The Big Lug

Is that bunny organic?
Let me tell you, there’s plenty to worry about when you become a parent. Don’t I know it. Will he fall down and split his lip on his bottom teeth? (Yes) Will he try to eat the newspaper? (Yes) WIll he poop today? (Hopefully) Will he like metal, or emo, or alt country? (Who knows) There are so many things to worry about, it boggles the mind.
Not to mention the fact that I’m a worrier – it’s part of my genetic code. Combine that with seeing An Inconvenient Truth, Catholic guilt, and a need to be hip and you’re bound to come up with “Green Parenting.”
I try hard to balance my desire to help save the Earth with living in reality. It’s not as easy as you’d think. I remember when I first heard about conservation and Earth Day in elementary school. It seemed simple then – don’t throw your styrofoam container out of your car window. Don’t buy Aqua Net. Recycle. It’s so much more complicated now. Carbon offsets? Compact fluorescents? SOLAR PANELS!
So, I’m more like a seafoam green parent. I didn’t do cloth diapers, or buy glass baby bottles, but I do try to do a little bit where I can. I have some Earth’s Best baby food in the cabinet. I bought a pack of Seventh Generation diapers. And we try to get as many things second had as possible. As you can imagine, my first step in trying to get green with Baby Lug was trying to find a good organic or green website.
Remember when Geocities first started? Well that’s what most organic or green parenting websites remind me of – as if there should be a repeated pattern of unicorns in the background and yellow Times New Roman text. They mostly seem to be crappy online stores disguised as informational websites. The one website I found that had helpful tips was Treehugger’s How to Green Your Baby Page. If anyone has any other great sites, please let me know! Meanwhile I’ll be trying to find out if baby bottle liners are recyclable and looking for a sale on Gerber Organic Baby Food!

I was going to write about how I have nothing to write about, can’t blog because I’m too busy, blah blah blah. But instead I thought I’d write a little belated list about random Halloween facts.

• Baby Lug was a gorilla for Halloween. He wore the costume for exactly 5 minutes. If I had known that he’d hate wearing a costume so much I would’ve put him in the free costume we got from our next-door neighbor.
• When I was in elementary school my mom dressed up like a little kid for Halloween and I dressed up like a business lady. I wore one of her suits and high heels and carried a briefcase. I wear suits to work sometimes and I still feel like I’m playing dress up, and I don’t get any candy for it!
• A few years ago Mr. Lug dressed up like an alien with a human coming out of it’s stomach. Get it? Yeah, neither did anyone else! It was too clever for our own good.
• My favorite Halloween candy this year was Milky Way Bars. (Note that I am now on a diet.)
• Do you remember the razorblade-candy scare in the 80’s? It gave me a terrible fear of unwrapped candy, and anything that didn’t look store-bought. Home-made popcorn ball? No thank you.
• Both Mr. Lug and I had cafeteria workers on our trick-or-treat route that gave out cartons of chocolate milk instead of candy (obviously five-finger discounted from the school caf.)
• I think the main reason I love Halloween is because it leads to Thanksgiving – which is my real favorite holiday and will probably be the next time I post!

So Baby Lug decided sleep is for a**holes.
Mr. Lug and I were rather sleep deprived for many weeks, lets call the state we were in “waking coma.” We turned to Dr. Ferber. I could go into the internal turmoil that Mr. Lug and I have been through during our recent “ferberizing” of Baby Lug. I could discuss how the method is controversial, how it both worked for us,and made us feel like terrible people, about the pros and cons, etc. But instead I’d like to discuss whether anyone has thought of turning the Ferber method into a drinking game. Here are my suggested rules:

• Baby wakes up crying – you both drink, then go in and check on baby.
• Wait 3 minutes and if the baby wakes up again during this 3 minutes, it’s a waterfall until the 3 minutes is up.
• After 3 minutes whoever goes in to check on the baby is thumbmaster.
• Wait 5 minutes, if baby cries before 5 minutes is up, finish your beer.
• After 5 minutes, if baby is still crying, whoever goes in gets to make a rule.
• If baby continues to cry, you each pour some of your drink in a glass. Continue from beginning and whoever hasn’t jumped out a window has to drink the glass..

Anyway – More interestingly: Baby Lug has veggies!

You got a little something on your face.

Mmmm! Sweet Potatoes!

That is my daddy’s arm, not my mommy’s!

Oh God, I think it’s in my eye.

Who knew green beans were so delicious?