Winding down, winding up

With the holidays finally winding down, my NaNoWriMo novel completed, and the baby becoming mobile (crawling like MAD now), I feel like everything is slotting into place and I can relax a little.

So, I've given myself a few new projects! What's the point of having free time if you're going to whitter it away on TV and playing games on the internet? What do they produce? What do you have to show for them when you're done?

I'm learning how to knit, something that is definitely very unusual for me. While I never disdained knitters, I always looked on it as something your great grandmother would do in HER spare time, and not something a modern woman would do. Thanks to my sister-in-law(ish), I've had that assumption turned around. I'm practicing by making a rather ugly, gappy, but love-filled scarf for the baby. It's a bright, spring chick yellow... and I have more dropped stitches than I care to count at present... but once it's done, it'll be something for him, from me. And I'll keep working until I can make something more complex (out of prettier yarn!) and he will have his own mommy-made mementos.

I'm also working on making him Waldorf toys. While I am very gung-ho Montessori when it comes to learning and the practical aspects of life, I have always, ALWAYS had a wonderful imagination. A bag full of $1 plastic farm animals and a sandbox were my favorite playthings from the warm days of spring until the leaves started falling in the autumn. Flashy, blinking toys weren't necessary, and I could get a lot of joy out of just making up intricate stories about the various animal factions of my plastic creatures and their humped sand-hill homes (think "The Lion King" meets "Days of Our Lives").

So, in that vein, I'm handmaking a few simple toys for the little man, hoping that he can learn the joy of simple toys made from simple materials. And that he, like me, will end up with a lot of love for the outdoors.

I've only just finished making him a little yarn chick, made entirely out of cotton yarn and a little tiny beak of felt. It wasn't a labor-intensive project, but it was the first major crafting project I've undertaken in a long while, so it pleased me to no end to finish it and be able to offer it to him. Imagine my chagrin when he had only a passing interest in it! Perhaps as he gets older, once he's seen a new spring chick peeping away.



I am progressing on his Waldorf soft-body doll. It's made of natural materials (cotton, wool, cotton toweling) and is lovingly (and sometimes frustratedly) hand-stitched and stuffed. I keep reminding myself it will look infinitely better once it's alpaca-wool-innards aren't falling out... and it has hands and hair.



Although my main project right now is poor Jacob's croup. I wish he'd clear up, and soon. There are few things as distressing as the labored breathing and whooping cough of a sick baby.

Here's hoping everyone else is doing as well as we are! And here's doubly hoping Jacob will be even better quite soon.

Things to memorize

We co-sleep, which works out wonderfully for me when the baby needs to nap. It gives the Lupus-wearied mommy a chance to lay down and nap, too.

So a couple days ago, we were settling in for a nap and I was stroking my hand over his head as he dozed, and I suddenly felt like that was a moment to memorize. I wanted to remember how silky his hair was beneath my fingertips, how cool to the touch it was at the top of his head where it's thickest. I wanted to remember the feel of his tiny toes pressing into my lower abdomen, and the way he huffled in his sleep.

I know there's no way to memorize these perfect, precious moments, but sometimes I wish I could take a mental video of the sounds, smells, touch, and emotions in little moments like that, so I could bring them out and enjoy them thirty years from now when he's an adult with a family of his own.

Mobility

We have started the very serious work of figuring out what is low enough for a mobile baby to get into and damage himself. I'm trying to decide which cabinets should be strictly off-limits and which cabinets I won't mind him getting into, or which cabinets are safe for him to get into.

We've also started covering light-sockets and putting cords in cord protectors.

I'm not much for limiting his movement and his exploration; at this age, exploration is all. He will learn so much about his world by being allowed to be a part of it, rather than closing him away from things in a playpen or behind a gate.

Does this mean we'll never use a baby gate? Probably not. There will be times when I simply cannot devote my attention to him safely, and will need to therefore put him somewhere safe from harm. But for the most part, he will be allowed much of the same freedom of movement that we are allowed.

I'm also looking into non-tipping dog water bowls, since our current bowl for the dogs seems to fall down quite nicely with just a little pressure on one edge.

Why all this sudden industry?

Nightmarish November

I haven't written in awhile because I've been writing so much! That sentence will make sense in a moment.

November is National Novel Writing Month. The goal for people who participate in NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. It doesn't have to be well written and it doesn't even need to make perfect sense, as long as you can semi-coherantly string thoughts together. I have participated in NaNoWriMo for the last three years, and I was determined not to let a new baby stop me this year.

This means that any spare moment, I have been noveling. This leaves very little time for blogging.

November is also Thanksgiving, and we are having two this year: one with my family here in Oklahoma, and one with Chris' family in South Carolina. Planning a trip with an infant is ranking pretty high on my list of things I don't want to do, so that has been occupying my brain space not eaten up in noveling.

Needless to say, November is turning out to be fairly nightmarish, so I'm giving myself a break from worrying about blogging until December, when I can get into how little I like the commercial, needy, grabby season.

Oblivious

I love how innocently oblivious the baby is to the things that get the rest of us so worked up. Halloween, for example... as far as he's concerned, it's another night to play with his toes, splash in the bath, and get as much nursing as possible in before he falls asleep in my arms.

Thank you for reminding me to take it slow, Jacob, and to not sweat the small stuff.

Teething

I must say, I really don't like teething! I imagine my dislike is nothing comapred to what Jacob's feeling, but it's sufficient to make me very unhappy.

I do, however, love watching my little man chewing on his fingers, his pacifiers, his teething ring... anything he can get in his mouth.

So far, he has four teeth - two front top, two front bottom. Only 16 more to cut through before he has all his milk teeth in. Then he starts losing those and cutting his adult teeth! Oh, joy!

Spirit of Giving

I know it's still early in the year to be thinking about Christmas, but in the spirit of what Christmas SHOULD be about (giving, not receiving) I thought I'd mention two projects that definitely need some Christmas giving: Heifer International and Lantern Projects.

They both offer people the options of making a big donation (i.e. buying a cow for a village or buying a trip to a hospital for a child in Vietnam) or of making a small donation (i.e. buying a share of a cow or buying mosquito netting for one family). Both causes are much more deserving of money than I am of more junk around the house.

When it comes right down to it, I live in luxury. Sure, we have bills that make us bite our nails every month, and sometimes we can't afford to buy the foods we'd prefer to have... but we have a cabinet full of canned goods and dry pastas and cold cereals; we aren't going to starve any time soon. I won't be going to bed hungry. The same can't be said for a lot of people out there.

So in the spirit of giving, I'm encouraging people to ask that instead of people buying you things off your Amazon wishlist, they make a charitable donation and give you a print-out or send you an e-mail to show you what donation they've made. To me, that would be vastly more satisfying than anything I want... even the baby things that I REALLY want for Jacob. *L*