Bad news and good news

Bad news: As you know, my computer died and I lost all my files.  It's all a great loss, but the worst part is my fiction.  I haven't written much of anything since the kids were born -- writing novels takes a lot of brain space that I just haven't had to spare -- but I had several drafts that I was saving in the hopes of getting back to them someday.  Most important were my three novels.  Novel #1 is a completed, polished second draft.  No worries for that one -- my mother has a hard copy.  How to get it back as a digital version is still tricky, but at least it exists.  Novel #2 is complete as well, but it's going to have to be rewritten I think.  But that's okay too -- when I finished the first draft, I emailed it to several people to read.  I still have it in my Gmail account.  But novel #3 wasn't finished, and so I hadn't shared it with anyone.  I couldn't even remember how much of it I'd written.  Eighty pages?  One hundred?  More than that?  Had I ever rescued my characters from the life raft they'd been sitting on for, oh, six years?  Yes, it's actually the oldest story, abandoned the longest.  I'd written myself into a corner that I was going to need a lot of research to get out of, and I was just waiting for some real free time to do that.  And this file was nowhere to be found.  I searched every folder in my email account -- nothing.  Maybe there might be notes for it in the attic in a notebook, but maybe not.

Good news:  Losing the files motivated me to get back to writing.  I lay awake for several nights (those of you with kids KNOW what a big deal this is) trying to remember the plot and figure out where I wanted to go with it.  I had some good ideas.  Time to get writing.  As I was trying to remember the time period in my life when I had written it, something occurred to me.  I hadn't been using Gmail at the time.  I'd been using Yahoo.  And at the time -- back when I was in college -- my email account was my main location for file storage.  I emailed myself all my important files at the end of every semester, so I could take them home with me.  Might they be in there?

Very good news:  First thing in the morning I searched my Yahoo mail and hit pay dirt!  Novel #1, perfect and complete.  Novel #3, missing some of it (not sure how much) but the majority of it was there!  As a bonus, some pictures from high school and a few poems.

Bad news:  Ugh, I forgot how truly terrible my writing was in novel #3.  I always sound pretentious in a first draft, but this is awful.  I'll probably have to rewrite the whole dang thing.  (But at least I have the 80 pages that I had written, so I can remember what the plot was like.)

Good news: Novel #1, though, is excellent!  I don't mind saying so myself, because when you've let a novel sit for six years, it's kind of like reading someone else's novel.  I couldn't remember, as I read it, what was going to happen next.  Luckily my style was not so horrible in this one.  I changed some formatting and added some explanatory sentences as I read, but that was it.  As I have every time I've read the book -- including the time when I was writing it -- I sobbed at this one scene.  I can't not cry.  It's the saddest thing I've ever read.  I wonder if it would be sad to anyone else or if it's just a me thing.

More good news:  I have gotten to work in earnest on novel #3, which is a sequel to #1 (#2 is a completely different genre, and I am still stuck on how to revise it .... perhaps it needs to age a few more years before I can look at it).  It's taking awful amounts of research.  But the wonderful thing is, we have Wikipedia now!  When I started this book, I checked out dozens of books from the library and found that every single one of them skipped the information I needed.  Now I can find articles on every topic I want, links to primary sources, and a whole organization dedicated to the specific topic I'm talking about.  AWESOMESAUCE.

The past six years have given me enough of a break to see this story with new eyes, cut out the stuff that didn't fit, and radically change the plot.  The thought of losing it all gave me the courage to just start writing again.

Those of you who like to write, I have a recommendation for you.  The next time you get writer's block, might I suggest waiting six years and then taking a pickaxe to your hard drive?

Just kidding.  Go back up your files right now.  Do it.  And then dig up that old Word 98 file, dust it off, and see if you still like it.

What I've been doing instead of blogging

I really miss blogging.  I certainly haven't intended to give it up.  There have just been so many other things competing for the same dregs of time in every day.

First, as you know, my computer up and died.  In the middle of uninstalling Chrome, in fact, which seems suspicious to me.  John has been tinkering with it and is of the opinion that my entire hard drive is basically gone now.  That means thousands of pictures, hours of music, dozens of story ideas, all my recipes, and one 3/4 finished novel are gone forever.  Luckily the more-finished novels and most of the best pictures were either posted online or emailed, so I can recover them, but the rest is gone.   Do me a favor.  Right now -- right now -- go find your five most important files and make sure they are backed up.  It won't take you 60 seconds to email them to yourself.  Better yet, back up your whole hard drive.  Don't say you will get to it when you have time.  You never will have time.

Then John went out of town for a week in the middle of December.  I was going along fine, handling everything okay, until the last night ... when I came down with the stomach flu.  I don't know what to tell you about watching two very active kids while trying not to hurl, except that I don't recommend it.  It certainly made me wish that my mother lived near me so I could call for reinforcements.

Then we had one week to go before our trip to visit John's family in Wisconsin.  Bringing two littles anywhere is like mobilizing an army; we had to-do lists a mile long.  So of course Michael decided to get sick.  Not the stomach flu -- it seems to have been roseola.  At any rate it matches the symptoms: two days of high, fluctuating fever, which breaks on the third day and is followed by spots on the torso.  Marko had the same at about the same age.  I thought taking care of a sick baby who refused to be put down was hard.  Add in a toddler who still has his usual number of needs, and, well, you can imagine.

The day his fever broke was one day before we had to leave, and you'd better believe I was relieved that Marko didn't get sick too!  But that didn't leave me a lot of time to make a new mei tai for our trip (my old one was chewed up by the dog; very sad).  I got it cut out and ended up sewing it in the car.

Here's how we managed 17 hours of travel (not counting any stops) with two kids.  First, we resolved to leave extra time.  That's what we did when Marko was a baby -- we did this trip with him twice.  But with Michael there's an extra issue -- he hates, hates, hates his carseat.  He sleeps in it great, but if it's not time for sleep, he mostly just screams.  17 hours of screaming wasn't appealing for any of us.  So we decided to make the longest leg, the 12-hour drive to Chicago, overnight.  We left Friday at 6 pm, took turns driving the whole way, and arrived at John's grandparents' around 7 am (6 Central Time).  We rested that day at their house, taking turns taking naps, and spent the night at a hotel.  In the morning we went to Mass and drove the further five hours to John's family's house.

How did it go?  Not as well as hoped, not as bad as feared.  For the first part of the night, the kids kept waking each other up.  One would wake and cry and wake the other, and the second child's fussing would keep the first from going back to sleep.  If we got lucky and they both slept for a bit, they'd wake when we stopped for gas.  It didn't help that Michael was still fussy from being sick.  But the second half of the night, they slept more soundly.  The daytime part wasn't bad at all, though we had to stop and feed Michael, because he napped most of the way.  The last half hour he screamed, though.  The really hard part was recovering from a whole night of driving.  Neither of us slept very well in the passenger seat.

The kids loved being at Grandma's with all their aunts.  They have seven on that side, and all but the two in the convent were there.  So they had plenty of company -- aunts to play with Marko and aunts to hold Michael during all his naps.  It turns out getting held for an hour by someone who doesn't move or make noise is the secret to Michael taking a real nap.  Too bad I can't make that part of his regular life.

For Christmas John gave me a netbook, so I should now have an easier time finding an opportunity to blog.  It's an Asus Eee PC and I love it.  It's so small, I can hold it in one hand and type with the other.  I can stick it on my kitchen counter and read recipes off it.  Its battery lasts pretty much forever, so I can bring it all over the house.  Next step: install Ubuntu.  I am so done with Windows.

On our way back, we got to see the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, which was pretty neat.  The Foucalt pendulum was my personal favorite ... I love to see science PROVEN before my very eyes.  That wore out the kids enough for them to tolerate an afternoon of driving through Indiana.  We just kept driving through the night -- both kids slept better than on the way out -- and arrived home at 2:30 a.m.  It's probably going to take us a few days to recover from that.

So, that was our Christmas.  How was yours?  I hope all of you have a wonderful New Year that's full of blessings.

An evening to myself

I'm not sure if I've mentioned before that John hates his job. He really does. Getting that job was a real blessing eighteen months ago, because it allowed us to move from Philadelphia to the DC area, but it certainly hasn't been roses. Northern Virginia is not a cheap place to live, and the salary that originally seemed so generous seemed like a lot less when it was getting stretched for rent and train tickets. And then we moved even further out, and John started commuting two hours each way. Couple that with a truly toxic work environment, and the fact that it's a contract set to expire at the end of the year, and let's just say he's been keeping his resume in the mail.

Well, there's good news! And bad news. The good news is that he finally has a new job. The people are nice, the work sounds interesting and enjoyable, it's in John's field, it is NOT for the government, and it's only 45 minutes away!

The bad news is that involves travel. Up to three five-day trips a month. John doesn't care particularly about this; he doesn't mind flying. But I? I admit I started freaking out from the moment I first saw the listing.

I live in fear of single-momming. I know people do it. I know other people have to raise kids without their husbands for months on end. But I have never wanted that life. I never wanted my kids to have that life. I actually told John back when we were dating that I couldn't marry him if he had plans to join the military! It's not because I don't like servicemen, because I do. (I'm related to four of them.) But I am well aware that it takes a lot of guts to suffer through a six-month deployment, and I am also aware that guts aren't really high on my list of stuff-I-got.

If I had found the right guy, and he insisted on joining the military, I probably would have waited six years (or whatever it is) for him to get back out again. That's how strongly I feel about it. I wanted my kids to grow up with their dad around, darn it! And I did not want to be deciding whether to do the dishes tonight, or put the kids to bed on time. That kind of decision making doesn't sound like fun.

I called my mom and whined about it, and I have to admit I could hear her confusion. "But it's three weeks a month tops," she was saying. What she was not saying was, "I did it for six months at a time, so what are you whining about?!" (My mom is much too nice to say that sort of thing. But she would have had the right to.)

Okay, I'm a coward. But now this is really happening, so I've been trying to work myself around to the idea. And I'm seeing the appeal. Blogging after bedtime? I admit it's pretty nice! And I wouldn't have to pack his lunch every day. And, of course, he'd be home a heck of a lot more on his "home" weeks than he is now.

Tonight, I've had a chance to try it. John went out with some friends to a debate (his favorite thing ever to do), and I stayed home because wrangling a toddler in an event that requires relative quiet is not my idea of a picnic. So I had An Evening to Myself.

It started out okay. I had pumpkin as my veggie at dinner, which John can't stand and I love. I made myself a nice spinach salad as an evening snack, too. I caught up on my Internet Stuff. I brought in the dog, who played with the baby, and all was peace.

Then the baby started pulling on his diaper and saying "Poo." So I offered to take the diaper off and let him sit on the potty, and he said yes. Then I took the diaper off and he REFUSED to get on the potty, possibly because he'd already done all he was going to do in the diaper already. I let him run around with no diaper for a bit, because he'd just gone and he has this rash, but that was a bust. I hesitate to get too graphic, but let me just say I used about six diapers for rags where I could have put just one on his wiggly little backside. It was NOT PRETTY.

Then I smelled something awful and saw the dog chewing on the dirty diaper, which I had neglected to throw away and which Marko had found and given to the dog. Uggggh.

Then I turned around and the dog had one of the few pairs of my underwear which is still in good condition. Edit: which WAS in good condition. It is now deceased.

Then I turned around and the baby was climbing on the table. So I got him down.

Then I turned around and saw the dog had the baby's shoe, which I rescued. (Though I don't suppose it matters, because I still don't know what happened to the other shoe last week.)

Then I turned around and saw the baby was pooping again. So I whisked him onto the potty.

Then I turned around and saw the dog was making a beeline for the poo on the floor, which I cleaned up.

But then the baby was getting off the potty, so I coaxed him back on with the promise of a book, and sat down to read to him. At that point the dog decided he belonged on my lap, which he does NOT. He is not lapdog-sized, but he thinks it's his sovereign right to be on my lap at any time when I am sitting on the floor. I spent the entire book shoving him off and having him sneak back on.

I forgot to mention the part when the baby dumped the dog's entire water dish on the floor and then tried to lap up the water with his tongue. I don't even remember when that happened.

I finally got the kid into bed, at his much-too-late "usual bedtime," and here I am. Excited to have a chance to blog after bedtime. Too tired to say anything particularly clever. And uncomfortably aware of the ham and the pumpkin which both need to be cut up and put away, in containers I'm pretty sure I don't have, sometime before I go to bed.

Good night, all. Let's hope the evenings aren't all like this when John starts traveling.

Marko has some news for you...

... a new brother or sister is on the way!

How's the for the ultimate no-blogging excuse? Sorry I haven't been blogging, I've been too busy gestating a small person.

So, for the details:

Due date: May 4th

Symptoms: Up to this past week I've been cheerfully telling everyone that I'm much less sick this time. But it's catching up to me, and I really haven't been feeling so great. There's two different kinds of queasiness: morning sickness and "afternoon sickness," though either one could happen whenever, depending on conditions. When I haven't eaten, usually in the morning, I feel all queasy and not at all like having breakfast. And when I have eaten, usually in the afternoon or evening, I feel over-full, with heartburn and indigestion. Eating the right things (whole wheat bread, dairy products, eggs, and raw vegetables) and avoiding the wrong things (meat, anything spicy, or anything greasy) seems to help. It helps that I remember what things were good and bad last time, and it seems to be the same this time.

I'm also exhausted. So I've been napping during the baby's nap almost every day. Unfortunately, that means I have no time to get anything done, because when Marko is awake, he has so many demands. To make things worse, he was going through a really cranky stage for a bit there, and then got a cold! But he's been feeling better the past few days, thank goodness.

Marko: He doesn't have a good idea what's going on, though we have told him. The other day, he pulled up his shirt, pointed to his belly, and said, "Baby?" I said, "No, the baby is inside Mama's tummy," and pointed to mine. He said, "Outside?" I think he was kind of confused why I would keep a baby in there, and thought I should take it out so he could see it. No such luck.

I've decided to try to wean him, as gently as possible. On the one hand, I think he's close to ready, and on the other hand, nursing him has become excruciatingly painful. It was one of my first symptoms and is still getting worse. So he's down to about 0-3 times a day, and I try in particular to get him to sleep in other ways.

Sometimes I wimp out on this, though. He likes to go to sleep by being pushed around the neighborhood in the stroller, and will always accept that option over nursing. But when I consider hauling my exhausted self off the couch and walking around and around and around the block for twenty minutes, versus nursing him and getting him out in ten, without getting up -- well, sometimes I do pick the easy way out. I will take pain over physical activity eight times out of ten, all other things being equal. But I've been trying to bite the bullet and get my exercise and get him to sleep at the same time.

Plans: Still working on that. I want, more than anything, to have a homebirth with a midwife. But that costs money. Less money than a hospital birth, but insurance covers the hospital birth. And yet, if John doesn't have a job at the time (he's set to lose his at the end of the year), I don't know how we'd handle the insurance, either. We're just going to have to make some phone calls and figure out what we can manage.

Feelings: We are very excited. Especially me. I'm thrilled and dream about the baby often. Usually it's a girl, but last night was a very vivid one where it was a boy. I would like a girl, but maybe it would be better to have another boy first to be Marko's sidekick. (We all know that's what would happen!) But the thought of having two boys as energetic as the one I have is pretty scary. I'll take whichever!

To tide you over...

Things have been just crazy around here. We went camping, Marko is cutting all his canine teeth at once, there's a cold going around, and the amount of sleep our family has gotten has been a looooong way from what we need. Hence the no blogging. Also the no commenting on your blogs. I have 217 posts in my Google Reader and it's all I can do to catch up with them at all (if I ever do). But I'm going to try because I love reading everyone's stuff.

I also missed the Carnival of Natural Parenting this month, which is about parenting through play. Maybe I'll finally write that post and post it anyway -- I have it (and about ten other posts) written in my head. Meanwhile you can go here to read some carnival posts.

Here is some cuteness to tide you over until I manage to blog again. And then I must go to sleep because I only got three hours of sleep last night. Marko was SO happy and energetic that he wasn't sick anymore that he stayed up till 11:30. And then his nose congested right up again so that he slept very badly all night. Boy do I wish that kid were rational.

So, babies and puppies! Enjoy!

Our new puppy

John has been dreaming of getting a dog since we got married. In the past, it's been impractical, as we lived in apartments. But now we have a house with a yard, so we've had our eyes out for a puppy for a long time.

It's a puppy, specifically, that he wanted, not an adult dog. He wanted a puppy he could train and teach tricks to. He's been researching dog training and scanning Craigslist, hoping for a chance to get a puppy.

And here we are. Saturday, we finally found a puppy that could be ours. He's a black Lab, at least mostly, and nine weeks old. He's pretty mellow for a puppy, but he still does like to play.


We've named him Gilbert, after G.K. Chesterton. Marko is in love. If you calculate Gil's age in dog years, they're both toddlers. They are both rambunctious, destructive, and demanding. What we were thinking? On the bright side, the puppy is potty trained. I only wish I could say so much for Marko.

The lady we got the dog from explained that we have to watch the puppy to know when he needs to go out. Sounds like elimination communication to me! She said that puppies walk funny when they have to go. Only problem is, he's a puppy. He always walks funny. So I let him out every couple of hours, and he has only ever had one accident.

The only issue with this is that every time the puppy goes out, the baby wants to go too. And neither ever wants to come back in. So we have been spending a lot of time in the yard. They have a lot of fun, and don't get bored, but occasionally they get a little too interested in my green beans or try to get out the gate (the toddler can open it while the puppy makes a run for it!), so I have to drag them in. Generally that means carrying both of them, since neither comes when he's called if it means coming inside.



Marko gets pretty grabby with his puppy friend. At first I drove myself crazy trying to get him to leave the dog alone, but John reminded me that puppies play rough with each other, too, and that he doesn't seem to mind. So I just keep a close eye to keep Marko from, say, sitting on him.

The first night, the puppy slept great in the kitchen. The second night, he whined quite a bit at being shut up by himself. I was very tempted to bring him into our bed (hey, cosleeping solves a lot of problems!) but John said he would soon get used to the kitchen. And he did settle down with a chew toy and a blanket pretty quickly.

The only issue is that he gets up with John in the morning, at five, and then goes out. Which means he does not at all want to go back in the kitchen for another two hours while he waits for Marko and me to get up. This morning, when he started up his whining, I just got him and brought him into bed with me. By the time I got out of bed, I had the puppy, the kitty, and the baby, all in that bed. But I got to sleep till seven, so I'm not complaining.

I'm not going to lie: it is taking some adjustment and some extra effort from me to take care of this dog. But he's already providing some excitement to our life (or at least to Marko's life: the rest of us were plenty excited already), and once he's a little older, it will be easier and more fun.



And, anyway, he's awfully cute.

Virginia earthquake

So, if you're on the East Coast (as many of my readers are), you probably felt the quake. If you're elsewhere, you've probably heard of it. On the off-chance you haven't, here's the news: there was a 5.8 earthquake in central Virginia today which was felt from New England to South Carolina.

So here's how I experienced it.

The baby woke up early from his nap, and started melting down pretty much right away. So I was alternately feeding him snacks and nursing him for about an hour. I was sitting at the computer, reading blogs while he was nursing, when I felt a slight rumble. My thought process went like this:

Huh, someone's moving around upstairs.
Wait, we don't live in an apartment anymore.
Is someone in the house?!
No, duh, it's a truck going by.
Except it feels like it's in the house.
Maybe it's that construction nearby.
Feels like an earthquake, except we don't have them here.

Then the rumbling suddenly changed gears and became really strong. The door started rattling loudly and the whole house shook. I grabbed the baby into my arms, pulled my shirt down, and headed for the door. The floor seemed to be tilting and my legs were unsteady. The cat rocketed through the house with her ears laid back. By this point I was thinking there had been some sort of underground explosion and there was no telling how serious it would be. So I dashed out of the house and into the yard.

Everyone else in the neighborhood was pouring out of their houses too, so I talked with the neighbor two doors down and her three boys. The boys were full of excitement and were retelling the story to each other over and over. The mom and I were both puzzling over what that was. "It really felt like an earthquake, but we don't get those here," was the general verdict. We wondered if it was an underground cave collapsing or a problem with the construction site. The older lady across the street said there is a fault line right across the river from us, and that was probably it. We all were excited that we'd felt something and wanted to call those family members who weren't with us and tell them all about it.

Then someone drove by and said they had just been on the phone with someone who had felt it in Vienna. We all were surprised: "All the way in Vienna? It must have been big!"

After awhile of no aftershocks, we slowly ventured back inside. I went on Facebook to tell them all about the earthquake and see if anyone else had felt it. And everyone else had felt it! The real shocker was when a friend from New York posted about it. I went back outside to call John (we have no reception inside), but couldn't reach him. Everyone else was out there, too, trying their cell phones, but the networks were overloaded and no one could get through.

I wasn't really concerned, but it was still a load off my mind when my mother-in-law posted on Facebook that John had managed to get through to her, and that he was all right. He had had a scarier time than me. In DC, most people thought it was a bomb or some kind of attack. Even when it was clear that it was an earthquake, it was still frightening, because there are many old and unstable buildings there. John's building is very old, and next door to it is an abandoned, crumbling building that could have easily fallen on it. He was evacuated from the building and eventually told to go home, because they weren't sure it was safe to go back inside. And then he had a nightmare getting home, as all the trains were on speed restriction in case of undiscovered track damage, and most of the bridges were closed. Everyone was trying to get home at once, so it was crazy. He finally got home about an hour late.

Here, I haven't seen any damage. I did hear some sirens right after the earthquake, but it may have been just the fire department checking out tripped alarms. In DC, there has been quite a bit of minor damage. The National Cathedral is missing the top of one spire, and there was quite a bit of fallen stone off the buildings. The city was just not ready for an earthquake.

Right where the epicenter was, it was a serious quake, bad enough to bring buildings down. Luckily, it was in the middle of farmland, where there were few if any buildings. It could have been much worse if the location had been just a little different. Thank God we are all safe.

Did you feel it?

Blue flowers, opinions, and a toddler

Things have been kind of crazy around here, as you probably guessed from my infrequent posting.

First off, John got diverticulitis and was hospitalized. It wasn't terribly serious but he did need IV fluids for a couple of days. The hard part for me was trying to visit him in the hospital while the baby climbed all over the place and tried to pull out his IV line and pushed all the buttons on his bed. I never got to stay long, which was sad for me. And the baby was just heartbroken that Daddy wasn't around. The first night Daddy was gone, Marko had an epic meltdown at bedtime. Nothing could calm him; he howled so constantly as to hardly take a breath. This isn't usual for him at all! So I muscled him into the car and headed to the hospital with my screaming kid. At one point I said, "We're going to see Daddy!" And he instantly stopped screaming, instead just whispering, "Da da da da da," the whole way. It was adorable. And after a few minutes of snuggling with Daddy, he fell asleep before we were even out of the hospital. That's a kid who needs his dad around!

The one big blessing in all this is that my friend Meredith has been staying with us while she looks for a job. It was SO nice to have another pair of hands and someone to talk to so I didn't go nuts. Being a houseguest of a mom with a toddler should be on the list of corporal works of mercy.

Once John gone back, he had with him a prescription for some heavy-duty antibiotics. I'm not in favor of antibiotics, but we really had no choice -- he had already had them by IV in the hospital. Unfortunately this particular drug has a looooong list of side effects, including paranoia and panic attacks. (Who thought this would be a good idea?) And, of course, the one side effect all antibiotics have -- killing all the helpful bacteria that live in your body. Can't wait till he's off those. I'm going to go play doctor on him again (poor guy) and feed him all the probiotics I can find.

Having Meredith around has kept me busy. We've been walking to various places in town, visiting flea markets, and gardening. It sure keeps me from hanging fire when John gets home and asks me, "What did you do today?"

On Sunday we had a gigantic party for some dozen people. There was a "guys' day out" of canoeing on the Shenandoah, and a "girls' day in" which involved making pie and talking about the guys (of course). Meredith shared her piemaking wisdom (she sure knows how to make crust) and we filled up the shells with good things. We made one that was just sliced peaches and nothing else (it was amazing) and a lemon chess pie. Both were fabulous, but the peach pie was also beautiful.


Next time, though, the girls need to get a chance in the canoes. I really miss canoeing -- haven't done it in over a year.

Yesterday I was all set to blog and got myself in a cat fight instead. How do things like that happen? I was in the middle of a rather pleasant and respectful debate, I thought. The blogger had asked the question what people thought about husbands who forbid their wives from wearing chapel veils and dressing modestly. My take was that husbands can't make their wives dress immodestly, but if they have a problem with their wives always wearing ankle-length skirts or full-time kerchiefs, it's a pretty reasonable request. You know -- there's a balance to be struck. I tried to be very considerate of this woman, who does wear ankle-length skirts and kerchiefs most of the time, by saying that there's nothing wrong with dressing that way, but a husband might prefer not to draw attention or have people assume that he is the patriarch of a restrictive sect because of the way his wife dresses. It just doesn't seem fair to me that he has to deal with the flak from his wife dressing in an unusual way, but he gets no say at all in whether she dresses that way. Of course I don't think he should order her around, but it's a reasonable request for him to make and one I would have no trouble conceding to.

The blogger said that she believes it would be a sin to go into a church with her hair uncovered because she has been given a special calling by God to cover her head.

I said that I didn't think it could be at all sinful to enter a church in this situation, because the Church has removed the requirement for women to wear veils. It's a nice tradition, but you don't have to do it.

I think that was around when she transformed from a reasonable sounding-woman and went completely ballistic. First she said she didn't care what I thought. Then she wrote a post saying she'd lost her temper, but just LOOK at what her commenters (mostly me) were saying. (Followed by a misinterpretation of everything I'd said.) I realized I had offended her and wrote a very long comment on that post saying that I was really sorry I'd offended her, it was the last thing I had intended to do, that she is certainly free to wear what she wants, that I was sharing another viewpoint from someone who had seen the harm that too-strict dress codes could do, but I really didn't believe she was in any danger herself, that I was going to bow out of the discussion because I saw that I had given offense, etc.

Then I found she had written a whole post dedicated to me and how awful I was. Apparently I had been apologizing to a post that wasn't the latest one ... the latest one was a diatribe about how horrible I am, how unfairly I had treated her, and how she had been having a bad day and I just came along and made it worse. Again she misinterpreted everything I'd said (oops) and told me I was no longer welcome to subscribe to her blog and was blocked. She would appreciate it if I never spoke to her again.

Thirty people pounced on that post telling her, "The devil is attacking you because he knows you're doing the right thing," and telling me that I'm a troll, I just like to hurt other people, that I hate Amish people (huh?), etc. Her husband leaped on saying, "I know Sheila. She is that crazy woman from every guy's past. The woman who on a first date looks very promising and by the second date is flinging monkey pooh while howling like a banshee. The words 'stark raving mad' begin to come to mind."

He doesn't know me. He has seen my comments on his wife's blog. I don't think any of those comments sound banshee-like.

At that point I was out of the whole thing; I've been blocked and there's nothing left to say. Meredith tried to defend me and got her own post lambasting her. So, it's over and I'm trying not to obsess about it. But of course, you see that I am.

I do try. I took forever to write each comment, reading it and re-reading it and editing and explaining so that I wouldn't give the least offense. I tried to make sure this lady knew that I wasn't criticizing her clothing choices, but simply saying that a husband who requested his wife make different choices wouldn't be out of line. Because she asked what people thought. (John tells me I should NEVER listen to a blogger who asks for people's opinion, because they never really want it. Maybe he is right.)

And yet I somehow managed to give offense. Would I have written differently if I'd known she was having a bad day? I don't know. Maybe I would have just not said anything at all. I kinda think that's the only solution ... the only other commenter who shared my viewpoint was also asked to leave.

Maybe I'm just not as tactful as I think I am. I rarely get into these fights, but it has happened -- not as badly -- before. I enjoy a good, respectful debate. I guess my problem is expecting a good, respectful debate when I'm not likely to be in one. I mean, you don't go to someone sobbing over a personal tragedy and try to have a "respectful debate" with them. There are places and times for these things. I was clearly in the wrong place, but I guess I didn't see the signals. Maybe I should have -- this woman has posted rants against people before, but it always seemed like they were nutcases. I guess they were probably just people like me, trying to state unpopular opinions respectfully, but failing to communicate their ideas in a way that would not give offense.

I feel that action is required on my part to stay out of these fights. John says I could continue arguing with whoever I wanted if I had a thicker skin. But I just don't like the feeling that I have offended someone, ruined their day, made them unhappy. And yeah, I admit that I don't like being called a howling, poo-flinging monkey. Since it's a total stranger, it shouldn't sting, but it kind of does. I guess I am thin-skinned. Yet I'm not sure I want to be any different.

So far, the only action I've taken is to unsubscribe from a few blogs I disagree strongly with. I only read them because I am curious about the opinions of people I disagree with -- but I'm always tempted to jump in and argue. And it isn't really fair to follow a blog that you KNOW has a certain opinion, and then get involved and say they're wrong about everything. It's like wandering into a gay bar and shouting to the whole room, "Let's all support traditional marriage!" You're going to get tarred and feathered! So ... I'm going to avoid that.

As for what else I can do, I'm at a loss. I do try very hard to be kind and polite when I comment anywhere. But I don't really want to give up ever disagreeing with anyone. That's one of my favorite things about the internet -- trading ideas with people who don't think exactly the way you do. I don't come on here just to be patted on the head and told I'm wonderful, or to do the same to others. I'm happy when someone likes something I wrote, and when I agree with someone else, I often chime in to tell them so. But if someone disagrees, I like them to say so. Through discussion, we often both come to a deeper understanding of the truth. That's a wonderful thing.

My friend Heather disagrees with me on many religious and political issues. But that's part of what makes her such a valuable friend -- instead of parroting the same things all my political allies say, she gives a thoughtful criticism that helps me see the other side. It's thanks to people like that that I don't subscribe to any party, but rather try to see individual issues. Traditionally "liberal" issues like caring about the environment, it turns out, are important to me as well as traditionally "conservative" issues, like reducing the size of government. I wouldn't part with my friends who disagree with me for all the world. Without them, I'd have a much harder time realizing when I'm wrong.

I'm not really sure where that leaves me. I'm open to advice (promise I won't jump all over you!).

Here's a picture of a flower:

Anyone know what this is? It randomly sprung up in my yard. I thought it was a dandelion until the spiky part sprang up. Its lower leaves look like big dandelion leaves, but the top is quite different.

The baby, by the way, has been completely adorable lately. He's learned to turn around, walk backwards, throw a ball, and say lots of new words (bacon, up, ball, truck, milk, outside, inside). None of them really sound like the actual word, but he's trying. Sometimes I have to guess a little bit ("hot? hat? out?") but he's pretty good at letting me know when I've got the right one.

He LOVES to climb. On anything. All the time. He climbs on the chairs and tries to get onto the table. He dashes around the house to climb the (dangerous) back steps. He has finally figured out how to climb on the couch and get the kitty. Seriously, he can't be left unattended for one second. I have no idea how I'm going to do anything once Meredith leaves.

In the end, I am extremely happy with my life. I have great friends, a family that loves me, and a blog I enjoy (with readers who are always kind and insightful). So I guess it doesn't really matter if people call me names on a part of the internet where I never even go.

A bunch of quick takes

Isn't there some blog thing where you do a lot of "quick takes"? And there's some particular number you have, and someone you link back to? Well, I don't know who or how many, but I have a lot of little short things to say, so that's what I'm going to do.

⅜: The baby has been really cranky lately. I actually think it's due to too much sleep. Is that possible? See, he always crashes out in the carseat, and we're spending four hours in the car every day. But he still takes his normal nap, and gets a reasonable amount of sleep at night. Yesterday I managed everything so that he only got one big nap and a catnap on one of the car rides, and he was MUCH better. Go figure.

‰: The other issue is his stuffy nose. He often can't breathe out of it at all. Which means nursing is basically impossible. We were getting to the point where I could get him to sleep by just lying down next to him, but lately that hasn't worked, so getting him to bed at night is quite a trial. Stroller walks are the last-ditch effort that nearly always works.

√2: Speaking of walks, this is a really nice neighborhood to walk in. Very quiet and hardly any traffic. Except ... there are a lot of barky dogs. And when they see a sleeping baby passing in a stroller, they yap to wake the dead. Sigh.

6+2i: We got some rain yesterday and it is cloudy and damp today. After a hot, dry week, this is just what I was hoping for. The soil has this hard crust nothing can sprout through, and the lawn has many bare patches. Now that it's damp, things are sprouting through all over the place! This means my green beans, oregano, coriander, and thyme, and it also means all kinds of weeds. On the lawn, I don't care -- I don't think there's a rule that it all HAS to be grass, and I'd certainly prefer dandelions and clover to bare ground. But in the pots where I'm growing herbs, it confuses me. I don't know what my seedlings are supposed to look like, so I can't pull anything till I figure that out. Hopefully I will figure it out in time to NOT season my spaghetti with grass or something. I am not very good at plant identification: I know what maybe five of the plants in my yard are, and there are dozens of mystery plants.

π: Does anyone know how to transplant tulips? All my tulips are in the wrong places ... like in the middle of the lawn.

2log10: I planted some mint yesterday. It's Corsican mint, which is really tiny and smells delicious. I saw it at the farmers' market and couldn't help myself. Seriously, I should have someone go with me next time, to stop me from impulse buying. I was in a bad mood at the time and getting some retail therapy ... at least my retail therapy is delicious and sustainable, right? Ummmm well, I still shouldn't go again for awhile ... all of our money needs to go to gas for the next week.

e^2: Ugh, gas prices. Luckily here in the boonies it's only $3.79. But that's still not much of an "only," and a full tank doesn't even last us two days, with amount we're driving and the gas-guzzling giant maroon van we own. I believe we are paying more for gas right now than we are for our mortgage. That's a testament to the cheapness of our house as well as the expensiveness of our gas. BUT, in two more weeks, I won't have to work anymore and we'll only be logging half the miles! Or rather, John will ... while I stay at home and don't have to set foot in the car all day. I feel a little guilty, but it is easier for him than for the baby.

42: The baby, I mean the toddler, I mean Marko, has a little problem with sign language. He picks up signs very fast and then uses them all the time, with no notion of what they mean. For instance his new one, potty. He thinks it means, "Please take off my diaper, Mama, so I can sit on the potty and play with a book for awhile, and then get up and pee on the floor." Thank goodness for hardwood! I don't think we'll make much more progress on potty training until we're done spending so much time in the car.

∞: Our housewarming in two weeks -- we'd better get serious about hanging pictures and (perhaps) making curtains. I want our house to look its best. Also, not a mess would be nice. It looked great when we moved in, and now there are toys everywhere. Sigh.

Settling in

The boxes are mostly unpacked, some of the pictures are hung, and the rhythms of our new life are starting to take shape. And boy, is it ever tiring.

We knew the commute would be killer. Our hope is that it won't be for too long a time. My job ends at the end of May, so I won't have to do the drive anymore. John is hoping to find something closer in the near future ... but we'll see. No luck yet.

Here's what our schedule looks like. We get out of bed at 5:25 and leave the house by 5:45, taking the sleeping baby out of bed in his jammies and letting him sleep in his carseat. At 6:45 (or hopefully before) we reach the train station, and John gets on the train to arrive at work around eight. Once I've dressed the baby and we've both had something to eat, I still have an hour to kill before work. Monday I spent it cleaning our old apartment, yesterday I played with the baby in a park, and today I went to daily Mass, which is amazingly convenient. Well, I guess not so amazing considering I work at a Catholic school which schedules itself around daily Mass in case anyone wants to go.

From 8:20 to around 9:10, I teach. Then I usually go by the office and make sure there's nothing else I'm supposed to be doing. Then we drive home, whereupon the baby goes to sleep. All this car time kind of wreaks havoc on his nap schedule; if he is even a little bit tired, he sleeps in the car and destroys all chance of any other nap for four hours or so. But we're working with it. The important thing is that the baby wakes up when we get home, which isn't too hard to arrange.

Then I play with the baby, clean the house, work on my garden, and make dinner. The baby naps at 2:30 or 3:30 for about two hours. At 5:30, I have to leave to go get John. His train comes in at 6:25. If we're lucky, the baby is nicely rested from that nap and won't go to sleep in the car ... if he does, we are all in trouble as far as bedtime goes. That happened on Monday.

By 7:30, we're home, and I have to put dinner together (which, if I've been sufficiently productive earlier, won't take long) and we eat it. Then John gives the baby his bath, I wash the dishes (I miss you, apartment dishwasher!), we say prayers, and I try to get the baby to bed. Lately it's been kind of a chore. A long stroller walk works, but what about when it rains? Sometimes it's 9:30 or 10 before he's really asleep ... hopefully today will be better, because he went down for a nap at 2:30 instead of 3:30. I sure hope so.

Once he's in bed, we're quick to follow. The baby is in his own room now, so we no longer have to wait for him to be in deep sleep before we can get ready for bed. Ideally we'd be in bed by 9:30, but that hasn't happened yet. Then, the baby wakes up during the night. Monday night, he woke at 11 and 4 and slept soundly the rest of the night! Last night, he was up four times between 10:30, when we went to bed, at 5:30. Not fun.

This is all very hectic and tiring, and I have to admit I've taken to drinking black tea. I do not normally drink caffeine, but I realized I can't keep this up without it ... I'd be a hazard on the road. If you've been keeping track, I'm driving for 3-4 hours a day. Not a good idea to be feeling sleepy!

The upside of this is that, for me, it will only last three weeks and then I'm done. After that, John will drive himself, leave the car at the train station, and come back in the evening. Baby and I won't have any car time at all ... but John will still have a lot, and will be pretty tired. You see why he's in the market for something closer to home.

The house itself is just as nice to live in as I thought it would be. Of course it has its quirks. One is the old-fashioned doorknobs. I love these, but John hates them -- and even I don't like it when they won't open silently to peek in on my baby while he sleeps. Then there's the general lack of outlets, another function of the house's age. We have to plan every room based on where the only outlet in it is ... and very few of the outlets are grounded. This means that my laptop can only be plugged in in the kitchen, bathroom, or utility room. Luckily the cord reaches into the dining room, where I have it set up.

A big plus of this house is its wonderful insulation. It was made to keep cool in these hot Virginia summers, so even on the hottest day it's at least ten degrees cooler inside. On the cooler days, this isn't such a plus. It's a refrigerator in here! I'd be tempted to run the heat, even though it's May, if there were oil in the tank. There isn't, and by the time we have the ability to fill it up again, it will probably be much too hot to justify it. So I've been keeping the windows open on the hot days to fill our house with warm air for the night.

I still love the yard. The front is in bright sun pretty much the whole day, while the back is in partial shade. We switch between one and the other to keep from getting burned. The landscaping is what you call "mature," that is to say, there are tons of well-established plants, most of which I can't identify. Sometimes there's the remains of a bush with something else planted on top of it. Sixty years of would-be gardeners have been poking around in this yard. There are tulips scattered all over the place, as well as many different shrubs. I found the tag for some green peppers the other day ... so I am not the first to grow vegetables here, either. At the moment, though, there isn't anything edible growing that I recognize -- though there are tiny green fruits on the two trees in front, and I'm quite curious to see what they are.

A little bit of me worries, hoping we've done the right thing. I still love it, I love the house, the town, everything, but what about this commute? Can we really do this long-term? Will John completely burn out, and when will he have time to spend with us? But I think of all the other options that we had, and I really do think this was the best. Yes, of course we have to make sacrifices to live on one income where most people have two. A lot of people think that means cutting coupons or not going out to eat, but this is a drastic way to save quite a bit of money. It's a big sacrifice for my husband to put up with all of this trouble for our sake, but he has always been willing to do what he has to for our good.

Still, I hope that perfect job opens up right here in town. It would make everything just right. Until then, we're plugging along and doing okay.

All moved in!

Well, our move on Saturday was successful.

If tiring.

We had a bunch of friends helping, so we were able not only to move all of our stuff, but unpack many of the boxes and put others in the attic. Though the usable space in this house is not large, there is tons of room in the attic for all those boxes of winter clothes, baby clothes, and books that were cluttering up our apartment before. Things look pretty tidy.

Waking up in the new house was strange; it still doesn't feel like our house. I need to take some time to rearrange my kitchen until it is just how I want it, some time to clean just a little more, and some time to relax around here so I start to feel comfortable.

The baby is sleeping on a mattress on the floor for now. I need to figure out how to keep him from rolling off it so much, or else put a soft comforter next to it so the wood floor doesn't wake him. I'm not going to put him in the crib, though: the one time I tried it, he woke right up and was quite annoyed! You can kind of see how low it is ... and seeing as I'm used to lying down with him for a bit when I put him down to sleep, it just wasn't going to work.

We didn't have time to paint his room ... though the color doesn't actually look this horrible in real life. I still don't know what color we'll end up doing. Maybe a soft yellow. Or sage. Or something.

We did do our room though! It looks amazing. Like the other room, the color here isn't exactly right; it's bluer in real life.


I still have to get our sailboat pictures framed ... the idea for this room is kind of a New England/sailing look. I'm going to have white curtains, perhaps with a blue motif on them. I plan to make them, but I will have to see what fabric I can find.

I'm a bit nervous about tomorrow. I have to drive John to the train, wait around for about an hour (probably catching daily Mass in that time), teach class, drive home, and then pick up John later. It's 40 minutes or so to the train (maybe a little less if he goes all the way to the end of the line? we will have to find out), so that's almost three hours of driving all told. With a baby. Every day. Once I'm done with work in three weeks or so, the amount of driving that has to be done will be much reduced ... but I'll be stuck within walking distance of home during the day. Luckily this area is pretty walkable.

I'm very glad to be moved in. And, I planted the rest of my tomatoes! Everything's in the ground now and I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of results I get.

Moving in bits and pieces

We have never moved all at once. Since John and I were married, every single move (from my apartment in Virginia to his in Philadelphia, from the apartment in Philadelphia to the one in Hatboro, from Hatboro down to where we are now, and now from here to the new house) has involved a number of trips over a number of days. A few boxes one weekend, a few boxes the next, and so forth, until we're moved. And then driving back to the old place to clean it out. Sometimes the stuff goes first, and we survive on the bare necessities till we rejoin it. Sometimes we go first, and then go back for the rest of our stuff. And sometimes (last time) the stuff goes down to storage, we live on bare necessities before and after the move, and then we get our stuff back.

Since we closed on the house, we've been down there a lot. Each time we bring down some of our things and do some work. I put in tomatoes and then a raspberry bush (which seems to be surviving! yay!). John painted the purple bedroom a lovely shade of blue. Together, we painted the living room white instead of brown. It's been really busy!

Let me tell you, a lot of this stuff is hard to do with the baby around. Painting, in particular. That one, we have only done when both of us are around. We just take turns with the baby. Can you imagine me trying to paint with the baby around? If he were younger, I'd have a lot of options, but with the trouble this toddler can get into in five minutes -- no way. We'd have handprints on the wall in no time.

The day the blue room (which is to be our room) got painted was the low point of the whole business. It was pouring rain, and I mean pouring ... the way it does here in Virginia. The whole sidewalk was a river, making unloading our things very difficult. The leaves I had used to mulch the tomato plants had blown right away in the storm, and the soil was eroding quite a bit. I did what I could, but in the end nothing could be done till the next time we came. By that point, the ground was cracked in the tomato bed -- alas! But I mulched it with grass clippings, which have stayed much better.

Anyway, while John was painting the blue room, I had the task of keeping the baby out of it. The house is quite small, and I know it will be tough to keep him inside on rainy days. But to keep him inside AND out of the one room where Daddy is and interesting things are happening? No way. He also didn't nap. We're still figuring out exactly how he will be sleeping in the new house. He has his own room, but I'm not sure if he can sleep his crib. I can't lay him down in it asleep with the side on, and with the side off (as I've had it so far, up against the bed) he would probably fall out. The plan is to have him sleep on the floor. He's sleeping on the floor now, in our current apartment, because we brought the crib to the house. I just really hope he makes the transition to the new house AND the new room okay. I may have to sleep in there with him for a few nights.

After that, though, it did get easier. The day we painted the living room, John and I took turns painting and playing outside with the baby. Then the baby did manage to nap in his room, and we painted like mad and got it done. Painting is hard work!

Another challenge was today, when I brought a bunch of boxes down by myself while John was at work. Do you know how hard it is to load up a car with heavy boxes with a toddler around? This apartment is on the second floor, so there are bound to be a few moments while I go up and down the stairs where the baby is unattended. He has to be carried up and down the stairs, and I can't do it holding boxes.

I tried what I usually do when bringing in groceries: putting him in his high chair. I even buckled him in, which I don't usually do, to be extra safe. But he wasn't hungry and didn't want to be in the high chair -- I heard him wailing as I rushed down the steps with the first box. When I came back, he was STANDING UP in the high chair, yelling like mad and preparing to pitch himself to the floor. Scratch that idea.

The next trip, I tried just leaving him on the floor in the apartment, involved in some playing he was doing. When I came back, he was flattened against the door weeping because he was sure I was never coming back! (He doesn't usually care that much, but perhaps I ought to mention that he's been laid low with a terrible cold these past three days. So have I ... which has made even surviving difficult, much less packing.) At least the baby was safe, but I was still nervous that he'd recover from his panic and decide to tear the apartment apart or stick my keys in the outlet, so I tried option three.

Option three is taking him down to the car, buckling him into his carseat, and leaving him there while I rushed up to get the rest of the boxes. Pros: baby is confined, baby is relatively happy (yay! outside! we're going somewhere! and Mommy's just out of sight in the front seat ... right?). Cons: Someone is going to see him there, notice he is both adorable and unattended, and either kidnap him or call the cops. Luckily neither of those things happened, and we got the car packed without incident. Thank goodness.

On Saturday, we're going to move for real. At least, we will move ourselves and the bare necessities still here. We still have another week on our lease, so we'll be back to clean. There are a lot of spots on the carpet (mostly due to food flinging) that I'm going to have to work on. The good news is that I've discovered a new weapon: vinegar. I got the huge splash of baby tylenol on the hall carpet (that stuff is horrible on carpets -- it's sticky and attracts dirt) out with white vinegar and elbow grease, after the "real" carpet cleaner totally failed.

I'm really looking forward to actually living in our new house! The best of it will be my new ability to let the baby play outside all day long without packing him into a stroller and taking him down to the playground every time. And if I realize I need something inside? I can just pop in and get it! Also, no cans and cigarette butts littering the grass.

It's going to be great!

Our house!

At long last, we are finally homeowners! We went out this morning, closed on the house, bought some supplies, changed the locks, dug a garden bed, planted tomatoes, and moved a few boxes in. The rest will have to wait till later!

Planted: the four Cherokee Purple tomatoes and one sage plant. John helped dig the bed and it didn't take long at all. Both the bricks to edge it and the tomato cages were lucky finds right on the property! And there are still more bricks, so more beds will be following. This one will also extend further to the right, as far as the porch. The next project is to dig and edge the rest of this bed and plant it with my home-started beefsteak seedlings, which will be ready in a couple of weeks. I'm also going to add basil to this bed. I hear basil and tomatoes grow well together, and they certainly taste good together anyway!

The soil was way better than I'd expected. Yes, it was a little compacted and sticky, being clay, but crumbled quite easily and seemed pretty rich. There were even black earthworm castings, and I saw several of the worms themselves! I had to dig carefully so as not to disturb them ... it's all about the worms when you garden organically.

The baby loved the house and yard. He spent the whole afternoon running around babbling and exploring!

My bright, airy, non-mustard-colored kitchen. Its only faults are that it has a microwave and lacks a dishwasher. As a person who likes cooking from scratch and hates dishes, I'd sooner have it the other way around.

Can you picture a grapevine growing up here? Apparently grapes grow very well here; it's wine country. And the vine growing along the "porch" would be beautiful as well as delicious.

The back yard is shadier and lumpy with tree roots, so I don't foresee doing as much gardening here. But that back corner, being lower and damper, might be good for some elderberry bushes. Elderberry syrup is supposed to be a great cold fighter, so a few bushes would be excellent. Further up, along the fence, I could see making a raspberry bed. I love raspberries!

As for the inside ... this is all we got done, in addition to some boxes going into the attic. The rest will have to wait till we go back again. At just under an hour, the drive's a little too difficult to do every day. We won't be moving for real till near the end of the month.

Miscellany

I keep having ideas for posts, but not getting the time to flesh them out. It was put off blogging even longer, or just give some snippets and post tonight -- so I chose the latter.

We have a date set for closing on our house -- Friday! So let's hope all the last pieces fall into place and this can happen for real!

I am SO excited about gardening in the new place. Yesterday I started some tomato seeds in sour cream containers. I hope they sprout. I know next to nothing about seed starting, but I put in three seeds per container so hopefully at least a couple come up! Tomatoes are the only thing I will get in the ground this spring/summer, but I hope to get some more ground dug up in time for a fall crop. I want to grow peas or beans to improve the soil (which is pretty terrible). Does anyone know anything about growing peas and beans in the fall?

Lately I've read two different memoirs about homesteading. My favorite was Homestead Year by Judith Moffett. It makes me want to keep bees! Only ... not really. Much better to read about, especially seeing how ornery her bees are! The idea of eating only what you raise and grow appeals to me very much, though I don't know when or if I could ever manage to do it.

The baby turns one tomorrow. I absolutely cannot bear it. This year has gone by so fast. My tiny squishy newborn is a big ol' toddling boy and I'm not really sure how it happened.

Can you believe that sleeper ever fit him?!

Last night I spent some time rolling around a ball with him. He had a lot of fun, but after awhile he lost interest and I went back to my desk. Maybe twenty minutes later he came up to me, patted my lap, signed "nurse" (a word he uses for almost everything lately) and pointed to the ball. When I got up and went back to playing ball with him, he was thrilled! He also seems to understand a lot more of what I say. And he points at everything to hear the word for it. He's beginning to learn the parts of his face -- the other day he was into something he wasn't allowed to have, and when John said, "No, no, no!" he gleefully pointed to his nose!

He's already beginning to grow out of a few of his 12-month clothes. He just seems enormous to me; barely small enough to hold at all. When we go places, I might carry him from the car to wherever we're going, but then I put him down. He's just too big to hold for long. Luckily he can walk well enough to keep up with me, especially if he's got my hand to hold. I would like to keep him in a carrier, but he's outgrown both the Moby Wrap and the mei tai, and the sling is a bit uncomfortable at his weight. I wish I had a woven wrap, but I'm not sure he'd be keen on it anyway. He's just so into walking.

I still don't put shoes on him. He has a pair of shoes, and on one cold day I tried to put them on him so he could go outside. He didn't mind much, but he couldn't walk. Just one step and he'd be on his face. I guess his toes really need to be able to feel the ground! Today he found a puddle and was just dancing around in it. I would have though it would be too cold for him, but he loved it!

I've started exercising lately. This is a BIG DEAL for me, because I'm a person who NEVER "works out." I get on a kick that lasts maybe two days and then I stop again. I like being outside, and I sometimes take walks, but actual exercising is beyond me. What changed? Well, the baby loves it when I get down on the floor with him and do some exercises. I generally start with some squats. Those seem easy (at least, once I figured out that holding my arms out in front of me kept me from falling on my backside) but left me quite sore in the morning the first couple of days! I'm working up to being comfortable enough squatting to make it a good resting position. The baby is better at it than I am. Maybe I will write a post sometime about how his instincts lead him to find much more body-friendly positions than common for adults in our culture. Anyway, I follow the squats with some push-ups, finding much to my shock that I can do 20 real push-ups without too much trouble. I used to be able to do only girl push-ups, and then maybe five real ones. I guess carting a gradually-increasing weight around for a year has helped my biceps.

I still can't manage sit-ups, which is sad because I used to be able to do 200 of them. My abs just don't feel right -- still all stretched-out and with a little gap in the middle. Not sure what the cure is for that. My substitute has been various kinds of "rocket ship" with the baby on my knees or feet. He definitely likes to be involved!

I have discovered recently that I can eat many vegetables I thought I hated if they are prepared correctly. Example: collard greens. Collard greens are kind of nasty, whether "seasoned" or not. The baby agreed -- when I gave him some, he spit them right out, which he almost never does with a new food. But creamed collard greens? Food heaven! I just make a thick bechamel sauce and dump in the cooked collard greens, and they are perfect! Another example is split pea soup. I've always found it kind of boring. But with sour cream, it's scrumptious! (It also helps if you really cook it with a ham bone like you're supposed to.) Yes, there is definitely a common thread in here ... dairy fat makes everything better. But we knew that already.

I have a grocery list from last week I'm supposed to post, but I don't know if I will have time for it before I go shopping again today! I've been focusing on buying a bit more, because we've had huge appetites lately and I don't want to skimp to the point of starving. I have a bad habit of not eating unless there's something readily available. So I'm trying to make sure there's plenty around for us to eat. It helps to plan leftovers into dinner. I also try to have plenty of fruit around. I was raised on one piece of fruit a day, but there's nothing wrong with having more than that! Veggies available for snacking are good too. And, to make everything easier, I've been making carrot muffins. With whole wheat, carrots, raisins, milk, eggs, and blackstrap molasses, they're very satisfying and relatively balanced. And, like everything else in the world, they're better with butter.

Rough couple of weeks

I know that my blog tends to be very sunshiney. Either I talk about how awesome my life is, or I talk about abstract things. And there's a reason for it -- my life is awesome, awesome enough that I don't feel like I can really complain about the less-nice parts because they're so far outweighed by the wonderful parts. Reason #2 is that when things are horrible, there's no way I'm going to have a chance to write a blog post about it.

But, just for the sake of 1) reminding you that I am not the Uber-Mother and 2) making you laugh and feel grateful you are not me, here's the story of what I've been doing lately.

Things were going great until Thursday -- not this past Thursday but the one before. I woke up with the baby, felt his forehead, and knew there was no way we were going to work. He was snotty, feverish, clingy, and whiny all day. Finally I managed to convince him to sit in his high chair -- my first chance to put him down since I'd gotten up. (I was still in my pajamas at 10 a.m. or so, and had had to do the unenviable task of going to the bathroom while holding a baby.) He started demanding food but snubbing everything I had available. What he wanted was the potato on the counter -- but it wasn't cooked. So I put it in a pot to cook it. I had a Pyrex filled with rolls on the front burner, so I put it on the back burner, too worn out and lazy to actually move the Pyrex.

You can see where this is going, can't you? I put the potato on the back burner -- but I turned on the front burner. The one with the Pyrex on it. I had turned on the burner and stepped away when it exploded. Literally. It sprayed hot glass shrapnel all over the kitchen. The baby instantly started screaming. The rolls fell onto the burner and started to smoke. I stepped quickly -- in my bare feet -- to the stove and turned the burner off, burning my foot on a bit of hot glass (but luckily not cutting it). Then I checked myself for glass quickly, grabbed the baby, and sailed out of the kitchen.

After a great deal of careful checking, quite a bit of screaming, and some playing with the light switch, I determined that Marko was not hurt. Later I found that the high chair was the only thing in the whole kitchen not dusted with shards of glass. Thank you, guardian angel! I think I was between him and the stove. I shudder to think of my boy getting hit by the hot glass. I was, though it didn't cut me, and it stung!

Trying to clean out the kitchen while taking care of a sick baby proved very difficult. A couple times he did calm down enough to be put down, only to want to follow me into the (very dangerous) kitchen as soon as I disappeared into it. I made a blockade, put on my clogs, and swept up what I could. Then I wiped everything with damp paper towels to get the last little bits. But I'm still picking shards out of the crevices in the stove and the counters.

Friday was worse. Baby just cried and cried. Miserable. Again, I didn't get dressed all day. No shower. No tooth brushing. Nothing but baby bouncing. I was desperate for a nap -- it wasn't like he was sleeping well at night -- but he would only sleep upright in my arms. He was terribly congested. At one point, when nothing I did would comfort him, I laid him down and took a video of him screaming and wailing. Now I have to delete the file, because even seeing it on my computer makes me feel like a horrible mom. How could I get so callous as to just let him scream while I taped him? And what kind of sadist would ever want to watch that? I guess I just wanted proof for anyone who said I had it easy of how horrible it had been.

The weekend was a bit better because John was there. While he was sick, the baby got even more attached to Daddy, to the point that I was little better than a nanny. Only Daddy would do. When John would leave the apartment, the second the door closed behind him he would begin to wail.

On President's Day, I had work while John didn't, so I left the baby with him and went to work. Marko wasn't feverish, but was still as congested and cranky as could be. Afterward, John had to go down to Christendom to use the library, and I begged to go along. First, because that way I wouldn't have to get through the whole day without Daddy's magic powers, and second, because at least I could get out of the house. I ended up pushing the baby all over campus in the stroller, and getting caught on the wrong end of it in a cold rain, so that I had to push him back while he got drizzled on. Bad Mommy Moment # ... gosh, I don't even know what we're on anymore. Especially as I haven't even mentioned everything!

The rest of the week was sort of better but sort of not. John and I both caught the baby's bug, though more mildly, and felt crummy all the time. The baby spent most of the time medium-cranky, with a few moments of relatively-okay and some moments of wailing. There were a couple nights where the baby would not sleep lying down and we had to take turns sitting up with him. There was a point where I dozed on the couch with him in the sling because that was the closest I could get to "real" sleep.

Finally, on Saturday, he was better. But I wasn't. I was running a light fever and felt horrible. Yes, a second bug has been running through! This one I got the worst and John and the baby had mildly. We had promised to help a friend move, so I took some ibuprofen and went. I know that wasn't all that smart, but I was just dying to get out of the house. And all of our friends were going to be there. We get together only every month or so, so I hate to miss a chance. By the time we got back, the chills were overtaking me again, and all I could do was wrap myself in blankets and feel sorry for myself. I ached all over from sheer frozenness, but John and the baby felt the temperature of cool water. I didn't take my temperature again, but I think it was pretty high.

John rose to the occasion and helped me get the baby to bed (where he slept quite well for awhile, thank God!) and then tucked me in with a hot water bottle and a drinking-water bottle and three comforters. By three a.m. I knew the fever had broken, and by six a.m. I felt great. But John and the baby were gone. He came back into the room and asked if I could please take the baby: "I've been up with him for the past two hours." What a saint! I got up and held the baby upright, whereupon he slept fitfully for two more hours. I don't know what was troubling him, but something definitely was. I could blame the remnants of the cold, stuff he'd eaten the previous day, or teething.

Because, yes, this morning I discovered he had cut a new tooth! All the tooth fussing was so mixed in with sick fussing, we didn't suspect a thing.

That wasn't the only new development. Last night, after his bath, he was feeling a lot more cheerful. John held him up to let him stand on his own (something he's done for awhile now). He stood there a second and then walked right over to me! About four steps! On his own!

So, that was a gratifying moment to help balance out the yuckiness of the past week and more. He's been rather demanding today, but nothing like he was. It's funny; despite how miserable it is when he's unwell, those times seem to bond us all the most. Now that he's feeling a little better, the smallest smile is just a ray of sunshine!

But I'm a little sad, too. My kid is walking. Toddling. If he doesn't count as a toddler yet, he will very soon. Babyhood is coming to a close. I like babyhood. I know babyhood. I don't know anything about toddlers. I'm afraid I'll make quite the hash of it. I like snuggling and nursing; I'm not much into playing really. And already the baby (toddler?!) is getting bored. This morning he emptied out the bathroom cabinet, one kitchen cabinet, and one bookshelf before getting grumpy and wanting to be played with. So I stacked his cups and let him knock them down, but he quickly got bored with that and I was stuck.

I just miss my easy-to-please, teeny-tiny, cuddly baaaaaaby!

Can you believe he was ever this small?