I like to be PREPARED for things. I do research. I read books. I make lists. I plan. But here is what pregnancy has taught me – research, lists, and plans BE DAMNED! Your body will darned well do whatever it feels like whenever it feels like, regardless of what the books, your friends, or your parents may say!

So with that said, in the hopes that perhaps I can enlighten some newly pregnant women, I’d like to present my list of “Things I Wish I’d Known Could POSSIBLY Happen While Pregnant (Even If They’re Not Terribly Likely To Do So!)”

Beauty

• You know that glorious head of hair that everyone says you’ll get during pregnancy? You might not get it (on your head, at least!) You MIGHT end up with the limpest, coarsest, most “dead” looking hair EVER. Except for your leg hair. THAT will grow at an unfortunately remarkable rate (especially as your belly gets bigger and shaving gets harder. THANKS hormones!)

• Your fingernails might not get longer and stronger and more beautiful. They might stay just the same. Which isn’t necessarily such a bad thing, but, it’s one more “feel beautiful,” positive aspect of pregnancy that you might be disappointed by missing out on.

• Along with the thick hair and long fingernails, everyone always mentions the beautiful pregnancy “glow”. What nobody ever mentions is that the hormone surges in your body might end up mimicking the way you looked in early puberty (which for me, meant looking like the “before” picture in a Proactiv commercial). Again, not the end of the world (been there, done that, now I know what products to use!) but if you were counting on beautiful skin to get you through those rough few months, well, find something else to focus on!

Health/Physical Symptoms

• Like morning sickness! You can focus on that, instead! Your version of morning sickness might not lead to actual vomiting (yay!) but also might not be limited to morning (boo!) Feeling like you’re about to puke at any moment 24/7 is miserable enough that ACTUALLY throwing up starts to sound appealing, and it also makes it hard to answer when people ask if you’re experiencing morning sickness. Can you really claim morning sickness if you’re only on the VERGE of the sickness?

• I had read about skin being dry during pregnancy, and I think some people mentioned needing to put extra lotion on their belly because it was itchy. What nobody mentioned was UNBEARABLE ITCHINESS of the belly (itchy hands was mentioned a few times, as a symptom of a liver condition, I think? It was something random, that much I know!) But scratching your stomach so much that you’re afraid you’ll draw blood? THAT wasn’t in any of the books I read!

• Feeling the baby move for the first time has got to be one of the most highly anticipated aspects of pregnancy, and also one of the HARDEST things to describe! What almost EVERYONE seems to say is that it feels like butterflies. What a very tiny minority say is that it feels like gas. What my mom said (when I finally got around to asking her, because I was experiencing something TOTALLY not butterfly-like, but it was happening often enough that I started wondering if maybe it COULD be the baby!) is that it feels like you’re really hungry, except you’re not. (I know, WAY less glamorous than butterflies!) It’s a frustratingly abstract concept, until the day you realize, “Huh, I keep feeling like my stomach is growling, but I’m not hungry at all . . . oh, this must be it!” So if you’re waiting for those first movements, try to keep an open mind. Maybe it’ll feel like butterflies or champagne bubbles. Or maybe it’ll feel like you have to fart. You never know!

The Gory Stuff (Not For The Squeamish Or Modest)

• It is apparently possible to start producing colostrum (that’s a kind of nutrient laden pre-milk that nourishes the baby until your milk fully comes in) at 12 weeks (which I learned from the FANTASTICALLY HYSTERICAL “Zero to Forty” Pregnancy Calendar, written by the always awesome Amalah. That lady is my idol, and you should read “Zero to Forty” even if you aren’t pregnant, because it’s that funny. She’s also the ONLY person I’ve ever seen write about all these random things I experienced, so perhaps I should have paid closer attention when I read it the first time!) I read that at about 16 weeks and found out, “Hey, look at that, I’m making milk already! Cool!” Except that then I started leaking milk in my sleep, and waking up in a wet, sticky puddle. NOT COOL! (And if this ever happens to you, get some LiliPadz! They were a life changing find, and I was actually really disappointed to not have anyone to share the experience with, because nobody else was a dripping, leaking milk mess!)

• Mucous plug. Contrary to the name, it’s quite possible that when it falls out, it will be far more “mucous”, and way less “plug”. So, that would have been nice to know. I’d probably have freaked out a bit less if I’d known that was what it was. Thanks, pregnancy books, for describing it as something you might see sitting in the toilet (and never ever EVER mentioning that it might just kind of . . . ooze out of you. In mass quantities. Sorry, I SAID this wasn’t for the squeamish!)

• If your water happens to break while you’re sitting on the toilet, you might just think, “Wow, I guess I had to pee more than I realized!” Then you’ll feel like an IDIOT when the doctor asks you when your water broke, and you say, “Um, what now?” (And then a few minutes later, when it feels like you peed yourself, you’ll say, “Oh, yes, I can tell now that my water has broken”).

So if you’re about to have your first baby, here is my advice to you – plan for your ideal birth, but above all else, prepare to be flexible. Maybe you’ll have a textbook pregnancy, labor, and delivery. But then again, maybe you’ll end up at the hospital in the middle of the night 4 weeks before you’re due and find out that you’ve got dangerously high blood pressure, a baby that’s trying to exit butt first, a cervix that isn’t doing anything at all (despite your water having broken and contractions having started somehow without your knowing it!) and you’re about to be admitted to the hospital without having ever packed an overnight bag or attended your labor and delivery tour.

No matter how uncomfortable, inconvenient, and emotionally trying the whole experience can be, at the end of the day you have made a human being! And the only thing more miraculous than that is the fact that you’ll eventually forget all the horrible parts about your pregnancy, and want to do it all again

** Some of the above are affiliate links, because why shouldn’t I? **

Reader beware – this may verge on TMI for some people. I happen to think it’s pretty funny, though, so use your best judgement!

If you were modest to begin with, you lose the right to be so during most of pregnancy and childbirth. I think most people know to expect that.

What most people probably don’t think about, though, is that even once the baby is born, you don’t necessarily regain your right to privacy. Sure, you can demand respect from your friends and family, but that darned baby you worked so hard to bring into the world just never leaves you alone

Where this is most obvious is in the bathroom. Maybe you’re lucky and have a baby that is fine being left in a crib or other safe area while you use the restroom in peace. Nathan, however, dislikes being left alone, and for the most part I have no problem bringing him to wherever I need to do something, and then setting him up with some toys to keep him busy. That’s why, outside of my bathroom but within sight of the toilet, I have teething rings, books, and other assorted doodads for Nathan to chew on. I don’t mind leaving the door open while I do my business (I close the BEDROOM door if people are home, but if people are home, I can usually just ask them to watch Nathan for a few minutes!) because, for the most part, I stopped being shy a long time ago.

Now that he’s learned to CRAWL, though, he’s no longer content to stay where the toys are! And for some reason, the area around the toilet is the place he most wants to check out! Which, you know, good for him! Explore new environments! Challenge yourself to move in different ways (crawl OVER the scale! Around Mommy’s feet! Up and into the shower! Ew, don’t CHEW on the shower, gross!) But even I have to draw the line somewhere.

For me, the time I most missed being able to use the bathroom in private? Earlier this week (when I wasn’t feeling particularly well) and Nathan was doggedly determined to either chew on the tag of my underwear or try to pull himself up on the ledge of the toilet between my legs. I was decidedly uncomfortable with his positioning in both of those scenarios, and do you know what is harder than picking up a baby and moving him from a place he really wants to be? Trying to do so while sitting on the toilet. My arms are only so long, people!

I'm actually totally fine if you want to learn to pull up on the toilet. Just not when Mommy is sitting on it!

photo credit: jessicafm

Anybody else have any crazy toileting stories that don’t pertain to the baby’s bodily functions?

I saw a bunch of people participating in a link-up showing what is on their fridge and what it shows about them, and thought I’d participate! So, here is my fridge! (Totally untouched-up for the photo!)

As you can see, I’m a big fan of magnets. My favorite wedding “Save The Dates” are magnet ones (and I use them for forever or until I lose them, whichever comes first!) and I’m also not too proud to take any free magnets that people offer in order to promote themselves

I also love pictures! Most of these are of my family, and there are some additional ones that used to be on the fridge (as well as some pictures a friend’s daughter colored for me!) but I ran out of magnets to hold them up when I had to start putting baby stuff on the fridge

Speaking of baby stuff, on the left is a list of different “stages” of foods to introduce to babies (I put the date that Nathan eats it for the first time by each one), basic CPR instructions, and the magnet with the emergency phone numbers for Labor and Delivery at my hospital (which I USED! So THANK YOU for that magnet, Kaiser!) On the right I have the information for the kids play room at our gym, and emergency phone numbers for babysitters.

So there you have it! Now you’ve seen my fridge (cluttered, messy, but happy!) and you know that if you find any free magnets, I’d love to have them

If you’ve got a blog or other webpage, feel free to join up!

A little over a year ago, I wrote about how I buried an old russet potato in our planter box and it grew into a beautiful flowering bush. I had intended to write the epilogue for that post a few months later, but, um, I was pregnant! And miserable! And felt like I was always trying to move through quicksand! So, it didn’t get done.

But now I’m NOT pregnant and both my brain and body move much more fluidly (thank heavens for that!) so I thought I’d tell you all what ended up happening!

The weather got hot, and I forgot that I should probably actually WATER the plant (I’d gotten so used to Mother Nature doing it!) A few weeks after I took all the beautiful pictures of the potato flowers, it was a withered up ugly mess (I meant to get pictures of that too, but, see above reference to being pregnant). I never dug up the plant to see if there were any potatoes under the soil, and when we moved, we threw the planter and all of the dirt in the dumpster (I applied the “moving test” to it, and it didn’t make the cut!) The End.

So there you have it, the worlds most anti-climatic follow up! I will say, though, that the bush was really pretty, and next time we move and have room to plant stuff (and plan to stay there long enough to make planting anything worthwhile!) I’d love to throw another potato in the ground and see how big it will end up growing  Any suggestions for other random things I should plant?

We’ve done a lot of the whole “having a baby” thing on a budget. We’re using cloth diapers, we’ve been AMAZINGLY blessed with hand me downs and gifts of all sorts, and I’ve really been stingy when it comes to spending money on baby-related items. Particularly toys.

As Nathan has finally started getting more mobile and interested in things (it could be the glasses or just maturity, but he’s into EVERYTHING these days! The world is probably far more interesting when you can finally SEE it!) I’ve been realizing that I never bought him any toys! He has blankets and books and some teething rings and some rattles, but for the most part, that’s it! He definitely doesn’t have any of the fancy Lamaze toys that everyone else’s babies seem to have (is the firefly toy really THAT cool? I am starting to feel like I must be depriving Nathan of something important by not getting him one!)

But that’s okay, because while we may not have toys, we do have . . . .

laundry baskets!

He was really enthralled by being UNDER the basket, as well, but I couldn't get a good picture of that. (And doesn't his face look NAKED without glasses now?)

diapers! (cloth ones, not disposables – that would be a drooly icky mess!) (also, clean ones, NOT dirty ones!)

He will sit and talk to cloth diapers for ages!

things with straps!

Notice he is ignoring the ACTUAL toys for the straps. He will attack people to get to straps. I'm not sure why they're great, but he LOVES them!

kitchen supplies!

Today's selection includes a plastic cup and spoon (as well as a dog, but that was a gift and didn't come from the kitchen!) Previously featured items are measuring cups and plastic containers.

And let’s not forget the best baby toy ever . . .

toes!

Imagine if we all got that excited about having toes once we were grown up. Nothing would ever get done!

So I really do intend to get him more actual toys one of these days (particularly as he gets older and can better manipulate things), but in the meantime, if he’s perfectly happy throwing plastic utensils off his hair chair or chewing on anything cloth he can wiggle over to, why mess with that?

So it turns out that if you rent a bargain priced house, it’s going to come with the world’s most insane ants. And those ants will decide to live in the most inconvenient places. (Like, for example, somewhere in the wall behind the bathroom pocket door at about waist high. Or, better yet, somewhere mysteriously AROUND the dishwasher, but not near the floor. They’ve never been seen anywhere on the ground, or even NEXT to the dishwasher. These ants just somehow magically appear INSIDE the dishwasher, and swarm the living daylights out of the dishes that need to be cleaned).

And it turns out that if you run a crappy dishwasher that is full of both dirty dishes and ants, you will end up with somewhat clean dishes that now have dead ants smushed onto them.

And it turns out that if you just leave the dishes there for a long enough period of time, more ants will show up (to eat their dead brethren, perhaps? Or is there really THAT MUCH food still floating around in there? Stupid dishwasher that hardly cleans anything . . . ).

It also turns out that if you spray like crazy all around the edges of the dishwasher with the baby friendly, environmentally friendly, smells-like-a-Certs-has-exploded-in-your-NOSE ant spray (because you just got SO MAD about repeatedly running rinse cycles and then opening the dishwasher to find more live ants in amongst the dead smushed ones) and then run a wash cycle with soap, no more live ants will appear.

But also? Something about the combination of the soap and the ant spray will create a crusty residue that will end up all over all of your dishes. (It also turns out that running additional rinse cycles won’t do the job. Nor will just rinsing the items in the sink. That stuff is like PLASTIC encrusted on everything).

And also? Ants are still smushed all over EVERYTHING (including all the baby bottle components. Ew, ants in bottle nipples, NOT COOL!)

It also turns out that if you take everything that had been IN the dishwasher OUT, and set it on the COUNTER (to wash later), you’ll end up getting super busy (going to look at new houses to rent, that DON’T have genetically engineered ants living in them) and won’t have time to wash anything.

It also turns out that if you spend the ENTIRE next day running all over town with a baby (well, we started getting ready a little after 7, and didn’t get home and regrouped until 4. So, that’s a pretty long day in my book!) you will not get a chance to clean those dishes like you’d intended. And you will be WAY too wiped out to do them at that point.

And so THAT is why it turns out that, even though we just bought two full sets of dishware and a huge set of silverware, we have absolutely nothing to eat on or with.

It’s not that I was lazy. It’s because of the ants.

I blame the ants for my lack of a proper meal.

(And also for the fact that being in the kitchen gives me a headache from the lingering ant spray smell – it’s definitely preferable to Raid, but makes me feel like I’ve snorted an Altoid).

(I also blame the ants for leading me to find that there is a DEAD MOUSE in the space between the dishwasher and the cupboards. I can’t get back there to DO anything about it, so I really didn’t need to KNOW it was there!)

(Also, why don’t the ants EAT THE MOUSE instead of running around at warp speed inside an empty dishwasher?)

(And finally, we just need to move now, I think).

Nathan has some reflux issues (a baby with heartburn, so sad!) and at his last well-baby check up, his pediatrician gave us a can of Enfamil A.R. (Anti-Reflux) and said that while he didn’t believe in the formula’s claims, we could give it a try if we wanted.

** Sidenote: I’ve been supplementing my breastfeeding with bottled breast milk because Nate hasn’t been gaining enough weight. He’s up almost a pound and a half since I started supplementing a little over a week ago, and he’s SO MUCH HAPPIER now! Darned babies and their inability to communicate effectively . . . I wasn’t starving him on purpose! But back to my story.

Last night was the first night that I didn’t have enough bottled milk for a full feeding, so I decided to try the new formula. I woke him up at 4:30, he had a full 7 ounces of the formula, and then he fell asleep without burping or spitting up all over us both – HALLELUJAH!

I put him back to bed, pumped some milk, tidied up, and got in bed at about 5:30.

At about 6, I heard a cough, a sputter, and then a tremoundous SPLASHING sound from his Pack and Play next to my bed.

I leapt out of bed to check on him, prop him up to make sure he’s okay, and then was momentarily confused because his face was clean, his clothes were clean, the towel under his head to catch the usual spit-up was clean . . . and then I looked at the other end of his bed.

He had just projectile vomited a LAKE of spit-up over the towel and his clothing and onto the unprotected surface of where he sleeps.

*sigh*

At least he was completely unaffected by producing so much spit-up! But that still left me with a sleeping husband, a sleeping baby, and a mess to clean up. I opted to put the clean towel under Nate’s head on my side of the bed while I got some rags to clean up his bed.

I cleaned his bed, put the dirty rags in the other room, and came back to get Nate . . . only to find that he had AGAIN projectile vomited spit-up all over my side of the bed, AGAIN missing his clothing and the towel I’d put underneath him.

*sigh*

So I put Nate BACK into his bed on the clean towel, and left again to get rags to clean up my side of the bed. (Had J been awake I would have just changed the sheets, but since he doesn’t have the opportunity to try to sneak in naps during the day, I try to let him sleep as much as possible). I put the dirty rags in the other room and came back to put a bath towel down over the wet spot so I could go back to bed . . . and J had rolled over and been woken up by the wet spot (sorry honey, I tried my best to not disturb you with the mess!)

J doesn’t fall asleep very well once he’s been woken up (and his alarm was gonna go off in an hour or so) so we cuddled and chatted and dozed until . . . . COUGH, SPLUTTER, SPLASH!

*sigh*

This time I knew better than to put Nathan in my bed, so I moved him to the opposite side of the Pack and Play, got the rags, cleaned up the mess, and this time lined the ENTIRE SLEEPING AREA with towels!

I lay back down.

SPLASH!

*sigh*

*laugh* (Because what on Earth ELSE can you do at this point, other than laugh?)

This time the vomit went up . . . and then came straight back down onto his face, his swaddler, the neck of his sleeper, and the towel right next to his face.

And he was still totally dead asleep. I might wake him up in order to feed him (because the doctor says I have to!) but I wasn’t about to wake him up just to change his clothes! Particularly since he’d probably just get them dirty again the minute I closed my eyes So I put a clean towel over the dirty one, rolled him back into place on it, and lay back down.

I smelled like formula, the bed smelled like formula, I was sleeping on a bath towel, and all I could think was:

That was the LEAST anti-reflux solution I’ve EVER heard of!

So needless to say, that can is going in the garbage. I’ll take excessive spitting up after eating to projectile vomiting hours later ANY day!

———-

A few hours later, I’d put Nathan on J’s side of the bed (with a towel under his head, but at that point, I knew I was going to be washing the sheets anyhow, so it didn’t really matter) in order to sneak in just a little bit more sleep. He was starting to get fussy and wouldn’t keep his binky in his mouth, so I knew we were going to be getting up soon.

“Hey little buddy, are you ready to wake up for the day?”

Nathan turned his head in my direction, and dazzled me with one of these:

And I knew I’d happily do any amount of laundry just to get a smile like that.

Today’s post on ProBlogger was a challenge to create a link list to 7 particular kinds of blog posts (hence the name, The 7 Link Challenge!) It sounded like fun, so here is my contribution to the pool!


1) Your first post – Welcome To The World, New Baby Blog

This one was really hard for me because I made my first webpage when I was 13, and probably transitioned into blogging when I was about 18. Unfortunately, I no longer have access to any of that content I did go back to my old Xanga blog (2004! That was an eternity ago!) but my early posts were more like Facebook status updates than blog posts, so we’ll all have to be satisfied with my first post from this current blog

2) A post you enjoyed writing the most – Smart vs Wise – Making Decisions and Big Changes (An Announcement!)

The actual process of writing this one wasn’t fun, but I did enjoy writing it and being done with it. After ruminating privately for so long, I was simply happy to not have to keep everything a secret anymore. The unexpected blessing was how supportive everyone was. The writing process ended up being very insightful for me, as well.

3) A post which had a great discussion – I Don’t Understand Weddings

My blog is lacking in discussion (much to my dismay!) so this one was tough. This post probably got the lengthiest responses (and what will never cease to amaze me is that even in the comments on the post and that people left me on Facebook, there still wasn’t an absolute consensus. Everyone thinks they know the answer, but apparently some people are still wrong!) and even after all the comments I got, I still don’t understand weddings

4) A post on someone else’s blog that you wish you’d written – The Reason I Never Say Never Anymore

This one makes me weepy every time I read it. Some people can use words so well that at a certain point, you stop reading and simply feel the essence of the post. That’s a powerful skill, and it really comes out here. I’m in awe of how effortless that transition from words to emotions is with that post.

5) Your most helpful post – Recipe Review – Homemade Laundry Detergent and Cheap Fabric Softener!

Not terribly exciting, but it is fun, interesting, and helps save money, so I think it qualifies!

6) A post with a title that you are proud of – How A Belly Kiss Almost Made Me Cry

This is an example of a simple moment that struck me hard, emotionally, so I came home, typed the experience up quickly, and then left for dinner without any expectations. For quite a while, though, it was the post on my site that had received the most traffic, which could have been because the emotion resonated with other people as well, or simply because it’s an intriguing title

7) A post that you wish more people had read – Let’s Get Nostalgic!

Come ON, people, this was some fun reminiscing! Who doesn’t like to play a good game of “Remember when . . . “? I’m still hoping somebody will contribute to that discussion, because it would be a BLAST!

First of all, I know that we need sun exposure to live, and without the sun, none of us would be here right now. Let’s just get that part out of the way, because I have no beef with the sun on those accounts.

To understand where I’m coming from, you need to know two things:

1. J is WHITE (he’s 1/2 Irish, if you want me to be more precise) and he looks it. Pale skin, reddish tint to his hair, and while he can tan to a certain degree, it always starts with a truly brutal burn. To make matters worse, he doesn’t even have to be IN the sun in order to burn. Most people can be outside for a little while before they start to pink up, but I swear to you, J walks outside, looks towards a sunny area, and his skin starts to char It’s absurd! Sunscreen helps, but to a very limited extent.
2. I wear my sunscreen like a good little girl, but I’ve got the old photos to prove that I can tan with the best of them, and once tan, I rarely burn. HOWEVER, when I do burn, I get the mother of all rashes that is painful as well as itchy (the one time in high school that I tried going to a tanning salon, I ended up with a rash so bad that I came close to drawing blood as I scratched in my sleep. I spent my senior prom doped up on Benedryl and in agony, which is never how you want to remember such an event!) The only thing that helps soothe the rash is Vitamin E oil (a thousand thanks to my grandma who told me to try that, because it’s inconvenient but really works!) and since you’ve probably never popped open a Vitamin E capsule, let me tell you about the oil – it is THICK, it takes FOREVER to soak in to the skin, and it actually smells kind of funny. So if you need to put on Vitamin E, you can’t plan to put clothing on any time soon. My point here is that I do everything in my power to avoid this rash, because it’s awful and takes a while to go away.

So, since J burns so easily, we tend to avoid being in the sun as much as possible. That means that I never get a tan and I stay pale year round even though we live in Southern California. So that means that when I DO go in the sun (i.e., the one time a year that my family comes to visit and I go to the beach with them) even being diligent about my sunscreen, I always end up burning, and I always end up getting a rash. The sacrifices I make in the name of playing with my family . . .

Since my burns always turn to a tan though, even from just that once a year occurrence, I end up with obvious tan lines. Well, now I’m in a pickle because my sister gets married in a little more than a month, the bridesmaid dresses are strapless, and I have crazy tan lines from over a year ago. The tan lines have got to go! (Plus, the dresses are a vibrant color and my sisters and the other bridesmaids are all very tan and healthy looking. I really don’t want to be “the pasty girl” in all the photos!)

Most girls in this dilemma would just go to a tanning salon, but I’m never doing that again! The next obvious solution would seem to be to just expose myself very gradually to small amounts of sunlight (in strapless attire, obviously) to try and let nature fix the problem, but I’m wary of burning on accident! (I also have a very limited timeline, because I’m busy all day and out of town most of the weekends between now and the wedding).

So that leaves me with some kind of fake tan, which I’m wary of but not opposed to (I’ve had both good and bad experiences in the past with the MysticTan booths, but the most recent one was a disaster). Help me please! Does anybody have suggestions of different tanning options (I’ve never tried the airbrush tans) or salons/people in the North San Diego area I can trust? I don’t want to be pasty with tanlines, but I also don’t want to be orange with an obvious gap between my face and my hairline

So while I’m busy blaming

• J for our never going outside
• my crazy skin for reacting so horribly when I DO go out in the sun
• and (I suppose) my parents for only coming to visit once a year so that I end up with a static tanline

please let me know what you think I should do to remedy my current dilemma

And if someday in the future you see small kids who are both perpetually pale and rashy, those will probably be ours. We’ve doomed them to a life of crazy skin. Thanks, genetics!

A few months ago we had an empty planter box, bad weather, and a potato that was too sprouted and yucky to do anything good with. So I figured, what the heck, why not combine it all and see what I get!

I read up a little bit on growing potatoes (and learned that you’re never, ever, supposed to grow potatoes from ones you buy at the store, you’re supposed to use special seed potatoes. Pbbtth, whatever! I actually wasn’t too concerned about eating what I grew, I just wanted to see what a potato plant would look like!) and learned that potatoes grow on a vine and that as the vine grows up out of the dirt, you’re supposed to keep burying it so that it’s always growing more potatoes underground. I was envisioning a tidy little mound of dirt with just a few leaves growing out of it and a couple potatoes hiding in the dirt, sort of like the way a carrot grows. That sounds reasonable, right?

WRONG!

Is this what you thought a potato plant would look like? Not me!

Apparently, potatoes do NOT grow in delicate little hills like I had envisioned. In fact, this is probably the biggest and bushiest plant I’ve ever grown (my tomatoes last year probably would have been pretty big, until that monster rodent destroyed them to make a nest out of . . . I’m still bitter about that!) And it grew quickly, too. I’d reburied it’s little leaves a few times, but it seemed to stay about the same size for a little while, and then the next time I looked out the window, BAM! Full on potato shrub!

So I figured I should probably try to find a way to bury the rest of the plant before it started to grow up the walls.

Here is what it looked like after I buried as much of it as I could.

I left it at that, and then came out to check on it the next weekend.

Holy cow, new growth!

Just a week later, and it has flowers and new stalks are sprouting straight up off of the previously buried stalks! WOW! So (as you can kind of see in that last photo, off to the left) I’m starting to run out of dirt to bury things with, and there isn’t much more room before I spill over the lip of the planter. I am so incredibly curious at this point to see what we end up with in a few more weeks If nobody has heard from me by the end of the month, come check on my apartment and make sure it hasn’t been overrun by a potato plant

Update 10/11/11 – Find out what ended up happening to the potato plant here.