Holiday Greetings

Every December our piano top ends up covered in holiday greeting cards. You can clearly identify which of our friends have children by the type of card they send. Our childless friends send the cards you buy in bulk at Hallmark with pictures of snowmen or Christmas trees and our friends with children send photo cards.

For the past 3 or 4 years as more and more of our friends had children the ratio of bulk cards to photo cards has been moving in favor of the photo cards. The card-type rule seemed so consistent that my husband and I often joked that we should buck the trend and send out a photo card of us posing stiffly with a stuffed doll in front of a fake fireplace backdrop. But after attempting to conceive for 2 years and struggling through 2 miscarriages the idea wasn't really that funny anymore. In fact, I started to dread seeing all of those happy family photos pile up on the piano thinking that I'd never have one of my own.

So this year, now officially photo-card qualified, I was determined to send out a photo card with a picture of the whole family -- me, my husband, Baby M and the dog. I was adamant that the photo include all of us. I always think it is a little odd when a holiday card only shows the kids, no matter how cute they are. I put it in the same category of people who use a picture of their child as their profile photo on Facebook. I feel like telling these people, "I know the kid is the fruit of your loins and all, but you are actually separate people." Anyway, a good photo of all of us was harder to obtain than I anticipated-- babies and dogs are generally not very cooperative and that, coupled with the fact that neither my husband nor myself is particularly photogenic meant I still had no acceptable photo on Christmas Eve. Luckily my brother-in-law snapped some great pictures of us all that evening. I sent the photo off to Shutterfly and I am now cheerfully addressing "Happy New Year" cards to friends and family. Better late than never, and "Merry Christmas" cards are so 2007 anyway.

Christmas Shopping with Baby

I am not much of a shopper at any time of year and I particularly dread going to the mall during the holidays. So for the past 5 years or so I have done most of my Christmas shopping online. This year was no exception but I did have to run out to the malls this week to pick up a few last minute items. Somehow, even though I had only 4 gifts left to get I ended up visiting 4 different malls over 3 days. I knew it would be bad out there, but I didn't factor in how much Baby M would slow me down.

The first issue is trying to get around a multi-level mall. I never realized how few elevators there are in most malls and how few strollers each one can accommodate. At Westside Pavilion I waited through 3 elevator cycles just to go down one level. I also have to wonder about the perfectly able-bodied, unencumbered shoppers who take the elevators. There are escalators everywhere-- why are they wasting time waiting around for the elevator? And, more importantly, why are they taking up valuable elevator space?

Once I arrived at my store of choice I often found the aisles were so narrow that I couldn't fit through with my stroller. I was using my Snap N' Go which has a pretty small footprint. I don't know what the women pushing around those giant travel systems or double strollers do. I just barely made it through J Crew and I gave up on the Borders Express after I bumped into 3 displays in as many minutes.

Baby M is still eating every 2-3 hours which means we had to find places to nurse. I figured I would just have to find a quiet bench somewhere, but was pleasantly surprised to find the "Family Room" at the Century City mall. It's a room off the food court filled with comfy chairs, changing stations and even private nursing rooms. It was not crowded and it was great to be in a place where I could relax for a few minutes. Much better than the Fox Hills Mall where I was directed to a white bench in the crowded Macy's 2nd floor bathroom. While nursing there a 6 year old girl came up and asked what Baby M was eating and when I replied "milk" she demanded that I show her. I declined.

I do have to say that I am quite proud of Baby M. He slept or sat happily in his stroller for the majority of the shopping trip and only cried when we were waiting in the checkout line. I'm sure he was just trying to see if anyone would let us cut in front of them. He's a clever boy :)

Attack of the giant mayonnaise

Sometimes I think I am the only person in Los Angeles who doesn't love, Love, LOVE Costco. Whenever I express even mild distaste for the store I am told about the low gas prices, the cheap diapers, the excellent baby wipes, the great chicken salad, the cost savings of buying toilet paper in packs of 40, the free food samples, etc, etc. Those things are all true, but they fail to make up for the fact that my local Costco is one of the busiest in the nation which means parking is impossible, the store is packed with frantic people running around with enormous metal carts full of giant jars of mayonnaise and any free sample has a line 20 people long. Additionally, my 1200 sq ft house has no place to put 40 rolls of toilet paper, my husband and I cannot eat 10 lbs of chicken salad and I find the whole scale of the place completely overwhelming.

However, I finally used up all of the diapers from the towering diaper cakes I received as shower gifts and after realizing how expensive those Pampers really are I decided to brave Costco with Baby M. Going to Costco with a baby is doubly dangerous-- not only are there crazy people running around in a shopping frenzy, with that infant seat perched on the cart you can't see where you're going. I felt like I was driving a suburban with hood up. We had several near collisions. To top it off Costco was out of size 2 diapers and the only free sample they had out was hand cream. Who wants to stand in line for half an ounce of lotion? Ten people, evidently. I suppose it wasn't a total loss, I ended up with a year's supply of soap and enough ravioli to last us until June.