A present for M.T.

Last year around the first of January I made a list of birthdays and holidays with ideas on gifts so I’d be ready. Some of that worked. Some of it just added to my guilt. Some of it added to my unfinished project tub. But I stand by the idea so I made a new list this year.

One of the early birthdays in our family is my cousin Scary’s daughter who will turned one last week.

In internet land I saw some knitted balls which I thought were so cute but out of my knitting abilities. So I figured I could knit squares, put them together, stuff and make knitted blocks. I gathered all my supplies in a bag and took it with me to wrestling, basketball, glucose tests…anywhere I sat still. I worked on knitting squares everywhere I went.

I was even trying out one of my Christmas presents, a gauge ruler. I was doing everything to make sure my squares were the same size so they’d go together into blocks. One evening I had about four squares done and started measuring…they were each a different size.

So I looked up the knitted balls pattern again and realized it was possible.

I rearranged my supply bag and made my first knitted ball. It was smaller than I wanted but I didn’t have all the right supplies (my needles were smaller and my yarn wasn’t as bulky) but each ball I made I tweaked the pattern (I used i-like-lemons.blogspot.com/2008/02/knit-balls.html) and finally got the size I was hoping for.

In the end I got 5 fun knitted balls for little M to crawl around after and throw and chew.

Ultrasound

Had an ultrasound to measure baby yesterday. I'm seeing new midwives this time around who have never met me before and only did when I was already 30 weeks so they had no way of guessing size based on prior experience like my other doctors could. Plus that little notation in my chart about having a 10 pound baby before makes them wonder.

He measures right on track to be another big boy, sitting at an estimated 7 pounds at 34 weeks.

Baby cooperated so well and we got some wonderful pictures.

That bright spot on the right above his forehead is hair!

He was sure not shy showing off that he is indeed a boy. #1 was little disappointed, she was holding out hope that the 20 week ultrasound was wrong.

Only 39 days to go according to the counter at the top of the page. The midwife did say yesterday that I'd likely not go to my due date in the hopes of not having another 10 pound baby!

Homekeeping for boys

#3 and #4 help me around the house most days. A lot of helping includes fighting over who gets to do what. With laundry that usually means a lot of arguing about who gets to clean out the lint trap, who puts in the dryer sheet and who gets to load the washer with a new load.

The other day I got a load of towels out of the dryer and was folding them in the living room. #3 took one and set to work folding it very nicely. #4 was mad that he didn't get a towel so #3 put on a towel folding lesson for him.

It was all so cute I had to take some pictures.

A clean basket

#4 and I were in the playroom the other day and, even though I tried to talk him out of it, in true 2 year old fashion he dumped out the whole basket of cars and trucks.

Not a scene a mommy likes to see, but I decided to make the most of it.

I broke out the Clorox wipes, handed one to #4 and let him go to town.

He forgot all about the cars, well actually he never was playing with them…dumping them out was all he was about. But he did spend a long time scrubbing the basket.

When he was done we had a nice shiny basket ready to refill with cars…he wasn’t into that either.

Weekend Plans

Whatever my weekend plans might have shaped up like they ended up with a lot of this:

rosy cheeks

falling asleep early

Tylenol

quilt nests on the couch

snuggling

hankies

Mr. Wiedz passed on his cold of last week to all of the children this weekend. Hopefully we’re over the hump and the week will be calm, refreshed and germ-free