I finally bought my double stroller!!!

So I guess every parent that enters into the blog world eventually ends up writing about their experiences shopping and comparing strollers (or carriages as my husband calls them). With our first born I researched until I was dreaming/having nightmares of strollers in my sleep! We finally settled on the Peg Perego Pliko P3 and got the travel system to match. We never regretted the choice, not once! We traveled quite a bit with the stroller and my husband even took it out during an unusual dumping of snow/ice! I will say the stroller was NOT designed for this type of outing but it survived my husband shoving it through the mess beautifully! The stroller was used every single day of it’s existence. I don’t have a car during the day since my husband takes it to work so every outing my first son and I had was on foot and with the stroller. So, BIG THUMBS UP from this family if you are considering this one.

Here's Peter (10 months old) in his Peg Perego:

Now that we have baby #2 in the house and since our outings are never shorter than 2 hours, a double stroller is necessary. Our oldest is 2 years old and can definitely walk for short outings, so for these I strap the baby on my back and head out the door. But for our typical daily outings – a new double stroller was needed. I won’t lie, I was very excited about getting to buy a new piece of equipment and had been eyeing the new Phil & Teds whenever I was at the playground. I was determined to like this stroller and buy its latest greatest sleekest version, the Vibe. I had my husband convinced it was the only stroller for us. Living in the city the sidewalks are narrow and more importantly, our door to our 100 year old house is narrow (as are the steps leading up to it). I needed something with a small footprint so-to-speak. So off we went today to get my awesome swanky and sleek Phil & Teds Vibe with all the extras (a rain canopy, a sun canopy, a snack tray, a mommy tray as I call it – yep, all of this must be purchased ala cart)…our bill for this stroller was expected to reach $1000.

Now, for the local moms and dads, I have to say if you are in the market for either a stroller or a car seat then Great Beginnings out in Gaithersburg is the only place you need to go. The salesperson that helped us knew everything about every stroller and demonstrated every feature. It’s my understanding, through talking to other moms, that this has been their experience too. Don’t think for a minute that all this training their employees go through requires they work on commission – it does not! What this means is they are truly suggesting strollers they think fit your particular needs rather than pushing the most expensive one in their store. I am proof of that. I walked through the door with a few minor questions I needed answered before I bought my new Vibe. The man who helped me couldn’t be quicker to answer: Is it true, I asked, that the Vibe does not come with all the attachments and extras such as a sun guard and rain canopy that the Sport comes with? True he answered, and he even went so far as to explain that I most likely would need the “Dash” over the Vibe or Sport versions. The Vibe and Sport models, for those that don’t know, are the two most expensive in the line. Further, when he started explaining that second seat doesn’t get any sun protection at all (this is where the baby would be sitting/laying) I started to falter on my determination to get the Vibe or even a Phil & Teds. Finally, he explained the weight limits on the stroller…the bottom seat in the Phil & Teds, at best maxes out at 40 lbs. If I were to consider a side-by-side stroller I could push that maximum weight limit to 50 lbs.

So, I moved on to examining the side-by-side strollers. Now, anyone that remotely knows me knows that I have long “decided” that the side-by-sides were just too wide and cumbersome! I had long ago decided the Phil & Teds was our stroller, so for me to move away from that was/is a big deal! So, what did I come home with today? The City Jogger Mini.

Here's my husband pushing our sons in the Double stroller:
(And no, that is NOT the way you are supposed to strap your baby in the fully reclined seat...it's my husband's way of doing it!)

We took it out for it’s maiden voyage to the DC Cherry Blossom Festival today. It was just a dream to drive. Peter looked soo much more comfortable in it and the sun shades that come with it are so sufficient I didn’t feel the need to purchase the sun cover that wraps around the carriage. I did, however, purchase the rain cover. Not so much to shield against rain as to shield against high winds. The sun canopies that come attached to the stroller come so far down I couldn’t see needing extra protection from rain – unless it’s a major downpour. So that’s it woohoo!!! So the cost of our double stroller, including my rain cover and mommy tray was $399!! My husband was sooo, sooo happy we didn’t spend $1000!

Here's a shot of a beautiful tree in downtown DC from our outing today. It's NOT a Cherry Tree

Happy stroller hunting!

Paul is 1 month old!!!

Well, he's a month old on the 5th, but he had his 1-month check up at the doc's office today.

How we've made it a month, I have no idea. I can hardly believe it's been a month already! Paul still has his nights and days mixed up and everything I read says not to try and fix it by waking him up. So I'm just sticking to moving him downstairs with our lights and noise during and the day and at night moving him to his nursery where it is warm, dark and quiet.


The nights have been very rocky! He battles some pretty bad stomach pains, but so far no sign of the infamous acid reflux babies seem to have these days...he has just plain old average new baby tummy ache associated with gas.

The kid can eat! He nurses constantly and I've finally been able to determine his signs for true hunger versus wanting to eat because he's upset or tired.

Paul's one month check up went well, he was measured, weighed, poked and prodded and it was determined he is healthy and growing perfectly. He also received his Hepatitis B shot; the first in a long, long succession of shots to come! He cried horribly, but before he cried he had this little pouty turned down frown and seemed to kind of look up at us - it was such a sad little face that even the nurse said "awwww". :( I nursed him for comfort after the shot and all was forgiven.

To round out Paul's 1 month check up day we carted him over to our local Post Office to get his passport photos taken - amazing right? Passport photos for a 1 month old!!! The US government requires passports for infants and because Mark's family is in Canada we needed to get a passport for our little guy. The really funny thing is the passport is good for five years. Peter's passport photo is of him at 1 month old too, he's now 2 years old and looks absolutely nothing like his photo. It will just be ridiculous by the time he is five years old!

So Paul's stats as of today:

Weight: 10 lbs. 5 oz
Height: 23 Inches
Head Circ.: 15 Inches
Adorability factor: OFF THE CHARTS
I added that one, the doc's office doesn't do that test! **GRIN**

Here's a video of Paul cooing and working himself up into a fit. The noise you hear in the background is his "Rainforest" toy that makes cricket sounds...

Yankers!

I gotta have these! GOTTA!

How ingenious!

And they're sold out of every size except for 2-T... I'll be hovering on their site until at least the 3 month size is available!

Thank you DD!!!

It’s been 1 week and 2 days since Paul was born and I am just now beginning to come out of my “fog” of pain, pain killers and sleeplessness. I think the “fog” is lifting mostly because I’m running out of pain killers and have started conserving them for the night time when the pain seems to be at its worst. The fog certainly isn’t lifting because I’m getting sleep (that’s not happening) or because the pain is gone (it’s definitely better but certainly not gone!). My mom wasn’t in town for the birth (she was away on business in India and returned yesterday with some awesome gifts – more on that later); so my sister came down from Albany to watch Peter while I was in the hospital delivering Paul. That’s mostly what this post is about…A gigantic thank you to my sister for watching over a 2 year old, when she has never (to my knowledge) ever babysat any aged child in her life! I’d wager cutting your teeth on a 2 year old prepares you for any aged child! Peter, who all will agree, under normal circumstances is really a great, easy going kid. Mark and I have been lucky in that he’s not rambunctious or unwieldy. However, when both your parents disappear for 3 days and leave you in the care of an Aunt you’ve met only once when you were 3 months old doesn’t sit well at this age and causes some out of the norm behavior! There were inexplicable screaming fits, refusals to go to sleep and because I failed to tell my sister that even though Peter loves prunes not to let him eat the whole box there were giant poop diapers that exploded down his leg and all over the couch (…poor Andrea!). So unprepared was I for Andrea taking over that I didn’t explain there were certain words you avoid in order to avoid a screaming fit; words like playground, zoo, bye-bye, car, outside, popsicle…these are words you can not utter in Peter’s presence unless you plan to give him these things immediately!

But I will say it wasn’t all bad stuff, at least not from Peter’s perspective. What Peter got from his Auntie AJ was an enormously fun playmate, with way more energy than his Mom has had in the past 2 months, he got to go out everyday and do something, he played in his toy room in the basement with Andrea with such shrieks of laughter that it made me a little jealous (but oh so happy for him) that I hadn’t gotten that kind of laughter out of him lately...again, because I was so immobile. Peter also has developed his own knick name for Auntie AJ, mostly out of the inability to actually pronounce “Auntie AJ”; what comes out in the attempt to pronounce her name is “DD” – I couldn’t have made up a cuter knick name! So went the baby sitting while I was in the hospital.

When I got out of the hospital, so out of it was I after the surgery that we did not capture one single photograph of my sister with Peter or Paul…this, even now, makes me want to cry and chokes me up every time I think of it. I wish I could fix that somehow! Fly her back down tomorrow just for a photo shoot…it just hurts my heart! Andrea actually left earlier than planned and I think maybe that’s why we didn’t get around to it…I was still pretty out of it on pain killers to think of photographs. I don’t know why it was worse this time around, I had a c-section with Peter too – but wasn’t in nearly as much pain or nearly as out of it! That’s another Thank You I owe my sister! If she hadn’t taken the pictures she took we would hardly have any photos of Paul those first few days at all!!! I have some of the sweetest pictures of Peter with Paul thanks to my sis!

So: Thank You DD!! You’re the best and we’ll definitely be up soon to visit you and rectify our photo issues!!!

DC Snow Day!

Wooohooo!!! Snow day in DC! Actually, the DC area public schools were open today with a two hour delay, but that didn't effect my two year old and I. My son , my sister, who's in town to help out when the new baby comes this week, and I were all out in the snow today.

Peter insisted and even demanded we go out in the snow almost as soon as he got up today; Saying over and over again "P, no! P, no!" Translation: Peter, snow! After spending a good 20 mins looking for and digging out his winter coat, boots, and snow pants from the basement (we really don't ever need them here, only up in Canada) we all headed outside where Peter threw snow all over the sidewalks my dear, dear neighbor had just cleaned off for all of us. After a really good 15 minutes outside, Peter was done and wanted back inside. We convinced him to go out back and play some more; that lasted 5 minutes before he asked to have his boots taken off...so that was it, we came inside! :) Pictures below.


Here's Peter just after a huge wind kicked up a ton of snow in his face:



Here he is playing in the snow:

Have you Googled yourself?

Go ahead, admit it! You've Googled your name before. I do it all the time, mostly because I have my art page out there and want to see where it pulls up on the search engines (not very high). What DOES pop up however, is photos I've put up on Facebook...interesting considering I thought someone had to be linked to me as a friend to see things on my Facebook pages. But, no matter, I don't put anything embarrassing or scandelous up on FB anyway. Not that have anything scandelous to hide!

A recent Yahoo! search of my name however, yielded something that just cracked me up! Here's a screen shot ...


(Please pardon the horrible shot...it was the only way I knew to make the text large enough to read.)

I'd like to think that IF I was up for sale, my prices wouldn't be cheap!!

What do you find when you Google your name?

Why playing the lottery will get my son in a good school!

I have spent the past month researching DC area preschools and creating a massive spreadsheet outlining all the basic information of each school. Why?

Let's see, it all started back in April 2006 when I got pregnant with Peter. The news was surprising, exciting and something we shared immediately with the world. With the news that we were expecting came incredible amounts of unsolicited advice from everyone we knew (and didn't know) ranging in topic. The one bit of advice we found most amusing has now become not so amusing.

That advice came when I was just 4 weeks pregnant: "Oh, you guys better apply now for the daycare you're going to put your baby in!"

We laughed pretty hard at this, commenting that some people are just wound too tight. After all, we're not the elitist types, any normal daycare will do just fine for us.

Fast forward to Fall 2008 when we decided it was about time to get Peter started in preschool, just in time for him to turn two that January 2009. I literally had daycare/preschool directors laugh at my expectation to get my son in theirs or any other school in just a few months after an inquiry. Every school in a 10 mile radius of our home has a two year waiting list! Every school. The crappy ones and the awesome ones. I should have applied before I conceived!!! Parents begin their research 3 years out so they have a good list of 5 or 6 schools to tour, apply, and get on waiting lists. I have no words, none for this insanity. Applying to 6 schools at roughly $100 per application fee just to get on a waiting list...amazing.

What a two year waiting list translates to is the preschools can be selective (I can't believe I just used the word selective in reference to a preschool). After all, these schools have people beating down their doors for a spot for their unborn child! This means rates are high, deposits are high, app fees are high, if you want your child watched before 9am then you pay extra, if you want your child watched after 3pm you pay extra...you're financially raped to put your kid in a daycare/preschool. If you want a school that has a reputation of it's students migrating to some of the more sought after grade schools in the area...then you're paying man...you are paying!!! Oh and then there's the interviews; parents are interviewed, children are interviewed, children have a play day at the preschool and observed and my personal favorite requirement an IQ test! OK, a school-readiness test, there are two other tests that have been listed as well - but I just nixed those schools off my list - my 3 year old isn't violent or mentally deranged ...I think that's all they need to know about him right now. He is NOT taking a damned test!

So, back to the spreadsheet - why? As I peruse each website, I find that definitely some websites are better and more thorough than others. The basic information you are looking for is not always in logical locations (like a section for tuition maybe? or the "core" hours of the school). So, I made a list of the basic info I want/need to decide if I want to take a tour. I've spent the better half of the last month digging, researching and emailing/calling the schools to get such basic info as:

- Are they accredited? By what organization
- Tuition
- Application, Registration fees, if it's refundable
- Youngest age accept, oldest ages accepted
- length of school year

These are basic things I would assume would be on the website. One school required that I submit a request for more information. Which, after I submitted was sent a huge packet of information in glossy beautiful booklets; I will admit it was extremely informative and nice to have photos of the school...all of which could have been put on the website.

Another reason for the spreadsheet; fees and tuition are not all on one page. On almost every single school's website the information was sprinkled across sections of the website; meaning I had to scavenge around to find out what hidden costs existed. Below is an example of what I'm talking about ...each item listed below was in a different location on one school's website, including the massive deposit amount that was hidden on the actual PDF'd application:

Annual Reg.Fee: $550
Ref. Deposit (nursery): $1000
Ref. Deposit (Lower/high): $3000
App. Fee: $60

Tuition:
Nursery: $18,700/yr
Lower School I (grade 1 - 6):$19,000
Lower School II (grade 6 - 8): $20,200
High School (grade 9 - 12): $21,300
After Care (grade 1 - 6 only): $500/trimester

OK...so, take a breath. I have a massive spreadsheet right now, encompassing maybe 1/3 of the available schools in the DC area...naturally I focused on schools close to my house or that's on our route to work.

Also, I'm finding it's not as simple as locating schools with a curriculum/approach to teaching I like and then finding the least expensive in that set. Why? Because if you have a school that seems to cost less per year, but the year is only 10 months long and the school day is only 9-3 then suddenly the school that is about five thousand more per year but has a 11 month school year and core hours of 7:30 - 6 is awesome!

There is hope financially if we can win the lottery (yes, lottery) for our son to get into one of the sought after Public Charter schools or one of the public schools that offer lotteries for us unfortunate souls that don't live in their neighborhood. These schools are free, the curriculum is wonderful and they are all very full. The lottery gives hope since it's random and not first come first served. Very few of these schools offer preschool for 3 year olds and even fewer are close to where we live. So the list of free schools with great curriculum is short and getting in is all pure luck.

There you have it...where my head is right now and what I've been doing every second Peter gives me a moment to myself! :)

So...if any of you know how I can get my son into Georgetown Day School for about half the $30k tuition and also get my name pushed to the front of the waiting list...give me a shout! ;)

Meanwhile, I'll be playing the school lottery!


Oh and if you live in NW DC and are interested in my spreadsheet (such as it is) I'm happy to share it with you! I've done a lot of leg work and you might have priorities diff than mine but a least you would have all the basic info at your fingertips for a portion of the schools around here.