With one little grow-with-me dress started, I've been working on a second. It can take days to finish a little dress. As a new parent and some experience as an aunt, I'm still naive enough to enjoy making these clothes without the blunt truth that a baby can poo their way through 3, 4, even 5 outfits in just one day. This baby outfit will get a few hours screen time and then POOF! Into the laundry she goes!
Why sew little clothes? Because thinking about the health of the baby will drive me nuts. I do chores but meh, I'm not a house maid. It'll all get done in due time. I refuse to watch tv other than my one talk show. I hate sitting on my butt. I'll go for walks. But really what DO I do during the day? Sew, listen, and read mostly blogs and the news.
Reading a book feels so unproductive, even though I mourn not reading at the end of every day. "A great writer was always first a great reader..." Blah blah blah, according to my favorite author du jour, Diana Gabaldon. Is that quote word for word... nah, so good writer I'm not today. But it makes perfect sense to me. At one time I was a great reader. Now, do I count all the books for baby? No. Why not? I dunno. I only count the novels. But I literally read.... hours on end each day on the internet and from books. Why I think I'm never doing enough is just a facet of my over achieving personality. I annoy me some days.
Baby books, speaking of, I have a shelf full of them and many I've read completely and some I'll buy and some I'm still reading. Some scary history on birth, some birth technical stuff, parenting books for the realistic parent, mommy inspiration stories. Even a book on walking. Yes. A book on how to walk. Seems silly but I liked reading the pages with personal accounts of women, all pregnant, who made it the everyday goal to walk, walk, walk, walk, walk. How they fit it in and what it did for their health. Seems silly but my buttom literally hurts the days I don't go for a walk. I need the stretch. The circulation. The mediation. I get closer to Kris by just a quick marital walk. We gab and listen and just reharmonize. Walking is great for marriages. When I'm alone, I get into my books and I get more comfortable in my neighborhood. So nearly everyday, I walk for baby. And read books about walking for baby. Bill Cosby was right. "We were intellectuals, before we had children."
Other books include birth partner help, which I've stealthy avoided. I dunno why. Lots of I dunnos today. Probably because the whole birth partner thing is Kris's and well... let's just say the poor guy ain't none to ready to think about that. If I read it, I'll talk about it, hence avoidance. Oh and my favorite, How to Back Up a Trailer, a list detailing 101 things all men (and women) should know how to do! I love it! From fishing to golfing to hanging pictures and changing oil. It's great! I feel prepared somehow having that book around. See what I mean about naive? I feel magically prepared now that I can recall how to change a serpentine belt. Well, actually I can recall where the book is that tells you how to do it.
After all this, it's obvious I read to feel "prepared". I just don't read novels and watch tv during the day. I listen to the radio for about 1.5 hours and eat breakfast and wake up. I do dishes. I do laundry. I look outside. I read blogs and all my news. It's my routine. Then I... I... I...
Well.
Then I lose hours. I am not sure what happens after I do all that. Kris could ask me and I'd really have no answer. I made lunch and watched my only talk show? Maybe talked with Emily and Rowan for a bit... But that doesn't take up hours and hours. Walk? Store? Shopping? Umm sometimes I look off into space. For, oh say, a half an hour? Pregnancy brain is my only answer. I always fall back on the answer: "I made a baby. What did you do dear?"
That's why I'm sewing futile little frilly poop rags that baby will grow out of in a day. Yep. Because I don't want to quilt and I don't want to gut each room and clean them as they should be cleaned. This sewing is a great distraction from the film of grime that needs to be cleaned from my cupboard insides and all the drawer sorting I need to do. And that the kitchen needs a mopping. I suppose the real preparing I need to do is all of this, the gutting of each room and sifting through unwanted and wanted. If I can get the fabric going through my sewing machine, it will fly out of the boxes as remnants and into drawers as dresses and pants and well whatever the heck else babies can wear. That's what I tell myself at least. Though my rate of sewing each item per day means I'll have oh maybe 4 things by the end of this month, it's still a wonderful distraction. I can fantasize about the pretty part of being a parent. The scary and tedious and wearing parts will all come (which everyone loves to tell me) but why rush them? I'm in the romantic period where up is down and down is up and practicality is on vacation. I sleep now, because I know later there will be no sleep. Not like the kind I get now!!
I feel like Alice in Alice in Wonderland. And that friggin Mad Hatter who is bonkers in a creepy, crazy, friendly way and where people eat strange cakes that make them big and drinks that make them small. I feel like despite knowing there is a real world and real circumstances, I have found crazy odds and ends that inspire me and thrill me. Is it practical? No. I feel like, "Well hell I'm reading some parenting books... that more than makes up for all the other crap I spend my time day dreaming about."
The perfect diaper bag. The right stroller. The perfect carseat. The baby's bed. The bedding. Sure... I'll have all that ready... maybe... ok no I won't. Because baby needs diapers, onesies, momma's boob, love and a carseat. The stroller.... nonessential for several months if I have a moby wrap to natural parent our baby on her way to gestational success. The bed... will probably... don't laugh... be a dresser drawer for a while. Maybe even a laundry basket (we'll be safe, so don't worry). Who knows. But a bassinet? I dunno about that. A crib is unlikely, since I'll plan on co-sleeping and near-sleeping for the first few months. And who knows, I may need a crib ASAP but heck, are they that hard to find? The perfect diaper bag................................ahhh that is just a want, not a need. I feel like a mom on the go needs her one of those. So, I shall wait until I'm on the go. Who knows, I may receive it as a gift. But to buy it now and think for some reason it makes me a better mommy is silly and crazy and well a lot like Alice in Wonderland. My baby Wonderland!!!!!
To date I have spent very, very little on baby. I continue to track all my expenses in an excel spreadsheet (for fun. Yes. I have fun doing that.) and research reviews and prices. For instance, strollers. I entered a giveaway contest for this stroller. It is the CADILLAC of strollers. I am mesmerized by it... just like that purple striped cat and the hooka smoking catapillar. In my baby Wonderland I can justify spending $500-$1000 dollars on a stroller like this. In reality... well... I'm still mesmerized so I can't give you reasons why not to buy it, but I know they are out there. I'm in denial. It rear and forward faces, makes it east to carry baby, large basket, safe, very adjustable, rain cover, and once I convert the kilograms I'll tell you how light it really is... not so good with the kilograms. But it's gorgeous.
Will this be my big purchase that I look back on and think, what the eff was I thinking?? Or will I get it, after much saving and convincing myself I would need and like it, that it is in fact one of our best purchases? Did I mention it can be a stroller for two?..... I may just justify getting it by making another one to put in it to get the mileage out of it. Yep, denial.
So frilly Alice in Wonderland dresses I shall make to avoid the realities and practicality that an experienced parent employs. I will romanticize my everyday life to the point of being annoying (even to myself. I even annoy myself). And so forward I march into baby Wonderland. And I think I'll stay here a while will the going ain't so tough.
Side note: I am coincidentally wearing a "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS" Queen of Hearts jogging jacket. And no, it was a complete mistake. I fear, I am most like her highness in my pregnant state. God forgive me and God protect those around me.
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