Happy, Happy Birthday from all of us to you!

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Laura

Now you can rent a car!

I love you, sister!

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January’s sewing project (and part of February too)

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Laura

On the flight home from Alaska after Christmas, I started thinking about the obscene amount of flannel that I had and really feeling convicted that I was hoarding it.  I didn’t actually need all that flannel so why did I feel compelled to buy/keep it?  I had also just found out that YoungLives (a ministry of YoungLife for teen moms) was just starting up in Baltimore and that our church was involved.  The YoungLives blanket project was born!

First I collected all the flannel I had and paired it up.  It turns out that I had enough flannel to make 23 blankets.  That’s 46 yards.  Crazy.  (That’s the siren call of Black Friday at Joann’s for you.)  It took me awhile just to iron, true up, and cut all the pieces.  I saved out five blankets worth for all the babies coming up in my life over the next few months.

I realized that Iwould be sewing forever if I tried to make them all.  So I recruited a few friends who also love to sew, Betsy, Anne, and Steph and they came over for sewing and fun.  Between what they sewed that night and took home with them, they sewed 9 blankets!

Here are the blankets that I sewed.  I had fun putting together the smaller pieces of flannel in order to make more blankets – a bit like mini-quilts.  It turned out to be a good thing that I did this; otherwise, we would have had hardly any blankets for boys!

(WordPress won’t let me exclude pictures in a post from the slide show.  So you’ll see the other pictures in the post at the end of this.)

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And here are all 18 blankets waiting for their new homes!


I hope the moms and babies will be blessed by having a nice warm blanket.  We use our homemade blankets all the time and I don’t know what we’d do without them.   I also feel remarkably lighter not having all that flannel hanging over my head.  A win-win for everyone!

Posted in sewing | 7 Comments

Saints be praised. She stopped.*

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Laura

The puking that is.  She stopped puking.  It’s a miracle.  One day a couple weeks ago, I realized, “Wait, I’m not doing laundry every day anymore.”  And then I realized that I wasn’t paranoid about nursing anymore, I wasn’t taking bath towels with me when I needed to nurse outside the house, I wasn’t using ktichen towels because we’d used up all the receiving blankets and burp clothes (even though I’d done laundry less than 48 hours before), I wasn’t having to change into at least one extra outfit every day, I wasn’t changing Ellie’s outfit multiple times per day, I wasn’t chanting, “Embrace the spit-up” to reduce the outfit-changing, I wasn’t setting up barricades around myself while nursing in bed… (you get the idea).

I am a much happier mama!

So don’t praise the saints.  Praise the Lord!

And here’s a gratuitous adorable-Ellie shot for you, with blankets from Nana and Auntie Meggan.

A slight addendum – I started writing this blog post at the beginning of the week and since then, we had to use four sleepers in two nights because she spit up on two of them.  Not bad spit-up by her standards, but enough to have to change her.  Nik says I jinxed us but I say that I’m still grateful that she’s “mostly” stopped.  Now it’s just normal baby spit-up and not non-stop puking.  I can handle that.

* A special prize (involving Ellie-cuteness)  to the person who can name the movie that this comes from (intentionally slight misquoted).

Posted in Ellie | 6 Comments

My Inheritance

Posted on February 23, 2011 by Laura

Here is my inheritance from my Papa and Granny (my mom’s parents):

Their bathroom scale, Granny’s sunglasses, and Papa’s sock.

Interesting.

I asked to have their scale because it sat in their bathroom for my entire life and I love having it in my bathroom now.  It makes me feel connected to them and 6048 Chevigny.  I’ve blogged about Granny’s sunglasses before, notably here and here.  And Papa’s sock?  About a year before he died, I was visiting home and washed some laundry while I was there.  When I got back to Baltimore, I realized that one of Papa’s socks had made it into my clean clothes.  I just kept forgetting to mail it back to Mom and then he passed away.  It didn’t matter anymore and I realized, “I like having Papa’s sock.”  So I use it for dusting and think of him while I dust.

I am also lucky enough to have these dishes.

They were in the Stump cabin out at Tanalian for a long time.  I was counseling at junior camp there in 2000 and brought back some stuff with me to give to Papa and Granny, including these dishes.  I treasure them not so much for their looks (because I probably never would have chosen them) but because I remember Granny’s joy as she set the table for the three of us.  We couldn’t use them when we had guests because there weren’t enough so we used them on nights when it was just us.  (This is when I lived with them after I graduated from college.)  I have discovered that the largest plate (which is really a platter) is the perfect size for a round cake.  So I enjoy using it for a cake platter!

(I know I have other things from them too but for some reason, I just always think of these four things as “my inheritance” from them.)

And finally, I’ve inherited wisdom.  I often find myself saying, “Well, as Granny would say…”  One verse that my family quotes a lot and now even Nik quotes to me is Jeremiah 17:9.

The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; Who can know it?

Any time any of us kids would come up with some sort of scheme that was even remotely sketchy, Granny would shut us right down with this verse.  Ouch.

Our pastor used the verse in our wedding sermon but my reaction was probably not what he was expecting.  I busted out laughing.  Not exactly the appropriate response for a verse meant to illustrate why marriage is hard.This is what the scene looked like, plus a giant grin on my face.

I’ve been thinking about Papa and Granny a lot these days and missing them.  I think it’s because I’m sad that Ellie won’t know them and that they never got a chance to hold her.  I will show her these things that I have as small reminders of the rich Godly heritage that she has in her great-grandparents and quote her Jeremiah 17:9 as needed.   (Hopefully, that won’t be too often!)  And hopefully she’ll quote it to her kids too!

Posted in Ellie, family, love | 3 Comments

Peace, dude.

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Laura

Posted in Ellie, nursing | 3 Comments

Stats

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Laura

At 4 months, 2 weeks:

Weight: 17 pounds, 9 oz
Head Circumference: 16.75 inches (which is on the smallish side, bless her)
Height: 25.75 inches

Cuteness factor: Off the charts

 

Posted in Ellie | 3 Comments

Reclining Buddha

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Laura

Ellie’s new favorite diaper changing pose (which makes getting the diaper on and off a little more difficult)

Posted in Ellie | 3 Comments

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Laura

She loves you all too!  Nik and I send our love to you too, our family and friends!

Posted in Ellie, love | 3 Comments

Another cute classroom quote

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Laura

(and perhaps the last one you’ll ever get, sniff, sniff, at least from an ESOL kid)

I just found this in my e-mail.  I had e-mailed it to myself a long time ago to put on my other blog but I can’t remember if I ever did so I’m just going to add it in here.

This happened probably 3 years ago.  In my high beginner writing class, they had to write a description of someone in the room.  So for the example, I describe myself and included the sentence, “She is the most beautiful woman in the world.”  I wanted to see if they had gotten the joke so I asked them if this was true.

J (from El Salvador) said, “No, miss!  Only for your husband and your mother!”

Pretty smart kid!

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Rockabye baby

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Laura

Four-month old Ellie has thrown me for a loop.  I was pretty good at two and three-month Ellie.  We had a good rhythm and I knew how to meet her needs.  Then, wow – her four-month birthday came (actually a little before it) and she changed.  She stopped sleeping the way she had before, she started nursing differently, and she started interacting with me differently.  And to be honest, I didn’t like it for a while.  I had a pretty good thing going and I didn’t like the change.  I even resented it and cried a lot about it.

Thankfully, now, a couple weeks later, she and I have found a good rhythm again.  I primarily found that rhythm by accepting the new Ellie and not trying to get her to conform to some other acceptable baby norm.  We’re happy.  She’s thriving and I like being her mom again.

Here’s some lessons I’ve learned:

1. Those sleep books?  They don’t know my baby.  They don’t know my precious Ellie.  They say that it doesn’t matter how early you put them to bed, they’re still going to sleep in because babies need sleep.  Well, that’s not how my Ellie rolls.  She wants to sleep for 11 hours a night – just about on the dot.  Even though we’re now quite consistently putting her to bed around 7:30, she still wants to wake up at 6:30 in the morning.  (If we put her to bed at 8:00, she sleeps until 7:00, etc.) I was mad at her and myself about this for a few days because, well, that’s not what the books said would happen.  So I had to stop reading those books.  I took what I could from them (early bedtimes are good, babies need consistency, babies need regular naps) and then returned them to the library.  They weren’t helping me and so I had to get them out of my house.  (I like my friend Erin’s opinion of books.)

2. Even the experts don’t agree.  The sleep books say that in order to get nighttime sleep working great, you should make sure that they have a great napping schedule during the day so they aren’t over-tired.  Our pediatrician yesterday told us that in order for us to get her napping schedule regular during the day, we had to get her sleeping through the night (i.e. no middle of the night feeding).  Those are exact opposite opinions!  So I’m doing my best and trying not to worry about either.

3. Support from friends is crucial.  At one point last week, I was desperate and e-mailed the moms’ list that I’m on, basically asking, “Is this my fault? Did I do something wrong?  My baby is not acting the way she is ‘supposed’ to!”  And to a person, I heard love and grace and encouragement to figure out who Ellie is and then meet her needs.  Their words freed me to parent Ellie the way that I knew she needed me.

4. Yesterday, my cousin Joy posted a sweet video of her son Sully which is representative of the the 6:00 am conversations they have.  I appreciated this for many reasons (he’s so cute) but primarily because it illustrated to me how important it is to love our kids for who they are.  I realize a lot of parenting is helping our kids learn how to be happy, responsible, mature people.  But I don’t think we have to (or should)  fight to change who God made them.  God clearly created Sully to be an early riser.  And Joy has found beauty in how God has made him.  I’m sure she’d rather be sleeping at 6:00 in the morning but rather than resenting him, she has chosen to appreciate the son God gave her, early-morning-rising and all.  I’m trying to find that balance with Ellie too.  I know she’s only four months old but I can already see glimpses of the amazing person God has created her to be.

And I think that means being an early bird.

Posted in Ellie, parenting | 4 Comments