in praise of white paint

Whenever my father comes to visit he paints things for us.  This is incredibly helpful because painting is just not something I have figured out how to do with a toddler on the premises.  This winter my dad painted all our nasty cheap-looking oak kitchen cabinets (photos forthcoming), and this spring he painted a rocking horse I found at a garage sale for $10.

 

Joseph loves it.  Having mastered riding it, he now prefers standing on it. 

It wasn't too terrible in its "before" state, just tired and ratty looking.  But now with its slick coat of paint it matches all the other white-painted thrift/garbage/garage sale finds in our house.

Case in point:

 

This chair was discovered by friends in their neighbors' trash. Here's my boy in his chair a year ago, right after I painted it:

 

Tiny and bald. I keep wondering whether the new baby will have hair. 

amateur endocrinology

I am too scattered to even think about a coherent post. I blame hormones. So here's a bullet-pointed list of semi-related items.

• I am now an endocrinologist. Yesterday my doctor (my regular GP, not the midwife) almost gave me a heart attack after some routine bloodwork showed that my thyroid is overactive. She scolded me for not receiving "medical care" during my pregnancy and was overall pretty dismissive and sniffy. When I got home, me and my crack research team (the dogs) hit the internet and we are now experts on thyroid function and the vagaries of thyroid test results. We found a recent article in a reputable medical journal finding that pregnant women with thyroid levels like I have but who are symptomless should not have any interventions during pregnancy or birth. Not that I expect the doctors here in the backwoods to give this much credit. Which brings me to...
  
• I am having the baby in the yard. I'm sure that my thyroid non-condition is going to risk me out of my midwife's practice, and since there's no freaking way I'm having this baby in the hospital, that pretty much leaves me with giving birth in the backyard. I'm thinking we can turn it into a barbecue.
• I don't really hate medicine. I'd be dead multiple times over if it weren't for a very good doctor who figured out how to treat a very bad kidney infection I had a few years back. I'm very grateful for that doctor and some very expensive antibiotics. I just don't think that being a doctor makes the sun shine out of your ass. If I'm fine, keep your hands off me.
• I am a fertility goddess. When I was pregnant with Joseph I felt like a fertility goddess. After the first trimester, I was happy and well-rested and I had gorgeous skin (for the first time in 20 years). I felt like the first person in the world to ever become pregnant. This time around I have felt like a fat vomity slob, but for the past week I've almost felt good. I've made dinner every night for the past week, which, after the past two months of frozen entrees and exorbitant grocery bills, is making several people in this house very happy. Also, at 13 weeks, I'm starting to look pregnant instead of bloated, so this is doing good things for my ego.
• My boy is going through an especially cute phase. Witness the photo at the top of the post. Irresistable, no? He's talking much more, if talking includes animal noises and sounds like "whee!" "boo" and "uh-oh."
  

The Idle Parent

I thought I'd stop puking/napping/complaining in order to mention how much I love the idea of this book I read about on ohdeedoh.  Given my current state of mind (and body) I'm especially drawn to his manifesto, which includes such pearls of wisdom as "we reject the idea that parenting requires hard work," "we reject rampant consumerism," and "happy mess is better than miserable tidiness." 

In an excerpt, the author describes the joys of staying home (as opposed to schlepping all over in the name of entertainment):

People are scared to stay at home all day because they think the kids will get bored. But things happen of their own accord. You don't need to leave the house...At home you can play Scrabble, you can eat on the floor, the kids can make dens. You can learn how to play together, or you can get on with your own jobs and pleasures and let the children exist around you.

When your days are spent alternating between the sink (for throwing up), the couch (for lounging), and the computer (for google searches like "can morning sickness kill you" and "anemia symptoms"), this kind of perspective is very reassuring.

a few things

• Yes, I am being a loser about posting.  This is mainly because I am 1) exhausted and 2) not particularly creative right now.  However, this afternoon I started getting a pattern ready to make Joseph a romper, so perhaps I will have something post-worthy soon.
  
• Tonight, Joseph--naked after his bath--pooped behind the chair in his room.  I was chatting with my mom and somehow we both failed to notice that he had pooped, stepped in it, and smeared it on his belly.  Emergency bed-time carpet cleaning and baby washing is definitely a job for two people, so I was very glad my mom was around.  
• Joseph and I have managed to eat about a dozen bagels and a quart of cream cheese over the past few days.  I've scarcely had any bagels since leaving New York (five years ago this month!), and while it goes without saying that the bagels from the freezer section at Whole Foods don't hold a candle to even the worst NYC bagel, they're still making me pretty happy.

sick...in a good way

The good news is that I'm pregnant, the bad news is that my time is now divided between puking, napping, eating thai noodles, and neglecting my son.  I'm only ten weeks along, which some people would find too early to be making announcements, but since all I can talk about is how crappy I feel, and since my mother and husband are no longer charmed by vivid tales of vomiting and dizzy spells, I'm having to cast a wider net to find an audience.

So far, this has been much rougher than my first pregnancy.  I had some morning sickness then, but this time it's infinitely worse.  In one of those paradoxes of pregnancy, I'm also ravenous.  Oh, and my hips are suddenly really wide--with Joseph, his didn't happen until right before he was born.  I suppose this is because it's a second pregnancy.  And my belly is already pretty big, but this might be because I eat too much.

the most important noodles ever

This is a bit of a departure for this blog, but since it's pretty much all I can think about I need to share it:

These noodles are freaking fabulous.  We've all been sick here so cooking has not been happening and we've been living on prepared foods.  I could seriously eat these noodles for every meal:  they are not very spicy, just very peanuty and coconuty and creamy and lovely.  These noodles have been the bright spot in a couple of bleak, sick weeks.  I very nearly ordered a dozen but I decided that I can get off my rear end for long enough to drive to the grocery store and perhaps also buy some frozen peas to throw into the box so I can pretend I still have a balanced diet.

pajama top

I made this pajama top for Joseph because we're always running out of PJs for him. Pajamas are the limiting factor in our laundry, so I'm trying to build up our supply so I don't have to do the laundry quite so often. The pattern is this lovely free one at Habitual. I added two sets of ties--one on the outside and one on the inside--so it stays put all night.

Yes, the bias tape is more of the fish sheets. The brown cotton is actually another sheet. I had a gift certificate for Kohl's that I wanted to use before I misplaced it, but I didn't want to buy any clothing so I got two cotton sateen sheet sets to sew with. One is this very nice chocolaty brown, and the other is a dusty blue.  They are very soft and drapey.  I'm in the process of making myself a dress out of the brown fabric, but I've kind of lost all motivation so it will have to wait.

My one recommendation for sewing with sheets is to use pinking shears because the fabric sometimes frays like crazy. I didn't have this problem with the fish fabric, but that was a slightly heavier weight. But the sateen, it goes to pieces.