Sleep, glorious sleep

For the last 4 nights Penny has slept through without waking and stayed in her own room. This is made of awesome... although I still wake up at least a half a dozen times. Today I got up at 6:45 and was able to eat breakfast before P woke up at 7:30. I really, really hope this phases lasts - it'll be nice to catch up on a little sleep before we start back at square one with "&".

Next weekend we get her room done and will probably move her over so she can get used to sleeping in her "new" bed. I hope the transition goes well, although since "&" won't need the nursery for awhile after he/she is born it won't be a big deal if Penny needs to stay in the nursery for a couple of months longer.

This week is going to be busy. On top of the perpetual job searching, we have music class, a Rice Krispy Treat party, a prenatal appointment, I teach a cloth diapering workshop, I have to attend a class at the Employment Development Department (part of receiving unemployment - they look over my resume and give me job search tips), Grandma Barbara is in town, I have a paper to write, and Sarah and I have diapers to sew!

Today P and I went over to Sarah's and I sewed the pocket part of 17 diapers. After the first they went pretty fast - we still have a lot to get done (cutting the rest, pockets on the rest, elastic, snaps, and then sewing them all together) but so far we're off to a good start. They're going to be SO CUTE when they're all finished!

The Great Diaper Experiment

So today was Day 1 of "The Great Diaper Experiment" and it went really well. From start to finish it took us about 2.5 hours to finish one diaper, but it was our first and we had to make patterns, discuss steps, and figure out how to work the snap machine. Once we get into making the "real" diapers things will go much faster (especially if Sarah is able to cut a lot of fabric - go Sarah go! I hate cutting, so if she can get a good chunk of it done before we meet up again Monday I will love her forever).

Anyway, once the cutting is done we can focus on doing a sewing/snapping assembly line and they should come together pretty quickly. They certainly won't all be done in one day, but I don't think it'll be more than 3 days of sewing to get all 60 finished (40 for Sarah and 20 for me).

I have to admit I was starting to get really overwhelmed by the project - sewing + school + job searching + being a full time mom = holy crap! But thanks to Sarah's friend Deborah (who guided us through the process) we have a much better handle on how to get these done and I'm now excited and confident that we can make it work.

It's going to save us all a TON of money on cloth diapers and they're going to be SUPER cute. I promise to take pictures and post them once we're done.

Sarah found out she's having another girl, so most of her fabric is girl-ish (and it's all really cute). I went with what I thought were gender neutral colors, but some of mine will look more boy-ish. I'm ok with this though because even if "&" is a girl I have NO problem putting my girls in blue. Although (slightly hypocritically... ok, *really* hypocritically) I think I would have a problem with putting a boy child of mine in pink. I'm annoyed at my own hypocrisy - and annoyed how much America's cultural prejudices have seeped into my unconscious. It shouldn't matter what colors my kids wear. And if "&" is a boy and he wants to wear pink or other colors traditionally associated with girls, then I will do my best to let him do so. (And yes, I know that pink used to be a boys color way back in the day, but it's not anymore!)

So that was today's adventure.

Tomorrow is the Superbowl. I'm rooting for the Saints (although I do like the Colts - but I have a soft spot in my heart for the city of New Orleans). I hope it's a good game and not a blow-out...

Next week we have a midwife appointment, and the week after that we start on Pen's new room in earnest. My due date is fast approaching! I'm getting really excited to meet "&" - find out if it's a he or a she - and settling into life as a family of four. 10 weeks left!

Some fun things

1. Penelope slept through the night in her own crib again! She did it yesterday night as well, but woke up at 6:15 (a little over an hour early) so I wasn't as excited about that particular night's sleep as I am about last night.

2. She's currently walking around the living room swinging my old purse around and chatting (loudly) to the dog. Cute.

3. I need to mop the floor, P's socks are filthy. Or I need to buy her black socks.

4. Pen's sign language is improving. She can either sign or recognizes and responds to: eat, more, please, thank you, all done, and milk. I've been lax about introducing more signs but I'm going to break out my cheat sheet and start using more...

5. She also responds to a handful of Spanish words (and I'll probably spell all of these incorrectly) - leche, manzana, oso, oveja, and agua. I need to get back to my Rosetta Stone Spanish program so I can use more Spanish words with her. We'd really like to place her and "&" in a dual language daycare once they have to go into daycare - and I'd like to speak more Spanish at home. I do speak some French to her, but my vocabulary sucks since I haven't used it for so long...

6. One of her new favorite things to do is push her dolls/stuffed animals around in the toy stroller. It's pretty funny... she usually ends up crashing them into something though.

That's all for now! :)

Pools, rooms, and teeth

This afternoon Pen and I met up with a bunch of our mommy friends for lunch, play, and pool-time. There's an indoor pool in Roseville that has inexpensive open swim, so after a delicious lunch (thanks to Sarah & Alisha), we headed over and hopped in.

Penny was in love. She's been swimming before, but it has been awhile since she's been in that much water. The pool was a little on the cool side (although not as cold as it would have been had the pool been outside) but Penny didn't seem to care. She laughed, splashed, and did her very best to escape from my clutches. She thinks she can swim, and as soon as she got comfortable (it was loud and new so it took her a few minutes to warm up to the place) she wanted nothing to do with me and spent the rest of our time in the pool pushing me away and kicking furiously (while laughing and screeching with happiness). It was cute, but exhausting. This summer should be a lot of fun :)

Yesterday we started the long process of getting P's new room ready (so "&" can have the nursery). I sorted through a ton of clothes Pen's outgrown, pulling out all of the newborn-3 month sized outfits and boxing up everything else (by size - so when we need them they're easy to access... provided "&" is a girl). Those, plus a bunch of my pre-pregnancy clothes went into the garage. We have to move the furniture out next (and by "we" I mean Bryan), rewire some stuff, put in insulation, sheet rock, texture, and paint.

We weren't really planning on repainting, but the more I think about it the more I don't want Penny to have a blue room. I certainly don't want her to have a [i]pink[/i] room, but plain blue walls? Doesn't really sound appealing. Of course, having a theme and doing anything fancy requires money that we just don't have. I'll have to do some searching online to get ideas on how to make her room cute without breaking the bank. She'll need a sheet set for that Queen sized bed so maybe that will dictate what the room looks like. I'll have to keep an eye out at Target or even Ross and then we'll go from there. It's certainly not essential that Penelope has a coordinated room, but if we can make it work then I'd like to have one for her.

As for teeth... I think the light at the end of the tunnel is approaching. We need one more canine to break through and then we technically have all of her teeth "in" - they won't all be fully in for awhile, but at least they'll all have at least broken through the gums. Of course, we only have a little break until she gets her two year molars. And then she'll loose all the d@mn teeth and get her adult ones later >:|

Have I mentioned how much I hate teething???

Tomorrow Bryan is taking her to a museum with Daddy/baby friends while Sarah and I make cloth diapers! Wish us luck, I hope they turn out - it'll save us a ton!

Are we there yet?

This post could have also been titled "Get me out!"

Apparently "&" dislikes his/her solitary confinement.

I'm tired of it as well... but we both have to hold out at least 7 more weeks. These are going to be a long seven weeks. "&" has not stopped moving all day. While it's nice to know that he/she is active and healthy, it's getting incredibly uncomfortable. I don't remember Penelope being this active - maybe she was and I've forgotten just how much I dislike this phase. Or maybe this one is just much more exuberant than his/her big sister.

I'm also getting to the point in this pregnancy where sleep is nearly impossible. Between my hips (which ache and burn no matter what position I'm in), my back, leg cramps, having to pee often, and the baby's movement, I'm getting less and less sleep (not that I was getting a ton beforehand).

Our next appointment is next week, I'll be just about 31 weeks (I'm 30 weeks today). In about 5 weeks we'll take maternity photos (and by "we" I mean me... and Penny will come as well - I want to get pictures of her and the belly).

Tomorrow Pen and I will spend some time with other mamas, having lunch, and going swimming in an indoor pool. Should be fun :)

The "Sprinkle"

Lately a lot of people have been asking me about my baby shower... and this time around we're doing something a little different. I know some people think showers for subsequent children are unnecessary (well, some people I know use harsher language), but I also know people who think every baby deserves a celebration. So to compromise between what I feel is proper etiquette, giving everyone who wants to a chance to celebrate this baby, and reducing my pregnancy stress - we've decided to forgo a traditional shower and instead have a "sprinkle" after "&" arrives.

This will also allow those that choose to purchase gifts (since gifts are never a requirement) to chose gender specific things if they want.

People have also asked what we need. And really, we don't need a ton - certainly not as much as we needed with Pen! We have a crib, clothing storage, and a stroller. Sarah and I are going to make our own cloth diapers modeled after the Bum Genius ones we already use and love. We're going to turn in our old infant carseat and get something larger (and by "we" I mean my parents, thanks mom & dad!!!) - since Pen outgrew her infant carseat so quickly I want to make sure we have more time with this new baby in the infant seat... plus carseats expire and I don't want to cut it too close on the expiration date.

But there are a few things that it would be really wonderful to have, so we're going to create a registry. I haven't gotten around to it yet, but it will be through Babies R Us, so if anyone should wish to purchase something for this new baby you can always go onto the Babies R Us site and search for mine or Bryan's name. We would greatly appreciate anything anyone decides to get for us - although please don't feel pressured into getting us a gift!

So anyway, after the baby is born we'll have this "sprinkle" and everyone can meet the baby and we can celebrate his/her arrival. Exact date/time to be determined later, and if I remember correctly my mom offered to host (thanks again mom! :D ).

You know, I should really be reading for class... I'm just so very unmotivated. I know *why* but I'm not quite ready to blog about it yet.

Random Monday Morning Pictures

First off: Happy Birthday Bryan!!!

This morning Penelope stole his lunchbox, and I took some pics:









Pen and I have a metric ton of stuff to do today, wanna bet none of it gets done?