Feel the Ocean

More quiet book pages!  I think I'm going to take some time off from it for a while.  I might work on the cover and put together what I have so far, we'll see.  So far the finer points of each page kind of escape Boo Boo's interest so I've got some time.  

When I started gathering ideas, I had the thought of making an ocean page that would feature the characters from his mobile.  It's just a page for fun, nothing particularly educational about it, but I think it turned out pretty cute:

  

The floaty fish are on elastic so they can be pulled hither and thither and I did the faces with puff paint.  The creatures are double layers of felt and I put cardboard from a cereal box between the layers to make them sturdier (resulting in this kind of situation, ha).  I put off making this page for a long time because I thought it would be so labor intensive, but once I got all the pieces cut out it came together fairly quickly.

The last page is just a mix of textures for the feeling.  Nothing too fancy going on:

I used my orange fabric for smooth, a washcloth for fuzzy and part of a burlap shopping bag from Tesco for rough.  Was it a wrench cutting up that bag?  Yes but it did already have a big hole in it.  Still!  Wrench.

I plan to make at least a few more pages.  I want something about colors, counting, shapes and maybe the alphabet so we'll see what happens there.  Drewbles has said a few times I should sell quiet books on Etsy but I don't want to spend all this time for OTHER people, even for money (plus I know I would obsess over the quality).  But while I was working on the ocean page, I thought maybe I could put together patterns/templates for things like that page or the animals and tails and sell those.  I don't know, I have no idea what kind of demand there is for that sort of thing...there's a lot of free stuff online but I wouldn't charge much.  I dunno, might be fun.  Thoughts, internet?

Shout Hurray!

What does a baby do to celebrate his first birthday?  I will tell you on behalf of the baby in question. 

1) Wake up with the sniffles, but be happy anyway (mostly).  Wear your new name shirt and say "Mama, you so skilled!"--or something to that effect.

2) Get a big box from Grandma and open it while webcamming.  Ignore parents as they devour the cookies in the box.  

3) Go outside for a little photo session.  Be sure to take The Lion and keep it close at all times.  

4) Eat some spinach and goat cheese turkey burgers for dinner, and then be presented with a strawberry shortcake.  Carefully dismantle this confection in search of strawberries while being sung to.  

5) Try on Daddio's birthday crown and get shortcake all over it.

6) Bathtime!  Be SUPER excited about this because after a week of sobbing through bathtime, baths are now the best thing ever.  All the extra excitement and cuteness will lead to pictures and clapping parents (also plenty of "PHEW"s).

7) Present time!  Chase the ball around and be intrigued by the t-rex that Grandma made.  

8) Recover for a few days and then have a party.  Thanks to Mother Nature's rainy interference, move the party to the house and it will all work out fine. 

9) Be sung to again and be presented with a zucchini muffin with cream cheese frosting.  Eat all of it.

10) Play with the toys people were so nice to give and share books.

Happy birthday, Boo Boo Berry!

Last Days and Birthday(s)

I've had a draft of this post sitting around for about a year now because I wanted to document the last few days before Boo Boo was born.  Luckily I made some notes, otherwise I would have forgotten it all since then.  Anyway, it is funny to think back to that time when Babycakes was such a presence but even visible yet.  At this point we knew he was breech and we were scheduled for a version/possible c-section/possible induction on Tuesday so there was certainly a sense of finality this last weekend.  

The Friday before he was born, May 17th, was my last day of work before leave (and ever).  I used my remaining vacation hours and went home early, bidding the workplace an unceremonious adieu.  But first I took this picture of my tummy because it was all lopsided:

(Yep, I took it in the bathroom.)

That night we saw the new Star Trek movie.  Now, I should mention that up until this point I had always said Baby could be born anytime after that movie because I was so looking forward to it.  In fact, I always said in half-jest that that movie would put me into labor.  BUT since we knew Baby was breech now I said to the movie, "Please don't put me in labor."  The movie obliged.  Also, to make sure I knew he was breech, Babycakes stuck his head up in my ribs the WHOLE movie.  I mean, he did this a lot but usually I could just give him a poke and he'd move.  Not this time.  So let's just say that while I liked it, I liked Star Trek better when we watched it on DVD months later.

ANYway, then I got my hair cut at the mall by a tiny teenage girl with pink hair:

Saturday dawned with a breechy baby so we joined the new rec center and I sat in the chilly lazy river in hopes that he would turn (SPOILER: he didn't).  Meanwhile Drewbles went down the slides like non-pregnant people do.  I don't remember what we did that night but I can guess it involved me laying on the couch and possibly mac and cheese.

Sunday was a usual day of churching and British Sundaying with an old version of Jude the Obscure that I cannot recommend.  I did this art of Voldemort shaving:

Oh those days I used to sit and do arts for hours at a time during the day!  Or, you know, those days when I would sit and do anything for hours at a time during the day, ha.

Monday was my birthday!  I woke up early because I thought I was having a baby so we went to the hospital and were told I was not having a baby.

The faces of people who don't know they are experiencing a false alarm of impending babyness.

So instead we got breakfast burritos from McDonalds because I love them and I went back to bed.  Mostly I felt gross all day after the hospital did their poking and prodding.  But I rallied enough for exciting evening times of...a Redbox of Jack Reacher and Bombay House.  I also made myself a cherry birthday pie.  (I wanted to make a pie.)

I wanted a low key birthday and just a night to chillax with Drewbles and that's what I got.  I found my presents throughout the house and throughout the day, including books to read with Boo Boo and some Battlestar earrings.  

So, all in all it was a pretty typical weekend for us, pre-baby.  Now here we are a year later and things are very different and very good but it's still fun to look back.  Maybe it's time for some more Bombay House.