Big Boy

Andrew first crawled, on his hands and knees, on Friday, July 11!

This weekend we babyproofed the house and installed the new convertible car seats. I had mine checked out by the very nice, adorable police officers in the town where I work. They were SO helpful, and I feel much more confident about the seat now. Man, though, car seat manufacturers do NOT make their instructions very easy to read and follow!

Roo has 5 teeth now, and I'm pretty sure the 6th is about to pop through his upper gum. This week I hope to make some more frozen baby food cubes: peaches, apples, and sweet potatoes. One of these days I'm going to see how he likes regular white potatoes.

Don't you think they have the same smile in this picture?

Messy Life

As I was whirling around trying (futilely) to clean the kitchen tonight after putting Andrew to bed, I came to some realizations about our life right now, and I'm pretty happy with these:

1. There is dog and cat hair in the corners of every room, and on the stairs. But my son loves dogs and cats -- they elicit huge grins from him.

2. There is clean laundry from weeks ago, not yet put away, all over my bedroom. But Andrew and I always go to work/daycare in clean clothes. I take pride in getting the food stains out of his bibs, in fact. Who was the genius who invented Oxy Clean?

3. Sometimes all the groceries don't make it into the actual cupboards, so they're left sitting out on the counters. But Andrew eats all organic food, and he hasn't yet met a food that he doesn't like, and he's well-nourished and (knock wood) healthy.

4. Confession: I have 30-odd library books/movies/audiobooks checked out, and I don't know where they all are. The living room, various spots in the bedroom (including in the bed), next to the rocking chair in the nursery, and in canvas bags in my car. But I read to my son every day -- sometimes after nursing him first thing in the morning, and sometimes when we get home from work/daycare, and sometimes right before bed. And sometimes all three.

5. Usually, the hand-washed dishes in the strainer don't make it to the cupboard either. But they are clean, and everything gets run through the dishwasher at least weekly for sanitizing.

Honestly, I'd rather spend my "alone" time in the evening reading a good book, or researching interesting homemade baby food recipes, or clipping coupons, or blogging. Cleaning isn't high on my list. What is there to be learned from drudgery?

The other week I made cupcakes for Andrew's new head teacher at daycare, because I'd heard her birthday was coming up, and she's a sweet, sweet lady. It was a busy weeknight as it was, but she is worth the time and effort.

I'd also rather spend time watering, feeding, and tending to my vegetables and flowers than worrying about yard work. It's been so satisfying, even just over the past four weeks or so, to see my veggies grow from little tiny seeds to climbing vines and strong stalks that may actually provide food for us this summer.

I'd rather throw the ball for the dogs 100 times than vacuum up the dog hair, religiously, every day. How boring. When my dog's life is over, will I look back fondly at the time I spent vacuuming, or the times my fuzzy best friend ran, hell-bent, across the yard trying to catch the ball on the first hop?

I don't have nice furniture, my house needs mega repairs and updating, my car has many barely-contained fast-food wrappers in its travel trash bag, and my kitchen floor has splats and splotches on it from dogs, cats, and baby (and me, to be honest). There is dust and there are papers and baby toys and literally hundreds of books and magazines, all over my house. My beloved Cuisinart and KitchenAid mixer live out on the counter, because they are like third and fourth arms to me. Andy-Roo's artwork from daycare is taped to the fridge, as are photos, business cards for landscapers (haha), and Roo's daily contact sheets from daycare. I haven't filed old paperwork since before he was born; it's all being held in an old Pampers Swaddlers box in the hallway, to be honest. This is, well, just the detritus of our busy, active life.

It is a messy life, but oh, is it a full one. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

What's Your Hot Water Setting?

For the past few weeks, I've been turning my boiler completely off at night. This came about after I went down to the basement one day to throw in a load of laundry and found that my boiler was running. In June. The only thing it would be running for in June is hot water, and I hadn't called for any hot water, since I'd just gotten home from work.

You see, I have what's called "residential hot water," or "tankless" hot water. There's a small reserve tank, but that's just for water that my furnace heats; I have no hot water heater, per se. I realized that day that the furnace actually runs, all day, to keep the reserve tank at the right temperature. So, at night after my shower I've been going back to the basement and turning the emergency power switch to the furnace to "OFF," and it doesn't get turned on again until the next evening when I get home from work. The reserve tank insulates the hot water well enough so that I have enough warm water to wash my hands in the morning.

Tonight, though, when I went downstairs to turn the thing off, I decided to check the temperature to which the boiler was heating the water in the reserve tank...

Let's back up here. Here's some background info, before I tell you what temp the tank was at:

"Popular Mechanics" (November 2005) says "A factory setting of 120 F on a new residential water heater is recommended (and is sometimes mandated by state law) because it is the highest setting considered to be safe; higher temperatures can cause severe scalding.

"According to the Shriners Hospitals for Children, a person exposed to 140 F water for about 3 seconds receives a second-degree burn and after 5 seconds will have a third-degree burn. At 120 F it will take approximately 5 minutes to receive a third-degree burn. It can take less than half that time for a child to be scalded."


Well, folks, my hot water heater was set at 180 DEGREES.

Needless to say, I was pissed. Now, I knew it was hot (I do, after all do a ton of baby/breast pump dishes by hand every night). But not THAT hot. So, not only had I been wasting precious oil by keeping the boiler on day and night, but I'd REALLY been wasting oil (and creating a dangerous situation in my house with an infant around) by having too-hot water coming out of the tap. In my opinion, the hottest water that comes out of your tap should be just hot enough to stand without adding cold water, because if you have to add cold water to hot water, aren't you kind of defeating the purpose of heating all that water?

Anyway, lesson learned. My aquastat is now set at 120 degrees, but I'm still turning off the boiler at night, because I'm a cheap Yankee, and damn proud of it.

Check your aquastat today!

Addendum: I had meant to mention that I'm mostly pissed with my oil company, which also services my boiler, because they MUST have known that the aquastat was set so dangerously and wastefully high. Hell, they may have even set it at that temperature. At the very least, they should have been checking it during annual inspections! I certainly have never, ever opened up the panel that houses the aquastat. I only found it by dubbing around; it's totally not obvious or easily accessible. I would switch oil companies tomorrow if the oil company owner weren't my next-door neighbor, and if she weren't a darn sweet 80-something widow who thinks my son is just adorable. Sigh...

We Have A Crawler!

Or, rather, a creeper. It first happened on July 2. Andrew can now push off with his legs and do sort of an "Army crawl." It's the first time he's been able to move himself forward, and it's darn cute. He's still figuring out the "up on hands and knees, belly off the floor" kind of crawl, but we think that's because he's...um...a little chubby...

Let's see, what else is new? Oh, last week we both apparently had scarlet fever (which, I didn't know, is just strep with a rash; sounds a lot worse than it is). Roo is up to 3 meals per day (8 a.m.-ish, 1 p.m.-ish, and 6 p.m.). He's eating lots of new foods since the last dietary update: prunes, peaches, mangoes, chicken, turkey, barley, lentils...the list goes on and on. Yesterday he tried some cheese. He likes it all so far! Believe it or not, he's never had green beans. I'm going to cook some up this week, puree them, and see how it goes.

This weekend we visited Nan for the Fourth; we got spoiled, and she and Aunt K babysat so we could go out to a movie AND dinner on Saturday night! We felt like actual grownups, but were still home by 9:00, and it was even still light out when we came through the door.

We're just so in love with our little boy. Every day is a new adventure, and it's just a joy watching him explore the big, beautiful world. At dinner last night, we of course spent a great deal of time talking about Andrew and his personality. He's pretty laid back most of the time, actually, but when he decides to melt down it's sudden and spectacular. He does NOT like to be left alone for any period of time; in fact, if you walk up to him when he's playing quietly by himself, make eye contact, and then walk away, he becomes despondent! He love animals; he's been around dogs and cats his whole life. He's great on car trips, and he loves being outdoors. He's not a big snuggler, except when he's tired or upset. He's getting to the age when he perpetually wants to be doing something: playing, crawling, etc. His face lights up when someone he knows smiles at him. He likes to be read to, except lately he seems most interested in eating board books :-) What an absolute joy. I feel so lucky to be his mama!