"I'm... So... Blue..."

"...I'm so blue I don't know what to do!"

If you've ever watched Veggie Tales, you may have seen the episode where Madame Blueberry sings a song about being blue. She's so blue because she wants more stuff. I'm not actually feeling blue, and I don't want more stuff, I just have lots of blueberries in the house right now. And I do know what to do with all of these blueberries: freeze and eat them!

We really like blueberries, and every summer I buy a bunch of pints to freeze so we can have blueberries with our cereal over the winter. I love how the milk will freeze around the blueberries - do you know what I mean?

I was doubly excited this year to find truly local blueberries that didn't cost any more than those from New Jersey or North Carolina. There's a family-owned farm and market just north of the city that I noticed one day when driving to Edwin's doctor visit. I decided to stop there last week after the appointment because I was hoping to find some local cherries. The cherries were too expensive, but lo and behold they had lots of blueberries for a great price if I bought a certain amount. So I bought 8 pints. We decided we wanted more (I guess we are greedy like Madame Blueberry) so I bought 16 more pints over the weekend.
Yum.

12 weeks

Edwin is 12 weeks old today! Life has changed so much in those 12 weeks, and yet I can't really imagine life without Edwin. We are enjoying this little guy so much.

I have been pondering parenthood lately and realized that I don't mind the restrictions having an infant puts on my activities. I can't up and do things quite as quickly or conveniently, because I now have a little person who depends on me, but I find that I don't really mind that. In fact, crazy hot days like today are more of a restriction - I wouldn't spend much time outside right now for my own sake, not to mention Edwin's.

Perhaps I'll long for the days of "freedom" at some point, but I am just really content with my life right now. I waited a long time to have a baby, and so I'm enjoying life with a baby. It's entirely possible that Edwin's low-key attitude towards life and his ability to entertain himself (many thanks to the ceiling fan, books and toy turtles) play a huge part in this contentment, I realize that.

I don't mind that we might not be able to go to EVERY party or get-together we'd have gone to before, or that we might have to leave a bit earlier than we normally would have.

I'm just thankful for this little boy who is part of our family. With that said, here are a few notable things from the 3rd month:

Edwin has finally found his thumb.


He enjoys looking at books and can entertain himself this way.

He now laughs, I mean really laughs, out loud sometimes. Probably the most notable time - and the one I missed - was when he laughed after peeing on Dan.

Diaper Days

Before Edwin was born, I had decided I wanted to use cloth diapers. Not the cloth diapers our mothers used, but something more modern. So I experimented and posted about those first experiments here.

The non-waterproof homemade diapers worked really well. I used Gerber plastic pants over top of them and didn't have any trouble with leaks. Those yellow diapers made with "waterproof nylon" weren't really waterproof, so that fabric wasn't an option. They'd be okay for a short time, but then they would leak.

I started using cloth diapers after Edwin's umbilical cord fell off, when he was about 2 weeks old. I realized pretty quickly that they wouldn't last as long as I'd hoped, and sure enough, he grew out of them by about 8 weeks of age. So I had to decide what to do regarding diapers a little sooner than I'd thought.

I had been given a gift certificate to cottonbabies.com and used it to buy some bumgenius diapers that have snaps so they can be three different sizes. I really liked them, so I decided to save myself the stress of quickly sewing 2 dozen diapers before Edwin outgrew the small ones. Aren't they cute?
But, I still felt motivated to make some diapers, and since I didn't buy 2 dozen diapers, I knew I'd need some more. So...I bought some PUL (polyurethane laminate - it's the waterproof outer fabric used by bumgenius, as well as other brands) to experiment with making waterproof diapers, and I decided to also "whip up" a few non-waterproof diapers to use plastic covers with.

After some trial and error, I have some homemade waterproof diapers. And they work! Edwin wore one during naptime and longer, and his clothes stayed nice and dry. I had to make sure I had as little extra stitching as possible because that's where leakage occurs, since I'm not using a waterproof thread (is there such a thing?).

Anyway, maybe I'm a geek, but I had fun spending time sewing diapers while Edwin napped.

Beach Bum

Dan was on vacation last week, so we spent a lot of time going here and there. We met up with some friends at the beach for a day. It was Edwin's first trip to the beach. What a beautiful day: warm but not roasting. I don't think I even broke a sweat while sitting under the umbrella, so I felt okay having a baby on the beach.

Getting ready to walk to the beach

Hanging out with mom
Laughing with the boys

Naptime on the beach

Compost Surprise

We have a little garden in our back "yard" again this year. Last year we decided to use one of these terracotta chimneys for our compost. Last summer and fall I threw weeds and other compostable items in there. We'd stir it around every now and again and planned to use it on the garden this year. A few months ago our back yard looked like this:


The chimney standing upright contains our compost. We had a fun surprise earlier this spring. I looked inside, planning to stir the compost and put it on the garden. I changed my mind when I saw squash plants growing! I don't have a picture of the baby squash plants, but here's what they look like now!