Complaining

I really hate to complain.  Wait, who am I kidding?  I would love to complain all the time but we all know that it just brings ourselves down and nobody wants to hear it.  So here I am going to complain about things that I REALLY shouldn’t complain about, but I have a blog now so I can do whatever I want!

• Elliot sleeps a lot. 7pm to 3am ish (then til 6ish, maybe up one more time inbetween).  The other day he slept until 5am straight!  This is no good for my milk supply.  The morning after he sleeps so long I choke the poor kid for the first few feedings and then struggle to have enough for him by the end of the day.  He also eats almost every hour during the day and mostly cat-naps, so I think it evens out a little?
• I have really long eyelashes.  If I wear mascara I usually wear clear mascara.  But man, they keep hitting my glasses! It took me a couple weeks to figure out that was the problem.  I kept thinking I had something in my eye or allergies or something!  I know, boo hoo.
• I struggled with oversupply of breastmilk for awhile.  It sounds like a good thing, but the poor child was choking and spitting up all the time with it. I know there are many who struggle with low supply (myself included with Leland) and I know that is hard, but oversupply is hard, too!
• I made this term up: Secondary hyperfertility (Like secondary infertility, but the opposite).  We struggled to get pregnant the first time, but took care of a small issue on Brian’s side and now we have had no trouble.  I have a crazy body and my fertility returns very quickly after pregnancy despite round the clock breastfeeding.  I hate to complain, and I am happy that we most likely won’t have any trouble when we want more kids, but it is burdensome on my conscience that is leaning toward openness to life (I hate to use the phrase “have as many kids as God wants us to” because that is what will happen no matter what we do!).
• Leland is really smart. A little too smart for his own good.  I’m grateful, but if you have a smart kid you know how this can be annoying at times! And his memory is crazy – he won’t let you forget a promise!
• Ooh, I think I can really complain about this one: Post-partum morning sickness (and as is the case with regular morning sickness, not restricted to just the morning).  Apparently it’s a thing. I googled it. I’ve already taken two pregnancy tests since Elliot was born.  Thank goodness for Dollar Tree tests (see I told you they would come back up!) that don’t hurt the budget! Also thank goodness for seltzer, my magic cure for morning sickness and heartburn!

Okay done complaining!  I truly am grateful for so many things in my life, but we all need to complain a little sometimes!

Homemade Liquid Watercolors

So I wanted to buy little pipettes for giving the kiddos supplements and ended up with ones that were way too big! I wanted little tiny ones to do single drops and these are much bigger.  Unfortunately it was 3.99 to return them to Amazon and they only cost $5, so I was now in possession of  100 3ml pipettes.  Quick googling and boom! craft projects galore! So exciting! Most of which involved liquid watercolors, which are mad expensive.  Not so exciting. Side note – do a pinterest search of “pipette food” and be amazed.

Do I want to share this next bit on the internet? Yes I do.  Have you ever used a Dollar Tree pregnancy test? Talk about saving money!  Instead of peeing on a stick, you have to pee in a cup and then use this itsy bitsy pipette to put exactly 4 drops of pee in a little indentation on the stick.  That’s the kind of pipette I was looking for and still cannot find! Anyone have any suggestions for a tool to give babies tiny drops of supplements? This is also not all I have to say about Dollar Tree pregnancy tests, so look forward to that in a post someday.

ANYWAYS . . . More googling – can I make my own liquid watercolors? Yes I can! Inspired by these 2 posts I did a little experimenting and one method definitely shines above the other – http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/2014/02/homemade-washable-liquid-watercolors.html and http://happyhooligans.ca/vibrant-homemade-liquid-watercolor-paint/

Watercolor disc method on the left, marker method on the right, 1 pipette of 100 in the front!

I used some super old watercolor discs I had around, and semi-old crayola markers.  With the discs I used warm water to dissolve them.  For the markers I took the ink stick out of the middle and cut it into pieces and let it sit in water for awhile.

Testing out the watercolor disc liquid watercolors . . .

Testing out the marker liquid watercolors . . .

Side by side – discs on the left, marker on the right (the bright red on the left one is splatter from the marker paints), pipettes 1 and 2 of 100 on the sides!

I think we have a clear winner here – although to be fair, they were very old discs, and the markers were not dried out as the directions stated.  It can be very messy getting the ink stick out of the marker, but if you use not completely dried out markers you won’t have to do all of the cutting and mashing as in the directions (just cut them into 3-4 pieces).

I figure this saves anywhere from $15-$25, depending on materials you have on hand.  Basically for the cost of a pack of crayola markers you can have a set of liquid watercolors.  Buy the washable ones while you’re at it! My mom had a whole bunch of plastic Talenti gelato containers so I plan on using those when I make a whole set for the toddler to create with (thanks Mom!).

I have big plans for coffee filter art (thanks Michael!), and making a gelatin cake!! Doesn’t that look fun???  http://tinyhandsbigideas.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/gelatin-cakes-part-1/