The Evolving Cloud Mobile

It was probably close to a year ago that I saw this picture on Pinterest and decided I wanted to do something similar in our nursery.

taken from Pinterest.com

Instead of having the cloud and raindrops over the changing table, though, I always envisioned it as the mobile above the crib. My first plan for the mobile - formed more than a year ago when we were pregnant with Sam - was to make it entirely out of cardboard, using boxes we already had in the basement from when we moved to Berryville. I was also going to use white and blue paint that we already had, resulting in a free mobile other than fishing line and hanging hardware. This remained the plan for a long time, since we weren't really working on the nursery for a long time and then since I saved the mobile for (basically) last.

I grabbed some cardboard from the basement and drew out my cloud, using the crib as a loose reference for how big to make it and tweaking a lot as I went.

When I read Young House Love's blog post about making Teddy's mobile, though, Sherry mentioned that she actually laid down in the crib after they had hung the mobile to make sure that it looked interesting from the underside (what would be Teddy's view). I never crawled into our crib, but it did make me rethink the completely flat - although free - cardboard design I'd been planning. The point of the mobile is to give the baby something interesting to look at while he or she falls asleep, after all. So I started thinking again.  

My second plan was to make the cloud out of fabric, filling it with poly fill like a pillow, and to make the raindrops out of blue string that had been decoupaged and allowed to harden around a balloon that was later popped. I decided to use a thick white canvas (purchased from Hobby Lobby, of course), and used the cardboard cloud as a template to cut out my fabric. I contemplated using a friend's sewing machine for a few minutes, but since neither my friend nor I have used a sewing machine since the 7th grade, I decided it wasn't really the time to relearn that skill on such small, tight curves. So I opted to hand sew, and it looked AWESOME...

 
...until I flipped it inside out and stuffed it with poly fill. That didn't look awesome. That looked...that looked awful.

As it turns out, I didn't do such a great job keeping my stitches tight or following the curves of the cloud. There was stuffing sticking outside of holes where there were gaps in my stitching, but the bigger issue was that it didn't even come close to keeping its shape. And I was not a fan of this new shape it had taken on. The real killer is that after I decided to chuck this guy and start over with a different route, I saw a million examples on Pinterest and such that didn't have the fabric turned inside out and instead just left the flat, rough edges. So I probably could have kept it that way and been fine, but once I turned it inside out and stuffed it it was clearly not fine.

So I went back to the drawing board yet again after some Pinteresting for thoughts and inspiration...and ended up in a place similar to where I had originally started out. Here was my inspiration picture:

taken from Pinterest.com

For my third plan, I went back to the cardboard, this time making two clouds that I would fit together origami-style like the clouds in the inspiration picture. 

Once I had two identical clouds (I used the first one as a template to draw the second one), I grabbed some white paint from the basement and painted them. It took several coats, but eventually I had two really pretty white clouds.  

To cut the slits that would fit the clouds together, I used the ruler to find the halfway point from top to bottom, and cut one cloud from the bottom up and the other cloud from the top down. 

It took some wiggling and manhandling to get the pieces to fit together, but eventually they did and I loved how they looked. When the babe came home from Florida, though, his reaction went something like this: "I love this! It looks so good! You know what would make it look even better and last longer? If we made it out of wood instead!" I'll be honest...my first thought was something like this:

But my second thought was that he was definitely right, and that it would be really cool to have him be a part of one of the nursery projects. So...we started again.

Our fourth plan was to make two clouds that would fit together origami-style just like the cardboard ones, but this time out of a very thin plywood we found at Hobby Lobby. Unfortunately, wood is a little bit trickier to cut and deal with than cardboard. The babe used his Dremmel tool to cut out the clouds - after I drew them, using the first cloud as a template for the second once again - and then sanded them all down so all edges would be rounded and smooth.

Many acrobatics were used. 

Once they were both cut out, we measured again to find the spots to cut the slits...but this time the babe put a lot more thought into it than I did with the cardboard and made sure that slits were cut in a place that would allow the clouds to hang evenly and balanced. That meant that the slits weren't necessarily in the center.  

I forgot to take pictures of the clouds painted white, because at this point I was lucky to remember to take pictures of anything. Several coats were used once again, as well as quite a bit of touching up, but eventually we had pretty white clouds once more. We super glued them together and then used wood putty to fill in any gaps, painting over the wood putty once it dried. 

Next step was the rain drops, which had always been planned but just never had gotten a chance to exist. 

 I mixed up some glue water, covered the string with the mix, and wrapped it randomly around the little balloons the babe blew up for me (fun fact: I lack the skill of blowing up balloons). I'll be honest, even though this had been my plan all along, once I got started on it I wasn't really too sure whether it would work. I wasn't convinced they would look like raindrops once we popped the balloons. And then I wasn't sure the string would dry to a hard enough consistency to maintain shape very well without the balloons. After letting them sit overnight, though, they were plenty hard enough and with some careful wiggling and gentle scootching, the babe was able to pop the balloons and pull them all free from the string. They weren't the most amazing looking things in the world, but they would work just fine.

Next step was to drill very tiny holes along the bottom of the clouds, one for each of the raindrops, so we could tie fishing line through. We also drilled holes at the top of the clouds (two on each cloud, for four contact points total) to string fishing line through to hang the whole mobile. The babe knotted each piece of fishing line after stringing it through the holes and then super glued each knot for added reinforcement (this isn't something we want falling once it's hung). He then super glued each piece of fishing line to a rain drop and they were done! All that was left was the top.

He tied all four pieces of fishing line that had been woven through the top together in a knot, and then super glued it for added reinforcement. We still needed something to hang on the hook we bought for the ceiling, so he tied a second knot, super glued it, and waited for it to dry.

We used this hook - white, to blend into the ceiling a little bit better - and followed the directions for screwing it into the ceiling once we measured the spot that was dead center above the crib and also in a stud (because, once again, we don't want this thing falling on our child). Once that was done, we got to hang it!

I'm not sure that those raindrops were really what I envisioned - even though, to be fair, they're actually exactly what I envisioned - but they do the trick just fine. And, like the babe pointed out last night, they're super glued to the wood so I'm stuck with them. And I'm fairly confident that they look pretty sweet from the crib view (I'm not climbing in to see for myself though). Truth be told, I really do love the mobile. The babe's idea of switching to wood was great; it's sturdier and looks better and will last longer than the cardboard.

There's really not too much left to get done in the nursery now, which is awesome since we are now officially less than a month away from the due date. I can't even tell you how great it feels to cross this guy off the list!

Here's the nursery to-do list now:

• 1 Samuel 1:27-28 chalkboard
• quote for inside side table frame
• hang all pictures 
• turn green bottle into a lamp
• recover lamp shade? new lamp shade?
• prime dressers
• sand side table
• sand cube organizer
• paint dressers white
• paint side table white
• paint side table drawer pull silver
• paint cube organizer
• make mobile for over crib
• paint metal pail for books
• clean out closet and closet drawers
• clean out dresser drawers
• line dresser drawers with contact paper
• organizers for inside of dresser drawers
• storage system and bins
• basket(s) for cube organizer
• get small lamp for changing table
• metal trash can for diapers
• basket with liner for hamper
• shelf over storage system?
• new overhead light?
• art piece above changing table
• hang large frame for showers
• make crib skirt
• buy new blackout curtains

There's a couple other odds and ends that are left, but those last three are the biggies. So ready to get everything crossed off my master "before baby comes" list, but we're getting really close! Only a handful of things left and they will hopefully be knocked out in the next week, leaving the last couple weeks wide open to relax and wait for Baby!

Baby Wise: a brief review

taken from amazon.com

I'd heard about this book for quite a while and had been curious, even to the point of planning on reading it, but never actually bought it. I guess I thought I had more time. Thankfully, a sweet friend gave it to me as a shower gift, and I was able to crank it out over the last couple weeks ("cranking a book out" has taken on a new meaning post-motorcycle accident). Just based on the [really strongly worded] mixed reviews I've seen out there on Goodreads and such as well as my own observations of multiple people that I know that have used this book as a source, I was planning on taking some and leaving some as far as the principles of the whole Baby Wise concept goes. I was surprised, though, that I actually agreed with and liked all of it. It just made a lot more sense to me than I anticipated, and it was also very different than I had assumed.

I'd always assumed this book was about strict and rigid schedules that are unflinching despite changes in surroundings or in the normal day-to-day routines. The babe and I have always really desired to have a more flexible approach to baby raising; I know almost everyone says that and I'm sure it's an art that will be mastered over time rather than right away, but we really did want a reasonable routine that also wouldn't fall apart if we visited friends or went out of town or even had to run errands during an inconvenient time. I think this book really does provide a blueprint for that. It talks quite specifically about not having too rigid a schedule and not ignoring Baby's cues for the sake of the clock. It really preaches a schedule that has specific elements that remain rigid (the first and the last feeding of the day, for example) while allowing the rest of the routine to have a level of fluidity and flexibility (you need x amount of feedings per day with about this much time in between each, but they can be shifted forward or backward depending on your needs or the baby's needs). I liked that flexibility very much, and for the most part I think it makes a lot of sense.

All the information provided here seems to be a good balance between the thousands of schools of thought that are out there. The writers do a great job of discussing some of those other schools and discussing the reasons why they make sense as well as the reasons why they disagree and think their method is better. Topics such as breastfeeding (and bottle feeding), nap times, nighttime sleeping, wake times, and more are all covered here, and it's not only a great source of direction as far as the Baby Wise concept goes, but also just information in general. I learned a lot about what to expect in the next couple months that I wasn't hearing or reading anywhere else. Stuff like how many poopy diapers to expect in the first couple weeks of Baby's life versus a couple months later isn't some national secret and it could be found in lots of other places, but I enjoyed being able to learn it here and not have to keep digging through different resources. And I know I'll be returning to this book many, many times over the next year or so as I need to look at chapters and passages that speak to specific age groups as Baby grows.

As a quick 2014 goals update, the babe and I have officially joined a Bible study together! His work schedule has been a beast since we moved to Berryville, and even though we found the church we love and want to become invested in almost a year ago it's taken a very long time to actually be able to jump in. We took the church's foundation class (their membership class, although we didn't become members at the end of it) to learn more about what they believe and get any questions answered, and now that he's home from his summer away and healed from the accident we have finally been able to join a group. We've gone for two weeks now and like it a lot; it's a great group of families and we're feeling really comfortable as we get to know them more and settle in. We're excited to see what's in store for our family as we continue to get plugged in and involved.

Trash Can Station

The blog remains quiet, but here soon there should be quite a few projects for me to write about. The babe went back to work yesterday, which is both really exciting and kind of a bummer because we've enjoyed this time together at home so much (not the first two weeks, really, but the last two were great). I'm now trying to get back into my normal routine while also struggling big time with some lovely symptoms that come with the 9th month of pregnancy. But things are still getting done, slowly but surely, and that "before the baby comes" list is winding down. I had originally wanted September to be completely wide open with everything done beforehand so the path to my due date of October 3 would be light and easy, but I think as it is we will still have a couple weeks of no projects (assuming Baby comes on time, anyway).

One really quick and simple project the babe knocked out this weekend was a designated area for the trash cans. Originally, both trash cans were kept outside along the side of the house, but we got tired of collecting them from our neighbors' yards every time the wind would blow when they were empty. So we moved them into the garage. There wasn't really a good spot for them so they would just kind of get moved around as we needed to access certain spaces, which becomes a little bit harder when they're full. When we got the shed, we moved one of the trash cans out to the shed to free up some space, keeping only one in the garage for easier access. That helped...but it was still kind of annoying because I for one never felt like going out to the shed so I would just put bags of trash next to the can in the garage when it would fill up, and that didn't really accomplish much of a better situation. We decided that something needed to be done with the cans, even if it's a temporary solution.

All we needed was 5 2x4s, and the babe cut them down and screwed them together to make a frame. It took very little measuring and hardly any time, and we had a box.

The box is meant to keep them out of the garage (and yet slightly more accessible than the shed...which I will admit is just a few more steps away but that sometimes makes a difference when it's raining or dark or cold) while also keeping them anchored when they're not weighted down with trash. So far both purposes have been served well.

I plan on painting the frame white at some point to just look a little bit nicer, but I'm not sure when that will happen. For now, it looks fine and frees up just enough space in the tight garage (have I mentioned that we bought a new-to-us bike to replace the totaled one? So we have two bikes and my car in there...not much space to work at the work bench...or access the storage units...or bring in groceries...).

Little Projects

It's been a pretty slow couple of months on the blog and an even slower couple of weeks since the babe's accident. But we're starting to be productive again (or at least, a more tangible, cross things off the pre-baby list productive) and have a couple of projects to share with you. Nothing huge, but things that I've been excited to get done.

The first was to line the dresser drawers in the nursery. I bought the contact paper months ago because I felt like the old particle board wouldn't be ideal for tiny, fragile baby clothes. In the months since then it's occurred to me that there is a ton of storage in this room and that clothes probably won't need to even go in the dressers; since the dressers are going to serve as the changing table I'll store mostly changing and bathing things in there. I was tempted to just skip the whole step of lining the drawers but since I'd already bought the contact paper...I had to bite the bullet and just do it.

The babe helped me get the first couple drawers done and I was able to take it from there. It was pretty straight forward, but we wanted to avoid air bubbles if possible which made the technique a little more complicated.

First, I measured out the inside of a drawer and cut a piece of contact paper to size. Instead of using the ruler and measuring for each of the eight drawer liners, I just used the first one as a template and cut all eight to size.

Then, we peeled part of the backing off of the contact paper and got the exposed end stuck in one side of the drawer, using a wooden ruler to smooth out any air bubbles as we pulled the backing off the rest of the paper slowly and stuck it down with the ruler.

When the piece would be secure with air bubbles smoothed out (there was a definite learning curve and some drawers came away with a lot less wrinkles than others), we used an Exacto knife to cut away any overlap paper that had made its way up onto the sides or in the corners. Sometimes this happened because it got laid in there slightly crooked, and sometimes it was just because I had gotten a little uneven when I'd originally cut out the piece, but it helped give a more clean look to trim it all down.

You're welcome for the road rash cameo.

It wasn't too difficult once we figured out the method that worked well, and the perspective we kept in mind is that this is for the bottom of dresser drawers. There will be things in each drawer and the drawers will be closed the majority of the time. AKA: it doesn't have to be perfect, and air bubbles are unavoidable. It was a little tedious doing this eight times, but in not much time there were all done and looking really good.

I just love how clean they look now, and how dramatically different they have come since they were black a couple months ago.

We also added some new frames to the gallery wall in the family room. I woke up one day while the babe was in Florida and decided that it was time to add some more to the walls. We had always intended for more to be added gradually over time. So I walked around the house and rounded up some more frames/photos that could be added, and snagged a couple more photos from Shutterfly and frames from Hobby Lobby. We hung them Monday, and I'm loving the additions.

On the left side of the map, we added a Wicked playbill from when we were dating, a "Bless this Home" print from Etsy that had been given to us as a housewarming gift last year by a dear friend, and a new picture taken in Memphis this summer when I was visiting my sister. The photo is of a painted wall mural in the city that says "Invest in Good Times." We also moved the "All I need today is a little coffee and a lot of Jesus" print to the top of the collage. I'm still deciding whether I'm liking the new arrangement on this side of the map...the babe hung them all where I asked him to but then I just wasn't sure whether I liked them all like that or not and decided to live with it for a while and see if it grows on me. So that's where I am with that side. The other side, I'm definitely in love with.

On the right side, we added a post card of The Little Grill, one of my favorite restaurants in Harrisonburg, VA where I went to college, a sweet photo of Zuriel from this summer, a greeting card (totally ripped off one of my friends because she had hung it on her own gallery wall and when I oohed and ahhed over it she gave me one as well) featuring an adorable giraffe in glasses and a sweater, and a photo of the babe and I from when we were engaged. I love all the individual additions, and I also love the frame layout. Now I just need to figure out what I don't love about the other side...

With the dresser drawers lined, I've finally been able to start organizing and putting things in their actual homes in the nursery (rather than continuing to have a floor full of baby shower bags). The nursery looks a little bit like a bomb has gone off in it right now, but its definitely going to get worse before it gets better. It's probably going to be like a puzzle figuring out the best way to organize everything, and even though I'm so excited to work on it I'm feeling pretty bad this week physically (baby growth spurt? I'm not sure...just a lot of nausea and weakness and fatigue). So we will see how much I'll be able to tackle in the next couple of days. But either way, things are getting done and the list is getting smaller. I'm not gonna lie...I'm a little bit ready to just snap my fingers and be done with the nursery and all the house prep work for the baby. I've loved it so much, but these last couple things are wiping me out. Soon enough though, it will be done and we'll have our actual baby. We can't wait!

The accident

A couple Thursdays ago, I was cleaning the house and trying to keep myself busy while I waited for the babe to get home from his 6-week long business trip to Florida. He had opted to ride his motorcycle rather than drive a car or fly, which meant that it was taking him slightly longer than he had hoped with all the extra stops. He has to fill up the bike every couple hours or so and he always calls me just to let me know where he is and to say hi quick before he gets back on the road; it was about that time and I was expecting his call when I was switching a load of laundry and my phone rang. It was his phone calling me, but the voice on the other side when I picked up wasn't his. A man named Jeremy shakily told me that my husband had wrecked his bike on Interstate 81, at mile marker 229 just north of Staunton. Jeremy told me that he was okay, and was being looked at right now in an ambulance. I asked if I could talk to him, and Jeremy hesitated for a long time and then said "no, he can't talk right now, but he's okay." He told me that they were taking him to Harrisonburg's hospital (and then called a couple minutes later to tell me that they were actually taking him to Augusta Medical Center in Fishersville). I changed my shirt (the Run DMC shirt that didn't quite cover my belly that I had been wearing didn't seem like the right choice), literally picked Rosie up off our bed where she was trying to hide behind the pillows and dropped her inside the crate, started to fill my water bottle and then decided I didn't want to wait that long, and sped off to AMC. I didn't think about grabbing my Kindle, a toothbrush, deodorant, a change of clothes, or snacks...all of these things would have been really helpful but at that point it was 1:30 in the afternoon and the idea that we'd be spending the night at the hospital seemed silly. All I could really think about was seeing him.

I called my mom as soon as I got in the car, and it took me a while to actually be able to tell her what had happened because I was crying so hard. She was obviously upset too but managed to calm me down a little bit so I could drive safely, grabbed my dad off the lawn mower (thankfully it was their afternoon off) and they started their own trek to AMC. My parents were much closer to the hospital than me (they only had about a 30-40 minute drive as opposed to my torturous hour and a half drive) and so they beat me there by quite a bit. Dad called several times while I drove to update me on anything he could. We were all thinking that the babe's injuries were pretty severe, based on Jeremy's lack of specifics ("he's okay" was all he ever said) and his unwillingness to let me talk to him (I figured he was unconscious and/or in too bad a shape to talk to me), and so when Dad let me know that they had seen him through a wall of glass and that he was awake (someone was talking to him and he seemed to be responding) and that his toes were moving (no paralysis) that made us all feel a lot better. No one was letting Mom and Dad in to actually see him though, and it didn't take long for Dad to have just about enough of that and threaten a security guard, immediately producing the State Trooper who had been at the scene who gave Dad and Mom the full story of what had happened.

He had been in a construction zone on 81, the kind where one lane is the normal pavement and one lane is all chewed down to the gravel because they're going to repave it. He was in the right lane (the chewed up lane) and moved into the left lane (the normal pavement) to pass a car. He'd done it a thousand times in those exact circumstances, but this time the difference in elevation was a lot more dramatic than normal (almost 3 inches) and when his front wheel hit the ledge the front tire started to loose control. He kicked the bike out from under him and away from him as he slid, causing both he and the bike to slide across the pavement (thankfully the normal stuff and not the chewed up side) and then flip several times. His big travel suitcase that straps to the bike had come off in a flip and several zippers opened up, emptying some of the contents onto the highway. He immediately got up and started running around trying to catch and pick up things as they scattered (adrenaline is a powerful thing) and about eight different cars all stopped to help him and make sure he was okay. It was when he tried to pick up the huge bag that he realized his hands were both completely destroyed and bleeding badly...I think up until then he hadn't even considered that he'd been hurt.

Strangers helped him gather all his things. The woman who had been driving behind him when he went down - in an Excursion - said that she had lost sight of him at one point and she thought for sure she had run over him. An off-duty ambulance stopped and couldn't officially help him but did call in for another one and checked him out a little in the meantime. He handed his phone to one of the guys who had stopped - his name is Jeremy, as it turns out - and asked him to call me. Eventually the bike was towed away and he was taken to AMC.

Dad and Mom were able to see him face to face in a little while and actually talk to him, which helped me feel that much better. He was awake (and had been the entire time), coherent, and definitely didn't seem to have any head/brain injuries. Dad had warned me during one of our phone calls that they may move him to University of Virginia's hospital in Charlottesville, and sure enough right as I was getting off of Interstate 64 and about three minutes away from AMC he called again to let me know that they were moving him. I got so close to being able to see him, but when I was minutes away they moved him another hour away. Mom rode in the ambulance with him and Dad waited with my brother and sister for me so we could all go together and I could take a break from driving while emotional. Once we all got to UVA (no thanks to Siri, who dumped us into some 10x15 back parking lot somewhere in the middle of downtown Charlottesville), it was still almost another couple of hours before I was able to see him. The ER at UVA still needed to do all his X-rays, CT scans, so it took a while to get through all that. Eventually though, around 5:30 or so, they let me through. I got there just in time to see them scrub all his wounds and then dress and bandage them. That, needless to say, wasn't very fun for either of us (but mostly for him).

Here are some pictures from the day after the wreck, right before we came home from the hospital.

He pretty much hurt every body part in some way (except his head, thank the Lord), but some were a lot worse than others. The final verdict on all his injuries: one broken pinky toe, one broken finger, a couple of fractures in his T8 and T9 vertebrae, and some pretty incredible road rash on both arms, both legs, both hands, his belly and his back. He's also pretty convinced he broke a rib but it didn't show up on the X-rays so we'll just always have to wonder about that one I guess.

The first several days home were pretty rough...just a lot of learning curves and dealing with this (thankfully temporary) way of life. He slept on the couch sitting up for almost two weeks (first night in bed was last night!) and hasn't gotten much sleep since the accident because of the drugs he's on. We change his dressings and bandages every day (a home health nurse comes every other day and I do the rest), and that whole process has become so much easier and quicker since those first couple days.

The biggest thing about this whole situation, though, has been the way it's shaped and strengthened our relationship. Taking care of your spouse and helping him or her do basic, everyday things forces you to either learn how to communicate better with grace and understanding or spend all your time fighting and resenting each other. Brushing someone else's teeth is hard (too much pressure? not enough pressure? angled the right way?). Driving down the road and suddenly having to be aware of every manhole cover and bump in the road (especially when you apparently never noticed those things before) so you don't cause your spouse pain is hard and stressful. Changing your spouse's bandages and literally pulling his or her skin off, causing them extreme pain, is really hard. But having to do all these things - and many more less fun things - together over the last couple of weeks has been incredible for our ability to communicate with each other. It's been incredible for our ability to love each other. 

Tomorrow will be two weeks since the accident, and his physical improvements are pretty awesome. His road rash is healing really well (with the exception of one leg, which just doesn't seem to want to heal yet) and is much less painful. With the pain of the burns decreasing dramatically, his body is now unfortunately more aware of other pains in his body (his back and his rib, mostly), but in time that will go away too. Here are some updated photos, taken yesterday when we were changing his bandages.

 

It's been a long couple weeks, and it won't be 100% behind us for a while I'm sure, but when we think about the nature of the accident and what his injuries could have been, we can't help but feel anything other than extremely blessed. Blessed by the Lord for how much He protected us during that accident, and blessed by so many friends and family members who have reached out to us and helped us in the most beautiful ways over the last couple of weeks. We couldn't be more thankful for all of you.