I'm generally pleased with the house Ian bought before I ever came into his life. It's sturdy and cozy and isn't a McMansion, so it's my type of house.
The only real problem I had with the house was the lack of a dishwasher. It's 2012, man. Where's the dishwasher?
I first suggested the idea of a dishwasher last Christmas, when my parents offered to give us one as a joint Christmas present. However, I hemmed and hawed over the expense and logistics of it.
Ian remarked, "It doesn't take that long to wash dishes by hand."
Thus, we declined the offer. And of course, dirty dishes were always there, never-ending piles of dishes, a rancid, festering landfill of perpetual trash and garbage.
Our kitchen counters
No matter how much you wash the dishes (and I hated washing dishes), when you lack a dishwasher, that crap is always there. Fast forward one more year:
Laura: "My parents want to know what we want for Christmas."
Ian: "I don't know. I can't think of anything."
Laura: "That's good. Because we're getting a dishwasher."
Ian: "It really doesn't take that long to wash dishes by hand..."
Laura: "We're getting a dishwasher. My dad's going to rip out the cabinets and put in a dishwasher. That's what we're getting."
Ian: "Sounds good."
My dad did indeed rip out the cabinets and install a brand-new dishwasher. I looked into his kind face afterwards and truly saw Santa Claus. Or maybe God. A dishwasher god.
Don't tell anyone but the dishwasher is currently my favorite family member.
I'm now twenty weeks pregnant and have gained 7 pounds total. I keep forgetting to take pictures of the baby bump because I prefer sleeping.
Luckily, my boss demanded Christmas photos of everyone right before the holiday break and I got these:
Check out that baby bump!
Co-workers patting the baby bump
Comparison of Laura at work:
versus Laura at home:
Here's Ian so he won't feel left out. This was just before my company Christmas party. The dress code was "fancy" but Ian insists khakis make him look like a douche. Which they sorta do. Those pleats, man...
So when he emerged wearing a 5 dollar thrift store suit, vest, and fedora, I met the ensemble with applause.
A good while ago, I went online and used a morphing website to show how our child would look. The result was so horrifying, I promptly dumped the photo even as Ian howled with laughter.
We are hoping the Baby Morph predicts the future as accurately as the Mayans.
Here are baby photos of both of us. I was a fat, bald baby and often warn Ian that his baby might suffer the same fate.
The baby who never met a doughnut she didn't like
Ian, on the other hand, was a sexy baby and we hope his genes inject a healthy dose of magnetic good lucks into our child:
Don't hate me 'cause I'm beautiful.
You could try putting those two images into the Baby Morph machine, but don't blame me when the results give you nightmares.
In baby news... there's not a lot of news. Which I'm taking as a good thing. Still no cravings; just a normal appetite.
I've gained all of five or six pounds so far. Ian thinks I'm carrying high. Or perhaps he thinks I'm carrying low. I can't remember. At this point, I still think I look like I'm carrying one too many cookies rather than a baby.
So far we've scored every baby item for free, or at extremely reduced prices at thrift stores. Get used to all the secondhand stuff, kid. Your mom and dad are cheap.
The baby room is shaping up quickly although it's still a horrific brown color. I'm sure we'll see plenty of brown once the kid arrives so we'll need a change of color soon.
And apart from that, I still sleep all the time. All the time. I feel energetic at work, but the minute I arrive home and eat dinner, I become comatose. I'm averaging eleven to twelve hours of sleep per night.
Ian passes the time by snapping photos of me:
Here's Laura sawing logs.
Here's Laura after a visit from the Sandman.
And here's Laura all tuckered out.
It goes on like that.
We are scheduled to find out the baby's sex on December 10th.
I've promised the fetus a play kitchen even if its a boy. Ian felt slightly horrified at this at first, but has reconciled his need for a manly infant and his own throbbing testosterone with my wish that the kid play with a variety of toys.
I felt surprised that a man who loves flowers and hates sports would react so vehemently to a toddler boy playing with little boxes of fake spaghetti noodles and tiny cartons of milk.
Luckily, Ian quickly saw the humor in everything and snickered at the thought of forcing his son to play football when neither of us can stand the game. And thus, the first great gender argument was resolved.
On Saturday, Winnie headed to the groomer while Ian went for his yearly hair-cut. Ian's haircuts present a small dilemma. For me, anyways. Ian doesn't actually care about his hair.
But I approach the occasion with some amount of trepidation because I don't want the hairdresser to (a.) bob his hair or (b.) make him look like a Republican.
His hair has to be shorter, but not too short, but not puffed up like a girl's. It's a tall order.
The hair-dresser lopped off six or so inches of hair, and Ian didn't look like a girl or a Republican so we're all very happy. Or I am. Ian profoundly doesn't care.
I also felt pleased that Ian and Winnie got haircuts on the same day because it makes for good photos. Except you really can't tell much of a difference in pictures, so whatever.
And then Ian let me do this to him because it's okay to look like a girl sometimes.
Ian always falls pretty hard for Winnie with a haircut since she looks like an alien-rat when shaved. He picked her up and petted her willingly all weekend which is a big deal in this house. And they danced.
And that's all the Forever Daddy attention she'll get for now, until she's re-shaved in another three months. It was beautiful while it lasted.
I was warned I'd encounter many a food obsession. Pregnancy cravings, if you will.
Hasn't happened yet.
Here are the bizarre things I have obsessed over in the past few months:
1. Dog toys.
Holy crap.
The day before I took the pregnancy test, way back in early September, I suddenly proclaimed that poor Winnie had zero nice toys to play with, which was obviously dog abuse, and we needed to run to Pet Smart and purchase new toys.
And not just any dog toys. We needed the knitted stuffed animals from the Martha Stewart Dog Toy line, and we needed them now. Because the dog is abused. Look at her. She's miserable.
A skeptical Ian gave me the side-eye: "You're pregnant."
I felt that such a statement detracted from the issue at hand, which was HOLY CRAP, WE NEED NEW DOG TOYS.
We headed to Pet Smart where I purchased a knitted squirrel and a pink rabbit. I cradled them in the car and lovingly handed the polyester pair to Winnie at home.
Winnie, of course, beat the ever-loving shit out of them.
After watching Winnie attempt to destroy both toys, I hopped online and surveyed the Pet Smart website to find when the latest batch of Martha Stewart dog toys would hit the shelves. Because, I don't know. I was really into dog toys.
This obsession has calmed slightly, mainly out of financial necessity.
We probably need to spend money on diapers and car seats rather then the holiday boutique of Martha Stewart dog toys. Although the penguin wearing the snow hat looks awfully tempting...
2. Animal Planet's "Too Cute" television series
We don't have cable nor do we watch much television. I stumbled upon this show while playing around on Youtube one evening waiting for Ian to arrive home from work.
I watched the whole series on sloths before moving on to kittens and then puppies.
Ian calls this show "pregnant woman porn."
There is really no educational value or story line or depth to this program. "Too Cute" consists of gratuitous footage of kittens and puppies eating, sleeping, and playing and, well, that's it.
You wouldn't expect "Frontline" levels of education from a show called "Too Cute," but even I'm amazed at how much of this show I can watch.
Ian: "After about two minutes, I'm kinda done with this thing."
Laura: "Man, I can watch six hours of it."
3. Paint Samples
For the nursery.
I went stark raving mad one Sunday and announced we needed to determine the color for the baby's room. Immediately. I hate baby colors, especially pink.
I decided we needed to paint the room turquoise, since it's been scientifically proven to be the best color in the universe. Ian agrees.
Our bedroom is dark turquoise, our kitchen floor is medium turquoise, and the baby's room will be vibrant turquoise. Check the color wheel; those classifications of turquoise exist.
We haven't done a damn thing towards actually making the nursery, but we have the paint sample and thus we have made that gigantic leap towards the responsibilities and maturity of parenthood.
I've remained fairly silent over the past few months on this blog, mainly out of sheer, bone-crushing exhaustion.
No one ever told me that during the first trimester of pregnancy you feel like you're either dying or coming down with the flu.
Ian watched in shock as I slept an ungodly number of hours each weekend.
While my bones ached with exhaustion, he manfully washed dishes, scrubbed the bathtub, and swept the floors. Meanwhile, I planted my ass firmly on the couch.
But there was no terrible morning sickness, no horrific vomiting, no awful mood swings, no strange food cravings. Only a strong heartbeat and assurance that this kid is developmentally on track and looks mighty happy bobbing around on its head, waving its tiny hand, and sucking contentedly on its thumb.
We are really lucky.
We spent a Sunday night at the first of September watching Rosemary's Baby, the sickest ode to pregnancy one can imagine. The very next morning, Labor Day morning, we got the positive pregnancy test.
Ian: "Are you going to put the positive pregnancy test in a baby book?"
Laura: "Gross. No. I put it in the trash."
Ian: "I think Satan might be the father."
Laura: "Oh, I'm sure of it."
I named the fetus Cool Evil, only minutes after we saw the kidney bean-shaped blob for the first time. Cool Evil is set to make his or her arrival in early May.
My husband has been prodding me to post a new blog for at least... a week? Two weeks? A month?
You know, life gets busy. Or something.
Here's a run-down of everything that's happened in the past month at the Winiferd house. 1. Harvey is disgusting.
First, he started peeing on the living room rug.
We sprayed it down with what I call "Stank and Stain" but within hours, the smell would return.
This is seriously the only good recent photo we have of Harvey.
And then Harvey took a dump in the living room rug and helpfully mashed it deep into the shaggy fabric. That thing was done for, immediately.
But Ian's a hopeful man. He scurried about in his underwear at 7 in the morning, desperately trying to salvage the rug.
I had used my Christmas money to buy it last year, and he was worried I would feel heartbroken over the assassination of Shaggy the Rug.
The rug in better days
Alas, I took one sniff of Harvey's gift and knew all was lost.
Laura: "It's dead. Throw it away."
Ian: "You're okay with that? I thought you'd be upset."
Laura: "It's just a rug. There are worse things in life you can lose."
2. Harvey is trying to kill himself.
Harvey took a happy trip under the bed two weekends ago. He emerged with an enormous bald spot. He had cleanly ripped out a perfect circle of hair on his neck.
The bald spot looked red and inflamed. I couldn't stand to look at it so I gave Ian some Neosporin and asked him to coat the bald spot. Harvey's bald patch immediately began looking better.
Then, last weekend, he scraped the hell out it on his cat door, leaving him with a bloody flesh wound atop his bald spot.
I run away screeching when he shows off his bald spot now.
Harvey also enjoys dangling off high shelves while attempting to eat the semi-poisonous plants we had to move indoors.
If we find a suicide note in the next few days, it will all make sense. 3. Polly has feathers on her head now.
In an attempt to piss off Harvey, Polly has grown back the feathers on her bald spot. It appears we must have at least one bald animal in the family at all times. 4. Sal went to chicken heaven.
Something snatched up Sal. At this point, no one feels sad or mushy or frankly, even surprised, when something gets our chickens.
You learn quickly that chickens are just food sources, no matter how hard you try to make them into pets.
That's Sal on the left
5. Ian cooked phallic turkey sausage.
I told him not to buy them, but he insisted. And then he screeched in horror as the wieners fried on the stove.
Ian: "I can't eat these! They're disgusting!"
Of course, he ate two of them. Might I add, they were both disgusting-looking and expired. One week later, he still seems fine.
