Happy Earth Day, Dear Mowgli

I just signed up for Boobquake on Facebook. Earthquakes have been on my mind lately -- and probably a good many other people's as well -- and it's both a good experiment and a good excuse to wear something low-cut. Unfortunately, we have a design flaw in the experiment, namely, that there are so darned many earthquakes lately that it'll be hard to separate signal from noise.

Recently I was watching TV while nursing the little one. This happens a lot; he tends to keep my hands too full to do much of use, so I try to put it on something educational for one or both of us. This particular time, I was learning about the last great ice age and glaciation, and that the mass of ice on the center of North America was sufficient to bend the continental plate, heaving up such features as Florida.

You know. Nothing big. Just Florida.

Then we had a nice run of quakes and volcanic eruptions all over the place. This sort of thing makes me thoughtful, and that's like the TV-watching. There's more time for it these days when I'm pinned under a breast-feeding baby. Eventually I wiggled free and played with Google. You can get some very interesting scholarly papers from 2006 or so predicting that decreased glacier mass would cause reduced downward pressure on continental tectonic plates and therefore more volcanic eruptions and more earthquakes.

I noticed that the first few results said nothing about the corresponding increase in pressure on the oceanic plates. Granted, every inch downward the oceanic plates are forced is an inch less that the ocean rises to swamp continents, and that's great if you're on a continent and rather sucks if you're on an island. However, it seems to me that taking this pressure into account makes the melting of glaciers an even bigger problem. Surprise! It's all one planet, and when something changes in the atmosphere, that can affect the crust.

So, what can one worried mother, who would feel bad bringing forth a son into a world of lava falling from the sky onto the constantly trembling earth, do?

I can drive less, and decrease my carbon footprint (and expenses). I can eat less beef, and decrease the methane footprint. Surprisingly, a great many green choices save some green in the other sense: living on whole foods is cheaper than living on processed ones, and there's a lot less discarding of peels, cartilege, and so on in home prep, especially if you give yourself a jaw workout on the cartilege. I'm hoping to replace our energy-sucking fridge with one that would pay for itself in about two years. All of these are small acts by one small person, but it beats not doing them.

Naturally, this is when Georgia in its infinite wisdom thinks it'll help people's finances by NOT funding public transit. Whose finances, exactly? Public transit tends to benefit those who cannot afford to drive, and I'm not too clear on what they're supposed to do without it. Gas prices are supposed to go up right in time. We chose this house because there was a bus stop at the end of the block; being near public transit lines was the big selling point of this lemon.

Big and Tall Babies

I went shopping for a new sleeper for Mowgli yesterday. He's six months old now, and finally ready for those six-month-sized summertime sleepers everyone gave us in the belief they were getting things timed just perfectly.

Problem is, the nine-month size goes up to 27.5 or 28 inches in most brands. He measured as 28 inches two weeks ago at his well-baby checkup, and probably has added a half-inch by now. He's not fat, inclining more toward the bean-pole build of his father, but the distance from the shoulder of the sleeper to the foot is the part that matters, and lesser circumference about the waist doesn't help much.

The real problem, however, is that we've reached another point where the design changes to accomodate developmental stages. A twelve-month-old baby is presumed to be sleeping under a sheet, so his pajamas don't have feet and come in two-piece sets. A six-month old baby in those will wiggle backward and end up with the pant legs up around his thighs, the top bunched under his armpits, and drafts on places he's used to keeping warm.

We had exactly the same problem with newborn clothing, which Mowgli outgrew in his first few weeks. Newborn sleepers come with cuffs that could be turned over into little mitts. A newborn's circulatory system can leave him with shockingly cold hands without those little mitts, we discovered because we couldn't find any bigger sleepers that had them. Poor baby was also upset because he liked sucking on his mitts for comfort, and sleeve cuffs were apparently a poor substitute.

I may have to break out the sewing machine and learn to sew summer-fabric sleeper sacks. In this world of supersize everything, where are the supersized baby clothes?

Exploring the World

Brightly colored toys are all the rage now. We've started on pop beads as a good outlet for Mowgli's desire to pull things apart and feel mighty. This desire has been very hard on his books! Also, ours. We're reading to him a little less now, but I'm trying to make up for it with lots of real-life experiences like textured quilts to crawl on and mango baby food to sample.

Mango was okay. It was worth two wrinkled-forehead moments, but vanished all the same. However, Mowgli prefers his father's Elder Scrolls official game guide. Nummers!

Happy birthday, Grandpa!

Yellow

According to the baby books, a little fellow of Mowgli's age usually prefers red and blue to all other colors. Not this baby -- he likes yellow. In his Dr. Seuss book, he likes the yellow busy buzzy bees. Yesterday with his toes in the grass, he grabbed up a dandelion from amongst the violets and yanked its head off.

It's a good thing he likes yellow, as our house is surrounded by oaks, dogwoods, and redbuds which are all in full, glorious, pollinating bloom at present. If we play fetch with the dogs, they kick up great yellow clouds from the grass. If we leave a car window open, the dashboard is yellow. If we walk across the porch (and it's pretty well impossible not to) we leave gray footprints on the yellow and bring in yellow footprints for the hardwood floor. I'm liking my Swiffer.

Today's forecast is for rain. I'm looking forward to it, so that the above car can look that much less like Bart Simpson (description courtesy of follower Gryffinitter).



At least it's pretty!