We returned last night from a very successful trip home. Tim and Hilary got married, we got to see some snow from the warmth and comfort of our car, and we made two grandmas very, very happy.

Of course, it turns out that making grandmas happy isn’t all that hard to do — all you need is a pudgy, smiling baby.

(Or even just a pudgy, non-smiling baby: it seems that the wedding hubbub was so exciting that Camilla forgot to smile for a while.)

Although I was initially supposed to take the wedding photos, a professional volunteered and I got to happily fade into the background and just enjoy myself. As a result, I didn’t end up with many photos at all…I don’t even have a pic of the lovely bride and groom. :(

It was impossible not to snap a few pictures of the grandmas, however, since they snatched up the baby as often as they could.

And it’s a good thing I took these when I did, because that cute little red dress and tights got covered in what my sister calls a “poo-nami” before the wedding even started, ushering in the classic parenting scenario where the frantic mother has twenty minutes to drive back to the hotel to find outfit B.

Note to self: make sure to pack TWO cute dresses to any special occasion.

As a daughter and daughter-in-law, I’m not sure what I could have done to make these two wonderful women happier than to give them a grandbaby.

I know that they love me whatever I do, but throughout our trip I saw them bend over backward to express their joy in Camilla.

From rental cars to meals to hotel rooms to early morning babywatching sessions, we were just so blessed by our mothers.

(And fathers, of course….let’s not forget them!)

I still can’t get over the way that one little baby can make everything better.

I took these photos yesterday morning when baby Camilla was wide awake and husband (as you can see) was not. I remember some pics like these of me and my dad in our old family albums, which leads me to believe that this is a pretty iconic image.

Baby = wide awake and ready to play.
Parent = longing for just another 20 (or 40 or 60) minutes of sleep.

Our baby, as it turns out, is the classic early riser. If she had her way, the day would — and occasionally does — begin at 4:30 am. One of my jobs lately has been learning to coax her into sleeping until, say, 6:00 or 6:30.

Like any other speedbump along the path of parenthood, our emotions toward this aspect of our baby’s character have ranged from denial to bleary-eyed acceptance.

Okay, more than acceptance: morning is Camilla’s happiest time and it would be a shame to waste those smiles and giggles.

So we play in the covers,

and show off our bendiness,
and have daddy kiss our feet.

And then mom puts away the camera and we have to get out of bed.

These might be the last photos for a while since we’re going to be busy with our friend visiting from Idaho (welcome, Tom!) and getting ready to fly to Seattle at the end of the week for my brother’s wedding. Lots of exciting stuff. Camilla is much happier now than the last time we flew (she was only four weeks old), so I’m thinking that this is going to be a really fun trip.

Plus, we get to see our much-missed family, who is eagerly waiting to shower a certain baby with love and kisses. Can you blame them?

I thought we had passed hurricane season but I guess I was wrong: it doesn’t look like a particularly bad one, but Hurricane Ida is sort of heading our way.  On the plus side, schools are closed for the next three days so husband gets to run around collecting bottled water and crackers and such while I play with the babe. And then if the power does go out we can have a little no-computer, no-tv family time.

Actually, it might not be so terrible after all as long as the roof stays put.

Right, Camilla?

P.S. Thanks for all the kind words about our diapering situation. It is kind of embarrassing to try and fail, especially since cloth diapers are so popular with our demographic (and for good reasons). But I’m just going to be grateful that there’s an option out there that meets our family’s needs and move on. Happy baby, happy mama.

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.

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.

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)

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. :)

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?

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…?

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.