Lists. The Final Blogging Cop-Out Frontier.

THREE MOST AWESOMELY ESSENTIAL BABY TOYS

1) Munchkin Mozart Magic Cube, gift from sister

2) Spare toothbrushes, gift from dentist

3) OMSORG shoehorn, Ikea, 99 cents

TEN THINGS MY PRESCHOOLER WILL EAT

1) Pizza crust

2) Grilled cheese sandwich crust

3) Bread, but without the crust

4) Macaroni & cheese fromabox fromabox thatisnotfromaboxnoooo

5) Sticker Cheerios (Honey Nut Cheerios)

6) Pananas (bananas)

7) Nolabars (granola bars)

8) Trader Joe's Vegetable Masala Burgers

9) Anything you liquefy in a blender, pour into a sippy cup and call it "juice"

10) Air, probably. Does it have a crust?

THINGS MY BABY WILL NOT EAT

1) Uh.

2) Hmm.

3) He didn't seem too fond of that lettuce leaf the other night?

4) But then he grabbed some parsley leaves right off the plant in the garden and ate those?

5) Yeah, I'm stumped. He eats everything.

THINGS MY PRESCHOOLER SAID "I LOVE YOU" TO TODAY

1) Plastic DVD case, The Polar Express

2) Toy boom box from Yo Gabba Gabba playset

3) Thomas the Tank Engine packpack (backpack)

4) Book dust jacket, Knuffle Bunny Too

5) Sippy cup of "juice"


THINGS MY PRESCHOOLER SAID "YOU ARE NOT MY FRIEND!!" TO TODAY

1) Mama

THINGS MY BABY WILL MIMIC

1) Tongue-clucks

2) Clapping

3) Waving

4) Rasberry-blowing

5) "Da da"


THINGS MY BABY WILL NOT MIMIC

1) "Ma ma! Mmmmaaaa mmmmaaaaa. Come on. WTF. MAMA!"


THINGS I DID THIS MORNING

1) Spent hour transferring contents of refrigerator in kitchen to much-older-but-at-least-mostly-consistently-working refrigerator in basement and several coolers in preparation for the delivery of our new refrigerator, purchased last weekend after finally giving up on:

        1a) refrigerator in kitchen to magically fix self, stop randomly letting everything in the freezer melt while everything in the fridge turns to ice, and yes I already suggested putting the ice in the fridge and the milk in the freezer but Jason wouldn't let me so WHATEVER

        1b) appliance repairman who made several hundred dollars in useless repairs to give us our money back because...because...I don't know why, it just seems like the sporting thing to do, but then again, we did this to him

        1c) randomly coming into a shitload of free money so we wouldn't have to pay for a new fridge with the credit card, but apparently it takes a LOT longer than I thought for the widow of the Former Prime Minister of NewZealandTown to monetize four hundred million American dollars through the Bank of Nigeria.

2) Waited all morning and afternoon for call about the delivery of the new refrigerator.

3) Scolded preschooler for smearing mustard in his hair.

4) Noticed even larger dribble of mustard down the front of my own shirt.

5) Dug up receipt for new refrigerator in order to call and Get Huffy About It.

6) While on hold, noticed the bolded, all-caps, circled delivery date on the reciept said "7/17/09"

7) Hung up phone, sheepishly.

8) Shrieked in terror when phone immediately rang afterwards, like omg I hung up on Sears and now they're mad at me!

9) Realized that the downstairs refrigerator is leaking all over the floor, our washing machine no longer recognizes the 2nd Rinse function and our stove thinks the broiler can go fuck itself.

10) Nobly and selflessly rescued bottle of Yuengling from certain spoilage in busted-ass fridge.

It's Input, It's Input Time

Okay, so a lot of you demanded to see photos of the headband. A lot of you do not have much goin' on for you, these days, I'm guessin'. Anyway, I wasn't intentionally holding out on you, I just...um...haven't been washing my hair much this week, in order to test out some new dry shampoo and various oily-scalp things for the Advice Smackdown. Results have been...mixed. Helmet-head-ish, with a side of Ye Olde Timey Powdered Wig. You know, REALLY PRETTY. Really ready for a close-up self-portrait to be published across the land.

I bought it at H&M after watching entirely too much Top Chef, because that one girl always wore double headbands like this one, only not really like this one at all, as you can see close up:

Even the girl on Top Chef had re-thought the headbands by the reunion show. I should have learned a similar lesson, including the fact that this fucker HURTS MY HEAD.

Anyway. The glittery headband is just all around Bad Idea Jeans, I realize that now. Moving on! It is now time to talk about how ugly my kitchen is.

See, when we moved into this house, we were completely thrilled with the kitchen layout. The previous owners had knocked down walls! Installed a breakfast bar! Extra cabinets, lazy susans, built-in wine racks, A SPONGE CUBBY! Huzzah!

As for the actual look of the kitchen...well. The previous owners had also used the cheapest, crappiest cabinets and countertops possible. We planned on eventually replacing the counters and at least refacing the cabinets, but...well, again. That's not going to happen for awhile, what with our current state of brokeassness. We've also (obviously) scrapped any talk of moving back to the city, since Noah (obviously) needs to stay here in this school district. Thus, we're trying to do that whole "make the best of things" (uh) THING. So while I can't afford to really change the kitchen, I believe we can afford a couple gallons of paint.

But I am TERRIBLE at this stuff, Internet. Seriously. I read those design/decorating blogs and it's like there is a hole in my genetic code where that sort of talent should be. I mean, I can look at a photo and be like, THAT, RIGHT THERE! I LOVE! But then I have no idea how to make my actual house look like that. I go for "eclectic" and the result is "cluttered mish-mosh." I go for "modern" and the result is "Ikea." I go for anything else and the result is "Amy got this because it was on sale, and it was on sale because HOLY GOD, LOOK AT IT."

So. Here. Help me. I know this is spectacularly boring, but I am clueless.

We have your typical plain white laminate cabinets and a black-and-white-and-grey laminate countertop. There's kind of a tiny bit of a brownish-putty color in the counters as well, but it's really nothing I'd want on the walls. The current paint is a really terribly blah shade of yellow that doesn't look good with the white AT ALL in real life (it looks oddly more neutral in photos, not so much in person). Besides, I've pretty much utterly destroyed the paint job anyway.

I can't really judge the chooser of this color though, because I know EXACTLY how it came to me: the stark cabinets and black counters and modern handles ended up looking a little cold and boring, so yellow was chosen to "warm the room up," or some other great idea that only works if you have any real eye for color. Which they didn't. (400 different shades of beige! Every wall a slightly different shade of beige! That's not a color scheme, that's an obessive compulsive disorder!).

So my ideas begin and end with: Let's paint it white. At least white won't actively clash and bug me so much. But then there are the floors, which are a darkish reddish hardwood, and ALSO kind of clash with the modern black and white. We installed the floors back when we were so sure that a kitchen makeover was next on our to-do list. Back before everything went, you know, BOOM.

(We also wanted floors that matched our dog, just so she could camouflage herself for maximum Getting Stepped On. Success!)

So there you have it. We need a new paint color. The appliances are all white, and will likely be staying that way (see: BOOM, etc.). Would you paint the walls white? White with an accent wall? Totally not white but some other awesome color that I'm too stupid to think off? (And one that we also wouldn't have to paint over in the unlikely even that we DO move in a couple years, like the crazy bright blue we had in our old kitchen that we thought was SO AWESOME until we painted it white before listing our condo and then were all, "Oh. This looks much better. Huh.")

Also, please know that I am not handy enough to attempt anything like a tile backsplash or really, anything other than paint. Although I AM incredibly tempted by shit like this, which seems cheap and easy and thus guaranteed to end in disaster.

Thank you, dear one Internet, for any help you can provide in this clearly very important matter.

Sincerely,
PRINCESS AUDITOR GENERAL AMALAH SPARKLE HEADBAND OF THE NIGERIAN AMALAHALAHS, ESQ.

Pansy

I spent all weekend planting things. OUTSIDE things. OUTSIDE, where there are bugs. Worms. Dirt. Nature.

After working diligently for two whole minutes I commented to Jason that this wasn't so bad. This wasn't so bad at all!

We've spent the last 10 months or so going back and forth about whether we really want to stay out here in the suburbs -- we kind of hate it, honestly -- and we were *thiiiiiis close* to making an offer on a condo in our old neighborhood (hell, practically in our old building) right after Ezra was born (hell, he was still pruny and gory) but then waffled for five minutes because HELLO, pruny gory baby and our house wasn't ready to sell (despite our best psychotic nesting efforts) and then the condo went under contract and All The Stuff With Noah happened and finally we both admitted that yes, we really really really do want to move back to the city but it's just not the right time yet, maybe next year, in the meantime, let's get outside and plant some goddamn tulips.

So there I was, planting things -- some bulbs for next year, some shrubs and groundcover and a million and four purple and yellow pansies -- and after I planted the third bulb and STILL hadn't gotten bored and/or irritated enough to wander away from the project, I degreed that yardwork really wasn't so bad.

That's when Jason noticed that I was planting two-year-old dead and dried-out husky shells of bulbs instead of actual living bulbs that would...you know...grow. He suggested I move on to the pansies.

I spent hours planting pansies. Yellow, purple, yellow, purple. We dragged Ezra's Jumperoo out onto the lawn with us, using him as bait to Finally Get Our Neighbors To Talk To Us, while I planted and planted and every exposed inch of my skin broke out in various kinds of rashes (when I was in elementary school and was quizzed on my extremely long list of allergies I usually gave up halfway through and simply said I was allergic to "OUTSIDE").

(Photo not actually representative of this story, but inserted anyway because HELLO TALKY.)

When I was done, I had several garden beds of somewhat pathetic little lines of droopy pansies -- nothing like those landscaping shows that I watch whenever I'm in a "let's make the best of the suburbs!" mood. (Whenever I'm in a "screw this, let's move back to the city!" mood I watch shows about real estate, and whenever I'm in a "we probably couldn't move even if we wanted to because goddamn this economy!" mood I watch the Food Network for 76 hours straight and order a lot of pizzas.)

We still decided it was a Good Start, since the previous owners hadn't exactly exerted a ton of landscaping effort either -- when we visited an area nursery soon after we moved in we found a clearance table all the way in the back that featured every single plant and shrub currently residing in our yard. Next weekend we mulch, or something, I don't know, and then after that we start on some serious vegetable container gardens in the backyard. Or something. I don't know! Last year we grew herbs and tomatoes and this year Jason bought a book and is growing salad and peppers and is promising me all sorts of amazing things and I think he may very well have lost his goddamned mind.

Meanwhile, every indoor plant we brought here from our old condo has died of root rot. I feel very responsible. My misguided belief that we really needed More Closet Space led to plant genocide, including my favorite jade plant, which was the first one to die, and at the time I was all, "oh well, who cares, I have extra bathrooms!" but I've never stopped thinking about that plant, because I loved that plant, and I miss that plant, and how lovely it always looked on the windowsill at our old condo. And while I'm no gardening expert or a pyschologist, I get that it's probably not REALLY about that plant.

Meanwhile, I have a splinter in my foot and my back hurts and I couldn't sleep last night because I was stressing about how we need to cover our new plants with some sheets tonight so they won't freeze and do I have enough clean sheets? But I suppose that's preferable to stressing about April 16th, the freshly-set date for Noah's evaluation with the school district -- speech, motor, hearing, vision, social skills, sensory issues, the whole shebang -- an evaluation that will likely decide for us whether we belong here or elsewhere, whether the district will help him or if we remain on our own, whether it's worth staying where we're unhappy or time to move on, Montessori vs. special needs vs. something in between, public vs. private, suburbs vs. city, whether or not we'll still be here next spring when the periennials return.

Housekeeping Not Involving My House

Honestly, I could do an entire photo essay about nothing more than the various large, gaping holes in my walls and ceilings at this point. There are at least seven of them, and I am getting better at ignoring them every day. It's like hands-free breastfeeding. It just takes practice.

Anyway. Website housekeeping! Exactly the kind of post everybody hates, but please. I just had a baby. I bought clothes and diapers for a linebacker and gave birth to a peanut. I thought the two Miracle Blankets we received as gifts (thank you Michael and Amy!!) would be enough but now! I know! You can never have enough Miracle Blankets! Miracle Blankets are a gift from God himself! The gift of sleep and silence and showers -- all in a miraculous blanket form!

I came into the bedroom this morning to find the dog sleeping on our LAST! CLEAN! MIRACLE BLANKET! and I nearly killed her right then and there, but then I remembered that Ezra is our second child, and that I could maybe use the lint roller on the blanket instead of rewashing it, but then I couldn't find the lint roller and just sort of shook it out real vigorously for a minute before reswaddling His Delicate Preshusness.

Wait. I was not coming here to write anything today. Was I? No. I was not. I was coming here to say:

• That I will be back posting at Mamapop as of today. Hooraaaaay pop culture drivel! And subsequently getting my writerly ass handed to me by all the other amazing authors over there! I've missed you, babies.

• Guest authors continue over at the Advice Smackdown, for just a little longer. But I really doubt anyone is missing me over there, because the guest authors have all been supremely awesome and interesting. This week: Holly from Nothing But Bonfires writes about how to maximize your pre-trip neuroses (and possibly, How Not To End Up In Newark, AMALAH), Isabel from Hola Isabel reviews some super extra crazy cheap lip glosses, and Nicole from Not Perfect returns to talk about knocked-up bridesmaids.

• HOWEVER, lest you think that I have just been laying around eating Halloween candy for close to three weeks now while I let other people care for my Internet Empire, I somehow got talked into writing stuff over at this site for Luvs. It's a once-a-week thing for two months, and I'm supposed to write about valuable tips to help save you money and time. Which is probably not my forte, since it is currently 11:41 am and all I have managed to accomplish is four nursing sessions, two cups of coffee, seven emails and adding fourteen more Miracle Blankets to my Amazon cart. Miracle Blankets that I CANNOT PAY FOR, UNLESS YOU VISIT THE LUVS SITE AND LEAVE COMMENTS AND YOU WOULD IF YOU LOVED ME! WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME? IS IT THE CAPS LOCK SCREAMY THING? IS IT?

• Ahem. My money-saving tip for this week involves stealing shit from the hospital. Free maxipads, people! Shove one package in your suitcase and pretend you used them all! And then they'll bring you ANOTHER PACKAGE!


• You are welcome.


• (I really have been eating a lot of Halloween candy.)

• (He also really does love the Miracle Blanket. Usually.)
  

Four, Three, Two Days

Yep. Still pregnant. TiVo has two more days to come out peacefully before we go in after him.

(Comparison shot at 40 weeks from last time, although slightly more STRAIGHT-ON CLOSE-UP OH-THE-HORROR.)

And yes! These were taken in the same mirror as every other belly shot I've taken over the past year. The completely different furniture? Yeah. I did that. It needed to be done. The itching and the leg twitching and the terrible, terrible screaming wouldn't stop until I could say that truly, we have officially rearranged the furniture in every damn room in the house.

(Last night I had just upended both of our bedside endtables [the doors were opening the wrong way and each needed to be swapped to the other side, but of course that meant the contents needed to be swapped and while I was there I MIGHT AS WELL completely purge and reorganize them, I mean, really] when I realized that I was supposed to be meeting a bunch of bloggers who are here for the DC BlogHer mini-thing going on, which of course I didn't register for because hello! Still pregnant on October 13th? Fuck that idea and you and everything else in the entire world grrrarrr.)

(I made it to the dinner on time. I'm sure I was fucking DELIGHTFUL ray of sunshine. I ate a burrito and later woke up at 4 am timing what I hoped were contractions but were probably just gas.)

Now.

I know we've all had a lot of laughs at my expense regarding the crazy, crazy nesting thing that I do. I fully own up to the fact that I go way beyond nesting. Fuck twigs and feathers and dusting the baseboards -- I'd probably up and build a house from the ground up if you'd let me. Unhappy with your home renovation project? Don't hire just another contractor to take over -- get yourself a nine-months-pregnant lady in there. Extreme Nesting: Hardhat Oh-My-God-How-Am-I-Not-In-Labor-Already Edition.

But.

If you want to know why there is currently about five or six inches of a metal drill bit sticking out of my roof, let me assure you that I had NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

Okay, maybe a little bit, since it was my idea to turn our cluttered, unused office area into more of a dressing/walk-in closet area, and this meant we also needed to rearrange the rest of the bedroom furniture, which meant moving the TV, which meant the cable outlet was now on the wrong wall, which meant a visible curling cable wire snaking across the room, lying in wait to jump up and snag you in the ankles, POSSIBLY WHILE YOU WERE HOLDING A NEWBORN, which meant we needed to run cable into a different wall.

Jason was all over this job, because POWER TOOLS. In particular, his BIG FUCKING ASS DRILL BIT, long enough to drill through walls and God knows what else. Lesser men's egos, perhaps.

It actually seemed simple enough, what with a closet on the other side of the wall and the attic above and he started drilling through the closet ceiling and then heading up to the attic to check for the hole to drop the cable into and...hmm. No hole. Must drill more! Harder, deeper, MOAR.

This went on a few times. No hole in the attic flooring. More drilling. Then...the drill bit got lodged in something. Jason guessed a two-by-four. And he couldn't get it out. The drill's motor coughed and choked and then gave up the ghost.

"Goddamit," he said. "I think I have to go buy a more powerful drill."

Needless to say, I was annoyed, because we really don't have the money right now for a more powerful drill. In my mind, since Jason told me we didn't have the money right now for a trip to Ikea for Storage Solutions (thus necessitating the relocation of old beat-up dressers instead of the actual walk-in-closet coordinating system of my organizational wet dreams), we don't have the money right now for ANYTHING. Especially drills that I will never use and will not help me categorize my shoes by heel height.

Jason left to go the hardware store. I continued sorting my pajamas in nursing-friendly and non-nursing-friendly categories, then got to work on my annotated and footnoted list of things that need to go into the hospital bag right before we leave.

(Samples: iPOD & HEADPHONES --> buy that damn Kid Rock song off iTunes first okay shut up; PILLOW & NURSING PILLOW --> pack in shopping bag for swiping hospital supplies later.)

A few minutes later he came back inside.

"Well. Okay." he said. "I realize why I couldn't find the hole in the attic now."

"And?"

"The hole is...in our roof."

So. Yes. While drilling through the closet ceiling, my husband drilled too close to the edge of the house and into a front vestibule-ish thing and THAT is why there is a drill bit sticking up out of our roof right now.

(Alternate caption: Luuuucyyyyy!)

I think that's all I need to say about that, except that I laughed and laughed until tears poured down my face and I could only barely manage to tell Jason that while I don't think I've ever been this furious with him, the thought of him having to call a professional roofer and explain this one makes it all so completely worth it.

Eight Days

So hey! Let's tear the shit out of the house.

And tomorrow a plumber is coming to tell me how much it will cost to completely fuck up the guest bathroom. Impeccable timing! We has it!

(We also has a LOT of holes in the ceiling, suddenly. That's at least two more than I bargained for right there.)

But! Properly centered light fixtures, new wall outlets, a motion-sensing lamp for the backyard and a ceiling fan that you can actually control using the WALL SWITCH instead of the SWITCH THAT IS BEHIND THE INSULATION UPSTAIRS IN THE ATTIC AND I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING ABOUT THAT are all essential things that you MUST have before they let you bring a baby home. Which we will be doing. Next week. At some point. After he is born. In eight days. Oh my God.

He has a name, finally, at least. I SUPPOSE that's almost as important as wall outlets. MAYBE.

Famous Last Words

FRIDAY:

"I don't think I've got the nesting thing as bad this time, you know?"

"Oh yeah, you're much calmer. You haven't even said a single word about replacing the kitchen cabinets."

SATURDAY:

I made us drive two states and like, four counties south to look at houses, because I thought we could cut our mortgage in half and get a single family home with a garage and a whirlpool tub in the master bath and you know what we could do with all that extra money every month? We could replace the kitchen cabinets! I am brilliant! This is a brilliant plan! I've got a stack of realtor.com printouts and a good feeling about this one zip code, which is ridiculously extra cheap and I'm guessing it's just because other people have never HEARD of this zip code and not for like, a real valid reason like you need to keep a cattle prod handy to keep your neighbor's herd out of your tomato garden.

SUNDAY:

Okay, so that didn't go super well. I'm not ready to give up. I have a NEW stack of realtor.com printouts and a few different neighborhoods triangulated on the GPS. We won't drive QUITE so far out this time, and I have a really good feeling about THIS zip code, which is also strangely cheap even though it's really close to an area we totally can't afford, and again I'm just going to assume that this neighborhood simply hasn't crossed anyone else's mind as an option and not because of like, rapes and shootings and gangs and drive-bys. Or tractor-bys. Look at this little yellow house! It's precious! It's adorable! I know there aren't any photos of the inside and we've heard crazy stories about people pooping in the appliances and pouring cement down the pipes when the bank repossesses their house but NO ONE would do something like that to such a precious little house like this one, right?

SUNDAY NIGHT, AFTER WE GOT HOME AND INSTALLED A NEW LIGHT FIXTURE IN THE DINING ROOM WHICH MEANT WE HAD TO REARRANGE THE DINING ROOM FURNITURE AND HANG NEW PICTURE FRAMES, AND NOW WE NEED TO CALL AN ELECTRICIAN BECAUSE I WANT THE LIGHT FIXTURE CENTERED OVER THE DINING ROOM TABLE'S NEW POSITION AND OH MY GOD WE ARE SOOOO REPLACING THAT UGLY RUG AND AFTER WE RELOCATED THE LIQUOR CABINET AND REARRANGED THE LIVING ROOM FURNITURE TO ACCOMMODATE OUR NEW COFFEE TABLE THAT WE GOT AT THE POTTERY BARN OUTLET AND PULLED EVERYTHING OFF THE BOOKSHELVES TO MAKE THE ROOM SEEM LESS CLUTTERED AND I MADE JASON ORGANIZE OUR DVD COLLECTION WHILE I IRONED THE DRAPES:

"So what if we just REFACE the kitchen cabinets?"

33 Weeks, Stuff & Nonsense

At this week's OB appointment, my doctor announced that the baby is starting to measure...and hold the fuck on to your fucking hats..."a tad big." While I've always known that another big baby was likely, I was a little surprised to hear this. (Although really, with my half-assed approach to nutrition, my European approach to a glass of wine with dinner, and the many many voicemails from Target Pharmacy's auto-fill program reminding me AGAIN to come pick up my damn prenatal vitamins, I'm not sure what else I could do recklessly wrong to keep the baby at a manageable size. Smoking, maybe. Some hardcore drugs. Cutting back on the 1,500-calorie burritos. You know, INSANE AWFUL THINGS.)

I just remembered being much BIGGER last time, so I went through my archives in search of a 33-week belly photo.

33 weeks then:

33 weeks now:

So...not so much of a difference as I thought. Bring on the 3-6 month onesies!

While I was poking around those entries, three things occurred to me. 1) I was really very annoying back then and you should not ever read back that far, 2) in spite of that, I'd still say this blog has gone downhill in a big way, so you should probably not be reading now either, and 3) OH MY GOD I'VE NEVER FORCED YOU TO LOOK AT NURSERY PHOTOS YET.

I probably devoted three freaking months' worth of entries to Noah's nursery. The nursery we ended up leaving behind, the nursery that is now a plain white room that appears to be a very cluttered office of some kind, and what? Like it's MY FAULT that the new owners of our condo never pull the blinds down?

So. Uh. Look! We have room here that is slowly starting to look like something a baby might live in one day!

I waited until a nice dark rainy day to take pictures, lest you start thinking that I'm not still half-assing everything around here.

The theme is "The Green Paint That Was Here When We Moved In, A Bunch Of Yellow Stuff Leftover From Noah's Nursery, Plus Black & White Butterflies That My Mother-In-Law Painted, Because Black Makes It Like, Manly And Stuff."

There will eventually be dozens and dozens of butterflies, but my mother-in-law wanted to do more RESEARCH about different SPECIES first.

This is a rough mock-up of what the room would look like if I attempted to decorate it myself.

I'm hoping Noah gets his eye for detail and design from his father's side of the family.

(By the way, since so many people have asked about sending preemptive-strike sibling-rivalry gifts to Noah, rest assured that we're on it. That six-pack of FLOR carpet samples may very well be the GREATEST TOY WE HAVE EVER PURCHASED.)

The Bumbo chair (courtesy of the truly awesome Redneck Mommy) is also just a bottomless pit of entertainment options.

The sense of humor he clearly gets from me. God help us all.

(Also please note uncovered open electrical socket in the background. We're going for kind of an industrial look this time.)

Now please direct your attention to the HIGH-TECH DIAPER PAIL OF AWESOME from reader Sarah. It's fucking INFRARED, people. It opens and closes with a MOTION SENSOR. Is that not the most ridiculous, over-the-top thing you have ever heard of?

Needless to say, I'm so enchanted with it that I've been making a special trip from Noah's room into the nursery just to dispose of his mostly inoffensive night time Pull-Ups, and Jason rushes in to witness the process and then we stand there oohing and aahing for a good 10 minutes. And I wish I were exaggerating that in the slightest.

That concludes today's installment of Dr. Horrible's Snooze-Along Blog. Have a lovely long weekend, everybody. I will try to go out and injure myself in a not-harmful-to-baby but relatively-amusing way to make up for this crap.

Dear Jason, I Bring You the Gift of HYSTERICAL PREGNANT NESTING. You're Welcome.

For Jason's birthday, I made him finally replace that godawful Eyeball Nipple Lamp in the living room. Happy birthday, darling! Don't electrocute yourself, or else you might miss next year's birthday, when I make you reface the kitchen cabinets.

Installing this absolutely unremarkable lamp required two (2) trips back to the hardware store for missing parts, three (3) hours spent with the lamp hanging two feet down from the ceiling by a small mess of wires while we wondered how soon an electrician could come over and bail us out of this nightmare, and five (5) yards of embroidery thread, which was used in strange ways that I can't even adequately describe, except that we ended up having to like, WEAVE screws through holes, and that sounds like a dirty joke if you are Amish. Weave those screws, baby. You sure know how to churn my butter.

Now, if you come over to our house, I would like to ask that you refrain from standing on the coffee table to poke the New Lamp (I know, it's always so tempting), and also maybe from sitting on the couch and blowing really hard at it, because one set of screws we used is too long and the lamp kind of...wobbles. A lot.

I've also found another fixture that I like better than this one, but I figure we have a couple months before the stray knots of embroidery thread that are still tied around a bunch of internal screws catch on fire. Perfect! Now I don't have to make plans for our wedding anniversary.

The Cider Fridge Rules

Camera status: saved! A dry micro-shammy thing that was probably purchased off an infomercial many moons ago, back when I used to stumble home from bars and watch infomercials 'til morning -- damn, what a wild, crazy diamond I was back then -- lifted the crayon off the screen in about two minutes flat. The viewfinder was a tad more difficult, since Noah managed to really mash the crayon in there, but with a little help from a revolutionary new product (order now and get DOUBLE YOUR ORDER!) called a Q-tip, I was able to clean that up as well.

I possibly should have tried this, or you know, ANYTHING AT ALL before turning to the Internet, but...well, problem-solving is not my forte. I am not an Everyday Household Products As Practical Solutions Viking. I prefer to 1) panic, and 2) leave the problem for someone else to solve, lest I grab the Goof Off and allow it to leak into some tiny yet highly-sensitive electronic crevice and have the whole camera blow up in my hands like the Death Star, faster than you can bullseye a womprat.

Case in point: the rising levels of apple cider in our basement.

OK, so let me back up and explain that Jason and I operate our household firmly on a "smelt it/dealt it" system. You use the last of something, be it toilet paper or soap or whatever = you replace or refill it, right then and there. You toss a paper towel into the trash and it slides off the towering mound of garbage that's a good three inches past the brim of the can = put your shoes on; it's your turn to take it outside.

It's a fair system, but easily manipulated. Mostly by me. I will happily wander off to toss my paper towels into the powder room wastebasket for days on end if I suspect the kitchen trash is getting especially full and/or smelly. I will never admit that I actually don't understand how the under-the-sink soap-dispenser works and will wash my hands with dish detergent instead, I will then dry my hands on the ass of my jeans rather than retrieve a fresh hand towel from the dryer, and when confronted with a leaking gallon of apple cider in the basement refrigerator door I will just straight up ignore that shit until someone else figures out how to sponge up the three inches' worth of apple cider that has pooled into the shelf because seriously, that seems like it's going to take a LOT of paper towels.

OK, so let me back up some more. I did not buy the apple cider. I did not put the apple cider in the door of the basement refrigerator. I don't know why we had a gallon of apple cider in the door of the basement refrigerator and why it had sat there unused for six solid months. Thus, I ignored it. Jason likes to buy odd ingredients for recipes he finds online that he will never actually cook, but I am usually forbidden from finding an alternative use for them because NOOOO I WAS GONNA MAKE THAT TOMORROW I MEAN IT THIS TIME I SWEAR, even though I know he'll come home tomorrow and order a pizza instead.

(10 years of marriage this August, folks. We really should hit the how-to self-help circuit, since I'm sure we could be a real inspiration to dozens.)

Sooooo, our fridge tends to be littered with stray stalks of lemongrass and four distinct kinds of kale and smelly cheeses and the last time I looked closely in the freezer I spotted something that still seemed to have its head and neck and possibly an eyeball. Thus, I IGNORE THINGS. YOU CANNOT BLAME ME TOO MUCH.

And I ignored the cider at first. And then one day, about two months ago, when I opened the door to retrieve some bottled water, I realized that it was leaking. The rogue liquid was contained by a mercifully solid plastic shelf, but it was enough to pose a bit of a logistical problem, at least to me. Should I bail the shelf out, like with a cup? Would I need some sort of bucket? And what happened if I picked up the actual container of cider, only to discover that the shelf itself was stemming a total gush of the contents and it went everywhere? I have a lot of important piles of dirty laundry in that immediate area!

So I came up with my stop-gap solution: close the fridge door and go back upstairs, and then hope that Jason needed a bottle of water soon.

But then a problem arose -- Jason made trips to the basement fridge and said nothing about the cider, and the cider problem remained solidly un-taken-care-of. So I assumed we'd moved on to Phase Two of Operation Smelt It/Dealt It, which is a two-way battle of wills to see who can ignore a problem the longest. I tend to win these battles, especially when they are about clutter or dog poop or general squalor.

(I tend to lose the battles that involve insects inside the house and anything that requires the use of a power tool, because those are things JASON IS SUPPOSED TO DO FOR ME, AM GIRL, and he gets a tremendous kick out of watching me slowly wig out, yellow-wallpaper style, over a crooked curtain rod or OMFG THAT SPIDER OVER THERE DO SOMETHING DOOOOOO SOMETHING.)

(10 years! I believe the traditional gift is tin!)

Ahem. So. Cider. Rising. Leaking. Three inches of liquid slowly turned to four, and then last weekend I opened the door and a small amount of cider splashed up and over the side of the shelf and dripped on the floor, narrowly missing my pile of sweaters that have been waiting for the Dryel bag since...hmm...some of them are kind of cropped so I'm gonna have to guess mid-2004-ish.

I went upstairs and announced to Jason that I was Crying Uncle, it was time to break down and do something about the cider.

"What cider?" he asked.

I stared at him. "Please. You are not saying that you simply have not NOTICED the rising levels of apple cider in the refrigerator door? That has been there for TWO MONTHS?"

He stared back. "So...you're saying that there has been some kind of leaking liquid in our fridge for two months, and you've...just...IGNORED it?"

"I...uh...I thought you were ignoring it too. Isn't that the rule?"

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? WHAT RULE? JESUS CHRIST." And then he stormed down the basement steps while I stammered excuses about not knowing what to do and I figured he would because he's the engineer and I didn't know what towels to use because what if I used his good shop towels and the shelf/pressure/dam theory I had and I kind of thought maybe I could vacuum it up but that's probably not good for the vacuum, right? Right? Baby? You love me, baby, right?

Jason opened the refrigerator and looked at the cider. He gently picked up the half-empty container and swiftly placed it in the utility sink. Which is about two feet away from the refrigerator.

"OH!" I said.

And then he gently detached the entire shelf from the door and dumped the contents down the drain.

"OHHH!" I said again.

He rinsed the shelf out and snapped it back into place. He stared at me for a few seconds while I pulled a Lucille Ball face and sensed the years of feminist progress washing down that utility sink drain, and then he kissed me very sweetly and went back upstairs without another word.

The scene of my dark shame. Somebody should really carry that out to the recycle bin, don't you think?