Ingress T-Shirt Designs

You like? Tell me you want one here. 

Simple, sophisticated, cooler.

Yesterday I decided to update the look of our medium sized red Igloo cooler. It was very easy, and looks so much nicer.

After masking the white top and handle with blue painter's tape and cardboard, I used Rustoleum 2X spray paint/primer in a warm tan color. Did two coats and a spray clear coat, then wrapped the handle in jute. We had a cutting board already that wedges perfectly between the handles for easy carrying, but if you can't find one, just cut one down to size.

I might paint a monogram or icon or something on it but for now, I'm enjoying the fresh neutral look!

Sins of a Mother

Forgive me, everyone, for I have sinned.

I have given cookies with dinner,

I have given cookies for dinner.

I have popped bottoms,

I have shouted shitty words,

I have occasionally ignored cries for help both figurative and literal.

I have indolently idolized my iPhone and poured too-hot gossip into little pitchers’ big ears.

I have snapped thousands of pictures of my cherubs in adorably embarrassing situations and stored them in the cloud for future humiliation.

And lastly, I have led my children and myself to believe we are the most amazing, intelligent, important persons on the planet, when deep within, I know this to be thoroughly unprovable and highly unlikely, and when they discover the truth, they will begin to descend the timeworn spiral staircase of I Hate My Mom.

For these and all the sins I can’t remember, because I am always somewhat sleep deprived, I am sorry. I have forgiven myself, and I cling like a baby sock to a chenille blankie to the hope that you truly are too young and loving to remember any of this.

DIY Personalized Toy Box

This week I started (and finished) a craft project I've been thinking about for a while now. I made the girls a personalized toy box. It was easier to complete and turned out nicer than I expected, so I'm sharing a basic how-to. 

The reason it was so easy is that IKEA sells a $15 toy chest with a wooden frame that's a perfect blank canvas for any room theme you might want to match. Mine was going in my living room so I actually used leftover red paint from my accent wall. I also like that the box has no hinges to pinch little fingers, and is lightweight enough for my two-year-old daughter to easily open. It's great for hiding and organizing toys. And now... the DIY stuff.

That's it! Of course, it really helps that I am fantastic at hand lettering, but if you have a vinyl letter cutter or access to any craft store like Michael's that sells vinyl letters you'll be in good shape. I'm really proud of this toybox project. My older daughter requested that I paint a rocking horse on it, which inspired the front quote. I just came up with the rest of it. 

#toybox #DIY #customized #personalized #kids #gifts #organizing #toys #toystorage

Eaves Drop

I present for you a piece of one side of an overheard phone conversation, overheard in a doctor's waiting room, ca. 2009.

The night my horse died, I cried myself to sleep. A guy from Comporium came out with a backhoe so we could bury him.

Riding him, it was relaxing. My brother wrote a song when his dog died - Taylor. I told him, "Write a song," and next day, he did it. "Stranger Living In My House." In my Elks magazine I saw a story, "Where Shall I Bury My Dog?"

Sorry, folks: that's all I heard.

All I Really Want Is Girls

I cannot relate to people who deliberately choose to leave their child’s gender for a delivery room surprise. As agonizingly long and mysterious as pregnancy seemed to me, turning one’s back on insider information made possible by scientific advances seems quaint and backward, like Amish people. It’s like saying, “Although you are offering me the opportunity to see gorgeous undiscovered stars with your fancy new telescope, I prefer to let the mystery be.” That horse-and-buggy lifestyle may work for you, but meanwhile I’ll be over here posting my kid’s gender on Facebook using my iPhone. 

The revelatory ultrasound happened the day before Thanksgiving. In that tense moment of truth, I recall being 100% sure I wanted the fetus to be female and only about 20% guilty for having a strong preference. My husband took the diplomatic “I don’t care as long as it’s healthy” stance. When all was made clear by the telltale W and the technician assured us she had gotten a really good view and it was a lock that we were having a girl, I couldn’t stop grinning. I realized I was going to be able to enjoy the pregnancy more knowing that I wouldn’t have to wonder how the hell to clean baby shit from a tiny, stubby penis – about which I would also not have to make a circumcision decision.

Any fleeting daydream in which I’d ever starred as “Mom” had featured a tiny copy of me, which would of course be a girl. Charlie held true to his original premise of “whatever” on the gender front with only an occasional wistful aside. Any son of ours would doubtless grow up steeped in music, technology, and pop culture but the idea of him tossing a pigskin with dear old dad struck us both as highly unlikely and slightly scary.

When we decided to have a second kid, and faced a second ultrasound the tables were suddenly, immediately turned. I had gone into this pregnancy cheerfully chirping, “Whatever, I got mine” and Charlie was clearly pulling for “one of each.” This being a binary decision, it was winner-loser time, and Team Pink was 2 for 0.

As we made our fourth major life decision together (marriage, one kid, second kid, no more kids) it became evident that all was not completely rosy in Daddyland. I made an effort to downplay the three to one ratio in our household: choosing carseats and diaper bags in gender neutral colors, mixing in the occasional train set or Nerf gun amid purchases of Barbies and stuffed unicorns. 

But none of that changed the fact that he was living with a loss that I didn’t share. When Camden has friends over, we both marvel over the boy that eats four slices of pizza to her two, and the way the decibel level multiplies exponentially when you throw guys into the mix. It’s clear to me, however, that his observations are fringed with regret.

Like every blow you’re dealt, like every unhoped for outcome you can’t change, I assume his discomfort will lessen over time. I can only watch from the sidelines as he deals with it in his own private way. 

The second kid

She didn't arrive by accident. Years of discussion preceded our decision to try to make another baby. Camden had been such a roaring success, such an easy and clever child, fitting right into our lives and laps with such positive energy and enthusiasm. My pregnancy and delivery had been by all measures a breeze (thank you, inventor of the epidural). I was afraid of doing it all again with unpredictable results. Finally we decided we were ready to trade in our "perfect" family and take a gamble on a new configuration.

Laurel turned out to be the best idea ever. Camden wanted - no, deserved - a little sister, and nine days before her sixth birthday, we delivered a tiny bright-eyed wisp of a sis. Camden was willing to share anything with the new baby, from beloved toys to birthday parties. She was by turns gentle, motherly, stern, silly with little Laurel - essentially, everything but jealous.

Now that she's almost a year and a half, some of Camden's hand-me-down traits are apparent in Laurel, such as blonde hair and strong verbal skills. But Laurel's her own imp. She has a quicker temper and will physically lash out if denied. Her curiosity compels her to raid cabinets, empty tissue boxes, explore Mom's purse, and snatch interesting toys and electronic devices.

For the record, there won't be a third kid here. For our family, two is a magic number. But many's the night I have lain awake curled beside a softly sleeping Laurel, loving her little sniffable head and trying to imagine being happy never having known her. Sometimes when you bet, you win bigger than you hoped for.

Last night we drove to Asheville to see She & Him. I was surprised to find that my reaction to it was outright jealousy. I love the styles of music they borrow from, and it's not a stretch to say that my husband and I could play like this - albeit in much smaller venues and definitely not as a full-time gig. If only!

I'm not saying I'm -as good as- Zoey Deschanel, or that my husband is on a par with a touring guitarist/songwriter. I'm merely saying that as I listened to She & Him sing simple songs of devoted love, wistfulness kept nudging me in the ribs.

I lie in the dried grass in my front yard, yammering on my cell phone to my sister in L.A. As we talk, she goes outside, sees a sliver, and pops back into her overpriced Sherman Oaks apartment. When she goes back out a little later to check, she reports that her moon is pure-tee GONE. I think it scares her that it disappeared that quickly. It gives me a thrill that we're viewing the same giant thing at the same time from different angles. The blind man and the elephant.

Four people walk by and I hail them, "Hey! Hey, see the eclipse?" They stare at me. "The moon, you see?" I'm pointing, smiling. They continue walking, cautiously glancing at me. "An eclipse," I insist. One of them looks up. "Oh, OK." They keep going. They are Asian, I think they all work at the Chinese restaurant nearby. We live in a safe suburb of upstate South Carolina - this ain't New York, I am a skinny 30-something middle class white woman, they don't have anything to fear from me. Maybe they think I am a lunatic (pun intended) or their culture shrugs off periodic astrological events. Or maybe they are tired, and smell like fried food, and can't be bothered to look up for four seconds from the sidewalk that leads home.

I'm almost embarrassed to add a post to a blog that is several years old, which no one reads, and that isn't all that interesting. I've been keeping a diary offline in a Word document, so I do have a record of all of the little Camden developments since before she was born.

I do want to continue a blog or diary of some sort but I can never seem to keep one going. Also, I'm in need of good photo organization software. Suggestions?

Camden is a little two-year-old person now. She has a mop of very blonde hair and crystal blue eyes. She can be quite bossy, ordering around stuffed animals, spice bottles, and her parents. Two stuffed cows are her best buddies - This Cow and Other Cow.

As for me, I have been working at my own business since September, but over the past month I haven't been doing much billable work and haven't really been looking around for new projects. It's summer, and my time is being spent supervising the renovation of our kitchen, traveling with Camden to see relatives, and working on small house projects that have gone undone forever. We could use the extra money, but I feel like there will be time for that when these other things are taken care of.

December Update.
We are finally getting over what seems like a monthlong cold. Camden hasn't been sleeping in her crib, preferring instead to fuss until I take her into bed and eventually stick her in the Pack & Play in our room. In the past week she has spent 2 full nights in her crib. She is just now able to pull herself up to standing, which of course ups the tantrum level in the crib because she can now stand up and cry instead of fussing lying down and eventually getting bored.

On the bright side, she babbles a lot now and can crawl really well. Last night she was in the living room with Charlie and was crying for me, who was in the kitchen. Charlie came to the kitchen and a minute later, here came Camden, bawling and crawling after us. It was kind of comical.

We went really light on Christmas presents for her this year -- although oddly enough we got tons for everyone else. I think she'll enjoy tearing into them because she's a fan of crinkly paper. We skipped a tree because she's crawling and I thought it was stupid to put one up only to have to barricade it. Presents are stacked a yard high on the sideboard.

We have managed to get out and do things. Friday night, Camden accompanied me to an AIDS art auction, where we picked up a cool piece of folk art for $30, and to a Christmas party at a lawyer friend's office. She was nice as pie and she doesn't mind settings with lots of people and things to look at. We shopped Saturday, Charlie went to the Panthers game yesterday and we even went to a U2 concert while Camden hung out with the grands. The U2 concert deserves its own entry so I'll save that one.

Everyone's Blog is Better than Mine

If I were not so busy and didn't have such a deeply fulfilling life, it would bother me greatly that everyone in the world has a more robust and up-to-date blog than I do. I'm a better-than-average writer, and I daresay reasonably witty and well-spoken. But I just don't have time to spill my guts on a blog. I think I noted this in the very first post, and it's proven to be true.

I send a shitload of email, though, and I do keep an offline diary of sorts. It's a Word document into which I mostly copy and paste my most thrilling and detail-ridden emails to friends and family. I can't be bothered to document everything in real time. I've got a kid to raise, a husband to love, and a self to entertain.

I'm starting to think that insanely busy is normal for me. Did I mention I had a panic attack last week? I mistook my sudden inability to get enough air for asthma. Then I talked to my mother, and she suggested it was probably a panic attack because it sounded like one she had once.

The irony was that it happened AFTER all the crazy busy-ness, on the day I was driving back to work after having taken a day off to set my house in order. It was the first day I'd had to "breathe" in a while and most ironically, I couldn't.

But I'm all better now, having whacked most of the moles, except that the friggin' air conditioner still isn't getting the upstairs of our rental house under 80 degrees during the day -- and this is after I have spent $1200 to have it "fixed." In the immortal words of everybody, "F*** that."

Meanwhile, Camden's adorable. She has tolerated me feeding her a little rice cereal from a spoon, she slept 8 hours in a row last night, and we both heard her clearly say "golf" the other day during a conversation she was having with herself. So she's doing fine. If her parents can only get their lives together, we'll be one small happy family.

What Baby Camden is up to
About eleven pounds. ba dum bum

She is three months old and her new interests include clutching dramatically at her clothing a la Fred Sanford, poking out her tongue so mom & dad can tickle it with a finger, and "talking" to us in little "hoo-hoo" monkey grunts with a surprised look that says, "Am *I* making that noise?"

She's also holding that head up very nicely, able to sit on a lap and take in a room with bug eyes, and adores "tummy time" (for you non-parents, that means lying on her stomach propped on her arms like the Sphinx, thereby strengthening her neck, arms, and back muscles and gaining some balance and movement control). She can't read yet, but otherwise, she's coming along very well.

Kanka Is Some Hardcore Stuff

Apparently I have a canker sore. Not a cold sore, which is contagious. So I picked up a substance called Kanka at my local apothecary (Eckerd) which purported to provide maximum pain relief and form a protective coating around my annoying little ulcer. And boy did it ever. I think I went a bit aggressive in the application of it because my lips, the tip of my tongue, and part of my gums seem to have vanished. I can still numbly feel the canker sore a little bit but the pain has been greatly reduced. Thankya, Kanka.

Since I got pregnant, the April 2005 Expecting Club at iVillage has been a lifebuoy. I was able to find out all kinds of information, great "mom" insider information, and best of all, post or read about the totally embarrassing "is it just me?" and "is this normal?" questions that every pregnant woman has. There's a message board on nearly every subject of life and I recommend them. You can communicate with people across America (and in other countries too), and even though we shared the experience of being pregnant, it was really wild to see how varied the experience is.
I like my OB-GYN practice in general, but the doctor who is supposedly "my doctor" is not very forthcoming with information, even when pressed. I do my homework and I like a doctor who will discuss issues with me rather than just say, "See you in two weeks" before my feet are even out of the stirrups. So the message board was quite helpful in filling in the gaps that he left in my pregnancy knowledge base, and no book can fix that either.

P.S.

Today is my 33rd birthday. I am really enjoying it because I don't look anywhere close to 33. I secretly love seeing the shock that comes when strangers learn how old I am. Even a friend of mine the other day was jokingly saying something about how I was not "old enough" for something. I said mock-indignantly, "I'm almost 33." She paused for a long while and I threw in, "You thought I was younger than that, didn't you?" She said, "Definitely." Hey, it's not like I have any control over how old or young I look. Except I don't dress like a frumpy matron -- I suppose that helps.

Vampire Baby

So now I'm almost eight weeks on the other side of pregnancy ... the side where you have a new baby. The pregnancy and delivery were a cakewalk compared to the first couple of weeks of life with our daughter Camden.

Camden was fussy, cranky, crying, frowny, and not as sleepy as I had been led to believe babies are. Breastfeeding didn't work out - she was a "shallow latcher" (don't ask, but it's painful) and we ended up putting her on formula. Long story short, she didn't do well on Enfamil Lipil and is now taking Carnation Good Start very nicely, though it gives her the farts!

When she was first born Camden reminded me of Nosferatu in her middle of the night feedings. She would draw her preternaturally long fingers up underneath her chin and stare distantly with her giant eyes. It was a little creepy. Now she grunts if I stop feeding her and her newest thing is clutching at my shirt and hair with her fingers and grabbing on. I love it.

Life with a new infant had some definite surprises. I thought I had read all the baby books, heard every bit of advice, and knew what to expect. But no. First of all, my little girl looks exactly like her father. Everyone says so and it was the first thing I noticed when I saw her for the first time. Also, I discovered that despite the dire warnings about your baby dying of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome if you allow her to sleep on her stomach, some babies simply will not sleep on their backs. Camden is one of these babies and after we figured this out, life got a lot better for everyone in the household.

With babies you really appreciate the small advances, such as: "Look! She can lift her head up two inches and hold it for ten seconds!" and "Wow, she is starting to look at things besides lights and faces!" Forget walking and talking. We are talking basic motor skills and the beginnings of learning to be happy. Yes, babies must learn to smile and feel happiness; it's not something they are born with. Camden just started issuing the rare smile last week. And I am watching her every minute I can to see all of this unfold.

I have got 8 weeks to go and I have to say, for someone who was freaked out for years about the idea of having a baby, I feel cool as a cuke. Maybe it's that calm period while the log flume is gently bobbing along and slowly kank-kank-kanking its way up the incline. You know what's coming -- you got on the ride in the first place, didn't you? So you just sit back and enjoy the ride as best you can.

It is SO cool to feel the baby wiggling around inside though. She has one foot, the kicky foot, that often pokes out of my side and when I press on it, it drives the foot wild. Apart from that, I don't know what's what in there. In some ways I wish she would just stay in there, my own private pet, easy to feed, goes anywhere, not much of a bother. But I suppose eventually she would get way too big for me to handle from the inside.

If I only had time to read 1000 journals, maybe I would have time too to keep my blog updated. I'm so thrilled that people still make time for creativity and participation in group projects like the one I just linked. "This is an experiment, and you are part of it."