Life in Color Photo – Page 309 – Celebrating crafts, kids and the everyday through photographs.

The big bad baby post

October 22, 2008

Typepad’s spell check is over working again (all words show up as spelled wrong) is this happening to anyone else?

So I’ve got this thing in my belly. Three pounds of baby that likes to
smash its self against my side and make me wonder where food is going
to fit in a month or so. During all the stress of the last month things
were pretty quite on the baby front. I had a little bit of scare last
week when I couldn’t feel the baby for like a day and half. It was
during the time we brought grandpa home for hospice. My mom and Bill
were kind enough to sit with grandpa for a while and I went to see my
midwife. She really wanted to see me and said she didn’t care if it was
late (I love her by the way!). She did a check up on me and the baby
was fine, a little bit of a higher heart rate. But it was turned around
breech. She said this was common with really stressed out mamas because
the baby wants to get closer to your heartbeat. I felt so terrible that
I was stressing my wee little baby out. She gave me things to do (like
relax) and things not to do (like bend over – squatting only from now
on).

Then grandpa passed and it was so sad, but I did finally have time to
lay down and rest, take baths. My mom even gave me her massage spot for
a few days later. It was so great, the whole massage baby was moving
around like a maniac! I had my regular appointment on Friday and the
baby had flipped around. I am so glad. I also feel little baby every
day now, still mostly light movements because the placenta is in the
front. But sometimes they are strong enough for Bj to feel them, which
he loves. And you should here him talk to the baby, it is the cutest
thing EVER. Now that grandpa has passed I have lots of time to think
about the baby (when I’m not calling plumbers or cringing at yet
another hole in the wall). But before now Sciarrino and I did have one
fun day of baby-crafting which had not been properly blogged. I’m going
to catch you all up now.

Two Saturdays ago Bj sat with Grandpa all day at the hospital so I
could have a day with Sciarrino and be all girly and crafty. We had
goals: swaddling blankets and wipes. Pretty simple ones really. We
started out shopping for more fabric. Though I did use a good chunk of
my stash, I had to get flannel and terry cloth. The wipes were easy
with Sciarrino’s serger.

I looked up differnt types and sizes and went with 7.5×7.5 inches. We’ve done up half of them flannel front and back and half flannel front/terry cloth back. I think I’m going to do the dry method with a little spray bottle, instead of keeping them wet in a warmer. But I made them a size so that if I change my mind they will fit in one. It just seems like a waste to keep the thing warmed up all the time. Plus I don’t really want one of those sitting out, we’ll see how picky my baby is (insert mom’s comment about how picky I was here).

As far as the different colors I got the yellow flannel at an estate sale this summer, so I decided to go with that for changes. We just picked up more, and then a very light yellow terry cloth. I’m doing white for towels/washcloths, and the other random colors are from left over pieces of flannel from backing the receiving blankets. We’ll use those for runny noses, spit up and stuff.

The blankets are really the fun thing. Going for easy and I-need-to-make-a-bunch I just did a yard of print backed with a yard of flannel. They turn out to be 35×35 after seaming (pillow case binding). I’m going to wash one to see if I need to do something around the edges or if it will be easy to get neat looking again.

They are not quilted or tied, so simple. I did hear from Sue that I might want bigger ones, and when Bj and I used our Baby-gami book we had a pretty funny time of trying to get our stuffed animal in any kind of tight swaddle. Bj still spent the evening cuddled with our little "baby" hehehe. Anyway they are super cute and will at least be good for car seat and stroller use.

Then I came home to this during one of our supply runs. Sue had gotten onto our registry and gave us some of our diapers. Bj and I were so thrilled (whose more addicted to cloth diapers, I think it might be Bj). It was the perfect baby-centered day. Since then I’ve been able to work on a few more things. I finally finished the handspun blanket.

It is soooo soft and snuggly. I think you can see the color change on the corner there, where I did this two rows of thin/two rows of thick handspun trick to not have to spin any more of it. I would say now that I won’t start a handspun project with out enough yarn already made, but we all know that won’t happen.

It’s hard to resist casting on something so squishy! And mindless and easy (one seam and only knitting, no purling or anything). I recommend it highly (ravelry link). Now I’m work on this:

It’s going to be a baby hat (ravelry link), don’t ask me how. It has no decreases and is not knit in the round. Hmmm. Lots more baby goodness is coming, as I have three showers lined up! I feel like such a lucky girl, and you should feel lucky too baby! One is a joint crew girl shower with my friend who is due the same day as me. Crew girls are obviously very tall (I’m not because I was a coxswain, and didn’t actually row), and Tracy told me at her last ultrasound the baby was stretched all the way across her belly with his legs out straight! To which I said to my baby, "okay fine, I see why you are cramming my sides, mama is not giving you much extra space." I doubt baby has been able to stretch out like that for months!

I just realized I never even blogged the sweater that the hat is going to match. If it looks familiar I’ve knit the pattern many times, it’s really easy. I used sock yarn on this so I can throw it in the wash. Here’s the ravelry link. I knit it two at a time like the socks, both sleeves at once and the front and back at once. So fast. More baby stuff to come I’m sure!!!

7 comments on The big bad baby post
Thank you so much!

October 19, 2008

Spell check not working (actually over working, every word, EVERY ONE came up as mis-spelled), so read at your own risk. 🙂

First of all a huge thank you to everyone that has sent well wishes our way in the last week (and month really). We have loved reading them, and have felt overwhelmed by the love from everyone. Bj especially loved going through them, so thank you, thank you, thank you. We have been having less sadness and more happiness which is wonderful. Yesterday was spent going through all of grandpa’s fastidious paperwork (tax returns since the early 80s) and figuring out what to do with everything. Bj did most of that work while I did the important time honored tradition of baby knitting. I’ll give an update on the baby making business soon, but right now, let’s take a walk through my house, shall we?

First we’ll head upstairs through what was the bedroom and from now on will be known as the den. The den will be my craft area. Don’t worry! I am happy about this, Bj’s keeping the cork wall for his office (which was my craft room and is right now our bedroom, phew). So ya, upstairs. That was Sciarrino like a week ago. On her way to this:

You’ll notice that half the roof is still there. This gave the guys something to drape tarps over so that we didn’t get waterlogged downstairs. Now it looks like this:

Hmm, I should have put the wide angle on, but that is the same far wall that you see in the picture above this one. Get the idea? The new roof rafters are up, and side walls are being put in. This should be buttoned up by weeks end. Which is good, because lots of wet is in store. It’s also going to be wet down in the basement tomorrow. When they work on this:

Yes, I did freak out when we found out we had to do this (and thus UNdo all of our hard work from two summers ago). But with grandpa being so sick and then passing this suddenly seemed minor. What I don’y have stairs?

No problem. Side note: One of the workers said to Bj, "your wife doesn’t go down there, does she?" To which he said something like, I tell her to hold on to the rail and the beam! I don’t go down that often. Only in the evenings, which is when I work in here:

The clean zone.

The clean and cramped zone. This also happens to be where I stuck all my scrapbooking stuff for the construction stage. So ya, it’s a bit crazy. But I have been getting orders out on time, and in fact just restocked a bunch of stuff this evening. The other side is similarily draped:

As you can see doing laundry would be a bit of a challenge here (not to mention the fact that I would never make it up and down that stair/ladder combo with a basket). So tomorrow while everything is going on I’m going to make myself at home in my mom’s laundry room. Oh and what is going on tomorrow? Well they are filling that ditch with new concrete. See what happened was the city was all, "oh no, you can’t do that upstairs, what about latteral load?" And I’m all, "what?" And then they told me I had two options, cut this big hole and pour a new footing while also putting up a wall between the two sides of the basement, or cutting out bigger square holes and making mulitple footings while replacing the gigantic beam that runs the length of the house. The last one was basically imposible. So it had to be the wall. Well then I find out that it can’t just fill in the gaps that my old (new) walls left, but that I had to do a whole new wall. I am going to get one big six foot opening instead of a door, so the basement won’t be totally closed off, but it still won’t be as open as before. And I’m not going to get those big juicy beams in there again. Instead it will just be a reglular wall. I had to have some one explain how this is better going to hold up my house like 15 million times, because it makes no sense to me. Physics, blah. But anyways it’s happening, and all my hard "learned to sheetrock for this" work has been destroyed. Now I just get to wait for later in the week when my hard "I turned this little bathroom into greatness" is partially destroyed. And I clearly see now that I will in fact have to touch up basically all the paint in the whole house. But this is not me freaking out because little baby in my belly? I am doing this for you! You are going to have your own bedroom and bathroom, so you must love your mama and papa forever!!! Oh okay a little bit is for me and a walk in closet, but seriously it was mostly for baby.

4 comments on Thank you so much!
1920-2008

October 15, 2008

William Henry Garrison III passed away early this morning. He was at peace and not in any pain, for which we are so grateful. He is survived by his grandson and namesake who he loved more than anything, and Bj’s wife and future great grandchild who he lovingly called "Matilda". Grandpa was a great record keeper and upon looking through his personal health records we now know he was in a lot of pain for the last few years, even before his son died and he was moved to Oregon from California. His comments on certain days include: "lousy legs, my aching butt, busy day – my ass hurts, and lower back pain ouch!" to name a few. It’s just like grandpa to talk about his aches in this short, to the point way. We could not be happier that his last 36 hours were in his home with him in very little pain and hanging out with his family.

The Garrison Family History (Volume 1) has much more on this unique guy than I could ever write out but I thought I’d give you some highlights.

-Grandpa weighed 15 lbs 12 ounces at birth. I didn’t believe him until he showed me this article:
"Mr. and Mrs. William Garrison, 718 Vermont St. believe they possess the largest baby of its age that has been born in Quincy. The child, born Tuesday afternoon weighted 15 pounds and is a healthy normal baby. Dr. H. E. Becker, the family physician says that in his experience he never knew a child that weighted 15 pounds at birth."

-He spent his childhood playing sports, especially loving tennis and baseball.

-He enlisted in the military October 1941 and became a meteorologist for the Air Force. This career took him to 36 countries and saw him doing everything from playing Tennis in Cuba with a Wimbleton Champion to launching weather balloons in Greenland.

When he retired in 1971 he was a Chief Warrant Officer (Grade 4).

-His greatest love was his wife of nearly 60 years June.

She loved traveling with grandpa whenever possible and being involved with other military wives. They loved to be with their friends and there are tons of awesome pictures of trips, parties, leagues they belonged to, and functions they attended.

Grandpa loved his son (the forth) and grandson (the fifth, my Bj) so much. We know how much he loved the little baby in my belly too. One of the last things he did was touch my belly and smile before he started to just sleep and rest at the end. We’re so sad he won’t be able to see his great grandchild, but because of this last year and a half with him we’ll be able to tell baby all about grandpa. It wasn’t the easiest thing being newlyweds and caring for grandpa but we wouldn’t change it for the world. It brought us closer together and let us know someone so special in such an amazing way. It wasn’t always easy and there are always what-ifs and if-onlys. If only we could have gotten him to the beach, what if he was around for just a few more months. But all in all we did the best we could. He brought us happiness just like I hope we brought it to him.

47 comments on 1920-2008

The big bad baby post

Thank you so much!

1920-2008

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