Year: 2005

The Countdown Begins…

Sarah Crafts

There are only 24 crafting days left until Christmas, and I’m making a significant portion of our gifts to people this year. My gift list reads like the Twelve Days of Christmas song, in fact. Most things are at least started, but there are a couple of notable projects which aren’t yet. I’ve run into some snags with some of the projects as well.

Plus, I’m making Carrie’s Christmas dress – which I have yet to cut out the pattern pieces for, let alone actually pin and cut out the fabric. Mind you, this is the dress she will be wearing for the Christmas card photos. (At least the design for the cards is done, I just need to take the picture. Oh, and sew the dress.)

This all came about from a desire to simplify the holidays. Um. Right. Not exactly sure what I was thinking there. But “simple” is about as far along the other end of the spectrum as I could get right now. And we won’t even go into the fact that we’re celebrating a little early with some of our family, so there really aren’t 24 days left at all…

Pondering…

Sarah General

How exactly would it happen that I put in a load of colorful baby clothes – all of which have been washed before – and I toss in a color-catcher sheet just to be safe, and wash it in icy cold water…and wind up with a lily-white color-catcher sheet and baby clothes that are more colorful than they were when they went in the wash?!? (Here’s hoping a second wash of the damaged items with some oxyclean helps.)

And why, exactly, on the first night in two months that Carrie finally sleeps through the night again, am I stupid enough to stay up until midnight and then unfortunate enough to wake up from a nightmare at six? Am I destined to never have a full eight hours of sleep again? (Although, I must admit, that six straight hours was better than my usual interrupted eight, and I feel pretty rested.)

Fourth Tooth

Sarah Carolyn

The pediatrician wasn’t kidding when he said Carrie had a bunch of teeth all coming in at once – just 4 days after her first top tooth, she’s gotten a second one. Maybe we’ll have a little break before the next ones? I’d like to stop having to give her Motrin almost every night…

nanoPod!

Sarah General

I got an early birthday present today! Denis had absconded with my original iPod for his daily commute, so he got me a replacement. It’s actually technically a joint gift with my grandparents: when I was a baby, my dad’s parents gave me a savings bond, which – since I’m turning 30 – has come to full maturity. So he decided to use that towards the iPod and have the rest be his birthday present to me. (He did do this with my approval, since it was my savings bond!)

I do feel a tiny bit guilty about having an expensive new toy, but…it’s so shiny. And perfect. And small.

Plus, it can display photos.

Turkey…Cake?

Sarah General

turkey_cake.jpgLisa has hooked me into making fancy cakes for various occasions. (I’m not sure whether this is a good or a bad thing, mind you.) So when she suggested making turkey cakes for Thanksgiving, well I just jumped at the chance to learn how to use a star tip!

So, what do you think? My family thought it was totally hysterical that the turkey was sitting in a roasting pan, especially since I brought it in all covered with foil. Most people were afraid to cut a piece off, but they must have enjoyed it, because when we went back to my grandmother’s house for leftovers this evening the cake was nearly gone!

Denis thought I was nuts, though, because in addition to the cake I baked four pumpkin pies – per my grandmother’s request. (After all, there were almost 30 people there.) But three of those pies are completely gone, so we all managed to do our part! I’ll admit here on the internet that I totally cheated on the pies, too. I normally make pie crust from scratch, but the thought of making four pies worth of crust was not really all that appealing…so I bought Mrs. Smith’s frozen crusts. They were tasty. Tasty enough that I might just not bother making pie crusts ever again.

After all, who has time to make a cake and turn out perfect pie crusts too?

Thirteen Months Old!

Sarah Monthly Updates

Dear Carolyn,

So much has changed this month! You’re becoming quite the explorer and climber, and you’ve got attitude!

20051124_silly_face.jpg

You’ve more than doubled your sign vocabulary this month, adding “apple”, “banana”, “peach”, “grapes”, “peas”, “cookie”, “cracker”, “bread”, “potato”, “again”, “hat”, “bed” (we use this sign to mean “sleepy”), “hurt”, “socks”, “bath”, “doll”, “fish” and “belly button” (you made that last one up.) You’re also becoming more verbal, saying “sh” for shoes, “ts” for socks, and “fs” for fish. Oh, and you melt my heart when you say “mama” – you say it in two distinct syllables, like you have to think really hard about how it’s supposed to sound. And while you still sign “dog” all the time, you also pant to talk about dogs.

20051109_rapper_baby.jpgYou’re learning to use a spoon, and we’ve experimented with a fork. You’re still not a huge fan of meat of any sort, but you’ve learned so many food signs that I can ask if you want an apple or a banana and you can tell me. There are meals when you eat as much as I do, and then there are times when you eat two bites of food and say you’re all done. I’m not too worried though, because those two bites are generally something healthy like broccoli. In fact, we’ve witnessed you passing up cookies for broccoli. I hope you always make that choice!

You are fascinated with buttons. You know which button to push to turn on your CD player at bedtime. You also know which button to push to turn off Mommy’s laptop! If there’s a button in the room that you can get to, you push it. And if there isn’t, you look for your belly button! You know where your belly button, teeth and hair are, and very occasionally can find your own nose.

You’re such a busy little girl these days, rarely stopping to cuddle, but every once in a while you stop to give a hug or a kiss to let us know you still love us. You’re definitely turning into an independent little girl, but you’ll always be my munchkin.

Love, Mommy

Three Teeth!

Sarah Carolyn

Oh, well. We can’t sing “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth” for Carrie anymore, since she (finally) got one of her top teeth! And we actually managed to put her to bed tonight without any Motrin, so the other top tooth must not be all that close to breaking through.

At the rate she’s getting teeth, I’m expecting her two-year molars to come in around kindergarten…

(I swear I’ve been crafting up a storm, but most of what I’ve been doing is destined to be gifts so I can’t really post about any of it! So expect this to be mainly a baby blog for a while longer.)

One of THOSE Toddlers

Sarah Carolyn

I’m pretty sure that when Carrie learns how to take off more than just her shoes and socks she’s going to be one of those toddlers. You know, the ones you can’t take your eyes off in public because if you do for even a second, they’ve stripped naked.

She walked around story time today, lifting her dress up enough to show off her (admittedly cute) belly button to each mom and child. (I swear she’s the only toddler who knows where her belly button and teeth are but still can’t find her nose.) I felt like the other moms were looking at me like I’m intentionally raising an exhibitionist. It’s all Sandra Boynton’s fault really, since her Belly Button Book is one of Carrie’s all-time favorite stories. She even made up her own sign for belly button. (Or possibly belly or tickle, it’s hard to say.)

But considering her obsession with removing her shoes and socks, and her obsession with belly buttons, nothing good can happen when she figures out how to undo snaps…

Diaper Woes

Sarah Carolyn

The new box of Pampers Cruisers we just opened are different than the ones we’ve been using for the last however many months. They have this new meshy lining, and are nowhere near as soft as before. I suppose they thought they were improving them – or maybe they were just cutting costs. But after 24 hours in these diapers, Carrie has her first real diaper rash. She’s currently sleeping in one of the new diapers, and I’m really worried about what her poor little bottom is going to look like in the morning.

I tend to be very loyal to brands, but I’m going to have to go out tomorrow and buy her some different diapers. I briefly thought that maybe we could switch to cloth. But while I love the idea of cloth diapering, the execution…well, I just don’t think I’d really want to wash diapers, especially the stinky ones. So it’s off to shop diaper brands again, which is too bad because we’ve been happy and generally leak-free with Pampers up until now. I’ll probably call and complain to Pampers too, but what are they going to do, send me coupons for more of their rash-inducing diapers?

Add this to the list of things I never realized I’d spend so much time worrying about, until I became a mom…

Giving Thanks

Sarah General

We had a slight problem with one of the batches of custom photocard thank you notes, and we didn’t get them until Wednesday. However, they’re now all written out and will go out in the mail tomorrow. I feel a little guilty that it’s been three weeks since the party, even though it’s not my fault the cards came so late. But, *happy dance*, they’re all done!