Month: December 2020

My baby is a toddler now

Let me begin by just giving out a big, gigantic sigh. SIGHHHHHHH. I’m laying in bed, the day after H’s first birthday, and I’m hit with a wave of emotions. Happy, excited, joyous, reminiscent, sad, and now I’m misty eyed. My baby’s now one. She’s no longer a baby. Well, she’s my baby, but she’s not a baby anymore. She walks on her own. She stands at the kitchen gate and yells at me for “banana”. She plays Animal Crossing in my Switch. She’s interested in getting dressed and how clothes work, and has started “brushing” her teeth and hair. She’s definitely not a baby anymore.

Her birthday went well. I decorated the night before, printed out a photo albums worth of photos (you can sum up a new person’s life in 150 photos, I found out). I baked a cake from scratch, stressed out about whether I should give her a real cake or a low sugar one (we went with low sugar). She loved it. The balloons were a big hit, and she avoided popping any. We only introduced a few new toys because she got overwhelmed very quickly, but we anticipated it.

I made a video, showing my favorite moments from the past year. I paired it with a song that was used in Futurama, one played at a heartwarming scene. I cried while making it. In 3 minutes, I watched my baby grow up. I couldn’t stop wondering how it had already been a year. Time during covid seemed like it stood still, but here was my proof against that. She grew by the day.

I pulled out the outfit we brought her home in from the hospital. It was so tiny. She weighed less than our cat when she was born. I keep trying to figure out how? How was this toddler so fragile and tiny at one point? She walks around pointing as things she notices, reveling in each day, but it feels like last week that she slept against me constantly as I spent my mornings (or was it nights? time melted together in the newborn phase) in the tv room, dozing off with the tiny warm baby on me. My husband and I would switch shifts, only seeing each other in passing as one would wake up and take the baby, and the other go to bed.

I want to bottle up this time, so I have it forever. Her gentle voice, her tiny handprints all over everything, the way she teeters as she walks. I want to remember it all. These last couple weeks have been rough on me, emotionally. My baby is no longer a baby. And I’m okay with that. But it happened so much quicker than I anticipated.

Tags 12 months, birthday, first birthday, growing up, mental health

DIY Our home

How it started vs how it’s going

Post author By Veagan
Post date December 13, 2020
No Comments on How it started vs how it’s going

I set up a bathroom station for H a month ago. I had dreams of H calmly rinsing her hands off in a perfectly arranged station, assembled with care. Birds sang, sunshine came in the window, everything was perfect. I knew I was being a little idealistic, but hey, it’s 2020, we’re in the middle of a pandemic, I’ve been stuck at home since March, let me have my dreams.

The real reason why I decided to bite the bullet and set up a bathroom station was because H was becoming a nightmare to clean after meals. It took two people, a lot of water, and a lot of post cleanup. Screaming was involved, and not entirely by H. “OH MY GOD SHE’S TRYING TO JUMP OFF THE COUNTER”, or “OH NO SHE FLUNG WATER ALL OVER THE FLOOR” came from the bathroom as my husband and I attempted to clean her. We sat her on the counter as we tried to pour water over her hands and into the sink. It worked for a while, and then it didn’t. H remained dirtier and dirtier afterwards as time went on, as our attempts fell flat. It was time for a change.

Enter the bathroom station. I found an IKEA nightstand for free on NextDoor, and figured “why not”? I used a glass bowl as a test run, then moved on to a skid proof dog food bowl. It worked beautiful…for a while. I put a mirror up above the sink. H loved playing peekaboo with herself. I had a basket of wash clothes for wiping her face, and a hand towel for drying. She loved the routine.

Now that she’s become used to the routine, H is starting to get bored of our system. The mirror doesn’t keep her attention, the bowl has landed on the floor a few times, and we’re back to it being a two person job. We still try with the station, but it’s no longer the easy task it used to be.

So once again, we are stuck trying to figure out a better system that makes keeping our child clean an easier task. I feel like that’s going to be a reoccurring theme over the next 18 years.

Tags 11 months, bathroom, project

Activities

Baby’s First Painting

If someone were to ask me 10 years ago what my ideal job was, my answer was always “professional artist”. I grew up with art, spent my high school years pulling all nighters as I finished paintings after inspiration struck me like lightning. Art was my life. In my late teens, and into my 20’s, I taught art classes to K-12 grade at a little art studio. I loved it, and I loved teaching the kids an appreciation for art. I wanted every kid walking out of the class feeling happy and confident over the process, and proud of the work they did. I loved my time there, loved spending those hours with the kids. Some would hug me as they left. It made me realize I wanted to be a parent some day.

Now that I have my own little kiddo, I’m so excited to work on art projects with her. I can’t wait to see what ideas come from her imagination, and how she utilizes the same tools I grew up with. I want her walls to be full of colors, shelves full of craft projects. I want her to have fun.

Today, I did a quick project with her. It was easy, and essentially mess free. The mess came from H poking a hole through the cling wrap.

I used cardboard, cling wrap, tape, Liquitex acrylic paint, and watercolor paper.

I taped the paper to the cardboard, then dropped various paint dollops all over. After that, I wrapped cling wrap over the sheet of paper, making sure it wrapped around to the backside of the cardboard. I taped it, a bit excessively, so there was no way paint could get out. A foolish endeavor.

And then I let H go to town on it. She enjoyed squishing the paint around, and really enjoyed stepping on it. We even got a car and bead in on the action. Lots of mixed media went into this. I loved seeing her manipulate the paint, as she watched, fascinated at how the colors changed.

My plan is to make a bunch of these to hang at H’s level, so she has some toddler friendly art to look at. She loves looking at the artwork that my father in law or I made, and I wanted a place for her to make a mark.

Next time, I’ll use thicker plastic, and thinner paint. This painting has been drying for over 18 hours, and still has more drying to do.

Tags 11 months, art, art project, crafts, paint, project

Mom life

The value of secondhand

I love thrift shopping. I always have. Some of my earliest memories are of my mom and I going to our local thrift shop, finding bags carefully packed with toys. We were pretty poor growing up, so most of my clothing came from thrift shops. I didn’t mind, and I loved being able to find clothes that weren’t trendy. The few times I got new clothing from the store were a huge disappointment. Finding clothes at regular stores as a tomboy preteen in the early 2000’s was an absolute nightmare, full of low rise jeans, short shorts, and god awful logos. I thrived on thrifted skater shirts and shorts originally targeted at boys.

It took me years to figure out type of clothing fit me. Most of the things I bought I had to alter to fit, but because I spent $0.50 on jeans rather than $40, I was willing to experiment with altering. Using different fits from different generations helped me understand why some pieces worked on me, and some didn’t. Eventually, I was able to visualize how something would fit on me but looking at it on the rack.

Post-thrifting photo before I figured out what worked with my body type

While I love thrifting, I know the thought of buying other people’s old items can make some people uncomfortable. Family members used to wear disguises when going into a thrift shop so nobody would recognize them. Granted, this was before thrifting became cool, and people started realizing they could make money off their thrifting hauls. Thrifting has become streamlined and clean, with most of the dirty work already done. My husband didn’t really appreciate the value from thrifting, but I just show him how much it would cost otherwise. Now he only rolls his eyes half the time.

While I was pregnant, I spent my Sundays taking the bus up to the nearest Goodwill. I’d stop in at Starbucks, grab a drink, and walk my way over. I loved the routine. I loved searching through the racks. I stocked up on thrifted clothes for H, finding some things brand new with the tags still on. Now that H is outgrowing a lot, I’ve given away clothing, toys, her baby tub, my maternity clothes. It makes me happy knowing those items have gone on to live in another happy home, and keeps these items out of dumps. I’m all about trying to minimize waste in creative ways. I’m hoping to teach H these values, that there’s no shame in making use of things that other people have given a home to first.

Since Covid, I’ve started spending time going through the free and for sale section of NextDoor, and have picked up some absolute scores. I live in an area where high value items are frequently given away or sold, and I’m definitely excited to benefit from that fact. Nearly new items for free or heavily discounted? I’m there!

The Ikea nightstand I use for H’s bathroom setup

Among other things, I’ve collected a giant plastic bin full of wooden train sets, and endless books that became instant favorites. And I plan on passing them along to another family when we’re all done with them. I really just love finding things secondhand. It’s a mystery, you never know what you’ll find. Plus, you’re doing something good for the environment. It’s a win-win.

Tags COVID, secondhand, thrifting, toys