Tab thinks she's clever for doing a kid's craft.

I know that this is a child's activity, but I had so much fun doing it that I wanted to share regardless. PeaPillyBean showed us a window that her kids had decorated using tissue paper and glue, and I was inspired! Stained glass from tissue paper, woo!

The 'Stained Glass'

In context, and the view from our lounge.

I used clear gum to stick it to the glass. A friend who was visiting while I was doing it helpfully asked if the glue comes off. Um... I hope so? I honestly didn't do a test first [very silly of me] so I really hope so, but this will be fun to leave up for a few weeks anyway :)

Titchy Cute Thongs

Addie had some cute 2nd hand Havaiana thongs [flipflops] given to her a while ago, but the elastic was all broken and even though I tried to fix them they were beyond wearing. Its a pity because she really liked them, and because she doesn't wear shoes she can't go outside on the hot concrete without burning her little feet! So today I decided to spend 4 times what I would pay for my own thongs on a pair for her. I'd seen similar ones at Big W. When we got there though there were no little toddler thongs. We checked Target and Payless too but nothing. 

I was feeling sad that I couldn't find her any, and sad that we don't have a Clarke Rubber or similar shop from which I could buy foam and make her some.  And so, we went home, thongless. 

I decided to try to make her some fabric thongs, and found that I still had some upholstery macrosuede in my stash, so I traced around her feet and came up with these little things.

These are made from elastic, and 3 layers of macrosuede, sewed with a machine. Very basic, but they do the job of protecting the soles of her feet from the hot concrete and she thinks that they are wonderful. The other perk these titchy cuties have is that they are still a soft soled shoe, which is really what she should be wearing at this point in her development anyway, so its win-win-win.

Sewing frenzy.

In addition to the Upsy Daisy Skirt yesterday, I did a few other sewing projects. I spent most of the day at my machine because it was about the only productive thing that I could do seeing as I can't walk very well due to my pelvis trying to separate from itself. 

Despite the grimace, Addie actually loves this headband. Its a part of her Christmas present along with the skirt. Upsy Daisy's hair looks like this.

Its not easy to get her to stand still for a really good shot, so here is a collage of the many views of Addies' play suit. Various people have been making these recently and selling them for huge dollars online. Enid Gilchrist's books have several patterns for boy versions, but this one I made up myself... because I could. It was very cute all morning until she had a nap and did a pee the size of Sydney Harbour.

Lastly, my pants! These are from a vintage sheet that I shared previously. They are a nice weight cotton, and I decided to go for a straight leg capri length. I'm convinced that they could be both PJ's and house-pants. I also cut the pattern about an inch lower in the waist all around, scooping to 2 inches in the very front, to accommodate my small-for-its-dates but very very low belly. These will still be great post maternity, but if I find their low nature to be too much of an issue I can always add a stretchy band on top, but I don't think that I'll need to. 

Upsy Daisy Christmas Skirt.

This should be subtitled "Igglepiggle is a Crossdresser"

Andrew couldn't help himself but buy Addie this plush Igglepiggle that is almost as tall as her! He is a main character from her favourite show In The Night Garden. It is also my favourite show, because it means that between 5pm and 5:20pm I have some peace [which usually allows me to prepare an adult meal].

Does this make my bottom look big?

Normally Igglepiggle does not wear a skirt, but he is showing off the little Upsy Daisy skirt that I made for Addie's Christmas present. I had already bought the fabric for the skirt last month and planned to make it for her present. Now she will be able to wear it and play with her real-size Igglepiggle!! They will be so cute!!

The specs on the skirt are simple. It is a circle skirt made using the formula on Made. Its not like its hard to make a circle skirt anyway, but I was happy to have all the thinking done for me at this stage of things.  The fabric is a super cheapo [in quality not price, unfortunately]  jersey. The reason for that is that it will be comfy for Addie to wear, and I won't have to iron it in order for it to look good and fresh.  The waist is wide undies elastic [like the kind used for men's trunks] encased in yellow jersey, and the toggle is a plastic belt buckle wrapped with purple ribbon. Unfortunately, it is not as cool as the real Upsy Daisy's skirt because when she pulls the toggle her skirt pops out to a full circle - a bit like how Batman's Cape takes form when it has a current passed through it. That will have to wait until Shape Memory Polymer is available at Spotlight.  Apart from that its a pretty awesome skirt and I can't wait til Saturday now!

Pregnancy and Kidsafe Eggnog

I remember mum telling me when I was maybe 6 that she couldn't make me eggnog anymore bc the Dr said it was dangerous. Boooo. I love love love eggnog!! We have our own chooks and I'm pretty sure they're healthy with no salmonella but I thought I'd make some "safe" stuff just in case. 

Drank all the Egg Nog so you get a picture
of our chook eggs.

I did put rum in mine... because well you know... you've got to have some things right? But its such a teeny amount I'm sure bubs won't mind. Feel free to leve it out if you're a better mummy than me [which I'm totally cool with!]. Oh may I say Addie didn't get any.

Ingredients for 4 to 6 servings

• Eggs -- 4
• Sugar -- 1/3 to 1/2 cup
• Milk -- 2 cups
• Heavy cream or whipping cream-- 1 cup
• Rum or brandy -- 1/2 to 3/4 cup
• Nutmeg -- 1 whole
• Cinnamon -- 1/2 stick
• All Spice -- 5 or 6
• Cloves -- 4

Method

1. Use a whisk to beat the eggs until they lighten in color. Add the sugar and beat until it is fully dissolved.  Stir in 1/2 milk, and add spices [crush them slightly with mortar & pestle to release flavours]
2. Over a double boiler, heat mixture to 80 degrees as if you were making a custard. If you have no thermometer, you can test for readiness by testing to see if it coats the back of the spoon. Google custard making to get instructions on this part. It will take at least 20 min.
3. Once custard has reached 80 degrees, strain spices, add the 2nd cup of milk and chill. 
4. Whip cream, [not sure if it does much good but do it anyway!] and mix with chilled custard/milk mixture.
5. If adding alcohol, mix in 30ml Jamaican Rum. [Bourbon or Brandy could be used as instead] 
6. Check for flavour and serve!

Postpartum Leakage

This is the 2nd of my Stop-leak posts. For some this will be too much information, so if you can't handle talk of body fluid, then go to my sidebar and find someone else's post to read. 

I've written before about cloth pads for menstruation, but this is something slightly more hard-core. Following the birth of a baby, there is a fair bit of bloody discharge for 6-8 weeks. Its not gross, its just the run-off as the uterus returns to it's pre-pregnant state. It does pose a problem though, about how to stay clean and dry!

My nappy making offcuts are perfect for the job. I spent as much time mulling over how to do the best job of making these as I did actually making them, but its worth it.

The Postpartum Kit

Wow, it looks far less impressive like this! I have made 11 waterproof bases, and at least 30 soaker pads pictured above above the soakers.

The soakers are made from terry towelling sandwiched between a few layers of flannel and or cotton sheet. They absorb quite a lot, I'm very impressed. The idea is to use one or two soakers at a time with a base. The base has fleece on the bottom, followed by a layer of PUL and the topped with flannel. The bases have two bands of elastic on them to hold the soakers.

The underside and the undies band

Pictured here is the underside of the base pad. It has a small piece of velcro attached to the bottom. The green bit is not attached. I wanted to find a way to attach the pad like as if it had wings, but I've found that sometimes wings can leak to the side. So this fits under the pad, and wraps around the crotch of the undies. The velcro means I can easily and quickly change during the day, but it shouldn't shift around too much when wearing them. 

Band Attached showing snaps

Here the band is attached to the underside of the base, and you can see one of the closure snaps. I used the sew-in kind because they are supposed to be non-rusting and I have heaps of them :)

All Together and a commercial pad.

You can see the whole setup at it's thickest here. There are two soaker pads which I tested and they will take about 1/4 cup of liquid without leaking. Not too shabby! Compared next to it is a standard maternity pad. They are super thick, quite ugly and don't provide as much coverage as my homemade pads. I'll use the disposables for hospital and then change to my nice ones when I get home. If you got to the end, well done! Its easy to make your own and heaps heaps better for the world and your wallet. Consider it!

So not glamorous.

There are a few uncool things about babies, and one of them is the amount of leaking both the baby and the mum does.

I've written before about cloth nappies [diapers] which are also known as MCNs [Modern Cloth Nappies] and CD [Cloth Diapers].  MCN refers to nappies made from modern breathable waterproofed materials. I made most of the nappies that I use for Addie, from these patterns. Rita's Rump Pocket is a fitted nappy that is not waterproof, and needs a waterproof cover. It worked well for us until I ran out of covers as Addie grew. The nappies still fit well but I only use them as an inbetween [short use] nappy. The other pattern that I love for it's simplicity and frugal use of materials is this Back Closing Nappy. Due to time and energy constraints, as well as the fact that my machine needs a professional service therefore can't handle the PUL well enough,  I'm going to buy a set of chinese-made cheap MCNs this time so that I have enough to keep 2 babies with relatively clean bottoms. If I had the cash I would buy 12 Cushie Tushies and 12 Itti Bitti Tutto, but for today I'm sacrificing one set of ethics for another.

What I have been making from all my scraps left over from the nappies I have made previously is the subject of my next few posts. First up, wipes! 

There are a a number of ways to make your own bottom wipes. The old fashioned thing that probably most of our parents used is face-washers. They're ok but a bit abrasive on a tiny bottom and when I forget to put it in the nappy bucket and leave it on the sink... Andrew may well get more on his face than he bargained for! 

Some of my friends [whom I dearly love] use paper towel cut in half and dunked in water or soap solution. This is better than the commercial wipes but still costly and ultimately wasteful. 

What a lot of us are doing now is using a hybrid wipe. Hybrid makes it sound so fancy! Really all it is, is a flannel on one side and terry cloth [like a face washer] on the other.  For these I used a 2nd hand flannel baby blanket that I wasn't going to use for the baby, and on the back a towel that no longer does it's job of effectively soaking up water.  I cut both pieces to a usable size, and went around the edges with the overlocker. Done! You could do the same with a regular machine, just use a wide zigzag setting.  I will still occasionally buy disposable wipes for out and about, but for the rest of the time these have been working great. 

Grinch Deterrent

Bah Humbug! I've been a bit cranky about Christmas this year. We haven't got a tree, I forgot to make the advent sacks in time and we're about to have a baby. [The last bit means less money than usual, less energy and other things to focus on, in case you're wondering]. I'm not one of those women who gets superpowers and can achieve world-change just before her baby is born.

That said, I started to feel like maybe I should acknowledge Christmas at least a little bit, and was inspired when I saw Talia's post about things she wants to make this xmas. It reminded me that I wanted to make a wreath this year.

I had previously wanted to make one when Homemade by Jill showed us her cool book wreath, but it requires a styrofoam wreath base, and one of the things about living in the back blocks of whoop whoop with the pygmy lepers* is that we don't have styrofoam wreaths lying about. So I shelved that idea but will keep it in mind when we visit civilisation.

I though I'd google "fabric scrap wreath" seeing as I have a lot of fabric scraps [understatement of 2010 right there]. I have seen some kind of weird and daggy looking scrap wreaths, but I knew that someone somewhere could show me a better way. I found one at a blog called Lindamade.

www.lindamade.com

Luscious and lovely! The only problem is that Linda used a special wire frame that was convex as well as circular, giving her wreath a fantastic depth.  My solution was to cut some chicken wire up and twist it into a wreathish shape, which gave me a prickly but rustic looking object that I could have hung on my front door and claim I was being "Australian". 

Wreath Base that could pass as "artistic"

Then following Linda's instructions, I cut strips of fabric from my scrapheap that were about 1" by 5" and tied them to the frame in a random fashion. I did stick more greenish scraps in than other colours, I swear! I do like how it has so many pretty bits of fabric in there. I feel more than justified to continue my hoarding ways, knowing that I have used at least some of my "they'll come in handy later" stockpile.

 I could easily have put more fabric in and made it even more luscious and lovely, but by then my hands hurt from playing with prickly wire and I needed to go to bed. So this is probably how it will stay.

No Ebenezer lives here.

Hopefully it will help me feel more festive and joyous about Christmas?

*[I apologise to all pygmy lepers for singling you out by using that phrase]

Spotty etc.

Poor Addie and poor me.

The first days of this week we had an Addie who had constant low grade fever and no appetite. She walked around all day with Colin [the stupid-and now getting quite stinky- giraffe] her dum dum, and wanted to go to bed a lot.

Finally Thursday produced lots of itchy spots on her face and neck which have proceeded to migrate down her belly back and arms.  I'm not convinced they are Chicken Pox [though it is going around and is therefore likely suspect #1, but it doesn't look like it to me].

Lots of oatmeal cream, water spray and nice baths later and she's feeling somewhat better [though still tired and cranky] and her face spots are fading.  This has been our first foray into childhood infectious disease.

One of the Toys

Her latest tricks include climbing into the toybox. You can see Colin's leg sticking out in front of her.  Climbing in is all fun [when it works] and its nice to sit there for a while, but she gets pretty annoyed when she can't get out, and apparently blames the 'stupid box'. I'm guessing it's the box's fault for letting her get in in the first place?

Hitting the box bc it won't let her out

Birthing Book

So, I'm around 34.5 weeks pregnant now, and still thinking and preparing for the arrival of the new baby. Addie still has no idea of whats going on as far as I can tell, but she'll find out soon enough.

I mentioned in an earlier post that one of the things I am doing to prepare, is putting together a book to use during the birthing to remind me of what I need to focus on etc. Some of the book is pretty boring, but useful pages of information, but I've also made some pages that don't require much to get their message across.

If you're interested you can find more pages and more explanations of the pages in an album over here.

Memories!!

Today I felt a burning desire to listen to some bad music! This "bad music" got me through some very angst-filled teenaged years and reminded me that there is hope, agreed with me that a lot of the world sucked, and told me that in the end good wins. It was what I needed.

So I dragged out Intermission - DC Talk's 'Best Of' CD. Addie has been running around dancing enthusiastically, I've been singing and Andrew took himself off to bed muttering that you don't see him playing his old MXPX.

For those of you who'd like to reminisce on two honks and a negro singing some pretty terrible 'music' here's some Youtube.

And while we're at it, how about some Michael W Smith?

And since you're on Youtube, have a look at some Mariah Carey too :)

Two Little Ducks that I Once Knew

What is it with kids and ducks? I remember my little brother as a maybe 5 year old sitting nudie in a bathtub with a washer for protection while half a dozen ducklings swam around him. The ducks grew up to be big and smelly and I don't rightly remember what happened to them.

Of late, Addie who is learning her animals walks around saying "quack quack quack quack" and smooshing her face into a duck toy that was bought for her by her Godmother the day I found out I was pregnant with her.

This week I've been making some ducks of my own.

Addie's new Duck. 

Two Ducks

All wrapped and ready to go!

When I found out that a couple of friends beside myself were pregnant this year, I decided to make them these cute-as little bath ducks as published by the wonderful Martha Stewart.  Here are the instructions on her website.  So now you now how easy they are. 

I have learned a couple of things by making these ducks. If it is cute Addie will want it. If you give a present to a newborn who has an 18 month old brother, he will want it. Lesson to take away - make sure all the toddlers are covered before you make a present for ANYONE else, especially if it is fluffy or cute. In this case I have to make another duck, this one for the newly-born Joshua who won't care about it for another 12 months in any case.  I will be making even more ducks too because I have another friend who recently gave birth and hasn't gotten a gift from me, and 3 more due after me in town and another who lives far away but still deserves a duck!

15 months.

Addie, Daddy and a doll

Addie is just about to hit 15 months! This morning she had a "cute" morning where everything she did was lovely and adorable and I didn't think "how am I going to cope with her and a newborn?". Lately though these times are fleeting. 

We're well and truly in the toddler stages now. I catch her not only practicing facial expressions, dance moves and "how does this look" in the mirror, but I've seen her staging practice tantrums on the ground where it appears she is trying to decided which arm positions will have maximum impact.

She knows what buttons to push to get mum and dad's attention [negative is as good as positive] so she'll hold her sandwich at arms length over the side of the highchair saying "uh uh" and if we appear to notice then she drops it [and is sad because she can't reach her sandwich!!]  She also knows if she feels like peanut butter that day [which is most days] or if she wants a change, but hasn't figured out a way of communicating that other than either eating or pitching the sandwich.

Sleep is again another struggle - one I totally identify with! No mater how tired you are, going to bed is always sad because of what you could miss out on. In 29 and 2/3rds years I still have yet to learn that lesson so I can't blame her there, but I also can't help but wish she were a little less like me! I've had less sleep because of her in the past few weeks than I did when she was a few months old. Apparently this is all normal.

Addie has discovered that paper sounds cool when it rips, and I think she's a bit like a shark who smells blood - even if she KNOWS she shouldn't do it, once there is a little rip she cant help herself from following through [and then eating the page, of course!].

I could go on with the list of things that she does, but I guess if you've seen a toddler you know what they're like when they know what they want but aren't quite big enough to get it.

On the up side she is completely adorable! Addie finally has some hair on her head - enough to be messy and cute. She can run [though its usually to places she shouldn't be going] climb, dances to any music she hears, spends ages playing on her xylophone, piano and shakers. She gives her toys lovely cuddles and patronising pats while saying "ahhhh". She also does it to Andrew and myself - its quite amusing being patronised by a 1 year old!

She's discovered on some of her baby dolls that you can make their eyes open by pulling up the eyelid and has been testing it on me when I have a nap. Sure enough it gets mummy to open her eyes.

Addie's language skills are increasing daily. She can name some animals, do the sounds of a few more and can say 'Ta' consistently without prompting and has learned the very important "more". I've never heard a word uttered with such hope or desperation as she manages to put into "more". She is using a couple of signs now too but like most toddlers, just because she tells you "ny-ny-es" and waves, it doesn't mean she REALLY wants to go to bed, "finished" [a sign] doesn't always mean you can take her food away, and "ta" might still result in a biscuit being tossed across the room. Still, she is learning.

She's learning to wear her hat outside, she knows that beads and necklaces make her look so beautiful and that whatever mummy is eating is bound to taste nicer than hers.

I could go on forever as mothers tend to do. I still haven't mentioned how much she loves "reading", sitting on my lap or watching "In The Night Garden". She has no idea that her world will soon be severely shaken with the addition of her sister in January, and though Andrew and I are concerned that another daughter could not possibly be as cute, funny or smart as this one, we know that all will be good :)