Parenting

Oooh Baby, Baby
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Oooh Baby, Baby

It is just so much fun to make and gift a creation for someone’s new, human creation — a baby! Yes, another new baby in the extended family. A baby girl with a big sister to watch over her and teach her the ropes. And most likely there will be some occasional hair pulling, toy stealing and other less-than-model behavior, but that’s what helps make younger siblings so resilient (or at least that’s what I keep telling myself about the situation in my house).

With my daughter a short but healthy 13 month old, wearing mostly size 24-month clothing (pants rolled up!), I am forced to acknowledge I am no longer the mother to an infant.  Although she is obviously far from independence, she is becoming more and more of an individual each day. Words are forming; new skills attempted and then honed. Her personality is blooming.

So now I have to get my infant fix from child-bearing friends and family.

Obviously I had many months notice that this baby was coming; and I even knew it was a baby girl. But while I spent time mulling over what would be fun to make for her, I did not actually put needle and thread to fabric. She was born in November, and I’m just now mailing this out. So I’m a little behind in welcoming her to the family. But not for lack of excitement or joy for her arrival! Having my own November baby, I know how easily the impending holidays and end of the year stuff can overtake new baby celebrations. I swear that last year it felt like Daisy was born and then suddenly it was mid-January, and somewhere in between I think had been Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas, New Years, etc., although it’s all kind of fuzzy.

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Both the pants and the skirt are made from corduroy fabric paired with a ribbed knit waistband. To create a pattern for the pants, I traced a pair of my daughter’s outgrown pants, and then added a tall knit waistband as opposed to making a casing for a more traditional elastic waistband. The corduroy fabric is so soft (I want pants this soft!) and I loved the big bright dots. A bundle of visual and tactile stimulation for baby.

And since all the ooh-ing and aah-ing over a new baby can take its toll on an older sibling, something special for big sister was a must! I wasn’t sure if my cousin is a fan of matching outfits for siblings, so I decided to go with a complementary fabric for big sister, as opposed to the same fabric I used for the pants. The print on the skirt fabric seemed sweetly suited for its recipient.  For big sister’s skirt, I made a yoga-style knit waistband that can be folded over. These projects were actually my first time making knit waistbands. They provide both a casual and a bit more contemporary look than traditional waistbands, and they are pretty forgiving in sizing. A mommy-sized knit skirt may be in my future…

So, welcome little one, and congratulations, big sister! You make a beautiful pair! Now I should probably start planning a baby boy project, because it’s only a few months until the next addition to our extended family!

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Miscommunication

Lately it seems that my son has been drinking a lot less fluid during the day. This is partially a good thing, because for a while I thought we were going to have to keep a cow in the backyard to satiate his endless milk consumption, and I don’t really fancy myself much of a gentlewoman dairy farmer and, besides, the eau de parfum of fresh manure might not be a hit with the neighbors. But this new phase seems to have coincided with his inability to stay in his seat for an entire meal.

Nope, no can do. It’s all about popping up out of his seat every once and a while despite our repeated instruction that he stay seated. Sometimes his journeys from the table are driven by curiosity and general restlessness: he wants an up close view of what his baby sister is eating, he wants to feed her “all by myself”, he gives a matchbox car or two a quick spin, he helps himself to another napkin, he takes a lap around the first floor like an athlete on the sideline who needs to stay loose. Sometimes his absence at the table is borne of stubborn refusal –  a refusal to try something new, a refusal to eat because he’s “not hungry” although he is simultaneously requesting a completely dinner-inappropriate snack, a refusal to eat something he has eaten several times before and liked, a refusal to eat because he knows it drives us crazy when he so refuses, a refusal to eat because he’s three and that’s what you do when you’re three — you know, the kind of experiences that make parents so very willing to fork over cash to a sitter so they can occasionally have dinner without their children.

After that, just by clicking on the Start button you could find out the whole list of all purchase viagra no prescription the websites that you come across and are certified and have the authority to issue licenses that are recognized everywhere. The icks.org free levitra sample taste of the medicine is sweet like fruit flavors and you can easily find a renowned and expert Lyme disease doctor. To live a happy life it is important to buy cheap levitra icks.org preserve it for shipping from Brazil. Some medical order levitra conditions and medications can predispose to Diabetes. With all of the up and down, in and out of his seat caused by distractions real, imagined and manufactured, it seems like at the end of the meal his drink cup is often practically as full as when we sat down, and so we’ve been trying to make a point of encouraging him to finish his drink during meals. The other night as he was finishing up dinner with a graham cracker and a still mostly-full cup of milk, my husband gently nudged, “Graham crackers are really good with milk. You should have some milk with your cracker.” The suggestion was met with a curious stare. I offered my own assurances that milk and grahams are good together. “Yum, you should definitely have milk with your grahams.” (No doubt proffered up in that annoying overly enthusiastic and saccharine caregiver voice that every child eventually learns to distrust.) He looked back and forth at us, still a bit reluctant that we were telling the truth. We renewed our milk and cookies suggestion. Then with a somewhat timid look that seemed to indicate “okay, if you say so…”, he placed his graham cracker on his plate, picked up his milk and poured it on the cracker.

Perhaps we should have been a bit more precise with our suggestion.

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Three, already?

I’m not sure if it’s maternal denial or a side effect of the sugar coma from ingesting two pieces of birthday cake and a multitude of other treats tonight that has me in disbelief that my son turned three this week. Three? Are you kidding me?

It seems like the first six months of his life went by in normal speed, or sometimes even in slow motion when his colicky fussiness was peaking. In hindsight, it feels like we had so much time. Lazy days when long walks and tummy time were the heaviest things on our agenda. And then we were off to the races. It was as though there was a direct correlation between the speed of time passing and his increased mobility and self-sufficiency.

Of course, as will always be, there were other life events that naturally contributed to the whir and blur of time — moving, loss of a loved one, home renovations, returning to work, leaving work, pregnancy, birth, among others. My daughter can be the scapegoat for the past year and a half passing so quickly. Pregnancy and multiple children have a way of eating time. The pregnant time is spent in anticipation. I found it to be even more so with a subsequent pregnancy because you possess the intimate knowledge, which the first time around is more of an abstract expectation, of how incredibly wonderful it will be to welcome that new soul to the world and feel his or her warm body against yours for the first time. Then adding a new baby to the family means a busy juggling act. Making both children feel your love, keeping both clean, fed and clothed, changing way too many diapers, adjusting to new sleeping and eating schedules, and wondering how the heck those people with four or five kids manage not to go insane or at least have intermittent psychotic episodes where they walk down the street naked yelling at strangers.

This is what causes the disorders generic line viagra and ailments. Tadalis soft tabs act against PDE5 inhibitor and direct the blood supply cialis tadalafil 50mg towards vital organs of the body. He even fails to talk to his partner and always has fear to answer his partner’s cheapest viagra in uk question related to their physical relation. In this instance, it’s possible to prefer to try non-medication solutions for migraine. buy levitra without prescription The first three years are overrun with firsts. First touch, first smile, first rollover, first time sitting up, first tooth, first food, first crawl, first word, first birthday, first step, first sentence, first friends, running, jumping, singing and so on. It’s as though you jump on the developmental highway of firsts and it’s hard to put the brakes on and savor the everyday. As my son’s birthday was approaching, I found myself getting caught up in the unhealthy exercise of measuring out the future — four times his life so far, and he’ll be in middle school, five times and he’ll be in high school and on the brink of driving, six times and he’ll be off to college and voting age, seven times and he’ll be 21, nine times and he’ll be the age I was when I got married; okay, breathe, stop the hyperventilating. Let’s not rush.

And now, the birthday has passed. The squeeze hug that I insisted on giving at the exact minute of his birth was but a distraction to him that kept him a moment from playing with the toy trains. The birthday party is over. The concept of being another year older has no impression on him, except that he likes to tell me he’s a “big boy” and proudly give me his muscle pose. And he mostly remembers now to answer “three” when asked how old he is. But these are things that are coaxed from him by the grown ups around him that know too well the passage of time, the expectations and responsibilities that grow as the years pass, and who encourage revelry in youth because we know there are no do-overs. He is still at the point where he sees every day as a do-over. Every day presents a new opportunity, a new word learned, a new sight to see. For him, time has but a few measures — day, night, “after my nap” and when daddy gets home from work.

He’s recently started asking me what time it is; probably something he’s picked up from hearing his non-watch-wearing daddy ask me. No matter what time I tell him, he usually responds with the same declaration, “oooh, it’s late, mommy.” No, baby, it’s early, so early. And I can wait to have all the time in the world with you.