Doh!
Here’s where I get to make my semi-annual “oh yeah, Erik is having a six month/year birthday in a few weeks so he’s in a state of disequilibrium. Doh!” I thought at five he would be beyond that, but apparently not. He is totally spastic with the tantrums, frustrations, and just general disequilibrium type things. Knowing that there’s something developmental going on makes it much easier for me to deal with. Instead of feeling like he’s openly defying me and trying to be a little turd, I can feel like he has a growth problem and it is my job to mother him through it. I have been showing him a lot of extra love today and it definitely had a positive impact. It was really hard not to react negatively to his screaming, but instead I put my arms around him and told him I knew life was hard and we would work together to make things better. We were both able to calm down a lot faster. If only I could be such a thoughtful, calm parent every day.
In other news, Elsa continues to be a 10 month old menace. Is there any other kind of 10 month old? She grabbed an open jar of basil off the counter and dumped it into her eye before I could react. I flailed about for a few minutes and end up with her in the shower. I was ripping her clothes off as I was screaming at Mike to come help me get the water going. I ripped her clothes off and discovered she had a fresh poop. I ended up with a heavily soiled outfit. We couldn’t get all the basil out of her eye, so I ripped my clothes off and jumped in the shower with her. I had to hold her down while Mike worked the water. Erik was banging on the wall, trying to “shake the basil off.”
We have adventures in this family.
Thank the lords of Kobol it wasn’t the cayenne pepper.
Let’s talk about something calming.
This is not a perfect toddler quilt by any means, but I am quite pleased with it. I feel all creative and fancy. Look at those bright colors! Look at that non-traditional pattern that I sort of made up all by myself! Thinking outside the box and using bright colors are not my strong suits.
I really can’t sit in my sewing chair so needed something fast, but also wanted something thoughtful. I actually sewed this whole thing standing up. I think I’ll also be able to do the quilting standing up. I ordered the batting so hopefully it will be here before the weekend. I think I am going to do freestyle vertical lines to keep up the modern feel. Plus, I’ll be able to save my back from leaning over and marking.
One of these days I’m not going to be old and decripit, right? Maybe once Elsa is walking a lot better and/or when spring finally arrives and I can do regular excercise walks. I miss the gym so much. My gut is getting bigger and bigger and I feel out of control and helpless. I eat more sweets than I should because I feel like I can’t do what I want so why not stuff my gullet with chocolate? It makes no logical sense, but it’s a really ugly negative feedback loop that I need to break, but thus far I don’t have the right motivation to break it. The days I am able to get out and walk are the days I don’t eat all the chocolate.
I guess I should just cancel my gym membership. I keep holding out hope, but we go three days a month, baby gets sick or just screams a lot, we don’t go. Ugh. Also, the week that I went several times I noticed my knee started hurting again. I had pretty much given up hope that my knee would ever feel normal, but it has been mostly fine since I’ve given up the gym. I really need to call and cancel that membership, don’t I?
But. . . but. . nooooooo! The gym is supposed to be my sanity! I was there EVERY SINGLE DAY when Erik was a baby. It was the only time I got any peace. And my gut thanked me.
Ok, I have to go finish up this goat puppet. The teacher wants the kids to do it all themselves but she wants them to be creative and beautiful. I want to respect the “kids doing it themselves” idea, but Erik had already colored it and the creative and beautiful ship has sailed. She wanted them to incorporate fabrics and yarn and textures and blah blah blah. Erik refused. At the rate he’s going, I think she’s pretty lucky he knows his lines and was willing to put any color on the goat at all. This is not the week for demanding perfection from my discombobulated boy.
Oh, and if you cloth diaper I would feel remiss if I didn’t point you to this amazing sale HERE. I have a couple of these diapers that I got on sale a few months ago and I thought I hated them. They feel weird and they look odd. They have droopy wings. It looks like they would wick a lot because of the way they are sewn. But guess what? These bad boys DO NOT LEAK. I always hesitate to put Elsa in them b/c I feel like they will leak, but I have never had a problem. Today I accidentally had Elsa in one for over 7 hours (she fell asleep when I wasn’t expecting it). I didn’t even have an extra insert in it and she DID NOT LEAK. Of course, leaking or not can often depend on your baby’s shape, but they are having a great sale on these right now so if you want to give them a try now would be the time. I think these may become our new nighttime diaper.
I tried out a Happy Heiney, hoping it would be our new night diaper, but it turns out Elsa was allergic to it. Since I’ve taken that diaper out of rotation Elsa’s diaper rash has totally cleared up. I am gearing up major Craigslist sale of diapers and baby carrying devices. I don’t know why I hesitate so much. Selling diapers on Craigslist has turned out to be pretty painless once I figured out people were willing to pay. It is much, much, much, much better than trying to sell in various online cloth diapering communities. I’m sure there must be normal people buying and selling but I haven’t had the pleasure of dealing with them.