(Yes, it’s been awhile. No, this is not an excuse as to why.)
I appear to be alone in the world, but I hate Stanza. It has a terrible reading experience. It’s a bundle of UI sins wrapped in the one useful feature of its ability to get pretty much any text file onto your iPod. Reading a book with Stanza was haphazard at best, and infuriating at worst.
And then the Kindle app came out, and reading a book on that was everything reading a book should be. No longer did the text flip to horizontal at random moments if I read while lounging. The brightness stayed at the appropriate level. My child’s wandering fingers no longer turned undesired pages. I could easily adjust the font size without the constant risk of accidentally changing the font size and losing my place. Reading with the Kindle app was perfectly, simply, reading. The reading experience was so good, that I could forget I was using an electronic device. Sometimes I wore my iPod’s battery down twice in a day.
(I will admit, I tried Stanza again after several months and updates had gone by, and when a book I wanted to read wasn’t available on the Kindle store. While it has improved, I annoys me how many things I have to go into the options and turn off just to get just a decent reading experience. And I still can’t adjust the font size easily without digging deep into the settings.)
And then Amazon went and bought Stanza. And I started to worry when people said the Kindle app’s days were numbered.
I made Mike download the Kindle app so I could check out the updated version, I (wisely) wasn’t going to risk losing my book reader app. I’m going to play with it extensively this weekend.
My first impression is not a good one, and I’m tempted to pan it right here and now, but I haven’t played with it for more than 10 minutes, and I’m determined to give it a fair shot.
Just not on my iPod. Some things you just don’t risk.
I’d like to preface this by saying I really do like GeekBaby’s pediatrician. She doesn’t hassle me about him sleeping in our bed, possibly sensing a battle she won’t win, but still, it’s refreshing.
GeekBaby’s pediatrician obsesses about his sleep, possibly more than I do. And given that I can only sleep when he sleep, I obsess over his sleep quite a bit. It’s a selfish obsession.
But since his 4 month visit, she has been asking if he’s sleeping through the night. At the 6 month visit, told me that he really should be sleeping through the night. And at yesterday’s visit pulled out the scare tactics of bad habits, crankiness, decreased attention span, and even developmental delays if he doesn’t get enough sleep at night. That I need to let him cry it out, do whatever it takes to get him to sleep.
If she wants to engage in a nighttime battle of wills with my son, she’s welcome to take him home for a night and try it. Just as long as her house isn’t on my street, because that boy has lungs.
I understand that he needs his sleep (I need it too!) but he doesn’t want to sleep. He fights it, he thinks that he’ll miss out on exciting things if he sleeps while others are awake. Occasionally he decides that others should not miss out on his exciting escapades and makes sure we’re awake in the wee hours of the night. Sleeping is boring.
So I follow his cues. If he’s just doing the sleepy cry to wind down, I let him cry. If he’s building to absolute ‘why don’t they love me anymore’ hysteria, I don’t. If he’s got a sore throat / nasty drainage from a cold or allergies, I’ll put up with him nursing more at night – it’s the only way to soothe his throat. Sometimes he’s okay in his crib for a nap, sometimes he’ll reach hysteria level, be taken downstairs and then immediately falls asleep on a lap – he just needed a snuggle.
And this is one thing that I find fundamentally irritating about this sleep nagging. I know when he’s sleepy, I try to get him to sleep as much as he’ll put up with, but I also try to meet his needs. And that means I can’t just let him cry hysterically in his crib (unless I’m at my wits end and just need to put him down somewhere safe for 5 minutes).
The other irritating part is that I don’t sleep well. I never have. I wake up easily and have a hard time going back down. I’m restless, and I’ve been known to have conversations with Mike that I don’t remember in the morning. I’m just like my mom. Why can’t GeekBaby be like me? All evidence suggests that he is. He wakes easily, has trouble going back down, and I know he goes through fussy phases without actually being awake.
Then again, I’m cranky, have bad habits, and a poor attention span. So I guess the real question is “can I cope with my son being just like me?”
So we’re going back to the valley for Easter. Among many other difficulties, this means I actually have to go to the trouble of putting together an Easter basket for GeekBaby.
I wasn’t going to bother, I mean he’s only eight months. He’ll never know, and I can’t put candy in it anyway.
But at the risk of being berated as a terrible, horrible, uncaring mother, I now have to put one together. What does one put in an Easter Basket for a baby anyway?
My first thought was ‘ooh, Egg Shakers’ and I tried to stop by the Right Start where I’d seen some to grab one or two. Well, Right Start has apparently gone out of business in the intervening weeks. Crap.
FatBrainToys.com is out of stock.
Trying to find anything on Amazon is like trying to look through a haystack filled with needles for one platinum #28 blunt tipped cross stitch needle.
It looks like I’m going to be out wandering today looking for inspiration to strike.
On an additional note, the state of Easter cards is absolutely appalling.
I know that the iPhone Nano is not a real possibility. But I really wish it was.
Right now, I’ve got a crappy little Motorola candy bar that I paid $20 for. It has no camera. It has no keyboard. It is just a phone. And I love it.
It sounds weird to love it, but it’s the easiest cell phone I’ve ever owned. And I have a soft spot for electronics that don’t make me hate my life.
But I still wish it was like my iPod touch. I wish I could sync it with my address book. I would rather have the keyboard for texting than the keypad. I don’t care about using it for internet, for email, for an iPod or a camera.
I just desperately want a phone that will play nice with my address book on my computer and that I can send a text message with in under 5 minutes. And if there’s going to be an iPhone Nano, this is what it should be. Just a phone that does cell phone well.
I’d buy it for $99. I bet a lot of people would.
Last night GeekBaby vomited. In our bed.
It was not definitely not spit up. It was vomit. Vomit has a unique odor. Oh, and it was dark in the room too. I got vomited on in the dark.
The next 30 minutes were a hustle and bustle of cleaning off various people, throwing sheets, mattress pad, and my nightgown into the washer, putting spare sheets on the bed, and checking GeekBaby’s temperature.
I’m sorry, son, but if you vomit that much, (on me! in the dark!!), you’re gonna get a thermometer in an awkward place. I have to make sure you’re not running a fever, there’s absolutely no schadenfreude involved.
Okay, maybe a little.
