theo's room

back in the day i posted about jude's nursery, so i thought i'd keep things even steven and do to it for my baby theo as well.

we are not really into the idea of redecorating the entire nursery (that is, buying new stuff) just because there's a different baby in it... but i did want the room to have theo's unique flavor (ha). what you'll see in the room that is uniquely his are the curtains, his newly painted side-table (it was one my grandparents' received at their wedding), a few art prints I already had on hand, and his mobile.

i picked the curtain fabric but sewing machines make me hyperventilate, so Auntie Jessie did a phenomenal job making them for me. i love them. the room was a bit austere before, and these are just fun.

i made the mobile (say, what) out of stuff i had lying around in the basement that was waiting to be re-purposed: a "crown" of twigs i unfastened from an old Pier One lampshade, and globe lamp covers from a broken strand of lights. i hung the resulting contraption from a potted plant hanger and BAM. free mobile. easy, too.

Gwen Frostic prints (a Michigan-based artist and naturalist)

 

The old side table, painted by Mom

"Global Babies" was a fave of both my boys :)

The re-purposed mobile

Theo's baptismal bib

That's pretty much it. Theo might be in this room longer than Jude was, so I hope he likes the color scheme. Gender neutral is how we roll :)

Monday, Monday

I found a great way to blend drinking with parenting.  (Just kidding!)

Back in my full-time working mom days, I would've loved to know that eventually I would be spending a Monday morning doing this sort of thing with Jude.

 

As perhaps you can tell, we used wine corks as stamps for our leaves. Both of us are perfectionists, and after we did this project I reminded myself that I need to give him more of a free reign on things (rather than telling him the "leaves" don't go down by the bottom of the trunk just so I can get a good shot of a perfect tree afterward).  Chill, Mama.

Anyway, Mondays aren't nearly as jolting as they used to be. Love it.

A not-brown room

Calling myself out on this one... this post is classically stay-at-home-mom-ish. Oh well.

Jude moved into a new room months ago, and I just got around to taking a few pics of it the other day. It's the kind of room that a little boy lives in, with a real bed.  (In fact, I just went to check on him during his nap and found him sleeping under the bed.  Whatever works.)

I think every house has a word that describes how it feels when you walk in. Ours is probably earthy. Earth tones, Marushka silk screen canvases from the 70's, a smattering of mostly second-hand furniture that was made between the decades of 1920 and 1960.

I like old stuff, for sure, but in Jude's room I wanted to lighten it up a bit.  Because my only complaint about some parts of our house is that they're dominated by the same old-furniture brown color.

So... I made him a peaceful, vibrant, not-brown little nook to be in whenever he wants to. I pictured him in it, pushing his trucks around and making a motor sound with his mouth, paging through the books on his not-brown bookshelf.

It's my new favorite room in the house.

The Kitchen, Before & After

We finished another room on the house last week!

Or I should say Jono did.

He squeezed it in during his three-week break from classes before they start up full-time next week. (He got into grad school - woot! Congratulate him if you see him.)

Here's a before and after of the kitchen, which was under construction for about six months. We should learn not to start these things - but now that it's done, I love it.

Before:




This room already had cabinets up to the ceiling on all sides, so Jono just built and replaced the doors and hardware on them and painted them. We also decided to do away with the fake-marble hunter-green counter-tops and replace them with something more earthy-looking.
The fridge was moved from one side of the room to the other, since it used to open out onto the top of the basement stairs (handy, right?). He had to do some demo work on the old cabinets to make a new place for it. He then built the cabinets on one side of the kitchen from scratch, including the new pantry and lovely open ones I wanted. All that's left to do now is put in the cork floor we want. Eventually.

After:




It's very green, in a pleasant way. Notice the coffee-maker and grinder have their own separate counter space next to the pantry, as if they're the Holy Grail of our kitchen. Which they are.

My finish work at the end included succulent plants on the windowsill and telling Jono where I wanted things hung on the wall. He likes to use a measuring tape and level to hang things, while I prefer to eyeball it. So when he sees me "eyeballing" a wall, it makes him nervous.

I also filled and arranged stuff in the pantry and on the open shelves. Oh yes, my wooden bowls and dry beans in mason jars now have their own special spot. Arranging stuff and organizing always make me really, pathetically happy. Unfortunately we TOTALLY fall into male/female stereotypes when it comes to these sorts of projects. I'm freely admitting this.

We've made some progress on a few other rooms lately too, so more to come for those of you who like to snoop around in others' homes (I'm one of you ;)

Christmas (Lite)

We rarely decorate properly for Christmas around here. I have invented a few shortcuts over the years.

Our first year we were married our "tree" was a bough of holly purchased from Pikes Market. It adorned our tiny kitchen table in our tiny Seattle apartment. That was all.

When we lived in Honduras we ran into the issue of a national ban on pine-tree cutting, so we ended up buying what was essentially a shrubbery imported from somewhere and trimmed into a triangle shape. Excuse: We were homesick, and we wanted to feel as festive as possible.

There have been a couple of years in between then and now where we went all out and cut down a real tree on a farm. But last year we had just had Jude. He was one month old and we were bleary-eyed and unable to function as normal human beings. So again... no tree.

This year? Jude is old enough now to crawl right up to any novelty item placed in his play area (the living room) and pull it down, or at least pluck off an ornament of two and attempt to eat it. Also, we had a hectic Thanksgiving weekend and ran out of time for the typical tree-chopping-down ceremony that usually happens on the Friday after.

Soooo...behold, our lovely alternative:


That, my friends, is a tropical potted palm that was gifted to us a few years ago. Bethlehem was likely dotted with palm trees rather than evergreens, no? Plus some lovely mardis-gras-esque beads that I have re-purposed as a garland for our fireplace (below). These were purchased way back when for our Hondu-shrubbery.


We have one stocking. You can guess whose it is.

I never go nuts with the holiday decorating, but I do love how simple things look this year. A lot of fuss just adds to the chaos, and that we don't need.

We Actually Finished Something

Before:

After:

(one year later)

We painted over the old grey/dark forest green color scheme and got rid of the junky screens enclosing the porch. Then we stuck a baby and daddy on the front steps and a husky in the yard. Wa-lah! (Click to enlarge)

Thanks paint crew:

Where do I put this stuff?

At first this photo will not make sense in this post.

Things found on my (makeshift) pantry shelves:

• screws (assorted sizes)
  
• blocks of wood
• phone book
  
• plaster dust
• dog food
  
• pieces of wall
• paint rollers
• paint brushes
  
• bag of bread heels
• old kitchen hardware
• Mona's Christmas hat collection
  
• tape measure
• breast pump
• broken cutting board
• beer-making kit
• binoculars
  

Things I would like to have on my pantry shelves:

• cans of soup
• other non-perishable, edible items
  
• Mona's Christmas hat collection (there is simply no good place for this)

Jono is working really, really hard to finish our kitchen cupboards before he no longer has access to his crew's carpentry shop. He is gone all day and night.

The end is near...

The photo is of Mona as a puppy sporting her first "Christmas hat". She now has a green Santa hat (it says "spoiled"), a couple of pairs of reindeer antlers with bells, and a yellow beach visor. We did not buy her any of these items. Just FYI.

Overwhelmed and Wallowing in Self-pity

Sometimes, when I'm feeling annoyed about my life, I get sick of comparing myself to others and telling myself that I'm relatively lucky. Sometimes I just want to feel sorry for myself.

Like last night, for example. I let it all come down, I got good and cranky, and I bitched for awhile. I just needed to. I know our problems right now are tiny, stupid and not worth worrying about compared to people who have just lost a parent or child, or to someone who can't walk, or to someone who has a terminal illness. I know this. But last night I lost that perspective for a few hours.

Jono is losing his job. His work has been patchy ever since this past Winter, when he started having a few days off here and there because his crew couldn't find work. While this was happening, he started thinking about going back to school again - something he'd been wanting to do for years. He wants to get a Masters degree in Public Administration with an emphasis in Urban Planning.

We sat down and tried to figure out how we would pay the bills and take care of Jude under those circumstances. After going over every other option we could come up with, I came to the conclusion that even though I was formerly committed to staying home with the babe, cooking from scratch, and all that other good stuff that constitutes simple, healthy living, the only way Jono could pursue this goal would be for me to go back to work full-time to put him through school. We're hoping, of course, this translates into a better job for him that fulfills him more, and once that happens we can continue building our family and pursuing our values of simplicity and all that.

If Jono gets into school, the current plan is for him to become a full-time student and a part-time stay-at-home dad (otherwise known as a SAHD... for those of you who love acronyms). We figure we will need to hire out some daycare when Jono has an important exam or a day-time class, but for the most part, Jude will continue to be cared for by one or both of his parents, which is important to us.

Sounds good, right? So what was I feeling sorry for myself about? It's just a change of plans is all, and I needed to adjust my expectations for the next couple of years. I know I will feel guilty for leaving Jude for eight hours a day. I know I will feel conflicted on a daily basis.

There's also a little salt in my "OCD" wound right now as we try to finish up our disaster-area of a kitchen and the paint job on our house (why we start major home projects in the middle of our already chaotic life at the moment, I don't know). In my miserable, self-pitying state last night I said to Jono, "I'm frustrated right now because honestly, I don't ask for much. I don't want new stuff or a bigger home in the suburbs, or a huge career, or WHAT HAVE YOU. I just want to take a nap once in awhile; I want a kitchen where my stuff is where I can find it; I want to live in a place where there isn't broken glass sitting on top of my books by the windows you're fixing; I don't want to move ever again when I'm nine months pregnant; I'm sick of endless home projects; I just want to hang something on the wall; I want to have time to sit outside and do nothing once in awhile; I want a peaceful life..." (insert violins here).

Jono was good enough to comfort me, even thank me for committing to going back to work, and then convinced me to take a load off and watch an episode of The Office with him on Hulu. God bless him.

I'm more or less over it this morning. It's amazing what a semi-decent night of sleep can do for you. I still want to take a nap instead of logging paid hours while Jude sleeps. (This blog is one of my few indulgences. I really should leave it alone and take that nap...). But, there's light here.

I am married to someone who works harder than anyone I know, and he's the best dad ever to our son. At least he has goals, and they're cool too (urban planning is fascinating and good planners are needed badly in our cities). Some women go back to work full-time at six weeks post-partum, and I'm about to finish my 8th month home with Jude. I have a good part-time job at a non-profit, with a great boss who is willing to take me back full-time very soon in a bad economy. We've had so much help getting into and fixing up our house from our dear families. We could never have done it on our own, which I guess is a good lesson in interdependence.

If Jono can get into school, graduate in a couple of years and get a good job, we'll be in great shape because our home expenses are so low. And eventually I'll get to be home again for awhile, I hope, and continue with my psuedo-Amish lifestyle of gardening, taking care of my kids, getting good, local food & canning it, drying our clothes on the line, writing for fun, spending my days hiking around outdoors somewhere with the bambinos, small-scale activism and other reverse-evolutionary activities ;).

I still struggle with feeling like I'm not a true feminist at times (or that feminism threw the baby out with the bathwater), but mainly, that's what makes me happy right now - so I'm over it. As much as I enjoy my desk job, I don't need one to feel fulfilled. I hope that's okay.

*Sigh*