Crafts with Katherine

Before you go thinking that I actually seem like I have my s*** together if I am able to pull this off while caring for a high maintenance infant, note that it didn't occur to me to do this until the day before Valentine's Day, and I didn't make most of them until the day after.  I thought about making Easter eggs instead and just being really ahead of the game, but I chose instead to be behind the game for Valentine's Day!

It occurred to me that since Katherine was born, we don't have any hand prints or foot prints of hers of any kind, neither ink nor fossil, and I truly regret that we don't have anything like that from her newborn days.  So I decided I needed to commemorate their current size as soon as possible because they will never be this small again.  I also just really love handmade gifts for Valentine's Day, and am always searching for my next potential Pinterest fail.  

I used a tried-and-true recipe for keepsake dough, although I felt like I just personally discovered fire: equal parts flour and salt, mix in water until it's a workable dough.  1 cup of flour + 1 cup of salt + 2/3 cup water made enough for 3 hearts.

Shape the dough into your desired holiday representative object, and mash your baby's hand right in there.  This was the hardest part and I have no photo evidence of it happening because it was hard enough with one person, more doable with two people but we would need a third person to photograph it.  This took a few tries when I was on my own because if I could get Katherine's hand relaxed and flat, I could mash it into the dough but then she wanted to feel it and squish it all up.  It felt like squishy fun, so who can blame her?  So I had to start over a few times.

Baked hand prints!

Using a silicone baking sheet liner was a good call for this project, although I have to wonder why Crate & Barrel's silicone liners don't fit perfectly with their own cookie sheets?  Fail.

I baked them at 200 for 4 hours and let them cool, then painted with acrylic paint and voila!  Happy Valentine's Day, Dad!

I used Chanel suit colors instead of traditional Valentine's colors.

Derrick says he's putting it on his desk at work, and even if that means IN his desk at work, I am still really touched.  

Grands and Great-Grands, you'll get yours ... soon.  Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

Feeling All of the Things

Katherine Mae Preston was born on Friday the 13th of September, 2013 at 4:34 PM, weighing 6 lbs, 11 oz, measuring 19.5 inches long, and she is the single greatest human being ever to have existed.

The many faces of Katherine Preston.

The first of many pictures together.

I had no idea it was possible to love another person this much.  Don't get me wrong, I love Derrick and all, but I don't spend time worrying about him ever being lonely, or getting his feelings hurt one day, or waking up at all hours, worried, wondering whether or not he's breathing at night (because I hear him loud and clear).

I didn't feel this way at first.  I loved Katherine as soon as she made her appearance, of course, but it was more of a carnal "I must take care of you and keep you alive" love, but many notches above a house plant.  When she turned three months old, I finally felt all the cupcakes and rainbows and puppy dogs and ice creams about her, but didn't even realize I felt it until she turned four months old.  Maybe it has something to do with sleep deprivation over the course of the first 12 weeks of a baby's life - I managed to sleep, on average, for two non-consecutive hours per day, sometimes only getting 20 minutes of sleep in 24 hours.  I don't think I was capable of feeling anything towards anyone during that time.  Especially because of the full-body-numbing Percocets.

My previous post was written the day before I was induced.  We took a cab up to Mt. Sinai in the middle of the night, checked in, got a wonderful room with a wonderful nurse, and 15 hours later, I was being rushed into the OR for an emergency C-section.  I made peace with it on the ride in.  It really was a fine experience because all I had to do was lie there and look up at the dreamy Mt. Sinai anesthesiologist, and try to keep down all the apple juice I had guzzled during my labor.  I don't know what my deal was; my doctor said I could drink apple juice during labor and I thought, apple juice sounds so refreshing and delicious!  So I drank tons of it and why not?  FYI: the catheter is the best part of the whole deal.  More on this at a later date.  (The delivery story, not the catheter.  I pretty much wrote all there is to write about that).

We named Katherine after my great-grandmother, Catherine, and her middle name comes from Derrick's great-grandmother.  I switched the C to a K because KMP was a better monogram than CMP.  Yes, I'm serious.  We loved the idea of using family names, but there is a real dearth of usable girl names on both our sides (sorry, family members no longer with us, looking down from heaven and reading my blog: Bertha, Samanther, Dixie Lee, etc.).  We love the name Katherine and we didn't know we would be calling her by the full formal name until it was revealed that Derrick is a Kit and Kat person, I'm a Kate and Katie person.  When her face started fattening up, Derrick started calling her "Potato Head" which evolved into "Tater Head," and now she also goes by "Tater."

The past (almost) 5 months have flown by, but I do feel like I was in the hospital eons ago.

I have three New Year's resolutions:

1. Now that I have figured Katherine out a little more, I want to get her out and about, doing fun things every week like music class and baby yoga (go ahead, take your "SMH, NYC" moment here). Check, done!

2. I want to attempt to do my own housekeeping.  Check-ish - depends on what your standards are.

3. To update CiB with any sort of frequency.  I have so many thoughts on pumping/breastfeeding, because little did I know, those things have consumed my entire life, and other such topics, and I just never feel like I can really go there on Facebook.  A couple days ago I was harping on people who write status updates about potty training their kids and how completely terrible I think that is, and I'm sure no one on Facebook wants to read about my adventures in pumping.  Unless you're one of my loyal followers, in which case, I'm 100% sure you do.

My special snowflake on January 13, 2014.