Under Construction

Well well well...my how the turn tables. How do you even start a blog post after taking a four month hiatus? I know not. This will be an exercise in humility, resilience and creativity. I will call upon each of these power falcons throughout this entry to guide me on my quest to terminal velocity. Let us pray the air doesn’t get too thin at the upper echelons of this blogosphere. 

2021 has been a breath of fresh air on so many levels. Aside from the new political and social climate that has been ushered in with a new president and the distribution of vaccines, we have also entered into a new era of parenthood: baby-prooferdom. Eliana has been growing faster than we can keep up with. In just a few short months, she has gone from flailing on the ground like some beached starfish/squid hybrid to scooting around a room like a paralyzed monkey child. (If my analogies have gotten worse, please attribute it to my 4 month unpaid sick leave from writing). A good chunk of our free time is now spent frantically scanning the bottom 48 inches of every room in our house. You know, the foundational nooks and crannies.  We still have a few corners to pad and a few stairs to gate off, but we’re making progress.

With how quickly Eliana is developing, I’m getting worried that she is going to grow bored of her parents before she turns two. In just a few weeks, she has gone from mumbling nonsense to repeating actual words. She now says ‘mama’ and ‘dada’ and knows what it means. She can say ‘dog’ and we’re pretty sure she knows what it means. Sophie taught her to say ‘bus’ and she can’t pronounce her S’s yet so it comes out as ‘buth’. It’s the cutest sound you’ll ever hear. She can almost say ‘ball’ (‘baba’) and she knows what it means. She enjoys playing a good game of catch these days. If she’s holding a ball and you hold your hand out and ask for it, she will attempt to throw it to you. Her aim is not great, but she knows what you want! Honestly, it was a bit spooky when I first discovered she was actually LISTENING to me. Up until recently, one just assumed babies hear you making noises out of your mouth hole, but now MY mouth hole noises MEAN something to her. She is COMMUNICATING with us! Now we must tread lightly…

In other recent home improvement news, Sophie and I decided to completely redesign our living room last month. We have been putting it off for a few years because I knew how much work it would be and we finally decided to bite the feng shui bullet. After painting the room white (NOT whisper white, egg shell white, or ultra pure white…all of which were options) and rearranging our furniture, I took on the daunting task of building a series of floating shelves, equipped with adjustable grow lights. This year we planned on starting our entire garden from seed for the first time, which meant we needed a practical space for growing our little plant babies. We liked the idea of growing our starts in a common area and fell in love with the idea of showcasing our plants on the shelves in the living room. With this vision in mind, we designed a pretty sweet little set up…

We are very happy with the end product. One of our fears was that the grow lights would be too bright for the space and fortunately that is not the case; even after the sun goes down. The grow lights cast a nice accent of sunlight in our living room corner. We plan on using the lights year round and I think during the cold and dark winter months, these lights will counteract the soul sucking effects of reduced daylight. There are a few modifications I’d like to make to give the cords a more orderly look, but all in all, our plant babies are quite literally on the up and up. 

Speaking of overhauls, Sophie and I are undergoing some bodily reconstructions of our own! As of April 6, we will be starting the process of immunizing ourselves against the no good, very bad coronavirus that we are all so familiar with. It almost feels like Christmas is coming early this year. By the end of April, you can expect a return of Michael’s famous half-assed, semi-firm, mostly decent hugs; a tradition we have ALL been missing. 

This month also marks the completion of my 60-day Insanity fitness program! For those who weren’t aware, my January/February monthly fitness challenge was to persevere through this hellish program. As the name implies, it was…difficult. The warm up itself was more cardio than I had been doing for an entire workout. Naturally, there was a learning curve. I can definitively say that my body has transformed into a fitness machine. Midway through the program I noticed that our dryer started to shrink my pants a little more each week. It was the weirdest thing…Once I realized how much bigger my legs had gotten, I also started noticing new holes in the crotches of my pants. Damn dryer! I now have the entertaining task of finding a new style of pant. The slim leg fit now makes me look like I am trying waaaaay too hard to showcase my legs and ass in public. Tight thighs, crotch holes flapping with every step…Waaay too hard.

“Welcome to UNDERcurrent…get it? ;-) “

Sophie has also embarked on a fitness journey of her own. She wants to lose all of her baby weight and switch up our diet. We are now on a semi-strict regimen of eating low carbs throughout the week and replacing the lost calories with legumes and vegetables. It has been more challenging than I anticipated. Seems like we are always whipping out the instapot to pressure cook beans and filling our fridge with Tupperware upon Tupperware of the gassy bastards. Morning, noon, and night, beans. Sometimes lentils; mostly beans. I feel like it will take one more month to fully embrace this diet transition and relinquish any misgivings over to the Bean Gods. So far though she has lost 7lbs just from changing her diet! Soon we will both be lean bean fighting machines.

The last few months have been quite challenging for our little family due mostly to time constraints so seeing the seasons change and knowing how many great changes are on the horizon has been revitalizing. The slow budding of Spring has awakened a new life inside of our little family. I can see it as clearly as the sprouts emerging on our newly finished shelves. The days are growing brighter and fresher and I can’t think of any reason why we shouldn’t be as well. 

Until next time,

Michael