I've really enjoyed all your sweet comments on my last post. We're truly stoked about this pregnancy. Or let's say we're truly stoked about this baby because so far the pregnancy has been pretty miserable for the parents involved.

I didn't manage to start this blog until my nausea cleared in my last pregnancy, so aren't you in for a treat that for the next four weeks you get to here me complain all the time? Good thing I'll probably only blog about three times...

You see I'm VERY bad at pregnancy for the first 16 weeks or so. I sleep poorly, I'm utterly exhausted, I'm mildly sick 80% of the time and completely incapacitated about 20% of the time, mostly in the evenings when my sweet husband gets home to a trashed house, a half-diapered toddler, and spoiling food in the fridge. I live on the couch. I dry heave, I throw up, I cry a lot.

This pregnancy is mildly better than the last but the added toddler trumps that fact. (But who am I kidding, Jake has basically been adopted by Diego and a little kinkachoo.)

This is his "Diego time?" face with strawberries on it.

Sigh. Still reading? Well it gets better. But it gets worse first.

I did discover something interesting about myself though when I was on the phone with a friend discussing the horrors of early pregnancy. She was talking about how annoying it is when you hear of that person who has absolutely no morning sickness whatsoever, and I realized I have no bad feelings toward those moms-to-be at all.

 I thought this was SO remarkable. When I hear of someone who is having an easy time of it I'm GLAD for them. When my friends get pregnant, I pray that they will avoid the holy hell that the first 3 (4? 5?) months can be. So there I was on the phone feeling completely magnanimous about my lack of hard feelings...when I realized...there was a catch. I have all the grace in the world for someone who is nausea-free until they attribute it to one of their lifestyle habits and then I start raging inside.

I'm not talking about the mom who's been sick with previous pregnancies and found something that helped her. No. She's my hero.

I'm talking about the Lucky Lucy who never had any issues whatsoever and thinks it's because she's vegan or has a really strong constitution or has never touched alcohol. The woman who believes she somehow nipped it in the bud with her general awesomeness. The woman who has the gumption to offer this wisdom when you've just spilled your guts (literally?) about your own struggle with the big 1st T.

But seriously? How am I supposed to respond?

"Vegan? What a great idea! I'll try that as soon as I can eat anything besides turkey meatballs and gummy bears."

"...Yes...It's not so surprising how sick I've been, because I'm, well, sickly in general."

"You know you're right. This does feel strangely similar to all those nights of binge drinking in college."

Sensitive much, Kate? Simmer down.

Ok. Ok. Let's try to get a little positive.

I have learned some things. Some good things. None of them are groundbreaking, but all of them are hard lessons for people like me to learn.

Cut yourself some slack. Go to the store and buy some frozen dinners and canned soup. Practice feeling indifferent to piles of laundry, dishes, and ungraded papers. And if you're me and you're kind of obnoxiously concerned about conservation, get over yourself and buy some ziplocks and paper towels for crying out loud. 

Don't feel guilty. Not exercising? Don't feel guilty. Not getting all those folate-rich greens and throwing up your prenatals? Don't feel guilty. All you can think about is beer? Have some and don't feel guilty.

Let yourself be helped. Whether that help is a friend who offers to bring dinner or watch your kid. Whether that help is in the way of extra phone dates with a friend or a sister because you need to be distracted away from how gross your stomach feels and your floor looks. Whether that help is Neftlix to carry you and/or your little person through the harder times.

If you find something that works for you, go with it. Try every zaney ginger tincture, epsom salt bath, and magnesium oil massage. There's comfort in pursuit of your magic cure, I promise. Try any diet change you can stomach. Eat a box of saltines. (Or if you're me today: a mountain of whipped cream and strawberries.)

And finally. This is the hardest one for me. Say thank you to your husband for picking up all the slack. Let him know how grateful you are. You might be surprised at how far appreciation goes. And let him love you even when you feel awful about yourself. When he tells you you're beautiful even if he's wrong and the mirror knows it, don't contradict him. Just let him be right. Just let him be right this once.

Easter Sunday and a Link-Up

We found ourselves at a super early Mass this morning. We decided to take advantage of how early our toddler wakes up to avoid the Easter crowds. It was nice to get a seat at the 7:30 Mass, but I did miss myself some full choir and organ action.

Jacob and I stayed up late last night dying Easter eggs au natural. We cobbled together some dyes from an old beet, some frozen blueberries, and turmeric. Mine are the earthier ones and Jacob's are the flashier ones. I was pretty pleased with our results.



As was the little man.

As fun as the eggs were, the highlight of the day was certainly Jake's "skateboard"

He pretty much wears his dad's helmet and talks about skateboards all day long, so we figured we'd indulge the critter this holiday.


And now to link up with Grace, Kayla, and Erica for some:

Here's the 'fit.

Outfit details: 

Dress: Urban Outfitters

Shoes: BCBG via Ross

Cardigan: Gap back in the day

Necklace: my grandmother's

Color Palette: embracing the season

Fake smile: Jacob's snarkiness

Now I will say a Happy Easter to you and send you on your way with one final picture that I hope will brighten an already bright day.

Say hello to 11 weeks of baby numero due. 

 

We're more than stoked.  And even Jake gave the concept of a "baby in mama's tummy" more notice than ever today when he insisted that the baby wear Papa's helmet.

 

Have a blessed Easter, friends!

Toddler Mementos

So Jake is talking more and more, and I absolutely love it. It's been my favorite part of parenting so far. So I will - as mom bloggers do - preserve some of the gems here periodically. And you can all tell me how no toddler has ever said anything cuter.

This morning as soon as he woke up, he came into bed with us and asked for "More Diego?" Jacob asked him if he was just with Diego in his dream, and Jake nodded. Then Jacob asked what he and Diego were doing, and Jake said they were eating flowers. (Of course, what he said sounded more like: "eedeen dours.")

He will repeat something FOREVER until you acknowledge it: 
"ees nunning. Nunning. Nunning. NUNNING!" 
"Yes, Jake, he's running." 
"Uhuh." 

Whenever we let him sip a carbonated beverage he calls it "Spicy Juice." 

He really likes making people laugh. On my birthday, I kept asking him to say "Happy Birthday, Mama" and he would say "Happy Burday Jake!" and then crack up. Now whenever I laugh at something he does, he turns to me with a big grin and says "Happy Burday Jake!"

He's obsessed with skateboards, helmets, honey bees, balloons, Diego, and basketball hoops. 

Butterflies and helicopters are pretty OK.

We have some friends whose last name is Delgado and he calls them the "Avocados" ("Adodados")

He knows things come in two sizes: "BIG!!" & "baby"

He loves reading books, with us or by himself. Now when he reads books to himself he narrates them, but no matter what book he's reading, his narratives are all apocalyptic: "OH NO! OH NOOOO! Uh Oh! Uh Oh! BOOM! Ees fall down! OH NO!" 

Then there are things that I don't love hearing. He's grabbed his stomach a couple times in the last day or two and said "Tummy. Ouch!" - nothing like that to send my mother's mind to dreams of the emergency room for our second appendicitis in eight months. 

I didn't love it yesterday when I was snuggled on my bed talking to my mother on the phone as Jake played alone and contentedly in the living room for the first time all day, and he came in with big eyes pointing back to his play area and said, "Uh Oh poopie."

No. Can't say I love that one. 

Especially when I go to find the "Tummy. Ouch" prophecy fulfilled in a green pool on my floor.

And on that not-at-all-disgusting note, I will leave you with nary a picture because that takes entirely too much energy, and a picture would expose just how exquisitely beautiful the weather is here, and I couldn't do that to you all.

Bye for now. I'm off to eat my weight in cuties and watch Call the Midwife. You should too.

Making Good on Some Blog Tags: 5 Things

Since blog tagging is all the rage right now, I've found myself woefully slowing up the tag games and for this I totally apologize. In the past few weeks I've been tagged in a couple different types of Blog Tags. Jessie, Emily, and Brenna recently awarded me some lovely Liebsters, Angie tagged me in a similar Q&A post, and now old roomie Anne has tagged me in a 5 Things post. When it comes to me in bloggy-land, I'm much more of an input than an output kind of girl. By this I mean: when was the last time I posted? Oh, right, over two weeks ago. But my Google Reader is - wait for it - empty. So since I did an 11 Things post so recently (that is. a year ago.) and it's so similar to the Liebster Tag, I'm going to stick with the more manageable 5 Things today but afterwards I'll answer some of the questions the other taggers posed. 

So, here you go.

5 Things You May but Probably Don't Know about this Bloggess

1. I have a freckle on one of my big toes. It's just under the lower right corner of my toenail and when my toenails are done it kind of reminds me of a Marilyn Monroe type beauty mark. But on my toe. 

2. I think Dr. Pepper is the best drink in the world. But because I'm such a health nut, I only drink one about every three years. (If you don't count all the sips I have of my sister's whenever we're together.) 

3. Jacob routinely defines me as an extremely picky eater because I don't like olives and cherries.

4. I played a furious amount of piano in high school. Like hours and hours a day. My technique was never very good, I was sloppy and my method resembled barrel racing more than, say, mathematics. But I had a lot of heart, and overall I was quite good. I loved playing, but I never had any aspirations regarding the piano. Primarily because I was MORTIFIED by playing in front of anyone outside of my family. In my 12 years of recitals, I only walked out of two without at least feeling the urge to cry. I walked out of several straight up bawling.

My piano career ended rather unfortunately my freshman year of college after a bad experience with piano lessons at school when my teacher made me feel completely stupid. (I was and still am overly sensitive, so it was only half his fault at best.) In our last lesson - after the recital - I remember him noting that he'd actually expected that I'd have trouble with the two difficult pieces, but he was surprised that I'd messed up the little Prelude. Not Mr. Social Grace.

Three years later on the day I graduated, that teacher came and found me. He apologized and told me he hoped I would keep playing. Remembering that moment still makes me cry.

5. I cry pretty easily.

For 5 Things I tag: 

Mari

Lara

Wendy

Morgan

Adrienne

  

***

Some questions from the other tags:

1. What's your favorite TV show ever?

FNL. All the way. It strikes all the right chords. Clear eyes, full hearts. Texas Forever. 

2. If you had to eat one thing or meal all day for a week, what would it be?

Pizza. I frequented some pretty amazing pizza by the slice places daily while living in Rome. If I ever went back they'd be the first place I'd visit. Sorry antiquity. Sorry basilicas.

3. What was the last book you read & was it any good?

I read Persuasion over the weekend. It's probably my third time reading it. And, as usual, it was wonderful.

4. What do you love most about the town you live in?

The beach. Some surprise there, huh? I'm a small town country girl who develops anxiety when she can't see the horizon. So I very much appreciate living in a city where I'm only a few minutes away from the end of America.

5. Do you have any special talents?

I can snap six fingers; I drop things a lot, but I'm wickedly good at catching them; when in the crab-walk position, I'm very good at holding people up while they stand on my stomach. (I actually think a lot of people could do it, they're just too intimidated to try because it looks very hard...and equally stupid.) However awkward, it's a bit of a party trick, and my record is 230lb. This is pretty much how I scored my first boyfriend. He only weighed about 185, but he was impressed.

6. What are your favorite smells?

I love the smell of orange rinds, freshly sawed wood, men who've just mowed the lawn, and old musty books. I pretty much abhor all artificial scents. I give a huge radius to Bath and Body Works and Abercrombie. Gee willikers. 

7. What song do you want played at your funeral?

I really like morbid questions like this. Probably "Of the Father's Love Begotten" - I know it's a Christmas song, but a young men's choir sang it at my wedding while I walked down the aisle, and it was pretty much my favorite part of the service. There's something about the final "evermore and evermore" that just gets me.

8. What is your least favorite thing about yourself?  

I've already mentioned in this post about my sensitivity. But I'm also pretty insecure. I don't trust my opinions, or my taste, and I'm constantly second-guessing myself. I think my insecurity causes me to miss out on relationships because my first assumption is that people don't care about being friends with me, and I miss opportunities to bless people because I don't think it would really matter to them if I did something nice.  Other least favorites are my skin, most days my hair, and my leg/torso ratio.

9. Why do you blog?

For the same reason a lot of other mom bloggers do. I started to keep a record of family stuff and make sure the grandparents were always updated, but I keep it up because of the community that it has afforded me. I refer to other bloggers as my "friends," and Jacob always makes fun of me for it. He, of course, is just jealous. 

5 Favorites Link-Up

I'm taking a break from my Spring Break paper-grading train to link up with Hallie. I'm very happy to do this because grading is most certainly my LEAST favorite, and so it will be a good exercise to remember the better things in my current vida. I'm using this post as an incentive to grade because you all are so much more fun than student writing. Even though I did have a student write "for-fill" instead of "fulfill" this morning which has almost (almost) made it worth it.

So 3 papers graded = add one more thing to your favorites list.

- 1 -

I'm sure I'm not really introducing her to any of you, but I'd be lying if I said Ana wasn't one of my five favorites this week. Not only because her kids say the funniest things ever but also because of her baby's hair and because she has made me a winner for this project and is sending me a prize and I'm quite quite flattered!

- 2 -

Three papers down and I'm back to dwell on nice things for a couple of minutes. One of those nice things is this ring: 

 

Which Jacob bought me for my birthday after scouring my giftable Pinterests. You can find it here. I'm hugely intimidated by jewelry. My accessorizing usually involves me putting on an unassuming necklace and maybe taking it off six months later. I want to get better at it, but I hardly have any jewelry and building up my collection just seems like one more way to make bad shopping decisions. This ring will be my gateway piece into a world of accessorizing like a grown up.

- 3 -

This book:

 

I've been making friends with the microcosmos recently, and I have some homemade lacto-fermented ketchup to show for it. My son's father recently introduced him to "tsapus"/ketchup, and now Jake routinely gets the bottle out of the fridge and brings it to me during the day. Since I wasn't too keen on the ingredient list, I pulverized and cooked down some tomato sauce and added some spices and honey and kefir whey. Then I let it ferment on the counter for a couple of days and voila, a healthier ketchup with all kinds of bacterial friendlies for my little guy, because, yes, I am THAT mom. 

I suppose this also outs me as the mom who's using ketchup to get her kid to eat whatever she wants.

Anyway. Next project: red wine vinegar. I just have to find myself a vinegar mother because I have plenty of red wine. Once my vinegar from Trader Joe's developed its own mother, but I didn't realize how precious it was at the time. Now you can find me at the West LA Trader Joe's holding up bottle after bottle of vinegar to the light to see if there are any wispy remains of yeasty bacterial life in any of them. 

For any of you germaphiles out there: could I use the mother in ACV for other vinegars? I should probably just find that out from Mr. Katz. Or Google it.

- 4 -

Brussel Sprouts

All day every day I just want to eat Brussel Sprouts. My favorite way to prepare them is to saute some butter with garlic and then add the halved sprouts face down and let them cook like that till they're done and their faces are all fried and crispy. My. I have to stop now.

- 5 -

 And finally: Salted Malt Shakes

Jacob has been making milkshakes recently with malted milk powder and salt, and they are absolutely divine. I highly recommend them to all of you who are not so interested in brussel sprouts and even less interested in lacto-fermented ketchup.

Happy Wednesday.

Bees, Laundry, and a Golden Birthday

Today is the 28th, and it is my 28th birthday.

It's already been a perfect day. I showered and washed my hair, I'm wearing polka dotted jeans, I'm completely ignoring a stack of student papers that I should have graded by tomorrow, and I'm staring out at the loveliest day we've seen in weeks.

I've spent most of the day drawing pictures of balloons for Jake. He's obsessed. I think I've drawn 500 balloons in the past two days.



I asked him to draw his own balloons, and he proceeded to write on my legs.



Other than that I've been doing housework.

I tend to be pretty productive on birthdays. My inclination is to be lazy, but in preparation for being lazy I end up cleaning my kitchen and bathroom and sweeping and mopping. I walk around the house all day seeing messes and saying to myself: "It's your birthday! You DESERVE a clean sink!" And then I clean it.

One thing I haven't done much of today is laundry. A few weeks ago we had to move the hives, and now they sit happily side by side on the tier down from our apartment. Here they are all pretty.

 
The move went pretty well. Except I'm not in love with their location. Why? Well take a gander back up at that picture and ask yourself about those green wires extending off the image to the right. Here we go zooming out.



That would be my clothesline. Half of which is now retired. And I can only hang laundry before the sun hits the beehive or after the sun goes down because otherwise I'm in the flight path. So with half the clothesline and only early morning and late evening for hanging clothes you can imagine how far behind I am in laundry.

Very. Far. Behind.

So this morning had me attempting in my birthday fervor to get a little ahead. I tootled down to the yard to retrieve dry clothes and string out some newly washed diapers while Jake wandered precariously on the brick steps. 



There are lots of unforgiving steps on the property, and we've recently let the leash out on those steps for the toddler. He's pretty good, but it makes me SO nervous. But we're not talking about toddler milestones, we're talking about bees and laundry.

So I was a little late to do the laundry job. The sun was just hitting the hive, and the bees were beginning to get active. I figured I'd make it quick.

But then the bees seemed extra loud. Alarmingly loud. Like not coming from the hives but from right next to my head loud. And low and behold, I turn around and I'm eye-level with this:



So no laundry got hung, and I ran away.

This is the fourth time our hives have split since the bees moved in last year. One of those swarms we caught, but the rest we've let fly away with a prayer because two domesticated hives is more than enough for our little corner of LA. I did go get the camera though - for my readership - and managed to snap the above picture right before they began to swarm. As the clump began to dissolve, I hightailed it up the steps with a toddler under one arm and a DSLR under the other. Within moments the sky was filled with bees.



Bees bees everywhere slowly moving to the southwest. 

The ancient gardener at our last apartment, Rosario, used to say that bee swarms are good luck which seems very appropriate on this my golden 28th.

The mad photography skills in this post warrant a link up with The Clan. The theme is Happiness or Joy, so I think pictures of bee swarms and body-painting toddlers will fit right in.

Alright. Off you go to make me feel special with well wishes and congratulations in the comment box. And go see Cari for all the other pictures people are taking on my birthday. 

Creative Katie

As Ana is hosting a Valentines Creativity Link Up I thought it was about time to post a couple of my recent projects. So get ready for some amateur sewing and photography. Here we go.

As soon as we recovered from Christmas, and the craziness that is syllabus writing was in my rear view, I began to think about my teacher wardrobe. For the past three semesters I've only taught once or twice a week, but this semester I teach three times a week. And that, my friends, is a lot more outfits. Trust me. It is. I'm good at math. So while looking through my woefully ill-fitting wardrobe, I decided to sew myself something. A friend of mine had recently hooked me up with a bag full of fabric that she'd gotten for almost nothing at a garage sale, so this garment would only cost me a zipper.

I found my tutorial here and gave it a go. I've never sewed anything more complicated than a pillow case, so this was promising to be a real challenge. But Jacob - in his Waldorfian glory - has a lot of sewing experience so I figured that with him on my left and internet tutorials on my right, I'd be able to manage.

And after three naps and three night nights I had myself a skirt.

I almost ironed it for the photo shoot. But then I didn't.

Rudimentary darts? Check. Poor seam to zipper transition? Check. A slit that's not quite tall enough and flaps up a little? Check and check.

And here is the satin lining which makes me feel like Mammy from Gone with the Wind.

And the zipper. The tears I cried. Not really. But it was a doozy.

Enough pictures yet? No? OK. Here's another one of me standing on the table and awkwardly kicking up my leg.

The skirt's been finished for about four weeks, and I've worn it about eight times. I haven't gotten a single comment on it, but I'm still crossing my fingers for the moment when I get to drop the "I made it" bomb, because despite its flaws - of which there are many - I'm ridiculously proud of it.
 

 Part Deux

This second project took about 20 times longer than the skirt and got me through a lot of bad TV. Behold. Pillow:

I love love love embroidery and embroidering. Holding that hoop and all the stitches and colors. Now that this is done I'll probably embark on something a little more elaborate. But that might be after Easter when TV is no longer on the Lenten altar.

  Any. How. Happy Valentines day. Do something pretty and pink.