The new look of TourTot has been a long time coming.  I’ve spent a significant amount of time in space while staring blankly at the coding of different wordpress.org themes.  Being born in 1984 has left me with a natural disadvantage when it comes to web stuff.  I look around at the people I graduated high school and college with and a lot of them are awesome at it, but not in the same way as younger kids.

People my age had to work a little harder to master technology compared to everyone even just one year younger.  These “kids” seem to be born knowing exactly how to do all of the stuff that I don’t even know how to put into words.  I don’t feel like it was a gradual change where every year kids were taught a little more in school, but maybe that’s just me.  And it probably depends on how quickly different school systems adopted classes and hired teachers who had actually seen the internet.  My family got a computer when I was in third grade, but I was thirteen years old when I first laid eyes on a website.  My first visit to AOL felt like a trip to a foreign country.

Of course I’m better with all of it now, but it’s not built into me the way it will be built into Artie.  Even though I rely on technology to the point that I once pulled up my phone’s GPS to look up the location of the spice aisle in an unfamiliar grocery store in Utah, there are still times when I find myself flipping through a physical phone book to find a number and writing everything other than this blog with a pen and paper.

This new site is nothing super fancy, but I have to say I’m proud of myself for learning how to do it.  Admitting that changing the color of text, uploading a header and making a logo was pretty much brand new to me kind of feels like telling you an embarrassing, dirty secret, but it’s all behind me now.  I could’ve had someone do it for me, but I wanted to learn.  It felt really good to teach myself something new.

Now that I’m no longer completely lost when it comes to the interweb, I’m diving in a little further.  I have a new blog in the works, which I’m very excited about.  I’ve also started to do some freelance writing.  I’ll keep you updated on those happenings.  It feels good to grow!

P.s. What do you think of my interweb skills?  Comments, criticism, do you youngsters want to teach me something? (I’d love to have more interaction in this new phase of the blog!)  Just make sure to comment on the new site rather than the old one, since this post is up on both.

The garbage truck just passed by my house without stopping.  I huffed a little and gave Ace “the look” when I realized the trash can hadn’t been taken out to the street.  I didn’t want to verbally complain, but of course he knew what I was thinking.  ”We had one bag of trash this week, don’t worry,” was his response.  My slightly annoyed feeling quickly turned to pride and joy at the idea of a mom, dad and baby producing one tiny bag of trash per week.  My sustainable diaper wearing baby and I can happily wave bye-bye to the garbage truck three out of four times a month!

Recently, Pampers has been attacking cloth diapers because of the backlash from thousands of parents against their irresponsible and dangerous products.  The “creme de la creme” of disposable diaper companies and their new Dry Max product is responsible for blistering and severe rashes that have left thousands of innocent babies in pain.  Not surprisingly, parents of these babies are thinking of turning to cloth.  Pampers, in fear of losing customers, is cooking up lies about cloth diapers.  I just love that they’re scared!

What's on the line? The environment, baby's health, and your money!

It’s a shame that parents are being told lies about cloth diapers.  If you have no interest in using cloth diapers, that’s fine…I’m not here to preach or judge.  But I know there are parents out there looking for a sustainable diaper that won’t harm their baby and the thought of them coming across Pampers’ “fact sheet” of blatant lies aimed at turning them away from cloth diapers makes me sick.  These parents (and their sweet babies) deserve the truth.

Lie #1 Disposable diapers are better for babies.

They claim that disposables were developed to offer benefits that cloth could not.  But the catch here is that they’re not talking about modern cloth diapers.  A lot of people don’t know that modern sustainable diapers (we use Bum Genius, Bellabottoms, and Bottombumpers) actually cause less leaks than disposables and are made with natural and safe materials ranging from organic cotton to fleece to hemp to wool in all different combinations to create both extreme absorbency and stay-dry layers against the skin.  Artie comfortably sleeps for 12 hours in his Incredibellas stuffed with two BG inserts and can go for hours during daytime naps in bumgenius one-size.  He’s never even had a little bit of diaper rash.  The truth is, modern cloth diapers offer benefits that disposables can’t!

Lie #2 Cloth diapers are not better for the environment than disposables.

Seriously?!  No matter where you stand on diapers, I can’t imagine anyone believing this.  The water, energy and detergent used by doing a couple of extra loads of laundry per week can in no way compare to the impact of disposables on the environment.  Wave bye-bye to the garbage man.  Enough said.

The rest of their “sustainable diaper myths” are so ridiculous, it’s almost as much of a waste to spend time debunking them as it is to use their products.

Instead, let’s discuss the myth of cloth diapers being harder to use than disposables.

If you think doing laundry is difficult, ask yourself how much more difficult it would be to watch your baby scream in pain from the severe rash that Pampers Dry Max diapers has caused for thousands of children.  What about the not so apparent effects of the chemicals in disposable diapers?  You’ve probably switched to natural cleaning products so that your family isn’t exposed to the same types of chemicals that are wrapped around a baby’s most sensitive area 24 hours a day in a disposable diaper.  Not to mention how much more difficult it will be to reverse the damage done by destroying natural resources used to manufacture disposables and the impact on the planet caused by the waste.

The “convenience” factor of disposables is simply not an issue if you take just a little time to find the right type of modern sustainable cloth diaper for your family.  There are so many different types, styles and brands out there.  Cloth diapering is so easy that we even do it while traveling for months at a time!  Everyone from grandpas to daycares and teenage babysitters are amazed at how easy it is to change a cloth diaper these days.

There has to be a reason that one of the largest and most powerful disposable diaper companies is on the defensive against cloth diapers.  They feel that they have to tell lies to make more money at the expense of babies who were harmed by their products.  Instead of admitting that their Dry Max diapers are dangerous and trying to help the problem, they continue to lie about the safety of their own products in addition to the lies they tell about cloth diapers.

I never intended to use this blog to convert parents to cloth diapers.  Honestly, I try my hardest to keep diaper talk to a minimum on TourTot.  First of all, I know a lot of my regular readers aren’t parents yet.  More importantly, parenting decisions (including diapering) are personal, and I’d never want to be preached to and told what to do with Artie so I want to show you all the same respect that I want.  But personally I would want to know about potential harm that a product could cause and I’d want to know if a corporation was lying.  I figured you’d want to know too.

So, if you want to join Artie and I in waving bye-bye to the garbage man let me know if I can help.  Tomorrow night I’m meeting with a mom who is expecting her second baby to show her how cloth diapers work.  I’m really excited about getting together with her, and I’d be just as happy to help anyone else!

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I haven’t brought up everything that happened because it was so awfully devastating.  It was the kind of thing that we just had to close our eyes, hold our breath and get through without thinking too much for fear that the reality of it hitting us would be crippling.  The studio is our livelihood, so losing the space and almost everything inside of it was a big blow.  Valuable equipment, sentimental objects, furniture, and the walls that Ace built himself have been totally destroyed.  And with it all we lost time, money, sleep and energy.

We started looking for a new space as soon as we got home from tour.  Since Ace needed to record right away, we couldn’t take our time finding the perfect location.  After almost locking in a commitment to one of our four surprisingly good options, a fifth choice came into the picture.  It was through talking to Ace’s uncle (who had generously allowed him to build the first studio under his video store) that we found a dream space on our town’s main street complete with an old freight elevator and charming antique co-op market below.  The place is so great that I’m going to go as far as to say that our luck has evened out since the flood.

Actually, I think we’re sitting on the more desirable end of the luck meter if you include how Ace pulled off the building part of the whole thing.  My hubby is pretty much an exhausted wreck from turning a big open 1200 square foot space into four rooms, a hallway and a separate lounge in two week’s time, but the thrill of how amazing it sounds and looks is keeping him going.  He and Kyle seriously pulled it off.

I wish I could’ve been there to help more than the few hours here and there that either my mom or aunt watched the boy, but I did what I could by bringing food, coffee and Artie to brighten their days.  I miss being able to stick by Ace’s side all day long at times like these and I also feel really guilty for being able to play all day and go to sleep at a normal time while he’s working so ridiculously hard.

Everyone says that being a mom is a full time job and it’s definitely true, but the fact is that I’m playing with this little punk…

Born Punk tank

and it’s not work, it’s fun!

and my hubby?

the live room of the beautiful new studio

Well, in a way…he’s playing too.  But these days it’s more like a little country than a little punk.  Seriously, when I get in the car after he’s taken it somewhere without me…country radio station greets me every single time.  I love him for it.  And for working so hard.  Because the work he did on the studio wasn’t exactly fun.  Even though it’s a great job and a great life…he works really, really hard.  Harder than anyone I know, and he does it for us.  I’m so proud of him.

The first time Artie slept a stretch of eight hours was when he was snug in his Peapod tent on the 40th floor of the Millenium Hilton in New York.  Before we left for tour I felt so guilt about taking him away from his crib.  After just one night in the Peapod I was already thinking of setting it up at home as his permanent bed once the tour was over.

Now that he’s a little older he sleeps just fine in his crib from 7:30 pm to 7:30 am most days, but at the time we first started using the Peapod we never had a night with a stretch longer than four hours.  The Peapod tent, made by Kidco, immediately took the highest place on the pedestal of baby gear.  For weeks we worshipped the thing for it’s magical, mystical ability to keep Artie asleep through the night.

The magical abilities of the Peapod don’t end at extending our babe’s length of sleep.  A better night’s sleep is NOT the purpose of the Peapod, it just happened to be an added benefit for us.  So, what is a Peapod, you ask?  It’s the most portable, comfy, safe and easy way for a baby or kid to rest anywhere from a hotel to the beach.  The thing is genius.

Carrying it into the hotel every day was super easy because it’s small, lightweight and has a nice case with a strap.  It’s similar to carrying around your favorite pillow, but with a strap for your shoulder.  When we flew it was conveniently packed in a suitcase.  Try that with a pack and play…not going to happen.  I hated the idea of hotel cribs with their dirty metal jail-like bars and taking our own pack and play just wasn’t an option because of space and the difficulty of lugging it in every night.  I don’t know what we would’ve done without our Peapod!

Here's the Peapod in action, hanging easily on the back of the stroller on our walk down to the beach.

When you take the Peapod out of it’s little case, you’ll find a round slinky-like disc covered in material and hugged together with an elastic band.  Even though I read the reviews and talked to someone who used one before, I was so taken aback by the “set up” process.  It opens so fast and unexpectedly easy that it whacked me in the head the first time!  Yes, there was a warning tag…but I still didn’t expect it.  You literally slide the elastic band away and this tiny slinky pops open into a dome tent complete with zipper access, vents, and UV protection.  It takes just a couple of minutes to blow up the air mattress with the included pump.  Tuck the mattress in the zipper compartment under the tent and voila!  It even comes with a sleeping bag to make it warm and extra cozy in a safe way.  Your baby or kid up to five years old has their own little fort perfect for sleep or play.

Packing it away is just as easy.  Day after day Ace and I looked at each other in amazement every time we set it up and put it away.  Seriously, it’s that cool.  It happens to be the absolute perfect solution for our lifestyle, so maybe we’re a little over obsessed, but even for infrequent travel, beach days, camping or hanging out an older brother’s baseball game, the Peapod is indispensable.

Napping on the beach, toes in the sea breeze.

We popped our Peapod Plus about 40 days in a row and had no problems with function or wear from heavy use.  The only problem we encountered was because of my own paranoia.  I felt uncomfortable zipping the baby completely into the tent at night just in case I needed to get to him faster than the speed of zippers due to some near-impossible catastrophe that my brain inevitably cooks up when I lay down in bed at night.  Leaving the tent unzipped was fine, until Artie started rolling over in his sleep.  Toward the end of the tour I frequently found him laying with his legs hanging out of the tent.  But like I said, if I wasn’t a paranoid freak this wouldn’t happen.  The option for snaps in addition to zippers might be nice, this way I could get to him faster.  It would also be a lot quieter when closing him in for the night because sometimes the zipper woke him up.

Artie isn’t a huge sleep squirmer, but when he moves a bit more than usual the nylon material tends to create a swishing sound.  This wasn’t really a problem for us, but I heard from someone with very squirmy babies that it woke them up a lot.  That problem was easily solved by having a fitted sheet custom made for the mattress so it doesn’t swish against the tent lining.  I think it would be great if Peapod sold a sheet to take care of the noise issue.  These two minor things, the zipper and the swishing, would probably never be a problem at all for people who use the tent in a more normal way than we do (i.e. not every single night for five or six weeks).

Now that we’re home, I’m still using the Peapod all the time.  It should be up there with a pack and play on every new mom and dad’s baby registry.

Find the Peapod here!

(I’m not being paid by Kidco, my obsession with the Peapod is totally legitimate! Maybe a little extreme, but legitimate!)

Ace makes fun of me for torturing him with photo shoots all the time (he limits me to three pictures at a time…when he’s there to stop me), but  Artie LOVES having his picture taken as much as I love taking it.  It’s his favorite game, right after peek-a-boo and feeding his puffs to Girldog.

I’m thinking about taking the plunge into modeling with him, but it’s a hard decision to make.  There’s the driving back and forth to New York at a moment’s notice, the dilemma of putting your baby “to work,” and my own quite emotional experience with child modeling to consider.

This post should probably be delayed until I can get the cover of Modern Romance magazine scanned so you can see the 1988 version of me, Jenna Rock, on the cover.   I don’t know why, but I made everyone call me Jenna when I was between 3 and 6 years old.  Then it was Jennifer, then Jen with one n, then with two, back to one, back to two.  I drove my relatives crazy trying to keep up with what to write on my cards for holidays.  They probably still hesitate addressing birthday cards to this day.

Before my big cover debut I did a lot of fit modeling.  Nothing glamorous, I was just a real life mannequin for kids’ clothes.  My sister and I had a pretty good agent, Marge McDermott (whose office always reminded me of Muppets Take Manhattan for some reason).  My parents owned a clothing store during my childhood, so we were always going back and forth to the city, visiting the show rooms and making orders.  A typical day would be something like…check out the latest stone washed jeans and lacey bustiers from One Step Up, pick up some tee shirt clips and leg warmers at the accessory supplier and swing by a modeling job for me or Ash.  Throw in a pretzel from a street cart, a glimpse of my beloved Chrysler Building and some crayons to color the lookbooks while my Mom made important business decisions and call it a day.  A pretty great day.  That was my version of the playground.

I don’t remember being excited when I got the magazine cover job.  It was usually a lot of fun to try on clothes for fit modeling and go on go-sees, but I do remember just not being in the mood for it sometimes.  One of the most vivid memories from my childhood is being about six years old and listening to my mom’s side of a pay phone conversation on a New York City street about where we were headed next.  I remember not wanting to disappoint her even though she always said I could tell her if I didn’t want to model anymore and it would be no big deal.  It’s funny to think of the decision making processes of a six year old.  I remember debating it for a long time in my head, and finally when she hung up the phone I said I was done with it.  My dolls and swing set were being neglected and I missed my sister.  I think that’s the reason I gave.

Modern Romance is what ended my love affair with modeling.  Just as vivid as my memory to quit is the set for the photo shoot and everything about that day.  I remember changing into pajamas behind a little curtain and bossy women directing me as if this wasn’t a still photograph, but a feature film for which I had to memorize lines and “be” the character.

They could have just told me to sit on the bed and play patty-cake with “Jackie” or “Tracy” or “Beth.”  Instead, they really set me up for the scene.  Everyone gathered around and explained to me that my mom and dad were fighting and I was scared.  They told me to crawl into bed with my mom and cuddle.  Then they introduced me to my “mom.”  I was smart for my age, but I don’t care what your IQ is and how many Dr. Suess books you can read.  If you’re four years old and someone tells you that a strange woman is your mom and your parents are fighting…you’re going to freak out!

So I cried.  I refused to go near the “mom.”  The bossy women got annoyed because I was wasting time and costing them money.  I remember talk of union wages and everyone cursing themselves for not having a back-up kid to take my place.  My real mom and fake mom both tried to calm me down.  The fake mom was suddenly super nice because there was talk for a bit about replacing her with my mom so that I’d let the picture be taken.  Eventually I agreed to sit on the bed with this strange mom.  She reminded me of Baby from Dirty Dancing, so I didn’t totally hate her.  I think she bribed me with candy or something.  So that’s how I ended up on the cover of a trashy romance magazine.  I thought I was being adopted by Baby in a nightgown because my parents had a fight.  Fun times!

It might not seem to make sense that I want to get Artie into something that wasn’t 100% pleasant for me as a kid.  But there were a lot of great things about it and all of my experiences taught me life lessons that not all kids get to learn.  And that’s what will help his experience to have none of the negatives that mine did, just the good stuff.  But the truth is, no matter what activities he does whether it’s football, gymnastics, swimming or guitar lessons…he’s going to encounter uncomfortable situations at some point.  All I can do is make sure nobody puts my baby in the corner, or in a bed to cuddle with a fake mom.

]]> http://tourtot.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/nobody-puts-this-baby-in-the-corner/feed/ 3 tourtot DSC_0941 DSC_0974 DSC_0952 DSC_0981 http://tourtot.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/newtons-laws-of-green-grass/ http://tourtot.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/newtons-laws-of-green-grass/#comments Wed, 05 May 2010 14:05:38 +0000 Jenn http://tourtot.wordpress.com/?p=688 Continue reading →]]> When I put Artie to bed every night at 7:30 we read “Pat the Bunny, Sleepy Bunny.”  I make up a little part in the story after the bunny wishes on a star.  We talk about all of the fun things we did that day and the fun things we’re going to do tomorrow.  It wasn’t until I started saying things like, “Today you sang along to music on our long walk.  Then we shared a mango smoothie and watched the wind blow crunchy leaves in the street.  We read books and played and you said ‘bye-bye’ for the first time” out loud for his benefit that I realized how much every single day of my life totally rules.  And how verbalizing it helps me see that.  This part of our bedtime ritual is as much for my benefit as it is for his.  Even if there were some not so fun things, they disappear.

In a similar way, this blog helps me keep my head on straight.  Even though I wouldn’t change anything about my life, I still have those moments when the grass looks greener in the yard down the street.  The mom works part time mostly just for fun, she has mommy friends that she does mommy things with, the dad wears a suit and tie to work, they have sweet health insurance that doesn’t make them hesitate to have another baby, dinner is on the table at 6 p.m. every night, and they have a landscaper.  Of course their grass is greener…a landscaper!

That’s not us, and I really don’t want it to be.  Yet sometimes part of me wonders what it would be like.  I haven’t worked (other than for the band) for three years.  Ace wore a suit like ten times total in his life.  I don’t have one girlfriend outside of my immediate family that I talk to more than once a month.  Our crooked mailbox is full of hospital bills even though we pay a ridiculous amount of money every month for our small group policy.  Dinner is whenever my hubby gets home from working on the latest project (hopefully midnight tonight as he builds a new studio since the old one was destroyed in a flood).  And our yard is a wild mess of tall weeds.  That’s us.

But we have so many things that make that greener grass look totally gross to me.  We’re so lucky to be where we are and I wouldn’t change anything (ok maybe I’d silence our creaky floors and make the cats go in the litter box 100% of the time).  But sometimes it takes some effort to remember those things and not get caught up wondering what it would be like to have a more stable way of life.  Because when someone comes up and offers it to me, I run in the other direction.  And that’s why I’m here.

I thought I liked writing this blog because of the writing part.  Since childhood, writing was my thing.  I wrote stories for fun from the time I could spell.  I wrote articles about “amazing animals” for my elementary school newspaper.  Then I was editor of my middle school and high school papers and an intern at the town newspaper.  I was an English major in college and I guess I spent so much time writing on the wrong terms that I took a long break from it.  So that’s why I thought I liked this blog.  Because it brought me back to writing.

But the truth is, the thing that keeps me wanting to sit down and write a new post is my spontaneous and totally unwarranted envy of that greener grass.  Because I know when I start writing about our latest shenanigans that envy will get mowed down faster than our weeds can grow.  I hate that I get overwhelmed with the uncertainty of our lifestyle at times, but I do.  I naturally focus on the negative sometimes.  I don’t know why it’s hard to stay positive…it’s one of those dark parts of human nature…but I know this blog helps me overcome that.  I’ve been trying to figure it out and my thoughts conjured up some vague memory from a high school physics class.  Newton’s laws of gravity and motion both apply to thoughts that bounce around in your head all day long.  At some point, they’re going down and they’ll continue on that path unless an external force is applied.

It just takes a little reflecting, during story time with Artie or story time on this blog with you guys, for me to stay positive.  It’s a little ritual, like my own religion.  It’s my external force.  What’s yours?

the greenest grass

We had a great time.  Artie rode a bunch of rides, including the Haunted Mansion during which he was very brave.  Sure, a lot of the time we wandered around aimlessly while he napped in the stroller, but it was some really fun and memorable aimless wandering.

Disney is a special place for us.  It was where we took our first vacation together back in January of 2004.  Nonstop touring had pulled us apart and Disney was the therapy that got us back on track.  It was during that vacation that I canceled my plans to study abroad in Austria only two weeks before I was going to leave.  I don’t know what would’ve happened if I had left at that point, but I know what happened since I stayed and for that I’m thankful to Disney for turning us into the kids who fell in love on a playground at 11 and 13 years old.

Our next trip there was with Ace’s whole family.  We drove down with his grandparents, Mommom Mickey and Poppop Salvy.  The road trip was hilarious.  That time we spent with them in the car and with most of Ace’s family (something like 20 people) in Disney was priceless and precious.  My hubby grew up with these Disney family vacations almost every year of his childhood and I’m so happy I was able to experience one with him.

Ace had actually planned to propose in Disney, but ended up doing it at home a couple of weeks before our vacation because he just couldn’t wait.  The proposal was perfect (outside in front of our house after taking a walk at night) and our time in Disney World after was an amazing way to start our journey toward marriage.

As luck would have it, the old band was asked to play at a Pontiac event at the Virgin Megastore in Downtown Disney just a week after we returned from our honeymoon in Mexico.  We definitely wanted to do something other than Disney for our honeymoon, but Disney wanted us back!  We stayed for five days after the show.  Kind of a quick turnaround for a second honeymoon!

Now that you know our history with Disney World maybe you can understand why we both fought back tears of parental joy when we bought a Mickey hat for Artie and placed it on his little head.  I never thought I’d love the place so much.  I wasn’t a Disney fanatic growing up and in theory I’d put about twenty-seven foreign countries ahead of Disney on the list of places to take a vacation.  I guess it’s inevitable to be tied to a place like Disney when your life is kind of a fairy tale.  Yes, I just called my life a fairy tale.  The End.