I've been thinking a lot lately about whether or not we should try to have another baby.

I have so many mixed feeling about it.

I have a ton of medical issues to consider. Will my body be able to handle another pregnancy?
I keep telling myself that maybe if I lost some weight and REALLY got in shape that my body might be better equipped to handle pregnancy. But, I was in fairly good shape when I got pregnant with Willa. I had been working out with a trainer for about 4 months before I got pregnant. And, I might have been 10-15 pounds over-weight, but I was still relatively small. Plus, Willa was a small baby (6.6 lbs and 19 inches), and I gained the appropriate amount of weight (35lbs.), and I still had trouble carrying her.
What if I had another horrible pregnancy again where I was bed ridden for months, except this time I had to take care of a pre-schooler too?

And what if I have to go through losing a pregnancy again?
That was so difficult, and both times it took me quite a while to get back on my feet.
How will I be able to lay around and cry and eat massive amounts of chocolate if I have to take care of my kid. On second thought, maybe it would be easier to deal with. Having Willa around when my dad died somehow helped me.

I need to make sure that if I do decide to try for another baby, that I'm doing it for the right reasons. Not because I missed out on enjoying pregnancy- nobody fawning over me- no babymoon- no wearing cute maternity clothes- no shopping for baby things- because I was confined to bed. And not because I miss having a baby around, because THEY GROW UP.

The amazing feeling you get when your kid smiles, or laughs, or gives you a hug is addictive. I have to remind myself of how hard it is. I also have to be honest with myself- I don't handle stress well. It takes its toll on me physically and mentally. I'm also not good at letting people help me. So, if I had another kid I'd have to deal with all of that stress-the sleepless nights, the exhaustion, etc., and I'm honestly not sure if I want to go through that again.

Having a second child is, I would imagine, so much different than having one child, because now you have to take care of a newborn AND make sure you are paying enough attention to your older child. I'm sure I would drive myself crazy trying to be the perfect mother.

My life is crazy right now. I hardly have any time for myself, and I am constantly overwhelmed. My husband and I rarely go out, and I've never spent a night apart from Willa. Does it make sense then, when Willa is more independent, and going to preschool, and our lives are finally getting easier, to try to have another baby?

Here's another strange reason I'm hesitant to try for another- I've always had a feeling that I was going to have twins. Most people don't know this, but we're pretty sure my pregnancy with Willa was originally twins. My HCG levels were high. I had a feeling that I was pregnant with twins. When I had my first ultrasound there was something else in there that my doctor couldn't identify. And then when Willa was born we discovered that she had two placentas fused together. My doctor thinks that I was, in fact pregnant with twins and that the other baby was absorbed. Maybe this explains why Willa is extra awesome.
I'm afraid that if I get pregnant again that it will be with twins, and I don't know if my body could handle that.

With all that said-

I have a brother and two sisters. We are VERY different. We are not as close as most siblings.
BUT, my father's illness brought my brother and I together. We gained mutual respect for each other. And I can't imagine going through the weeks surrounding my father's death without him.
Julie wrote a post about this topic, and her words are much more eloquent than mine could ever be.
Having a sibling makes you feel less alone in the world. Shouldn't we try to give Willa that gift?

Having Willa has been the best experience of my life. Shouldn't I do it again? Won't all of the pain and stress be worth it? The cynical side of me wonders if I shouldn't temp fate- Willa is so fantastic that I couldn't possibly have another equally fantastic child- or could I?

Posted by torrie at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)

Me: "Here's what I need- I need you to give me an hour long massage with a happy ending, then you need to tickle my back until I drift off to sleep."

Him: "How about we fuck for five minutes and then I pass out?"

Me: "Deal."

Posted by torrie at 09:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I'm going to try something new here. I've been thinking of doing this for a while. I even added the category "know it all" months ago-
This will hopefully be a weekly post where I recommend products, web sites, TV shows, movies, etc.
I may even give you guys a recipe or baking tip- helping out at Smitten Kitchen recently made me realize how ridiculous it is that I used to be a pastry chef, and I never share any recipes or tips with the internet.

I won't have a theme every week, but this week I do- I'm going to tell you about all of the products I loved during my kid's first year.

The first item is the Bugaboo Cameleon. Now before you jump all over me for the $899 price tag, hear me out-
This stroller does everything.

It comes with a bassinet that detaches. For the first six months of Willa's life when we traveled she slept in the bassinet attachment. We didn't have to bring an extra Pack and Play or something for her to sleep in.
The stroller seat faces either towards you or away from you. I love this feature. We started using the stroller seat when Willa was about four months old and sick of being on her back in the bassinet all the time. Having her face us was great. We could see if her hat had slipped over her eyes, or if she was falling asleep. When she was finally old enough to face away from us (about 11 months) I missed having her face me because I realized I spent a lot of time interacting with her that way.
Another great feature of the stroller seat is that it has three different tilting positions. If Willa fell asleep in the stroller we could completely recline her- which is great- I hate when I see kids asleep in a stroller that doesn't recline and their head is in that awkward slumped position.

You can also attach a car seat to it. We had the Graco Snug Ride, which could be attached to the bugaboo using an adapter that they sell separately.

Other great features of this stroller-
the wheels have shocks, which means a less bumpy ride.
There is a wrist safety strap, which prevents the stroller from rolling away from you.
The handle bar height is adjustable, which is great if you are like me and are almost a foot shorter than your husband.
The storage bag underneath the stroller is huge.
You can hang heavy bags on the stroller without it tipping over.

My only complaint with this stroller is that it is heavy.
It's a great stroller for city living, or if you live within walking distance of town, but if you drive everywhere and you constantly have to get in and out of a car this stroller is not for you.

So, the price tag seems crazy right? Well, figure out how much you will be spending on a regular stroller, a snap and go stroller for your car seat, a jogging stroller, and a bassinet. The price doesn't seem so crazy now, does it?

Now that we moved to the suburbs I use the bugaboo for walks around town, and I got a Maclaren Triumphto keep in the car. It's a great little stroller and it folds up very easily and only weighs eleven pounds.

When Willa was a few weeks old she was projectile vomiting. The lactation consultant told us it was because she was over eating because she just wanted to suck. She recommended we get a Soothie. Not to be gross, but she said that the pacifier should look like what you nipple actually looks like.
It worked like a charm, and when Willa was about 5 months old she just stopped using it one day.

I'm sure it has beee said a thousand times before, but the one item I couldn't live without was the Boppy. I used it to breast feed (and if I happened to venture out of the house and had to breast feed without it, I was miserable), I used it to prop Willa up in, and I used it as a neck pillow during car rides. The best advice I got about the Boppy was from my cousin who told me to buy the one with the removable cover. That way if it gets puked or pooped on you don't need to wash the whole thing.

Being vegetarians who don't use leather made it very hard for us to find booties and shoes for Willa. Then, we found Isa Booties.
You don't have to be a vegetarian to love these adorable booties. Not only are they cute, but they are completely machine washable! Willa wore her fleece lined pair almost every day during the winter.
They are having a 15% off sale until July 22nd. Enter code "cleanshoes08" at checkout.

One last recommendation- you can never have too many burp cloths. We used them for everything. The smartest thing we did was put them wherever Willa would be sitting.
We put them in the stroller, in the bouncy seat, in the car seat, and on the Boppy.
They saved us so many times. You can not imagine, until you have a kid, how many explosive poops there are. One of my friends almost threw out her car seat because her baby had an explosive poop in it, and she hadn't put a burp cloth down.

(Sorry if all of the links are not working. Willa just woke up. I'll have to fix them later.)

Posted by torrie at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

My husband's mother gave him a leather case for his IPhone.
We don't use leather (because we are vegetarian). A point she can't seem to grasp ("But, it's just a little leather!")
It is sitting here gathering dust.
I've asked my few friends who have an IPhone if they wanted it, but there were no takers.
So, do any of you want it?

Posted by torrie at 01:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

When we moved we got rid of our computer desk. It had been sitting in a corner of our bedroom, and in our new place we wanted to set the computer up in the living room.
It was so beat up and falling apart. (You can see it in the background of this picture.)It had been a hand me down from my mother. Her husband had painted it before they gave it to us. Except, I don't think he actually used paint, I think he used white-out, because if you even touched it with your fingernail the paint would scratch off.

Needless to say, it was time to get rid of it.

I started to look for a desk.

First of all I had no idea how expensive desks were. It seemed that there were two categories of desks- the $200 and less desks, which were pieces of shit made from particle board- then there were the $800 and up desks made of real wood. It was very hard to find anything in between.

My mother-in-law offered to buy us a desk, which we were really happy about it because we are super broke. (We moved to SAVE money, and instead it COST us money. FUCK.)
Now, even though someone else was buying it for us we still didn't want to spend $1,000 on a desk.

And so began the search for a well constructed desk that cost $500, or less.

Other requirements-
It had to be a dark wood- preferably a mahogany stain.
It had to have a drawer for our keyboard.
It had to have space either in it or under it for our CPU

Places we looked:
Target
Pottery Barn (which I wasn't thrilled about because we've had bad experiences with them.)
Staples
Office Max
West Elm
Raymour and Flanigan
Ikea

Finally we found a desk we liked in Crate and Barrel. It wasn't exactly what I wanted- I would love a desk with a hutch and drawers for storage, but I was willing to settle.

So we went and picked it up and they put it in our car. It was in a box and needed to be assembled.
We waited until Willa went to sleep, and then we went to get it out of the car. It was so heavy that we figured that I would destroy my back if we tried to carry the box up the stairs. So, we decided to open the box in the driveway and bring it in piece by piece.
Once we opened the box we saw that one of the corners was pretty damaged. We called the store and they told us it was the only one in stock and that it would take about 10 business days to get a new one, and that they wouldn't order the new one until we returned the old one. We had a long debate about whether or not to keep it. The husband was pissed and wanted to return it. I was so sick of not being able to set up my PC- we've been here for a month and I've been without my PC for the whole time. I only have photoshop on the PC, so I haven't been able to edit any pictures for a month. A big problem considering I'm a photographer. Also, the damage was on the back left corner which would be against the wall, so I argued that no one would see it.
So, we decided to keep it. We started putting it together- it was very complicated and had a ton of screws. We were already tired and annoyed, and about 45 minutes into it we had to remove the key board drawer to put the front legs on- and that's when we noticed that the drawer was completely fucked up. the hinges had been ripped off, and it was not something that we could fix.
At this point the husband was furious.
We were tired and frustrated. We now had to take apart the desk and get it back into the box, and back into the car.
I returned it the next day.

So, we are still without a desk.

Yesterday, we went to our local Salvation Army store and we didn't find anything there either.

We REALLY need a desk. I have hundreds of pictures that need to be edited.

I don't know why finding a desk is so difficult. I'm so frustrated.

Can anyone suggest a good place to find the kind of desk we are looking for in our price range?

Posted by torrie at 01:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (51)

A strange thing happened yesterday.

I went into the city for the first time since we moved, and I couldn't wait to leave.

All my life Manhattan has been my home. Even when I didn't live there I considered it home.

But, yesterday, it felt foreign to me.

I couldn't deal with the crowds, and the smell of urine in the subway, and the heat pouring off the concrete. I kept thinking "I just want to go home." And I meant this place I'm living in now.
I never thought I would feel that way about Manhattan.

As I get older my priorities are changing. If you told the teenage me that one day I wouldn't be comfortable in the city, she wouldn't believe you.

I've been living in the new place for less than a month, and I'm already feeling like it's home.

I guess that's a good sign.

Posted by torrie at 02:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)