W 18 Month Update

So...this is super late.  But he did just have his 18 month check-up the other day, so it's cool, right?

I can't believe my baby is a year and a half old.  And this whole month he was all "big boy" no "baby."  Part of that might have been because this month was the worst of my back problems so he was spending a lot of time with The Sailor, all I know is he just feels so darn grown up.

So, he's still lingering around 25 pounds and wears 24 month clothes and size 5.5 or 6 shoes.  Since he potty trained this month all his pants fall off though, haha.

We didn't go to any classes this month because my back was so messed up and the act of pulling him out of the car seat was damn near excruciating for me, but we played outside behind our house a lot to make up for it and he made lots of trips to the parks around base with The Sailor.

At the beginning of the month we had some pretty miserable teething days, but no molars actually popped through!  So frustrating! But he enjoyed getting mini ice cream cones to help deal with the pain.

In other eating news, he has started to prefer using a fork and having a plate (as opposed to eating with his hands right off his tray).  I think this is another factor making him feel more "grown up."

With all the trips to the playgrounds with The Sailor he has mastered going down the slide by himself - backwards.  And he could do this for hours.  He loves climbing up and sliding down and climbing up and sliding down.  I actually think The Sailor gets more nervous watching him then I do, which is funny to me.

And he's getting much better at coloring!  Instead of just eating crayons he actually doodles quite a bit!

At the very end of the month we got rid of his crib.  It was not a fun transition, but I couldn't bend over any further to get him out because of my belly/back and he was almost able to climb out.  Those first few nights he would wake up, run to his door and start pathetically calling out "Moooooommmmmyyyyyyy" but if I went in to comfort him he would completely melt down and take hours to get back to sleep.  It eventually got better, but that wasn't until his next month so I'll leave that for our next update which is due in like a week, lol.

Does anyone else find it super hard to keep up with these updates?  But I totally wish I had more of them to document his milestones and personality from when he was an infant so I'm really trying to keep up...

Wear Your Baby Wednesday - Chevron Tie Dye Your Wrap!

My name is Amanda and I have a problem...I'm addicted to dyeing wraps.

Phew!  I feel better after getting that off my chest!

Let's quite the chit chat and get down to business now, shall we?

Supplies:

• Soda Ash
• Professional Fiber Reactive Dyes (I like Dharma dyes)
• Elastics
• Squirt bottles
• Gloves and a mask
• Synthropol textile detergent
• A wrap to dye (for this project I used a 4.6m Ellevill Organica Mali)
• An iron

The key to getting the dye job to turn out in this chevron pattern is precise folding (which is why you need the iron).  I literally ironed a crease in each fold that I did and I do not think it would have been successful (especially with the thickness of the wrap once it was all folded up) if I had skipped this.

As usual, first wash your wrap with textile detergent.  You can use "normal" detergent if you're in a bind, but I'm a better-safe-than-sorry type gal when I'm permanently altering expensive fabrics.

Then you get to folding.  First you're going to accordion fold the entire length of the wrap.  I started with the tapers (which are super long on an Ellevill wrap, by the way) hanging off my ironing board:

Then I reached to the other side and carefully pulled the fabric up to make my first accordion fold:

And I ironed the creases.

Then I continued for the entire length of the wrap being careful to make the folds as equal as possible and ironing in between each fold.

Once it was all folded and ironed I folded up the tapers of the wrap (and you guessed it - ironed those folds as well).

Next you'll take the top corner and fold it at a 90 degree angle.

And iron that crease (yes...you're still ironing ever crease).

Then you accordion fold that corner.

I tried to get more pictures, but because of the thickness of the wrap I couldn't take my hands off of it or else the folds (despite being ironed) came un-done.  All you have to do is continue to accordion fold the rest of the fabric on an angle and then secure it every couple inches with elastics.

The hardest part is over...woohoo!

Before I started this wrap I actually decided to try and "map out" the colors I was planning on using and it was a huge help while I applied the dye.  All I did was take screenshots (by hitting control+print screen) of the color chips from the Dharma Website then arrange them using Paint.  This is the pattern of colors I decided on:

Before you can start applying dye, soak the whole wrap in a soda ash solution for 30 minutes.  While my wrap sits in soda ash I mix my dyes.  And this wrap used a lot of dyes:

The colors were Dharma seafoam, paris green, turquoise, azure blue, wisteria, power berry, and jet black.

Then place your tied up wrap in a bin on top of a rack (so it doesn't end up sitting in dye) and apply your dye using squirt bottles:

Then let it sit.  Some people say overnight is fine.  Some people say 12-18 hours.  I like to let it sit for 18-24 hours just to be safe.

Then it's ready to be rinsed!  I'm a bad person and instead of running water over it to rinse it, I toss it right in the washing machine.  First I did a cycle with Synthropol then I did two full cycles without any detergent to make sure all the dye was out.  When you're removing your elastics, be careful...I've dyed a bajillion things and I still do stupid stuff like splatter blue dye all over my face.

And...you're finished!  Isn't she a beauty?

As usual, if you have any questions feel free to ask!  And don't forget to check out my other dye tutorials and babywearing posts here!!

Wear Your Baby Wednesday - Shibori Dye Technique aka MORE wrap dyeing!

Remember that time I told you I needed your help to win a free pod conversion?  Well, I won!  Woot!  And I decided I wanted it to be a rainbow zebra carrier.  Not sure why, but seriously, why not?  Well, it's not like there is a rainbow zebra wrap on the market I could just buy, so I had to dye my own.

This wasn't my first time doing a shibori dye.  I've actually done quite a few from back when I was making and selling ring slings, but I had never done a rainbow one and I had never done a whole wrap (those were just ring sling pieces).  My first attempt I had two things go wrong:

1. I had every color on hand except red and I was too impatient to wait for professional red to come in the mail so I used Dylon dye (which is perfectly safe for baby carriers but not a "professional" dye) for the red and in the wash it bled on the rest of the fabric making anything white pink.
2. Because a full wrap is so much longer than just a ring sling piece I had too many layers of fabric using my usual 6 inch PVC pipe and the dye didn't penetrate all the way through so only half the wrap got dyed.

So it looked pretty good until it came out of the wash and only half the fabric was dyed (not enough for a pod, but as you can see there was enough for a ring sling!) and what should have been white was pale pink.  So I started over, and this is where you should start if you want to dye a whole wrap!

Supplies:

• Soda Ash
• Professional Fiber Reactive Dyes (I like Dharma dyes)
• A round, plastic trash bin
• A tension rod big enough to hold up in your bath tub
• Zip ties
• Squirt bottles
• Gloves and a mask
• Synthropol textile detergent
• A wrap to dye (I used a 4.5m Colimacon et Cie wrap in natural color)

**Whenever you are handling soda ash or dye wear gloves and a mask**

If you're only dyeing a ring sling piece a 6 inch PVC pipe should be enough (which you can find at Home Depot or Lowes), if you're dyeing a long wrap you'll need something bigger so the wrap doesn't have as many layers wrapped around it.  I used a trash bin. You want a trash bin that is as close to a perfect cylinder as possible.

Getting Supplies

Before you get started you need to get set up.  Essentially your fabric will be wrapped around your cylinder, scrunched together, then you apply your dye.  Obviously some of the dye will drip off which is why I like to do this in the bath tub which is what the tension rod is for.  You need to cut a hole in the center of the lid and the bottom of the trash bin big enough for the tension rod to fit through so you can suspend your trash bin above the tub.  The Sailor is an overachiever and built a structure out of scrap wood to put in the tub.  This really isn't necessary, a tension rod will work just fine.

Once you have your suspension system set up in the tub wash your fabric and soak it in a soda ash solution  for 30 minutes.

Then you're going to wrap your fabric around the cylinder as tightly as you can.  With the trash can the handles got in the way so I couldn't wrap it as tight as I would have liked but it isn't the end of the world.  Once it is wound around your cylinder put zip ties sporadically every couple inches.  These will be the completely white parts after you're done. (I didn't get a good picture doing this around the trash bin, but the very first picture in the collage above shows exactly what I mean)

Once your zip ties are tightened as tight as you can get them squish the fabric together.

With the trash bin it's important you use zip ties so once you squish the fabric together you can re-tighten them since the bin is slightly smaller at the base then it is at the top.

Then you apply dye using squirt bottles.  You could do all one color.  You could do a mixture of colors.  You could do the whole effing rainbow like me! (I used Chinese Red, Golden Yellow, my orange was just a mixture of those two, New Emerald Green, Electric Blue, and Imperial Purple).

Fun tip - to put the dry dye in the bottles (since the opening is so small) I just make little funnels out of wax paper; the dye doesn't stick to the wax paper at all and I just toss each funnel after each color.

If you're doing a full rainbow like I did, in order to get the spacing right first I did a thin stripe of red and purple, then I split the center with thin stripes of yellow and green...

Then I did the orange and the blue in the middle of the two blank parts and filled everything in so the colors were at least somewhat even.  And I saturated the hell out of that fabric.

The zip ties kinda kicked up dye and may have made a pretty cool looking mess...

Then I waited.  For 24 flipping hours.

I hate waiting, but it's worth it, I promise.

Then, since it was already in the tub I just turned on the water to rinse as much of the dye out as possible.

After I rinsed out most of the extra dye I cut off the zip ties, threw it in the washing machine, and washed it with synthropol.  Then I ran it through a whole additional cycle without any detergent just to be sure it was completely rinsed and dried it as usual in the dryer.

And it was beautiful....

There isn't quite as much white as I would have liked (because the trash bin collapses slightly under the zip ties and I couldn't get a "perfect" wrap around the trash bin since it isn't a perfect cylinder) but the colors are exactly what I imagined.  Once it is converted to a pod with a hood that has a zebra mohawk mane and ears it will be more than obvious that it was meant to be a rainbow zebra.

I mailed it off to Shiny Star Designs today but it'll probably be a while since they just opened up custom slots in mid-September.  I'll be anxious to see it, but it isn't like I can really wear W these days anyway because of my stupid back.  But I'll be sure to share pictures as soon as I get the finished carrier!!

As usual, if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask!  And in case you didn't notice (and you definitely wouldn't if you're viewing in mobile mode) I added another "tab" to the blog specifically for babywearing related posts (including my other dye tutorials) so go check it out here!  And even if you're only stopping by for this tutorial and have no plans of reading any of my other posts do a girl a favor and leave a comment!  It's nice to know when people are actually reading (and even better actually using the tutorials on) my blog!

Early Potty Learning

The last full day that W was in diapers was September 9, 2013 making him 17 months and 9 days old when he graduated from diapers.  **I don't like the term "potty trained" especially since he is so young; it just has so much pressure along with it.  I just say he's out of diapers when he's awake since he does still wear - and need - a diaper for naps and overnight.**

People are so surprised when they hear that he is out of diapers at his age.  And they either ask me what kind of voodoo magic I used or just attribute it to W being "mature."  I honestly believe most babies could potty train this early if they're given the opportunity to.  If you have a young baby and want to start them on the road to "early potty learning" this is what we did...

I got W a potty when he was about 9 months old.  With BabyDeux I'll probably start even sooner; as soon as he can sit up on his own I'll let him "use" a potty.  When it was convenient for me (as in if I was going to the bathroom, when W was brushing his teeth, when the tub was filling up, etc) I would put him on his potty with absolutely no expectation for him to do anything it was just him getting to sit on a cool new seat with his pants down.

First time on the potty!

I think a key to this is the fact that when I would use the toilet I would bring him with me and put him on his potty.  If I was peeing I would simply tell him, "Mommy is peeing in her potty because she doesn't wear diapers, if you want you could pee on your potty, too" and if I was pooping I would give him the same general explanation.  So he knew what he toilet was for.  It was actually the second day I ever put him on a potty that he pooped!  And I didn't celebrate, I didn't give him a prize, I just said, "wow, you're pooping on your potty instead of a diaper!  What a big boy."  If he went in his diaper  didn't get upset (obviously, he wasn't even a year old yet) I would just simply explain while I changed him, "you peed/pooped in your diaper, I'm going to put a dry diaper on you.  Isn't that more comfortable?"

Within a month he was almost exclusively pooping on the potty.  I rarely changed poopy diapers for the month of February.  It was awesome.

Then we flew home to visit my family at the beginning of March and we both got sick and he was nursing non-stop (so his poop completely changed) and he totally freaked out about the potty.  ::whompwhomp::  I was a little heartbroken, but hey - he could't walk how could I expect him to regularly use the potty?

After that I would still put him on the potty but I never pushed it.  He had sorta lost interest in it.  Then The Sailor got back from deployment, and I got pregnant, and every time I would put him on his little potty he would just stand up since he could walk.  I got to the point where I thought he was gonna be in diapers for a loooooong time since once BabyDeux got here there was no way I was going to be able to potty train a toddler while caring for a newborn.

Then I got the idea to try and put him on the big potty (with a topper on it) so he couldn't just walk away....and it worked!  This was probably a month before a decided to ditch the diapers.  I started putting him on it whenever it was convenient for me again; sometimes he would go, sometimes he wouldn't.  Then one day he walked up to me, handed me his potty topper, and signed please.  As soon as I put him on the potty he peed and I accepted he was ready.

I picked a date to ditch the diapers about two weeks in the future to mentally prepare myself and made him some training pants.  I started offering him the potty regularly throughout the day instead of just when it was convenient for me and as long as I offered it every two hours or so he'd have clean diapers all day!

I originally planned to do a "three day potty camp" where you essentially camp out in the kitchen (for easy clean up) and pump your kid full of salty snacks so they drink (and thus pee) a lot and essentially dedicate three whole days only to using the potty.  But, because of my back we lasted about 2 hours in the kitchen then just went back to normal life in the house just W was naked for easy potty access.

And he's been out of diapers while he's awake ever since.

For the most part at home he's completely naked or just in undies.  When we leave the house he's in undies and cloths.  If we're leaving during nap time I bring a diaper to put him in knowing he'll pass out on the car ride home (since he does still wear diapers for naps and night time).  He's had two accidents in clothes - one he was asleep in the car seat with The Sailor (he passed out and peed, really can't hold it against him) the other was at a birthday party and he started to wet his pants but finished on a toilet.  He's also had a bunch of starts of accidents at home, but he's generally naked so I just swoop him up and toss him on the toilet for him to finish but those have become few and far between.

Chillin in his undies

So yeah...how did I get my 17 month old out of diapers?  Early introduction.  It was never hard for us to do, honestly.  Like I said, in the early days I never went out of my way and he essentially let me know when he was ready to ditch the diapers.  If you introduce a potty early you will know when your child is ready.  Just trust in that.

I also do give some credit to the fact that we cloth diaper.  Since disposables do such a good job keeping babies dry-feeling they don't really know when they've peed, whereas with cloth it's easy for them to tell.

Since that is more than enough information I'll do a follow up post with tools that helped us along the way,, and as usual if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask!

Reupholstering Tips and Tricks - AKA First big nursery project!!

Yeah...check that shit out^^  Coolest Dr. Seuss nursery chair everrrrr, right?!?

So, I wish I could give you a step by step guide detailing exactly how to reupholster a chair - but I can't.  The fact of the matter is every chair is different and that makes the process of stripping it down and reupholstering it different.  The general idea of it is simple - carefully pull off all the fabric, use that fabric as a template to cut out the new fabric, then put the new fabric on just like you took the old fabric off.  Easy peasy, right?

Well here are a few tips and tricks for you...

• Give yourself plenty of time.  I spent hours just pulling out staples.  This is not a process that is going to be completed in a day.  Maybe if you have a few people and a lot of patience you could finish it in a weekend, but I recommend spreading it out over a bunch of days so you don't give yourself carpal tunnel.
• I used a flat head screw driver and needle-nose pliers to pull out all the staples, it worked quite well.
• Save everything you pull off!!  Seriously!  Every scrap of cardboard, random spikey thing, and piece of fabric.  Saving everything will make it a million times easier to reassemble it.
• Label everything.  Where it goes on the chair, what order you pulled it off in, which part of it pulled up first, etc.  I just used a sharpie and wrote right on the panels where they went and all the details that would help me successfully replace it with new fabric.
• Don't expect perfection.  Seriously, this is true of all my projects.  If I wanted or needed it to be perfect there's probably someone out there I can pay hundreds of dollars to do it for me and there's a reason why they charge so much - this shit is time consuming!  There are some snags in my fabric from me stapling wrong and the back of it is a little wonky (I didn't have quite enough fabric but whatever...who's going to be looking at the back??)

So here's what you need - 

• A cheap piece of old furniture that hopefully was built well but just needs a facelift (you don't want the frame of the chair to be falling apart, just the fabric!)
• Flat head screwdriver and needle-nose pliers (to remove staples)
• Upholstery fabric - no not waste your time and get fabric that isn't heavy enough to be considered upholstery fabric...it will fall apart and then you will have wasted hours of your life for nothing.  I did, however, decide I could use a non-upholstery fabric on the parts that won't get much wear and tear and I think it was a safe decision (the blue Lorax tree print is just normal cotton, not upholstery weight fabric).  I calculated how much I would need after I ripped off all the fabric.
• A staple gun.  I have a fancy one my Dad got me for my birthday (after I reupholstered my kitchen chairs with just a hammer and upholstery tacks he decided I needed a staple gun) but you could use one of those old school plain ones (like this) - it would just take longer.
• A seam ripper to disassemble the cushions 
• And if you're like me...a hot glue gun.  Yes, I hot glued some parts, but I'll never tell you which ones (muahahahahaha) <--not sure why I'm evil laughing about that

I got the chair used from someone on base and it actually reclined (the foot part doesn't pop out, it just reclines) but not very well.  The Sailor actually re-did all the mechanical bits so now it reclines smoothly.  It cost $20.  Then I spent about $50 on fabrics (from onlinefabricstore.net and fabric.com).  

There is some sewing involved to make the covers for the cushions (just like the rest of the chair you pull the cushion apart - with a seam ripper - and use the pieces as a pattern for the new cover).  For this chair I was able to save the zipper on the bottom cushion but the back cushion was originally attached to the chair itself.  I decided it would be easiest for me to make it another cover so I had to get a long zipper for that which also cost me a few bucks. 

I would say I spent between 25 and 30 hours on the chair in all spread out over a bunch of days over two weeks.  But, I'm absolutely in love with it and it cost us less than $75 in all!

After I finished reupholstering it instead of putting back on the feet The Sailor turned it into a rocking chair!  He used scrap wood and the screws that were originally holding on the feet so again, no cost to us.  It took two tries to get the curve right for a rocking chair but still didn't take him much time at all.

So now it reclines and rocks and is gorgeous.  It will be the perfect visual centerpiece for BabyDeux's Dr. Seuss nursery and it will be mighty comfy for all those middle of the night nursing sessions in my future!

Baby Deux - Weeks 18, 19, and 20

I really do suck as a pregnancy blogger, haha.  Especially since as I'm typing this I'm 21w3d.  Oops, it's my blog I'll do what I want to.

So yeah, two Thursdays ago I did something to my back.  At this point the doctors think I ruptured a disc in my lower spine but we can't do any imaging to properly diagnose it since I'm pregnant.

I'm in so.much.pain. I've spent the better part of the last 11 days in tears or on the verge of tears. I can't be upright (sitting or standing) for more than about a half hour before the pressure/pain in my lower back actually makes me start seeing stars and eventually start to black out.

I'm angry at my body for failing me.
I'm angry at my insurance for not covering chiropractic care. It was the only thing that made me feel any better last week but we don't have the money for me to keep going.
I'm angry at the bored house wives who were supposed to be my friends who have been talking behind my back accusing me of faking the injury for attention.
I'm angry at my husband's squadron for giving him crap about asking to take leave because apparently the jets he works on need him more than I do.
And most of all I'm angry at myself for not being able to take care of my toddler the way he deserves. Yesterday morning I was laying on the floor trying to play with him and he kept handing me toys and signing please, but I could barely move. I can barely pick him up. I might have to put him back in diapers even though he's doing so well potty training because he only likes to go on the big potty and I'm struggling to lift him up onto it as often as he needs to go.
Not to mention I hate the fact that I can't go a full day without taking any pain killers despite the fact that I know they aren't great for my unborn baby. I try so desperately to just suck it up, but there's only so much pain I can handle.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest I can talk about some of the more fun things that have been going on the past 3 weeks!

We have started clearing out our third bedroom!  We sold the large pieces of furniture and I've started figuring out where everything else (all my crafting stuff) will end up.  And we sold our old stroller (the Baby Jogger City Mini - which I loved, but only works for one kid) and bought a used Britax B-Ready which we can get a second seat for so W and BabyDeux can both ride in it.  The only problem with it was the previous kid had taken a bite out of the foam on the bar, so I sewed a "sleeve" for it out of The Sailor's uniform material and embroidered our last name on it.  I actually really like it, so I'm kinda glad the last kid chomped on it!

I also picked up some cute Dr. Seuss stuff from the cheapie section at Target to be used in the Nursery.  I'll probably cut out and frame the bags ($0.50 each) and use the plates as part of a DIY mobile ($2 each - they're holographic).

We had our anatomy scan and everything looks perfect.  BabyDeux is super active!!!

I got a men's shirt from Goodwill for $2.99 that I grad-dyed and am slightly obsessed with...

I sold one of my wraps to buy a wrap specifically for BabyDeux!  I've mentioned before that bamboo blends are super soft and great for newborns, so I bought Oscha Starry Night Midnight which is 70/30 cotton/bamboo.  I plan on grad dyeing it before he gets here, probably a deep blue.

And I finished my first big project for the nursery!  I plan on doing a post specifically for it, but here's a teaser for what it is with some pictures we took to celebrate hitting the halfway point with this pregnancy...

Me with my cane - yes, my back is so bad I need a cane to get around by the end of the day

Say hi to your baby brother, W!

Not much else to report...fingers crossed for me that my back starts getting better soon, ok?