Writing here on this blog has been an awesome creative outlet for me, but with a little baby sucking up most of my mental energy, words have been... not... coming. (See? No vocabulary left.)
My daily allotment of words have been going to these sentences:
"No no, that is not a safe activity. Find a safe activity, please!"
"Happy guy!
"Do you want to nurse? Nuuuuuuurrrrrrse?"
"Cords are not for babies!"
"Biiiiiiig boy! Biiiiiiiig boy!"
And after saying those things over and over all day, there's not much left in my brain for blogging.
But! I've been spending my summer pouring creativity out elsewhere.
Here's what I've been making this summer!
Wraps!
I wrote about it a bunch, but I got hooked on babywearing with woven wraps, which lead to making my own woven wraps, and then dyeing woven wraps (a couple different ways- gradient dyeing and dip dye).
All in all, I've made five of these beauties- some for me, some for others- and I love doing it. So fun, and so practical!
Onesie Extenders!
While I had my sewing machine out for hemming wraps, I figured I'd attempt another project-- making a couple onesie extenders. They're not all that beautiful, but they work great (and my favorite onesies have gotten to stick around for a bit longer even when E's grown mostly out of them).
Hemp Boosters!
Our cloth diapers are still working awesome (we love cloth!)
The inserts we've been using are the microfiber ones that came with the diapers, and they've been great, but we've had some compression leaks, especially when babywearing (pee on my back) or when he has to be in a car seat for a while (pee on his seat).
To prevent that, and also to keep up with his pee-pee volume when he gets bigger, I made some hemp boosters. Hemp is super absorbent, and prevents compression leaks and holds lots and lots of fluid. I used french terry hemp, four layers. They're overkill for now, so I don't use them every day or in every diaper, but they ROCK for sitting in a car seat for more than an hour or when I want a little extra absorbency in there.
And also I got to use my sewing machine some more.
Mama Cloth!
I had some extra hemp left over after the boosters, so I made a couple pantyliners for myself, too! So soft.
I used buttons on the "wings," so I also got to learn how to use the button hole function on my sewing machine. Hurray!
Busy Book!
With two long car trips (each of them 7+ driving hours, one way), I wanted some extra tricks in my bag to entertain my ten month old. Sooooo....
I made some fabric sensory book pages! I used some of my old hand-embroidery tricks from my college days for this project.
I wanted to make each page independent of the others (so I could hand him pages one at a time in the car and keep him focused for longer), but added ribbon loops so I can "bind" them with a link or a piece of thread.
Some of the pages have cellophane in the middles, so they crinkle. Some have buttons, some have different textures of stitches, some have dangly strings.
They were veeeery popular in the car and each page bought us about ten minutes. With a baby who just wanted to get out and WIGGLE, that was a huge huge win.
I might have to write a blog post about the book.
Montessori Shelves!
With E becoming mobile (very very mobile), we had to come up with a toy storage solution that worked well for us and allowed E some independence. I spent some time researching Montessori, and we've started incorporating some of the principles in our home.
So I begged Trevor to help me make a Montessori shelf-- just a very simple, open, low shelf to allow E to get out toys by himself. He has lots of his own projects going, but he loves me, what can I say.
I measured the boards and then watched as Trevor did the rest of the project.
Pikler Triangle!
Another Montessori-inspired project...
E looooves pulling himself up on things. Mostly things he shouldn't pull up on. Things that tip or spin or have cups of cold coffee left on them or... you get it.
I was actually pretty involved with the building of this guy. I measured and cut the dowels (and cut one of them too short... so I cut them again... ahem), and drilled the holes in the side braces. And then I sanded the whole thing down a whole bunch. Trevor, of course, showed me how to do all the things, but this was mostly my project.
Totally worth it all the work-- he LOVES it.
And, bonus, it worked great as a diaper drying rack when we went camping, too! (Yay for saving $.50 by not having to use the campground dryers!)
... annnnnd... I think that's all. Whew.
It's been a busy summer, with lots of fun creative projects and even more fun together as a family!
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Today's cloth diapers are certainly a step above what I used almost 40 years ago! Love all the things you have made to make life with baby easier for you and better for him!! Enjoy each day!!
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