We have a mouse…
At least one. We saw the cute little thing last night on the stairs. I’ll have to stay really on top of keeping food locked up, counters wiped down and floors swept. Oh bother. I suppose it’s good motivation. This is the time that I wish we had a cat. Jeff is horribly allergic, but man I could use a little feline huntress right about now. I think we’ll set traps and feed them to the chickens. They’ll like that. Not the mice, of course, but the chickens… Anyway, I feel lots of motivation to get the house really organized and together in the fall. Not so much in the spring. I don’t know why they call it "spring cleaning". If anything, the spring is way too exciting to sit around inside cleaning. Fall is a much better time for it. I’ve also got to get presents planned and done in the next month… I’m a bit behind this year.
Thank goodness for being able to put this little guy on my back. Lifesaver, I tell you.
When he’s not on my back or nursing, this is usually how he can be found:
SQUISH! I just love him. His laugh is so awesome, too. I have to get a video.
Vera’s new fort. I can’t take it down or else she’ll flip. Usually there’s another blanket there to make a door flap. It’s her special little space. I love that she has it. I remember so clearly the need for those kinds of spaces when I was a kid. She won’t be able to tuck her little body away under the coffee table forever, so the blanket stays draped and it’s hers for now. 
That’s all, really. Just stalling before I get down to it. Hm. There’s got to be something else! Oh yes, I know. The mean woman. The other day I was hanging out with my friend and the kids and we had some time to kill. There was this shop that I’d been wanting to go into for years, and finally we had an opportunity. We were right across the street. It was this place that sold rocks and crystals and gemstones, and I thought that Vera would love it. So we went in, and before I could even cross the threshold after my friend and Vera, a woman popped out saying that there’s no way we could have Vera in the store without being held the whole time. So my friend and I looked at each other and decided we’d rather not go in then. Vera was disappointed and started to cry, and we quickly pulled her out of the store. My friend agreed to carry her through (I was carrying Asa), and so we went back in to look. She said "On second thought, I don’t need this. You shouldn’t come in." We were confused and asked her why, and she said she didn’t need all the whining and crying and that we should come back when we had a babysitter. We were sort of shocked and explained that we would carry her, and that the only reason she cried was because she wanted to stay and look… and the woman said that she just didn’t need to deal with it, that it’s a grown-up shop, that we need to get childcare, etc. etc. She kept talking at us and it got to be a bit of overkill. I told her that not everyone can just get childcare to go into a shop, and she said "Life is tough". I told her I didn’t need her to teach me about life, and we started to walk away. She kept talking after us saying it was a "grown-up shop", and on and on. Poor Vera was confused and we just told her the woman was mean. When she asked why, I said I didn’t know. It was a brief encounter, but it got my heart pounding all the same. I looked the shop up, and there were a couple of bad reviews (no good ones) about how terrible the customer service is and it all seemed to refer to this woman (the owner, I think).
I don’t ever want to forget my responsibility to our children. These small people who need kindness and love, honesty, compassion, and plenty of patience. If this is something that people think they should be exempt from offering them, I think they’re wrong. Sadly that’s their prerogative, but I choose to see it as being just as discriminatory as anything else. Children are whole people, and they deserve respect. I mean, just look at her! If some people can’t see that, that’s very sad indeed.
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Wrap on the back..
Ok sista! how did you get that wrapped on your back by yourself. I haven’t tried it with my son and I am scared I’m gonna drop him. He is like 18 lbs. and almost six months and my slumpness is bugg’n me.
??
Re: Wrap on the back..
Hi new friend! 🙂
This is the method I use to wrap him:
I do a couple of things differently- he’s only a 3.5 months, so to get him on my back I just create a pouch with the wrap and kind of fling him up over my shoulder. It’s hard to explain, actually, my sister taught me how. But I guess at 6 months I’d probably be scooting him around on my hip… I’m not sure! This is another good video that shows how to get them on your back:
I guess I’d start with a spotter or something- but don’t worry, you can do it! My Asa is probably around 16 pounds, and I’ve gotten really confident that I won’t drop him. I practiced next to the bed, and now I can do it just about anywhere. 🙂
They’re little, they need teaching, they are small and uninhibited, but they are whole.
I guess that’s the most pressing point. People can’t deal with that. :/
Stupid woman. Ah well – her loss. She obviously has no idea how you run a store.
Yeah, now that I’m a mom I just can’t get around it anymore. There’s so much that people can do to accommodate them without compromising their own space/needs. Sigh. I’ll have to be patient with them, too, I suppose.
oh you all are too cute
🙂
Can you please tell me (either in comments or via LJ message) the name of this shop? It sounds like somewhere I might go, and I’d really rather not.
They are whole, valuable people.
Word.
It was called “World of Rocks”, located on Huron Street right by Michigan Ave. Thanks for being awesome. 🙂
Goodness, I knew that just from your story. Yeah, that woman is *ahem* We’ll just stick with “awful.” She was a regular at the coffee shop when I worked there. I sincerely wish she hadn’t been. 🙁
She’s really just a mean lady. Nothing to do with running the shop well or not, it’s just her. Most people in the area just put up with her because it’s the only real shop like that in Ypsi, and they don’t want to go to Ann Arbor. Personally, I just avoided her.
It looks really natural to have a baby in a wrap. I like the idea of that.
That woman is incredibly rude. Really, just wow. I can’t believe she would speak to a potential customer that way just because you had your kids with you!
Wow. I would hope that was the store owner, because if a store employee was so nasty to customers… wow. I just can’t believe that.
I think spring cleaning was a big thing back when houses were heated by wood stoves, and you couldn’t really open the windows or clear the smoke until spring.
Wow. I really cannot believe that woman was so rude to you all! Holy shit. wtf! It really blows my mind when people treat other humans like they are doing something wrong merely by just existing. Especially when their hate is directed toward kids, they ARE whole valuable people. Sheesh. Good grief!
Have you thought about Yelp-ing your bad experience? I don’t understand how those kind of folks can manage to keep their shops open.
Well, I’ll certainly never go into that shop. It’s too bad because Lilliana loves rocks…
Gather up a bunch of friends with children, and sit outside of the shop…maybe!
that picture of you makes me think of botticelli paintings, particularly madonna of the magnificat. although the women he painted didn’t usually (or ever) have babies on their backs. :]
what a nasty mean woman. i’ll even go as far as saying that i understand that some people are “child-free” and not into other people’s children, but regardless, she could have conducted herself far more professionally and a helluva lot nicer. i’m sorry she made your experiences such an unpleasant one.
I would have been so furious…that woman must have a sad little existence, to react so negatively to a sweet little child.
I am NOT a fan of mice indoors:( I hope you can get rid of them easily. My sister had a cat that lived outside, but they’d let it in once a week or so, just for a few hours or overnight, to keep on top of the mice.
Also, adorable sweet little boy:) Is that a moby wrap(or same idea)? I’m trying to decide on what brand I should get, and it’s between a moby or a mei tai/babyhawk. Totally torn.
I know that shop! Grrr. And I’ve never been in there because that woman is just so… argh.
Two years ago Greg and my friend Linda took our girl scout troop there for a bracelet making activity. I don’t know how they planned it there of all places! You’d think that agreeing to teach 8 nine year old girls jewelry making skills would have been the death of that miserly woman! Well, it very nearly was! HA! Seriously, she didn’t know what to do with all that giggling and silliness!
I was at a birth that day, but hearing the story both made me laugh and alternatively, want to walk my butt down there and give that woman a piece of my Mama Bear. Damn! Clearly some issues there. So no, I will not give her our time or money and I try to caution others of how they might be treated should they try to enter with children. I think it’s ironic that she has a picture of a girl painted on the glass window outside the door.
That shop owner sounds like my old boss at Middle Earth. I heard about a woman who owns a restaurant and banned young children completely. What is wrong with people?
I feel sorry for that woman. She cut herself off from an enriching experience. I cannot imagine Vera not making someone’s day brighter. How sad she will never know that. She must swim in the bitter lake. :[