Just Not June

Pretty Much the Hardest Thing I've Ever Had to Do

Austin started Childcare last Friday.  I"ve gone back to work on Fridays (although I'm not sure how long you can get away with working one day a week and call it 'gone back'.  It's hardly going back to work, really...).

 

It was tragic, gut wrenching and heartbreaking...

 

For me. 

 

Austin loved childcare and really didn't seem too concerned that I had abandoned him for several hours.  Before we started, the room leader said that she would contact me every hour on his first day to tell me how he was doing.  I was confident that, by about noon, she would be begging me to come get my son, who obviously was not coping with the adjustment.

 

No dice.  In fact, the 'worst' call that I received went something like this:

 

"Austin didn't sleep very long this morning, but he woke up and played outside really well.  He ate all of his lunch, but is getting a bit fussy now.  We think he's just sleepy, but you indicated on your form that he generally doesn't go down until about 3:00.  Do you want us to put him down earlier?"

 

They put him down for a sleep earlier and sure enough, he was fine.   (Confession: I totally faked that form.  I have no idea what time Austin "normally" goes down for a sleep.  I just put him in bed when he looks tired.  Sometimes he sleeps all morning, which is glorious.  Sometimes he doesn't go to sleep until the afternoon, and that's great too.  Talk about serious mommy guilt.....)

 

All of his other calls were glowing:

 

"Austin is outside building a tower with blocks."  (Important Side Note: 8 month old children don't build.  They accidentally put one thing on top of another, maybe, but there's no tower building.)

 

"Most kids don't want to engage with the other children on their first day, but Austin ate his whole lunch at the table with the other kids!"

 

"Austin did really well when you left.  He got a bit fussy, but we were easily able to distract him with some toy cars.  He hasn't even needed his dummy!"  (dummy= pacifier)

 

"Austin really loves rhyme time!  He even tries to do the arm movements!"

 

In all seriousness, though, the childcare Austin went to (goes to) really is lovely.  The staff are fabulous, the toys are great, the play areas are meticulously maintained and the whole facility just oozes safety (case in point: they won't let him have a pacifier chain as it 'poses a choking hazard').  They even were nice enough to email me several pictures of Austin throughout the day while I was at work:

 

This hat cracks me up. Childcare provides sun hats, but apparently they don't provide baby sized sun hats. It also looks like he probably didn't have one on and his carer (to the right) was like "Oh, crap, throw one on for the photo!!" Tsk, tsk, Childcare. My son always wears a hat in MY care.

Austin 'doing the arm movements'.

More arm movements. (Flailing? One has to wonder...)

 

Lesson learned?  My son is a traitor.  Make that Traitor... with a capital T.  Give him a few new toys and he is available for the taking. 

 

I thought he'd at least be excited to see me when I went to pick him up.  I did the whole over-excited "Hi, Austin!!" thing and I got a smile.  But there was no arm waving, I want to go home-ing or pick-me-up-now behaviour.    He was eating a cracker and he just kept on eating, giving me a look that said, "Oh, hi Mom.  Just let me finish this cracker and then we can go."

 

He did pose for a picture, though:

 

This weekend, we painted with fingerpaints, blew bubbles, made a mess with shaving cream and found a talking stuffed easter bunny.  Austin also sucked on his pacifier all weekend long.

 

Beat that, Childcare! 

 

Felted ball mobile*

Are you on Pinterest?  If you're not, you really should be.  Pinterest allows you to create virtual pinboards of images that you want to re-refer to later on.  You can create recipe pinboards bookmarking all of your favorite recipes, then when it comes time to decide what to have for dinner, just work out which image most makes you salivate.  Dinner solved.  I've got a recipe board, a board where I can pin books I want to read, and boards for different types of projects I want to do someday.

 

This image, from Antropologie, has been sitting on my 'Baby and Kids Projects' board for quite some time now:

 

 

But Antropologie wanted 60-something dollars for the pictured garland, and that just was NOT going to happen.  Luckily, I have a bucketload of felted balls that I got from somewhere ages ago.... but even so, I wasn't sure where I would put a garland even if I did make it.  Austin's nursery already has cute bunting and I didn't really think we needed a garland too. 

 

But, what it DID need was an updated mobile. Austin is getting big enough that he can pull down his old mobile that attaches to the side of his crib, but I still wanted him to have something to look up at when he was laying in his crib. 

 

So during nap time yesterday, I made this:

 

Although I think it's a bit busy with the AEM in the background, I really love it.  I think I may move the AEM to a different spot in Austin's room, although I haven't decided where that spot is yet.

 

I especially like how it looks from Austin's vantage point:

 

I made 13 strings of felt balls and hung them from the ceiling with little cup hanger hooks.  I also added bells and other do-dads to some of the strings for added interest.  There are three felted elephants, two rings of felted balls (shown above) and several different sizes of bells.  On warm days, when his fan is on, the bells make a lovely soft ringing sound that I love (unfortunately, we're almost out of warm days in Canberra.  Bummer.).  I also had some cheapo beads that I added on some of the strands, like this:

 

 I like the beads best where they reflect the colour of the felted balls.  So red bead with red felted ball, blue bead with blue felted ball... you get the picture.  I also did a strand where I grouped beads and felted balls by colours.  So there was, for instance, a group of different shades of red balls and beads, green balls and beads, purple balls and beads.  I think it would also be cute to do it by number... one ball, a group of two balls, a group of three balls... and so forth. 

 

Some things I noticed about this project (if you're planning on doing it yourself):

 

1.  Fishing wire would have been better: I like the way this looks hanging above the cot, but I think it would have looked even better if I created the illusion that the balls were suspended from the ceiling.  This could easily have been done with fishing wire.  I knew this before I started the project, but I didn't have any fishing wire.  Oh well.

 

2. Knots are not required:  When I started the project, I thought I would have to tie a knot under each grouping of balls, but the felted balls are dense enough that they stay on the string rather well (I used thick embroidery floss, by the way) and you can re-position them very easily.  This also means that you don't have to measure the drop lengths of the stands before you suspend them.  In fact, its much easier to just string up the balls, put in the cup hooks and then re-adjust everything on the floss and trim the floss to the correct length. 

 

3. These are TOTALLY not baby friendly: I'm pretty sure tiny felted balls and beads are on the list of Things You Don't Want Your Kid to Accidentally Swallow.  They're small, attractively coloured and pose a definite choking hazard.  As such, I highly recommend that you ensure the ends of the strands are at a height that your child can't, even in his wildest dreams, reach.  On the plus side, since you don't really have to do knots in between each grouping (see number 2), you can quite easily raise the whole mobile when your kiddo gets to the age where he can stand up in the crib. 

 

4. The hardest part of the whole project is putting in the hooks: Actually, the hardest part of the project is finding the damn hook that you dropped into the crib when you were putting the others in the ceiling.  But my point is; this is a really, really easy project.  Something that can be done whilst watching TV, waiting for your baby to finish taking a nap.... whatever. 

 

5. Don't bother making your own felt balls: Unless you're a glutton for punishment, in which case, have at it. Felt balls, though, are abundantly available on Amazon, Ebay and Etsy, as well, I'm sure, as on other websites.  You can get them for so cheap that it's totally not worth your time to make your own.  Trust me. 

 

Good luck making your own! 

 

Linking to: Whatever Goes Wednesdays, It's FUN to Craft, and Show Your Stuff .  Check out some of the other great ideas in these link parties!! 

 

 

 

* Do you ever have those moments where you totally forget what a thing is called?  I do aaallllllll the time.  Just now, I couldn't for the LIFE of me remember the word 'mobile'.  As in a thing that hangs above a baby's crib.  Probably should know that one, right??  Luckily, Google came to the rescue.  I typed in "whats the thing that hangs above a crib called" into my search bar, and what do you know?  First link tells me it's a mobile.  Thanks, Google. 

Gladys and Doris

We went to the Canberra Show on Saturday and were inspired to add two new members to our family...

Meet Gladys and Doris.

Gladys is the darker, slightly friendlier chicken, and Doris is her lighter, crankier sister. They live in the veggie garden section of our backyard and are separated from the dogs by a fence and gate, so we're hoping they are secure... Even if Lilly has made it her life's goal to meet them both. Hopefully she'll forget about them soon?

Austin has already learnt a few tricks from the two ladies, including foraging for grass:

But he decided that maybe chicken diets are best left for chicken after all:

Now we're off to buy chicken feed (but a small bag, just in case......).

There's a name for that?

One of my big beefs with babies is that there's no user manual.  Or, perhaps, there are too many user manuals, and you can never know which one to trust.  Type in 'Baby Sleep' into Amazon.com book search, for instance, and you get back no fewer than 17,118 results, none of them giving exactly the same advice.  It seems like any nit-wit with a computer can write a self-help book these days.  Self soothe, don't self soothe, feed on demand, don't feed on demand.... the contradictions are endless and headache inducing. 

 

We (I) decided pretty early on that I was just going to ignore the baby guides. That's not to say we don't have a whole bookshelf dedicated to how-to-not-screw-up-your-kid-permanently books, but most of them are collecting dust and have not been opened (notable exception: Sippy Cups are not for Chardonnay.  Fabulous book; recommended highly.).  I figure that even the most well-researched and scientifically backed ideas on parenting and child rearing will probably just be thrown out in a few years time anyway, á la putting your kid to sleep on his tummy. 

 

But apparently, despite my intentions to poo poo all things advicey, I've still managed to fit into a parenting mould when it comes to feeding.  

 

Austin pretty much eats whatever we eat.  I started out with fantastic intentions to steam him his own baby food, puree it and put it into little freezable containers, but quickly realised that I'm not a baby food makin kinda gal.  Baby food books will tell you that it only takes an extra 30 minutes a week to bulk produce several weeks worth of nutritious, delicious baby food.  Bullshit.  They're totally not taking into account the time it takes to peel the veggies, clean up the kitchen, or find all the lids to the tubbaware containers that the baby food goes into.  

 

So, after about a month of Austin eating solids, I just started feeding him whatever Rory and I ate, unless, of course, like Vodka Pasta, it was totally inappropriate for babies (although the Vodka totally burns off during the cooking process).  I assumed this was just lazy parenting, and sort of felt guilty for not feeding him organic, fresh purees.  

 

On Monday, however, we went to Austin's developmental check, and the nurse asked me about Austin's feeding habits.  I told her that he normally eats whatever we eat, fully expecting to be reprimanded and judged. "Oh", the nurse replied approvingly, "you are following baby led weaning?"

 

"Yeeeeesssss," I replied, totally not knowing what baby led weaning was.

 

Really, I'm not following baby led weaning.  We still put most of Austin's major meals through the food processor, although he gets "finger foods" for snacks.  A quick google search for baby led weaning suggests that it's more based around exclusively offering finger foods and non-food processed items.  

 

Still, just goes to show... there's a parenting philosophy for everything. 

 

Though I will say to prospective parents... if you're planning on going the baby led weaning version of events, know that it's a freakin messy ride.  Today I found spaghetti and oatmeal plastered to the underside of my kitchen table (who thinks to look there??).  Be ready with tons of paper towels and 409 (or, you know, organic, non-chemical based, baby-safe cleaner.  Whatever.). 

 

But Austin seems to enjoy the whole process.  Here he is enjoying his baby-led weaning spaghetti:

 

 

 

 

And here is our Public Service Warning Video outlining the distressing outcomes of feeding in general:

 

  

The Love Monster

Happy Valentines Day, everyone! 

 

Has anybody else noticed the lack of Valentines Day attire suitable for little boys??  There are hearts galore on all things girly, but try to find a Valentines Day shirt that's not pink and glittery... impossible!!  I saw this tutorial at Make It and Love It (a website that has loads of really cute craft ideas for babies and kids... I've got several on my list!) and decided to make my own Valentines shirt.  

 

Presenting.... the Love Monster...

 

 

I made this onsie this morning in about 45 minutes using an old onsie, felt leftover from Austin's quiet book project, and ribbon scraps.  It was definitely a quick project, but would have been even quicker had I not forgotten how to use my embroidery machine!

 

I pretty much followed the design at Make It and Love It exactly, except I decided not to use buttons for the eyes (more because I didn't want to sew them on than because they're a choking hazard) and I added "Love Monster" in felt letters underneath the design.  The whole thing is sewing machine-less, except for the "Be Mine"embroidered on the heart... which could just as easily be done with a stencil (á la Make it and Love it) or even with a fabric pen.  I used Vliesofix (Wonder Under, I think, in the States) to adhere the felt to the onsie, and didn't bother sewing the edges at all, figuring it only really had to last one day! 

 

In retrospect, I wish I had used a onsie with sleeves rather than the sleeveless onsie I choose.  The sleeveless undershirt-style onsie was stretchy, and a few of the elements (especially the letters making up the "Love Monster") came unglued when I put it on Austin and it stretched a bit.  Also in retrospect, I shouldn't have bothered with the "Love Monster".  It would be really cute on a larger shirt (and older child), but the onside is so small that when I put shorts on the writing was totally covered up.

 

Oh, well.  At least he had a Valentines Day outfit!

 

Since it's Valentines Day, I also wanted to share my as-yet favorite video with you:

 

 

 

I hope you get lots of kisses from your Valentine, too!!  Now I need to go make dinner for my OTHER Valentine... 

 

 

** PS, Some of you may have noticed the longer-than-average hiatus of this blog.  Sorry about that.  We went to the States for Christmas and this sort of fell off the radar.  My New Year's Resolution is to get a bit better at the whole blogging thing. 

 

 

 

Austin's first playdate

Yesterday was a big day for Austin... he had his first official playdate!! 

 

We invited Manny and Alicia over to our house for lunch.  Alicia and I had chicken salad (a delicious treat since Rory is crash dieting and refuses to eat much of anything) and Austin and Manny had their baby food, then we sat on the couches talking and playing for several hours.  Unfortunately, the weather was less than perfect, so we couldn't really go outside, but we still had a great time.  We had so much fun, in fact, that Manny and Alicia ended up staying until after 5pm and we hardly realized the time had passed!

 

We met Alicia and Manny at our Baby Massage class (I highly recommend baby massage to any new parents or soon-to-be-parents... it is fantastic).  Alicia, who is really sweet, is also from the States (Washington), and we always seem to have more than enough to talk about.  I'm pretty we'd be friends anyway even if she wasn't from Washington, cause Alicia is great fun, but it is so much fun to have another American to talk to sometimes!! 

 

Here are the two boys posing (kind of):

 

 

and talking...

 

 and playing...

 

(this is probably my favorite picture EVER...)

 

Manny even gives kisses, which Austin thought was maybe a bit scary...

 

 

All in all, they're pretty cute together! 

 

Austin is going to miss Manny when we go to Texas next week, and I expect by the time we get home they will have both grown tremendously!! 

 

Mo-licious

For the past month, Rory has been trying out a new look... and not one that I think he's planning on repeating any time soon. 

 

He's growing a moustache. 

 

And he's not the only one.  Walking around Canberra in November, one spots a multitude of itchy, scratchy men with suspiciously conspicuous moustaches.  Some are thick and bushy, others are barely visable (poor dears), but they're definately there.  

 

Rory grew his moustache as part of Movember, a campaign that is solely responsible for ruining otherwise fantastic family photos during the month of November.  From November 1st to November 30th, men nationwide (worldwide?) grow their mos to raise money for Men's Health (which is suitably vague, but I'm pretty sure is mostly just prostate cancer and depression). 

 

It's a clever campaign, mostly because when you see so many otherwise clean-shaven men with moustaches, you want to know why. 

 

I encouraged Rory to go all out and try to grow something exciting like a circus director's moustache, but he just went with the everyday garden variety mo:

 

Dissapointing. 

 

Still, though, I'm pretty proud of him.  He's been complaining about it itching since about November 2nd, so is really looking forward to shaving it off tomorrow morning (I told him he's not allowed to cheat and snip it tonight).  I'm looking forward to finding out if the razor is going to painfully pull out some of the moustache hairs.  I'm betting yes. 

 

If you'd like to donate to Rory's Movember cause, please go to this website and donate.  Austin gave $4.99, and every little bit counts!! (Bonus: if you give donations in .99 increments, they round up.  Always trying to save you people money).

 

Rory's raised $250.  I think he should refuse to get rid of the mo and have people donate to get him to shave it.  But, you know, my moustache related opinions don't seem to be very well received. 

 

Thanks everyone!!

 

Ooops...

Its been a very long time since I've posted regularly on my dear old blog, but I'm making a mid-November resolution to post more often.  This blog HAS been on my mind, but Austin isn't much of a blogger, so organizing the pictures, text etc for posts gets regulated to the Things-I-Want-To-Do-While-Austin-Sleeps list.  Which is a looooooooong list. 

 

So, hopefully, this is the first of many.  The start of a new chapter.  The appetizer for main meals to come (can you tell I'm short on cliches?)...and there's a lot to post about.  Austin's eating solids (woohoo), Rory's growing a moustache (raucous laughter encouraged), I'm working on several craft projects including a Quiet Book and Austin's scrapbook, we've done lots of house renovations... and more.  I'll get back into the swing of things, I promise (props to my 4th bad cliche of this post). 

 

So to start the ball rolling (five),  I thought I'd post Austin's weekly photos from the last couple of weeks.  I'm pretty sure I left off at 11, so we've got 12-14 here today.  Austin is 15 weeks old this week, so we've actually got 15 weeks worth of photos, but I've not edited and photoshopped the weekly decal to week 15 yet. 

 

The Weekly Winners:

 

And all of the photos:

 

 

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He's a pretty handsome little dude, and it isn't just me that thinks so.

 

When we do our grocery shopping, I just pop Austin's bassinet/ carseat thing out of the car and into the shopping trolley.  As I pile up our purchases around him, he happily plays with (read: rips to shreds) the grocery store sale circulars that you get at the front of the store.  A ten page junk mail sale circular can keep my son entertained for upwards of an hour.  Occasionally he gets bored and starts 'talking' to me while I do my shopping (I talk back, and I think people sometimes think I'm crazy... they don't always see the baby in the basket right away). 

 

On Monday, we were in the bread section and Austin was babbling up a storm when an elderly man came up to us and seemed absolutely enamored with Austin.  He said that "they're" making a lot of attractive babies these days, but that Austin was the most handsome boy ("he is a boy, right?") he'd seen in a long time.  He raved about Austin's smile, laugh, skin.... I was just starting to wonder if we'd ever get away when he wished Austin a "happy life" and went about his merry way.  I pretty much glowed for the rest of the day. 

 

The old man had great taste...

 

 

 

 

Weekly Photos

 

Well, I've finally gotten around to editing and posting Austin's 9- 11 week weekly photos... and now we're off to do week 12!

 

 

My life's biggest regret

I'm not one of those people who has a laundry list of coulda-beens and shoulda-beens.  For the most part, I'm more than happy with the choices I've made in my life and the path it has taken so far. 

 

But there are two decisions I've made in my life that hurt my heart to reflect upon.

 

Both are shoe related.

 

Regret #1: Perfect Pink Coach Loafers

Imagine these loafers, but in hot pink.  I know... amazing, right?  When I was in Texas last December, I ran across these beauties on the Clearance rack in Macy's.  Down from $170ish dollars to less than a hundred, I should have snapped them up without a backward glance.  But I didn't.  Instead, I convinced myself that I'd never wear them, reminded myself that I already had a pair of shiny hot pink pumps, and walked away.  (Actually, I returned to the clearance rack several times and agonized over the decision, but... whatever.). 

 

Since that fateful day, there have been countless outfits that would have been perfected with a pair of shiny hot pink loafers.  My shiny hot pink pumps are great, but the loafers... I miss the fantastically fashionable times we could have had together. 

 

Regret #2 : BRAND NEW Salvos leather boots

A couple months back (both of my life regrets have happened this year... its been a kicker of a year...) Salvos had this fantastic pair of brown leather thigh high boots for sale.  They looked sort of like this, except with a buckle or two:

 

They were soft.

 

They were supple.

 

They were brand new.  

They were $100.

Now, everybody knows $100 is a steal for brand new leather boots.  But I was buying them at Salvos.  A secondhand clothing store.  I'm pretty sure those boots were the most expensive item the Belconnen Salvos ever had on its shelves.  I badly wanted those boots, but figured that nobody in their right mind would pay $100 for a pair of boots in a secondhand clothing shop.

 

So I waited for the Salvos fairies to knock them down to $50.

 

And waited.

 

And waited.

 

For six weeks I went into the Belconnen Salvos every week to see if they'd marked them down.  For six weeks they sat on the shelf, stubbornly priced at $100.  I wasn't subtle about my enthusiasm for the boots, either.  I reasoned that if the staff saw me obsessing over the boots week after week, eventually one of them would come over and inquire as to why I'd not yet bought them.  When I explained that really, $100 was far overpriced for a second hand clothing shop, the Salvos lady would happily offer the boots to me at a drastically reduced price. 

 

No dice.

 

Finally, one day I went in and the boots weren't there.  I imagine some other lucky fool was doing the same thing I was and happened to pop in for their weekly boot check just hours before I arrived. 

 

That or some rich kid paid $100 for secondhand boots.

 

Either way, they've got a brand new pair of fantastically fashionable boots and my feet cry for their missed opportunity.

 

 So there you have it... my two biggest regrets in life.  Moral of the story?  Always buy the shoes. 

 

Also, if anybody ever finds that pair of perfect pink loafers somewhere, please purchase them for me.  I'll pay you back, I promise...*

 

*I'm pretty sure these two sentences have more p words in them than any other two consecutive sentences I've ever written.