#urban parenting

[localareamom]

Dude I Married is out (hosting, technically) a Dad’s Night Out for parents of the playschool, so I can sit on the couch and catch up on my social media work (everyone likes a non-proofread mass mailing right? It’s just unpaid work for my civic) and drink and watch Netflix and I should be watching garbage I can’t watch when he’s home, but I am trying to multitask so I can’t have something I want to pay attention to, like Riverdale or somesuch garbage, So I just finished American Vandal. 

We had dinner and then neighbors from around the corner (well, their 3 and 5 year old) banged on our door. All four kids raced scooters and bikes in the street, jumped on our steps, and then eventually barged into the house to tear apart the playroom. I am not complaining. It fills me to sit on my steps with a drink and casually chat while kids free play. They climbed the fence to the alleyway. The tripped and skinned knees. They screamed and bartered and compromised and shared on their own with little to no adult interference.  Then they all went home and to bed and I cleaned and opened my laptop to squeeze out some emails and posts and now a little scrolling for myself.

[localareamom]

Just got back from an after playschool hang. Three families live on the same corner of a small street invited people to . All being told, 14 kids and 9 parents showed up (some not playschool affiliated) hanging out on stoops, drinking, snacking, playing, running in and out of eachothers house.

it’s glorious. It gives me such energy to have a large community of chill parents and kids that get along able to come together spontaneously. On our block it’s the same situation with neighbors. 

I’m bummed because two of the families are leaving Philly for work next year, and a couple others are eyeing the suburbs. I get wanting grass and trees and cars not zooming down tiny streets with kids playing, but I want to be like, don’t you see what we have now? Shouldn’t we enforce it instead of breaking it up?

[clothdiaperdude]

A Reappearance

I know I've been gone for a while; life got in the way of yet another project.  I can make no promises of the frequency of posts, but I'm going to try to do better.

The small person is 13 months old.  She walks, she talks (her favorite word is "hi!", delivered in a dozen or more different inflections), she cuddles her stuffed animals, gives kisses and hugs, rolls a ball back and forth,  tries to put on her shoes, combs her hair, and STILL loves Creedence (the band that soothed her from a few weeks of age).  I could go on and on with the list - she's an awesome little being.

Since this blog started as one devoted to diapering, I suppose it's only fair to give you an update on that front as well.  Once we added some whole milk to the small person's diet, all hell broke loose in terms of diaper rash.  Even with tiny amounts and slow introduction, she just wasn't taking to it well (and she has no trouble consuming other types of dairy).  After the doctor's advice *and*  trying every trick in the book, I broke down and bought some disposables, since the cream we had to use was about as cloth-unfriendly as it gets.  She's also on soy milk (and will be trying rice and coconut as well) for the time being.  We'll try again with cow milk in a few months.  I personally can't imagine drinking that thick swill myself!  

I think the most difficult challenge I've faced over these past months is feeling almost entirely isolated in my daily life with the small person.  I take her to playgroups, story times and other assorted baby-centric activities, but 99% of the time we *are* the elephant in the room.  The father with the baby that the mothers will make small talk with for a minute or so, but then dismiss as a novelty, and obviously not a part of the group.  Ironically, many of my very-close non-parent friends are female. Now, I'm *sure* there are plenty of women out there that would be cool making friends with a dad who happens to be the primary caretaker of their child, but I have been hard pressed to find them.  With the warmer weather approaching, It makes me sad that the small person and I don't have more kid friends to hang with on a daily basis.  She's great company, but I can't be her partner in dirt-digging and chase at every turn and she can't really hold up her end of a conversation (yet...I know that'll come soon).

[lifewithroozle]

Boston

Living in the city can make you feel so small sometimes. Just one among many. Anonymous. Unheard. Unseen.

And other times it’s like we’re a necessary piece in a delicately fashioned machine. We’re a part of something bigger. Some kind of force that is bigger than us and consumes the power of us making our community strong. And loud. The force that is a city. That force that is a community. That…

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[momgeleno]

Battle for the Bands

I obviously take great pride in my taste in music. I have been a snob about it since I can remember. Pretty sure I thought I discovered the Backstreet Boys before anyone else in my freshmen class. 

When I was pregnant with Rowan I made an effort to play music for her everyday. I played all the classics like Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Otis Redding, Madonna, etc

I also played her my current and longstanding faves like Radiohead, Friendly Fires, Grizzly Bear, Muse, and Death Cab.

I went to concerts regularly until my feet couldn't take it anymore. I wanted so much for her to have a passion for music like I do. I figured it would start in the womb right?

With Teagan it was different. Most of my music listening was done via headphones, or on a lower volume setting on my laptop. The only time I felt like I could really blast those jams was in my car. And boy did I.

Jake is not crazy about music like I am. He appreciates it. And even maybe likes it sometimes. But the fire isn't there. It's not his lifeblood. And this is something I have come to accept over time. I used to consider non-music lovers to be a total deal breaker when it came to dating.

I learned that he was both a non AND a SF Giants fan around the same time. My head almost exploded. This was not going to be someone I could bring around my dad, or my friends. It was not going to work out.

But he was so cute. And he made me laugh. And we clicked. Could I ever get over these insults?...

Yup.

We obviously have a rivalry when it comes to baseball. It's funny really. Especially since the Doyers are doing so well at the moment and the Giants are living life in last place! We give each other shit on the regular. It's fine. It's too late to turn back now anyway. My dad learned to embrace his pseudo son-in-law's blaspheming ways.

But the music. Oh the music. This is going to be a long lifetime.

He goes to shows with me. He lets me play my music in the car. But I hold back. I don't let him in completely. I save my guilty pleasures for friend time and solo drives. Obsessives love company, but not when it's falling asleep at a Mumford and Sons' concert at The Bowl....ahem

So here we are. Him on his laptop, me on mine. Baby sitting on my lap but completely unaware of the tunes blasting on my Beats. Is this going to be forever?... Will I have to expose Iggy to the real good stuff on our own time?

Maybe not.

Recently, Jake has decided to introduce Iggy to the beauty that is 90's music. You know the kind. It's tongue in cheek. He plays it for her and even throws in some gawdawful dance moves in on occasion. Rick Astley has even made a recent appearance on the speakers(not 90s).

I take this as a step in the right direction. I love me some 90s jams. As terrible as most of them are. It's nostalgia. It's a glimpse for Teagan into our past lives. Even though the 90s were completely different for the 2 of us; I was still in elementary school and he was a grown teenager... we were still exposed to the same MTV beach house staples.

I have a soft spot for these tunes. And it's good for me to see Jake embrace even this most basic of real music love. Perhaps there's hope for us yet.

Still need to work on those dance moves though....

[anotherdad]

A Day in the Country

I spent an amazing day with the girls in the country.  It was a housewarming party for a friend, a parent, who moved from the city to the suburbs country.  Several of the people there were also parents who had moved out of the city upon becoming parents.  

I generally disapprove of this sort of thing, I'm a real proponent of staying in the city, raising kids in an urban environment.  But without a doubt, I can understand the appeal.  Being able to sit back with a beer and hot dog, while the kids ran in and out of the house, splashing in a kiddie pool, catching fireflies.  Its the kind of thing that is fairly foreign to our daily city life.  And for a day at least, it was nice to indulge in that sort of relaxed lifestyle.

And I'm certainly proud of those girls!  For being three girls who have spent their whole lives in the city, they were fearless when it came to mud and bugs and worms.