Why I Am a Black Male Feminist.

It's been a while since I've posted some sort of crazy liberal rant, so here it is.

Baby room on a budget.

Ok. So I *could* have skipped the bedding set, the new curtains, the new paint, the wall decor, etc etc etc. Really, what does a baby need? A place to sleep (be it a $100 crib or a $500 crib, or a drawer as they did not so long ago), clothes (thank God for hand-me-downs), and food (me).

Well what's the fun in that? The coming together of this room and all the baby prep is quintessentially me - a good balance of frivolous and frugal. Here's how it's looking:


I maintain that my only error was going to Babies R Us with my mom and another woman of equal persuasive skills. Together they whittled away at my resolve with their dastardly logic and I bought the bedding set I had picked out as my favorite. It was $70 off for a floor model set, see.

And what does every crafter do when she's pregnant and facing a deluge of baby products to register for, buy, clean, and organize? She thinks "oh, I can just make that" about every fifth item and then suddenly she's got several yards of fabric and two sewing machines that barely work, plus two gallons of paint and a husband who will be recovering from foot surgery for a couple of months. She may become a little overwhelmed and possibly weepy.

On the other hand, I got the bedding on clearance, the paint with a coupon, the fabric on sale, and the wall art at a discount at my place of employment. All this cost about $275. At the original prices I would have paid about $415, and it would've been a lot more if store-bought curtains and a new rocker were involved. So we might splurge a little on the crib because the one we really, really, ridiculously want is maybe a little expensive. But STILL. I could totally be on Design on a Dime.

642 things.

I bought a book at work that I hope will help my creative endeavors, because it takes very little thinking and almost no physical movement. It's called 642 Things to Draw. I realize that having the need to be told what to draw suggests a basic lack of creativity and I'm *pretty sure* the drawings I do will suggest a basic lack of talent. I humbly accept this and look forward to tackling such sketches as "a jar full of pennies" and "a mirage." Yes, a mirage. Probably the most entertaining drawings will be inspired by things like "swim fins," I don't really know what those are.

So whenever I feel particularly sedentary I'm going to get out my mechanical pencil and draw until I come across a suggestion that I'm too weary to take on, or until I'm so angry about the disconnect between the picture in my head and the one on the paper that I retreat into a silent reverie and stare wistfully out the window for the rest of the day, probably rocking back and forth ever so slightly.

I'm making a rule for myself that I won't skip anything and I will post everything - no matter how embarrassing this gets. Also, there are no instructions or pictures in the book to follow so I'll be doing it all by memory before finding actual pictures of these things to see how far off I am.

I started at the very beginning yesterday, and here's where it took me...


Turns out that while I was clever enough to interpret this more than one way, I do not know how to draw a suit jacket. So Mr. Anchorman (or Mike "Snaggle-eye" Pomeranz) looks like he's wearing a lab coat with a very respectable pocket square. See how he's shuffling his news papers with his tiny hands? All around, I'm pretty pleased.

Eh? Eh?










I was trying to go for a striped canvas, but my version just isn't quite there.

I feel very, very guilty.

Hubs had surgery last week on his foot. There was cutting, of course, but also there was sawing and screwing. Basically, they made him an arch. Gross. Painful. And I am now playing Dobby to his Harry Potter. Which is fine; I've only wanted to smack him a handful of times. I guess sometimes I'm Kreacher.

So he's been living on the couch with his foot elevated and various Netflix programs running for about 12-18 hours a day. Sure, I've kept the kitchen clean and done laundry, but what else do I do? I do not knit. I do not do the Egret Effects taxes that I don't know how to do. I sit and watch episodes of Futurama, all of which I've seen, or episodes of Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations," which I don't even like.

I'm seriously going to consider giving up TV for lent next year. It's obviously too late this year because lent has already begun. And obviously I need my Catholic guilt to motivate a change that is otherwise unthinkable. And obviously I know that giving things up for lent is not necessarily as important as doing extra things for the good of the world and/or the soul...does caring for a baby count?

For now there is still the guilt over the taxes.

Let the garden grow?

Is that an expression? Because if it is, it implies that you just throw some seeds out and crack open a Coke, sit on the porch, and wait. Even if that is the way it works with zucchini, it otherwise doesn't make any sense.


Anyways, I really really want to have a garden this year but have heard all kinds of warnings about doing so while pregnant. I guess it's probably true I should avoid digging in dirt that certainly has rabbit and squirrel droppings throughout. Maybe that's why Penny has been "managing" more than her own waste? Such a helpful dog.

Wouldn't it be enough to wear gloves and a mask? Even if I don't become uber crunchy and use my own carrots to make baby food, fresh green beans just sound too delicious.

Halfway to ohmygodwehaveababynowwhatdowedo?

Ok, diapers and naps and eating. That's cool.

But what if we have a cranky baby? How long is too long to cry? Is it normal to get up at random times to check that the baby is still breathing? What will we do when we run into all of the horribly scary and inevitable questions that every new parent faces EVERY DAY FROM HERE TO ETERNITY?

I suppose we'll get out a couple of the grocery bags we use for recycling, try to crumple the ridiculously large openings around our mouths, take two useless breaths, and then just deal with it.

I'm actually not freaking out - in general - about having a kid so much as I still freak out about potential problems with pregnancy/birth. Leave me alone! I can't help it! I'm emotional and forgetful and anxiety-prone! The warnings I've been given are clearly valid: once you're pregnant you'll spend the next forever worrying. First that you'll make it to the 12-week mark, then the 20-week ultrasound, then the 25-week mark where you feel like there's a reasonable chance for survival if the baby's born super early. Then the oodles of worries over the birth itself, and then the worries of post-fetusdom. Weight, brain development, choking, various colds and flus, acceptance at school, grades, broken bones and other injuries, and so on and so on.

Now, this is a crafting blog. But because we're at that celebrated halfway point and, given the monumental nature of having a child, some reflection is due. And now I think I'm done with the crazy.

Feeling him move around is my favorite thing ever. Sure, I cried when I discovered the emergence of stretch marks radiating from my distorted belly button, but I'm over it. I'm excited to be bigger. I want to wear sun dresses and, like my adorable friend E. Dittmar, I want to be that cute pregnant lady wearing a bikini at least once. I had some spells of ickiness in the early weeks, but was never ill. This time around it feels like my body was made to do this, and that's nice.

I'm doing yoga once a week. I've discovered that, as overwhelming as it is to prepare for a baby, I still enjoy it. Baby clothes are adorable, and luckily Becky has good taste, because we'll be able to borrow all of Finn's tiny things. I'm so grateful for having people around who will lend us things and understand my worrying and forgive my sleep-deprived, possibly weepy stupor. I'm grateful that I have a husband who is present and engaged, good in a crisis, and generally fantastic. I can't wait to get pictures of him and the child together. I really can't wait to see if they truly have clone pinkies, and if he'll pick up some of hubs's mannerisms.

In the mean time, I should maybe invest in some brown paper lunch bags.

I should just start referring to my dog as "my cat."

I don't know how to title this post without using a pun, so here it is: OH, BOY!

I was nervous for our ultrasound this morning because I'm a worrier and I just can't help it. But everything looks good and we could clearly see that we're having a boy. Most people, including myself, thought it would be a girl, but there you have it. Now I can start really obsessing about names.


The tech didn't get the greatest pictures because he was moving around so much. We like to imagine he's pretending to be a T-Rex. But the best and coolest thing ever is that when we finally got a good shot of his hand you can see he has hubs's crooked pinky:


So I'm really relieved and excited. When I called my sister to tell her the sex she exclaimed to the room at large and I could hear Sammy shouting, "yay, yay, yay, yay!" Laura wanted to talk to me. "I'm so excited that your baby is a boy," she said very politely and evenly. "I hope I will like him like I like Max. I think I will." I'm sure she would have been much more jubilant had it been a girl, but it was a sweet moment.

The sweater I actually made and have worn.

Cascade 220 makes a toasty garment, which I've needed up until a few days ago when we had an incredibly warm spell of 50 degrees. Of course now it's getting cold again, because that was just a horrible - and yet glorious - fluke. It is not in February's true nature to stay above freezing for more than 24 hours. February is Minnesota's one great flaw. Unless you count March.

Anyways, I'm happy to say that the flaws in my knitting are known only to me and to the few people I've confessed them to, and I know where all of them live, so whatever.


It took a year to complete this project and that does not bode well for someone with several dozen sweater patterns in her faves and a baby brewing. Given the choice, I'd rather be knitting than doing laundry or wiping butts, but sacrifices will have to be made. The dangers of falling asleep with sharp objects in my hands aside, maybe I can knit while the baby naps.


Silly as it may be, I nixed my original plan to use toggle buttons on this sweater because they can sometimes be sort of pokey. Pokey things on clothing are uncomfortable for babies, therefore toggle buttons are out. It's a classic A=B and B=C so A=C situation. It's ironic, really, because I'm starting to maybe notice that this baby is a bit pokey itself. We're still in the was-that-the-baby-or-just-gas? phase. But it's exciting to speculate.

Also exciting is that our anatomy ultrasound is in two days. TWO DAYS! BOY OR GIRL? We shall see. In 35 hours, to be precise.

Valentine's blue.

Who says Valentines have to be pink and red and purple and sparkly and ruffly? Other than every six to ten-year-old girl I've ever known?


A four-year-old boy. It kills me that he no longer accepts my kisses and I suppose someday he'll stop giving me his already sparse hugs, but I'm embracing the way Sammy does love. And that is through race cars.