oh god, this is really happening

franksgiving

2011-11-24T10:00:00.000-08:00

I had already started drafting up a post about how I was thankful that Owen started calling me mama.
I went home last weekend for my little sister's bachelorette party.

my mom, sister and I, bachelorette party

Before heading out, I spent some time with O on video chat and just before signing off he so clearly said Bye Mama.
We were all shocked, as I've been commonly referred to as Diwut (Filip). I got teary-eyed. How awesome, right? I leave for a couple days and bam, now he's finally calling me mama!
Except no. Yesterday I asked Owen if he wanted to talk to grandma on video and he ran over to my computer all excited yelling Mama! Mama! Mama!
So grandma is mama. Womp, womp. Back to Diwut.

But yeah. Still thankful for that little jerk even if he calls me Diwut. Thankful for many things.

"There comes a time when it just doesn’t make sense to keep on fighting. It’s not that you’re being a quitter, it’s just that you’ve got the sense to know when enough is enough."

I thankful that the good lord gave me enough sense to know when enough is enough. Many times over throughout the year enough has been enough, and finally putting those things to rest has made everything so much better.

Work is busy, Etsy is busy, Owen is busy. I really kind of don't know what to do with myself today not having anything to do. I mean, there are things to do, but forcing myself not to do them is tough, but necessary. I'm thankful for busy-ness.

I'm thankful for friends. Thankful for Tinkey and Nicole and Jeff, without whom I'd be more insane than I already am, if that's possible. Thankful for family. Thankful for my little family. Thankful that everything is lining up in place and things are working out just fine. Thankful that I'm happy in everyday and not looking to the future for better times or regretting things because I'm more fond of the past. I like everyday, I'm happy with everyday, I'm okay with everyday and I think that's what I'm most thankful for. No, it's not actually, I'm most thankful for Owen's amazing dance moves.

Two Years Old.

2011-10-13T12:40:00.000-07:00

Two Years Old for Owen today. Two amazing years.

When I woke up early to start making Birthday Breakfast I found this:

Bacon & Sausage & Eggs & Waffles & Ice Cream.

Followed by Presents.

We're heading to the train yards on the Southside in just a bit. More ice cream and snacks. More trains. More Birthday. Weekend with Grandma and aunts and uncles and the City Museum.

I obviously flopped on posts about my dad last month, but things just get so busy without even realizing. There's a few stories I'm still going to get around to posting.

The past month has been the beginning of a much needed new era. And I'm really excited to be at the start of it with a gorgeously handsome, hilarious and incredibly smart two year old, new work prospects, a pretty damn awesome relationship, and a blindingly bright future. The time is now, this is how it's going to be, and I'm putting my foot down with this one. Amazing, awesome, and super fun times, there's not enough time for anything else.

I'm really humbled and incredibly lucky to have such an amazing kid. Even if his favorite past time right now is breaking things without me knowing and telling me after the fact, "I goke it!"

Earliest Memory

2011-09-09T18:32:00.000-07:00

I never got around to writing anything last night as I was busy, busy working until wee hours. I guess I have that on my mind which is kind of influencing this evening's topic.

I was working on some interviews with women in a rehab center. They were all asked the same questions, mostly about their upbringing, their parents, their relationships with their parents. It's curious as you can see obvious similarities, but then sometimes, not. Very curious how we all get to where we are and in some cases there's so much blame, and other cases there's so much thankfulness and perception is the key. Such fine lines. Ah, anyway, I get too intimate with work sometimes.

She asked each participant the earliest memories of their mother and then their father. It's so fascinating because I totally relate to all of them in one way. I don't know if it's maybe a mama thing or being closest with your mom or what, but I can't remember an earliest or first memory of my mother. It's my mother, she's always been there. She's always been number one. But with my dad, I have a very clear memory, probably one of the firsts, if not the first. I don't have a very particular instant with my mom. So funny. I've been racking my brain the past 2 days trying to pinpoint something, but I haven't been able to yet.

Okay. So, the first memory I have with my dad. It's spotty, but you'll get the gist of it.
I think I was maybe 3 or 4. Not in school yet.
There was a baby shower. I honestly can't even remember which aunt it was for, wait a minute. Maybe it was for my mom when she was pregnant with my sister. That might be it. Or maybe it was for an aunt pregnant with one of my little cousins. I really don't remember, but I remember that it was at my mom's house.
I remember everyone prepping for the party. Decorations, snacks, drinks. I remember being in a powder blue dress. I remember that my dad was assigned to go to St. John's Liquor's, which is no longer in business, to get ice and drinks or things of the like.
I remember climbing into my dad's truck and going with him. I followed him around the liquor store. The check-out counter was really tall. I had to stand on my tip toes to make myself eye level with the ledge of the counter.
On the counter was a basket of Dum Dum suckers. I wanted one, sure. What kid wouldn't? But I was an incredibly shy kid. I typically hid behind my Mom's legs in public and in this instance, I was with my Dad, so I knew better than to ask. The woman behind the counter asked me if I wanted one. I nodded yes. She told me to take which ever one I wanted. I grabbed one.
My dad paid for his selection. We walk out of the store. I climbed back into the truck, and before my Dad started the truck he noticed that I had a sucker. He didn't realize that the lady behind the counter told me I could have one. I didn't understand how he missed the entire interaction between me and the woman behind the counter. He didn't believe me that she said I could have one. He told me I stole it. I cried. I went to my room and missed out on most of the party because I was so upset.

That's basically all that I remember.

It's so funny. I was so small, such a tiny kid. And looking back, I have a handful of memories throughout my childhood and adolescence where I felt as upset as I did over the Dum Dum because one or both of my parents didn't believe me when I was telling the truth.

That doesn't make my Dad a horrible father, nor my Mom and awful mother. By any means. They did what they knew how to do and what was natural for them. How did that become the earliest thing I can remember about my Dad?

What is going to be the earliest thing Owen remembers? Has it already happened? Will it happen this year? Next?

I whole-heartedly believe that this memory has had an impact on the way I handle things with O. I talk to Owen like a regular person. Which I know can sound really weird especially when I'm in Target and someone overhears this adult conversation I'm holding and then I turn the corner with Owen. I only mention this because I've received a lot of strange looks in public when I realize I've been talking to Owen for a while. Lots of stuff like that, so on and so forth.
Anyway, everyone wants to be taken seriously no matter their age.

Mama's here to listen.

Feeling Crummy

2011-09-07T18:14:00.000-07:00

I feel really crummy today. Laid on the couch most of the day praying that Owen would quiet down and it never really happened, nor did he take a nap.

If I was in elementary school today would be a day where I'd insist that I had to stay home sick. Sick days were awesome when we were kids. If my brother, sister or I stayed home sick from school, my Dad would bring us a two liter of Sprite and a king sized Hershey bar on his lunch break. He'd eat a sandwich and watch either Sanford And Son or All In The Family and go back to work. I don't know why, but he did it every time until high school, really. Those were the days.

Lawn Mowing, Dave Ullrich Style

2011-09-06T18:48:00.001-07:00

This one's going to be short and sweet (and hilarious- well, to me at least) because I'm sleepy and want to watch netflix all curled up in big blankets.
Dag, I wish there were some Duraflame logs laying around. I'm so ready to kick up the jams in my fireplace!

Anyway, no pictures tonight, sadly, as I don't believe any exist. Which is a very sad story, but maybe not. Maybe best in my memory. Who knows?

So, dads mow the lawn, right? My Dad had a very interesting lawn mowing outfit. And no one really knows where or why. Maybe he did this to annoy and embarrass my Mom? Maybe it just felt right? Maybe he want to make me, my brother and sister laugh hysterically? Part of me thinks it's a little of all of that, but most of me sort of thinks that he just had his own motives that he'll never tell, and even if he did, we'd never understand.

He wouldn't wear his lawn mowing outfit every time he mowed the lawn, but when he did (unannounced) my Mom would see him out front and close the front door and all the blinds. Seriously, so funny. We (my brother, sister and I) would be screeching gleefully.

My dad would be trucking along the front yard, on the busy-ish street that my parents live on, with all the neighbors looking on, wearing denim shorts that he cut super short, his big black work boots, a large wicker cornucopia turned backwards on top of his head, no shirt and sunglasses. On occasion he'd wear those oversized novelty sunglasses. He'd mow the entire front and back lawn like this, then come inside as if nothing had happened. Totally straight faced, totally puzzled at the questions we'd ask him about what he was wearing and continue on with the day like nothing was out of the ordinary. Again, this wasn't every time he mowed the lawn, but until the age of about eleven or twelve, this happened at least a couple times every summer.

It hasn't been brought up in years, but I'm almost positive that if I mentioned it to him he say to me in a very, very quiet monotone voice, as serious as could be, "I don't know what you're talking about." And maybe he'd kind of mutter something to himself or shake his head and snicker a little.

Really, what a nutter. Definitely an amazing Dad Moment.

My Dad and His Cars

2011-09-05T20:15:00.000-07:00

Obviously, when I said EVERY DAY in September, I meant every weekday.

So, I just spent the past 2 hours going through my old hard drive and thousands upon thousands of photographs, and I don't have a single frackin' photo of either of my dad's Pontiacs. I swear, I've taken tons of photos of them. I'll dig further and update with more pictures later.

My Dad's first car was a 1966 Pontiac LeMans. He bought it from my grandpa when he was 16ish for something stupid like $400 or something along those lines. He still has it.

It's a sparkly gunmetal with gorgeous chrome. Black leather interior, bucket seats and the whole nine. I'm sure my brother and sister have the same feelings about the Hot Pink Led Zeppelin Houses of the Holy eight track that I do, that will forever be associated with a Pontiac LeMans for me. The ignition was never right. I'm not sure exactly why it didn't work like every other car, but the ignition dangles below the steering wheel and he'd put the key in there and get it started. I think he's fixed that, but I'm actually not too sure.

My Dad's LeMans always had a smell to it. Nothing weird, it's a combination of an auto mechanic's shop, turtle wax and Swisher Sweets mostly. Maybe some other things mixed in.

He only drives it in the summer time. He's never let my mom drive it. Who knows why, but he will not let my mom drive it.

When I was fifteen and a half and had just gotten my driver's permit, it happened to be Friday Night, which was Dairy Queen Day.

Quick side story: I don't know when, or how or why, but at some point during our childhood my Dad decided that on Fridays, only if we reminded him, he would take us to Dairy Queen. We still don't forget. He would begrudgingly take us to Dairy Queen. I usually opted for a Peanut Buster Parfait or sometimes a Dilly Bar. Sometimes my Dad would play some hilarious hijinks on the poor high school kids that worked the drive-thru of that Dairy Queen. I'll tell those stories later.

Anyway. My brother, being 3 years older, was off with his friends, doing high school boy things. So my sister and I remind my dad that it was Dairy Queen Day. My dad asks me if I want to drive. I say yes. Then I realize he meant the Pontiac. I knew my mom was going to be so pissed if she found out, and I knew I really wouldn't be in trouble, but I felt like I'd be in trouble, and then I knew I'd feel bad because really, my Dad would be in trouble. But whatever! My eyes lit up, sister in the back seat, Dad in the passenger seat and we're heading to Dairy Queen! Except I had to back out of my parents driveway, which is gravel, narrow, really long. And I was nervous, and in the LeMans! And I needed to get out of there fast before my mom figured out what was going on.

But I wasn't fast enough. By the time I made it to the side door of my parent's house, my mom flew out the door screaming god knows what and I was quickly ushered out of the driver's seat. My dad was in trouble. We still went to Dairy Queen though, and I got a Peanut Buster Parfait. I kind of remember my little sister being mostly silently frightened the whole time. I've driven my Dad's LeMans about 15 feet. Never been behind the wheel since.

Just after I moved to Chicago, my Dad found and acquired his "dream car" at the time. A 1965 Pontiac GTO Convertible. It's sweet. Like, it really is, but to me, it's not the LeMans. But it is really fuckin' badass.

Now, even more recently, about November-ish of 2008 my Dad purchased a car that I wholeheartedly love and think is hilariously amazing in every way, shape and form.

An elderly black woman from the North Side of Saint Louis, which is a total ghetto, called up my Dad because she wanted to sell a car that was her husband's (I think). She called my dad up because the car used to be serviced at Bert's. A 1968 Cadillac DeVille. Gold. Soft Top. And seriously, seriously, for $1200. Nigga, please!

My mom had informed me about the whole ordeal, in a rather heated tangent and as much as I would love to quote her right now, it wouldn't be fair. She hates it. HATES the Caddy. And I understand why, totally. But I love it. I think my favorite part is that I had heard a ton about this car, and in December, not long after he bought it I took the Amtrak back to St.L for Thanksgiving. Expecting my mom to be at the train station get me, I see this SEVENTEEN foot long Golden Caddy roll up, stopping all traffic and turning heads. That's my ride. HA! Definitely one of my most favorite homecomings ever.

The Pontiacs are a part of our childhoods. So many nostalgic feelings surfacing right now. I'm seconds away from buying a pink Led Zeppelin 8 Track on ebay right now. I always talk about getting a LeMans tattoo. I will someday. Maybe soon. I think I've hammered out the details perfectly now. A Catfish driving a '65 LeMans, puffing a Swisher Sweet. Back shoulder probably. I don't know, we'll see. Always toying with that idea.

Me with the '68 Cadillac DeVille, upon returning to my parent's house from my most memorable ride home from Amtrak ever. December, 2008.

September 1st - Intro to my Dad

2011-09-01T18:53:00.000-07:00

In my typical fashion, I haven't written a damn thing, even though I planned to dedicate a whole month's worth of posts to stories about my pops. It's all up here. I got it and will do my best to stay on track.

So, as previously mentioned last week, my dad is something special. I suppose I decided to do this for a few reasons. I must share these stories. I've shared many of them with lots of friends before and I just feel like they have to be written down. They're just too good. Too good.

Not completely unlike my chihuahua tattoos, which were done prior to Totti passing, both dogs were alive and healthy, this is just something I want to do while my dad's around. And not completely unlike my chihuahuas, he won't realize what I've done. Ha. I'm serious.

My dad is middle age, but on the younger side. He's an auto mechanic and has been his entire life. He owns Bert's Auto Service. Bert was my grandpa. He passed away in 2000. My dad is a practicing Catholic. He likes Mizzou basketball. He fishes a lot. The seldom occasion that I talk to him on the phone he asks me about the weather and sometimes he'll ask me when the last time I went to church was. More recently he asks me when I'm going to baptize my son. The only time my dad has ever called me, all on his own, after asking my sister for my phone number of course, was on November 29th, 2001 when George Harrison died. My dad is not social and rather quiet. Some could say he's hard to talk to but I guess that just depends on how much you need the other person in the conversation engaged because most times there's nothing you can do or say to elicit any response from him. But it's nothing personal, that's just him.

The first time my Dad met Owen, December 26th, 2009. He was forced to hold him for this photo.

There are a lot of stories I have to share involving a cornucopia, Technotronic's 'Move This', cockroaches, Dairy Queen and Pee Wee's Big Adventure and many more random things. There are lots of things I'd love to write about, but it's not the right time or place and I'm not sure that there ever will be a proper time or place.

My dad has never been mean or abusive. He's never been a negligent parent, I wouldn't say. He may not be the best at being a dad, but he's the only one I got and I appreciate him in many ways that a lot of people would think crazy of me for.

On the agenda for tomorrow, cars. Specifically 60s Pontiacs. And a Caddy.

2011-08-23T21:08:00.001-07:00

Like many things so far this year, this blog is another thing that I'm constantly feeling guilty about neglecting.
Other things that belong in that category are my good friends whose calls I regularly do not answer and forget to call back, my own hygiene most of the times, feeding the pets, my etsy shop (but I must pat myself on the back for tending to that more in recent weeks) and sometimes my kid, etc.

He was looking through one of his word books a few weeks ago. We hadn't studied it in a really long time. He's flipping the pages, pointing and vocalizing what he was pointing at. I about shit my pants. Holy jeebs, this kid is growing up! And he never stops talking. Never. Even talks in his sleep. A while back I was woken up in the middle of the night from hysterical laughter piped into my bedroom through the baby monitor. I don't know if he was asleep or awake and I didn't know whether to laugh or get really creeped out. A little of both happened, if I remember correctly.

Anyway, a little down time in August is good. Enough down time that I'm catching up on this and have tended to a lot of things, not my hygiene yet. I think it's been three days since I've showered. Obviously, that's not very important.

It's been a nice summer. Really, really busy for a bit followed by a lazy August. Again, I have to remember that this is a good thing and appreciate it in the moment.

I feel like it would be a bore to try and catch up since the last post where Owen and I almost died seven months ago. So I'll just touch on a few recent exciting things and keep going like nothing happened.

Being that Owen is nearing the ripe old age of Two, he was swiftly moved into a Big Boy Bed last weekend. It's kind of the cutest, stupidest thing ever. Transitioning could be worse. He's kind of a nutball with the new freedoms that having a Big Boy Bed entails, but he's getting the hang of it. The first nap after the first night of sleeping in the Big Boy Bed was insanity. Ha, which I guess I should point out was just yesterday. Straight refusal, just "going drazy (crazy)" as he would say. Today was better by tenfold.

Today was also the first day in which Owen handled an escalator all on his own. Going up was easier than going down. I was super impressed. I have vivid memories of the visions I created in my head when I was probably four or so of escalators sucking me in and eating me. But it makes sense that he's a bit more accustomed. There are far more escalators to encounter in Chicago than Saint Louis. Even as a mid-twenty-something-year-old I totally flipped out that Targets in the city had escalators. I'm pretty sure Targets everywhere have escalators now, but just sayin'.

I recently trafficked an amazingly adorable chihuahua, who was incredibly reminiscent of Totti, from my friend Sarah to my good friend Jeff. Said chihuahua puppy, H.P. Stinkybuns, has a really amazing chihuahua dad and an awesome home, but by golly, I was so frackin' depressed the day I had to hand him over, and kind of wanted to maul Jeff's pretty face. Nothing personal, and after I got over the empty-chihuahua-nest syndrome, I decided that I most definitely need another dog in my life. Preferably another chihuahua, but I'm not limiting options here. Having a raucous toddler boy, a Big Boy Dog would be fun, although you'd be amazed at what good buddies Jonah and Owen are. I suppose I'm not actively searching, but if a buddy needs a home, someone let him know where to find me...

So, yeah. I've got some exciting things on the horizon. An article of mine is awaiting publishing. And all that excitement, plus the lack of work coming in for the moment, has me super excited about writing again.
I'm not making any promises to myself about NanoWrimo like I do every year and then feel like a complete loser when I don't even get a single word down, but September is going to be exciting. There will be a blog post EVERY SINGLE DAY. No, really. I've got a plan, and it's actually really incredibly near and dear to me. Well, not near, but definitely dear.

September is a Very Important Month. My birthday, ball and chain's birthday, anniversary, the month that my original due date was scheduled, back to school, which isn't that important nor does it pertain to this but I get all riled up about school supplies, and most importantly, and the reason for what's going to happen, My Dad's Birthday.

Anyone who knows me, even if only just a little bit, knows that my dad is a goldmine of confusion as well as incredibly absurd, unbelievable stories. And when I say confusion, I mean that no one can quite understand the who's, what's, why's about this man. I mean, yeah, everyone's dad is weird, but there is altogether something you just can't quite figure out with my dad. He's something else and anyone who has met him knows what I mean. I'm serious, my dad is not like your dad and every day in September will be dedicated to another whacked out, amazing, insane, bizarre story about my dad that I'm incredibly fond of and honored to have as a memory. My mom just recently, within the past year, found out that my dad was (possibly?) struck by lightning as a child. I think we all had an Oprah style Ah Ha moment when we heard the news, but who knows really...

So, yeah, this is about to get really good. I need to talk my mom into scanning/taking lots of photos for me because you really need a visual with some of the things I have in store. I am almost a hundred percent certain that my dad will not ever read a single blog post or even know that I am doing/have done this, but that kind of adds to the beauty of it all. And if he did read any of it, even if he was disgusted by whatever I had written, and even if he demanded that I remove it, in the end it would be enough for me that he even knew that it happened.

I love my dad, and you'll find out why starting next Thursday.

My dad, myself and my brother. Christmas, 1983.

15 months and We're Alive!

2011-01-25T11:50:00.000-08:00

Whirlwind of things over the past handful of months and obviously not a lot of extra time for blogging.

Owen is amazing, still, obviously. Leaps and bounds away from where he was the last time I posted. It's god damn incredible how fast everything changes. So sad and bittersweet and awesome. Walks, runs, dances, talks, eats everything, mouth full of teeth. Opinions and answers. Best manners in the world, please and thank you non stop. Dude can point out a taxidermied deer or a tattoo from miles away.

Yesterday Owen and I were at a Cracker Barrel in Lincoln, Illinois. High up on the wall, across the dining room there was a deer. He was sitting across from me and kept pointing yelling, "Duh, duh, deer, duh, deer." I was like, "Owen. Inside voice. What's going on, dude?" And I finally realized he was pointing at the deer on the wall across the room. So awesome. We hang out and talk to our taxidermied deer at home a lot, but I would have never guessed that he'd identify and holler about a stuffed deer without being encouraged to, all on his own accord. Several times every single day this baby surprises the shit out of me.

So, O and I spent the night in Lincoln. We were driving back from another low key weekend in St. Louis, hanging with grandma and relaxing as much as we could. I started getting a little nervous. Road conditions were pretty gnarly, saw an accident on southbound 55, lots of cars swerved into the grass median of the highway, that sort of stuff. I pulled off the highway in Springfield to get a coffee and chill for a minute because I was starting to spaz, and the weather just kept getting worse. The Volvo totally swerved a bit on the off-ramp and I was like, "Oh, hell no." So, I make a few calls, get the low-down on the weather and it seemed like if I could carefully truck northward through Bloomington, I'd be in the clear. So, O and I headed out again. We were about a half an hour north of Springfield, it was already dark out, could barely see even fifty yards ahead of us, and I'm assuming we hit a patch of black ice. We swerved into the left lane, no brakes, swerved to the right across three lanes of traffic and I decided to sail the Volvo into the grass in the middle of 55, thinking we'd slow down and come to a halt. No. It was like a movie, at that point I'm screaming at Owen that I loved him over and over, waiting for impact, and the Volvo clears the median, does a 180 into southbound traffic on 55 and screeches to a halt. How the shit there wasn't any traffic for me to careen into, I have no idea. I had about 5 seconds to quickly pull to the shoulder and there we were. Shaking and crying and freaking the shit out, I make the appropriate phone calls, pull back onto 55 heading back towards St. Louis and off at the next exit where we partied at the local Wal-Mart and Owen thoroughly destroyed the room at the Hampton Inn. I found his little sneaker in the toilet the next morning. Seriously. It was that kind of night.

O didn't know what was going on, obviously. He was giggling and goofing off in the back seat the whole time. This stuff is super scary, but I could have never imagined how scary it actually was having O in the car. Holy crap. Scariest thing that's ever happened. I was super scared to finish the drive yesterday. My shoulders and neck are all jacked up right now from being so tense and white-knuckled the rest of the way home. Super nervous to drive now. And obviously, the worst thoughts keep running through my head over and over, even though I know I need to just put it to rest because here we are and everything's cool, but dang.

This sort of stuff gives you some awesome motivation though. Even though I'm still in my relaxin' pants, but still. I got this banging to-do list in front of me that I couldn't be more excited about. And it's lame stuff I've been dreading for a long ass time now. Like the dentist. Oh yeah, broken tooth? I almost died with my baby so you are out of here! DMV, we'll talk this week. Taxes, you're going down, too. Shitballs, man. Scary times = TCB.

Otherwise, times have been alright since Owen's birthday. So much work, which is good. Lots of great finds for Apricot and good sales lately. Super exciting. I'd like to kick that up another notch in the next few months. Holidays were nice. Overload of friends and family that I was a little nervous about, but was super nice. So nice that when my mom left Chicago after visiting for Christmas, I decided I didn't have enough and drove back the following to day hang out over New Years. New years was super fun, spent with old friends and Four Loko, which I concluded is the closest thing you'll ever get to a Tardis in real life. Although it seems like I've been so busy working nonstop, I've actually had a good handful of super amazing hang-outs with favorite people over the past couple months that I'm really appreciative of. Scary times also equals making more time for important stuff like that, that you don't realize is important until later. So yeah. More of that. Re-evaluating what's going on, what's going to happen, what I want and what is best. I've already been sort of doing that recently, but this occasion put an entirely different perspective on it. So, right.

Also, it could definitely be a work-induced phase right now, but I'm super into Oklahoma City lately and really, really want to go check it out. Like, seriously. Sounds like the most amazing place ever. Really, no joke. I think I'm going to coordinate a long weekend to hang out. Maybe not drive, or at least wait until the temperature is above 40 degrees to do so. At first I thought it all sounded super lame, but after watching hours and hours of interviews about OK City, I'm kind of sold. Like I said, probably a work-induced phase, but yeah. On my list of things to do this spring.

Oh, also have to mention that besides keeping myself and Owen alive through what had the potential of being incredibly fatal, I definitely scored the Mom of the Year Award with this past visit to St. Louis. I seriously wanted to lay super low this weekend, just relax. We got in on Friday and I had no plans, hadn't talked to anyone. My sister came over to hang with O and I was all, "Let's just go down the street to The Waiting Room and have a drink, nothing big." So we do that, and while we're there I get word that DJ Lance Rock was hanging out at Halo. I bust out of the bathroom after reading this text and said to my sister, "We have to go now. You can come with if you want, but I have to go." She thought I clogged up the toilet or something. We leave and I couldn't possibly get to Halo fast enough. I wanted to go wake Owen and and bring him with, but yeah. He left his fake I.D. in Chicago.
I meet up with Anchovy, do some light chatting, scope the scene and am like, "Where is he?! AH!" He comes back in the bar and is hanging with his friends, you know, like people do. Took me a while to muster up the nerve, because I didn't want to come across as a weirdo, and I'm a spaz and over think every possibility, but yeah, so I finally go say hey to him after some encouraging words from Anchovy. I'm like, "Okay, I don't want to seem like a weirdo, but I just want to tell you that you and Muno bring so much happiness to my kid and our home. Like, he's at grandma's sleeping with a Muno doll that's as tall as he is right now." OMG, DJ Lance couldn't be a more awesome and normal and a sweet dude. We chat for a minute. He says, "I do it for the kids!" He, without being prompted by me, signs a glossy for O. I was like, "No, no, you don't have to do that. We're at the bar, being adults. That wasn't my intention." Although in my head I was screaming, "FUCK YES! I RULE! I'M THE BEST MOM EVER! YAY!" So, I nerd out my conversation with Anchovy, then we ride on the group coat tails and get in on shots with DJ Lance. My brother came around a little later and talked to him, saying he thought it was super awesome to sign a photo for O because he seriously rocks out to Gabba nonstop and DJ Lance hugs my brother and, as if we really knew each other or something, goes, "You're Rachel's brother?!" Haha. So cute. Best night of 2011. It's seriously awesome, like, his mannerisms are the same when he's explaining that you shouldn't bite your friends and when he's ordering shots for friends. I almost felt like I was in a dark, loud, smokey version of Gabbaland. I mean, you know. It was pretty awesome. Fun night, I do it for the kids. For O. BEST MOM EVER. Well, next to my mom, who framed the glossy by the time I woke up on Saturday.

Well, One year and One week-ish.

2010-10-19T23:15:00.001-07:00

How do I go about labeling my blog posts now? I should make it easier than last year because obviously I screwed up counting in there somewhere and at one point managed to forget how many days are actually in a year.

Can't sleep. Super late. Too many thoughts running crazy in my head and a To Do list that should be getting shorter, but somehow isn't and remains incredibly daunting.

First, the obvious. Owen had a birthday. His very first one. We have managed to keep a baby alive for a whole year and not just that, he's healthy and really god damn happy and the both of us are also still alive, healthy and happy as well. Who would have thought? Not to mention that his birthday party was fantastic and I'm so thrilled and overwhelmed by family and friends. Seriously, so thankful.

photo by Casey Sachen, http://bluesmokephotography.com/

I suspected that I would have taken this post all sappy and gushing over key moments of O's first year, pulling up favorite photos and stuff like that, and who knows? By the end I could take that route, but for now, no. For now, I'll just leave it at the simple fact that never before in my life have I loved the way I have in this past year. I could have never imagined anything close to these feelings. I never knew. I never thought anything like this was possible. I love this baby. It is completely indescribable. There is nothing like it. And more and more. It's the most significant snowball that has ever existed.

Not just Owen. Obviously, like they all say, having a kid is life changing. I never knew exactly how much so. Like, my whole life. The way I see things, feel about things, about people, about situations and circumstances. Everything has changed and it's so much better than before. Things are worth it. Other things just aren't. It seems like now there is a very clear line. You are or you aren't. Is you is or is you isn't? Certain battles are worth it, others aren't and there isn't any doubt about what goes into either of those. I like my handle on things. I like the way I spend my time. I like what my life is. I like what we're building for O. I like what his childhood is and I'm pretty sure he's going to look back fondly on it. At least that's what all parents aim for, right?

I don't know. This shit's crazy, y'all. It all makes sense, though.

Let's move onto some real life updates though. This could go on and on and on if I let myself.

Owen is a year. He can walk. He can take steps on his own. He can stand on his own, he just chooses not to do these things regularly because his gorilla silver back 3 legged kneel crawl run is much more efficient. He eats everything, with the exception of avocado and mushrooms. Huh. Wonder where that comes from? Also wonder where his extreme love of cheese comes from? Have I mentioned that he's into pickled herring and onions, too? Yeah. Weirdo. He says stuff. He's got a bunch of words and a new kind of baby babble that has all kinds of wacky sounds and syllables. I'm going to be super sad when he doesn't babble anymore. I could seriously listen to it nonstop and it would never ever get old. He's so fucking pro at mimicking. It's alarming. It just comes out. He doesn't realize he's saying a word, and won't say it again, but he has thrown some shit out immediately after Filip or myself saying so and we've both been like, "What the?!" I was rambling about something a couple weeks ago and said something to the effect of "That shit is crazy." And instantly O blurts, "Crazy!" Filip and I were both shocked and freaking out like, "He just seriously said crazy, right?!"
So, that's fun. As soon as I get through this project with work where I'm listening to hours upon hours of incredibly disturbing ghetto phone calls, I'm going to start monitoring my use of swear words. Honestly, I can't do anything about it until then. After I put work away for the day I cannot get out of speaking much like everything I just heard. Really incredible how language seeps in after prolonged exposure without you realizing it.

Most importantly, Owen has become huggy. Like, he reaches for me and actually gives big hugs. His little tiny baby man arms cling and grasp and he clenches and wraps his arms around my neck. He holds so tight and he means it. God, it's the greatest thing that has ever happened to me, but thinking about him growing out of this phase is the most heart wrenching thing! Ah. What it is, yo. What it is.

So, right. Busy as hell. So much work has come in lately and it's awesome. I love this busy-ness, but I need a second to catch my breath. I feel like so much has just happened and I can't get caught up. A few things have managed to get checked off the list but not quite enough to not feel so nervous. Tomorrow, check list, you're going down, going down like a monkey.

As soon as I get that to do list minimized, I have so much etsy to catch up on and I can't wait! I have a few doosies thrifted that I'm excited to list, but I just want to get back to it! It's been awesome and I have to say that I absolutely LOVE etsy. Everything about it. Totally rules. I'm feeling good about it, still and rather successful, you know, on the small scale that I'm operating. Soon to be larger. I'm going to get back to forcing time for it. So much has happened over the past month that it's taken the back burner, but now, holidays are upon us, it's going down, going down like a monkey. Expect a ton of annoying facebook updates and crap like that soon.

I'm so tired, I have no idea why Phil Collins is stuck in my head. There were many other important and meaningful things I thought I could blog about while I was laying restlessly in bed and now that I'm here I can only think of Phil Collins. Damn you, brain. It never turns off when I need it to and I'm constantly tormented with crap like this.

331 days. One month left.

2010-09-09T14:35:00.000-07:00

I messed up counting days somewhere along the line. haha. I'll fix it later.

It's been busy lately wrapping up the end of summer! Like many other things right now, I can't believe it's the end of summer. Seriously.
Monday, the 13th is my birthday. Not that it's of too much importance. My birthday has never been a huge ordeal or widely recognized. And that's okay. I mean, there's a small part of me that's bummed every time around, but not really, in the whole scheme of things. Especially this year. Monday, September 13th marks the beginning of the last month of Owen's first year. Sharing the same date for a birthday as O really makes up for all the birthdays I've ever been bummed about. How the hell did this happen? I need to get shit organized! I need to get going on this dude's celebration! I'll spare you this time around, but this is your warning that the next post will most likely be an "Owen: This is your life" kind of post.

So. Yeah, lately. More lake house. O had his first trip to Lincoln Park Zoo. He loved the giraffes. Nicole and Tristan hosted a marvelous dinner party. All of which you can see on my flickr page, per usual. Lots and lots of fun stuff.

Last week Laura, Jen, Nikko and I brought our dudes together for an informal baby photo session with Michelle that was ridiculously fun. I mean, yeah. Michelle is awesome. No, really. The best.

We didn't do much for labor day, but it was a really awesome day. Finally made it to the Calumet Fisheries. Awesome. We've been wanting to go since that episode of No Reservations. So worth it. Best catfish I've had outside of what I've caught fishing with my dad. Cruising around the south side is awesome. I know Filip hates being in the car, but I could drive around and look at buildings and ghettos and lots and everything all day long and be content. We made a stop at Promontory Point, like we do. Would have stopped at the African Festival but O had just knocked out in the back seat. It was a pretty great labor day.

Man. A whole year already. I just don't know. I've never before in my entire life thought about death as much as I have in this past year and have never been this scared of it. Even now, I'm awake. It's well after midnight but I couldn't zonk out. Most nights I lay there getting pissed off that I can't fall asleep, but tonight I just felt like I was being nagged. Too many things racing through my head I guess. Filip's been suffering pretty badly from allergies lately and so the noises he's making right now aren't exactly lullabies. Laying there thinking of stupid shit I was going to say and forgot. Thinking about Finks I have to get done, that handful of weird video clips I was working on this afternoon of re-enactments of King Louis XVI in the guillotine, what my favorite breakfast is, Filip's elbow jabbing me kind of weird because he's dead to the world from allergy medication, eczema, Owen saying "Dra-da" so confidently over and over all day today and how damn cute and amazing it was, Totti, the night Owen was born. It always kind of wraps up or leads back to those. I think about Totti a lot. I know, gay, but that damn dog was tattooed on my arm BEFORE she died. And Owen being born. I feel like I can't even really remember it anymore. I mean, I can, but it's so insane how much you forget in such little time. I could spend hours on end telling you about the day Owen was born, barely breaking to even draw in a breath let alone giving you an opportunity to comment, but I feel like there's hours and hours of lost footage that I just can't place anymore. It's normal, I guess, but damn you, fleeting time. Why do I lay in bed thinking about breakfast or re-enactments or the ComEd bill? Why is that stupid shit taking up space in my brain when all I want to do is remember every exact detail from one fucking night? Nuts, man. Nuts on Clark. Where's my goddamn tardis?

I don't really know. I know in a month's time I will have had the best year of my life. What comes around goes around. Karma, crap like that. I'm totally broke, but there's no dollar amount that could even come close to what I have. Sometimes I'm all like, "Dang! When's this karma crap gonna come around and be all like, 'You're turn for good shit?'" But then I realize that's when I'm bratty for a minute, totally have clouded vision, haven't slept enough and stuck in my own head for too long because I mostly just hang out with small humans who can't vocalize anything. It is good. Right now. It's good, so good. I mean, you know, there's regular stuff that you gotta get through, and we're doing that and I'm feeling good about it. I love my family. Feels so weird to say that still. I'm super scared to let go of this first year but so super excited to see what happens next. And it's knitting season. Not that there's a season for it for me, but you know, there's that super romantic sort of feeling about knitting in front of the fireplace with spiced cider and all that. So, that means it's almost fireplace season, which is also going to be amazing! Smores all winter long! Also, not to mention that every, every last stitch in my closet, even the ones I thought would be completely hopeless and retired for the rest of my life, of tiny, regular pre-pregnancy clothes fit perfectly after ballooning to quite an incredible size this time last year. I'm not busting a hole in my blue jeans anytime soon!
Go me! It's my birthday. I mean, and really, it almost is! Which just means it's one month away from Owen's! Holy shit, dudes, where does the time go?

307 Days and Wanting an Endless Summer

2010-08-02T11:34:00.000-07:00

Guh. Back to Monday. Owen and Milo are napping-ish. I hear one of them mumbling, but hopefully that fades into nap. They're both balls-out tired as hell.

In slightly the same vein as last week's forced trip to the forest preserve, I made damn sure we made it to the lake house this weekend. Even if that meant driving up Saturday late afternoon and home Sunday late afternoon. Must get out of city even if only for a second. It ruled. Lots and Lots of amazing friends. Midnight cruise on the pontoon. Lauren made Mojitos. Carolynn wore a tie dyed wolf dress. Smores. Cut off sleeves. Owen even rode on a tractor with Uncle Kyle.

Unfortunately, I was ill prepared for the lake house. I guess all of the excitement overwhelmed me. Too much excitement and sun and dehydration and waves made for a sea sick Rachel upon boarding the pontoon on Sunday. I'm seriously so bummed. Filip took Owen out swimming and he loved it! I missed all the fun feeling like I was about to upchuck the whole time. So bummed about missing everything and not getting photos. We seriously want to get back to the lake house before the end of the summer. We love Wisconsin. This is the only photo I got just before swimming and just before the nausea really set in:

Really, so bummed. I think I'm going to force us to go to the Point this weekend to get Owen in the water again. dang. I'm a dope sometimes. Never underestimate the power of Legend Lake.

And here's where I take this post all sentimental, like I do. I have no idea how to do things. I feel like I know a lot of stuff, but really, I don't. When people compliment us on Owen and I say, "I don't know what we're doing, but whatever it is it seems to be working, so we'll just keep being normal us, I guess," I really mean that. I have no idea what I'm doing and I doubt all the things we do. I have no idea and will continue to keep trying to figure it out on a daily basis. It's scary, but he's a happy baby and he's pretty well behaved, so yeah. When we were on the boat Owen briefly fell asleep on my chest. It was pretty quiet, no conversations at the moment and Carolynn said to me, "You're a good mommy." And that seriously made me feel like a million bucks, even though I felt like I was turning green. My eyes welled up and I think I tried to play it off like it was the wind or some water splashed in my face. I don't know. I never pictured myself a mom before spontaneously deciding to have a kid with Filip. I never wanted to be pregnant. I never had any interest in having kids. I didn't like kids. I mean, I like my friends kids, but you know. So, yeah. I guess having one of my favorite people ever tell me that was one of the best things I've ever heard. Carolynn's daughter is almost 3, and I think she's a hilariously awesome mom and Audrey is a ridiculously hilarious and awesome kid. Carolynn was my first friend who had a kid and I moved back to Chicago just in time to be around for it. I don't know, that means a lot to me. Thanks, Smoot.

I've learned more in the past 2 years than I have all the previous years combined. Lots of important lessons in there. Lately I keep thinking about how good it is to remember to carve out the bad parts of the apple and enjoy the rest of it instead of bitching about having a rotten apple, you know? Just carve out the rotten stuff and everything is really good. It's not that big of a deal. We're right where we're supposed to be and I don't have a single regret. Well, except for not taking care of myself and spending most of Sunday dizzy, but you know what I mean, in the grand scheme of things. I love my boys and all of our friends and really wish every weekend could be like this past weekend. (again, sans the motion sickness part, but even still, I can't really complain.)

300 days! Woah! Only 65 more! Going too fast!

2010-07-26T10:08:00.000-07:00

Oh man. Don't know how July is already coming to a close. How?!

I suspect it's because my days have been filled with many, many childrens, etsy, small projects in between, no sleep and a terribly worrisome feeling anytime there is a few minutes of quiet and I'm not working on something. All of a sudden a month has passed and I haven't even noticed.

So, yesterday I noticed and suggested that we go march around in a forest preserve for a while. It sounded awesome and the weather was finally nice enough. I can't really complain about it being a bad day. I mean, it was ok, but I left feeling like I come up with these gay-ass ideas of fun things to do and I force everyone into it. No one has fun and everyone ends up in a bad mood and when Owen grows up he'll be like, "My mom always forced us to do stupid shit that sucked." Maybe not, but you know. It was one of those days and when we got home I swore that I was never leaving the house again. Close all the windows, draw the blinds, keep the lights off and tv on and never leave again. We started off at the The Original Pancake House and headed to Bachelor's Grove Cemetery. Bachelor's Grove was super cute and fun with O.

hehe. I saw a ghost that-a-way!

So he started getting a little fussy as we were making our way back to the Midlothian Turnpike. We got to the forest preserve, had a ba-ba and continued on. At that point Owen decided he was going to melt-down the entire time we were walking through the woods. Here is where he took a brief break from freaking the fuck out:

But you totally can see the look on his face, the threat of freaking the fuck out again real soon.

Oh, well. There will obviously be many, many more freak-outs and many more awesome good days as well. When we got home, we walked to the market, Filip made a delicious dinner, I cleaned the place, Owen bathed and fell asleep and we watched a pretty good movie. In the end, it was a good day.

Almost all of my time outside of babies has been dedicated to my Etsy shop. So exciting! This is what I do. This is what I've done since I was fifteen. I've got some amazing stories from working at a thrift shop. Anyway, I'm really excited and have been super motivated and stoked and it's gaining momentum, which is awesome because I find that normally I'm super excited in the beginning, get started, start to get down about it, lose interest and eventually throw in the towel. I've got some good ideas and good plans and am really looking forward to continuing this full time. It's pretty rad to finally really make an effort to do what I want to do and in the same it makes time for myself and my own interests and I get to hang onto my sanity for a little longer.

Otherwise, Owen's been getting more and more hilarious and it rules. For example:

He's such a monkey! Things are awesome and the things that aren't are hilarious even still. He has his two top teeth and two bottom teeth and has been chewing up his crib. Not cool, but kind of funny to see his crib rail riddled in pairs of tiny tracks from his two weird teeth. Also not cool that every time we pick him up out of bed his little head is speckled with white bits from chewing the crib, but sort of funny. We really have to invest in the plastic guard rails. He's waving hello and goodbye now. He has just started standing and balancing on his own. He's gotten really, really good at lowering himself from a standing position and, with that, saving himself from major falls and head bonks. His crawling is scary fast. He likes to open and close doors, that's pretty cool. Also not funny but hilarious at the same time, he likes splashing in the toilet. He clearly says "kicius" in his weird Owen way, which is so cute and pretty close. It sounds like, "Shoosh" followed by blowing some bubbles. Also in the vocabulary right now is "ouch," which was technically his first word, "bye" and "eye." There's a few others and he's definitely picking up more and more and learning how to form more sounds. It's crazy! He likes to Dancey Dance a lot. Beets are his favorite food, next to pickles. He ate a shitload of pickled herring a couple weeks ago, which was shocking, but not. Weirdo. He'll eat anything we give him. He had a taste of goats milk and liked it pretty good. He's into his sippy cup even though he pretty much just plays with it, but even better, he likes drinking out of cups like a big person!

I've been feeling super sad for a friend yesterday and today, and will continue to feel super sad for him. With that, I'm reminded again how amazing Filip and Owen both are and how grateful I am for everything I have. I will happily take an annoying, crabby trip to the forest preserve any day and be thankful for it. Things aren't easy sometimes, but I wouldn't change it at all and am really happy for what I got.

Lastly, starting to think up costume ideas for Owen for Halloween. The list is getting good. I think it's going to be super fun! I kind of can't wait!

289 days. Push Forward & Enjoy.

2010-07-15T13:35:00.000-07:00

One last note about my beloved Totti. Today in the mail I received this:

A week after the news of Apricot, Owen and I were having lunch at Lula. While there, I received word that unless there was another 13 year old missing chihuahua with a limp, Totti was just on Re:Sound. I almost teared up at Lula but rushed home to figure out what was going on. That week's episode of Re:Sound was The Lost Show, "Looking at the intangible, what's lost and might be found." In between stories craigslist missing ads were being read. Totti's ad was read around 41 minutes into the program. I listened over and over and over. I cried and cried. Seriously, how bizarre! Joe said, "It was like the radio was talking to us." I called Third Coast Radio and sent an email, not really sure if either would be paid attention to and sure enough, the producer got back to me and said that she could send me a copy of the program. So strange, and coincidental, but bittersweet and kind of perfect despite everything. It was actually a really nice and suitable closure for me. sigh. Here's to Totti.

Since the last post I've been overwhelmed with emotions and babies! I've been busy. Lots a nannying, lots of kids. Busy, keep busy. Out of all of this, I've finally motivated myself to get my act together, do what I really enjoy and get Apricot Vintage going! My shop is set up, facebook is ready, blog, obviously. I'm just preparing to get photos underway and start cranking out the goods! Seriously, I've been scouting and stock piling some really amazing finds and can't wait to get this rolling! Lots of silk and linen. Lots of beautiful under things and perfect accessories! This is going to be utterly terrific! Here's a small preview...Items will be available this weekend, hopefully!

a serious stash of amazing silk Vera Neumann scarves!

Oh! Pure Silk! Saks Fifth Avenue! French Cuffs! Gorgeous!

40's. Bias. 100% silk. Floor length. Trumpet. OMG. I'm having a hard time keeping this one out of my own closet.

Contrast. Flawless. Style.

I'm excited. I'm happy to be busy and motivated. I'm enjoying summer and our front stoop and lots of gelato and Owen and his two front buckteeth and newly evolved mischievous personality. Today I grabbed him about to crawl into the cabinet under the kitchen sink after already clearing it out and I said sternly, "You're being a butt-butt! Stop being such a butt-butt!" And he grinned this sly little grin and went, "Buh-buh!" Ha! I couldn't maintain seriousness. Here we go!

272 days. We are all mourning.

2010-06-28T09:04:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder when the hell I'm going to get a good break. I mean, I got it good considering. Things could be so much worse for me, but time after time, it's like, well, oh god, this is really happening? Don't get me wrong, I've had some amazing days that I'd never trade for anything in the world ever, but god damn it. Please. Just please.

On Saturday morning Totti was no where to be seen in the apartment. She didn't come running when it was time to go outside. There was not a puddle of pee for me to cuss her out about. I instantly knew something was wrong. I went searching. I put up signs. I talked to all the neighbors. I sent out many many s.o.s. messages. Craigslist, Everyblock. Called Animal Care and Control. Registered her on every missing dog website. I walked for hours and hours and my little girl was still not home.

I took Totti in when she was approximately 7 or 8 years old. We don't really know, but that was the estimate. She came from an abused home. She wore a shock collar suited for a large breed dog when I first met her. For weeks, the imprint of the collar remained in her fur. She was kicked and beaten by unruly toddlers. Carried around by her neck. Never fed dog food her entire life, she only had scraps and would get fast food as meals. She clung to Jonah instantly. The adjustment was tough, but she actually turned into a real dog after some time. Jonah made her feel young again. She acted like a puppy. She was happy. She lost so much weight and was healthy and such an awesome, albiet weird, chihuahua.

She was almost 13 ish. She had hurt her foot a few weeks ago and had a slight limp. I was a frantic mess all weekend. Like, really. Both of my dogs are tattooed prominently on my forearms. These dogs are my world. They were the first ones at my side when Owen was born. Like, literally O was birthed, Filip helped me to the floor off the toilet and Totti and Jonah never left my side. Holy shit, I'm crying again.

I got a call early Sunday morning from the North Avenue Animal Hospital. It was surreal. Partly because the girl who called me had a really thick Australian accent and it was seriously like a scene from Flight of the Conchords. I'm freaking out like, "Oh my god. Have you seen her?! Do you have her?!" And she said yes, they had her. She had been hit by a car and the driver of the car brought her in. They found my Craigslist post and called me. She was dead. Except, she said it like this: "She is did." and (seriously) I was like, "Excuse me? Did? What did she do? What did you say?" and she said, "Did. Your dog is did." Then I asked what I was supposed to do. I opted out of cremating her or picking her up. There's absolutely no way I could handle it. It's almost funny, but so fucking sad. I'm the most heartbroken I've been my whole life. She was my girl. Sure, she peed on the floor and smelled so fucking bad and grossed me out all the time, but jesus fucking christ. My dog is actually dead. I seriously cannot believe it. It hasn't actually sunk in. This shit sucks so fucking bad. I just constantly feel sick and terrible. My little girl. I always thought she was going to out-live all of us. Like, really. fuck.

Jonah is super bummed. He refused to leave her bed all day yesterday. On walks, he does his business and then sniffs where Totti had recently been and sort of goes all bloodhound like and looks for her. God, I feel awful. I really loved that dog so fucking much. I want nothing more than to clean up a puddle of pee or catch her eating doo-doo right now. I want my Tots.

r.i.p. totti.

259 days. Let me count the ways...

2010-06-15T10:09:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, day 257, Owen turned eight months old. All three of us had an incredible weekend celebrating.

Obviously Filip had been looking forward to Saturday for quite some time. It had been decided months ago that no matter what, Owen would be geared up and right in the middle of the action for the USA vs. England World Cup match. What a fucking amazing day.

Owen thinks Tinkey rules! Head butt!

lots of naps in between!

Small bar is the best. It's where Owen knows soccer. I mean, really, it's his home away from home. Everyone there is the greatest. Saturday couldn't have been any better. The best eight month birthday eve!

Didn't really think we could top Saturday (even after ending the evening with Superdawg!), but we did. Can't even explain how much we love Milwaukee. We loved Milwaukee before Owen was born, but I was a little nervous about things we could do with Owen there and was a little worried about how he'd fare the trip and the whole day away after having such a huge day on Saturday. Why would I be worried about this? We have the most perfect, mellow baby ever. Our first stop, naturally, was Yellow Jacket. Although I've stopped in every single time we ever made it to Milwaukee, I haven't seen Jen in nearly four years. We've always managed to miss her until Sunday. Holy shit, I love this lady and have missed her so! But then at the same time, it's like it hasn't even been four years and everything was regular, and that's the greatest! It seriously felt like I just saw her last weekend or something.
So, right. We stopped in to see Jen. She hooked Owen up with so many new amazing vintage outfits. While I caught up with her, Filip and Owen headed down the street to start watching the Germany v. Australia match at The Nomad. So yeah, before I became pregnant, The Nomad was our place every time we'd visit Milwaukee. LOVE it. Sort of the same feel as a mini Map Room, except a soccer pub. Perfect place, the only downside was that is was a like sitting in an ashtray. Always super smokey in there so we figured we probably wouldn't be able to hang out there with O. I think neither of us wanted to say it, but we were both a little bummed. To our surprise, there was a marvelous back patio and bar set up with lots of seats and 2 screens for the game. Yay! Right?! We could watch outside! Perfect! I wrapped up with Jen for the time being and met up with the boys just at the beginning of the second half. If I'm prissy at all, the only time it really shows is when it comes to port-a-pottys. Can't do it. As the match wrapped up, I transferred a slumbering Owen to Filip's shoulder and headed inside the bar to use the bathroom, only to find that just before the World Cup they had closed shop for a few days and remodeled. NO SMOKING INSIDE ANYMORE! I chatted with a bartender about it and O is welcome to join us for any match at the Nomad. Dream come true. Milwaukee is perfect and everything is coming up Filip, Rachel and Owen!

a sleepy Owen. World Cup is exhausting!

guh! Sore shoulders! Super tough arms though!

After the game we met back up with Jen and decided to have a drink with a few friends, including Alaina who was celebrating her birthday! We met amazing people. Had fantastic conversations. Owen fell in love with all the ladies, like he does. When it was time to move on, we weren't ready to head home. So, we went back to Yellow Jacket and had a mini party in the shop. Seriously, my heaven, I think. Sweetest people ever, Owen was in an awesome mood, great music, Filip was even dancing, a huge, awesome dog named Floyd, who Owen loved! and All in one of my favorite places in the world, with the best company! I really miss the smell of a vintage shop.

We're excited to come back to Milwaukee all the time again. Owen loved it. Seriously, the best weekend we've had in so long. We really needed it. I'm still not recovered, so exhausted and sore, but it was so worth every last second. If our big plan for the next two years somehow doesn't work itself out, our Plan B is Milwaukee.

Owen is 8 months old. He's huge. He has three teeth, he eats everything, he's starting to say a couple simple words, he's really trying so hard to balance and get walking. Most importantly, he is a really happy baby. Content, chill, mellow, always game for everything, never fussy. We're doing everything we can to make sure he's happy and that is the easiest job I've ever had, really. He's just a happy baby and we couldn't be more thrilled. Not exactly sure what it is that's doing it, but we're just going to keep going the way we always have because it seems to be working.

Now, more World Cup! Owen will be waking up from his nap just in time for the Brazil v. North Korea game this afternoon and we've got to commentate to Filip while he's working!

234 Days. List of Finks.

2010-05-21T13:38:00.000-07:00

Sometime last year, before Owen was born, Filip and I were talking with our friend Andrew who had just recently come back from visiting his family in Australia. He was telling us about his niece, who was maybe five or six or something. She had started writing a list that was entitled "Finks To Do" and it was filled with pretty hilarious kid "finks" to do. I think punching her brother was on the list somewhere, either way, it was hysterical. A tiny Australian kid translates things to finks.
While pregnant, everything turns into a list of finks to do, get, remember, etc. And even though all of that preparation is necessary, you know, nesting and so on, after Owen was born, so much of it realistically seemed, and was, totally useless. So now, seven months into parenthood, after overcoming hormone changes, mood swings, and the realization of what my life now is, what it has become and what it will always be and ever-evolving, I've got a pretty good list of realistic, simple finks that have made this pretty awesome, easy and pleasing for all of us so far. This isn't everything, and it's not the ultimate guide or anything like that, just some stuff that we've been into. It's mostly going to reflect Owen's current age, but yeah, you know.

1) Sophie. Seriously. I know every other baby has this and it's not like it's a cheap baby toy. I didn't understand the hype at first either. I saw it while pregnant and was like, "Fuck that. I'm not paying $20 for a stupid giraffe." And, although I didn't pay the $20 for it, ours was gifted from the great Jen Hellige, had I have known the magic it would behold and that it would become Owen's first best friend, I would have paid ten times that amount for it. Totally weird. He didn't care about it at all until about six months, and since then it has been guaranteed to make him smile no matter what. It's the only toy he hasn't gotten tired of yet. When he's super upset or his gums are hurting, pop this guy out and he's distracted and cheers right up. I don't know. It's like baby cocaine or something. And it's super cute to boot. It will always hold a spot on my shadowbox if and when Owen finally gets over it.

2) Boon Benders. These are the only baby spoons worthwhile. They are great for many reasons. The spoon is perfectly sized and lipped for big bites that make it totally in the mouth. Every other spoon we have has made a complete mess all over Owen and a 3 foot radius around him while eating. Not only the only spoon we use for eating, the fork has seriously been a great teething remedy for Owen. He is always hanging onto it and has taken it to bed with him the past few nights.

3) Obviously, the Bumbo. Every other photo of Owen, he's in the Bumbo. It has been absolutely perfect from the minute he could hold his head up. He's just now growing out of it at 7 months. Totally worth it and has been a lifesaver. We haven't had a fancy or proper high chair that he could fit in, really until this age and size, and this buddy has served that purpose and many more. Sometimes Owen just wanted to sit with FIlip and watch soccer, sometimes he just needed to sit up and dissect a pickle. There have been many finks he's needed to do without us holding him.

4) Gerber Cloth Diapers. Yeah. We've used them as diapers, barf rags, towels, teething toys, turbans, extra padding/blankies in carriers, you can make fun games with them, the possibilities are endless. I have always had one on me at all times since day one, and I believe I will continue to have one on me for the next two to three years. Lifesavers, man. I'm serious.

5) Green to Grow Bottles. After nearly two months of super stressful struggles with breast-feeding, we made the switch to bottles and formula. We went through a variety of bottles before sticking with these. I liked the BornFree Bottles a lot, and so did Owen, but somehow Filip and I kept managing to break the caps that screw the nipple to the top of the bottle, so we gave up. Apparently we are both over achievers with screwing (oh god, no pun intended) and could never get it tight enough until it was too late. I liked the plain glass Evenflo bottles but they leaked like crazy. Anyway, we tried a handful of different ba-bas, and these have stuck with us and are great. Super easy, simple, Owen is cool with them, environmentally everything and cute, well designed. We probably would have gotten the glass bottles if the boutique we went to carried them, but the plastic ones are great, and i'm not worried about them breaking in my bag.

6) Other pregnant friends/friends with babies. Not to be a total gaywad, but seriously, This is one of the most important things for many reasons. You trade shit and you get stuff and hammy-downs. Everything and anything, food, clothes, toys, dipes, wipes, binkys, medicine, everything. Also, this isn't meant to sound shallow, and anyone else who is going through or has gone through this knows what I mean, but when things are really brutal and you think it can't get any worse and kind of want to be dead, knowing it's happening to someone else too is pretty comforting. Not that I want my friends to be suffering, but this can all be very isolating and having other ladies who can honestly relate 100% is really, really the best. Having other people in it with you and having their support really means a lot. When I was pregnant early on, Jen was like, "You should meet Laura. She's pregnant too and you're as far along as she is." And I was up for it and like, "Yeah, ok." But really, in the back of my head I was like, "Yeah, pair the pregnant fatty with another pregnant fatty. Great. This sucks." But guess what- Laura rules, and Milo is over right now. Boo-yah, bitchy pessimistic self of a year ago! I was into it, but sometimes I secretly thought having pregnant friends and pregnant club and meeting other moms was gay. I was never so wrong in my entire life. And if it is gay, If I ever time traveled and met my pregnant downer self, I'd be like, "It's gay and you're proud of it. You'll see. Don't be such an asshole."

7) Sense of humor. If you don't have it, you will not make it and your child will suffer mental illness later. It sucks and is super hard sometimes, but you will lose your mind if you don't just give up and let things be. There were countless times that I was so nuts that I was crying and then just started cracking up, because it just has to be that way and it's okay and kind of sweet anyway. You know, to be so upset and stressed and tears are streaming and seeing barf caked all over the front of you and realizing how pathetic and ridiculous you must look crying to yourself with a screaming newborn that you start laughing at yourself while you're pushing out the last of those tears and then you just pack it all up and go on with the rest of the day.

8) Acceptance and relinquishing control. I've become so much more chill and happy and laid back the past few months after finally accepting and being happy with the fact that this is how things are. I cannot expect to keep dates or schedules, cannot plan on getting X amount of finks done, cannot control most of everything and just do what I can when I can and don't put pressure on or be hard on myself or others when things fall off the radar or don't happen. It's okay. Most importantly, my behavior and acceptance has reflected on Owen and he's much happier, making it easier and making it so that I'm striving and happy to be this way. We're all much happier. Acceptance of this and everything is so important. Accepting advice and help as well as material finks, accepting Owen as himself, not who I expect him to be or who I want him to be, just who he is, as well as myself, Filip and everyones rolls and just keeping everything open. Can't change or control most things, and can't change other people so figure out how to weave it all together the way it is and just let it be. It's good.

Really, you don't need a whole lot. Babies don't need a whole lot. It's cliche, but they really just need you to love them. They just need you to be for them and sometimes that's not an easy thing to understand and accept. Totally selfless. I'm really in love with Owen more than ever. We have so much fun hanging out and interacting. I mean, I've always loved him, but it's developing into so much more and I really love him. Anyway, I never had a baby shower, not to say I didn't receive a bunch of baby gifts, I totally did, but seriously, we would be just the same with 80% less of the stuff we have. All of the shit I panicked about not having before Owen was born is really silly. really. I mean, I absolutely love all of his vintage toys and everything else, but that was my fink, not his. That was my weird way of nesting. I don't know. I guess I just wish I could have this conversation with myself a year ago, and if I could I wish myself a year ago would actually listen, even though I know I'd roll my eyes and scoff and worry anyway. I guess what I'm saying is that this shit is easy and what you make of it. There are some tough spots, for sure, but it's the best fink that could have ever happened to me and it's all worth while and I'm happy with myself and with us. I don't know what my point was before this baby was born. Now I want to really learn everything, to do more, to accomplish, to show by example, to go more places, to experience everything with him and Filip and teach and encourage and support and I'm super proud. ain't got no shame. bring it!

Why my posts always end up sappy like this? Just the way it is, I guess. Don't mean to be preachy or anything, mostly just so I can re-read all this myself and be all proud like, "damn, go on with yer bad self."

225 days. 7 months old tomorrow.

2010-05-12T10:37:00.001-07:00

let me tell ya. We heard Owen screaming from his bedroom after a while of quiet mumbling and play. Upon entering his bedroom, this is what we found. I felt bad leaving him there for a second, but I had to grab the camera. Dude scooted backwards under the bed until he got his head stuck. Pretty good.

We moved! yep. Let's get this baby off to the right start by moving at six months. maybe we'll move again before he turns one, and so on and so forth. My little vagabond. But really, I hope not. I love our new place. It's beautiful. Dark wood floors, working fireplace, office, huge room for O, amazing lighting, perfect kitchen. It's all very comfortable and we look good here.

tomorrow Owen turns 7 months old. what the? really? it's been 7 months already? as of Sunday, maybe as a mother's day surprise, Owen officially started crawling. like a goddamn pampers commercial or something. he's been scooting around and thinking about the logistics of it for a while, but Sunday, he put one paw in front of the other, coordinated the knees and crawled his ass right over to me, then belly flopped and started clapping. I cried, obviously. Look what I taught that baby! holy cacaballs! how does this happen?

Since we've moved in, Filip's mother came to visit us for a week. It was real nice to have her here, despite our own weird situational stresses. Like, it was real nice. I'm so glad she finally got to meet Owen. Makes me feel pretty good, like I've been doing a good job. I also feel like things are getting back to normal. Well, not back to normal, not back to anything, but like, a new thing that is on it's way to a happy medium. I'm balancing Owen 24/7, work, babysitting and now baby trading, some flowers in the in-between and almost staying sane by starting to slowly carve out little bits of time for myself here and there, which includes successfully thrifting again, knitting lace and going to see Babies tonight, all i'm so excited about. I guess having a kid has finally granted me the patience to knit lace. ha.

Just after moving, Owen had another amazing photo shoot with Michelle which you can see some of the results here. Which reminds me that I absolutely have to call the baby modeling agencies this week. I would have never imagined that our baby would have so much fun and be so happy and mild-mannered to put up with photo shoots. He had so much fun, we all had so much fun and again, I'm so fucking thrilled and thankful that Dee introduced us and that Michelle has been so awesome and generous in capturing some amazing shots of Owen for us.

Owen is officially left handed. I suspected so for a while, but over the past few weeks it's certain. Even this morning, he grabbed his mini bagel with his left hand. Filip's dad was left-handed and it's said that certain traits and things skip a generation. Pretty weird and funny. I bet he's going to have terrible handwriting much like Filip's.

How is it that coincidentally a bunch of us all had babies around the same time and that we all ended up living within a few blocks of each other? And from that there has become this brilliant and beautiful understanding and community that is so important and priceless. Never before have I understood or appreciated fully what and how important community is. And further, the thought of living this life that i'm in now, let's say even 15 years ago where the internet never existed, seems totally impossible and is mind boggling. How did people do it? How did my mother do it? seriously, jeez.

Anyway, my first mother's day was, in one, was a total success and in another, a disaster. Owen and I had a great, great afternoon hanging with Kate and Parker at smallbar. Owen had a pickle, Parker held a baby for the very first time and, I think, altogether it was a lot of love. It was really, really sweet and awesome. It was Owen's first time on a bus, too. And with his whole hand jammed in his mouth the entire ride, he fit in great with all the other crazies on the Diversey bus. ha!

So, yeah. I got a really sweet mother's day card from my mom with a gift certificate and for once in such a long time, I actually didn't need to use it for baby food or diapers. I've got a shitload of books coming from amazon that I'm super excited about. Consuming Kids, which I've been really looking forward to and sort of terrified to read, which is also our book club selection. and The Assassination of Fred Hampton, a couple Dover books and The Odyssey.

Ah, well. I should begin wrapping this up. My lists of tasks is dwindling and that's exciting, but I want to get back to that before more work comes my way. I made curtains for the kitchen last night. So now almost all of the old lady lace curtains are gone and it doesn't look like a weird Polish lady lives here anymore. The remaining crates and boxes have been taken care of and the back porch has been cleaned and organized. Feels good. I'm going to clean and finish up my sheepskin to make a small rug for Owen's room, put leather on my Bertoias to save our beautiful dark wood floors, and maybe start on this super cute vintage oriental themed gravel wall art that Adam and Angie gave me awhile ago. I have the perfect spot for it in Owen's room, but I'm not sure i'm ready to bust out the hot glue gun yet. Remember tacky glue? In that terrible gold/copper looking bottle? Does that stuff still exist? That would be perfect for this. heh.

2 last things. first, Desmond Morris said that if mothers really show their love to their babies and love them particularly in the first two years of their life, those babies are going to be good at loving later on in life. I want Owen to be really good at loving when he grows up.

and lastly, from The Tonight Show:
Tony Randall asks Johnny Carson, "Can you use the word horticulture in a sentence?" and Johnny responds with, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't lead a horticulture."

6 months old today! 196 days!

2010-04-13T08:05:00.000-07:00

photo cred: casey sachen

Owen is passing into six months like any Polish baby should! With a pickle! He devoured the whole thing, only left the rind. It was really hilarious. Filip and I were both surprised, but then not at all. I cannot believe this baby is 6 months old already. Like Angie says, the sand is falling faster than ever before.

I've got many things to report on but no time. We're moving this weekend and Sunday Filip's mom is arriving and visiting for a while. Lots and lots happening. Easier, good times on the horizon, I think.

I'll post promptly after our move, I'm sure. Ela says, "I make everything for baby," while she's here so I may be getting a nice break for relaxing and general nothingness. I'm really excited. like, really.

150 days. typing for the sake of typing while it is quiet.

2010-02-26T13:54:00.000-08:00

ba-ba. nap. coffee. chat with filip. another ba-ba. cold chilin. hanging with neighbor and her greyhound. nap. transcribe. ba-ba. nap. blog.
i would like a really decadent desert biscuit right now.
then, meet with another mama in a bit. possibly a quick breverage with brandyn. delicious dinner of italian sausages and more brussel sprouts following. then, possibly more transcribing. afterwards, a movie maybe, or more reading, whatever, accompanied by a dogfish 90 minute ipa. very later, welcoming my visiting cousin josh and his friend for the weekend. in between, more ba-bas, bumbo, laughing, desmond dekker (O's favorite), a few uh-guhs and possibly more naps.

that amounts to a pretty good day, i think.

i just finished reading a couple books brandyn lent me: twilight of the superheroes, deborah eisenberg and nobody belongs here more than you, miranda july. fantastic. well, miranda july was good albiet awkward and uncomfortable. deborah eisenberg was great. so good. i love reading a book from an author i've never read and getting so pumped about it that i want to read everything that person has ever written right NOW. although, i'm not doing that. i'm moving onto tolstoy. quite the opposite. sheesh. but i need this right now. learning all this transcribing stuff and actually making words and grammar my job now, i realize, yet again, how important it is to constantly read. i like being re-excited about it. O's kind of into it, too. until he falls asleep.

what do yall do when you have a persona non grata? just curious.

yesterday ruled, so hard. milo & owen. owen's first friend of his own age. this is something special.

after hangin with laura and milo through the afternoon, i finished a small bit of work, hung out with cesar and swung by the helliges for a little bit of catching up. E is porkin out! looking good. the whole family is looking good. i'm really, so glad they are in my life. i'm really so glad all yall are in my life. this past year, all these changes have brought so many amazing people into my life whereas we might have never crossed paths otherwise. those are the things worthwhile. seriously. imma senda showt owt to my shawty brandyn, da vetranos, mah girl hiedi and tuesday - yer blessed, nikko gurl you crazy, angie- my boo, dee- where would i be wit out you?, smoot- one word: doubleheat. i don't know what that just was, but i entertained myself, at least. you know what i mean. just keepin in mind what is the most important, thats all.

so, my cousin, josh, and a friend of his are staying with us this weekend. i'm pretty pumped. i've been naggin this kid to visit chicago forever. art school is callin his name. he's a perfect fit, i'm excited to show him around. this is good.

just got a letter in the mail from my grandma gladys. made my day!

ok. i think four is probably a good time to retire my relaxin pants for the day. i don't want to. but i got too. this is gettin ridiculous.

146 days.

2010-02-22T21:20:00.000-08:00

monday. guh. today was totally a monday.

Weekend was nice. Friday my mom came up for a visit and to soak up as much Owen time as the weekend would let her. She came with lots of things for Owen in tow, which is always awesome. She brought him some new toys and as it happens, Owen totally decided to actually recognize, play and enjoy toys while she was here. It was pretty cute. He hasn't expressed much interest in buddies until now. He has also started reaching for the pets! Really, its the most hilarious thing. He hones in, laughs and giggles when they are near him and just over the past few days he has started reaching out to touch them without us prompting him. It's really incredible.
So right, back to the weekend. Filip made the most delicious spaghetti and meatballs for dinner Friday. We just hung around chatting and hanging out with Owen. Saturday we ventured out for a Bumbo and successfully found one! Totally thrilled! This kid looks great sitting in a Bumbo!

After acquiring a Bumbo we made a trip to Whole Foods & Stanleys, and I think it was a life changing experience for my mom! So awesome! She's checking out the Whole Foods in Saint Louis! So exciting, I felt pretty good about that. That evening we hung around the house. Filip's brother joined us for a bit and we made even more delicious meatball sandwiches. Sunday morning I made a big breakfast and we lazily hung around with the soccer game on. My mom left late morning just as Owen zonked out. I know its not easy for her to leave. But, at very least, she can look forward to the next trip, right?
Sunday was spent boring and lazy. SO AWESOME. TV was murmuring in the background, Owen and Filip were napping in intervals, reading, chess, boredom. It has been a really, really long time since we've had a day like that. Quiet and relaxing and just good. Nice to forget about a few things, even if only briefly. It was much needed. Early that evening we headed to Lauren & Jason's cozy home for cocktails and a wonderfully delicious dinner! Manhattans, boeuf, rum cake, a Douglas Fir digestif, good music, great conversations. I want more days like yesterday.

So, all weekend I've been back and forth, and now waiting on, hopefully, my last round of revisions for some preliminary stuff I've been transcribing for my new job! I think I may have gotten the most ideal job, if only this opportunity would have presented itself while I was pregnant! I'm working from home transcribing and time-coding some awesome stuff for an a/v archiving company. seriously, so perfect. All that time in between ba-bas and diaper changes playing letterblox is totally paying off. It's pretty awesome all around and so perfect and ideal right now, not to mention that my nutty, spastic, slightly OCD brain is having a ball with this and I'm totally enjoying it. When I get this last bit of feedback, I get the go ahead to knock myself out transcribing to my hearts desire. It's dreamy. Go words! Hooray for working in my unders at 3 in the morning! Three cheers for being our own nanny! Yippee for never really having to see a boss in real life, because let's face it, me & bosses have a rocky past. I'm pumped about this. The past couple of days I have been so anxious to get through this beginning phase of learning and editing, I just want to get to plowing through this non-stop! But, I am thankful that I had yesterday to chill before I get into this full time.

I've also got lots of other things and opportunities I'm very excited about. I'm meeting with several awesome moms to talk about part-time nannying and nanny-shares in the neighborhood. Knitting class starts tomorrow night! I think Dee and I are going to treat ourselves to yummy chocolate treats to celebrate this tiny success! I'm also nearly positive that I am ready to sign a contract with a company that I'm pretty excited to be a part of, I've just been a little nervous about making a commitment just yet. I really, really want the position, but I also want to be fair and with things being a little unsteady lately, I don't want to commit and back out of something I can't take on. But yeah, I think I'm ready to go ahead! I'm going to sleep on it one last night.

Guh. But even through all of this stuff, today is a Monday, no denying. It's been kind of a bummer of a day. All of these rainy, dreary days have been exhausting me even further. I'm making honest efforts, I'm being sincere. I just want things to be okay across the board, and I think that is a pretty normal thing for a person to want. I don't feel like it's outrageously selfish to want things to be better. I feel like it would be more work to carry a grudge, and I don't really know, but part of me feels like that can be pretty selfish. It sucks, it really does. Ryan always use to tell me "you can turn this around, just turn it around." Maybe I didn't consider that enough then, but I've been considering it a lot over the past few months. I'm glad it stuck with me, it's very good advice that I appreciate. I'm doing what I can.

Enough of that. I probably don't have to say that I've been nutty over Yo Gabba Gabba lately, and Owen and I have a couple minutes here and there of Yo Gabba Gabba time. My favorite is Cool Tricks. Seriously, I love it. I've been singing the Cool Tricks song all day. COOL COOL COOL COOL COOL TRICKS! This Cool Tricks, is my absolute favorite, it tops Soko and his Theremin. Dang it! Youtubes won't let me imbed it, but it's so worth clicking this link, do it! You have to watch this, it's freakin hilarious! I love Rhys Darby!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4lVKbXQ0KI

Sweet boner! In the time I've been drafting this out, I received my approval to transcribe my little heart out!!! Here we go!!!

142 days

2010-02-18T13:12:00.000-08:00

sheesh. lots to say but no time to say it right now. i just wanted to get a quick post up and share a few things!

holy cow...look at O! Last week Owen and I visited Dee in her studio to get some planning underway, which I will explain shortly. While there, her friend Michelle popped in to say hello and to meet Owen. She also has a studio in the same building as Dee and before I knew it, we were in an impromptu photo session! She took some amazing shots. We totally had a blast! It was so awesome and sweet, and I'm so very excited she took some great photos of Owen! You can see a few of them here at her blog!

So, Dee & I have done some brainstorming and planning and have organized knitting classes!! So exciting and I'm really stoked to actually put some of this knowledge to good use, and teach my friends! We're planning more classes for the future, more advanced projects and other crafty skills as well. I'd love for more of you to join us, we have several spaces left open. Please contact me if interested and please pass this along to anyone you think may be interested as well! Here are the details:

Basic Knitting

2 week course, Tuesday Feb. 23rd & Tuesday March 2nd 7:30 - 9:30 p.m.

or

1 afternoon course, Sunday Feb. 28th, 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.

$30.00. Payment of $15.00 in advance to book your place. Remainder of payment due first evening of class.

You will need to bring:

1 pair of straight knitting needles. Size US 8 or larger, recommended.
Yarn. Worsted or bulky weight wool, recommended.

In this course you will learn all of the basics of knitting, everything you need to know to get started! This will include casting on, learning the two stitches of knitting, the knit & purl, understanding needle size & yarn size, gauge, basic patterns and variations - garter stitch, stockinette stitch, rib stitch, etc., shaping, increasing & decreasing stitches, binding off, finishing, and Pom Poms!!!

Advanced Hat Course

3 week course, Tuesday March 9th, 16th & 23rd, 7:30 - 9:00 p.m.

$45.00. Payment of $15.00 in advance to book your place. Remainder of payment due first evening of class.

You will need to bring:

1 set of double-pointed needles, size according to pattern.
Yarn, according to pattern.
Optional: Stitch holders, darning needles.

In this course, you will knit a hat from beginning to end! We will provide 2 different styles of basic hat patterns (a stocking cap or beret/tam style) to choose from, and have completed models as reference. You will learn how to begin the project, knit in the round, incorporate basic knitting variations, read & follow a pattern, understand knit construction, shaping, and finishing. This is a great, quick session to expand or refresh your knitting skills, and follows the Basic Knitting course perfectly!!!

---------------------------------------

Classes will be held at 2846 W. North Ave, Suite 2R, enter at the side door on Fransisco. Cash & Paypal accepted methods of payment. Contact Rachel Ullrich 312.375.3040 or Dee Clements 773.957.4631 with any questions or to book your place!

127 days

2010-02-03T11:38:00.000-08:00

woah. how did i miss the 100 day mark? not sure. i know that is not the only thing i've missed recently.

so much in so little time! its really remarkable. so, as of 127 days Owen is the picture of health! weighing in at 15 pounds & 29-ish inches long (and counting, these were measured at the end of last week, so i could be off already), this guy is in the 97th percentile for height and somewhere around the 90th percentile for weight! it really is unbelievably amazing how rapidly all this is happening. two days ago he started holding his feet anytime he's laying down on his back when he doesn't feel like rolling over. its pretty hilarious. so weird that he started doing this 2 days ago. 3 days he couldn't, and all of a sudden he can. everything has been like that. its not like there are small changes that sort of slip by, and then you realize it and wonder how long its been that way. we see so many changes, daily, and they are all so intense and surprising! obviously, he's been rolling around like a nut. he rolls over, does some push ups, and either screeches a little or zonks out. several months ago, he was attempting to roll and would accidentally get there on occasion, but now it is intentional and he's really good at it. so awesome.
the other night we decided to see what he would do with a bit of cantaloupe. hilarity ensued. i really didn't think he'd show interest yet. we were both just anxious and curious to see how he would react. surprisingly, he went ape-shit. he totally 'monkey-brains-ed' that sucker. loved it! he slobbered up and gummed down a good handful of pieces. that totally geared us up and we are really excited to start cooking for him. thursday we're making a ton of baby food. most will go in the freezer for a minute. i'm really curious to see what he takes a liking to.

this is totally off subject. and angie, i'm totally excluding you from this next statement, because you're just amazingly adorable and i get a kick out of everything you do, so right, not counting you, because its different, trust me. i think its pretty weird and lame to "like" your own posts, comment on them and follow yourself via twitter, blogger, etc. really? i don't know. i don't really know anything, but seems pretty tacky. kind of like that retard with the burberry diaper bag & matching baby decked out head to toe in nova check at smoque last night. real classy. her baby probably also likes its own posts and follows itself on blogger.

well, me? i'm ok. pretty well, actually. except for, what might be a case of tmj due to excessive teeth grinding and jaw clenching. i've always had a nasty habit of doing so in my sleep. who would have thought that would get worse after having a baby? ha. i'm getting a guard and have been hot-compressing my jaw, it'll be fine in a bit, i think. no biggie, really.
otherwise, i think i'm pretty much regular again. at some point i may have mentioned that i thought i could have been going through that post-partum 6 week-ish phase of losing hair, hormones regulating, etc. and while i do believe most of that has passed (its been a minute), i think my body was a little late on finally releasing all of that extra hair it was hanging onto. holy god, the past few weeks have been gross. i thought about building a replica of myself out of hair and surprising Filip with it. literally, that could happen. i've managed to regularly* wash my hair to try and alleviate the situation. yesterday i decided i had had quite enough of my overgrown bangs so i chopped about 3 inches off in the bathroom and it turned out quite nice. but, i'm very deserving of the whole 9 yards from Mops when i get a minute to make that happen.

still not fitting back into my favorite pencil skirt or my totally torn up favorite denims, which were the first things i grew out of, but i'll get there, i'm sure. lots of my other favorite things are starting to make their way back into my everyday wardrobe, which is regular and nice.
i'm starting to realize the importance of making sure to make time for myself. its been really tough, and there's a fine line between everything. not easy. well, it is easy, but its also easy to get caught up into mini routines or something else or whatever and forget, and personally, i remember when i'm too far gone and already irritated and ready to blow my brains out. so right, i've been making a huge effort lately to avoid those situations. starting next week i'm going to be hanging out with a really amazing guy named Ceasar every thursday evening, maybe some other times in between. He's 3 and really awesome. i'm very excited. i'm still looking to start tennis lessons soon, but i think that might wait until later, because i'm totally excited to sign up for trapeze lessons. a friend of mine was posting videos of her trapeze lessons while i was pregnant and i got all pumped and excited. i'm totally doing it. can't wait! something to look forward to in the short term. i've been learning that short term things to look forward to are very important. we have some really awesome major long term things we're looking forward to, but right now things are so concentrated and intense, that those things seem super far away. the little things have been motivating. i need motivation right now. and more sunlight.

owen and i have just about had it with the winter. we've been out on walks and and have been trying to get out and about more often, as long as there is minimal snow and it is above 30 degrees. stir crazy, i tell ya. not just me either. if this kid doesn't get out of the house often we'll have a fuss-monster on our hands in the evenings.

awe. remember my last post from previous holidays? filip and i were finally able to get owen in a photobooth. he got pretty irate about the flash by the 3rd set, but they're cute as all get-out. we'll go back again soon. these are from about a month ago already. dang, time is seriously going too fast now.

my great friends matt & jen just recently welcomed their little guy, Elias Palmer into the world. so gosh dang incredible.

we're overjoyed for them. its really totally insane, and funny, because i knew it was going to happen like this, its no shocker, but its really happening. "pregnant ladies club" is drawing to a close and now its "mom club" or even better "milf club." haha. the whole range of experiences among all of us is nothing i could have imagined. i mean, i didn't really have any expectations for myself, much less for anyone else because, you know, you just can't. all eyes on nikko now...early april! since Elias came about, i've had these bizarre pangs of sadness and nostalgia. mostly now because, for the first few months at least, Elias is providing a point of comparison so i can actually see how much Owen has already developed and grown and all of the differences that will surely even out around a year or so. it hits me from time to time that i can't stop Owen from growing. and i don't want to, but he's not going to be this ever again. we'll never have this again. things will never be this way again ever in my life. its really terribly sad, while at the same time i couldn't be excited to see this guy turn 1 year old, or 2 or 5. I dunno, all part of the picture, you know? its just so overwhelming in a way that is completely unexplainable, you just have to know what i mean from experience, i guess. i don't know, or maybe not. but it really is overwhelming for me.

i always feel very accomplished after sending out lots of letters and other pieces of mail. why is that so gratifying? equally as gratifying is putting black corners on photographs. i did a ton of that yesterday too.

today is a day where my patience is really being tested. i would rather it wasn't. i would also rather like biscuits and coffee right now.

addicted to omgpop lately. its bad. but perfect because i cannot engage in anything serious or intense ever, but bad. when i fall asleep i'm spelling out words in letterblox. kind of like when you play too much tetris and your tetris-ing everytime you close your eyes.

61 days.

2009-12-13T13:52:00.000-08:00

its been awhile. i keep breaking this promise, but my intentions are good. today Owen is 61 days old. we're sitting at the coffee shop and managed to forget binksus and his baba at home. sometimes it just cant all happen. he's zonked out, so we're safe for a while. the past 4 days straight, and several days here and there prior, Owen has slept from about midnight well past 8 am. Usually at 8 ish he gets up for a snack and zonks back out for another hour or two. what the WHAT?! its incredible. everyday i have a new reason as to why he is the greatest baby. just over 2 months and sleeping through the night without any changes in diet or anything like that. incredible!

in other news, Owen is rolling over. front to back, back to front. not with total regularity, but he tries and tries and tries and can usually make it happen after a while if he doesn't get himself worked into too much of a frustrated frenzy. he's holding full on conversations too. with filip and i, and his friends and just about anything when he's in a chatty mood. he's growing like a weed, like kids do, obviously. we've already got a nice pile of clothes and things to pass on. i was organizing his dresser yesterday and had a hard time not hanging on to just one of his striped long sleeved onesies. got kinda teary eyed and sappy. a lot of times, filip and i will be hanging out on the couch with Owen, right there, and looking at photos of him on flickr getting all nostalgic and sappy for 4 weeks ago. Looking at his birth photos is totally crazy to me now. he was the tiniest stranger then. I had to lug that dude around for 9 months not knowing who or what he was and meeting him for the first time was amazing, but really bizarre. we're both still just getting to know him, you know? its funny...he started noticing his mobile (his friends) above his crib a while ago, and now he gets really excited to see them and talks to them, and its kind of like he always liked them a ton, and they've always been his favorite, they've been friends for years and years, and since we just became friends with Owen, we're just now meeting his other friends. maybe this sounds crazy. you know what i mean though? lately, i've been thinking so much about making sure that i respect Owen as his own person. first and foremost we make sure his immediate needs are met and that he's healthy, happy and content. but beyond that, its been really really important to me to give him his space. to talk to him like he's an equal, because he is. to take him seriously and make sure he knows i take him seriously. and to make sure that i am always aware of the fact that i do not own him. we're here to introduce him to things, to teach him and guide him along and encourage him and support him. the most important thing for me has been respecting him. everyone has baggage and issues, and if that is my biggest piece to pick up at the claim, i'm actually really glad because of how i am learning from it to be the best i can for Owen and Filip, and for myself, too. with that, and with many other things going on, this says so much so perfectly right now. amazing.

yesterday i caught up with brandyn. in our conversations, listening to her, i see lots of myself, and its really pretty awesome. i super admire her, shes a great lady. maybe both of us being virgos has something to do with it. i dont really know, but what i do know, is that making a really good new friend is such an incredible thing. like all my favorite friends, i think a ton about our conversations afterward and i keep thinking about them, and i love it. i am really excited to be around all these amazing people, going through similar experiences, whether its 2 years ahead of where i am or 2 years behind where i am, with their own ways of handling everything and learning from all of it. im thankful to recognize these things the older that i get. in a conversation yesterday, brandyn mentioned the quote "youth is wasted on the young." so true. so good to keep thinking about and appreciate everything that is happening right now. and it feels pretty good to not have any major regrets about my own youth. except maybe not doing a shit ton of drugs when i had the chance. hence, youth is wasted on the young. haha.

speaking of greatest friends, i felt like pulling this out of the vault. from holidays last year. pretty amazing. i cant wait to do the same photo with owen and aero! i think filip and i are going to try to make it to schubas this week for lunch and photobooth pictures with owen.

and speaking of holidays, this marks the first year where i will be staying in chicago for both thanksgiving and christmas. thanksgiving was very nice, photos on flickr, of course. jason & lauren were great hosts! not sure what christmas will hold for us, but whatever happens i'm sure will be really awesome. im feeling ok about things, but like many other people, i've just never liked this time of year, cant get into it. its more depressing than anything else. nothing personal, just, you know. im ready to fast forward to a month from now.

that being said, new years is usually my least favorite holiday out of this cluster of holidays. always has been. and i'm not really looking forward to the actual holiday or any plans or anything like that, but its going to feel really good getting into a new year. there's so many important, unforgettable things that happened this year, but there are equally so many things that are much better left in the past and we're very happy for that. cleansing, you know? totally cliche, but things are usually cliche because they're true. and for once, i'm going to enjoy new years, totally embrace it, all of what i normally find trivial and bane, and i'll remember it.

day 35.

2009-11-17T20:34:00.000-08:00

do i need to say that i've been meaning to get to writing a post but have had my hands full? yeh. again, a day or two ended up turning into a couple weeks without me realizing it. but i guess that's how things go now, right? and my ever breaking computer makes most things really time consuming and sort of like a chore. i'm going to be duct taping this thing together soon. i'm hoping it hangs on for a while longer...

owen is 5 weeks old today. the longest five weeks wrapped into what seems like the most tiring day ever. i mean that in a good way, like, the shortest five weeks, but so long ago at the same time. you know what i mean? i seriously could have never anticipated how rapidly this dude would develop. i mean, yeh, i knew from books and people telling me how things would be, but its so much different than actually experiencing it on a first hand basis. his eyesight is really incredible now! he hasn't crossed his eyes trying to focus in a couple weeks. last week he noticed his mobile hanging above his crib. its pretty goddamn cute. as soon as i turn the knob his head rolls over super quick to look at it, and when it turns off he starts crying and hollering for me to turn the crank again. as soon as it starts he settles down immediately and stares at it in awe mumbling weird baby noises. pretty awesome. the past few days i've totally caught him smiling here and there but not until this morning was i convinced that they really are real smiles. after a diaper change and breakfast we were hanging around in bed and this guy was a total smile factory. i still thought it could have been a fluke but this afternoon he was up to it again. he kept acting cool as a cucumber with the camera out but i managed to snap this partial smile with my phone.

so yeh. we're smiling now. he's makin me smile like never before in my whole life. how the hell can something be so amazing?

we still haven't slept a ton lately. i, for sure, go through short stints of being so super irritable from the deprivation. filip does too, i think. but its not really enough to cause any sort of major melt downs or anything. usually Owen will fart or do something ridiculous and we'll get over it. we've both been giving each other a few hours here and there to let the other sleep through a feeding or diaper change. its nice, but we could both definitely use a whole night uninterrupted. dang, i can't even remember what that's like. we're both running on fumes, well past the reserve tank. its nuts to think people can actually operate on so little rest. its dangerous. filip actually got into a car accident the weekend after Owen was born, and it hasn't gotten much better since. sleep deprivation is more dangerous than being drunk. ha, that has to be why there's not a lot of interest in drinking right after giving birth, the lack of sleep is way way way more detrimental.

but really, the sleep thing is to be expected, you know? its regular and how it should be for having a five week old baby. what isn't expected is how fucking incredible this guy is outside of the house! on his 5th day we took him outside for the first time and right to lula, naturally. since then we have taken him out of the house every day. and we haven't had a single catastrophe or cry attack or anything. he's quiet as a mouse every time we leave the house. he zonks right out anytime we're at a bar or loud restaurant. its weird. and amazing. white noise. different smells. if we stay at home for awhile he gets bored and fusses and gets all antsy, but he never acts like that when we're out. so we take him out a ton. instead of having a baby that needs a walk in the stroller or car ride to fall asleep, we have one that has to go to the bar or cafe. ha! go figure! this dude has been an absolute trooper at the last two Fire games of the season too! it was super fun. we took lots of awesome pictures (see my flickr!) and Owen got his first soccer scarf! tiniest supporter! next season is going to be super fun with this dude! my winter project is to knit a miniature Fire scarf for Owen, double knit, sock yarn and super intarsia! its gonna be cute!

last game of the season. dan's brick. i think we've got this guy off to a pretty good start.

so personally, i've recovered pretty good. i don't have anything to complain about, although i do, because im terribly impatient and want all fifty of those pounds i gained gone, and its gonna take a while. we go to see Jen next week for a 6 week check up and i'll find out how much i've lost then since we don't have a scale at home. seriously, other than that, i'm back to normal. well, no, i take that back. i mean, im in good shape and i feel good, but my mindset is not "normal" for me. its changed and its much better. even more than when i last blogged, some things just aren't worth worrying about anymore. this dude is so incredible and has re focused all of my attention and really put things into perspective. it feels pretty good.

aside from owen, i've managed to finish a good handful of knitting projects and i've started researching some work options, which i'm kinda pumped about. if anyone knows of any bonafide 'work from home' gigs, send me your ideas. dragging this little dude through thrift stores everyday for ebay sales isn't really a good idea. thats a dirty job, owen would probably come out with a third arm. i'm definitely not ready to be apart from him for a full time job, and with the cold getting colder we're going to become less mobile. we'll figure something out.

so yeh. routine. i'm trying to stay on top of things, but there's so much to stay on top of now. trying to stay regular. routine. new routine. awesome new routine. happiest routine ever.

i totally wanted to, like always, but had no hope of nanowrimo this year. next november, seriously this time.

birth. and owen : 17 days.

2009-10-29T23:33:00.000-07:00

it finally happened. on tuesday, october 13th at 5:52 am (roughly, yeh) i gave birth to Owen Daniel Ullrich Uss.

i would have loved to get this blog finished sooner, but, lemme tell ya, some things just aren't important anymore, and other thing just aren't going to ever get done. and i like it that way. here is my birth story.

on the morning of monday, october 12th, filip and i woke up and started like normal. we headed to lula for breakfast before going to my appointment with dr. hatoum for another biophysical ultrasound. i was feeling some cramping and having mild contractions that i thought were maybe happening at some kind of regular pace, but wasn't really sure. they were the same sort of contractions i had been having, so i wasn't getting my hopes up for anything.
when we went to see dr. hatoum, he started the ultrasound and told us that there wasn't much fluid in there and that it had to be time. he insisted i see Jen that afternoon for a non stress test. As soon as we left I called Jen and she could meet me later that afternoon. she asked me if i had prepared for the ultrasound the night before by consuming tons and tons of fluids, and when i said no, she said not to worry about the lack of fluid, it was because i hadn't drank a shit ton of water. i felt better about that. filip and i putzed around like regular and met up with Jen at 3:30. she hooked me up to the monitor and got started. i totally zoned out to the machine. i noticed this the previous time i had a non stress test, but this time around it was much more intense because i could feel contractions happening a little more and each time they'd happen i could see the needle bounce all the way to the top of the scrolling sheet of paper and i could see the heart rate numbers increase and decrease with every movement. it was totally mesmerizing. and then i became the most grateful at that moment over any previous moment for having taken the option to give birth at home, not hooked up to any monitors or machines or iv's or anything else of the like. being hooked up to the monitor, i was no longer important, even to myself. the focus was on the machine. it was all about what the machine was saying, not me. at one point, jen came back in to check on me and she was telling me about another midwife friend of hers, who was totally the most enthusiastic about home births, who even against her own will was sucked into the machinery instead of the laboring mom while practicing in the hospital. it happens to everyone, no matter what. i wasn't opposed to the non stress tests, i know they were necessary. im really glad i had those small opportunities hooked up to machines to re confirm and feel really confident about my decisions. so, anyway, my non stress test actually ended up being a cst, contraction stress test, because of the regularity of contractions, and everything was looking good! according to the cst the contractions were coming at about 5 to 6 minutes apart, but i was still feeling really normal, totally ok, and i was trying not to jump the gun or assume this was going to turn into real labor. i seriously don't think i could have taken another let down at that point, i was so exhausted and bummed out, finished. so, i didn't really think i was going into labor. from everything i've heard and read, seen, and obviously, years and years of media telling me that labor and birth was going to be the worst thing ever, i didn't feel like that, so i didn't think it was really happening.
i left jens office feeling pretty good, walked around the corner to meet up with filip and brandyn who were having a drink waiting for me to finish up. Jen instructed that i have a good night. pick up some castor oil and beers. have a good dinner, relax. have some castor oil, then later a drink before bed to help me chill out and just get some rest, keep her updated and give a call in the morning. we headed to whole foods, got the castor oil and some other delicious things. headed back to our place and had an awesome evening. filip made a delicious pot of chicken soup. we snacked, had dinner and awesome conversation. brandyn is an amazing person, and looking back on that night, i'm really glad she spent that evening with us. throughout the night, i could tell that my contractions were slowly snowballing, getting a little tiny bit more intense each time around, but they stayed at about 4 to 5 minutes apart. never got any closer. while we were all hanging around i decided not to take any castor oil. it seemed like things were progressing, even if rather slowly, and i really didn't want a super good evening to turn into me pooing my brains out on top of contractions. brandyn left around 9 or 10. filip and i hung around in the kitchen for awhile longer. i kept jumping out of my chair whenever a contraction would come around and sort of pace through the house for a second or lean up against the wall, then i'd return to the kitchen table and take my turn at scrabble. i finished off a glass of Caracole and around midnight had decided that we should get some sleep because later on or tomorrow morning things might kick into gear. never having given birth before, and not knowing what to expect or what i was going through, not being hooked up to any machines to tell us what was going on, i assume that at the point where we had decided to go to sleep, i was probably actually at 6 or 7 centimeters, something like that. i didn't think much of it all yet, i figured i'd be laboring for a really long time, probably go into real labor this time tomorrow, you know? so, we laid down. both of us fell asleep. then i started waking up during each contraction. i'd fall asleep for a few minutes and would be startled awake with each time. finally around 3:00 am or so, i turned on the lamp, woke filip up, and had to sit up and just kind of take it for a while. the sleeping thing wasn't working for me anymore. we both sat awake in bed for awhile, kind of making small talk, making fun of the animals, then me going on about contractions not being fun anymore, or something like that. i think we hung around in bed like that for an hour-ish and decided to try the sleeping thing again. sleeping again was not successful for me. the contractions still were about 4 minutes apart, and lasting the same length in time, just getting more intense. at this point, when a contraction would come on i'd start begging filip to do something about it because it was almost too much, even making primal monkey noises weren't really helping anymore. in my mind, this was the point in which i had started going into labor. this was what my head thought 'real labor' was, and i assumed that i would be doing that for hours on end. with every contraction i kept telling myself that it was ok, and it was suppose to hurt, and i had to just let it hurt and it would be ok, even though i didn't believe it. i was trying to gear myself up to do this for a long time. except it was getting more intense, and i knew it was pointless to keep begging filip to make it stop and keep on in the same way. i decided to head to the bathroom. my thought process was that maybe if i secluded myself for a few minutes and gathered myself together, take some deep breaths and re focus, i would be able to get a handle on everything and stop myself from slipping into this sort of panic. i think i went into the bathroom around 4:00 or 4:30. i thought i was only in there for maybe 15 or 20 minutes, but it was quite a bit longer. i now realize that when i went into the bathroom, nature had completely taken over at that point, and my head was in a completely different, totally primal place. i also realize now, the contractions i was having just before going into the bathroom that were super intense, which i thought at the time was 'real labor' was actually transition. in the bathroom, the first few contractions i had were tough, but i made it through them quietly, and was like "ok, this is ok. i'm alright." they started getting a little tougher and i thought that maybe if i drew a bath and sat in the bathtub for a minute, it could ease the pain. i barely remember doing this, but i got up off the toilet and turned the faucet on. i plunked back on the toilet and grimaced through another contraction. (in case you were wondering, at some point when i first got in the bathroom, i took my unders off because i had to pee in between each contraction and honestly, i kept trying to poo, because pooing brings on contractions, and even though i didnt want to have another one, i also didn't want to be doing this anymore, and the only way to make it stop was to let it run its course.) so, this contraction was something else. it instantly sent me into the whole 'fight or flight' thing. i felt my hips separate. literally, i felt this like 'crick!' and my bones opened up. at that instant, still on the toilet, totally terrified, i flung the bathroom door open as fast as i could and started screaming for filip. he had fallen back asleep and when he didn't immediately respond i nearly went into a panic frenzy. i started screaming louder and repeating orders: Call Jen!! Call Andrea!! Baby's Coming!! Turn Off the Water!! i remember briefly being super irritated that the water was running, and the thought of being wet was awful. ha. filip turned off the water, made the calls, everyone was on their way. and then, i had another contraction, that was another something else. i felt a huge force moving down. i remember begging filip to call Jen back, the baby was really coming. a second later, i had another contraction, i reach down and felt the babe crowning. filip was on the phone with Jen standing in the doorway of the bathroom, i was screaming that the baby was crowning. i never pushed, i actually tried holding it in out of fear, but that wasn't happening. all i remember is that a minute later the head was completely out, i was terrified to move, i didn't want to hurt myself or the baby, but i managed to hoist myself up a small bit, leaned onto the bathroom sink and the next second, the baby's whole body slid out super fast and somehow, i caught it. i never had to actually push. i didn't go into that whole euphoric, drug-like, hormone induced blissful place like all the home birth videos say. i went into this mama-bear-protector-back-into-a-corner-hiss-at-everything mode. still on the toilet, i held that slimy ass baby as tight and as close to me as i could. i looked down at it. it was covered in slime, bright red, big ass smokey gray eyes already looking around. i picked some shit out of its nose but it was already breathing perfectly anyway and making these tiny baby chicken noises. i looked up and realized filip was still on the phone. Jen was instructing him to pat on the baby's back to get a good wail out of it. filip was patting its back, it screamed. jonah came running in barking his ass off, and as soon as the baby heard jones barking it stopped crying, and was perfectly content. jonah never left our side from that minute on. filip hung up the phone, laid down a ton of towels and helped me to the floor. i lifted the baby up to my chest, we didn't get an immediate latch but there was plenty of rooting and we started working on it. i, obviously, ordered filip to get the camera.

i realized right then that we still didn't even know what kind of baby we had. i checked it out. i was wrong in my previous assumption. our baby was a boy. it was just me, filip and owen. on the bathroom floor. it was fucking incredible. it was quiet for a minute, then owen peeped and i referenced a story filip had just told me about walking into a chicken coop during quiet time and there was always one chicken making a weird chicken noise when it should be quiet. we both just kind of looked at each other and at owen in disbelief. filip was shaking like a leaf. he said he needed a drink. i said he should have one. it was only about 15 or 20 minutes until everyone got here, practically all at once. Jen came in and got right to business. Lynne and Andrea were getting things ready and organizing. Jen clamped the umbilical cord and filip cut it. filip took owen. Jen wanted to deliver the placenta, while i wanted it to deliver itself, but since my blood pressure had been so high recently she was super worried that i would hemorrhage so we had to get going. she tugged the cord a bit and with minimal pushing we got that sucker out, completely in tact. then Jen says "omg, there's a knot!" the umbilical cord was tied in a true knot. pretty crazy. Owen must've flipped around and tied it back in the fifth or sixth month when he still had room, luckily it wasn't tied tight enough to cause any problems at all.

from there we moved into the bedroom and took care of everything else. owen was in good shape, with exception of his temperature being a little low. i was in good shape with exception of my blood pressure being a little high. i had no tearing or anything of the sort so no stitches! everyone warmed a ton of blankets, towels and hats in dryer and oven for Owen and my midwife instructed i drink a neat pour of Fernet Branca. midwives are amazing. i can't even imagine what would have happened to either of us if we were in a hospital, surely the doctors wouldn't have prescribed alcohol, and i probably wouldn't have had a chance to hold Owen yet. it took a little time on both accounts, but eventually my blood pressure came down and Owen's temperature came up. Owen weighed in at 6 lbs 8 ounces and 19 inches long. we all hung out in the bedroom for quite some time, checking everything, describing what happened, filling paperwork, snacking, and marveling at Owen. everyone eventually left around 10:30 or 11:00 am. as tired as both filip and i were, we couldn't really sleep at all. i think maybe filip zonked out for a minute here and there, but for me, i was too excited and reeling and geared up and amazed at everything. i was so exhausted but sleep was the last thing i wanted to do. it was fucking insane. i still can't believe it, really. i can't believe i'm not pregnant anymore and i totally can't believe that everything went exactly perfect, not a single flaw, resulting in this amazing, perfect little babe. everything seems so fragile, anything could have gone wrong, and nothing did. i have no idea how or why, but jeez, it was incredible. i really wanted Jen and Lynne and Andrea to be there and help me through the whole ordeal, i had no intentions of having an unassisted birth, but i wouldn't change a single thing if i had to do it all over again. i'm super fucking proud and thankful and overjoyed at how Owen's birth went. i'm so grateful that we had those few minutes just to ourselves. at some point between crowning and birthing, i was seriously saying to myself "oh god, this is really happening" in a sort of panic-y kind of way.

so. now we're two and a half weeks in. the exhaustion has made us a little loopy. otherwise, no one could have ever described or explained or prepared us. this is more amazing than anything that has happened to me. this is above everything. this is so much greater and instantly put everything in perspective. things that use to be important just aren't. i feel amazing about not giving a shit about things i thought i really cared about. im so thankful for filip, and it happened at this time in my life, radical and spontaneous a decision or not, this all lined up perfectly, and everything is super natural and normal. we're not scared of anything with this guy. we're not worried, or over sensitive, totally at ease with everything and this dude is super calm and quiet and easy going. its pretty amazing. if i was a black girl, i'd say "im blessed." its pretty funny, Owen is the most quiet and calm anytime we're at a bar. he is his father's son.

i've been trying to get this blog post out forever, but yeh, somethings have made it to the back burner. I am getting back on track though, and will be trying to get back to at least one post per week, like before. i am updating flickr quite often, so even if i can't get a blog out, there's always tons of new photos and small descriptions.

i love this, i absolutely adore it. i told you i would, regardless of how defensive i felt i had to be and how miserable i was pregnant. everything is pretty amazing, and timing couldn't be better...i love you schlafly's and new glarus and pumpkin ales and fall beers, smoked porters, ipa's and apa's taste so delicious again and i'm so excited for barleywines and christmas ales. ahhh! yiiiis! things are very good. and we love our very small person very, very much.

week forty one. or week forty. who the hell is knows anymore?

2009-10-08T17:17:00.000-07:00

so. right. this has been a wonky ass week. first, this blog post may be shorter than usual, as i clumsily dropped my computer in a frantic mess of trying to find doctors numbers and things yesterday, debilitating half of my keyboard. i'm quite astonished at how well i'm getting along so far with copy + paste....either way, huge pain in the ass and i'm not sure what to do about fixing it. ugh.

went to visit Jen on tuesday, which was one week past my originally predicted due date. we did a NST, non stress test, and everything was looking good. had some really good contractions in there, everything seemed ok. then came the 'plan of action' talk. i ended up with a huge list of things to do. i had to set an appointment to have a biophysical ultrasound scheduled asap to make sure the babes still swimming around in healthy stuff, then schedule an appointment to meet with Dr. Munoz, who is Jen's hospital back up doctor where we would assess my situation and schedule an induction date for wednesday the 14th. in the meantime, meet with Jen every other day for a membrane sweep, swimming, acupuncture and if it finally came down to it, castor oil on tuesday in hopes to avoid the hospital birth. needless to say, when i left on tuesday i felt overwhelmed and really bummed. i know i have to do what is best, and i trust every move Jen is making here and always have, but to schedule the induction was just a huge blow. i was crying a lot. had a pretty rough evening and rough day on wednesday.

so wednesday i head back to Jen's office late in the afternoon for another membrane sweep. I fill her in on everything scheduled...thursday afternoon biophysical ultrasound, saturday morning dr. munoz. after we tended to the necessary items at hand Jen was like "ok, lets start from the very very beginning and just go over all the details to see if we've covered everything." so we do. and we made a pretty significant discovery. although my dates and accounts of stuff are incredibly accurate, i, physically, am not. were not. whateves. so considering the first day of my very last period was dec. 22, my coordinating due date would be set 29. but we didn't take into account that i was previously on birth control. so Filip and i decided that if i wasn't on birth control and became pregnant, it would be really cool, stopped the birth control and my next period started on dec. 22. except it wasn't a real period. it was a withdrawal bleeding. after that, my body decided to go straight into ovulating at some point mid january, which is when i conceived. so we were able to narrow that window down to about a week or so because of my stellar note-taking (total boredom) at the beginning of this year. thusly, altering my due date modestly to oct. 3. which means i'm actually only 5 days past due. which buys a little more time before having to schedule an induction. had i of had an ultrasound in my first trimester, this would have never been an issue. and really, if i would have disclosed the birth control scenario back when, we probably would have been able to avoid this confusion, too, but i was certain of the first date of my last period and didn't go further than that. if anything my midwife is now becoming a nazi on exact dates and all info disclosed as to avoid this in the future, and my advise would be to mos def have an ultrasound in the first trimester, as that is the only time when an ultrasound can accurately date a fetus within a day or two, give or take. so, i definitely feel a little relieved...but am still overdue, nonetheless, and exhausted, and ready to not be pregnant any longer.

so. with all the new info and calculations i was able to rearrange my appointments and stuff this week, pushing back the dreaded induction scheduling. i moved the date with dr. munoz to next week. my every other day visits with jen are held off until next week as well. i had to go for the biophysical profile ultrasound thingy today. everything is checking out good, and the ultrasound doctor says that the new due date seems more accurate than previous, but we're going to keep a close eye on everything regardless. as of now, there's plenty of fluid and stuff happening in there to keep this baby happy and healthy, so for now, we aren't worried. right now, the babe weighs 7 lbs 10 oz. seriously, out of 50 lbs thats all this dude weighs. i mean, not that i want it any heavier to push out, i'm just sayin. so right, remember last time i was there and had that debacle with Agnes? (this post) yeh, so we've gone to some pretty great lengths to avoid finding out what kind of baby we're going to have. we didn't want to know....would rather wait until it was born to start the huge gender specific identity battle with the rest of society. heh, so when the doctor was updating my charts, it was on the big screen, clear as day. i know what it is. i know what kind of baby i've been growing. but, just because i know doesn't mean i'm telling anyone else, i'm keeping it to myself, so yalls are just gonna have to wait until it comes out to know. its like this babe told me a secret and i can't tell anyone until its ready to tell everyone on its own. at least now i can start assessing where half of the super amazing vintage kids clothes i've been collecting can go....

really, thats all i have for this week. i've been pretty stressed out and wound up over this shit this week, and finally feel pretty relieved and chilled out today. filip was super sick over the weekend and i thought i'd be able to avoid it with the bazillion milligrams of vitamin c and other mystical crap i've been consuming for this babe, but it turns out the sniffles still snuck themselves in. so i'm laying low with Torchwood and knitting and trying to avoid places where i'm regular because i'm really over everyone being like "omg! you're still pregnant?!" and now with this new due date and all, i just dont have the energy or care enough to explain so yeh. blah. ugh. and its cold and rainy.

so, no photos at the moment, except that one of jonah. my broken computer is a pain in the ass. hopefully, i'm almost done being pregnant.

forty. push things forward. now.

2009-10-01T21:21:00.000-07:00

this is my fourth draft. the previous beginnings to this weeks blog have been depressing messes. so, despite my mood, i'm going to do my best to not go down that slippery slope this time around.

starting with tuesdays visit to Jen. i mean, it was all pretty good, with the exception that i'm still pregnant, and its not what i want right now. so yeh, my blood pressure has gone down a smidge! ideally, its still not where it should be, but its 2 counts lower than last week, so yeh, good. still need to spend time at the pool, and if i'm still pregnant by next monday, i'll head to the acupuncture clinic. otherwise i'm about 2 cm dilated, and my cervix is soft an thinning. we did a membrane sweep, just to see if we could get things going. that's a weird feeling. i mean, obviously, i'm familiar with things being in there, but being past the point of no return, separating the placenta from my uterus and bonkin the little babes head, making it bounce inside there is a really bizarre feeling. not painful, as i had read in a million crybaby complaints all over the innernet, just really really weird. so, also according to the innernet and my midwife, this procedure can usually lead to contractions and labor, as soon as the same night or a day or two later. so far, nuthin. sometimes it just don't work at all...lets please please hope this works. i desperately want something to happen, stat. so, yeh, if i'm still pregnant by next tuesday we're going to do a stress test to make sure my placenta is still healthy and the dudes in good shape and then i get a choice between castor oil or an enema! i've already made up my mind, i'm going castor oil, because at the point, i want everything down and out of my body. the thought of squirting stuff up my butt just seems counter-productive. i know i was all gung-ho about castor oil a few weeks ago, but now, i'm getting more and more terrified of the baby/poo correlation during birth. really, the longer this goes on, the more and more terrified i'm getting of everything. losing energy and confidence and getting pretty discouraged. tryin to maintain bravery in the face of defeat. if this would have kicked in a week or two ago, i feel like i was still naive and positive enough to do it, not so much anymore. i'm so tired of being pregnant. i'm not cut out for this, as much as i'm gonna love whats about to happen, i don't think i'll ever want to go through pregnancy again. i'll buy a kid from africa or russia or something if i want another one bad enough.

so yeh, my due date came and went. yeh, as i was telling laura, whose due date was sunday, due dates are like new years eve, total depressing let down bullshit of a day that i claim to "not get my hopes up for" every year. she then summed it up like this: if this were shopping and i had to wait in line too long i would just leave what i wanted at the store and go home empty-handed...

i know its just an "estimated due date" and that you're told over and over not to get your hopes up for that exact day. but for soooo long its a date that seems too far away and too unattainable to ever be reached, and then all of a sudden its here and nothing happens. it snowballs and snowballs and this fucking snowball is getting so much bigger and heavier and faster now, its seriously unbelievable. its started so small and slow, this is totally overwhelming and out of control.

ugh. ok. im done complaining for now. onto things other than complaining. i finished my little babes first stuffed animal. little lovey vintage elephant. i like it in a really nerdy way. if the kid gets attached to it and something happens, i can always make another one.

hopefully last saturdays Fire game will be the last home game before i give birth. im really gettin tired of going places and everyone is like "dang! you're still pregnant?!" every week i keep hanging onto the ticket stub thinking it will finally be the one i can put in the baby book, but then noooooooo, nuthin. nada. bullshit.

have i mentioned that i've gained 50 pounds since all this started? 50 pounds. i never thought i'd ever reach the weight im at ever in my life. crazy. get out of me so i can get regular!

finally put the finishing touches on the baby room tonight. hung the blinds, curtain and shelf. straightened up, i'll probably do some organizing tomorrow, but yeh, its pretty adorable. i really like that room and i'm not a baby, so yeh, a baby will probably love it. i hope. i hope this kid thinks stuff we do for it is cool. you know?

i think there was other things i wanted to blog about, but i'm tired and i just don't know anymore. too much scatter brain, can't focus on anything. i gotta get back to waiting and wasting time. no point in getting into anything or starting a project or whateves because the baby will probably decide to come right then. i was saying earlier, that if i could get tattooed right now, like, literally tonight, i would get a huge banner all old school style that says "why bother?"

i'm crossing my fingers that this will be my last post before something happens...

week 39. some essplaining in part one...regular things in part 2....

2009-09-23T08:48:00.000-07:00

hello. it has been a loooong few days. this might end up being a lengthy post...

part one.

about three weeks ago, the sunday that i bought the leg of lamb from the farmers market, i met up with matt & jen (who are also expecting their first babe in january/february) at the coffee shop. we spent the afternoon chatting about being pregnant, peeing your pants and other pregnancy induced annoying/embarrassing things, picking out baby things, the dads/dudes involvement, general feelings, etc. matt brought up a good point that i've thought about since then, and have thought about bringing it up here, so yeh....i cant remember verbatim, but he basically asked me if i genuinely felt as defensive about my pregnancy as it seemed from bits of my blog. if so, why? and how i was feeling about everything in regards and generally.

i want to answer that here to clear a few things up. generally, overall, i'm more fucking excited and happy about having this baby than i ever have been about anything in my entire life! i can't fucking wait to meet this little worm, teach it everything i can, instill curiosity and independence, share my favorite books, travel with it and show it all of the greatest stuff possible! but sadly, yeh, i have been on the defense and stressed during all this, and it sucks that i have felt this way, and still do a week away from my estimated due date. it hasn't been an everyday thing that i stress about, i'm generally not losing any sleep over the reasons that have made me feel this way, but i've been thoroughly annoyed and upset from time to time, because its all too much to have to tolerate on top of the regular pressures and stresses of being pregnant. (i know, boohoo, pity me, right?)
i've just written and re-written what i've wanted express here, i've drafted out several lengthy explanations of my reasons for defense, but i think i've just decided to cut it down to a short list to quicker get to the point. these are all things i've touched on in previous posts, so it should make sense if you've followed along at all.

1. our decision to go with a midwife/home birth. not accepted by our families at first, not socially accepted as the norm. forever defending our decision to people who aren't the slightest bit informed in the matter, yet super judgmental.

2. filip's ex-wife has made this very difficult, stressful and upsetting, she has been and continues to be incredibly insulting, producing lies and getting pretty 'fatal attraction' about the whole situation at times.

3. the scrutiny i've been under by being the first of my siblings to become pregnant, producing the first grandchild, coupled with me living 500 miles away from my family.

i will be the first to admit that health-wise i have had a super easy pregnancy. although i've gained close to 50 pounds so far, all the weight has gone straight to the baby, the rest of my body and face are still skinny and normal, i don't have a single stretch mark, there haven't been any complications or worries what-so-ever, and even being a week away from my estimated due date, i've got very minimal swelling and i still walk as much as possible, that being 2 miles give or take everyday, even though it takes much longer than it use to.

otherwise, the drama that has directly been aimed towards me, as well as the indirect drama and shit that has seeped in from everywhere else has been outrageous, and downright fucked up to have to deal with at any time, but especially right now. no matter what i've done to avoid it, its still keeps happening and getting more and more intense the closer i get to my due date.

apparently, this has been an issue with my family for a while, and it was stirred up by my sister this weekend in a deceitful, passive aggressive manner, which entailed a screenshot of my private facebook page to be used as blackmail in what seems to be another attempt to prove that i'm not fit to be a mother. if you are a friend or family member of mine on facebook and have read any comments that i have posted in which i have called my babe a name or said anything seemingly negative about it or being pregnant, i would hope that you can understand, that these are just words, and mean nothing. here's a good example of what i'm talking about: my knuckles are tattooed with DROP DEAD. does that mean every single person who can read and sees it should take it literally and drop dead? my sense of humor is one that typically plays on stereotypes and taboos generally set by our society, thus explaining why i would think tattooing those words on my knuckles is humorous. there is no harm in it for anyone. at the end of the day, they are just letters and words. filip and i do not have any intentions on changing our regular behavior or communication to conform to societies opinion on what is acceptable, we have nothing to be ashamed of and will instill confidence in our child rather than fear and shame.

in Jessica Mills' book "My Mother Wears Combat Boots, A Parenting Guide for the Rest of Us" she writes:

"Is there really any difference between saying "fudge" instead of "fuck?" It's the intent and context of the words that matters, not the actual words."

"To kids, words are just words. Taboos are thrust upon words by adults and enforced to preserve the status quo and power structure, forces that kids don't seem to acknowledge naturally."

"...the status quo's cursing taboo has a negative effect on children's grasp and understanding of language because it is arbitrary which words are profane and which are acceptable."

so, can you see what i'm saying here?

this shouldn't need to be spelled out but, what words and behaviors i find acceptable may or may not be the same as what you think are acceptable. by no means does that make me an abusive, mean, or ungrateful person.

i shouldn't have to say this either but, i already do, and will continue to love this kid more and more with every passing minute of every single day. anyone who has read even one post in this blog would be able to see that. if there was actual, literal meaning in those words, why would i have opted for a midwife to take care of myself and my baby? why would i have hired a doula? why would i have quit smoking? why would i care about what i ate? about my vitamin intake? about exercise? why would i spend nearly everyday reading, studying and learning about childbirth and raising a baby? and why would both filip and i make the decision to have this baby before it was even conceived? it wasn't an accident. but whatever, lets say it was an accident, as many babies are, what difference would that make? above all else, i am the mother of this baby and filip is the father. then come grandmas and grandpas, great-grandparents, aunts and uncles, so on and so forth. this is our pregnancy, this will be our child, and the decisions that have been made and will continue to be made are mine and filip's.

social networking sites have to be taken with a grain of salt. as anyone who has met me even once in real life knows that i am not a republican, a catholic, a pacific islander, 6'4" tall, a swinger, a body builder, an amateur private investigator, a professional transient, and am not 51 years old.

i am less than one week away from my estimated due date, i'm exhausted, i'm huge, i'm miserably uncomfortable, i want my baby to be born and healthy, i want the birth to go smooth, i want my body back to myself, i want to be a mom and filip wants to be a dad, we desperately want to move on to the next chapter in this, and there is nothing wrong, negative or regretful with feeling this way or expressing those feelings.

jen also brought up a really good point that day that we discussed and that i couldn't agree more with. we are part of a coddled generation. a generation that is still looked at as being kids, not expected to grow up and have responsibilities or families of our own. for me, personally, this has made my pregnancy much harder. i am 13 years older than my mom was when she had her first child, and have been treated as if i'm a child myself and not ready, capable or prepared for this responsibility. (fucked up thing is that i'm also being treated this way by my younger sister, who doesn't have any kids herself or any firsthand knowledge of child bearing/birthing/raising at all.) i keep being reprimanded that i should have put more thought into this before it happened, yet most of my family, nuclear and extended, has been created by unplanned pregnancies, so what the hell? everything has changed hundreds of times over since when my mom had her kids, so being negatively judged and compared to my mother, who was 15 with her first child while i am 28, who didn't plan her pregnancy, who lived with the whole family nearby in st. louis while i'm living without them in chicago (by choice! that is not a complaint, i love it here and wouldn't trade it for the world!), who wasn't as educated or well read as i am now, is just completely unfair and wrong to do, and quite frankly, i'm goddamn sick of it so fucking knock it off. the way i'm handling my own pregnancy is not a reflection of how my mother raised me or how i feel about my own mother or how she feels about me. no two pregnancies are the same and no two pregnancies can be compared, even in the same woman.

filip and i are having our own pregnancy and our own kid, we have our own morals and values in regards to it. this pregnancy and child is ours, the way we choose to love it, speak to it, raise it, nurture it, support it and present it to the world are our choices and our concerns, not anyone elses. save it for your own pregnancy and your own kids, when you have to do all the hard work, when you are responsible for it and everything concerning it, etc. not to say that we aren't appreciative of useful advice, by all means, keep it coming, because we'll be the first to admit that we don't know everything and want to keep learning, but that isn't what i'm talking about right now. fuck off already with the ridiculous, unnecessary, unprovoked, unwarranted, and unsolicited drama, shit talking, stirring shit up and making scenes. don't make problems out of other people's situations that have nothing to do with yourself and that aren't even problems in the first place, and next, don't turn those created, projected 'problems' into your own. speak only for yourself, no one else. its easy. just mind your own. be respectful and caring and you get that in return. if you approach something with aggression and negativity, you absolutely will not get what you want. don't you catch more bees with honey than vinegar? and really, no one wants to be around anyone who is downright malicious, mean and hurtful.

shit. now that i've said that, i'd like to have a relaxing, low-stress remainder of a pregnancy, and welcome my baby into a loving home surrounded by people who have been waiting anxiously with open minds and open hearts to meet it and who have been loving it endlessly for the past nine months.

part two.

i met with Jen, my midwife, yesterday. things are good...ish. i mean, good, with increasing concern...
my contractions are def increasing and getting more intense...i'm having cramps corresponding with the regular hardening and tightening of my belly, so thats a good sign! i've gained 2 more pounds, everything is measuring good and the heartbeat is as cute as ever, but my blood pressure keeps creeping higher and higher each week and we're getting more and more concerned. if the trend continues jen's probably going to start scraping my membranes as a means of triggering labor, starting next week. so seriously, cut the fuckin crap, leave me alone...this isn't a game, there's no "ball in my court," this is serious, real-life. so, i'm researching the low-cost/free acupuncture options and hopefully i can find a joint to get a few cheap-ass acupuncture sessions in (if anyone has any connections there, i'd super super appreciate it!), and i'm heading over to the pool at kosciuszko park this afternoon, and everyday possible, to wade around and hope it helps. we didn't do an internal exam, my midwife didn't see any dire need to go there, so we didn't. and really, i'd rather not know the state of my cervix right now, because if its still hard as a rock and not anywhere close to birthing, i'd probably get a little more bummed out. another instance in which i'm applying the 'what i don't know won't hurt me' mindset. so, needless to say, i came out of my appointment kinda down and really wanting to go into hiding and be comforted for awhile...don't wanna be bummed or stressed anymore.

other than that, friday evening Filip and i had a date with the emergency room. pretty funny. a huge vase shattered while filip was working and gashed open a three inch valley down his forearm. it was all meaty and yellow and splaying open. pretty gross. he just got one long running stitch...i'm excited to take it out!

my mom told me a hilarious story about my grandma Nora removing stitches from my uncle bob's ass in her kitchen because he didn't want to go back to the hospital to have them removed. if grandma nora can do it in the kitchen, so can i!

saturday was a nice pregnant girl meet-up! the ladies and i met up for a lovely brunch at lula, and spent the afternoon at the coffee shop. its really nice to have a support group of girls in the same, you know? and with everyone sort of staggered along in the process of pregnancy, its kinda awesome the way we can help each other out through everyones individual process. i'm excited to have a handful of babysitters needing practice to pick from! ha!

on sunday, we went to the Fire match, maybe the babes last match unborn? probably not, i think we're going to the match this saturday...anyway it was uncle andy's birthday! and a good time overall. i dont know shit and wont act like i've been around forever, but anyone can see that columbus is a bunch of cant-hack-it-panty-wastes. if you want to haggle and start trouble with the other teams supporters, bring a pregnant girl with and no one thinks you're up to trouble until its too late...heh heh....

ha! rabble rousers!

filip has a handful of rocks...ha!

see...the poor saps that aren't hanging out with a pregnant girl get dragged off in handcuffs...i fucking love this picture!

monday filip got a new tattoo from Nuco at Studio 1 in pilsen!!!! yay! i'm actually super happy for him and glad he was able to do something for himself. he's the greatest, you know? and pregnancy hasn't been the easiest time, he totally deserved it, and then some. but yeh! so exciting! Studio 1 is a beautiful shop, Nuco did a fuckin amazing job! and we're both really excited about heading down there for work whenever, you know? having a regular shop, and all. i'm super super anxious and excited to get some work done post babe! hanging out while Filip was getting this done got me all excited and geared up!

nothing else really to report on for now...just waiting and waiting and waiting. i've drafted this post here and there over the past few days, and have debated on whether or not to actually post it, but you know, fuck it. its my blog, and i'm not worried about the impression i'm giving in these rants and tangents and defenses. there's only so much that you can get out of it not knowing me personally, and knowing me personally, you'll understand what i mean and what my intentions are and all that. and i feel better, and at the end of the day, really, this is all a selfish outlet for myself. if it suits you better, you could choose not to read.

overall, i'm just sayin.

i know i haven't posted photos of my gorilla looking native self recently, within the next few days i'll have filip take a ton of ridiculous photos since this is just about finished...

week 38. birthday week.

2009-09-17T23:44:00.000-07:00

a lot has happened this past week!

not sure where to start, but i know once i get started i'll start rambling and will eventually cover everything, right?

hm. sunday was my birthday! im older and still pregnant, not yet a mom. bullshit. i want this kid on the outside of me. i mean it more now than any other time i've said that in the past, seriously. birthday was nice. no big ta-do or anything. it was quiet and awesome. we perused the renegade craft fair. i was hoping to find a baby carrying device, had no such luck. i feel like every year prior there was an abundance of baby craft things to buy and now that i'm pregnant there doesn't seem to be as much. i dunno, its probably just me. i wasn't really in the mood to get in and really inspect every booth and get all into it like i had been before. either way, it was nice. from there we checked out a few baby shops, i got a sling i really like. the girl at Be By Baby instantly asked if my knuckle tattoos were in reference to what is in reference to and we cracked up laughing for a while. that is only the second time someone has known the reference, but the first time the exact instance that its from. i love that! anyway, she was awesome, and made me feel ok about being in this baby boutique where everyone else was either pushing a baby around in thousand dollar strollers or there to buy thousand dollar strollers and i was struggling to spend fifty bucks on a baby sling...
afterwards we went to see The Baader Meinhof Complex. it was fucking incredible. i know i posted a shitload about it for a few days on facebook, but i loved it. filip and i both spent the rest of the evening raving about it and researching RAF etcetera etcetera. it will most likely be the last film we get to see in the theatre for a long time, and it was the best movie for it. i love that it was released on 9/11. i want to watch it again and again.
otherwise for my birthday, i scored a sweet-ass cotton goofball print vintage dress from Clothes Optional that i can wear now and post pregnancy thanks to my cinch-it-up-real-tight-below-my-boobs-with-a-jersey-knit-scarf technique. aaaaaaand i was gifted an awesome pair of black Toms boots from my mom that will go famously with my new dress, as soon as i birth this kid and the swelling in my feet goes down...ya shoulda seen me monday night, i was fighting for at very least a half an hour to get one of these boots on and it hurt my gut soooooo bad, my foot was killing me and i was in tears because i just wanted to be normal enough to wear cute things again. trainwreck, lemme tell ya. the scene could have only been cuter if there were an overflowing ashtray on the table in front of me, next to a bunch of empty tipped over cans of busch beer.

on monday filip and i decided to make our way to milwaukee to be normal, like we do, since it probably wont ever happen again, especially like the way it did. not like this small trip was like any previous one, as i didn't smoke like a chimney in every bar simply because i could and i was incredibly, soberingly sober. it was nice, for sure, but not the same as last fall/winter. never will be again, i don't think, but thats ok. makes for memories i'm super super fond of and will hang onto and go back to all the time. totally when i knew for sure that i had fallen waaaay hard and waaay deep in love with filip, and i knew it was going to stay that way. it was super cool, and blustery, and we were mostly lost but sort of had a clue from time to time, spent lunch times at fuel, dinners at comet or balzac, lots of drinks all around, dusty bottles of zwack at the nomad and more new glarus than i can recall. every drive home listening to 'days of speed' on repeat. i love last fall. and obviously, there was this sort of feeling that we had to hide and everything was forbidden, blah blah, and so when we were in milwaukee everything fell into place perfectly and it was just us and no worries and we never wanted to leave. and when we came home we counted days until we could go back. there was this smoky, dreamy, hazy, romantic feeling all about last fall. old dirty dive bars with static-y jazz in the background. waaay tipsy but wanting more when back at the hotel the concierge refused to send us a bottle of wine, leaving us to head out to a totally scary ghetto bar down the street. 4 story tall purring kitties. sleeping in waaaaaay too late because we finally found a hotel that had proper curtains. so much amazing stuff. soooo much. i know its just milwaukee, but it could have been fucking shangri-la. i love it. we were perfect for milwaukee then and milwaukee was perfect for us. its not exactly the same now. part of me never wants to go back and preserve it in my mind like that. maybe thats for the best. but maybe not, until we get a babysitter for a whole weekend kinda thing...anyway...fuel cafe is always awesome...

tuesday we decided to go to dinner at mado. it had been a really long time since we've made it in for dinner, and we've been meaning to get back over and over again and it seems like we keep forgetting and then we see rob & allison at lula on mondays and we're like "damnit! gotta go to mado!" so we did. and i don't think i could have imagined a more perfect last-dinner-out experience pre-baby. amazing. everything. god, i remember why that place is my favorite. chicken liver pate, watermelon with heirloom tomatoes & goat cheese, amazing olives, melty delicious pork belly, the most perfect steak on a fucking unbelievable bed of gorgonzola polenta, beer soaked plums and almond corn cake with peaches and goat cheese. incredible. im totes salivating thinking about it again.

so speaking of dinners lately...i've sorta managed to skip over how amazing our dinners at home have been recently. and with this babe coming pretty soon, i think we'll keep getting better and better. it started with the boeuf bourguignon about a month ago, which was fucking incredible:

then, i decided to just fucking do it, and i bought a whole leg of lamb at the farmers market from mint creek farm. yeh, that was an exhausting walk home. that shit was heavier than i was ready for. but soooooo amazingly delicious. we roasted it in a super super simple mediterranean fashion. so so good.

and then on wednesday we made a bouillabaisse. pretty rad. it was really tasty. i think i had most fun watching filip hack all the trimmings and the mahi mahi head up for the stock, and really i didn't help so much with this dinner, so i shouldn't take credit, but yeh. tasty. next we're going to do a whole duck. stuffed with apples or something. then fresh sardines! but some sort of beet stew, maybe, or onion soup or something with filip's new birthday le creuset stock pot! yay!

heh. joner thermidor. i know its really dark, but the flash looks gnarly...

ok. so onto baby related things....here is our dudes nursery, just about finished! we just have to get the blinds and curtains up and we're pretty much set! i couldnt be happier with the Dwell crib & changing table! everything is lookin cute! i just gotta get the 'new furniture' smell out of that room. its driving me crazy! and yeh, the mini-copter and black kids are totally my most favorite ever!

seriously...kicius always fuckin photobombs my shit!

lemme tell ya...we got so much amazing vintage fisher-price in storage to keep our "over-caffeinated" baby stimulated for years on end. beeeotch. last i checked i was waaaay below my 200 milligrams a day, and tell yer "friends" that fuckin cup was fulla chamomile sucka! the main risk in caffeine consumption during pregnancy is miscarriage due to uterine contractions that could potentially be stimulated by caffeine. im fucking thirty eight weeks, get off it. i mean, at very least. i'm just sayin...we only hired one midwife...

visit to jen this week was good. low-key, things are on par, everything is well and good, just waiting for this little sweet-lime to move out. contractions have mos def been happening with waaaay more regularity and intensity over the past week, since my hyper sensitive post last week. but still, something was happening! it was totally changing into this new sort of contractions, that i've gotten use to, but are still changing into more intense and frequent. dang! dude, being pregnant means there is no time to get use to any of these changes....too many in a short period of time that actually lasts forever. this is crazy. again, i can't believe people are still made this way!
my doula came over and hung out for a while on wednesday while the bouillabaisse was on. gosh, i love her. i feel like i keep her too long sometimes. we end up on tangents and this and that and talk forever. its the greatest. i really love her! at any rate, aside from the great discussions on breast feeding, post-partum bleeding and witch hazel recipes, she told me about this segment that aired on the today show last week:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

seriously fucking infuriating. celebrity spa treatment? really? i mean, actually, we first considered a midwife because i didn't have health insurance and it was the most ideal in terms of cost. then there's the rest of my beliefs which would have prohibited any normal hospital ordeal for me anyway, but i'm just sayin...and there's a lot to just say about this. filip had to repeatedly tell me that its a crooked tv report, paid for by hospitals or ACOG, that its total fear tactics, blah blah blah, which i know all of this but i got so worked up and kept pausing it to yell about how fucked up it was. anyway. crazy. mind boggling, so sad and skewed and fucked up. i'll fuckin show you a peril...

heh...i love my snorelax boyfriend. today was Filip's birthday. A while ago, following dinner, he had 2 liters of hofbrau oktoberfest (although he only finished half of the second one) and upon arriving back at home he tipsied right out of his clothes into bed and is carrying on a choppy symphony of congested sort of drunken burpy sleepy noises. i think his birthday evening was nice. i think he thinks so, and that makes me happy.

2 birthdays down...waiting on this last one...

37 weeks. something is happening...

2009-09-09T16:49:00.000-07:00

why the animals always in my biz when i take these photos? this is from yesterday.

hi. seriously. so, like, right now, something is happening. something, which will probably end up being nothing, but something, nonetheless. whether it ends up being something, or nothing, i'm just going to blog through it for now, because what else am i gonna do? i mean, until something more alarming happens, like losing my mucus plug or that kinda thing...so, i just got to new wave. its late in the afternoon, 5:30 ish. i worked this morning for a bit, tried relaxing a little at home through the afternoon, wrote some letters and stuff like that, and i started getting ridiculously antsy. i intended on finishing a knitting project this afternoon but my attention span just wasn't there, i couldn't hunker down. so i decided to pack up some stuff, run to the bank, then onto the post, ending up here at new wave. between the bank and the post i started feeling this crampy pressure. nothing hurty. since then, its been coming and going in waves. but things do not feel normal in there right now. like, normal in relation to the past few weeks of what being massively pregnant normally feels like. so, im putting back a sandwich. there is a chocolate cupcake lined up next. probably shouldn't have ordered this ice coffee, but whateves...
maybe i'm just stupidly anxious and really just wanting to go into labor more than anything. but really, even if that's the case, wouldn't the mind/body connection kick-start something? dude, wouldn't it really be fucking awesome if i was starting pre-labor right now?! ha...so yeh, i mean, this week a lot of loose ends got tied up and a few things that have just been lingering finally got taken care of and as of yesterday, after my visit with Jen, my midwife, i felt really awesome about everything and totally at ease and ready. like finally, a weight had been lifted and i am totally comfortably ready as ever. so, with the sudden ease and relief of everything, it could have totally triggered a chain reaction, you know? sometimes that's all it takes...anyway, its not like this shit happens so suddenly like they make it out in the movies and on tv. so it could be anything right now. but i just started in on the chocolate cupcake and got another rush of something...

so, my appointment this week was great! with the exception that i'm closing in on 150 pounds! ack! my pregnant stomach hasn't really stretched a ton over the past week or so, its just that the baby is gaining weight and getting bigger and taking up all the space in there. no space left. there is seriously a foot that kicks my right lung, under my rib! babes moving like a champ still, but im getting more and more beat up from the inside out because its so freakin strong and running out of room. i talked to jen about future visits, and the future of my health and the baby health, she's amazing with tips on medicaid and helping me get everything i can out of it...totally comforting and awesome to know that i've finally found a person that i'm super cool with and really love and really relaxed and comfortable around to take care of me and watch out for my babe, totes relieving! i've been in chicago for 9 years now and have never had a solid doctor of any sort...i actually kind of feel like a grown-up now. if only we could get her to move to the azores with us....
so, remember a long time ago when i volunteered to do some informational stuff for that syndicate health network crap?...the first portion has finally been completed! heh. i for sure make an appearance in the second video, and i think the 4th or 5th video, i dunno...i think we make a couple appearances throughout all of them. its totally corny and all, and i've been like "ehhh, so what...." up until i watched the part where we heard the heartbeat for the first time. i cried again. im such a softy. anyway, i guess there are a few more series on other topics that will be released later as well, that will feature more of me and filip. so when i find out about that i'll post again, i'm sure. this may or may not come off the way i'm intending it to, but im gonna say it anyway, because its funny and overall, especially lately, i don't have much of an opinion of myself either way, positive or negative. not like i have low self esteem or anything, there has just been waaaaaay too much happening lately to have any concern about myself or my appearances or clothes or anything, all my focus has been on baby, you know? so when we were watching these, i started cracking up at the part where i'm like "i really like beer!" and then i was like "woah, thats me?! im really cute!" and again, totally not a conceited, self-absorbed kinda thing, its more like, i have totally forgotten who i am or anything about myself lately, that it was totally shocking and actually kinda nice to see things from another view, even if just for a second, and even though i was still super fuckin skinny when they filmed this. heh. ok, feel free to make plenty of fun of the both of us, with no further a do, here's the link:
http://www.answerstv.com/AnswersTV/Channel.aspx?ChannelID=7005fa6d-6b27-4d29-94bb-cb3db599ea03&StartPoint=Folder4727&PlayItem=16587&AP=true

ok...im feeling alright for now...still hanging in there...goddamn, i want to be in labor, i really want this to be it....

another exciting/relieving aspect of this week is that we finally got confirmation that our dwell crib and changing table are no longer on back order and have been shipped!!!! fuck yeh!!! i know it'll be a bit before we need the crib....and we could make do without the changing table but im just excited about organizing and having everything in order and actually fucking 'nesting.' i've gone 8 and a half months and the only nesting ive managed was to paint the baby room and get the mural up. so yeh! yay!

during in-between or waiting times lately i've found myself incessantly searching for all my most favorite classic sesame street segments. youtube is amazing for this shit, i'm so freaking excited and thankful! i mean, its not like im going to restrict my kid from watching yo gabba gabba every once in a while, if it wants to, but this shit is amazing...i swear, i would be a totally different person if it weren't for this stuff. and i still love watching it so we'll all be into the same stuff and having an awesome time with it and all the songs, you know?! my brother posted the pinball cartoon featuring the Pointer Sisters to my facebook page the other day and i've been singing it ever since...12345 678910 11 12...and part of me thinks that maybe it was a totally subconscious decision to move to a city with subways because of sesame street.

ok...so..im feeling a little more back to normal. my shit keeps braxton-hicks-ing more and more lately, and super intense style. maybe just early early early alarm or something. i was just telling jen (hellige) that if i were to go into labor and have the kid tomorrow, we could still make it to the renegade craft fair this weekend! heh.

so right. all loose ends wrapping up. seriously, the only things left are things that can be alleviated in an hour long errand running spree, we need to get the car-seat, gotta get a sling, and settle on a solid cloth-diapering system. we decided to hold off on the diaper service and see how we could manage cloth diapers on our own at first. if its overwhelming we can always get started on the diaper service, but im stoked about either fuzzibunz or bumGenius and in the meantime, if this babe comes before we get a stash of them, we've got a handful of gDiapers and old school gerber birdseye cloth diapers to tie us over for a couple days. the other day, jen brought my attention to the adiri bottles and i got so stoked and excited about them, especially after learning that target carries them, that i ran out the next day and got a pair of newborn bottles! i'm really really excited about them. hopefully, the babe takes well to them. im looking forward to seeing how they work out.

huh. i feel like i had other things i wanted to discuss in this update, but i'm so scatterbrained lately. oh well. hopefully, i wont be updating for a very long time because i will have a baby very very soon...wish me luck.

exactly one week from today i will try every old wives tale to make this baby come out. this is 36 weeks.

2009-09-01T12:34:00.000-07:00

i didn't think the time would come that i became the pregnant girl like in the movies. i've cracked a few jokes about it here and there, but it really happened, for real, over the past few days. i'm sitting at New Wave right now trying to organize my blog. so i need to upload some photos to flickr, and the camera is in my brown bag while the cord is in my red tote bag and trying to get all this shit out of bags while my fat swollen feet are propped up on the chair across from me, with absolutely no muscles left in my midsection to pull myself up or hold myself steady, all of this becoming the biggest pain in the ass but not nearly as big of a pain as if i just moved my feet from the opposite chair and moved myself around to grab my bags from the ledge and just do it. because me, as a regular unpregnant person, would be able to do it like this with ease. and im stubborn and refuse. and it sucks. and i move around and get up out of chairs and walk and everything else like a pregnant person in the movies, at least i feel like that now. maybe not as exaggerated, and unlike in the movies that really only kinda happens in the last few weeks, whatever, im so ready to be finished being pregnant.

so, speaking of a pregnant girl on tv...my midwife was approached by yet another producer, this time from discovery health, who wants to film a home birth. ha! i mean, i actually haven't given an answer yet, i'll do that in a minute...but seriously. these are the programs i've bitched about repeatedly on this blog. and at first, my instinct was to be like 'yes! anything to help out midwives! of course! home births need more positive attention!' and then i was like 'wait, fuck no.' and then i was all 'hold up, maybe. how much i get paid?' because, not to sound like a vapid douchebag, like a price can be put on a birthing experience or anything, but fer real, you know how broke you can end up being pregnant? seriously though. i can only imagine what the hell editing would do to me on discovery health. above all else, i am positive that i am not the candidate that they want representing the 'new home birth trend.' all the dipshits that are these programs target audience would take one look at me and it would regress any push forward midwives have had recently. the last time i volunteered for something like this (errr...where i wasn't paid) the fucking producer kept having Filip put his hands where they would cover my hands so no one could see that my fingers read "drop dead" and he kept fucking saying shit like "Bono (as in u2) inspired this shot." ideally, sure, this sounds great, what great exposure for my midwife and for all midwives and what a great opportunity! but no. nu-uh. no way. unless we're talking at least $5000. total bunch of assholes who would end up making me look like some kind of bratty helpless idiotic dimwit. ugh. i just thoroughly annoyed myself thinking about all that again.

i really really am looking forward to the next few weeks coming to a close. im so tired of strangers talking to me about my body. i dont approach strangers and talk to them about their body. "wow, sir, what is it like to be losing so much hair? do you enjoy it?" i mean, i know, i get it, i realize im pregnant, i know that draws attention. but fer real, do you know how much fucking pressure is put on pregnant women anyway? and to just be reamed and bitched at when i complain about it?! especially from other women who have been pregnant?! im pregnant for me and for filip, not for anyone or everyone else. its seriously so fucking rude when anyone thinks they have the right to invade your privacy, personal space blah blah blah and get all up in your business and then get offended when it isn't accepted. fuck you.

*side note: right now, this lemongrass soda im drinking tastes like scotch (cello!) tape smells, and i like it a lot.

so right, i've had enough of people i do not know asking me when im due. talking to me about it. assuming i want to talk to total strangers about it. i feel like i've always been really respectful of people and their personal businesss. as far as i know, i've never approached a stranger with a disability or a noticeable deformation or anything like that and started grilling them on it. or people who had obviously had breast implants, are transgendered, gay, this or that. i know being pregnant is a little different, but still. fucking MYO. its not cool. don't take this as me not embracing my pregnancy, that has nothing to do with this. and don't get me wrong, i don't mind talking to my friends and people i know about being pregnant and babies. i'm ok with that, i rather enjoy it, because i know them. they are not complete strangers who think they have some right in saying whatever the fuck they want because i am pregnant. its such bullshit. seriously. god, im a jackass. i go on these tangents like this on my public blog. what an idiot. whatever, i do what i want. you know what i mean though. im just getting to the point where going about in public is pretty much too annoying to actually do anymore. people are too annoying and im too uncomfortable. im forcing myself out, i forced myself to the coffee shop this afternoon in hopes to get rid of this rotten mood, i gotta get off it. its a beautiful day, i gotta buck up, just don't know how to turn it around right now. ack. i'll be ok.

so. right. anyway. this past weekend my moms came up, fully equipped with a ton of baby things to prepare us and overwhelm. no intention to overwhelm, i just gotta get it organized. but its impossible just yet. i open the door to the baby room and the entire floor is covered with things. no where to put any of them because none of the furniture has arrived yet. eek. i dunno. not sure what to do. part of me is convinced that if i don't do anything about it just yet, the baby is going to inconveniently come early when i haven't had any time to organize! but if i organize all of it and its all perfect and ready to go, the dude will end up being 3 weeks over-due, you know? isn't that basically how shit works? right, ok, i just justified not doing a damn thing about it to myself, and i feel ok with it. heh. i rule. anyway, besides that, had a nice time with moms. i didn't care how long or what it would take, we finally had Kumas. i had been determined to get my mom there being that she is quite the hamburger connoisseur, and has a deep love for the food network. we've turned down the wait on several occasions because of hunger pains. we finally did it.
omg. brie, pancetta, grilled onions, and a bourbon soaked grilled peach. i think peaches should go on every sandwich for now on.

funny thing though, after all the Kumas hype, we went to small bar to watch the Fire game on saturday evening, where my mom ordered the burger featuring a fried egg as well, and she liked that one much better than Kumas. HA!

we also managed to catch a county fair south of joliet, watched the julie&julia film, (which was pretty cute) putzed around lincoln square (god, i love merz's), and got in plenty of baby shopping at target, early early breakfast at flying saucer, brunch at lula and farmers market. sweet. we crammed a lot into a little bit of time.

so, aside from that, in a typical rachel fashion, i have managed to get a job in my 8th month of pregnancy, when most women are leaving work for their pregnancy leave. seriously, guys?!...what is wrong with me? im starting my new job on friday. i mean, its cool. really cool, and im super excited and all, and we'll be able to work it around baby schedule and all, but really?! how do i manage the things and situations i get myself into? either way, julie is amazing, and nicole is the best and this is going to work pretty well i think! just hilarious, you know?

heh...i love that every facebook post is about gmail being down right now. nerds.

i feel like i've stared at my computer forever today, i'm going to write some letters and thank you notes. then some knitting. then i'll look at the stuff in the baby room for a bit and find something to distract me from it.

lamb shanks yesterday. boeuf bourguignon tomorrow. our dinners are getting so good. fuck yeh.

beginning 35 weeks!

2009-08-24T12:41:00.001-07:00

so last tuesday filip and i met with Jen, my midwife, and we went over the last of the pertinent details and loose ends we needed to wrap up. when we first arrived, she asked how things were going, how i was feeling, and i said "fine, like normal," but i was like "dude, this is rock solid right now, feel it!" and she was all "you're having a contraction." and i was all "wtf?! nuh-uh" and she was all "yeh-huh, that's what a contraction is." and i was all "really?! it don't hurt! i don't feel nuthin!" and she smiled and shrugged and marked on my charts 'having contractions.' HA! if those are contractions this might be pretty easy. rule! so, everything else is good, im gaining good weight, measuring correctly so on and so forth. so, while jen was measuring and feeling around in there i was all "hey, can you tell where this dudes head is? what direction is it in?" she's like "yeh, let me find it, hang on." so she's feeling around and around and says "well, i cant find it. we gotta get an ultrasound." i must have looked like someone was strangling Jonah right then because Jen looked at me and was like "you haven't had an ultrasound yet!? you really don't want one?! your face is so red! im so sorry!" so i explained that i didnt want to have one but it was cool, we needed to see where the babe was and see if it was breech so we would have enough time to flip it, make sure everything was ok, for the well being of the dude and myself, and for those reasons i'm ok with it, for sure. otherwise, i mean, i get it, but its just not my thing. this whole time i have remained un-baby-crazy. i enjoy hearing the heartbeat, but thats totally different than getting all museum-of-science-and-industry-discovery-channel-body-worlds about it. i feel like a majority of the ultrasound technician dimwits feel as though they have some kind of godly authority and are at some higher level than the rest of us. its like, seriously, i could call that 1-800 number for that tech college on the commercial that airs while i'm watching Steve Wilkos too, that don't make yer shit smell better than mine. so anyway, my appointment was scheduled for friday at 11. of course the girl at the counter is super rude and condescending to me right off the bat. and i'm like 'hey, im not the one whose hair is styled so it still looks wet.' but whatever. why schedule an appointment at 11 if i'm not actually going to be seen for another 45 minutes. fer, realz? i totally love all of those bullshit ads and commercials against socialized health care being like "you don't want to have to wait to see your doctor, do you?" as if. whateves. so yeh, waiting forever. stupid bitches with faux wet hair are whispering about me. height of rudeness. some assistant finally takes me into a room, takes weight, blood pressure and what have you. then i wait again forever. she finally comes back, takes me to another room and we start the ultrasound. i tell her very adamantly "i do not know the sex and i do not want to know. i do not even want to see the screen." she rolls her eyes at me and just starts, doesn't bother turning the screen off that is mounted on the wall right in my direct line of sight. i catch wind of the spine and turn my head, that was pretty much enough, more than enough really. i don't know, i mean, yeh, that's my kid there but i'm never ever going to see it like that ever in my life so why see it like that now? i'm never going to see it in skeletal form. it makes me feel completely disconnected from it. the little bits of touch communicating that have been happening so far with it being in there and everything are so much more important than seeing its skull to me. its not ready for me to see it. when its ready, it will be born. so anyway, this girl is clicking and moving the wand everywhere and like "you know what it is?" and i say "no, and i do not want to." and she says "you sure? i could tell you." and i roll my head over and say "absolutely not. i already told you you 'no.' what right do you have to act as if you can have any say in my pregnancy? please just do what you have to do." and she gets all offended. i mean, seriously, get off on the next yuppie coming in and crying with joy when you tell her what the fuck her child is, like you're god or something, some amazing bearer of the greatest news ever. this is mine and it has nothing to fucking do with you. pretty much right then the doctor comes in, some eastern european dude and he grabs the wand from her and says "thank you agnes, you may go now." ha! booyah agnes! anyway, this dude had no sense of humor-humor. pretty awesome. normal and nice and respectful. he confirmed that it was not an aardvark, nor did it have a tail or a trunk. he asked me if i had any 'woman's intuition' about what the sex was. nice guy, made me feel less bitter about having to deal with agnes. he printed out some pictures of its face, or what he could get of its face and gave them to me. oh yeh, its not breech. its ready to go. head down, pretty much facing my spine, round-about 4.5 pounds! sweet.

tomorrow marks my last appointment with Jen where i meet at her office! from here on out she comes to my joint. its so close. we're so excited. everything, health-wise and baby-wise is exactly where it should be. so awesome. we're gonna have the cutest little buddy with us soon. we're getting retardedly excited.

things have been relatively low-key and nice the past week or so. this sandwich from lula was the most amazing thing i've put in my mouth. serrano ham & peaches, a little mustard, greens, a little delicious white cheese (i forget what kind) and scrambled eggs. grilled on the most delicious buttery toasty bread. i was super upset that it wasn't on the menu saturday as well. i should have made a second trip after my ultrasound on friday for another.

and yesterday, the Fire game was fucking amazing. un-fucking-believable comeback in the last five minutes. awesome. so glad we went. tailgating afterwards, you can clearly see how filip couldn't let go of the excitement. i don't think tinkey minded.

this is all for now. i'm off, got a meeting in regards to employment post baby! yay! i'll update more this week with progress pictures and other exciting things! yay!

"baby, this isn't about you, as much as you wish it was."

2009-08-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

i feel like, sometimes maybe, when you're exposed to something so regularly, you tend to forget what its like not being exposed to it, like you start to get too accustomed and forget the reality of things or how things would be if you weren't always submerged in it, like totally going numb to it, and then you start to lose grasp at how drastic the situation actually is.
i think i've been subject to cases like this several times so far in regular life. probably the first memorable time was when i got the job at the unique thrift store on st. charles rock road in high school. going to thrift shops on occasion before getting the job i noticed the smell, all the stains and the grimey dirty grossness and the crazies, etc. after working there for a while, i couldn't smell anything strange, i had the sniffles non-stop, the thought wouldn't cross my mind to wash my hands before touching my food (which is hilarious to me now, being that every time i'm thrifting i have these horrifying thoughts of being forced to lick my hands upon leaving the thrift store), and it seemed pretty normal to be sorting through donations and come across a bag of donated dildos.
another significant instance would be a relationship i was in for quite sometime a few years back. looking back on things, previous to my relationship with Filip, it is the most significant relationship i was ever in, super sad and for all the wrong reasons. any other guy i've dated should have that title, for sure. but i guess every other guy i've dated has my fondest memories, feelings, friendship and best wishes towards them now, where this one doesn't have any of those things. its the give and take of the whole thing, i guess. it was a horribly abusive relationship, in every sense of the word. mentally, emotionally, physically. every aspect of it was completely manipulative. looking back at the person it made me become is so unbelievable. i felt totally trapped. i felt like i there was nothing i could do to ever re-gain happiness again and i didn't believe in happiness or love at all. i knew there was no way it was possible to exist. i honestly felt like the only way my situation was ever going to change was if he died or if i killed myself. seriously, how fucking sad. that was the end of it for me. i had no friends. he ruined all of my friendships, ones that i'm still trying recover today, years later. he temporarily ruined my relationship with my family. he cornered me every chance he could, lorded everything over me, even things i brought into or had before the relationship, and i was totally a prisoner. looking back on it, i have no idea how i ended up where i was, but at the time there was absolutely no escaping. things, to me, were normal then, like, i thought every couple had screaming matches to the caliber that we had. all boyfriends physically cornered and trapped their girlfriends to scream in their face and rear back their fists at them. i mean, i know it seemed sort of wrong and extreme but my actual thought process was that, well, i had surely done something or upset the situation bad enough to take a swing. i really lost touch with reality. i had no idea how crazy things were. crazy abuse was normal for me then and i expected it. i thought i would always be lied to in the most extreme and absurd manner, and i was just on my own. it was better not to uncover or call out a lie because if i did i'd have to pay for it in the worst way ever. i had important tasks to tend to anyway, like making sure the dogs felt like they were safe, even though none of us were. and the mind/body connection shit that went along with all of that was absolutely insane. totally screwed up. if i've referred to an ex telling incredible tall tales, or something of the sort, this is the one i was talking about. since that relationship ended i still hear a ton of stories from the outskirts of friends of friends. lies about myself, making me out to be the completely different person than i am or ever was, lies about our relationship, about himself. lies that he cant even remember telling or keep straight to who he told them to. its sad, really, especially seeing the cycles of people who have been friends with him and realize what its like, and then distance themselves from him.

anyway, so recently, currently, there has been this preposterous situation happening alongside and kind of correlating to my pregnancy, but really overall just the plain fact of filip and i being together, which sadly, seems like a given at this point. i mean, as it goes on or a new thing arises from it, i'm like (in a flava flav kind of way) "wooooooooooooaaaaaaaah! that's nuts." but then i get on with everything and its whatever. like i'm totally use to its ridiculousness and it has become nermal and expected, pretty much. but then when i talk about it to friends and confidants and hear their thoughts on how bizarre and crazy it is, it really kind of puts things into perspective for me. like, i feel more confident in knowing how remarkably insane the situation and behavior is and that it is definitely not Normal. with everything that is happening in my life right now, its easier than before for me to see that this is a situation in which the reality for it itself is really just that: its very own diluted reality where it is so desperate to pull everyone else down with it. its just so fucked up that it is happening, that a person actually chooses to put so much effort and focus so hard into being so negative. there's not enough time to waste so much energy that way, its a terrible thing and i really just feel sad for them, their loss, you know?
"tell her to go boil a bunny"
so then, all of this tying into what the reality of my situation actually is: that i'm more in love with Filip now, and more everyday, and with the due date getting closer, more in love with this kid than the day before and the day before. we're both getting more and more anxious to meet this baby. the further along into everything that we get, the further away everything else outside of us seems. any of the negative stuff just keeps getting foggier and foggier. so maybe i'm actually getting myself into a non-reality reality (? i kind of don't know what im talking about but i do), a reality that i've never really felt like i've known, or a situation in which the extreme overall feeling that becomes normal is overwhelming happiness. but then if that becomes normal will i appreciate it for what it is all the time or will i need someone to point that out to me like before when friends and family are like "yo, that really is crazy"? i don't think so. i sorta think i'll be appreciating every second of this incredible snowballing accumulation of happiness. i feel like i already do. and even more and more every second i get to spend with Filip and our babe when it is born. i never expected this to be easy and it is. its so easy. this relationship is easy. this pregnancy is easy. i guess maybe, at the end of it, its just a lot of love and how could anything be hard or difficult about that? i mean, we have everyday stresses and things like that like normal people, but even with those we have so many more moments of amazing laughter and fantastic conversations and the most comfortable quiet time and the times when we're not together and still miss each other like crazy and so many things that make this the most perfect situation each of us could possibly be in. we both appreciate it and have so much love, i think that's what makes it easy. i couldn't think of a better time in my life or a more perfect situation to bring a little babe into. perfect. sure, there are things we'd love to see change or different, but those are all things out of our reach, things that are totally out of our control, so it is what it is and we're unmoved, we're actually closer with each other because of those things, you know? its soooo fucking gay and movie-like and cliche and i fucking love every second of it and am so fucking proud and happy that this is happening and that it has all evolved the way it did. in my head, i just heard Dee say to me "dang, gina!" haha.

major happy sigh! otherwise, check it out dudes! we hung up the Threadless wall mural my moms got us from blik in the baby room. our baby's gonna have a bangin nursery! so fuckin cute! we were both so happy and nerdily excited after putting it up last night:

this is all really exciting. i really want to meet this baby. we both are so excited to show it all the amazing things we know and show it around and do normal things and be happy. i know only about 7 weeks left, but it still seems far away! i want it to be happening now! i'm ready for the next phase in all of this! bring it!

33 weeks along, so 7 weeks left to go...

2009-08-08T13:37:00.000-07:00

hi. i haven't posted as soon as i intended to after my last post. i lost a lot of motivation this week. the momentum sorta slowly came to a lull. i caught a gnarly cold. oh my, its been nasty. no one ever likes to have a cold, especially a summer cold, but a pregnant summer cold is terrible! i don't think i was even all that bad off, but everything combined made for a sloooooow, sad and annoying week. today i finally feel like things are starting to feel much better. its so frustrating! i've been taking better care of myself than ever before, right? all i eat is yogurt and granola, a shit-ton of fruit, not much meat really, and pretty much Lula and Tank. i drink more water than ever. never any soda. absolutely never any fast food. i walk at very least 2 miles a day + pregnant yoga. and did i mention how proud i am that i quit smoking for real, on top of all of that? so yeh, where the hell does a cold think it can get off around here? there's no room for a cold. why has i got a cold? fuck. but getting better.

when filip gets waaaay stressed about particular things he tends to drink himself into one hell of a character. i want to be angry at him, and for a second last night my feelings were a little hurt, but its just too funny and too cute to really hold it against him. i'm sure if it happened more often nowadays i'd have concerns. he was totally red-faced, reeking of whiskey, and singing al bano & romina power (my people) at the top of his lungs all by himself in the front room. it later evolved into some terrible polish 80's stuff but luckily i had pretty much drifted to sleep by that time. crackin my shit up though...

otherwise, here are the baby socks i've been so excited about the past few weeks:

and here's the pointy elfin hat finally finished:

the chin strap and tiny button totally make the hat. so freakin funny, seriously. i love it. i'm workin on a couple top secret knitting projects right now that i'm also very excited about! hopefully i can get them finished before the babe comes. given that each day seems to last at least 48 hours long, i think i'll be able to finish them...
otherwise i painted the baby's room last weekend, pretty cute!

we're going with dark doodoo brown, sage & white. and whatever seems to go well with that palette, you know. we've got the crib and changing table ordered, and it should be here by the end of august, thanks to moms!!! the mattress came in already. and my mom is hilarious and awesome, went on a crazy baby shopping spree late one night and ordered this threadless wall decal for the baby's room in white! so exciting. gonna be the cutest baby room. i'll keep you updated with baby room progress. i'm still crossing my fingers that somehow an eames eiffel tower rocker in white with walnut gliders happens to find itself in my possession for the baby room...
in that shopping spree i mentioned previously my mom also got the little babe i'd like the goo-gen-heim! it's a really fucking awesome book! i'm so glad its back in print and that my mom hooked our dude up with a copy! yay! we're so excited!

so this week has been pretty slow. i had an appointment with my midwife, which was originally schedule for tuesday, but switched to thursday because she had a baby to catch! i love that! another month and a half and its gonna be me! things are good! i haven't gained any weight over the past 3 visits, but the baby is definitely growing and getting bigger, so we're all ok, nothing to worry about. my stomach is totally stretching larger. the babe pretty much takes up most of my belly now, where as even a month ago i'd have to poke around a little to find it in there. i think my weight was off this week because i haven't been feeling well and my appetite has been off. next appointment is our gettin-pumped-and-prepared meeting. i think we're pretty much there, but yeh. we're ordering the birth kit and breast pump this week. i've decided to go with the bailey breast pump. seems pretty dope, i guess. but what do i know about any of this? we're stocking up on supplies we'll need around the house, with help from my mom, who just called me to tell me she scored some sweet bath towels on sale at k-mart! september 8th is the date i absolutely have to make it to...dude has to stay in until then, otherwise i can't deliver at home. if something happens before september 8th i'll have to go to the hospital, anytime after that date we're safe at home. unless this kid gets a hair in its ass, everything should be just fine. this has been a super low-key low-maintenance pregnancy, really. have i mentioned how hilarious my dogs are?

and lastly, i'll leave this post with this link forwarded to me by my old elusive friend joee. its a good one!
love,
-r

ending 30 weeks/beginning 31 weeks and shit-talking filip!

2009-07-25T11:48:00.000-07:00

hi. its the end of 30 weeks. a lot has gone down. at first, it wasn't so good, then it proved to be better than i could have wanted, and now everything is normal and good again.

i was supposed to be heading to st. louis this weekend for a baby shower with my family. it was cancelled. i'm ok with it. see, its like this: i was worried about some issues and things that i shouldn't have been worried about because some of them were assumptions and some of them were previous misunderstandings, and that made me more anxious and irritable and stubborn than i should have been. and it turns out that my mom and my sister were in the the same boat as i was, only none of us really knew this about the other. and we all stewed and simmered and eventually it boiled over at the end of last week. it was all really gnarly at first. emotions running high and screaming and really nasty things being said across the board, but in the end, the conversations we've all come to, the things we talked about, the things we're working on and the things we've cleared up are so much more important to me than a baby shower and i'm really glad it all happened the way it did. between my sister, mom and i, these are all things we finally needed to say and things we finally needed to hear. and im so glad we got here before this baby did. i feel so relieved, and so much better and i'm glad that we're all on the same page. it makes me excited and motivated to keep working on it.

ahh. right. its summer out, you know?! that means county fair season! filip claims he has never been up close and personal with goats or sheep. unbelievable!

i've been cranking out more baby projects like crazy lately. my intentions are to post again by the end of the weekend with better photos and more completed projects. i'm seriously so unbelievably excited to be knitting baby socks. its ridiculous. the smallest knitting ever, and the smallest socks ever. its killing me. i really can't take it. really, i can't. all i want to do and all i think about is knitting baby socks. i'm about to knit more baby socks as soon as i'm finished with this post.

ok, its been a week with cable tv. i remember why i didn't care to make the effort to have cable tv in the past. that doesn't mean i want it to go away, but i'm reminded of how fucking irritating and frustrating it is. i love anthony bourdain. im so so so fucking glad i can watch 'no reservations' pretty much anytime i want. its the best. my celebrity crush on anthony bourdain is back in high gear. otherwise, i find myself unable to stop from watching all of these discovery health programs on pregnancy and birth and getting so incredibly pissed off to where i'm literally yelling at the television while i'm home alone. its fucked. i always shut them off after about 15 minutes, its all i can take, but i still cant help putting them on in the first place. its terrible. there was a program on today all about the benefits of epidurals where a handful of women in pre-labor were so excited and counting the seconds until they were able to get their epidurals, where they were all being spoonfed bullshit from these asshole nurses and doctors who didn't even know their names, speaking to them in a manner that you would speak to a 4 year old. these poeple treat women as if they're too dumb to experience labor. and, don't get me wrong, some of them are really fucking dumb, but its all a vicious circle as to why they're so dumb, and why these medical types keep things the way they are to only benefit themselves and not the mothers or babies. its so fucking sad. i could go on this tangent forever. there's another program called 'i didn't know i was pregnant' which basically features disgustingly obese women who went a whole pregnancy unawares, think they are experiencing food poisoning when, in actuality, they are going into labor. its fucking sick. seriously. so sick. i really have to stick to the travel channel, bbc america (ahhh! so many dr. who specials and torchwood!) and occasionally hbo, because i can actually watch flight of the conchords on real tv now. well, and fox soccer. cable should be a la carte.

dang...wouldn't it be awesome to be at the san diego con this weekend? i'd totally have david tennant sign my chest, since i actually have one now. and i'd never wash it. no, i'd get his signature tattooed. yeh.

i went to see my midwife again this week and i'm super excited and feeling really good. its getting so close dudes! we're getting geared up and prepared, starting to tie up loose ends. i'm actually really excited to get all the stuff we need for the 'birth day.' i'm ordering my birth kit soon and shopping for extra towels and sheets and stuff like that has got me all geared up. i'm really excited and anxious to hunker down and get this done! its really funny to me to worry about who is taking care of this little babes birth certificate and social security and stuff like that, you know? its all squared away and all, but so goofy, but seriously, i'm worrying about this sort of stuff for my kid, weird. i was sort of worried about what to do with the placenta afterwards as well, when i talked my midwife about it she recommended donating it to nasar to help train search and rescue dogs! so awesome! i'm really stoked, thats totally the most perfect thing i could think of. i'm not the sort to keep it hanging around in our freezer for the next few years, i don't think filip is going to eat it, and although i'm totally cool with stem cell research, i'm more cool with making sure my babe gets all the cord blood it needs and letting the cord stop pulsating on its own rather than putting my babe at risk by making sure there's enough blood left to sell it for tens of thousands for 'research.' ugh...the whole cord blood issue really upsets me...i'm really really glad to have the options that i do and to be doing this the way i am.

did i ever tell you that madness, one step beyond, was the first album i bought on my very own as a pre-teen. ive been listening to tons of madness again, and if this kid is a girl, i hope she totally develops the same crush on suggs that i had.

i've been working on this post for a couple days now, in between stuff, and i'm getting tired of it, i'm almost done.

just got back from getting a nice coffee and a cupcake from new wave (insert huge disapproving gasp here) and on my walk home, at the corner of sacramento and fullerton, a normal jogging girl lightly pinched my elbow and says "you have the best tattoo. im a chair freak too!" and then jogged off. so awesome. i think thats the first time it has been recognized by a totally random person. boy, if i had a dollar for every time i've heard (mostly in a ghetto voice) "what dat is gurl? a spiderwebs?"

heh. back to baby socks, now! almost done with my first pair, i'll post photos of them tomorrow, along with pickle & vodka updates and spaghetti & meatballs! the fire game is on our cable tv and i gotta text filip highlights throughout since he's working, poor dude.

week 29

2009-07-14T17:18:00.000-07:00

wow. jen is pregnant too! 12 weeks! i'm not really the baby crazy type, even with myself being pregnant and all, but i'm really very happy and excited about this. our buddies being buddies. another buddy who seems to agree with a lot of the same sorta stuff regarding pregnancy and being pregnant. its good. this is good. good work! i'm feelin good.

this weekend was all jammed up with activities for us. i really really wanted to go to the lake house with kyle and carolynn and all the company, but i have to be sober and i would have been really bratty and bummed out, and probably would have started a fight with filip and it would not have been fun. and i want it to be fun, so next summer, we'll get a babysitter and get back to lakehouse funtimes like before. so, in the meantime we went to the greyhound racetrack in kenosha. i've never been to dog races, as there isn't any dog racing in illinois or missouri, and it seems as though it is becoming more and more rare these days, which is good considering the conditions for the dogs. if only things could be different. i wanted to bring about 50 greyhounds home with us. so, right, its much like horse racing, betting and all. as much as i hate the cruel things that happen to the dogs, i love totally love it, along with horse racing. something about it, some kind of lure, old-timey-ness, tradition and such. something about what the tracks are now and the otb's and everything, being totally sad and depressing, but holding fast to some traditions or addictions or something. i dunno. i really love it all. anyway. we had fun. we want to come back before the end of the year with a whole ton of people and make a super awesome fun day of it. let me know if this maybe sounds fun for you, i'd like you to come.

later that evening we decided to attend the Fire game out in bridgeview. lots of driving on saturday, but fun and worth it. stopped in between for delicious dinner snack at Superdawg! i ate beef, which, you may know has not been agreeing with me during this pregnancy. it did not agree with me, and i figured as much but decided i would tolerate it for a Whoopercheesie. the fire game ended up being a pretty boring game, but still fun to be there. tons of people, almost sold out!

oh! and speaking of...not that i really know a whole lot or that i think i'm some big supporter or anything, you know? i mean, i'll always take interest in what my boyfriend/close friends are into, what interests them interests me usually, obviously, so i make an effort and usually get into new stuff that way. and in the case with filip and his soccer obsession, i follow along and can hold a simple conversation and include my two cents and also pick hot players to have unrealistic goofy ass crushes on. my most recent crush being Bakary Soumare. pretty funny and even funnier when he sat across from us at Small Bar last thursday. ahhhhhh! dang! no way! hahaha!

so yeh, i'm feeling pretty good about things lately. i think, maybe, i'm getting into that 3rd trimester stage of being super energized and excited and feeling optimistic about things and myself, etc. the last segment of my second trimester was really tough. (quick side note: i just accidentally mis-spelled 'trimester' by adding a 'd' to the end of it, totally bringing back horribly amazing memories of me and carolynn tracking this down four years ago.) The realm of depression and terrible feelings i went through was really surprising. "shocking" my dad would say in a totally sarcastic dry manner. i didn't and still don't know what to expect with this. everyday is totally different than the one before, how i feel emotionally and physically, my mood and temperament, everything really. and i feel like, especially recently, things are noticeably changing and getting bigger everyday. i'm really glad that the really sad and depressing stuff seems to be out of the way. so while i was in the thick of 'really not being in the mood' i got this blog link that Nikko had forwarded to our baby crazed and pregnant circle of friends. and since i was in a horribly depressed mood, i never thanked her, so thank you for the link, Nikko. at the time, i scanned quickly over a few posts and instantly felt so awful about myself and my situation and my pregnancy. i wanted to stab my eyes out because of it. i was snotty about it and had a terrible attitude. i was like, where do these perfect people and their perfect situation come from? how can they make a pregnancy look that good and all American Apparel chic, literally? pregnancy does not look that good, and i certainly don't look that good. i was totally against it and fed up and so irritated. i vowed to never read it ever again. probably 2 weeks later my mood turned around, thankfully. so thankfully. i dunno how or why i let go of certain things, i dunno what chemicals switched around in my head but i'm so happy to be past that. don't get me wrong, its not as if i'm perfect all the time now, but i'm definitely not melting down, crying and fighting with filip everyday anymore. so i've spent the past week thoroughly reading, re-reading and sobbing with happiness over their stories and experience growing a baby. i certainly know that people have a way of showcasing their lives online in such a way that doesn't show things you'll never know about said person with never knowing them in real life. (i mean, remember my psychotic ex-boyfriend? who i was never married to, to say the least?!) so yeh, i get it. and stylish detail orientated totally savvy internet people have a great ways of showcasing things and that's good for them. and now that i'm in a much better mood i can appreciate that, take it for what it is, and enjoy how amazing his writing is and how beautiful their family is and then some, and how thankful i am that there are other like-minded people that are willing to share so much with the internet. its a great blog, for pregnant people and baby crazed sorts, and regular people too. i think you should read it. i like it a lot.

now that i'm in the 3rd trimester my meetings with my midwife have kicked up to every 2 weeks. pretty intense! i knew it was going to be happening, but it seems like it shouldn't be happening yet. but then it seems like i've been pregnant forever now. last thursday i had to have my glucose tested for gestational diabetes, etc. that was hilarious, i got incredibly geared up and hyper as hell on glucose juice! everything is really going good though. absolutely no problems at all through any of this, thankfully, i mean, other than regular, and in my case i think kinda of mild, pregnancy stuff. i remember during the first few weeks being absolutely terrified of everything. not necessarily scared of being pregnant, but totally terrified that the baby was going to die, that i was going to die, i would end up with some wacky disease or someone was going to beat me up with the intention of killing the baby i was making. my head was all over the place worried and really spazzed out with every possibility like that. now, i'm not really scared of anything. i feel totally confident that everything is and will continue to go really well, and if a problem does arise, i feel really good about being in the hands of my midwife and doula. lately i've been remembering bits of dreams about actually birthing the baby and being in labor. i'm getting to the point where i just want to do it. i'm so freakin anxious. i want to be in labor. i want to feel the pain of it and accept it and get through it and meet this baby already. i want to see what we made. its funny, almost like this baby already has a personality. yesterday me and filip were taking turns pressing on this one particular spot on my belly and it would kick back at us, really! from time to time i can actually see a foot or a knee drag across my stomach. it moves non-stop. all the time and pretty fiercely! filip wakes up through the night a ton and tells me that every time he is awake in the early mornings its doing summersaults in there. it was keeping me awake for a while there when it first started but i guess i'm getting used to it now. sometimes if filips hanging around with his had resting on my stomach, it'll bounce around for a while and calm down, and as soon as his hand moves away it goes bonkers again, like it wants him to come back. really weird, how you know so much already, baby? i'm pretty sure my dude flipped over on friday, too. this buddy is now head down, the beginning of the end. the majority of movement is in a different spot in my belly now and everything seems a little more comfortable since then. maybe its all in my head but either way, i needed a little relief. my mid-section is really short and not accommodating at all.

i think i'm going to spend the rest of today on projects and birth tasks. i've got too much stuff rolling around in my head that needs to become lists and things to remember to ask and research. i don't feel like there's a ton of preparing we need to do, and honestly, if it happened today i'd feel just fine and ready for it, but since there is some time left, i'll get a few more things organized. at least i can just about scratch 'getting cable' off the list. that has been an on going battle with direct tv for too long now, and although its not installed just yet, everything seems to be ready for the installers tomorrow. its been more of a pain in the ass trying to get the cable hooked up than figuring out this baby stuff. what the hell?

i keep listening to the make-up song "every baby cries the same." i always thought it was pretty awesome and hilarious, and now more than ever. the background vocals have been playing on repeat in my head for the past few days. i'm like "every babeh, black babehs, skinny babehs, fat babehs, rich babehs, poor babehs, country babehs, city babehs, lonely babehs, every babeh." best ever.

28 weeks

2009-07-07T17:10:00.000-07:00

i'm starting to lose track of all this. i'm pretty sure this is my 28th week. i bet if i posted more often i wouldn't be so confused.
so much has happened between now and my previous post! all good things! no major meltdowns, except that one, but that was nothing really, especially in comparison to previous meltdowns.
the last i posted i had just returned from st. louis for Aero's birthday party. so about a week or so later Adam, Angie & Aero came to visit us! so exciting! I was retarded excited that they came up. regretfully, that one meltdown happened that first night they were here, but thankfully angie totally knows what im going through and it was minor, anyway, but still, im so sick of these mood swings. So right, we hung out a ton, putzed around, went to the aquarium, cruised out to oak park to check out frank lloyd wright buildings, ate tasty food, you know. i don't know if i've previously mentioned this but Aero is an amazing kid. such a trooper! he had a good time and is probably the least fussy one year old i've ever met. Jonah was a little jealous, i think, super barky whenever me and Aero were hanging out. Totti was a little overwhelmed with all the extra commotion. all in all, it was awesome. I'm so super glad they came up! I super love being around all of them. Its really awesome to see how their family clicks and works out with everyone being generally really happy and loving and normal. Its pretty amazing to see that you can still do regular awesome things with a little one, and that you can totally travel and do stuff with a kid instead of being hindered by it. it seemingly takes a little more time and a little more thought but still, its comforting to see them bring Aero along every which way and for every adventure.

After their departure back to st. louis, Filip had plenty of time off last week for general screwing around and dumb adventures. and i've been on the up and in good moods lately so it's been fun. One evening, like normal we had dinner at Tank and decided to head over to the beach off of Foster afterwards to stroll around. Pretty funny how everyone hanging out had mj blaring from some shitty radio, but otherwise it was fucking disgusting to a gnarly degree. i sort of couldn't believe the incredible amount of garbage everywhere and the people swimming around it in the lake. so romantic.

A few days later, per an article via npr we decided to drive down to 63rd and Western to check out a line of bullets shot by the first tommy gun to be used in a crime. The building was a jerk store at the time but has since morphed into a currency exchange, and sadly, we did could not find the bullet holes. however, we did get incredibly creeped out by a drunk, psychotic black ghetto midget that was hanging around that corner and we quickly left. The highlight of that trip really just ended up being the junker of a van we spotted down western with a goofy painting of kittens taped to the side of it. pretty awesome.

4th of july was ok for us, i think, not that we celebrated or anything. we had a delicious breakfast meal at flying saucer, pretty much napped all day, then popped in at matt & jen's bar-b-que a little early. we headed out in time to catch the Fire game at the globe. pretty funny, with me being in a relatively good mood, filip proceeded to drink enough and after the game we decided to stop back over at matt & jen's to see if there were more fireworks and madness to witness. by that time, most of the impressive displays were over and there were just a ton loud things blowing off, including a row of black cats that seemed to have lasted at least ten minutes long. filip drank more, started talking communism to jens croatian neighbor and then, all of a sudden in his totally typical filip manner, he was whining and wanted to go. so we decided to leave, quite abruptly like we do when filip switches like this, hardly saying good bye to anyone, and then as soon as we get outside filip wanted to fight someone. totally wanted to pick a fight with anyone. until we got into the car blasting dance music and he passed out. pretty good. classic.
sunday we chilled out mostly. did normal breakfast then coffee shop then grocery sort of stuff. made delicious sausages for dinner. saw the new woody allen movie, which was super good, we both concluded. and then monday we were off to the dunes. filip is nuts over the dunes. pretty hilarious. huge beach umbrellas and all. it wasn't bad on a weekday. i think i'd be thoroughly annoyed and irritated to be there on the weekend, but it seems like, at least for the rest of this pregnancy, visiting the dunes is going to be a weekly event. we need more snacks next time...

so yeh, generally things are going really good. this guy, or girl, is moving around sooooooo much these days. i never expected it to move so much. its really weird. i can feel it getting stronger everyday. totally creepy. filip and i were in the car this afternoon and i was freaking out because it was moving so much. filip was finally able to glance over at some point when i was hollerin about it and we both literally saw something move across my big fat belly all alien like. totally weird. i've been suffering some heartburn and really terrible back pains, but im doing ok. got some fennel seed and raspberry leaf teas to help with that sort of stuff. hopefully all these visits to the dunes will help out my back. otherwise, it seems like since ive been crazy reading and watching ina may gaskin stuff lately that, as goony as it sounds (maybe only to myself, but still) it has totally given me a better outlook and has made a lot of this a ton easier. its way easier to manage now. i dunno, weird but im feeling pretty good about all of it. i just want it to be finished, pretty much now, and i wanna get on with the rest of it.
i've finished a ton more baby projects lately, i intend to get around to blogging them at some point this week as well as the progress of our home made pickles and i'll be starting my raspberry vodka this week as our raspberry bushes are totally ripening like crazy! and i think we're actually going to paint the baby room this week. lots happening, lots keeping me busy, totally good. yes, really good.

26 weeks

2009-06-20T13:06:00.001-07:00

hi. ok, that last post was rather dramatic, but totally valid. i'm feeling better. i had a mini break to st. louis this weekend for Aero's 1st birthday party. much needed weekend away.

we spent the morning/afternoon in Tower Grove Park, splashed in the fountain, cupcakes, presents and a darth vader helmet that kept getting passed from kid to kid. it was really awesome, regardless of the heat and humidity. i was really really excited to catch up with Angie, even though there was lots happening and not a ton of catch-up time, it was enough to snap me back into shape.

duder was not happy to be in the water. next to the water was cool though.

seriously, amazing kid. so awesome.

otherwise, i just did normal type stuff. it was a relatively short weekend, you know? but stopped at my regular places and caught up with friends, bought some shoes and cute things i didn't need but it made me feel better, antiquing with my mom, like regular. it was really nice catching up with folks and them being all excited for me. pretty awesome. didn't eat a ton of delicious things, it was just too hot and humid to do so. way worse than chicago. unbearable. you couldn't breath outside, even after the sun went down it was still 85 degrees and same percentage in humidity. pretty brutal.

good to get away. good to give it a few days. i was really losing it, and super spazzed out and stressed and things were just too much. feeling better now. re-focusing and making agendas.

as far as being pregnant, obvious emotional instabilities happening, but for good reason. serious reasons and all. my meltdowns have been more intense and more frequent. totally sucks. im ready to be finished with this. im still feeling good though, besides that. physically and all. no issues or anything. gaining more weight by the day. i felt miserable in st. louis with the temperatures and all, but im back to ok. turned the ac on here today and feeling just fine.

i think im back to updating regularly again. im feeling like im back to regular except that i have more time in everyday or something, if that's possible. and it totally is because this is the last trimester. knitting like crazy though. exciting. got some larger sizes on etsy, as previously mentioned. i'm working on a few new pieces of furniture for onesies as well. a new line soon, i think.

filip's working on dinner and im starved. i gotta go poke around the kitchen.

ending 25 weeks

2009-06-18T13:30:00.000-07:00

hi all. just a quick update. there have been lots of things i could have been blogging about but the past few weeks have been rather tough and i've lacked the motivation to do so. i'll probably thoroughly update next week, maybe.

here comes the third trimester and i've never felt so alone and screwed over as i'm feeling right now. trying to stay up, finally immersed in reading everything ina may gaskin has published, and although its helping here and there, things are just horrible right now. my midwife has even been showing concerns, can't hide or fake anything at all nowadays. i'm pretty much in this by myself at this point, seriously.

aside from that, i finally managed to list a few larger sizes of the chair onesies on my etsy for the bigger kids. please, buy them.

i'll be ok though, im pretty sure.

ending 21, starting 22 weeks

2009-05-23T13:43:00.000-07:00

hiiiiiieeee.
things have been ok lately, i think. i don't feel like blogging right now but i think i'll try to force my way through this. i'm feeling lazy this afternoon. this morning was pretty awesome, a super nice brunch with another pregnant lady and friends of the 'baby-crazy' sort. pretty hilarious.

my mom came to visit last weekend, which was pretty nice and laid back. i was a bit overwhelmed. She came bearing lots of baby gifts. totally awesome vintage baby toys and things, and tons of regular onesies and diapers and things like that. it was super fun, but i think it hit both me and filip that we actually have to start preparing. i felt a little panicky for a minute, like i'm super far behind and we don't have enough stuff or we're not ready, but then i just let it go. its going to be fine. we don't have to have everything, or hardly anything. we'll have what we need and we don't have to need a lot. everything is going to happen in due time. i'm not really freaked out. we're good. and we're happy, so that's pretty much all we need. ok, enough of that sort of crap, here's a few of the amazing vintage baby things my mom brought our little booger:

totally fucking awesome vintage baby scale. finally able to prove that filip's cats are fat, weighing it at 17 lbs...

yay! orginal Tommee Tippee hot plate dinner in original box and Tommee Tippee Cup!

and this kids totally gonna rock out all the time on all its vintage fisher-price stuff. haven't gotten a vintage "my first turntable" yet though...

its just too much!

and the most amazing amazing baby book i could imagine. the only baby book i'd want! unbelievable! completely un-used and in its original box! i'm so excited! this kid needs to get here so i can start filling this stuff in! the illustrations are adorable!

and seriously, this isn't even the beginning. my mom, is for sure, the most baby crazy of them all.

otherwise, i've been busy busy busy this week embroidering my fingers off while putting season 2 and 3 of Doctor Who under my belt. after my last post i was finally motivated to actually start an Etsy shop of my own. I've come up with tons of hair-brained ideas to sell on etsy, but after a few minutes, those ideas have all turned pear-shaped, you know? i think i really could embroider my way through this whole pregnancy. lets just hope people actually start buying my baby clothes! i'm still getting adjusted to listing on etsy as opposed to ebay, and i definitely need some cutesy banners and the such. so please be patient with my bare-bones minimal-ness for now, but i'm getting there. either way, forward my link to everyone! mama needs new shoes! and more goldfish snacks! i've been plowing through these things like i'm a dalek! EXTERMINATE!

and lastly, i think i'm gonna be in trouble. this baby has been on the move like never before. its totally getting stronger everyday and totally moving, A LOT. its always normal and quiet until about 7 or 8 ish every evening and then its banging around in there non-stop! After dinner its pretty still for a while, then it kicks back up again when i'm trying to sleep. i think it doesn't like when i lay on my back at all. total nerd baby already. this is the weirdest thing. totally feels so bizarre.

twenty! halfsies!

2009-05-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

wow. yeh. i'm in the middle of my twentieth week. halfway there dudes. let me tell you a little how i feel at twenty weeks:

*i want to punch every random person who thinks they can give me their 2 cents. last i checked, all yall aren't my midwife, or my doula, or anyone i even know. shut the fuck up. you are horrendously annoying and you haven't the slightest about what's good for me. i've been kinda mellow about it, mostly quietly venting to filip, but its about to get public and i'm about to be a really rude bitch. i can drink my goddamn coffee if i fucking want to.

*there have been a good handful of random moments, mostly when we've been at a restaurant or somewhere in public, where i get this overwhelming feeling of a mixture of what i think is dread, depression, sadness, definitely loneliness, and some other unsavory things mixed in and i want to cry so bad. tears well up and my face gets all hot and i look at filip and that makes it harder not to cry. i dunno. it usually goes away within twenty minutes or so but jeez, does it blow!

*embarrassment. woah. i've never ever, in my entire life, been over-weight or had any weight to spare even. some would say that i could have been under-weight but i always thought i was just fine, i mean, everyone knows i can put a burrito (and then some) away like no bodies business. at any rate, i dunno if its because all of a sudden i'm this massive cow that isn't getting any smaller, or the fucking bullshit gossipy crap that is on the outskirts of friends and people i care about that sorta trickles in unwanted, or just the inability to adjust in a timely manner to these drastic changes but every so often i'm super fucking embarrassed of myself. i can only utilize a quarter of my wardrobe, let us not get into all the ways that sucks. i run outta breath really quick. it's getting painful to put socks on and to tie my shoes. i can't walk fast enough to even keep up with filip anymore and its frustrating as all hell, i've always been a quick walker. i dunno...the list could go on, but these are some things that just came up right quick.

aside from these apparent negatives, some great things have been happening! we moved! omg. we're both the happiest we could be, i think. our place is beautiful. and it rules. and all the animals are adjusting to each other pretty well. they're by no means friends yet, but acquaintances, i think, so far. we've got tons and tons of space, amazing backyard, nice neighbors and lots of nice blocks to walk and we're pretty central to most things. my moms visiting again this weekend, but maybe next weekend or the following we'd love to have our friends over for snacks and such!

kicius has already started taking tips on burrowing from jonah
and did i mention how close we are to tastee freez?
so yeh, we're settling in nicely and things are getting to be normal. i'm re-focusing on ebay again, which is picking back up nicely, and i couldn't be more pleased with it! I've been able to get back to baby crafting and watching doctor who, which is great! i'm so glad and feel normal again. when my sister came to visit awhile ago she brought me my first baby gifts i've received which were some awesome glass baby bottles and organic onesies for me to embroider. i've finally gotten around to embroidering them! i'm really happy with them, filip thinks i'm a big nerd. the eames rocker and the bertoia are my favorite, naturally.

and this is the first baby sweater i've knit. its malabrigo worsted and i have some vintage deer antler buttons i plan on using. we're gonna have to get this kid in the library with a tiny pipe!

and here's the awesome awesome austrian modern design, gender neutral, maple baby rattle jen got for our little nerd! so perfect! i'm in love with it! kinda don't want the kid slobbering all over it, hehe.

and lastly, i briefly mentioned in my bit of ranting that i had a doula! and i do! yiiiiiiis! thanks to some help from crystal, i have found a student doula to assist me in my birth! she's rad, and i'll happily refer her to any future pregnant friends! we spent a good 2 ish hours over coffee discussing pretty much everything and there was no question in the end! i signed her on immediately! we're both really stoked, and on top of everything, she's hookin me up with tons of insight and info on becoming a doula myself during this whole process! and i'll be her first home birth! i'm really relieved and really happy. already, she's given me a ton of great advice and good ways to look at and handle certain situations. i'm really glad to have her a part of everything! yes yes yes! pretty exciting.
this is all totally nuts. seriously. i'm having a kid, and i'm getting ready for it. seems totally surreal. i'm totally not complaining though. i think it'll turn out pretty cute.

eighteen

2009-04-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

i'm taking a much needed break in packing to blog, and apparently to hang out with my roommates cat, jersey. we finally got everything figured out and it turns out we're moving on thursday. in two days. i'm still pretty excited even though i've hardly haven't packed anything at all. today i'm stressing out, hoping i can get all my shit together. this will be the last move forever, until we move out of chicago, thankfully. dang. my brother was here over the weekend and we got into a conversation about all the places we've lived and this move will mark the 12th apartment i've lived in over the past 8.5 years. that is too many places. as much as i hate moving, i always get into situations where i can't stay in one place too long.

otherwise, i'm still getting really big at a retarded fast rate. and it's moving around now! pretty crazy! i thought it may have been wiggling around a little on friday, but wasn't too sure. last night filip and i we're hanging around watching some documentary on roman polanski and it was definitely on the move. totally knockin around in there. i don't know if i'm comfortable with roman polanski making my kid wiggle already.

i'm feeling guilty sitting here. i need to pack more.

seventeen

2009-04-23T11:21:00.000-07:00

woah. lots happening! as of this week i can no longer button my one pair of blue jeans that i've been fitting into lately. i knew this day would come but i've been dreading it and acting like it wouldn't. i've put off washing them for the past month or so for fear that they'd shrink up a bit in the wash and i wouldn't be able to button them. i guess i can wash them now, since it doesn't matter either way.
so, by this week my little monkey is anywhere between 4.5 and 5.5 inches. and it can hear much better than before. lots of loud music! i've never ever been interested in large outdoor music festivals or anything but this week i've been totally into the thought of going to pitchfork so this little dude can hear everything, even though i'll be pretty big and probably irritable by that point. either way, i'm super excited to start going to pritzker again for music and picnics and things, and elvis costello at ravinia might be hilariously awesome. technically, this baby's first show was the mountain goats, which is pretty rad and exciting.
no movement yet, though. this is about the time i should start feeling stuff happening but nothing so far. i'm kind of anxious and nervous for it.
its so funny how my internetting and daily interests have turned baby focused. i mean, naturally yeh, but its still really funny and something i could have never predicted for myself. a while back, long before i was anywhere near this situation, i was walking jonah and totti and had some lady ohhhing and ahhhing over them and somewhere in conversation she had mentioned these children's books about a cat who is convinced he is a chihuahua. i never thought much about it at all until recently and now i couldn't think of anything better to read to our booger. grandma's already started its collection of skippyjon jones. so awesome. i'm also super super excited about i'd like the goo-gen-heim being back in print! so cute and perfect and awesome! this is also on the growing list of kids books, even though i'll probably end up doing most of the activities myself, heh.
i also came across matte stephens and his etsy shop the other day and have absolutely fallen in love with all of his art.
i want a ton of his prints and little buddies for the babys room. totally decorating in that sort of style. so excited!
so my brother is coming to visit this weekend with his girlfriend tina. and i'm very excited. my mom and sister have been up to visit since we all found out the news, but when they were here it was like regular still. my brother will be the first to see me with this huge growth. its pretty weird. his girlfriend is plays derby for the arch rival roller girls who are playing a match saturday in chicago, so it will be babys first derby match! i've really been nerding out over the whole 'babys first' shit lately. heh. but yeh, i'm really excited to have them here. my brother hasn't visited in nearly 2 years. so yeh, excitement and probably hot dougs and kumas, im sure.
otherwise, i'm doing ok. some wavering feelings and slightly irrational freak-outs that i attribute to this pregnancy stuff, but its ok. even those aren't as psychotic as some people are on a regular un-pregnant basis, i believe, so yeh, i'm good. we're still in this the same as we were from the beginning, and i feel good about it. what i don't feel good about right now is cleaning out the fridge. ewwwweyuck.

sixteen and a half

2009-04-16T14:38:00.000-07:00

so we've successfully created a gift registry at target. that was quite an event. it is funny as hell getting filip into a place like target and then trying to figure out what we're gonna need for this babymanbaby was even funnier. scary, but funny. target online definitely offers more of the modbaby sort of stuff that you can't get in store making the initial trip kind of a let down and annoying. i'd like to set up a registry at grow maybe, but probably just because i want that tiny orange rocking chair that has been in the front window forever. and speaking of rocking chairs, i am a pregnant lady now and i need one. its not like i can set up a registry just for myself but if i could, this is the rocking chair that would be at the top of my list, obviously.
i haven't managed to junk one yet, but now it is a major neccessity. every pregnant lady has to have a rocking chair. and also speaking of midcentury baby furniture, i found this googling and almost peed my pants laughing, from this article via wired a few years ago. pretty hilarious. all that work refinishing my lcw and i could turn it into that high chair...heh. that doesnt really look too comfortable. look at that kids legs.
this week i've been procrastinating a bit, but at least this week i feel good about it. next week, though, im sure i'll feel really down on myself for it or absolutely nothing. so far, i really have nothing to complain about, but i'm going to anyway. recently these bizarre mood swings where i get really down on myself are really obnoxious. i've always had a tendency to be hard on myself or get kinda down from time to time, but who doesn't? this is not like normal, this is like, at least once a week, curl into a ball and cry until it hurts. then im ok. there are so many other productive things i could do with that cry time. its pretty annoying and it makes me feel like a huge sap. im gonna have a talkin-to with this kid about it, it is unacceptable.
so, for those who do not know already we have decided not to have any ultrasounds and not to find out what gender this dude is going to be. i mean, i'm halfway through it already and its not going to make a difference anyhow. except that i really want a boy. what we have decided is that filip gets to decide the girls name and i get to decide the boys name. and we both trust each other well enough to agree to that, even if there are any last minute changes or whatever. and so, the names are already pretty certain, and i think most people know them so i'll just leave it at that. although, i've really been thinking about the name atticus lately...

did i mention that our new place has raspberry bushes and grape vines in the backyard? so exciting! im getting so anxious to move! its retarded cute, im sitting at new wave right now and that mushaboom song by fiest is on and im totally nerding out over it and the near future for us.

its sixty degrees and im in a really great mood right now. i have an appointment set to cut my hair. i've been catching up with old friends that im excited to re-connect with. i'm totally enthralled with doctor who now and have developed a total crush on the doctor and i'm almost finished knitting my first baby sweater. right now, i feel like im at the peak of good moods during this so far.

sixteen weeks

2009-04-14T14:26:00.001-07:00

oh god, this is really happening. i'm encouraged to blog again, so i suppose i'll give a quick run-down of the past 6 months and then maybe keep going from there, and then maybe it'll all kind of make some sense. well, it probably won't make any sense, but at least then you'll know. you know? i'll also say right now that in this process i don't plan on excluding certain details for saving feelings sake, so sorry in advance if i offend or piss off or hurt someone's feelings, but this is how it is.

this week marks 16 weeks of my first pregnancy. it is really happening. it seems like, from television and movies and books, that some people have affirmations that they tell themselves or other self-motivating habits or quirks. i don't think i have ever had anything like that to say to myself, but on a frequently repeating basis i have found myself telling myself "oh god, this is really happening." alot, actually. all throughout my adult existence, and probably alot in my teenage and pre-teen years, but i'll save everyone and only backtrack about 6 months.
roughly 6 months ago i started seeing my boss. not like, i saw him everyday at work sort of thing. it was like, uh, a real life relationship developing and after work secret doing-it meetings, only i wasn't going to get a promotion or anything of that sort. neither of us intended anything, nor did either of us see it coming at all, and i really didn't know what was going to happen. most of me wanted to act like it wasn't happening and i kept telling myself it was going to stop happening. i don't know, because of the situation i was totally in denial of everything i wanted and everything i was guilty of. so let me tell you about the situation. oh god. my then-boss, filip, co-owns a business (still does) where i was employed, where his co-owner is, um, his wife. ok, yeh, i am an idiot but they've been seperated for 2-ish years. and yeh, i'm an idiot because she was my boss too, and a pretty good friend prior to all this. hence all of the denial and guilt i was feeling. ack. but, in my defense, let me also say that his wife, prior to filip and i getting together, had repeatedly, uh, sort of, offered up filip for me or any other friend as someone we should date. wha? and also, it didn't appear, even in the slightest bit, that there were absolutely any signs that there were any feelings, say romantically or anything of that sort, left between the two of them. she had dated a good handful of dudes since they had split, and was quite known for dragging filip's name through the mud on a regular basis and regularly proclaiming that the best thing that had happened was them splitting up. so, i dunno, that lead to a lot of confusion. so right, about a month or so after filip and i had been seeing each other, the awkwardness got increasingly horrible. i couldn't take it so i did what i had to. during a casual hang-out, just the two of us, i told her. the reaction was horrendous, and still is, i think, but what do i know? there was silence, then that look of her brutally murdering me with her eyes, then she immediately stormed out. side note: she already knew, and i prefaced the confession with those words. i know this, because everyone else in the neighborhood had pretty much put 1 + 1 together and a few nights prior she had followed filip back to my house and had apparently made a huge scene of it. the two of us, literally, have not spoken in real life, with real words, since then. for days after i did the right thing and told her, i received an un-excusable amount of rotten text messages, but no real talking. so, did i do the wrong thing here? i deserved to have my name dragged all through the mud of logan square, and still do, right? needless to say, i do not work for the either of them. i was fired, quit, let-go, extinguished, laid off, what-have-you, on christmas eve. not that i wanted to continue working there or anything, but its just funny. i heard through the grapevine while i was at home in st. louis for christmas. a friend who is a friend of a girl that worked there texted me a brief version of the news. so i called a different fellow employee and she informed me that they had been informed that i was no longer with the business. really, no one had the balls to let me know first, as if i didn't expect or wouldn't find out within a matter of minutes of such a broadcast. shit spreads like wildfire, you know? ok wait, so really, i guess im just blogging on how awesome and honest and upstanding i am myself. ha. i rule. ok, back to whatever. long story short, the whole goddamn neighborhood was involved, shit was being talked about myself in directions i never thought possible and it was down-right hilarious, and still kind of is, what sort of shit keeps getting back to me. really.
ok, so now its after christmas break. everyones back in chicago, we all (me + filip) missed each other and everything is great and lovey dovey and crap. keep in mind that, even though i haven't heard from my other ex-boss, filip did, and still does on a daily basis. and although i don't know at what lengths, nor do i care to know those lengths, i do know that at that point in time, there was still an awful lot of brutal tension and horrid things being said and texted to him on a really regular basis. (sidenote: it is still going on, i believe.) anyway, at some point during a lazy day of goofing off and eating delicious food and laying in bed too long, filip and i had a brief conversation about kids and having a baby. i mean, this subject had been brought up before, we'd drunkenly goof off about our future kid or argue about names or whatever, but this brief conversation was serious. you know? and god knows what i've been serious about in the past, you know? let us not even get started there, because that would take forever and it would be hilariously embarrassing. so obviously, the mature and serious thing to do after that very serious conversation would totally be to stop taking birth control. duh.
who'da thunk it would have all cultivated that quickly. i must have conceived within minutes of that conversation. seriously. immaculately. but i wouldn't know for quite sometime. at some point around late january it seemed like my period may have been late so i took a pregnancy test that came up negative. so i kept boozing and being retardedly irresponsible, like normal, like an idiot. after a while, it really seeemed like something goofy was happening, but i then decided for whatever reason, to act like it wasn't. i put off getting another pregnancy test for weeks. i felt pretty normal so i just acted normal. until filip made me take another test because it really had gone on long enough. that one said i was pregnant. and so it started. but it didn't, i swear.
my first trimester, if i really had one, was non-existant and pretty much like nothing was really happening. i was hardly convinced i was pregnant. sure, i finally grew a chest, but maybe i was really just a super super late bloomer. no nausea, no barfing, no real mood swings, no food aversions, no cravings, no swelling or bloating or any freakin changes at all. seriously. i didn't really think it was happening. then slowly, over the past 2 months-ish, i've seriously started believing that this is really happening. so yeh, i totally believe what laura said, that someone finally gave me break on something, you know? since this whole relationship ordeal has been retarded and stressful enough i got off pretty easy with the first trimester. totes. karma.
just last friday we heard its heartbeat for the first time. oh god, this is really happening. i didn't think it would affect me like it did, but something totally changed in that second. i have 2 heartbeats. i am growing a baby. i cried.
so, hospitals and doctors scare the junk out of me and make me incredibly nervous. my first instinct about having a kid was absolute fear of a doctor. i dont think im scared to be pregnant, or to even birth this thing, but a horrifyingly cold, rude, bullying doctor telling me that im too small to deliver a baby scared me to pieces. not to mention the myriad of other un-trustful opinions and decisions i could be pressured into. and also not to mention that my health insurance is altogether a piece of shit that wouldnt cover maternity, and that because of my piece of shit insurance i had racked up a retarded amount of bills from northwestern that have gone unpaid (since i dont have a job) so much that they refuse to schedule me any sort of appointments. heh.
so obviously, all of these factors with a ton of added research led me to my midwife. i'm thrilled and excited and really comfortably happy. totally not scared at all. we're planning a home birth. or apartment birth, you know. oh right, yeh, haha, me and filip are moving in together in two weeks. heh. so currently i'm on a hunt for a doula in training who can help me out either free of charge or at a really super reduced rate, since i'm out of work. and i'm working the government, got my medicaid, signing up for wic and link. things are falling into line, but thats doesn't mean that it will be any less dramatic or there wont be a million more instances in this situation where i repeat to myself "oh god, this is really happening."
so at the beginning of sixteen weeks things are totally changing and are seriously pregnant now. i'm seriously showing, and it seems like more and more everyday. and there's no getting around it, no more excuses. pants don't fit, shirts dont reach my waistband anymore. next time i'm heckled at lula for eating 2 breakfasts, i'm going to tell them why, because otherwise i would just be a real weirdo.
from here, i'll just keep you updated. i'll post some pictures or some rad links about midwifery or regular stuff, you know? and since i dont have a job, i may be posting a lot. so if no one is reading this, thats fine, at least im already feeling a little more normal.