Learning As We Go

Lately, a big part of my life involves learning and preparing.

Things I’ve been learning about lately:
(most learning has been alongside my partner in crime - having a learning buddy helps)

-Hypnobirthing. We’ve been taking a great class in this really logical approach to birth that focuses on relaxation and doing away with fear. I won’t go into the details here, but just ask me if you want to know more. It's fantastic.

-Bread baking. We've been working our way through the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. So far we've made loaves of bread (wheat, basic white, and peasant), pizza crust, and rolls. To be honest, the last several batches haven't been made by me, but the learning process has been a joint effort - and the rewards have been very tasty.

-Caring for an infant. I feel like I know nothing. The book Heading Home with Your Newborn has helped me to feel more prepared and more aware without too much of the panic-inducing stuff.

-Baby-led weaning- Patrick first heard about this in a story on NPR. Since then, one of the blogs I read (Cooking with My Kid) starting discussing it. Fascinating, and something we're seriously considering for the little one when he/she is ready.

-Cloth diapering - A dear friend of ours has cloth diapered her 8-month old most of his life and she did a ton of research leading up to it. She's been amazing at teaching us all about it, sharing resources, and helping us figure out what can be a very confusing world. I'm very excited about our decision to cloth diaper, and glad to have a great resource!

-Re-painting furniture- This was a divide-and-conquer effort at refreshing the dressers we got off Craigslist for the babe's room, but we both did our reading and YouTube-tutorial-watching beforehand. I sanded - by hand and then with the power sheet sander, which is awesome. Patrick primed and painted. I think we did pretty good.

And this is only the beginning!

Projects

This is where we're headed with the baby's room. So far the walls are painted. We have the chair, which might be painted. We have the dresser (below), which will be painted a yellow similar to the dresser above. We may or may not have a crib. Window shades will be ordered this week. We've purchased and framed the submarine print (that giraffe!) We need to find a rug- looking for something not super expensive, ideally natural wool or cotton. Possibly gray, maybe brown or tan. Suggestions?

So, we have some projects to tackle. The goal is to have the room just-about-done by mid-March so that we can focus on the final preparations and enjoying some down time before the new member of our family arrives.

I'll keep you posted on our progress!

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Chair- Ikea Poang - ours currently has a black frame, contemplating painting it white
Crib skirt- Dwell Studio for Target- Hippo
Giraffe and Submarine prints - Threadless Artist Shoppe
Yellow dresser- Erin of Domestic Adventure (love their nursery!)
Wall color- Behr Tidepool
Dresser and nightstand (which will be a side table next to the chair) via Craigslist.

Be Afraid

In the year leading up to our wedding, all of the emails and ads that came my way from the wedding industry seemed to be about how if I didn't spend money on this or this, my wedding wouldn't be the best day of my life. Worry! Or about how perfect I had to look. Stress! Or how much it should look like a magazine wedding. Or how far behind I was on the 600-item To Do list a website had created for me. Stress more!

In the months leading up to the birth of our baby, the emails and ads have either been about the millions of dangers to me and my baby lurking around every corner or about how awful everything is/will be. Topics of recent emails from baby industry websites include:

• 21 Pregnancy Symptoms You Shouldn't Ignore
• Puffy Eyes
• Swelling and Edema
• Too Much Exercise
• Your Aching Back
• Not Gaining Enough Weight
• Exercises to Avoid
• Gaining Too Much
• Getting Enough Exercise
  
• Foods to Avoid
• Exercise Don'ts

The message is clear: Experiencing a Big Life Moment? BE AFRAID OF EVERYTHING - what you're doing, what you're not doing, what will happen if you spend too much, what will happen if you don't spend enough, EVERYTHING. If you're not AFRAID, then at least be STRESSED.

revival

My last post was 7 months ago. Inspired by a number of recent blog revivals I've noticed, I'm thinking about trying again.

There is snow snow snow outside and I'm 6 months pregnant with a long To Do list in front of me.

I'm going to revive this blog with the purpose of sharing projects (cooking/baking/house/etc), observations about life in Albany, and who knows- maybe a bit about impending motherhood, if I feel brave.

Over the past 6 months I've traveled to Michigan to visit my best friend and her new baby (twice), spent time in D.C. for work and fun, had many houseguests, completed a new patio (lots of help there), learned about gardening through planting my first vegetable and flower gardens, ran a few 5ks (including one when I was 10 weeks pregnant, ouch), spent time in Northampton, Lake George, Woodstock, and various other locales, ran a conference in Boston for 200+ businesswomen, took another yoga class, and, well, learned a lot about this whole having a baby thing.

So, let's try this again, shall we?