bird mobile

(I’m still orienting myself with the new camera so the pictures aren’t as crisp as I hoped, and there are more views of the birds on Flickr)

I finished the mobile and it is even hanging up. We put it over the crib even though we aren’t planning on using the crib right away. It doesn’t have a mattress yet and is full of stuff right now like our bags for the birth center and other random baby things that haven’t found a place yet. But since the crib is in the main kitchen/ living space we all get to enjoy it.

I was a little hesitant to make this mobile (from Spool) since it is so popular and I have seen it on so many blogs (that’s the part of me that want to be original and different) but I really like the pattern and the use of the sticks in the mobile. I have always liked mobiles a lot and I have some ideas for other mobiles that I would like to make. We could either have a mobile in every room, or rotate the mobiles periodically, then they would always seem new and interesting to the little one.

(This is the baby’s view)

waiting

I’m still here and so is the belly. I have lots of updates on projects and organization but they haven’t translated into pictures yet, and I can’t seem to post if there isn’t a picture to go along. I feel like I should have so much time now that I’m not working but there are always lots of little things to do, appointments to go to, and much needed time together with Lars while we still have it. Although I have many things I would like to do and finish (like the mobile, sewing the diaper pail bag, finishing the sling, preparing Christmas gifts…) I would be okay if baby decided to make it’s way into the world any minute now. I’m not in pain or terribly uncomfortable (although pregnancy isn’t exactly comfortable either) but I’m ready to get the show on the road and start getting back to some state of normalcy of my body. Maybe the definition of normalcy will forever change for me but it wouldn’t involve a pressure cooker belly or a person doing a head stand on my bladder.

Now that I have broken the long absence of blogging I hope to make a few more appearances in the days to come if I am not preoccupied with an infant.

burping style

I bought this fabric when I found it at one of my favorite fabric stores after much searching. I first saw it on a handmade item in a store, in fact I think it was a similar kind of burp cloth sort of thing. Anyway, I love the print and bought a yard without a clear plan of what I wanted to do with it. Since I think it can be really easy to go over board with the cutesy factor when you are dealing with a baby in the house I wanted to use it for something that we would use and appreciate but not something like a diaper bag or sling that would get everyday use (and really end up as more of an adult fashion object). Burp cloths seemed like the perfect choice since they will be used often and for many uses. Since these are so fancy, I think they will be the diaper bag pick for going out on the town with baby. And I think this print is sort of a sophisticated cute, I would have bought this fabric sans baby. Of course we have many more less fancy burp cloths and rags to use for the many absorbency needs we anticipate too. The opposite side is a really nice cotton terry, it’s so very soft.

Bedroom

I wish there was better light today but it turned out to be cloudy so my photo is blurry. This is the big change for preparing the bedroom for baby. (See other views of the bedroom on the apartment page) I found the changing table on the curb a few months ago. It was covered in cobwebs and dirt, a little rickety at the joints, and some of the legs were rotting off. It seems that the changing table had been outside for a while, maybe as someones potting bench. Oh yea, the horizontal platforms were also missing and there was some minor pealing of the varnish.

Sine the bedroom is already full of furniture (bed, hutch, sewing desk, bookshelf, nightstand) I thought that painting the changing table would make it look like a purposeful thing to add to the room. I also think it makes it look more modern which I like, and adds color. I like a lot of colors, but decided on green since it goes well with all of the earthy colors I like, and might go with the red log cabin quilt Lars and I are making if we ever finish it. I was thinking of a spunky kind of green like chartreuse. Not too bright but crisp.

However, I picked out the paint color at a small eco buisness that sells Metro paint and Metro only has 15 colors to choose from. I could have gone somewhere else to buy paint, but at the time it seemed like a better option to give them our buisness and use a recycled paint. Metro paint is also pretty cheap compared to conventional paint, and much cheaper than other low VOC paint. I also thought that this color would be closer to one of the colors on the quilt on our bed. Turns out it’s that baby green color-  the color everyone keeps telling me I have to have on everything since we don’t know the gender of our baby. I actually think almost any color is appropriate for a baby of either gender, and I don’t think babys have to be surrounded by pastels either.

Anyway, I’m getting more used to the color and I know it will be a big pain in the butt to paint it again. All of the repair and painting credit goes to my parents who fixed it up (Lars helped paint too). It’s a really nice piece of furniture now and very sturdy. We don’t plan on using it as a changing table since we need to storage space and we have a big bathroom counter. And since we are planning on using cloth diapers it will be nice to keep the (exposed) poo in the bathroom and not right by our pillows.

This was one of the bigger changes or additions to our space (I’ll get to the other changes later) and am very grateful for the help fixing it up. We probably could have done it ourselves, but we don’t have as many tools so I know it wouldn’t have been as nice if we had done it without help. The part I was really looking forward to was organizing the baby things to put on it. That was satisfying to organize and makes me feel like I’m doing something to get ready. We only have the birth-3months clothes (plus hats, socks, and a few other things) in the baskets so far, but there is more space on the table. Now we just have to figure out where to put all of the other two tubs full of baby clothes and blankets that Grammy has picked up for the wee one.

This is really the only designated baby space in our apartment as far as decorating, although there is evidence of baby in every room already. So I changed out the pictures in the frames and put up the gnome-house hooks.

can I touch you?

I need a snirky thing to say to all of those people that keep trying to touch my belly. You know, those people you barely know or don’t know at all. I’m too darn nice most of the time, but I want something to say something other than “get your *%$#*&@ hands off me” and a little bit more feisty and less therapist than “please respect my body space.”

I guess I’m at that point where it’s a little more obvious that I am indeed with child and not just chubby in the belly. I’m also in a spot where a lot of (non-stretchy) maternity shirts are way to big but my own (again non-stretchy) clothing is busting at the buttons. That makes it hard for work when I feel like I shouldn’t wear a t-shirt every day. I wore this outfit on Thursday, and had so many people try to touch me. Really, when was the last time you rubbed a strangers tummy? I guess there’s something biological (for many people but not all) about being drawn to the belly and knowing there is something cute inside that makes them forget normal boundary rights.

The best comments so far I’ve had from the younger folks I work with include: “what’s wrong with your stomache” and “can I touch you? I heard on tv that they make noise” (at least the kid thought to ask)

Handknits

Baby hat knit from the Knitty foliage pattern, version 1 using size 0 needles. The yarn is Rowan cashcotton in a brown color. I wasn’t really sure what size the hat would be as I worked it since I was using smaller needles and a light weight yarn. Looking at this head size chart it would be perfect for a preemie- and I don’t plan to have one of those. Lars keeps reassuring me by telling me he was a 10 pounder. The hat is really cute, and looks good on the Ed the elephant (thanks Megan) but probably won’t keep the babe warm. I might frog it back to the crown and reknit it with version 2 so that it’s bigger. I guess I should look at that head size chart before I bind off.

The baby bolero (blog at tanlged fleece) is my other baby knit so far, but there are some diaper covers in the works too. I guess there are some half finished booties also.

making it fit

I’m sort of frugal about buying clothes already, so buying maternity clothes is a whole new kind of challenge. I like clothes, and I like buying clothes, but it’s more fun when you can afford and find what you want. It turns out that maternity clothes are really expensive and harder to find. I have had a lot of luck at maternity consignment shops, and the sale rack at Target. The pickings are slim and it’s hard to find things I like in the right size.

So when I did find these maternity jeans in my size for a really good price I didn’t hesitate much. The are low rise with elastic in the waistband, and I could wear them early on when my other pants started getting to tight. I had to wear one of those belly bands too since they were too big at the beginning. My hope was that the cut would allow me to be able to wear them for a long time since the belly goes over the waistband and they would stretch to fit better as I got bigger.

Me in the jeans around 23 weeks. They look like they fit well, but fall down when I’m walking around.

Turns out that as I got bigger they actually continued to sag (and by this time I was done with having to readjust the stupid belly band all the time. Since the pants are low rise it’s hard for the bellyband to stay in place when I sit down and stand up). So I decided that they would be more comfortable and fit better if there was more support in the form of a stretchy band like typical maternity pants.

The fabric store has a number of different strengths and widths of elastic, but I decided on a stretchy knit since the elastic was scratchy on the edges and would need to be encased in a band of fabric anyway. Here’s my process for adding a band into the pants.

1. Cut fabric to make a double thick band about the size of waist, minus an inch or so for some stretch,  plus seam allowance. I made mine about 5.5″ high when doubled over to account for the seam allowance of stitching it into the pants. This would vary depending on how high you want the band to be over your belly and where it will be stitched into the pants.

These are the zigzag stitches on my machine. The one on the left is the typical back and forth zigzag, and the one on the right is a line a small stitches that travels in a zigzag path. I decided to use the one on the right for this project as it seems that the stitches are stronger.

2. Stitch the short side of the band together.

3. Fold back into a double thick band and stitch the two layers at the bottom together for a “finished” edge (this is as finished as I could think of for sewing without a serger).

This is my finished edge at the bottom.

4. Pin band into pants and hand stitch into the seam of the waist band of the pants.

Wah-lah! All stitched in. You could also sew in a pretty ribbon over the edge of the band for a more finished look and to conceal the blue stitching, but that sounded like a lot of work.

The finished product and with the band folded over on the right for a shorter rise. I think my only advise is to make sure that the band is smaller than your waist (remember that the fabric may stretch even more with wear in between washings too) so that it isn’t too big and bulky under your shirt. Since I did this at 23 weeks I assumed that there would be more belly girth in the coming weeks/ months to fill it out too. I was very pleased with the new band and they are certainly more comfortable to wear and don’t sag.

Unfortunately, we had a week of over 100 degree weather when I wasn’t wearing jeans, in fact I was trying not to wear pants at all if I could help it, and now at close to 26 weeks the jeans are feeling a bit tight in the legs. I was hoping that I wouldn’t gain too much weight in my butt/hips, not because of vanity or fear of gaining pregnancy fat, but because I don’t want to have to find new pants that fit.

The sewing actually wasn’t very difficult and the most time was spend hand stitching while watching a movie, so even if I can’t wear them to full term it was still worth the work. There is always that postpartum period where maternity clothes are still necessary too.

6 month gestation

The ideas for the blog have been gestating about 6 months. My first thought was that I didn’t want to launch it, or tell people about the blog, before I had shared that we were pregnant with the people closest to us. Then I had to get over the hurdle of fatigue. By the time I had more energy I obsesed over the look of the blogs and making the header. All so typically me, I have so many ideas incubating inside and it feels overwhelming at times to feel like I’m getting things done relative to what I want to do.

There certainly would have been a lot of things for me to blog about regarding the cognitive and psychological preperations and changes during the first two trimesters, but I’m finally up and running. My consistency blogging at Tangled Fleece hasn’t been all so regular these last 6 months either, so we’ll see how I do with 2 blogs. My hope is that the other blog doesn’t turn completly into babycentral, but there will probably be some overlap between the two. And, pregnancy is just the begining so if I can handle two blogs this might continue on as “living with baby in a 500sq foot home.”

A big part of coping in the early months (particularly before we told anyone except my parents) was listening to the Pregtastic podcast. I listened to one podcast and I thought that it sounded dumb, but after a second try I found hundreds of podcast from its running history that were informative and gave me some sense of a being in the pregnancy club.I also like to read a lot about something I’m experiencing, and I feel like Pregtastic dishes the scoop on books and other resources to look into. For a few weeks I was totally obsessed with researching cloth diaper options. See, that’s something I should have been blogging about.

I don’t have any specific research to quote, but I’ve heard recently in a few different places about benefits of journaling daily as a means for healing and coping with trauma or anxiety. Thankfully my pregnancy isn’t traumatic, but it’s a pretty big life change in all aspects of being in the world.  And to that, I toast my glass of icewater to change.