Stegasaurus Friend

Tonight I finished my first pull along toy. I am pretty happy with it. Especially because it opens up a whole new world of easy toys to make. Except there were a few chips in the stegasaurus after router-ing and drilling so I think I should stick to slightly simpler shapes because I was already being very careful.

The Last of the 2009 Carrots

We are down to our last 2 2009 carrots. They are a bit small and I think when they are washed I might decide there are too many bad spots to bother cutting around. So I am calling Friday's dinner the last of the 2009 carrots. We had them with grocery store veg and chickpea cutlets (http://www.veganpeace.com/recipe_pages/recipes/ChickpeaCutlets.htm). And this was just a few days after planting the 2010 carrots (won't expect to be eating them till June though).

It feels pretty good to have grown enough to last through the winter. They kept very well in the cold cellar but they were getting more and more bad spots over the months and I was getting a bit sick of dealing with those. So I haven't planted quite so many this year.

New Baby Sun Hat

Henry has at least 3 sun hats already but he has a very small head and they are all much too big. So I decided to measure and make him one that would fit. It turned out a little big but still fits him better than any of the others.

Magnet toys

Kevin and I started these just before Henry was born and just finished them last night. It is a fun magnet play set for Henry to use when he gets a bit older. We used some 1/4" hardboard and Kevin did all the drawing and I used the scroll saw to cut them out. I think we still need a zoo keeper with a bucket of food.

Homemade Mei Tai

I finished sewing this mei tai. I used the instructions here:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-as-ABC%3a-Asian-style-Baby-Carrier-or-Mei-Tai/

I'm not super happy with it as it's not much easier to put on than the stretchy wrap we have and it doesn't fold up as small. I was imagining it folding up small enough that I could just keep it in the diaper bag a lot of the time but that is not the case at all. I still think I might use it a bit. It has a lot more head support than the ergo (especially when I added some safety pins to make the top tighter which I didn't have in this picture) and it is less hot than the stretch wrap.

My artsy photos

Today I attempted some artsy photos of Henry. These were the best I got before he got fed up.


And isn't this the best smile! He has been smiling just about all day today!

Good Friday 2010

We had family over for Good Friday. I made hot cross buns and fish and dairy-free parsley sauce. The temperature was very nice and we sat outside for a lot of the day.

Spring

We have been getting some lovely spring weather this week and we have been doing lots of spring activities.

Hanging clothes on the line
Eating salad from the garden (This is some of the mache that I planted in the fall)
Watching ducks on the lawn

Doing taxes

Cooking hamburgers on the fire pit

Going on lovely walks

Snuggling outside

Henry in my creations

I have finally been able to see the clothes I made on a baby!

Giraffe Toy

I got to do some sewing while watching Coronation Street while Henry slept yesterday afternoon. I finished this giraffe toy that I started just before Henry was born. I got the giraffe outline from the internet but it is mostly my creation. It has 2 small bells in it so it is a quiet rattle. I think I might save it to give as a gift to someone since Henry has so many toys already.

Henry is one month old

We celebrated Henry's one month birthday last night with a chocolate cake. Henry is doing very well. I weighed him this morning and he's up to 9 pounds! First month has been pretty great, can't wait to see what he does in the next month.

Henry Kay Senn - His birth story

It happened. Our little baby was born.

1:15 am on February 24th I got up to go to the washroom and found my water was broken, I can still remember the exact feeling of disbelief. I was not having any contractions though so this was bad news. #1 because I had tested positive for group B strep so even though I had the antibiotics all ready it was still important that my water not be broken for too long. #2 because the baby was still very high so there was a chance of the cord moving underneath him and getting squished, cutting off his oxygen supply. So I got into a hilarious position with my bum in the air and Kevin called the midwives.

They came but we immediately decided to go to forget about the homebirth and go to the hospital. The baby had moved into such a funny position just that day that they weren't even sure that the head was down when previously it had always been obvious. An ultrasound at the hospital told us that head was still down so I waited to get induced. At about 4:30 am I started having contractions on my own and within an hour they were about 45 seconds long and less than 5 minutes apart. I had to wait until 10:45 to get induced because the hospital was so busy. This seemed like a good thing because after 6 hours of having contractions on my own I hoped that I might be able to do it on my own but a cervical check showed that I was only about 2 cm dilated (I had already been 1 cm when my water broke). So we proceeded with the induction.

Once the pitocin drip was started, it wasn't safe for me to get out of bed or move much at all for risk of the cord getting squished under the baby. My contractions slowly got stronger. I held out until 1:30 before I wanted an epidural. I was told it was better to wait a bit to get the epidural because the longer you have it the more frozen and immobile you get and I also wanted to see what labour felt like. Baby's heartrate started fluctuating and the pitocin was turned down and then up every once in a while. At the next check I was still only around 2 cm dilated. At this point I felt positive the induction wouldn't work but the doctor wanted to wait another hour or so and see what happened. At the next check I was almost 3 cm dilated (from 1 to almost 3 after 15 hours of labour including 8 hours induced!) and I was getting a bit of a fever so it was time for a C section. That decision was made at about 7 pm and I was almost immediately in the operating room. And baby Henry was born at 7:48 pm on February 24.

Henry wasn't breathing well when he came out and he had a bit of a fever so he was in NICU for about 8 hours. Daddy gave him lots of visits while I was recovering. We were in the hospital for 3 nights and now we've been home for almost 2 weeks. It's been pretty great so far.