Mommy Break

Yesterday my MIL came over to watch Sawyer and after I put him down for his afternoon nap I left my house... alone.... I went to Target to get some 50% off Easter candy (but only bought a few things as the bagged candy was still only 30% off. I hate when they do that.) and then took myself to Arctic Roadrunner for lunch. I had a burger, fries, and a Dr. Pepper. And I didn't even feel bad about the soda. I still had a while before I had to be back home, so I just sat there and knit. And knit. And knit. It felt like forever. It was realistically probably an hour and an half. But it was amazing to be able to knit without having to take a break to untangle the yarn from baby hands or to hand a toy back to Sawyer. I got 2 repeats on Weston's sock done (yeah, that pair of socks I started for him last summer....) so I'm a bit closer to finishing that. I think I might try and get it done in time for his birthday...

It was really nice to just get out of the house and have some me time. I get out a lot more than I used to when Sawyer was younger, but he still pretty much goes everywhere with me... I'm really thankful that my MIL is so willing to come in and watch Sawyer as often as she can.

In other news, Sawyer still isn't into eating food. We keep trying the rice cereal and he keeps making a face and spitting it out.  We tried sweet potatoes today and he made a face... after about 3 spoons of it though he didn't spit quite as much out. So I think we are going to stick with those for a few days and see how he does.

I did get my fiber stash all photographed and up on Ravelry. I have a lot, but not quite as much as I thought, so that is good! :) I need to start spinning some yarn for a baby surprise jacket for Sawyer. I am hoping to take a class that starts on May 7th.... guess I better get spinning!

Scooter

I hope everyone had a great weekend. We had a nice little Easter. Sawyer, Weston, and I celebrated at home... Sawyer got a set of blocks made of recycled plastic from an awesome toy store in town, Sweet Adeline's. It is definitely worth checking out. I wanted to buy everything... a lot of things weren't "age appropriate" for Sawyer yet, but he is very advanced and will be ready for the toys soon! :) Anyway, Weston would build something for Sawyer and then Sawyer would destroy it... we called him "Baby Godzilla" Very fun.

We then went to my parent's house for a little while.  My dad had bought him a walker, which Sawyer is almost tall enough for... he can scoot around in it a little bit, but give him a couple of weeks and he will be zooming around the house like a crazy person. My parents really enjoyed spending a few hours with Sawyer. It has been a while since they have seen him, as someone in their house has been sick for the last few weeks...

Other than that, not much going on.  My goal for the day is to write down everything I have in my fiber stash... I have plans for some of it and hope that by going through it and looking at it all that I will come up with an idea with what I want to do with all of it. I also hope to go through my yarn stash again and make sure that everything in there is still something that I want... sometimes things tend to wind up in there that I don't really need. I need to keep making space... soon I would like to move Sawyer into his own room. He is a noisy sleeper (when he does sleep) and it drives me crazy.

Not sure if I mentioned this, but my mom and I are trying something new.  Every Tuesday night (hopefully, tonight is the first night we are getting together) we are planning to get together and craft. My goal is to spend a few hours working on something that is a WIP, hopefully turning it into a FO. Then, if I get enough things done, we might start working on a crocheted afghan.... a long-term WIP, but if we work on it every week, it would, in theory, get finished in a reasonable amount of time...

Alright, have to shower while Sawyer is napping. He does not appreciate me showering when he is up and is quite loud with his displeasure.

Cloth Diapers pt. 2

Just remembered a few more reasons that I use cloth on Sawyer. It has to be more comfortable... would you like to wear paper underwear?? Having worn paper underwear (it's what they sent me home in from the birth center) I must say that cotton is WAY more comfortable. It's also easy, cute, and not wasteful. When Sawyer pees on me when he is being changed, the diaper just goes in the pail, not in the garbage. I didn't waste any money, where as throwing away a diaper could cost up to 25 cents.

Here is a great article about cloth and one of the companies I have ordered from, the Happy Baby Company.  They have excellent customer service.

We are heading to the doctor today to get the go ahead to feed Sawyer. Be on the look out for the update on that in the next couple of days! I might try to get it on video....

PS. Just found another great article on cloth.... maybe the more people see, the more popular it will become!! I love my cloth diapers!!!

6 months old!

Happy half-birthday Sawyer! I can't believe you are already 6 months old. It has been very fun watching you learn and grow.... I do wish you would sleep better (if you had a baby report card, it would look something like this... "Cuteness: A+ Picking things up: A+ Overall awesomeness: A+ Sleeping: F") but, other than that, I don't have too much to complain about. You are a great baby (minus the sleeping thing) and it is so fun to watch you play and enjoy life. You have been really into the pups lately, reaching for them when they walk by, and talking to them... which has been really fun. I can not wait until tomorrow when we go to the doctor and get the "go ahead" to feed you solid foods! Watch out... this will be exciting.

Organic

I must be on a hippie blog post wave... next up... organic food.

During the summer, I grow a fair amount of the veggies we eat in my garden, spinach, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, etc. It's awesome. Most of the other veggies we eat come from our Full Circle Farm CSA box. We recently upgraded to the family size box and started splitting it with Weston's parents, who are trying to eat healthier.

My MIL mentioned that she heard (on the Today show, probably) that you shouldn't (or probably, rather, don't have to) buy organic foods with peels, like an orange for example, because you don't eat the outside.

This leads me to my point, which is why I eat organic food, when possible. I think it is better for me, and better for the Earth. I don't want all of those chemicals on my food, in my water, or in my soil. So, for me, I purchase as many things as I can that are grown organically.  Even if I'm not going to eat the peel, because in my mind, it is still better for the ecosystem to be growing organically. We have dramatically lowered our meat intake because we simply can not afford to buy meat that we feel good about eating. We are looking into buying a freezer and half of a cow from a farm in the valley, but we need to save up some $$.

Anyway, if you can afford to buy only those organic foods that are on the "dirty dozen" list, buy those. It is important to asses why you are doing things and what is important to you. For me, buying as many organics as I can get my hands on is my mission.

Cloth Diapers

In case you didn't know, I cloth diaper Sawyer. I have done so since he was about 3 days old. (I used disposables at first because I had bought them when our washer broke two weeks before my due date and just decided to use them. If I had to do it again, I wouldn't have used them...) When we first started with cloth, we used flat cotton diapers and waterproof covers. It was simple and easy. They were what you would think of when you heard people saying "cloth diapers".  Then, around 3 months, Sawyer's skin began to get too sensitive for the flats. His skin would be constantly irritated, and I couldn't solve the problem.  I was also in the process of looking for a nighttime diaper that would keep him dry all night.

I bought a few Bum Genius pocket diapers to use at night and loved them.  They kept him dry all night, and he would wake up with nice, un-irritated skin. So I bought a few more and decided that I would switch to them exclusively. We went to our "local" (in Wasilla) diaper store, Arctic Baby Bottoms, and bought 14 of the Bum Genius diapers, 9 with snaps and 5 with velcro.  I decided I didn't like the snaps (and had luckily, kept all but one of them in the packaging, as I knew I just wanted to try them) and was able to take them back.  I also was having weird leaking issues with them. It was getting annoying to have to change Sawyer's clothes every time I had to change his diaper.

Then I decided to order one Rumparooz diaper. I LOVED it. I asked if Arctic Baby Bottoms could get them for me (as I like to support local business) and she was able to! So, now I have 16 rumparooz and a few other Bum Genius diapers that I use in a pinch. These diapers are so easy to use. They are cute, easy to wash, and everyone I show them to is impressed... who knew cloth could be like this? 


I guess the reason I am posting this is to have people think about modern cloth diapering. It isn't primitive. You don't need to use pins anymore. My diapers are put on exactly like a disposable, but I don't throw them away. And because Sawyer is only on breast milk right now, everything just goes in the washer.  When he starts food (next week!) I will start putting flushable liners in the diapers so I can just pull out the liner and toss it in the toilet before I wash them. No scraping, no dunking, simple.

So why do I use cloth? I hate throwing things away. It's wasteful. I don't want my child to live on top of a landfill. It is cheaper.... I don't actually think we could afford to use any other diaper. And, yes, I spent probably $400 on his diaper set up now, BUT it is a one-time cost. I'm done. And, if I take good care of my diapers, I can re-sell them and recoup at least 50% of my cost, or use them for any other children we might choose to have. You can't do that with disposable diapers... you just throw money in the trash. Another reason is disposable diapers are filled with gross chemicals that I don't really want next to my child's junk.... one of the chemicals in diapers is known to cause TSS and was required to be removed from tampons... yuck. So, if you are having a baby or know someone who is having a baby, give cloth another look. It's awesome!

Oh, mom...

I am guilty of dressing my son in crazy outfits and making him do baby photo shoots... I figure this is the only time I will be able to do this, as soon, when he can move, he will just run away or fight back.

This was one of the pictures from the shoot yesterday. It's not the best one, but it is one of my favorites because it shows how Sawyer is learning to play with things. It is really fun. He is very good at reaching and grabbing things that he wants to grab... and then putting them in his mouth. Soon (next week!) he is going to be able to start eating food, which I am SUPER excited about. It is going to be quite the messy and fun adventure. 

The hat Sawyer is wearing is one that I knit for him. I made up the pattern. There are pipe cleaners running up the sides of the ears to keep them upright. Weston is obsessed with how awesome he thinks Sawyer looks in this hat, and I'm pretty sure he will be wearing it everywhere he goes this month. 

In other news, I finished spinning my swap yarn and it made it's way into the mail today. I am now spinning for the Little Mermaid SAL that I am in... my batts are Sebastian, the crab... they are red, yellow, and sparkly and I love them! I will see what happens with them... I was planning on autowrapping them with gold thread, but that didn't work out, so then I was thinking of plying them with some yellow yarn I have... so we will see if I do that, or leave it as a single. 

Not too much sewing being done, and I kind of have an excuse... we had a new water heater put in yesterday. And it is in my craft closet. So, I need to find space for a bunch of stuff that used to live in the closet.... Not too much knitting either. I was really focused on finishing my swap yarn, as that had a deadline. 

I will leave you with two more pictures from Sawyer's various photo shoots. Sometimes the rejected pictures are my favorites....

Wine

I listened to an awesome podcast the other day about how much the price of wine effects how people thinks it tastes. It was quite interesting. (The podcast was Freakonomics, and can be downloaded on iTunes) Basically, if people were told the wine was more expensive, they would rate it higher. There was even one person who made up a restaurant and a wine list, then submitted it to a wine magazine in an attempt to win an award.  He was trying to prove that the awards were basically an advertising scheme. He won an award... even though on his wine list were many expensive wines the magazine had previously bashed. It was quite the embarrassment for the magazine.

When tastings are done where the tasters (both trained and untrained) have no idea how much the wine costs, it seems that almost all of them choose the less expensive wine. So drink up! And save your money for more cheap wine. :)

It's funny...

I remember grocery shopping with my mom. She has a habit of not reading things and winding up at home with the wrong items.... diet coke instead of regular, plain chips when she wanted BBQ, etc. When I was with her, I would mention when she was buying something that was out of the norm... "oh, wait, yeah, I want the other one"....

The other day Weston came home and he was all excited because he had found 5 bottles of his favorite shampoo on clearance at Carrs. 50% off! Too bad three of the bottles were conditioner. "Oh man... I didn't see that"... silly...

Not that I am not guilty of forgetting to read. It often costs me time and not money... as I typically forget to read patterns, knitting or sewing patterns. Then I think "damn... that just took X minutes and now I have to undo it"...

So, lesson learned. Take the time to read. It might save you time and money.

A collaborative FO

A long time ago (September of last year) I became obsessed with knitting a sweater for Baby (who is now Sawyer, but at the time, was Baby). I was on bed rest, and my amazing friend Kelsey picked out the yarn for me and brought it to my house.... I then knit the sweater.... I finished the knitting in January.... then the sweater sat in a bag...

And sat....

And sat....

It just needed to be put together. The sweater was steeked, which I had never done, so I took it into work so another knitting teacher could help me. I carefully sewed my steeks, and even cut one of them. Then back into the bag the sweater went.

Where it sat some more.

Every time I thought about the sweater I would be annoyed at myself. I just needed to finish it. I even took everything out of the bag one time to finish it, but then became so overwhelmed that I wanted to throw it in the garbage. I didn't care about this dumb sweater anymore. I was sure it was too small for Sawyer and I just wanted it out of my life.

So in a fit of desperation, I emailed Kelsey and asked her to finish the sweater for me. Yes, it was kind of a cop out. BUT, I also feel like it was a very adult move to ask for help. If being a new mom has taught me anything, it is that asking for help is not a weakness, it does not make you a lesser person, it is a GREAT thing. So, I did it. I asked. And she finished it for me for my birthday. Best present ever. And, it is even a bit big for Sawyer. He has been wearing it with the sleeves rolled up on dog walks the past couple of days....

She did an amazing job and I am very grateful.  Thank you, Kelsey, for all of your help and being the amazing knitter and friend you are! 

I'm home

We made it home from Texas. I have a lot to say, but no real energy to talk about it right now. I think I need to decompress and have a little bit of time before I talk about the trip. I am VERY glad to be home.

I am almost finished knitting Sawyer's monster. I just need to finish 1.5 legs and seam him up. I am really happy with my yarn choice (cascade 220 tweed) and I think when it is finished, it will become a favorite toy. It does have to go on display at the shop for a while (I am teaching a class) so I will probably cast on another one (in a different pattern) for Sawyer to play with while this one is gone.

I am going to run a few errands with my mom today, to Costco, Target, and a fabric store. I need to get fabric to finish my brother's pillowcases that I promised him for Christmas. Oops. Better late than never, I guess. I'm waiting on Sawyer to wake up.... when that kid is on his schedule, he is an awesome sleeper.

I hope everyone had a nice weekend. I am loving the weather! It is nice and warm.... I can tell summer is almost here!