On Grandparents

Jellybean, you are going to be one lucky kiddo. You have some grandparents that already love you so much.

Lately, I've been packing a picnic for my lunchtime breaks from work. The weather has been so nice and there is a cute little park nearby that I go to. Today, as I was driving back to work from the park after my lunch break, I stopped to let a cute little grandma with a baby in a stroller and a toddler cross the street. And you know what happened? She smiled at me and waved a thank you. And then I got all misty-eyed.

I think I reacted so strongly because I am so excited that our little guy will be adored by both sets of his grandparents. I never really had that when I was growing up. Thankfully, now I can claim Tim's incredible grandparents for my own, but I've ALWAYS wanted a "milk and cookies" grandma to sit down with to tell her all about my day and have her spoil me rotten and completely adore me. Having somebody like that in your life is SO important! Growing up in the church, I've always had "surrogate" grandma's, but nothing can replace an actual flesh and blood grandparent.

I can hardly wait to place my little guy into my parents arms (and Tim's parents arms, too!) and watch as he melts their hearts. And I can hardly wait for story time with Poppa... play time with Diva... gardening 101 with Grandpa (and music lessons too!)... and cooking with Grandma. Each of our parents are so unique and special, and will be able to offer our boy so much care and wisdom. I just wish they didn't live so far away!

Funny...

This Girl Deserves a Party

This Sunday, my boss Mary threw a wonderful baby shower for me. She hosted it at her house and went all out with cute little baby confetti, baby candles, and baby blue everything! It was so incredibly sweet of her. The whole library staff blew me away with their generosity. They all pitched in to buy us our high chair (which is an EXPENSIVE one), baby diapers, and the cutest little cowboy clock known to man. Thank you Mary for orchestrating all of that!!!

The shower was also a Sunday afternoon potluck and I don't remember the last time I ate so well. The ladies at my library are all cooks and they try to out-do each other with the best recipes. They brought a smorgasbord of Italian dishes and whatnot. I went home thinking I'll never have to eat again. This is why I think it's so funny that they purchased our high chair- first, because it's Italian made and second, because I always think of these ladies along with food! What a perfect gift!

Here is a video of some of the pictures from yesterday.

More Handmade

Well, I can't seem to stop myself. I keep nesting. I think I'm making my husband crazy. The latest additions are "peepee teepees" and a set of cloth blocks. (Peepee teepees are just what you think they are... little tents to prevent little spray accidents during changing time.) And neither of these creations can I claim absolute credit for. I just saw something similar at baby boutiques and didn't want to spend an arm and a leg for them (also, Tim told me no and that they weren't in the budget...). So I just made my own. I think they turned out close to what I wanted.

I'm also including a picture of the chair corner of the nursery, now that we finally have a little table. I can't even begin to tell you how we searched and searched for the perfect little table for this corner. We almost gave up hope. All the tables we found were either too big or not tall enough (or WAY out of our price range). We finally found this one at an unfinished furniture place. It's actually supposed to be a telephone stand. It matches the crib perfectly, with cool slats on the side (just take my word for it) and Tim did an incredible job painting it and sanding it down. It is also the perfect spot for the really tall picture books that don't quite fit right in the little bookshelf. I'm really happy with it. (Thanks Ma & Pops Bomgardner for providing the funding for this great little table!!!)

And on the top of the table is the cool lamp from Target that kind of matched in its original state, but now matches perfectly. I had to change the lamp shade binding on the edges from brick red to baby blue. Just right. (And the little brown crochet blanket on the chair there is one that my hubby had as a wee boy!) This kid has the best room in the house, now!

Week 35

Thanks for waiting, Jellybean! Momma didn't want to share her birthday - no offense. Also, Momma wants you to be strong and healthy, so keep growing! (But you could be a bit nicer to your poor Momma, as far as your kicking schedule goes...)

Bassinet Redo

A few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to have been given a nice bassinet from a lady who visits the library a lot. It was really sweet of her to give, especially since she brought it all the way up from storage in Florida to give to me! It's the Kolcraft "Light Vibes" Bassinet that has this night light, a few different lullaby songs it plays, a "gentle vibration sensation," and it also rocks when the wheel locks are up. Nice, eh? And it has a handy storage basket underneath.

Unfortunately, this is what it looks like. I brought it home and the first thing Tim said was "Uh uh. Not for MY son." So, for the past few weeks, I've been working on giving it a face lift and making it match our bedroom a bit better. I like the end results, but I did have to lose the frilly top cover. It was too much of a hassle to sew and I also ran out of fabric. Oh well. I like it plain, though. I think it's simple and classy.

Alien Life Form

Sometimes, I'll look at my squirmy belly and get this mental image...

34 Weeks

Here we go... Welcome to week 34! Oh momma. Check out my belly now. Did I mention that on Wednesday when we got the sonogram pics done, the techie told me how much my boy weighs?!? He is a whopping 5.6 pounds! And can I just say that when I walk up to my 3rd floor apartment, I feel every bit of that 5.6 poundage. And today at Lamaze class, the instructor said that the placenta is around 1 and a half to 2 pounds. I feel heavy.

And yes, I did say "today at Lamaze class." We're taking that this weekend - finally. I've been stalling, intentionally. Lamaze class makes it seem like the real deal, so I guess that's why it took me so long to get my butt to class. It's just that on TV shows and such, they do the show with the Lamaze class and you know that character is gonna pop out a kid pretty soon. Well, I really could pop this kid out any time now! Crazy.

Speaking of popping out, last week really got me a bit freaked. I had some false labor going on and had to take a couple of days off of work. I was having hardcore Braxton Hicks and major cramping. The main contributors to these symptoms were stress and dehydration. Yikes. Anyway, Tim is being the water-nazi now, so I hope to carry my little Jellybean past my birthday and at least into September! But I was productive during my time at home. I made some more bibs and burp cloths. Here is proof.

Jellybean Pictures

Here's my little boy! He's 5.6 pounds right now. And all his parts are in the right place. What a relief!
And here is his foot! This is what keeps me up all night long... He likes kicking his momma right when I am about to doze off, square in my ribcage on my right side. Mommy's little soccer player.

Industrious

Look at me... aww shucks. I've been busy. These are two of my recent bib creations for little Jellybean. Isn't the fabric funny? Now I'm onto burping cloths and peepee teepees! Pictures to follow!

Sweet Man

See the sweet man in the picture? See the freakish feet that are swollen to twice their original size? Well, both the sweet man and the freakish feet belong to me. (If you look really closely, you can even see where my shoes left an imprint. Gross.) I've had the worst feet swelling issues as of late. And it isn't just a matter of my feet looking nasty anymore - now it physically HURTS! I have a bruise on the side of my left foot from my shoe rubbing up on it.

But back to the sweet man in the picture... Jellybean, you have the most wonderful dad. He makes me sit down after my long 8 hour day and then he helps me prop my feet up (as by that time, I need assistance!) and then he rubs my feet with a warm wash cloth. He even fixes me a tall glass of water with crushed up ice. What would I do without this delicious attention?!? And at night, right before bed, he rubs my feet again with peppermint lotion! It almost makes up for my elephantiasis feet. Almost.

Nursery Pictures!

This is still a work in progress - and will probably still be, up until the day my little guy is born - but I wanted to post progress pictures for everyone to see, especially my momma. (She's also been inspired by the project and keeps finding me cute little things for the shelf that wraps around the room, like this cute little horsey...)

This room started out bare, without carpet or anything. We are fortunate to have an awesome landlord who put in the carpet for free. And Tim did the rest of the construction and painting. Poor baby. The shelf that goes around the room nearly broke him and the clouds were a labor of love, for sure, but he persevered and it looks incredible! I'm so happy with it.


It was tough, though. No one really offers cool vintage-looking western nursery things. Much of the baby stuff out there now is crazy busy looking and much too cutesy for our taste. It's hard to even find solid colors for simple things like crib bed skirts! The one on our crib I had to MAKE because I couldn't find a decent one anywhere. I also had to make our crib mobile because I couldn't find a western one. What I ended up doing is purchasing a cheap mobile and replacing the cheesy danglies with some little horses from Oriental Trading Company. I jazzed them up a bit with little bows and whatnot. I like how it turned out.

Do you see the brown and blue square quilt hanging off the edge of the crib? Tim's incredible grandma, Emma Lee, made that for our little guy! Isn't it perfect? The colors are just right. Nothing says love quite like a homemade quilt! We're so lucky to have her in our lives. She even stitched a sweet little teddy bear pattern in the white squares. I love it!

Do you see the little toybox next to the crib? We got that at Ikea. It was actually a file holder / desk seat thingy. But we liked it because of it's simplicity and nice lines. (All the other toyboxes we've seen have been huge and tacky.) This one is smaller and it came with a foam cushion for the top. It even has a saftey closure on the lid to prevent squished fingers - practical and pretty. So, I bought a set of twin sheets at Target that had a cool cowboy silouhette pattern on them and cut them up for the fabric to use on the toybox cushion and to make some curtains.

Because the room is small and we did so much with the clouds and shelf, I wanted simple curtains for the room. I like how they turned out - they were really easy to make, too! And I even had some extra fabric left over from all that to make a diaper holder. I got some great patterns from this website. I didn't take a picture of the final outcome because I haven't hung that up just yet. Soon though. I may even make a small matching laundry bag out of the same material. It depends on how industrius I feel!

Do you see my little "Woody" doll in the corner? He's also an addition from my momma! (Not to mention the dresser and crib that my folks got for us!)

Here is the other corner of the window... It's a tiny room packed to the hilt! There is a cool little nook here, perfect for a rocking chair. (This is the chair Uncle Andy got for us!) Do you see the cool log pillow that I finally finished? It's a funky little touch. (If you click on any of the pictures, you can enlarge them...) What is not pictured here is the little side table we bought to sit in the corner on the other side of the chair. We had the hardest time finding a table for that corner! We finally found a "telephone stand" at an unfinished wood furniture place. Tim's folks gave us the money for that purchase. It is under construction right now, being painted white like the rest of the furniture. It has a little drawer at the top and shelves underneith. My mom picked out the perfect lamp to put on top of it, as soon as it's finished. I'll post a picture of that soon.

It's a cool and quirky little room. I hope my little guy will like it.

Responsibility

Every now and then, waves of panic about what is to come wash over me. Will I be a good mom? Will I feed my kid the right things? Will he love me? Will he grow up to be a good man? Will I raise him right? It's a scary feeling knowing that I will play a huge role in how my little guy turns out. Tim and I have talks on discipline and how we are going to deal with certain issues when they arise... Boy! Talk about responsibility!

Lately I've been thinking a whole lot about what kids absorb when they watch their parents. I watch, at the library, how some parents set good AND bad examples for their kids and I get to see the kids reflect that sometimes. The other day, there was an incident at work where a 4 yr. old kid said "Shut the f*** up" to another kid, and that completely broke my heart! This 4 yr. old obviously witnessed a fight (maybe between her parents?) and knew that this was a phrase that you use in anger that gets a reaction. Wow. And when we informed the mom about what her daughter said, her mom just said, in a nonchalant way, that her daughter doesn't act like that at home. Well someone does! How else would a 4 yr. old pick that up? Who is she modeling? Scary.

I know that there are no perfect parents in the world. I know that it is so hard to remember that your kids are watching you and they are learning behavior patterns from you, especially when you display lots of emotion! I hope I can be a good model for my little boy. I hope I can remember that he's watching me when I drive and get road rage... when I get mad at stupid people... when I watch TV... when I talk to my husband. What a gig this parenting thing turned out to be!