Wool soaker (nappy cover) for baby

Caleb's new jumper. It's got a bit of growing room.

Caleb's Duplo bridge

So anyway. If you haven’t seen the new improved Little Para Pants site, go look.

Darrin’s gotten the second week in September off work, for a big roadtrip to & from Canberra. We may even hit Melbourne on our way back & do Caleb’s American citizenship stuff if it’ll all work.

Little Para Pants has also been WordPressed. And it’s got a nice little online shop plugin, so somebody go buy something! Still keeping the Etsy shop open as well, because it’s cheap advertising. I’ve got new nappies on display in both shops, and have more fabric on order, and waiting on a couple nappy samples from someone who sells them & wants me to design a new nappy with features from both of those. So I’ve got plenty to do.

And I don’t think I mentioned that I’m a sponsor of next month’s Great Down Under Nappy Hunt, so now I have.

For those of you who haven’t seen them yet, here are photos of Ian. In the next couple days I’ll try to get new photos of Caleb up there too.

How are we doing…well, that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? And you’ll get a million different answers, at least from me, depending on when you ask. Overall though, it’s sort of a rollercoaster – sometimes up, sometimes down, and you never know how long the up is going to last before something gets triggered. Physically though, I was feeling as good at two weeks post-Ian as I was at three MONTHS post-Caleb. And it seemed almost wrong in a way, what with everything else spinning out of control.

There are apparently people out there (though I haven’t run into any of them yet) who would say to just get over it & move on, but you know what? You don’t get over something like this. Sure, it heals over time, but just like with a broken leg that heals, a change in the weather or a bump in the wrong way will make it ache again.

The garden. In the last couple weeks I’ve done a lot. I was going to just give up on the stuff I planted before Ian was born, but then I saw new leaves forming, so I thought I’d mulch around them & see how they go. And now I’ve planted potatoes, and strawberry plants, and an apple tree & an almond tree. This morning I started off some seeds in egg cartons again – capsicum, lettuce, and celery. And peas in a planter box. And in a few days (when I find some room in the garden) I’ll put some carrots in too. Or, hmm, I’ve got a big plant pot that would be deep enough for good sized carrots. Might do them in there.

What’s up with Caleb? Full sentences. Empathy. Trains. Thomas. More Thomas. Still more Thomas. Warning: cute kid story ahead!

A couple weeks ago Caleb & I were out shopping. I’d bought some donuts, and gave him one (which he only ate a little of), and I had one, and I dropped the last bit of it on the ground. So I picked it up, put it in a bin nearby, and came back to Caleb in the shopping trolley. And right away he lifts his arms up to hug me, and goes “Aw poor Mum, sorry Mum, Mum ok?”

Every time we go into a shop now, he’s on the lookout for Thomas. When he first got into it, he’d spy something halfway down an aisle and say “Thomaaaaaas!” excitedly. Now, of course, he just remembers where ALL the Thomas things are, ALL over the store, and tells me how to get to them.

Okay, it’s bedtime. Gotta put my iced tea in the fridge before I go off though.

I have a zillion sewing projects I want to get finished before this baby arrives, including some maternity clothes. Really should get those going, shouldn’t I? And my chiropractor has ordered five nappies from me, and she’s due 4 days before me. But two are already finished, so I really only need to do three more. I got some fabric to make Caleb another pair of pajamas, and I’m also doing a set of curtains/drapes for a friend (as soon as I have the measurements).

Caleb…just gets better every day. He just put one of his bears on the potty to do a poo. And he’s very talkative. He’ll try any word except his name. It’s amazing how much he picks up without us even trying (i.e. he’s saying ‘no thanks’ and ‘thank you’ now of his own accord, even though we’ve never prompted him to do so – he’s just picked it up from us saying it to him).

Baby’s still in there. I was getting a little worried at one point that I hadn’t felt any movement for a while, but Lisa came over & checked with her doppler and worked out that baby just decided to hide behind the placenta for a bit. He/she has shifted again in the last week and I’m feeling a lot more kicks, hiccups, etc. again. Oh, and I’m at the point where I wouldn’t mind my very own live-in chiropractor and/or massage therapist. I’ve been visiting the chiro every two weeks, but I’m thinking I might have to increase it to every week soon. Now that my regular one has gone on maternity leave, I’m seeing one of her colleagues – who incidentally sounds like an American. Haven’t yet asked her where she’s from (I’ve only seen her once so far and it didn’t really seem like the right time).

Garden stuff now. I’ve got cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, and celery in the veggie patch. I also had two pea plants, but I didn’t water them when I transplanted them, so they died. This week (assuming my body cooperates, and the nursery gets them in) I’m planning to plant some seed potatoes. And last week, I bought a peach sapling and two small blueberry bushes and planted them. So I’m working on the orchard now as well. I have so many plans (including a chicken shed), but I don’t think most of them are going to happen till a few months after this baby comes. I was really hoping to get a lot of it done before, but it wasn’t to be.

And I actually turned the heater on this morning for the first time this year. It was a whopping 16C (62F) in the lounge when we woke up.

And now…away to the post office!

However, I did borrow a friend’s overlocker/serger last week, and sewed together all the insides & outsides of the nappies I’ve had stacked up for months. Now all that’s left is the leg elastic, turning them right side out, top stitching, and fasteners. And I’ve already completely finished one, and aside from some trial & error with getting the snaps all in the right places, snaps are a heck of a lot easier and quicker than sewing in velcro everywhere.

So. Now that it’s cooler, I’m hoping to get the bug again and finish off some more projects, especially the ones I can sell.

I made a purple t-shirt for Caleb out of one of my old shirts. He loves purple, and the holes in the armpits weren’t worth fixing anymore. He loves it.

Thanks to my little garden helper, I now only have one cucumber plant left – the one in the hanging basket. I have five broccoli plants still making broccoli. This morning I ripped out a couple of the ones I’d cut down too far, so they weren’t getting the side shoots they’re supposed to get after the main head is cut off.

We’re getting new tyres put on the back of our car tomorrow. I’m planning to keep the old ones and use them for my zucchini.

One of the dead branches on our apricot tree fell off this afternoon – right onto Caleb’s sandpit. Lucky he wasn’t playing in it at the time.

And…uh…I think that’s everything. Now I need to go have a shower so I don’t have to do it in the morning.

• Replaced elastic & made boosters for a couple secondhand Baby Beehinds and 4 Peapods nappies, from someone online. She said they were all useless to her and that she’d give them away for just postage. I figured I could fix them all, and I did. Yay me.
• Put the back elastic on all the pieces for my next batch of nappies.
• Pinned the insides & outsides together for the nappies.
• Fixed one of Darrin’s favourite T-shirts.
• Made Darrin a new pair of pajama shorts out of another of his old T-shirts.
• Started picking out the stitching in one of my pairs of shorts so I can replace the elastic. I got interrupted by a little boy who wanted to go to bed.

Still left to do, at least what I can remember:

• Finish Caleb’s pajama pants, even though they won’t fit him for at least another year or two.
• Make boosters for some more nappies for Caleb & sibling.
• Finish off the nappies for sale.
• Finish off the other wet bags, also for sale.
• Fix whatever other shorts & T-shirts are sitting around in there, and whatever’s not fixable, stick in the scrap pile.

Projects to start:

• Pajama pants for Darrin for winter
• At least one pair of pajamas for me over winter
• Some pajama shorts for me
• A few long sleeved shirts for me to be pregnant in over autumn/winter
• Probably other things I can’t remember

So yeah, that’ll keep me busy for a while….

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Sewing room, complete with Guard Cat.

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Toy room. It always looks like that.

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Toy room from another angle