2 steps forward, 1 step back

I’ve felt myself to be in a bit of a food rut. Somehow we’ve fallen into a routine where I make dinner every single night (even though both of us are working now.. hmm..?), and my repertoire is getting a little predictable. Over the weekend, when I wasn’t attending super hip parties and secret concerts and stuff, I bookmarked a few new recipes to try out. 

On tonight’s menu Quinoa Hash with Poached Eggs. A brunch offering from Martha Stewart that turned out to be the best home cooked meal I’ve had in weeks! So tasty that I had to share the recipe here because you should be making this tomorrow. For dinner, it’s elegant with a glass of wine on the side. 

Ollie’s appetite has been a little off lately, and we’ve had a few nights of unfinished meals, but this one was a big hit for him too.  His eggs were scrambled, not poached, and he tucked into the meal with his hands and seemed to especially savor the leeks. He also seemed pretty thrilled with the pink hue of my hands thanks to the beet peeling.  He giggled at them all through his bedtime nursing.  

Kristen at Project Baby put up a helpful little guide to traveling while pregnant today, and in doing so reminded me of one of the common married-woman practices that I’ve always been baffled by. I mean no disrespect in questioning it, mostly I just find it super topical right now as, if you catch my tweets you may know, I appear to have lost my wedding ring. 

Her post is not at all the first place I’ve heard of women seeking out fake wedding bands and engagement rings during pregnancy, because of swelling digits, or on vacation, for fear of theft. On pregnancy message boards which I frequented embarrassingly often during my period of confinement women often expressed their need to get larger sized faux wedding bands to make sure that when they were out and about in a clearly knocked-up state, no one got the impression that they were **gasp** unwed. 

Now, I’m not a person who’d bat an eye at being considered unwed and with child under any circumstances. I’m actually more of a person who’d relish the opportunity to give anyone who gave me the side eye due to bandless-ness a serious tongue lashing (or at least a long, out of earshot, passive aggressive rant). But is there really a world where people are going around with gaping maws over the concept that someone might both have a child and not be partnered? Or not married? Or god forbid, having a baby with someone they aren’t permitted to marry (I’m looking directly at you, most of the U.S).

I guess there is. I think I might be insulated from some of the judgement that other mommies experience on many choices in my open, self consciously accepting urban environment. But I’ve got roots in the rural and suburban lands surrounding my precious city, and I’ve never noticed my ring finger under any scrutiny out there either.

I’m probably just oblivious, that’s often the case. But other mommies.. what’s the deal? Should I be rushing to find a cheap replacement for my ring before I’m accused of harlotry or what?

Kristen at Project Baby put up a helpful little guide to traveling while pregnant today, and in doing so reminded me of one of the common married-woman practices that I’ve always been baffled by. I mean no disrespect in questioning it, mostly I just find it super topical right now as, if you catch my tweets you may know, I appear to have lost my wedding ring. 

Her post is not at all the first place I’ve heard of women seeking out fake wedding bands and engagement rings during pregnancy, because of swelling digits, or on vacation, for fear of theft. On pregnancy message boards which I frequented embarrassingly often during my period of confinement women often expressed their need to get larger sized faux wedding bands to make sure that when they were out and about in a clearly knocked-up state, no one got the impression that they were **gasp** unwed. 

Now, I’m not a person who’d bat an eye at being considered unwed and with child under any circumstances. I’m actually more of a person who’d relish the opportunity to give anyone who gave me the side eye due to bandless-ness a serious tongue lashing (or at least a long, out of earshot, passive aggressive rant). But is there really a world where people are going around with gaping maws over the concept that someone might both have a child and not be partnered? Or not married? Or god forbid, having a baby with someone they aren’t permitted to marry (I’m looking directly at you, most of the U.S).

I guess there is. I think I might be insulated from some of the judgement that other mommies experience on many choices in my open, self consciously accepting urban environment. But I’ve got roots in the rural and suburban lands surrounding my precious city, and I’ve never noticed my ring finger under any scrutiny out there either.

I’m probably just oblivious, that’s often the case. But other mommies.. what’s the deal? Should I be rushing to find a cheap replacement for my ring before I’m accused of harlotry or what?

On Ollie’s actual birthday, we wanted to try and recreate a special night we had when I was pregnant and expecting him.

Two days before Ollie’s birth we were supposed to have a party for Chris’ birthday but at the last minute, I started to get the feeling that I just needed to rest, rather than entertain.

After canceling on all of our friends, we let our neighbours know that the party was off, and they invited us to have a “make your own sushi” dinner at their place instead. My memory of that night is of a candle-lit, calm, quietly exciting and completely satisfying experience that made me feel sure that I had the love and support I needed to get through what was to come in the next couple of days.

Since we already had his first birthday party under our belt by the 15th, we decided to invite the neighbours to celebrate Ollie, and our one year anniversary of becoming parents by recreating that special night.

I wanted to post about Ollie’s birthday party and all our celebrations, but they carried on so long and so happily that I had no energy left for that. So instead, here are the photos. First up, Ollie’s family party!

Is it possible to still be experiencing postpartum hormone weirdness after a whole year!? Between babies being born, babies who are sick, and babies who are growing up too fast, I’m a bit of a wreck. I just dissolved into a puddle of tears watching the documentary Surfwise and am contemplating moving Ollie to our room tonight to reinstate the family bed. I’m not so sure I don’t want a life where we all sleep together in a pile, like puppies. 

Is it possible to still be experiencing postpartum hormone weirdness after a whole year!? Between babies being born, babies who are sick, and babies who are growing up too fast, I’m a bit of a wreck. I just dissolved into a puddle of tears watching the documentary Surfwise and am contemplating moving Ollie to our room tonight to reinstate the family bed. I’m not so sure I don’t want a life where we all sleep together in a pile, like puppies.

When I posted about our child care arrangements, I got a lot of feedback from other mums saying that they were interested in similar arrangements and asking how we worked it out. I’ve finally had a bit of time to sit and think about it, so here’s the deal:

Pick the right partners

We were really lucky, in that we naturally made friends with another couple with a baby of a similar age early on in parenthood. But besides just the existence of offspring, it was important that we share similar parenting philosophies; a commitment to healthy meals, active play and 

Agree on your needs and limits

Although both of our nanny-sharers work full time, we agreed from the beginning that we’d hire only part time help, both for financial reasons, and to reduce the amount of time the boys were away from their parents. We also set an hourly wage range that we were comfortable with, and discussed openly the type of nanny we’d like to hire. We knew we were looking for someone energetic and fun who was comfortable with doing a little bit of meal prep and cleaning up after the boys. Many nannies will also do some cleaning and cooking and laundry, but since only one family would benefit from that, we didn’t request that kind of help.

Location, location, location

Speaking of cleaning, if you’re sharing a nanny with another family, you’ll need to decide on a location for the care to take place. We pretty much decided based on available space, but other factors to consider are how comfortable each couple is with bringing a certain amount of chaos into their home (two kids make a lot more mess and noise than one) and how willing/able each household is to create appropriate space (i.e. baby-proofing, toys, sleeping arrangements, etc.). 

Advertise locally

You can use agencies to help find a nanny, but they take a commission for placements and seem to be more suited to those seeking live-in or full time arrangements. We posted ads on craigslist and kijiji, as well as through a community list serve. We ended up getting the most and best responses from craigslist. We received about twenty resumes, and narrowed down the options to four that we wanted to meet.

Interview collectively

When we interviewed candidates, we didn’t want a panel, but we did want everyone to have equal say, so our friends came over for an afternoon and dinner, and we arranged to have candidates arrive every hour and a half (to avoid awkward run ins on the porch). 

We had decided on a list of questions ahead of time, by emailing back and forth and consulting resources on the topic. The mums handled the interviewing, and the dads played with the boys/hung out upstairs (but as it turns out, were eavesdropping). 

Chatting about all the candidates over dinner was a nice relaxing way to debrief about the options and decide who we were interested in checking references  for. 

Check references and make the offer

We asked for a few references from each candidate, and each couple called one for our top candidate. The references were glowing, we all had a good feeling about our choice, and so we offered her the job.

Ease into it (if you can)

We were lucky that we had a few weeks before we needed to get started on regular care, so we arranged for a few get-to-know-you days to hang out with the boys and the nanny, to help get them accustomed to her and the idea of being left without their mommies. Although I think it might have been a little overwhelming for poor J to be n the house with two babies and two mommies, it was important to us to get a real feel for how she was interacting with the boys.

Frankly, we were also curious to see how she’d wrangle two boys so close in age, since both of us can find our single babies to be a challenge. As it turns out, professionals are just that - professional, and she had strategies for everything already at hand. 

Be clear about your expectations

This one is more of a “wish we’d done”, than advice based on actual experience. At the beginning of the arrangement, I considered whether we’d want to provide a checklist of tasks to be done each day, but the idea seemed pretty patronizing. In retrospect I think it would have been a good idea to just get our expectations out in the open. When you’ve got another baby in the house, you might love them like family, but you don’t necessarily want to pick up their diapers as well as your own, so it is handy to make sure your nanny knows that taking out the diapers daily (for instance) is important. 

Stay open and stay friendly

You’re going to see your friends/nannysharers almost every day now, and you’re going to see them in your, or their space. It is important to make sure that you can talk about everything about the arrangement, so that your needs are met and there’s no awkwardness on either side. If you’re good friends with these people, you’re also going to want to make sure that the nanny sharing arrangement doesn’t become the centre of your friendship.

Seeing someone every day in a daycare setting isn’t the same as just hanging out and having fun, and it would be a shame to lose out on a great friendship because you’re always just talking about your kids and their nanny. I’m really pleased to find that we’re having no trouble with this so far, as we’re still having regular couple, family and mum to mum get togethers, which means that we’ve not only got a happy arrangement for the boys, we’ve still got great friends to look forward to making family memories with. 

Well, I wouldn’t call it the storm of the century, but there’s enough snow today that Chris got to stay home from school and so we all got a family snow day! Plus, bonus! Our friends were home too, so all the grown ups got a treat for lunch.. 

And Ollie got the best treat of all…