I deleted a post because it annoyed me. I’m sorry about that. I need more time with it. I do apologize for my immaturity.

We are leaving tomorrow for a much needed (and deserved) vacation. We’re heading to DC tomorrow to spend the day with Soung. I also scheduled a private yoga class with my favorite yoga instructor. I hope she beats me up! On Friday, we’re heading to Lorton, Virginia to catch a train (car and all!) to Orlando for the fourth annual Howley vacation. We’ll be back next week armed with ridiculous photographs which I will share with everyone.

Posting may be sporadic, but I have every intention on writing about how much I miss Murray on Tuesday. (I’ll miss all three of my cats. I always do.)

In the meantime, here is a short video of Emory and the Swiffer.

He makes cleaning so much more fun! And impossible!

Murray received his first ever gift yesterday from one of his adoring fans.

We’re calling him Mister Snuggles for now, although, he’s new so that name will most likely change. He’s full of catnip. Murray is both stoned and pleased.

Mister Snuggles is awesome and so is his maker. (Whom, as soon as she writes back, I’ll give proper credit.)

It’s been a rough landing to an otherwise smooth weekend.

It took me over an hour to get Emory down for a nap. Forty-five minutes into what was supposed to be his nap, he lost his mind. What is it with babies? They’re fine one minute, happy and playing. Nap time comes along, and then that time passes because God forbid they succumb to the hideous suggestion of sleep, and then they completely lose their mind.

I rocked him. I ran the vacuum cleaner (he finds it soothing, when he was younger, I used to vacuum with him strapped to my chest). I laid down next to him on the bed. I rubbed his back, face, scratched his head. I tickled his earlobes. I even turned on some classical music (we normally don’t use music to put him to sleep) in hopes of relaxing him. Five notes in, he looked at me, puckered up like it was the saddest, most depressing thing anyone had ever done. And then he just started sobbing. I calmed him down again but he still refused to go to sleep. Things were growing progressively worse by the minute.

What to do?

It was time to let him cry a little bit, sob even, because nothing was working and I was growing more and more anxious and he more insane.

The next five minutes turned out to be the longest five minutes of my life. After he threw an all out fit, which was broadcast over our baby monitor as well as probably a dozen Northside livery cab radios, I returned to reassure him that he wasn’t alone. I picked him up to calm him down and then put him down. I had all but written his morning nap off, the nap I call “A Hard Restart”. If he wanted to suffer a kernel panic or spiral out of control and into baby madness, I’d give him my blessing.

And then something spectacular happened. He fell asleep almost immediately.

It has been roughly 30 minutes since touchdown. In that time I have eaten, done a load of laundry, washed the dishes, fed the cats, put last night’s laundry away, and started this post, which will probably rank up there with one of the lamest, most pathetic posts ever to make its way onto this Web site.

I feel so heartless letting him cry! But if he were a daycare baby, certainly this would have happened by now, right? Are there tricks I’m unaware of? Booze in the baby bottle?

MmmmmMMmmmm booze.

Some of you may remember The Hobo Nest. This post is a brief update as to what’s been happening since last February when he first arrived.

This is what it looked like last September:

This is what it looks like today:

A couple of months ago we woke up to find a pile of tires where the nest used to be. We’re not sure who put them there or why. A couple of weeks later, the hobo got drunk, freaked out and threw them all over the parking lot. He put them all back again the very next day.

Since September he has made a mess of the entire parking lot, adding a bunch of trash to the dirt pile that was once pristine. We watched someone deliver a futon frame a couple of weeks ago. One of his many mattresses is now off the ground. That particular bed is sitting behind the tree alongside the house perpendicular to ours. At one point, he also had a small bedside table as well as a lamp. The lamp never actually worked.

Right around December a construction company dropped off a port-a-potty. At roughly the same time, the hobo showed up wearing an orange jacket sporting the word “SECURITY” on the back of it, which is pretty brilliant if you ask me.

He is still very much drunk and dying in the parking lot directly behind our backyard.

Murray has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t want us having anymore kids. He doesn’t outwardly dislike Emory. As a matter of fact, he and Emory have teamed up a few times to ransack the place. I don’t think he’s particularly upset with Emory on a personal level. I think he’s just really annoyed that he’s no longer the baby.

He hasn’t come out and said, “Hey, Michele and Toby, no more of these pale, bald things, OK?” He is way too passive aggressive for that sort of declaration. Instead, he’s letting me know in the most painful, and Murray-like way possible: by trying to shred my crotch.

Here’s my crotch.

I realize that’s not want you wanted to see when you stopped by here today. It’s not what I wanted to see today either, and it’s my crotch. But it plays the leading role in this particular story.

Lately, I have been doing a lot of yoga. It’s not that I necessarily want to do yoga. I do enjoy it very much. But I’m also (still) having a really difficult time right now. In fact, had there been a mental health facility within walking distance to my house yesterday, I would have had myself committed. Yesterday, was a very, very bad day. Today is better. That’s the problem with this postpartum stuff, it’s unpredictable. Not knowing how I’m going to feel from one day to the next has me feeling more uneven and nervous. It’s a vicious cycle.

Point is, I am still very much actively sorting out my postpartum situation. (But that’s a post for another day. This one is about Murray.)

Shall we? We shall.

I basically live in yoga pants. They’re comfortable, sure. But wearing yoga pants without actually practicing yoga is way too depressing, so I force myself to go as much as possible. I have about three pair of pants that I rotate through. Each pair of yoga pants have ties that wrap around the waist. But I don’t need the drawstrings because my belly, hips and ass do their job well. My pants defy gravity thanks to the effortless support I get from my ass. (Too bad my ass doesn’t specialize in postpartum support as well.) It probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone to read that I don’t usually tie the drawstrings since my pants pose zero threat of actually falling down. Plus, why tie them when I can prove to myself repeatedly of how thoughtless I am?

At least three times a week, Murray lunges at me with every bit of feline force – nails out, teeth exposed, eyes crazy – and tries to attack the dangling pant strings, which give way like dust to his paws. It’s like that scene in Edward Scissorhands, my crotch the small dog or block of ice, his paws are Edward’s hands. Only it’s a lot less visually stimulating and Winona Ryder is never present. (Bloody shame, too. I could use an extra pair of hands around the house when Toby’s at work.)

At the rate we’re going, I’ll be incapable of having kids by summer.

The single most awesome photograph ever. OK, well, maybe not ever, but definitely of Emory.

Edited to add: OK, so tonight Emory decided to pick a fight with The Economist. Emory won with Murray’s help, of course. So, this shot comes in close second to the one above.

A couple of weeks ago, one my favorite (local) community Web sites posted a story about a bar in Park Slope. (For those living outside of NYC and Brooklyn, Park Slope is an area that many well-off, new parents have annexed. It’s relatively safe, it’s unbelievably expensive, and it’s the most impossible place on the planet to find a parking spot. I read once that 40% of traffic in Park Slope is people looking for parking).

This particular bar had become a place where some mothers met on some afternoons for a drink. One day, the bar owner put up a sign that read, “NO STROLLERS PLEASE”. He no longer wanted toddlers in his bar. At all. Well, the community went nuts. Some of the Park Slope mommy bloggers freaked out, calling it unfair since they visit the bar during the day when it’s relatively empty. But even more noise came from those who took sides with the bar. Insults began flying! People began calling the mothers degenerates, drunks, and questioning their parenting skills. One guy wrote, “See? If you could still smoke in bars here, this wouldn’t be happening.” (I suppose secondhand smoke is better than secondhand baby?)

The point is, I hadn’t seen that kind of intolerance and animosity take place online in years. And it has haunted me every since.

One supporter of the bar suggested mothers visit Chuck E. Cheese, a children’s theme restaurant beloved by hipsters seeking a dose of irony. (Oh, the irony.) Another person suggested a coffee shop, and many others lamented, “If you have to booze it up with your kid, stay home!”

I’m a new parent so of course this one hit home. And TobyJoe and I have taken Emory to a few local Wiliamsburg bars. Granted, we always go for food and we’re always out of there before any mating rituals begin or it gets too loud (ie. before 9 PM). As far as I know, we’ve never annoyed anyone and if Emory were to cry or fuss, I’d leave in a second. But he doesn’t. The last time we went out for dinner and a drink in the neighborhood, this is what happened:

But ever since I read that article and watched the backlash surface because of it, I can’t relax. Now, all I do whenever we go out is try and read the waiter’s expression or stick whatever object I can into Emory’s mouth to avoid any (God forbid) baby sounds. I am not one to call attention to myself. But I do like to get out every now and again.

I won’t even go into the whole “boozing it up” accusation because I don’t feel that most of these mothers are bringing their babies to bars in order to tie one on. But in America, we tend to hold a less than positive view of booze and bars. At the same time, we put a lot of stock in the magical drinking age of 21 and all those under said age don’t belong. You have to gain the right to drink here in America. I think the culture surrounding alcohol in America is sensationalized.

I live in a city that is anything but family friendly. I feel that the general vibe of New York City is the following: If you’re elderly, move to Florida already. If you’re a child, get the hell out of town. If you’re a mother or father with a baby and you use a stroller or slow everyone else down as you climb the subway stairs with your 20-pound baby strapped to your chest, you belong in the suburbs. Move.

New York City is not friendly to families. The stair-heavy subway system has very few elevators, and the few we’re given are often out of order or patronized by the obese (another group that has no right living here). Since I became a mother, I feel very out of place here and it’s getting worse the older Emory gets and the more we venture out.

More and more I find myself asking, “Where is safe? What’s OK? Where will I not annoy anyone?”

I assume that mothers go to bars because patrons and bar owners are usually pretty tolerant of the occasional raised voice and therefore a few baby squeals will most likely be overlooked. Plus, they are open during the day, you’re not required to order food to “pay rent” on the table, and they’re warm. But some Brooklyn moms are met with fierce resistance from other Brooklynites when it comes to bringing their baby to a bar even if said bar is empty and it’s the middle of the afternoon.

It leaves me wondering, for many people, the issue for them isn’t about babies being around booze, it’s that babies are in bars. It’s not babies in public… but bars. The question I have is, what part of a person is threatened by the shattering of their image of a bar as some sort of special place?

The New York Times released an article about how metabolic syndrome is tied to diet soda.

We don’t drink much soda in our house, not that I have anything against it, really. I was just never much of a soda drinker. (Well, besides something called Wink. Do you remember Wink? That’s what given from time to time when we were kids.) TobyJoe and I try and avoid high fructose corn syrup entirely, so until we can easily get Coke made with actual sugarcane, I don’t think we’re going to become a family of soda drinkers. (Seriously? Why can’t we have soda with actual sugar in it? Why the need for all the high fructose corn syrup?)

We don’t drink diet soda either. I’ve always been a little wary of the fake stuff, which is why I never really developed an attraction for diet soda. I did have an affair with Splenda once. That lasted for a few months before I realized that it left a terrible aftertaste. Plus, when I found out how it works I got a little freaked out. (Also, having discovered that “sugar alcohol” is also some chemistry weirdness, we stopped buying South Beach bars as well. No more of that stuff. I’ll be fat if I have to be, thank you.)

I’m curious to hear what others think about this. Why do you think this is happening? Are you going to give up your diet cola? Do you care at all? If you were pregnant, would you avoid fake sugars entirely? Did you? Are you going to go grab a Diet Dr. Pepper right now?

While we’re talking sugar, do you give your little ones juice?

Testing, testing, is this thing on?

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled Waging War Against Bisphenol A. It’s in reference to how TobyJoe and I are cutting down on the amount of plastic we use. It led us to purchase these pacifiers from Zoe B. Emory enjoys a good pacifier every now and again.

I didn’t expect Emory to love them but not because they aren’t lovable. Emory is VERY picky when it comes to pacifiers. He will only suck on one shape, just one. He doesn’t have any interest in oddly shaped pacifiers. (He’s a pacifist. Ha! I just made myself laugh out loud). We have purchased a great number of pacifiers for Emory and he always prefers the cheapest, most mundane version money can buy. But I had high hopes for the Natrusutten.

As soon as I received them in the mail, I tore open the package and gave him one. And he quickly spit it right back out. I tried several more times thinking that maybe it’s like putting clay on a wheel, you just gotta keep trying until it’s centered. To no avail, each and every time the pacifier flew further and further away from his head.

Needless to say, he didn’t like the Natursutten pacifiers. But I can’t say I’m surprised. We purchased a bunch of Haba toys for him recently and he spent more time playing with the catalog. (I played with the toys.) If he had his way, he’d happily spend hours chewing on the remote control (which used to be filthy but has since been cleaned with organic baby spit). He’s just like our cats: the more we spend on something, the less he seems to like it.

But they didn’t go to waste entirely.

I guess I should be thankful they didn’t become Emory’s favorite pacifier because this could become really expensive.

The whole ordeal has me thinking. I think today I’m going to buy Murray one of these:

I think baby and cat are in cahoots.

P.S. I may have added this to LOL Cat. (Thanks, Nico!)

I’m addicted to Etsy. I have spent over a hundred dollars on Etsy since last Tuesday. I love it. Speaking of Etsy, you should check out Jerusha’s baby sweaters. Emory wears one all the time. They are incredibly well made and one of a kind. (Take that, Baby Gap!) They make excellent presents. I think this one is my favorite. (No, that is not a hint.)

Also, Derek has come up with something new and exciting. (When it comes to Derek and Heather when is that NOT happening?) It’s called Pixish. I could explain how it works, but Derek does a great job (and I’m lazy). His wife (whom I adore) has created an assignment. Heather wants someone to design a header for her Web site.

In other news, TobyJoe left for the West coast and I’ll be on my own for the next few days. How does one amuse a baby who would much rather be outside? I’m going to go nuts.

Emory is six months old today. I can’t believe it’s been six months already! He’s such a big boy. He’s changed so much. Granted, we’ve changed as well, probably even more so than Emory.

Toby has definitely changed. When I married Toby, he couldn’t even mention the word poop let alone clean it off of another human being’s bare ass. It’s amazing what love can do.

If we had done things by the book, we’d celebrate today by giving Emory his first ever jar of solid food. But we started feeding him solids a little over a month ago. It was time. He was outgrowing the milk diet, not that we stopped giving him bottles we just added solid food to the menu to appease his already hearty appetite. We haven’t looked back.

The first time Emory ate baby food, he actually complained between every spoonful, which was really quite funny. If I had to guess what he was thinking it would have been, “DAMMIT WOMAN! WHY DO YOU KEEP REMOVING THIS ODDLY SHAPED, YET TASTY BOTTLE FROM MY MOUTH?!” The complaints have since stopped. Now he differentiates between spoon and bottle. He understands a lot more now, actually. It’s been a hard transition for me because I am used to raising cats who react more to smell and sound. You can hold up a can of tuna or cat food in front of our cats and usually they don’t lift a tail. But the moment you pull out the can opener and actually use it, all hell breaks lose.

Emory isn’t like that. He’s human and therefore understands what something is just by looking at it. I discovered this the hard way one night as I lifted the Bjorn from the floor (where it usually is) and put it in the closet (where it belongs). As soon as he saw it he began furiously kicking his feet and excitedly began yelling, “OOOOOOOH! AHHHHH! GAAAAAHHHH!! EEEKKKKK!” (Translated, that reads: “A WALK! WE’RE TAKING A WALK! I GET TO DANGLE! I WILL SEE LADIES AND HAIR!”) It’s kind of the way a dog acts whenever you grab their leash.

He now knows what a spoon is and that the spoon is going to come back to him holding more food. So instead of screaming between bites, he just waits for it with his mouth wide open much like a baby bird waits for its regurgitated worm.

At the time this post was written, he has eaten all of the following: carrots, pears, apples, bananas, sweet potatoes, peas, winter squash and whole grain rice cereal. He has loved every single last one of them. (For now.) He’s not freaked out by any of it. But we’re a little freaked out by the ever-changing poop.

The first time carrot poop made its grand entrance into the world Toby made a face like “Can we send this one back? It’s malfunctioning.” This happened recently. We were out at the Blackbird Parlor in Williamsburg having an early lunch. We sat right at the front of the restaurant, next to a great big picture window overlooking Bedford Avenue. I had just received a delectable grilled cheese sandwich. Right as I sunk my teeth into it, Emory decided to take a poop. There was no way anything was coming between the sandwich and me so I happily volunteered the car and nominated TobyJoe for diaper duty.

The car stood not 10 feet from the entrance to the Blackbird Parlor, in full site of me and my sandwich. It was like watching a really bizarre TV show on a high-definition flat screen television. This was the episode that Toby changed the baby’s diaper from the backseat of a Toyota while wrinkled-nosed hipsters walked by and I, the mother, sat safely behind a giant pane of glass and watched.

I hadn’t ever seen that many different expressions project from Toby’s face before. Each facial expression told me everything I needed to know. I didn’t need to smell the poop. I could tell from Toby’s face exactly what it smelled like. I didn’t need to see the poop. I could tell from Toby’s face it was shocking as far as poop goes. The passersby, mere extras in this episode, made faces as they stupidly looked over to see what my husband was doing to a baby in the back seat of a Toyota and I could tell by their expressions exactly what Toby was dealing with.

As I finished my sandwich and drained the rest of my cappuccino and my husband added the finishing touches to my baby’s bare butt, I had the overwhelming urge to cheer for him. Toby has come such a long way over the last 6 months and that is what we really should be celebrating today.

My heart goes out to the people living in Tennessee and Arkansas. I can’t even begin to imagine the horror some have had to endure over the last 24 hours. What was supposed to be a great day where politics was concerned ended up being a worse nightmare for many living down south.

TobyJoe and I have been watching the results come in since last night. We’ve been glued to a muted CNN. (Modest Mouse plays in the background. I have this idea that TV-watching only “counts” if it’s audible. Dumb? Entirely.) Of course, watching the numbers come in has me ignorantly hypothesizing.

Here are some of my fleeting, (stream of conscious) thoughts:

I can’t believe only about 500 registered Democrats voted in Alaska. Wait, how many people actually live in Alaska? The nation is split on who they want as their Democratic frontrunner. Wow, wouldn’t it be awesome if Clinton and Obama ran together? I know that won’t ever happen. Hillary can’t use “Clinton” on her signage. Is it that there are more people living in the Northeast and therefore there are more people voting? Or do the folks in the middle just not care to get out and vote? If Obama gets the nomination, I think many Hillary supporters will happily change their votes. If Hillary does, however, I am not sure Obama supporters will change theirs. Perhaps Obama is more electable. I prefer Hillary’s healthcare plan to Obama’s. Obama’s speeches are something to be savored. I wonder why Edwards hasn’t come out in support of anyone yet. I wonder who’s more likely to ask Edwards to be VP? I like Edwards. Why do the Latinos like Hillary so much? Which Dem can deal with all the swiftboating better? What is that smell? Oh, baby vomit!

(Edited to add: A LOT more than 500 people voted in Alaska. The stats on CNN that day were incorrect or the percentage of votes counted wasn’t actually at 98%. Sorry!)

Here is a more refined thought:

I want to mention a few things about the whole race/female thing as it’s impossible to ignore, especially when our newscasters and talking heads seem to want to differentiate between the two every chance they get. I was visiting another Web site yesterday and witnessed several people attack a woman who voted for Hillary Clinton. She had several reasons for backing Hillary Clinton and mentioned those reasons. At the very end, however, she mentioned something about her being female. That set several people off. “I think it’s SO wrong to vote for someone just because she’s female!” The comments kept coming, verbal attacks against the voter’s character just because she mentioned liking the fact that a female was contending for president of the United States.

I watched a lot of news yesterday. I think it was CNN (there’s a small chance it could have been MSNBC or CBS) who stood outside and interviewed people as they exited their polling stations. There was one black gentleman who, when asked, said that he voted for Obama. He was then asked why he supports Obama and his reasoning was (and I’m paraphrasing), “He represents hope. He stands for change. And, yes, his being a black man had something to do with it.” The guy didn’t seem to know anything about Obama’s stance, beliefs, etc.

I’m not sure what question I want to ask here and I’m admittedly wading into very unfamiliar and dangerous waters. But here goes nothing. Why has there been such a backlash for women voters mentioning voting for another woman? What’s the difference between the two decisions? Is it only racist if a person were to vote for the white guy solely to vote against a black guy? Is it not racist to vote for the black guy just because he is indeed black?

Here’s how Webster defines the word Racist:

1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

2 : racial prejudice or discrimination

We all know that racism is more complex and varied than the cartoon version people always reference. The type of racism evident in this gentleman’s vote is interesting, to say the least. Thus far, the pundits and mainstream media have limited the discussion of racism in this election cycle to the act of avoiding particular candidates. There’s another site to racism in the discussion of electability, and it equally trivializes the important aspects of a potential President: voting record, views on the Constitution, respect for our FOUR-branch system of government, and general trajectory on issues major and minor.

I am happy with both of the Democrats running. I would cast my vote for either one of them in a heartbeat. But, I don’t know everything they stand for. So, my goal over the next several months is to learn as much as humanly possible about both Democratic contenders. I hope to move beyond getting information from bulleted lists, or deciding to vote for him because Oprah told me to or her because I liked Bill so much. (Not that either one of those are reasons I voted for whom I voted.) I want to feel like I made a very solid, informed decision and not just a good one.

Now all I have to do is find the time.

Putting the Super in Tuesday.

(Poster was originally designed by this person. I think.)

Did you know that the three most expensive counties in the United States where property taxes are concerned are Ocean County, Essex County, and Westchester County? It’s a fact. And we looked at houses in one of those counties yesterday.

Toby and I went to look a houses in Maplewood, New Jersey yesterday. We fell in love with the town. Of course we fell in love with the town, to live there, homeowners pay anywhere from 7,000 dollars per year on taxes, all the way up to 11,000 dollars a year and that’s for smaller lots. The bigger the lots, the higher the taxes. The taxes don’t even include trash pickup or sewage costs.

Let’s say you get your mortgage down to 2,000 bucks a month. Awesome, right? Add on water, heat, sewage, property tax, trash pickup, commuting expense and any insurance you need and you’re suddenly well into the 4 thousand dollar range. Well, we can’t afford that, not on one salary. We come nowhere near that. I’d have to go back to work, which I think I might be OK with, but that means adding another expense to the list for childcare.

At one point on Sunday morning, I decided suddenly (in the middle of a yoga class) that we were moving back to the Washington, DC area and into rural Maryland where houses are a little cheaper and we’re surrounded by close friends with kids. (I was fed up. I had a moment.)

I get the feeling we’re going to see a whole bunch of crap before we find something we’re willing to buy. One of the places we saw yesterday was just awful. Not only was it poorly built and falling apart, but the person living there was filthy and did nothing to try and clean it up. I fail to understand how and why people choose to live that way. Do people have that little pride in what they own? I have watched people on our Brooklyn street clean their SUVs with a toothbrush. Do they give the same care to their houses? All but two of the houses we have seen have been disgusting. One of them was covered in dog piss. I have no idea how real estate agents keep a smile on their face while trying to sell some houses. They should win Oscars or join professional poker tournaments.

But I don’t want to sound totally negative. We did see one house that was well out of our price range that I fell in love with. Its only downfall was that it has an underground oil tank, which is proving to be a big headache for many homeowners in Jersey. Everything else about the house was outstanding. I immediately began putting my furniture into each one of its rooms. It was a lovely house.

In spite of the pricey real estate we looked at, my weekend was really quite great. Emory has exited The Screaming Baby Phase and has entered Sweet Baby Phase. He’s even starting to amuse himself for extended periods of time with all the new toys we got him from Haba and elsewhere. Although, for the first day or two he was more into the Haba catalogs than the actual toys. I think he’s been taking hints from the cats. If I have learned anything from cats, it’s that the more you spend on something, the less they’re likely to use it.

I went to yoga twice and I can barely use my arms today. I cleaned the apartment. I showered twice. I even shaved my legs. It’s been a wonderful couple of days and I can’t thank you all enough for your words of encouragement. You helped me (again) more than I can possibly say. I bookmarked that post so the next time Emory and I have a rough week together, I can remind myself that I’m not alone and that things will get better and always do.

UPDATE Comments are broken. Once they are up and running again, I’ll turn them back on. So sorry if you posted one and it got lost somewhere. Fixed!