Holy Holy Moly.

It's official.

Zuzu is legit.

(In the eyes of Christianity, anyhow, and not in the whole She Doesn't Look Like Anyone Except For Maybe P.J.'s Best Friend Neil A Tad When The Light Makes Her Hair Slightly Reddish- But I Swear She's A Schoeny, Have You Seen Her Mouth kinda way.)

P.J.'s awfully excited.

We had a small baptism yesterday for our secondborn buttercup...and I'm not kidding you, she was an incredibly good baby. Which is no surprise. But it's still really nice when it occurs publicly.

When Father Bevin poured the water over her head (three times), she barely flinched. Although she did give a Look that seemed to say- Oh, please stop that. Soon-ish. Whenever, really. Oh, forget it- you're fine.

She didn't even mind when Nora "blessed" her forehead rather roughly. (To make sure it stuck, I imagine.)

Her godfather Nat (one of my oldest pals) and her godmother Dorrie (P.J.'s sis) did a really good job of a) getting Susannah to smile, and b) making sure the baptismal candle didn't tip/light anyone aflame.

"I saw Goody Proctor with the devil!"

Zu wore the Schoeny fam christening gown (which, when Nora wore it, inspired my sister Rachel to blurt out "I saw Goody Proctor with the devil!) It is rather eyelet lacy. And there was no hope of getting the bonnet on Susannah's head.

Let's just say that we waited so long to baptism this kiddo that there was a very real chance she would answer all of the priest's questions herself.

But she looked absolutely sweet and wonderful. And her after party dress (obvie) was a sailor dress.

Because nothing says I Now Know Jesus like an embroidered anchor.

Our families did an awful lot of work. (I think my Mom got off the tarmac and already had two things on the stovetop and hummus in the Cuisinart. And no one complained.)

Monkey bread, a.k.a. Eating A Bowl Of Sugar.

P.J.'s mother washed everything in the kitchen twice. (Because it got dirty repeatedly. Not because she thinks my house it filthy. Although- man, does she think my house is filthy?)

Two of my sisters came to play- which is always super fun- and I repaid the favor by making them sleep on the couch/on a half-inflated air mattress.

My gal (both gals, really) were spoiled rotten by family and our smallish group of pals. And I've already consumed my caloric intake for the month.

Which means...nothing, really.

Because I'm still about go do some damage to leftover Baptismal Quiche.

Can someone superimpose Rachel's head in here? 

Weekends Aren't For The Weak.

Close-up of ugly door.
Close-up of blogger's old promo pic.

P.J. loves it when I start a new weekend project. No really, he just adores it. What's not to love? Go on, honey (he says), why on earth would I prefer to sit here and pound through episodes of Firefly? It would be much nicer (he agrees) to help you prep, clean, facilitate, and be the sounding board for all of your ideas and/or misplaced anger. And even though my preferred color and state is white paint/unadorned walls (he acknowledges), I can totally get on board with a Mayan red door and Cajun red walls. Since you've already begun.

I'll admit it. I blindsided him with this weekend's project. But the front foyer and door had been staring me in the face with their ugliness for close to three years. And we're not talking just outdated or just a state of disrepair.

It was both. A lot of both.

The foyer was a yellowish hue, punctuated with poorly sanded holes, poorly covered holes, and smears of pink handprinty-type things. (And/or faded bloodstain handprinty-type things. Nothing surprises me anymore.) The door was chipped, water-stained, and rather warped "original" wood residing in a chipped, rusted, brownish frame.

Super old pic of Nora.
Super discolored foyer. 

You know how, sometimes, things are so bizarrely ugly and impossible to deal with that your brain actually stops seeing them? That's the only way I can explain how this entry point into our home lasted like this for so long. (Unless you factor in exhaustion. And laziness.)

Well, the fog finally lifted on Saturday morning and I had to do something. So I ran to Home Depot. Bought new edgers, new paint (Mayan red for said door and Eurolinen for said foyer- the latter of which is just a fancy word for...cream.)

While there, I racked up a two hundred dollar bill for...absolutely indeterminate items, but that's an entirely different story. And issue. (And credit card.)

Once home, I realized that we were down to one sole paint roller. And my project would require [at least] two. This revelation- while potentially explosive- was tempered by P.J.'s cautious suggestion that we could make a run on the following day and just focus on the door for Saturday. Whatta guy.

So I sanded. And wood-filled. And scraped. (And removed Mayan Red paint from an eight-foot radius. Because I become positively Jackson Pollock-esque when I renovate.) I had literally no fear about turning the front door into an eye-catching thing of awesome...as opposed to its current life as an eye-catching time capsule from the 1970s [after some natural disaster had occurred].

And you know what? It looks awesome. There wasn't much I could do about the rather dated diamond shape window facing the street, but the door's new deep mahogany color at least says- Hey, we're trying.

I felt quite proud. Prouder still once I managed to finagle the doorknob and dead bolt back into place. Whimsical poll: Do you know what makes a doorknob incredibly difficult to secure? Previously stripped screws and/or painted hardware. COME ON, PEOPLE/PAST OWNERS. I AM NOT A MAGICIAN.

Close-up of door at night
(in incredibly poor lighting.)
No artistic blog awards, here.

The next day- once the paint rollers were secured- I began the spackling and sanding and priming and painting of the foyer. It was a time of discovery. For instance, I discovered that the wall underneath had previously been teal.

This part was really easy. In fact, at one point I proposed marriage to my paint edgers. (P.J. yelled from the other room- You can HAVE her!)

Then, I touched up the trim and baseboards with white paint. (See, P.J.? Compromise.) However, it's a slippery slope from painting the trim in one section and not letting it drag you all the way around the house. Because where in a home's identical trim do you stop and say, "Nope, this area can remain dingy even though it's attached to the other twelve feet of newly shiny baseboard?" But seriously, that conversation needs to happen, or else you're painting the staircase railing and adding another layer of tar to the roof.

But it was when I was wrapping up the foyer/door project when I noticed the interior door frame. Perhaps, even moreso than the previously ugly door, the rusty spikes by the doorknob would act as a Feng Shui deterrent. (Maybe also burglary?) So I sanded and painted and hammered down spikes. (It'll just take a sec, I told myself. And P.J. And Susannah, who had now been waiting for someone to just feed her since roughly 8am on Saturday morning.)

New door, new trim,
new walls, same ugly tile,
same crazy miniature person.

During this time I was kept company by my next door neighbor's attempt to sand a bike that may or may not have been his. The weather, however, was so warm and pleasant that I paid no heed to fact that the potentially hot ten-speed was being stripped of colors that may or may not signify a certain gang. And across the street, my neighbor blared an incredibly loud homemade mix tape that consisted solely of Linkin Park and Nickelback.

If nothing else, it really drove home that I needed to hurry up and finish this frickin' project.

So I did.

And, at the end of the day, the walls were one color, the trim didn't extend onto the hardwood floor, and the door actually latched. And locked. (Twice.)

You can't be too careful.

After all, there are Nickelback-lovers right across the street.

No Room For R. Kelly In THESE Closets.

You'll put this away over my
dead, fiberglassed body.

For all that I whine about my home, the place has a ridiculous amount of storage, closets, and crawlspaces. Ceiling fans that wouldn't decapitate someone six feet tall or over- no. Rooms with miniature doors- yes.

But every now and again, those spaces become crazypants crammed. So yesterday's Big Dig was tackling Susannah's closet, Nora's closet, and the gigantic crawlspace off of Nora's room.

I hear that some other tackling went on yesterday as well. Sports!

To start, I removed stuff that Nora had [slightly] outgrown...and walked most of them right down to Suzy's room. Because Nora, at age 2 years and 3 months, just outgrew a pile of 6-12 month onesies and shirts. I am not joking. And her sister, a worldly 4-month old, is totally ready for the 6-month gear.

They will be the same size by Fall.

Anyhow. Nora's closet was fairly easy, especially since I've kept it pretty darned organized since she was but a flutter in my tum (and her closet was festooned with maroon, teal, and eye-popping graffiti). There were a couple of details slowing down the train, however. One was that, since I was sorting a wide array of sizes of which to store, I needed a lot of separate piles. The second reason also influences the first reason; Nora really wanted to help.

There's no door on Nora's closet. This is, in part, because a) it's rather busted and painted red and white and leaning sideways in the garage, and b) Nora likes to play in her closet- things like Shoe Store and Dora the Explorer and Gypsy Pirate.

This made pulling things out even more difficult, as someone would see me remove some items from hangers and decide to pull down more items. In fact, all.

But eventually, I made my way to Susannah's room. Girl has an awesome closet, which is most likely due to happenstance construction on this house. (I know, I was surprised too.) They shoved a bedroom and closet right up by the foyer and enclosed a little space with glass block windows and crazy shelving. It gets fabulous sunlight- but is also positively Arctic this time of year.

Unfortunately, it's also the perfect size for suitcases, hanging bags, wayward hardware, and a few [ahem] Spring coats. It has also been known to host a travelling Gypsy Pirate.

So we gave Susannah back her closet. I cleared out toys that, to the best of my knowledge, didn't belong to anyone. I pulled out all of her newborn to 3-month clothing (yeah, maybe I cried a little, no big deal), and packaged it up into Baby Girl and Gender Neutral- although, let's be honest. The more I "put things aside for a boy," the more likely it is that we'll find ourselves with a third daughter down the road.

Those projects were decently easy to complete. The really hard part came when I had to sort everything into respective bins in the crawlspace...which is where I realized that I had made a terrible mistake. For two years, I'd been putting stuff away in bins as Nora outgrew them. Except, since she's rather small for her size, it would take forever for her to outgrow 3-6 month pants. Which would, nonetheless, be put away in her "1 year" bin. Because that was the bin I was putting away, now that she was "2 year." (But still wearing "1 year.") And, because of the generosity of past nanny families, grandmothers, cousins' hand-me-downs, and doting aunts (and honorary aunts), the girls' clothing storage boasts bins and bins for each age range. (It's like shopping each and every time. And, unless I'm sorting and feeling cross, I absolutely get the shivers over how incredibly cool it is that I will not need to buy my kids clothing until they are eight years of age.)

But, I got it all sorted during the girls' naptimes. I even found a box of stuff erroneously marked 3T that would kinda sorta work for Nora right now- including a ladybug raincoat and pajamas without holes in the toes. And yes, maybe I inhaled some fiberglass, and- definitely- Ender the cat jumped into a pile of blown-in insulation and caused me to freak out, brain myself on an attic beam, fall out of the crawlspace and onto some [noisy] bags, drag the cat down the stairwell to the kitchen, humiliate him with a sponge bath on his paws and head, and still feel good about the fact that no one had woken up, regardless of my PG-13 language.

So, in total:
-Three organized storage spaces.
-One bin of stuff to donate.
-One slightly traumatized cat.
-One whopper of a skull bruise.
-Zero F-bombs dropped.

I consider it a victory.

Sigh.

Sundays are fabulous. Sunday mornings at my house are a study in perfection. Seriously. A glimpse, if you will:

7:45am: Nora rolls to her side and pokes me in the face until I wake up. (Yes, DCFS, she still sleeps with us in the mornings. Please do not remove her from our home- she has tons of things here.) When I do wake up, she gives me an appreciative grin that makes me wonder why I didn't wake up hours ago to anticipate this moment. It's that good. And I used to HATE waking up.

8am: Changed, cleaned up and semi-dressed (one of us, anyhow), Nora and I head into the living room with a cup of [cinnamon hazelnut] coffee and prepare to read The Paper. P.J. has already separated it into the most helpful of piles. His= the Target circular, the Jewel circular, the Cermak circular, Real Estate, and World stuff...and then he grabs from my pile. MY lofty pile= Parade Magazine (pronounced Pa-RAHD, the funners, the Trib Magazine and the Arts section. You must MUST must start with Parade as you're waking up. There is nothing better to get the neurons firing than inane celebrity questions and "health" articles. ("Secret weapon for 2010? Flu shots and leafy greens!" Thanks, Parade!) Don't even get me started on Ask Marilyn: "If I have eight friends and we want to divide a bill equally by fives and only pay in PENNIES, which way should we be facing?" Shut up. Also, I've wondered for YEARS who these morons are that actually take the time to mail in a question in the hopes that it'll be published- someday- on the inside cover. And why do they always have a 'steak dinner' riding on the answer? People make a bet, write to some "expert" in Parade...and then wait! My sister Kate called to inform me of a similar Dear Abby recently; "Dear Abby, My husband and I are having a dispute. He says you screw in a lightbulb clockwise. I disagree and say it's counter-clockwise. Which of us is correct?" Kate had two problems with this letter- a) Erica in Alabama decided to write to Abby instead of testing out an actual light bulb, and b) "Abby" decided to publish this burning question. (The answer is clockwise, by the way, the same as turning a lid on a jar. All part of the service here, folks.) And an actual question this week from Parade- "Do the 2010 Winter Olympics really have a sasquatch as a mascot?" One word. GOOGLE. Do not waste a steak dinner on this bet. Google this question on your BlackBerry and pretend you knew the answer the whole time. And pick up some Del Monico steaks at Jewel- P.J. can give you a coupon. (And the mascot's name is Quatchi.)

8:15am: P.J. hands me a breakfast sandwich on a heart-shaped plate. He makes exceptional weekend brekkies, with maple bacon the star of the show. He then turns on the stereo and we listen to one of three things: the classical station (Nora likes it), NPR, or Survivor's "Vital Signs" on vinyl. These are the only options. The third is still in constant rotation (and by 'rotation,' I mean it stays on the turntable for months at a time. We have a collection of hundreds. It doesn't matter. This album is SO good. And earnest!)And, if I may, I'd like to quickly piggyback (whee!) on the Embarrassing Music post: Enya. Why must I feel shame? I LOVE Enya. Sure, sometimes she takes liberties with rhymes that are positively Kanye West-ian, but good God can that woman EVOKE.

8:30am: (Or thereabouts- I rarely have time to check the clock in the mornings because a) I don't want to, and b) Nora will let us know when it's time to do things.) Nora, for her part, has been chatting away in her bouncy seat with her pals Jacques the Peacock (from Auntie Annie!) and Starfish, the droll Starfish. Occasionally she will demand couch-time, only to squirm her way back to the bouncy seat. We read aloud from Mutts, Frazz, Non Sequitur, and, inexplicably, Pickles. We make a point of snubbing Dick Tracy, Brenda Starr and Raising Hector. (Ever wanna hear P.J. go on a tirade? Talk about this week's panel of Raising Hector. We haaaate Raising Hector.) Nothing, however, will ever top the despising of Zippy the Pinhead. Thankfully they do not publish such garbage in Chicago. But they have, errantly, discontinued Scary Gary. Why? It is the reason why the medium was invented. Bring it back, please.

8...45ish...: The Tribune Magazine is great. Excellent interviews, snapshots of far-flung Chicago neighborhoods, recipes I may actually use (not like that Parade drivel suggesting I cook eggs in the shape of a heart for Valentine's Day) and interior design stuff that inspires me to move the furniture around. Except THIS week, some over-eager guy on the printing team decided to slice the margins a full inch into the side of each paragraph. For shame, Trib Mag. Now I will have to GUESS how many teaspoons, cups or bunches of sage to put into my dish. I'll probably just go with a handful and that will most likely be WRONG.

Sometime around the vicinity of 9: A shower! An alone shower! My my, how the lofty goals have changed!

And then later on the morning (or the evening, if I take that class) brings Pilates at Flow Yoga (Natalie has saved my physique from becoming a sad warning and Janine is like a hug in yoga form) and I get to enjoy a solitary drive followed by an hour workout where no one needs ANYTHING that comes from or around my body followed by another drive. Sundays are boss!

The rest of the day can be filled with a rotating cast of pleasant activities: a nap with Nora starfished out on one's chest, Important Projects (P.J. finished the first floor bathroom and I made Valentines by hand- serious stuff) a movie or two (yesterday's was The Invention of Lying- cute, and a good choice for multiple pauses due to laundry, diaper-fails, etc.,) and meals that are chosen under the guidelines of I Don't Wish To Cook. Yesterday was Chinese food!

Last night's plans included the Super Bowl- not usually a big night on my calendar, but I do love a good party and new commercials are always pretty fun. We headed out to Niles to see some TUTA company members at the Artistic Director's house (side note- their current show, Bertolt Brecht's The Wedding, is getting ridiculously good reviews. You probably couldn't even get in to see it if you tried. But you SHOULD try.) Nora was a little on the exhausted side (we all went to a glorious dinner party the night before- Nora wore tights and held court) and decided to show her displeasure by yelling at us. Apologies to Jackie, Helen and Alice who held a crying baby and said she was cute anyhow. We didn't stay long, sadly. We DID, however, get to see some Super Bowl highlights. Namely, the commercials.

And I'll be among the first to say it. WHY, in the new Alice in Wonderland movie, does Johnny Depp look like Madonna? I've never cast her as the Mad Hatter in my mind before, but there she is! Wide, eye-shadowed lids and gap-toothed smile! I'm gonna put money on the idea that this was done purposefully.

Also- the Halftime extravaganza. What a light show! And that hot new group...The Who.

Our third quarter consisted of bundling an angry little cub into her car seat, then into a sleepsack (with cap and mittens), then singing her to sleep in our room with the cats helpfully laying on our feet, then half an hour of Mario Kart.

But for now, it's somehow Monday again. Nora and I must zip up our hoodies, grab our safari blankies and about thirty diapers...and head to work. Kids ain't gonna nanny themselves.

Even if I AM having a case of The Sundays.

And The Springtimes.

And The Wealthys. (Hey, it's MY fantasy.)

And The Leggy, Lithe, Size 2s.

Happy Chicago Winter Monday Sweatpants, everyone!