Our string bean

Back to the doc today for the 10 day visit. Sebastian's weight is up to 10 pounds 2 oz -- no surprise there -- he's a good little eater!






Here he is all milk drunk.




He's long and skinny. Sue (Grandma) researched and found that Yao Ming was "only" 23 inches long at birth. And that massive Indonesian baby from the news yesterday was 24 inches long (but much, much fatter).
Sebastian is just long. Over 95th percentile for length and weight, but 80th for head size. Not just his legs, his torso is really long too.
He already is maxing out the length of his 0-3 month onesies, although he needs to keep chubbing up, since they hang off his little shoulders. And forget about anything with feet -- even the 3 month sizes.


See those feet? They're also long and skinny. Will he inherit his grandpa's size 14 AA high arched skis?

When we came home

More of Sebastian. At some point I'll probably take pictures of the garden again, once I stop neglecting it. Pray for rain.

Anyway, here's Saturday, coming home from the hospital. Here is his going home outfit, picked out months ago with Auntie Liza (Aunt Eliza? It pronounces the same way). One of the only "newborn" outfits that fits our string bean!

And here he is with his dad on 10th avenue. Beautiful day!

His first look at Brooklyn. As if his eyes were open. He slept the whole way.

And it took a long time, because Steve was driving 35 mph on the BQE.

Finally home! Welcome to Sunset Park, big guy!

SO much better than the plastic hospital bassinet.

Welcome to Sebastian James!

Born Sept 16, 2009 at 3:14pm. 10 pounds 5 oz, 23 1/2 inches long. He's going to dunk!

10 days overdue, and a flock of sheep

Not exactly sure when I decided I needed to make a sheep mobile, but it's been keeping me busy since Thursday anyway, when I went and got more felt (aka sheep supplies). It took me a while to get it right (early prototypes became known as the "Seal Sheep" and the "South Park Sheep" ...), but now they're just kind of fun to make.

It's going to turn into a mobile at some point. Tomorrow likely.

Seal Sheep and South Park Sheep underwent major plastic surgery and now are just part of the flock.

For inquiring minds? If the kid doesn't show by Tuesday we're inducing.

Crafty continued: project three

It would be much better for everyone if my nesting industriousness was translated into something the house needs, like a deep cleaning. But as Jeannine says, it doesn't work that way. And I'm not really convinced this is nesting industriousness, anyway. I think it falls more in the scheme of time-waster. So, what was Saturday and Sunday?

Project 3: there's all this leftover felt and stuff!

Back to the pennant/garland idea. When I embarked upon the curtain-lengthening project, there was a lot of felt left over. The original idea was to make a pennant/garland thing and attach it to bottom of the curtain, but somehow my math added up to one curtain worth of the ribbon and little felt beads. But plenty for another random garland thing.

Lots of design ideas. Triangles or half-circles. Should I put some kind of applique on again, like the circles? Should they be something more boy like? I experimented with cars, and rockets, and fishies, and even a lobster (since the applique part would be red). In the end, decided plain was best. Hung dangly felt beads from the bottom, and got to rediscover the blanket stitch to sew them on. I think it came out great, and complements Steve's shelfabet letter really well.

Yes. The kid's name will start with the letter S. You can think of him as Sparky until we reveal it for real. Don't bother guessing -- we will neither confirm nor deny. Here's another view of that corner.

Like a library book : crafty project one & two

I am overdue. Three days may not seem like long, but it's an eternity when you're sitting around waiting for contractions to start. I've gotten crafty to keep myself busy. Literally.


Project 1: Curtains were too short.
So I decided to add dangly bits. I thought felt, and went to Fiber Notion in Park Slope, where they were awesome. Convinced me to expand my color palette beyond being matchy-matchy with the orange and red, and I came home with a pile of felt and some fun little balls and a plan to make pennants. But then measured and realized I only had three inches to add. Steve helped with the design (and cut out most of the little yellow circles), and on Friday, that's what I did. I sewed little pennants onto the curtain bottoms.












Project 2: try to un-Ikea the Ikea dresser.

(This was much less involved, but also involved co-opting the kitchen table for most of Friday and a bit of Saturday).

Steve is allergic to Ikea. He got a bit, um, stressed out when there were many objects of Ikea origin becoming nursery decor. So I promised him that as much as possible, I'd adulterate, so the Ikea part became a mere raw ingredient.


Steve's client Iliana gave us this cheerful red Ikea dresser. It's very handy, and already full of baby gear. I figured as a minimum, at least I could change the knobs. So I got plain wood knobs, painted them orange, and then decided on a little airplane/cloud motif. I am not the best painter, but you can kind of tell they are clouds and airplanes. Not sure if you can tell in this picture, but trust me.

Project three in a new post...