A few months before Ronin was born, I got bit with the crafty bug. You probably saw the baby quilt I made but it didn’t end there. Using bits of left-over quilt fabric in addition to other pieces from various projects I have made over the years, I made some baby booties, a little hat, and then Joshua and I stenciled a slew of onesies.

I didn’t post them right away because the majority of them were gifts for friends who were expecting babies. And then I continued not to post them because I’m a lamer.

***

First off, Baby Booties! Unable to resist such cuteness, I searched out simple patterns online and found some good ones. Of course, the ones I wanted to make I couldn’t find a pattern for so I downloaded a similar pattern and adapted it.

These are made from an old cashmere sweater of Joshua’s that met with foul play (a washing machine incident that totally wasn’t my fault) and got used to make a whole bunch of different things. I had some scraps left still and made this little teeny hat and booties to match (the booties are made from the pattern above, mostly). I was going to make them as gifts but they turned out so wonky that I had to keep them for myself. And then the wonkiness grew on me and I embroidered (if you can call it that) a twee heart on the sole to make it that much more knock-you-down adorable. Ronin wore the hat (the booties were way big) home from the hospital.

Of course, I was still short a bunch of gifts for friends. Onward!

The following are adapted from the pattern linked above:

These are made from scraps of wool, silk, and cotton, with flannel lining on the inside.

Last but not least: the onesies!

“Lefnut” was for our friend Kurt, named after his skateboard in college. “Riot” is a graffiti we saw in Barcelona in 2003.

Both the dummy (pacifier) and the chair are from graffitis we liked in Barcelona. The dummy was one of the most prolific graffiti tags in the city; this guy painted these things everywhere, elaborate ones with multiple colors, plain ones just black and white, and we saw them in other towns: Valencia, Sitges, Tarragona, etc. The chair was a simple stencil that we found in a few places around town; it was one of my favorites for some reason.

This is just a design I made up. I had to go and make it all complicated with three different overlaid stencils (the branches, the flowers, and the flower centers), which of course required multiple paint applications (with dry time between). Whew. Turned out pretty awesome I think though, as modeled by Celine here. I had to go out and buy pink paint for this (alas, no other color would do for the cherry blossoms), which undermined my War on Pink for the most part. I further rebelled in irony by also painting the Dummy above pink.

Critics are saying,

“A ripsnorting frolicsome ride!”
“Enchanting!”
“An enthralling nexus of childlike enchantment and whimsical folly!”
“A stellar debut performance; Ronin really delivers.”
“Ronin is the Holden Caulfield of baby home videos!”

A quick photo spread of all the visitors we’ve been having lately. Cousin Jeff, Larry, Earl, and Hans have been here too but somehow managed to stay out of our lenses. We even had a surprise visit from Jerry and Joni, our friends on Lotus who you may remember from the infamous bar crossing at Bahia del Sol.

Grandma Peggy!

Grandma Cheryl!

Great Aunt Cindy!

When Uncle Sage, Auntie Elise, and Cousin Riley came through Riley wanted to see the snow (she just didn’t know it yet). We all piled in their rental because it was bigger than our car and had four doors. Still, it was tight. Those car seats take up a lot of space and it’s pretty inconvenient to travel with 4 adults and 2 kids. We made it but I’m not sure it was legal. The kids were safe at any rate.

We all enjoyed a brief frolic in the snow. Ronin was pretty oblivious and I had to shove a bit of snow down her shirt to get any kind of rise out of her.

I don’t think she’d last too long if she were abandoned in a snow bank. Not even in the Eddie Bauer™ wilderness off-road car seat.

Most recently Michelle spent a few days with us. We took Ronin on her first nature outing up to the gorge.

We have smiles! SO CUTE! She also makes little gurgling noises when she does it. We do not, however, have photographs of the smiles; I believe this is a milestone that is not reached until at least two months. Her vocabulary is growing considerably too; before her only word was “eh” but now we have added the following: aah, ah, nnnnn-phbbt (explosive sputter sound), nyaaah, and mleh. She picked these up on her own too, genius baby that she is.

She continues to be the biggest burp resister ever. Burping always begins with vigorous vocal and physical protestation. Ronin: “Eh eh eh eh eh AAAHHHHHH eh eh eh eh nnnnnn-phhbbbt! Nnnnnn-phbbbt! Eh eh eh eh.” Me: “RELAX KID! You are not fooling me—the burps must come OUT!” [Pat pat pat pat pat pat…] Ronin: “Eh eh eh eh eh BBBBRRRRRRAAAAAAACCCCCKKKKKKK urp urp BAAAARRRRPP!” [Sigh..] “Mleh.”

[Moby’s-eye view of a sleeping Ronin.]

2-19

We’ve reached the point where Ronin is reacting to the world around her. She looks at specific things (before we’d have to place ourselves in the line of fire to get all melty because awwwww she’s looking RIGHT AT ME!!) and appears to show preferences (the ceiling fan, picture frames, and bookcase bindings are big hits around these parts). Joshua is convinced he has made contact with her little monkey brain through the medium of sticking out his tongue because she was responding by sticking out hers. I passed it off as a running coincidence but later on that day I tried it and by golly, she stuck her tongue out at me! I waited a moment and did it again and she did it again too. It’s like communicating with an extra terrestrial although I’m still not entirely convinced that it wasn’t all an elaborate coincidence. She also is getting almost smiley. She “smiles” reflexively when she is falling asleep (as opposed to when she is waking up—Ronin is a not a morning person lets just say) but now she is doing it sometimes when she’s awake. She’s going to be really cute when she does it on purpose.

[Ronin enjoys getting dressed.]

Ronin’s sleep habits at five weeks are still ill-formed, as are her elimination habits (she’s still basically a fish and we go through an environmentally damaging number of diapers per day). At first she was sleeping three hours at a stretch but now we’re down to 2-2.5 hours max and usually 1.5-2 on average. I’m not sure what the reasons behind this travesty are but we’re coping with the situation reasonably well. I try to tank her up before bedtime in hopes that the more food in her, the longer she’ll sleep but she still wakes up all Meltdown Imminent after 2 hours. Every so often she wakes up actually crying with a heartbreaking frowny face and tragic wail but usually it’s a slow process that starts off with lots of squirming and struggling followed by loud and fierce breathing, then as she really gets pissed, she begins the piston-kicks, flails her arms, and finally starts sputtering and yelling. It’s best if you catch her right before the piston kicks—things generally go much more smoothly. Unfortunately that moment is marked by a razor-fine line and is hard to call; pick her up too soon and she falls asleep on you not eating very much and pick her up too late and she is too worked up to eat properly.

[Fuzzy pink Ronin smeared on Joshua’s chest.]

2-21

Writing anything long and cohesive is difficult these days. When I finally have a moment to sit down with both hands on the laptop, it generally lasts about 10 minutes. For example, right now. Ronin was fussing on and off most of the morning (nothing major, just the usual requiring constant rocking/jiggling/attention) but then she suddenly and startlingly pooped her diaper and fell immediately into a quiet deep sleep. My dilemma of course was should I change her diaper, risking the initiation of another several-hour long bout of fussiness or let her be, risking possible seepage out the back (seriously, it sounded like a LOT came out of her) and/or evil diaper rash. I decided to let her sleep; I don’t think I would look so peaceful steeping in so much poop like she is but she pulls it off very well and I’ll stick with what works.

We went to the Lactation Clinic down the street yesterday because they do free baby weighing and we were curious. Ronin is up to 11 pounds! We had been guessing somewhere around 10 pounds so both of us were pretty astounded; the lactation nurse gave us an incredulous look when we told her how old she was—I’m hoping this is because she is just used to seeing babies who are having difficulties eating and not because we have hatched some sort of abnormal monster child or anything.

Now that she is 11 pounds, it is clear that she will never again be 9 pounds, or 8 pounds, or the 7-pound 9-ounce little thing she was at birth. I am not planning on doing this again (no, really) so this is IT as far as moments go… Just, gone. Weird.

[Ro & me–this time looking a tad less like I had been awake since 5am.]

2-25

Had my 6-week postpartum doctor’s appointment and was officially declared nearly mended. Soon the carnage of moving a baby-sized object through my nethers will be an artifact of the past.

While waiting in the office, Joshua (who carried the baby for show-and-tell) flipped through some of the waiting literature available, which in this case happened to be a book of Ann Geddes photos (you know, the woman who takes cutesy photos of wee babies in all sorts of twee outfits and photoshops them into daisies and cabbages and stuff). Of course, I find her style of art irritating and nauseatingly corny but my boobs felt differently. They saw a whole field of squinched-up leetle newborns and wanted to NOURISH THEM ALL. Drip drip drip. How freaking embarrassing. My boobs have no taste whatsoever.