In which I show off my crafting...

While it sometimes seems like a spend all my time taking care of Charlie, and frantically trying to keep the house semi-clean in the few hours that he's napping, I actually do have time to do some creative, crafting things.  Charles is starting to take longer, more regular naps, and he's also very easy-going and happy when he's awake, so I do get a chance to make some interesting things. 

I wanted to make a mobile for Charlie's room so Phil and I made this one together.  The one flaw is that is doesn't move too much, unless the heat is on and blowing on it.  I've been trying to find a motor I could add, but so far haven't had much luck. 

Another thing for his room was this alphabet sign.  I saw a similar one on Etsy, and then made my own in about 5 minutes and using a $3 frame from Target.  

My first quilt!  I had this mostly done before Charlie arrived, with the exception of the binding.  A friend did the binding for me soon after his birth so I could use it while he was still little.  Now that he rolls all over it just looks pretty, but when he was little and I wanted him to have floor time it worked out perfectly for him to play on.

A friend saw a quilt on Pinterest and (jokingly) said her baby girl wanted me to make it for her. Since I wanted to try another quilt anyway I decided to give it a go.  Despite its flaws, I think it looks pretty cute, and it definitely was a good learning experience.

 Using scrap fabric, I made this table runner for my mom as a (very late) Mother's Day gift.  It was a great way to use up all the little fabric piles I have, and I think I'm going to make one for myself.

One of my knitting projects that I've actually finished recently.  This sweater is great for cool Monterey and I get a lot of use out of it.

Another sweater I knit, this time for the little Bear.  I still need to block it and add the buttons, but he looked pretty cute modelling it for me. 

My latest little craft (thanks to my friend Abbey) are these feltanimals.  Felt is only $0.29 at the craft store, so I got several different colors and picked out a couple different animal patterns to try.  Charlie is still a little unsure of them, but they're a great toy to bring to a quiet place, like Church, and he seems to enjoy throwing them around. :)

Little foodie

So, in all important baby news... we've recently started Charles on solid foods!  An exciting milestone in baby development. :)  While working at the daycare, most of our babies started at about 4 or 5 months, and they all started with purees and rice cereal.  My plan for the little man was to make my own purees, until I stumbled upon a system called "baby-led weaning".  The idea behind baby-led weaning is that baby eats what you eat when you eat it, and they do it themselves.  They don't start to eat until they show interest, which is usually around 6 months (rather than 4 or 5) and could be much later.  Once they are sitting up well in your lap or a seat, are showing interest in your food, and start reaching for it, you simply include them in your normal meal times.  We started with avocados, and then started began whatever fruits or veggies we were having with the meal, provided they were somewhat soft and an easy shape for him to hold.  Rather than being fed smooshy purees, and later having to learn how to eat solid foods, baby starts off by learning how to hold, pick-up, and chew everyday food. 

So far it's worked out great!  The first few times Charlie mostly played with and sucked on the food we gave him, but now- less than a month later- he eats anything we give him, and is getting really good at picking up and handling the food.  He's even starting using his pincer grip, which is a pretty neat developmental step. So far he's eaten peaches, plums, prunes, cantaloupe, banana, apples, applesauce, avocado, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, butternut squash, zucchini, broccoli, and spinach turkey meatballs!  Quite a variety for a little guy.  Here's a few pictures of his (enthusiastic!) eating.

Vacation, baby, and back to blogging

So, once again I have been a terrible blogger.  While we aren't really all that busy in cool Monterey, somehow I don't seem to be able to take time to sit down and update.  Along with cleaning the toilets more than once a month and switching to organic fruits and veggies, one of my mid-year resolutions is to blog more.  We'll see how I do.

What have we been up to lately?  In June/July we had a chance to visit family back on the East Coast and some on the West Coast and got to introduce Charlie to his (many) aunts and uncles, as well as grandparents, extended-family, and friends.

Our first week was spent soaking in all the joys and sunshine of Cape Cod.

We spent a day in Newport, RI, hanging out with Travis and Katie, as well as getting a feel for the area.  We'll be heading to Newport next year, so it was great to see the town and the base.

It was very special to introduce Charlie to his great-grandparents!

 After our two weeks on the East Coast we headed to Southern CA to see friends and family and celebrate the 4th of July.  Charlie made a new friend, and we found a baby who is actually chunkier than our plump little man!

We loved visiting and catching up with everyone!  It's always a treat to go home and see family, but it was particularly special this year since we had a baby to show off. :)  Three weeks of living out of a suitcase was a little rough though, so we were happy to get back home and into our own routine again.  However, with temperatures barely into the 60's here at home, we miss the warmth of, well, everywhere else!

On Motherhood

Motherhood is hard.  In fact, being a parent is the hardest thing I have ever done.  Completing my undergrad in three years while working full-time and commuting 45 minutes to school? Easy-peasy.  Moving across country to a place I'd never been before and then having my just-married to husband go underway for a month?  A breeze.  Surviving countless duty days, underways, and a combined 12 months of deployment?  Piece of cake.  Taking care of a little tiny person who weighs less than 20lbs?  Unbelievably difficult.  But also the most amazing thing ever.

The last 6 weeks have been tough.  Hence no blog posts.  My little man has decided that night time is not for sleeping.  Just about everything else can happen at night, including playing, snuggling, and lots of crying.  But sleep? Not so much.  I'm just trying to get though without completely losing my mind, and enjoying the smiles and giggles that come between the middle of the night melt downs.

It's been hard for me to accept that my baby is not exactly like I planned.  He's adorable and sweet and very personable, but he doesn't like a schedule and he doesn't like to sleep.  I'd read many books and blog posts before baby and had lots of ideas about how this little guy would be.  I would have him on a perfect schedule, he would eat when he was supposed to eat, nap when he was supposed to nap, and be sleeping through the night by 8 weeks.  After all, I like having a schedule and routine, why wouldn't Charlie?  I have been trying for 19 weeks now to have a schedule.  We've tried the eat/play/sleep routine.  Its supposed to work: Charlie wakes up and eats, then plays, and 90 minutes after he's gotten up he goes down for a nap.  He naps for 90 minutes, wakes up refreshed and happy, ready to eat, and the cycle starts again.  But sometimes he naps for 90 minutes, and other times (most times) he only naps for 30-40 minutes.  Or he doesn't want to nap at all.  Or he wakes up in the morning to eat and then falls back asleep, throwing off the cycle before we can even start it.  We've also tried establishing a bed time routine.  Reading books, snuggling, saying prayers, and in bed by 7:30.  The last two nights he's been so upset at bed time that he's made himself hoarse from crying.  We ended up holding him, while he dozed, for two hours last night, until it was time for him to nurse again.  Then he came to bed with us.

Sometimes (ok, a lot of times) I end up in tears sometime in the early morning hours.  That 3am time when it's still dark out, but you're realizing that you've only slept 2.5hrs and that the small, angelic creature who is (finally!!) snoozing next to you will be up to eat in just a few minutes and then up for good just a little while after that.  It's at that point I end up crying into my poor husband's shoulder, wondering what I've done wrong.  Why don't my schedules work?  Why is my baby fussy?  Did I over-feed him? Under-feed him?  Is he hot? Cold? Overtired from not napping enough during the day?  Napped too much during the day?  Not stimulated enough during the day?  Over-stimulated during the day?  Does he feel neglected because I let him cry in his bed for 15 minutes?  Am I paying too much attention and not letting him soothe himself back to sleep?  Will he be unable to go away to college because he still needs me to rock him to sleep?!?!?  It's hard for me to realize that every baby is different and while schedules and sleep training may work for lots and lots of babies, it doesn't work for mine.  Not right now.  I'm a planner, and a routine person, and maybe a little bit of a control freak, and it's hard not being able to control everything about little Charlie Bear.  I'm learning to relax a little and just give him what he needs, even if it's not in the schedule for ten more minutes.

Despite all the tears and frustration and worries (lots and lots of worries!), when he looks up at me and smiles every single moment is worth it.  Even after the exhausting nights, endless diapers, spit-up and wet outfits, there are so many wonderful little moments that make my heart sing!

Days go by...

I can't believe how fast the time goes by with Charlie boy!  He's grown and changed so much over the last two and half months. It's sad to see the little newborn days slip away, but exciting to see him learning so many new things.

Charles Philip: Jan. 19, 2013

Apologies for the long hiatus, we've been busy with our new little guy!!! :)  I find it somewhat ironic that my last post mentioned how snug he was, only to have him show up less than 24 hours later.  It's been a crazy two and a half months since he arrived.  Adjusting to life with a baby, hosting several rounds of visiting family, celebrating friends' graduation, making new friends and saying goodbye to old ones are just a few of the things that have been happening here.

Since some people have asked for it (coughcough*Kaley*coughcough), I thought I'd share my birth story. *Warning: The following is rated R for sex, language, blood and gore, nudity, strong language, and a birth scene.*  At 37.5 weeks I went in for an ultrasound to make sure baby was head down.  He was and the tech estimated that he was about 7.8lbs.  The following day I had my OB appointment and was at 0cm, 25% effaced.  Since I was starting to get just a little bit uncomfortable (hmm... that might be a slight understatement...) I decided I might as well do my best to walk that baby out!  Eva and I spent every morning walking the bike trail nearby, in the hopes that it would encourage Charlie to make his arrival.  At 39.2 weeks, Jan. 18, I went in for another OB appointment.  Apparently, all the walking had paid off, since I had progressed to 2cm and 75% effaced.  Since I was only a few days away from my due date (Jan. 23rd) my OB went ahead and did a membrane sweep.  This often helps get labor started, and she estimated a baby within the next 72 hours.  I decided that would be great, since my mom was flying in the next day.  A baby by Sunday or Monday would be perfect!

That afternoon Phil and I went grocery shopping, and stocked up on enough food for the next two weeks.  We walked around most of the afternoon at various stores, and while I had some "cramping" throughout the day, I didn't think much of it.  As we watched a TV show that evening, Phil asked if I thought we'd have a baby that night and I told him no.  Silly me.  I went to bed around 10, and left Phil upstairs putzing.  I dozed for a little bit, but the "cramps" were a little bit painful and made it hard to get comfortable.  At 11pm I had a particularly hard cramp and felt a sudden trickle of water.  I decided I might want to go to the bathroom and check it out, and upon arrival in the bathroom, my water broke the rest of the way.  We called our birth center and they told us to have me lay down, time my contractions and call back in an hour. As soon as my water broke, the contractions were very regular, 1-2 minutes long, 4-5 minutes apart.  At midnight we called back, and they said take a shower, grabs your bags and come on in!

We checked in at 12:30, and  I was at 3cm, fully effaced, and unable to talk through the contractions.   They told me I could walk around the hospital if I wanted, but I wasn't really feeling up to it, so I just paced in the room, and bounced on the birthing ball for a while.  I ended up getting really sick and spent a lot of time puking into a bucket.  Phil, the sympathy puker, was awesome.  He held my hair and the bucket, mopped my brow and brought me water.  I was a hot mess, but he took amazing care of me!  After I had been monitored, thrown-up everything I had, and made it to 4cm, I decided to spend some time in the shower.  The water was definitely the best place for me, as it helped me relax the most.  Since they could monitor me with the dopplar in the shower, I was able to spend almost two hours in the water.  By the time they needed me to come back to the bed for monitoring the contractions were getting really hard and painful.  I felt like I was reaching my pain level, and I was very, very tired.  When they checked I had progressed to 5cm, which was good, but seemed really terrible when they told me.  At that point we decided to go ahead and try a narcotic.  I really didn't want to get an epidural, since I wanted to try and have as natural a labor as possible, but Phil and I had talked about narcotics as an option, since they were just given through an IV drip, only last an hour, and worked to just take the edge off.  Sometime around 4:15 I got the pain-relief, and it really helped me to relax.  I still felt every contraction, but was able to breathe and rest a little more in between   Once it wore off they checked and I had progressed another cm, to 6cm.  I decided to try one more hour of the pain relievers, just to see if I could get a little further.  Usually the first dose is the most effective, but in my case the 2nd dose proved to be the best, and I was able to nod off between contractions, waking up to squeeze Phil's hand and breathe through each one.  At about 6:40 when the second dose wore off they checked and I had progressed to 10cm!!  By 7am I was given the ok to start pushing, which was such a relief.  The contractions were still super painful, but at least I could do something, instead of just suffering through them.  Towards the end, I had to hold back on pushing, since my OB hadn't arrived yet, which was definitely tough!  Once she arrived, it took a couple hard pushes to get him out, since his fat little noggin didn't want to come out, but once his head was through he slipped out all in one push, and he arrived Jan 19th at 8:01am!!  They immediately put him up on my chest, and we had a chance to do skin to skin.  It was amazing and wonderful to hold my little boy after thinking about, talking to, feeling him move, and loving him for 9 months!

Unfortunately I had a weird little muscle that ran vertically through my lady parts, called a septum, that tore as he came out.  It was bleeding quite heavily, and on top of that I had a third degree tear, so I ended up hemorrhaging. They had to move pretty quickly once he was born to get things fixed up, so they delivered the placenta on the next push, and the OB cut the cord right away.  It took her almost two hours to get me all stitched back up, but I couldn't really tell what was going on down there, and was just wrapped up in our new little man.  Our hospital was great, and didn't intrude on our bonding with tests, baths, or anything else.  They weighed him and measured him, but only after we had spent time together, and they eventually sponged him off, but not until much later in the day!  He was 9lbs, 1oz, which surprised everyone.  I had no idea I was pushing out such a chunky guy.  He measured 21", and had a 14" head.  I held him for a while (just recovering!) once they handed him to me, while he let us know what a strong set of lungs he had.  After a little while I nursed him, and he latched on right away and nursed like a champ.

My mom arrived that evening, just 12 hours after he was born,  Although I was sad she hadn't made it for the birth, I knew it would be hard to time her arrival from the east coast and had prepared myself for the fact that she might not be there.  She stayed with us for two weeks and it actually worked out very well that she was there for so long afterwards, since I had a tough recovery.  I ended up getting two blood transfusions and staying longer at the hospital to make sure my blood count numbers were ok.  Thankfully the OB removed the unusual little bit of muscle that tore, so I won't have to worry about that next time!

For a first baby (and a large baby!) my labor wasn't that long, and I only pushed for an hour.  I thoroughly disliked the entire labor process though- the contraction pain was horrible and pushing was tough, but I would do it again in a heartbeat!  We love Charles more than we could ever imagine, and we can't wait to add to our little family!

Christmas, crafting, and catch-up

So, I'm still here, and still alive.  And as of Jan 18th, baby is still loving his *very* cozy little spot inside the womb and hasn't made an appearance yet!  We've had a very busy several weeks, with family in town for the holidays, then lots of prep for our little man.  Phil's back to school now and I've been trying to do lots of walking and waiting patiently for something to happen!  

We had a a great holiday season.  Part of Phil's family was here for Christmas and we got to see at least half the family, including our little nephew Christopher, who was 4 months when we last saw him, and is now 1!!  We also got to share Christmas dinner (a Christmas goose, cooked to perfection by my awesome hubby!) with some Navy friends, Travis and Katie, and then spend New Year's Eve with them as well.  Somehow, with all the excitement and business of the holidays I didn't get to take any pictures, but here's one of the little guy and me the week between the holidays:

Between finishing up work (yay!) and Christmas, I became a crazy crafting lady.  I had several projects I worked on, but since they were all Christmas gifts, I couldn't post pictures.  Now that everyone has received their gifts, check them out:

I saw this painting on Pinterest and loved it...

So decided to re-create it for a friend:

I think it turned out really well, and am tempted to paint one for myself!! :)

Another project I saw on Pinterest was this Family Birthday board: 

It was kind of expensive, so I decided to try my hand at it, as a gift for my mom.  I went ahead and painted a canvas with the colors I wanted to use:

Then I punched some holes into little wooden stars (which was a lot harder then it sounds), painted those yellow as well, and wrote all the names and birthdays of the family:

...strung them on some ribbon, and thumb-tacked them to the back of the canvas:

I'm happy with how it turned out!

Of course, I also did some knitting, and made this little sweater for Charlie boy.  It's a 12 month size, so hopefully it will fit him next winter.  Love how this project turned out, and it was such an easy little pattern!! 

And finally... a sneak peek at his nursery!  There's still some little things I was working on that have been added to the nursery, but just so you can get an idea of how it turned out... 

Anyway, these are just some of the things that I've been doing to keep busy lately.  Hoping the next thing is a BABY, but if he decides to stay snuggled in a little longer I have plenty of other crafts to keep me busy! :)