Long Time Gone for a Baby To Nap

As my poor sweet baby cries away in his crib because he is so tired and can't continue sleeping without his mama by his side, I am grateful for this video I took just yesterday of him playing so peacefully.  He is engaged, interested, and curious.  He is human and healthy!  So grateful.  So not grateful for the sleep-deprived state we are both in at the moment.




Never saw CSN in concert.
Always wanted to.




That video is from the famous Woodstock concert you might have heard about.  It's the one my parents couldn't make due to my mother being pregnant with my brother.  At least that's the joke we always say.  No way my dad would have hung out with all those hippies.  My mom was busy singing along with Peter, Paul, and Mary and my guess is that if she was hanging out with other people at the time, she might have gone.  Reba's mother-in-law went.  So, that counts, right?  She still carries her ticket around in her wallet!

You know what they say, Man plans, Gd laughs.  The irony the irony.  They say things skip a generation?

Which reminds me there is a fun-sounding family and kids gathering this Sunday in Philly called Kidstock at Liberty Lands.  Just in case you had any pre-conceived notions that I might be a (cough, cough) hippy, no real earth mama would let her baby cry this long during the day to get down for a nap.

Since you asked, no that isn't a Moby Wrap, but good guess.  It is a NeoBulle and it is from Switzerland.  There are many, many wraps out there and the babywearers of the world are grateful for the Moby and its popularity!  Full disclosure:  I am not even terribly a huge wrapping geek, and only own 2 wraps!  The serious mamas out there are fully stashified and I am far from that.  But, I *am* in the market for a nice dressy slate or gray wrap for shul, so be on the lookout next time you see me at your friendly neighborhood synagogue.

BH.  Sleeping baby.

Lela the Fawn is the Underground Sophie the Giraffe and Why I Wish I Could Write Like Cool Mom Shit and I Love Wes Anderson

Make no mistake: I am an amateur.  I make no money from this blog.  My readership is limited.  My look and feel is crude and rudimentary.  Wes Anderson look and feel?  Yeah, right!

Yet, and let me be quite bold here, my ideas are huge. My thoughts are big.  My uncanny ability to make connections is unparalleled.  I often ask Stango when will my time come for those who matter to recognize my efforts?  When will I get credit where credit's due?  When will the stars align and all my dreams become realities?

You might chalk it up to being too scattered with no focus on one particular niche, but I'm onto stuff.

If you had a baby in the past 10 years and you have any semblance of cultural currency, you're familiar with Sophie the Giraffe.  I recall when I first saw her in an upscale children's shop on Greenwich Avenue (yes, to all you in-the-know mothers who make their own baby food and don't give credit to Diane Keaton where credit is due since she's the original Hollywood make your own baby food mama in Baby Boom, I'm talking about Giggle).

I thought Sophie was cute, but we were past the teething stage and I the $25 price tag for a TEETHING TOY was obscene.  It was more about what I saw Sophie became.  For an East Coast mama, lemme pat myself on the back and state I was always 2 steps ahead of the trends when it came to baby gear (having adopted the Ergo in 2003 (I think ours came shipped straight from Hawaii when they were still small-scale!) and the BOB SUS stroller in 2004 (back when the original 3 guys were still running the company and before the moved to Idaho-Utah or wherever they moved to once they outgrew their San Luis Obispo locale, and wayyyyy before they sold out to Britax) , but when she became Sophie The Giraffe That Everyone And Her Follow The Trendy Herd Mother and Her Mother Must Have (she's sold in Toys R Us now?  Are you kidding me!?!), you can betchyer bottom dollar that I would.not.buy.this.for.my.child.

Fast forward many years.

I have a sweet new baby.

#4 in case you were sleeping the past coupla months.

And I have discovered Lela the Fawn.

As my new friend Angela, the owner of the super awesome store Cloth in South Philly quips, Lela is the Underground Sophie.

And I'm a proud owner of her.

Scratch that.  Eddie is.

Scratch that.  Levi is.

I decided it's time to go with real names.  At least for my own kids.  (remember, I'm not a professional blogger, but it's one of the many many "shards of brilliance" that Liz Gumbinner of Cool Mom Picks has mentioned in the past.  Oh why oh why oh why can't I write like Liz.  I love Liz.  I mean I love what she writes.  She's seriously the coolest and I have said that here before.  No she's not the coolest.  Her blog, she wrote recently, was called Cool Mom Shit for 3 days.  So it's safe to say that Liz Gumbinner is the shizzle.  Liz is the shizzlest.)

Looks like Lela just hit the sidewalks this past summer.  Thanks David Beerman and Ivy Street for bringing her over from Deutschland.  Mr. Beerman's company distributes the Moby Wrap.  Yet another baby gear product that was way underground for years.  Don't get me started on babywearing.  When will German Woven Wraps (GWW) have their 15 minutes?  When will they really emerge from the underground?   How ridiculous is it that I only have a Neobulle and a Dulcino and mostly what people say to me is, "Is that a Moby Wrap?"  Uh, no, sorry, there is litcherally a *whole world* of baby carriers out there!  I love The Baby Wearer and admit I haven't been on there nearly enough, and Wrapping Rachel  and Babywearing Faith are my heros and I've only mastered the FWCC but really I should be able to do the FWC by now, let alone the HWCC and when am I gonna move onto rebozo, rucksack and learn how to do a candy cane chestbelt (is that CCC? See, I'm not babywearing geeky enough).  I recently posted on my baby wearing group's Facebook account that someone ought to write a definitive book on all the carries out there (including their acronyms).  Enough about my babywearing digression for now.

This mama's all over that shit fawn!

Take that, trendy mama.

Whole Phamily rocks this town!

Oh, and I should mention I had the most lovely birthday last week.  No more Facebook birthday announcement for me.  I decided last year, taking inspiration from my sis Reba, to delete my birthday from Facebook.  I didn't want "fake" birthday greetings.  And ya know what, those who really matter to me wished me birthday greetings.  I was touched, even if these are friends I never speak with, or maybe once a year.  Or maybe we do still speak every couple of months.  These are my long-time peeps.  I wish we got to hang out more.

I often send a Stevie Wonder birthday greeting to people on Facebook, but alas nary a yom huledet sameach on my page.

We had rack of lamb for dinner.   Stango got me the new Wes Anderson book.  I hired extra cleaning help on Friday in anticipation of our many visitors over the weekend.  New Bobbi Brown makeup and Lululemon workout clothes worked their way into the mix.  My mother in law gave me a really pretty pair of Edwin Pearl earrings she no longer wears (keep your no-longer-wearing-it jewelry coming!) and my birthday celebration extended over many days.  We just finished the delicious Crumbs cupcakes I guilted my sweet husband into gettting since I had no cake over the weekend (granted, it *was* Thanksgivukkah AND our anniversary).

And now for some clips that I overtly or subliminally referred to in this post:

"betchyer bottom dollar" (feeling guilty I haven't taken Concealed Light umm Nistar yet to Annie but I'll be honest here and state that I am a show seat snob when it comes to Broadway and I would only guess it would be $200 a seat to take her and you think I can afford that?  Erase your preconceived notions of who you might think I am just because I just posted all that material stuff about my birthday.  $400 is a lot of money for me.)

Baby Boom




Rock this Town - Stray Cats


Happy Birthday

Listening to Stevie now is getting me pretty psyched for the funk Phish is gonna likely bust out this coming New Year's... you know Boogie On is simply the best!






Meanwhile in Wes Anderson land...this is coming, this is coming soon!





And someone said I have no focus?