School is starting, and I'm waking up to the fact that I'm still at home.

We are mostly settled into our new apartment. Pretty much all (??) of the little annoying administrative pieces of moving are taken care of. Vehicles are purchased and paid for and registered. We have our Texas drivers' licenses. I have an OB. Our health insurance situation, now that Jacob is self-employed, is finally sorting itself out. And my days are filled with little bits of laundry and loading and unloading the dishwasher and watching a toddler and feeling...weird about it all...and...not fulfilled.

Oh. I said it. That felt good.

I've never felt strongly about staying home with my kids nor have I felt strongly about working outside the home. Life just sorta happened. When we had Jake, I had part time work that was a perfect fit for our needs in LA. Now we're in Houston, and I'm not working. Instead, I'm waiting for the time to tick by before I move in with my folks in five weeks where I will spend three weeks playing Cribbage with my grandmother while I wait for labor to start.

This is just a season. And unlike many seasons, I can see the end and I don't have to do anything to help it approach. A baby will come and disrupt life irrevocably, and I will abandon these frustrations for completely different and more legitimate ones. I know all this, but I'm still having trouble living this season well. 

I spend my free time trying to feel productive, but instead of embarking on the dozens of little projects that have waited patiently for this exact kind of moment in my life, I bumble around on the internet trying to find the answer to my funk but I end up just feeling lost, reading blogs, playing Candy Crush.

We're in a difficult place I suppose. I'm not living in a space that I'm inspired to make beautiful because we will only be here temporarily. Jacob's work is slowly picking up, but it will be a while before we feel the financial boon of that. I'm stressed about money; I'm worried that I'm letting whatever semblance of a career I had just sort of fizzle out; I'm not sure how happy I am just staying at home with tiny people, and I feel guilty about that.

I mean. I have like the awesomest kid in the world. I have moments when I look at how beautiful his face is and I can't hardly stand that I get to be around something so beautiful all the time. I get to be around someone who when he wants to get out of his high chair and will call out: "I'm stuck! I'm stuck!" and then after we get him out, will say: "I'm fixed!"

A kid who used to eat his food and then ask me where it went. Now he's figured it out of course and says proudly: "I ate em all. They're in my belly button!!"

But then the next minute I'm completely bored at his neediness, and I'm doing everything I can to get him to play alone with his motorcycle so I can go and waste more time on the internet. I used to live for the reprieve of nap time, but now nap time is a black hole of What The H am I Doing With My Life meets Place Holds on All the Library Books.

So there you have it. I bet you never imagined how exciting it would be when I finally posted more than twice in a week. Wonder no more. 

(But please come back. I promise I won't always be like this. I really only did this so that next week when I'm out of this funk and finally succeeding in making the world's most beautiful loaf of sourdough, that I will photograph on a wooden cutting board next to some rosemary and glowing in the orange of evening, you can all marvel at my phoenix from the ashes trick.)

But until then. Until that blessed day. 

 
I feel ya, little bud.

7 Late Takes

- 1 -

Jumping in for the quick takes today because half of my blog is quick takes and I wouldn't want to skew the average. 

Truth is, ladies (and Michael...and apparently Mac,) I need a framework because I'm hurting for material.

Good Ole Robert Frost famously said that "To learn to write is to learn to have ideas." You don't know HOW that quote plagues me. I like words a lot. I think I'm moderately good at stringing them together, but I'm pretty much chronically suffering from writer's block.

I remember a conversation I had with a friend of mine soon after she'd started her blog.  She was telling me about how before beginning her own blog, she'd only followed two blogs - neither of which, if I remember correctly, were related to mothering or her Faith - and she was thinking about how somebody needed to write a blog about raising Catholic kids and how much she'd love to write such a blog. So she did just that. Then after she started her blog, she found this big community of Catholic mom bloggers and dove right into the fray.

I was washing dishes as we chatted, and I remember staring into the sink basin and realizing something. You see, I would never have had that thought process. Every idea I have is followed by this thought: Git yourself on over to the Google and find all the other people who've already done this better than you. And Google never fails me.

I kinda already knew that about myself, but what I hadn't truly realized before that moment was that there were people who probably didn't think that. Or laughed it off. Or figured their perspective was still worth something. Or I don't know. But the important thing was, THOSE were the people doing things. My kind of people are still staring at blank screens.

INFJ, in case you wanted to know (even though I have no clue what that means and I'm afraid to find out.)

- 2 -

So I will attempt to squash all the annoying naysayers in my head and plunge forward.

...

...

See all the trouble I'm having? It's really hard to believe because I'm totally an oversharer in real life. I hoard my alone time, but when I'm with people I talk way too much and don't ask nearly enough questions. 

If you know me and disagree, I direct you to my husband. One time after I'd just finished communicating something - and taking probably five minutes too long to do so - I turned to him to get a response.

He looked at me blankly.  Then his face was guilt-ridden and he said:

"It's not that I don't care. It's just that I didn't think what were you saying was very important."

 Verbatim.

I love you too, dear.

- 3 -

Here is a photo. 

This is the stuffed animal Jake has named after my brother, his "uncle lobert".

"Uncle Lobert" is on the right. The resemblance is truly striking.

- 4 - 

The guy on the left up there is also my brother. He got married in April and I'm only now just getting to facebook to steal photos for you all.

Was there ever a more stunning wedding?

- 5 -

This week also involved making butter because my Houston foodie endeavors have not rendered a good butter source yet, but they got me a STEAL on cream from pasture fed cows.  If you've never had butter from grass fed dairy you're missing out, friends.

 Here's the little man shakin' it real good.

- 6 -

In other food news, I have found an awesome egg source. Aren't they lovely? Some of them are blue!

Our Egg Lady lives in a very old house with her father and she positively obsesses over her chickens. She must have forty and they all have names. You get the sense she doesn't get out much, and whenever we go pick up our eggs she won't stop talking and we have to interrupt her to leave. (I'm pretty sure I'm not like that if you just glanced back up at my "oversharing" admission in number two.)

- 7 -

This week also involved NOT thinking about these things:

600 sightings have been reported across Texas in the last month. I saw four in the last week. Two in Fredericksburg and two outside Uvalde. 

They are literal bloodsuckers that come feast on you while you sleep. Nicknamed the Kissing Bug because they're drawn to the warmth and carbon dioxide of your breath. 

They often carry a parasite that can cause paralysis and death. I know. I KNOW. And we live here on purpose. 

Go enjoy some other takes now. (Just don't tell Jen about the Kissing Bugs. And if you do, at least be encouraging, and tell her that despite an attraction to domestic animals, they like dogs better than cats.) 

30 Weeks and Other Words

So. As promised. I'm giving you a 30 week bump picture. I have wet hair in the picture after having washed my hair for the first time in - wait for it - 9 days.

Before you unfollow me, know that I usually wash my hair for church on Sunday - a la Ms. Martha and Jacob's Mennonite relatives - but we were running late to church on Sunday so...yeah...God got the dry shampoo treatment. (And of course by dry shampoo I mean straight cornstarch. Because I'm like that.) And I didn't get around to the epic wash till Tuesday.

The people who know me in person can now fill up the combox assuring the rest of you that despite all these habits, my hair doesn't typically look like a greasepot, my legs aren't that hairy, and I don't have body odor. Or they can lie. Or say they love me anyway.

But back to baby #2. The little girl. (Even though I dreamed two nights ago that she was a boy. I checked twice in my dream...But I don't put much store in pregnant dreams, because while pregnant with Jake I dreamed that he came out as a full grown American Indian in authentic garb...so do with that very useful piece of info what you will. Sorry for the dreamdeets, Grace.)

The story of this pregnancy has been the lameness of finding an OB here in Houston that would take both me as a late transfer and my not so popular health insurance. It's a long, drawn out story of time spent on hold with OB practices and medical records departments and ends with me deciding to skip Htown's medical mecca altogether and opting to deliver in my hometown. Basically, I'm running home to my daddy to make everything better.

Dad's a doctor in this little town of ten thousand people about four hours west of Houston, and the moral of this story is that both my dad and little towns are awesome. Not only did I spend almost zero time on hold in the process of setting this up, I ended up with personal cell phone numbers of hospital employees in case I had any more questions. 

I'll have my first appointment with my new OB - an old family friend - tomorrow, and the offspring and I will move in with my parents at the beginning of October when I'm full term and wait for the debut of our little lady in the same hospital where my parents' oldest daughter made her debut some 28 years ago. 

And because you all clicked through to see a pregnant lady here you go.

Just me and Mr. Camera Shy being all kids of genuine.

And here's me at 30 weeks with the Jakester. 

7QT: Keeping it Classy

Because we're not ghetto at all, and you definitely want to be our friends.

- 1 -

Here's how our move went down.



LA to TX. Really and truly.

My grandmother graciously offered her garage so we could avoid the rain for the couple days that we pit-stopped at my parents' house. As we geared up to head to Houston, she watched Jacob and my brother wielding the ratchet straps and we had the following conversation.

Nana: "This reminds me of that Henry Fonda movie." 

Me: "Grapes of Wrath?"

Nana: "Yeah... But this is worse."

She then went inside and came back with some money.

- 2 -

And then my clothes started literally falling apart. The sole of my shoe fell off at the end of a night on the town with some old college buddies. For Sunday brunch at some new friends' house, after I spilled water all over myself and the couch, I managed to rip my shirt, and I mean like 5 inches of a tear not on a seam. This would of course be a bigger deal if my shoes and shirt weren't 7 and 8 years old respectively, and if 95% of my life weren't spent in a tank top and cut offs.

- 3 -

We found a syringe under the seat of our newly purchased car.

 [NOT PICTURED]

Shiver. Squirm. Dry heave.

- 4 -

Maybe just maybe. Papa Jacob took the little man on an errand sans diaper bag, and maybe that was a VERY bad idea that ended up with him rinsing out a pair of little person shorts in the bathroom, and just maybe an employee at the place of business teased Jacob about knowing what our son ate for dinner the night before.

 - 5 -

Perhaps on our first night in our cheap new apartment - as we slept on the floor with our pillows stuffed in XL t-shirts -  after long debate we did a test that involved going into the kitchen, turning on the light, and letting the number of roaches on the counter decide whether or not we'd try to find a different place.

- 6 -

And as God is my witness, I will someday acquire a piece of furniture from some place other than Craigslist...or the curb.

But until then, the house becomes a home the cheapskate way.

- 7 -

And for #7, I'll break with this lovely trend and give you an offspring update.

Little man has been doing a lot of this

and this

and not as much of this

or this



as he'd like.

He's also been insisting on a lot of selfies of us howling. 

So yeah.

I promise to follow up shortly with some info about the soon to be second born. We're approaching 30 weeks which means I can link back to one of the three preg photos I took last time around and won't that be cute?

Off to Jen's for more links.

Upon Having Moved to Texas

I'll forgo any apologies for my absence because, well, I just moved across the country and we've only had internet for a couple of days.

So here I am. IN HOUSTON. On my old couch in my new apartment. Blogging.

I admit I've been avoiding the blog a little. There's something about updating you that really pushes us irrevocably into this new chapter in life - and that's a little scary to me.

The past two weeks have been a flurry of flying and driving and packing and apartment searching and unpacking and seeing old friends and meeting new people and finding new furniture and updating our address and tying up loose end after loose end, and so I've mostly been in motion. I've spent no time in reflection.

But last weekend we were walking into the grocery store (for the eighth time in four days) and I got a text that my dear friend in Los Angeles had just delivered her third baby (and first girl!) at home before they could get to the hospital. Everyone was fine, and the text had a picture of my friend's glowing face as she was being loaded up in the ambulance.

I sat down in the middle of the parking lot and started crying.

Jacob stood there patiently holding our shoeless two year old on that muggy evening as I overdramatically began to mourn the life we left in Los Angeles.

I've been waiting to move closer to my family in Texas ever since I moved to LA five years ago. I didn't have a lot of emotion surrounding the move: the oven timer had dinged, and it was time to move home.

I knew after I moved I would realize that California had been a home too. And now my days - though mostly spent fixated on the to do list - are peppered with moments of loss as I remember yet another face that I won't being seeing any time soon.

All you California friends, you were good to us and we will miss your dear hearts.

But that's all the sentimentality I have time for today because I must now return to the never ending job of teaching a toddler that in Texas we have to close the door to the porch.

And for good measure, here is a picture of what I came across said toddler doing today after he dug out Jacob's old music stand from a packing box.



Rocking some Twinkle Twinkle like a diva. 

Happy Sunday, friends! Be back sooner than last time I promise!

7 Late Quick Takes

- 1 -

One of the hardest things about leaving LA will be saying goodbye to my favorite coffee shop. Oh Balconi you have been so good to us!! They do siphon coffee and have arguably the best latte on the westside.

So any of you readers that hail from Houston need to send me your coffee shop recommendations.

- 2 -

Before we even got out of bed on Tuesday, Jacob and I got in a spat over changing the first and ripest diaper of the day. Long story short: let's just say I lost the rock paper scissors game and lit into him as I carried our smellybutt offspring to the changing table. Jacob then made breakfast, converted Jake's crib to a toddler bed, and went to the DMV. Afterwards he brought me home a cup of Balconi. 

I said: "You realize this makes me the worst wife in the world." 

He said: "Why do you think I did it?"

- 3 -

My banjo broke recently. A tiny piece of plastic that holds a string in place popped off. Handyman Huz was SURE he could fix it. I wasn't so keen on him (i. e. almost forbid him from) taking a drill to the old girl but he was adamant about not paying someone else to do it. And a few youtube videos and one call to the manufacturer later and we've got this:



That's my banjo neck with a flat head screw in it. It's very cool. I know. And it seems to be holding tune.

Not pictured: gloating husband.

- 4 -

UPDATE: Big boy bed - Good News

 

So far nighttime has gone pretty swimmingly (knock on wood). I was worried about early wake ups and him crawling into our bed, but yesterday morning he got up at 5:30, walked over to our bed, and watched us sleep for 30 seconds before crawling back to his bed and sleeping till almost 7. I was lying in bed completely still, feeling like I'd just witnessed a small miracle.

- 4b -

UPDATE: Big boy bed - Bad News

NAPS. 

How do/did you teach your toddler to put himself down for naps in a bed?  Right now the process is taking an average of 2 hours. I'm not a nazi about it, but I do like me a little bit of a sleep schedule...And this new transition has turned our beautiful summer afternoons into nightmarish nap debacles.

Yesterday, I tried the don't engage and keep putting him back in bed method which quickly became the best game ever. He just started laughing and running back to the bed by himself whenever I came into the room. So I stopped that game after half an hour.

Then I tried the fine just play in the room until you fall asleep wherever you end up falling asleep method. But he just played for an hour. Once I checked on him after a suspiciously quiet five minutes and found him having somehow retrieved my sewing box from a super high shelf and set himself up on the floor poking his fingers with needles.

So yeah. Desperate McDesperate over here.

- 5 -

After the hell of naptime though we have teatime which is kind of the greatest. I'm not big into letting Jake snack. Mostly because we don't keep snack foods around and so snacks always require some effort on my part, but also because I like Jake to be good and hungry at mealtimes. But recently we've been having a snack with tea in the afternoon. The kid needs a little something to get him from lunch to dinner and I need a little something to get me from naps to night night so tea time it is. 

We sit and I ask him questions and he tells me stories about falling down in the ocean. 

- 6 -

Pregnancy. Want to know something fun about my pregnancies? It's not gross at all. (Actually that's a lie.) 

I get these lovely little things called cherry angiomas, and I always have. They're genetic or something and plenty of people get them. Just little collections of capillaries under your skin like red dots and sometimes they get a little raised. Well, you know how the pregger's blood volume like doubles or whatever? When I was pregnant with Jake, I was blessed with about FIFTY new angiomas. It wasn't cool at all, but the WORST part was that two of them morphed into pyogenic granulomas: a pea-sized collection of blood vessels that balloons up out of your skin, grows and grows, and bleeds whenever you touch it (here's a pic for the strong-stomached). Fun, I know. 

When I went to have it removed at the dermatologist's office, he walked in, took one look at my head, and lit up like I'd handed him a Christmas present. He told me he'd only ever seen one on another pregnant woman in his 25 years of practice. I felt special. And by that I mean I felt like a freak.

- 7 -

Also. This is the smile-face Jake dons whenever he notices that someone is taking his picture.



You can offer condolences in the combox.

Happy Saturday!

Big Boy Bed and Belly Pics

In the wake of a love story that went viral thanks to Grace, I welcome all you new readers and apologize that we are now returning to the regular programming of not that much of interest is going on around here.

So we'll talk about baby sleep habits. Huzzah! Babies who don't sleep! Empathy train!

If you've read this blog for awhile you know that it took us a long time to get Jake to sleep through the night. I think living in a one bedroom apartment hurt our sleep training efforts, and "sleeping through the night" at its best (from 13-20 months) looked like sleeping till 5:30 and kicking around in our bed until 6:30 at which point we'd kick him out of bed and he'd reek havoc on the living room until one of us finally dragged ourselves out of bed and started tending to him. And that blessed routine would get royally screwed up by ANYthing: travel or teeth or whatever. Then we would coddle the night-waker a couple times and then the night wakings would increase and we'd find ourselves back in hard core sleep training mode...again. At least for the past few months he'd been sleeping till 7, and we were patting ourselves on the back until last week.  

We're kind of textbook parents so you should probably be taking notes.

Jake learned how to climb out of his crib months ago. This was a crib Jacob basically built, so we just dropped the mattress to avoid any further thumps in the middle of the night. Then we had to drop it again. And again. And again. At which point it couldn't get any lower without the mattress being lower than the bars. And last week the inevitable happened: our little climber conquered crib Everest and nighttime and nap time rituals flew out the window to the tune of miserable toddler and more miserable parents.

Yesterday after putting him back in his crib eight times at naptime, he was finally quiet. I peeked in and found him like this:



I was torn between congratulating myself and feeling completely guilty.

So apparently we're late to the toddler bed train. I had NO intention of transitioning Jake to a toddler bed before the move, but circumstances have slapped us in the face - they have a way of doing that - and this morning we finally bit.




Jake is much more excited about his "bid boy bed" than I am.




With my luck he will force me to potty train him the same week his little sister is born because I'm not interested in cracking that pandora's box until baby girl is like four months old.

Sigh.

I have to go be a mother now because Jake is tired of playing "fetch the bobby pin."

But I will leave you with some preg pics because I'm on the ball and thought you guys needed some 22 week photos:

 
And I will FLAP this even if I'm two days late because that was my church outfit on Sunday, or it was until my shoes broke. Classy classy classy like always.