Category: Baby projects

The homemade activity gym is a huge hit. In the last week, H has started fussing to be put down (neat!) and can spend ages kicking away and looking around. The addition of toys to admire, talk to, and bat at is a huge plus in his book:

(If you click for the big version, you can see both hands and both feet are just a blur of motion.)

I just used ribbons with slip knots to suspend the toys, and in some cases added little plastic rings from the set Kevin’s parents gave us. It works quite well, and took all of about four minutes to get the toys on the bar — exactly the length project that I seem to have time for. The quilt he’s lying on was a wonderful handmade gift from friends of my parents, and I cut the top bar slightly longer than its width.

It’s amazing how long he’s happy lying there — this morning it was long enough for me to make and eat oatmeal, fold diapers, straighten up a bit, and drink half a cup of coffee before the shine wore off and he was ready for some food and a nap.

Definitely makes life a little bit easier, plus a sky-high adorable factor. 🙂

H has still mostly been in the newborn sleep phase where none of the stretches are that long and he sleeps best when he’s being held. Not great for craft projects or for blogging. However, in the last week, he’s actually started napping during the day in his bouncy seat or next to me on the couch, and I’ve been stealing moments here and there to get some sewing done. (note sleeping baby in upper left corner!!)

My aunt sent him a mobile several weeks ago with black and white patterned cards — I’d read how much babies enjoy high contrast black and white, but it wasn’t until we saw him in action with the mobile that we realized how utterly captivated he was by that sort of visual. So intent. He can watch them for twenty minutes — such a long stretch in baby time. I’d mentally been nodding and smiling whenever I read about the black and white, but it hadn’t sunk in until I watched him. So when I was picking up the CSA bag two weeks ago, I went to the craft store next door and picked up two high contrast black and white fat quarters. Not my typical buy, but H was mesmerized by them (no sewing even needed).

During the naps, I finally had a chance to start pulling them together into stuffed cubes, with nice black and white contrast for him and log cabin colorfulness for me.

He’s still more into looking than holding (though he’s started reaching and batting in the last week and a half) but given his early interest, I think these will end up counting as a success.

H has been so happy in the bouncy chair for the last few days, watching things happen and trying to suck his thumb (still evading him — he can get his hands to his mouth but that thumb won’t stay in a suckable position). I took advantage and started fashioning him an activity gym out of spare PVC in the garage while he oversaw my progress.

The plan is to cover it in fabric and dangle interesting things from it for him to bat at. 🙂 Nice to have a free and easy-to-disassemble/store version of the $$ commercial products.

Another project that I intended to complete pre-baby, and then haven’t been able to find the time for: a breastfeeding cover. But today turned out to be the day, and even with the baby feeding breaks and my slow pace these days, this was a quick project. I found a pattern, set up the machine and ironing board, and cut the pieces between one set of feedings, and then pressed the pieces and seamed them up between the next set. Even ignoring the breaks I didn’t clock in at the stated 35 minutes, but it was definitely under an hour and the cost was around $5 (compared to $35 for the commercial version). A success!

I’m finally starting to feel ready to reengage with the world, after about five weeks of preferring to stay put at home with minimal obligations. But the breastfeeding outside our home piece has been so daunting to me – quite the advanced maneuver and all sorts of logistics – yet he needs to eat and it would be nice to be able to do that wherever, discretely and with a minimum of hoopla. I’m very hopeful that the cover will be the perfect thing and make the difference between heading out freely and feeling obligated to stay at or close to home. Fingers crossed!