Dear Hank...

... GET TIRED AND GO TO SLEEP!!! It is 9 pm. It is way past bed time. In fact, it is pretty much my bed time. Yet you are still putt putting around your room, in jammies, in the dark, chit chatting like bed time is a foreign concept. Oh good. You just whimpered. I swear you were rubbing your eyes an hour ago... Oh thank goodness, you are rubbing your eyes again. Perhaps you will sleep soon.

Love,
Mommy

PS: if we could avoid the late night/early morning slumber party tonight, that would be delightful. Smooches. Go to bed.

The month in photos...

I think this is my favorite photo of Hank from the last month. He looks happy like this almost all the time. We are so lucky. He laughs a lot, talks a lot, claps his hands all the time, is starting to wave hello and goodbye, and says 'Mama!' and 'Dada!' He can sign 'milk' and we are working on 'book', 'cat', 'more', and 'food'. He's very communicative and makes no qualms about telling us what he wants or what is on his mind.

Of course he's also become very mommy-centric this month, and he's started to exhibit some serious separation anxiety. So very often he does more than his fair share of screaming and crying (this is usually when he says 'mama, mama, mama, mama!!!!' over and over again). Actually, the first time he did this at a day care drop off, I was so surprised that he was upset that I was leaving that I stopped and looked at him and he crawled over to me, babbling and crying and tried to climb up my legs. I had to pry him off in order to leave. :( it was sad! The only way to temper this when we are at home (because he does it when he is on one side of his gate and I am on the other) has been to take a stab at babyproofing the living room. I'm sure it could be made safer, but for the time being it is ok. He loves to cruise around in here, and we got a long tunnel that he loves to go through. One of the best games these days is for me to go to one end, wait for him to start crawling towards me, and then I zip over to the other end so that when he gets to where he thinks I am waiting he finds that he has to turn around and come find me again. It must be a little infuriating for him, but it is funny as hell for us! Mean mommy....

Oh and all that sleep training I wrote about a month ago has gone out the window... between a cold that won't go away, the teething that never seems to end, and being on the brink of learning to walk, this kid just won't sleep these days. Life is far too exciting. Which means 4:30 am seems like a perfectly good and reasonable time to get up in the morning, which means we;ve had to spend a lot of wee hours trying to sleep on his floor while he putters around his room around us, and sometimes curls up next to us to nap.


























The diaper pail, while perhaps not so hygenic, is a great place to hang out and pick up chicks... 'Hey, baby!'















I try not to get too political here on the blog, but I love this picture of my moms' group with all the babies dressed in their Obama onesies. I wish the quality were a little better, and that some people hadn't been cut out, but it is a pretty good picture of Hank and all his baby friends.















'What should I play with first???' Decisions, decisions...
















This is a photo of Hank and Riley mere moments before Hank's first cat scratch. Poor baby! We felt terrible! But he bounced back quickly and just adores the cats. The cats are not so crazy about Hank. Hank is quick, though, and he chases them all over the living room. They can barely get out of his way.

Felt Rabbit

Felt Rabbit, originally uploaded by allthingssara.

I've been busy trying to make a cohesive look for my Etsy shop, RabbitPatch. This little guy isn't for sale yet, but he's become my little mascot -- he's all over my shop and I had business cards made up with him on them, too. He's made of felt, hand sewn, and stuffed with polyfill and bells. He's pretty cute!

Recently added to the shop is some stationary -- thank you notes and some blank notes as well. I've got more to list where those came from, if only I can find the time!

I've also been experimenting with bath and body products -- it was so fun! I made a few jars of body butter and some bath salts. They need some tweaking, but they are pretty good as is. I probably won't be trying to sell these, but I'm having a good time messing around with them.

Pinecrest Lake

Pinecrest Lake Trip, originally uploaded by allthingssara.

A few weeks ago we went to Pinecrest Lake with Melissa, Emmett, Tommy, and the twins. The Nolan family did the unthinkable -- camped for eight nights with a six year old and two three month olds! I am still in awe. We took the easy way out and stayed in a small cabin with a slanted floor and a sloping bed. But at least we had plumbing!

It was so nice to go to Pinecrest. Henry and I had ended up there for an afternoon by accident a couple of years ago, but other than that I really hadn't spent any time there since we used to go to the Lair of the Bear so many years ago. We loved being at the lake. Hank was a trooper -- went swimming with us and loved hanign out in his play tent on the beach. Also, he is officially Tommy's biggest fan. It was very cute watching Tommy crack up Hank for three days straight.

I think my favorite moment was when Henry and I were out in the lake with Hank in his little floaty boat and Hank just drifted off for a nap in him floaty boat as we floated him along the beach. It was irresistably cute.

First Sale!

Yippee!!

I've sold something on Etsy! An order came in this afternoon for a sign for a little girl named Maisie. I can't wait to get Hank to bed tonight so I can get cranking on it.

I haven't been working much on my shop -- in that I have hardly been doing any promotion, so I am psyched to finally get a sale. It gives me more incentive to execute some of the ideas that have been floating around in my head; mainly several marketing things I've been thinking about but haven't done. I also need to take photographs of everything I've made in the last couple of weeks (Blankies!! Blocks!! Stuffed animals!!) and write some new listings. Very fun.

I've also been working on a recipe for baby lotion and baby powder. I learned how to make body butter a couple of weeks ago and got really fired up about bath products. I had no idea how simple it is to make safe, natural bath products. Since Hank was born I've been trying to get the pthalates out of our home, which is what inspired me to try making a couple of things myself. I was surprised by how interesting I've found the learning process.

Nine in, Nine out

Hank turned nine months old today! From here on out, he will be on the outside longer than he was on the inside. Nine in, nine out.

I've been giving a lot of thought to this concept of 'nine in, nine out' -- the idea that it takes nine months on the inside to create the baby, and nine months of 'extrogestation' on the outside to finish the baby off. I think nine in, nine out should also include the idea that it takes that second nine month period for the mom to feel like herself again and for the parents to really adjust to their new roles.

As far as I'm concerned, there was a moment about a week ago when I felt like I had finally really recovered from pregnancy. I realized that I finally feel like myself, physically; have the energy I used to have; and have a mental and emotional clarity that seemed to have been fogged over for quite a long time, between the stress of pregnancy and the sleep deprivation of motherhood. I feel like I don't need to panic or stress out or over analyze every thing that Hank is doing anymore -- instead I feel like whatever is going to happen, is whatever is going to happen, and we can handle things as they come. The constant changeability of parenthood seems to be less of a challenge to me now -- rather it just is our new normal, and the fact that the status quo around here constantly changes is, in and of itself, a consistency that I am finally comfortable with.

(well, I'm comfortable with it for now!)

As for the baby, well, in some ways it feels as though he really is fully cooked, now that he's been out for nine months, that he can stop being 'a baby' and start becoming a boy, a man. He seems in so many ways not a baby any longer, but a tiny human. And while I can look at him and recognize that he is the same baby that he was, he's almost unrecognizable at the same time. In the last couple of weeks he's clearly begun to express opinions, preferences, dislikes. He waves and asks for milk with sign language. He speaks to us in distinct syllables that reflect what he's feeling. 'Muh muh muh muh', when he's sad or anxious. 'Deh, deh, deet, deet, dah', when he's happy. 'Ba ba ba ba ba', when content and engrossed in something. 'Bwuh, bwuh, bwuh, bwuh', when he's crying. When he stands at his gate, or at his toy shelves, he sometimes shoots me a look as if to say 'uh, mom, you wanna give me some space, please?'. I'll often notice things have gotten too quite and I'll come in to find him sitting in front of his toy basket, removing each toy carefully, methodically inspecting each one, and setting them each aside.

We've been watching a lot of the Olympic coverage, and I've found myself surprised to be looking at these athletes, especially the males, and thinking of them as Someone's Son, and watching the parents in the stands looking on, and finding that I can sort of imagine how proud they must be of their kids. We feel such pride for Hank's tiny accomplishments like learning to 'clap hands!', that I get weak in the knees thinking how proud I am going to be of him at his bigger accomplishments in life, whatever they may be. Sky's the limit, kid. Right?

Manhunt!

Some neighbors are going to come home tonight to find their cars have been totalled by some local punks who were driving (what we can only begin to guess was) a stolen car. This afternoon we heard a huge car crash. Henry dashed outside to take a look and by the time we got halfway down the block to where the crash had taken place, half the neighborhood was out trying to figure out what was going on. Several people said they saw three guys running up the street, away from the car, obviously trying to make a break for it. They had been driving their car up the street from the Lake, blew through the stop sign at our intersection, hit a bump in the road and spun out, doing a 180, and taking out a couple of cars parked on the street. One of them, and SUV, was somehow pushed up on to the sidewalk and partway into the yard of the house that we think is owned by the local catholic parish. Its back hatch had flown open and the front end was completely demolished. The stolen car looked like it had been totalled. The airbags went off and the back window was blown out. It was a total mess.

The cops came and sealed off our block because someone said that they saw the kids run off to the next street over, that one had a gun, and they were hiding in the bushes in front of another house. (This was my cue to take Hank back inside). Helicopters circled for a good hour.

Henry just went out to try to get some pictures, and said that the owner of the SUV was there, trying to clean up his stuff, and the cops were still out, and they said that they hadn't been able to find the car thieves.

Ahh, the excitement... when are we moving to the suburbs, again?