{anatomist}

uʍop ǝpısdn

¡op uɐɔ ı ʇɐɥʍ ʇno ʞɔǝɥɔ 'ʎǝɥ

flip here!

looky what i made!

looky what i made!
Originally uploaded by anatomist.

(i will try to get a better picture when i have some natural light to work with. that is the problem with always finishing projects at one am.)
i'm not sure where the pattern came from, sierra sent it to me in a package a while back... but it was a great simple project to hand stitch while watching tom make chicken parm this evening. my only question is whether it is a deer or a lamb...

short

between twitter and flickr, i don't have enough to say to merit a post. mother's day was fantastic though what with the babysitter, a couple of kicky cocktails, nettle pasta with rabbit and parmesan, and a baby that slept straight through the night.
the house is progressing slowly, making me really question making any attempts to sell this house. i do love our little ranch.
i'm beginning to think about school again. that is about as far as that thought goes right now though. i will keep you posted.
and... a picture:

from the doctor's office at jack's most recent appointment. no baby pictures today!

my day, in list form. for kicks.

1. pack baby, father, and father's dog and all our stuff plus three garbage bags of too-small baby clothes into the car and head out for a day of running errands. feeling good about getting things done today!
2. drop off baby clothes at thrift store, getting receipt for tax rebate and a warm feeling from doing something good.
3. discover baby has wet diaper.
4. discover baby has wet through the only clothes we have left.
5. discover there is only one diaper in the diaper bag. unfortunately, this was my poor planning and i cannot blame anyone else. moving on.
6. check the salvage store to find heat register covers to replace the ones that we removed from the vents when we moved in, then held on to for 3.5 years, only to discover just days after recycling them that there are no new register covers made to fit our vents.
7. find no register covers at the salvage store that will fit our vents.
8. stop all errands to go get something to eat before we lose our shit. settle in at the most awesome barbeque place for pulled pork sandwiches and homemade cokes.
9. feel and warm wet spot grow across the legs of my jeans. discover jack has just wet through the last diaper and completely soaked all that was dry of his last outfit.
10. traffic sucks.
11. stop at the mall to buy diapers and a new onesie so that we can continue our errands. must persevere!
12. find that the only outfit under $60 bucks is 6-12 months too large, and 2 inches too long. buy it anyway, the kid needs to wear something and i am too cheap for something that fits. curse giving away all those baby clothes a few hours ago.
13. give up on errands and drive home.
14. allow dog to sit up front to keep her from trying to crawl into jack's car seat anymore. feel very generous for allowing the creature on my lap. (dogs belong in the back, on the other side of the gate, thank you very much.)
15. feel dog heaving slightly just before she loses her undigested (and homecooked, my dad spoils his dog rotten) breakfast, all over my lap and my clean front seat.
16. beer. dear lord, we need beer.

before i had jack, when the hormones first kicked in and overtook my logical brain with the intense desire for a child, i would find myself suddenly thinking about pregnancy. i would think about holding a child, or my belly, and being whole. this is not to say that i felt incomplete before, my life was full. in addition to school and work and friends and love, i had learned to be alone with myself, spending hours walking and thinking and creating. but in the middle of those thought and walks the desire would strike, ramming itself into my brain like only biologically driven urges can. i wanted to have a child. but i never really imagined being a mother.
no one could have explained that motherhood doesn't make you whole, it tears you in half. and the most important half is suddenly independent of you. living and breathing before you, so incredibly vulnerable. so incredibly impossible to protect. i always imagined spending my days with him, but i never understood that even when he was in my arms he was apart from me, a part of me loose in the world.
people told me that it would be the best and hardest thing i had ever done, but i never imagined how much more than that it is.
it is being in love and being desperately heartbroken at the same time, every moment of every day for the rest of my life.

blood tests

blood tests
Originally uploaded by anatomist.

8 months!?!

holy crap, time is passing so goddamn quickly. i'm pretty sure he is fattening up nicely now. he is almost crawling forward, and is proficient in scooting backward and rolling across the room.he yells at me when he is angry or frustrated, has (knock on wood) been napping in his crib for at least an hour every day, he puts everything in his mouth, cut two more teeth on top (only on the right, his little crooked smile), loves banging on my computer almost enough to motivate him to pull up to standing to reach it. he has the cutest grin in the whole world and the most amazing person i have ever met  in my life.

making up for lost time

i am blowing up the blog! making up for lost time. posting like mad. filling space with the detritus of my day. moving on, a list:
1. check out the anatomical street art gallery. i love this blog and this collection of pictures is awesome. i'd love to print a bunch of them up and frame them for my room. if i wasn't actually in the process of taking everything down and hiding it in a 5x10 secured and heated unit.
2. we have storage unit! and cardboard boxes! i am halfway to an empty house. i mean seriously, the place is practically sold, right.... right?
3. jack has gotten to the hands and knees rocking back and forth stage that comes right before crawling. he can roll across the room and gets stuck underneath things. i suppose it is finally time that we replace the heat registers before i have to tear apart the wall to pull him out, eh?
4. i've added twitter to my sidebar. we will see if it stays there, but for now i am having fun posting random thoughts from my phone. maybe it will cut down on the many calls tom receives from me during the day. (it is a nasty habit i have of needing to say everything i think as soon as i think it. tom does not so much appreciate my every thought. and while you don't have to care, if you are looking at my blog at all you are more likely to be interested in how much i am paying for gas or what i am eating for breakfast or what i think we should do if jack is ever drafted.)

torn crafter

just as i am packing up my fabric collection and sewing machine for an indefinite storage, i discover loads of new inspiration on the internet. first, there is spoonflower, due to start digital fabric printing soon. i could make my own fabric! and then there is true up, the new fabric blog. between the two i want nothing more than to hole up and sew for days. i will have to be happy designing my dream fabric on my computer instead.

also, looks like we are creating a series of photos of jack with scary bunnys... beginning in utero:

happiness is a nekkid baby and a new tub

i found a storage unit and now i am heading to the store to buy big containers for my craft stuff and various  tchotchkes. i haven't really got much to pack, most of my things live in boxes already, but it is considerably harder to pack with an infant.

in other news, i really want to walk the john muir trail. also, most likely, considerably harder to do with an infant. damn.

scary

i have always been afraid of people in costumes. there are very few pictures of me on santa's lap and we never went to disneyland (but that may have been because we were poor).
then i met bourbon and we spent hours scouring the internet for all kinds of weird and kinky things that go on and i learned about furries and plushies and i can never remember which is which but that was when i became seriously afraid of what goes on in those costumes.
and then i had a kid and my mother wanted to get his picture taken with the easter bunny. so we took him to the mall and found (no shit) the scariest easter bunny ever. i could see the shifty eyes peering out from the dark mouth but he wouldn't make eye contact. so i made my mother put jack on his lap while i took three quick pictures and then got my kid the hell out of there.
jack didn't seem fazed by any of it, but i still haven't recovered.

after bath

i am still working on catching up photos from the last few months, so keep checking out flickr and picassa if you want to know what we look like.
a list of events:
1. libby came to visit
2. i got my hair did
3. i got trashy on wine at khya's house
4. we had hot dogs at evilcat's house and kept jack up way past his bedtime
5. i took the most wonderful bath in my new tub!

and a photo of jack from ages ago when we went to the zoo:

hectic

to do today:
1. take jack to children's hospital for blood tests to make sure he isn't "shrimpy" for a scary health reason. (this involves taping a plastic bag to his tiny balls to get a urine sample. i bet you never thought about how they get baby urine samples, huh?)
2. take deep breaths.
3. clean house.
4. meet plumber to move sink three inches to the left. seriously.
5. convince plumber to install shower fixtures so i can take a damn shower already!
6. clean house.
7. not worry about blood tests.
8. try to ignore my own stink.

april milestones

april 9th: waving day! jack learned to wave, now he waves hello and goodbye to everyone. t is trying to teach him wrist wrist elbow elbow yada yada, but jack goes for more of a full arm salute.

april 10th: too small day! the pediatrician took one look at jack's stats and said "looks like he got all shrimpy all of a sudden." bitch. first off, nobody calls my baby shrimpy. second, have you seen me? you don't even say shrimpy in my presence without pissing me off! she then went on to describe all the reasons why his lack of growth would be my fault, or maybe it is kidney disease and here, take this tiny little pee sample bag and stick it to his balls and go to childrens hospital for some blood tests. then she got up and left without asking any questions about his developmental milestones or doing any of those early autism checks or any of the other things i expected for this checkup. so i left her office and drove directly to my naturopath and made an appointment for him. then i checked the breastfed baby growth charts and found he actually looks much closer to normal than she implied. bitch. failure to thrive? bullshit.

april 11th: baby's first dandelion day! khya and i bought a bottle of wine and 4 chocolate bars (after receiving a full lesson in the varieties of chocolate from a bulk grocer named "music" (yeah right, he totally made that up)) and took the kids to her house to lounge in the yard. the boys rolled around on the blanket while khya and i got tipsy and sun drunk and then jack ate his first dandelion. the day completely made up for the shitty day before.

i am still working on uploading and organizing all the pictures from the last couple of months, so go take a look at my flickr from time to time and see how big the kid is getting. and see how small eugene still is.

back...

sorry i've been gone so long! i'll tell you all about it as soon as the kid goes to bed and i can snuggle up with my laptop and upload some pictures. in the meantime:

too sick to chat

jack got to see his grandma for a good long visit

we got to visit the farm and check out the new lambs (mmm tasty!)

and then, there were adventures in carrots! and sweet potatoes! and applesauce! all very popular. good times.

and now i am dying and need to go take a nap.

party time

happy
Originally uploaded by anatomist.

i have a cold but thai food and airborne are going to kill it so that i can rally tonight with a few of my ladies. i may even stay the night, leaving my wonderful little boy with my wonderful man for a full evening. and early morning. we may all be better off without my hangover at 4 am.
so, happy birthday to me and here is a picture of my ticklish little boy being tortured with a little neck snorgling.

febrooairy sicksth

tomorrow is my birthday. so far we have small plans, possibly involving a sitter and a couple of hours of big kid out of the house time. my car is still in the shop so we probably won't be terribly mobile. we shall see. for now it is me, a bottle of wine, a sleeping baby, a quiet house and a big beautiful television to entertain me. and possibly some crafting but i am feeling pretty damn lazy. goodbye 28, you have been an eventful year to say the least.

teeth!

jack's first tooth popped out today! his sleep last night was awful and then this morning i could see the tooth through the gums. this afternoon when he was chewing my finger i felt the sharp point of a new fang! now i let him chew on his feet instead.

also, wow. that game yesterday ruled! i don't even like football, but that was a f*cking fantastic game! our living room was full of screaming and laughing and grunting and even a little leaping in the air and embracing. there was also a lot of people, yelling children and babies, bratwurst, roasted peppers, hot stew, many beers and a crockpot of teeny weenies. good times, good times.

rock on wednesday morning!

so the bebe and i are up. he got up at 5:30 this morning, which would be awful if it weren't for the fact that he finally slept nearly all the way through the night beginning at 6:00 pm. we are working on getting him to sleep in his crib without making me get up to nurse him every two hours and last night was a huge relief from the hellish nights that we have had the last few weeks of crying and fussing and finally giving in and rocking or nursing him to sleep.
now we need to figure out how to regulate his naps a bit, and move the whole night sleeping process back an hour (or forward an hour? whatever) so that we don't have to get up quite so early before the sunrises and such. but one step at a time. and even if this is the best we get for a while i am pretty happy. he is pretty damn cute in the morning in his little pjs and all smiley and snuggly. damn, i am glad we've got him. i am clearly a sap this early in the morning.
in other news, my car is finally going to the shop today! they got the new back hatch and back bumper in and they will be installing it asap because they know how very very badly i need to be able to drive what with having been limited to within a mile of my home with a five month old baby for the majority of the last week. or rather, they will know that as soon as tom tells them. and then when i have my beautiful station wagon back, i will drive myself and the wee punk over to khya's house to see sol!

until then, jackie and i will be hanging out.