The wardrobe of my dreams

Yesterday morning Big-P, Lily, Amelia and I all rushed off to IKEA — taking full advantage of the fact that we had all slept pretty well (and again last night!) and felt we could handle the whole IKEA experience with kids. It was still pretty mad and not something we would want to do every day but we came out with loads of good things.

I had found an IKEA catalogue in amongst all the 2002/2003 Cleo and Cosmo magazines down at the beach house and had spent several hours pouring over it’s pages (like a fool, I hadn’t packed a novel) and made a list of things that we needed. Above you can see the Hemnes wardrobe which doesn’t seem to be on the IKEA Australia site, but is definitely in-store. I love it. It’s being delivered this afternoon for Lily’s room as we still have piles of her stuff and boxes of nappies all over her floor. This is mainly why I haven’t included any photos of the ‘finished’ nursery — because it is far from finished. Pictures and shelves still need to be hung, stuff put away and that quilt is still sitting in my cupboard, half-stitched and mocking me.

But this wardrobe! I LOVE it! I think I said that already, but how cute will some fabric bags look hanging from that side peg? And some cute vintage suitcases piled on top on the luggage rack? And maybe I should even paint something on the doors… I could submit my ideas to IKEA Hacker (via Yvestown).

My copy of Children’s Rooms London arrived from Amazon Japan yesterday, which is fabulous, just as are Children’s Rooms Stockholm (on Amazon JP ) and Children’s Rooms Paris (on Amazon JP) and I am much inspired. The rooms featured in these books are loaded with (sometimes hacked) IKEA goodness, but all are so full of fun and mess and personal expression. Each room is truly a little nest perfect for its inhabitant.

Slept a little

Wow wow! I have just got home from a week’s holiday at the beach to discover all the wonderful comments for my last post! Thank you! Before we left I was planning to email everyone who wrote to say thank you but now as you can see that will be quite a task. I want to tell you that I read, considered, thought about and now treasure every piece of advice you sent me — so thank you. It has helped enormously. In a tired state yesterday afternoon it was all a little overwhelming and confusing but I have some how absorbed it all and feel incredibly lucky to have this community.

Our beach holiday was a little clouded over by the sleep problem which seemed to get a little better by the last night, but even co-sleeping become completely impossible as the bed was tiny, and Lily didn’t settle between us, instead kicking, wriggling, scratching us and crying in the wee hours. So last night in a kind of exhausted desperation we tried leaving her to cry for three minutes. We now limit naps to two one hour naps a day, and have a very strict bedtime routine – bath, story, feed, cuddle and then bed. After three minutes she was still grizzling (not howling hysterically, I wouldn’t have been able to handle that at all) so I went in and patted her and calmed her and then she grizzled for another 4 or five minutes and then after that she slept. And slept! At 2am we had a short repeat performance and then she woke again at 6.30 happy and hungry to a very happy smiley, well slept family.

I have just spoken to one of my best friends about our horror holiday, and she told me that she is amazed at how incredibly “relaxed” (read: slack) we have been with Lily’s routine compared to how rigid we were with Amelia. She rightly observed that it was different then because we probably felt so out of control and overwhelmed that we clung to our routine and in the short and long term it made for a very good sleeper. In Lily’s case we have been much more likely to go-with-the-flow which definitely has it’s benefits and I am pleased we have found a more relaxed approach but for some things in this family, like sleep, we need to find our routines again.

OH I know that there are controversies and conflicting feelings about doing the sleep thing this way, but because it was so quick and so successful and she didn’t seemed stressed in the least (just a little put out) we are going to try again tonight. I actually don’t think our success had much to do with the crying bit, which was minimal, but more to do with a gentle, loving, pre-bedtime routine which is relaxed her and left her far calmer than we have previously seen her. Perhaps it won’t go so well, but I am happy to have had a few hours of sleep overnight. It makes for a much happier, calmer us.

Thank you again for your comments. I am very grateful.

zzzzzzzz

Greetings from Sleep Deprivation Land! Population 3!

This post is not destined to be long or terribly coherent as Lily will NOT settle at night and has been finally falling off into a completely exhausted sleep between 11.30 and midnight. If we are having a really shabby night she then wakes again around 3 for another feed and then Amelia might wake us with a nightmare or her usual early morning cheerful chatter. All this compounded with the heat and I am feeling utterly shattered.

Lily, who was once “Our perfect little sleeper” has now become wired and hysterical in the evenings. She might fall asleep in our arms (as she has always done! Naughty us, I know) but then as soon as she is gently put into her cot her eyes snap open, her arms start jerking and her mouth twists open into that huge wide open chasm of WHAA-WHAA-WHHHAAAA. And after that? She utterly refuses to settle.

… ugh… sorry, I am having trouble stringing these sentences together.

Two nights ago Big-P and I decided we might try a little “controlled comforting” but we couldn’t go through with it. I can’t remember how we managed with Amelia but hearing our little baby scream and scream made me feel quite physically ill. It lasted three minutes before we caved… I left an SOS message on my Maternal Child Health Nurse’s message machine yesterday hoping she would get back to me with some advice but she had obviously taken an early Friday… I just can’t imagine how we will ever get her to go to sleep on her own.

Any thoughts? I don’t want this to turn in to a Ferber vs. anti-ferber debate, but I would really like to know what worked for … um… anyone!

And this has only been going on for four nights! I know some people endure it for months… I don’t know how.

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And quickly I want to mention that sign-ups for the new Mini-swap close today over at Mommycoddle. We’re signed up and ready to create and package.

And don’t forget to bid for beautiful items at the Kim Family Auction.

WIP Friday – Maminka doll

This is not such a great photo — I just couldn’t get a good one today as I left it too late and it’s quite overcast this afternoon — but you get the idea.

So, this is my WIP for today – a doll made from a pattern in this wonderful Japanese craft book.

It’s designed by the very talented Mitsuko from Maminka — which theoretically should look a little like one of these girls, but there is no way the pattern piece for the head will result in a face as round as these… instead it comes out looking a little squished. I am a little disappointed in how she is turning out as my doll making skills are a little rusty (see the puckered neck, the wonky eyes?) and I wasn’t as careful as I could have been with the stitching.

Never mind…

It is nice to make a doll from someone else’s pattern once in a while – I find it so much easier just to follow the directions rather than fiddle with pattern pieces of my own concoction which don’t always quite fit together in the way I imagined. It’s also good in terms of studying how someone else tackles the shape of an arm, the way a head fits on to the body or the proportions of the limbs to the torso etc. Unsurprisingly it isn’t quite as satisfying as visualising, designing and stitching a character all of your own but it’s a good exercise for someone who is feeling a bit out of touch with it all.

Proud illustrating mum

Amelia has discovered how fun it is to draw. It kind of crept up on us as previously she would stop to scribble something for maybe 30 seconds or so before careening off to do something else, but suddenly she is spending literally hours at the kitchen table wearing out her felt tip markers as she devises complex scenes or sweetly simple portraits. She has filled a new photo album with dozens of tiny portraits of all of her stuffed animals and dolls with a few family members thrown in for good measure. The picture above is of Lily’s new doll, and one of my favourites is this picture of Lily asleep in her car seat:

and then there is this lovely picture of me:

You can tell it’s me – with my post Christmas generous girth, my eyes like saucers and my delightful floral hat!

Sitting next to her at the kitchen table while I draw in my sketch book or do a little sewing is one of the nicest things… that and holding a freshly bathed sleeping baby. If only both girls would sleep! Ahhh!