Hi My Name is Super Sammy G...

and I have a felt addiction.

All I want to do is felt crafts, look up things about felt crafting, buy felt, and craft some more.

Last night I made a cute felt wreath ornament made out of felted wool sweaters. It came out great and will be making more since a sweater make a lot of pieces and one wreath only used less than one sleeve of each of the three sweaters I bought at the thrift store. As soon as I finish the final touches I will post a picture.

Next up is a gift for my secret Santa! I will post more once my secret Santa receives her gift since I don't know if she is a reader or not.

Finally I found two patterns for felt farm toys that Shazam and I are going to make as one of Little E's Christmas presents. I can't decide which one I like best.

I think I am going with this one from My Dear Kids

I like that it is portable and the barn is usable. But I like that this one by Buggabugs opens up to give a play space.

I think I may modify the first one to include a play area. Which one do you like best?

Whoops

I totally forgot to post for the last 2 days. As I start this post it is 5:45am on Sat. Little E decided to get up at 5 am today. Fabulous. She didn't drink much milk before going to bed last night so woke up hungry. I was hoping that she would go back to sleep in bed with us after her milk. No luck. So now I am up watching Yo Gabba Gabba before dawn.

Wait this just in. Little just crawled to her room. I picked her up and put her in her crib and she seems to be going back to sleep! Of to my own bed again. I will post more later.

The Whole Story

This is a picture of me holding Little E for the first time. I think I have shared this picture before. It was the day after she was born. Take away the CPAP helping her breath and the IVs and you have the typical picture of a new mom the day after the birth of her baby, so so tired but so so very happy. I have told you the facts of her birth. Her very low birth weight, her respiratory distress, her problems keeping her heart rate and respiration rate up, her pda, her reflux, her blood transfusions. Oddly, through it all I have felt this need to protect my readers. While I was honest with you about what was happening with Little E in the last 16 months I never really told the real story.

So here is a piece of the real story.

This is the picture Shazam took before the smiling one. This is the real story of when I first held Little E. The real story is that I was terrified to hold her, I was afraid of her, of hurting her, of disconnecting her tubes and wires, I was afraid she would die in my arms. The real story is that it took two nurses to position Little E in my arms. The real story is that I cried the entire time I held her. The real story is that Shazam wiped my tears away and I smiled for a moment as the picture was taken. That smile told only part of the story, I was so so happy, but that is not the whole story because really I was more sad than anything else. After the shutter closed the tears began to flow again. It was weeks before I didn't shake before holding Little E and months before I didn't fear Little E dying in my arms.

Today I share this story because it is Prematurity Awareness Day. 1 in 8 babies are born too soon. Which means that my story it the story of 1 in 8 mothers. The real story is that even one mother experiencing motherhood in the NICU is one to many. Please join the fight and fight for Preemies but also the mothers who weep when they hold their babies for the first time.

I am not alone in this fight. This is my story but please hear the voices of mothers who have a story of their own to tell.

http://fertilehope.blogspot.com/

http://braggingabouttheboys.blogspot.com/2010/11/this-is-reality-of-prematurity.html

http://taylo2babies.blogspot.com/2010/11/today-is-national-prematurity-awareness.html#comments

http://ivoryandjamie.blogspot.com/2010/11/blogging-for-preemies.html

http://www.beckyandstephangorny.blogspot.com/

http://kmehmen.blogspot.com/2010/11/prematurity-awareness-day.html

http://www.herringbones.blogspot.com/

http://benandrhondawerner.blogspot.com/2010/11/prematurity-awareness-day.html

http://thegoodlife-honfamily.blogspot.com/2010/11/prematurity-awareness-blogging-for.html

http://mckate.blogspot.com/

http://hopingforhunter.blogspot.com/

http://robbieandmartha.blogspot.com/2010/11/prematurity-awareness-day.html

http://karenandstu.blogspot.com/

Blogging for Preemies?

Today is prematurity awareness day. I will be blogging later about how prematurity has affected my families life. Will you be blogging for preemies too? I encourage you to post even though you may not be a preemie parent yourself. Write about Little E if you would like. I I would like to link as many of these posts together so if you are blogging for preemies please comment with a link to the post so I can add you to my later post. I wish we didn't need to have a prematurity awareness day but until the day that no baby is born too soon Shazam, Little E and I will join with the March of Dimes in the fight for our littlest fighters.

Crafty

A few weeks ago at Little E's doctor's appointment I spotted a project in a magazine that I thought would be fun to do. I am limited in skills but I thought that I could handle a felt cornucopia. I found the pattern online, bought my felt, and set to work. After a couple of evenings of work I finished E's Thanksgiving cornucopia toy. I ended up making the cornucopia and 11 fruits and veggies. Here are some shot of my handy work.

Finished Cornucopia

Close up of the filled cornucopia

Veggies and Fruits

The Back of the Cornucopia

Veggie Close up

My thoughts are that she can play with it while we are waiting for dinner. She loves to take stuff in and out of containers so I think she will have fun moving her vegetables and fruits in and out of the cornucopia. I also think it will be fun teaching E her fruits and veggies with her new toy. I must say I am pretty impressed with my work and can't wait to give it to Little E on Thanksgiving.

I have a few more craft projects in the works for the upcoming holiday season and am excited to get started on my next project. I would like to make E another Thanksgiving toy. We are going to VT for the holiday to the farm my father grew up on. I was thinking of making a felt farm story board/quiet book but have yet to find a pattern that I like or have the skill to make. I would like to do a modified version of the farm below. I would want to have felt animals though.

The other project that I would like to start is an advent calendar like this one.

So does anyone have any craft projects this holiday season? Links to help me with my farm project?

Better

Little E's fever finally broke on Friday night, her gastro issues have resolved for the most part and it seems that we are on the mend. Other than sleeping horribly for the last few nights and an awful diaper rash she seems to be much better. Little E is generally a great sleeper. Our night time routine is that we put E in her pajamas, give her bun bun, pop in her paci, kiss her good night and put her in the crib between 6:30 and 7 pm. She usually flips on to her tummy and we don't hear from her again until 7-7:30 am. I forget how great this is until E does not go down well or stay down. The last few night E has been up several times a night hysterically crying. This is very unusual for her. She is generally a happy baby and easily soothed. So when E was waking up and could not be soothed it was very upsetting for all involved. We knew it wasn't her ears (checked by the doctor) so we assumed that her poor little tummy was still bothering her or her bum hurt. We are pretty sure it was neither of these things since she woke up to four molars starting to peek through her gums. Poor little dear has been in pain from teething. I feel stupid for not checking that out but in my defense E has been so slow to get teeth it just hasn't been on my radar. At 16 months E has only four teeth. So in just a few days it seems E is doubling her teeth! No wonder she has been a bit punky. So here is the strange thing. From what I can tell it seems that she is getting her first molars. Which according to doctor google seems to be the third set of teeth to come in. She has her top and bottom incisors but has not cut her lateral incisors. I know it is not totally out of the norm to get teeth out of order but I think she is going to look like a jack o lantern with her strange gaps between her teeth.

She has already woken up once tonight. Let's hope she gets these teeth in sooner rather than later. She is a sad sack when they are coming in. Anyone else have a baby get teeth in a strange order and in spurts?

When you are sliding into first...

Yup that has been my day. Little E has had a fever since Monday night and she started having some serious diarrhea today. She got up with a normal temperature at 7:15 but it was down hill from there. By 8 am while I was on the phone with the doctor's office it was 103. Some tyle.nol brought it right down and the doctor thinks it is a stomach bug. The fever was back after her afternoon nap and was 103.8 rectally and a little over 104 in her ear. This afternoon she was a cranky mess. The fever came down again with more meds but she had about 6 poopy diapers today. I have added probiotics to her milk and we took it pretty easy with food tonight. I hope we are on the tail end of this yucky virus. My mom is coming tomorrow to take care of Little E while I go to work and Shazam has class. This is the second time this week that she has helped us out. We really need to do something for her since we would not be able to do this without her. Here is hoping that Little E is back to her happy one poop a day self soon.

Christmas Cards

So now that I have gotten a teaser picture from the photographer I am on to my next project...holiday cards. We use a shutterfly site to share pictures of Little E with family and friends and it has worked out well. I have been searching through their holiday card selection for a few weeks now trying to figure out what would work well for us this year. They have tons of choices and I am very impressed with the inclusion of both folded stationary cards and flat stationary cards into the collection. When we used them a few years ago for our cards we ordered the standard photo cards but I like the option of the higher end type of cards. One of the other great things is that since all our pictures are on shutterfly it is so easy to make a card!

I have found some really cute cards and here are my favorites. There is a nice selection of modern and whimscal designs which I prefer but there is someting for everyone I think. Click on the images to find out more!

In addition I am in love with the new desk calendars. I have a feeling the grandparents will be getting one in their stockings!

So go over to shuttefly and check it out and if you are a blogger you can get 50 free Holiday cards by blogging about shutterfly follow the link below to find out how!

Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly… sign up: http://bit.ly/sfly2010

Now I am off to figure out what the perfect design is. So many pictures to choose from!

Teaser

Our photographer just posted a teaser picture for me. Since I was having some trouble waiting for our pictures. Now I just want to see more! I have a feeling I will be purchasing quite a few of these. Gosh my kid is cute...not that I am biased!

Small

When Little E was born she was small. I think you all know that by now but unless you actually saw her right after birth I think it is pretty near impossible to understand. I wish that I took pictures of E with a common object when she was little but I just didn't think to do it at the time. So I googled 2lb 5oz to see what images came up. This is what I found.

So my baby weighed exactly 2 bags of cheerios. That is small.

sick...again

So Little E had another fever tonight. Just 101.2 but still a fever. She was lethargic and pretty much laid on my lap all evening. I hate to see her sick. I hate it more when it is some random fever and malaise. I can deal with snot but the not knowing what is going on just plain sucks. My mom is coming tomorrow to take care of E. I feel bad but I just can't take off work anymore. It just is not a job that I can call in sick to. Well I can but it just stinks. Anyway we are so lucky that my mom can come and help us out...again. We are pretty much on an every other week sick cycle. I am sure that we will get through this one too but sick cranky clingy girl is not who I like to hang out with.

I am kind of wondering if she is getting teeth. I mean she is bound to get another few at some point. Have I mentioned that she will be 15 months old in 2 days and has 4 teeth? It looks like the eye teeth on the bottom are coming in. I know some kids run a low fever and have stomach upset when they teeth. E has pooped more than usual today (not really diarrhea but not normal either) and her poor bum is all red. I am rooting for those darn teeth I really don't want another virus.

I am braced for a difficult night with lots of up and down. I gave her some mot.rin for the fever and it went right down. Now let's hope she sleeps it off and wakes up to some new teeth. She will look like a little vampire though since she will have a space between her middle two bottom teeth and her little eye teeth (fangs). Is this normal to get teeth in a strange order and not next to one another?

Talent

We have started letting Little E explore her artistic side of late. Her medium of choice right now is finger paint but crayons are a close second. She also enjoys a bit of mixed media.

Little E is also practicing using utensils when she eats. I think she is almost ready for a fancy restaurant what do you think?

I am pretty sure she has some talent. What can I say I am one proud mama!

A Quicky!

So I am off to bed soon but I wanted to post something quickly.

When a woman gives birth to a baby one of her first mommy moments many times is feeding your new baby. We all know that breast is best of course but things are a bit more complicated when your baby is several floors away in the nicu. Studies have found that breast milk for preemies is even more important than it is for a term baby. Hours after Little E's birth a nurse wheeled in a breast pump and taught me how to use it. It would be a few days before Little E would get her first taste of milk delivered to her on a q-tip. Over the next few days E was introduced to more and more milk one ml at a time through her feeding tube. I was strongly encouraged to pump so that I could provide food for my tiny little baby. In some ways it became my mission as it was really the only way I could "mother" my baby. I could hold Ella only for a short amount of time every day and contact was limited to her care times every 3 hours. The only way during this time that I could feel connected to her between these brief moments was when I was pumping. I think is some ways pumping and my ability to make food for Little E defined me as her mother even after we were discharged from the nicu. I pumped for almost 12 months and while I would not change my decision to keep pumping I will tell you that it was hard. I mean really hard, I mean so unbelievably hard. I would never have been able to do it without the encouragement from the lactation consultants and nurses in the nicu. For that and so many other things I am thankful.

In honor of prematurity awareness month Medela is giving $5000 in pumping supplies and education to the nicu who has the highest votes in thier virtual milk drive. So please go and vote for Brigham and Woman's Hospital in Boston MA zip 02115 in Little E's honor and give the best start to a preemie born too soon and let a new preemie mom feel like a mom when almost all her roles as a mom have been put on hold.

http://www.medelabreastfeedingus.com/preemie-awareness-month-program

Wordle

Have you seen this site? It is pretty cool. Just pop your blog in and it comes up with a cool word art piece from your posts.



http://www.wordle.net/

Day 2

See I made it back for another post...I am so proud.

So as you can see I changed the blog around a bit (unless you are reading via google reader). How do you like the new Fall theme? I guess that means come the end of this month I will have to switch it up again though. What do you think about the little check boxes after each post? I guess you can tell me by clicking!

Today we had our professional photo shoot. It was great as usual. Our photographer is so fabulous. I really do love her. She has such good energy and umm she is pretty easy on the eyes! It was a cold morning here in New England and we woke to the first hard frost on the ground. But we are hardy Newglanders so off we went to take our pictures in a park. Good thing there is photo shop because I think she may need to fix poor Little E's red nose! I have been wanting professional photos done pretty much since we got the pictures from the last photo shoot back. I have been really pushing for it since E's first birthday though. I was all hot on the idea but it just seemed like too much of an expense at the time. Last years photos were taken around the same time and it was interesting how different this session was. Little E was a trooper and was in a very good mood for about an hour. Not bad for being outside in the upper 30s. I am going to guess that we have some really great shots and am looking forward to seeing them. We were told it will be three weeks to get our edited images. I am dying to see at least one. I may start bugging her for a teaser to hold me over.

Since I didn't post a Halloween picture yet here is my little kitty!

Halloween Recap

We had a great time celebrating Halloween this year. While E still doesn't really get it I think she enjoyed wearing her costume and "carving" a pumpkin. Friday her daycare celebrated the holiday with wearing costumes for the day and a party for the families at night. We are really lucky with the daycare we found and I know that Anjelica, her mother Violetta and the other daycare providers really love E and that she is well cared for. The party was really fun and a great time to get to know some of the other families at daycare. Anjelica and Violetta cooked up a Chilean feast and it was so cute to see all the kids at the table eating away enjoying each other's company. I must say it is really funny to see E sitting at a table like a big kid.

Sunday we carved a pumpkin. I planned on Shazam, E and I carving all three pumpkins that I purchased but I found out that my dear wife doesn't like carving pumpkins and finds the inside of the pumpkin gross. So E and I carved one pumpkin and called it a day. Ella wore her costume, we snapped some photos and that was pretty much our Halloween celebration. I had her in her costume to hand out candy for the trick or treaters but... she melted down and went to bed before the first ones showed up at our doorstep. Our sneaky little girl did try to steal some candy out of the bowl however before going to bed.

Tomorrow I am taking a personal day so that we can take our family pictures. It is going to be a little nippy but I am hoping that we get some good shots. Our wedding photographer is taking the pictures and we love her work so I am sure we will get some great photos. She came to our apartment shortly after E came home from the hospital last year and we love the photos she took. In fact she took some pictures of Darwin that day that I absolutely love. I need to go and get our outfits ready for tomorrow.

See I did my 2 posts and now I am caught up! Go me!

Oh goodness I already failed!

Ok so I have a good excuse. I was planning on blogging last night to start Blogging month but then....Our crazy cat brought a live mouse into the house and all hell broke loose. Shazam and I screamed like little girls and managed to scare the mouse into hiding but not much else. We had a few "sightings" of Squeaker but did not manage to catch and remove him/her. We left the back door that leads to the basement open and we are hoping that Squeaker made it back down stairs. The cat who started the whole thing was really not all that much help and I think thought Shazam and I were playing with the mouse too so would find it, bandy it around and then let it go again. Poor mouse! Anyway that is why I didn't blog last night. I will blog again tonight to make up for my failure...Let's see what happens