Playground Love

Happy New Year!

I for one, have been looking forward to January 1, 2012 for quite some time. Although 2011 was filled with blessings and joy, it also held a lot of upheaval, change, general malaise, lethargy and grumpiness. (I’m talking about me, folks). I know that these fine character traits are (mostly) sleep-deprivation related, so at the end of my wits, I decided to hire a sleep consultant just before Christmas. Once the sleep plan was delivered to us,  C decided to deliver one last twist of the knife and was sick with croup. The sickest baby you have ever seen! A seemed to weather the croup storm better, although had a few days of lackluster activity. So  once everyone was healthy (thankfully in time for Christmas), the sleep plan was put into place with near miraculous results.

Sleepdreams was a god-send. As a plus, because they are registered occupational therapists, you can claim a portion of the cost under extended health care benefits.

I enjoyed 8 hours of sleep last night. It wasn’t continuous, although it will come- C is slightly underweight at the moment, so our goal is to get him to wake up only once a night to nurse. It works. It really, really works. He slept from 6:45-9:15 (I dream fed him) and then until 1:45. From 2-7 am was one continuous stretch of FIVE HOURS. My goodness. The boy is napping properly and now sleeping. Just for the record, he woke up anywhere from 2-8 times a night. Not always to nurse, but always we had to go into the room to calm him. Now he does it himself. Am still in shock- but wow- I thought he was a happy baby before. The kid is now insane with happiness- which makes me all warm and fuzzy with joy too.

So anyhow- back to the new start. I have been wanting a new start for quite some time. With sleep finding its way back to my system for a physical re-charge and the mental turning over of a new year- this seems like an auspicious time to turn over a new leaf. I feel like a tonne of bricks has been lifted off of me. I am so relieved and happy that our family can have a fresh start. No more grumpy mommy. A  mommy with energy and vim! A mommy with an apron, roller-curled hair, a clean countertop with cookies in the oven- well- ok- let’s not loose sight of who I really am! I think the whole family is breathing a collective sigh of relief. Hello 2012.

In other home-related goings-on- I decided to rearrange A’s room around. As we have many small toy parts (playmobil not the least of them), it was becoming obvious that we needed more room for A to spread out and play with her small toys in a safe and baby-free space. We bought some small Malm dressers from Ikea to fit into the closet (one for A and one for C). I am still amazed that we can fit so much in them. Maybe it’s because I’ve been really strict about clothes buying- we just don’t have the space to house a tonne of clothes. It also helps that we have three drawers under A’s bed to store dress up stuff, summer stuff and stuff of C’s that is too big right now. We also have 3 tubs in the crawl space of donated boys clothes for C!

We moved the big dresser out of the room and that gave us so much more room to play with. We pushed her bed up against the far wall and she now has a bigger rectangle of play space to use. This will be good for play dates as well- as the room only really worked with one kid in it before.

So besides the two small dressers, the only other thing purchased was this cool white ottoman cube that you can sit on and open up to store things. I got this at staples for $15.

The fabric tree that I made A months ago has seen better days as she’d de-foliated most of the leaves that were within her reach. She has promised to stop picking them off if I re-do it, so I may decide to tackle that shortly. The only space I’m not sure what to do with is the wall above her pillow. Should I leave it blank? Add something? Any ideas or suggestions? I don’t want to put anything that can be knocked down in the event of an earthquake so no shelves. I’ll sit on it for a while, I guess and see what inspiration comes.

Check out the rest of the photos below.

Happy 2012!

xok

A few weeks ago my favorite fabric store (Fabricana) had a bit of a sale. I mustered my courage and took both kids there to do some “looking” around. Here are some things I have been crafting since then:

Birthday present for Shay and baby dress for Lexi:

Apron- inspired by one found at the Green Planet Parties table during Birthfest way back in March. The pattern is my own- eyeballed it and tried it on A. I absolutely love this print- so fun and vibrant!

Oven mitts- based on a pair of Melissa and Doug mitts that A has- fun to do and slightly more quilty than I normally do.

Felt pie and two felt cookies (not shown because my mind is frazzled and I forgot to take pictures!)  Jen was kind enough to take some and send them back my way- Thanks!

Lexi’s tank dress with elasticized bodice- based on the toddler dress pattern from Heather’s Ross’ Weekend Sewing. Her pattern doesn’t size down to a 6-month old so I had to improvise- looks like L will be able to wear this with shorts and leggings too!

Marching head scarf for L:

The whole ensemble- what a cutie!

A one piece cross over dress for A- birdies on the inside and pink linen on the outside finished off with birdie buttons. My button holer has mangled both button holes but I think I managed to cover them up enough with the buttons.

This might look a little wonky on but that is only because I can’t usually get anywhere near A to fix or adjust anything she puts on. Anyone with a 4 year old will know what I am talking about.

Some nursing covers- for myself and as a baby shower gift for a mom acquaintance- which I forgot to take pictures of (of course!).

I’be been a bit bummed that I haven’t had much chance to sew lately (totally expected this, but still…) but looking back at the things I have made has put things in perspective. I have been able to create quite a bit with a toddler kicking around and a crying baby. Er- perhaps that is why A has been underfoot and C has been extremely testy?

My current favorite picture:

xok

There is a whole lot going on in the M-W household these days! On April 17, we finally got to meet our little boy- he was born in the water at home at 12:18 am. It went really fast- less than 4 hours from start to finish, which was fantastic and amazing and intense. He is healthy and happy and feeding and sleeping (repeat). Getting used to a newborn in the house has been a challenge- especially the no sleep thing. I keep reminding myself that sleep will come eventually- it just seems so far off right now!

Big sister A has been amazing- her reaction to her baby brother was so much more excited than I thought it would be!

I’m just going to post a bunch of photos of some art that we did before and after C was born. We haven’t really been up to much except getting to know our new baby.

The projects below are all ideas borrowed from The Artful Parent:

The easter eggs on the window are done with contact paper (shelf liner) glue-sticked to the window with the tacky side facing out. I cut up some tissue paper and acetate and let A stick on whatever she felt like. The nice thing about glue-sticking things to your windows is it is really easy to clean off!

And that’s it for now! It’s taken me 3 weeks to write this one post- I cannot believe that our little boy is 3 weeks now! I’ll try to keep writing sporadically- it’s going to be hit and miss for a while.