life and puppies

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And … scene!

Published January 8, 2012 baby stuff 11 Comments
Tags: glider, Rubin's, Younger furniture

Ok, I know this is probably a dreadfully boring topic to you, but I feel compelled to complete the story and then I promise I will move on to something perhaps equally boring, but unrelated. After canceling the glider from Hayneedle that I was feeling luke warm about, we went to Babies ‘R’ Us on Friday evening to see if there was anything there we could work with. We found a glider from Klaussner (which is a US company but, from what I have read, assembles some of its frames in Italy and has some of its upholstery cut in Mexico) that was relatively cute, inexpensive at about $400, and available in a very cute robin’s egg blue fabric. We decided to just go for it, buy it and move on with life.

Klaussner Virginia glider

We sat at a desk with a saleswoman who filled out a form for our request and then, as she was asking us to sign said form, said, “And that will be ready for pick-up in about 10-12 weeks.” Zoinks. What a total glider buzz kill. The glider’s gestational period was longer than that remaining on baby’s! While this wasn’t the end of the world, it was far from ideal and led us to scratch the deal and, again, start over. Only it wasn’t exactly starting over, because, as you well know, I had been down this glider research path previously.

So, on Friday night, after writing my last blog post, I spent almost six hours looking at nursery gliders online. This may not have been so excessive, but I had already spent at least this amount of time looking at most of these same gliders on various other nights over the last couple of weeks. Basically, I was glider-ed-out and felt resigned to buy something I wasn’t in love with in order to close the book on the Glider Chapter of my life. I felt we had two final options: buy a made-in-the-US Little Castle Valentino glider in Pebble Grey (a soft, light grey ) fabric from the Posh Tots site for about $500 (which would take about 5-6 weeks to arrive, according to their website) or trek around to local furniture stores in the slim hope we could find something better that also wouldn’t take 12 weeks to arrive.

Little Castle Valentino glider

On Saturday morning, fortified with a mocha and a delicious egg, cheese and sausage sandwich (being pregnant is great!), we headed out for the Great Glider Search. We started at the inimitable Century House, where almost all things are beautiful, serene and beyond our price point. Actually, that last part is not exactly true. I have bought many a lamp from Century House — I believe I have six (I’m a bit of a lamp lover) — and many small gifts there, as well. It really is just a great place to look around and enjoy good design. Century House also had a couple of gliders that I had seen online from Monte, which I believe is a Canadian company. The gliders were nice, but at $1k they were just too expensive and, frankly, I wasn’t in love with them in person. I believe both were covered in microsuede and, while they may have been available in other fabrics, that is a turn-off for me. Oh, who am I kidding? If we were going to spend over $1k on a chair, it was going to be the beautiful Room & Board chair I mentioned in a previous post. We checked the sale area, but there wasn’t anything there that came close to fitting the bill (though Aaron was very attracted to a rustic-looking — unusual for the CH — hutch-type thing). After examining all of the gorgeous nursery decor at the adjacent gift house, we left and went to Target. This part of the Great Glider Search was really more about nesting (read: OCD organization for various areas of the house unrelated to the nursery), but we did manage to see one ugly glider in the baby area.

The next store we hit was The Comfort Shoppe out on Mineral Point Road, which used to be two stories of space overflowing with furniture, but has turned into a space that is more like a dark, depressing warehouse with a few living room scenes sprinkled here and there. Although there was no ‘Going Out of Business’ sign, the mood to the place suggested The Comfort Shoppe’s best days are behind it. We found only one rocker, which was also a recliner. Neither one of us was particularly keen on the idea of a recliner, but I liked the chair more than Aaron. The fabric was kinda cute and the scale of the chair was nice. It was also marked as 40% off its $900 price tag. Still, we didn’t love it, and barely liked it, so we moved on.

Next up was Slumberland, which was my idea and I knew was probably a ridiculous one, but I had visions of finding a diamond in the rough and telling a grand old story about my spectacular find. As soon as we walked in, we were accosted by a pushy saleswoman. I really hate to be rude to people, but I find the approach of salespeople at stores like this rude in and of itself. I very much appreciate a greeting and a general, “May I help you with anything?” or, preferably, a “Let me know if I can help you with anything,” I truly appreciate being acknowledged and salesfolks informing me that they are available to help me, should I need it. I cannot stand, though, seeing a salesperson running towards me, greeting me and, when I continue to walk around instead of stopping to ask a question, following me around with a ridiculous question such as, “Have you been here before?” What is the point of that? Is there something complicated about the showroom that renders it impossible to navigate without instruction? It feels only like a manipulative query — one designed to draw people into conversation, which is something I was actively seeking to avoid. I understand, both as a consumer and as a former salesperson, that there is balance to be struck, but I really don’t think it’s complicated. Anyway, I was already down on this Slumberland idea of mine and the first two seconds in the store did nothing but underscore my negative feelings. As you can probably guess, this is not going to be a story titled The Glorious Overlooked Glider We Found in the Corner of the Furniture Superstore. We did, though, find one semi-decent glider amidst the oversized monstrosities that took up much of the floor space, but the fabric choices were heinous, it wasn’t made in the US and, truthfully, ‘semi-decent’ is probably an overstatement.

As we walked back to the car in the parking lot, I told Aaron about a glider I had seen in a nursery scene on Pinterest that looked so cute and perfect. The nursery designer had found the chair at a thrift shop for $9 and had a gorgeous slip cover made. I raised the topic of stopping at the closest St Vinny’s, but acknowledged repeating a story like that seemed next to impossible. We also ran through the idea of going to American or Steinhafel’s, but Aaron rightly pointed out that I wasn’t going to like anything those stores offered us. Frankly, I was pretty exhausted by this point and down on Madison’s nursery furniture options, so we decided to finish out our errands, head back home and buy the Little Castle glider online.

On the way, though, I turned left from Schroeder Road onto Whitney Way and I saw Rubin’s on the left-side of the road. I said, “Let’s just pop in and see if they have anything for us.” I had thought of Rubin’s before, as I had with Iconi Furniture on West Wash (a store I absolutely love), but was pretty sure they wouldn’t have any gliders. I figured Rubin’s would have leather recliners, but I didn’t anticipate finding any fabric gliders. Oops. Almost as soon as we walked in, Aaron spotted The One. The clouds parted, the sun came out, birds started singing and we just knew. An incredibly nice saleswoman came up to us and said, “Is there anything I can help you with or would you like to just look around?” Brilliant. Normally, I would have quickly taken the latter option, but I found myself saying, “Well, we are looking for a glider and are wondering about fabric choices for the one over there,” pointing to the chair Aaron was comfortably seated in. She showed me where the fabrics were, told me about the prices for different grades of fabric, showed me the other fabric glider they had (which was also a recliner, but the reclining lever was nicely hidden in the inside part of the chair — genius!), showed me the leather recliners they had (no thanks) and got me a flyer on the chair, which had a pic of the chair along with its dimensions. And all of this conversation and information was relayed in fewer than five minutes. She left us to look through fabrics, to sit in the chair and to look around — all the while, we knew she was aware of us, but not hovering and, in fact, helping others with their shopping. She was just the perfect salesperson — blending sincere charm and helpful information all in a warm and incredibly non-smothering way (if that makes sense). The chair was $809 and would take 6-8 weeks to make in North Carolina, but we were in love and told ourselves (a) the chair is just comfortable and smart-looking; (b) it’s made in the US; (c) we’d be buying at a local shop, which we didn’t think we’d be able to do; (d) while the chair is more expensive than the Little Castle model, it is cheaper than the Room & Board chair and we love it just as much as that one; (e) the chair is clearly a quality chair, not one we’d be unloading to St Vinny’s or on Craigslist in three years (something we were both pretty sure would happen with the Little Castle model); (f) we had already saved so much by buying the crib, mattress and dresser at Ikea, we could justify splurging a little on the chair; and (g) again, we just loved it. So, we picked out what I think is a gorgeous blue-grey fabric and declared ourselves sold on the chair! The incredibly sweet salesperson went ahead and knocked the price of the chair down to $750 because, she said, “It’s just so cute!,” pointing at my belly. Now, how do you not love that?

Younger Lucy glider

I am so in love with this glider that it’s ridiculous. I know part of my love comes from being done with this decision, but I think most of it comes from feeling so good about the decision we made. We were able to achieve our goals in buying this important piece for Baby Sweet Potato’s new room: a US-made product bought at a local shop, Rubin’s, with simply excellent customer see at a very fair price. I’m happy and relieved. And thus ends The Great Glider Search. Thanks for riding along with me on the tour.

**I apologize for the craptastic pics, but I couldn’t get to show up when I copied the image from another site, so I ended up taking pics of the computer images of them. Not ideal, I know.

And nursery glider…take two!

Published January 6, 2012 baby stuff 3 Comments

So, after all of my fretting and griping about the glider, and after finally making the decision to pull the trigger on one, I came down with a serious case of Buyer’s Pre-remorse. I can’t say it was a full-fledged case of Buyer’s Remorse because I didn’t have the actual product in front of me to rue. But I was pretty sure I would be full of rue (rueful, if you will) when the glider arrived on my doorstep. As I was swimming in the flood of these feelings, I got an email from Hayneedle (the company through which I bought said glider) apologizing and informing me delivery of my purchase was going to be delayed until January 13. With the baby due in March, and the glider ordered at the end of December, I realize waiting until mid-January could hardly be called an inconvenience, but I took it as a sign (read: opportunity) to cancel my order and begin my search anew. I emailed Hayneedle to ask if the order could still be canceled and I was surprised to receive a reply from a real human being almost immediately. Real Human Being told me she would check with the vendor and get back to me in two days’ time. Well, the very next day there was an email from Hayneedle telling me my order had been successfully canceled! How awesome, I thought. What a great company, I exclaimed. And now I get to search for the perfect glider all over again, I mused.

Shoot. Now I *get* to search for the perfect glider all over again. Oops.

Protected: And another very happy new year to you!

Published January 2, 2012 life and pups , pumpkin Enter your password to view comments.

Back to the lab

Published December 30, 2011 baby stuff 8 Comments
Tags: gestational diabetes, three-hour glucose test

I’m up early (for me) this morning because I failed – or, rather, had abnormal results from – the one-hour glucose test I did last week. This failure on my part has sent me to the lab for a three-hour glucose test to determine whether I have gestational diabetes. From what I have read, gestational diabetes is both common and uncommon. Risk factors include being over 25 or 35, having a family history of diabetes and being overweight or obese before beginning pregnancy. Other risk factors appear to be being pregnant. Hmm. So here I sit waiting for the next blood draw…

Let me pause here to weigh in on a topic of semi-interest to me. It seems every profession has its own lexicon and its way of communicating with lay people. I am a lawyer and, while my work is not very complicated, it does have its own terminology and sometimes those terms can be non-self-evident to non-lawyers and require some explanation. For example, when I use the word ‘moot’ to describe a case, I mean that the case is no longer in controversy. The judicial branch can decide only cases or controversies, so if there is no more controversy between the parties, the case is moot and will not be decided by a court. The most common example of this is when there has been some sort of pretrial resolution to the matter at hand. As much as you or I may have wished to see how a judge or jury would decide a case, if there is no longer an actual conflict between the parties, the case is moot and is over as far as the law is concerned. Imagine my surprise then when I looked up ‘moot’ in a regular old dictionary the other day and found its meaning described as ‘open for debate.’ Well! Although this definition is not exactly the opposite of the legal one, it comes close. Anyway, the medical profession, not surprisingly, seems to have an entirely different language from my own, such that I sometimes wonder if we can ever be friends. Dr. Heather is particularly skilled at explaining things, but I have found her to be more of the exception than the rule. I do take some responsibility, though, as I’m sure I often ask the wrong questions. Awhile ago, when I lived in Richmond, I asked my doctor to take a look at a large mole I had had forever on my left leg, but which I felt had grown a little in the last year or so. She scrutinized the mole, scrunched up her face and said, “Well, it’s not symmetrical.” I said, “What does that mean?” She said, “It’s not the same on one side as it is on the other. If you folded it in half, it wouldn’t match up.” Uh, thanks. I guess what I should have said is something more like, “Does that mean it’s more or less likely to be cancer?”

This sort of thing happened to me again this week when I spoke to the nurse who told me that I had failed the one-hour glucose test. I asked her if she had any statistics for me, such as the percentage of women who fail the one-hour who are then diagnosed with gestational diabetes. She answered, “A lot of women fail the one-hour but pass the three-hour.” Very scientific. She then proceeded to tell me what the three-hour test would entail. She said there would be four blood draws and if I fail two of the four, I have gestational diabetes; if I do not fail two of the four, I definitely do not have gestational diabetes. I don’t know about you, Dear Reader, but this explanation made about zero sense to me and sounded a wee too close to junk science for my taste. So, I quickly took action and scoured the omniscient World Wide Web for information on this three-hour test. I soon realized that the explanation the nurse gave me, while technically true, was overly simplistic and, consequently, head-scratching. I am sure she was trying to conform her vocabulary to something I could understand, but her explanation had me only baffled. What I have learned since then, and what my basic brain has come to understand, is the following: gestational diabetes occurs when hormones from the placenta interfere with the pancreas’ ability to produce enough insulin to combat the glucose a pregnant woman ingests. For whatever reason, the condition usually sets in between 24-28 weeks of pregnancy. Because there isn’t enough insulin, extra glucose passes through the placenta to the fetus and that glucose is stored as fat in the fetus. The fetus can then become too big, which can lead to labor problems. Although there appear to be other complications with gestational diabetes, the major one is babies that are too large, which increases risk to the mother and ups the likelihood of a c-section. So, the test. Passing the one-hour test means there’s no need to do the three-hour (I passed the one-hour test I took at around 12 weeks). The three-hour, on the other hand, is considered diagnostic (though I read a bit about how some docs think it’s not very reliable) and it goes like this: the preggers lady (me, in case you got lost) fasts for 12 hours and then comes into the lab to have some blood taken. The glucose level in the blood is tested. If this number is too high, the woman immediately *fails* the test because, obviously, there is a problem: her glucose level is too high when she hasn’t had glucose in 12 hours. Ok, so assuming that test comes back in the normal range (the nurse told me she had had only one person fail blood test #1 in her nine years of lab work), the woman is given The Orange Drink. The Orange Drink is about eight ounces of sickly sweet Gatorade-like fluid that must be consumed in three hours. Women complain about the orange drink they consume for the one-hour test, but let me tell you that it is nothing compared to The Orange Drink I just drank an hour and a half ago. The drink for the three-hour test is twice as sweet as the other one; it’s just loaded with sugar. Note the capital letters to emphasize the difference. Anyway, ok, so the drink is consumed, the time the woman finished it is noted and blood draw #2 comes one hour later. So, I had my second poke about 30 minutes ago. This blood is then tested. Another draw is done an hour after that and that blood is tested and then there is the final blood poke, #4, which comes yet another hour later. The results of the blood test are then examined and if the woman has acceptable levels of two of the three, she is considered to be in the clear. On the other hand, if her glucose levels are still too high in two or three of the tests, she is diagnosed with gestational diabetes and the fun diet begins. So, basically, the test just measures how the pregnant body deals over time with a lot of glucose. The “if you fail two, you’re done” explanation is, as I said, true, and also now makes sense to me. I assume the most likely blood test to fail, for women who still go on to pass the test, is the blood draw at the one-hour mark; perhaps her body deals well with the glucose, but it takes just a little longer.

So, here I sit waiting for two more draws. It’s not so bad. I have wireless, a new laptop (MacBook Pro! Hallelujah!), Baby Bargains, The Botany of Desire, and some water — thank goodness the lab tech gave me a little bottle of water because I am still trying to get the artificial orange taste out of my mouth. And Doc Heather just stepped away from her hospital patients to check in on me and chat for a bit before she had to go because some loud alarm on her hip went ballistic!

I’m incredibly nervous as I really do not want to have gestational diabetes. Gestational diabetes can be an indicator that the baby will develop diabetes at some point in her life.* I know lots of women have dealt with it, it’s not the end of the world, the chances are the baby will still be really healthy and fine and that soon this will be a distant memory. I know all of that, but I still don’t want it. I worry I’ve already put my baby at risk for all sorts of physical shortcomings and mental problems, just by virtue of her coming from my womb. I don’t want to her to have to start off with one more.

*Since writing this, and while waiting for Blood Poke Four: The Final Chapter (for today), I read gestational diabetes is not an indicator for a baby’s future in the land of diabetes. Obviously, I need to do more research.

Buying the nursery chair

Published December 26, 2011 baby stuff 11 Comments

I’m breaking my own rule here by writing a new post before any one has commented on the last boring one, but I think it’s time to move on. As I’m now in the midst of week 29 (or, I suppose, really week 30 because I have completed 29 weeks, just as I have completed 36 years — zoinks!), I’m starting to get a little panicky about all of the things that we have to do and would like to get done before Baby Girl Sweet Potato arrives. We are really not ready. I know a lot of people say that — and I have even heard more experienced parents talk with pride about how the crib wasn’t put together until mom’s water broke — but I am pretty serious about it and starting to get stressed. I would like the crib together well before I am calling triage at the hospital to tell them I’m on my way. I would like the changing table/dresser ready to go before I’m making sure the camera battery is charged. So, this week is a big week for us. AO has taken the week off (because he always seems to have more vacation time than I) and is going to put together a bunch of things we bought at Ikea a few weeks ago. Among these items are the crib and aforementioned changing table/dresser but are also two bookshelves we hope are going to work magic in our living room. You see, Dear Reader, we live in a one-bedroom condo. So, and I’ll do the math for you here, we are soon going to have three humans and a dog in a one-bedroom condo. I’m really not too worried about this — we have plenty of space — but it’s going to take some creativity and — and I’m mentally preparing for this — some serious trial and error.

Ok, that aside, this week I’m also trying to focus on a chair for our nursery-area. For the most part, I am convinced that we would really like a glider chair. I have read a bit of info suggesting a glider isn’t really necessary and instead we can just rock the baby in our arms in a regular chair, but I think a glider — I’ll take the extra help with rocking, thank you — is the way to go for us. I started my search weeks ago, but have amped up my efforts in the last week. I have looked at Overstock.com, Target, Ikea, Room & Board, Land of Nod, Pottery Barn Kids, Rosenberry Rooms, Babies ‘R’ Us, Hayneedle, and more. I have even looked into how to add a glider mechanism to any old chair and emailed a local upholster to ask him if he could do that for us. I have alternated between the mindset that I am willing to spend a lot of money (telling myself chairs are expensive and it will nicely balance out the frugality we exhibited when we bought our $99 crib) and heeding the call of the thrifty siren (telling myself there are a million other things we need to buy and a chair is not the place to spend any extra dough). There is also the issue of space and design. I would like something fairly compact — nothing oversized — and with simple lines; something upholstered without any bells and whistles. I’m drawn to designs like this chair from West Elm (priced at $599, but 20% off for the next few days):

Ryder Rocking Chair

I also very much like this more expensive sweetheart from Room & Board ($999):

An example of one that I am not at all interested in? This chair from Babies ‘R’ Us looks quite comfortable and is nicely affordable at $199, but is a bit too busy for my eye:

There is an additional issue. I would really like to buy something made in the US or, at least, Canada. But I have not decided how committed I am to this. What I mean is, I have not ruled out buying something made elsewhere. I recognize I have already bought a million things that are made in countries other than ours, so why put my foot down on this one? On the other hand, furniture — and good furniture — is something that is still made here in this country and perhaps I should have the moral and ethical code to insist that at least something in the nursery is made in these parts. And if not the chair, then what? Narrowing my purchase choice down to one made in the USA has the added advantage of, well, narrowing my choices down.

Hmm. Ok, this has been helpful. Writing things down really helps me make decisions! Thank you, Dear Reader, for I think I will indeed refocus my glider search on a made-in-this-country option. Any suggestions you have, though, would be more than appreciated.

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