for sending the following text?

My husband was watching JAB for a couple hours while I volunteered at The Breastfeeding Center. He sent me the following text:

She needs a nap but won't go down... Any suggestions 

I typed back the following:

jump in the shower, turn on fan, put her in swing. She will cry but just shower quietly & wait for her to fall asleep. Give it 10 mins at least. Make sure to turn out light & shower in dark- crack door for light. Trust me- you'll have enough light  

for considering a move to the 'burbs?

It's not like I've always lived in the city. But I do now. And I like it, dammit. So, why is it that it just isn't feasible? Let's see....

• We are throwing money away on rent in a swanky downtown apartment high-rise
• The elementary school across the street from us is not somewhere I would love to send my child in a few years (recently, a child was found with a "large amount" of cocaine in his sock)
• Bubby (our Samoyed) can't let himself out of the apartment, down the elevator, through the double-doors and to a nearby park to relieve himself....... yet. 
• We hesitate to make noise after JAB goes to bed for fear of waking the Sasquatch-very likely in our 600-ish sq. foot apartment

Well, we have been looking for places for several years now. A few years ago we seriously looked but then realized we were too poor. So, we started looking again now that JAD has a "real job." We went to an open house this past weekend, picked a realtor, went to a few more houses and then made an offer on one. WHAT?! 

I know. Now, granted, we did a lot of hemming and hawing and research in between those 2 weekends but DANG doesn't that seem like a quick timeline. 

Am I crazy for leaving glorious downtown DC for the 'burbs?! 

for my 3-step book-cleansing process?

JAB is super into books. Like Super Into Books. She toddles around the houses grabbing her fav ones, bringing them to me, shoving them in my face, signing "book," and saying "buh buh" and then giggling when I ask if she wants to sit in my lap. It's adorbs.

But here's the thing. We only have so many books at our house. I can only read "The Mitten" so many times before losing my shiznit. I heart the public library forever and so JAB and I try to go at least twice a month to get some new inventory.

Now, the libraries in WDC are super fantabulous. I love that I can "order" books I want online and they magically appear in a stack with my name on them at my nearest library when they're ready. They do great children's programming like Mother Goose On The Loose and they let us hang out for hours afterwards in their carpeted space. Winning.

On the other hand, the public library closest to us is also essentially a homeless shelter during the day. As a huge germaphobe, I obviously worry about this a great deal.

SO.... when I get home, I engage in a 3-step process to clean our books before I will let JAB touch them:
1) Wipe the books off with a 7th Generation wipe (outside cover and all pages of all board books)- to kill germs
2) Wipe cover and pages off with a warm, wet washcloth- to rid book of 7th Generation chemicals I don't want JAB ingesting
3) Wipe cover and pages off with a dry washcloth- to ensure no water damage to book pages from aforementioned cleaning.

After about 45 minutes of cleaning, I found myself asking... "Am I Crazy?!"

for thinking my daughter is a baby genius?

Tonight was our nearly 1-year reunion for our Bradley birth class. Someone decided to organize and despite exchanging approximately 25 words with these people over the course of our classes, I couldn't help but be intrigued to see what their babies look like. Part of me was hoping everyone would suddenly be crazy-awesome and we would all get along superbly and be instant friends forever and ever. Another part of me was just straight-up curious. We shared so many intimate details of our lives over the course of our class that it seemed odd to peace out and never find out what happened.

My first impression was that JAB was the most (or second most) adorable baby there. One of the other little ones, M, was incredibly adorable and had this perma-grin on his face. JAB was irrefutably # 1 or #2 in cuteness.

Now the part where I need some input is......... Is JAB a baby genius? We're surrounded by all these babes who are approximately the same age and JAD and I are all feeling almost embarrassed by all the questions they are asking: "How many teeth does she have?!" "When did she start walking?!" "How long has she been signing?!"

JAB was about 10.5 months at the time and had been walking for a few weeks. She'd been signing for a few weeks. She's been adorable since she's been born.

JAD and I left with this odd sense of feeling awkward for having a baby genius and feeling super-proud of our little one.

for having a completely drug-free birth?

I drank the Kool-Aid. It's true. I took a Bradley class, did meditation at night before going to bed, bought a birth ball, did 500 Kegels a day, read all the books, decided to give birth at a Birth Center, switched from my OBGYN/midwife practice to a solely midwife practice that does "group care," etc. etc.

When the time came, I did the whole thing without a stitch of pain meds. From the contractions starting around midnight to the pushing around 10 a.m. to the birth at 3 p.m. to the stitches around 3:30 p.m. Not even a local anesthetic for the stitches or Tylenol that evening.

Looking back on it now, I realized I was pretty hopped on on natural stuff. We came home from the birth center about 4.5 hours after I delivered JAB, ate some delicious Chinese food and all passed out in the bed for a full night sleep. I remember walking a little funny for a few days and freezing sanitary pads and sitting on pillows but I don't remember much more than that.