A new diaper tester!!!

My friend just had her baby on Friday...

...which means I had a tiny little body to measure and I could finally make these:

From the baby's measurements, I made two different diapers. The white one was very true to her measurments (she's 7lbs 4oz) and had a waist of 12" and a rise of 9" (can you believe how tiny that is???) Also, I only put 6 layers of T shirts into it so that the diaper would stay trim. The second one (pink/green w/velcro) has all the same measurements as the white but a 11" rise to accommodate a NB as they grow and it has my normal 8 layers of T shirts.

After going back and visiting my friend and her baby, I'm sure the white is most appropriate for the baby right now.  And since newborn diapers are fit for babies only when they are so teeny tiny, I think that the 9" rise is the one I shall stick with.  We'll see, though.  I'm going to let my friend test them out and she'll tell me which is best.

Only after I'd taken these to to them did I realize I forgot to accommodate an umbilical chord. Doh! I'll make adjustments to that on subsequent patterns.  Don't know if I'll do that this week, though, since I'm preparing for Bunny's FIRST BIRTHDAY!!! Woot woot!

In any case, once the patterns are perfected, I'll probably sell these for about $5 rather than the $7-$8 I charge for my size S and M diapers.  They're somehow so much easier to sew even though the same amount of steps are needed for them.

Also, you can look for a Large diaper from me soon.  My friend was testing the pattern I created on her baby and I have seemed to be able to work all the kinks out so once I'm not so busy you'll find it in my shop!

She doesn't like watermelon

 

An Amish farm across the street from my Father-in-law's house was selling watermelons for $1 each.  Eager to have farm fresh fruit at such a great price, my husband and I bought one, took it home, and sliced it up, giving Bunny her first bites of watermelon ever!  Since Bunny eats pretty much anything, I expected that watermelon would be a welcome treat!

I didn't expect this:

 

 First we gave it to her on the rind, assuming she'd like the edible chewing toy, and when she shuddered in disgust at that, we cut it up and gave it to her the way she eats most of her food.  I fed her a few bites and more shuddering and twitching at the proffered food.  Yikes!  But she's such a good girl! She always has been, because even though she disliked it, she willingly opened her mouth and tried it each time I offered.  I was eating it too, and I think that helped her continue to try because she always likes to eat what Mommy is eating.

Dave and I are really big on making our kids (well, we only have one now, but there will be more, God willing) eat what they're given, like it or not. We are not going to raise a picky eater because we want our children to be thankful for what their given and to learn that it is rude to reject the food that someone prepared for you no matter how you feel about the taste.  For this reason, we give her things even if she doesn't like them and we give them to her continually.  She knows this is the case, so after a week or two of protest when she first started tasting flavorful foods after her first grains, she's learned that if it is offered, she needs to eat it.  But watermelon is a treat, so I don't know that I'm going to force her to eat it.  I will, however, offer it a few times again just in case it's her taste buds that aren't accustomed rather than a personal preference of hers.

Jailbird

A One Size Diaper Cover is in the works...

So, I've been working on a pattern for a one size diaper cover lately.  It's still in the works and there are a lot of kinks I need to iron out before I sell it.  I'm also waiting for a teeny-tiny sized tester to be born within the next couple of weeks! I prefer friends to test my diapers so I can get their honest feedback and see the fit for myself.  In any case, I made this for a friend to test and, since her son's nursery is decorated with turtles, I decided to applique this one and add turtle engraved snaps from Kamsnaps.com. The cover is made of an inner layer of PUL.  As usual, the outer layer is made from upcycled T shirts which is sort of my signature thing, I guess!  In any case, I'm pretty proud of it.  I'm sure I"ll add it to my shop within the next couple of weeks or months.  It's hard to say now that I"m back to teaching.  I want to keep my priorities straight and not get so caught up in my shop that I don't spend enough time with my family.  Oh, and sorry for the picture quality! I'd forgotten to take a picture of it so I did one really quickly with my iPhone before dropping it off at her house!  Ha ha!

Oops!

Serves me right for putting her in a velcro diaper with no pants over it.

Destruction is my middle name

Bunny is eleven months now and we're seriously planning her first birthday party which will be in a couple of weeks. So maybe this behavior is her age, I don't know, but she has become a little tornado of destruction, every where she goes! It's like she looks for something to explore that will make a big bang or a nice ripping sound and then goes around our house knocking things off shelves and stealing and unraveling my yarn, and chewing on electrical wires.  It's not like our house isn't baby proofed, either.  Our living room looks more like a toy chest than the modern, relaxing space it's intended to be, and that's fine.  I love it that way.  But since we let her play there most of the time we've taken the time to make it safe.  So how is it possible that she manages to find the one dangerous thing in the room every time?

  Yesterday, her destructive behavior was laughable--and frustrating, but mostly for her.  I had to run around the house getting some things done before going to the post office and mailing some diapers to customers from my shop.  As I'm getting ready to go and trying to do it all with Bunny on my hip (because if she doesn't have me in her line of vision, she cries like she's lost her best friend), she's grabbing the wool shorties I'm mailing out to one customer and I barely got them from her in time to save them from her mouth, and then she grabbed the package of envelopes I was using the mail them, and then the fitted diaper I'm trying to send to my other customer.  All I wanted to do was address these envelopes and stuff them and my daughter has an entire room dedicated to her play time and she wants to play with the things Mommy has.  Then, as we're leaving and I"m trying to balance her on one hip and my purse, the diaper bag, the two packages, and of course my keys in the other hand, she's ripping the sunglasses off of my head, and trying to pry the keys out of my hands, and grabbing both packages and wrinkling the paper before I can do anything to stop her.  I find it cute and funny.  I"m not complaining, but this new exploratory energy certainly adds a new dimension to parenting!  It's exhausting! She's so smart and she does so many amazing things and I guess in order to continue to learn, she has to explore and the ripping, tearing, throwing, knocking down, and chewing area all a part of the experiments that she puts her world through to figure it out.  I think I need an extra nap! Oh wait, she's boycotting her nap time too!

Well, that said, school starts Monday.  I'll teach for four hours every morning and then come home at 12:30 to be with my Bunny all afternoon.  Of course, I would prefer it if I could be a stay at home mom but if I have to work, this setup is wonderful.  My school is wonderful, my students are so well-behaved that sometimes I wonder if they're paid actors, and I still get to feel like I'm a stay at home mom once I come home.  It's been nice being with Bunny all summer long (even though I wasn't at home with her all that time), but now it's time to go back to school and I'm accepting it.  God obviously has a plan with my being there.  I just wonder how her nap schedule will go when her time is split between me and her daddy (and an occasional baby sitter).  I sort of hope she decides to nap when I'm home or I just may collapse :-D.

Woolie Winner....

The winner of my Woolie Giveaway was comment #101 picked at random from Random.org:

 

orangefukurou said...

http://twitter.com/orangefukurou/status/20988982668 tomokofive AT gmail DOT com

August 12, 2010 12:42 PM

Okay, so there's got to be a better way to find my winner than counting through all the entries.  I give up.  How do I get those little numbers on my comments?