Sandpaper Letters

5 Months

One of the things about having a baby that I didn't expect (but totally should have, given my years of teaching experience) is the gradual way that things change. I think to myself: "Oh, when did he start doing [thing?] I should write about that." But then I'd think, it's just one small change, and I have plenty of time to try to capture more of his milestones in writing.

And then I turn around and I realize all those tiny changes accumulate, and all of a sudden he's 5 months old as of yesterday. He can support his weight on his legs if we hold his arms, and he's sitting up (with judicious use of pillow support, of course). He has all these… facial expressions. And sounds! So many different babble sounds. And the other day I gave him a tiny taste of hachiya persimmon on my finger, and when I offered a bit more, he LUNGED at my hand and stuffed it in his face and sucked madly on it. Uh, okay dude, apparently you want to taste more food.

And I see him chilling out on his stomach pushing up alternately on his knees and arms… he even does that when he's shifting position while sleeping, like his body KNOWS it needs to try to crawl, even when it wakes him up and he screams because he doesn't WANT to be awake.

I have a feeling we really can't procrastinate too much more on the childproofing of our house.

Everywhere I go, people constantly comment on how alert and aware and interested he is in what's going on. I don't know if this is because he's small for his age, so people peg him as younger, or if they say that about all the babies, or if that really is a noticeably more intense part of his particular personality. Sure, there are some things he just hates -- being in the car seat for a long time being chief among them, as we learned after the drive to and from Yosemite last weekend. But we've yet to find his tolerance limit for being carried around outside while looking at things. His favorite directions are Up and Out, and he'll often crane his neck into crazy contortions to see more trees and sky.

Oh yeah, that hat? The reason it looks so weird is, uh... we sort of lost his hat on the way to Yosemite. And it was seriously chilly. But never fear: a rubber band, a spare pair of baby pants, and a bit of MacGyver creativity resulted in a brand new hat! Well, close enough, anyway.

Finally, he's figured out that Colin and I are important. When Colin brings Kai upstairs after he's had him in the morning, it's all gummy grins and giggles for me. And when Kai hears Colin's voice after he comes home at night, he cranes his neck around until he sees him, and more gummy grins and drooling and gleeful giggles ensue. Like we're some kind of celebrities. It is DAMNED delightful, people.

I'm not sure what we did to deserve that kind of adoration - we did THIS to him for Halloween, after all.

The Best Christmas Ever

By last Christmas, we knew we would be moving to a house in Oakland soon. Our apartment, TimeCube, was amazing, but it was unquestionably a deathtrap in terms of small children. (To say nothing of having no internal doors, which meant that we could expect to have guests basically never.) It was very hard facing the decision to move, because we LOVED that apartment. It was our first home together, and what a great space it was.

So: as a Christmas present last year, Colin got me the BEST THING EVER. He spent hours secretly using the lego CAD software to create a custom lego kit: an incredibly accurate model of TimeCube. Of course, things needed to be simplified; but overall? The details were captured perfectly. Putting it together was like having dozens of tiny presents all in a row as I saw the ingenious ways he portrayed our art, our washer and dryer, our roomba… the list goes on and on.

And finally we got it all the way assembled!





Many of you have been to TimeCube. But for those who haven't, so along with the lego model, I'll post photos of what the real TimeCube looked like. (The real TimeCube also was in a building of 8 units and not free-standing, obviously.)



(I don't have any pictures of our balcony with the planters on it - alas!)





You can see my earthbox planters and our BBQ smoker in the lego.



























(I don't really have pictures of the futon/guest area from TimeCube, nor do I have pictures of our downstairs bathroom or washer/dryer area… which isn't too surprising, heh.)



The only photo I could find that shows the width of TimeCube, including our modular tables.













He even included the cushion that was always sliding off of our old brown couch. <3

Flow

(I wrote this over a period of several days, which is apparently the only way I can find time to write a long blog post right now.  Please excuse any temporal/tense weirdnesses or contradictions in the following text!

Also, in the interest of getting this posted ever, I'm not inserting photos this time.  But feel free to check out our July set of Kai photos.)

Three weeks today since we've come home, and dare I say we've achieved some kind of new routine? 

Our days look something like this:

Kai wakes up around 7 AM, generally.  He eats, then Colin proves himself BEST DAD EVER and takes him downstairs for an hour or two while I catch up on the sleep sacrificed to feedings and newborn wakefulness.

Eventually I'm up (usually the next time Kai needs to eat corresponds with me feeling rested and ready for the day), and we all potter about eating breakfast.  If I'm lucky, I manage to dash around the corner to Remedy for some coffee.  For the last few days Kai has been hitting a three week growth spurt pretty hard, which means he's eating a LOT.  Often he seems to be fighting an internal battle between EAT EAT EAT and being very sleepy, which is kind of hilarious to watch.  He often wakes up from sleeping and immediately FREAKS OUT, as if he's thinking: "DAMMIT people!  I am STARVING!  Why weren't you feeding me TEN MINUTES AGO?" 

This feeding frenzy also means I eat a LOT.  The other night we had dinner, and an hour afterwards I was making myself Second Dinner out of leftovers from the fridge.    Heh.  It's nice regaining my stomach capacity post-pregnancy, that's for sure.

So far, Colin's been home every day.  He's going to start leaving the house for work again tomorrow (ETA: I meant Friday, which is now today - the little guy and I are home alone!).  Lately he's been able to slowly ramp up his involvement with his team, which is nice because it lets me practice what it'll be like to be On My Own with the wee one for full days. 

That being said: having Colin home for the first month has been absolutely indispensable.  I wish that everyone could have that luxury of full-time support from their partner for the first few weeks.  I understand much more now how postpartum depression can be so common - I would imagine that if one were suddenly thrust into this new situation, PLUS had to do it all by oneself, that it could be a very isolating, frustrating experience.  Moreover, it's given Colin time to bond with Kai right from the start.

During the daytime our routine is pretty free-form.  Colin works, and when Kai's asleep I try to work on projects like tie-dying baby clothes or puttering outside. Emphasis on TRY - it's hard to decide how to spend the sleeping baby downtime.  Get Chores Done, Do Fun Projects, or Relax, Veg Out and Read Cooking Blogs?  Oh, and also showering.  Heh.  Hard choices, friends. 

When Kai is awake, I help him engage in his other major activities and interests, which include:

*Eating eating eating eating.
*Looking at stuff.  Favorites include his high-contrast mobile, the baby in the mirror, his black and white book, our bookshelves (they're black with lots of light-colored books), the super-simple ikea clock in our bathroom, the skylight in our TV room's ceiling, and sometimes our faces.  He's gradually getting more and more interested in faces, but as Colin said yesterday, we're still no bookshelves, you know?  Watching him gaze at something with that extremely intent, slightly furrowed brow expression is pretty enthralling (and reminds me a lot of the look children have in a Montessori classroom when they're in deep flow concentration).
*Sitting on our chests like a frog.  Especially Colin's chest.  Oh man, is he ever into sitting on his dad.
*(Baby TMI alert:) Peeing and pooping in a bowl or the sink.  For the past couple of weeks we've been trying to pay attention to when he signals a need to relieve himself, and then un-diapering him and holding him over an appropriate receptacle.  Most of the time, he goes!  So far we're catching a lot of his pees, and virtually all of his major poops.  Go figure, the kid doesn't want to sit in his own waste.  Newborns: capable of WAY more than they're given credit for.  (True of most children, in fact.)  Learn more about this wacky idea at the wikipedia page for Elimination Communication: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elimination_communication

Anyway, back to our day.  Sometime in the evening we finally realize that we need to consider dinner.  At first that was mainly a lot of freezer food I prepared before Kai was born, but we've been cooking a lot more lately.  We acquired a Sous Vide Supreme last week, which is AWESOME because it means we can drop in a vacuum sealed hunk of meat, let it sit for a few hours, and then have a delicious perfectly cooked dinner whenever we're ready to eat it.  (Wikipedia on sous vide cooking here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sous-vide)  Salmon cooked sous vide is a revelation, friends.  No joke.  Best salmon EVER.  London broil is tender like filet mignon, and soft cooked eggs end up custard-like and glorious.

On the other hand, some aspects of cooking are more tricky now.  Instead of me being able to head into the kitchen to cook while Colin keeps working or whatever, two people have to be on duty: one to cook, and one to take care of Kai's needs.  Moreover, if I'm trying to make something, I have to be ready to drop what I'm doing and return to feed Kai should he require that service.  Consequently dinner has more strategy involved these days, and we're still figuring out exactly how that works.

Usually we begin winding down for the night sometime between 8 and 9, and Kai has pretty regularly been going into his longer sleep periods somewhere between 8:30 and 9:30. (+/- half an hour or so - and, uh, yeah, I have a spreadsheet.  SHUT UP.)  We try to go to sleep as soon as he's down, which has been a super strategy so far.  He's pretty good at sleeping at night - so far he tends to do a couple of 2-4 hour chunks interrupted by eating, then shorter bits until 7-ish when he wakes up more thoroughly. 

He also tends to have at least one period (sometimes two) per night where he's awake for about an hour and not eating - just trying to look at stuff and flail his limbs and practice making exciting sounds and other important baby business.  I gather you can't do too much about the timing of this when they're tiny like this except keep things quiet, dark, and super boring until they eventually get the message that the party is not happening right now and they may as well go back to sleep.  (I'm also given to understand that  this message may not be received until they're a few months old or more - oh well.)

And then, we wake up to do it all again.  Except no two days are the same, even if they are flowing together.  He's growing and changing a little bit every day - two days from now he'll be one month old exactly.  We can practically see him getting bigger.  At this rate, I'm pretty sure that next week, he'll be going to elementary school, and the month after that will be college.  Sigh.

Kai's Birth Story

Everyone in the childbirth class we took at our Birth Center has been sending out birth stories to the group as their babies have been born.  We were the last ones to go, and I just wrote this up and sent it out.  I figured I'd also post it here - it starts with my water breaking and ends with the cesarean, where the previous two posts pick up.  FYI, Serena is my midwife, who we had intended be the one to deliver Kai.  Of course, he had his own plans!

* * *

Hello everyone!

Well, the last of us in the class have finally joined the ranks of you parents.  Colin and I welcomed Kai Liotta into our lives at 6:20 AM a week ago today.  And let me tell you, he made quite a spectacular entrance!

Things kicked off when my water broke VERY thoroughly late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning.  (Luckily we'd taken the advice to cover our bed with a shower curtain under our sheets!)  Nothing showed signs of happening immediately, so after calling Serena to let her know what was up, we managed to override the excitement and get back to sleep.

The next morning I was feeling very mild sporadic contractions, but nothing remarkable.  We went out for breakfast and headed to the birth center where Serena took my blood pressure, took my temperature, let us know what our next steps would be if I did or did not go into labor on my own, and verified that the baby was indeed still in his deeply engaged head-down position.  (FORESHADOWING!)  Serena predicted I'd go into labor that night; Judi was sure they wouldn't see me before the next morning at the earliest. 

We spent the rest of the day knocking out our last things on the to-do list, cleaning house, and enjoying a relaxing day at home together.  We walked to Ethiopian food that night, and while we were at dinner contractions started to pick up a bit - mostly varying between 10-5 minutes apart, but still very irregular.  Colin and I were able to walk to a friend's house after dinner and even go get ice cream, and I was just starting to have to slow down a bit and concentrate a little during contractions, though they still weren't really painful yet.

Things really picked up after we went to bed that night.  Around 1AM I woke up.  The contractions had picked up to the point where they were too painful to sleep through, but more worryingly I was shivering like crazy and feeling pretty feverish.  I took my temperature and it was right at 99 (100 being the point at which you have to transfer to a hospital for possible infection). 

I woke up Colin and he helped me work through the steadily increasing contractions, all the while piling sweaters and blankets on me as I kept shivering.  Unfortunately as the next hour progressed my temperature kept rising.  After an hour of contractions coming every four minutes at at least a minute long, despite drinking LOTS of water, my temperature was 100.7 and rising.  We consulted with Serena on the phone and made the decision to drive to UCSF and transfer care there.

At around 3 AM we were on our way.  The car ride was surprisingly pleasant, or at least, not harder to deal with than being in our house was.  When we arrived we went up to labor and delivery and got settled in.  The contractions were quite painful at that point but were surprisingly easy to deal with for me.  Well - easy isn't the right word (as you guys know!), but it was achievable. I was really amazed at how each one came with the rush of endorphins after it finished, making me feel super happy and blessed out.

Unfortunately things went more than a little awry just about now! As they were getting my antibiotics ready, the doctor on duty came in to examine me and do a routine ultrasound to verify the baby's position.  Remember when I said he was head-down that morning?  He had been engaged VERY low for weeks and weeks, in fact.  And yet somehow, in the 15 hours between my exam with Serena and that morning, Kai decided to do a full flip into a footling breech position.  Oops!  The doctor peeked inside me and saw his feet right up inside my obliviously dilating cervix, ready to hit the ground running, apparently.

Well, that changed everything.  With the infection risk and the footling breech position (the most risky one), there was no avoiding an immediate cesarean.  Suddenly it was all release forms and drugs to stop the contractions and all the other unpleasant surgery preparations.  Not at all what we were expecting, obviously, but we managed to stay upbeat and did find the silver lining that no matter what, we'd be meeting our son even sooner than we anticipated.  Moreover, we were lucky in a way that I had the whole infection thing going on landing us in the hospital already.  Otherwise we would have obliviously gone to Sage Femme and then been treated to a surprise ambulance ride to SF General once the breech was found.  Small mercies!

You get a bonus photo here in the blog. :)

Into the operating room I went.  Colin was able to come in too, though not Serena, and before long I was feeling all the SUPER WEIRD feelings pressure and stretching, but without any actual pain or sensation.  The worst part of the actual c-section is definitely not being able to really hold your baby immediately, though I could hear him, and Colin stayed right by his side as they did all the initial exams.  They brought him to my face, and seeing him there - even through the slightly hazy drugs I was on - remains one of the most powerful impressions of my life.  Colin went with him as they took him off while I was sewn up and taken to recovery. 

Colin brought him back to me in the recovery room but I was still pretty out of it from the drugs, plus I managed to overachieve and suffer from a fairly serious hemorrhage, so it was a couple hours before I could really hold him.  Additionally, there were all the various hospital type things that they kept whisking him away to do.  As Colin was going in and out with Kai, Serena stayed with me in my room.  I have such gratitude to her for the support she gave then.  Those hours were by far the most traumatic and painful of the whole experience, and having her there keeping me distracted was beyond valuable.  But when it was all winding down I had Colin and Kai there with me, and that was wonderful.

All in all, of course we're disappointed and saddened that things didn't go as we hoped.  But when it comes down to it, we have this amazing baby who is quite simply the most astonishing, riveting, amazing thing we've ever seen.

[...] At home, things are going awesomely and after we finally escaped the hospital (bleh), we've been very happy and well-rested and in great spirits.  I'm much more mobile than I thought I would be at this point and we're LOVING this new phase in our lives.

Congratulations to all of you!  I hope you all are well and have found your new rhythms. I can't wait to get together and meet all your new little people. 

All the best,

Jess, Colin, and Kai

Way Too Many Updates

I've been horribly neglecting this poor blog recently, having gotten out of the habit of writing.  But I was thinking about what a shame it would be to look back on this time in our lives and not have anything recorded.  And so I'm going to try to write down some of what we've been up to lately.  I still have more things besides these big points to hit - family visiting, our trip to Chicago (Alinea!!), our victories at the most recent SF Food Wars... but for now, this already overly-long update will have to do.

HOUSE:

We officially moved in early February.  It took us almost three months to get even reasonably settled, but at this point things are basically where they need to be and the boxes are mostly unpacked.   That is, excepting our office-type space upstairs and also what we call the Room of Shame, a spare storage bedroom in a back corner of the house.  I'm hoping to maybe tackle those spaces - perhaps with the help of visiting friend(s) - during the first week of my maternity leave, before kidlet is projected to arrive.  Ha ha ha, plans.  Well, we'll see.

Oh, and the kidlet's future room currently contains a guest mattress, (adult sized) bedding, and a tarp.  And some cabinet doors for our kitchen pantry, still to be painted and attached.  And, um, no kid stuff whatsoever.  But hey, it's not like we're going to be using the kid room for awhile, given that we intend to cosleep. 

The garden is coming along!  Artichokes are getting huge, strawberries are growing, and the raised beds are built.  Soil to fill them is being delivered soon - later than I'd planned, but what can you do? - and still more deliciousness will follow. 

We have a kumquat tree in a pot.  It is awesome.  And if I can keep the squirrels and the cats from digging up my succulent plantings, soon we will have some very pretty ornamental areas as well.


KIDLET - PREPARATIONS:

Here is a 100% complete list of all baby-specific things we currently own:

1 car seat
1 hand-knitted sweater (thanks, Becky!!)
2  onesies (one probably appropriately sized for immediate use; one I purchased as a gift I ended up not giving, over a year ago, that clearly won't fit a newborn)
1 hooded blanket
1 package of washcloths

Looking at the above list makes me feel kind of astonishingly unprepared.  But a few awesome friends of ours have offered to drop off their hand-me-down boxes next week at our houseshower/babywarming party, and we'll be going through those and then deciding what else we still need to purchase. 

Other than that, our to-do list is ordered by descending criticality.  Next up:  install the car seat, and finalize the pediatrician.  And then about a million other things, but those are the only two that NEED to be done before he crash-lands.

Don't be early, kidlet!  Please?

I only have two and a half more weeks of work before I go on leave.  Yikes.  If kid is on-time-or-late, that gives me two weeks at home to prepare things.  And if kid is early, um… adventures!!

KIDLET - GESTATION:

This has been a blessedly trouble-free pregnancy as these things go, as far as I understand it.  I mean, sure, there are the expected slightly hilarious discomforts.  Sleeping is difficult and punctuated by 4+ nightly trips to the bathroom.  Side sleeping makes my hips ache like they've attained a serious injury by the time I wake up in the morning, and every day my walk resembles more and more that of a penguin.  I got a charlie horse in the middle of the night two nights ago that nearly reduced me to tears, and in fact today I am STILL limping from it.  Kidlet occasionally head-butts my sciatic nerve and causes two seconds of breathtaking, stride-breaking pain down one leg or the other, sometimes alarming those around me.  Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Still, I count myself very lucky indeed.  Our only actual complication so far is a slight glucose sensitivity that means I need to monitor my blood sugar levels and avoid large amounts of sugar or white flour/rice or even too much fruit.  Oh, but at the same time, apparently my metabolism requires that I basically eat CONSTANTLY in order to manage to gain enough weight to keep the midwives happy and the kid healthy.  Even if I'm not hungry.  I think I'd be happy to never eat another hard boiled egg or almond or bowl of cottage cheese again after this pregnancy.

(I have not yet burned out on bacon, thankfully.)

People have responded to me saying that I need to eat all the time by saying, "Wow, that must be great for you!" knowing how much I like food.  But, uh, it turns out that forcing yourself to keep ingesting calories even when you don't really want them isn't actually that awesome, ESPECIALLY if you're really into your food making you happy!  Oh, kidlet.  You better be grateful.



At the Chicago Field Museum last month. Why, indeed?

Cheerful griping aside: I'm giving this pregnancy thing a positive review.  Because the super power of MAKING ANOTHER HUMAN is more than worth the above discomforts and inconveniences, and far more besides.  Feeling him wiggling around, stretching, and shifting is pretty much the most fascinating thing I can possibly imagine right now.  Every day Colin and I tell him how excited we are to meet him and how curious we are to find out who he is. 

KIDLET - THE NAMING

Ha ha ha ha.  Oh god.  The indecision.  No, scratch that - "indecision" too heavily implies that one is trying to choose between options.  More like: the flailing.  (SEE ABOVE entreaties to kidlet re: not showing up early.)

COLIN:

Colin's amazing supportiveness and level of involvement in this whole kid-making process has clinched it:  I'm basically married to the most awesome dude for me ever.  I love being life-partnered with him, and I can't wait to be a co-parent with him. 



Colin, about to play - and win! - the final table of the informal Settlers of Catan tournament at PAX East in Boston about a month ago. <3!

Today's House Adventure

One week from today is moving day!  Our home is currently a sea of boxes piled all willy-nilly.  Currently boxed up are books, liquor, my desk, our games (board and video), movies, and our project materials.  Still to go:  The kitchen, tchotchkes, art, clothes, the bathrooms, the closets, the storage room, um.... yeah.  Our progress is a lot more impressive if you understand the sheer number of books we have, I promise!

We dropped by the house today to see if some repairs we'd requested had been finished, and dropped off all our potted plants.  I also poked around in the yard and discovered a couple exciting things.  One is that there's some kind of existing drip irrigation system on which we can piggyback, so we won't have to entirely install our own. 

The other discovery was a set of creeping thyme plants along a strip of dirt by the front walkway.  They were quite sad underneath a pile of poorly applied mulch and dropped pine needles, but once I cleared some space for them I found they were quite healthy and trying to expand.  I also discovered - GLEE! - a tiny wriggling California slender salamander!

That's actually a picture I took in the Oakland hills almost two years ago, but it was the same kind, and I didn't get a picture this time. They're wee-small, only a couple inches long, and with the TINIEST little almost vestigial legs. It played very very dead for a bit, but eventually I looked back at where I'd set it and it had disappeared. I'm thrilled to know there are miniature amphibians living in our garden now.

After our visit to the house we had to stop by the Big CVS (which is AWESOMELY CLOSE), where I proceeded to geek out in the nursery section. They've got a very impressive plant selection, and it took every ounce of my self control not to pack the smart car up with every plant that would fit and return to plant it all RIGHT NOW. Alas, I'm sane enough to know that I should have a Real Plan first, so everything can be fit together for the long term good. Patience is hard.

New House!

One of the Big Decisions we made upon embarking on this whole reproduction thing was to consider moving out of our beloved San Francisco TimeCube to a house in Oakland.  We've lived in this apartment for two and a half years and it's been a joy the entire time.  Deciding to move was based on a number of factors, but it really boils down to:

1. We live in a giant cube, meaning,

2. We have no doors except on the bathroom, meaning,

3. Post-kid we would never have houseguests ever again ever, nor could we isolate loud adults/sleeping child or loud child/sleeping adults if necessary.

Supporting factors: the school where I work - and where the child care will eventually be - is in Oakland, as are many many of our friends (including several with their own babies).  On top of that, we calculated that a nice house would cost us the same (or less) rent as our apartment here in the city.

We had very high standards in our search: besides a few random wants like a gas stove and washer and dryer hookup, we needed at least three bedrooms (see: having guests ever again), a cat-friendly place, and a yard with good sun for me to garden in.  In a nice house that we liked.  All within a search radius that included a scant two or three sub-neighborhoods within Oakland (Rockridge, Temescal, and the area near Piedmont Avenue).  Hey, I'm NOT living somewhere that walking to excellent food is not an option.

Given those constraints, we expected it might take several months to find a place.  Although we decided not to go visit places until after the holidays, we'd been looking at craigslist ads almost daily since we found out about the pregnancy in October.  We'd seen promising things, but nothing that lept out at us.  Nevertheless, we began hunting in earnest a week ago today.

Imagine our surprise when the second place we saw was, well, it. 

Utterly unlike anything else we'd seen advertised (or even really heard about), we knew immediately that we wanted this house.  We applied nearly on the spot (actually following the listing agent to her next open house and giving it to her there, 20 minutes later), were approved last Sunday, and signed papers last Monday.  We move officially February 6th.  Ack!

It's hard to explain in words exactly why it's so epic-great.  It's big and rambling, three floors and long and skinny.  With lots of corners.  And angles.  And unexpected doors that lead to things like a bizarre ladder/stairway to an unfinished loft looming over a bedroom.  It theoretically has six bedrooms (well, technically four; two are "bonus rooms" in the finished loft upstairs that lack closets), but we'll probably only use two of them as proper bedrooms.  The others will be project space (OMG SO MUCH PROJECT SPACE), a library/TV room, storage, and some guest space.  After living in a giant open cube, this is going to require a lot of re-planning in how we tend to use space, but we've been fantasizing about walls for at least the last year.  I'd say we're ready for it.

The other huge huge plus of the house is the yard.  The house is set back from the street (very unusual for this area), so 100% of the yard is in front.  Unfortunately I don't have any pictures looking out of the house's front door towards the street, but it's currently a delightful, mostly-blank canvas on which I've been given carte blanche  to do what I like.  In fact, I think that my master gardener trainee status was part of what made us the winning applicants.

It's going to be a delightful, but difficult challenge.  The exposure is good; fortunately the house faces south.  I predict that those pine trees - awesome though they are! - will likely drive me to distraction with acidic needle dropping and roots invading vegetable beds.  The bark chips are laid on thick and what soil I could unearth was INCREDIBLY hard and compacted.  Next week in master gardener class we're doing soil analysis and were specifically instructed to bring a bag of soil to play with, so I'll get to see in more detail what I'm working with.

I admit, I'm already thinking about the raised beds with integrated drip irrigation I want to con Colin into building for me.  I suspect that'll be the easiest way to go for vegetables, to start.  That's my first priority.  After that point, I can start thinking about the succulents and drought-tolerant natives to fill in the rest of the yard. 

Though I guess the really tricky part will be doing as much of this hard work as possible in the next couple of months, before my range of motion gets necessarily limited! 

OMG SURPRISE BABY LOL

Daily photo from November 19th, now being made public:

I've still been taking daily photos, even if I haven't been uploading them. They're all hanging out in lightroom. You see, we've been a bit distracted lately. Plans are rapidly changing, because life is taking unexpected, surprising, awesome, alarming (and many other adjectives) turns. Yep - we've unlocked the Pregnancy Achievement, which in theory should be in play until the end of June.

OMG SURPRISE BABY LOL was the solution to the puzzle we made our family (and then friends) solve over Thanksgiving weekend. (See the puzzle here, and the solution here. It was a super fun way to announce things to them.

More details to follow as events warrant. And probably more blogging, now that I can mention the single biggest thing on my mind since, um, pretty soon after the last time I posted. Wheeeee!!

Shifting

I've decided that it's time to graduate to a new blog!  Hopefully this will become a repository for all the thoughts I'm having on things that interest me lately.  Mostly I'll be talking about garden work, school/Montessori thoughts, photography - and probably a fair amount of food, travel, and general life stuff as appropriate.

"Sandpaper Letters" refers to the material in a Montessori classroom used for teaching the sound and formation of letters.  The child is encouraged to trace the letters with his or her fingertips, which are formed with a slightly rough material on a smooth background, while simultaneously speaking the sound that letter makes.  It prepares the child's hand for writing and mind for reading.  If the teacher is a keen observer and catches the child in the sensitive period for learning the letters (usually around age 3-4), that child can work through the entire alphabet in a matter of a couple weeks.

Next up: a post about what I'm doing at school, and what I'm planning on doing next.

Beginning Placeholder

This is a placeholder for something more betterer. The Tacoma Glass Museum, taken on our summer 2009 trip to the Pacific Northwest.