Crib? Check. Doula? Check. We're ready! (Part 2)

Last Wednesday my friend threw us the most fabulous shower! It was so incredibly nice to be surrounded by so many friends!



We got totally kitted out, thanks to all my friends who are moms and knew what I needed (even though I didn't), right down to the diaper rash cream!

Amazingly, I found room in the hallway closet for everything, including a stroller! One of the sweetest gifts was my friend's hand-me-down Snap-n-Go and Graco car seat, which is going to be great to get us through the first few months and for taxi rides in the big city!

Crib? Check. Doula? Check? We're ready! (Part 1)

Despite the stiffling heat and humidity here in Manhattan last week, and despite rounding the corner at the 8 month mark, we had a pretty productive week here at SustainaBabe.

First, the crib: Last weekend the Sorelle Sophia crib was delivered and assembled. It looks fabulous and fits snugly in its Nook. (The Nook is basically the left hand side of our wall.)





After much deliberating, we also invested in the Naturepedic No-Compromise Organic mattress, which is recommended by Healthy Child, Healthy World, and endorsed by several other organizations. At twice the price of a traditional mattress, we weren't sure if it was worth the investment, but we figured if we are taking pains to keep the Babe away from toxic chemicals, it was the right decision. While dark greenies would probably cringe at the food-grade polyethylene waterproof cover, we thought this was a good, well, compromise.

Tuesday Tangents

Today I'm starting a regular post called Tuesday Tangents, where I'll share some of the other random greenie stuff I'm up to that doesn't necessarily pertain to the Pod.

I joined a CSA! As of today, I'm an official member of the Carnegie Hill Yorkville CSA. I just picked up my first share of veggies.

Look at all these beautiful leafy greens:





You may recognize the rhubarb and bok choy. Some of the other greens are brand new to me. The second shot is red vein mizuna, which I'd never heard of before an hour ago.

Walkers' Paradise

Thanks to Living Small blog, I discovered a nifty tool that allows you to calculate the walkability of your neighborhood - or one you are considering living in. No surprise that just about any nabe in New York City scores 100 (check out the Pod's score in the box to the right). Organized by categories (grocery stores, bars, drug stores, etc.), Walk Score is also a great way to discover new gems that you didn't know existed in your own neck of the woods.

What do you get out of Twitter?

This is an aside, but I'm curious to hear from those of you who Twitter. I work in social media but was fairly content to let this trend pass me by until I kept discovering bloggers who I adore are on Twitter and wanted to know what they were up to.

I signed up, uploaded a photo (a union jack in honor of my half-English heritage) and began tweeting away. I even linked it to my Facebook profile and to SustainaBabe in case anyone wanted to follow me.

I've been pondering the value of the tool. What's it worth for me to know where my friends, colleagues and favorite bloggers are located, that they are having lunch, sitting on a plane, meeting with a client ...? Not to mention that at least twice a day you can't log into the site or you log in to find a message that says too many people are tweeting. Ugh!

This morning I logged into SustainaBabe and was horrified to find that my link to Twitter had been crossed with another user with a very similar name (my fault bc I must have typed it in wrong) who was up to no good. If anyone happened to see my blog in the last three days, my Twitter said I was "f***ing around." Charming.

I do apologize for my obviously elementary understanding of technology (and poor typing skills). For the record (and seeing as though I haven't updated MY Twitter recently) during the last three days I was: at work (Friday); at a rooftop wedding (Friday evening); at yoga (Saturday morning) and visiting a friend's newborn (Saturday evening). For all those of you who do Twitter, I'd love to hear what you get out if it.

Dressing

I've been looking at the dresser for a week and now need to do something with it. Before I can wash all the Babe's clothes and tuck them neatly in its drawers though I feel compelled to wash it down and make sure its as eco-friendly as possible. Even though the dresser is solid oak, the sides of the drawers are plywood which emit formaldehyde.

While The Complete Organic Pregnancy initially kind of freaked me out, I consulted it this week. In the nursery section the authors adivse how to treat nursery furniture that is constructed of plywood, using AFM's Safecoat Safe Seal product. It seems easy enough except for they don't sell the product anywhere in the city that I can see. Apparently, AFM has a Brooklyn location but didn't actually have the product listed on their website. Before I make the pilgrimage out there, I decided to test their commitment to "providing the best customer service in the industry" and sent an email inquiry.

Pod-size changing tables

Fortuitously, we had childbirth classes this weekend in TriBeCa and while there discovered this fun little store named Babesta with unusual baby gear.

You can tell that the decreasing square footage of the Pod is weighing heavily on my mind this weekend because the first product in the store I gravitated to was the UBI changing table. Not only is it petite and portable, it also has a spring-loaded disposable diaper dispenser with velco tabs to hold the diaper in place while the Babe is wriggling around. This won't work if we end up using gDiapers but UBI also has a basic table without the diaper feature that will suffice.



Another option I just discovered on Babesta's site Ouef gliding changing station that latches onto the top rail of a crib. At $235 it's a little steep but it does include a changing pad.



Ahh...now that I know there are some options out there the Pod is feeling a bit livable again.

Feathering the Nook

I'm not sure you can really feather a 'nook' rather than a nest, but anyway...

The Babe's (solid oak, espresso finish) chest of drawers was delivered from Straight from the Crate on Friday. The downside of ordering from a store like this is that you don't get that warm, fuzzy feeling like when you are in the upscale baby boutique lining Madison Avenue. The upshot is that the dresser was delivered in less than 5 business days and isn't the equivalent of a year of private school. The dresser is a 5 drawer piece, which stands about 47 inches high and 18 inches wide. Thankfully, it tucks into the wall pretty neatly. The drawers are 5 inches deep - plenty of space to load up the hand-me-downs and new clothes we bought for the Babe.

But ...

Suddenly the Pod looks much smaller. I'd be lying if I didn't say that I spent the better part of Friday night reconsidering this whole small living idea. The crib isn't even here yet!

We now have no room for the small bookshelf (that we were going to use as a changing table, so we thought we'd have to change the Babe on the bed.