I just thought you should know…
You can sleep soundly tonight. I have, indeed, put the last of the Christmas decorations away.
That is all.
C-section by cat
I was napping with Nybbles this afternoon – or rather Nybbles was cuddled up to my belly as I drifted in and out of sleep. I’m not sure exactly why she loves to lay by my belly – there is no longer a little hollow there between my belly and my lap for her to lay in, but to each their own. I know that I wasn’t fully sleeping, because every so often, I’d wake myself up with a bit of a snore. I’m a giant pregnant person with sinus issues – sometimes I snore.
Anyway, I’m ripped out of sleep because Nybbles must have heard something – whether from Kitten’s room, downstairs, outside, I don’t know. Maybe one of my snore’s startled her – and used my blanket (and me!) to claw her way 3′ in to the air, growling and hissing and fighting mad. All I know is that had I not had my huge duvet on, I think this baby would have been born today via c-section… in my bed. When we planned a home birth, that WASN’T what I was thinking! LOL!
And of course the booger head has gone back to sleep on the bed, but I’m too startled to relax enough to drift off again. Oh well, guess it’s time for me to get up anyway!
Sneak Attack!
Here’s my “before baby gets here” list… take 3:
- Wash out carseat, bunting bag and matching hat. Bag up together with mirror for the car.
- Set up bassinet in our bedroom, layout some diapers and other essentials.
- Prep diapers, covers and nursing pads.
- Wash swing.
- Wash baby wraps, find somewhere to store them and the sling.
- Make room in our closet/dresser for baby clothes
- Clean up Kitten’s closet.
- Clean out Diaper Champ and get ready for use.
- Organize Kitten’s toys – put some away.
- Eat as much out of the freezer & pantry as possible to free up some room.
- Make a trip to the eco-station, Goodwill drop off, the used bookstore and the bottle depot.
- Pack hospital bag.
- Wash and put away 4 oz. bottles.
- Wash and lanolize new baby woolies (pants, sleep sacks, etc.).
- Find breast pump, sanitize and store.
- Finish Kitten’s Baby Book & First Year Calendar
I had planned on doing very little day, other than cleaning the bathrooms. I had a nesting Sneak Attack, though, and ended up doing a wee bit more than I had planned. Oops. My day, let me tell you it.
8. Clean out Diaper Champ
I decided to put this in the bathroom where we do the diapers, and get it out of Kitten’s closet. We don’t plan on changing diapers in her room any time soon, and we put the champ away when we moved to mostly cloth diapers. Now we’re doing disposibles at night (I can’t handle the ammonia that gets built up in her night time diapers, so it seems like a good solution to us), and we do plan on using disposibles at night with the new baby, so I think that this thing will get a lot more use. Anyway, it’s in the bathroom and being used, so I would call that cleaned out and ready.
9. Organize Kitten’s Toys and Put Some Away
I totally didn’t mean to do this today, but oops! I decided to try rotating her toys out every two months or so. After Christmas, she ended up with a butt load of toys. So many toys that they don’t really all fit in our common living area. And when she has to clean up, well, it’s overwhelming for all of us – adults included. So my theory is that it will be easier to keep our space neat and tidy with less stuff, plus she’ll get more play out of her toys because she can find them and she doesn’t have as much variety to chose from. Of course if she really wants one of the toys that is in storage, I’m more than happy to get it for her. But I’m not sure she’ll ask. There are a few things, like her My Little Pony’s, that won’t be cycled out because she plays with them EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. So there is that as well. I’m planning on doing this with her books as well, but I ran out of steam before I got there this afternoon.
11. Make a trip to Goodwill, the Eco-Station, the Bottle Depot and the Used Bookstore
We did this on the weekend. It was so nice to get a full car load full of junk from our basement out of the house. We got $25 from bottles (courtesy of getting a return on our milk jugs), and Rob really enjoyed throwing our broken electronics in to the big dumpster bin and watching them smash. He said that if we had a son, he’d take our son to the Eco-Station for father-son bonding time over smashing electronics. Ha ha ha… As you may have noticed, I didn’t cross out the used bookstore because I didn’t get there yet. But I did get all my books together, and I’m ready to take them in… when I have time. Our bookstore is great – so I tend to spend a lot of time there perusing the shelves with my new trade-in credit.
10. Eat as Much Out of the Freezer and Pantry as Possible
This seems to be a work in progress. Our freezer is actually fairly empty right now (yay!), but there are a few more things in there that I have plans for. I do plan on doing to some preemptive cooking for post-baby, and I might even get lazy/splurge and buy a freezer lasagna or two. I know it’s easy/cheap to do the work myself (and better for us), but I’m not really feeling crazy about cooking right now. ::shrugs:: My pantry is taking longer to clean out – I have A LOT of surplus stuff in there. I’m not trying to eat the surplus, but maybe we can finish one type of rice so we don’t have three boxes open, you know? That kind of stuff. Also, the random sweet potato needs to be eaten, I’m just saying.
16. Finish Kitten’s Baby Book and First Year Calendar
I added this to the list, because it would be really nice to close these two up. Truthfully, Kitten still doesn’t have all her teeth, so I’ll still need to record those top two year old molars when they come in. However, I have been awfully neglectful on printing all the pictures that I want to go in both the book and the calendar. Most, if not all, of the journelling has been done. It’s just a matter of selecting the pictures, printing them off and sticking them in. ::sigh:: Nothing hard about this, but it never seems to get done. I have very slowly started the Belly Bean’s baby book – just the easy prelim stuff. I’m not working too hard at it, because I don’t want to have two books on the go (hers and Kitten’s), but I don’t want to leave it until I’m exhausted with a baby as well. And I don’t want to be making things up a year later because I can’t remember all the names we had considered for her or whatever.
As for my regular house stuff… I had planned on cleaning the bathrooms today, which was a huge success. In my chore planner, this week had “wash the shower curtains” as one of my tasks, and I was thinking “how hard can that be?” Ugh. Taking them down wasn’t a huge trial. Putting them in the washing machine (I’m only washing the fabric part, the plastic part can be done a different day) was easy peasy. Hanging them back up is really going to bust my butt, though! Rob said he’d help me hang them up when he gets home, so that’s good… but I didn’t realize how tiring standing with your arms above your head can get! Ha ha! Oh well – at least they’re nice and fresh and I don’t have to do them again for another 6 months or more (is that reasonable? Should I be washing them more often? How often do you wash your shower curtains?).
Ducks in a Row
Here’s my “before baby gets here” list… take 2:
- Wash out carseat, bunting bag and matching hat. Bag up together with mirror for the car.
- Set up bassinet in our bedroom, layout some diapers and other essentials.
- Prep diapers, covers and nursing pads.
- Wash swing.
- Wash baby wraps, find somewhere to store them and the sling.
- Make room in our closet/dresser for baby clothes
- Clean up Kitten’s closet.
- Clean out Diaper Champ and get ready for use.
- Organize Kitten’s toys – put some away.
- Eat as much out of the freezer & pantry as possible to free up some room.
- Make a trip to the eco-station, Goodwill drop off, the used bookstore and the bottle depot.
- Pack hospital bag.
- Wash and put away 4 oz. bottles.
- Wash and lanolize new baby woolies (pants, sleep sacks, etc.).
- Find breast pump, sanitize and store.
So I got a few more things done on my list. And I have proof – pictures! Yay! I apologize to those of you who will find this stunningly boring, but this is more for my sake (and Carolyn’s, I know she’s interested. Heh) than yours.
So I washed and put away all our wool baby pants, etc. So far, we have two sleep sacks, 2 pairs of newborn pants, 1 pair of newborn capris (aka I ran out of yarn so the inseam is a little short), 2 pairs of small sized pants and a matching hat. I’m sure that I’ll add to this very fuzzy collection over time, but I’m not sweating it right now. I would like to knit up a soaker (underwear shaped diaper cover) for the newborn stage, as well as a small skirtie (a soaker with a skirt over top – very cute on baby girls!)… but again, not sweating it at this point.
I set up the bassinet by our bed. I know that it’s a little early… ok, really early, but it just seemed like the right time to do it, so it’s done. I suppose on the plus side I don’t have to worry about doing it AFTER baby gets here, nor do I have to do when I am even bigger at 39 weeks or something. It would be nicer if I had more room on my side of the bed, but for now it holds my knitting stuff and Star Trek dvd’s. And I did lay out some things, like some diapers and such. The night stand beside the bassinet has a few clothing items in the bottom drawer (my stuff is in the top drawer), so we’re practically set up to welcome this baby at any time.
I found all my baby carriers – I have two wraps and a sling to hold the baby in. I washed up the wraps, so they’re ready to go. Sadly, the sling is kind of unwashable, because the padding in it won’t last very long. Kitten wasn’t a spitty baby, so it’s pretty clean, in my opinion, so I’m not going to worry about it. I threw them in our closet because I’m organized like that.
In other, non-nesting news, I’ve been working on a new pair of socks. These are the True Love socks, and I really like the pattern, but I don’t think I love the striping pattern. I think they would have looked better in a solid or semi-solid yarn. But, whatever. They’re just for me, and I’m just happy to be knitting something semi-interesting. They’re taking their time, but I’m hoping to have them done before baby gets here.
And finally – here’s a recent picture of me. Yes, I am definitely feeling gigantic, and uncomfortable. I feel like my shape is very different from how I looked when I was pregnant with Kitten, which has been rather entertaining to me.
Oh, and none of my shirts fit – they’re all too short, so don’t judge me. Even the XL shirts are too short. Yikes!
Things to do
Here’s my “before baby gets here” list:
- Wash out carseat, bunting bag and matching hat. Bag up together with mirror for the car.
- Set up bassinet in our bedroom, layout some diapers and other essentials.
- Prep diapers, covers and nursing pads.
- Wash swing.
- Wash baby wraps, find somewhere to store them and the sling.
- Make room in our closet/dresser for baby clothes
- Clean up Kitten’s closet.
- Clean out Diaper Champ and get ready for use.
- Organize Kitten’s toys – put some away.
- Eat as much out of the freezer & pantry as possible to free up some room.
- Make a trip to the eco-station, Goodwill drop off, the used bookstore and the bottle depot.
- Pack hospital bag.
- Wash and put away 4 oz. bottles.
- Wash and lanolize new baby woolies (pants, sleep sacks, etc.).
The crossed out items are things I have finished. I’m super anxious to get everything done… but some things just aren’t things you can do up to 6 weeks pre-baby. There are a few more things that I can definitely do before it’s time, though!
As you read earlier, I was up with the birds (if there were any here this time of year), and managed to get a few things done. This afternoon I decided to wash and prep the diapers. The majority of the cloth diapers we’re planning on using at the beginning with the Belly Bean are prefolds, and because I bought all mine second hand, I don’t actually have to prep them. At least not in the sense of washing out all the natural oils and such to make them really absorbent. But I did buy a few new fitteds and those did need to be prepped. But I’m lazy eco-concious and decided to wash them once right now, and after baby wets them (because she will, and often), they’ll get washed more. It just means that they won’t be as absorbent as they could be… and I’m ok with that. At first new babies don’t tend to pee buckets anyway.
I also chose to wash and prep all my new nursing pads. I am so excited about my nursing pads. Last time I used really good disposible ones, and I found that I just didn’t change them as often as I should have because they were expensive *shame* I know, I’m an awful person. So this time I bought 7 pairs of super wonderful WATERPROOF nursing pads (not the kind that are just flannel – these have diaper-worthy waterproof layers in them!), and was gifted another set of 7 nursing pads. I brought them up to wash them, and ended up having to fight Kitten for them! Ha ha! She just loved all the round circles and all the bright and pretty colours (what? Did you think that I bought plain white ones? Heck no!). Eventually she stacked them all up and told me that I could wash them, so they went in to the machine as well. I really can’t wait to use them, it’s going to be awesome.
Anyway, the point of all of this is to share some pictures! Yay! So here you go:
Nursing pads:
Fresh out of the dryer:
Folded up:
So for those of you who really care, here’s what we have for the newborn stage.
- 2 Heartland Dreams newborn sized fitted diapers. I sent my own fabric in for these, and had Tina sew them up. She did a really fantastic job, and she didn’t charge a ton either. I knew that I loved HD diapers, we have one for Kitten that I just love to bits. Nice and absorbent, and they wash up so beautifully. I’m hoping that the prints on these diapers don’t pill or fade too much over time.
- 3 size 1 Banyan Tree fitted diapers. These are a two-sized system, so hopefully these diapers will fit Belly Bean until she’s a few months old, maybe as far as 6 months? Depends on how much of a porker she turns out to be, and whether she has a long rise or not. Anyway, these are super squishy and lovely, but I have to say that they seem a little bit bulky. I’m not really sure whether we’ll use them right away or not, maybe after baby gets to be closer to 10 pounds or so. We got the snap-in soaker kind, so they dry faster (and they do dry fast, by the way!).
- A variety of covers. I have 2 extra small Thirsties covers, 4 size 1 Thirsties Duo’s covers (should fit to around 15-18 lbs), and 1 newborn bummis cover. I really think that I could use more covers, but I keep telling myself that we are going to use wool some of the time, and not *every* diaper will be a poop diaper (if poop gets on the cover, I won’t reuse it between washings, but a pee diaper cover will get a quick rinse and a dry between washings). I suppose if I feel like I am constantly running out of covers, I will likely just order some more size 1 Duo’s, as we should get the most wear out of them.
- Clean nursing pads, all piled up
- Diapers that I made. There are 4 fitted newborn diapers, and one newborn pocket diaper. I have to say, the fitted ones turned out ok, but I really don’t like the pocket. I’m not sure that we’ll actually use it all that much. I guess we can give it a try, but I will say that it’s nearly impossible to get your hand in there to stuff the insert in! The ones made from the watch fabric actually pilled really badly, and don’t look as nice as they did before they were washed
- 36 tiny prefolds. These are newborn prefolds, I guess, smaller than the “infant” sized ones. I got a lot so we could just toss them in the wash as much as we needed to, and not run out of diapers. I hear newborns need to be changed a lot?
Anyway, I’m hoping that these will fit for a fair amount of time, a few months, at least. I find you can get a lot more wear out of prefolds if you don’t pin them (you just lay them in the cover) because they’re not require to overlap as far.
I also have a few small diapers waiting in the wings for when the babe grows a wee bit, including Yoshi and Princess Peach diapers (yay!). I do want to purchase a few more diapering items, like a zillion more cloth wipes (we use them for everything – wash cloths in the baths, sticky fingers, diapers, etc.), and another wetbag for storing the dirty diapers in. I do need to get a bunch of small sized diapers, as that’s the only size we’re missing… Kitten was already in a medium when we started using cloth on her.
I’m happy this part is done. Now I just need to find somewhere to put them!
Nesting is Overrated
Do you know what time I woke up this morning? 6 am. Do you know what time I got out of bed? 7 am. It’s now 8 am and I am ready for a nap (but can’t, kid will be up by 9 am). I suppose that I can look at this as a win: I packed my hospital bag, cleaned out my night stand (I have to move it to put the bassinet up here, plus I want to put baby stuff in it), sorted a bunch of yarn and put it away, and then managed to surf the internet for a while. I mean, I got one whole thing crossed off my “Do before baby gets here” list (the hospital bag)… so that’s good. I just wish I could have done it at 9 am vs. 7 am, you know?
This will likely be my lot in life for the next few weeks, as I get ready for baby to show up. I’m grateful that we’ve been going to bed at a decent time (11 pm), but I’m super annoyed at my inability to stay asleep these days. ::sigh::
I do have a fair amount of things left to do on my list, but I’m trying not to do them all at once. I mean, I really don’t need the bassinet set up for 6 weeks before baby gets here. And I really don’t need to set up the swing right now either. Nor do I *need* to prep all the diapers (although these can be put away until they’re needed). But my mind is constantly racing and making lists upon lists… and well, I just need to relax.
So maybe I should add that to my list of things to do: relax. Hmmm…
Rainbow Bright!
Here’s a completed knit set I did for the Belly Bean. It is very bright, but the pastel shirts really highlight the softer colours in the yarn… well, they do in real life – it was hard to capture in a picture! I’m pretty pleased with this set, actually!
I used two different colourways, working from alternate skeins. One is green, blue and yellow, and the other is blue, purple and pink. I think I had enough of the pink colourway to do its own pair of small pants, but decided to mix it up with the green to give it some added interest. Both are on a Cestari style yarn base, which is super thick but not too stretchy/sproingy. It’s my favorite yarn, I think.
Socks Socks, Wonderful Socks!
I finished my latest project… finally! I am slightly annoyed with myself, as I had intended on making these socks about 2″ taller than I did… but I got bored. Perhaps I should work on some top-down socks next time – you have to continue stitching the foot until it fits… can’t convince yourself to end early because then you won’t be able to wear them! Ha ha. Oh well.
I am fairly pleased with how they turned out, although I’ll be interested to see how they fit on the other side of birth. They’re a little snug in the ankle right now, but I’m also mild to moderately swollen on any given day. So we’ll see how it goes. Anyway, I really loved knitting these up. I used Patons Stretch Sock yarn (cotton, wool, elastic and nylon blend) in “Sugar”, and even though others have claimed tensioning issues, I didn’t really have any. I haven’t washed them yet, and so they’re not as soft as they could be, but we’ll see how they wash up.
Finished Knits
Here’s a couple of knits I just finished up:
A man’s ribbed hat:
A finished pair of socks:
They are certainly fraternal twins, not identical, but at least you can tell that they belong together! I definitely think I’m going to make a pair of these for myself.
Scrappy Sleep Sack:
For the new babe. It’s not my most favorite piece of work, but I think it’s good enough.
Mostly Annoyed
And here is why: I have had two knitting projects in the last week become giant fails.
First, I tried to do up a pair of scrappies for the Belly Bean. A few months ago, a friend gifted me a huge box of yarn odds and ends. Yay! I love making scrappies (ie. garments made out of scraps of yarn). Usually, I don’t care if they yarns match or not, and I’m just happy to add willy nilly and knit away. Not so, this time. I don’t know – I just don’t love the darker colours I used in this pair of scrappies. Perhaps if the dark sections had been smaller, I would like them better… but as it stands, I think I’m going to rip them out. Belly Bean has quite a few pairs of pants already, and I have some other yarn that I’m dying to knit into uber cute longies for her, so I think that I’ll frog these ones and try again later, maybe with a different combination of yarns.
The other fail: I really love this yarn – a whole skein of it showed up in the random yarn bin from my friend. It’s beautiful! It’s full of rainbows and light! It’s soft as a cloud! Buuuuuut… it’s not pooling like I had hoped. As Carolyn pointed out, every square has a rainbow, but I’m kind of worried that I’m going to give someone a seizure if they look at it too long. I’m not sure that I’d wear it, being so crazy. I prefer it when my entrelac shows off the yarn, and the yarn shows off the entrelac. I believe that the two are fighting in this Quant, so I’m frogging it as well. I know I’ll find something glorious and delicious to knit this yarn in to… I just don’t think this quant is it.
Knitting Wins!
Here are my knitting wins… First, a pair of newborn sized longies for the Belly Bean. These turned out so well, and I really love them. I also super love how well they match these new baby shirts. Is this going to be baby’s first outfit? Maybe! I guess you’ll have to wait and see.
Here’s an obvious win: My sister’s Christmas gift, modeled by her! I wish she had her coordinating scarf on too – that would have been awesome… but I didn’t think of it. Anyway, I think she loves them. At least, that’s what I’m guessing by the happy look on her face and the fact that the next day, she was trying to line them (durn wool allergy can even pick up small amounts of wool! Boo!).
Here’s half a win… Look, it’s a completed sock! Yay! I really enjoyed doing these socks, but I broke a DPN right near the end of finishing this sock. I’m ultra annoyed because now I have to buy a full package of new needles (a set of 5) when I really only need one. **grumble grumble** But I can’t work on the second sock until I replace the needle that I need. ::sigh:: So it’s off to Michael’s with me today.
Actually, it’s ok – I’m going to try to pick up a different sized circular needle while I’m there. I really want to try knitting on some smaller sized cords (instead of magic looping all the time), so maybe my trip will inspire me. I also want to see if they still have the sock yarn on sale. I bought some beautiful sock yarn last well… but apparently having the yarn for two pairs of socks laying in wait isn’t enough! LOL!
So if I buy the sock needles and a shorter circular needles, I’ll have what I need to finish up two outstanding Christmas presents. I’m trying to keep to a “1 present to 1 item for me/us” ratio in my knitting so I don’t get burned out, but I don’t get too behind (on the stuff I’m already behind on… I KNOW!!!), but I am totally itching to do, like, 800 pairs of socks for myself. I dunno. I guess this might be the year of the socks?
Anyway, here’s us in our Christmas Jammies, just for funsies. It’s funny – we only took one picture, so I’m glad it turned out. Kitten was so exhausted by Christmas Eve (the night of the jammies/picture), that I’m shocked that she’s not completely melting down in this picture. We didn’t want to force the issue and have her be a complete beast for any subsequent photos. So yay for a good one on the first try.
