I didn’t miss Little Evan’s monthday on Saturday, I was just too busy enjoying spending time with him this weekend to bother to sit down and write an update. He’s turning into a little person more and more every single day and it’s an amazing transition to watch. Just this week he found two of my vintage doll house people – the father and the little boy – and he’s been carrying them around making up pretend stories and adventures. They rode on cars and rode on the dog and sat in chairs and ate stuff and talked to each other. I named the father Joe and after Joe told Little Evan to be nice to his mommy Little Evan gave me a kiss. I think maybe next time Joe is going to tell him to pick up his toys, eat his vegetables, and take more naps.

Although really, naps aren’t our problem. Anytime between 11:30 am and 1:30 pm that he starts looking tired he’s more than happy to head upstairs for some shut-eye. A sippy cup of milk and a blankie are his only requests, although if I let him take a book to bed he’ll “read” it before he zonks out. Bedtimes are almost the same, but Daddy does bath and pj’s first. It’s nice to have at least one consistently easy toddler thing – and for it to be such a BIG thing – especially on days when everything else feels like a battle.

Speaking of battles, we’re currently in the middle of one involving food and how it is prepared/served. It all changes daily, which is beyond frustrating. The whole apple he loved yesterday gets thrown across the room today or the yogurt he was eating from the container 30 seconds ago is suddenly not good enough unless it’s in a BOWL. I have to let him choose his own utensils or nothing gets eaten at all. If I put the plate on the desk and he wanted to eat at the counter the meal is ruined. I try to be accommodating because I know he’s just trying to control one of the few things he can in his great big world but food isn’t optional. He HAS to eat. The worst part is I doubt “picky eating” is a phase that ends anytime soon.

Little Evan’s favorite things this month include the dog, the cats, his vintage wooden desk, his alphabet flashcards, sitting on the couch with mama or daddy, coloring with chalk, reaching things he’s not supposed to touch, and getting anyone who comes into the house to pick him up. His least favorite things include leaving anywhere he’s having fun, being told “no”, and sitting in the shopping cart. All those least favorites makes taking him on errands all sorts of challenging, so my evenings and weekends are now busy with those sorts of things.

I’m excited about Little Evan’s upcoming birthday but of course sad that his days of being 1 are numbered. 2 is going to be a whole new adventure!!

23 Month Milestones (from BabyCenter as usual)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
• Names simple picture in a book – Yes! He’s very good at this now, especially the books with animals. Maybe exclusively books with animals. I’m not actually sure we own any books that don’t contain animals.
• Uses 50 to 70 words – I never did get around to making a list of words but I would say we’re up to about 60 or 70 on a regular basis. Plus he’ll repeat almost anything and picks up new words on a daily basis.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
• Opens doors – Yes, including our back door which is going to be a problem.
• Sings simple tunes – If by “simple tunes” you mean “the theme song to How I Met Your Mother or Battlestar Galactica”, then yes. In case you think I’m a horrible mother, he can also sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”. And several Ke$ha songs. Maybe I am a horrible mother.
• Takes more of an interest in playing with other kids – He has ALWAYS liked playing with other kids. He’s very good at sharing too, which always makes me a proud mama.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
• Talks about self (likes, dislikes) – No. I’m not sure he even knows what he likes or dislikes. It changes on a minute by minute basis.
• Asks “why?” – Not yet. Can I add “thank god”?

Breastfeeding baby #2 is a piece of cake compared to the first time around. (Mmmm…cake. I would like some cake. I would like a whole cake and no I don’t want to share because I am SOOOOO HOOONGRAAAY from the nursing.) All the stuff I struggled with during Little Evan’s early days made me an expert on boobs. A Boobspert, if you will. I figured out Caroline’s latch sooner, my engorgement went away sooner, I recognized the thrush and knew how to treat it sooner, we’ve  introduced a bottle sooner, I’m building up a nice little freezer stash of pumped milk sooner. It’s been almost 2 years since I first started nursing and I have FINALLY got the hang of it.

But in the process, I have confused the hell out of my toddler.

Hello, I'd like some more milk please.

Little Evan was exclusively breastfed until he was almost 13 months – and when I say “exclusively” I don’t mean that’s when we switched to milk, I mean that’s when he started eating ANY solids. The first time I ever saw him eat enough food to be considered a meal was his birthday cake. The child hated baby food, threw up Cheerios, screamed at sippy cups and lived entirely on boob power for more than a year.

I don't see what the problem here is, I know you've got milk in there. Do I need to say PLEEEEEEESE?

When I got pregnant the second time, my supply dropped dramatically and he weaned in a matter of weeks, just after he turned 15 months. We started with rice milk and eventually made the switch to organic whole milk. He LOVES his (fancy, expensive) milk and drinks it like it’s going out of style.

Fine, if you're going to be that way I'll just do it MYSELF

Now that he sees Caroline nursing all the time, he’s started to wonder why his milk comes from a cup instead of straight from me. I haven’t had to flat out refuse him yet, but he keeps patting my chest and saying “mama milk”.

Yes yes, put the milk in my belly! Wait, I don't think this is working.

I’m pretty sure he’s going to be OK in the long run, no permanent damage from his cold, withholding mother who won’t nurse him any more. Actually, one day he’s probably going to DIE OF SHAME that I talked about breastfeeding on the internet at all.

Sharing!

Sorry baby. Send me the therapy bill.

This project is ridiculously easy. Stupid easy. If you can tie a knot you can make a tutu, so you don’t really need my instructions. Also, there are already a billion versions out there.

The baccarat online is a card gambling game that is one of the most popular bets for players. Where this live baccarat bet compares the cards in the player and banker hands.

(Out of curiosity, I just Googled “tutu tutorial” and there are approximately 212,000 results already on the internet.)

But since you already know how I feel about acting like YOUR tutorial is the most special and awesome and original of all the tutorials ever (and also because I have nothing else to say today)(and maybe because I just want an excuse to post pictures of my baby in a tutu)(plus I was playing with my new lens) I’m going to share my easy no-sew baby tutu project with you anyway.

For the sake of honest blogging, I will tell you this version from Plumtickled is where I started when I thought “hey, I’ll just MAKE a tutu instead of paying $22 plus shipping from Etsy!” Her’s was the first that came up on Google. But since it involved sewing I decided it wasn’t really for me. True story, I once used glue to make a throw pillow JUST to avoid sewing four straight lines. And by “once” I mean “last year” and also “that throw pillow is still in my guest room right now.” I will do anything to avoid threading my sewing machine.

So here are my instructions for the world’s easiest, no-sew, adjustable, one-size-fits-all, infant, baby, toddler and kid sized tutu.

Step 1: Buy some tulle in various colors. You will not need this much but since the easiest way to avoid cutting tons and tons of strips is to buy the tulle in rolls you can just plan to make several tutus with the extra. I promise you know someone with a baby girl who would love a tutu. You will also need ribbon and scissors.

Total cost: $16 at Michael’s including the flowers for $1 each. Because I’m fancy.

Step 2: Cut the tulle into strips twice the length you want the finished tutu to be. I did not measure, I guessed. Since my goal is to use this tutu for the rest of the year and beyond I made it medium length.

Don’t worry too much about making the strips all exactly the same length. This is supposed to be easy.

Cut up some strips in each of the colors you’re using. I did a ratio of about 3 white to each 1 blue or green.

Step 3: Cut the ribbon to a nice long length. Like I said, I want this tutu to fit for a long time so I actually cut the ribbon long enough to go around MY waist. Now tie the ribbon around something (like your leg) to make it easy to work on. Take a piece of tulle and fold it around the ribbon. Then tie the two pieces into one knot snug up against the ribbon. Some tutorials called this a “double knot” but it’s really just one knot with two pieces of tulle. SEE? MY TUTORIAL IS THE BEST.

My thigh works well, because it’s pretty much the same size as my baby anyway.

ADDED: Knot tying demonstration. The hardest part is getting the knot snug right up against the ribbon so they all look nice and even.

Try to get the knots as tight on the ribbon as possible. It might take a little practice.

I have a REALLY HARD TIME being random with my colors (thanks OCD tendencies!!) so I didn’t really try too hard. Every 2 or 3 white ones I put in a blue one, then 2 or 3 later a green one.

Step 4: Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you’ve tied enough tulle on the ribbon to go all the way around the baby/child you’re trying to be-tutu. You can slide the knots around if you decide you need to add any more of one color in any one area. You might as well put something interesting on TV and grab a glass of wine because it might take a while to tie enough tulle to make the tutu nice a full. Trust me though, it’s worth it.

The flower came with a clip on the back. It’s like the universe made it especially for lazy crafters like me.

Step 5: Find a bebeh model to model your tutu. Take fourty bazillionteen pictures.

And there you go. That’s the whole thing. No sewing, no glue, no fancy cutters or machines or tools needed. Just tulle, ribbon and scissors. My plan is to cut enough strips now to keep making the tutu bigger as Caroline grows and to use it for each of her month-day pictures. I’ll probably still have enough left over for at least two or three more tutus, especially if I make them a little shorter. Anyone around here need a baby tutu? I’m willing to trade for Starbucks or yarn.

UPDATE!!! Since both Caroline and Evan have beat the crap out of that tutu for the last 18 months, I thought I’d add some “how has it held up?” photos. The answer is: Pretty well!

Tulle has a tendency to attract dog hair/lint/fuzz/every single crumb within 100 yards so looking back, white might not have been the best option. But it’s also pretty easy to brush off and/or lint roll and/or spray with a water bottle and shake out.

The tulle has gotten pretty tangled from being so well loved (and also stored bunched up in a corner) but can be smoothed out if I comb through it with my fingers. Although the sort of bunchy look isn’t really a bad thing – I feel like it really fits Caroline’s personality. Her nickname is Little Mess.

The ribbon waist was a really great idea, since she still fits in it easily. Even though Caroline is still tiny peanut munchkin toddler, Evan has definitely gotten bigger and the tutu still fits him (although her wouldn’t agree to post for pictures). And it’s easy to slide the tulle knots around to make it even.

Have I talked you into making a tutu yet?

There are no super-nice things to say about the person who made the item for today’s giveaway, since that person is me. I CAN, however, say a ton of nice things about my friend Megan. Megan taught me to knit, encouraged me to stick with it when I was frustrated and was unbelievably patient when it came to helping me undo my mistakes.

Megan taught me to knit almost exactly 1 year ago and this scarf is the first thing I ever finished. I thought it was the greatest knitting project ever. (Also, Little Evan totally wore those jammies last night. Time to go jammie shopping.)

And in March of this past year, one of Megan’s dreams came true and she opened a yarn store here in Connecticut.

Megan’s Shop: Mothers of Purl Yarns

As a gift for Baby Girl, Megan gave me what might just be the most adorable knitting pattern ever: Phoebe’s Sweater. Not only is it a knitting pattern for a little girl’s sweater, a stuffed mouse, a dress for the mouse and a mouse-sized sweater, it also has a very sweet, beautifully illustrated story about how Phoebe Mouse’s mom knits her a new sweater while she waits for her new baby to come, so even if you DON’T knit it’s a lovely children’s book. To go with the book Megan gave me enough yarn to knit 2 Phoebe Mouses (Mice? Meeses?) with instructions to give one away to you lovely people. And so I did.

Hi, I'm Phoebe

And then because I love knitting, I also made each Phoebe a mouse-sized jacket out of beautiful red tweed.

Your Phoebe will have gold buttons. It's embarrassing how long I stood in the button aisle picking out exactly the right ones for a MOUSE DOLL SWEATER.

But Phoebe really is cuter if you have the book (plus, if you do happen to knit you can make MORE dresses, in different colors! Or the little girl sized sweater!). So I bought a second one from Megan to give away.

You may win everything you see here! Besides the throw pillow. I bought that at Walmart. But you do get the jacket.

The book is even signed by the author and the illustrator. I can't be the ONLY person obsessed with signed books, right?

And in case you think this kind of thing is cute, your Phoebe Mouse will have been hugged by Baby Girl's Phoebe Mouse.

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post. THAT’S IT.

Tell me who you would give the mouse to (you can say you would keep her)! Tell me what you had for dinner last night. Tell me that even though I’m 32 weeks pregnant today I don’t need to freak out yet about having ANOTHER baby.

Giveaway open until November 7th, winner will be chosen using Random.org and notified via email so make sure you use a real one when you comment. I’m willing to send Phoebe and her book anywhere, so giveaway is open to EVERYONE.

Disclaimer bit: Megan gave me three balls of yarn and 1 copy of Phoebe’s Sweater so I could make a mouse for my baby and a mouse for you. Little Evan ruined the first book with…I don’t even know what. Something sticky. Plus I still need  a copy of the pattern to make Baby Girl a child-size sweater. So I bought the book I’m giving away. Plus I put in many many hours of knitting time when I should have been playing with my kid, so the giveaway is literally priceless. How’s that for the most unclear disclosure statement ever?

Day 1 is open until November 1st! Allora Handmade
Day 2 is open until November 2nd! Uff Da Designs
Day 3 is open until November 3rd! Taradara
Day 4 is open until November 4th! Peggy Ann Design
Day 5 is open until November 5th! aPearantly Sew
Day 6 is open until November 6th! Gussy