Weekend Wonderfulness

This weekend was chocful of wonderful goodness so as I sit with my cup of tea watching the snow fall and the ice dams drip through (yes through) my window frame here's my recap

one Husby started playing board games at 10am on Saturday with friends and finished at 2.30am on Sunday. Friends came and went all day, various battles were fought and won across middle earth and regular earth (!) before they all finally passed out on the various couches of our home. It was wonderful seeing him have that much fun and I go to play with an extra baby while her dad played - score!

two While battles raged Toby and I took a morning trip to Freeport that didn't end till early afternoon. We spent hard earned money on baby clothes for many babies and whiled away time enjoying strolling around town. Several things occurred; Toby had his first Happy Meal and wasn't a fan of anything in particular but the toy; Freeport needs to not lock in it's sidewalks when the play goes by - too much walking on the road for this mummy; Toby outgrew his cozy toes - kicked it right off repeatedly - ah how my baby has grown

three I managed to get a start on the lion cub hats for the toddler participation piece of the Sunday school musical and man are they going to be cute.

four I watched the Oscars pregame with my sister in law and fell in love with Colin Firth all over again even though I had gone to bed before his award was given. Best dress of the night is a tie between Marissa Tomei and the young girl from True Grit.
What can I say - I like Tulle!

five I made a Pioneer Woman recipe for dinner complete with wine and cheese - the cost of which two items could feed us for two nights normally! It was tasty but not as good as I had thought it would be. Loved cooking the mushrooms in wine and actually had a lot of fun following a recipe while drinking Fish Eye and listening to Miles Davies accompanied by the sounds of Toby/Daddy playtime. Note to self - when following PW from her website the printable instructions and pictorial instructions need to be used concurrently as neither are complete and can mislead if used independently. I'm borrowing her picture here (am I allowed to do that?) because my picture didn't do it justice
six I finally got a vest I've had my eye on at LL Bean and since it was on sale I didn't have to debate over colour choice - result? I love it. I feel like a yummy mummy instead of a frazzled one!

seven The storm on Friday that dumped 18 inches on us canceled my scrapping plans in Portland but I stuck to my guns at home and instead of doing laundry scrapped seven pages of last May's trip to England. Missed Casey terrible and look forward to the postponed date this Friday.

eight I fell in love with my little boy in so many new and old wonderful ways this weekend. Every few minutes I felt myself falling in love all over again
nine Have an urgent need to see both The King's Speech and The Social Network now. Also an overwhelming desire to buy frivolous William/Kate merchandise.

ten (Because I have to have ten on a list) Our window is leaking and leaked all over the present I am making for Ben's brother and his wife - it should dry out just fine so I'm not worried about that. I love snow, I do not love Ice, especially when five inches of it form on the outer walls of my house and start to seep in through the minutest gaps. Though it is pretty to look at, darn you ice!!

Have a blessed day

Something Fenway this way comes

Spring Training has begun. While I am a die hard Patriots fan it is Baseball that rules the sporting world in this house and New Englanders that we are this means the Red Sox. My ability to follow the team and even a game changes with each passing season, last year I saw nary a pitch but saw Toby roll over and grab his toes many times. Husby paid a little more attention but still was not as invested in the game as he generally likes to be. This year he has news updates going directly to his Iphone so he is well plugged in.

Listening to PBR the other day I heard an interesting piece of baseball news. A woman has pitched in batting practise at spring training for the first time. The division of sports into male and female fields has never particularly bothered me, even during my feminist years, but I found this interesting. What happens in spring training does sometimes stay in spring training as chances are we will not see her face in the major league parks unless as a paying fan.

Like the warm up before a workout we know what the players hope to gain from spring training, she hopes to be a pitching coach some day, but exactly what is it that we hope to gain from our observations?

We get to see what everyone has been doing in the off season - are they ready with guts or for glory? This year it seems that our boys in red were not slacking in the off season and are trimmer than the past few years. We see a well adjusted team, Ortiz playing catch with his son reminds us that baseball may be the heart of this team but that we are not a team of automatons (cough cough yankees cough cough) and neither success nor finances have wrought that on our heads in recent years. We also get to put markers on returning players and rookies. Who is likely to fade out this year, will Varitek retire? Who is going to shine - do we have any newbs to keep an eye on or are they all going to remain sold backbenchers this year, pitching in when needed but little else?

I get my baseball news mostly from Husby and he is excited this year but since I have a son now it may be worth my while to start understanding this game of his father's a little more. To keep up my cool mum exterior, to be the mum with the best cookies in town and the most up to date stats! So forgive me as I occasionally slip away from my crafting and into the more baritone world of bases and hot dogs.

Go Sox!

Two little things

Two little but wonderful things happened today

When we left the house this morning I heard the first Chickadee of Spring - it has been a long long winter.

When I bathed Toby tonight I realised that the pee smell I smell every night when I bathe him was not coming from the outside of the toilet (soaked weekly in scrubbing bubbles to no avail) but from the pee soaked diaper I just took off my son. I owe Husby a big apology for that one!

Little, wonderful, silly (often gross when you have a small boy) things. Isn't that what makes the day tick?

Pining away the wee small hours

In the months before Toby was born Husby had insomnia, he thinks it was his body's way of preparing him for having a restless newborn in the house.

I like that explanation but it does little to help explain my current insomnia. I know a lot of it has to do with worrying about things over which I have no control and I am working on that. But on the other end of the spectrum is my growing desire for another baby. Toby will be two this year so I suppose it was inevitable I would start pining for a baby again. The recent onslaught of temper tantrums that are eerily reminiscent of a newborn babe have done little to reduce this longing. Maybe I've been reading Soule Mama too much recently and seeing too many pictures of her growing belly and baby crafts has prematurely kick started my hormones.

I know that the second child will be a rollercoaster and that the mere fact of having two will bring in new twists and turns but I feel better prepared this time, like wanting a baby is more about my need to mother my family than my need to have a cute little thing to cuddle.

I am more aware of my own limitations and expectations than I was pre-Toby. I am certainly not calmer but I am more aware of those things that rile me and those things that soothe me. I am more conscious of what I can live without (folded laundry) and what I cannot live without (a tidy - if not clean - kitchen table). I am coming to the realisation that those things that I dream of - an extension to the house with a fourth bedroom for guests - chickens - to stay at home with my children - are part of my aspirations and shouldn't dictate how I feel about my here and now.

As Pastor Travis pointed out on Sunday I shouldn't let anything rob me of my joy. When I was pregnant with Toby I didn't worry about the weight I was putting on or where the money was coming from. I ate the Snickers bar because I was hungry and I bought the carpet because I wanted the nursery to be carpeted. So while I will remain responsible and conscious of my health and financial goals, I will not worry when life throws me a slice of pizza ($5 hot n ready). Because worry, even worry disguised as dreams, will rob me of my joy in the everyday.

I slept well last night. I slept deeply last night. I hope to sleep well and deeply tonight.

With my baby in the next room, sleep soothing away his evening of tantrums, with a pile of unfolded laundry at the foot of the bed and unclean laundry on the floor, with a cleaned off kitchen table waiting for the next days food and crafts, with a Husband by my side who calmly sits through my tantrums and hugs me on the other side of them.

So with the next baby I won't expect birth announcements to be sent, I won't expect the scrapbook to be up to date or even started, I won't expect a daily shower or three hours sleep in one sitting, I won't expect more than Mac n cheese for dinner surrounded by last week's dishes, I won't expect to have her (tee hee) sleep in the crib during week one. I will instead live and breathe and move onto the next thing - full of JOY!

Another blog post

You know I have written this blog post at least four times now and deleted it so let's just go with my mind.

I finished three projects while watching a movie on Saturday Night:

1. Toby's Rocket Ship - it's fun but I didn't really like the pattern and it's kind of smushy. I won't make it again.2. A newborn hat for the etsy shop that may someday be set up properly. Husby is addicted to this hat - maybe even enough to get that sister for Toby!
3. A Santa hat that is now too late for Christmas 2010 but early for 2011! Of course it won't fit Toby by then!
On Sunday after a sermon that rocked my world I stole a few moments during naptime to attempt a craft I had seen on a blog I frequent -there are so many I forget where I saw this. I turned one of Husby's flannel shirts (with broken down collar and holey sleeves) into a pillow. So easy since the opening is pre-made and I love the way it looks.

Such a good use for something we have in abundance, I shall be repeating this project.

In other news Toby had a fever and then didn't; we got to hang out with good friends and play games - several times; I made two batches of cookies and one batch of Muffins; we tried to watch the Oscars and realised we had the wrong week; I started making Husby's PJ pants and Toby discovered the joys of the temper tantrum.

Not at all the three day weekend we had planned but certainly a fun filled smorgasbord!

A quirky turn of potato

A new craft

So I become inspired when I read other blogs. The first time I acted upon this inspiration I had a three month old and decided to make Bakerella's Cake Pops. I swore far more that weekend than I had during Toby's delivery. I have made them twice since and still need therapy as a result. Recently I made Hasselback Potatoes from another blog and well, they didn't turn out as Hasselbacked as I think they were supposed to be. I regularly visit blogs for free amigurumi patterns and that tends to work.

Over the past two weeks I have been working on a sewing pattern recommended by Soule Mama it's a pair of trousers from Anna Maria Horner's Handmade Beginnnings. Luckily our library had it so I could peruse before deciding if I wanted to go for it.

So I did it

I got stuck on it a few times but it didn't make me swear and it was fun the whole time.

I present to you Master Tobias and his reversible pants!


I foresee many Mama made pants in Toby's future.

Husby rolled them up to Toby's thighs too and they will make very cute camping pants/shorts in lightweight cotton this year.

If you only use this one pattern in the entire book it will have been worth it. Easy for even the laziest of sewers and the laziest of novice sewers ( I am both). Though next time I will be pressing the seams, I skipped that part and regretted it in the final stages!

Happy Hallmark Day

This blog post originally began with "I don't really celebrate the lesser spotted holidays"

But then as I begin typing I realized that I sent ten valentines, am wearing pink tights and a pink sweater to work today, will be having potentially heart shaped pancakes with both my valentines at Ihop tonight, refer to them as "my valentines", made Husby a special breakfast of his favourite kind of eggs (poached) this morning, dressed Toby in his black and bright red I HEART Mommy shirt today and am quite sure some kind of romantic nonsense will make its way onto the television tonight!

So my original statement isn't quite true. I apparently do celebrate all holidays. Is there some kind of support group I can join?

Picking up the hook again

Crocheting makes me happy. I have been trying to make my life more reasonable. It is okay if I watch X Files for an hour and crochet. It is okay if the dishes wait and the laundry doesn't get folded until bedtime. It is okay to go to sleep with only a partially clean house. So a few weeks ago I picked up my crochet hook again for some amigurumi fun. I've been making hats and blankets consistently but it has been a while since I picked up my hook and worked on a fun little toy. These projects are quick and amazingly satisfying.

My sister had a big birthday this year and I had promised myself I would make this dog for her, so here he is...

He took all of three nights to make and the dishes still got done!

Then when he was done I picked up on a project I had started for Husby and was stuck on. Once I realised that I had misprinted the instructions and was missing three crucial lines it went swimmingly. Here he is

Husby's Minion

Of course now he wants three

I am currently working on a spaceship for Toby but in the meantime I have laundry to do!

TTFN

Bliss is

Discovering that the Sandra Boynton Board Book is the perfect size for the inner pocket of the Vera Bradley diaper bag!

Learning when you're not looking

I know that Children pick up the mannerisms and habits (and language!) of those around them but I hadn't quite realised quite how much they learn when you're not looking.

For a few months now I have been reading The Complete Adventures of Curious George to Toby at bedtime. We don't read from this every night and we took a big break in December for Christmas stories but the book is a few hundred pages long and we are almost at the end. Toby stands in his crib watching the pictures and listening to the story as I read. He then marches around the crib, he plays with his Panda a little and then he stands up to watch the pictures again.

The other day as we were leaving daycare one of the other parents arrived with his little boy to pick up another child. The little boy jumped out of the car to get his sibling, grabbed his Curious George soft toy and started to walk in. Toby stiffened with excitement, pointed at the boy and said "George! George! George!" I was shocked, impressed and unbelievably proud of my little boy.

He hadn't said George before, not even when we were reading the stories, so not only did he recognise who George was and know the appropriate word, but he recognised him out of context and in a different format. He didn't want George, he didn't try and clamber down me to get to the toy, he was just happy to see the curious little monkey.

Reading matters. Husby and I both read to Toby whenever we can and I always read from something other than a Board Book when he goes to bed at night. He enjoys it, I love it and now I know he is actively paying attention and learning from the words I bring to life for him.

Read to your child tonight. If you don't have a child, take a book over to a friends child and introduce a new world. They listen!

this moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. From Soule Mama

Snow Day

Yesterday we had a snow day. Husby always gets to stay home with Toby but I rarely do. I work for a School Superintendent and even when the schools close our office is open, usually to receive calls from disgruntled parents and vendors in California! But yesterday's storm was supposed to be so bad that I got a call at 5am from my boss telling me not to come in. So...

... we slept in till 7.30, 15 minutes after we usually leave in the morning.

... we played with Trucks and coloured using old scrapbook paper and crayons that Toby only tried to eat once.

... friends of ours who also had a snow day came over and our boys (who are 2 1/2 months apart) played and screamed then napped and played some more.

... we set up a tent in the living room using a huge blanket and for the first time Finn and Toby played together instead of just near each other. They chased, they clapped, they hugged, they fell over and bashed their heads on the floor. Good times!

... we ate Pizza and salad while the boys screamed and napped

... we finally caught up on all our laundry

... we lit up the woodstove and let the day just happen

There are no photos, we were having too much fun to worry about where the camera was. I did take pictures of some crafts I finished during nap time and after Toby went to bed but I'll post those another day. Right now I am reveling in the fun that was had and thinking about doing the same thing tomorrow night at their place.