Hibernate Blog

Seems hard to believe, but yesterday at the grocery store I bought sun screen. Wasn’t it just the other day Al Roker was talking about snow in upstate New York? The Adirondack winters are such that when they finally end, some of us still struggle to accept that it might be safe to stow the parkas and mittens. Seven consecutive days of sun, with afternoon play in the backyard and reflections from the water table burning our skin, left me searching for protection.

Where to look! Last year’s bottles have long since found their way to the garbage, the edges of the bottles sticky and mottled with juice box remnants, hand prints of protest (why do kids fight the application so vociferously?) and dog hair. The lotions I use daily have just a 15 SPF rating and will most certainly burn little toddler eyes as the ringlets and grimy hands inevitably guide the lotion to those baby blues.

I purchased the 70 SPF Aveeno mist for the girls and 45 SPF Neutrogena Dry Spray for myself, despite the niggling memory of having read in some magazine or another that any SPF over 30 is not worth the money as 30 SPF provides protection from 97% of the sun’s rays. It’s so hard to keep it all straight and sometimes it just feels better buying what appears to be the best available, i.e. Aveeno SPF 70.

I sprayed my collar bone this morning as we headed into work on foot, partly in honor of the efforts being made for Earth Day and partly for the efforts being made to create a birthday. I’d forgotten how sunscreen can make you shiny and leave your skin feeling slightly tacky (no offense to Neutrogena). As we walked the delicate scent of the spray wafted in and out.

It took me back to days by the lake, chubby little legs running to the water’s edge, bits of sand clinging to bright, white rolls of baby thigh. I remembered the cool touch of post-cool-bedtime-bath faces. The promise of summer nights and fresh farmer’s market breakfasts on the porch. I quickly bundled up the slickers and parkas, a smile on my face.

Summer is coming and with it the opportunity to relive its magic through the squeals and smiles of our little girls.

Another weekend has nearly come and gone, our bodies are bruised, smudged and ready for the thick slumber of a Sunday night. The baby still somersaults in my belly, hinting now and again that she’ll soon be here. It seems like the perfect moment to look back to the first time she swirled within me with movements deliberate enough to awaken my senses.

October 2007

There You Were
I was standing in a store in the mall holding a shopping bag. It was a big city mall and miles from the staid atmosphere and displays of the Sears, JC Penney and Bon Ton that I am accustomed to. I was overwhelmed by the intensity of its absence of natural light, pulsating music and slick, faceless mannequins in clothes that looked nothing short of ridiculous to me. I walked quickly past the gaunt, slouching forms outfitted in slick purple and grey fabrics and stepped outside to wait for Sean, foolishly thinking there might be more air in the corridor.

A woman was pacing with a clipboard, stutter-stepping towards people with a hopeful look on her face, “Do you have a few minutes to sign my - -” she trailed off. No one listened, no one stopped. My face flushed as I turned, not wanting to be engaged by this woman, yet suffering for being one more person unwilling to listen to her - Another time, I promise I’ll stop and listen to someone else some other time I vowed silently.

I walked toward the other side of the thoroughfare, breathing a sigh of relief as my feet led me to a patch of mall beneath a burned out lighting strip, the shadows felt as crisp as river water on naked toes. I leaned against the wall and set my bag on the ground beside me. The feel of the concrete wall against my back was cool and hard, I imagined I was at the park, the bow of the boat the girls love climbing pressing against my back. I was almost there, the din of the throngs of people slipping away, when I was assaulted by overflow from the food court. A steamy rush of nachos, Chinese food and greasy pizza swept past me, and I bolted.

Clutching the bag I walked back toward the store, searching for Sean. I didn’t see him and the woman with the clipboard was eying me, so I cut right, behind a staircase and into a vacant storefront. It was dark and cool, no smells and less sounds. I watched passers-by shuffling to and fro, I examined the splashy window displays and I wondered how so many people could be in one place with so many attempts to communicate and yet it felt like the loneliest place on earth. No one looked at each other, save the teenagers mocking each other and the girls desperately seeking attention in their skimpy outfits.

I felt like an outsider and wondered when it had changed. When did the mall become too much for me? When did I start having to turn down the tv to think? Shutting the radio off to drive? I hadn’t realized that at some point I effectively slid off the grid and became rooted in a world that has no contact with the pulse of this super polished commercialism. I was stunned and felt like a flashing beacon of deception. She doesn’t belong here.

And then it happened. The corridor went absolutely silent, the pulse of the music stopped short of where I stood and the harsh lighting faded to nothing before it reached me. Standing there, one hand holding my bag and one hand on my stomach, you came to me. I felt you on my hand, knew you in my soul.

You.

My baby.

There in the clatter of an Albany mall you came to me. My first awakening of you as somebody. I would have sworn that light poured out of me, that we sent out waves to rival any sound system, but it wasn’t so. Ours was an intimate meeting, shared just between the two of us. Shivers ran up and down my spine as your declaration of being rang through my body. I will never forget how you took hold of me and I cannot wait to get to know you.

Welcome home to mama, sweet one.

We’re looking forward to meeting you, sweet girl.

A new look.
A fresh take.
A whole new us.

There I go confusing this pregnancy with our company. The little one, so adorably concealing my cute Merrell kicks, is due the 26th of this month. The debut of the new face of SaraBear that we want you to get to know is coming in early June.

SaraBear has grown significantly in the last three years and the time has come to make a significant change to our outside appearance to match who and what we’ve become.

We have been working with an incredible designer, Raeanne, of Trampoline Design, on a look and feel that will communicate who we are as a company, and more importantly, who we are as people. Intelligent, driven, community minded women committed to enhancing the way life with babies is enjoyed.

We have a feeling it’s going to be a wonderful summer!

When you are expecting a baby everyone has an opinion, from the clerk at Lowe’s to the cousin of your sister-in-law’s best friend’s brother. It can be tough to sift through what you’ll need and what you should really just forget as soon as it passes the lips of the stranger lecturing you. Despite all of the advice, warnings and “Oh, I remember when’s…” there are countless things that come up that no one ever thought to clue you in about -

How often kids really get sick,
The guilt of working or not working,
Sometimes being a good parent means doing things that feel awful.

I’ll tell you something, whether you have kids or not, despite the white-knuckle impulse these situations elicit as you experience them, when you emerge from them there is a euphoria and sense of accomplishment that will leave you feeling nearly invincible.

Managing a company has many similarities to parenting, with lots of outside opinions and many unexpected scenarios. Recently SaraBear completed a process that at first would have best been described as unchartered territory. After three years we decided to create new fabrics, and not just “new” to SaraBear diaper caddies, but “new” period. Custom textiles.

What we knew:

We wanted the textiles to be unique.
We wanted the patterns to work throughout the house.
We wanted to create something that would excite parents and children.

Deciding what the patterns should be was something that we spent a great deal of time deliberating. We knew that many of the people buying the caddies were holding on to them for years. One woman wrote saying that she hoped to use hers as a place to hold her daughter’s favorite mementos as she got older. Others shared that they planned to use it in another area of their house - guest room toiletries, living room catch all, the list went on. As we considered the different uses it made sense to create two price points, allowing people to invest in the look and feel of their caddy.

We realize that moms tend to be the buyers of the caddies, whether for themselves, or friends, but we wanted the patterns to appeal to men as well. It was important to us that our team of designers represent our audience, so we gathered a group that included one dad of two (almost 3) daughters in diapers, a father of two elementary school-age kids, a writer, one textile devotee, a mom, an aunt, and our caddy inventor.

And so we began. Would we use animals? Pictures? Pastels? Jewel tones? How would we differentiate the lines? There was much laughter and furrowing of brows as we each explained why something didn’t work or why another combination made our hearts soar. The entire process took about two months, with many weeks of waiting and perfecting. Samples have arrived each week and we have sat, staring and touching the bright pinks, rich blues and lush greens making notes, sending revisions and waiting on pins and needles until the changes were returned to us.

This July we will finally be able to share our finished product, much like a newborn, after months of loving and nurturing within us, and then finally holding the masterpiece in our hands and laying it with pride in the arms of friends.

For now, there is this, easier to read than an ultrasound, a sample of our babies.

There is nothing like a move to bring out the perfectionist in a person. The crew here at SaraBear is varied, with some people being very linear and organized and other of us being, well, more of the artistic and free form persuasion.

A softer, more feminine version of Felix and Oscar comes to mind.

Maybe a dash of Bosom Buddies without the drag aspect.

I am struggling to find a female comparison, sheepishly, all I can come up with is Sweet Valley High’s Elizabeth and Jessica which I’ll chalk up to being 9 months pregnant, rather than making a broad sweeping accusation that there are no great female buddy duos in entertainment history other than Thelma and Louise, which frankly wouldn’t be quite right.

We entered into this space with the idea that we would make the most of the raw space, reveling in the beautiful natural light and exposed brick. We were excited knowing that we are can-do girls, low maintenance, easy-to-please. We discovered though, that we wanted more. We put our hearts and souls into this business, pulling late hours, sending pre-dawn emails and studying market and consumer trends. Turns out when it comes to the place we work, we are perfectionists. How humbling it is to find you are decidedly high-maintenance, or, as I like to call it, “exacting.”

The last few weeks of transplanting from one office to another have seen us painting walls, overseeing the construction of new walls, navigating the installation of a server and new phone system and much more. Today as I answered emails and lunched on a divine salad with fresh baked bread from Rockhill Bakehouse a contractor worked to repair the work done the week before by one of his employees. I felt a bit rueful as I watched the owner of this telecommunications firm rewiring a phone jack and tidying wires, that was until he said, “Boy, Scott doesn’t do very great work, does he?”

Why is that it would take someone else declaring something bad before I felt justified in demanding something better? We unapologetically pursue perfection in the work that we do, but somehow when it’s a personal thing, a task being done by someone else, we hesitate. Is it so bad to know what you want and not be afraid to demand it?

What do you think?