7QT: 2 October 2015

1. I did a victory lap yesterday on our successful night-weaning, and it bit me on the rear with a quickness. The little booger screamed for hours last night, and being well-rested already feels like a distant memory.

2. I have the itchiest inner ears in the whole entire world. I'm starting to think I'm allergic to something I consume on the daily because... Okay, so you know how when people in movies have allergic reactions, they always start knuckling at their ears?



Hitch does it right about 0:50 in case you have no earthly idea what I'm talking about. I want to do that all the time. Or stick pointy things in there and dig around. It is not good.

3. We're looking for another new rental. We had hoped to be long gone to our new life in San Antonio by now, but it's taking its time happening. (We're waiting to do this in God's time, but after a bunch of very hopeful signs waaaay back in 2012, He has started to take His sweet time about it.)

I'm not going to tell this whole story because these Takes would cease to be Quick, but the takeaway is: please pray for us that we find something with more space for less money. (Stop laughing.)

4. It's soup weather! I'm making soup this week even though Michael claims to hate soup. Really, what he hates is plain chicken broth. I have never put mere broth in front of him, and whenever I make soup he likes it, and then promptly forgets that he liked it and goes back to "hating soup." Does anyone else's husband pull these shenanigans?

5. I turned on an old episode of Chopped while I write my 7QT and then put on my face and one of the chefs just said he plans to "take as many risks as he can safely take." That just makes me laugh and laugh.

6. Anybody got a good recipe for gluten-free chocolate cake that will be like cake and not like fudgy brownie? Keira's birthday is next weekend, she requested "chocolate cake with spickles" (sprinkles), and a couple of her cousins are gluten-free. I've been trolling Pinterest and I've found some things that look promising but I'd rather make something that's been vouched for by someone. I'd do some test cakes but then we'd have to eat them and I am fat enough thank you.

7. Facebook has really been getting me down recently. I wish there were a filter for political nonsense. I just want to see people's kids, funny memes and life events, and I'll even happily check out what you're eating! I just don't want to read about how I'm obviously soul-less because I disagree with you about gun control and abortion. Get on that, Zuckerberg. (Alternatively, can we all just agree to keep politics on Twitter?)

AMT: Congratulations on the new baby, Kendra!

Earlier this week I wrote up my experience (so far!) with NFP for NFP Awareness Week. It's been my most-read post to date (except for a few here and there that were part of one link-up or another). It seems like it was mostly well-received -- at least no one complained! If you missed it, check it out!

Okay so we're here for this week's the summer's final installment of Answer Me This. Here we go:

The estimable Kendra at Catholic All Year has brought back her popular linkup, Answer Me This, for the summer, ending this week. Here's Kendra's answers!

P.S. Kendra just had a baby yesterday! At home by accident! And I was only off by about 12 hours in the baby pool, and I guessed Mary Anne instead of Mary Jane, but I'm thinkin' I was pretty darn close, even if I didn't win.

1. What's your favorite grocery store splurge?
Heavy cream. A splash in my coffee, a splash in the oatmeal I'm tired of eating every day to help keep my breastmilk supply up... Heavy cream makes everything better. 

{AND I just found Red Robin steak fries in the freezer case on Friday! I bought some -- on sale, so maybe not quite a splurge? -- but haven't tried them yet.}

2. How's your penmanship?
I actually have really good handwriting. I went to Catholic school, so that helps, but really I think it must be genetic because I have the same handwriting as my sister, my mom, and most of my mom's sisters. My sixth-grade religion teacher once told me that my handwriting was "almost perfect" except that it's "too flowery." Because of the loops in my o's or something. I left the loops alone because I like them. Also that's just how my hand moves.

I have to admit it's less neat than it used to be. I was going to try harder for my sample but in the end I decided to keep it real. Which is why I also didn't try to hard to find a piece of paper that didn't have that weird bump where the Post-It sticks to its pad. (Laaaaay-zeeeeeeee!)

3. Do you have a "Summer Bucket List?"
I do not. We just got back from vacation last Sunday and I feel like it's all a downhill skid to snow on the ground from here, but a million years until Christmas, which is the only good thing about winter. Working full time really puts a damper on "summer" as a concept. Sometimes I feel like the only benefit is not having to wrestle the kids into coats to take them to daycare (which is actually a huge benefit!). 

I did not realize how deep in the summer doldrums I am until I answered that question! Sorry for being such a downer! Yeesh.

We have been making a real effort to take the kids to parks regularly on weekends. Keira thinks it's the greatest thing that ever happened to her to be at a playground, even if it's 10 million degrees and humid and no kids will play with her (what is wrong with kids these days?!). Declan tolerates it. He's just mad he can't run around yet.

4. What's the best thing on the radio right now?
I almost never listen to the radio. I don't spend much time in the car, I don't think I even have a radio except for internet streaming in the house, and I keep the car well-stocked with CDs. If I am listening to the radio, it's usually talk -- TheBlaze radio, mostly.

5. Ice cream or frozen yogurt?
Ice cream. With chunks of something crunchy. Plus extra chunks. Crunchy crunch!

AMT: Vacation Debrief!

I fell back into bloggy silence again by accident. (Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!)

We got back yesterday afternoon from a family vacation. We are very fortunate that my parents own a house at the Jersey shore -- and let me just get this out of the way: it is NOT like you may have seen on that horrible "reality" show! -- and so we were able to have ten days of family time on the relatively-cheap. My parents provide the accommodations and we provided the food (which, given that we eat like kings on vacation, is a non-trivial expense, but it's absolutely worth it).

So now that we're home I have 80 million* non-bloggy things to do, but FIRST I have to photo dump our good time on you -- don't be mad -- and also tack an Answer Me This to the end because I accidentally haven't been attending the virtual cocktail party. 

Heeeeeeeeeeeere we go!

 

Riding in cars with dinosaurs.

"I'm ready for the beach, Mama!"

So bagel. Much happy.

And a beer-ita for Mom -- not at the same time of day. {Seriously, check out the recipe at that link. Amaze.}

Coolest.

This is her first solo ice cream experience {I have no idea how I pulled THAT off}, and her life will never be the same.

Evening grace.

That beach life.

Anna, Olaf, Elsa, and a hat that makes her look like a hobo.

Daddy swapped out a toilet for Mimi and Grandad. This photo opportunity was not to be missed. {This toilet was brand new out of the box! Relax!}

Aunt Kenzie had a bright idea. This took quite a bit of toddler wrangling, but we told her it would look like Up and she cooperated and I think the trouble was worth it!

After all that time together, I'm going to seriously miss my babies today, as they're back to daycare. (We magically got them and Daddy out the door early this morning, and that left me just enough time to blog before getting to ALL THE WORK.) As they all trundled off to their days this morning, I felt really sad.

But dat silence, doe. {Heart-eyes emoji.}

Ooooooookay: Quick AMT, and then I'm off and running!

The estimable Kendra at Catholic All Year has brought back her popular linkup, Answer Me This, for the summer. Here's how it goes: she posts the questions one week; you take your leisurely time answering. The next week, she posts her answers and next week's questions. Join us, won't you?

1. What's currently on your To Do list?
All. The. Things. We have mountains of vacation laundry, and I have to get back to work, and we have no food in the house, and I have to pick up a couple of packages at the UPS store thanks to poor we're-going-to-be-out-of-town-so-don't-order-anything-to-be-delivered-dummy planning on my part. Plus other stuff. Eek.


2. Better type of superhero: magic/radioactive powers? Or trauma/gadgets/hard work?
Hmmmm. I'm going to go with a combination platter. I like Daredevil, who lost his parents and had plenty of trauma, and is also blind. He lost his sight by accidentally coming in contact with some radioactive something-or-other that took his vision but enhanced his other senses to superhero levels. So now he can hear an eyelash hit the ground and fight like nothing else, and he goes out and dispenses vigilante justice (which is a bad, bad idea in The Real World but satisfies me to no end in the Marvel universe). By day he practices law and fights for the underdog. AND he's Catholic.

3. Finding out if baby is a boy or a girl before birth: Good idea? Bad idea?
Our first baby was a surprise. I wanted to find out but my husband really wanted to wait, so we struck a deal that if it was one baby, we'd be surprised. If it had been multiples, we would have found out. It was one baby and I was unsurprised to be told she was a girl at her birth -- we were armed with unisex everything, but I just knew. With the second baby, Daddy's practical side won out and he decided he'd like to know this time whether all of our girl stuff was going to need to be dug out of our impractical storage. So we found out at our 20 week ultrasound.

Having done both, I prefer finding out. I torture myself over baby naming, and I found it to be a huge relief to not have to decide on names for both sexes when I was only going to have one baby. And I just like to know stuff.

EDIT: I also realized that a big motivator for me is that I loathe calling my baby "It." 

4. Have you ever appeared on a stadium jumbotron?
Yes! When I was in college at the University of Delaware, we used to caravan down to Camden Yards for an Orioles game at least once a year. (I'm a Phillies fan, insofar as I follow baseball, but O's tickets are substantially cheaper!) Then we made it our mission to have enough fun -- clean, sober fun, since we could absolutely not afford stadium booze -- to be worth broadcasting on the Jumbotron. 

5. Are you more book smart or more street smart?
I'd say, just like I'm equally right- and left-brained, I'm probably pretty well equal in this sense too. I was good at school and I'm capable in life. 

(I've always thought that "capable" was a word that sounded way less impressive than it actually is; it kind of connotes "able to get by" but I always mean it as "able to figure out stuff and then do it reasonably well." And if you're able to figure out stuff and then do it reasonably well, you're doing fine.)

6. Have you had that baby yet? (Feel free to skip this one if it's not applicable to you.)
Almost seven months ago! Jeez! ;) He still sleeps like a newborn though, God help me.

* Slightest of exaggerations. {It's probably more like 76 million.}

Answer Me This: God Bless America!

The estimable Kendra at Catholic All Year has brought back her popular linkup, Answer Me This, for the summer. Here's how it goes: she posts the questions one week; you take your leisurely time answering. The next week, she posts her answers and next week's questions. Join us, won't you?

1. How did you celebrate the 4th of July? (Or, for you international types . . . Do anything fun this weekend?)
My brother-in-law was in town from San Diego with his wife and their new baby, so we spent the observed holiday, July 3, getting to meet our niece for the first time! 

And then for the actual 4th, we went down to my husband's aunt's house in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and enjoyed a lovely barbecue on the farm. I'm still dealing with the after-effects of cat dander torture, but nonetheless we had a lovely day. 

And Keira blew about 7,000,000 bubbles with her godmother.

And Declan continued to be cute with Uncle Todd.

2. Do you sunburn easily?
Not especially, thank goodness, because I am shamefully lax on personal skincare (although I usually have SPF on my face, thanks to my moisturizer). If I blast myself with sun right out of the gate after a long winter, I will burn, but it's going to turn to tan. If I take it easy at first and sloooowly get a base tan, the rest of the summer is easy going. My husband, on the other hand, is as pale as pale gets, and his burns turn right back to white, so I'm a crazy person about sunblock on my children, since I don't know which of us they're going to take after yet. So far my daughter is slowly turning a golden color through the sunblock, so hopefully she's going to have the tan skin and not the white burn-y skin.

3. Hot dogs. Yay or nay?
Yaaaaaaaaaay! I used to almost never eat them -- maybe one a year. But then I had babies and after babies I realized I love them, but only on the grill, and only cooked until they burst. And mostly without a bun. But: a blackened, burst, grilled hot dog with yellow mustard and dill pickle relish? My mouth actually just watered.

4. Have you ever personally set off fireworks?
Yeesh. One of my very reasonable fears is blowing myself up. I have had fireworks set off in my honor, though! My high school boyfriend (may he rest in peace) threw me a surprise Sweet 16, complete with illegal back yard fireworks. He was a sweetheart. 

5. Have you ever jumped off the high dive?
One time. I did not like it. Because if blowing myself up is one my fears, my very tip-top principle fear is falling. And jumping off the high dive, you're falling for SO LONG.

6. Do you do anything weird in your sleep?
I am capable of a whole conversation without actually waking. I make sense and everything! I will not, however, remember a thing about it. Also, I snore when I'm congested, but that's not that weird, probably.

Answer Me This: Ejection Seats and Atticus Finch.

The estimable Kendra at Catholic All Year has brought back her popular linkup, Answer Me This, for the summer. Here's how it goes: she posts the questions one week; you take your leisurely time answering. The next week, she posts her answers and next week's questions. Join us, won't you?

1. What's the best thing about your dad?
He can spin a yarn -- you can't believe a word he says, but you will be entertained {I'm not saying he's a liar, just a teaser}. I waffled a little bit about last week's AMT question about things you believed as a child; I almost shared some of the nonsense my dad told me, but ended up going boring with Santa anyway because ultimately I never believed my dad for long. 

For instance: once he had me and my immediately-younger sister very upset because he told us that the seat-adjustment lever was an ejection seat in his Jeep. He explained that it was there in case you were about to get into a head-on collision, and that the part where the sides of the car met the cloth of the roof had little explosive charges to blow the roof off. It seemed very real (I was probably 11 and my sister was 7 -- but I have to admit that even 20ish years later with an engineering degree under my belt, I still think it was pretty clever and entirely too plausible). 

He maybe took it a little too far when he said he was going to pull the lever and eject us under an overpass (Jeez, Dad) -- that's when my sister started hysterically crying into the Mylar balloon she'd gotten from the party from which we were returning home. Her face was silver where the Mylar rubbed off from her tears for the rest of the day! 

2. If you've got kids, what's the best thing about THEIR dad? (If you don't, feel free to substitute your grandfather or another father figure.) 
His generosity. My husband is a giver, and he would walk over broken glass for me or our kids. Or, you know, wear the 20lb baby and hold the toddler's hand on the way to breakfast while Mommy lurks and takes photographs.

3. What's the best advice your dad ever gave you? 
He's fond of the John Wooden quote, "The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother." And I think it's absolutely true for mothers too: I shall love my husband as a favor to my children. My dad has also always told me that the order of my devotion ought to be: God, then my spouse, then my children, then my other family, and then everyone else. Parents of littles, especially mothers I think, find it hard to put our spouses over our needy babies, but my dad was right. We have to maintain Us first and foremost amidst the chaos of molding young lives -- we made a vow to each other. 

4. What's something you have in common with your dad? 
I may have picked up his fondness for teasing. I hope I have a better sense of when it's going too far and I'm about to traumatize my kids! 

5. What's the manliest thing you know how to do? 
I am really good with my hands. I love power tools, although it's been years since I used one -- apartment living is a drag. And unlike a man, I do not think it a mark of weakness to take the proper precautions. {If I catch my husband doing electrical work without having turned off the breaker one more time...}

6. Who is your favorite fictional dad?
I'm sure 95% of everybody is going to say Atticus Finch. Because Atticus Finch is the best. And then when you watch the movie and realize that Gregory Peck is the absolute handsomest, you love Atticus Finch just a little bit more.

Answer Me This: The Triumphant Return!

It's baaaaaaaaack!

The estimable Kendra at Catholic All Year is bringing back her linkup, Answer Me This, for a limited time ("It's the McRib sandwich of blog linkups," haaaaaa). She wrote and posted the questions last week; I took my leisurely time answering. This week, she posted her answers and next week's questions. Join us, won't you? I don't know about y'all, but I like/need some prompting to post in this space right now, because my kids have been sleeping like garbage. F'reals.

1. Any big plans for the summer?
Ongoing potty training for my toddler, who will be three in October. Our nanny wants to potty train all of her toddlers (there are like five or six at daycare, I think?) together, so we maybe started this journey a bit before she was strictly ready. I'm not entirely sure she recognizes the sensation of needing to go, because she will regularly sit on her little potty for the length of an episode of Little Einsteins and then ten minutes later wet her panties. After four days of significantly more accidents than successful trips to the potty, I was ready to call it off, and then she had (comparatively) a really good day. And last night she even did a #2 on her potty, and that's a milestone. (Right? I've never done this before.) Anyway: please pray for us.

Other than that, we have some little trips scheduled here and there, plus ten days at my parents' at the beach in July. It seems like it's going to be mostly just us (plus my parents and my 19-year-old twin sisters who live there for the summer) which is kind of a bummer because Keira will miss her cousins, and kind of awesome because we won't all have to sleep together in one room for ten nights.

2. What is the strangest thing you believed as a child?
I believed in Santa for a REALLY long time. I was a logical child and that's actually why I believed: I was one of five children (six and seven -- the above-mentioned twins -- hadn't yet come along), and money was tight, always. Tight enough that a child would notice. But on Christmas morning it always seemed like there were so many presents they would burst through the windows. I distinctly remember being in elementary school and presenting my argument to my unbelieving friends: "Look, there is no way my parents can afford all those presents. It has to be Santa Claus." Also one year I sat on Santa's lap and he asked me about a picture that was on the fridge that I had drawn; he described it to me. Which in retrospect is kind of creepy, but at the time it seemed like proof.

3. What is your favorite amusement park ride? (can be a specific one at a specific park or just a type of ride)
I am prone to vicious motion sickness, so anything like the Scrambler might as well be called Barf Machine. I haven't been on those giant swings since I was a small child, and I think I would like it: wind in my hair, swinging my legs... Except I know I'd be tossing my cheese fries after, and I don't like to waste cheese fries. I like bumper cars/boats, because I'm in control and there's no whipping around. Luckily my children are 2 and five months so I have some time to just sit sedately on the merry-go-round while they react as if it's a roller coaster.

4. What's on your summer reading list?
I just downloaded Sabriel onto my Kindle. It kept popping up as a suggestion here and there and it was $1.99, so I can't vouch for it yet but it has glowing reviews in the young-adult-literature-enjoyed-by-adults oeuvre. I'm also re-reading the Song of Ice and Fire series because it's been years already and there are 248ish characters and twice that number of storylines and there are still more books to come out, if George R. R. Martin ever deigns to finish. I'm not a list-maker when it comes to reading; I tend to have three or four going at a time, scattered around the house. I'll read whatever's handy while nursing or waiting in line at Kohl's for ten million years to make a return. I'll probably try out of some of what's on Modern Mrs. Darcy's Summer Reading Guide if I get bored -- which is unlikely with two kids under 3 and too little sleep.

5. Have you ever fallen asleep in public?
I had an arrangement with the guy who sat in front of me in American Civics in tenth grade. He was my lookout, because I fell asleep in that class on the regular. I'm convinced it was a defense mechanism against the indoctrination that happens in your average American Civ class these days. (Which is why I intend to home-school my children.) Since then, I don't think I have -- I probably fit the clinical definition of an insomniac and I don't fall asleep easily.

6. What is your favorite smell?
The first thing that comes to mind is honeysuckle. Or lavender. Which is weird because I would tell you quite definitively that I'm not into florals. Oooh, I know: lemon. It's lemon.

Also! On an unrelated note: my second-youngest sister, Mackenzie, has opened an Etsy store. She sells vintage maps, hand-lettered with the saying of your choice. They're quite reasonably priced (... because she didn't listen to me; I think she could get a lot more!) and she does a great job. She's saving up to finish her last two years of her undergraduate education at St. Louis University in Madrid (my sister lives in Spain!) to become a Spanish teacher, and you could get some great art, hand-lettered with a Bible verse or (short) saint quote and help her out, if you so wish. No pressure. ;) 

AND FINALLY, because I haven't been great about posting and kids grow so fast, here's what my kids look like right now: 

Keira requested pizza for dinner, and got it! PLUS PEPPERONI! She wasn't at all happy about it, as you can tell.

And this chunky monkey, at five months old, has begun wearing size 12 month clothing. We skipped right over the 9 month size because I figured there was no point, and I was right. Declan Michael, what are they feeding you? (The answer is: breast milk. Plus one 5 oz. bottle of formula a day, which he almost never finishes.)

Seven Quick Takes - April 24, 2015

These Quick Takes are in no particular order. They're up and down from important to trivial and back again.

1. It is almost May in Virginia and when my two-year-old walked out the door this morning, the first thing she said, while her hair blew back from her sweet little toddler face, was, "Ohhh it is COLD out here." Seriously, VA, what's up. Dwija's Instagram has been making me jealous, and she lives IN MICHIGAN.

2. Grey's Anatomy hit the airwaves at some point while I was in college. I graduated in 2005; I'm not going to look up when it actually debuted because I don't care that much, but I distinctly recall watching with my roommates. I quit watching a couple of years later, I think around the time Kate Walsh went to that terrible spin-off I cannot recall the name of, that I quit immediately because holy manufactured drama, Batman (and then I was mad I'd ever watched any of it when I found out how radically pro-abortion Kate Walsh is). Aaaaaanyway: I haven't thought about Grey's in years, but this morning my Facebook had exploded with ridiculousness because SPOILER ALERT, they killed off McDreamy. I saw at least two people declare that they needed to take bereavement time from work today, and three separate people said they were sitting shiva.

It made me laugh, and then it made me so relieved that I'm completely divested from Shondaland. I hope that all those people can see their way clear to get a life soon.

3. This is National Infertility Awareness Week. I wrote about my experience with infertility here.

4. We finally shuffled the furniture around so that little man would have a real place to sleep. He hadn't been doing so great in the Rock 'n Play anymore because he weighs like 20 lbs at almost four months and every time he moved the thing creaked and the creaking would wake him up. So two weeks ago we transitioned Keira to a big-girl bed...

And then yesterday we finally had the time to move the guest bed out of my office and move the crib from Keira's room into the office so that Declan could have the crib.

It was all very, very promising. And then Declan, my good sleeper, slept like crap. I'm hoping it's just the transition, and the fact that we haven't hung the blackout curtain yet, and the fact that I need to put electrical tape over the 1,000 bright little LEDs on my office equipment, and he'll be back to sleeping like a champion again soon. This week has been challenging.

5. I'm expecting a new little niece or nephew any minute. Please say a quick prayer for my sister-in-law, so that she has a quick and uneventful delivery of little Tanner or Bryn (unless they change their minds about the names).

6. This week, a judge ruled that Sherri Shepherd is, in fact, the mother of the child she and her husband commissioned from a surrogate. ("Commissioned" is the most accurate term. The baby boy is biologically the child of Shepherd's ex-husband and a donor, but Shepherd was complicit in the ordering of a child as if children are custom couches instead of unique and precious gifts from God.) This makes me so disgusted. Please say another prayer for that poor baby, who's going to grow up someday and find out that his father had to go to court to force his mother to be his mother.

7. I think I found a new favorite meal. I had made this kielbasa and potatoes recipe for dinner a couple of nights ago. It's the non-soup version of this Crock-Pot potato and kielbasa chowder, which I LOVE and my husband loves less, because he's not into soup (i.e. he's a crazy person). We had a ton of leftovers because 5 large potatoes and a pound of kielbasa makes a lot of food -- plus we obviously had to have a vegetable on the side so I couldn't just totally fill our plates with it like I'd have wanted if I didn't have to be concerned about our health. Stupid health. It occurred to me that the leftovers would be perfect for breakfast with eggs. Specifically soft-boiled eggs. But I'd never made soft-boiled eggs before and I struggle out of all proportion with hard-boiled eggs and soft-boiled seemed even harder. So I hopped on Pinterest and found a tutorial that was perfect. And easy. And when I opened up the perfectly soft-boiled egg and the yolk ran down into my potatoes and kielbasa...

I may have cried. With deliciousness.

Seriously.

Thanks to Kelly for hosting!

7QT: March 20, 2015

Linking up with Kelly for 7 Quick Takes!

1) Happy first day of spring! It is flipping snowing.


2) This is the end of my second week back to work after maternity leave. I miss my little man, and he misses me. So far at daycare he's opted to eat or sleep, and not a single day has he done both. His record for eating there is something like 10 ounces of breastmilk in a whole day (so much is getting wasted! Waaaaah!), and yesterday he drank four. All day. Four ounces. This from a kid who is not even three months old and already weighs 15 lbs. But he slept over five hours, so there's that. And he spends his evenings like this:

Blooooooooob.

3) I got so much work done these past two weeks; my job depends so much on having a full pipeline and obviously after twelve weeks off my pipeline is somewhat diminished, so that's a big deal. As a reward I spent my lunch break yesterday seeing Cinderella. Disney has a history of getting things very wrong, in my opinion, but they got this one right. I give the credit to Kenneth Branagh -- although I really want to know who's responsible for Helena Bonham-Carter's teeth. She couldn't talk around them! And that is literally my only complaint. I'll be buying this one for my daughter, who at two is not ready for the movie theatre.

Have courage, and be kind.


4) During my last week of maternity leave, my husband happened to be traveling for work. My mom and sister came into town from Pennsylvania for two of the four days to help me out with the kids. While they were here, we sent the toddler to daycare one day and we did an epic cleanout of my closet. You may remember that my Lenten sacrifice has been shopping; I had enough clothing for... I don't even have an apt comparison. It was a horrorshow. I opened my closet door and my sister actually gasped. I didn't take a "before" picture, even though it occurred to me to do so, because it was so bad that even for the sake of an extreme before-and-after I just couldn't show anyone.

We went through every. single. item. My sister went home with a whole new wardrobe; my mom took quite a few pieces too (plus some for a couple of my other sisters and my sister-in-law). When he got back, my husband still dropped off 8-10 garbage bags of donation items. And my closet is still full. Just not over-full. Look!

To the left, to the left.

Straight on.

Aaaaaand the other side!

Furthermore, I'm implementing a strict "item-in, item-out" rule when I'm allowed to shop again, but I think I'll be doing less of that anyway now that I know what I have. Being able to see what I own and being able to find what I need are amazing.


5) I had a bunch of stuff that was brand new with tags or very gently used that I don't need, so I'm going to be selling it through ThredUP. I ordered a cleanout bag from them but I haven't yet sent it in. I have a laundry basket full of items to send in and now that I've seen how big the bag is I think I'm going to need at least two more! I'll report back on my experience.


6) Did I mention that it's snowing? I am so completely over winter, you guys. This year just seemed particularly horrible. I had a sweet baby to snuggle, which helped some, but it was so cold and icy all the time that I never took him out so we were just in the house all the time. I'm ready for spring to get here for real and stick around!


7) As someone who struggles with meal planning, I have to say I did really well this week! On Monday I made ham-and-cheese quiche, on Tuesday for St. Paddy's I made shepherd's pie...

This is before the baking step, obviously. I used Irish cheddar for the top too, obviously.

...On Wednesday I forgot to defrost the frozen chicken so we had leftover shepherd's pie, and yesterday I made roast chicken with asparagus and creamy parmesan rice. And tonight I am OFF DUTY.

7QT: Sleeplessness

Whew. I wish I could say "the baby is a month old, ain't no excuse to not hop back on the ol' blog train," but I cannot (CAN. NOT.) say that. I'm going to link up with Kelly for 7 extra-quick takes about why that is a thing which I cannot say.

1. Did you guys know that babies sleep like garbage?! I mean, this isn't my first rodeo of baby-having but I am OLDER and TIREDER than last time. (Also less worried about everything, and thus ripe for a good, old-fashioned overnight coma.) I have been experimenting nonstop with sleep conditions to coax a longer sleep out of Declan, and tonight I hit on a surely-not-to-be-successfully-repeated combination that netted me four straight hours: nurse baby until he is passed the heck out, in very specific low-light-but-not-no-light and low-sound-but-not-no-sound environment (I find that a brightly lit iPad screen and a podcast playing out of my phone is about the correct amount of light and noise); VERY GENTLY AS IF HE IS A BOMB, put said baby in the Rock'n'Play (with vibration, natch); turn on the sound machine to rain (no timer, rookie, because why would you want it to turn off? HE MIGHT AWAKEN EARLY!); and dive for the bed, burrow beneath the covers and pray for silence. And I just realized that my boast of four consecutive hours is a big fat lie (what the heck my phone said it was 2:30am but it was only 12:30am waaaaaaaah). I'd say "back to the drawing board" but I'm all drawn out. I have tried everydarnthing.

2. Meanwhile, after Declan's baptism last Sunday and a wonderful visit from all his Pennsylvania cousins -- someday I might have pictures! -- we're all feeling under the weather again. I'm mostly okay, but Declan is a little congested. Big sister seems mostly fine but her sleep has been interrupted like nobody's business so something must be bugging her. But my husband...

3. MANFLU. The less said about that, the better.

4. So since I've been so tired and useless I've been mostly just nursing continuously and watching Netflix. I just watched season one of Reign, which I honestly expected to hate but do not as long as I pretend to know nothing about Mary, Queen of Scots. And then I picked up where I had left off when I somehow forgot I was in the middle of watching Peaky Blinders. I've been dreaming in a Manchester accent.

5. What else, what else... Oh! Last night was one of those nights where I was feeling cocky and overconfident about my ability to get this kid to sleep without being snuggled up against me (see #6). Michael was in the guest room to sleep because the plague that is MANFLU was making his snoring so bad it was even waking him up out of a dead sleep, and I was feeding Declan when I heard a familiar explosive diaper sound (breastfed babies, amirite?). Three seconds later I realized: it's about three inches from the bottom of his hairline. Which means that his clothes, his blanket, the diaper-changing pad and the Boppy cover are all now covered in poop. And it's 2am. And my phone was dead from listening to podcasts so I couldn't even text for reinforcements. Somehow -- I think maybe it's because of all the screaming from a baby who did. not. like. having his whole back scrubbed down with baby wipes? -- Michael happened to come check on me (with a giant 2-year-old in his arms, while she guzzled her fortieth cup of warm milk for the night), so he was able to put all the poopy, goopy items in the washer and/or soaking tub of OxyClean water for me. It was delightful.

6. So all these sleeping woes are maybe my fault, in part. I mean, we're all genuinely not feeling well which is not my fault, but I have to admit that I have discovered the solution for sleeping: this child will sleep almost indefinitely if we just co-sleep. Part of me wants to give in to the inevitability of that -- and come 5am I will, fear not -- and another part of me wants to find something he likes as much so that I can sleep without being completely stationary all night long.

And finally:

7. Almost an hour of nursing and diaper changing later, he's showing signs of being ready to be chucked lovingly placed back in his Rock'n'Play so I can snatch another four minutes or so of sleep. Au revoir, mes amis! Please wish me ALL THE LUCK and comment below with your magical tips for baby sleep.

"Answer Me This": Shakespeare, Bare Feet and Spike Lee.

Happy National NFP Awareness Week! I bet 90%+ of y'all reading this are more than aware of NFP already, so spread your awareness around!

I find myself unexpectedly with a block of time because my husband took our daughter to early Mass and then down to his parents' so he could finish a project for them that he started yesterday, so I'm going to join up with Answer Me This for the first time in weeks. Check it out over at Kendra's!

Hooray!

1. What’s something you've won and how did you win it?

I was an award-winning actress in high school, which makes me laugh whenever I think of it. I played Viola/"Cesario" in Twelfth Night when I was a junior in high school and I got an award from the PA Drama teacher's whatever-whatever. I forget what the award was actually called. It came with precisely $0 in scholarship money, and meant largely nothing.

I also won "Funniest Girl"  (from my peers) in my class of graduating Chemical Engineers (University of Delaware, 2005, yuk it up!) AND was a part of the team that won the best senior project award (from my professors). That was a good night.

Aside from that, I've never won so much as $10 in the lottery. 

2. Do you save old greeting cards and letters, or throw them all away? Why?

I tend to save everything for a time and then I go on a tear and throw mostly everything away. I keep the stuff that is really personal and sweet: notes from my husband, cards that people bothered to actually personalize, etc. 

3. When you’re at home, do you wear shoes, socks, slippers, or go barefoot?

I'm almost always at home because I work from here, so I live a barefoot life. Always. I wear socks as infrequently as possible, and my "shoes" are 99% of the time really flip flops. As a result, I always keep up with my pedicures.

4. Who’s the most famous person you have ever met? 

I never meet anyone famous, which is funny because unlike most people, I can totally play it cool. A few years ago my in-laws took us to a resort for my father-in-law's birthday and Spike Lee was there. We ran into him and my brother-in-law shocked me silly by being completely unable to stop gawking. So I guess I met Spike Lee that one time?

5. What has been your best work of art?

Without a doubt, it's this little piece of beauty. Soon there will be another little work of art messing up our lives in a big, wonderful way. (This picture is seven months old or so, but her beautiful face is the same. Now her hair is a complete mop.)

6.  What’s your strongest sense?

I'm pregnant, so it's obviously my sense of smell. I can smell everything, to the chagrin of my husband. Sometimes he walks into the house and I can tell him what he had for lunch because I can smell it on his breath from across the room. It is NOT GOOD.

"Answer Me This," Week ??

Phew. Little Munchkin has been battling a fever for three days -- low-grade until today -- but she'd been happy as a clam so we decided to take a risk and bring her down to my husband's aunt's farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains as planned, fever and all. 

Oops.

In my defense, I did vote against it. She had seemed a little more crabby this morning, but she woke up happy after a morning nap and so I gave in and agreed. She spent the first hour there happy as normal. Her Bella and Poppy brought her the little inflatable pool they keep at their house and some umbrellas to protect her from the sun and she splashed away happily. The second hour brought some serious sleepiness and attendant crabbiness because:

a) We left her pack'n'play at my parents' shore house, where we will be next week on vacation, to minimize our load in the car on the way down and because we didn't think we'd need it this week; and

b) I spent a lot of time training her to sleep in her crib. And only in her crib. Aside from her crib, she will sleep in her car seat, sometimes. Which turns out to have bitten me square on the rear end because sometimes you need a kid to put her head down and sleep, even if she's not in her crib.

So we left before dinner. She slept in the car in two half-hour bursts. By the time we got home, her fever had spiked to almost 104, when it had been hovering around 100 for two days. We gave her some Advil and a bath, then she took another half-hour catnap, and then she was ready to par-tay until a good hour past her normal bedtime. 

Commence demon-child meltdown during prayers. What the what? Daddy pulled out the calming skills he didn't know he possessed and she eventually went to sleep. Daddy is already asleep himself, about ten minutes later. I am not far behind, but first: Answer Me This! (There will be no graphic or pictures in this post because I'm exhausted. Sah-rry.)

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1. How often do you take public transportation?
Next-to-never, anymore. Back in my single, livin' alone days, I took an Alexandria city bus to work on the daily. Since my first apartment, I haven't lived anywhere that's particularly public-transportation-friendly. Also I started working from home alllll the way back in 2007 so I don't really have anywhere to go.

2. How many cousins do you have?
Uhhhhh.... I think the total is 33. That works out to 28 on my Mom's side and 5 on my Dad's side. My Mom is one of eight kids, she had seven, and two of her sisters have six apiece. Most have at least four. My Dad is one of three kids, and his two sisters had three and two, respectively. 

My daughter has five cousins, all on my side, plus something like four in heaven on her Daddy's side. 

3. Have you ever fired a gun?
Yes! If you haven't, you should -- it's way more fun than you think. Actually, it's been a while since I've been to the range, not since before Keira was born. Which is notable because I heard once that moms have the best aim (according to some military range instructor or other), and I'm interested to know if my aim has improved since my little one was born. I was supposed to go a couple of weeks ago with a girlfriend but I was sick and had to cancel, and we haven't rescheduled because she's CRAZY busy and I'm el barfo. 

4. Do you ride roller coasters?
Not if I can help it. I've been consistently motion-sick since way back. Also I'm not terribly fond of heights. Put them together and you get: No.

5. What's your favorite flower?
I'm between the stargazer lily and the peony. One is spear-y and elegant, and the other is fluffy and cheerful, so I guess it depends on my mood.

6. Are you allergic to anything?
Tree pollen. This spring has been brutal. Bah-rutal.