W - 16 Month Update

Pretty sure I haven't done one of these since W was a newborn!  It's about time I update the world on my big, little man!

Where to start...well, he's about 24 pounds and although he can fit in 18 month clothes he really shouldn't (the shirts are basically crop tops on him).  He sleeps in his crib from 8 pm to 630 am on weekdays and 730 on weekends - I say he gets woken up by The Sailor while he gets ready for work, The Sailor says that isn't true, either way he wakes up earlier during the week then the weekend!  Then he comes and cuddles in bed with me and nurses for about a half hour before we actually get up!

Things he likes...going to classes at the local Family Resource Center!  This past month we went to Art Explosion, La Leche League, Natural Parenting for Non-Hippies, and My 5 Senses.

Art Explosion

Playing with another toddler at La Leche League

He also loves playing with balloons and balls of all sizes.

One of his favorite "activities" is eating.  A normal breakfast for him is a whole piece of fruit (usually a banana or a pluot - which is a plum apricot hybrid), 2 pieces of turkey sausage, and an egg.  Then he has a morning snack, lunch, an afternoon snack, dinner, and still breastfeeds between 3 and 5 times a day.  He's also started using an actual fork to feed him and even eats corn directly off the cob.

And I swear this boy loves his pets more and more each day!

Things he doesn't like are when I try to carry him to and from the car - he wants to walk there himself, and being told no in general (as in, "No, W, you can't play in that drawer in the kitchen.")

He hasn't shown any signs of parental preference...he just prefers us all to be together.  He gets upset if either The Sailor or I leave.

He's go, go, going non-stop and incredibly independent.  He likes to play on the playground himself, walk places himself, and read to himself regularly.

My favorite thing he does is when he "surprises" me with kisses.  He doesn't like to give me kisses if I ask for them (but he'll give Tomcat, Gabby, or stuffed animals kisses on command) but every once and a while he'll crawl up on my lap and just give me a kiss.  It absolutely melts my heart.

His words are still pretty limited but he regular says Mama, Dada, Meow, and vroom (when playing with cars) and he signs milk, please, more, finished.  He "talks" to me (and everyone else) constantly, I'm just waiting for it to become actual words!

Challenges this month were 1) me trying to keep up with him even though I'm pregnant and lazy and 2) he's transitioned from 2 to 1 nap ::whompwhomp::  He used to take a morning nap at about 930 and an afternoon nap at about 230.  They were each about an hour and a half long.  But he started fighting the second nap and I'd spend 45 minutes trying to get him down only for him to wake up a half hour later.  Now he's going down for a nap between 11 and noon and that nap lasts 2-3 hours.  He has his best naps when we've done something extra active to wear him out in the morning (either going to a class or playing outside) and if he poops before he goes down for a nap.  If we can keep up one nap that lasts about 3 hours long I'm not going to complain!

I guess that's really it this month!

In case you couldn't tell, we did a "golf" photo shoot last week at the driving range on base, haha.

Nursery Organization - Phase 1

Oh.my.goodness.  What a pain in the ass that was!  Yesterday I spent the day organizing, washing, and putting away everything I had crammed in the closet in the nursery.  But, I feel so, so, so much better now!  In case you forgot, this is what the closet looked like:

It may not look like that much, but once I pulled it all out and started organizing it (by size for clothes, and just by what it is for everything else) you could see how much there really was in there.  (FYI - I had already put all the newborn clothes in the laundry, so some is actually missing from this picture)

Yeah...that's a lot of stuff.  The whole floor was covered so I resorted to hanging stuff of boxes and covering the chair in stuff.  Tom enjoyed it quite a bit...

 And again:

And can I just complain for a second?  Why the hell do they feel the need to package baby clothes so intensely???  It took me forever to remove all the hangers, tags, boxes, etc. from the new clothes I had, and only like 1/4 of the clothes I had were new! (The rest were used so they obviously didn't have tags on them anymore)  When there was a hanger with like 5 onesies each freaking onesie was attached to all the others in like five freaking places!  And you have to make sure you get all those horrible plastic pieces out, because I'm pretty sure babies wouldn't appreciate being stabbed by tag holders every time you get them dressed.

Since our utilities are included in our rent I wasn't worried about doing a million loads of laundry, but if we did pay our utilities I would have definitely washed everything first and then organized by size.  (I didn't even think about it until after I had organized it all, in all honesty.)  But yeah, after a day of organizing, washing, and putting away clothes, hats, bibs, blankets, baby legs, socks (baby socks are the devil, by the way), and even my Moby Wrap (which I had gotten directly from the Moby Wrap site for 25% off after Christmas) I turned that big hot mess into this:

And look, you can see the floor again:

So, a little more info on the method behind my organization madness.  The fancy schmancy organizer in the middle is from Target (this one - cost $25) and the organizers on either side are technically for shoes and I got them from Marshall's (for $5 a piece - so $10 in all).  The top left slot has newborn sized clothes and they're broken down by onesies, jammies, bottoms, and rompers.  Below that is 0-3 month size and going down the sizes get bigger and they continue on the top right.  As the Seamonkey grows out of the smaller clothes I pull them from the organizers and there will be more room for bigger clothes (as I get bigger clothes).

In the middle organizer there is a bunch of random stuff: shoes, swaddles, receiving blankets, binkies, hats, etc. and the bin at the bottom is all socks (did I mention baby socks are the devil?).  I figure once the Little Man is here I'll probably move that stuff around to wherever makes sense.  And, the whole left side of the closet is still empty, so I've got plenty of room for more stuff!

Now you may be wondering what the hell I'm going to be putting in my lovely dresser...diapers, obviously! (So that may not be that obvious, but cloth diapering supplies require a good amount of space!)  And, that'll be "nursery organization phase 2."  I just have to prep all the diapers, line the drawers of the dresser, and put it all away!

Did I mention this is my week 30 update?  I really don't feel any different from week to week, I just feel bigger (and I feel the Little Man move around more) so if I were to continue doing weekly update posts they'd be pretty damn boring.  I will say, I recently invested in a 2 inch memory foam mattress pad and my back and my ability to sleep have improved tenfold.  I 110% recommend getting a nice mattress pad to any pregnant ladies who are struggling to find a comfortable way to sleep!

Until next time...

As always, you can see the whole progression of belly photos on the Pregnancy tab of my blog!

**All images used in the post are personal photos**

Long Overdue - Pregnancy Update

I'm going to pregnancy blogger hell.  The last time I did a weekly update was when I was 21 weeks pregnant.  Now I'm almost 25.  Whatevs, I'm pregnant, don't yell at me.

So yeah, I'm 24 weeks pregnant.  Time has been moving quickly despite my general discomfort. My back is killing me 99% of the time.  I'm generally pretty tired (whoever said you get all this energy during your second trimester was lying). And it's at 24 weeks that a baby is considered viable, or there is a possibility he will survive if you go into labor, so that's pretty cool.

I've been making more concrete plans for the nursery, which is super exciting.  I've decided January will be "decorate the nursery" month for me.  December has gone by quite quickly with going home and the holidays, February will go by quickly as I prepare for The Sailor to come home, but I feel like January is gonna drag by.  More on that as I actually execute stuff.  I'm still not sure whether I'll show off stuff as I get/make it or if I'm gonna wait until the whole thing is done and I can do a big reveal.  We'll see!  But to get you a little excited for it, here's some pictures I plan on having printed (not sure what size yet) and then frame them:

Personal creations

Why yes, that is a Gabby, Lola, and Tom silhouette in the colors that I'll be doing the nursery in!

I also bought a used Fisher Price "Nature's Touch" Cradle 'n Swing this week.  It's very exciting to see baby stuff in the general living space of my house.  These things usually cost between $145 and $165...I got mine for $20! Bam!

Personal Photo

As you can see, it's in the corner in my living room.  Looks pretty damn good, if I do say so myself!

Things to look forward to on the pregnancy/baby front:

• DIY Knit baby hat and booties (80% complete)
• DIY Knit Balloon Animal Frog (40% complete)
• Picking a stroller and car seat
• Plenty of cloth diaper excitement
• And of course, all things nursery related!

I have an OB appointment next week, so hopefully my next "weekly update" will be a little more informative/exciting, lol.

Until next time...

Personal Photos

Is it just me, or has my belly growth kinda been at a standstill?  There was a huge growth between 20 and 21 weeks (check that out here) but it really hasn't changed since then.  And yes, I did forget to take a 23 week picture...

Gallery Wall! (Finally...)

I know it has been eons since I last brought up putting together a gallery wall in my living room, but I promise I sorta have an excuse for not actually putting it up until the other day.

I'm not sure if I brought it up at all, but the Navy recently had a large number of lay-offs (yeah, I never thought the military did lay-offs either); it was technically called the Enlisted Retention Board (or the ERB).  This isn't the first or the last time they've done this, but it usually isn't done on this scale.  The Sailor's rate (which is basically military terms for his position) got cut by 25%.  So literally, 1 in 4 people who do what The Sailor does recently were told as of next spring or fall they will no longer be part of the Navy.  Some rates were cut by as much as 70%.

Well, needless to say, if we were going to be kicked out of the Navy at some point next year I had no desire to be hanging pictures throughout the house.  But, thankfully, we found out a few weeks ago that The Sailor is not being cut!

So anyway, back to my gallery wall.  I've had the stuff I wanted to hang up for quite a while now, it was really just a matter of laying it out and hanging it up.  So, the first step was figuring out how I was going to arrange all the frames, which I did on the floor in front of the wall they would eventually be hung up on (Gabby was helping me):

Personal Photo

The next step is actually super clever and unfortunately I can't take the credit for coming up with it, haha.  Basically any blog that I read who has posted about gallery walls brought up using magazine pages to layout how you want to hang the frames up before you actually hang the pieces and all of them attribute the idea to the blog Young House Love.  But yeah, so first I taped together pieces of an old Ok! magazine so they would reflect how big the frames are:

Personal Photo

Then I taped them up on the wall.  Because I was just picking them up off the ground and placing them directly on the wall, it ended up being a mirror image of what I had on the ground, but luckily it didn't really matter:

Personal Photo

Personal Photo

Fun fact - I got lazy after hanging the magazine pages up and ended up leaving it like that for like two days, haha, so classy...

I had also marked on the magazines where the hanging part of the frame was so I just put up the hangers right over the magazine cut outs.  Obviously for any frame that had multiple hanging points I had to use a level to have the the magazine hung up precisely how I wanted the frame to hang; any frame that just had one hanging point was a lot easier.

Personal Photo

Personal Photo

And then I pulled down the magazines, and the hangers were in the perfect spot!

Personal Photo

The wing emblem is actually super deceiving.  It looks like it's made out of metal when in reality it's made out of plastic.  And The Sailor had drilled a hole in one side of it (I have no idea how he had it hanging before) so I got to use my drill to make a hole in the other side so I could eventually nail that sucker up on the wall.  But I actually did that last.  And since I only had little gold nails, after hanging it I used a Sharpie to make the nail heads black, haha.  It worked really well though!

Personal Photo

Personal Photo

The frames that are in the bottom right and all the way to the left don't actually have pictures in them yet.  The one on the left will eventually have a picture of each of the pets in it and the frame on the bottom right will eventually have random pictures of The Sailor and I (and probably the baby) in it.  Here are some close-ups of what I hung up.

On the right side we have a cartoon picture of a type of jet that The Sailor used to work on that is actually signed by the artist, his Air Warfare wing emblem, a quote about Love ("There is only one happiness in life - to love and be loved" - George Sand), a decorative quote/general words of wisdom about Life, and a random frame:

Personal Photo

 And in the middle we have a drawing of a bridge that The Sailor actually drew (he's so talented), a quote about Life ("Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but the moments that take our breath away"), and The Sailor's "Shellback" certificate.  You become a "shellback" when you're in the Navy when you cross the equator for the first time on deployment. There's a ceremony - which I think is just a politically correct way of saying they haze the younger sailors.  Either way, the certificate is really pretty!

Personal Photo

I love how the whole thing turned out.  And I love that the walls in my living room aren't bare anymore.

Do you have any plans to create a "gallery wall" in your home?  Or do you already have one (and if you already have one, did you use the magazine trick)?

Until next time...

PS - I just had to share this...Every night Gabby, Lola, and Tom all try to snuggle with me on the couch, and last night I just happened to catch a picture of it.  Yes, I am under that grey blanket, lol, and Gabby is snuggling with my foot:

Personal Photo

Halfway There!!!

Cue the parade - I'm 20 weeks pregnant! Halfway there bitches!

I've started feeling the little guy move around in my belly.  Especially in the evening after I drink the one can of soda that I have every day.  I've heard people describe it as butterflies or popping or swishing - but not for me.  When I feel him moving its pretty simple, it feels just like if someone were to poke you from the outside, only it comes from the inside.  Then again, I'm not really sure what butterflies would feel like in my uterus...

Tom has become increasingly obsessed with my stomach.  He loves to sit on it.  Or hug it.  And when he's hugging it if I try to move him he grabs my shirt with his claws.  It's a little obnoxious (but a little adorable).

Personal Photo

Another new development on the animal/pregnancy front - Gabby is attracted to my leaky boobs.  Yup, when I start leaking, she starts trying to lick my boobs.  This is not adorable at all, its just obnoxious.  She gets this crazed look in her eyes and starts sniffing in my direction ferociously.  Then she tries to lick my boobs.  This is a habit we're definitely going to have to kick before the baby and my actual milk comes.  Or else she'll be fighting the little guy when he's trying to breastfeed.

Personal Photo
This has nothing to do with my pregnancy, I just think its cute

I had another appointment with my midwife yesterday.  Everything looks good.  My weight gain is on track (I've gained about 11 pounds) and the little guy is right where he's supposed to be.  Since both the baby and I are doing well she said I don't need to go back for another 6 weeks.

Apart from that, I've started getting wicked heartburn and to say that I'm gassy would be a severe understatement.  Good thing pregnancy is turning me into a hippie so I'm not really that shy about my gas, hahaha.  My back pain comes and goes.  Sometimes it's so intense I can't walk without limping and I think I need a cane.  Sometimes it doesn't hurt at all.  Oh, and although my skin was clearing up quite well I've re-broken out.  Awesome.

Until next time...

Personal Photos

Knitting Project - Hooter Hat!!!

So, after finishing my last knitting project, I announced that I would next be taking on a boob hat for the baby.  So, I got to Googlin' to find a pattern for such a lovely head piece and I found this pattern:

Source

Perfect, right?  Wrong.

This is my first time knitting in the round.  This can be accomplished with double ended needles or with circular needles.  I was using circular needles.  This pattern starts at the nipple, and for whatever reason it was basically impossible for me to successfully use my circular needles with that few stitches.

Side note - if you're knitting in the round for the first time, for some reason this diagram really helped me understand what was happening and in turn actually be able to knit in the round.  The instructions on the source page aren't half bad either...

Source

So anyways...I obviously wasn't going to give up on making my own boob hat that easily!  So I figured I could just make a hat, do a color change towards the crown of the hat, and figure out the nipple later!  Once again, I got to Googlin' and I found this pattern for the "Grow With Me Baby Hat" which I really like (I plan on making a bunch more hats, but I'm waiting until I find out the sex of the baby, and I'll use that pattern).  It has a nice cuff that can be folded thicker or thinner as the baby grows and I found the instructions for the decrease at the crown of the head to be very helpful.  Not only that, but I think the crown of the hat looks really cool!

So I followed the instructions almost exactly, but I changed from my primary color (the skin tone {aka white}) to the accent color (the nipple color {aka pink}) when I had 42 stitches left on my needles, or about halfway through decreasing the stitches on the top of the hat. Et voila - a completed hat, but not a true boob hat yet since there's no actual nipple:

Personal Photos
Where's the nip?


Not too bad, if I do say so myself!

Now, I just had to figure out how the hell I was going to make a nipple.  I tried knitting a chord with my circular needles (this is called an I-chord) but that wasn't working.  Then I remembered this toy/knitting loom that I had as a child that basically just created long ass chords that we would then make into things - or not, lol, in which case you then had a really long chord and nothing to do with it.  Mine looked like a mushroom, like this one:

Source
Oh the memories

I figured even if I couldn't find an awesome mushroom shaped one, they had to still make mini-looms like this, so I went to Wal-mart.  I ended up finding a double ended one (made by Boye) that could make to different size chords - sweet!  I can't find it online anywhere right now, but if you go to Wal-mart I'm sure you'll find it with all the other knitting stuff'; it was like 5 bucks and change.

Making a really short chord was harder than I expected, so my hat has a pretty long nipple.  Don't judge - that hat is supposed to represent a boob that's constantly being chewed on by an infant!  But yeah, so I made a chord as short as I could without it looking like total crap and then I just stitched it on with some of the pink yarn.  And check it out - hooter hat, nipple and all!

Personal Photos


Since I'm kinda obsessed with the blog where I originally saw a baby boob hat, MODG, and she took a picture of her cat wearing her boob hat, I kinda did the same thing.  No, it isn't creepy - it's totally normal to mimic bloggers you like.  Plus, Fatman is a way better baby hat model than my knee is...

Personal Photos

Needless to say, he did not appreciate having a ta-ta put on his head and then have photos taken that would later be posted on the Internet.  He may be pretty pissed at me right now, but I totally think it was worth it, haha.

So - what do you think of my boob hat?  Do you think the whole concept is completely inappropriate or are you like me and think it's perfect??

Until next time...

PS - fun fact about my boobs - I'm now a 36E.  Yes - E - as in Elephant.  I think once you've gone up that many cup sizes, regardless of how big or small your baby bump is, your body is officially completely different than it was pre-pregnancy.  I'm contemplating chopping them off, cuz they're obnoxious.

Yay - My Kitchen Looks Like Someone Actually Lives There!

I apologize in advance for having a third post of the day.  The other two posts I wrote 2 flipping days ago, but I was having issues getting the pictures to save on the public computers in the community center (yeah...I still don't have the shit I left in Pittsburgh), so this is a three post kinda day!

In case you forgot, when The Sailor and I got to California the only furniture we had was a mattress, a TV (that counts as furniture, right?), and a hideous TV stand (that I'm still working on replacing).  In the tiny ass hell hole apartment, it didn't really matter, because well, it was a hobbit hole.  Once we moved into our massive house on base it was a problem.  We moved all our stuff in, and it still didn't look like anyone actually lived there, haha.

Although I'm still working on most of the house, I'm happy to announce the kitchen/dining area is 99% complete and actually looks like people live in our house!

I had slowly but surely been filling the actual kitchen up (with a microwave, white board, etc.) and last week not only did my dining set that we ordered like a month ago finally come in, I also got a great deal on a shelf from Marshall's.  What's even cooler about the shelf is that I had been keeping my eye on it for a while, but I wasn't willing to pay $100 for it.  Even when it was marked on sale, it wasn't worth it (I forget what the original sale price was).  But last week, I finally bought it!

Tom likes it, too

Guess how much it cost.

No, seriously, guess.........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................

Personal Photo

That's right..$35!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love looking at the "Compare at" price, even though I don't 100% believe that's how much it would actually cost half the time, but whatevs.  So, originally, the shelf was worth $195 but I got it for $35...That's 82% off the retail price bitches!

Then, like two days after I got the sick nasty deal on my wicked awesome dining area shelf, I got the call my dining set was in (finally - 1 to 2 weeks my ass)!  So, I went and picked that up and put it together, which was actually super easy to do.  Side note - it was actually more time consuming to break down all the boxes and fold them to the point where they would fit in my recycling bin. Et voila - my kitchen/dining area finally look complete (although I have 1 more project planned).

Personal Photo

 Check out my festive centerpiece.  Yeah, that's totally all from Marshall's and cost me about $7 for everything.  The bowl is actually really pretty and will stay there year round, and the crap in the bowl is good for October and November!

Personal Photos

 It's actually the super naked wall to the right of the cabinets that I have another project planned for.  Any ideas on where I can find a cool looking, mismatched fork, spoon, and knife?  The only place I can think of is my Papa's house, lol, and he might find it kind of odd if I ask for one setting of cutlery...

Personal Photos

 The clock on the right hand wall in the photo below totally has a fork and a knife for minute/hour hands and a hanging spoon for the seconds.  I flipping love it.  I love it even more because I found it at Ross Dress for Less for $7.99!!!  However, the swinging spoon totally teases poor Gabby.  She sees a spoon and she assumes there's food involved.  She has no idea why there's a spoon swinging from side to side on the wall.

Personal Photos

So, there you have it, my 99% complete kitchen/dining area; what do you think?

Until next time...

Nothing is better...

...than mid-day naps!

Check out how cute my four-legged babies are!

Until next time...