Friday, February 29, 2008

what a week!

man, what a cool week this has been! sure, I haven't had as much sleep as I normally do. sure, I'll be a bit behind next week at work. but who cares! I got to spend a bunch of time with Fenix, who - not sure if you know - is a pretty awesome kid. that kid has got it figured out: eat, sleep, snack, nap, eat, sleep. break some hearts with that smile, eat, sleep. he's going to be talking before we know it - feels like next week. in March he'll be riding his big wheels. in April he'll try out for sports. his first date will be this summer and he'll get his drivers license this fall. at that rate I guess he'll be graduating from college before we're pregnant again.

all kidding aside, this has been a really awesome week. it's going to be REALLY REALLY hard to just up and whatever, I'm going back to work next week (though I'm really looking forward to that 7am meeting on Monday!). I'm really thankful that Reese has been able to be away from work since November. it's crazy to think that she's been out of work that long, and awesome that she can continue to take time off.

Me and Fenix yesterday on the couch - for the record we were watching Stargate Atlantis at HIS request. I don't watch that garbage.



Oy, Fenix just peed through his clothes again. He's graduating from this size of diapers to the next, which is such a good thing, though there are some leakage issues occasionally. The next size up will be his 3rd size... crazy to think that he was swimming in the smallest size they make just a few months ago. and most stores don't even carry that size! stupid joke, he was in size "zero" or "N" diapers for the first several weeks, then graduated to size 1. doesn't that seem stupid? why isn't 1 the smallest size? that's like going to the movies and your soda choices are medium, large, and jumbo. what if I just want a small? well, that's the medium. well, if it's the smallest size, why don't you just call it small? look, do you want the soda or not? yes, also some red vines. and is the butter on the popcorn real butter? it's real butter flavor. but is it real butter?! sigh.

typing one handed sucks.

today it's supposed to rain, but it's been such a beautiful, gorgeous morning that I decided to bring His Majesty out for a stroll, just around the 'hood. whatever it takes to get me out of my pajamas, right? so I put him in a warm outfit, strapped him in the bjorn, and out we went. here's us on the trail:



this must be what Fenix thinks of being outside:



he did NOT learn this behavior from me. I think I need to have a little sit-down with his mother. Reese, are you letting him watch HBO already? Not cool! wait until March or April, huh?

generally speaking - and not just about this week - parenthood has been harder than I expected. duh, right? hold on, though, I'm not to the good part yet. taking care of fenix's basic needs - food, rest, keeping him clean and safe - those are pretty straightforward and not overly challenging on their own. it's when you integrate those into, you know, life, that things become hard. It's the little things that kill you, doing laundry, keeping the house clean (hahahachortlesnicker), going grocery shopping, washing the dishes, feeding the dogs and cats, paying the bills, cooking our own food and eating healthy and well. And those are just the basics, so things like Reese working on her sewing or arts and crafts projects, or me doing carpentry or spending five seconds doing yardwork (my hobbies) ... I mean, fuhgedaboutit, you know? And of course we're just on the one income right now so it's not like we're spending a bunch of cash... but the joke is, even though we're on the shoestring budget, TIME is what we're short of.

My parents live in town and my mom's been quite helpful this week, but it's just me and Reese that are running the ship here. There's no nanny or siblings helping out or friends dropping off meals or any of that stuff. We're both pretty independent so for the most part that's to be expected. Also we moved way the hell out to the 'burbs since we're not the type to overextend ourselves on a crazy stupid mortgage. The real estate situation in this town blows. Case in point: the neighborhood we lived in before moving to our current place was very cool, it was in the city, walking distance to stuff, lots of cool things around. Somebody in the neighborhood sold their house to a developer. The developer tore the house down and put up two sets of townhouses, 4 units total. One of those units sold just before we moved up here for ... you want to guess? Seriously, take a guess. Four hundred grand? Five hundred? ha! try six hundred and eighty grand! For a condo with no yard! Shoot me in the head. we can't compete with that nonsense!

Like I said, the real estate situation in this town blows. Regular working stiffs like ourselves can't afford to buy a house "in-city", but where we live (15 minutes from the heart of downtown) there's . . . did you hear that? No? That's because THERE'S NOTHING TO HEAR! Nothing but the tumbleweeds that is. Don't get me wrong, it's been great not paying someone else's mortgage since we bought this house a year ago, and it's such an awesome feeling to know that there's no option for us to come home and find a note from our jerk landlord saying "uh hey guys, I grouted your shower so don't use it for 24 hours, also I peed in your plants and licked your toothbrushes", but it sucks to be so far removed from our friends and civilization in general. Friends: we miss you!

I've heard a few times that a really common parent trap is to have a million photos of kid but few photos of mom or dad with kid. and since this week is all about me and Fee, I give you:









alright, it's about time for His Majesty to eat again (I'll be your waiter this evening), so it's time for me to sign off. cheers!

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

non-sequiturs from dads week as primary care provider

This has been an interesting week for good ol dad here. It's been a weird role reversal with me hanging out at home and Reese going to the j-o-b. Hang on, Fenix just peed through all his clothes. stop peeing! how many times do I have to tell you? gosh!

side note, those g-diapers (previously referenced here: http://metagestation.blogspot.com/2007/09/on-diapers.html) are actually way cool. it's all the convenience of a disposable diaper but the environmental goodness of, say, using toilet paper when you go. good stuff. a little weird to get used to but so's deep fried ice cream, right?

like I said, though, it's been an interesting week. I've developed a better method of outfit changes (arm-head-arm not head-arm-arm: believe it!), enhanced my appreciation for Reese and all that she does as well as definitely enhanced my appreciation for how what I do before I leave for work on a daily basis can positively/negatively impact mom and son, and have gotten WAY better at doing stuff one-handed.

The morning routine for the person going to work involves feeding the cats and dogs, taking the dogs out for their morning constitutional, kicking Noodle in the face (optional), making bottles for the day, and bringing breakfast to the person staying home (breakfast in bed! - not as opulent as it sounds)

stuff I can do with one hand while holding The Future President Of The United States:
do laundry
make espresso
wash one hand
daydream about sleep
prepare for diaper change
clean puke off myself or others
stick the pacifier in the food hole
beat the everloving snot out of the white dog (optional)

fenix is growing so fast! it's kind of surreal to experience. this whole parenthood thing is a trip. all this stuff that we're going through, most of it anyway, just about every other parent alive went through the same stuff. doesn't make it any less dramatic or interesting or scary or whatever for us, though.

fenix is stingy with the burps sometimes. you need to SHARE, buddy. dont bottle it up inside. the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.

ok, thats all for me (for now). take care!

ohdeedoh tour is up!

The nursery tour of Fenix's room is finally up on the Apartment Therapy's kid centric design site, Ohdeedoh.

Click here to see it.

Monday, February 25, 2008

i quit.....

yep you heard right. i quit my job. i am now officially a stay at home mom. (at least for the near term).

i am really happy that i get to spend more time with fenix but i am scared to death. i was unemployed on one other occasion in my adult life and it was when i quit my job to move out here to seattle with j. that was scary but this situation now is on a whole different level!

in any case i'm so thankful that i have such a wonderful husband that works really hard so that i can be in the position to take more time off. i do not have the words to express how appreciative i am.

Friday, February 22, 2008

going home....


So we just bought our tickets to fly back home (well my home at least) to nyc. God I miss it so much. We will get to meet my sister's twin babies that will be brand new when we arrive and we will get to see all of our friend's and family that we miss so much. This will be Fenix's first official visit to the big apple and the first time he'll get to meet alot of his maternal family.

Anyway here's a list of things that I am looking foward to:
Food from a real Jewish deli (knish! matzo ball soup!!)
Bagels
Pizza
Baumgart's in Englewood
Rockefeller Center (Jason and I both worked here)
H&M on 5th avenue
Jersey accents
The shore
My family
Aggro drivers
Hoboken!
The subway
The PATH train
The skyline

Sigh... I can't wait :-)

Sunday, February 17, 2008

i still love the deftones

That really has nothing at all to do with this post but they put out a song called "Back to School" and it was one of my favorites back when the White Pony album dropped in 2000. That's the winter that I learned how to snowboard (at Killington, VT bitches!) and the year that I started to date my last long term BF (Anthony D.) before I met J. I remember riding (falling) down the long ass green trail on that mountain and hearing that song blasting from the trailside speakers. Wow I thought I was so hardcore with my eyebrow piercing and my newly acquired tramp stamp :-/

/end digression....

So back to school comes to mind because well, that's where I'm going. Let the record show that I do not have a degree of any kind. This is a point of much pain and frustration for me. I don't have enough room on this blog to delve into the how and why but think of it like this: I am a HUGE nerd. I was the valedictorian of my highschool with a partial scholarship and I still didn't go to college. I'll let you dwell on that for a minute and you can speculate about what evil forces must have been at play to keep me from higher learning. I'll save the unabridged version for my as yet unwritten memoir.

Anyways I'm going to school starting this spring.... community college for my AA just to start since I can do that all online. I'll see where it takes me after I get that bit under my belt.

Wish me luck folks. I've taken plenty of classes in my tenure in the Software Development field but it's been awhile since I've been properly graded for my work. Crazy!

Here's the video so you can feel what I felt back in 2000:

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

floor plans before & after

check out this before and after floor plan for the craft room / pantry / workshop area...

Note that you'll need to click on the below image to see it properly... and of course, this is only 2 dimensional. the pics, which we'll post as we go, will really tell the story :)

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

craft room is coming!

J decided to consume part of the garage to build a pantry and a small crafting space for me. Our house is really tiny so this is a big deal. We are not doing the best job of maximizing the space that we have here and this is a step towards getting better at that.
he finished the framing and studs for one of the walls today. There's still plenty to do but he's moving at a pretty good clip for doing this work all by himself.

check it out:

fenix fotos

It's that time again. He is getting so big, so fast.. it's crazy. He is starting to look like such a big boy!

IMG_8398

For the whole set click here.

Monday, February 11, 2008

cute clutches

I've been putting my new sewing machine to good use since I got it. After a bit of experimentation I've refined some ideas that I had about little clutches that I wanted to make and I have a couple of finished pieces that I'm really happy with. I'll probably sell these on my etsy site.

Here they are:
Black leather with green chenille leaf applique:




Loden green, wool felt with black felt f hole applique:


been busy

I have been horribly remiss in posting entries here over the last two weeks. The truth is that I think Fenix is going thru some kinda phase where he does.not.want.to.be.put.down.
It's pretty frustrating. But what can you do. Well I'm back now so that's all that matters.
And an update on the Apartment Therapy/Ohdeedoh nursery tour. It's still happening. I sent in the pictures and explanations of all the little things in his room as per the request of the editor that I'm working with. So now it's just a matter of waiting til I get the word that it has been posted. Don't worry, you all will be the first to hear about it!

Monday, February 4, 2008

sew happy. sew very happy.

I got my new sewing machine. Finally. I went in looking at one model and as I am often prone to do, I ended up buying a much more expensive one. But it was on sale. Half off! But it's a freaking dream boat. I love it. Now to get 5 minutes of free time so I can actually use it.

Side note... Jason is building me a craft room in the back half of the garage. He's already started the work! So those 5 free minutes are really going to be hard to come by over the next several weeks but the end result is that I will actually have a proper place to sew and craft and do whatever the hell I want to do without making a mess out of the common areas of my home.

Anyway here is a picture of the sewing dream machine:

Friday, February 1, 2008

swingers

This device saved me from insanity:


It's a Boppy Rock in Comfort Travel swing and I wish we had gotten it sooner. Up until we got this thing (earlier this week) I could not even use the toilet freely since his majesty wants to be held all the time. Imagine that you can't even pee without the baby screaming himself into a lather. Ugh.

Now I can take a shower and empty my bladder in peace. Bonus - this swing is really small and folds up flat when not in use. It also isn't hideously gaudy like all the others that I saw in the store. Have baby = must have swing.