Halloween

It was rainy and icky tonight but it wasn't too cold and at least there was no snow, so it could have been worse.  We met up with friends and went trick-or-treating in the set of residential streets around the corner. 

Holidays are very good at reminding me how much Nicholas is growing up because things that sneak up on you gradually throughout the year become much more obvious when contrasted with a whole year before.  This year Nicholas didn't even need us to go up to houses with him--he was not only capable of doing it himself, but brave enough to do so.

From 2013 October

From 2013 October

From 2013 October

Next mission: gradually sneak candy out of his bowl so that it disappears much more quickly.  He has also already offered to share with us, so we may have to take him up on it.

And here is video of Nicholas singing the theme song from Dinosaur Train (which he has watched religiously since we started this costume): https://picasaweb.google.com/103033220833760597415/2013October?authuser=0&feat=embedwebsite#5941090726451563010

Happy Halloween!

Something To Remember

I want to always remember how excited Nicholas was to feel his baby sister moving and how his standard position when he curled up next to me was to put one hand on my belly.

From 2013 October

Pumpkin Carving

From 2013 October

From 2013 October

From 2013 October

Lessons From a Big Brother

Nicholas and I were playing a game over the weekend and I gasped a little with some of the baby's movements.  Nicholas was of course worried and I reassured him that his sister was just kicking me a little too hard.

And so Nicholas came over, put his hand on my belly and said, "Baby sister, don't hurt Mommy.  She loves us very much."

Melt my heart.

Halloween Part I

On Friday they had trick or treating on Main Street in our town and we decided to take Nicholas this year.  Nicholas loved it and amazed me with how much braver he has gotten.  Joe and I were not as thrilled.  It was SO crowded and overwhelming.  I really don't know where everyone came from--this is not a big town.  But he got to go into the barber to show the woman who cuts his hair his costume and she had a special treat for him, so that was sweet.

Also, that means I have pictures of Nicholas' completed costume.  Now that I've seen the pictures, the front is pretty boring, with all the interesting stuff on the back.  But that is true to how Buddy looks, so I don't think I'll make any changes before Thursday.

From 2013 October

From 2013 October

From 2013 October

Another parent even recognized that he was Buddy rather than a generic dinosaur!  For those of you who don't watch Dinosaur Train on a regular basis, here is a picture of Buddy for comparison:

Full Term

Yesterday I was considered full term for this pregnancy, but now I'm not. 

Nothing has actually changed with the pregnancy, but as of today they changed the definition and timeline.  The changes actually make complete sense, but I am just amused by the fact that they made the change when I was in the 2 week period whose name changed.

Link to an article explaining the change

Cashews are bigger than Peanuts

This little girl feels massive to me right now, so newborn diapers look shockingly small.  I know it is hard to tell in this picture, but they are itsy bitsy.  Will she really be that tiny?  And, if so, why in the world am I so big?!

From 2013 October

Speaking of size, we had an ultrasound today and she is measuring a tad on the big size.  They estimate that at this moment (37 weeks) she is already 7 lbs 4 oz (something like 68th percentile).  Now, those measurements are +/- a pound, so it doesn't actually mean anything definitive.  But the rule of thumb is that they gain about a half pound a week in these last weeks, so that would mean that on her due date she should be just shy of 9 pounds, again +/- a pound.  For comparison, Nicholas was 8 lbs 6oz at 4 days late. 

But, more importantly, she is doing really well.  All the organs seem to be working properly, she is practicing "breathing" and drinking, her heart rate is good, etc.  The doctor is estimating that she will be within a few days of her due date on one side or the other and sees no reason for worry.  Let's hope everything goes as smoothly as he expects it to.  If his estimates are correct, 2-3 more weeks until we meet her!

Bassinet . . . and Channeling my Mother

I don't want to embarrass her, so I won't say too much, but let's just say my mom is a domestic McGyver.  I swear she can construct a solution to any problem using spare parts lying around the house.  I have often been awed by this, since my brain tends to function much more linearly and so imagining outside-the-box solutions just doesn't come naturally.

But over the last year or so there have been more and more occasions when I did something or came up with a solution and thought, "hey, that is something my mom would do." 

Well, this project is totally something my mom would do.  Okay, maybe not, because she likely wouldn't consider the aesthetics of something few people will see and that will only be used for a couple months a problem worthy of investing time and money to solve, but assuming she was trying to solve said problem, this is a Mom-worthy solution. 

We were lent this awesome bassinet by a co-worker.

From 2013 October

This is awesome for so many reasons.  Given the lack of a nursery, the baby will likely share our room for months and so using the pack n' play like we did for Nicholas would have been a pain.  But this is smaller than the pack n' play and therefore fits more easily in the corner of our room.  It is also super-duper light, which combined with being smaller means it can be easily pulled through doorways and so moved to different rooms.  The legs also flip with just two quick buttons to make it a rocker rather than stationary.  And it is safe to use with a 6-month old, whereas the pack n' play bassinet is only for up to 15 pounds.

But . . . it is very orange.  And metal.  And Scandanavian.  I don't want to say Ikea because that implies cheap and I am positive it is not that, but the design aesthetics of Ikea.  Which lots of people love.  It is modern and sleek and bold.  But, let's be honest.  We are none of those things.

So I decided to make a cover for it.  But this was easier said than done because it is on loan so I couldn't stitch anything to the fabric or in any other way alter the original.  And I didn't want to have anything go inside the bassinet itself where it could be potentially dangerous for the baby.  The base plan was safety pins, but I knew I wouldn't be able to get the fabric to hang the way I wanted.

And so I ended up engineering a hanging system using 4 metal hangers that I re-bent into basically curtain rods and attached around the little round screws on each leg

From 2013 October

After that it was basically just making 4 curtains.  There was a tiny bit more to it than that since the legs are at angles and so the curtains had to angle as well, but that wasn't too hard.

And so here is the final product:

From 2013 October

And, yes, in case all the bragging hadn't tipped you off, I am inordinately proud of myself for this.  Because, really, this is a Mom-worthy project.

Sick Day Crafting

A quick update on Nicholas: he woke up this morning with no fever and went all day without one.  Just before bed he was up about a degree and felt the tiniest bit warm, but nothing significant.  He has a really awful sounding cough and his voice sounds like he has been smoking a couple packs a day, but he seems to be feeling at least 90%.  Unless something changes overnight, he'll be going to school in the morning (knock on wood), but I think we will try to pick him up early, before they do afternoon outside play time, just to keep him from pushing too hard.

But as has now become our routine, we used his sick day at home to work on one of our craft projects.  We started a cloth book for his sister a couple months ago, but set it aside to work on the dinosaur costume, so we finished that up today. 

I made an ABC book over the summer that is much more photo-worthy, but decided after finishing that one that it wasn't actually baby friendly.  I mean, really, infants have no interest in the alphabet and the pastel colors say "baby" to us but are actually pretty boring to a baby.  So Nicholas helped me pick out a bunch of black and white patterned fabrics (the colors babies see best and so the patterns they are most captivated by in the first couple months) and fabrics with cool animals.  The goal is that whoever is "reading" the book to her will have more to say about the owl wearing a baseball hat than about the letter "B."

From 2013 October

From 2013 October

From 2013 October

From 2013 October

From 2013 October

From 2013 October

From 2013 October

Anyway, I still think the premise was good but am not thrilled with some points of the execution.  But the goal was to have fun together and involve him in a project for her, not to have something award-winning.  And in those goals, we succeeded. 

At his big sibling class a couple weeks ago the teacher told the kids that they should bring a birthday present for their baby sibling to the hospital (thanks, lady) and Nicholas has been talking about this a lot, wondering what he should get for his sister.  So after we finished the book today I had him wrap it and put it in the diaper bag so it would be at the hospital with us.  He can then give it to her when he comes to visit. 

From 2013 October

He is so excited!

Pumpkin Picking

We decided to try a different place for pumpkin picking this year and it turned out to be a complete zoo, so we got our pumpkins and apple cider donuts and hightailed it out of there.  But the pumpkins were beautiful.

From 2013 October

Another Fever

Nicholas has a fever.  And I am currently trying to convince myself that it is not the end of the world as I know it.  Trying.  Tomorrow is my work-from-home day, the day I'm supposed to grade 30 student papers and 5 paper proposals.  As in, absolutely have to because my grading schedule is compressed with the baby coming and so instead of the 2 weeks I usually give myself to get things back to them, I have to finish the rest of these papers by Friday because they have to turn in their rewrite by next Friday.  Because I need to be done with those by the time the baby comes.  And Thursday and Friday I have meetings and classes back-to-back literally all day and Joe has classes.  Not to mention the fact that I need to somehow avoid getting sick myself.  So somehow I need to grade more quickly than usual while comforting and caring for a sick child while not getting his germs.  Piece of cake.

I know, small potatoes.  But this is the thing with the work-parenting balancing act: you can sort of manage it until a kid gets sick and then all the balls fall down around you.  There is no wiggle room.

Bright side?  I guess we'll make some progress on those crafts we've put aside.

Getting Ready

We are now under 4 weeks to the due date.  And so we have spent most of the last two weekends working intensively on cleaning and organizing and getting all the baby gear washed and set up.  Given that our apartment was already bursting at the seams, this required a lot of reorganization, cleaning, and trips back and forth to the storage unit.  But we are now almost ready.  The cars are ready and just a few more hours of work and the house should be ready.  We even started packing hospital bags. 

The problem with all of this prep work is that it makes it feel like her arrival should be imminent.  Because the timing is so unpredictable, it was essential to get ready now, but it makes the last part of the pregnancy feel even longer.  Will she come in 4 weeks?  2?  6?  My money is on 3.  We'll see.

Vermont

It has taken me a week and a half and even with that this is likely to be a pretty incomprehensible post because it was just a looooong day at work and my brain has shut off, but here is a Vermont post.

My mother's father is from Vermont originally and even though he hasn't lived there in over 60 years, it remains a very important place to him.  And Vermont in the fall is his absolute favorite.  And because it is special to him and so trips there were significant parts of their childhoods, it is also a special place to my mom and her siblings (climbing Mt. Mansfield in particular). 

It was not a big part of my childhood because we lived in California and so didn't make it out.  But the applesauce my grandmother made with Vermont Macintosh apples that she and Grandpa got when they were in Vermont each fall was a very important part of my childhood.  I remember Grandma bringing us out a few jars when they came to visit, having packed them carefully in her carry-on (on the list of things you can't do anymore).  I have a vivid memory of this occasion one year (I can quite literally see her carry-on bag in my mind and see us standing at baggage claim waiting while Grandpa and my mom got their checked luggage and we guarded the carry-on of applesauce), but I assume it happened other years as well.  And visits to Grandma and Grandpa's house always included applesauce that had been made and frozen.  I can still taste it.  It was objectively wonderful applesauce, but there is also a magical quality of something you only got once a year or so and that is connected to childhood memories at your grandparents' house.  Nicholas and I have tried making it ourselves, but it isn't quite right.  There was some at my Grandpa's house this summer that my mom or an aunt must have made or worked with Grandpa on at some point, though, that was really close.  And I savored every spoonful, being transported back in time 20 years.

Anyway, that was a long tangent to explain why we were in Vermont.  Grandpa and three of my aunts and uncles spent a week in Vermont and my parents, a cousin and her son, and Nicholas and I joined them for the weekend.  Nicholas now refers to the house we stayed in as "the Vermont house" as though we own it, because it is the same house we all stayed at last summer.  He also calls it "the barn house" because it is a barn red color and the windows overlooking the driveway have a barn-like feel.  I was surprised that he remembered it so well from last summer, but when I said we were going to Vermont he immediately started talking about which room we would stay in at "the barn house."

We didn't climb Mt. Mansfield this time around (realistically no more than half of us would have been up for it) and we didn't camp (I know it is treasonous, but I really do enjoy this new tradition of renting a house instead of camping--I have gone soft), but we did do some shorter hikes and roast a few marshmallows in a backyard fire pit.  And, honestly, the hikes we did were the most I could manage these days.  I actually wondered if I'd even be able to do those, but the hideous compression stockings I've been wearing for the last month or so have made a huge difference.  It pains me that a mile-long hike is a huge accomplishment for me, but there have been enough points in the last couple months where walking across campus (all of probably 400 yards) caused extreme pain that I thought it might not be possible.  And, to be honest, I really only did as much as I did through sheer perseverance (or, as Joe would term it, stubbornness).  And I did take the rock sections up and down from the waterfall in a crouch with both hands holding on at all points, although that was more to protect the baby than out of pain.  I am positive I looked ridiculous, but since I only have pictures from my camera, I luckily have no photographic evidence of this.  The only reason this worked of course is that my mom took charge of Nicholas and keeping a hand on him so that I would have my hands free to keep myself from falling.  I felt like I missed out some by not getting to go out into some of the more adventurous spots, but it was fun to watch Nicholas and my mom out on their adventures.

And so on to the pictures:
This looks like an appropriate trail for someone 34 weeks pregnant, doesn't it?

From 2013 September

From 2013 September

If I reach just a little further . . .

From 2013 September

From 2013 September

Not so sure about this whole roasted marshmallow thing at first. For a kid who refuses to eat anything above room temperature, though, he warmed up to the idea pretty quickly.

From 2013 September

From 2013 September

From 2013 September

From 2013 September

Costume Update

Done!  It turns out that making a basic shirt and pants were way easier than I had expected, especially since I was using fleece and these are one-time use items and so I just cut off edges instead of worrying about pretty hems.

Nicholas still insists that he is getting covers for his shoes with claws.  I say the costume is done as is.  He'll probably win in the end, but I'm calling the costume complete and moving on to other things.

I have already bought fabric for my next project (a prettier cover for the bassinet).  I actually want to start on it tonight, but I promised Nicholas that he could help with that.  So instead I may have to channel the nesting energy into something actually practical, like reorganizing the living room.  So much less fun!

Halloween Costume

Most of you already know this from facebook, but Nicholas has decided to be a t-rex for Halloween. And I volunteered to make his costume. We spent one evening a month ago (I figured I needed to start early on this project, all things considered) looking through options online and once Nicholas saw the costumes for Buddy, the t-rex on Dinosaur Train (a show on PBS kids), he was dead set on being not just a t-rex, but Buddy in particular.  Now, keep in mind that before that evening he had seen Dinosaur Train maybe twice and couldn't have picked Buddy out of a police lineup.  But he was sold.

PBS has a free Buddy costume pattern online, but I wasn't thrilled with how costumes made based on it turned out.  But in searching for pictures online of completed costumes based on that pattern I came across a couple of mommy blogs of people who had modified that pattern in various ways.  So based on a combination of the PBS pattern, a McCalls pattern I bought, various websites, and a lot of time studying pictures of Buddy from every angle google images can give me, I've put together the beginnings of a costume that I am very happy with.

So far I have completed the tail and the head.  I figured I'd start with those two because they are both the hardest and the most essential.  If this costume was going to be impossible, I wanted to figure it out early on while I could still go shopping.  And I figured that once those two pieces were done, if need be I could order an orange shirt and pants online and he would still be recognizable.

Here is the tail:

From 2013 September

And the head (which I finished tonight):

From 2013 October

Nicholas has been helping some, although not as much as on other projects simply because a lot of it is really complicated.  It also frustrates him because since I'm engineering so much of it, I have to stop and think a lot in between steps.  I will keep trying to include him where I can, but when I sense him getting frustrated I tend to switch to the baby book project he and I are working on, because that one he can help with virtually every step.

Here he is working the foot pedal on the sewing machine and watching very closely so he knows when to stop:

From 2013 October

Next up are a shirt and pants.  I had planned on also making hands and feet (mittens and shoe covers with claws), but I have this feeling I may not make it that far.  We'll see.  But I do feel much better that I've gotten this far and it is only October 5th.  Now, we started 4 weeks ago, but that is exactly why we started 4 weeks ago.

New England Fall

From 2013 September