Mom Blog and Baby Blog | Baby Bunching

baby bunching bests

Perhaps you have been wondering what has happened to our weekly Baby Bunching Bests? Well, in order to survive my recent move to our new house last week (meaning packing before, moving and attempting to unpack) something had to give and my apologies since it was this. I should be back up and reading blogs again this week. More to come about this move.

Andrea over at DC Metro Moms list what life is like with her Bunch--three little boys.

Jessica over at A Bushel and a Peck laments about her Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day which involved the DMV. The good upside to days like these is the next one has to be better.

Jenni over at Oscarelli also made a visit to the DMV with both her kids, but not before full coverage in spit up and poop.

Kyra over at Life with Baby Bean and Little Sister writes about her first successful trip to the grocery story with two under two.

naming the next child

Baby naming can be tricky. As parents, we labor over THE perfect name for our first child and probably even more so for the next kid. For us, we had our firstborn's name picked out ahead of time (as in before I was pregnant) so it was super easy. But when the second child or third or fourth comes around we feel pressure to picking another perfect name--especially if the next one is of the same sex. 

Do you need names that sound well together? How about picking names that great good together on the family Christmas card? If you give one kid a super creative funky name what do you do about the next? Do you get them relatively the same number of letters or start with the same letter?

My kids’ names both begin with the letter ‘A.’ That was NOT planned! People always comment about how cute, and my grandmother refers to them as “the A team.” It doesn’t help since my husband’s name also begins with an ‘A.’ But I swear we didn’t mean to do this. And should we have a third child, I’m not sure what we’ll do since people might expect for another A name. Quite honestly, we’ve run out of names we like so I guess we’re done having kids.

The Social Security Administration put out their list of top baby names for last year and Emma and Jacob are the top winners for 2008. And while we can debate over and over about unique names (check out my recent article in Washington Parent to this topic), the question relating to Baby Bunching is what do you consider when naming subsequent children?

to everything there is a season

It's official.  After five years of steady companionship, I am finally parting with my baby bathtub.  For some reason, this is one piece of (unnecessary, some might say) baby gear that holds a strong emotional attachment for me.  I will be relieved to see the high chair, bouncy seats, and Exersaucer go.  But the baby bathtub, that's another story...

It all started when we gave my oldest son his first sponge bath.  Ironically enough, the baby bathtub was not even present at this event.  As first time parents, my husband and I nervously swiped each and every crevice of our new addition's body under the bossy and scrutinizing loving guidance of my mother.  My father, known in our family for his maudlin attacks of sentimentality, remarked, "He's so lucky to have you.  Just think of all the babies in the world who don't have someone to bathe them so carefully."  Thanks, Dad.  There's nothing to help boost a new mom out of the baby blues like thinking about the neglected and orphaned children of our world.

Fast forward a few weeks to my son's first bath in the baby bathtub.  This time, it was mother-in-law doing the coaching.  Despite our efforts to perfectly time the bath in between naps and feedings, we somehow managed to screw it up and baby screamed through the whole thing.  We have pictures of him in the bathtub alternately screaming his head off and madly sucking on his pacifier for comfort as if he hoped it would somehow compensate for his crappy luck in getting two clowns for parents that didn't have a freaking clue as to how to bathe a baby. 

First baths went much more smoothly with babies 2 and 3, once we had some practice.  Laziness Experience helped us see that we could even put the baby bathtub in the big garden tub with a few inches of water in each, allowing all children to bathe at one time, even in the early days of infancy.  We've had some good times with the baby bathtub.

But the caboose of our family is now sitting steadily and happily splashing and making bubble beards in the big tub right alongside the rest of our crew.  Through my work in the child welfare system, I have learned of a young woman who was formerly in foster care and is due to give birth next week.  Completely on her own, she is in desperate need of things for her baby so it seems fitting that we should pass the baby bathtub along to someone else who is also ill-equipped to parent but trying to do right by her baby.  After all, that's how it found us and it is leaving us seasoned parents blessed with three happy children.  I hope it brings the next baby and his family as much joy as it has brought us.

 

how quickly we forget...

Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of babysitting for a friend's son, who is about 18 months older than DS #3 (currently 9-months old).  The gap between these two is just about a month longer than the gap between my first two boys - my Bunch was 17 months apart.

If you're still with me after that paragraph, then you're doing good for a sleep-deprived Baby Buncher.

The point of this post is that I realized that by increasing my spacing between #2 and #3, I have become absolutely spoiled.  With a 3 year gap between them, I am embarrassed to admit that I am already starting to forget all the little things that make it so much more incredibly difficult to be a Baby Buncher than to have spacing that is say, 2 1/2 years apart or more.

The main thing I've forgotten is that you cannot leave a toddler alone with a defenseless baby.  Oops.  I've grown accustomed to the fact that my 3 1/2 and 5 year olds will allow the baby to sit in their room while they play and I do stuff.  They will even monitor the size of toys within his reach, snatching away anything that seems like a potential choking hazard.  Who knew that preschoolders could be such good babysitters?

2 year olds?  Yeah - not so much.  I left our esteemed guest and the baby in the living room while I ran to the kitchen to fill up my coffee cup.  By the time I had returned, toddler was straddling baby's shoulders and preparing to sit on them.  Yikes. 

After we played inverse-piggy-back-ride, I thought it would be safe good to take everyone up to the playroom where there was a broad assortment of age-appropriate toys.  This plan went awesomely for awhile, until our guest disappeared down to the kitchen while my back was turned.  When I dashed down to find him, I discovered he had overturned a box of Honey Nut Cheerios, somehow managing to avoid the (lit) scented candle sitting next to the box on the counter that I had forgotten to blow out because no one in my house bothers candles anymore. 

That's the second thing I have forgotten - items like hot coffee and lit candles are really off-limits to Baby Bunchers.  These items are dangerous because if your speed and reflexes don't fail you, your memory will. 

The ironic thing is that this kid, while curious and high-energy, is really as good as gold.  He's just your average two-year old boy.  I'm a little scared because I so quickly forgot what two year old boys are  like and in just 15 months I will have one again.  But I'm reveling in the fact this time around I have just one two year old boy, without a 9 month old hanging off the side.

All I have to do now is not screw it up by getting pregnant again...

toys grow up too

As a young Baby Buncher in a house on the smallish side, I often felt suffocated under the avalanche of baby gear.  The assorted cribs, high chars, Exersaucers, jumpers, Pack-n-Plays, and other big baby gear took up permanent residence in my house for pretty much three years straight and made me absolutely crazy. 

Now my oldest is five and the baby gear, after a brief respite in the attic between #2 and #3, is back out for our third baby.  Only this time, the big baby gear is a minimal source of irritation compared to the avalanche of other crap in my house.  DS #1 favors Lincoln Logs, Bristle Blocks, and Tinker Toys.  When he's not building skyscrapers with these, he's swiping ordinary household supplies like dried beans, macaroni, staplers, and whatever other makeshift art supplies he can use to supplement the official ones in his art closet to build his latest creation. 

DS #2's favorite games are "Rush Hour in LA" (line up thousands of die cast cars all over my house) and "The Great Migration" (line up thousands of rubber dinosaurs all over my house).  Notice that in my house, all favorite toys must adhere to the theme "tiny" and "many".  You can't move an inch  without stepping or sitting on some tiny bristly, sharp, pointy plastic object.  So much for the avalanche - now the house constantly looks like ToysRUs after a tornado.  I am now grateful for the baby's Exersaucer with it's self-contained (read:  attached) toys on the tray.  The sheer multitude of bits and pieces all over my house at all times is driving me to the funny farm.

Right now I'm trying to figure out how to strike a balance between teaching the kids responsibility for their stuff and cleaning up after themselves while keeping myself clear of violating any child labor laws in making them do so.  Truly, picking up all of their toy crap is a 24-hour job. 

On the bright side, when it comes to toys, it's just another one of those times when I'm glad I've got all same-sex kids.  The last thing I need to add to the mix is Barbie shoes.