Mommy and Sweet Pea

Video number two! This happened back on January 11. She is starting to take more and more steps on her own. She can get from one piece of furniture to another without holding anything, and can walk all over the house if she holds someone's hand. Walking is such an exciting development for us, but a little bit scary too. She can get into more trouble, it seems, and has a higher likelihood of bad bonks on the head. Wish us luck!

This is my first time sharing a video. If it is successful, you can look forward to more videos in the coming weeks, including a video of baby's first steps! I bought this rocking snail the other day at a re-sale shop, and Sweet Pea loves it. It is so much fun to watch her go. She also enjoys standing next to it and rocking it with her arms.

Or is she just being a baby? She has been interested in food for months and months. We started giving her food, some whole chunks, some purees and mushes, when she was about 6 months old. Now, Sweet Pea is eleven months old (tomorrow!) and it is still REALLY hit or miss whether she will eat food at any given meal. I haven't done a post on baby food since October , because I really didn't know what to say. One week I'd think we were "over the hump" and that now she would be eating quite a bit, and then three days would pass with her eating next to nothing! Luckily my milk supply is holding up! Right now we offer her food about three times a day, and I never can predict whether she will eat it or not. Sometimes she will eat quite a bit (which for her is like a half a piece of bread, or 3-4 tablespoons). Sometimes she will eat nothing. Some days she loves sweet potatoes, other days she spits it out as soon as it touches her mouth, and other days she won't eve...

For the last few weeks, I have been debating what to do with my dresser project. This project has been "on the table" for way too long; I don't even want to think about how long ago I started this . I painted oh, about eight coats on with my sprayer, and the furniture polish was still coming through a little bit when I last updated you . It took quite a while to figure out that this was what was happening. My mom had bought the dresser used for me, and put some dark furniture polish on it before she brought it to me. Apparently that stuff is STRONG because after those eight coats of paint, including two initial coats of primer, there is still some pink tinge coming through. I was so frustrated because I painted several other things while working on the dresser, usually to use up the last of the paint in the sprayer while I waited for a coat of paint on the dresser to dry. (I was very careful about keeping my sprayer clean, not letting any paint dry inside it.) Everything ...

I ordered two wool longies from Nifty Nappy over the holiday. My order got lost in the holiday rush, and when owner/sewing master Vilate Thacker eventually found it, she offered to throw in a fitted diaper as well to make up for the delay. A fair deal, I thought. I was thrilled when the package arrived. One of the benefits of online shopping is that you get the rush of buying several times - first when you do the payment online, next when you see that it has shipped, and again and again every time you see the mail truck, until finally when it actually arrives and you get to open the package. Fluffy mail! The wool longies, or " Nifty Knickers " as she calls them, are custom made to fit your little one based on measurements you send in, and at $16 each they are a steal for custom wool baby attire. We got one in red and one in purple, and Sweet Pea has already worn each several times. I really like putting her to bed in them because they are so warm and cozy. The seams are ve...

Since I got my serger , I have successfully made six sets of napkins, two sets of flannel baby wipes, and the longies I wrote about in my previous post. I have three sets of flannel wipes to go before I take my machine in to the sewing machine repair shop for a tune-up and some new needles. The only reason it's not going in earlier is that I need to finish the wipes before Saturday (for my cloth diaper party ). I really love the finished product that sergers create, but using one can be oh so frustrating, especially when you have no manual. This was going to be a much longer post, but Sweet Pea unplugged the computer without me noticing, and then my old laptop died because the battery has no life left in it, and the two additional paragraphs that I had written disappeared. I thought that wasn't supposed to happen with the automatic saving feature of blogger. Sad. I'll try again tomorrow. That's life with a baby, right? "I guess I'll try again tomorrow.......

The first time I made recycled wool diaper covers, I made "shorties" that fit like little shorts, or a more typical diaper cover. For that project, I bought several wool sweaters at Goodwill and followed a pattern I found online that basically consists of cutting a triangle out of the sweater, cutting off the sleeve cuffs and neck, and sewing it all together, using the sleeves for the leg holes and the neck for the waist. I can give more specific instructions if you'd like, just ask in comments, but unfortunately was unable to find the site that I originally got the pattern from. To size the sides of the triangle, measure your little one's waist and add a half inch. Katrina's Sew Quick blog has some great patterns for a variety of types of wool diaper covers. Here is one of the first ones I made, clearly it is a little bit big at this point. You can see another photo of my handiwork in the bottom photo of my " Diapering My Active Nine-Month-Old " po...

Sweet Pea's current favorite activity: emptying everything. She takes the books off the shelves, the garbage out of the basket, the napkins off the table, the containers out of the kitchen drawers, and on and on in every situation you can imagine. Here is our typical experience sitting at the desk, notice the half-empty drawer and the pens on the floor: I've heard that the next step will be putting things away, but not necessarily where you'd like them to be put. Check out New Urban Habitat 's post about her toddler to see what I mean.

This is the first in a series of posts about products I've gotten from work-at-home-moms (WAHMs).  Two days ago I was thrilled to receive my new diaper bag in the mail. It is the exact colors I wanted, the exact size, has the exact right number and size of pockets, and included a matching changing pad and wipes case. Similar bags that I have looked at cost around $150, but my bag cost me much less and was made precisely to my specifications. How is this possible? Well, the bag was made by WAHM who I connected with through diaperswappers. (You can check out her facebook page, Drea Designs, here .) I bought the fabric and sent it to her, and she sewed it together based on a pattern she had created when making a bag for herself. It has lots of great features, like a clip for my keys, and pocket toward the top on the inside for my cell phone. I am constantly misplacing (or losing, depending on your point of view) these items, so this is a biggie for me! I got a couple of great diap...

A while back, my cloth diaper mentor sent me a link to information about hosting a cloth diaper party. It looked interesting, but I didn't think too much about it. Suddenly, in the last week, I've had three friends writing to me asking for advice about cloth diapers, and recalled the diaper party idea again. So, I've decided to do it! In about a month (date yet to be determined) I will be unpacking a big box of a wide assortment of modern cloth diapers, and talking about them to my friends and anyone else who shows up. If anyone buys anything at the party, or through my affiliate link , I get a commission! If no one buys anything, oh well, I get to spend an afternoon playing with diapers with other mamas. I can just send the whole box back, and I'm only out shipping costs. Seems like a win-win. There will be at least one prize for a lucky attendee, and I'm thinking about making cloth wipes to give away, and possibly playing a game too. There are a couple of compan...

At this point, breastfeeding is generally easy and enjoyable, and a nice time of one-on-one connection with Sweet Pea. It is good for her and my health and well-being, and has so many benefits. There are just a few drawbacks, compared to the many many positives. One thing I have always hoped to avoid in my breastfeeding experience is mastitis : the painful lump that leads to the fever, aches, chills, and fatigue is something to be avoided at all costs. I had my first experience with it this week, and it was every bit as bad as I imagined. Mastitis usually starts as a lump in the breast, a clogged milk duct, and can progress to an intense illness very quickly. The clogged duct could be related to engorgement or not emptying the breast of milk often enough, or it could have no apparent cause. I have heard that mastitis is more common during cold and flu season and that it is usually related to over-stress on a mama's body. Well, Sweet Pea, Average, many members of my family that w...

Sweet Pea recently started sleeping in her own room. Her lovely crib went completely unused for the first nine months of her life, and was just a storage area for stuffed animals, clothes, and baby gear. When we decided to make the transition, I took her sheepskin out of her sidecar co-sleeper (we used the Arm's Reach Co-Sleeper Mini Bassinet Convertible ) and put it into her crib on top of the sheet. She was probably four months old when we first got this sheepskin as a gift from a family friend, and I immediately noticed that it was easier to put her down once we started using it in her co-sleeper. I would definitely recommend using a sheepskin to anyone with an infant. I have a friend who uses one in her baby's crib and said she got the idea because she knew it had been used with an elderly relative to prevent bedsores and increase comfort. A few of the reasons I love my baby's sheepskin are that it is: A natural sleeping surface (not synthetic) Soft and cuddly while ...