the summer of tie dye

we've been tie dye crazy here the past couple weeks. it started with my cousin's annual "bring your kids & dye something!" party, & ended this weekend with the same cousin returning to my house to help dye a whole bunch more gear while the kids ran amok & generally wrecked chaos & had a fabulous time dyeing our garage.
turns out, i love dyeing stuff! we did t-shirts for grown ups, t-shirts for kids, onesies, socks & pretty much every white cotton fabric item we could find.
i had the brilliant idea to buy some white flannel & dye it to make a baby blanket for a girlfriend of mine who is expecting her first in a couple weeks. i had wanted to sew her a quilt, but my time & motivation is running low & i know i can make a cute flannel blankie with much less effort that still looks good & is nice & soft & cozy. so here are my 2 options:

and :

think either of these is good enough to use for a gift? (obviously the finished blankie will be lined, bound & edged.) emmie keeps carrying these around, so whichever we don't use for a gift i'll use to make a blankie for her. or are these not cool enough to give some one? should i try, try again?

gender.... to know or not to know?

next week is our "big" ultrasound, & i still really want to be surprised come january, but it's SO tempting to find out! plus i'm worried that if it's another boy i'll be bummed out. not bc i don't love boys, i do. but bc i'd feel bad if em were the odd girl out all her life. i always wanted a sister & i wish i could give one to emmie.
one of my good friends in high school was an only girl with 3 brothers & she always seemed sort of out of place & uncomfortable in her own skin. i don't know if that was bc her mom wasn't the best female role model, or bc she wanted to be like her big brother, or if she was just a weirdo, but it's always lingered in the back of my mind as an "oh no" about a girl growing up in a house full of dudes. i worry that another little boy will only want to hang out with his big brothers & em won't have anyone to play her games. i worry that the boys would all game up on her or exclude her, or that she won't think that it's cool to be a girl. i worry about making the twins share a room forever while em & the littlest boy get their own rooms. i worry that the big boys will be nothing but annoyed with a little brother who follows them everywhere. basically, i just worry.
i think i'm going to tough it out & wait til january. this is our last, & i really want that "IT's A ___!" moment. plus, i can't be disapointed with a sweet little baby in my arms, no matter what their gender. so i'm just going to stress about it for months ahead of time, & hope that it could somehow be a good thing for a girl to grow up in with all boys.

(& of course i'm stressing over this strictly bc i have one of those mommy feeling that it's a boy. based on nothing other than my own intuition, which is faulty at best, but sure feels convincing!)

i held the pig hostage.

lovies are pretty much sacred in our house. with 3 kids so close in age, everyone sort of HAS to share everything, & lovies are the one exception. no one else may play with/touch/hold some one else's lovey unless specifically given permission by the owner. val has a grey bunny, emma a Bunnies By The Bay bunny blanket, (i mention the brand bc i LOVE them. LOVE LOVE LOVE. best stuffies ever.), & conrad has a pink flowered sheep that he refers to as a ginea pig. lovies are the only toys ever allowed to leave the house, they can sit at the table for meals, & pretty much have the right to go where ever the kids want them to go.
today, however, i broke a lovey rule & used conrad's sheep/pig for leverage. i feel like the meanest mom in the universe.
it was naptime & he was screaming like a banshee, (one of those fake, i'm not really crying, i'm just being exceptionally noisy & whiney cries), while jumping up & down in his crib. this went on for a solid 5 mintues, upsetting his brother & winding up his sister, until i got fed up & told him to lay down & be quiet or "baby" (the sheep/pig) would go bye-bye. he held the pig closer, gave me the evil eye & upped the volume a few notches. so i made him hand over the baby & marched out of the bedroom. at this point he started crying for real with those big gasping, my heart is breaking sobs. & i only stayed away long enough to change em's pants & put away everyone's toothbrushes before i went back in & gave him the "you get baby back if you're quiet & laying down" line, & he got his baby back. which he then held in a death grip while staring at me as though i'd tried to cut off his left arm. (although he WAS quiet after that.)
i wouldn't have kept his lovey indefinetly, but i was at a loss for how to get through to the kid. & i'd been up since 2am. i feel that excuses a few flaws in my mothering today, right?

sleep baby, sleep!

i have become consumed by gender. does it matter what we have? no, not really. i don't even actually want to know unti the baby is born. i just want to obsess over it continually. i am having the best time getting guesses & playing with all those super-silly old wives tales. yes, i am a dork.

val has been waking up the past several nights at midnight & staying up til 2. he is then exhausted beyond belief when i wake him in the morning & sleep walks through the whole day. he only gets a 2 hr nap & would sleep more if i let him. i called our pedi's office this morning to ask a nurse about it, & she suggested we give up his nap, at which point i politely stopped listening. whatever his problem is, it is NOT that he's getting too much sleep, the kid is pooped ALL of the time. is it a phase? could there be some physical reason for it? i'm not sure, but i'm going to continue to puzzle it out on my own for a while since the nurse was so unhelpful (although well-meaning.) & in the meantime, we're all freaking tired. midnights spent listening to val chatter are not restful for any of the fam. sigh.

random thoughts, bullet point style

- some kind of fever/sore throat inducing crud is making the rounds in our house. val had it, i have it & conrad seems to be coming down with it as well. i hate being sick in summer time. it just seems all wrong.

- i dragged emma's quilt back out to finish. i've been thinking about quilting for days now, & i thought if i dragged my project back out i might be inspired to work on it, instead of just thinking about it. right now, it's sitting on the floor while i type. but i swear i am going to quilt a square or two before the kids wake up.

- speaking of kids waking up, the little goobers *just* freaking fell asleep. & it's 2 in the afternoon. it drives me nuts when they don't nap. i don't know what i'll do when they give them up for good.

- i've been on a soup bender for dinners lately. odd when the weather is 90+, but i love soup. & my throat hurts, so that's a good excuse, right? N's not much of a fan, but solves his problem by stuffing his soup bowls full of twice as many crackers as soup.

- my cats stink. they're on new food & it gives them the foulest kitty breath ever.

- i haven't felt any little flutters lately, & it's making me worry. i know 15 weeks is still pretty early, but i had been feeling them every day. now not so much. debating whether to call & ask for an u/s. my doc will do them as often as i ask, bc he is awesome. (actually, bc he's a very kind man, sympathetic to my history of loss, & understands the peace that seeing that little flickering heartbeat brings, but awesome is good shorthand for all of that.)

- i love pbs & i cannot wait for my homemade pickles to be ready for eating. (& no, those 2 things aren't related, beyond the fact that i'm watching pbs right now & i would like to have some pickles.)

who craves beer when they're pregnant?

um, me.

no, i'm not out guzzling beer, calm down. it just sounds delicious, in that obsessive, pregnancy craving, MUST have it sort of way. so i'm compromising by making beer cheese soup for dinner. it has to simmer for a while, so the alcohol will disappear & i'll still get a hint of beer.
my other obsessive craving lately has been faygo rock & rye. it's a local MI brand of pop, & i can't even describe the flavor, but i never drink pop, let alone super sugary faygo, & i've been drinking one a day for the last week.

i'm pretty sure i'm growing a frat boy.

newborn lust

i was at my OB's today for a routine checkup (baby is fine, was snoozing a bit & i got to count some fingers-- always a good time!). anyways-- in the waiting room there was a couple of very new parents with a brand spanking new little girl. (i could tell she was a girl from the copious amounts of pink frilly craziness they had draped over every inch of the child & her stroller/carseat/diaper bag). anyways, they were typical clueless, adorable first time parents-- holding the baby really awkwardly while she fussed & squirmed.
it took them a solid 20 minutes to figure out that she wanted to be held up to mom, snuggled heart-to-heart. the whole time i was pretending to read my kindle while sneaking frequent peeks at their little family & willing them to realize that she wanted to be snuggled chest to chest. (funny how you just *know* that kind of thing after having a baby isn't it? i never thought i'd be the kind of person who wanted to offer advice to random strangers. totally out of character for me.) i kept my mouth shut tho & seeing how proud the mom was when she finally figured it out was super cool. i love those parenting moments when that light bulb goes off & you have that "ahhhhhhh" moment of pure bliss when you have everything (temporarily) figured out.
seeing that tiny little one reminded me just how much i love newborns. yeah, i know they don't sleep, & cry alot, & they spit all the time & poop alot, but they're so freaking sweet. seeing a squishy little newborn making those squishy little newborn noises just made me melt. i can't wait for january & our last new baby, & at the same time i'm dreading it, bc it's our LAST new baby & then i'll be that crazy lady drooling with jealousy over other people's tiny babies. i guess a downside to smooshing 4 kids into 3 years is that i don't get much time to anticipate each brand new baby, but in all honesty i am as excited for #4 as for any of them. it just never gets old!