The Cappuccino Life

I let the boys’ birthdays pass without mention.  Bad mommy.  What can I say?  I don’t have the time or emotional energy to write each one of them a long, emotionally deep, memory-filled blog letter.  I did keep up the tradition of making them each their favorite birthday breakfast (Gebre-pancakes, Asrat-apple pie, Biruk-honey-buns) so I think they still know I love them.  Honestly I wouldn’t know what to write except that they are all getting so big.  So huge.  And not just in size.  They’re growing in character.  Baby sister Mihiret has brought that out in living color.  They have coped marvelously well with the change in family dynamic, and the need to help out in different ways, and the fact that at least while the baby is still a baby, I have a lot less time in general.  Remarkably, they don’t resent her.  Biruk has had a few hard days, going from “baby” to big brother, but he still loves his sister.  He doesn’t let a day go by without reminding me that: “She’s ador-i-bul, Mama”.

And Mihiret is returning the love.  She always has her cute vibes at full blast when she’s watching the boys and when they’re holding her.  She is a fantastically lucky little girl to have a daddy and three big brothers who love her so much.

So today was Mother’s Day and now I’m a mom of four and it is awesome.  I took a loooooong cozy nap with my own personal radiator…er, my baby.  And my big boys helped Josiah get the dishes done.  And Josiah went out and got I don’t know how many pounds of takeout from the local Chinese buffet.  And we all ate ‘chicken on a stick’ and fried shrimp and fortune cookies.  But he wisely did not bring home any of the fried frog they had.  They sang “Happy Mother’s Day to you!” before we ate.  And did the dishes again.

And now I’m working and she’s nursing (how awesome is it to earn money while nursing the baby???  very awesome!), taking occasional breaks so she can barf all over my shoulder.

I am a very, very happy mother today.

Of course it’s always nice to have an excuse to show off my baby.  But as I was making this pj set I thought it would be a fun project to share, it’s so easy.

If you do your cutting right, you won’t have to hem anything.  I hate hemming.  It’s so annoying to have something aaaaallllmost finished and still have to fiddle with all those seams and edges.  Anyway, all you need for this project is an adult-sized nightgown and a downloadable pattern.  I used the Prudent Baby Party Dress, with great success.  It’s such a simple pattern that you can easily increase or decrease it a couple of sizes.

Let’s start with the pants.  I don’t have a tutorial for those but there are many out there.  My favorite is this one: Indietutes: sleevy pants.   So incredibly simple.  For these, because they are a nice thin knit fabric, I didn’t bother with threading elastic through a casing.  I measured my length of baby elastic, sewed it straight onto the edge of the pants waistline (stretching as I went, of course) and then folded it over and sewed it down (again, stretching as I went).

If you’re using a pattern, you don’t need much more information.  But I mentioned not hemming above, and I will explain my very simple cheat.  The pants, obviously, are already taken care of on the hems, since the bottom hem is the bottom hem of the sleeves.  For the nightie/dress hems, simply make sure you line up all the bottom edges along a hemmed edge of the nightgown you’re chopping up.  This is where a nice full nightgown comes in handy, as it will give you plenty of hemmed edges.  But for an infant gown, you should have plenty of room to cut the two skirt panels and the two sleeves along the hemmed edge of the nightgown.

Also, I love the Party Dress tutorial but I did change one thing.  Instead of sewing the front and back bodice pieces to their linings and then attaching them at the shoulders, I do the shoulders first (front and back pieces for the outer layer, front and back pieces for the lining) and then lay the competed bodice and lining right sides together, and sew up the outer edges.  That avoids massive lumpy shoulder seams, especially if you’re using knit or thicker fabrics.

And oh, so sweet.  The newborn is all gone.  The unique little personality emerging.  Every indication points to the probability that we’re going to have a little firecracker on our hands as she grows and gets more independent.  Probably good since she’s got three big brothers to keep up with.

I can see that she’s sorting out the world in that little brain of hers.  There’s me, the milk bar, transportation vehicle,  and night-time comfort object.  There’s her brothers, who she allows to hold her for brief periods of time while she studies their faces.  And there’s Baba.  She saves her gape-mouthed adoration for him alone.

And after a worryingly slow start, she’s getting fat.  As much as I love the teeny-tiny newborn clothes, it’s been pleasant to pack them away and start getting out larger sizes.  One of the boys commented that she felt heavier in the morning than she had the night before.  I have no idea how much she’s getting every night, but I believe that’s true because she eats all day, and all night, and is obviously growing like crazy.  We can almost, almost see it happening before our very eyes.  So amazing.

No, she’s not sleeping through the night.  I gave up on that 3 kids ago, and now figure it’ll happen eventually.  Someday.  Until then I’ll enjoy burying my face in her sweet-smelling hair and wrap my arms around the warm, wiggly lump that is my baby daughter.

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     Dear Boss of Shopping Industries,
Your food is becoming lumps of green because the food has expired past the expiring dates.  Everyone hates your food except the racoons and flies.  Yesterday the Mayor decided to bulldoze your shops and malls.  Good luck trying to stop him.
Sincerely,
Asrat the King of baracalana

I don’t have great hopes for an A on this one, but I do enjoy the thought of the test-correcter trying to stifle guffaws when she reads it.