The Big Lug

Bye Bye Giant Computer Chair

Prepping the house for the new baby coming at the end of June is a little bit like a puzzle or a logic word problem. To move the baby into what was the nursery (currently our son’s room) we have to move our son into his new room (currently the guest room) and move everything out of the guest room into…oh right. There ISN’T ANYWHERE TO PUT THAT CRAP.

The guest room is actually just a room of random crap that doesn’t belong anywhere which happens to have a bed in it. The room also has our computer and printer and 2 bookshelves full of books and photos.

Our kitchen is big enough to house the computer equipment so  we went to Ikea and purchased a better desk suited for that area – enabling us to move the computer out of the guest room.

What to do with the old desk, chair, and printer table? Well we freecycled them. I love freecycle. Freecycle is a place where you post the crap you don’t want any longer and lo and behold people PICK IT UP from your PORCH without you doing anything! So awesome and so much better than throwing it out. Within 2 days our desk, chair, and small printer table were picked up and hopefully put to good use. But more importantly OUT OF OUR HOUSE!

Find your local Freecycle and start giving stuff away or getting it for free!

Buzzbee 3

Originally uploaded by biglug

There seems to be a baby boom around me, with lots of friends expecting around the same time I am. This is a quick knit for my friend J who is due about 5 weeks before me.

This pattern is from the Wee Woolly Toppers collection available on Ravelry. It’s knit with Lion Brand Cotton Ease.

The hat knit up really quick and I’m looking forward to knitting more from this collection.

I get emails from Bust Magazine sent to me and sometimes I find an article that interests me through this emailing. However, the one I got today featured a blog post promoting the website STFU Parents.

This is not the first time I’ve heard about this site, or the first time I was bothered by it. The author/owner of the STFU site’s “about me” starts with “You used to be fun. Now you have a baby.” Ouch.

The “You’re not a parent and too stupid to understand why this site is bad” Versus the “You are a parent and too stupid to see why this site is funny” flame war that took place in the comments to that Bust blog post was not a surprise to me.

Listen, I make fun of myself a lot. I make light of my Asian heritage, my lack of coordination, my natural nerdiness, and of course my parenting skills. But something about the concept of the STFU parents website just really can hit a raw nerve with me and obviously the commenters on that BUST post.

For me becoming a parent was surprising in so many ways.  First, I was shocked at how hard it was for me. Not because the act of parenting is inherently hard, but because I have never been more UNSURE of my ability to do something the right way in my life (besides any group sport).  I was not prepared for the insecurity that I associated with being a mom. In no other instance have I become more painfully aware of the fact that good intentions are not necessarily a road to success.

Second, I was not prepared for how having a child can drastically affect your social life and relationships with those around you.  Lack of sleep? Ok, saw that one coming. The need to revamp my definition of socializing? Not so much.

So what does this have to do with the STFU website? I am sure that some parents find the STFU website funny. In fact I know they do from reading their comments on related blog posts, but to me – I guess it just hits too close to home. I fully support the right that this website has to exist and the right for people to find it really funny and I wouldn’t be crazy enough to participate in a comments debate about it. But I just hope I don’t see any of my Facebook status posts up there any time soon.

And…I think I’ll unsubscribe from that BUST mailing list.