I’m not really sure how I got involved with this crazy undertaking, but let it serve as a warning to you, dear readers. Don’t ever say “Wow, that sounds like a good idea!” on Twitter unless you are willing to dedicate at least a week of your life to that idea.

Today, I’m participating in the Twitter  Home Tour with 10 12 14 a bunch of other fellow bloggers. Instead of our usual posts where we open our lives and families and joys and struggles to the world, we’re opening our doors. Literally.

Now, before I start with the eighteenbazillionty house pictures, let me share a tiny disclaimer. The home you are about to see does not exist. It is an illusion. A fallacy. A lie. A figment of my imagination. It is impossible to come and visit this home in any city, in any country, on any planet. The home I am sharing today is not where I live. Oh sure, technically it’s my address, the land and walls and roof we pay our mortgage on each month. But the house I actually live in does not look like this. It is a perpetual MESS. There are toys everywhere, dishes in the sink, laundry piles waiting to be washed or folded, boxes that have only made it half way to the attic and wait in the hallway to ambush your ankles at night. My home is lived in. It took a ton of work to make it even kind of presentable for these pictures and even then I dragged stuff in and out of every room as I took the shots. And you’re probably going to look at these pictures and think “Jeez, this is her house at its BEST?” so my disclaimer is unnecessary. But I started this blog to share a truly honest view of pregnancy, babies and life, so I couldn’t do this tour without being honest.

OK, since you haven’t given up yet, on to the tour!

View from the street

First let me tell you the story of how we bought this beautiful house. I used to work in a real estate office (sidenote: BEST. JOB. EVER. for nosey busy-bodies like me, especially nosey busy-bodies who love houses)(which is really why I’m doing this house tour thing at all) and one day this house came on the market. It was waaaaaaay out of our price range but I loved it so much I printed out a copy of the listing and taped it to my fridge. Every time I looked at it I thought “If only I could live in a house like this SOME DAY.” I’ll spare you the long version of the story but eventually they lowered the price, we worked out our financial problems and VOILA! Home sweet home.

Front steps

In a couple more weeks those stone flower boxes will be filled with flowers, but I can’t plant until Mother’s Day. It’s the #1 gardening rule in New England – once the weather is nice, WAIT A MONTH or you’ll lose all your plants to a late frost. The old wash bucket is for flowers too. I try not to keep junk in my yard for no reason.

Front door

A porch swing is for swinging

It's a pretty big porch

My father, mother, E and I rebuilt that porch last summer, knowing that THIS year those bars to keep the baby from falling through the screen would come in handy.

Ok, NOW you can come in.

Entry table and mirror - found in an empty rental house next to the one I used to live in. I adopted them for my own.

Entry bench - old seats from a real theater my mom bought at a garage sale and that I envied EVERY DAY growing up. Now they're MIIIIINE.

Not pictured: Dirty socks, newborn size diapers, popcorn machine from the party, three pairs of shoes, about a zillion books and possibly some Christmas decorations I keep meaning to bring upstairs.

To the right of the entry is my Formal Living Room

Facing the front of the house

Mantle of the fireplace

Why yes that IS a large mahogany buffet in front of a wood burning fireplace. No it doesn’t usually go there – I moved it for the party and decided it can just stay for the summer. We bought it at a flea market to use in our dining room…and then bought a nicer china cabinet later the same day. So this buffet was a sofa-back table in the living room until I threw out the sofa. Now it’s homeless. If you’d be interesting in adopting this very well behaved, totally housebroken buffet, it’s available for a very reasonable price. Also, I used to have really cool stuff hanging over the mantle but took it down for the party and fell out of love with it. I’m currently accepting suggestions for what to do next.

One of my best flea market finds: $20 cane and bent wood chair. Came with the cushions too.

Our floors. I loooooove our floors. Someday we'll have them refinished and restored but I swear we will never, ever change them. Scout's honor.

AHA! Collection #1: Decanturs. These are actually E's. We keep them in one of the built in cabinets by those half columns in the living room.

Ok! On to the dining room! Most of which you’ve already seen from the living room!

It took me three tries to pick two shades of yellow I could live with in that room.

And those CURTAINS. I debated over those curtains for MONTHS. Oh Pottery Barn, thy name is hell.

Last wall of the dining room. As promised, my glass chicken collection is on the piano. Everyone should have a piano on which to display their glass chickens.

Oh you don't have a glass chicken collection? What a shame.

This is the cabinet that replace the homeless buffet. There are more glass chickens in the left hand side. OH! AND! The top "drawer" is really a fold down desk. *SWOON* Hidden desk!!!

Did you happen to catch Collection #3 in those dining room photos? Here’s a hint: it’s milkglass vases. The kind you can buy at Goodwill for 25 cents. The kind people at yard sales GIVE YOU because no one wants. What can I say, I like junk.

OK, back to the entry. If you go straight from the front door, here’s the hallway.

Hallway

The door on the left goes to the basement, the second door on the left is the half-bath. The door on the right is the pantry, the second door on the right is the coat closet.

The way to the basement also as a side door to the teeny little fenced side yard.

And THOSE stairs go down to the basement. Which you will not be seeing. It's dirty and gross and full of tools and boxes and cat litter. Really, just a basement.

Half bath. Teeny tiny half bath. Let's call it quaint.

Yes, I would definitely call this quaint. And yes, I did clean that tile.

What every quaint bathroom needs: a GIANT FLOWER PAINTING. $10 at a neighbor's garage sale.

OK, done with the boring stuff and on to the parts of the house we actually LIVE IN. I’m going to start with the kitchen.

Why yes, this is part of the kitchen.

Remember how I talked about my lack of counter space? Well that spot right there, with the shoes and the high chair are, is where my new kitchen island is going. But until it’s installed, please admire the truly gorgeous tile floor my husband and father installed.

Here's a quick peek out the back door to the one car garage and part of the garden. I hear there's going to be a garden tour post in June.

Back to the kitchen. Here’s your free tip for today: No matter how nice you’ll think it looks, don’t install tile on the diagonal. Just trust me.

We call this our wall-o-kitchen.

Even at its cleanest, please notice the total lack of work space on the counters.

Now on to a room you’re probably going to recognize if you’ve ever seen a single picture of my kid before. I would say we spend 95% of our at-home, awake hours in this room.

Finally!

Oh yeah, THAT'S why we hang out in here. And I don't mean the books.

Our renovations include: painting the walls (Ralph Lauren suede in case you were wondering) new ceiling fan, having the floors refinished and E’s woodworking projects – both bookcases and the toy box.

The first of two wall word decals. 10 points to the dork who names the source! Here's a clue: E and I both love this movie equally.

Collection #4! Bird pictures over the toy box. Purchased from Etsy for less than $12 each.

So that’s the first floor! How excited are you to find out there are TWO MORE TO GO? I promise I’ll try not to drag it out forever. But first lets go back to the entry so you don’t get lost.

See, NOW you remember what the entry looked like! For future reference: note the green things on top of the window. They might come up later.

The stained glass window is from a flea market (and please note, when I say “a flea market” I really mean “all the same flea market I go to far too often”). I hung it up because I couldn’t find curtains I liked and that window looks RIGHT out onto my neighbor’s house.

Collection #...what are we up to? 5? I bet you don't even know what these are. But I do. And I collect them.

We made it! We're actually up the stairs!!

All that crap hanging on the walls are awards, certificates and other random crap E has collected during his time in the Navy. Other military families will recognize it as an “I Love Me Wall”, although in our case it’s an entire “I Love Me Stairwell”. If he gets any more commendations I’m going to need a much taller ladder.

Upstairs hallway and another of E's certificates. I think he got that one for going through the Suez Canal.

The following rooms are featured in a clockwise direction starting from the door on the left in the picture above. Try to keep up.

Not pictured: TONS AND TONS OF CRAP.

I know the giant tub LOOKS awesome but I'd trade a normal tub-shower combination for that giant tub and the HORRIBLE stand up shower in a second.

Not pictured: Blue plastic baby tub, the three dozen bath toys, a large pile of towels and several pairs of baby pajamas I usually keep in that adorable chair.

Adorable Chair: $30 from a neighbor's garage sale. Perfect for hiding tubes of Preparation H under when you don't want all your guests to know about those hemorrhoids.

Back when this bathroom was for grown ups, I used to light these candles and relax with the jets in the tub and a glass of wine. Sigh.

BEST PART OF THE UPSTAIRS BATHROOM: Laundy hookups. No more carrying baskets to the basement!

A note about the room you’re about to see. All the stuff, including the wall color, used to be in what is now the nursery. I had redone the WHOLE ROOM less than a year before I got pregnant without thinking that room made most sense for the baby. Doing all the painting just about killed me.

Do you see Collection #6? I do. And part of collection #7. Please ignore the elliptical machine in the corner. PLEASE.

The chandelier was 75% off at a Bombay Company store that was going out of business.

Why yes, I did used to watch a lot of Trading Spaces. Why do you ask? p.s. That pillow is totally held together with hot glue.

Art deco furniture is from...can you guess? A neighbor's garage sale. I got the dresser, mirror, headboard and footboard for $100. Plus she delivered it!

Cedar chest from a flea market. Globes from a flea market. Chair in the reflection from a flea market.Cat in the reflection from...the devil.

Now you get to see where the magic happens. I’M SORRY. I HAD TO. PLEASE FORGIVE ME.

Why yes, that bed IS enormous. Thanks for noticing.

Wall words #2. Whatevs. I think they're cute.

And here's all the proof you need of just how uncool I am.

And I'm back to redeem myself! How cute is this idea? I think I saw it in a magzine but I will totally take credit for inventing it myself.

How about that Navy guy kissing the nurse poster? Is that +1 or like -10000 on the cool scale? Wait, don't tell me. I don't want to know.

Just in case you’re STILL READING this post (bless you) now you get to see the nursery. Where the baby sleeps! I have to say, when I set up and designed the nursery I had no frickin’ clue what a baby needed. Take  for example, a night light. With the light on, Baby Evan wakes up every couple of hours, notices I’m not there and cries. In the PITCH BLACK, he wakes up, gets bored and goes back to sleep. Seriously, if you’re struggling with sleep problems, turn off the nightlight!

This room used to have carpet. Horrible, 3-D looking carpet. THIS IS WHAT WAS UNDERNEATH.

I’m actually shocked by how much I HAVEN’T changed since we first set up the nursery. Besides the size of the clothing, a lot more books and toys and the foam mats for naked baby time, it’s almost the same. Of course, I also added the chalkboard wall but since I put the changing table back upstairs it’s kind of hidden. I’m still in love with my Where The Wild Things Are slash Pirate slash Palm Tree slash Adventure theme. Very cohesive.

Someone still rocks Baby Evan in that chair every night. Good purchase.

Cool design feature time! This is a plate rack I used to hang clothes because the closet is already full of my own stuff. The Wild Things are from my sister.

Evan's crib friends. Quite a mixed crowd.

This was my whole inspiration. I like to think it gives Baby Evan good dreams about good books.

This concludes the Twitter Home Tour. Good-bye. Nice to see you.

What’s that you say? I mentioned the house was THREE floors? No no, you’re imagining things. There’s not third floor. OK, well, TECHNICALLY there is. TECHNICALLY that’s where the fourth bedroom is.

Sigh. Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Scared yet?

This is just the landing. Run while you can.

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! AVERT YOUR EYES!!!!!

Would you believe me if I swore on my baby's life that this is an IMPROVEMENT over what the room looked like when we moved in? It used to have black and orange giant zoo animal wall paper. For real. Some day we're going to recarpt and paint the walls a color that can't be described as "flesh" but for now, it's just junk. And not the good kind.

Oh my God, I am EXHAUSTED. I hope you aren’t bored to death of me by now and wondering where the mommy blogging went. I promise to never do this again. Mostly because it was WAY too much work for one day but also so you don’t have to read it. No one needs to know about my glass chickens and my globes. That’s what she said.

But if you’re enjoying being a nosey-parker house-peeker, please check out the rest of the bloggers taking part in today’s Twitter Home Tour. You can find their links below.

Once upon a time, @MomNom, @jennandtonica, @emmie_bee, @heirtoblair, and @ColeEmmett were talking about home decor on Twitter. We thought it would be so great to be able to see each other’s homes! A *bunch* of other tweeps joined in, @Alena29 put together a terrific button, and #twitterhometour (or #twitterhouseparty) was born! Feel free to join us – add a link to your home tour post (pictures, video, or both!) below.

I am super-duper, totally, ridiculously, unbelievably thrilled that Ohdeedoh is featuring Baby Evan’s Carnival birthday party today! The creative, modern, brilliant ideas on their website always inspire me, even if I’m not creative, modern or brilliant enough to actually use any of them. I live in Connecticut, which invented  flea-markets-masquerading-as-antique-dealers.  I am totally not cool enough for pale wood furniture, minimalist design and funky colors. I’m really more of an antiquey, junky, cluttery kind of decorator, as evidence by my crowded bookcases, mismatched furniture and collection of chicken shaped candy dishes (come back Friday to see them). I am no where near stylish enough for any legitimate publication, unless someone publishes Useless Collections of Candleholders and Mirrors Monthly.

So when I submitted Evan’s first birthday to Ohdeedoh I had almost no hope of being selected. Most of the parties I’ve seen featured have been done by moms who just HAPPEN to be party planners or professional photographers or Etsy craft sellers too (check out this Fairy Garden Party or this Lego Party) – but I’m honored the editors liked my ideas! I’m so proud of myself and my friends who helped make such an amazing party possible, especially Amanda and her fantastic cake.

If you missed my birthday posts the first time, you can find them here.

Evan’s First Birthday: Photo Booth
Evan’s First Birthday: Friends
Evan’s First Birthday: Decorations
Evan’s First Birthday: Food

The photographs I used for the party were taken by Nina Benjamin of Nina Benjamin Photography here in Connecticut. She’s also the photographer partnered with Papoose, my favorite baby store so you can check out more of her work there if you happen to be in the area.

And check out these photos my BFF Erin took. She’s just started her own photography business in the Philadelphia area and did a fantastic job catching all the little details of my party. You can contact her at openshutterpa@gmail.com

Blerg. That’s really all I have to say about Friday. For some totally unknown and mysterious reason my blog stop working at some point Thursday night. Of course, by the time I noticed I was already out of the house and although my iPhone is an amazing little piece of technology is was NOT HELPFUL in determining which of the eighty jillion lines of code held the error. By the time I got home and started working with my host service 90% of my readers had already given up on my blog so my pageviews for Friday are hovering right around 13. That is no way to become rich and famous. Sorry internets!

I think things are all straightened out now, besides the one error my Aunt Katie keeps getting which warns her about some sort of virus. Which my host service assures me is NOT THERE and even if it WAS it’s GONE NOW. Plus I always remember to cover my mouth when I cough and am totally addicted to hand sanitized so don’t worry. You won’t get it.

In actual news that someone might find interesting, Baby Evan ate three pieces of pepperoni last night. Ate. Just like he ate a pretzel on Thursday and some puffs Friday morning. Either he’s just been screwing with me all along or he’s finally learned to swallow his food, since I’m pretty sure pepperoni doesn’t just dissolve in your mouth. I don’t want to suddenly push him into three meals a day but I am going to make an effort to provide actual baby-appropriate food on a more regular basis. I’ll just steer clear of his know enemies: oatmeal, avocado and toast.

Besides a sudden improvement in his diet, Baby Evan seems to have aged several months in the few days since his birthday. As if KNOWING my baby is 1 isn’t traumatic enough, my baby isn’t even very babyish anymore. He’s started listening and following directions, which is both adorable (when he helps me put away his toys) and VERY USEFUL (when we’re in a yarn shop and he’s thinking about pulling all the yarn off the shelves). He can understand the word and the sign for “gentle” and was niiiiiiice and geeeeeentle today when he reached down and pet a 4 month old at playgroup. I suppose next we need to work on the difference between a baby and a cat.

And just for the record, 28 years ago today my teeny tiny mother gave birth to a giant baby without a single drop of pain medication. She’s an amazing mom and an overall wonderful person. Happy Birth of Your First (and clearly best) Child Day Mom!

Having spent a great deal of my last few years wasting time on the internet, I’ve developed quite a few online friendships. At least they’re friendships in my head. Sometimes the other person doesn’t exactly KNOW we’re friends (HI HEATHER CALL ME) but I like to think if we ever did meet for coffee we’d chat and laugh like we’ve known each other for years and then braid each others hair. Ok, maybe no hair braiding.

Two of my internet worlds collided this week when one of my favorite people on the internet SarahMC wrote about the Radical Parenting special on Discovery Health that featured The Feminist Breeder, one of my other favorite people on the internet. In case you didn’t see the show, Sarah’s recap covers it pretty well, or you can check out the posts TFB did while the crew was filming for a behind the scenes look at her segment. I was excited to join in the conversation about the show in the Harpyness comments section, since talking about parenting is kind of my thing these days.

The show covered three different “radical” types of parenting: un-schooling, attachment parenting, and gender neutral parenting. Personally, I think the most radical of the three were the un-schoolers, whose 7 year old son and 5 year old daughter didn’t participate in any type of formal education. Instead, they learned through experiences – trips to museums, farms, zoos, etc – and studied whatever they were most interested in. They also claimed their family was a true democracy where everyone had an equal say and the kids got to make all their own decisions. I think I would have been a little more skeptical of those parents if they hadn’t come across as really sort of…normal. The parents both had advanced degrees, the mom seemed to really enjoy spending all her time with the kids, and they were really realistic about how un-schooling would affect their kids in the future. I think we could be friends. One of the things the parents mentioned a couple of times was their son had learned reading and math through his “video games” (I’m imagining V-Tech or something similar) which I was surprised about – I pictured un-schoolers are being totally TV free. I guess when you’re with your school-age kids ALL DAY EVERY DAY you’d almost have to use an electronic babysitter every once in a while.

The third family (I’ll get back to the AP people in a minute) showed The Feminist Breeder and her Hyphenated Husband (he changed his last name to their combined name when they got married) practicing “gender neutral” parenting…but if that was “radical” then I guess I am too, just because my kid had a doll in his toy box. Shocking. Truthfully, I can see how some parents (mostly fathers, I imagine) could freak out if their sons wanted to try on Mommy’s shoes or asked for a dollhouse but none of the parents I know would care. I think if the show had focused more on how the parents DEMONSTRATE gender equality – Dad doing housework, Mom using power tools, sharing childcare duties equally – they would have done gender neutral parenting a greater service.

Most of the discussion on Sarah’s post about those two families was pretty in line with what I just said – maybe there was a little disagreement regarding un-schooling – but since attachment parenting is my (accidental) area of expertise I was most interested in talking about that family. They were pretty by the book AP  and practiced co-sleeping, babywearing, extended breastfeeding, elimination communication, and even baby-led weaning, with a touch of TV shock value crazy thrown in when they planted a placenta under a tree. As someone who didn’t set out to practice AP, I remember thinking all those things were weird, hippyish and uber-crunchy. Then I had a baby, discovered slings were convenient, co-sleeping was the easiest way to handle night feedings and made it through those first few awful months of breastfeeding…and became an accidental attachment parent. Which is why it was so strange for me to find myself  talking about it like I was some sort of expert and even defending AP online. Although I think the weirdest part was being involved in a conversation with someone who was anti-attachment parenting. My world, both online and real-life, is full of people who support all things AP (much more than I do) so I’ve never really had anyone criticize my parenting decisions before and it was a strange experience. It was more like a discussion than an argument and I felt really good about how I described and explained attachment parenting (with a little help from Sarah’s link to my babywearing post) and even got a super awesome email from another commenter who wanted to thank me for supporting accidental AP parents. In the end, both my online conversation and the Radical Parenting special made me feel more confident that the decisions we’ve made for my family are the right ones for us.

(p.s. Over on Harpyness I use “blondegrlz” as my screen name, since I know them from my old baby-free life on Jezebel. In case you’re confused.)

Since I discovered the world of blogging was a lot bigger than me, Heather Armstrong and an internet friend I met in the comments section of Jezebel, I’ve begun reading and following a lot of people’s ramblings about their daily lives on the internet. There must be something about blogging that attracts really smart, funny people because I fall in love with new sites every day and my Google Reader has started begging me to please just read the ones I’ve already subscribed to before adding any more because it is full and tired and it’s feet hurt. Jeez, Google Reader, what are you? Pregnant? It would serve me right, since EVERYONE ELSE on the internet is up the stick.

One of the things that gets me every time when I find a new blog is how nice everyone else in the whole world’s pictures are. I feel like the only idiot left on the internet using a (fairly expensive but obviously useless) point-and-shoot camera instead of a fancy DSLR. My blurry, dark photos of the baby climbing over the dog pale in comparison to, say, The Pioneer Woman’s photos of cows grazing or Emily’s photos of her daughter Poppy doing, well, anything. If only I could capture the true essence and beauty of that moment when Baby Evan is perfectly balanced right across Brutus’ spine, the delicate way he smiles, the joy he finds in reaching out and grabbing the poor long suffering dog’s doggy business and yanks. That would be art, my friend. In my head, my terrible photos are the ONLY reason my blog is not incredibly popular, I am not incredibly famous, and no one ever stops me on the street to tell me how gorgeous my hair looks. BAD PHOTOS ARE RUINING MY LIFE.

So I bought a DSLR. A Nikon D90 DX 12.3MP Digital SLR Camera with 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED AF-S VR DX Nikkor Zoom Lens to be exact. The first one E ordered turned out to be the European version which a) came with no warranty and b) came with an EU plug and was therefore useless here in Connecticut. We sent it back and filed the $33 shipping charge under “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” But thanks to good old Amazon (and a child credit on our 2009 tax return WHAT WHAT) my new new camera arrived today.

Now if I only knew how to use it, I’d be taking some really fantastic photos.