Rockin' (recovered)

Labor day weekend, Phil and I had taken the dogs for a walk one Saturday morning.  On the way back, we stopped by a garage sale that was just around the corner from our house.  I wasn't looking for anything in particular at the time.  But I was kind of thrilled when I saw a glider rocking chair (without cushions).  I was kind of glad it didn't have cushions because used cushions would have creeped me out.  After talking with the owner, he said he would take $12 for it.

We bought it.  Then we went and got some foam and fabric and I made some new cushions.  I knew it would come in handy one day when we had a baby.  I could just recover the cushions and be good to go.

I found out I was pregnant 4 days later.

I think the rocking chair was a rather fortunate find.

When I was working on my novel during November, I spent a great deal of time in the rocking chair and I discovered something about it...  It wasn't that comfortable.  This was going to be a problem.  It needed WAY more cushioning on the bottom and some better back support.

Now I'm not a master seamstress.  Sure, I can sew a bit but I am NO WHERE near a professional.  I would LOVE to just buy some new cushions for the chair, but they are pretty expensive.  And since Phil's still in grad school and I own a business in a bad economy (read: pay cut), money is a little on the tight side.  That's one reason why we have been trying to do everything in the nursery ourselves.  Buying new cushions just wasn't something I wanted to spend $100+ on.

So I bought some fabric on clearance several months ago and set it aside.  I was dreading this project more than any other.  I don't know why.  I think because I knew it wouldn't turn out great.  And also because I hadn't totally figured out how to change the cushion pattern.  But I just needed to get it done and over with.

And I did.

Wednesday night, I decided I would just do it.  Of course, I had a helper:

{Drawing the patterns and cutting the fabric was not exactly comfortable or 

easy with the baby belly.  Thank goodness I had Cotton to hold the fabric down.}

I got most of it done Wednesday night and spent last night finishing the cushions, as well as making a neck pillow (to help me sleep in the chair) and a pillow for better back support.

Don't look at it too closely.  I'm not terribly thrilled with how it turned out.  But I think as it gets used, the cushion will wear well.  I do kind of love the back pillow though.  It is a slipcover, so it can be taken off and washing and it turned out almost exactly how I envisioned it.

It is MUCH more comfortable now (a definite must) and currently residing in its new home, the nursery.

That was my last BIG project!  Now I just have smaller projects to get the nursery all finished up.

1 a Day

I have felt like I haven't gotten a lot done at home lately.  I've had good reason.  It's not JUST that I'm tired (although making a person does take it out of you).  In the last couple of weeks, I have had several events and commitments in the evenings after work.  Some of them have been personal.  Some of them have been for work.  All of them have been great.

But it left me feeling really drained.  When my free weekend rolled around, I found that I got tired by noon after completing only a few tasks.  It was really frustrating to me because I really like making lists and then crossing things OFF the list.

Plus, I have been oscillating between feeling like my due date will NEVER get here and then realizing quickly that in reality, the baby could come SOON.  Most of the mothers of boys I know had their babies either before or on their due dates.  (This also kind of makes me think that I will go past my due date, but whatever.)  But I should probably stop putting things off because we think we have so much time left.

To combat this problem, I have decided that on days when I don't have commitments in the evening, I am going to make it my goal to do one thing an evening.  And the one thing is in addition to normal nightly activities such as making dinner, picking up, etc.

So far this week, I have achieved my goal.  Monday night, I folded and put away all the laundry I had washing over the weekend (because I was too tired to do it after it came out of the dryer).  

And last night, I did all of the Thank You cards for my baby shower (which I still need to download the pictures from and post about because it was awesome).  I sat on the couch and only got up to get my dinner plate, go to the bathroom, and take off my pants (because who wears pants in their own house?).  

Of course I had some help reading off addresses from my computer...

I finally finished at 10:15 which was WAY past my bedtime.  At which point, my hand looked like this:

Oh the joys of being left-handed.  Gotta love smearing ink all over the place.  I still have ink on my hand after several attempts to wash it off.  Also, my hand constantly wants to claw up like that.  I haven't done that much hand-writing in a LONG time.  (Side note: it is shockingly difficult to take a picture of the side of your hand.)

Tonight's task, finish recovering the STUPID GLIDER!  I don't know why this task has me at a stand-still.  One more reason that I just need to get it done so I can move on to other, more enjoyable, projects.

A Bad Dream

I've had some weird pregnancy dreams.  Some of them have been so weird that when I wake up and tell Phil, he looks at me and says, "Yeah... don't repeat that to anyone."

So I don't.

Last night, I had a bad dream.

I dreamt that I had the baby right now, he was 16 pounds (which is terrifying) and then he died.

Obviously, the dream woke me up.  Unfortunately, it returned every time I fell back asleep for the rest of the night.

I hate dreams like that.  You wake feeling vulnerable and scared.  It doesn't matter that I know the odds of any of those things happening is extremely small (especially the part about having a 16 pound baby).  The emotions during the dreams are so strong, you just can't shake them.

This was definitely not a great way to start my day.

Thankfully, the little man has been doing everything he can to let me know that he is more than alright.  We've had a nice little morning of lots of gentle little movements.  Nothing painful or jarring (not like last night when he moved into a position that made it totally impossible to sit down without pain).

Already, he's such a good boy.  :)

{From our February ultrasound.  

He can go ahead and stay in there until he's good and ready to greet the world.  

But hopefully that's before he weighs 16 pounds.}

Weekend Happenings

I had the best of intentions for this weekend.  I was going to get so many things done.  So many nursery projects, including recovering the stupid glider cushions.  Want to know how many I did?

NONE.

Zero.  Zip.  Nada.

I did, however, manage to run some errands, do all of our laundry, get the house dusted, Phil vacuumed, cleaned the kitchen floors, and cleaned the kitchen sink (again).  The one thing I did do that could be considered baby related was that I washed the waterproof mattress cover and got it on the bed.  Does that count?  I'm counting it.

Here's what did happen:

-  Cotton found a new place to lay down.  Totally normal.

-  We got a Kuerig and it has only strengthened my love of drinking out of a mason jar.

-  My NEED for French Toast took over Sunday morning.  And I refused to go out to breakfast and pay for it when I could make it just as well at home.  It was delicious.

 -  All it took was an hour at the park to finally tucker out the crazy pup and get my puppy snuggles.  That's Cotton, resting his head on my belly and the babe.  Turns out, Baby Janney wasn't a huge fan and he kicked like crazy until Cotton moved his head.

Despite my lack of productivity, I'm going to say it was a wonderful weekend.

Lack of Weekend Plans

It's a little strange to me just how much I am looking forward to this weekend.  It's not like we have anything special going on.  In fact, it is the exact opposite.

It's the first weekend since the beginning of January that we have NOTHING planned.  And that weekend in January shouldn't even count because we were so busy getting ready to not have free weekends that we have a really busy weekend.  So let's say it is the first free weekend we have had since the beginning of December.  That's really more accurate.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE weekend plans.  We have been so blessed to get to spend time with people we love and care about.  But there is also something really nice about doing nothing, amiright?

There's absolutely no way we will be doing nothing this weekend, however.  Nesting along with the realization that we really could have a baby in like 5 weeks (not likely but possible) has given me more motivation to finish the nursery, clean every piece of laundry, and scrub every corner of the house probably all in one day.

This post really has no purpose other than the fact that I am SO EXCITED that I can do whatever I want this weekend.  :)  It's not like I'll be sitting on the couch, watching TV, eating ice cream.  Here's a brief list of the things I am hoping to get done this weekend:

-  Sleep
-  A little baby shopping
-  Finish the chenille baby blanket and write post about it
-  Work on wall hangings for nursery
-  Get carseat out of the box
-  Make carseat cover
-  Make Bobby slipcover
-  Make Cincinnati Chili
-  Recover glider cushions
-  Make pillow cover for glider pillow


There's pretty much no way I can get all of that done.  But I have the time to try.  :)

And I'm going to join these guys:

That is definitely happening.

Ok I'm done talking.

It Was Only a Matter of Time...

It was only a matter of time.

Cotton finally figured out how to start the, shall we say... "dance of love" with Taylor yesterday morning.

He's been getting close to figuring it out for a while now.  He'll stand up on Taylor, as a way to coax her into playing with him.  It basically never works.  Taylor's not into that kind of thing.

Or at least we thought.

You know what doesn't send the right message?  Licking his Cotton balls, if you catch my drift.

Such a tease.

We will be doing our best to prevent this behavior, but it's hard when she's not exactly stopping him either.  Thankfully, he usually tries to come at her from the front.  Little guy doesn't have it all figured out.

{His first day home.  It was so much simpler then.}

Not sure this was the most appropriate post I've ever written.  Whatever.

PS - I'm really hoping this post doesn't generate some weird and disturbing Google Search results for me.

Thursday?

A part of me can't believe it is already Thursday and another part of me can.  This week has been jam-packed with activities and I am seriously looking forward to our weekend that has NOTHING planned for BOTH Saturday AND Sunday.  Whoa that was a lot of caps.  But it needed to be done.  We haven't had an entirely free weekend for at least 10 weeks.  All the free time almost makes me want to cry with joy.

What has this week entailed?  I'm so glad you asked...

I'll just tell you what we did Monday.

To celebrate being finished with our Bradley Class, we decided to take another class!  It was a one-night Baby Care and Feeding Class at the Hospital.  I've never had a newborn before, so I am always ready to soak up more knowledge on how to take care of one.  And since Phil has had VERY little exposure to babies in his life, he really wanted more information.  We are nerds... we like research.

We walked into the class and immediately had to grab a doll to practice with.  Phil grabbed the darkest skinned baby doll available, which I thought was funny.  We then proceeded to talk about how each of us would have some serious concerns if our baby was that color.  I believe Phil said to me that I would have a lot of explaining to do.  I agreed with him.  However, I know this won't be an issue and our child will be as pasty and white as we are.

We passed the class with flying colors and left feeling like we won't actually kill or harm our future newborn with our ignorance.  Money well spent.

The class did, however, completely freak me out about SIDS.  I mean, I had known about SIDS and have actually known someone who lost their baby to SIDS, but it wasn't really something I was too terribly worried about.  If you know me in person, you'd know this is a small miracle.  I'm completely and totally anxious about almost everything.  And class woke the anxiety beast in me.

It just so happens that the next day or so, I saw a couple of bloggers mention the Snuza Halo Baby Movement Monitor and I am seriously considering purchasing it.

Sure, it's over $100 (seriously Amazon raised the price $10 since Phil and I looked at it last night), but I think the fact that I won't be sleeping at all because I'll be monitoring my baby's every breath might make it money well spent.  Therapy costs more than that.

Alright, I just thoroughly talked myself into it.

Do any of you have any experience with a monitor like this one?

Happy Thursday!!