blind insight

We can never sell this house.

Steve and I are fortunate to have a house with quite a few bedrooms. The kitchen is tiny, the floor plan is broken up inefficiently, but for purposes of creating space for a baby to come live with us, we're in good shape.

Steve's wonderful parents came to visit us for 10 days, and are helping us turn the basement into an exercise/entertainment area and the current exercise/entertainment room into a nursery. I spent the first couple of days of their visit in a panic, as it seemed that rooms were getting demolished more than remodeled and the list of Things To Do grew ever longer. Steve finally talked me off the ledge, and reminded me that (a) doing it yourself is a lot more satisfying (not to mention cheaper) than hiring a professional; (b) doing it yourself means it will take twice as long as you anticipate, and will involve three times as many swear words; and (c) the baby won't care if the basement isn't finished by August. At that point, I decided to relax, let go of my control-freaky tendencies, and let the Freiburgers work their home improvement magic.

The results have exceeded my wildest expectations. Sure, the simple utility sink in the laundry room took almost a week to install. But the stylish new lights now turn on (and off!), the drywall is almost completely hung, and the basement is slowly turning into a wonderful new functional space in our house, rather than simply a repository for boxes and beer-making equipment.

And the real masterpiece is upstairs. For months, Steve has been musing about creating a mural depicting a scene from "Where The Wild Things Are." We both adore Maurice Sendak's magical illustrations, and loved the idea of bringing the wild rumpus into Crusher's room. But one of us (and that would be the pregnant, cranky, control-freaky one) thought that it would just be too much to undertake painting an intricate mural in the midst of basement remodeling, floor refinishing, and furniture relocating (not to mention gestating). But Steve insisted that it could be done, and promised that, while it might take him most of the next three months, he would have the mural finished by the time Crusher makes his or her appearance. And so, I relented, figuring I could always paint over the partially completed mural if necessary.

My mother-in-law and I painted the room a happy, bright sky blue base color. Then, using a technique I learned from some of my imaginary internet friends, we used an overhead projector to beam transparencies of the appropriate WTWTA pages onto the wall. On Tuesday, my mom and Steve's worked together to trace the images onto the wall, and then spent the rest of the week painting them.

They took some liberties with the colors to make them more nursery-friendly and to mesh better with the overall room color (and to dress one of the creatures in Packers garb), and they improvised a bit on the grass and the trees.

They embellished Max's crown with rhinestones, and his pajamas with buttons:

And they finished the whole darn thing.

This morning, apparently having spent most of the night thinking about the mural, my mom called with an idea. What if we carried the treetops around the rest of the room, to create a unified border? Steve and I approved, and Eileen was willing to make it happen.

This finishing touch really pulls the whole room together!

With the mural completed, Steve is now free to spend the next three months drywalling the basement reading up on baby care climbing and cycling. More important, it gives us a one-of-a-kind nursery, filled with tangible evidence of Crusher's grandmothers' amazing talents, and their great love for this little person-to-be. I'm so, so glad I didn't talk them out of doing it.

One year later.

The one-year anniversary of my cochlear implant surgery slipped by, almost unnoticed. But a couple of days later, when I realized it had passed, I felt a rush of emotion as I thought about just how dramatically the implant has improved my hearing, and with it, my quality of life. (Of course, at 27 weeks pregnant, it doesn't take much for me to feel a rush of emotion, but whatever.)

Earlier this month, I attended a full week of arguments and presentations at the Tenth Circuit. Because we were on vacation the preceding week, I had forgotten to make arrangements for the court to set up the amplification system. And because the arguments I wanted to hear were in several different courtrooms, sometimes on the same day, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for the court staff to provide me with amplification for everything, anyway. So I decided to "fly solo," and to see just how much I could hear without any assistance beyond my CI and my hearing aid.

I heard everything, or almost. Even sitting a few rows back in the spectator gallery, I was able to hear and understand most of the judges' questions, and most of the attorneys' responses. There was a mumbler here and there who was difficult for me to follow, but for the most part, I heard and understood and followed along. I can't quite articulate how incredible it felt to know that I can now walk into the courtroom on a moment's notice to support a colleague or hear a particular argument. Rush of emotion, anyone?

I've also been doing prenatal yoga for the past couple of months. You may recall the last time I took an organized yoga class. That experience was so frustrating and demoralizing that for the past year or so, I've been doing yoga on my own, with videotaped instruction. But now, having finally figured out how to keep my CI from flopping around when I do inversions, and with my pregnant hips crying out for some serious stretching, I decided to venture back into the studio.

To my delight, I'm loving it. I can hear virtually everything the instructor says, even when she moves around the room, even when I'm in a position from which I can't see her or any of my classmates, and even during shavasana. For the first time in my life, I understand why it is actually relaxing to just lie there at the end of yoga practice, because I am no longer anxiously trying to figure out what the instructor is saying or listening for a cue that it's time to open my eyes and sit up again.

These are just two recent examples of how the CI has made my life easier, and opened new doors for me. In an unrelated context, Steve and I were talking today about health insurance, and recalling how much we had to pay out-of-pocket for the surgery. A year ago, this seemed like a great deal of money to shell out for something with such unknown benefits. Today, Steve called it the best $X,000 we could have possibly spent.

I'm pretty pleased with our new windows, which cost a bit more than that, but overall, I have to agree with him.

Tan and rested . . .

. . . though perhaps not quite ready to resume the hustle and bustle of normal life tomorrow morning.

Somehow, Steve and I survived February, March, and April. Those hectic months brought us doubled-up deadlines, a scary-ass exam and a number of work-related all-nighters (for Steve), an enormous and complex brief on a terrifyingly short turnaround (for me), and plenty of minor complications.

Our reward: Roatan. Eight days of pure, unadulterated relaxation in a Caribbean paradise. We snorkeled, often multiple times a day, through the extensive reef system that lay just a few flipper kicks off our beach. Among our marine life discoveries were a five-foot nurse shark, lazing in the sandy reef-bed maybe 20 feet offshore, a sea turtle winging gracefully through the deeper water, a shy eel poking its blue head out from the coral, several yellow stingrays, and countless varieties of fish. A huge school of stripey Sergeant Majors hung out in one particular spot, swarming around us each time we passed through, swimming within a hair's breadth of our masks before darting around us. On each excursion, we saw something new, and each time, we ventured further into the Blue. Alas, we never did manage to buy an underwater camera, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

When we weren't snorkeling, we were sipping frosty beverages (non-alcoholic, in my case) in one of the many open-air bars lining West Bay Beach, as the near-constant breeze took the edge off the Caribbean sun. The rest of the time, we lazed about, reading and dozing and wandering. Our single sea kayaking expedition ended badly, as Steve's boat sprung holes and sank. Fortunately, we were not far off shore at the time. Unfortunately, we were right over the reef.

We left our little West Bay paradise a few times, trying our dining luck in the more bustling town of West End and succumbing to the touristy offerings of Anthony's Key, with its dolphin encounters, zip-line, and wildlife park. But mostly, we stayed put, preferring to stroll down the beach just after sunset, freshly showered but still barefoot, to one of West Bay's shoreside dining establishments. The food, alas, was nothing to write home about (and was frustratingly expensive, particularly by Central American standards), with the exception of a couple of grilled seafood meals and some delicious homemade tortillas.

We returned home late last night, to freezing rain and lost suitcases. The baggage showed up this morning, though the sun did not. Long pants, outerwear, and shoes returned to our lives today, bringing reality into sharp focus.

Here are our photos, taken on the few occasions when we bothered to take the camera out of the room. Ah, Paradise.