Feeling Bloggish

Hi everyone. I don't have anything exceptional to report, but I have some free time and have been feeling "into" the blog lately. So I'm just here to say hi, and update on minute things.

For those of you not living in IA, the first of March also brought us the first taste of spring. 55 degree weather! I love my birth month :) However, it was too weird when after a day of 55 degrees and melting snow, we wake up this morning to 17 degree weather and 4 inches of fresh snow. Iowa never ceases to amaze. Mike and I took advantage of the warm weekend to paint the ceiling in our basement. We're hoping Thursday will bring back the heat again so we can paint the walls for Mike's day off. Then we just need to wait for the carpet installers to come and we'll be ready to move the office downstairs. Thanks to all who chimed in on the low light houseplant question, by the way. I'll see if I can take your suggestions and make them work.

I'm excited to get the basement finished so that we can move onto Jack's new room. He's very into trucks, so that's the theme. I've already got the quilt and curtains, and plan to paint red halfway up the wall and leave the rest white. Here's a photo of the bedding set I bought for him:



Recently I also happened upon some local art that I fell in love with, and ended up buying matted prints of the sketches for each of our bedrooms. The artist(s) who does the work is from Decorah, IA and the website for the art can be found at: Storypeople.com.
Here's the one I bought for Jack's room:



The one for Benjamin's room:



And the one for our bedroom:



The art is funky but I love the bright colors and uniqueness of it. And the sayings on each really speak to certain things. I found many of them that I really loved.

Let's see, what else is new.... in 8 days I turn 30. I used to believe I would absolutely freak out when the time came to leave my 20s. I reallly felt I would have a harder time with 30 than with 40. But now it's not phasing me at all. I think being a parent took me into a new era alltogether, and I feel far older...or shall we say, wiser? :)... than I do about entering my 30s. Mike and many of my friends are already in their 30s, so I guess I feel like I've been there for awhile, anyway. I love my life, so I can't imagine loving it less 8 days from now.

I recently took a 2-week traditional, vegetarian Thai cooking class through the DSM community education system. I picked up a few recipes I liked and some handy cooking tips. It was a nice way to get out and do something alone, and for no other reason than fun. Tonight I made green curry, and it turned out pretty well. The one thing I was definitely not into at the class was the use of a lot of fake "meat." The first week we made two dishes with "vegetarian chicken." It's this processed wheat gluten stuff that's molded into the shape of a little chicken. You cut it up and cook with it, mixing it into stir fries or curries. The second week it was "vegetarian prawns," which were the worst. They *look* like real prawns, but the texture is just like biting into a banana, and it has no fantastic taste to win you over. I think tofu has more nutritional value, anyway. I'd rather learn more ways to cook innovatively with vegetables than try to find non-meat substitutes.

Tomorrow I'll be at 32 weeks. It's still going FAST! I'm not sure I'm mentally ready still, but I'm working on it. I realized today that I keep waiting for the warm weather so Jack and I can get out and be free during the day more, but by the time it warms up enough to be out all the time, we'll have a new reason to be shut in. Hmm. Guess we'll figure it out one way or another. Hope you are all well. Here's hoping for more 55 degree weather....

18 month photos

i just received jack's 18 month photos back from the studio, and thought i'd share them. because our scanner is still broken (probably permanently, considering it just doesn't seem to jive with window's vista), i took photos of the photos with my camera and am uploading them. not stellar, but doable. i'm also including the little note i'm sending out to relatives with the hard copies of the photos.

Minneapolis Children's Museum Photos

i just got some photos from friends of ours who took their camera on our MN weekend trip. i thought a few of them were cute. the children's museum was really cool, though would probably be more enjoyable on a random weekday morning, and when you can go back a few times to really see all the rooms. jack was too young to do all of it that morning.


here's caleb, dana, jack, and hailey. it was hard to get them all together in one photo.


in the stuffed pond. it looks like jack is playing with the remnants of his last diaper, but they are actually stuffed pussy willows.


jack's using 9-month-old ophelia's head as a boost so that he can keep up with 3-yr-old hailey. he definitely likes older women.


all the kiddos.

a toothy smile to brighten your day

the business of being born

i had been bummed to miss this documentary when it showed in des moines a couple months ago, but was very happy when it became available on netflix yesterday. it was at the top of my queue, so we actually received it yesterday and watched it last night. very, very, very good. just what i needed to re-inspire me and get me vamped up for this coming birth. it's the kind of thing all people should see; not just those who seek it out because they already believe in what the film has to say. unfortunately, like many good documentaries, it's not hitting mainstream theatres, so those who do see it are probably those who seek it out because they already know about it. the audience that needs to see it most...young men and women who are pre-children as well as women pregnant for the first time, may be missed. but so it often goes. i highly recommend it to all. it's a provacative look at how everything, including birth and maternity care, have become medicalized in dangerous ways in this country. as always, it seems, the US stands alone. check out the trailer:
Business of Being Born.

calling all amatuer botanists...

i'm thinking particularly of carrie and sarah here, but am hoping some of the rest of you will have some plant knowledge to share, as well. the wiring in our basement is being done today. once that is finished, we move onto painting (come on warm weather!) and then the replacement of the carpet. as soon as that is all done, the office moves downstairs to make room for jack's future "big boy" room upstairs. i'm dreading having to work downstairs in the basement, even when the lighting is improved. we have 3 standard basement windows that don't provide enough natural light for my taste. one thing i would like to do to freshen it up down there and make it more inviting is to have some plants or small potted trees. i know very little (okay, nothing) about plants and have had a hard time in the past keeping them alive. for this reason we have NO indoor plants at our house. so i'm wondering if any of you have suggestions for certain plants that do well indoors with little to no direct sunlight? i'm sure there isn't a huge selection for plants of this type, but i'll take whatever you can offer. my only stipulation is that they aren't spikey or toxic to cats :)

18 months

hello all. i am here to sing the praises of motherhood again. 18 months is a wonderful age! i feel like i'm taking a huge breath of relief after four months of challenging parenting. several of my posts over the last few months mentioned our lack of sleep and some of jack's tantrum problems. it seemed that the older he got, the harder happiness was to find (for us both) on a consistent basis. but magically, a week before he hit the 18-month mark, he seemed... over the hump. he started playing unattended more, threw less tantrums, and began sleeping well again. at about that time i happened to read a little excerpt out of william and martha sears' "the discipline book," which said:

"The time between the ages of fourteen and eighteen months is very hard for mothers. The high-energy toddler wants to do everything, but he still needs mother involved 'big time.' Mothers of one-year-olds need to gear up for this marathon spurt of giving, because the tendency is to think, 'Ah, now he's one--I'll be able to ease off.' You will, eventually, but not yet. Hang in there through age eighteen months, then be alert for signs that your toddler is trying to make space between you..."

Wow--reading that after the fact provided me with this "Ah-ha!" moment, that made the past several months seem much easier to swallow. So it may have all been developmental after all. If only I had read this earlier. I'm surprised none of my parent-friends warned me about this age. Maybe it's different for everyone? Months 15-17 were particularly hard for us. It's so nice now that he isn't clinging to me 24/7. I can actually finish washing a sink of dishes and he'll play with his toys. He comes in to find me frequently, but doesn't demand to be held constantly. This couldn't have come at a better time, since I had been worrying about how he'll occupy himself when I feed Benjamin several times a day. I guess it's all in the plan of the universe ;) !

Other than that, nothing else to report. I'm at 30 weeks now, which seems momentous. Our camera has been at the repair shop after I dropped it and broke the lens (but thanks to our warranty, it was fixed for free; ssshhh, don't tell them it was my fault). Now that we have it back, perhaps I can post a few photos to liven up the blog. Nothing taken yet, but here's one of Jack and his best pal from a few weeks ago:

CSA?

Hi all. I have been throwing around the idea of buying a share from a CSA farm this spring, but am a bit leery of it. I think it's a great idea, and I love the idea of getting most of our produce from local farms. I found one not too far out of the city that does only organic produce, which I love even more. It seems like a great operation: Turtle Farms. But they only offer full shares (which apparently are good for 2 adults) at $450 a pop. I don't know anyone interested in splitting a share, either. As much as I'd love to try it, it sounds like a bit of a financial comittment toward something that I imagine is hard to form an opinion on until you try it out. I think during the peak summer months it would be worth it, since we'll be getting a lot. Though I worry that we'd waste some of what we get, too, if we don't keep up with cooking it all while it's fresh. On the flip side, I wonder how much it's worth doing in May and September, when you get little more than lettuce and some root veggies. I think I would have fewer hesitant feelings if little Benjamin was going to be 6 months during the summer--then I'd be buying organic veggies in bulk anyway to make baby food for freezing. But but the time he is ready for solids, in late October/early November, some of what I would have made and frozen in July may be getting freezer burn. My parents-in-law (local--beef--farmers themselves) suggested just making more of an effort to buy from the farmer's markets each week, to assure that we get only what we need and want, and if the season is bad for farming, at least we didn't then pay for it and lose that money. So my question for all of you is whether you see a benefit to participating in CSA over buying from local farmer's markets? Have any of you tried CSA, and what were your experiences? I think if the price were lower, I would jump in for one season at least (especially because I'll probably skip my garden this summer since I'll have a newborn in tow), but for close to $500, I'm hesitant to take the plunge. Any comments are welcome!

murphy's law

we had a very long weekend, packed with both good and bad. thankfully the good outweighed the bad by far, so it was enjoyable despite the pitfalls we encountered. we traveled to minneapolis to visit friends, and it was the longest (and far longer than we had anticipated) car trip jack had taken. let's start with the bad to get it out of the way:

we left home at 11:15am so we'd get to the twin cities before dinner. at about quarter till 1pm, with fresh arby's lunch waiting for us to bust it open in the car, we heard a horrible sound coming from a pick-up passing us on the interstate. as the truck passed, the sound didn't go away. shit. not the pick-up. so we pull over to discover that our back, driver's side tire had completely blown and shredded to pieces. goody. luckily friday wasn't as cold as saturday and sunday, because we had to take every last thing out of the back of our car to get to the spare tire. imagine mike laying on the ground to change the tire, about 3 feet away from semi-trucks traveling in the right hand lane (i now promise to always move to the left lane when someone is pulled over), and my pregnant body trying to keep all of our crap from blowing into the interstate, as well as signal to cars to get over. jack is in the car, luckily not throwing too much of a fit. once we change to the spare, we pack up and head to the nearest town: roland, ia. most likely a town of 4 people. we stop at the only gas station to see if they have a mechanic who could sell us a new tire. they tell us, "go talk to phil." Phil. as if we had lived there all our lives. after some gentle but aggravated nudging, we convince them we have no idea who phil is and are sent across the street to what looks to be a long-ago closed mechanic's shop. the guy there says he only sells one type of tire. not ours. he sends us back to the interstate, to the next exit, where there is amazingly a ford dealership. they have no tire for us, either. we are sent back 20 miles to ames, to the toyota dealership (sigh of relief; home territory for our prius), and we wait to change the tire. they are wonderful about packing all our stuff in their service station so they can again get to the spare tire's holding spot. we end up changing ALL FOUR tires at their urging. so $500 and almost 3 hrs. later, we are on our way to Minneapolis. at this point jack is ready to GO, yet we have 3 hrs. driving time left. it could've been much worse, but still was a pain in the butt. while in MN, we experienced some of the coldest weather ever: -35 with windchill. and we were out in it, too. beautiful, cold MN. the last part of the "bad" comes with us returning home on sunday afternoon with mountains of laundry to do. the second load stops spinning and the washer shows a motor error. we are instructed to turn it off, leave it alone, and call for service. service tells us they cannot get out to check it out till thursday, 5 days later. we finish the wet, soapy load at our neighbor's house, and stock up on disposable diapers for jack since no laundry will be done for awhile. a bit of a nuisance!!

but despite all the bad, we had so much good happen this weekend. we saw friends from our college days that we don't see too often. most of us have kids around the same age, and were able to hang out and enjoy catching up. jack missed his bedtime friday night by FOUR hours, yet slept like an angel and was great all weekend with the crazy schedules and over-stimulation. we visited the Minnesota Children's Museum saturday morning and had a great time with the kids. that evening, our friends arranged two family member sitters to watch all FIVE kids, from age 9 months to age 3, while the adults went to dinner and out to some (smoke-free! yeah!) bars. our friends sage and brennan took us to a fabulous, old style steakhouse in NE Minneapolis called Jax Cafe. it was great! we sat right by the piano and enjoyed a high class, adult evening :) afterwards we visited a few bars, including one that was my favorite: Psycho Suzi's. it was a tiki bar that had great decor, great food and drink, and a good mix of people. i'd love to go back in the summer and when i can enjoy one of the concoctions :) the worst part of the evening was returning at midnight and having to take jack's sleeping body out into the -15 degree weather to drive him back to the hotel. luckily he went back to sleep at the hotel easily. the next morning, before leaving, we met some other friends at redstone for brunch. des moines needs more brunch places like this. it was great food and great company, although we didn't get to catch up with wendy and jim as much as desired considering we were all juggling loud and tired children. but it was a great time and we were glad to have made the quick but fun trip. hopefully next time it will be warmer, and we'll have more time to visit.

today jack is 18 months, and a month from today i will be 30. yeek. we are all getting older (and wiser?)

the wonders of zinc

I am here to profess the wonders and miracle works of zinc losenges. Even my drug-cautious husband agress that they really work. I am now using zinc losenges for the third time in about 4 months to ward off a cold/tonsillitus/flu bout I feel coming on, and so far it seems to be working. I am restricting myself to no more than 3 losenges per day since I don't want to overdose on the zinc during pregnancy, and yet it still managed to work beautifully the last two times. I have had a bad history of tonsillitus in my lifetime, and the last time I saw my tonsils covered in white spots I began sucking on zinc losenges. It was the first time in my life that they got better instead of worse, and I escaped the next few days of sore throats and misery that usually follows those blasted spots. So for those of you who are skeptical or have never tried them, I highly recommend those losenges at the first inkling of illness. Mike says the key is to start using them before you are full out sick, since they work best by coating your throat before the germs or virus does. So on that day before, where you don't quite feel sick but know it's coming :) And take it from me, the generic losenges work just as well, but don't taste as good as the name brand Cold-Eze. (Though both will leave a weird metallic taste in your mouth for most of the day.) I'm hoping they will rescue me this time from a cold, since we are leaving for Minneapolis this Friday and I want to be well, well, well!