A mouthful of rocks

In the middle of the night I woke up to a strange sound next to me. A grinding sound, like stones in a rock tumber. What was going on? I didn't recall going to bed with a gastrolith!

It was Dio. He had just discovered his new top tooth and he was grinding his upper and lower teeth together. Zari did the same thing when she was about a year old.

I've been blogging much less frequently over the past month because I was working furiously to meet a deadline for an article (about "Attitudes Towards Home Birth in the U.S." for The Expert Review of Obstetrics & Gynecology). I just submitted it last night! It's such a relief not to have that task hanging over me. The article goes out to reviewers, who submit suggestions for revisions. We're on track for a May publication date. I've been corresponding a lot with Amy Romano as I've been writing. She is co-authoring the updated version of Obstetric Myths Versus Research Realities with Henci Goer (forthcoming from the University of Michigan Press in 2011), including a chapter that examines research on home birth. It's interesting to see how we came to many of the same conclusions, independently of each other.

I've also been really busy working on our new multifamily property: painting, purchasing new appliances, choosing carpet and blinds, etc. Of course I never pay full price for things like carpet or blinds. I'm buying the carpet direct from a manufacturer in Georgia and having it shipped here. I hate having to buy carpet--I'm a wood floor enthusiast--but the wood floors in this multifamily property were painted at some point and it's really hard to refinish them if they've been painted. We've refinished floors probably 5-6 times over the course of our marriage and so we're good at it, but we decided just to replace the old carpets with really nice ones. I'm also getting a commercial/institutional discount on 2" wood plantation blinds from Blinds Chalet. They will still be expensive but will look so much nicer that vinyl miniblinds (or the current bare windows). This is fun but it takes a lot of time to research. My goal is to make the property look like a place we would actually like to live in. Then we have to find good renters, which can be a real challenge in our community. Even people who own their homes often don't take care of them.