A Big Boy Room, Part 2

So earlier this summer I mentioned that our first kid was switching rooms so that the new kid could have his room, which is closer to ours. We bought the big stuff over the summer, just in time for some of our guests to use his new twin bed and trundle. After they had all gone and the house had settled back down, we started finishing things up so he could move in.

new bed and bedding ready to go

Furniture
The last of the furniture finally arrived. Once the bookcase arrived, we loaded it up with all his books, which meant that bedtime stories started happening up there. This was actually a nice way to slowly transition into using the room, before he was quite ready to sleep there. Then we moved in his old dresser and filled it up with his clothes, which forced him to start sleeping in there. Lastly, his new couch arrived. It has legs, but they were proving a little difficult to put on- so we just left them off for now. He loves it - and it's the perfect size and height for him to flop on - so perhaps the legs will remain off for a few years.

the new bookcase - tall enough for his tall books and a few toys

the new couch - no legs

just the right size

Curtain
Meanwhile, I started working on the curtain. I hated the original one, which was ugly and beige and boring, and way too big to squeeze behind the bed. I ordered some fabric from Amazon (incidentally, this is apparently the material used to make the scrubs for National Health Service midwives), and then found a really cheap sewing machine, since mine is in storage back in DC. I simply made a huge lined sheet, and then sewed a tape across the back that creates the pleats. It turned out to be much easier than I expected, and allowed me to use the hardware that was already installed. Then I ordered a fun elephant guy that can hold it open.

new curtain up

closeup of the elephant curtain holder thing

Wall Art
Once the furniture had all been moved in and the curtain was up, it was functional, but not homey. I asked him to pick anything from his old room that he wanted to bring with him - which ended up being almost everything. But there was still lots of blank wall space, so I turned to etsy, of course, and ordered some new stuff.

new wall art behind the couch

a new bunny to go with his owl and squirrel and a new nightlight

So, now he's sleeping up here every night and pretty much settled in. We still have a few things to work out, and maybe a few more things to pick up, but I'm calling this pretty much done.

couch area - feeling cozy for bedtime stories

pretty much done

Another Big Transition
We obviously wanted to get this process started long before the baby arrives so that he could feel settled and not squeezed out, and to help minimize transition and chaos when the baby arrives. However, moving him up to his new room ended up happening during a bunch of other transitions, just by coincidence. First, we ended up moving him in just after returning from a long summer vacation, which is always tricky just because it's hard to switch from full-time vacation mode to the normal work/school schedule. Because it was the end of summer though, he didn't go back to his usual class, he switched to a new class - which is also always difficult because it means new teachers, some new friends, new routines, etc. This transition was even more difficult because he switched from a typical daycare class that he's used to, to a much more intense one, known as "pre-reception" here. All the sudden there is an academic requirement (meaning that they're trying to get him to learn his letters), complete with homework, "intense learning periods", uniforms, and really rigid schedules. The biggest issue has been that they no longer have naps, which he still needs, so he comes home absolutely exhausted every night.  We're trying to strike the right balance of advocating for his needs, while getting on board and helping him meet these new expectations.

Parenting Books and Grains of Salt
Meanwhile, I read a few chapters of "What to Expect While You're Expecting", a popular pregnancy book that I absolutely hate, but that has some useful info about what's happening at each stage of the pregnancy. It reminded me that a lot is going on right now, and that I should take it easy. It suggests letting husbands take over all the housework and chores, while you basically sit around and get a back massage all day (clearly written for first-time moms). So I made a conscious decision to step back a bit and let the spouso pick up some parenting slack, sleeping in a bit on weekends, and skipping out on bedtime routines to give my back a break. Almost immediately, the kiddo freaked out - having ridiculous tantrums over every little thing. With all this transition - it was hard to tell what the problem was - the new room? the new class?

So I picked up another parenting book, "Gentle Parenting", which turns out to be pretty far to the snuggle side of the attachment parenting spectrum. Like the other books I've read, it talked about the importance of building a strong connection with lots of quality time to help avoid the tantrums in the first place. So we made a new "no yelling" rule, and I re-upped my effort to spend more time with him. I'm trying harder to wake up early and spend time on the floor playing every morning, as well as snuggling on the couch after school while dinner finishes up. I'm also trying to take back more of the bedtime routine - bath time in particular, because I can just sit and let him soak himself clean. It seems to be helping a lot - the tantrums have almost completely stopped and the yelling has disappeared.  I just have to find the right balance of taking it easy while spending as much quality time with him as I can.

[Sidenote: this book also covered pregnancy and encouraged drug-free childbirth. It went as far as saying that you don't need drugs because childbirth won't hurt if you do it right - meaning having a very calm and relaxing birth environment. Having done this once already without drugs - I can say there are not enough scented candles in the world to make it anything but the most painful thing I've ever experienced. For the moms who want to feel the pain of childbirth -  I don't understand, but support your choice - but I find it downright wrong to suggest to anyone that it won't hurt. That's just setting women up for a horrible horrible surprise. I am very much looking forward to getting the drugs this time around.]

snuggling on the tube

Anyway - so the kiddo is settled in his new room. He's getting used to his new class and teachers. I'm doing my best to help him with his homework every weekend and spending as much quality time with him as I can. We've got a bit of a groove going, so I'm hoping we can spend the rest of the fall just settling into it before 2nd kid shows up. And with that -  it's time to turn my attention to the baby's room and getting all the baby stuff.

A Big Boy Room

So with the new baby on its way, we started thinking about where it would go. In order to have new kid near our room on the 2nd floor, we needed to shuffle bedrooms with the first kiddo and move him up to the third floor. We decided to put him in the room that is currently being used as an office, and repurposing the 4th bedroom into an office/guest room. Because we want him to move into his new room before the baby arrives, in order to not feel pushed out, and because we have a lot of guests  coming this summer and need extra beds - we decided to get started now.

Emptying out the Office
The office was one of the least furnished rooms in the house - so it didn't take much effort to empty it out. We moved the small desk, chair, and bookcase into the 4th bedroom, which had plenty of room to absorb the extra furniture.

the office

fireplace and closet

the other wall

Planning and Shopping
Then, after measuring the walls (and the door - which is the real limitation), we made some furniture decisions. For his bed, we opted for a twin-sized bed with a trundle bed underneath - something my brother had when we were kids that seemed useful. UK beds are slightly different sizes than US beds, so I'm hoping that sheets won't be an issue in the future. For bedtime stories, we picked a small 2-seater couch that will barely squeeze through the door but hopefully fit two people. We also picked a new bookcase that will hopefully be just tall enough to fit his taller books. My hope with all the furniture is that these are nicer things that will move back home with us and last for a few years.

For softer stuff, the room sort of fell into a calm, blue and green color scheme. I tried to get his input on bedding, but he didn't have a lot of patience with me. We wanted something he would like but not outgrow too quickly, so we ended up with some cars and trucks, as well as just stripes. The rug was a neutral pick, just something big and soft, with lots of lines for driving cars on.

1. A single bed with a trundle
2. A solid bookcase
3. A 2-seater couch 
4. A neutral rug
5. A very soft and furry pillow for the couch
6. Car sheets
7. Stripe sheets
8. A subtle car quilt

Putting it All Together
Thankfully, the rug arrived first, and was easy to put down in an empty room. Then the bed came in lots of boxes - that I slowly carried upstairs and put together with some help. The bedding also arrived quickly - which allowed us to get the bed completely made up - just in time for our first guest to try out. After that, I did some shuffling of end tables to move an existing table upstairs, but swapped out the boring handles with some great double-decker bus handles.

bed getting built

new bedding and side table

closeup of the handles

view of the window

So he is all excited, and likes to check on the new room every few days. Unfortunately, to fit all the furniture in there, the bed has to go on the wall with the window - so that the existing curtains (which are ugly anyway) don't really work. So, next up - I'm going to make some new ones. 

Halloween 2015-2017

It appears that I have not posted about Halloween in the past few years, so I thought I should catch up. Before kiddo, we didn't really dress up, but post-kiddo, this has become one of my favorite holidays with mostly hand-made family-themed costumes.

2015: Mars
So for our kiddo's first Halloween - I happened to see an adorable martian outfit online, and came up with Mars themed costumes for both of us. The movie the Martian had just come out, water had just been found on the planet - so the theme was super topical.  I ordered painter's coverups from Amazon for Spouso, and added a few print-outs of a NASA logo and American flag, taped them on - and he was an astronaut. I ordered the largest orange sweatshirt I could find - cut off the sleeves, painted some random black and red splotches, and taped on a picture of the mars rover. I think I tried to get a hulu hoop inside to make me more circular- but ultimately ditched the idea.

because his first 2 teeth had just arrived

2016: Monsters/Dragons
Last year, I also found a cute costume online as a monster for him, and decided to make us matching monsters too. I ordered hoodie sweatshirts and pants online - and then glued on some leftover felt pieces for our bellies and horns. The tails were really my proudest part - I used cheap hand towels, cut them into long triangles, and then sewed them closed with more colored felt triangles as spikes. Then I attached them with belts around our waists.

monster family

tail close-up

2017: Sea Creatures
So this year, on a trip to Target, we swung through the Halloween section and found a few costumes that would fit the boy.  As the first year he could opine on the subject, we asked him which costume he wanted (though I'm not sure he really understands why we are dressing up) and he clearly chose a shark costume. I poked around pinterest a bit to figure out what we could be as part of the theme - and ended up going with a octopus and jellyfish, as two relatively cheap and easy costumes. The jellyfish was really quick - I ordered a dome-shaped clear umbrella, cut up some of the plastic tarping that's all over the house, and just taped on the pieces. For the octopus, I ordered a really big hoodie, cut the front and back all the way up to the armpits for 3 legs in the front and 3 in the back. I would've liked to stuff them and sew them together, but my sewing materials are all boxed up, so I just stuffed the arms with newspaper and stapled them closed into legs. I cut up some circles in leftover felt, and glued them onto the undersides as suckers.

master of the cheesy smile

tail

there was a fin too

jellyfish was awesome in motion

octopussing. 

didn't like the hat parts

octopus attack

A trend?
So - it seems that the pattern I have fallen into is to order a premade costume for the kiddo so that he can be super cute - and then pay no more than $20 for some random stuff on Amazon, definitely including at least one cheap sweatshirt, to make a family theme for the two of us. I'm not sure how many more years of family-themed Halloween costumes we will have - but so far this has definitely become one of my favorite holidays.

Shape Up-date: Good Habits and New Bags

Ok, so we are about a third of the way through my 15 week shape up, and have arguably gotten through the hardest part. With any new goal or resolution, the first couple of weeks are the time to either make new habits that will stick, or get derailed and go back to the old habits (which is what usually happens). So, while I have been getting moving and getting back on track, I've mostly been focused on identifying the things that will trip me up and finding solutions to make this easier on myself, so that I'm more likely to continue.

1 - Get a Plan
When I set this goal, I was planning on running a very popular, long-ago-sold-out 10 mile race in October, falsely thinking that I could get a bib through work. When a helpful colleague dropped that bomb on me, I scrambled to find a new race around the same time. I know that signing up and paying for a race is a strong incentive to keep me on track, and that I have to strike the perfect balance of long enough that I will be scared into training for it, but not so long that I set myself up to fail. There aren't a lot of races in the fall, so my only options were a 5-miler and a half marathon, which is a bit more than I wanted to do and earlier than the 10 mile race I intended to train for. So - after some noodling, I decided to go for the half and quickly googled a training plan to get moving (I'm doing the Hal Higdon one here). It is only a 12 week training plan, so I only missed the first day.  I printed it off and stuck it prominently on the fridge - a sure sign that I have to stay on track.

Once I had a plan, I added appointments to my work calendar to remind me to go run or to yoga, as specified by the plan. Now that it's a million degrees and humid like a Turkish bathhouse, I'm having to get creative about running outside. I started running to work in the morning, which comes with lots of additional complications, and trying to run on the weekends before the boy wakes up or on my sleep-in day (which sucks when I really just want to sleep in).

On the food front, my plan is to eat roughly 1200 calories per day,  making as much of my food from scratch as possible. In order to stay on track, I started working through my known downfalls:

• For breakfast, I run out of time in the morning and end up buying gross food at work, so I found some recipes and ideas for things that could be made in advance and then just grabbed quickly in the morning (Here and Here). 
• I have the same issue for lunch, and usually don't have time to even move food from a large bowl to a smaller container - so I searched for some lunch ideas to prep over the weekend or the night before that I could just grab in the morning (lots of good ideas here). 
• I know that if I eat lunch at noon, I'll be starving around 3 and make bad decisions, so I've been pushing breakfast back a couple hours so that I can push lunch back a couple hours, and not go ravenous before dinner. 
• Lastly, I know that when it's my week to cook dinner, I always completely blank on what to make - and usually end up cooking the same 3 pastas over and over or just buying takeout. So we're trying out some meal planning services in hopes that we start eating real meals that meet some nutritional goals (like being vegetarian and eating seafood once a week), instead of our recent norm of scrounging for PB&J after the kid goes to sleep.
• Very lastly, knowing that we often have too much going on during the weekend to get to the store, I finally downloaded the Instacart app, so I can just feed the grocery list right in for quick grocery delivery.  

2 - Get ALL the Gear
Once I had a plan and got started, I realized I was missing lots of important things. Though I'm generally a minimalist in everything else I do, when it comes to healthy stuff, I want all of the gear - any possible invention to make it just a bit easier on myself and remove an annoyance or inconvenience that will derail my good intentions. Thankfully, over the years, I've now accumulated quite a bit of gym stuff - like a running water bottle, running sunglasses, armband and earbuds, and yoga-mat-sized towel that work (but smell SO horrible). So for all that stuff that I already had, the trick was just getting it all to the right place - remembering to haul it to work for the week and back home for the weekend.

For the stuff that I didn't have, I did some quick shopping. I got a new pair of running shoes from Amazon and raided the cheap gym clothes section at Target to ensure that I had enough stuff to get me through the week without needing to do laundry. Similarly, on the food front, I bought a new lunch box that's big enough to hold all the food I need for the day, nice glass food containers that won't leak, and some reusable ice packs. I just got a nice, new coffee thermos for Christmas, so I'm all set on that front.

3 - Make Backup Plans
As soon as I made a plan and got started, I quickly got derailed. Planning to run over my lunch hour - forgot my shoes. Brought my boring lunch to work - colleague invites me to join her at a tasty restaurant. Planning to run outside - we're having a "heat emergency" caused by something called a heat dome. Thing after thing keeps occurring, totally derailing me and throwing my good intentions out the window. So, even though the goal is still to stay on the plan, I came up with some backup plans for the just in cases. For food - I scouted out some healthy lunch options in case I need to buy food, and picked up some decent frozen things for the days when I'm too lazy to cook dinner that should prevent me from getting much-worse takeout. For exercise - I set up my old yoga dvd for the days I fail to make it to class, and brought a spare pair of clothes and shoes to the office as a backup.  I start each week with my weather app, looking for the days that it'll be cool enough to run into work, and adjust the schedule as needed.  On days that it's too hot to run outside, I can do short stints on the treadmill.

4 - Make New Tote Bags
If it isn't already apparent - one downside to this plan is that I'm now hauling a lot of stuff to and from work every day. Most week days, I'm carrying gym clothes, my lunch, breakfast, and coffee to and from work. Some days, I have all that, plus my gym shoes, water bottle, and yoga towel. The day before running to work, I also bring in all the work clothes I will need. In short - I'm carrying a whole lot of bulky, heavy, and often dirty stuff around.

what I carried to work today:

breakfast & lunch, gym clothes & shoes, work clothes for tomorrow

I have been using some free canvas bags, but they aren't great. They don't have pockets, so everything just falls over and gets mingled and lost at the bottom. They don't have zippers, so things can fall out and be seen by anyone. Plus, they're pretty schlubby and not particularly professional looking. So, of course, I decided to make my own. The goal was to look roughly like this fabulous one on etsy, but to be entirely machine-washable, with lots of pockets to hold stuff, and a zipper to keep things closed.

Step 1. Prep the Fabric
I bought a couple yards of sturdy canvas and drapery fabric, plus a few long zippers and matching thread. Throw all the fabric in the washer and dryer to preshrink, and then iron. Out of the exterior fabric, cut the exterior panels, handles, pockets, and zipper connectors (more on them later).

Step 2. Make the Exterior Panels
Because I wanted the exterior of the bag to be made with two different fabrics, the first thing to do is sew the two pieces together to create the exterior panels.

Step 3. Make the Pockets
Next, we make the pockets. To avoid adding too much bulk, I just added one pocket to each side. Also - pockets that are too wide will just fall open, so I cut them in half or in thirds, depending on what I wanted them to hold.

Step 4.  Make and Attach the Handles
Next we make handles, since this is a tote bag. The length of the handles should be about 28-30", so you need to sew down based on the total length of the fabric strip.

Step 5. Make the Zipper Connectors
Through trial and error I discovered that we want an extra piece of fabric to separate the zipper from the exterior fabric, otherwise the weight of the bag pulls the zipper apart. So, next we create what I'm calling "zipper connectors", which are two small pieces of fabric that will connect the zipper to the exterior panels, and look a lot like a hotdog in my picture below.

Step 6. Attach Exterior Panels to the Zipper Connectors
I'm guessing that many (most) tote bags don't have a zipper because it gets complicated at this point. However, if you go slowly and just make sure all of your fabric is facing the right way - this is not hard. This should result in all of the fabric being connected to the zipper. Make sure you leave the zipper half open at the end (or you won't be able to flip the bag at the very end).

Step 7. Sew the Panels Together
So now the panels are attached to the zipper but not each other, so we need to sew the bag together.

Step 8. Sew Box Corners
This is an extra fancy step that you can skip - but it makes the bags look much nicer and sort of stand up on their own. My little drawings aren't great at expressing 3 dimensions - so work with me on this step.

Step 9. Extras
So, as I mentioned before, it was important to me that everything be machine-washable - but I also liked the idea of having some leather accents. So I found a store on Etsy that makes leather straps and keychains, and had them make some leather pulls that could be removed when the bag needed to be washed.

closeup of a leather zipper pull

Then (as if this post weren't already long enough), I decided to make a couple more bags, following the same basic design. I made a couple smaller bags for the days I need to carry less, and then a larger bag for carrying towels to the pool (which we are now doing every week!). I also made a couple really small bags to carry my phone and cards, perfect on days I run to work and don't have my work bag with me or to throw into the diaper bag for the morning commute.

new totes and pool bag

new little bags, just big enough for my wallet and phone

So - I'm not going to say that it's going perfectly. I have definitely missed some runs and fallen off the healthy food wagon - but 5 weeks in, I'm still committed to my goal and working to stay on track. A lot of things are getting easier, I've found that yoga classes don't hurt anymore, and I'm slowly getting a bit faster - but I also have a long way to go. I will keep trucking along, and next up - we'll talk more about progress on the house.

Finishing the Back Porch

Ok- so first up on the shape-up plan is finishing up the back porch. (Background on how this space got to where it is, here and here.) Now that we've started using it pretty regularly, the peeling paint on the ceiling and handrails has become a glaring disgrace that needed to be fixed. So, using some weekend naps and a couple week nights, I finally tackled this miserable project.

peeling paint on the ceiling

peeling paint on the handrails

 Step 1. Scrape the Peeling Paint
Using a painter's tool and a step stool, I got to work scraping away the peeling paint on the ceiling - which is horribly miserable work to do because the paint flakes just keep falling in your eyes. And then if it's hot (which of course it was) the paint chips stick to you and it's just horrible. Once that misery was done, I was much happier to get to work scraping the handrails smooth, using a sanding block to get all the flaking paint off. While I was there, I decided to grab a hacksaw and remove the curlicues on the handrails, which were no longer all-the-way attached anyway. Then I just swept all the paint chips away, and hosed down the whole area and let it dry.

curlicues that were only halfway on

Step 2. Repaint
For the ceiling, I rolled on a new coat of stain-blocking ceiling paint. Again, working on ceilings is miserable because stuff is constantly falling in your eyes, but this was relatively easy because it was such a small space. Once it was done - I pulled out a can of black spray paint for the handrails. I don't often use spray paint and probably would have preferred just a can of paint to use instead, since I lost so much time trying to cover and protect everything - which still didn't work very well. The only nice part was that it took like 5 minutes to spray everything once the area was all covered and prepped.

newly painted ceiling - no more paint flakes

newly painted handrail - all shiney and non-flakey

no more curlicues

Step 3. Touch up the Floor
Well, not surprisingly, it was a mistake to start this project by painting the floor before painting the ceiling and handrails. I dripped ceiling paint and over-sprayed the handrail paint, and ended up messing up my floor. So I quickly grabbed a brush and touched up the key areas, making the floor nice again. I figured another coat of paint would only be helpful anyway.

yipes. obvious advice: paint the ceiling before the floor. 

Step 4. Make Privacy Curtains
So, then I opted to make some curtains to give us privacy from our neighbors, who come and go often through their back door just on the other side of the handrail. Since it does get a bit of sun, I picked a sunbrella fabric in a fun blueish grey color, and just made simple unlined, grommet drapes. To keep them from blowing all over the place, I made tie backs using leftover velcro. I hung them with a standard tension rod (shower curtain rod), so that we didn't have to drill into the brick. The only trick here was that I was using a much heavier, outdoor fabric so my cheapo sewing machine struggled a bit on some of the seams - but going slowly and backing into the thicker seams worked great.

you just can't complete a sewing project in this house without help from Wally.

tie-backs with velcro

new curtains up and looking great

Step 5. Install Exterior Outlet
We have a team of contractors on site working on other stuff in the house (which I'll fill you in on next), so we asked them to add an outlet for the porch while they were here. So while we sat in nicely air-conditioned offices without any paint chips or dirt falling in our faces, they installed a lovely outlet that is mostly hidden from view - which will allow us to string up some fun lights to brighten the space at night.

new outlet - tucked behind the plant ladder

So, now this porch is officially finished. There is no flaking paint in sight, so I feel ok about the boy being out here. And since I no longer see a long list of to-do's when I sit out here, we can definitely enjoy it as well. The only other fix I would like to see is nicer patio furniture - but we can wait on that. Moving on - I'll update you on what the contractor has been up to, and then we turn our efforts to the sleeping porch.

no paint flakes to be seen

plant ladder in all its glory

oh- and happy 4th - cuz this definitely happened.