The food of love

The title is a bit melodramatic and the drawings are not the most refined. But I was once again stricken by this slideshow.

http://www.thefoodoflove.org/breastfeed-in-your-sleep.htm

It shows perfectly the difference between the first year with my first daughter and the first year with my second daughter.

I remember waking up every night at least once but usually two, three or even four times. I would breastfeed my baby sitting up in a chair or in my bed, desperately trying not to fall asleep and praying that my little girl would not wake up when I would carefully and sloooowly put her in her crib.

I would then tiptoe to bed for an hour of sleep before the whole circus would start again.

IF I managed to stay awake, that is. Most of the time I would just wake up cramped and cold sitting up with my sleeping daughter on my lap.

It is a miracle that she never fell of!

I think most parents can agree that nights like this will make you cranky if your lucky and plain miserable if your more like me. It sucked, it took all the fun out of being a mother and it made me doubt my parentingskills since *this* couldn't possibly be how it was supposed to be!

Her and my sleepingproblems were resolved when we, out of sheer desperation, stopped trying to get her to sleep in her own bed.

Seeing this we tried a different approach with our second daughter. No more separate bedroom, not even a crib! We took a hensvik crib form Ikea, removed the front panel and tied it to my side of the bed.

And you know what? We slept like babies (no pun intended)! I would breastfeed little Avalon to sleep and if I didn't fall asleep myself I would gently slide her a few inches to my right, into her own part of our bed. If she would wake in the night (IF she would wake at all, my direct presence was often enough of a reassurance to keep her asleep) I would simply pull her closer to me without completely waking up and in less than a minute we would both be fast asleep again.

It is unbelievable how much of a difference this made. Even though she was a *very* fussy baby that cried a lot during the day the solid nights of sleep made it all so much better to handle.

My heart aches if I hear fresh parents complain about sleepless nights and or fussy babies. Sure, cosleeping isn't always the answer and every parent should do what he or she thinks is best.

But boy, it can make such a difference!

If you want to read more about cosleeping, its advantages, some safety guidelines and other interesting stuff then I suggest you pay a visit to dr. Sears's website.

The result

See those Dala horse appliques? It took some SERIOUS selfcontrol to put the pink one on the purple suit and the red one on the pink suit, I'll tell you that! But sometimes you just have to let a four year old decide what she wants to wear.

Especially if it is probably the last year she will let her momma put her in a hippie-like coverall.

(Believe me, I've been there. Love your taste now Mom. Didn't when I was the one in hippie coveralls!)

me-time

After weeks of feverishly working on several custom orders (two wintercoats and a mei tai) I'm in desperate need of some me time. The girls room needs to be finished and laundry needs to be done but today I'm not going to worry about any of that.

I've done the groceries, drank coffee with a friend so our children could lose some energy together and I've even straightened out the livingroom.
Dinner is as prepared as possible, my eldest is watching some television and my youngest will go to bed for her nap soon.

In other words: time for me to get the sewingmachine and make something fun. No worries about what the customer might think of not-so-straight stitching or colors that I find super together but are generally considered mismatched.

Just me, my sewing machine, some fuchsia corduroy and the cutest brown cotton lining with tiny blue flowers that was hiding in my fabricstash.
Oh, and this great little book that my mom used to make clothing for me and my sister in the early eighties:

I'm thinking about this coverall, with a pixiehood and elastic at the wrists and ankles.

Does anyone have a idea for a fun applique?

Merel

I love to sing this for the girls when they need to fall asleep and it is on my list of songs to play on my funeral. Not that I'm planning to have to use it that way soon, but it still doesn't hurt to make a list of appropriate songs!

The song is from the Dutch Sesamestreet, sung by Frank Groothof who is one of my childhood heroes.

The only way to listen to it online was through the flashplayer on the site of Sesamestreet but after a few tricks I managed to first download it to my pc and then upload it to youtube.

Enjoy!