Friday, April 02, 2010

Overload

I will have to get in the habit of blogging more regularly, then I wont feel so overwhelmed when I do decide to blog. Maybe I should set photos to upload before I go to work so when I come home all I have to do is write!

My little teaser the other day is the most adorable cross over baby jacket. I think the back is too big, the pattern piece was missing so I traced the front, but I get the impression it should have been narrower. The jacket pattern actually used bias right the way around the neck and sleeves, but I don't like bias much. Plus I had a completely un-used roll of the most perfect coloured ribbon! Scored it in a bulk eBay lot of lace. So, avoiding bias, I made my jacket reversible. I sewed the two wrong side together leaving an opening in the back to turn it out. Sorry my pics are crap, it was late! (**see note)   The jacket pattern is Simplicity 9647 size Newborn Babies dated 1980. Will upload a pic next time I am using the camera. Thank you to my friend Toni of ChickChat for gifting me the pattern (and many more! PS. go check out her scrapbookin!).

(**note) As there was no picture people reluctantly bid and as the seller said it was a plastic grocery bag full I figured "who cares?!". Turned out to some some seriously vintage, as well as fun, laces and ribbons. Many of which there were metres and metres of, and I think I paid $6 something for the auction and maybe $6 postage.

My Amazon.com order arrived Friday last week. I bought 2 "self help" books and Carefree Clothes for Girls. Now, I was going to shop "local" on the so called "Australian Amazon" at fishpond.com.au but for Carefree Clothes for Girls alone they wanted $49.99AUD!! Ouch! Now, the photograph of the invoice to the left is in USD but I can confirm at the time of purchase my total invoice was $63.23AUD! The books totalled $40.36 Aussie dollars and the remainding twenty-two or so was postage. Hmm.. Where would you have shopped as a single mum on a shoe-string budget?

I've been meaning to sew Jessica some winter pyjama (pajama, pj's) out of flannelette. I was horrified when trying to find some online that it was all $24 per metre!! Ok, so Anna Maria Horner and co, your fabrics are gorgeous.. but well an truly out of my budget. Oh how I'd love some Amy Butler, Heather Bailey, Cath Kidston, etc  :(  I love to browse online but it gets a lil depressing after a while. So anyways, can't afford online flannel and live no where near a shop. So looks like I will be either buying jammies for the kiddo or they will have to wait for our next trip to Perth where I can go in store at Spotlight and buy some boring old unprinted flannel for $3.99/m. I might even splurge on a knit to make them more comfy (lacking warmth though).

How you know your kiddo is unwell...
It's 4pm and she is sound asleep in the back yard and not climbing or hanging from that yellow and red contraption she loves so dearly (it's a dome shaped climbing frame).

Unfortunatly when we disturbed her we found she'd had an allergic reaction to who knows what! These reactions are becoming more and more frequent and she's starting to get really frustrated and upset with her lot in life. Just yesterday she was eating BBQ Shapes and both top and bottom lip were ever so slightly swollen. Enough so she'd scratched it terribly and made her lip bleed. After she had some antihistamines and it had all settled back down her lips were all peeling and cracked. Not pretty :( She was really annoyed too as she LOVES Shapes! I tend not to discuss Jessica's allergies here too much as it's such a big part of our real world that neither of us enjoy. I do sometimes wonder if I should be doing more advocacy. While she is anaphylactic (could suffer anaphylaxis) to tree nuts, sesame and latex, her allergies are much more involved. She reacts to a lot more, and her skin prick tests even say she should avoid peanuts, orange, banana and others. We have a great team of Allergists at Princess Margaret Hospital for Children who believe removing foods from her diet which don't cause her any major dramas is more dangerous to her ongoing health. Her diet actually HAS to include banana and peanuts at least twice a week. Jessica also reacts to dust, almost every animal, scented things (like scented tissues and toilet paper). Sometimes it feels like "you name it, she'll react to it". But we also don't put her in a bubble. As a child's most susceptible years are from the ages of 10-25 when they are more independent, ascerting their rights as individuals, prone to peer pressure etc I teach Jessica now that yes your lip is itchy and horrible, but go take some antihistamines and you'll feel better. Or in the case of it reacting in the form of her eczema we apply the creams or run a cool bath. It's important to me that I teach her how to care for her own needs as best I can. I can't and wont always be there for her (as much as that pains me). We have our epipens, and she takes a "medicine" bag with her wherever she goes. I must admit, it's far easier to avoid food and read labels than it is dealing with the latex allergy.

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