lunch

Yesterday, while putting away groceries, I noticed that it had grown strangely silent.  My heart lurched, and I went off in search of the baby, sure that he had learned to open doors and was now in the middle of the road.  

Instead I found him and Freckles, sitting side by side on the living room floor, happily sharing a pile of throw up.

Naturally, the first question is "Whose throw up was it?"*  The answer is that at the time I wasn't sure.  Afterwards I was able to apply some forensic techniques and I'm pretty sure it was Indiana's.  Aren't you impressed that I have enough familarity with everybody's throw up to make that determination?  

Anyway, there they were, the two of them covered in throw up.  I picked up Joseph and immediately gave him a bath, while it slowly dawned on me that I needed to call the doctor. Which is exactly what I did after I rinsed the baby, and she called me back immediately to reassure me that everything was fine and there weren't going to be any stomach pumpings that afternoon.  Yay.

This is my observation base on a year of child rearing:  when things suddenly get quiet, the result is usually gross but not dangerous.  This is because you've already babyproofed the house reasonably well and because hurt babies and toddlers are loud. 

*just one of many sentences I got to utter or hear for the first time yesterday

house arrest

We are under house arrest due to the sleep habits of a certain one year old.  Every playgroup, library storytime, or mothers' group activity seems to occur at 10 or 10:30 in the morning, which is when Joseph takes his morning nap.  I mean, there isn't much I can predict about his sleep paterns (will he wake up at 4:30 am or 6:30 am?  will he want to have his afternoon nap at 1:00 or 3:00?) but I know for sure he's napping at 10:00.   Any efforts to game the system by putting him down at 8:00 in the morning or by acting extremely interesting so he won't be tired until 11ish fail utterly, and I'm left with a screaming, unhappy boy. 

Right now my plan is to find something to do around noon (like something involving other adult humans, which is complicated when you don't know anyone in your city, hence library story time, meetup.com, etc. and I have no control over when these activities take place), because he's almost always awake between noon and one.  This may involve rejiggering lunch so it takes place earlier or later (or more briefly) but I will try.

plants! and other good news

My garden has plants! Despite the fact that the dogs have frolicked through it a few times. I planted salad seeds two weeks ago and they germinated almost immediately. This weekend we'll plant more vegetables in the other bed.

I think our spate of bad luck may be over, if the growing list of fixed and unbroken things around the house is any indication. (I just realized after I wrote that sentence that we had been counting things that work instead of things that don't work, which is probably not what most people do.) My parents have been here for two weeks, so my father has been fixing things and my mother has been playing with the baby big boy so I can do things like take apart the entire sewing machine and put it back together so the bobbin stops jamming, instead of throwing the entire machine through the window and checking myself into a mental hospital.

In other very good news, Freckles is now on Xanax (we knew we couldn't get through another few weeks like we've been having without somebody in the house being medicated, we just didn't know who it would be). We knew the weather had been making her a little crazy so we had been keeping her away from the baby when we aren't right there, but we didn't think to keep her away from Indiana. So when we found Indiana trotting around the house with two tooth-sized wounds in his side, we connected the dots (we don't have any wild cougars, stray bullets, etc., but we do have a large neurotic dog) and brought Freckles to a vet who sent us right home with Xanax. She's been in a much better mood since she's been taking it (we're jealous): she tears through the yard like she used to at our old house and only occasionally looks at Indiana like he would be delicious. This is a major improvement. Indiana, of course, is unfazed by all of this.

So, hooray for sane(r) dogs and salad and fixed appliances. Now, what will break next week?

crayon roll and deep thought on making things

This is for Scott's niece's second birthday. I really enjoy making these things: mindless straight lines, lots of fabric scraps used up, near-immediate satisfying results. Even though the linen had a fair amount of body, I used cotton batting between the front and back pieces to keep it from getting too floppy, and I'm very glad I did. I enjoy how linen makes everything look kind of subtle and Martha-esque. I totally ripped this idea off from somebody, I wonder who?


The not too badly executed (but slightly off center, whatever) applique H is the initial of Scott's niece, of course.

I think this took an hour from start to finish, which for me is an awesome time frame for anything that doesn't turn out looking half baked and totally sloppy. I've been sewing fairly seriously now for nearly a year and I only recently accepted the fact that seams will have to be ripped on every single project, and that it helps to build that into your expectations. My other recent moment of clarity related to the fact that about a third (if not a full half) of all my new endeavors will not turn out how I had envisioned--including sweaters that took two freaking months to knit, including any new recipes, and definitely including all new patterns. I mean, you can't cut out the fabric assuming you're going to get something fantastic, right? Very liberating. Zen.

I could have used a little more cowbell (and birthday balls)

I've had a few successful sewing projects lately and a few real duds. The duds are due to the fact that I am having issues sewing knit fabrics, to put it mildly, and I think I need to reconcile myself with the fact that non-droopy t-shirts are available for my whole family, ready-made and at a reasonable price, at Target.

Among the more successful projects were these patchwork balls which I made using a tutorial on the purl bee. I pretty much did what they said, but I put some jingly balls in one of them to add some thrills. Joseph likes them, which is a relief seeing as how they're all he got from us for his birthday.

From my parents Joseph got a slew of musical instruments, including a very awesome cowbell which he walks around the house playing. It's definitely the coolest present ever and I don't think we will ever get tired of telling Joseph to explore the space. Along with the cowbell came a set of maracas, a tambourine, some castanets, a triangle, a xylophone and some other goodies. He's fairly thrilled, and so are we.

vegetable success story

This is the week's haul from our local organic produce delivery service. It's not a CSA but rather a man who buys from local organic farmers and then delivers to your house. It's $35 a week for about nine pounds of produce, which is really more food than I thought it would be. Part of the excitement is having vegetables in the house that I might not have chosen for myself at the store, and finding out how to cook it. The (enormous) spaghetti squash for example--I cooked it up and then hid it in everything (pizza sauce, quesadillas, pasta, pesto, etc.).

I actually feel so good about this that it's balancing out some the breakages and failures we've been having lately. Also, my father fixed out dishwasher! I celebrated by dirtying dishes with careless abandon.

not wounded, sir, but dead

Our casualties since moving into this house less than two months ago:

• dishwasher
• cell phone
• corded phone
• stove top
• dining table
• bathtub (shattered enamel)
• lawn mower
• computer
• washing machine
• juicer
• iron
• assorted crockery (including a glass baking dish that exploded in my hands)
  

RIP