35 weeks! only 5 weeks left. So crazy. and my friend is due next Friday! even crazier. I remember finding out she was pregnant too and it doesn’t seem that long ago and at the same time, it seems like forever ago. It’s weird how time works.
I’ve been meaning to find a Chiropractor in Franklin who I like because I want to be able to bring Nugget to a chiropractor once he’s born. The one who my family has been seeing for a few years (who is really great), works all the way up in Nashville.. and I’d rather not drive all that way if I find someone in Franklin I like just as much. I found a few deals on Groupon and bought one for a chiropractor whose office is less than a mile from our apartment. I originally wanted Cristian to use it because he’s never been adjusted. But with his work schedule now, it’s impossible for him to go in. and I on the other hand have come down with a sore throat/cough/congestion this past week. yeah, yeah, “HAHA, you said you never get sick”…. It is rare, but 90% of the times that I do get sick are when the weather changes from warm to cold or visa versa. and It’s been getting down to the mid to low 40s at night the past week or so. So I’m gonna blame it on that. Either way, I’ve been drinking hot water with lemon, apple cider vinegar, and honey, gargling salt water, eating chicken soup, putting essential oils on my chest (which work really well for stopping the need to cough, but don’t last as long as I’d want them to), drinking probiotics and tons of water, sleeping, whatever you can think of (besides taking medicine or going to the doctor) I’m pretty sure I’ve been doing it. and while I would say on a scale of 1 to can’t-get-out-of-bed sick, I’m about a 3 or 4, I think I’m slowly getting better. BUT the point is, I’m going to use my chiropractor Groupon today because I think the last time I got adjusted was a while before I was pregnant. I’m definitely due for an adjustment and hopefully that’ll help kick this sickness.
I have been super productive this week! I’m so proud of myself. I’ve checked off SIX things from my to-do list.
#1. Mail thank you cards from the baby shower. – Yes, I know these are suuuuuuper late but better late than never, right?
#2. Get our cloth diapering things set up. I’ve now got a step trashcan with a lid that shuts, my Planet Wise pail (trash can) liner, my Planet Wise wet bag for on the go situations, my cloth diapers and inserts (duh), and wipes!–a ton of wipes… I may consider making cloth wipes once I run out of the disposables just because I’m going to be throwing the whole diaper and “trash bag” into the laundry anyways so why have a whole separate trashcan for disposable wipes? Unless I end up using disposable liners for the cloth diapers which is a possibility. but who knows… we’ll just have to see how it all plays out once little nugget gets here 🙂
#3. Make baby clothes separator. – When I initially put this on my list, I didn’t really think it would actually be helpful, it was just going to be more of a decorative thing. But when you have a whole row of onesies all the way across his wardrobe that all look the same size, It’s nice to not have to look at each tag and try to see where one size ends and the next one begins. So I finally made mine. I just used a 97 cent poster board from Walmart and glued two circles together so they were a little sturdier, and wrote 3, 6, 9, and 12 mo. and was done! incredibly easy, It just took a little bit of time to cut out 8 circles the same size…
#4. Finished packing our hospital bag!… with all the things that don’t need to be packed at the last minute. I packed all the clothes for both of us: two shirts, a pair of jeans, socks, underwear, and sweat pants for Hubby. Button up shirt, shorts, yoga pants, tank top, nursing bras/tank top, leggings, comfy socks, and a cute shirt for going home for me! I also packed a small-ish bag with things to keep Cristian occupied during the “slow times” (if such a time even happens..) So all in all we have nuggets diaper bag, Cristian’s entertainment/snack bag, my boppy, our clothing bag and my boots (both of which will likely stay in the car until after delivery)
Gummy life savers (his favorite candy), gum (another Achilles heel of his), a snack mix, a few magazines (car, fitness, and tattoo), red bull (for the long nights ahead 😉 ) and the hard candy is actually for me to suck on during labor haha.
#5. Make more baby legs. – The only pair I have was the brown patterned (not super cute for a baby, I’m not gonna lie) ones I made as my trial run. I bought two more pairs of long socks from Wal Mart and actually made them into the baby legs in the same week! I’m pretty proud of myself. Here’s the two newest additions to Cristopher’s closet
You see that inside out cuff on the blue striped pair? Yeah, I totally did that in my trial pair that I made and I was SO mad at myself that I did it again. ugh. such a dumb mistake. But the red ones turned out perfect! and besides the inside out cuff, the blue pair are pretty darn cute too.
and last, but definitely not least, #6. Make diaper rash cream. – THIS was a challenge. Not necessarily in difficulty, but more so in the “every-single-thing-that-can-go-wrong-will” way. I started this project in the afternoon after picking up my fresh honey comb from my mom who brought it back with her from my grandmother’s house (THANK YOU, Happy!). The first step is to put the honey comb and some water into a pot and let it all melt. Done, simple enough. Second you have to strain the impurities out of the wax/water mixture and put it into a different pot to let the wax separate from the water and produce a disk (more or less) of more-pure wax. Okay, so I was reading all about how to do this from somewhere off the internet and this genius says to use a mesh strainer. So I’m just going along with it.. strain the liquid into the new pot and go to the sink to rinse off the strainer. Not even thinking twice about it, put it under cold water….. I don’t know how much you know about wax, but when it becomes cold, IT BECOMES HARD. (almost as complicated as rocket science, I know). Now my mesh strainer is chock full of cold wax with all the junk stuck in there along with it. I tried running it under hot water-nothing. I tried boiling water in a pot with the strainer in the water and then scraping it out-nothing. I tried scraping it out with no water-nothing. So I’m pretty much resigned to throw my strainer away unless Hubby can somehow miraculously clean it out when he gets home (he has a way of making impossible things, possible.. so I wouldn’t put it past him). Third, you have to take the wax disc out of the water and put it back into the first pot and re-melt just the wax. then you have to strain it a second time to really get the last bit of impurities out. well, obviously I don’t have a strainer at this point. I texted my Aunt Christine who had made beeswax out of honeycomb in the past (Don’t ask me why I didn’t text her initially, I don’t know) and she suggested I strain the wax through panty hose – genius. I grabbed an old pair (my only pair, mind you), gladly chopped it up to a smaller piece and strained the wax into a little jar. I now had pure beeswax! YAY!
But its not over yet. In order to make the actual diaper rash cream, I needed to melt the correct amount of beeswax then add the correct amount of coconut oil, melt them together and once melted, add a few drops of Lavender essential oil and voila! sounds easy, right? HA.
First I didn’t know how much beeswax I had ended up with and I didn’t really have a way to weigh it (in ounces) or measure it in teaspoons or tablespoons because it was a hardened rock in the little jar. The instructions for the rash cream said to melt the beeswax in a glass jar inside a pot with about an inch of water – kinda like a double boiler. I figured I’d just melt the whole thing down and then take out however much I needed and put it into another glass container (I was thinking short drinking glass). I knew what container I wanted everything to end up in, but like the cheap plastic product it is, of course it didn’t say how many ounces total the container held. I searched all around my kitchen and finally found something that said it held 3oz and just filled that with water and transferred it til my other container was full (ended up holding 6oz) cool. Except the recipe I had yielded 4oz. so just a quick little bit of math and I needed 5.25oz coconut oil and .75oz beeswax. I pulled out my handy dandy iPhone and googled what that would convert to in Tablespoons. (no, I didn’t do it in my head even though I was homeschooled) Alright so back to melting. I had my beeswax in my jar in my pot of boiling water on the stove slowly melting my freshly made beeswax. Then I scooped my solid coconut oil into a short glass and popped it in the microwave to melt down to an oil. Now both are melted and moved onto the counter. The instructions specifically said to add the coconut oil to the beeswax, but the only problem was that I hadn’t measured out my beeswax and I had measured out my coconut oil so I figured there’d be no problem adding it the other way – wrong. As soon as I started adding my 1.5Tbs of beeswax to my coconut oil, it immediately hardened when it hit the coconut oil. Why? I don’t know. But no worries, right? I can just put this little glass with my perfect amount of coconut oil and perfect amount of beeswax (no longer melted) back into the inch of boiling water and let it all re-melt. Piece of cake…….. no again. As soon as I put the glass into the pot I turn around to put something in the sink and hear a cracking noise. of course my glass has split. boiling water and pre-measured coconut oil now all blended together. ugh. Thankfully the beeswax was still in solid form and I could quickly grab that out and put it into a different canning jar (again, don’t ask me why I didn’t use the canning jar in the first place… idiot me). Then I restarted the whole process and added everything in the correct order this time and it finally turned out correct. All in all, I’m very happy with the 6oz of diaper rash cream that I now have, but geez. If I had known it would have been that difficult, I would have probably made it a different day. Here are some pictures of the whole process 🙂
after the first strain, starting to form a disc
my wonderful, ruined strainer
the disc of wax, pre-second strain
beautiful, pure beeswax
after a few mishaps.. finally adding my coconut oil TO my beeswax
Finished product!!
Whew. What an afternoon/evening. But I guess I saved the hardest for last.. The only other real projects I have on my list (even though I’m sure I’ll come up with more) is to make cloth ring toys which I just need to find someone willing to give me scrap fabrics to make them, and to finish my baby blanket which is coming along slowly but nicely 🙂
This last “project” wasn’t really a project because it wasn’t on my to-do list and I just don’t put it into the category of projects. It was more like a homemaking chore or something. Anyway, I’m reallyyyyyy bad about eating breakfast. Cristian can attest to this (he hates it. even though he barely eats breakfast either, go figure). I’m just so unmotivated to make food in the mornings or nothing sounds good. Normally I’ll wake up, feed coffee, get dressed, get my morning dose of pinterest/facebook, and by then coffee is whining to go to the park. It’s not that I don’t like to eat or am not hungry, but I’m just lazy. So this “project” was initially to use up the canned pumpkin I had in the fridge and also intended more for Cristian because he doesn’t have time to make breakfast before he has to go to work, but I don’t think he’s as much of a fan of it as I am (I think he’ll be sticking with his protein shake and an apple). I made pumpkin waffles, tore them into quarters and put them in the freezer! That way, in the mornings I just take two out of the bag, put em in our amazing toaster and make it into a peanut butter waffle sandwich. They’re fast, easy, and delicious. I love pumpkin. and at the rate I’m going through these, I’ll probably need to make a batch again before Nugget gets here…maybe blueberry or apple next time 🙂
Finally, our portrait and fruit of the week. my “cute fruit” app says that he’s the size of a coconut but I refuse to believe he’s that small unless he’s one of those green coconuts on steroids. So I looked somewhere else and it said the size of a honeydew melon which sounds much more reasonable, so I went with that this week.
How far along? 35 weeks!
Total Weight Gain? 22.6lbs
How big is nugget? the size of a Honeydew (not a coconut..)
Gender? boy
Maternity Clothes? I don’t plan on getting any more maternity clothes
Morning Sickness? no, just regular sickness at the moment
Mood Swings? no
Stretch Marks? legs and lovehandles mainly.. 😦
How is your sleep? last night was probably the worst sleep I’d gotten so far. Coffee woke me up to go out at 12:30, 2:45, 3:45, and 4:45. I was pissed. and every time I’d try to go back to sleep I’d end up coughing at least 4-5 times before I could go to sleep and after she woke me up at 4:45, I couldn’t go to sleep for almost an hour.
Best moment this week? getting a bunch of things checked off my to-do list
Worst moment this week? not spending near enough time with mi Amor.
Have you felt movement? almost every time I sit up, I can feel his feet pushing up into my ribs because he’s getting so big. It’s pretty uncomfortable, for sure, but I still love feeling him move around.
Have you heard the heartbeat? yep
Cravings? peanut butter and waffle sandwiches
Belly Button In or Out? definitely out.
Weekly Wisdom: continue stretching every day
Milestones: 5 little weeks (hopefully) til we get to meet our lil Nugget! 😀
Cordova Life 