Houdini

She's getting bigger! Olivia is starting to break out of the small-size swaddler, which means she has started waking up in the middle of the night to say little else than, "Help! My hands are free!" I'll wrap her back up and she'll go back to sleep, and then I am left lying in bed unable to sleep because I start thinking about stuff like my computer virus or sewing dresses or what I want to cook next.

Yes, my recent experiments in cooking have included cherry crisp (with tart cherries we picked last summer from my in-laws' tree), Irish soda bread, another round of meatballs and sauce, and whole wheat bread. I gave away my bread machine last year because I never used it and it took up a lot of cabinet space. When I got a hankerin' to make wheat bread I just used the recipe on the back of the King Arthur flour bag and kneaded it with my mixer's dough hook (which I had never used before). I think my recent urge to cook may be a need for normalcy, to prove to myself that I can still do stuff, that my life is not just about the baby. I never used to shower every day until the baby was born; same reason.

Speaking of the mixer, I saw a show on HGTV where they updated a kitchen, including an area for large appliance storage *outside* of the cabinets. So that got me thinking... We have a "desk" built into the kitchen cabinetry where I will probably never sit, so my dad installed a shelf across the opening to divide up the space for the mixer, crock pot, and my various tote bags.

Back to Olivia... We bought a case of size 1 diapers a while ago as part of a "buy 3" deal, and at the time I debated about how quickly we'd use them up vs. how quickly she'd outgrow them. I'm really not sure how to tell when a child is outgrowing a certain size, but we've had some leakage issues in the last week or two that makes me glad that the other case of diapers we got in that deal was size 2. (The third item was a case of wipes, and for buying all three we got a $15 Toys/Babies R Us gift card. Score!) OJ is also growing out of 0-3 month clothes, which makes me sad because there are some cute spring outfits she never got to wear. Maybe we'll have to crank up the warm-mist humidifier and have a fashion show.