J and I bought a stroller this weekend - a Maclaren Triumph - and doing so launched us right into a state I’d been hoping to avoid, despite its inevitable onset, and that’s the state of “parents with gear.” We’ve been incredibly fortunate in that we’ve inherited a ton of baby necessities from J’s coworkers, as well as been given so many useful gifts - our carseat, activity mat, bassinet, swing, Pack n’ Play…I mean, everything - and we haven’t really had to shop for much yet, so heading into Babies “R” Us to get something more complicated than diapers, well, it was huge.

We didn’t do that much research besides soliciting a few recommendations from friends, but lucky for us there was a certified stroller expert working at the store that day. Ok, he wasn’t literally certified, but this kid - I think he was about 18 - he knew his stuff. I kind of wanted to invite him over for dinner after hearing him list the most important details for every model, folding and unfolding them, encouraging us to do so ourselves, and all in a very non-salesman way, like, he didn’t care if Babies “R” Us made a cent he just wanted us to have a product that lasted, and for our precious child to be safe.

We got to try the stroller out yesterday walking around the Carroll Gardens neighborhood in Brooklyn with my brother and a few friends after brunch. Looking around, we noticed that the area seemed to be a hotspot for hip couples with kids, and - as if we needed to get any more cocky about our purchase (J was basically doing wheelies, announcing “This stroller is AWESOME”) - we noticed that a bunch of them had the exact same model as us. The very same stroller. We walked proudly on.

Nora turned six months old Friday. We marked the occasion by telling her, several times, “You are six months old today!” and she seemed to like that very much.

A few weeks back I mentioned that I wanted to write about how much better life with the baby had become since she turned about four months old and, you know what? It’s gotten even better since then.

It’s totally natural, I realize, for a human being to get more reasonable as they age, even if the human being in question is only a little baby. Still, Nora’s personality changes in recent months have been so surprising to me. So fun to watch. The change in me and J, as parents, is notable, too. I remember distinctly, just a few short months ago, holding my fussy two-month old in the evening, right about the time I wanted very much to simultaneously eat dinner and go to bed, and thinking “What is wrong with this child?” I laugh at the memory. “Nothing! Nothing’s wrong, you fool! Two-month-old babies cry for no reason sometimes!” Ah, the innocence of my youth!

Our six-month-old barely ever cries for no reason. When she’s hungry, needs a nap or is in pain, sure she cries then, but those are all perfectly normal reasons to cry, let me tell you, I’ve cried about all of those things.

Her existence is a more pragmatic, but also more joyful one. Nora laughs when we are funny or when we tickle her under her chin. She squeals when we lift her up over our heads, she sleeps when she is tired. She makes it clear when she is hungry, but she does not go into an uncontrollable rage, telling the world within earshot that “My parents HAVE NOT FED ME FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. I have been hungry for WELL OVER TWO MINUTES and my mother has not given me her breast where is HER BREAST???”

Her reminder now is much more polite, more of an “Ahem, I think it’s time to eat” than a bold overstatement.

Nora’s independence has grown in leaps and bounds, as well. She plays on her activity mat in the morning as J and I drink our coffee and chat. She puts her toy caterpillar in her mouth. She puts her toy parrot in her mouth. She puts her foot in her mouth. So her skills are not that diverse, so what? She loves to learn new things and her enthusiasm sometimes inspires me not to be so complacent in my own life. She’s dying to crawl, lying on her tummy and wriggling her arms and legs furiously, as though she’s swimming. Not quite, I think, but she’s getting there, or she’s getting somewhere at least.

I could go on and on, but the basic point is that I can’t believe how much better things have gotten. And I don’t mean the kind of “better” where things were bad before and now they’re not bad. I mean the kind of better where I finally understand that watching my daughter grow up is - get your barf bags ready - one of the great joys of being a parent, and it’s only going to get more rewarding.

I wrote an email to my father recently, explaining that Nora was really enjoying the rice cereal we’d started feeding her. He relayed the message to my mother, telling her that we’d been giving Nora Rice Krispies. Not exactly, Dad. But one day, yes, and we’re looking forward to that, and to everything that happens along the way.

Ramblings, that, by the way, have nothing to do with a hangover or other forms of fatigue, because I got in bed at about 9 last night and, I’m not gonna lie, that was AWESOME.

Well, I started “Twilight,” and to everyone who told me to read it, be prepared to be on the receiving end of my ire should I stop, you know, working, and taking care of my child, because I want read it obsessively all day and night. I finally gave in this morning during my commute into the city and by the time we reached the Harlem 125th St. stop I was like “What?! What are we doing so close to Grand Central?! Why doesn’t this train ride go on FOREVER?”

In totally unrelated news, I wrote a story for findingDulcinea today that I’ve been wanting to write about for a while, and that’s all the confusing, conflicting, scary studies that are out there - studies that parents read, and then they proceed to freak out.

I tend to take a “moderation is best” approach to everything (especially after being in the news business for so long - you read so many studies you have to) but that can be tough when you’re constantly reading about how that baby lotion? It can kill you and everyone you love.

Here’s an intro with a link to the story. If you are so moved, please share this with friends, post it on Facebook, or on your blog, or on the bathroom wall, whatever you feel comfortable doing. If you told me to read “Twilight,” you should feel especially duty driven (and guilty). Help me, and findingDulcinea, get my story out there. I appreciate it so much.

With So Many Confusing Studies, Who Can Parents Trust?

Parents are faced with contradictory—and often scary—studies, on things as varied as autism and bath products. Is there common sense advice?

Read the full story here.

I decided it will be just fine if I read “Twilight” as long as I also read James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” which I discovered sitting on the shelf in our living room today, begging to be read. I dug right in and pretty much immediately needed to take a nap.

I’ll let you know how this goes. Throw in college basketball and I think March might turn out to be more exciting than I thought.

This is a post in which I say I’m sorry, because I think my blog has kind of sucked lately.

The fact that I’m using the word “sucked” is evidence of how serious I am about this. When we were growing up my mother would frown at any use of the word, explaining that she didn’t think that was a very nice expression. I agree with her and, to this day, I rarely say it. This is one of the many facets of my prudish lifestyle. Like how I almost never use the phrase “shut up” and how I HATE it when people fart. I even hate that the word “fart” has made it into this blog post. I’m fighting the urge to erase it right now.

The problem - the underlying cause of my lack of inspiration, thus, lack of interesting blog posts - is that I’ve been kind of down lately. I say down, and not depressed, because I’m talking about a mild affliction; a few factors that, together, perpetuate a boring lifestyle. One in which I want to watch a few hours of television every evening, do the easiest thing for dinner and go to sleep. I’m no fun.

The problems are as follows: the baby has sick for, like, a month, has also been teething (we think) and the winter in New Haven? It is NEVER GOING TO END. You’d think the recent onset of daylight savings time would help matters, but instead I find myself annoyed when it’s still light out at 6 p.m. It’s freezing, what am I going to do with an hour of daylight? Go for an uncomfortable walk down by the water under a slate gray sky? I’ve made it a general rule to try and get out with Nora during the day when it’s above 32 degrees, because I realized that if I didn’t, I’d be a prisoner to my house for, like, half the year, but come on, enough is enough. We’re not going to spend all day frolicking in the bone chilling winds coming off the Sound so, at this point, that extra hour just makes me feel like a loser.

Nora’s ongoing cold (wheezing, coughing and congestion) and possible teething have simply been tiring. Does the baby sound better or worse today? Do we need to take her back to the doctor? If we take her back to the doctor are we good parents, or are we obsessive parents? We’ve had to keep her home from daycare several days both because we didn’t want to get the other children sick and because daycare had called us on a few occasions, explaining that Nora’s breathing seemed labored, and we didn’t feel like getting calls like that anymore. Despite the fact that we explain that we have been to the doctor - numerous times - and the doctor says as long as she is happy and eating well (she is) there is nothing to worry about (”Colds can last forever in infants,” they calmly explain) there is this underlying drone of subtle judgment. “Does she still have that cold?” YEAH. SHE DOES.

Thankfully, as I mentioned, Nora’s remained completely happy for the most part throughout these various ordeals, except for what I believe is - must be - teething. Our once excellent sleeper now protests loudly at bedtime a few times a week and, several times, has woken up only a couple hours after we’ve put her down, obviously in pain.

I realize that these sleeping problems, a total abnormality for her (and actually not all that intense), are the norm for some parents even without issues like teething, and I have nothing to complain about, but because I’ve been so spoiled the sleeping disruptions have hit me hard and I whine about it. Like a baby. Exactly like my baby.

The point of all this is to explain that I haven’t wanted to write on my blog lately about anything going on in my life because, at the end of the day, I can’t wait to turn off the computer and get in my pajama pants. But, damnit, I have to wait an hour because it’s still LIGHT OUT and I can’t sink to that level. I will not get in my pajama pants while it’s still light out. DAYLIGHT SAVINGS I HATE YOU, MY JEANS ARE REALLY CONSTRICTING.

I am, however, comforted by the knowledge that this will pass and spring will come. And for the time being, there is always another cup of coffee, whatever, I’m not worried about it keeping the baby up when I nurse her. People tend to be too conservative about that stuff, I’ve decided, and besides, if you’ve got a sharp tooth plowing it’s way through your gums, what’s a little caffeine gonna matter anyway?

We will move on to bigger, better world-changing activities soon.

We got this adorable - and inspiring - onesie from our friends Molly and Sarah. You can get your own (and lots of other cool clothes for little ones) on the Tiny Revolutionary Web site.

I signed up for a Twitter account a while ago thinking it was just one more social networking tool and I’d either never use it or get addicted. Turned out to be the latter. I love Twitter! I love Twitter because it’s essentially like writing a mini blog (or “microblogging” as all the knowledgeable Internet people say). I love it because I can follow people like Michael Ian Black and Whitney Port. I love it because it’s so basic and easy.

If you’re not signed up yet, you’ll love it, too. I promise.

You can follow me on Twitter here.

When we bought our house I noticed that a Energy Star qualified dishwasher was installed in the kitchen, and I was like, “This is awesome! How green are we?”

Here’s the thing, though, our dishwasher could not possibly suck more. You put a mildly dirty dish in there and it comes out maybe 10 percent cleaner than it went in. To be honest, most of the time it comes back in the very same state of dirtiness, but with the added bonus a film of detergent. Nice. I often use our dishwasher as a storage for dirty dishes when the pile in the sink gets overwhelming. I run it, to see if maybe this time the magic will happen, and inevitably the load comes out even dirtier than it went in. This is because our Energy Star dishwasher takes, say, a piece of parsley that has been inconceivably left on a plate, crushes it into thousands of tiny pieces, and redistributes them all over everything else. Then I take everything out and hand wash it. Washing everything TWO times. AWESOME for the environment.

Maybe there’s something we should be doing, I don’t know. We’re new homeowners and I will not be surprised at all if one day our dining room wall crumbles to the ground and we’re like, “Oh, were we supposed to be emptying that weird canister thing in the basement?”

Whatever, I’ve gone a little off topic. The point is that I just learned something that’s pretty interesting, and involves a sacrifice I think I can make. Soft, two-ply toilet paper? It’s so bad for the environment! Read the story on findingDulcinea and then, that’s right, buy some eco-friendly, possibly - I admit it - scratchier, toilet paper.

There’s a good list of the worst offenders - and best alternatives - by Greenpeace linked from the story. I know most people don’t want to sacrifice comfort, but try it, see how good you feel about yourself. Meanwhile, I promise to stop expecting miracles from my obviously defunct dishwasher. Hand washing and one-ply from now on. Because I love this planet.

A few of my friends have been urging me to read the “Twilight” book series by Stephanie Meyer but I’ve been a little nervous about delving in - I mean, remember the “Harry Potter” debacle? The last book in the series? Sobbing on the couch, like in the middle of a weekday when I should have been working?

Plus, I don’t read vampire books. And furthermore, I thought I was going to start on good literature again? Maybe read “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” or reread “Wuthering Heights.” I’ve been stuck on mysteries forever and I need to move on. And moving on to a series of vampire books written for young adults doesn’t cut it, I don’t think so, not with the intellectual set.

But the thing is I got to Grand Central a few minutes early for my train last night and hopped into Hudson News to see what was happening in the celebrity gossip mags and there it was right in front of my face. “Twilight,” the first book in the series. So I picked it up, and before I could get a grip and put it back one of the sales clerks was all “Are you ready to pay? Ready to pay??” and since it’s insane with commuters in there at 6 p.m. and none of them had time for my indecision I said yes, and I bought it.

I haven’t started it yet because I have been (and I really mean this) looking to become a little more productive lately on the creativity front. Maybe do some more freelancing or something. It’s been a long winter - that is apparently never going to end - and Nora and I have been cooped up inside for way too long. The last thing I need is a book series addiction that will result in more time on the couch, and less time, um, OFF the couch.

So my entire ride home from New York, I didn’t touch it, afraid to begin. Instead I listened to old episodes of “This American Life,” ones I’ve already heard, on my iPod and tried to ignore the cover of the book, basically radiating from inside my bag.

We’ll see how long I can hold off. Who knows, maybe I’ll get real into an old fave from college instead, say Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason.” Probably I will! Take THAT pop culture.