Uh, Am I Hearing You Correctly?

I'm overhearing a phone conversation between my coworker and his primary physician. Apparently, his wife, kids at his kids' school, and people in his neighborhood have whooping cough.

This is all because some parents choose not to vaccinate. I'm all for reading the D.r. Se.ars Vaccination Book. We did, and we're following the delayed schedule, but jesus christ on a stick. I wish people would vaccinate their kids. If you don't vaccinate, you are relying on all those folks out there that DO vaccinate to keep you & your kids safe. That doesn't seem fair, that you rely on other people's kids to shoulder the burden for you.

I now have to worry about my infants getting a potentially dangerous illness that no one gets anymore because of someone living 200 miles away who came into contact with someone who came into contact with someone who came in contact with someone I know. That doesn't seem right.

Whoa.

After we found out about the donor, we decided it was time to set up a listserv for parents of the kids. Some of us had already been in touch through the Donor Sibling Registry, which is great for finding people but not so great for communicating as a group.

If I had contact information, I added someone to the group. I also messaged everyone on DSR asking if they wanted to be added. I even contacted someone from the donor's condolence website whose message hinted she was a parent.

Somehow, some way, the donor's mother is now a member of the listserv. This morning, she sent us all a message talking about her son. Wow. An excerpt: ... knowing that all of you strong and amazing women and your beautiful children are here is more of a blessing than I can express.

What a lady. Seriously. We will definitely be writing to her, now to figure out what to say.

Saddened.

Ugh. We are feeling terrible for so many reasons.


I spent time this morning reading the donor's obituary and some of the newspaper articles about him. So many people in his community knew and counted on him. It is obvious from the articles and news stories that he was well-loved by everyone. We are told by the bank that he was so loved by the staff that they all attended his memorial service. His generous gifts of life to strangers were even mentioned at the service.


When we chose our donor, we sought an open donor. We didn't want a known donor because we didn't want possible legal confusion or to add another person to our family, but we did want the girls to have the ability to seek him out for questions if they chose when they were eighteen. With the information we had about him, we were fairly certain that if/when the girls sought him out, he would not regret his decision to be an open donor & refuse contact. Now they'll never get the opportunity. We mourn for our girls. The bank staff think that in time, his parents may be open to contact, which will be nice, but obviously won't be the same.

There will be a memorial ride for road safety in his name soon & we plan to donate to it. I have been racking my brain to think of a way to commemorate the absolutely huge gift this man gave to us. We are so grateful to him for helping us create our family. I'll just say a prayer for now.

Pondering

We received a letter from our sperm bank today, telling us that our girls' open donor (and the intended donor for our next baby) died in a motorcycle accident recently. We are saddened and shocked and still mulling things over.

Baby-Led Weaning

We've decided to do the baby-led weaning thing. My cousin and his wife used this method with their daughter and they lent us their book. I've read the book and Zazie is starting to read it. I like the idea of the girls getting to choose which things they're most interested in. As a babyled weaning blog says, "You just hand them the food in a suitably-sized piece and if they like it they eat it and if they don't they won't."

So far, they've had: Chicken, broccoli, banana, avocado, pear, pickle, and rice cake. It's a little difficult to just watch them, especially tonight when we gave them really ripe pear. The thought is that if babies are old enough to start with solids (six months) they are old enough to figure out how not to choke. Ruby did manage to break off a piece off pear, roll it around in her mouth, and then spit it right back out, so I guess we shouldn't worry. Of course, we both did finger sweeps of their mouths as soon as we got too freaked out watching them eat and decided to call it a night!

In other news, Ellie has a tooth that's broken through!! They're both doing very well sitting up, too. They still need a close eye, lest they tip over.

Would it be too weird?

We kept seeing kids around the neighborhood with these shoes last summer & we loved them. And then we saw an ADULT wearing them and we flipped out... really? adult sizes? Awesome!!

Problem is, Zazie and I both want them. And wouldn't the girls look cute in them? We've decided that might be a little too strange, all of us traipsing around in the same shoes, even if they're in different colors.

Our Apartment is a Disaster

I know that common wisdom tells you that when you have small children, you should relax some of your ideas of how clean your home should be.

The problem is that Zazie and I, on the best of days, are not the neatest people. Everything is fairly clean underneath, but we are messy. Our messiness is compounded by our laziness. None of our friends would say that we are messy, however, because no one is allowed in our apartment if it isn't clean.

We moved about a month before the girls were born. We got many of the boxes unpacked, but not all of them, so there are random boxes everywhere. Add to that baby gear that we either couldn't figure out how to say no to (baby jail [oops, sorry, pack and play], glider, baby car) or don't need anymore (swing, co-sleeper [we have two of these. Thought we'd use them, but didn't]. Oh and those clothes been meaning to give away. We DID get rid of a ton of books and give back some baby stuff.

Now we've decided that it would be best to switch rooms with the girls to give them our room. Our room is twice the size of theirs and much, much quieter. We think their room must've originally been the dining room, since it has a service window to the kitchen and it's right off the living room. That means MORE freakin' mess as we move everyone's stuff.

Laundry and dishes have been done on a triage basis since the girls were born. Meaning, the girls will always have clean clothes and bottles. Us? Not so much. Zazie's taking care of them all day, which doesn't leave a ton of time for anything else- and who wants to drag two kids, laundry bags, and a stroller to the laundry room anyway? Who can run the vacuum when girls are asleep? As for me, I get home from work, play with the girls, get them ready for bed, and then I'm ready to rest, not do laundry or clean the kitchen. And besides, doing dishes would just wake them up anyway (see: room switching).

We live in an apartment that looks like it got hit by a tornado. One day I will be neat and tidy AND clean again, but that day may be a ways off. My kingdom for a dishwasher and a washer/dryer!