Making a Mama's heart melt!

New babies bring joy to those that love them, and even to some who just see them in passing. A baby's first smiles will most certainly bring smiles from whoever sees them. So, with my daughter's discovery that her own smile illicits one from Mama, I've been smiling a lot these days. She truly is a blessing to our growing family!

Other reasons that this Mama is smiling lately is that the creative juices haven't stopped flowing! So many plans for upcoming projects are just floating around waiting to get sewn up! So far, in the planning stages, I've got:

~the Mama Bag~ can be used as either a purse, a diaper bag, or both!

~cloth pull-ups~ the same convenience as disposable pull-ups but the benefits of cloth!

If anybody else has ideas brewing in their creative brains of what they'd like to see available, leave a comment. All ideas will be considered!

Getting My Craft On!

It has been a very long time since this mama has felt physically capable of sitting in one place long enough to do anything crafty. Of course, late pregnancy will do that to a gal. Yup, that's right, I was pregnant again. Now I'm a new mommy again =). Little Miss Ryleigh Maxine has joined the family as of May 26th at 7:26am.

Like with the arrival of my son, the arrival of Little Miss has sparked a major creative flare in me. I've got cloth diapers galore cut and ready to be sewn, a new pattern for trainers for a little girl I know in the "testing" stages, and oodles of crazy creative ideas flowing. Anyway, with the resurgence of my crafting urges I have decided to try once again at getting a small WAHM business up and running.

For now my items will be available primarily through Etsy (http://moonwillowcrafts.etsy.com) but eventually I am planning on partnering up with a Doula friend of mine and doing a booth at our local farmer's market. I'll be offering everything from cloth diapers & accessories, to blankets and soft toys. At the moment my Etsy store is a bit sparse because most of the diapers I'm currently making are for Little Miss and for a custom order I took on before my pregnancy with her made it unbearable to sit for long periods of time. Once I work both of those projects down more I'll be making more stuff for the store.

I suppose that since Little Miss is finally sleeping, after quite a fussy day, that its time for me to go to sleep as well. Hopefully I'll be keeping this a bit more up-to-date here in the near future. No promises though as I'm still adjusting to being a mommy of two under two years old!

The Joys of Teething

Its no wonder that people are telling me I look tired lately, my little man is working on cutting three teeth at once. It was four but one finally broke through yesterday (yay for small victories!). I've decided that its not actually the crying, or the diarrhea, or the drool, or the chewing on everything that is wearing me out but the two following things:

1. Getting up more times in one night to soothe a fussy baby than I used to get up to pee when pregnant

&

2. Dreaming about teething, and teeth in general...

The first thing I actually expected from all the "horror" stories that my other mom friends had told me when their kiddos were teething. The second thing I was caught by totally unawares. Why oh why must I be tormented by teething even when I manage to sleep?

In trying to find ways to soothe my poor savage beast, I have done just about everything. Teething tablets, baby Orajel, baby Tylenol, frozen fruit in a mesh feeder and a cold/frozen wash cloth. Nothing seems to help him with the pain so my next plan of action is to invest in an amber teething necklace. For less than $15 it can't hurt to try right? Especially since its a natural remedy which makes me breathe a whole lot easier. Pumping my poor kid full of Tylenol just is not my ideal method for pain relief at all.

For those of you that haven't heard of amber teething necklaces, Inspired by Finn on Hyenacart.com is a popular maker of them. The one that I'm looking at getting is similar to this one:



Among other things, amber is a natural analgesic (pain reliever) and anti-inflammatory. When amber is worn on the skin, the warmth of the skin releases trace amounts of healing oils on the skin.

So, once I manage to convince the hubby that some pretty rocks on a string will help our son be a more pleasant little monster, and once the bank account allows, my little man will be getting one of these. I can't wait!

An Introduction of Sorts

I'm horrible at introductions so I'm not going to try and dress this up at all, I'm just going to give you a sample schedule of my day and maybe once you see that you'll have learned something about me.

Morning
7:50am - Crawl out of bed carefully so as not to wake my 11 month old monster... I mean son.
8:15am - Rush out the door muttering about being late to work because I just could not get out of bed earlier because the monster is just so snuggly.
8:30am - (or thereabouts) Clock in at work and putter through however many hours they have me scheduled for while I roast in the little room they keep me in ringing outcustomers.

Afternoon
1:30pm(or later) - Finally win my freedom for the day (get off work) and head home!
1:45pm - Arrive home, eye my pitiful flower beds that still need weeding, then go inside to be reunited with the monster and the hubby who are either playing or enjoying lunch.
2:30pm - Clean monster baby up from his lunch and let him loose to run amok with his toys while I (hopefully) take time to sew a diaper or blanket (my home business), or do laundry or, heaven forbid, eat my own lunch and relax.

Evening
6:30pm - Feed monster baby his dinner, nibble on a few of his cheerios to encourage him to eat them rather than fling them all over the floor in his attempt to "save them for later"
8:30pm - Eat my own dinner, likely prepared by my hubby since he's the better cook in the family (I do better with baking) and share about half of it with our "bird" aka baby.
9:30pm - Nurse the sweet little angel (as he's only called when asleep) and tuck him into his bed until his morning feeding when he gets to snuggle with Mama and Dada.
10pm - Attempt to stay awake long enough to have some quality snuggle time on the couch with the hubby before we crash for the night and the day starts all over again.