that hat.

big-E.

once again, it has been forever since my last post. ever since big-E (the baby formerly known as pringle) stopped sleeping 22 hours a day and then became mobile, i never seem to have time to sit down to breathe, let alone keep up with my blog. plus, in the last year, my world has completely shifted. i am now an art teacher and mama to a toddler. not sure what direction that will take my blog, but i am rather certain there will be a lot more posting about children and art.

 

nothing earth-shattering to share today, i just decided it was high time to stop the blog silence. and i simply have to tell you about my latest sewing project. YES, sewing! it does still happen on a rare occasion. i have a gadzillion projects piled up on my sewing table and i finally determined it was time to tackle the mountain. first up, a hat for big-E. we have misplaced his adorable sun hat and life in florida demands that the kiddo have a sunhat. we cant wait until we unearth the old one and i refuse to pay the big bucks required to procure a cute hate, so i made a new one. 

i found this fabulous tutorial by oliver+S. dug up some lovely plaid material and set to work. first thing, i affirmed that my kid has a giant head. he needs a medium, which is sized for 3-5 year olds. right. i had to add a chin strap, because despite the size of his noggin, the kid is too young for reasoning and simply wont listen to me when i tell him to stop yanking off his hat. i also refused to hand sew the last step, so i machine stitched it. worked like a charm. end result is a totally fantastic hat. and i can definitively recommend this pattern & tutorial. total awesomeness.

the big ONE.

hard to believe, but little pringle is one year old. it has been a crazy wonderful year. and of course the big question was, to have a party or not? we all know he ain't going to remember any of it, nor will he understand what is happening, but we will. so we had a party.

the beginnings of a banner

we wanted to keep it small and simple, but i am me and simple is NOT in my dna. simple design, yes. simple projects, nope. my brain went into overdrive figuring out exactly how to transform our building's blah blah blah community room into the perfect spot for a first birthday party.

the community room. oy vey.

i painted some lovely banners, the mister created gads and gads of strings with colorful squares, we sewed some monster party favors, and we made paper stars and paper chains. we happily, the end result was dreamy.

the mister and his helper making wall coverings.

yummy.

the food corner.

i love this wall, sigh.

and then there was the cake. naturally i consulted the internet, but what i found was ridiculously intimidating. there are some seriously overachieving parents out there!!! i am not, nor have i ever been, known for my baking, so trying to make a dump truck sculpture with cake was definitely beyond my skill level. but i still wanted it to be special. i had it in my head that i would make the entire thing from scratch...cake AND frosting. of course, my kitchen is not equipped with any type of electrified mixer and apparently these gadgets make the process a whole lot easier. right. oh well. i decided to make a "trial" cake for our little family-of-three celebration that we had on the little guy's actual birthday. the cake was bright green. delicious, but seriously crumbly. the frosting took three tries. the final version was chocolately goodness, but hard. of course, pringle was delighted with the result. in fact, he got upset when we took it away. 

numero uno.

even though it was yummy, the mister and i decided that the cake for the party needed some improvements. enter betty crocker. in the end i made a four-layer cake, with blue and green layers. and white frosting with orange decorations. the design was simple, simple, simple, and it turned out sooooooooooooo pretty. so so pretty. i kept opening the fridge to look at it, because i was so surprised that it turned out so glorious. and the taste..well, betty crocker did a fabulous job, so the cake was scrumptious. and did i mention it was pretty? it was.

i adore this cake. it makes me giddy.

staring down the cake.

monster party favors!!

all in all, it was a delightful party. and pringle had super much fun.

the birthday boy.

wonky windows #24.

these are my travel windows...a few tidbits that made me giggle during our christmas trip to los angeles.

pringle on the plane. checking out the view from 35,000 feet.

have you ever looked closely at the lock on a public bathroom stall? me neither. or maybe i have and there was never anything to see. either way, when i saw the logo on this lock, it made me giggle. hiny hiders!! and check out the logo's picture...soo awesome.

upon returning to fort lauderdale, we saw this dude sitting in a room. whatevs. but then i started feeling a little creepy. we looked a little closer...

he is made of wax. art installation. right then. welcome back to florida.

wonky windows #20.

looking at the world through my eyes.

yesterday, i went a-hunting for some toys for pringle. i did find some goodies at target, but i have to admit, some of the prices seem ridiculous, especially for toys the kid will discard after a few months. so thinking i might be able to find something in good condition and easy to disinfect (hello BLEACH!), i wandered over to the local goodwill store, where i found a couple great toys. yay. and then i saw these shoes. and if this one isn't bad enough, just know that there is an entire display. it is a ten-foot-square, waist high stack of boxes filled with this ridiculous footwear. i am eagerly anticipating the day when i see someone trying to walk down the street in these. as i am typing this, i am terribly bummed to realize i did not look at the price. clearly i was too mesmerized. unfortunately that means i cannot finish the sentence..."these can be yours for the bargain price of __________ dollars."

sometimes i try to act like an adult. here and there i think i manage to fool a few people, but not in the grocery store. i am like a five year old. who needs lunch when you can have a box of animal cookies?

you have no pants.

the folks in lesotho do not have large quantities of clothes stashed away in their closets. actually, they don't have closets, they have free-standing wardrobes, but that is a horse of a different color. the point is they do not have a lot of clothes. but they have clothes. they do not run around wearing leaves and leather thongs. in fact, they dress a lot like us....well, sort of. what i mean to say is that just like us, they wear skirts, pants, shorts, t-shirts, dresses, jackets, etc. 

even the babies and children have clothes. sometimes it seems like babies have the most clothes, because it is handed down from kid-to-kid. they grow out of it before it wears out, so it accumulates. which makes it all the more entertaining that small children can often be found sans pants. especially in the summer. maybe it is because their mothers are tired of washing diapers or just because the kids are tired of pants. i do not know. but one of my fellow peace corps volunteers started telling kids "you have no pants." this line never ceased to make us laugh hysterically. [side note: in the light of day on my couch in the U.S.A., i struggle to convey the hilarity, but peace corps volunteers will laugh at almost anything...i guess it is a mechanism of self-preservation that prevents you from spending all of your time crying.]

pringle's first-ever fitting.

since it still makes me giggle, i like to say it to pringle. all the time. he wears onesies EVERY day, with no pants. we save his two pairs of pants for outings. although i do love to tell him that he has no pants, i think they look adorable on him and i wish he had more. but it seems insane to pay money for unnecessary clothes he will grow out of in a month. so i googled pants patterns. how hard can they be, right? oh my. not only are they not hard, they are ridiculously EASY. (check out my tutorial.)

first pattern. needs work.

i found a two-piece pattern that is sized for infants, but the pants do not fit so lovely in the bum. then i found a four-piece pattern that is PERFECT. except it is sized for a 2 year old. so i put together the information gleaned from these patterns, my pre-existing knowledge of how pants are constructed, and a pair of pringle's pants to create my own pattern. perfectly sized for pringle.

second pattern. nifty, but needs work.

and now i am obsessed. O.B.S.E.S.S.E.D. seriously. i made him three pairs yesterday and i have plans for more. LOTS more. this kid will never again be sans pants, because i think he is beyond adorable when he wears them. and they did not cost me a dime. thank you neverending stash of fabric.

third pattern. presto perfecto!!

blanketed.

every day with a little baby brings new developments. the latest is that pringle is starting to grab hold of things that you put in his hand. this is rather exciting because it means we can give him things that he can use to keep himself entertained. and most things that we put in his hand eventually end up in his mouth.

trying to eat his sock monkey's arm.

he has a rattle that he plays with by shaking it and waving it around or he shoves it in his mouth and sucks on it. the problem with this rattle is that once he drops it he cannot pick it back up. apparently he has not yet figured out the joys of his opposable thumbs. being a mini-human means that he is also fascinated by ordinary things like burp cloths, which happen to be much easier for him to hold. after considering these basic facts, i decided the little guy needs a toy that is easy for him to hold, play with, and suck on. enter the lovey or security blanket. i have decided that pringle needs one. yes, NEEDS.

trying to eat his momma's sewing.

i could head over to target and pick up a security blanket for $7.99, but what kind of crafty mom would i be if i purchased something that i could lovingly make myself? and of course i could make this blanket by sewing together two pieces of cloth, but well...have you ever met me? no? oh, well in this house we like to complicate things as much as possible. so rather than take anything resembling an easy route, i instead used leftover fabric from THE quilt to make a mini quilt. and a mini stuffed owl. and then i sewed the two together and, if i may say so myself, the result is rather marvelous. it only took me a week.

ladies and gentlemen, meet paco...

me thinks pringle likes paco...
 

baby got back.

the pepa.

sometimes things are not better in the west. no offense to the myriad of companies producing baby carriers, but the developed world has simply not designed any product that carries babies as efficiently and perfectly as the women of developing nations. i have seen pictures of how it is done in other countries, but lesotho is the only country for which i have first hand experience. they use a blanket and a gigantic safety pin. that is it. it sounds too good to be true, but i assure you it is possible. thanks to my two year sojourn in lesotho, and the fact that my best friend and her mother both had babies, i learned how to pepa (carry a baby on my back). about a month ago i decided pringle was ready to pepa, so on my back he went. other people seem surprised at how much he likes it, but not me. let us think about this...he is tightly wrapped and happens to be strapped to one of his favorite people in the world. what's not to love? anyhow, i started off using my tjale (a blanket women wear around their waist or shoulders, similar to a picnic blanket - mine was given to me by my in-laws) and when at home, i carried pringle around on my back all the time. but i was not mentally prepared for venturing out in public. i have this awful tendency to get a bit timid about doing out-of-the-ordinary things in public, so obviously strapping my baby on my back and wandering the grocery store was totally NOT in my comfort zone. ugh.

boring blue blanket.

but then a friend saw a picture i had posted of pringle on my back and she mentioned that my blanket is boring. she is right. it is blue with blue stripes. well, i cannot say that i needed another sewing project, but i like a good challenge. and i realized that maybe if i made a special pepa blanket, i would be more at ease using it in public. as an added bonus it would be lovely and hopefully not be as hot as an acrylic blanket, which is mucho importante in miami. so i pulled out my fabrics and voila!! a quilted cloth to carry my little pringle. now when people ask me what carrier i am using, i am going to tell them it is a "pepa" by lerato. and they will be super jealous, because their hands-free carrier ain't as fantastic as my hands-free carrier. 

the new and improved pepa blanket.

ain't it lovely? i am still not 100% confident using it in public, because i feel like a fish out of water, but i am working on it. i am building up mental stamina... i used it walking downstairs to get the mail, to a yoga studio grand opening, and in the mister's company at the grocery store. it has been wonderful, but it definitely gets a lot of stares and comments. i know i know...time to stop worrying about what everyone else is thinking and just worry about what is best for me and my baby. easier said than done, but i am trying!!!

pringle loves it!

muscle mama.

i am trying to get back in shape since pringle was born. although "back" in shape is maybe not accurate, since i do not think i could argue that i was in shape before i got pregnant. details. anyhow, i am tackling this "get fit" in multiple ways. 

pickel on the left doing abs, while pringle sleeps in the stroller second from left. photo courtesy om yoga miami.

first, stroller boot camp. sounds cute, right? ummm...there is nothing cute about this class....except of course the darling babies riding in their strollers. we speed-walk up and down the sidewalk and stop to do lunges, squats, abs, and pushups. ouch.

pickel and pringle in our yoga pose. photo courtesy om yoga miami.

second, baby & momma yoga. okay, this one is pretty cute. and since we are not gasping for breath, the mommas can chat. when the babies cooperate, we help them stretch. then while they rest or sleep, the mommas do yoga. it is relaxing and lovely, but our instructor makes sure the poses we do work as many muscles as possible. more ouch.

third, i have headed back to the gym. i get on the treadmill and walk two miles with as much speed and % grade (you know...uphill) as i can handle. and then for a few minutes i lift the ten pound weights and hope that i will have michelle obama's arms the next time i gaze in the mirror.

fourth, i started a one hundred pushups challenge. supposedly, if i follow the routine, in six weeks, i will be able to do 100 pushups. i will believe it when it happens. although, if you add together all the pushups included in yesterday's workout, i did eighty-eight, so maybe there is something to this!!

fifth, just for good measure (as if all of that wasn't enough), i somehow convinced two people to do the pushups challenge with me, but they in turn suckered me into doing the two hundred situps and two hundred squats challenges. yikes. 

i am hoping to maintain my motivation, because although i am not always a fan of exercising, i LOATHE dieting. i will do anything to ensure that ice cream and cookies do not have to be eliminated from the pickel food pyramid.

wonky windows #17.

wow. it has been a while. thanks to keri for reminding me that we should not neglect the windows!!!

this week is a window into a simple delight.

this melts my perfectionist heart.

seven weeks ago i gave birth to a little munchkin who likes to eat every two to three hours. since i opted to breastfeed him, we are sort of attached at the hip (well, actually it is the boob). pair that with the fact that his lack of vaccinations means we limit his excursions to public places and i am a stay-at-home mom. when i say stay-at-home, i mean, i literally do not leave the house. okay fine, i do. but it is rare. tuesday and wednesday pringle and i attend exercise class and on sundays i go grocery shopping.

holy organization. the joy, the joy.

the grocery shopping is sans pringle, which means it takes a bit of finagling. i needed a time that fit with the mister's studying, class, and work schedules, AND fit the munchkin's eating and sleeping schedule, so i picked sunday morning. early sunday morning. so early that i had to look at what time the store opens. 7am. that's right, this night owl heads to the grocery store at 7:00am sunday mornigs. eek. but there are some distinct beneifts. 1) it is easy to get an awesome parking spot. 2) the store is practically empty. 3)  the checkout lanes rarely have a line. 4) the bread in the bakery is still warm from the oven. and 5) the store is untouched, which makes it look delectable...hello produce!! which leads us to this week's pictures. these displays are always present, but by the time i used to show up in the afternoon, they were a mess. this organization; this perfection; this gloriousness, makes me want to sing from the rooftops.

interested in participating in wonky windows? check out the instructions.

all in a days work.

if only we were always this calm.

the mister: hi honey.

me: hi!!!

the mister: how was your day?

me: busy.

the mister: oh yeah? what did you do?

this puts a damper on productivity.

me: oh, you know, lots. ate breakfast. watched the tour de france broadcast. three times. played on facebook. for four hours. called the bank, which was uber-frustrating, so like all sane folks, i cried on the phone with the customer service representative (everyone cries when they call their bank, right?). nursed the baby. tried to soothe my crying baby. it took three hours. ate some candy. played on twitter. watched the baby sleep for two hours. pumped. ate some lunch. and then you came home, so that's it.

just a newbie.

hard work...who ME?!?

as you have clearly figured out, i have a newborn in the house. loving the little one, but ummm..newborns are hard work! holy bananas. i mean, don't get me wrong, it is all good stuff, but it is HARD WORK! i was expecting the typical eating, sleeping, pooping, and crying...but i did not realize the potential complexity of those four events. 

milk time...censored, because this is not THAT kind of blog.

eating. this is not a simple affair of have some milk and then be fine with life. nope. first, he nurses eight to twelve times a day, for thirty to forty minutes at a time. yikes!! never knew it could take so long to fill the world's smallest stomach. of course, at least half of the time i forget to grab my phone, the remote, or something to drink, so i end up stuck under a nursing newborn with nothing to amuse myself and completely parched. second, i am supposed to remember which side he nursed on last and start on that side at the next feeding. do who, what?!?! right. i can barely remember to brush my teeth and i am supposed to keep track of which boob is up next. ummm. sure. third, make sure he eats every three hours. well luckily, despite never remembering to look at the clock, this is not a problem. this kid never stops eating. fourth, change the kid's diaper BEFORE he eats. okay, check. and finally, burp the kid AFTER he eats. oh sure, spend forty minutes waiting for the kid to suck his way to sleep and then wake him up?!?! no thanks. he will burp in his own good time. (this is probably the point when someone is freaking out, because i do not regularly burp my kid...but hey, sleeping babies are much more pleasant than cranky i-am-supposed-to-be-sleeping-but-you-woke-me-up-to-burp-me babies.)

sleeping on prime real etate...momma's lap.

sleeping. that is, the baby sleeping. seems straightforward. mmmhmm. easy peasy, until the little dude discovered that he can sleep in his momma and poppa's bed or better yet...on top of them! yup. little guy is already spoiled. if he is even remotely awake, he refuses to sleep in his crib. this is a great time to point out that his crib is butted up against our bed, so his mattress is essentially an extension of ours. it's not like he is sleeping miles away, but apparently he thinks the 9" space between him and his momma is too much. at this point you might be wondering how a newborn refuses a crib. well, we lull him to sleep wherever he likes...in our lap, on our chest, next to us in bed, etc. then we move him to his crib. for up to five minutes things seem fabulous. and then the noises start. he squeaks. then he opens his eyes. next he waves his arms and kicks his feet. sometimes he manages to give himself the hiccups (sounds ridiculous, but i swear he does it!), and no matter what, after a few minutes he starts crying. oh and did i mention that when i manage to get him to sleep somewhere other than on top of me, he invariably wakes up right as i am thinking "i hope he sleeps for two more minutes, so i can finish what i am doing." this kid has a sixth sense for how best to dominate momma's world. whoever said that babies are boring, because all they do is sleep, has clearly never met my kid.

nonchalant pooper.

pooping. okay, even i have to admit, there is nothing complicated about the little guy's poop. he poops, i change his diaper, he poops again. sometimes he does not wait for a new diaper before pooping, which means big clean up for me. but still, pooping is basic and easy peasy. although, i have to say, his pooping is amusing - the kid lets loose some whoppers and he does it all while gazing nonchalantly into the distance.

this is the "PICK ME UP" shriek.

crying. according to the experts (whoever they are), newborns have different cries for different issues and if i tune my brain, then based on his cry i should know exactly what my kid wants. ummm..i guess my brain is not tunable, because i have so far only deciphered three different cries. the first is the rhythmic shrieking, which is the little dude saying "pick me up, pick me up, PICK ME UP!!!" check. then there are the startling screams combined with kicking, which means "my belly hurts" and is almost always followed up by a humongous poop. got it. finally there are the fussy and whiny cries, which cover all other issues. this is the crying for which i wish i had translations, so i could tell if the dude is hungry, tired, hot, cold, needs a diaper change, or is just generally uncomfortable. maybe in another few weeks i will have the guidebook, but for now we just bop along hoping to find the cure for his crying. luckily pringle is an easygoing dude and has been patient while i figure out how to be a momma.