Theoretic Gal ~ Textiles ~

Gifts from the heart

You have to love blogging
I had Sydney knitter Lara bookmarked and I checked her blog regularly then I discovered she was not only pregnant but considering cloth, so we started chatting about that.
Then I found out that she was friends with someone on my old sewing list, who was a long time friend of my Hobart sewing buddy, Babette.  It is amazing how small the craft world really is.
Anyway Lara has been having a really tough time with her lovely cherub,  Inigo. Failure to Thrive is really tough on parents and I can totally emphathize after what we went through with Monsterboy.

Baby C is a slow weight gain but not FTT and that can he hard enough to deal with some days. You second guess yourself constanly and begin to doubt your ability to properly provide for this precious child you have been entrusted with.

Well somehow she managed to make the cutest welcome to the world gifts for Mr C. Handknitted hats and washcloths, Embroidered singlet and trackies, a funky chenille bib and she even threw in some microfibre cloth for boosting nappies. I just cannot express how much the gifts mean to me knowing what she is going though.

Thanks so very much Lara . I know that Inigo will get through this and he'll end up being a complete sweetheart like Monsterboy. Our family sends you all our love. You are in our thoughts constantly and we wish you lived closer so we could come around for big hugs and a hot cuppa on those days when you really need them.

fluffy mail

Time is short so I decided that instead of trying make C's entire MCN stash myself I would indulge in a little online shopping. Surprise Surprise. ( Actually I would have loved it if there was a bricks and mortar MCN store for me to visit so I could see the sizing/shape/fabric IRL before buying them)

So in the last few days my friendly neighbourhood parcel man delivered me some lovely fluffymail.

First up some Baby Beehinds. Old style Magic-alls  which were on ebay for $AUD15 shipped. I tried a small and newborn. Although the NB fitted snugger, C will only be in them for a while so I got another 4 smalls. Then I grabbed a Deluxe trial pack which included a new style magic-all, 2 bamboo fitted, one Wool and one PUL cover, an overnight booster and a pack of cloth wipes.

They washed up nicely and the magic-all have been added to the rotation.
The bamboo OSFA are just a little bulky for my liking on my pipsqueak but once he get's a few kg bigger I am looking forward to using them.

I also grabbed a Mandy Mac hemp off ebay but I can't say I am enamoured by it (top right in pic) whereas the Nuture nappies order some real sweet stuff.

Contents:
Tots Bots PUL cover turquoise star
Tots Bots Bamboozle, Size 1 Turquoise
bitti d'lish snap-in all in one,  small, red
loveybums organic wool jersey cover  newborn/cornflower
itti bitti boo fitted nappy Electric Blue Small
Baby Greens Growing  Greens, night boosters
Imse Vimse all in one nappy newborn
bumgenius all in one, add a stay dry booster, Small, Grasshopper Green
itti bitti bamboo snap in inserts, bamboo mini booster, microfibre mini booster,

It is amazing the difference in the sizes. EG Imse Vimse NB is middle of right hand column and it seems huge especially compared to the itti bitti's.

I have to lanolize my wool covers before I use them but the rest are in the wash getting the full pre-use treatment. Here's hoping C isn't sensitive to wool like his mother.

This doesn't mean I am giving up on DIY'ing it's just that I am being realistic about my current free time and crafting priorities.

Week 12

Wow 12 weeks that went quick.
Bootcamp went well. C  is sorted on some meds to help the reflux and that combined with a bit better sleeping habits has made for a much happier chap.
He totally freaked  us out by dropping weight whilst we were there but he gets weighed again today at the MCHN so we'll see what she has to say about how he's going.  He looks healthy enough.

He has started doing cute stuff like grabbing toys and interacting with them and he's rarely without a toy or fist in his mouth.

I was quite sad when I had to retire some of his newborn clothes,they were all washed ironed and folded read to be packed away from some other child to wear :-(

We are having some clothing issues he has a heap of 000's  0-3 month items which just don't fit yet but he's outgrown a heap of smaller items so we are left with slim pickings. Maybe I should just put him into the bigger/looser fitting stuff.

He had a great weekend with the grandparents giving the loads of smiles and chatter but I keep forgetting to take pictures So instead of leaving the camer all tidy in it's case I am going to mleave it ready for action on the coffee table adn see if that helps my picture-taking ability. I also grabbed a cheap portrait lens, a 50mm F 1.8 with no fancy additions like usm or is but it;ll give me something else to play with.

Update:
weight: 4.69 kg ( 10 lbs 5ozs) length:57cms putting him around the 5th percentile for both so he's still just on the charts but not by much.On the positive side he's still in proportion :-) Not like my 90th for height and under the chart DS#1 at the same age. Suppose that should make me feel better but it doesn't

Week 10

All dressed up in a cute pure pure baby outfit and it lasted for about 10 seconds before he puked all over it.

His reflux is driving  him and us a bit nuts. His Dad changed him 5 times over night he just kept bring it up. The worst is just before he chucks he gets the biggest smile on his face so he has a new nickname the smiling assassin. We've tried thickener and gaviscon infant neither helped as he reacted to thickener and screamed for ages with both. Mylanta helps and he has developed a taste for it but the next step is Losec.

After discussing this and his sleeping issues my mother group leader suggested we go to a mother/baby unit for a few days and let them help. So she rang a private hospital one where she used to work and got us on the waitlist. Then this afternoon they rang and said if I could come in tomorrow I had a spot.
So it's goodbye long weekend, hello baby bootcamp.
Not sure if I'll have internet access and the thought of 4-5 days with no internet scares me more than I want to admit. I'll take my knitting, an ipod and a good book or two.

Other things that happened this week
I had a lovely morning with a girlfriend at the new Pure Baby outlet opened in Melbourne, which was very good news for C's burgeoning wardrobe and my wallet.
I totally splurged on $5 sample t's, $10 sample knits and rompers, $15 sample sets and $20 single flat sheets from their yummy organic cotton jersey. The samples all either went with stuff I had purchased from the new range or mixed/matched with each other.

See entire haul here

Better go pack my bags and make sure I have everything we need.

Anzac Biscuits

OK so I am a few days early with this one BUT a chef needs to test out her recipes before the big day.

When baking a classic like this there are usually 1001 variations to be found so I consulted a classic source for my recipe.
'Central' cookery book by A.C Irvine  which was my school Home Ec cookbook. I love that they give Miss Irvine the title of Mistress of Domestic Science, Education Department Tasmania. She has long since passed by the time by 15th edition was produced in  metric version in the mid 70's and it is still in print last time I checked. My battered copy purchased somewhere in mid 80's is battered but well used, pages glued together by cake batter and numerous annotations in the well worn biscuits, cakes, scone and batters sections.

Now since we have those pesky wheat/dairy intolerance issues we happily substituted Rolled Spelt flakes for the Rolled oats, Spelt flour for the Flour and Dairy Free margarine for the butter and they worked out fine.

Ingredients
130gm butter
1Tablespoon Golden Syrup
1 Cup Plain Flour
Pinch Salt
1Cup Coconut, Dessicated
1Cup Rolled Oats
1Cup Sugar
2 Tablespoons Boiling Water
2 Teaspoons Bi-carbonate of Soda
1 Teaspoon Vanilla ( optional)

Preheat oven to 180 deg C ( 350 deg F).
Melt Butter and Golden Syrup until butter is just melted, be careful not to burn or boil.
Mix together all dry ingredients. Dissolve Bicarb into water Adan the mix all ingredients together.
place small balls of mixture on trays leaving space for them to spread.

Bake 10-12 minutes until golden brown, They are supposed to be a bit darker than most biscuits but not burnt.
Allow to cool on tray 1-2  minutes before moving carefully to a cooling rack where they will firm up to a nice crisp biscuit.
Yields around 36.

week 9

I am still having trouble catching him smiling but he is more likely to give me this "serious" look than big smiles when I have the camera out.

He concentrates so much when playing with his toys, like he's on a mission to be the world's best basher of soft toys hanging over your rocker, at next years baby Olympics. Monsterboy enjoys playing peek-a-boo with his little brother, but he doesn't quite get it just yet.

On the health front:
We have started offering him some thickening agent at the beginning of his breast feeds to try and  reduce the alarming amount of milk that is being vomited on a regular basis. Hopefully that will do the trick and help his weight gain. He weighted 9lbs 6oz at his  delayed 8 week MCHN appointment which means it's dropped him into the 5th percentile but he ticked all the other boxes. So it's not panic stations yet more a matter of seeing if we can get him to take a little more food.

We are also giving him 1ml of Mylanta if he has been vomiting heaps and is showing signs that the acid is annoying him. It seemed to really help him the other night, within minutes of giving the Mylanta, he stopped screaming and went straight to sleep, poor little fellow.

We have been out and about a lot but I keep forgetting to take my smaller camera, I am lugging too much baby stuff to take the SLR.
He went to Stitch'n'Bitch on Tuesday Night and was quite well behaved, even if I only got about 3 rows of rib done on these baby socks  using regia clown yarn.

Our cupboards were looking a little bare so Friday night we went to our fav vietnamese place for dinner then to the Collingwood farmers market this morning. Both outings he slept the entire time so they would have been boring baby sleeping shots anyway.

He is sleeping a lot better but still not back to those wonderful 7-8 hour stretches we were getting at night, but at least he's sleeping for 1-2 hours 2-3 times during the day, so he's not totally overwhelmed but mid-afternoon. Makes for a much happier theoreticgal, if  baby sleeps and isnt crying for hours on end every afternoon/evening. It is heart wrenching to have a screaming baby that isn't sick, he's just so overtired he doesn't know why he's crying.

I decided I wasn't going to be going out baby-less for a while so I really needed a nice mummy-bag, not just  a nappy bag but one that could do dual duty. I have almost lost my handbag twice lately as I am just not used to carrying around two bags. I ended up getting a nice storksak bag, apparently Angelina has the same one but carrying it around didnt turn me into a glamourmom.

 

A little crafting has been done but no finished objects to show as it's been just snippets that were totally unproductive. On the other hand, the spelt sourdough breadmaking has been successful so I'll show off the first edible loaf, ( there was one dud  before this but I followed a different recipe, so I am going to blame the recipe rather than my cooking skills)

It's made from a SanFransisco sourdough  starter I purchased online, of course. It took about 7 days to get the mother going well and then another 2 weeks of me fluffing around before I actually made my second loaf. Now we have the starter in the fridge and I just get it out as needed.  It is a real winner  especially for the wheat/bakers yeast intolerant gardenboy. I have another sponge developing today and I'll make up the dough tonight and we'll bake it in the morning.
It sounds like a very intensive process but it is not really, just a few minutes then leave it for 6-12 hours and then another few minutes etc then 2 days later you have the most scrummy bread, Worth every minute. Can't wait to try some fruit breads and bagels, but first I need to master the basic loaf.

Week 8

We are loving being parents again and Monsterboy is loving being a big brother.
Baby C is still a little munchkin hitting somewhere around 9lbs ( He has a few appointment this week so we'll get  areal weight up then.)
He is just starting to outgrow his 0000's and other newborn clothing, mostly in leg length but there's still a  way to go to fit into the "normal " 000/ 0-3 month sizes. Luckily I have found one or two brand that suit and I'll have to buy him some more cute outfits, as his supply of clothes that fit right now is a little too small to be practical for a refluxy child.

Sleep: There we were thinking we were doing quite well. Days were not great but nights were going  fab, so of course it all fell to crap. Things have been going from fab to  bad to worse and hours spend screaming last night were not pleasant. Luckily I had booked in a sleep guru to come for a home visit on Wednesday. Originally the appointment was to help with the minor daytime issue but now it's a full-on all day issue it will be even more useful.

Just to prove he does sleep sometimes

To make matters even more difficult he wants to he held constantly, shades of monsterboy the limpet
who was permanently stuck to one of us. Hold and comforting a baby constantly puts a real dampener on life, as you struggle to get things done.
We have tried
Slings--- he isn't keen on then
Baby Bjorn --- ditto but I think it's because he is only just at the lower limit of weight/height and it's not quite right for him yet.
Hug-a-bub --- he loves it but it's not quick or easy to put on and it looks well a tad daggy especially on my curvy body.
Pram -- hasn't decided whether he likes the basinette, he slept in it for 2  hours at mother group last week but when shopping he wasnt keen on it.
Rocker with vibration: OK for short spurts of  playtime up to 10 mins, which means you can squeeze in some things.
Car trips -- hit and miss

We even tried a Dummy and after trying every type on offer, he doesn't like them either.

Week 6-7

I couldn't resist this outfit from westcoast baby   even if DH refers to it as his ninja outfit ;-)

We had a great Easter break. Planes ran on time, Baby C slept at night, met a lot of relatives including his great grandmother who was so pleased that number 14 great grandchild arrived safe and sound.

The weather was great and Gardenboy transformed into Diving boy and did the hunter-gatherer thing.
Scored his bag limit of lovely sweet scallops. They were so good we were eating them sashimi as we cleaned them up.

It's been a bit mad since we came back as I have spent the week trying to get him back into daytime sleeps which had totally disappeared during our trip. ( Too many snoozes when being cuddled, isn't conducive to real productive sleep).

We also had a chance to catch up with our friends who had their daughter 10 days after  Cadel.
They were totally uninterested in each other, I am sure that'll change and he'll be pulling her hair in no time.

I am still doing a little crafting but never have enough time to actually finish what I start. I have baby socks and a jacket on the needles and occasionally a few rows are worked. There's also various sewing projects  being worked on in the moment's between feeds, playtime, cuddles and pat him to sleep times.

smile week 5

smile week5
Originally uploaded by theoreticgal

Finally captured a smile but it isnt the most flattering shot.

 

Like any good supermodel he can do the gaze off into the distance pensive shot.

And he knows how to look like he's really interested in what you are saying even though he doesn't understand a word of it.

He has his first plane trip over Easter break and gets to meet all the relatives so hopefully we'll get a few multi-generational shots.

5 weeks

Haven't managed to catch his fledgling smiles on film yet but he is giving us lovely gummy grins as well as finding  his voice. Lots of cooing and ahh'ing and thankfully not too many grizzly sessions a day. So it's all fairly relaxed here most days. Nights are  fabulous compared to monster boy's first few years, so the less said the better as we don't want to jinx ourselves.

He is feeding nicely and is thriving on his 100% breastmilk diet. He hit 8lbs this week. whoo
He started to grow out of a few 0000 items and now I have more of an idea of  the brands that suit his bodytype I can shop a bit more confidently. In love with Bebe by minihaha as well as Purebaby

When I get a chance to sew some cute little winter outfits I will probbaly have to make a size or two down and lenghten as most sewing pattern for babies are designed for chubba bubba's.

He's wearing the microfleece pockets I made as nappy covers over Newborn Prefolds. They aren't super absorbent but they are small enough for his tiny butt :-) I juse don't like how the flats are so bulky on his wee little body so I'll be sticking to trim comfortable looking ones at least until he grows.

He loves being in his Dad's arms  and this can quieten him down  like magic most days.