Out of Avalon

June 29th, 2009 by Ascelyn

Welcome to 26 weeks.

I think I was 25 weeks last week, but I was too exhausted to know anything about it.  I worked something like 55 hours, including my supposed day off on Friday, then went home every night to rearrange furniture and thoroughly scour the house.  Not a particularly good idea, sure, but what else was I supposed to do?  J’s grandparents were coming for a visit Saturday and would be seeing the house for the first time, so it could no longer remain the neglected mess that it has been since I got pregnant.  (Okay, and honestly, since long before that.  But if I have to deal with the sickness and tiredness and general unpleasantness of pregnancy, I think I should get to use it as an excuse once in a while.)

End result:  Clean house, lasagna prepped for dinner, complete failure at a thermal profiling run at work, and pain.  Lots and lots of pain from lifting heavy things and sitting and kneeling in positions my pregnant hips don’t much like.  Also, utter exhaustion and the ensuing migraine.

They liked the house, which was good and appropriate since we have a pretty awesome house.  They only stayed for about two hours, and instead of eating the meal I’d prepared for them, decided that they really wanted to take us out to dinner at the restaurant at their hotel.  Gehauf’s isn’t bad, but it’s not great, either–just basic home-style food.  I’d already make home-style food.  At home.  It was assembled and just needed thrown in the oven for an hour.  The range of things I’m able to cook is rather small, but I tend to be fairly capable at what I do make (lasagna, soup, baked goods, etc.).  Still, they didn’t want to eat it.  Whatever.  We met them for dinner and then went home.  All that insane work for two hours, most of which was spent sitting on the couch listening to them bicker about the grandfather’s old jobs.  Fun times.

I fell asleep on the couch around seven o’clock and was only revived by the idea of making chocolate peanut butter brownies.  From a box, because there was no way I was going to mix and boil things on the stove before baking after all the dishes I’d done over the last day.

Sunday was the redeeming day of the week.  I nixed the idea of driving up to Monroeville to get the crib, storage set, and maternity swim suit top because it would require too much walking at IKEA, and I was refusing to put any more strain on my poor abused legs than necessary until they had a chance to heal a little.  I woke up around 9:00 because I just couldn’t sleep any more, ate mac & cheese for breakfast, and went back to bed until two.  The rest of the afternoon was spent buying and potting plants for the porch (which I’d meant to have done before the big grandparental visit) and taking cuttings from my herb bed for two coworkers.  J’s parents came over to help us make a dent into the lasagna that evening and see the upgrades we’ve made to the house, and the visit was quite pleasant.  Then I started measuring the spare room/nursery, which gets me to the non-whining point of all this.

We had four pieces of furniture in mind that we really, really wanted to buy for the nursery:  a crib, some sort of chair that rocks/glides, a dresser decent enough to follow him throughout the years instead of just during babyhood,, and a low bookcase so that the kid can reach his own books when he wants to look at them.  The twin bed that was previously in the music room has been moved there and will stay, and I have my old toy box (also my mom’s old toy box, maybe a little girly but handpainted by my great-grandfather) for the room.  My mom says a changing table is an absolute necessity, though I never used one when babysitting and wasn’t too keen on the idea of wasting money on a piece of furniture that has only a single purpose.

Enter IKEA.  I started looking there for the bookcase and dresser, and instead fell in love with the Trofast system.  After some scheming and measuring, I think our set-up will end up fairly similar to to this combination with a slightly different arrangement of drawers, shelves, and bins.  We’ll add on the changing table top and be able to remove it later.  I’m a little hesitant about pine furniture in a house built inside and out of pine logs and boards, but if it’s too bad, we can try to paint it.  I’m excited and can’t wait to go get it so that we can start having a place to store things.  Once the child outgrows it and is hopefully out of the furniture destruction stage, we can get him a real grown-up dresser.  I love that the whole system can be rearranged to accomodate changing needs for shelves and the like.

June 18th, 2009 by Ascelyn

I’m not a big fan of making decisions, particularly when they involve someone other than me and when those decisions will cost substantial amounts of money or time.  A crib or stroller?  That’s a matter of safety and comfort for the poor baby, who has no real say in the matter at this point, plus hundreds of dollars.  Bouncy chairs or diaper bags?  Not too expensive, perhaps, but with the limited amount of shopping that can be done in this area, finding a replacement could mean hours to drive out of town.

That’s why I’m so proud of myself.  Sure, I don’t know much, and half of what I do know will likely prove itself to be completely fallacious within days of the baby’s birth, but I’ve learned a lot.  And what I’ve learned, I’ve taken the big leap to apply in the only way I can at this time:  making a big list.

I’ve read Baby Bargains from cover to cover.  Countless weeks have been spent poring over reviews on Amazon and Babies-R-Us.  Last weekend, we even made the great pilgrimage up to Monroeville to visit that Mecca of baby stores itself.  We shook and bent over cribs, rolled around and folded up strollers, and quizzed innocent employees on the values of various car seats.  We looked at more baby gates than I’ve ever seen in my life.  We adjusted and collapsed high chairs.

It’s been an experience, to say the least.  And while I have the babysitting background to know, for instance, that I can’t easy step over an old-fashioned wooden baby gate, Jason has the engineering expertise to see how things work–and how they might break or cause problems.  Watching him systematically work his way through a row of strollers and try on diaper backpacks was an endearing mix of comical and sweet.

It was great to be able to actually lay hands on the items we were thinking about buying.  The internet is great for most things, but sometimes you just need to actually see for yourself.  I have no problem throwing hundreds of dollars across the wires for a nice new camera or computer component, but not being able to check the sturdiness of a crib or see how well a stroller handles turns worries me.  One stroller I’d considered, for instance, doesn’t show up on Amazon as having a partially mesh back.  I’d thought it was solid and padded based on pictures.  Another stroller just seemed flimsy and not up to our needs–or what we have some vague idea at this point that our needs will be months from now.  And while I’d thought all stroller systems were the ungainly, heavy monstrosities that my sister-in-law owns, we found two in particular that we really, really like:  the Chicco Cortina, primarily, but also the Graco Metrolite as a backup plan.  Both are lightweight and roll and turn easily, but they have the extra features we think we’d like best and hold great car seats.  They’re in a totally different arena than the Graco that C owns.  Owns but barely uses, I should say; it’s easier to carry my niece and nephew and bring along J for the bags than to push the gorram contraption.

Like I said, I’m proud of myself.  Inordinately so.

From BRU and Baby Depot, it was back to the internet to check reviews for all our newfound goodies.  Luckily, I kept detailed notes while at the store.  We’d narrowed our choices of cribs down to three, but struck one out immediately once checking reviews and discovering the INSANE number of recalls over the last few years for that brand and style.  Literally every other paint color of that crib had been recalled, some numerous times.  Sure, it was the only one we looked at with a drop side for my short self, but it just wasn’t worth the hassel.  The other two were pretty close, but we decided on the Sorelle Vicki crib in part because the brand had slightly higher marks in Baby Bargains.  Dumb, maybe, but we really couldn’t decide and had to pick one somehow.  It was also $20 cheaper.

I’m so happy to have my crib issues resolved.  We’d thought for quite some time about three others and decided that it would be best to go with the nicest of them, which was from JCPenney.  After all I’d heard and read about ordering from them, though, I figured we had to order right about now if we wanted to get the crib in time.  You can only order through the catelog and have it delivered, which apparently tends to lead to back orders and damaged parts to be returned.  Knowing that we’ll be getting something from BRU, where we can check the box contents before leaving and have a crib the same day, is a huge relief for me.  Maybe I’m a little obsessive, and maybe it can’t all be blamed on the hormones, but you take happiness where you can get it.

The act itself of registering has been both easier and harder than putting together a wedding registry.  For the wedding, registering was done mostly because we knew people would end up buying us stuff, and we wanted to minimize the number of things we had to bring home and store but would never use.  Jason already had a fully-stocked house, and I had a stash of kitchen gear at home, so between the two of us we didn’t have any use for the necessities most new couples ask as gifts.  No plates, no shower curtains, no blenders.  We added things we liked, no real research required.  After all, you can look at a pitcher and decide which one you like best.  (We had still been making kool aid in old 2-liter bottles and guessing at amounts.  We had all the necessary cooking equipment, but J and his roommate had been living off of Mt. Dew and ramen.)  Who knows if that stroller you think looks nice might cause problems down the road?  Choosing specific items for the baby’s registry has taken a lot more time and work, but at least I got to do most of it online and wasn’t bound to a certain store.  Amazon lets you add items to your wish list or registry from anywhere on the internet that sells stuff.  It’s been really, really useful.  How else would you get the convenience of a Amazon, an online-only store, but also add things from BRU, Etsy, and CafePress?  It’s great!  Plus, it’s so easy to change things around.  Several people have offered us hand-me-downs, so as I know for certain what those are, I can easily strike things off the list.  Awesome.

And if you think I’m done, you’re totally wrong.  I’ve recently semi-discovered IKEA.  Only “semi” because I’ve never actually been to a store, which I’ve been told is quite an experience in itself.  I’ve fallen completely in love with their TROFAST storage system.  I love how flexible it is and how much it can grow with the baby.  I can have shelves just out of baby’s reach for diapers and a changing table attached now, and in a year part can be low bookshelves and toy bins.  Having shelves and storage at a child-friendly height seems really important to me.  Even better, there are drawers you can add that I’m thinking of using for clothes for the first few years.  We’d originally planned to get a chest of drawers that could travel with the kid as he grows from baby to high school and even beyond, but I’m thinking it would be nice to use this during the beat-the-crap-out-of-everything stages and save the better furniture for a little later.  Like when the poor boy doesn’t want bright blue and red doors in his room anymore and needs more space for non-tiny clothes.  I’m a big fan of having a place for everything, though, and this system seems to provide that.

The only problem with it is that it only comes in white particleboard and lacquered pine.  I live in a solid pine house, with pine walls inside and out.  I try to avoid pine furniture.  It’s just too much pine.  We think we can take a small sander to the boards and either paint or stain them, but I want to talk to someone first who’s done it and succeeded.  I’m optimistic, though.

The only thing I can think of that we haven’t picked out yet is a high chair.  That’s proving slightly problematic, as we know we don’t want some big fluorescent toucan and panda contraption in our kitchen, but don’t know what else to get.  Since our kitchen and living room is one open, relatively nice area that can be seen across from either of the main entrances, it would be great not to have something so…bright sitting in the middle of it for years to come.  J really liked the Chicco Polly chair, but apparently it’s a royal pain to clean.  Others have recommended one by Fisher Price, padded, reclinable seat that straps onto a kitchen chair.  I feel bad getting that because we have a strap-able seat from Eadric and Sam (thanks a million!) that we can use when the kid’s a little bigger and doesn’t need to lean back at all.  But of course, if I can put them in the crib just off the main area or in a bouncer in the living room, do I really need a little baby in a high chair just to hold them while I cook?

Meh.  Back to researching.  I think I suck at this.

June 17th, 2009 by Ascelyn

Sitting here watching my belly squirm and giggling uncontrollably.  I do wish J would call me back so I could figure out when to leave and what to plan for dinner, but this is amusing in the meantime.

June 11th, 2009 by Ascelyn

Sometimes I think this can’t be real.  Even as I go through the motions–putting together a registry, wondering what to do with the multiple desks currently inhabiting the spare room, seeing the doctor every month–I keep waiting for everything to come crashing down around me.  Who, me?  Pregnant?  And everything going okay?  Maybe for now.  Of course, who knows what’s just around the corner?

I feel like a poser every time I pull up my zipperless, stretchy-top maternity jeans.

Already I’m failing.  I haven’t had time to cook a proper meal in weeks, I don’t sleep enough, I barely exercise.  Most of my time is spent sitting and staring at one screen or another.  Then I go home and stare at a book until I’m permitted to collapse into bed.  That’s probably why my house is a disaster zone.  I don’t think I’ve seen the bottom of the kitchen sink in the last month.  I don’t even want to contemplate the bathroom sinks.  Sure, I tried cleaning the shower, but that was an exercise in futility.  I got knocked up around New Year’s, so I haven’t even taken down the Christmas decorations yet.  (In my defense, we only decorated inside, so it’s not like we’re an eyesore in our non-neighborhood.)

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June 11th, 2009 by Ascelyn

Tonight is a Thursday.  I’m going to go home from work, find something to eat, and do laundry.

That’s it.  Nothing else.  No running around like a madwoman trying to eat on the go plus remember the kids’ snack plus get the church ready plus teach plus shuttle kids back and forth plus not go insane.  Just…go home.

It’s over.  Last night I cleaned out the office and locked the door for one last time.  I handed the keys over to the pastor, who will in turn give them to our replacement tonight.  This Sunday or next, we’ll start looking for a new church.

It’s really, finally over.  I’m free.  Still connected in ways beyond my immediate control, but no longer bound.

Is it bad that I miss the kids already?

June 10th, 2009 by Ascelyn

With some help from Charlotte, I think I have a plan for Pennsic garb prep.

• Sew a short-sleeved laced gown from my remaining chocolate brown linen
• Either buy the pretty pink linen I like and sew another laced gown
• OR remove the buttons from my existing blue gown and convert it to being laced
• Sew at least four shifts from lightweight linen, with at least one of them hopefully LBC-vettable.  The remainder will be machine sewn out of a dire need for speed.

I’m hoping it’s neither too unbearably hot and humid, potentially requiring a change of clothes as evening falls, nor a mudfest, which could mandate my buying more stockings.  I think I might buy the pink linen regardless, since I’ll have to order more 3.5 oz white to supplement the 5 yards I already have.  It might be pretty to line the brown with the pink, as well.

If I hadn’t already used up my remaining linen/cotton blend fabric scraps for undertunics last year, I’d probably just give in and make tunics.  As it is, I like cotehardies better, and they seem more adjustable.  I think I can do everything on my own but the sleeves now that I’ve seen it done and have a completed gown to look at while cutting.

I’m busy tonight, but Jason will be at the church with the youth tomorrow evening, and I have Friday off.  Hopefully that will give me time to get started.  Realistically, I might just end up crashing on the couch instead.  That seems to be my main problem in getting anything done these days.

51 days ’til Pennsic!

June 3rd, 2009 by Ascelyn

It’s kicking me.  I can see it moving around under my skin.  It’s seriously, seriously creepy.

About ten minutes ago, I sent an email to the lady who runs a nearby home-based daycare.  Her credentials are excellent, her style seems to match mine, and she’s just down the street from my parents’ house, about ten minutes from work.  The only alternative I’ve been able to find is a larger center in the town to the south of us, which could add a full two hours to our commute each day (half an hour there from home, half to work, then repeat in the evening).  I’ve never met anyone who liked the place, and one lady J knows who sends her children there has had to take her daughter to the doctor for illnesses about every other week since the poor girl was born last year.  I doubt they give the attention to individual children, particularly infants, that the other lady would; they just can’t.  However, since they can accept more children, I’d have a good chance of getting a spot.

I’m worried about work.  My week of required PTO + 5 weeks of short term disability + another partial week of PTO would lead me up to the beginning of our Thanksgiving holiday, provided I give birth close to my due date.  Then there are three weeks or so before a longer Christmas/New Year’s holiday.  The baby will only be 7 weeks when someone else starts taking care of him for the bulk of the day.

That would be bad enough if I was sure I’d be working normal hours.  You know, the mythical 9-5, or in my case 8-6.  Lately, though, our days have been starting early and running late, sometimes into the wee hours of morning.  We’re frequently staying until around ten each night after getting in at seven, working weekends, and so forth.  It’s the 6:00 am to 2:00 am days that are horrific, but unremarkable.  That’s not going to change, and there are others in the group who have children and babies who stick around.  Jason’s hours aren’t much better.  Would we even get to see our child?

I’d love to work part time, but I’m not sure that’s feasible with my job.  I know others who have done it on plant, but their jobs are not mine and involve mostly desk work.  Put them on half the number of programs and you’re good.  I work on a portion of one program, and I don’t know if they’d be able to hire half a technician or what would happen.

Could I stay at home?  We’d make it work.  We’re not rich, but we’re not broke either.  Comfortable.  The problem would be coming back to work eventually.  If we didn’t move–and how could we afford to move with just J’s income?–I’d have to come back to the Rocket Factory.  There’s nowhere else around, which is why I’m here to begin with.  I don’t particularly like the company in general.  I think it treats its employees, especially at our plant, like crap.  I wouldn’t want to work here if it couldn’t be where I am now.  What are the chances they’d be hiring for my spot when I wanted to return, though?

Is there any way to ask these things of your boss without sounding disloyal?  I don’t want to make it sound like I’m trying to leave.  After all, chances are I’m not going anywhere.

I wish I knew what to do.  I’d like to someday get back to my dream of making and selling children’s toys and necessities within the SCA, but that’s not likely to bring in the sort of money that working here does.  I’d be lucky to break even for a while.  And really, do I have the skills to make the things well, much less research them properly?  My research has always been of the scientific kind.  Delving into history has proved a much greater challenge over the last few years.  At least I have several people who do the same thing with other items that I can look up to and of whom I could ask questions (hi Eadric and Miguel!), but they’re better at it than I ever could be.  I don’t have the skill they do, and I never will.

I love my mother and firmly believe she did what was best for us by providing a stable home that would remain solvent and stable if my decidedly unstable father left, but I barely saw her while I was growing up.  Because of her, I knew that women could take care of themselves and didn’t need a man, but I didn’t really know her.  I don’t want to be like that.  I want to teach my children and help them learn about the world and find their places in it.  I want to be there to help them with their homework, to make them real food for dinner and sit down and eat it with them.  I don’t want my little boy to grow up eating frozen fish sticks and spaghetti-os at a table by himself while everyone else watches TV.  Did it hurt me?  Probably not.  But I want better for my kids.  Isn’t that part of what being a parent is about?  Wanting your kids to have better than what you had?

I have no good way to end this.  My thoughts just keep running in circles, and I don’t know if there is a good way to put them to rest.

May 27th, 2009 by Ascelyn

It’s official.  I’ll be at Pennsic for war week.  The boss has agreed, the money has been sent in, and unless I’m under doctor’s orders to stay at home in bed, I’ll be living in a canvas house at Cooper’s Lake for the first week of August.  (I can’t really call that camping.  I’ll have an actual bed and won’t be eating hot dogs and s’mores every day.)

Obviously, I need to get around to making tent poles for the Duplex Wall Tent of Doom.  And if I intend to physically be able to get out of bed in the morning, I need to build a bed that will be up off the ground rather than just relying on my trusty little camp cot.  But beyond that, one would think that I wouldn’t have much prep work to do.  After all, I’ve been there two years now, so I obviously have everything together.  Right?

Wrong.  I was there for two years that I was either not pregnant or not knowingly so.  I had a cotehardie, a sideless surcoat, and an armload of tunics last year, and I was quite happy with that.  Unfortunately, the cote no longer buttons, and I need to try on the tunics and see which ones currently fit.  Some won’t now, and others won’t as of Pennsic.  We’ll see.

As of this weekend, thanks to Eadric’s mom (thank you!), I have one front-lacing gown with long sleeves.  I think the sleeves are tight enough that my cotton/linen blend tunics won’t fit underneath comfortably, so I need to actually get off my rear and make a proper lightweight linen shift.  As of this moment, I’m somewhat uncertain how to go about doing that, but emails have been sent and I’m hoping that I’m right in my suspicions and it’s not too difficult.  I want to make another front-laced dress of this linen, which will be short-sleeved.  If I make 4 shifts to go under them, depending on how many of my tunics still fit, and do laundry once during the week, I might be okay.  I’ll also have two sidelesses (the linen one with Eadric’s household colors and a wool one that needs to be hemmed) and possibly my blue Norman tunic.  There’s no way my brown and red tunic or ren fair-ish garb will fit at all.

In other words, I have a lot of sewing and woodworking to do.  Much of which I’ll need help with.  Ugh.

Just over eight weeks ’til Pennsic!

May 26th, 2009 by Ascelyn

Dear baby,

The bladder is not a moon bounce.

Signed,

            Your mother

May 20th, 2009 by Ascelyn

Looks like the cold night, or something, did in my basil.  Oh well.  Looks like I have to go plant shopping again!