So.

So.

All the men in my life (my cousin Nick, who is still with us; the three-man crew who's been working on the house since November; the electrician; and of course, K) have been slaving away to gratify the wish of a third-trimester pregnant lady who dearly wants to move into her own house in a month. We are o-u-t of cash-money-bling and thus the paid employees will be dropping away in the next 2 weeks, leaving-- you guessed it-- K. to finish up: meaning prime, paint, finish the floors, install the light fixtures, the ceiling fans, the entire kitchen, and the bathrooms. In a month.

He is working so hard. Yesterday (Saturday), a day on which other people mow the lawn and go grocery shopping with the family, he spent the morning burning scrap behind the new house, the afternoon installing windows at the main street building, and after dinner, more burning; I'm not sure what time he came home, but it was after eleven I'm sure. He plans to spend today priming.

The only way I can try to say thank you is to make healthy meals and let him sleep in. So I've been doing that. Someday I swear the man is going to take a vacation.

But enough about the house. I think about it at two in the morning and upon waking and in the middle of the day and all there is to say is that it is coming along. And I will try my best to make sure K. gets treated like a king as soon as we're in there.

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About me and the new bebe:

The novel progresses but as always, more slowly than it should. It's pretty good though. Fun writing a pregnant teen while being knocked up myself-- I wasn't when I started.

Speaking of which: we are having another home birth, with a different set of midwives this time, but there is continuity because Melissa was the assistant at Annaliese's birth and has since opened her own practice. We feel good about this. Baby boy weighs on me more heavily than Annaliese did; he moves a lot more than she did, and is currently transverse, meaning he's got his head up against one side, his bum against my pelvis, and his feet up on the other side of my ribs-- an entirely un-birthable position, the best he could do would to be pop a hand out and wave. So I have been ordered to lie on an ironing board propped against a couch several times a day and do other strange things to encourage him to turn.

He is due May 31st. I am not ready. Hopefully I will be before he gets here. But when I stop to think about it-- it's going to be super interesting to have TWO little strangers.


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K. and I are both daily surprised by how much we adore our daughter. We just... dote on her, think she's interesting and marvelous and amazing and it's a continual shock to realize she's not going to be this adorable age forever and will isntead master new skills and keep turning into a person.

The play school has been fantastic. After a week or two of disgruntled adjustment, Annaliese now spends her mornings there happily, waving goodbye to us, playing, drawing, singing, and scampering around with the other little ones. She eats like a horse, is sleeping like a champion (12 hours a night, 2 hour nap in the afternoon), and on the few occasions K. and I have left her at school for longer, she naps on her mat with the other kids without fanfare and seems entirely content when we come to pick her up.

It is great. Everyone is happy about it. Balance-- something conspcuously lacking from her first year of life-- has been achieved.


Currently, Annaliese likes to go on walks-- meaning she walks, periodically holding my hand-- climb stairs, put lids on jars, eat hardboiled eggs and berries of all kinds, kiss her blanket and me, jump on her papa, read books (current favorites: the big red barn and Mother Goose nursery rhymes), and flirt with Cousin Nick. She blows him kisses very coyly; hilarious.

We had a really good thing going of spending the afternoons outside, but the last 3 days have been so cold and wet that huge earthworms have found their way into my kitchen every morning, gasping that they're drowning. This has made for a bored and housebound Mama and Annaliese. But tomorrow's supposed to be 70 so hopefully we'll be putting on our sneakers without fear of getting our feet wet and heading out to do more important things like collect sticks and tear the heads of daffodils.



Cos when we're stuck inside we feel like this:



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In garden news--

I've been planning this year's Farmers Market, which has involved all sorts of political shenanigans now that it had a successful season last year. Pain in my rear. But what's nice is my farmers want me to run the market again.

Our first day is May 9th, and we'll continue every Saturday through September: 21 Saturdays in all, and they'll probably be some Wednesday markets in there. I don't get paid a dime but man do I love it.

What with a new bebe, K will have to help me some more than he did last year. But the farmers like him too :) So hopefully it'll work out.

My tomato seedlings are doing GREAT. Pretty cool considering they're the seeds I saved myself from last year's heirloom tomatoes. I'm going to keep on starting more and maybe sell a few to further recoup last year's $80 on heirloom seedlings, (though I made up for it last year by selling half my tomatoes at market. So we'd be into gravy territory).

The next round of landscaping commences in the next 3 weeks. Flowers and shrubs this time. And once it gets dry enough, K will be tilling me a ton of flower beds and the veggie garden.

I really find all the outside work more satisfying than the house renovations; it just feels like something I'm better at, where as the house stuff-- I can spend a day doing what K. can do in an hour. Which gets frustrating. Where is there ain't no way he'd ever have planted all those trees.

WHICH ARE DOING GREATY, BY THE WAY. Budding out and all. Warms my heart.

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So, we're busy. I have weekly I-want-to-go-to-Europe days. I wish I saw K. more, because everything feels right when he's around and fantabulous when we actually have time to look at each other for awhile.

But we both knew when we signed up to be K&A that there would be busy years.

These are them.