's definitely a good thing.

Plus, I figure I'll have twice as much to write about.

What the Fuss? Nice Rack

Cute and clever - a wicked combination. Especially when we're talking about baby products. I spent the last sixteen months balancing bottles and nipples on a drying rack that resembled a warped starter set of Construx.

Why you ask? Because I didn't know any better.

When we moved, my mom showed up with a few treats for me. (Let me say that she rarely, if ever, shows up empty handed. In fact, Leighton's first move after greeting her Gaga is to rifle through her purse looking for gifts. Please remember that my mother only lives and hour away and we see her quite often. The pavlovian effect was swift).

This time, my gifties were two newAvent wide-mouth Natural Feeding bottles, a kickass bottle brush(also Avent) and the Boon Grass Drying Rack. Yes, Lei is a toddler but she still like her baba at night and I refuse to deprive her of such things until she's two. We have no baba shame in the Freeman house. Plus, she has been a straw drinker since eight months and does not like sippy cups. Hence, the baba.

I love the Avent products - made in England and beautifully designed. Still, the jackpot portion of my haul was the Boon Grass Drying Rack. It's two dishwasher-friendly pieces of fun that hold any baby item to dry completely. It's ingenious, adorable and takes a spin in the dishwasher without warping.

You can pick up your Boon Grass Drying Rack at Target for $15 - or closer to $20 elsewhere. This Fussworthy Must-Have makes a great shower gift and is not to be missed.

Just curious, at what age did your toddler give up the bottle? Parents seem to get nervous about it and my nanny said that the parents of her other charges were sheepishly wondering the same thing. Please leave a comment and share your fuss with us!