Tall Tara

It will be a year next month that Eli has been sleeping on his floor bed and I would not change a thing. He’s an excellent sleeper. While the bed may not be responsible for his sleeping  a solid ten hours per night, we really haven’t had any problems with it yet. (Rolling out of the bed wasn’t a problem…for long.)

Eli knows exactly what his bed is for. Of course, when he doesn’t want to sleep, he’s able to crawl out and start playing with his toys – which is sometimes a good thing and sometimes a bad thing.

Since I never had a good online resource to help with our floor bed hunt, I’m excited to share with y’all a site that I wish had been around when we were researching these things. It’s called Bedstart and it’s an excellent way to see what other parents have done to make safe rooms that allow for babies to sleep on the floor. I love checking out the different set-ups and envying the amazing designs.

Bedstart is currently running a launch contest so if you have a baby-friendly room with a floor bed, be sure to submit it to the site for a chance to win finger puppet board books. If nothing else, submit your room and know that you’re helping other parents!

{If you’re just looking for inspiration, answers to your questions or cute pictures of babies, you can find those in the pictures of the rooms, the Q & A page and the forums.}

{{And yes, that is Eli’s room up there in the screenshot.}}

We received this onesie as a gift recently. While I appreciate the thought, I’m not sure if I appreciate the sentiment expressed on the onesie.

Okay, I get it. In the majority of American families, this might be the case. It’s a normal stereotype and I should just lighten up…it’s only a onesie, after all. (Although that’s never stopped me from making fun of other onesies.)

However, in my home, my son should want to be tough like Mom.

Because we all know who does the real heavy lifting around here.

Ahem.

[photo credit: Nicole Christensen]

Now that it’s spring and I have a garage in which to work on my bikes (FINALLY), I’m all about biking. And these days, it is all about biking with Eli.

The nice weather and the proximity of bike paths make biking one of our favorite outings. I can ride my bike to the grocery, the library, a small trailhead and downtown Boulder. With the bike trailer comes great freedom and many adventures. Eli loves sitting in the back and I’m able to get a bit of exercise in…disguised as running errands.

After a few rides on the bike, however, I realized that my set-up was lacking. I decided to pimp my ride (as the kiddos say) in order to make biking with the babe a little easier. Fortunately there are some solid bike accessories on the market designed to help me accomplish just this. Read on for what I consider to be the bike accessories most necessary for smooth riding. Or at least, the smoothest riding you can do with a huge bike trailer attached to your back end.

• Kickstand. This one is clutch. See, with the trailer, it becomes a lot harder to find something to balance your bike up against if you need to do something like adjust your kid in the trailer or give him a bottle. I spent $10 and 10 minutes at my neighborhood bike shop and had myself a sweet solution. With every kick of the kickstand, I’m convinced this is the best money I’ve ever spent on my bike.

• Bell. I no longer care if I’m that annoying biker with a bell. I now care to let people know that they’re in my way or that they’re taking up too much space on the bike path…in a more polite manner than I used to. Gone are the days of growling at gapers. I’m happy to now just ring my bell and let it do the speaking for me. (Also, I saved money on the bell by taking this one off my kid’s bike…because he’s not using it yet. Shhhh….)

• Safety flag. I’ll take anything that makes me & the bike trailer more visible to cars. Plus, it apparently tastes good.

• An extra lock. It only took me a few glances at the homeless hanging out in Boulder to know that when you don’t lock up your bike trailer, there is someone only too happy to take it off your hands for you. Turns out the bike trailers make good places to store your things…if you don’t have a house. I feel bad about those suffering without a place to live but after having a few bikes stolen in my day, I know to lock my stuff up. Even if it’s a bike trailer.

• Rear view mirror. Very quickly into my very first ride of the season I realized that I needed to be able to check out how Eli was doing behind me without turning my body. (I’m not so good at just turning my neck apparently.) As you may know, when you turn your body on a bike, well…your bike follows. At least for me it does. Not an ideal situation for riding on a bike path that is shared by others. I figured I would get one of those geeky mirrors that I always see old people using on their cruisers. Instead, I found a slick solution made by CycleAware. I now can peek back to see how things are going behind me without causing any accidents.

Obviously, I’m only focusing on bike-specific gear here. Some accessories (like helmets, lights and a bike pump) are a given, while others (like cute shoes and pedal pushers) are the makings of an entirely different post.

If you’re a biking mom, let me know what I forgot on this list. And happy riding!

Oh how I love soaking in hot springs. It’s probably a side effect of reading too much Tom Robbins in my formative years (Jitterbug Perfume, anyone?) but I feel so refreshed and relaxed after a little soak. Don’t EVEN get me started on how well I sleep after a dip. It’s delicious.

[When I was pregnant, we celebrated New Year's at a hot springs and I remember telling Adam that I was in my "happy place". I also remember telling him to remind me of that fact when I was in labor.]

You can imagine my excitement when some friends invited us to share a cabin with them at Antero Hot Springs, located up the road from the Collegiate peaks in the San Isabel National Forest. Each cabin has it’s own private hot springs pool just steps from the door.

Yes please.

We brought Eli with us to the cabin, hoping we could sell him on the ways of the soak. I mean, if you’re going to be a part of our family, you’d better know how to chillax.

After some initial anxiety, we’re proud to report that Eli mastered the art of the hot springs. He enjoyed floating around and got into a super-deep state of mellow that I’ve never seen him achieve before.

Totally awesome.

Even the annoying people at the next cabin with their shitty music and neon playboy sign couldn’t ruin our good time. The weekend was amazing and if you have the opportunity, I highly recommend checking Antero out.

And before my mom anyone freaks out, the hot springs weren’t that hot and there was a cold valve that cooled the water down. Totally fine for babies.

He’s such a little boy.

Build the block tower only to tear it down. Rip the junk mail into tiny shreds. Put the clothes in the laundry basket only to take them all out. And let’s not get started on the books in the bookcase. To put it mildly, there is quite a bit of ransacking and utter mayhem that goes on in our house.

(Maybe that’s not boys, but just babies?)

Pat Benatar may believe that love is a battlefield. I contend that for my son, naptime is the real battlefield. It’s not just that he fights off sleep…he literally fights before falling asleep.

To clarify, I offer the following photographic evidence of his room before and after a nap…

Luckily, he survived.

Let’s hope these forces can be used for good one day.

Excuse me while I blow the dust off my blog.

This video is a *little* late but I’m totally blaming the move across town we just completed. And yes, I do feel like I can use that as an excuse for at least another week or two.

You’ll notice a majority of the pictures in this video are from Mexico. If you’re hating the winter like I am right now, then you’re in for a treat.

Also, for those who don’t like videos about adorable babies (WHA?), then just watch and try to find my two gifts to you: look for Eli’s popped collar (very prevalent fashion trend among the younger resort crowd it turns out) and the ass shots on the beach of the older Euro couple.

You’re welcome.

Perfect Ten from Tara Anderson Calihman on Vimeo.

{music credit: Snorkel, Leo Kottke}

And happy Ballantine’s day! My husband is buying us two live lobsters for dinner tonight…what are you doing?

So I’m totally off track with the daily adventures.

(I know what you’re thinking…Tara, what a surprise! See also the non-daily series: #best09, #reverb10, and the 18 days of the 21-day salute. Ahem.)

Anyway, there was a recent adventure (day 9 maybe?) that involved food, either eating or cooking something new. Since this entire month has been an experiment in letting Eli feed himself, I thought I would share how our son is doing with self-feeding.

Big props for effort.

The tooth helps. He just misses his mouth. Often.

And in the week since this picture was taken, he has another tooth. You can see the tiny beginnings of it up above, if you squint hard. The addition of another tooth brought with it some fussiness but seems to be making Eli extra brave in his eating.

Here’s to trying new food, getting more of it in your mouth and making every meal an adventure!

(Yes, I’m using the Merry Christmas bib in January. I also still have some of my holiday decorations up. Whatever.)

In the past month, Eli started pulling himself up on anything and everything within reach. Turns out standing and climbing are fun! He also got his first tooth, celebrated his first Christmas and discovered the awesomeness of storytime at the library. You might say it’s been an exciting month.

Although the month nine video features a majority of holiday pictures, I couldn’t bring myself to actually use a Christmas song as background music. I have, however, been obsessed with the soundtrack from the movie Drive (totally awesome, btw) and therefore, decided to use a song from that instead.

It is pretty amazing that he’s a real human being.

{music credit: A Real Hero (Feat. Electric Youth), College}

I’m pretty sure he’s killing the bad guys with cuteness.

I mean, right?

(Although Tyra would be proud of the pose…)

Thanks to Holly for the amazing onesie.

“Keep it simple. Not just in your nature photography but also in your approach to hiking with a child. You don’t need a ton of equipment (for taking pictures or for the baby) and you should definitely leave it to the great outdoors to provide the awe. No need to overcomplicate anything. If you’re stressed out while hiking with your baby, you’re missing the point of the activity.”

It’s not always pretty but it can be done. More tips on how we’re doing it in my guest post on Megan’s blog, Made with True Love….

(Check out her awesome ideas for taking pictures & videos of your baby while there. She provides me with a lot of inspiration for making better videos!)