A doll and her baby

 This little doll and her baby doll were made for a sweet young friend of ours. Our friend has beautiful long blond hair, the cutest pert little nose and great big expressive blue eyes. So I tried to make her doll look a bit like her. I asked the girl's mommy if she could help me out with the yarn for the hair, since I was having a hard time finding something that seemed just right. She is a very talented spinner and whipped up this gorgeous yarn lickity-split. It's 100% soy silk and is the softest, silkiest yarn I've ever worked with.

After I finished the doll and her little wardrobe, she seemed to need a little playmate of her own! So I made her a dolly of her very own, complete with a tiny hand-stitched cradle, a soft, wool stuffed pillow and her very own knitted blanket, made to match the big doll's knitted shawl. I think she was pretty pleased with her tiny new playmate. To hold the big doll's shawl on, I thought she needed a pretty little shawl pin, so I made her one. It is topped with shiny little glass beads, very big-girlish in style we think!

*Waldorf Dolls Details- Big Doll:  stuffed with fluffy clean sheep's wool, with 100% cotton skin and 100% Soy Silk hair. Her clothes and shawl are handmade of 100% cotton. Tiny Doll: Body wool/Bamboo blend felt hand dyed by me, Skin, hair, and blanket are 100% cotton. Stuffed with clean carded sheep's wool.

Linking here and with Nicole and with Natural Suburbia.

Will you teach me to sew, Mommy?

I sew, a lot. Claire and Emmett are usually playing in my sewing room any time I am in there working on something. I have special "sewing room" toys that are only to be played with in there, that way the little ones have fun things to do that keep them occupied while I am busy working on some little project of my own. Lately however, Claire has more and more often ignored the toys and climbed onto my lap, or pulled up a chair next to me to watch me sew. She has asked when I'll teach her to sew using my sewing machine. The thought of those tiny fingers and that rapidly moving needle really scare me so I told her that she had to wait until she was at least six, she is just 3 and a half now. (Hopefully, she'll be ready by the time she is six, because I doubt she'll forget what I've said! And a promise is a promise after all...)

A couple of days ago she asked me again, "Will you teach me to sew, Mommy?" And I said "Yes!" I pulled out a nice piece of wool felt from my stash and we traced her little hand onto the fabric. Then I let her choose what color thread she wanted to use. Why, PINK, of course! I taught her how to thread the needle and how to carefully push it through the fabric, following the line we had drawn. She was thrilled! 

She sat next to me in the sewing room and worked on her sewing for over an hour. I thought she might get bored and wander off to play with something else for a while, but she didn't. She sat there working so carefully, chattering the entire time about all of the wonderful things she was going to make now. She has great plans to make a whole new wardrobe for her "Claire Baby" (Claire Baby is the very first Waldorf doll I ever made. It was a Christmas gift for her for her very first Christmas. Last year at some point she named the doll "Claire Baby" She has other dolls now as well, but that is the only doll she has ever named!) I was working on some doll clothes at the time, so that probably helped inspire the notion. 

She finished her sewing in one sitting and the minute she got done, I took her outside to get a few pictures of her with her first sewing project in front of our flowers. She is quite proud of her accomplishment, and reasonable so! We are in the process of fixing up the bedroom she and Emmett share and it is getting framed and hung on her wall, as per her request. :-) 

Ultrasound

On Wednesday I packed up the kids and we set off for the city an hour from home. My midwife sent me to a high risk O.B.* for my 20 week ultrasound. Rodrigo took the afternoon off and met us there. I explained to Claire that we were going to the doctor's and they were going to take some pictures of the baby in my belly. And they might even tell us if she was going to have a little brother or sister. She thought about that for a minute and when I asked her what she thought it might be she said "Maybe it'll be a Ninja!!" And then showed me her best ninja pose. Ninja's are very cool in Claire's opinion right now!

And this was my face when I thought I saw what I saw flash across the screen... It wasn't a ninja! 

At least I'm pretty sure it wasn't a ninja (the jury is still out on that one!)... it was little girl parts!!!

Yes, it was a huge shock. I was completely sure that this baby was a boy! During my only other girl pregnancy I felt completely nauseated for the first two months. With all four of my boy pregnancies I felt just fine, with almost no nausea at all. I was so sure with this one! About two nano-seconds after Rodrigo snapped the above photo of my shocked face I crumpled into tears and the poor ultrasound tech had to pause what she was doing because I was sobbing so hard and she couldn't get a focus on anything. I didn't know I wanted a girl, I mean I didn't want anything really, or rather I would have been thrilled no matter the sex of the baby. But when I saw that she was a she, I was so happy about the whole situation, I couldn't stop crying. Ah...the joys of pregnancy hormones- and occasionally out of control emotions that go with them!

* I am going to a local birthing center and being seen there by a midwife for all of my prenatal care. However I am still considered high-risk because of my previous c-section even though I've had 2 VBACs (VBAC is a natural childbirth after a previous c-section) since then. My "advanced maternal age" probably doesn't help either. (insert eye-roll) So I have to be monitored occasionally by the high-risk guys in the big city!