What a Difference!

So here's the thing: If you are planning to become pregnant, or are newly so, make sure that you love what you sleep on. Twelve weeks to go (give or take 2 or 3) and we've finally acquired something decent to sleep on. Finding a mattress that isn't loaded with petro-chemicals and carcinogenic flame retardants has been very difficult. Once you start looking into mattresses and issues of toxicity - forget it. At one point I figured that it would just be easier for us to sleep on a board.
Last week I ventured off the Internet and out to the furni/mattress stores here in mid-coast Maine. People looked at me like I had ten heads and was speaking Klingon. Whoa! Get a load of the crazy lady; a caring and educated consumer with concerns about her newborn breathing in horrible stuff off gassing from the new mattress.
Here's a tip: don't go in and ask for an all-natural mattress. And definitely don't use the word organic. They'll think you're some crazy hippie who wants to set fire to the building in retaliation. I tweaked my approach after the first place and started asking for hypo-allergenic. Allergies. People seemed to get behind the allergy approach.
I would have purchased a mattress online except for the $600 freight charge.
The very last place I stopped, completely dejected by this point convinced I'd have to sleep on my horrible crunchy springed mattress forever, had exactly what I wanted. On sale to boot! I could have kissed the sales woman.
The delivery guys dropped it off yesterday - I could have kissed them too!
I slept wonderfully with the exception of dog #1 and dog #2 each making plays for a piece throughout the night. Who new that the quality of my life could be so drastically improved by some big ol' slab of mattress!
Mom and fetus are quite pleased with ourselves.

Sometimes things are too darn cute

Via the BBC:

In Pictures: Baby Animal Love Story



Look how helpful those Orangutans are! I wonder if I can get them to come and help with Newtie?

Good Ole Bill

At the end of every rainbow, there is Fenway Park
One of my fellow bloggers, a certain Mr. Bill Norris, has many things to recommend him to the public at large. He is intelligent and liberal, a kindly fellow, a published author, and is posessed of a wonderful sense of humour. He is however a fan of the New York Yankees, arch-rivals of this household's prefered baseball clowns the Boston Red Sox.

Bill also holds the distinction of being the most decent Yankees fan to ever stalk the earth. Bill is so pleasant and fair-minded it is indeed hard to believe that he could possibly be an avid supporter of those pinstripe pimps. All last season he and I had an ongoing bet- whoever won a particular meeting or series was allowed to inflict a public humilation on the loser. It was a lot of fun.

In the spirit of ongoing friendly sporting rivalry- and quite out of the blue- the lovely Mr. Norris has sent along a onesie for the impending newt embalazoned with the words "Yankees Suck". For a proud New York sports fan, this is quite a sacrifice, and we were both hugely touched. Thank you Bill.

Cool Things

With Newtie kicking away at the missus with increasing frequency, our thoughts are starting to turn towards the various supplies and equipment the new child will require.

Fellow preggo blogger Unwellness wrote recently about choosing a stroller and all the attendant accessories that go with it. This got me thinking about the idea of the Stroller v3.0. We have advanced from the unwieldy and angular contraptions of my infancy (v1.0) and into the modern bugaboos and so on (v2.0)' but what about a true 21st century stroller? What about retro-fitting one of these to carry both parent and baby?



12mph over all terrains, gyroscopically balanced so only the truly stupid can fall off, and the perfect combo of geekiness and cool- I can't believe Dean Kamen hasn't come out with an official stoller version yet.