Slacker

I've been unhappy with how few pictures I've been taking of Caleb lately. I went a little camera crazy the other day. ;)

He really grows by leaps and bounds. He discovered his toes the other week. He's working harder on sitting up.

He also disregards all my begging for him to stop growing. He might be 4.5 months old now, but wears 9 month outfits! A doctor appointment earlier this month put him at 18 pounds and 12 ounces. I'm sure he's over 19 pounds now. My back would have given out a long time ago if it weren't for chiropractor visits. :)

Caleb is still breastfeeding. He shows no interest in food yet, even when we bring it within inches of his hands. But he does enjoy going after the keyboard when he sits in mine or Chris's laps.

I shall blame all future typos on him. ;)

Leah

Close ups

Here's some close ups of the quilting on my mom's birthday quilt. I did something different in every row.

Playing with a tight wiggle
Loops and stars
Circles on a line (inspired by Christina's blog)

Vines and curls, the hardest row!
Frequencies
Big circles

Double loops
Tight meandering
Single loops with "mom" written in thread. It might look like "wow" in some spots. ;)

A wide open peacock swirl
Squares and corners
Connected loops

I really pushed myself out of the box on this quilt. I wanted to show my mom what I'm capable of free-motioning. She plans to "hire" me to finish her quilts. Yes, this is a shameless nudge!

It still cuddles just fine, even if it might not be perfect. :)

Leah

Happy Birthday Mom!

A little bit early, but I made my mom a quilt for her birthday. Caleb got to help a lot. :)

I was dreading the pinning part, but I couldn't remember why. Then once I started pinning, it hit me that the last time I pinned, I was over 40 weeks pregnant with exceedingly swollen feet.


Caleb surprised me at how well he was able to pull off the wrapping paper. It was absolutely hilarious to watch! He'll be in great shape for Christmas.

He got his whole body into it, hands pulling, feet pushing. He's such a big boy - and the scale agrees with me! At 3 months and 4 days, I had the chance to weigh him on a baby scale and he popped out 17 pounds and 11 ounces. Zowie! We're just about to start using 9 month clothes in a few weeks.


The quilt was 9 blocks by 12 blocks, so I made 12 rows of different quilting styles. Just having fun showing off to Mom what I'm capable of doing.

I was crazy, started the quilting Wednesday night, finished Friday morning and had the binding sewn on by Friday noon. Then I spent pretty much every moment Mom wasn't here hand stitching the binding down. Got it done in time! But I was prepared to give Mom some thread and a needle to finish it herself if I had to. :)


A tall brother makes an excellent quilt holder. At 3.5 months, Ben was 20 pounds and 5 ounces. So Caleb isn't the largest baby for my side of the family. We do hold hopes that Caleb will be over 6 feet tall as an adult.

Happy Birthday Mom... three weeks early! I'm sure it'll look great on your couch and will be snuggled with plenty of times. :)

Leah

Milestones

I've hit a couple milestones. First, my blog reached 6-figures of visitors. :)

And yes, thanks for stopping by!


Then I finally finished my first quilt since Caleb was born.

The batik snowball and 9-patch.

Backing fabric, using a hand dyed piece.

If I don't use my nice fabric now, when will I use them?

A close up of a corner.

It went off to a friend who gave me a portion of her cloth diaper stash. I wish her happy cuddling! :)


And I'm afraid every blog post will now have a shot of Caleb in it, one way or another. ;)

He's really learning how to grab and hold onto things now. He was in the kitchen either watching me do dishes or Chris and I cook. We try to include him in most of the stuff we do.

Leah

How close?

How close do you allow the quilt to get to the batting's edge?

The quilt is supposed to be 48.5" square, and the batting is 48". I think with a couple too large seams, the top was closer to 48" in one direction.

Too close? Probably, but I don't have a better option. My other batting is too thick to use the fleece for the backing. I really want a nice, warm quilt for Caleb this winter.

If I start now, will it be done by Christmas? :)

Leah

Slow down!

Somebody tell Caleb to slow down, he's growing too fast. :P

The first picture was when he was 6 days old. Cute and small.

Second picture is just before he was 4 weeks old. Just a little growth. I'll let it slide. ;)

The third picture? Exactly 10 weeks old and he looks gigantic!

I love his expression, it looks like "oh no! I grew! How do I stop?" He's such a good baby, I don't want this time to disappear in a few blinks.

He's also discovered a lot in the past 2 weeks. His hands. That he can actually grab stuff. He kicks the duckies in his bath tub. He'll try to talk back to us sometimes.

I've also started cloth diapering... that probably gives him another inch on his bum. ;)

Leah

Baby Caleb is growing!

He's getting to be such a big boy now. :) He hit his official 2 month mark yesterday.

He's sweet and cute to wake up in the mornings. Full of smiles and laughs. :) And speaking of such, I think he's about to wake up for the day.

Leah

Multi-tasking

Time flies, and yet there's not enough time to do all the things I think of. Then I gotta multi-task.

At that moment, I had a load of laundry going, was keeping an eye on Caleb and trying to sew down the binding on the quilt. Very slow going, I've only done one side so far

But all Caleb has to do is give smiles and you can quickly forget a lot of stuff. ;)

Leah

I caught it!

I finally caught the dimple on Caleb's left cheek!

Yup, he's figuring out how to smile now, and it doesn't always involve farting either. ;)

Oops, there's lightening outside. Monsoon season's here. Better turn off the computer.

Leah

Finding routines

We've been trying to find "normal" and "routines" in our life with baby Caleb. It was going pretty well until the weekend, where he started to show signs of a growth spurt by non-stop nursing. I did find time to make this onesie for him.

I put it on him after church on Sunday, and about 10 minutes later he showed his "appreciation" for it by having his first poopy diaper blow out. Thanks kid. :)


We often lay him out on the couch during the day, the swamp cooler blows nicely on that spot.

And a piece of cotton fabric is cooler than a blanket or quilt for him to lay upon.


There's been a lot of cuddling and hanging out.

Which also means a lot of one-handed typing, like now. :)

I don't mind, babies don't keep.

Leah

Baby Life

This would sum up the events of the past week: baby fluids. :)

Some major spit-ups; several pee-on-mom incidents; a couple quilts mucked up with poop; and the carpet has received all three. :P


Thankfully he's cute most of the time, and we'll keep him. ;)

Chris and Caleb on Father's Day.


Me cuddling with Caleb.

Not too much later, he let out his biggest spit up yet. Covered him, my shirt and pants, the couch (so grateful that it's leather! Easy wipe up) and the carpet. I scared Chris pretty badly with my shriek. :P


We're getting really good at one-handed typing!

I like to make fun of Caleb when he sleeps with his mouth open and I'll mimic him.


I also tried to brush his hair into a mohawk.

Poor kid, but he won't remember any of this. ;)


Leah

My hands have been full

My hands have been full with this little guy! Although I suspect that he knows when I'm trying to blog and decides right there and right then he needs to be nursed, have a diaper change or takes a nap and I can't access my computer. :P

On Tuesday I went into my sewing room, dug up the acrylic paint and painted "100% Breastmilk" onto a plain white onesie. Tuesday is also the day I ditched my maternity clothes and put on my "fat pants". Today I'm wearing some normal and more snug capris! I'm absolutely thrilled how the weight is melting off of me right now.

Caleb did pull out the full stops on Monday, and managed to poop and pee on a quilt when I was trying to change him. And this is despite having a cloth diaper under his butt for "extra" protection. What can I do, but just laugh? ;)

One thing that surprises me is how we're using my quilts so much more. Lay one on the floor, put one at the changing station, have one next the recliner like above, toss another one on the couch. Gotta make more quilts... someday. :)

Leah

It's a boy!

Whew!! On Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at 10:38am, I birthed Caleb. :)

The whole thing from the first contractions until he was out was just about 12 hours. I didn't even suspect that it could be real labor until I already hit 5 centimeters dilated. There were some rough moments - it was back labor and my hips were super tight. There's no doubt if I had a normal hospital birth, I would have ended up with a c-section. Instead, it was exactly the home birth I wanted, and I hardly tore either! No stitches needed. :)

I've been up and about, you'd think I gave birth a week ago, not 2 days. Nursing is going very well too, my milk came in today and Caleb's eating like a champ. And of course, has his days and nights mixed up. :P

He was born at 10 days overdue, 7 pounds 8 ounces and 21.5" long. He hardly cries and has been cuddle all day with my mom and sister that are visiting. :)

Leah

I'm ready...

...but apparently the baby isn't. :P There was a little mistake on my part with the due dates. I've been saying all this time I was due on May 27th, but it's actually May 30th. All it means it that today is the start of 41 weeks.

Here's the baby's corner! Well, the ball and pool are for birthing. I pulled out all the 0-3 month clothes, all the newborn diapers and other baby stuff that we might need in the first few days. The gray bin holds cloth diapers, which will be used in a few weeks. There's also the bear quilt that a couple of my quilting friends made for me. The blocks say stuff like "Born to be wild", "Unbearably Cute", "I love bear hugs". The white and pastel crochet blanket is another gift from a church lady.

I think we're driving a lot of family members crazy with our laid back attitude about the baby's delay. It must be very roomy in my uterus or something. But just think, it's going to have a GREAT set of lungs! ;)

Leah

Lofty Goals

Nope, no baby yet... and I've reached the end of my limit on that! I finally said enough and started focusing on what I normally do, quilting. :)

It's going to a friend of mine, and the biggest hindrance was that I didn't feel like dragging the big roll of batting out. Not today! Got it out, and got 5 quilts paired with batting. Tomorrow's plan is to pin the quilt. I've already got the backing cut.


The full story of the baby is that Saturday night Chris and I decided that we wanted it to be born soon. We tried a plethora of "natural induction" methods... and obviously they failed. :P All I've got from it is a lower backache. But I could tell that I was getting incredibly cranky over trying so hard, so I said enough tonight. The baby will come when it comes. Given that Chris was a breech baby, and I was a very overdue one, I'll take overdue!

I'm still not that uncomfortable. I've weighed more than I do right now, about 3 years ago. My tummy doesn't feel like it's going to pop. I can breathe just fine, the baby has plenty of room to kick (like right now!)... so how about if I enjoy those last few days as I would normally live, instead of trying to push against nature?

I did figure making goals and announcing them on my blog might nudge the baby though. ;)

Leah