My Geek Baby

There have been a lot of recalls in the news lately - toys with lead paint on them, cold medicines, and now…chairs. Here on MyGeekBaby, we want to give parents the benefit of the doubt. I have seen first hand kids whose little heads seem like magnets for coffee tables. Toddlers getting sure on their feet often fall, all part of the learning process. But when I saw video of parents putting this chair on a kitchen table, bar area of anything other than the ground, it seems like a chair recall isn’t as necessary as the need for some parents to take (or re-take) a basic parenting class. The chair is designed to help your little one get used to sitting up, and after 28 reports of falls, including three skull fractures, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a voluntary recall.

There are a lot of ways to misuse the products we purchase for our children, but a chair recall isn’t going to give anyone common sense, you just can’t buy that at the store.

So, here we are, in the summer, I think in the one photo that truly captures what being pregnant in the hot, dry summer is like. I was minutes away from having a Rita’s water ice in Philly, and perhaps a bit cranky…

For a frame of reference, here’s a before shot, taken more than three years ago at our wedding:

John Coltrane: The Impulse Years

Baby kicked during: Chasin’ the Trane

Trying to get dressed in the morning is getting difficult. I drop things constantly. Thank God for my long toes, I make good use of them these days. I also misjudge clothes that I think I can fit into. I tried on a wintry dress that a few months ago was swimming on me but when I tried it on Monday, it was a bit snug. No STUCK is more like it. I had it half zipped up and my arm couldn’t reach to finish zipping or to UNZIP. Jake had already gone to work and I was hopping around my bedroom trying to shimmy out of this thing like a rabbit jumping for carrots (I don’t know if rabbits do that sort of thing, but whatev ). It reminded me of the wedding reception scene in Steel Magnolias where Clairee Belcher says about the mayor’s wife dancing, “Looks like two pigs fightin’ under a blanket.”

Don’t get me started on trying to put on tights. It will never happen again.

Um, so I have to buy bigger underwear. I’m not giving in to enormous preggo-panties that hike up to my bra, but I have bought some generic gray Hanes in a larger size. Ok, fine. I get my panty two-pack home and open them, I notice that the look JUST LIKE MEN’S BRIEFS. Like the kind boys once wore (or wear?). GAH! There’s even a fake opening in the front, BUT ONLY GOD KNOWS FOR WHAT! I blame Sarah Jessica Parker for this weird fad (think back to episodes when her character Carrie is dating Aidan). Ironically they’re very comfortable and I may buy more.

This is a little freaky but cool! Thanks to my sister, an actual mom and guest editorial writer here on MyGeekBaby, who sent me a link to this. I am posting this in October but the ticker changes by the day. Click on the ticker to see more data.

I love Google Analytics. Since we started tracking traffic and users for less than a month now, it’s been very cool to see general statistics about readers (not like computer passwords, people!) and where they are from.

U.S.-based readers take the biggest slice of the pie but we also have readers in:

United Kingdom
Canada
Italy
Germany
Netherlands
Costa Rica
Australia
Antigua
Brazil
Israel
Hong Kong
Romania
Philippines
Serbia
Chile
Mexico
United Arab Emirates

Baby girl has already been to her first show/concert. The day I learned I was pregnant, I was also getting ready to see the band Jake plays bass in, Scanner Freaks, play a show in DC, and since then she’s been to several more ear-splitting shows of the post-punk rockers. But since her ears have actually developed Jake reminded me that I could be playing her music while in utero. We’re not playing her crappy kids versions of Beatles tunes, but music we/I like. (No offense John Lennon; I dig the Beatles, it’s just the “babyfication” of rock that makes me feel like I’ve got morning sickness all over again.) Yesterday I played Hem and some orchestral cello music in my office but today I gave her a pair of headphones, artfully placed near the belly and cranked up a bit so I could hear too.

What did she hear?
American Analog Set
Album: Know by Heart
First song she kicked to: Kindness of Strangers

During the baby name research, comprised of reading the tens of thousands of names out loud, I thought a lot about the power of names. Having a common last name, I am hoping to find and select something unique. Also, because of the Googling phenomenon, which most computer users use to look up everyone from potential employees to blind dates, I started Googling possible name combinations to see how many others are already out in the Web universe. In doing so I encountered an article about how new parents are gobbling (or Googling?) up URLs for their new baby.

Hmmm. OK. So maybe you want to start a blog when the baby arrives for pictures and updates for friends and family. But, really, what’s the child going to do with the URL that is their namesake? Is this something for parents to use in the interim and then pass along to the little one when they are ready to develop baby’s first Web site? Readers who have purchased a vanity site their their baby on board, write and let me know what you’re planning to do with it.