Place Your Bets Here, Ladies and Germs...

Will I have a May baby or an April baby? My original (and, as far as I know, still my official) due date is May 1. BUT, when I looked at my charts (I did one appointment in Wisconsin, so got copies of my charts to take with me), they had my "adjusted," as in what they think it'll be after seeing him on ultrasound, due date as April 27th.

So... April baby or May baby? When do YOU think this little guy will arrive? Pick a date and make it your own. Closest guess wins... well... probably nothing. You just get the joy of being a winner. Make your guess as specific (date, time, etc) as you want.

The OPPOSITE of a Bargain Baby

No, I didn't go blow $300 at Baby Gap. I blew significantly less than that at a wonderful yarn store in Anchorage, Knitting Grounds.
There's something to be said about GOOD yarn. I'm talking about Malabrigo. Tough on the wallet, easy on the skin. This stuff gives my fingers happiness. There is also something to be said for a good pattern. I'm talking this time about Little Turtle Knit's Picky Pants Pattern. Now, at this point, you may be thinking one (or two) of two things... "But Sara, you PAID for a PATTERN? Aren't you the self-described cheap bastard who can't follow directions any better than your students?" OR "Sara... wool? On a baby? Are you daft?"

Well, I followed directions, thankyouverymuch, and they came out awesome. This pattern is actually worth the money. Most knitting patterns suck. This one gives you a whole bunch of options and a wide range of sizes, so I'll be able to use it many, many times. And I plan to. And as for the WOOL ON A BABY?! screamers amongst you, let me assure you of a few things. This is not like the wool you find at your local Mega Craft store. This stuff is... amazing. And as far as washing goes... well... these (and the second project, shown below the pants) are designed to be worn over a cloth diaper. Wool is awesome for that. Keeps liquids in, if you lanolize it correctly (which I sure as heck hope I manage to do).

Here be the Picky Pants, knitted in Malabrigo Azul Bolito (note: they haven't been blocked or lanolized yet):


And my other project (knitted in... crap, I forget, but some kind of yarn slightly less awesome than Malabrigo, but still pretty great), is a soaker I made from a free pattern I found online. I'd give credit, but the pattern was saved on my computer, which has again decided that it doesn't need to function. It's in a bigger-butt size. I'm trying to sew and knit things in various sizes, since I'm sure I won't have time after this moving mass in my abdomen makes his way out into the world. These haven't been blocked either, but the yarn is a VERY hand-spun kind of yarn, so it varies a lot in thickness. Even after it's blocked, it'll be pretty... wavy. I think it adds character.



So there you have it. Stuff I've made. Pretty boring post, I realize.

Bargain Basement Budget Baby

I've kind of been both mortally dreading and pathetically looking forward to the purchasing of baby clothing. Upside: Cute. Downside: Expensive.

Enter, the thrift store (Did I mention we're in Anchorage? Yeah, we're in Anchorage for a prenatal appointment). Ah, the thrift store. Onesies and T-shirts? $.99. Stretchy pants? Also $.99. Some really spendy items (a pair of Oshkosh B'Gosh overalls, an elastic-bottom "sleep sack," etc) were a whopping $4.99. I only bought a few of those most expensive items. Come to find out that most of the items were also 50% off today. Whaddayaknow?

$20 later, our unborn son is the proud owner of four pairs of pants, two sets of bibs (the Oshkosh B'Gosh pair and one short pair), three onesies, two little jacket shirt, aforementioned "sleep sack," and a baseball-style jersey shirt. $20.

The amount of Baby Gap and Other Assorted Expensive Baby Brand clothing there was mind-blowing... and most of it looked pristine. Shaun insisted on buying Baby Gap, out of sheer irony. We are the proud owner of a $.50 Baby Gap long-sleeved onesie. The cheapest price I could find for onesies on the Baby Gap website was 3 for $18. For $18, I could have gotten, if my calculations are correct, 36 onesies.

I'm such a cheap bastard. And darn proud of it.

I've Been Busy

And clearly, I've been busy not blogging.

I've been on a baby-item-making spree, though. I made two little cotton shirts (the collars were HARD, but the second one came out far better than the first, so I'm encouraged) and am currently in the middle of a knitting project (a romper, I guess they're called).

Over Christmas, my mother and I started on this...


... and I finished it the night that Shaun had his little snowmachine adventure. They're a big-baby size, because I figure I might as well build up a stash now, while I'm childless and fairly bored. The pattern called for no pocket and patches on the knees, but I started sewing on the patches and they just didn't look very good... kinda tacky. So I improvised a pocket. Thus continues my streak of being unable to leave anything alone. I can't think of a craft project I've completed "by the book," ever. I just can't leave well enough alone.

Conveniently, it is Chocolate Lab-colored, which is nice because, like everything else in our house, I'm guessing this baby will not be dog-hair-free.


*The flash made the dog shiny... they really are closer in color than this photograph would indicate. I'm very jealous of people who can arrange their craft projects to look all cool and artistic... not me. These are casual snapshots, and I am very OK with that.*

The Rise and Fall of This

I was just looking at the stats over on the righthand side of my blog. My yearly post totals caught my eye...

* ► 2007 (48)
* ► 2006 (162)
* ► 2005 (197)
* ► 2004 (99) [note: I started blogging in August of 2004]

Have I really become so boring? So lazy? So... no, I think boring and lazy pretty much sum things up quite nicely.

2007 has been a pretty eventful year. I got married and knocked up. I'm sure many other, smaller, yet equally blog-able things have happened to me as well, but I have neglected to record them for the ages. I guess that's the ages' loss. Well, the ages and me, since I also promptly forgot everything that I didn't write down. Guess that best-selling life story I was planning on writing just won't be happening. Darn.

For the moment, I'll just go back to gestating this baby. I might even post about it, or something.

So...

Yup, it's a boy.

Shaun posted ultrasound pics. I'd blame the fact that my computer has gone to the land of dead technological things (which is HAS), but let's face facts here, even if my computer were not kaput, he's just more on top of these things than I am. I didn't even know they were going to do the creepy 4-D ultrasound... it seems pretty unnecessary, so I didn't think it was something they just did without asking. All the sudden the tech just switched over to 4-D and started printing out pics! One profile shot would have been MORE than enough of a keepsake for me (and really... a keepsake is not a reason to have a medical procedure... but I digress...), but I guess I'm just kind of weird like that. Also, the 4-D shots really kind of creep me out.

So, yeah. Baby. Has "outdoor plumbing" and is normal, or as normal as the offspring of Shaun and myself could ever possibly hope to be.

Gobble Gobble

We hosted Thanksgiving dinner for those in Teacher Housing who weren't going elsewhere. We had nine people gathered around our table (and couches in the living room). Turkey was consumed, as were stuffing, mashed potatoes, and all the usual trappings... plus a whole lot of dessert. All told, to be split among nine people, we had three pies (pumpkin, cherry, and apple), two cakes (one spice and one white with salmonberries on top), and a pan of apple crisp. There was also a loaf of pumpkin bread that, while served with dinner, was probably more dessert-like than entree-like.

And the lasting (for an hour or so, anyway) proof of this soiree... the dishes.



Edited to add... Shaun didn't do all the dishes. We split them in half. We also made turkey stock with the carcass (which can be seen in the stock pot on the stove). Nummmmmmmmmy...

Apologies in Advance

Wow, I had a whole long post, but my computer crashed and it disappeared. So, I'll re-create, but I've lost some of my writing gusto, so it's probably not as exciting as the original. Here goes...

I don't want to turn this into an All-Baby-All-The-Time blog. I really don't. In spite of that, it may just happen... against my will, I swear.

I'll try to blog about other things, but it's hard to FIND other things to blog about. I'm in a comfortable pattern up here, and comfortable patterns, while comfortable, are not particularly blog-worthy.

So... yeah. Baby post. I made a blanket. It's for next winter, really, but I felt the sewing itch now and scratched it. Notice the lack of pastel pink, blue, green, and yellow.

I'm Infected

The Onion: Woman Overjoyed by Giant Uterine Parasite

POP QUIZ!

OK, boys and girls. Since we've got no school today (river is half frozen, so we didn't have enough kids to call it a school day), and I'm feeling teacherly, I'm going to administer a pop quiz. Please study the picture below, and answer the question that follows.



In this photograph, Sara is barefoot and _________ in the kitchen.
a. a man
b. pregnant
c. picking her nose
d. not wearing underpants

If you chose option *b*, you are correct. Due May 1. Shaun wrote a very nice post all about our trip to Anchorage for my appointment. No ultrasound pic to show off, though; they were fresh out of paper for the printer.

AbracaFABulous***

Now, I can usually spot concealed homosexuality in fiction and film with the best of them. In fact, I spot it where it doesn't even exist. My literary gay-dar, it seems, is on overdrive.

But I totally missed this one. I mean, jeez, I ONLY read that book how many times this summer?

I like that Dumbledore's gay. It makes sense. He certainly does have a sense of flair beyond that of your average hetero wizard.

***Shaun came up with the title for this post***

Boob

When it rains it pours, apparently... at least when it comes to first graders saying inappropriate things in cute ways and me just not understanding their intent.

So, the other day, I was just doing my thing, being a teacher. Being educational, and stuff.

Suddenly, a little darling tugged on my shirt. "My boob hurts," she said, then just kind of wanders away without further comment.

I was more than a little dumbstruck.

"Student," I called, "come back here." She kind of bounced back towards me. In a private-conversation-voice, I asked her, "What did you say hurts?"

"My boob," she replied, as if I were asking her a very, very dumb question.

"Your... huh?"

She held up a grubby first grade forefinger. "My BOOB! My THIS KIND" she huffed, pointing to a small cut on aforementioned digit.

Comprehension at last. "Oh," I said, "your BOO-BOO?"

"Yeah. That's what our baby calls them. Boo-boos."

Better than boobs, I guess.

@$$hole

First graders are precious.

Every day, my students take their own attendance. It takes the first graders a little while to find their name on the chart, trace over to the correct day, and make an "X." They're getting faster, but it's still a bit more of a process than I'd like.

They're allowed to talk quietly while waiting their turn.

Yesterday, they were busily marking Xs and quietly chattering about... who knows. First grade things. I was arranging things for the day's lesson.

Suddenly, I hear "Asshole. Asshole. Asshole."

It was directed at no one in particular, and was coming from a nice, sweet, non-swearing kind of kid. He's also a strong Yup'ik speaker, and not as fluent in English, so I thought it a possibility that he just had no idea what he was saying.

I walked over and asked, "What did you say, student?"

"Asshole," he replied. Or so I thought. He was saying it funny. It actually sounded more like "Essole."

So I asked for clarification. "Essole," he repeated.

Then he pointed at my flashlight, which I keep close by because the power goes out semi-regularly and my classroom has no windows. It had "ESL" written on the side in permanent marker.

First graders are just learning to sound out words around this time of the year. He was quite proud of himself. "Essole!"

I had to think of a way to at the same time congratulate him on his great word-detective skills and also inform him that it kind of sounded like he was swearing at someone.

Put me in, Coach

We bought a nice sled from some students last year. We can now bring back more groceries and other assorted goodies than we can carry in our backpacks when we go to Bethel.

Right now, it just needs some snow. :D

Nice Rack!

When you move into Teacher Housing in bush Alaska, you often inherit the possessions left behind by decades (or, OK, years) of previous occupants. I've scored some sweet stuff in the past few years... dishes, silverware, cookware, shampoo (thanks, Christina), board games and pillows. It tends towards the kitchen-item range of the household item spectrum, but anything is possible. You just never know, when you move into a strangely numbered Teacher Housing unit, what you're going to find. You could score big, you could get skunked.

As housing units go, our current house (which is definitely a step up from last year's apartment) was pretty castoff-free. It did, however, come equipped with a stellar clothes-drying rack:

Pictures

I know, I've been lax.

But, in my defense, I've tried. Every time I try to download more than, say, one picture to my computer at a time, it throws a royal two-year-old conniption hissyfit. It shuts down.

So I'm not very photo-friendly right now.

I've been thinking about getting a non-school-owned computer of my very own, but it seems like such a waste of money when they just let us use these machines for free.

Oh, and welcome to the blogging world, baby sister.

Pretty Muffins!

Left to right: Kelly, Mom, Me, Dad, Melissa.

This picture was taken when the hem of my dress was still clean (well, it's clean again, thanks to $135 and the wonders of dry cleaning), and the bridesmaids' dresses were still un-ripped. Also, all the women were wearing shoes at this point. This was, in true wedding tradition, not true later in the evening.

60 Degrees and Drizzling

Best. Weather. Ever.

OK, maybe not. But after nearly a month of 90-degrees-and-humid, I'll take Southwest Alaskan weather with very minimal grousing.

Sure, a few weeks from now, it will have become a bit... monotonous, but for now, we're enjoying walking around wearing sweatshirts, being able to drink hot coffee, and performing basic household tasks without ending up a sweaty mess.

Dude, Weak

Bulkfoods.com doesn't ship for free to Alaska anymore.

They can bite me.

Move Over, New York City...

Cab Capital of the U.S.? That would be Bethel, Alaska.

Side note: I promise I'll get wedding pics up, one of these days. Probably after we're back in Alaska, because our internet at home is sketchy, making picture-uploading a dicey proposition.