What better way to kick-start the weekend with this lovely face…
So great to have a sure fire method (or song) to push his smile buttons.
Now doesn’t that just energize you to do something wonderful or fantastic this weekend?
I shall now leave this little guy with his taggie toy and get on with some more much anticipated sewing.
Enjoy your weekend!
I meant to do some sewing today. Unfortunately Nathan’s routine was a bit erratic today with him only taking mini-naps of half an hour to one hour tops. So I parked the main projects I was working on and just played around with a few scraps instead.
Nathan’s newest development is learning to put his hand together. It’s really cute to see - sometimes he looks like he’s saying a little prayer. Anyway with this development, it means he can grasp and hold objects better. So I decided to make him a little taggie toy.
I followed this tutorial and even went through the arduous process of sewing a layer of slippery plastic in between the fabric for that desired crinkly sound effect - NOT easy I can tell you! My stitches ended up pretty wonky... but I figured my one and only customer wouldn't mind as long as it holds together.
Then I handed it over to the evaluation panel for review and testing…
He took a bit of time to figure out how to grasp it properly, but once he did he got really into it… gumming, chewing and sucking away at the little ribbon taggies.
He's actually been the most tactile with this little toy compared to all of his other store-bought toys. Simple yet effective - that's the way I like it!
As I was packing the diaper bag for heading out to the bbq/picnic outing over the long weekend, I decided just for fun to take a snapshot of all the things that go into my bag. I was actually quite amazed at the amount of stuff I managed to fit in.
I carry an OiOi bag which I got for a steal on Gumtree. I love it because of the classic style and roomy interior which can hold in surprisingly a lot of stuff as I will illustrate shortly.
So here is pretty much everything laid out…
Now let’s count the number of items I have in there:
1. Cloth nappies - one or two, depending on how long we’ll be out
2. Baby sling - either the pouch or the ring sling, depending on my mood or the occasion or what the laundry rotation is at the time
3. Nursing cover
4. A spare change of clothing for baby - usually a little T-shirt or onesie
5. A little toy or something to keep him amused if the situation arises
6. Changing pad
7. Baby wipes
8. Tissues
9. Spare disposable nappy - I’ve never encountered an occasion where I’ve had to use it, but I feel better knowing it’s there
10. Spare nursing pads
11. Small zip up bag to hold items #7, #8, #9 and #10
12. Wet bag to keep soiled nappies - sorry, it’s not captured in the picture
13. Zip lock plastic bag - just in case I need to contain anything mega messy or wet or if I just need something to hold stuff
14. Wallet
15. Pen
16. Camera
17. Phone
18. Chanel ‘Essentials’ colour palette - it’s six colour combo for eyes/lips/cheek, so I just carry this in place of having to carry a lipstick, eyeshadow, blusher, face compact etc.
19. Keys - I grab these on the way out
20. And baby! Well he doesn’t actually go in the bag but he goes with it.
Wow… totally a Mary Poppins moment! It’s a far cry from what I had in my bag three years ago. I wonder if I’m overdoing it? Do I have too many ‘just in case’ items or is there something I totally missed?
If you have nothing better to do, I’d really like to know what’s in YOUR bag.
So rounding off the long weekend activities on my list:
I finished the second pouch for my other friend. I had to be more precise in my sewing with this as it was the last bit of material, so less margin for error this time.
Then another friend told me she’d like a set like this one too and was happy to pay for it as well. So looks like I’ve got another project lined up!
In the midst of all the sewing, I also found some time to get out and enjoy the sunshine and the company of great friends and relish that unnameable holiday-feeling which floats around the air during long weekends such as this.
We spent an afternoon lazing around at Heathcote in Applecross, indulging in greasy bbq food - yumz! Great way to round off the long weekend on a high like this.
In case you’re wondering, that black and white thing my baby is wearing is one of his fanciest cloth nappies. This is one of my ‘show stopper’ nappies which never fail to generate big reactions from people. Most of don’t even realise it’s a nappy until I tell them. To them it just looks like very posh pants because of the plush minky material.
Here’s a shot of our little adventurer. It was quite a sunny day, so I sunblocked him, covered him and ‘capped’ him up. We came home with all his skin intact, so it was all good.
OK, enough about sewing for a bit. After all, sewing was not the ONLY thing I busied myself with this weekend. I also did this…
With the changing seasons and growing baby, I needed to do some reorganising of his clothes… archiving the ones he had grown out of (haiz… so fast!) and bring out the batch in next size up as well as the warmer ones in preparation for those chilly nights.
And here’s a little catwalk of the clothes my Nate has grown into recently…
First, his ‘mini chef’ shirt from his jia-po and jia-gung
Next, his ‘ickle overalls from one of hubs’ colleagues (anyone want to venture a guess at what song I was singing?)
And this little Baby Levis number is a hand-me-down from Diana… it’s a 3-6 months sizing and I recall not long ago finding it hard to imagine how my tiny newborn would ever fit into this outfit… aaaahhh, where did my 0-3 months size baby go?
Don’t even get me started on how I felt when I glanced ahead at the 6-12 month sized batch of clothes. I quickly put those boxes back and willed myself not to think about them just yet and went back to nuzzling my (still) little ‘ickle baby.
The much anticipated super duper long weekend is finally here! Us Australians have the privilege of enjoying a not three, not four, but FIVE whole days of the long weekend Good Friday, Easter Monday and Anzac Day!
Everyone seems to be making all sorts of fun plans, including me. I have two priorities for this weekend:
1. Try out this recipe for super rich dense chocolatey brownies
2. Sew the promised pouch slings
For the latter, I ended up with not one, but two requests! As the original leftover fabric from my pouch had already been ‘choped’, the second mum asked me to pick out another fabric combo to help sew for her.
Apart from a few general guidelines on preferred colours and patterns, my friend left the selection completely up to me. So at my next trip to Spotlight, I was like a kid in a candy store. I think only you fellow sewers out there can relate to the tremendous joy and fun of choosing fabrics.
First I played around around with some fun prints…
Then I seriously considered these…
Before I finally settled on this one.
A pretty floral print, contrasted with a rich dark chocolate brown lining.
(Hope you like it, Jamie!)
What is it about babies and naps? Sometimes babies seem to react to naptime like it’s poison. After milk time, play time and cuddle time… naptime seems to be something they just HAVE to resist. Out come the tears, wails and yells seemingly saying “I won’t go to bed, I won’t, I WON’T!!!”
Some of you may remember my magic sling. Well, it’s still magic… sort of… although in actual fact I had learnt that the magic weapon was actually ME. The sling is just useful in that I don’t have to be tied down holding him all the time and can move around the house freely.
I remember I was worried at one point that the sling was becoming a sleep prop, but my dear friend Irene wisely told me that the sleep prop is actually the person wearing the sling. Slings and swings and rockers may come and go, but the thing babies want most in the world is their mummy (or daddy).
Anyway, I was careful to guard against the sling becoming a real sleep prop by always trying my best to put Nathan down drowsy but still awake. That system worked like a charm back then.
However, since that tough week when things were bit crazy, naptime turned into a REAL challenge when Nathan became unable to nap without being sleep-propped completely to sleep… be it in the sling, or in mummy’s arms, or daddy’s arms, with lots of walking, rocking and swaying. Things got out of hand when the process could sometimes take up to an hour. Then by the time we got him down, he would be up again 20-30 minutes later.
All this was wearing me completely down. So we decided to take drastic steps. Although I’m not a fan of the cry-it-out method, I had to adopt some mild form of it in trying to get Nathan out of the need of being held/rocked/walked/swayed to sleep. Generally I don’t mind doing those things to help him go to sleep, but it got so bad at one point that he could only STAY asleep while being held/rocked/walked. I did not want to apply any extreme form of that method, so I didn’t just leave Nathan to just cry cold turkey, but this is what I did…
Step 1: hold/rock/walk him a bit, then put him down, he will of course cry
Step 2: wait a few minutes - I usually wait beside the cot to make sure he’s ok (like not crying himself sick) and sometimes I leave the room for a bit just to make sure I don’t cry myself sick
Step 3: if he’s still crying, pick him up and hold/pat/rock/walk until he calms down a bit and put him down again
(if you are familiar with the original cry-it-out method, you can see that my version of it is fairly soft-hearted - the actual cry-it-out states that parents should not pick baby up or preferably not even touch baby, but leave the room for 5/10/15 minute intervals, then return and just reassure the baby verbally, before leaving the room again for the next interval. This method was just too military for me)
Anyway I just repeat the steps again and again until he eventually falls asleep.
I felt it was rather hard on the little guy, but I really needed things to get back on track. It was really rough going for a couple of days, but this past week saw a really huge improvement. He is now able to drift off to sleep on his own in his cot with no crying (except sometimes a little whimper now and then).
Whether or not it was due the process we went through or just the fact that he had finally come through the wonder week phase or whether we hit the so called magical moment when things apparently ‘click’ into place around the 3-month mark - I don’t know. I probably never will as things keep changing all the time that it’s hard to pin point whether it’s me or him or the method. I can only be thankful that we made it through this challenge and just enjoy this good run I’m having with Nathan for now.
I’ve received a few interested enquiries for my pouch sling. Not many because maybe I don’t know many other mummies in Perth yet, much less any who are into babywearing. But in the end I found two mummies eager to give me a chance to practice my sewing skills. Will update more on this later.
In the meantime, here is a look at a few other little somethings I made from a few scraps off an old T-shirt…
… into these!
Pee-Pee Teepees!
If you have a baby boy, I think you can totally relate with those pee-pee accidents at the change table. Once nappy comes off, there’s always a potential danger of a getting sprayed. Sadly I’ve been a spray victim more than once. Like other parents of little boys, I learnt very fast to go in armed with a towel ‘shield’ and to work fast.
Now I just pop one of these little babies on for spray-free nappy change.
They kind of look like smurf hats don’t they? Except that the smurfs wear white hats and these are blue. But I can say that these are smurf-coloured.
Nathan is 15 weeks and 2 days today. I haven’t posted an update on his progress in a while, so it’s about time. He also just had his 2-3 month child health nurse appointment today, so I suppose there’s no better timing than now to do one.
So Nathan, hand over your ‘report card’ to mummy and we’ll get started.
Some notes from his purple book on his growth charting:
He now weighs about 6.5kg which is right on the average mark - I was so relieved to hear this as I was worried that I was overfeeding him and making him fat)
He measures 63cm long which is slightly above average - his father will be pleased about this because he is keen for Nathan to grow up to be really tall.
Other important developmental checkboxes ticked off:
He can prop himself up very well on his forearms while on his tummy
He can support his weight on his legs while being held up
He can brace himself sitting up, with some support under his armpits or from behind his back
He is making a lot more vocalisations with many new and different sounds - basically all those goo-goo-gah-gah noises
He’s also been gurgling, chuckling and laughing a lot more… finding it much easier to get those gorgeous giggles out of him as illustrated below:
All I did was to sing a few lines from Cole Porter’s True Love (still very much one of his favourite songs) and that was enough to get him going.
Other things that tickle his funny bone include:
1. Doing the actions for the song ‘Little By Little/He’s Changing Me’ - especially the part where we go “…Jesus is CHAAAAAANGING me” (emphasis on the part in caps)
2. Bouncing on mummy or daddy’s knee while singing silly songs
3. Mummy going “wheeeeee” while swinging him up and down
4. Daddy making funny faces at him, especially while he’s drinking from his bottle (more on this in my next post)
Nathan is clearly growing into a real pretty boy. At his appointment, the nurse kept exclaiming what a looker he was. She also remarked there was something about his features which could make some people easily mistake him for a girl. She's not the only person who's said something along these lines. I know some people have to put a pink ribbon or flower on their baby to make it clear it's a girl, in my case what can I put on Nathan to mark him as a boy?
I knooow… isn’t enough that I have already two perfectly functioning slings? Well somehow all the research about babywearing and baby slings led me to information about other types of baby carriers and slings. I became interested about pouch slings because of its simple design and trimmer style. It's a little less versatile compared to ring slings or wrap slings, but still offers a few basic options for wearing baby.
Get ready for another ramble on my current obsession: cloth diapers! I know, some of you are probably sick of the topic and will probably skip this post. I can’t help it, I never realised how much fun diapering a baby could be. I sometimes actually LOOK FORWARD to nappy changing times because I get to choose what type of nappy to use, have fun changing baby, and interact more with him as I talk to him about what nappy I’ve chosen, talk him through the steps, tell him how cute he looks and step back and admire my handiwork.
Sooo… check out the latest additions to my cloth diaper stash…
Wool covers!
I picked them up through Freecycle from a lady who was clearing her house in preparation for an interstate move.
Basically these go over a prefold/muslin/fitted cloth nappy as a waterproof cover. Yes, that’s right… wool can be waterproof. And did you also know that…
1. Wool fibre is naturally absorbent but is also able to ‘wick’ or pull away moisture and release it into the air
2. The natural lanolin in wool creates a natural waterproof barrier that also neutralises the ammonia in urine
3. Wool is is breathable and therefore cooling to use in summer, but also naturally insulating for winter time
These are just some of the many facts I learnt about wool while I was surfing the web for cloth diaper information (another favourite related past time). All this made me so intrigued about wool and got me curious to try it.
So the moment I came across the opportunity to pick up some wool covers for free, I jumped at it. It was good stuff too! Well cared for and in excellent condition. Three of them were from a really good brand called Llamajama and two of them I figured were hand knit as there were no labels on them.
I washed them thoroughly and followed my friend Rebecca’s instructions on how to lanolise them. The moment they were dry, I immediately tried them on my little nappy model…
I knoooow… pink trimmings??? Well, I told Nathan that he was boy enough to carry them off! But i think the other pink one is definitely waaaay too girly… mummy knows the limits for boys. I’ll save them for next time *wink*
