Holding our head up.

Things have been pretty busy here recently. I”m continuing to look for the right balance between baby, housework, cooking, and other projects.  This week I tried to squeeze in some sewing with mixed results…when will I learn that I can’t accomplish everything I did before the baby came? Or even, like, 1/4?

My life, however, is not nearly as exciting as that of a certain baby. She has recently gone from this…

To this!

Okay, that doesn’t look particularly exciting. But what you can’t see is the rolling over that preceded this little maneuver. Camilla has been able to roll over for weeks, but she suddenly gained a lot of enthusiasm for it. As in, whenever I lay her down on her back she instantly starts trying to roll herself over. This is followed by raising her head and looking around, which is eventually followed by getting tired and wailing for mom to rescue her. And then mom magically appears and puts her on her back, but a baby doesn’t want to be on her back anymore so she rolls over. Which is followed by….you get the idea.

While she prefers to be rescued from her own success, Camilla can also roll from front to back, which means that she now has mobility. The first time I left the room and found her in a different location when I came back was strange: I felt simultanteously empowered for her and panicked in that I can’t wait any longer to start some serious babyproofing. I can actually foresee crawling in the not-too-distant future. Aaaaahhhhh!

(She gets that worried frown whenever she holds her head up — I guess it takes a lot of concentration.)

There’s one other big change in our lives that I”m going mention since I went public about it before: we are no longer cloth diaperers. I’m kind of ashamed to admit it, but not everything works for everybody and I thought there might be another reader out there who has arrved at the same conclusion and needs some solidarity. For our family, it came down to the following list of pros and cons.

Things I liked about cloth diapers:
– They’re reusable and I didn’t feel like I was creating a lot of trash.
– They didn’t smell like chemicals.
– They ketp the poo in  lot better than disposables.
– I got a feeling of ecological and faintly moral superiority when I told other people we use cloth diapers (this alone is probably enough reason to quit).

Things I didn’t like about cloth diapers:
– I spent an awful lot of time doing laundry. In our apartment, every trip to the washer and dryer involves wrenching open our lousy sliding glass back door with two hands, opening a padlock, and working in a ridiculously hot little storage room. And the more time I spend doing laundry, the more apt I am to look at husband when he comes home with a and-what-has-he-done-around-here-today kind of attitude. This is not that great for our relationship, obviously.
– All that laundry is pretty energy inefficient (I dread our next electric bill). This would be mitigated if I could line dry the diapers, but due to our lease and apartment setup this isn’t possible for us. My cloth diapers took 70 minutes in the dryer on high to get dry. 70 min x every other day + regular laundry = a lot of electricity.
– While clean diapers smell great, dirty ones don’t. ‘(Nuff said.)
– Husband didn’t like cloth diapering the baby, which meant that she would sometimes mysteriously end up in disposables when he changed her. This was irrationally annoying to me since I was doing all that laundry so she wouldn’t be in disposables and was another source of relationship stress.
– Camilla didn’t like them. This was the clincher for me, really. During changing time she would smile and laugh and kick happily, but as soon as I fastened the diaper she started to fuss about 90% of the time. I experimented with all sorts of different folds and covers with the same result: she doesn’t like feeling thick around her middle, and she especially doesn’t like to feel wet. Being wetter also meant that she got a small, persistant rash that I couldn’t get to go away without using cream, which hurts the absorbency of your diapers.

In the end, husband asked if we could stop and I agreed. A cloth-diapering friend happily received our stash and I’m looking for other ways to reduce our budget. I feel less cool and hipster, but I honestly think that the baby is happier and that’s worth a little chagrin on my part. A happy baby, of course, it where’s at.

My little elf.

I pulled out the sewing machine last week when the temperature took another little dip. Camilla and I were going to take a walk and I thought “Aha! I’ll just whip up a little hat while she naps.”

Famous last words.

I downsized the adorable pattern from this book and used some grey knit I already had. The pattern is made for fleece and, if I were to do it again, I would definitely use that instead.

You see, it turns out that my beloved sewing machine really dislikes knit. It’s just a little too slippery for the feed dogs and the tension is whacko, so my quick little project turned into a two-hour saga of missed stitches, tension adjustments, machine cleaning, needle changing, and the like. Anyone else had problems like this??

(This photo describes how I felt…)

It turned out okay in the end, but the ribbons attach in the wrong places and there is no way I’m going to rip out my hard-won seams to fix it. Guess I won’t be working with knits again anytime soon.

…

Thank you all for the kind words and prayers for my family. I am sad that we won’t be able to go to grandpa’s funeral, but I’m working on a slideshow of his life and home that makes me feel as though I am sending a little bit of me across the miles. I am hoping I can condense many years into a fitting tribute to a man who loved and cared for us very much.

The fourth generation.

Our family lost its fourth generation today.

I am so glad that Camilla got to meet her great-grandfather and that he held her on his lap, even if she will never remember it.

I am also grateful for this lovely, lovely woman who took care of him for months and was with him at the end.

I am going to borrow from my brother-in-law, for I like to think that I would also have read this at his bedside.

¹The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.

 ²It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the LORD, and the excellency of our God.

 ³Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.

 ⁴Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.

 ⁵Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.

 ⁶Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.

 ⁷And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

 ⁸And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

 ⁹No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there:

 ¹⁰And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (Isaiah 35, King James Version)

A hint of fall.

The temperature dropped to the mid-60s over the weekend, which is some of the coldest air I’ve felt since, like, March. It was heavenly.

It also gave me an excuse to break out Camilla’s awesome hand-me-down stripey tights and velour Ralph Lauren dress for church on Sunday.

(There were some shoes, too, but those were kicked off early on.)

I wanted to add a darling navy blue and white coat on top, but the babe was pretty toasty warm as it was. We’re back up to 75 today, but hopefully we’ll get enough little cold spells this fall and winter that she’ll get to wear all of her warm clothes at least once.

Ah, the trials of being a Florida baby…

P.S. Thank you for the shop love! I can’t wait to send out all my packages on Friday, especially since so many of them are going to familiar names. :)

Closing time.

It was fun while it lasted, but my time on Etsy has come to an end. Both PaulaGibbs.etsy.com and Paulabirdy.etsy.com are closing, and everything has been marked down at least 50%. (I don’t have all the letters of the alphabet anymore, but there are still plenty if you’re trying to make initials instead of words or names.)

I know that there are some moms who can raise kids, keep the house clean, cook meals, and run an online shop, but I am not one of them. Even if I get to draw or paint every once in a while, it’s not enough to sustain both my stores. And it’s kind of stressful to know that they’re out there and I need to try to fill them.

Soooo, pick up your prints now if you want them! I’ll probably sell off my shipping supplies last (stayflat mailers, clear envelopes, etc.) but if you’re interested in those let me know. I ordered them en masse two years ago and it was a pretty sizeable investment, so I would be happy to help another person miss out on the shipping fees for a 30 lb box of mailers.

The good news for friends and relatives is that once the Etsy goods are gone, I’ll turn my attention to fun stuff like, say, Christmas presents. (And baby clothes — I am just dying to make Camilla a sweet autumn dress, especially now that the temp has dropped to 65 degrees.) But mostly I need to make sure that I don’t get so wrapped up in what I want to do that I get grumpy when a little baby voice tells me that somebody woke up from her nap after only 10 minutes.

Camilla says, Please buy mommy’s prints so she can give all her attention to me!

 

How can you say no to that face?

Changing time.

Since we’ve switched to cloth, diaper changing has taken longer so I make sure that Camilla’s wee bum has time to completely dry off.

This, in turn, has led to some new discoveries — like feet. Who knew those were down there?

And that they are so good for grabbing?

It’s also a good time to practice making our new noises.

And sometimes our yawns.

Seriously, though, the foot-grabbing thing cracks me up. It can be a little annoying when I am trying to fasten a diaper, but the look of concentration on her face as she reaches her little hand out and seizes her toes is pure gold. It’s the same look an adult might get when pondering the works of Dostoyevsky or a Bach cello concerto. Being a baby is serious work sometimes.

Being a mama is also serious work, it turns out. All of my attempts to do anything in addition to routine household maintenance have been running aground lately. I have a multi-part art project that I keep spreading all over the kitchen table and putting away again before I get more than a few lines drawn. I also have a new pattern book and a closet shelf full of fabric, Christmas present ideas that I should probably get started on now, and two closed Etsy shops that I would kind of like to re-open before the holiday buying season is upon us. To be honest, I don’t think that Etsy is going to fit very well into my new lifestyle, but it would be nice to sell off my remaining prints and shipping supplies so I don’t have all the stuff sitting around.

Anyone want to spend a little time watching a very cute baby…?

Ode to the bassinet.

I can hardly believe it, but Camilla has almost outgrown her bassinet.

The bassinet has, for the past 15 weeks, been the most important piece of furniture in our house. It was a hand-me-down from friends at church which I almost didn’t accept…I mean, a baby is supposed to sleep in a crib, right? (Obviously I hadn’t read any of the attachment parenting books yet!)

But we brought it home anyway because we thought it would be nice to have her in our room. It took us only a few days to realize that, in addition to being a convenient place for her to sleep, the bassinet provided the only surefire way to make Camilla calm down during those early colicky days. Some genius manufacterer put the whole thing on wheels, so when she was really screaming we would swaddle her, set her inside with Sleep Sheep (an ambient noise toy), and push it vigorously back and forth across the floor.

Before long, her little eyelids would be drooping and the crying would stop. Ahhhh.

The bassinet was rendered even more fun when I was given a toy thingummy (bar? clip?) that goes on top. Now that her coordination is good enough to reach and grab for things, she loves to lie on her back and pull at the toys. Many a meal has been made possible by wheeling the bassinet in the kitchen so Camilla can see both Mommy and Turquoise Cow.

But — alas! — I can see that those days are numbered. She has about three inches above her head when her feet are touching the bottom, and I think it’s time to move to the crib after all. Sniff.

So we are enjoying things while they last, keeping in mind that babies are too busy growing and learning to stay the same for long.

Going cloth.

Thanks to a generous donation from Lauren and baby Jane, we are now cloth diaperers.

I wish I could say that we are trying to save the planet, but the truth is that disposables are just too expensive (if you get the nice ones, which are the only kind that don’t smell like chemicals).

Now that we’ve made the switch, though, I can’t get over how adorable her giant cloth-covered bum is. I want to keep her half-naked all day so I can admire it and the ever growing baby buddha belly.

This wish may come true, seeing that a lot of her 3-6 month clothes aren’t going to fit anymore. Aargh. The dresses are okay, but I’ll need some new t-shirts and loose pants.

Part of the problem is that the diapers are a wee bit big (medium Bummis covers and large prefolds), but she is over 14 pounds now and the chub accumulation shows no signs of slowing down.

Which is fine with me. I do love a nice plump baby.

Camilla is getting stronger as well as fatter. She rolled over on the bed last week but hasn’t managed to repeat the trick since.

I wish she would. I know she’ll have fun when she can scoot/crawl.

In the meantime, I guess we’ll just settle for sucking on our hands and drooling all over. (It seems that teething has decided to make an early appearance.)

This has added a little extra fussiness to our days, but in between there are lots of happy times.

She makes new noises every day — it used to just be “agoo,” but now we’re hearing all manners of gurgles and squeals. And laughs, from time to time. Is there anything better than making your baby laugh?

A cheap living room makeover.

Last week I was bitten by the decorating bug. In my spare time, I’ve been cruising design blogs, flipping through old issues of Domino (sniff), and scrutinizing our living room with an eye toward making some changes. Unfortunately, this comes at a time when there’s not a lot of spare cash to put toward home improvements. So, I decided to try moving the furniture around (a great free decorating trick!) and shop my linen closet instead.

My living room is small and has an awkward wall layout that is compounded by an air vent on the middle wall and a cable connection that can’t be moved.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take “before” photos until after I had already started moving things. So this looks a little cleaner/simpler than it actually was.

It wasn’t a terrible furniture arrangement, but everything felt sort of cramped all the time. Plus, I could only see the problem getting worse as more and more baby stuff migrates down the hall from her room into the living room.

The couch had to stay where it was, but I pushed the two bookcases together to form a sort of library side to the room. We don’t even have that many books, but I feel like they are so distracting and un-simple looking….at least this way they’re all in one place. I sometimes half-heartedly consider covering them all in brown paper (but don’t worry, it will never happen).

I moved the reading chair next to the shelves and hung an unused Marimekko print behind it. It’s hard to see, but there’s a Japanese lantern overhead, my one new purchase. Moving the chair freed up space next to the tv that will probably eventually be filled by a toy bin or something of that nature.

The desk now takes the space right by the door. Maybe that will motivate me to keep it tidy! We sent the gigantic (and comfortable) leather office chair to school with husband. I miss sitting in it, but it didn’t fit into the desk opening and was thus always protruding into the room. Annoying. Those white cabinets on the right hold our cds, dvds and videos. We got them at Ikea and I love them so much — I can close and lock the doors so baby can’t get at everything when she starts to walk!

The room isn’t “finished,” but I like it sooooo much better already. It makes me happy to see it, even during those middle-of-the-night nursing sessions. :) I’m now looking for a new area rug, a taller magazine shelf to go on the right side of the couch, and a picture to go above the entryway shelf (I’ll probably shop my closet for this). I’m making new pillow covers to replace the grey striped ones from some black and white Ikea fabric I already had that I’m painting with fabric inks. They’re not turning out quite like I had envisioned, but I think I’ll finish them anyway.

 

I may also look for a new piece of art or fabric to go behind the chair. What do you think? Do you like the leaf?

I can’t sign off without posting some of the new baby cuteness that we’ve been seeing lately. Camilla is just now getting steady enough to give her new (used) Johnny Jump Up a try.

I tried to catch her smiling, but she had this kind of worried look the whole time.

It seemed to be a reasonably big hit for about five minutes, though, so I am looking forward to when she gets the hang of the whole “jumping” thing…for now, her feet stay in one place and she careens from one side to the other.

Thank you, Lauren!

Somebunny’s not very happy about this.

I was given an adorable hand-me-down bunny hat yesterday that I thought might be the beginnings of a nice Halloween costume. Unfortunately, it’s already a little too small for Camilla’s head. That didn’t stop us from taking a few pics, though.

Things started off well.

But quickly degenerated.

Who knew we were such mean parents?