Nine weeks, one day
Posted on | February 8, 2010 | No Comments |
Still pregnant! And boy, am I tired — of taking my pants off for perfect strangers!
Ha ha. Ha. Look, I know it’s par for the course for American prenatal care. “Drop your drawers, fill out a form, drop your drawers, pay the copay, drop your drawers, think of England”— but come on.
*shake hands* ”Hi. I’m Dr So And So. Please scoot down.”
Ugh. The exam, the sonogram, the second sonogram because the doctor wants to make extra sure that everything from the first sonogram is OK, another exam, because the last exam was actually an annual exam, and this exam is an OBSTETRICAL exam and that is TOTALLY DIFFERENT …
Yarg. I wish we could have some Victorian style prenatal care up in this piece, where the doctor walks in, asks you some questions from the other side of the room, and carefully averts his eyes, lest he catch a glimpse of someone’s pregnant belly.
*grimaces* *waves* “Hi. I’m Dr So And So. … You look pregnant from here. Well done. Try not catch tuberculosis.”
Eh? Eh? Everyone keeps everyone’s pants on and waiting times are reduced by 9000%. BRILLIANT. Plus lots more people could be OBGYNs, thereby eliminating the “doctor shortage.” A-plus, Victorian Era Medical Practices!
… Of course, we’d pay the price in birth defects and mortality rates. Pretty hard to justify those when the alternative is simply removing one’s pants for perfect strangers periodically.
SIGH.
All right, Unborn Child, you win. I should just suck it up and shuck the pants. The things I do for you!
Snow, Superbowl, sleeping arrangements
Posted on | February 7, 2010 | 2 Comments |
Lookit that! One week into Nablopomo: February, and I borked a day. Ah, well, my apologies. I was so busy cowering under 20”-plus inches of snowfall I plumb forgot to post.
But I’m posting now. I just pulled a pan of brownies out of the oven and uploaded a few snow shots to Flickr; Mackie is sitting on my left, telling me “I hewk you,” whatever that means. Owen is in the other room building a Lego fire truck and Iain is, of course, watching the Superbowl (I look up for the commercials).
Yesterday we did some hard hauling, taking everything out of my sewing room so we can put the boys in there. It’s the biggest room in the house, and the kids aren’t getting any smaller. Plus we’re hosting between 8 and 11 people for the weekend, so I wanted a few extra beds in there. Right now I’ve got two twins and a full, side by side, and everyone’s been taking turns rolling from one to the next to the next. It looks like a freaking orphanage or something. I fully expect a little white-eyed red-haired girl to show up with her dog, singing show tunes.
It’ll only hold three beds until the close of next weekend, the date of one of my family’s patented Murthabrations, when we all 14+ of us (me, the spouse, the kids, my siblings and their sig O’s, and my parents) get together to make fun of each other and eat sandwiches and drink beer. After that, one bed is going back into the new sewing room, the boys’ old room, which is weirdly shaped and tiny but just fine for a craft room/guest room/possible nursery (we’ll see, depending on what gender and how ornery the new baby is). In a three-bedroom house, it really is a luxury to have a studio; on the other hand, where else am I going to keep all that fabric, my Singer, my serger, my ironing board, my craft books, my patterns and supplies … don’t let me go on.
But I digress. The kids love their new room. In the old room, there was just enough space for bunk beds, and the top bunk was not very popular, meaning each boy claimed one end of the bottom bunk for his own, meaning the nights were filled with kicking footfights and yanked covers. Now they each get a whole twin bed to themselves, specially made up with handmade quilts and pillows.
And since the room is now like wall to wall mattresses, it makes for a pretty fun play room, too. Just imagine I stopped lecturing them about concussions long enough to take a picture of the acrobatics and inserted it here XX.
What’s Your Name Again? How to Name Your Online Store
Posted on | February 5, 2010 | 2 Comments |
(In the background of my brain, I’ve got Eminem’s “My Name Is” on a loop)
I interviewed Jessica of Kerflop, Emily of Subu Rose, Amy Priddy of Priddy Creations and Genevieve Gail of Genevieve Gail for their stories on how they came to name their online shops for a Meylah.com article. Good stuff — please check it out!
And it’s always something I wonder about; how do people pick what they pick? I know it took me a long time to come up with Supafab, but once I did, it immediaely felt perfect: it had “supa” in it, which is my handle going way back, and “fab,” which can mean fabric, or fabricate, or fabulous, so it’s not only accurate, it’s flexible.
SO that’s my story. You got one?
Less a train and more a constant loop
Posted on | February 4, 2010 | No Comments |
This is how my thoughts go these days:
Urf. Something smells awful. La la la. La la la. OMG WE’RE GOING TO HAVE A BABY! … La la la, la la la. La la. HOLY CRAP WHAT DID WE GET OURSELVES INTO? … La la la. Oh hey, Twizzler! <repeat>
Allergy Face and Fat Lip Boy
Posted on | February 3, 2010 | 2 Comments |
Ah, childhood
Yeah, I’m not getting a lot done these days. Owen has developed an allergy to penicillin (chip off the old block!) which was alarming, but the reaction he had to the second, replacement antibiotic is what really got my blood moving this morning, his face as bumpy and red and round as a raspberry without any hairs. His ears were both huge and red and his entire body is mottled and he just hurts to look at.
On the plus side, the local pediatrician’s office has a pretty good record of both answering their phones AND returning calls. (Not that I have anything against secretaries. It’s just a nice change of pace to discuss my kid’s health issues with an actual medical professional.)
So we got him in for an appointment again. The doctor took one half of a glance and was basically all “YA, he’s a bit polluted, eh?” And out comes the prescription pad and a sympathetic pat on the head.
The sad ending of this story is that Owen’s got to finish his antibiotic course with a medicine that smells (and presumably tastes) like rotting deer entrails dipped in motor oil. I tell you what, I’m never allowing him to get another infection again. Time to bring out the Bubble.
So hey! It figures!
Posted on | February 2, 2010 | 4 Comments |
… That the morning after I pledge to post an entry for every day of the month, my laptop stops recognizing its little friend, Mister Power Cord.
OF COURSE. THANK YOU FOR PLAYING.
Super! So here’s what I see happening:
- Buy new power cord over the internet, wait for it to arrive, plug it in.
- Discover that fault lies not with cord but with doohickey inside computer
- Slap head, retrieve Yellow Pages, look up DESPERATE
- beg closest Mac shop to fix my ancient iBook
- Waaaaaaaaaait
- pay them $$$$$$
- try not to drop the fucking laptop any more.
I expect this timeline to span about three weeks. Meanwhile, i’ll be plodding away at the kids’ eMac in the dining room, sitting on the kiddie chair with my knees around my ears, trying to see the screen through the smudges of spit and god knows what else they’ve coated it with.
But by gum, I’ll be posting.
****
It appears that I have forgotten how to write. This always happens. I can still string letters into words and words into … well, let’s call them fragments. But the telling of a story, or the capturing of the essence of a moment*, it go bye-bye.
*Like that sentence right there? Technically I think it counts as English. But I just gave myself and F-minus and rap upside the head for it.
Soooo … I think we are all getting the point here. A lot of copy for not a lot of payoff. A lot of Supa running her mouth about power cords and not a whole lot of “Mackie refuses to wear pants and his little naked butt is so cute.”
Better luck tomorrow!
This isn’t a leap year, is it?
Posted on | February 1, 2010 | 3 Comments |
I decided that, since I feel so writey these days (but seeing as nothing ends up actually written down), I’m going to do Nablopomo for February: a post a day for the month.
I can’t promise anything more riveting than TODAY I ATE SOME FROSTED FLAKES AND THEY WAS GOOD. But I will at least start making my fingers poke the typing keys. Usually I compose 3/4 of a fair-to-middling post in my head during that 4 a.m. witching hour when somebody has just wet the bed, but I never quite get around to writing it down.
So OK! One down, twenty-eight or -nine to go. (Srsly, get me a calendar.)
Introducing Short Round
Posted on | January 26, 2010 | 20 Comments |
Hi, boys and girls, it’s me, Supa! I’m emerging from my huddle on the couch to say, I’m pregnant again! Couldn’t be more excited about a new baby. Kind of already over the pregnant thing, but I’ll put that down to the eternal, ever-present queasiness. Illustrated: I walked in the door last week and immediately retched, simply because my dear husband had fried chicken a few hours earlier. Made him feel like a great cook. I am so over this already.
Yeah so, that’s where I have been: hiding with my eyes closed, trying to sleep my way out of the nausea, but it isn’t working.
I am exhausted and of course I already can’t sleep through the night to save my life. Last night I woke at 1 a.m. to find Owen in my bed; I made him get out and visit the bathroom and was about to put him back in his own bed when he confessed that the reason he was in my bed in the first place is because his was covered in chunks of vomit. Surprise, Mom! You can imagine what a good time I had cleaning that one up.
If it’s not a fragrant pile of barf, it’s my own indigestion, or my bladder, or my husband’s snoring, or Cormac making some pretty surreal middle-of-the-night inquiries. I am resigned already to setting aside “sleep” as I once knew it until Short Round hits his or her first birthday (September 2011, not that I’m counting).
Things that make me want to barf:
- smells
- remembering smells
- thinking about something I once smelled
- imagining I can smell something
- smelling, basically.
- Smell smell smell.
I can’t even enter my kitchen without my hand over my nose. Neither can I identify the source of whatever it is in there that’s punching me in the upchuck center. (Admittedly, it could be my colorful imagination). All I crave is soup from Panera, with maybe a few hard candies for dessert. I indulged my craving for gummy bears earlier in the week and my insides revolted. Lesson learned.
Anyway, I know it’s kind of early to share this news, but I have a good feeling about little Short Round, and the only way I’ll be able to emerge from my huddled, gut-wrenching coccoon is if I am permitted to complain about it vigorously for about, oh, seven and a half more months.
(Bam! Told you I had updates!)
Can you hear me now?
Posted on | January 22, 2010 | 9 Comments |
So I think there was something wrong with my web site for a while there. Is it fixed now? You folk who haven’t seen anything new since November, is this all showing up? And if it is, will you do me a favor? Will you change my toddler’s stinky pants?
Six tips for balancing your business and your babies
Posted on | January 18, 2010 | No Comments |
I’ve written another useful article over at Meylah.com about combining children and creative work:
I was sewing patchwork coasters, one of my favorite things to make. I had a mouthful of pins, the machine was whirring, and I was whipping out patchwork blocks like a dervish. I must have been working like this for forty minutes or more, fairly absorbed, when something brought me back to myself. I’m guessing it was the shrieks.
Hee.
For this piece, i interviewed Debbie Lee (of 60Bugs, Crafty Bastards and Handmade Mart); Heather von Marko (of HVM Designs and Charm City Craft Mafia and an instructor at Lovely Yarns); and Jessica Levitt (fabric designer for Windham). Woo hoo!
who’s there?
Oh hey you guys, it's me, Supa. Things I enjoy: talking on my bananaphone, being a nerd, writing, sewing, writing about sewing, giving my husband high-fives, playing Nintendo with my kids, playing with technological gadgetry, knitting, and reading decorating books. Did I write down nachos? Add that in there.
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