Wife, Then Mama

This is baby Mitchell.  He was born on March 7th 2012. On June 10th 2012 he was taken up to Heaven. I told the story as it was told to me in my last post, and have since asked his mother, Jessie for permission to use his picture, and the letter she wrote to him on my blog. "oh mitchel. you've been such a miracle. You've fought for your life since you were born. I lost you at 3 months and 3 days. but those days between today and when you were born were the best days of my life. You'll never be taken for grante d nor will you ever truley be gone. i love you so much my beautiful boy. im glad i got to hear you laugh last week. and how much you wanted to cuddle with me. im going to miss your small cry and that beautiful voice. Your baby talk could make me laugh for days. Im SO proud of you mitchell. I know you were tired but it's okay. mommy understands. lol, you know what i loved? when i would smile at you and you would smile back. or when we wou...

I spend a lot of time being bitter and jealous.  Today I realized that while being infertile sucks, there are much worse things that could happen. I was talking to my sister today, and she told me something awful that has recently happened to a friend of my family.  This is what she told me.  My dad's friend's daughter, Jessie, had a baby a few months ago.  He was not growing well and had trouble eating and breathing.  I don't know the whole story, but I know they put him on a feeding tube and he started doing better.  He couldn't breathe when he was laid flat on his back, so they always had him propped up. The doctors wanted to do an MRI on the baby to try and find out what was wrong.  Jessie told the MRI technician to make certain that they didn't lay him flat on his back, because he wouldn't be able to breathe.  They took the baby and put him in the MRI machine.  He screamed for a few minutes, then got quiet.  They pulled him ou...

So I was watching Good Luck Charlie, because I am just that cool.  On this particular episode Amy (the mom) signs up for a "BuddyBook" account.  Teddy (16 year old daughter) says "BuddyBook" must be uncool now.  Then she finds out her grandma has an account and says she needs to delete her account.  When Amy sends PJ (18 year old son) a friend request, he denies the request! Maybe I am crazy, but I love when my family is on Facebook.  I don't understand why it would be embarrassing to be "friends" with your grandma, or your mom. I guess I just don't have anything to hide?  I mean I don't put naked pictures of myself up (yes I know, Facebook doesn't allow naked pictures, but some of them are close enough), or post offensive status updates.  As a teenager it might have minded a little bit, because everything feels like an invasion of privacy to a teenager, but I am pretty dang sure that if my mom had sent me a friend request and I'd...

I have made Simplicity 2699 a couple of times now.  A friend of mine bought it so I could make her little girl an apron for Christmas.  Then I made another one this last Christmas. This is the first one that I made.  I spent A LONG time making it.  I wanted it to be perfect since my friend had spent the money on the pattern, materials, and thread.  I used my sewing machine, but I manually turned the wheel so it wouldn't go to fast.  Not the whole time of course, but for the rounded parts, and parts that had to be sewn over more than once. The second one I made is not as well done.  In fact it is now falling apart.  But that is my fault.  I thought the extra wide double fold bias tape was to thick for the teeny tiny apron, so I used some thinner bias tape.  It wasn't wide enough.  She isn't sad, she had just woken up and I wanted to take the picture before her mom picked her up. And just for kicks, here is...

I made a shirt from the left over fabric from the first dress I made (if you look WAY back at the beginning of my blog you can see the disaster that was).  It turned out pretty cute.  Except for one thing.  This was supposed to be a PREEMIE sized baby shirt.  And it fit a 12 month old.  Hmmm...

I have tried to sew without patterns a few times.  Usually it is either a disaster or close to one.  But this baby blanket is one time that I didn't fail miserably at the pattern free sewing.  In fact I think its kinda cute :) Add caption

I got a puppy!  I thought that everyone would want to see my baby dog, so here are some really bad pictures.  Its really dark in Michael's mom's house, so the flash is always having to go off even in broad daylight, making the pictures look weird.  Plus my photography skills are lacking... Her name is Daisy, and she is a rottweiler/lab mix.  She is really cute.  Also really obnoxious at night.  She sleeps all day and cries all night.  I am sleeping in the spare room with her, because I have to let her out like 27 times a night.  Plus she cries for like 45 minutes before going to sleep if you leave her alone, where if I sleep in the room with her she just whimpers a little and goes to sleep.  If she would stop waking up a zillion times, she could just sleep in our room with us, but Michael drives for a living, and I prefer him to get a full nights sleep. She is a sweetie, and I am super happy I have a puppy again, I am just a little whiny...

I used Simplicity 2491 to make some baby booties. I think they are adorable :) Awwwww Plus they match one of the dresses I made!

So I was watching Good Luck Charlie (I really like it okay?) and I just had to talk about the amazing fridge the fictional family has.  The front of the doors are chalkboards.  They always right chore charts, schedules, menu plans or some other family thing on it.  Of course I thought it was the best idea EVER. Then my husband pointed out that we don't have producers/set designers to make it look all cute and artistic every week.  And since laziness is kind of my thing, I would just end up with a chalk dust covered fridge that sometimes has things written on it.  In my messy handwriting, and all slanted because I can't write in a straight line.  Michael is so much more practical than me. But just so you can see how awesome of an idea it is (in theory) here is a picture!

Michael buys me the coolest presents.  See I am the type of person who pretty much doesn't purchase anything if it costs more than $10.  So my husband loves to surprise me with things I would never buy myself.  Usually media/electronics since he works at an electronics store.  Today he came home with seasons 3 and 4 of The Big Bang Theory for me, and he often surprises me with Disney movies or Sims expansion packs.  It is so much fun, because it is always things I would really love to have, but can't handle buying for myself.  He is such a sweetie :)

In case you forgot, I really like the Little House books.  In Little House in the Big Woods, Laura shares Ma's chore schedule: Wash on Monday Iron on Tuesday Mend on Wednesday Churn on Thursday Clean on Friday Bake on Saturday Rest on Sunday Now this is a schedule I could get used to.  I don't iron unless I'm sewing, or when Michael worked a short amount of time at a car dealership.  I have very little mending to do, and I usually don't do it, because its quite obvious when I do fix them.  Churning is kind of unnecessary now.  And I don't bake on a regular basis.  So I would basically have no major chores except on Mondays and Fridays.  Obviously this would be a very ineffective chore schedule for me. When I move out, I'm going to get myself back on a schedule, but since it will be a much bigger house than I am used to, and I will be watching a tiny baby, I think I will have to wait to make a schedule until I see what my days look like....

I have used this pattern a few times, New Look 6710:   Although the pants look awful (and very comfy, maybe I should make a pair?)  The skirt in the top right corner is great.  I have to admit that I do cheat when I make this pattern, and rather than having a separate casing for the waist band, I just fold over the top part of the skirt.  Its a little ugly inside, but no one sees inside the top of my skirt, and with the short cut I can usually make this, start to finish in less than an hour. Me, looking super sexy.  Ugh! That is a messy living room! The patterns go together SOOO well!  This is the first one I made.  This is my "to Church on Christmas Eve outfit" in 2010. I was taking these pictures myself... so they suck... I also made this baby skirt out of the left over fabric.  It is awful, the back seam is on the outside of the skirt, but the girls still like to wear it.

A long time ago, back when I though I wouldn't be willing to do IVF,  I cam across something called embryo adoption.  I didn't think much of it, and actually completely forgot about it for some time.  Then, while I was looking at fertility stuff online, because that is what I do in my spare time, I came across it again.  Now that I'm open to IVF and such I looked into it more.  And its AWESOME! Basically you get IVF done, but with someone else's embryos.  You see there are over 500,000 frozen embryos in the US today.  Of course not all of these are available to people looking to "adopt" them, but apparently quite a few are.  A lot of people have extra embryos when they decide that their family is the right size.  They are left with 3 choices.  1) Pay about $400 a year to store them indefinitely.  Which adds up pretty fast.  Plus you have to basically put the money away in a trust to keep paying for storage after you die....

McCall's 6152 Back when I used to go to baby showers, I made something for my friend's little girl. I also got her a "regular present" because I am NOT very proud of my sewing.  In fact I am so not proud of it that I hung around her house for HOURS after the shower was over waiting for her sister in law to leave so I could give it to her. Miss Gabbi in her shirt/dress :) This pattern was probably one of the most difficult ones I have done.  It was the first time I did non-kimono sleeves or pants.  I followed the directions really well, but I still managed to f-up the sleeves.  I had to give them to her with a package of hem tape because I couldn't get the sleeves hemmed after sewing them together as instructed.  Luckily I made it out of flannel, so it probably didn't fray to much.

It might be a good thing I didn't get pregnant when we first trying.  After all, it took us four and a half years to pick names for our hypothetical children. *PLEASE NOTE - I am not "claiming" these names per say.  However, it took us almost half a decade to pick these names, so regardless of anyone else using them, we are too!  I don't care if Angelina Jolie or my sister uses them.  No one owns names, so I can use them even if everyone in the whole world uses them first.  Which would be really, really weird...* Since we started trying I have been a bit obsessed with baby names.  I'd look through baby name books and make lists.  Then I would hand them to Michael, and he would unfailingly pick the one or two names that I barely like.  He would suggest names that I could not imagine giving my children.  Not that they were awful names, they just sounded like 80's cheerleaders, or prep school boys to me; Tristan, Crystal, Chaz (okay, no of...

New Look 6578 is the first pattern I got.  I don't remember how, but I got it free in the mail, way before I started sewing.  So it sat around and didn't get used for a few years. Last Spring I decided the girls I baby sit needed play dresses. It even worked as a swimsuit! The light colored one is a "sample" which didn't turn out so hot because this was before I learned that the facings are actually an important part of the pattern.  It is also only fastened with safety pins, which are not really the classiest.  They didn't really wear these, but I think they are cute.  Plus they are made of the same sheet as my shirt, which is always fun :) They liked "cleaning" The actual dresses I intended to make are much better, even if I only used velcro to fasten them.  This was before I learned how easy buttons are to use. They wore them quite a bit, mostly because I thought it was fun to have them wear the clothes I made... ...

The house we are buying has SIX bedrooms!  Okay, one of them isn't really big enough to count as a bedroom, but its still a room.  I already have plans for all of them... There are two rooms downstairs, one of them is the itty bitty one.  The tiny room is going to be the office.  The bigger room downstairs will be the playroom for the kids I baby-sit.  I figure a downstairs playroom is much safer and more convenient than an upstairs one. Upstairs are the other four bedrooms.  Of course one will be our bedroom (duh).  Two of the other rooms will hopefully be filled by room mates (I think I want to call them boarders.  It sounds so much more old fashioned!) so our mortgage is a smaller percentage of our income.  Eventually, when we manage to have kids, the room mates' rooms will turn into a boy's room and a girl's room.  But that is WAY down the line.  Not only am I fertility challenged, but my kids will sleep in my room, and then...

I have not actually sewed in quite some time.  My sewing machine is packed and it turns out that I am to lazy to sew by hand...  So these projects are things from the past that I made.  Hopefully soon I can start sewing some new stuff :) This is McCall's 5921.  It is a maternity pattern. I made view E from an old sheet, it is a maternity pattern and a size to small. All in all I think it turned out okay. 

(Just to let you know, I write my blog entries in a notebook, then type them up later.  I also tend to write half a dozen in a day or two, then schedule them to publish on different days.  So "today" is rarely actually the day something is published.  Not that it matters, but I felt like I was being dishonest not telling everyone.) Today we went over to our friends' house for dinner.  These are our friends from church and it was an activity for our Sunday School class. My husband and I are both total flakes, so we totally forgot about it until they texted us about an hour before we were supposed to be there.  Which is fine, because we live like two minutes away.  Michael asked me if I wanted to go.  I said "No, but we should." So we went and had a really good time.  But there was an elephant in the room.  I'm pretty sure it was my imaginary friend, because I highly doubt anyone but me knew it was there.  The elephant's name? INF...

Simplicity 3508 is my favorite pattern.  I have used it to make 3 baby dresses as well as an adorable romper. I have not used most of my patterns, but this one is actually getting a little worn out from being used all the time... Oh and I am pixelating the girl's faces, since they are not my kids...  She isn't picking her nose, it just looks like it.  This is actually supposed to be a dress, but it works as a shirt on skinny toddlers :) I need to resize the straps, but I sill think its pretty cute.  The first baby dress I made Isn't it precious? 

I have a confession.  Sometimes I miss "the old Rachel".  The one who dyed her hair black (or blonde and pink) and pierced things.  The one who could drink six beers and NOT throw up.  "New Rachel" feels sick after two drinks and things she is to good for beer.  She is kind of scared of dying her hair because of the chemicals, but even when she does, it is only to various shades of brown.  Piercing things seems like a huge waste of money to "new Rachel".  "Old Rachel" was also WAY hotter than "new Rachel".  Probably because she was skinnier and dressed like a slut (but neither old or new Rachel was/is a slut!). What happened to "old Rachel"?  She met her husband.  He was not a huge fan of her ability to drink like a fish or her tendency to poke holes in her face.  This is NOT a bad thing.  Being a stupid teenager forever would be a bad thing.  You don't want to be 45 and acting like you are 18.  It is just pathetic....