Newt vs. The Demonic Bathroom: A Very Long and Sad Story

Howdy, internet. Sorry I left that spooky-ass picture of Yoshimi as my top post for so long. I've been busy, renovating the bathroom. I mean, I knew pregnancy would mean spending a lot of time in the bathroom, har har, but this is ridiculous.

You see, it all started with this vanity:

The sad irony is, it's a perfectly normal, even elegant piece of furniture. There was no real reason to get rid of it, but it just wasn't...us. It was too dark, too formal, too ornate, and to tell you the absolute truth, the real problem was that I couldn't visualize a toddler pulling a step stool up to this sink to brush his little toddler teeth.

So, it had to go. And so our troubles began.

Above the sink, there was a heavy mirror and sconce lighting, both also a bit too haunted-mansion for my taste, and here in this picture you can see the other reason I was dying to redo this room: the hideous red walls.


The previous owners of the house chose a lot of vaguely Southwestern colors, so I eventually came to think of this reddish/orangish as "Brimstone Sunset." It's like the color of Satan's ranch in Taos.

So anyway, when we started the ill-fated bathroom renovation back in March, our first step was to replace the heavy sink with a smaller, lighter pedestal sink.

Project time: 1 day (followed by four months of the old sink sitting next to the new sink while I did things like vomit and sleep and watch "Step It Up and Dance" marathons on Bravo).

Fast forward to early August: with my burst of second trimester energy, I finally managed to put the old sink, mirror, and lights on Craigslist. They were gone the next morning.

Project time: 15 minutes. I think I underpriced it.

With the sink finally gone, and a couple of gaping, electrified holes in the wall where the lights used to be, I called a handyman to install a new light fixture, and do some patching. (I always outsource the complicated stuff.)

Project time: 4 days (wiring, patching, waiting, handyman's bible study day, sanding).


So, it was time to paint the walls. But before I could get started, I noticed that a lot of the old paint had been splashed sloppily onto the tile and grout. This was a real problem, because I didn't want to slop my own paint over the previous paint, by way of covering it, and if I made lovely clean lines with my painting, the red would show in the margins. Ugh.


Oh, and also? Under the heading of "ways the previous owners did a lousy job with this paint"? When I took down the old wooden blinds, the window frames looked like this:


Ugh. Gross. So, I basically took a screwdriver and some sandpaper, and started gouging at all these messy edges to try to scrape the yuck away.

Here began my Lady MacBeth phase, when Mr. Newt would find me feverishly scratching away at the walls in my sleep, moaning "Out, out, damn paint." It wasn't pretty.

Project time: An eternity of infinite torment.

Finally, I had cleared away as much of the red as brute force and monomaniacal determination would remove. In my zeal, I also ended up making quite a few dents in my wall, which I then had to spackle, dry, and sand. This is when I should have known that the real problem wasn't so much paint as it was, you know, my brain. But monomaniacs are notoriously lacking in self-awareness.

Project time: Two more damn days.


So, with the grout gouged and then repaired, it was time to tape and prime. Sayonara, "Brimstone Sunset"!

Project time: I don't know, don't nag me.

And then paint (two coats plus touching up). The new color is called "Beach House," which is rather hilariously ironic, given that I live in one of those flat, landlocked, midwestern states with lots of bison. Anyway.

Project time: Three more damn days, I think, and before you tell me I shouldn't be painting, I will generously warn you that I am not well, and you should so not fuck with me.

Mostly because of this:



When I pulled the tape off the walls, the red was still there. It was still there.

I should have just slit my own wrists, but in my desperate determination to be done (just done), I went out and bought some caulk, and made a thin line all the way around the tile. The caulk container said it was a color called "biscuit" which I hoped meant it would dry a slight beige color that would match the tile. I should have tested it, but at this point, I was honestly beyond caring. Anything that would cover that stupid, stinkin', seeping-wound red was utterly, utterly fine with me.

Project time: Luckily, about 30 minutes less than it took Mr. Newt to power wash the deck, so he couldn't come in the bathroom and hassle me about caulk fumes and whatnot.

So of course the caulk dried bright shiny white. And now I have a rather peculiar white line running around the room.

But you know why I don't care? The red is finally gone. Obliterated. Deceased. Absent. Newt: 1 Brimstone Sunset: 0.


Flush with victory, I installed new white blinds to cover the still-crummy window (nobody will ever open the bathroom blinds anyway, right?) and a smaller, vaguely New Englandy mirror.

Project time: You know the drill wasn't charged, so there goes another five hours.

So yay! The project is sort of kind of done. We just need a little white storage armoire in there, a towel bar, a new shower curtain, and something on the walls. I can see the finish line, and it's just a Target run away. I should be celebrating my victory.

But here's the thing: it never bothered me before, but suddenly when I walk in that room all I can see is that awful floor. What's with the terra cotta tiles running diagonally, while the non-matching taupe wall tiles run horizontally? And why are they different colors? Does that drive anyone else crazy?

Oh infernal bathroom, will you never release your demonic grip on my weary soul?

Heavy sigh. So, internet, here are my questions (and please keep in mind that these are coming from someone who took 5 months basically just to paint one 5x7 room).

1. Is this floor as bad as I think it is? Will it scar Yoshimi's little developing aesthetic taste?

2. Is it hard to replace a tile floor?

3. Will you be disappointed in me if I just get a really big bath mat and call it a day?

My Spooky Baby.

So here he is. Can't say which side of the family he most resembles (unless Mr. Newt has any relatives from Area 51 he hasn't been telling me about).

But I don't care if he's hideous, I love my little alien baby. And on the bright side, with a face like that, we won't ever need to get him a Halloween costume.

Everything I've always wanted to know about boys*

Oh my gosh, a boy! I'm absolutely delighted, but am having trouble wrapping my head around it. A boy! A real, live, snips and snails, etc. boy.

These are my main, scattered thoughts so far, for how things will be if I get to bring this little boy human home:

Pros:

• Mr. Newt will be in charge of the birds and bees talk (Score!).
• No princess crap in the house (Score!).
• Shorter hair easier to brush (although if he wants to be a long-haired hipster boy, that's fine with me, too).
• Can teach boy to respect women and watch him grow up to be a good man.
• Grandpa is going to love taking him fishing (I hope he likes fishing).
• This is going to be so much fun.

Cons:

• Gender balance of household will leave me outnumbered (note to self--bribe child with shiny objects).
• Bathroom sanitation will likely suffer from boy's immature ability to aim urine stream at bowl.

As you can see, I'm still a little fuzzy on the particulars, but trying to get my vision of the future in place, so I can hold onto it.

To that end, I'm hoping some of you with brothers or sons or nephews who live closer than a thousand miles away can help me out with some of the technical specs.

1. Is it true they spray you when you change their diapers? How do you prevent that? I would really like to prevent that.

2. Do you rest their little penises in an up or down position when you put on the diaper? Is that a ridiculous question?

3. At what age do you stop taking them into ladies' public restrooms with you? (I guess I have lots of time to figure that out later.)

4. Do they touch themselves a lot, from the beginning? Or do they start that later on? I want the little guy to have a healthy relationship to his own body, so I need to know what to expect here.

Umm, so you can see that most of my questions have to do with the immature male hardware in particular, which is a little foreign to me. I'm sure I'll have lots of questions about the software later on, and I'm sure they will be equally inept.

*but was afraid to ask (because people might think it was a little pervy).

Healthy Baby!

Yoshimi looked great this morning--all necessary body parts present and accounted for. The technician did a very thorough survey of her brain, spine, and abdominal wall, and saw no abnormalities. Then the specialist himself, who apparently has a reputation for extreme thoroughness, came into the ultrasound room and did his own minute inspection of Yoshi's potentially problematic areas. She was pronounced sound and healthy in every respect.

She was also pronounced a he! I'll upload a few photos after Mr. Newt scans them, but I'll warn you in advance that we didn't get any of those dainty little profile shots people like to put on their blogs. All the face shots were straight-on, so our little guy looked a bit like Skeletor from the old He-Man cartoons, except for one pic where his face looked all stretched out like the guy in Edvard Munch's The Scream. Nothing you would want to put on a Hallmark card.

The tech also generously printed out not one but three rather graphic close-ups of his genitalia. During the scan, the baby looked a little abashed at all the attention being paid to his undercarriage, so I am going to respect his privacy, and not upload photos of his junk for all the world to see.

I may, however, set those aside to show his prom date someday.

The (Inevitable) Return of the Repressed

Howdy, internet.

It's been a funny week. I've been quiet, mostly because I've been suppressing some things that aren't that fun to write about. I'm going to hold my breath and just type them through quick, in the interest of bringing the blog up to date, and maybe saving myself some therapy later on. So, in no particular order:

1. The unfilled due date from my second pregnancy was July 31. We were moving and packing that day, so didn't have much time to dwell on it, although it's been haunting the back of my thoughts ever since. A few days after it had passed, I had this conversation with Mr. Newt:

"That was our second unfilled due date. We should have two babies by now, one four months and one newborn."
"That kind of doesn't make any sense."
"I know."

That pretty much sums up where things stand with that issue.

2. My MSAFP blood screen came back at 2.28 or "slightly elevated." Most labs won't even flag you unless it's over 2.5, but my peri in Ohio was extra cautious, and sent this result on to my OB back home with a recommendation for follow-up. This result translates to a 1 in 396 chance of a neural tube or abdominal wall defect, so a very tiny risk. Also, the lost twin could easily be causing the slight elevation.

So I haven't been exactly in a panic about this result, but it has been nagging, vaguely, in the edges of my consciousness for weeks now. All my records and such have finally been transferred and read and interpreted by my OB, and this AFP issue has earned us an immediate Level II ultrasound (scheduled for Monday), and an appointment with the genetic counselor. So it's nice things are moving forward there.

Of course, if the baby turns out to have spina bifida, we will cross that bridge when we come to it. What scares me, though, is the possibility of anencephaly. I think most people go into the anatomy scan dying to find out of the baby is a boy or a girl. Mr. Newt and I will be desperately waiting to hear that Yoshimi has a whole brain.

3. I don't know if this is related to the AFP thing, but since we've been home, I have had a very difficult time telling people about the pregnancy. I am just scared to talk about it. Unfortunately, it is now rather unmistakable that I either ate a lot of corn dogs at the Ohio State Fair, or else I'm in the second trimester of pregnancy. Since I'm a vegetarian, most people can guess which of these options is the more likely.

However, everyone here south of the Mason-Dixon line is too polite to say anything about my newfound girth, so I keep having these awkward conversations with people who haven't seen me in a while, where they try to look me in the eyes, all the while shifting uncomfortably in their shoes, clearly dying to stare at my midsection to decide if they really see what they think they see. Inevitably, the conversation runs to such mundane topics as how hot it has been (very) and how our recent trip to Ohio was (lovely). Finally, I will awkwardly get up the nerve to break the tension, with a clever little line like "So, you might notice I look a little different these days..."

I am always vaguely self-conscious about admitting that I'm pregnant, as it draws attention to, you know, the fact that I had sex with my husband, and also that I have a uterus and vagina and stuff. It's not that I think people don't assume these things, but somehow I'm disinclined to force these details into their consciousness.

Also, people seem to foolishly assume that because I am pregnant, I will have a live baby in January, a prediction that still seems quite hazy to me. So these conversations get ever-more-awkward, as I say bizarre things in an effort to direct attention away from what seems like an excessive concentration on my female reproductive organs and this whole live-baby thing. Among the weird comments that have come out of my mouth lately:

"No, we don't know the sex yet. We'll be happy with either, as long as it isn't one of those evil babies, like in The Omen."

"Well, all babies kind of look alike to me. I mean, it's no coincidence that they put those little ID bracelets on them as soon as they are born. I can't be the only one who can't tell one from another."

"We are having trouble coming up with a name, so we're thinking of selling the naming rights to the hightest-bidding corporation. 'Chesapeake Energy Newtlet' has a lovely ring to it, and we could have her whole college fund squared away before she is even born."

In other words, I say the same bizarre stuff I say here on this blog, but trust me, all this sounds much creepier in person, especially for people who are just learning about our pregnancy, don't know about the miscarriages, and just want to congratulate me on our happy news. What I don't seem able to say is "Thank you--we are really excited." It seems like a simple sentence, but some stubborn part of my grief and anxiety won't let me engage in normal conversations about pregnancy or babies with friends and acquaintances. I just can't.

I hope that after Monday I can relax a little bit. If not, we may have to move somewhere new, as I am in danger of gaining a bit of a reputation here in our small town for having a bizarre and unfeminine lack of maternal feeling. People are starting to look at me funny.

So, I've been staying home a lot, and concentrating my energies on my various household projects. This sounds like wholesome nesting, but actually the house, which is a mass of unfinished and highly chaotic projects, is a rather perfect metaphor for my disordered mental state. I think I've put enough of my disordered mental state into evidence for one day, however. I'll just leave the house project for another post.

Olympic Fever

Watching the equestrian dressage event this morning:

Me: I like that Italian horse. He's feisty.

Mr. Newt: Yeah, most horses have qualities consistent with ethnic stereotypes about their countries of origin.

(You think I'm kidding, but he really talks like that)

Mr. Newt: He probably has a big family. And likes to cook. I bet that horse is from Sicily and has a bad temper.

Me: Oh, shut up.

Mr. Newt: If you crossed him, that horse would probably leave a person's head in your bed.

Facing the Detritus of a Difficult Year.

So, I'm finally unpacked. When we left town, we had just lost sweet Mr. Peabody, and I was just starting to outgrow my clothes, and I had no idea what to pack. Picking out clothes for the next two months required a window into the future that I just didn't have at the time--would I stay pregnant? If so, how big would I get? Would I be sick and want to lie around all the time, or would I feel better and want to get more active? If the remaining baby died, what then? A fitness orgy to get my mind clear (maybe), or a television orgy with beer and chips (probably)?

I just had no idea, so I packed a little of everything: skinny clothes, fat clothes, some maternity clothes my sister-in-law had loaned me, lounging clothes, running clothes. Through a haze of nausea and terror, I threw almost everything I owned (and a few things I didn't) into a couple of suitcases, and tried not to think about it too hard.

Thankfully, I didn't need the skinny clothes. Or, as it turned out, the sports bras (sorry, ass!). And I outgrew everything else in a matter of weeks, so did some emergency shopping. And then we went to visit my family, and my sister gave me a giant box of her old maternity clothes.

So I left with a ridiculous amount of stuff, and came home with...well, I think twice as much. It has taken me two days (two days!) to sort through everything and find somewhere to put it. Crikey, I felt like a diva, but without the closet space.

So whew. Glad that's done. Everything in my drawers now fits my heffalump belly, and everything else is safely stored away.

The sorting jamboree was a fitting kick-off, I guess, to a week of working on the house, in a bid to ignore the fact that school is starting soon. La la la la la I can't hear you la la la la.

My last week of working on the house (spring break) ended with a lot of unfinished projects that have been staring at me reproachfully since, um, March. For instance, we installed a new, smaller sink in the front bathroom, but left the old sink sitting, patiently, RIGHT NEXT TO the new sink all this time. So the whole plan to make more room in that bathroom is not really working out so far. Oops.

The guest room got painted, but then never put back together, so there's a drop cloth actually still sitting on the bed in there, protecting it from the paint that's been dry for...ahem...five months. Well, you get the picture. (In my feeble defense, I suffered from incapacitating nausea for one of those months, and was out of the state for two!).

So this week of working on the house has to start with the tedious process of finishing all of my unfinished projects before I allow myself to do what I REALLY want to do, which is paint the family room and dining room and get a lot of new furniture, and switch the guest room to the spare room so we can use the former guest room as a nursery. And maybe rearrange the office. I haven't decided yet.

Mr. Newt is wary. I can't imagine why.

Blame it on the car lag.

We're home, and wiped out. But in celebration of the fact that our house is still standing, and I will be sleeping in my own bed tonight, here's one more conversation about naming the baby, courtesy of our recent trip:

Mom: I don't know how everybody picks a name before the baby is even born nowadays. Children are individuals; you have to pick something that suits them. Maybe you should just wait until it gets here, and then see what it looks like.

Me: That seems dangerous. When it gets here, it'll be all smooshed and red and fat. We'd probably end up calling it "Frodo" or something.

Mr. Newt: Or "Slick."

Goodbye, Columbus!

I was all ready to write a fond farewell to dear Columbus on Tuesday, while Mr. Newt packed the U-haul, and I played the pregnancy card and stayed inside in the air conditioning. But alas, I was foiled. The cable guy came early and took my DSL away, leaving me with nothing to do but pack up my pie box and head out of town. But Columbus, you deserve better than this belated and necessarily brief sayonara. Mr. Newt and I had a bang-up time.

In particular, we are going to miss the Blue Nile Ethiopian Restaurant on High Street. Goodbye, lovely Blue Nile. I'm putting "Blue" on the list of potential baby names, whether Mr. Newt likes it or not.

And goodbye Park of Roses. I didn't think you were really going to have roses, but as usual, I was quite impressively wrong. You are the gosh-darn rosiest park I have ever seen, and I want to thank you for the lovely walk, and also apologize for the way my dog so enthusiastically left his mark on your tender shoots and leaves. It was a compliment! He wants you to be his territory. My dog has excellent taste.

And goodbye, Red Box DVD dispenser outside the Giant Eagle grocery store on 5th Avenue. We loved your $1 rental fees, and your wide selection of big and stupid movies. Roland Emmerich's masterwork, 10,000 B.C., may not have won any Oscars, but those glorious stampeding mastadons will always have a special place in our cheese-loving hearts.

Since leaving Columbus, we have been on a road trip around the Midwest, visiting family before we return to our little college town in the bible belt. This has to be a short update, while my in-laws are off moving furniture, but let me leave you with my 3-year-old niece's favorite joke. Her grasp of the art of the punchline is not unlike my mother's expertise on obscure biblical passages.

Knock Knock
(Who's there?)
Banana
(Banana who?)
Aren't you glad to see at the door...banana?

Laugh hysterically, repeat ad nauseum.