Dear Sales Lady at Motherhood Maternity,

While I am truly flattered that after the…very thorough once-over, you sized up my butt and decided to keep bringing me mediums (even in those Heidi Klum maternity jeggings)(which were a crime against both women and eyes everywhere) please listen to me when I talk. I want larges. LARGE. L. It’s written right on the label so they shouldn’t be hard to find. Yes, I’m sure the medium would fit me fine right now but I’m planning to be pregnant for a couple more months. Maternity jeans are not like regular jeans, where the brand with the best vanity sizing wins and I’m willing to wear Spanx just to get into a pair I’ve been holding on to since college. I’ve got enough uncomfortable stuff going on in my crotchal area without too-tight pants. Things are only getting bigger for the next 11 weeks and I’d like these jeans to fit until I have to peel them off to, you know, get the baby out. Thanks for understanding.

xoxo

Suzanne

p.s. Sorry about my kid chewing on those shirts. I know I should have bought them but dude, they were REALLY ugly. Hopefully that sweater I grabbed made up for it.

p.p.s. I could have done without the crazy-eyes when I turned down your offer of free formula and diaper coupons too. Not crazy. Just not interested.

p.p.p.s. But good job on doing at least 10000x better than the last time I went into your store.

You would not BELIEVE how many perfectly good, brand new wool sweaters I’ve ruined in my washing machine. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Until I started knitting and learned to actually appreciate fiber I always saw those “HANDWASH COLD ONLY” and “LAY FLAT TO DRY” rules more like…guidelines. I was too lazy and forgetful to separate stuff before throwing it all in the wash. And yet I was always shocked and devastated when my previously human-sized sweaters came out of the dryer doll-sized and stiff.

That shrinking process is called “felting” and this week I did it on purpose so I could turn wool sweaters into crafty felt flowers.

Since all the sweaters I’ve ruined recently are black, I went to Goodwill to hunt through the racks.

Score!!

Cardigans are a double score because you can repurpose the buttons in your flowers.

The trick is to find sweaters made of 100% WOOL. Not 70% acrylic, 30% wool or some other synthetic blend. You also want to watch out for items that have “machine washable” on the tag or say anything like “Super Wash” or “No Shrinking!” That sort of defeats the whole purpose here. In theory, you could use other animal fibers – the light pink sweater is actually 100% cashmere – but I found it didn’t felt up as nicely as the wool ones.

I did pretty well with what I bought – the white one in the front didn’t have a tag and I suspected it wasn’t real wool so I wasn’t shocked when it didn’t felt. But it’s clearly hand made and was only $3 so I’ll just wear it. The scarf didn’t felt either, but again, not big loss. New scarf for me!

Now you’re going to shrink the sweaters on purpose to make felt you can craft with.
Follow these steps:
1. Throw sweaters in the washing machine with a little detergent.
2. Set machine to Hot Wash/Cold Rinse and push start.
3. Walk away.

And you’re done.

I found a lot of instructions online that wanted you to put the items you were felting in a mesh bag or pillowcase or toss in a tennis ball or some other heavy item but I had the best luck with the straight up washing machine. Since the goal here is to make the fibers as dense and stiff as possible so you can cut it up, you can even toss the whole mess in the dryer on high when they’re done washing. If you’re not happy with how felty they look after 1 wash, repeat the cycle.

If your sweater wasn’t wool to begin with it will become very clear right about now, because they will not look like this:

Post-felting. You can see how they've shrunk.

Now comes the crafty part. If you’re creative on your own just stop reading and go do something awesome with your new wool felt. The rest of my project isn’t that impressive. But if you want some ideas, read on.

My first thought was to cut out actual flower shapes and sew them together. I found flowers to use as templates online, traced them onto cardboard, and cut out the cardboard shapes to trace onto the felt:

Why yes, that is the box from a cereal that is kid tested and mother approved. It was the only thin cardboard we had in the house.

Unfortunately, tracing the shapes onto the felt was WAY too much work for me, especially with a toddler trying to crawl across the table every two seconds. If you can think of an easier way let me know (Maybe I should pin them? Maybe I can cut with an X-acto knife to avoid the tracing?) but I recommend stick to shapes you can free-hand. I have the cutting skills of a second grader so flowers and stars come out as lopsided blobs – but since you’re a grown up you can definitely do better.

Luckily, I can do a lot with just one or two fancy shapes and a few easily cut circles and leaves.

It helps if you have some buttons hanging around - these are all from the Goodwill sweaters or my stash of lost buttons on the dryer.

Cut out different shapes in different colors...

Stitch them together with a little thread and one of those buttons...

If you're feeling lazy, just stick to cutting out circles...

Or if you're feeling REALLY lazy, use a little yarn to make a loopy flower on a leaf (the button makes it fancy!)...

And you're done! Now you can glue them to pins, barettes, headbands, or sew them right onto a boring purse or scarf.

I’m sort of ridiculously pleased with my flowers. For the record, I made all these from just the bottom part of one sleeve from each sweater – I still have a LOT of felt left over. You can use it the same way you’d use acrylic or nylon felt from the craft store, just remember it is wool so it might be a little scratchy on bebeh parts.

Happy Crafting!

p.s. These are the stretchy cuffs from a couple of the sleeves. I’m thinking they’ll make great headbands for a tiny baby girl – especially with a little felt flower sewn on.

To be continued...

Is there anything better than Ikea?

This is just the tip of the giant Swedish iceberg

I bought a yard of Ikea fabric while in Minneapolis to use as “inspiration” for the new nursery/playroom but I’m already changing my mind about it. It’s very…yellow. And the green is sort of a split-pea-avocado shade that may be too modern for me. It does have adorable birds and a fantastic amount of orange so I’m hesitant to trash it, but it may end up as a single throw pillow instead of the main color scheme.

I’m sort of shocked at my total NON-desire to do Baby Sandy’s nursery in pink and purple and crystals and ruffles and flowers. I want primary colors and clean lines and shapes and animals and have no plans to paint the almost-white walls and beige-yellow moldings. (And not just because I hate painting, especially trim.) My taste in nursery decor has pulled a total 180 in the past year and a half. Maybe I’ve been looking at too many nursery tours on Ohdeedoh. Or spending too much time stalking Morgan at The 818.

For example, if I had had a girl the first time I think I would have gone TOTALLY overboard with the nursery theme.

Like this. Only PINKER. With a giant chandelier.

Or this one. Only SPARKLIER.

OR THIS ONE. Which I will admit is pretty cool. Really cool. I kind of want to go to there.

I think it’s good I came to my senses for Baby #2, don’t you? (My husband may have just pulled a muscle from nodding too hard.)

So here’s my question: BESIDES Ikea, where should I be shopping for nursery stuff? Pottery Barn Kids is…boring. I get the CB2 catalog but none of it is very baby-friendly. Same with West Elm (and holy over-priced end tables Batman!) Should I just start stalking Craigslist with a passion?

P.S. So we actually WENT to Ikea Sunday and I bought…none of the above. I did buy this:

EDLAND dresser

It is MUCH paler gray in person and will match both the yellow & beige walls & carpet and that fabric I’m growing to like more and more every time I look at it. Plus, it’s huge. I’m going to put it in Baby Evan’s room for now (to solve our current NO DRESSER problem) and move it into the new nursery once we get our renovations done.

I also bought the easel I’ve seen approximately fourteen different people blog about this month, with a chalkboard on one side and a white board on the other PLUS  giant roll of paper you can pull over it for crayons. Baby Evan is a little young for it still (did you know chalk will write on almost any surface, including your own face? BABY EVAN DOES) but I mentioned it at least forty times as we walked through the store and E wanted me to shut the hell up likes buying me things I want.

Next time, I’m going to mention the moose rocker.

Today Baby Evan is 1 AND A HALF, which means I am officially dropping the “Baby”. From now on he will just be Evan or Little Evan. Wish me luck.

The four weeks between 17 months and 18 months were the absolute fastest time of my entire life. I’m terrified that if things get any faster I will wake up tomorrow with Baby Evan standing next to my bed yelling “Mom, let’s go! I’m late for practice!!” We’re not too far off already, since just this week he stood at the baby gate in the kitchen and shouted “I WANT MAMA!!! MAAAAAMAAAAAA!!!!” because I dared to go upstairs and do laundry without him. (He still doesn’t say Mama any other time – just when he is Horribly Upset by how I am Mean.)(He says Dada all the time. He even recognizes the sound of Dada’s car pulling to the garage and starts shouting for him.)

And yet right now he is pantless, dragging one of his blankies around the family room, chugging milk and babbling and looking exactly like the adorable toddler he is. Twenty minutes from now I’ll probably be shouting at him to stop jumping on me and leave the dog alone and come back here with my cell phone and stop putting that power cord in your mouth and why why WHY won’t you listen to ANYTHING I say???? (As I was typing that he threw a remote at my face. Good times.)

Despite suffering from a severe case of early-onset terrible twos, 18 months is truly a super fun age. Evan loves people everywhere we go and they love him back. He plays well with others, especially older kids, and can entertain himself with a book or a toy long enough that I can make a sandwich or put away groceries. His favorite games include “help mommy sweep”, “help mommy unload the dishwasher”, “turn off the lights”, “slam the dryer door”, and “giving super wet raspberries on your face”. He’s still mostly uninterested in the TV but loves dancing to commercials – especially the iPad commercial with the piano music and the L.L. Bean commercial with the Big Rock Candy Mountain song.

He will try almost any food and eats whatever we’re having 85% of the time (the rest of the time he gets peanut butter sandwiches). He drinks so much milk I’ve started buying 4 half-gallons on ever grocery trip and STILL run out sometimes. He will tell us when he’s tired, asks to be put in the crib, sleeps through the night and (usually) takes 1 long afternoon nap.

When he is good, he is very very good. And when he is bad he is horrid. But I love him to itty bitty pieces.

18 Month Milestones (from Baby Center, as usual)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
• Will “read” board books on his own – Yes! Especially the Mr. Brown Can Moo! book. He makes adorable little noises for all the pictures.
• Scribbles well – His preferred medium is chalk on furniture but when he gets it on the chalkboard he does a pretty good job. Crayons still end up in his mouth most of the time so we don’t do much coloring.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
• Strings two words together in phrases – Besides “I want mommy!!” he mostly sticks to one word at a time, although if you count signs he can make whole sentences.
• Brushes teeth with help – He loves his toothbrush so much he sleeps with it.
• Stacks four blocks – Why is block stacking such an important skillon this stupid chart? Evan mostly loses blocks but I did actually see him stack 3 the other day. On the closed toilet, but still. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW MILESTONE CHART?

Mastered Skills (a few kids can do)
• Throws a ball overhand – Like a pro. His aim is shockingly good too.
• Takes toys apart and puts them back together – Most of his toys are only one part (ball, car, truck, book). He can take all the pots out of the cabinet and then put them back more neatly than I can. Does that count?
• Shows signs of toilet training readiness – He knows the sign for “potty” and will often tell us when he’s going, but is kind of afraid of the big person toilet even with the child seat. We figure the signing is good enough for now and will make things MUCH easier when we want to tackle potty training for real.

Happy 18 months Baby Evan!

Enjoying some apples with yogurt dip

Using one of my necklaces to make his doggie pretty

Exhausted after Daddy's hockey game - and holding his own stick

Exploring the backyard jungle

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately writing two paragraph blog posts in my head and then promptly forgetting them. It’s mostly due to the fact that I’m doing all my brainstorming in the middle of the night when I a) can’t fall asleep to begin with or b) can’t fall BACK asleep after waking up for no apparent reason. This pregnancy is doing weird weird things to my internal clock and thermometer and electrical system and pretty much any other part of me that could be compared to something mechanical. When the weather changed suddenly last week and the barometric pressure went way down (or up or lopsided or whatever it is that happens when it goes from mild and humid to clear and cool) I woke up twitching from head to toe feeling like my skin was trying to crawl off my body. It was rather unpleasant. And not at all conducive to sleeping. So I stay up too late and toss and turn all night and then totally crash during Baby Evan’s nap time which means I stay up even later the next night and get even less sleep and am more exhausted so the vicious cycle continues forever and ever amen.

I felt the same way last pregnancy, only then I wasn’t chasing a toddler around all day so napping wasn’t really a problem so much as a glorious, wonderful way of life. I’m hoping if I can make it through the rest of this week sans nap and with a 10 pm bedtime my body will readjust and I can start stocking up on zzzzz’s while I still can – that number on my pregnancy ticker ain’t getting any bigger and it has DEFINITELY not been long enough since I had an infant around that I’ve forgotten what that’s like. Ugh.

My exhaustion is making every other little tiny annoyance in my life seem like a Huge Deal this week, which is just making it harder for me to relax. Huge Deal #1 is that I’m still laptopless after almost a month because we’re still deciding if we can afford to buy E a new computer or if I should just buy ANOTHER power cord for my clearly defective yet much beloved HP. So we’re “sharing” one laptop, and by “sharing” I mean I’m currently up writing blog posts at 1:20 am because it’s pretty much the only time of day E isn’t involved in some vitally important online game that he tries to guilt trip me into not nagging him about by claiming he’s “spending time” with his brother and his dad. To which I say: THAT’S WHAT PHONES ARE FOR. Because, obviously, I NEED to get online to comment on all my internet friends’ blogs and whine about things on my own. Priorities, people.

Huge Deal #2 is more bullshit with one of our worst purchases ever – E’s Jeep Grand Cherokee. Go ahead, Google “problem with my 2004 Jeep” and come back in 12 hours when you finish reading eight bazillionty forum posts about stupid problems like windshield wipers that don’t work and cruise control that fails every time it rains and the ridiculous trash they call the “heating system” but I’m pretty sure is just a hamster on a wheel working a little fan that costs $1000 every time we have to have it replaced. Which has been twice. So far. But most ridiculous of all is the windows that simply FALL INTO THE DOOR at random times and then can’t be fixed without taken the entire panel apart. It’s because some genius made the little piece that holds up the electric window out of cheap ass plastic. So the piece itself costs like $7 but the work costs $500 plus two days of being a single car family in an area that does not lend itself to single-car-ness. Did I mention this is at LEAST the second time we’ve had the window fall? I’m pretty sure it’s happened to both the driver’s and passenger’s windows once before but E thinks this is the first time on the driver’s side. He’s been driving the Jeep around with the window down for weeks now rather than getting it fixed (I think we were both secretly hoping it would just sort of…self-heal or something).  I could complain about this for another fifty years (I hate our dealership! Taking my car to work is a HUGE pain for E because of security! Being housebound with a toddler in the rain is the 8th circle of hell!) but let’s just sum up by saying the weather report for the rest of the week is so grim we’re going to bite the bullet and take the Jeep in for repairs today so I’ll be Mr. Grumpy Pants for the next few days. 8th circle of hell here I come.

Huge Deal #3 is..oh nevermind. Whatever. Let’s just say I’m annoyed at myself and annoyed at the world and annoyed at my husband and pretty much nothing is going to change that right now besides a good night’s sleep and a day without being smacked in the face by my child. And maybe a few hours of peace to get the house clean so I can stop feeling like I’m YEARS behind on my to-do list. I’d settle for weeks. The best case scenario is days. I’m exhausted already just thinking about it.