flickriver

strike 2

no luck.

next month, and with a new doctor..

happy 4th.

still getting to know m.'s new camera..but its a start.

my period. not something i'm thrilled about, not something i enjoy tossing around in conversations with strangers, but considering the topic of this blog, it's a relevant piece of the puzzle and therefore far from off limits. i mention it because it's lurking around the corner..and i'm so very pissed about that.

disappointed rather..but we'll see right?

we have one remaining "dose" of baby making magic, and it'll likely be our last attempt for the year.
now worries. we've considered renewing our foster/adopt licenses and getting back on the list for a strictly PERMANENT (legally free) placement. we'll be working directly with CPS - no middleman this time around.

the holidays make it tough not to think of izzi, so we've spent alot of time talking about him the past few days..but we never really stopped talking about him.
i'm fairly certain he's back in the system..public information research type thing.

tonight we tried to watch fireworks from the place m. took him last 4th of july..but the street was blocked off. instead we watched the sky light up from congress bridge. i needed to be 22 and on shrooms, but it was wicked cool anyway.

this haunting band

[because its canada day]

yesterday while doing some cop-like work related research on myspace, i stumbled upon lovers love haters a one [super foxi] lady band out of vancouver.

as it turns out the one lady is deborah cohen from that ghost of a band the organ.

we're diggin' the new look..and the sound.

but first there was die cowboy die with that [foxi] shmoo:

then of course there is the elusive mermaids project..no really, we didn't dream it.

now where are the two stragglers..

lets talk about how many photos of the freaking organ there are on the internets..i just wanted a picture for this post..and fell into THIS MESS, but i picked a flattering one yeah?

enough - you just want the goods:

die cowboy die - nothing but parts (rough demo) [mp3]

die cowboy die - herpes (rough demo) [mp3]

lovers love haters - sitting still [mp3]

lovers love haters - theme [mp3]

mermaids - say you're alive [mp3]

if you like it go buy it. i will.

hipster finds for hipster parents (like us?)

that. is a foam yellow pages booster seat. for me.

pallete plate - bpa free/phthalate free/pvc free and cute as hellheck.

small paul fedora. omgah..

adiri natural nurser baby bottles

i've read so many gushing articles about these that i wanna try one myself..

mutsy

at first glance i thought oh man,

another pretentious brand of over priced baby crap..

but isn't it pretty?

then we looked closer.

and yeah its pretentious and overpriced,

but crap it isn't..and boy is it pretty.

we have our (not so hippie right now are we?) heads set

on an urban rider stroller as well as this "easy grow highchair".

a close runner up was the teutonia build it yourself stroller - but i don't have 500.00 to spend on a stroller chassis!!?

.............................................................

"So, What is a Hipster Parent?

BY TARA TAYLOR
COPYRIGHT 2007 BY PARENTS' PRESS, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

On Feb. 8, 2007, a nerve was struck in the parenting community.

Time magazine published an essay by James Poniewozik titled "Too Cool for Preschool," taking direct aim at the "hipster parent-memoirist," a large online population of parents who are out to prove that "parenting, or at least parents,can be cool" by writing about themselves and their kids in online journals.
Northern California parent bloggers launched a full-on attack.

SpiceTart, an East Bay mom who blogs about her adventures in babyhood on Spicetart.com, proclaimed that while she was not a hipster per se, her 1-year-old daughter, Ivy, qualifies.

The San Francisco Chronicle's über-hip blog for the urbanite parent, "The Poop," called the article "birth control," saying that it "comes to the rather accurate conclusion that the latest round of mommies and daddies are too big of babies themselves to accept their roles as cardigan-wearing, Sears-shopping, Raffi-listening, Teletubbie-watching, non-baby-blogging entities they should be."

That launched a rampage of comments by parents from all over the Bay Area that lasted days, and got pretty nasty.

So what is a hipster parent, you ask?

MetroDad, a blogger based in New York, suggests, somewhat tongue in cheek, several things that qualify you a hipster parent: ironic baby T-shirts and onesies, taking your kids to yoga class, feeding your child organic gourmet baby food.
Children born and bred in the Bay Area know the difference between quinoa and couscous, they go to mommy-and-me yoga class, and they get places like Snippity Crickets (San Francisco and Berkeley) and Kids Cuts (San Francisco) that cater to parents asking for mohawks and shag haircuts for their toddlers.

Adult night clubs like Ruby Skye in San Francisco and Aura in Pleasanton put the alcohol on a even higher shelf once a month to make way for Goldfish® crackers and kid-friendly disco played at controlled levels, at monthly Baby Loves Disco events. (Avalon Nightclub in Santa Clara will start hosting Baby Loves Disco parties in May.)

The San Francisco go-go group the Devil-etts have even joined in the fun, creating Pip Squeak A Go-Go, a kiddie go-go party with live music and dance performances. Many restaurants, art galleries, and stores have altered their scene and prices to include hipster parents and their children.
To some, hipster parenting seems like a natural fit with the vibrant and culturally diverse Bay Area. What parent wouldn't want their child to enjoy the local music and art scenes, or indulge in one of San Francisco's hundreds of restaurants?

Parents can even bring their kids to some bars in San Francisco during special hours.

The Look
Being a parent never looked so good.
Over the past decade, maternity fashion has morphed into something that no longer resembles floral-covered muumuus and overalls. Stores like Motherhood and San Francisco-based The Gap offer mothers-to-be a wide selection of clothing that is comfortable and looks good. Rockstarmoms.com gives the pregnant mom a choice of oversized T-shirts and tube tops featuring their favorite bands.

The message: You don't have to look like a boat, even though you might feel like one.
The trend of looking cool no matter what stage of life you are in has spread into the kids' clothing market. Onesies now carry messages of rock 'n roll, while toddlers wear mini Vans or Converse All Stars. The world of children's clothing is no longer pastel, it's punk rock.
El Cerrito resident Mark DeVito is the creator of Metal Babies, an online clothing shop for kids whose parents have a taste for Metallica and Twisted Sister. When his son Aidan was born in 2002, he and his wife, Heidi Bartsch, were looking for anything that wasn't "bunnies or flowers." "We were struggling as new parents trying to find cool clothes for kids," said DeVito. "A lot of the pastelly things weren't fitting along the line we wanted."
DeVito's first designs, "Never Say Diaper" and "Future Headbanger," led to a series of rock-related messages printed on black onesies and toddler tees. "Sleep deprivation is probably the greatest source of creative outflow," DeVito said, who runs his mail-order business out of a warehouse in Richmond.

His baby line can be now found from nationwide clothing chains like Hot Topic to cool baby boutiques like Kids Only in San Francisco. DeVito even took the clothing line to Ozzfest in 2004 and 2005, but stopped touring because he missed being with his children. (He and his wife also have a 17-month-old daughter, Wylder.)
Clothing isn't the only thing that has changed. Hipsters' hairstyles have now spread to their offspring ­ parents with toddlers and even babies are rushing to kid-friendly hair salons to get mohawks, pixie cuts, and sharp A-line bobs. (You can thank Angelina Jolie and her adopted son Maddox for the mohawks.) Snippity Crickets hairstylist Bobby Jo Colbert has become used to the change. "Mohawks (for kids) don't seem so strange and out of place now," said Colbert who has been working at the salon's Berkeley location for 11 years. "There is defiantly as look and attitude about them (hipster parents) that's not your average Berkeley parent."

The Tunes:
So you have a kid now, and you dread popping in that Dora the Explorer CD or singing The Bus Song (Wheels on the Bus) for the hundredth time; you'd rather hear the new album by Coldplay or some classic Ramones. Now you can, thanks to Baby Rock Records, a Los Angeles record company that has taken your favorite rock songs and transformed them into instrumental lullabies. Their Rockabye Baby series (which will feature the Bay Area's Green Day soon) is only a sampling of the new movement in kiddie rock or alternative kid music.
Coming across as a sort of rebellion to the kid-friendly folk rock of Dan Zanes (the new Raffi), kiddie rock has become "the way" to rock out with your kids still in the room (minus the mosh pit). Local bands like the Sippy Cups and the Time Outs have made it big in the world of kiddie rock. Much of this movement, like the Rockabye Baby series, takes already existing rock songs and makes them kid-friendly by, for example, leaving out the lyrics to I Wanna Be Sedated. BandWorks, a music school in Oakland, teaches kids how to rock out to Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix in their summer program. And many outdoor festivals this summer will cater to the hipster mom and dad who now cart along juice boxes in their cooler of beer.
Alternadad (the ultimate hipster dad autobiography) author Neal Pollack dedicates a whole chapter in his book to how he taught his son Elijah to jam to Sacramento's Cake and the Sex Pistols, declaring that if his son was going to learn about music it would have to be his way or else.
Even nightclubs have gotten into the mix, hosting events like Baby Loves Disco (for $15 each) and Pip Squeak A Go Go (which describes its event as a "dance party for the underaged set" and is a little less then $8 a head). With clubs chiming into the hipster parenting scene, being a parent never looked and felt so cool.
Baby Loves Disco co-founder Heather Murphy Monteith said her events in San Francisco and Pleasanton are about building a community in an urban place. "You don't see community in the same setting as parents in suburban areas," said Murphy Monteith.
And these events provide a perfect picture of this "community." At an average Baby Loves Disco event, you will find the entrance of the club clogged with Bugaboos and MacLaren strollers. The bar, which is open to parents, sells Mommy Juice ("Sophie," Sophia Coppola's canned sparkling white wine that comes with a straw, just like a juice box) and beer on tap.
"I love the irony that it's a baby disco at a real club," said Oakland resident Sandra Mallas, the "host mom" of Pleasanton's Baby Loves Disco.
Though most of the parents at a Baby Loves Disco event would not call themselves hipsters, and actually scoff at the idea, they aren't insulted by the term.
"It certainly makes you feel like you are in a certain demographic, but it's not a bad demographic," said San Francisco resident Debbie Glass, who was at Ruby Skye on March 17 for a Baby Loves Disco event with her 19-month-old son Owen.

Go Ahead, Embrace It
While it isn't clear if hipster parents are necessarily "Too Cool for Preschool," they are changing what is considered fun to do with your kid. Not to say the days of taking your kids to the park or zoo are gone, but now there are options that might pique mom and dad's interest also (though many of them are only in San Francisco).
So if tossing out the Raffi tape and popping in the latest release from the Sippy Cups sounds good to you, or you like the idea of taking your kid out for a day of dancing to live music, you might qualify as a hipster parent. Put on that Pixies T-shirt from 1992 (before the breakup), slip on Junior's Metallica onesie, and head over to Ruby Skye. Why should a kid stop you from having a rockin' good time? You can always blog about it while the kids are in bed."

Tara Taylor is the calendar and special sections editor of Parents' Press

and just like neal pollack, "alternadad", (who's son spent the first four years of his life in austin texas), we're not the kind of ladies that dig disney character jumpers and saccharin sweet traditional pastel baby stuff. we live in austin texas, home of the weird. and our babies will grow up here completely enveloped in the so called austin hipster scene that we've found ourselves accidentaly attached to.

if by hipster scene i mean the kid(s) will be exposed to a very indie art & music scene - than yeah thats what it is..

s(he) will surely be handmade wearing, green organic crunchy hippie coffeeshop babies with a little bit of trendier than thou indie rockin' hipster goodness for some edge and they will dig it,

just like our boy izzi did.

and anyway..

the traffic to this blog is steady, but it's not at all what i'd intended.

the flux of visitors that find their way here,

completely unaware of the concept,

are scavenging for music. it's the mp3 tracks..

and i guess thats ok. but i'm not taking this blog in that direction.

we're (marginally) focused.

but the blog is still about tracking our goal of becoming moms again.

the posts are light..and recently revolve loosely around the process of getting knocked up

obsequiously catering to an army of mp3 hoarding enthusiasts will be lovely..

when i'm riding a desk on light duty with a bun in the oven.

and thats that.

it's officially summer..and wicked hot

this past weeks rundown & all the little things i've failed to mention don't add up to a whole lot.

new tires,

craigslist hits & misses

super good & super bad waiters

a new jade plant

beer

heat & hail..

last night we went to see alpha rev play at a poseur club. they rocked nicely.

i've scoured the internets for a track or two..just one legal freebie so far -

rest assured that at least another will be added later.

we bought m. a new camera. a sweet little nikon s51. very sweet.

now the post pictures will be little visual peeks into our world again,

and THAT makes for some bloggy goodness.

for instance - thats my lap up there..

good stuff.

eh. well i'm winding down from a fairly shitty night of being cop-like..

one of those nights that make me wonder

what the fuck was i thinking becoming a cop in the first place. i'll get over it.

later.

alpha rev - phoenix burn (mp3)

overinflated moons & other illusions

this last appointment only confirmed one thing - i need to shop around for another obgyn..

i don't require much of my doctors, sure, my primary doc let's me self diagnose, and will prescribe me anything i think i need because the tv says "ask your doctor if it's right for you"..but that's not what i dig about her. she's warm and friendly, and seems kind of stoned half the time and that makes her easy to talk to..

the obgyn. [i will call her dr. personality disorder]

i have a theory as to why she acts like i'm the scary character in her recurring nightmares, but i won't go into it..for now i'll just say that i can't deal with her negativity and lack of interpersonal communication skills.

other than the fact that m and i waited for her over two hours, and the ass chewing i gave the RN (because the medical assistant whispered in our ear that laurie the nurse refused to get up and talk to us and preferred to talk through said assistant who was about to leave for the day all the while sitting not ten feet away around the corner bidding for crap on ebay), i think the appointment went pretty freaking well..umm i sensed some fear o the gays in that place. hopefully it didn't affect the procedure. the boys are swimming to shore and theres nothing i can do to help them..

so thats that.

this time..

our next appointment is tomorrow at 4pm. is there a more rad word for insemination?

i hope we're reading those damn test kit sticks correctly because this is wearing me down.

the process is beating me down and pissing me off,

and i'm really tired of feeling inpatient and crazy.

remember when i used to talk like this when we were waiting for izzi? i do.

it sucked. it sucks still, the wait..

we really need to get away, so we're driving to port aransas this weekend

and yeah i'm counting away the days.

i think i'm unraveling. i think i've said that before..

its the weather, and work - everything's heating up and the public seems stretched thin.

home is my favorite place right now. and that feels good.

rio ritas is my second favorite place. we should go there right now.

BY THE WAY - we HATED the happening..the shitty dialog, and shitty acting, and shitty everything, omgah..

those gays..

its pride weekend here in austin!

and it doesn't mean a thing to us because i have to work

[a pm patrol - which is not my regular gig!!]

so i'm unhappy. add a trip to the new sadistic dentist, and i'm not feeling particularly comfortable either. oh did i mention that m. cant breathe through her nose due to a recent procedure on her sinuses - but let's talk about MY problems.

gah, when it rains it seems..

today we're going to see the happening after work. i can't wait i think..

yay i'm goin' on a date! a scarrry date. and you should too!

So let's talk about the ovulation thing that isn't happening.

i can't imagine that i ovulate once every 3-6 months..but its true and thats that.

again not happy.

This parenting/wannabe-another-lesbo-mommy topic blog is becoming less that. and it's not ok. we're working on it. someone said i should be downing gallons of whole milk rather than downing gallons of beer. wait wha?!

pansy division & meshell ndegeocello will be in town for the pride thing. damnit.

pansy division - breaking the law(mp3)

pansy division - jack u off(mp3)

pansy division - i can make you a man(mp3)

know who won't be there?

OH BUT WAIT!
an obsessed fan (of the organ..not me) emailed this article today:

The Organ Reunite For New EP 6/6/2008
By Brock Thiessen
After disbanding back in 2006, Vancouver retro pop act the Organ are making their return with a new six-track EP. According to a report by the CBC, this fall the reformed group will drop Thieves, which will mark the first new material from the band since their one and only length, Grab That Gun. The CBC does not say whether the all five original Organ members — Katie Sketch, Ashley Webber, Jenny Smyth, Debora Cohen and Shelby Stocks — have rejoined the group, but does report that the Organ have been “secretly working” on the recording in Vancouver for several months now.
Although the band have returned to the studio, there is no word on whether we can expect them to return to the stage.
Look for the October 14th release date of Thieves - Here is the tracklisting:
1. Even in the Night
2. Oh What a Feeling
3. Let the Bells Ring
4. Fire in the Ocean
5. Can You Tell me One Thing
6. Don't Be Angry

the organ - even in the night [mp3]

the organ - let the bells ring [mp3]

the organ - fire in the ocean [mp3]

the organ - can you tell me one thing [mp3]

the organ - don't be angry [mp3]

disclaimer: all mp3 tracks available for download on this blog are here purely in the interest of the artists and are available for a short time only in order to promote those artists. if you want the tracks removed, please leave a comment and i will do so.

austin city limits

the lineup looks as rockin' this year as any other..
i'm stoked about at least half the bands..
but of course there's a downside to that
at least two drunken rock paper scissor decisions to make -

tegan & sara OR band of horses?

the black keys OR iron & wine?

i just dont know..

[a little foreplay?]

the kills - mexicocu [mp3]
tegan & sara - love type thing [mp3]
N.E.R.D - spazz [mp3]
hot chip - boy from school [mp3]
ben sollee - a change is gonna come [mp3]
MGMT - electric feel [mp3]
neko case - margaret vs. pauline [mp3]
jose gonzales - stay in the shade [mp3]
del tha funky homosapien - bubblepop [mp3]
mates of state - get better [mp3]
silversun pickups - little lovers so polite [mp3]
iron & wine - boy with a coin [mp3]


HEY! know who's not gonna be there?




come on lady. i'm sick about this..

disclaimer: all mp3 tracks available for download on this blog are here purely in the interest of the artists and are available for a short time only in order to promote those artists. if you want these tracks removed, please leave a comment and i will do so.

the cure

June 8th Austin, tx - Austin Music Hall

the cure - plainsong.mp3 (live)

the cure - prayers for rain.mp3 (live)

the cure - just like heaven.mp3 (live)

the cure - sleep when i'm dead.mp3 (live & new!)

the cure - the perfect boy.mp3 (live & new!)

the show is sold out, (suprised?!) but i think you can still find half a ticket on craigslist.

see you there?

i'm hoping i can tell my kiddo that he or she attended their first cure concert in utero - and i know how cheesy that will be. but it's cool. (s)he will certainly get sick of THIS.

disclaimer: all mp3 tracks available for download on this blog are here purely in the interest of the artists and are ephemerally yours in order to promote those artists. if you want these tracks removed, please leave a comment and i will do so. fo shizz.