DIY Spice Jars

Anyone who knows me intimately knows that I have a slight case of OCD.  I like things to be pretty, in order, and uniform.  Since I am raising five anklebiters at the moment, my limits are pretty much stretched to the max in the order department.  I look for projects that help me streamline my work, are nice to look at, not to hard to finish, and that give me something to do besides sit in a corner, mumbling, rocking back and forth chanting the theme song from Fraggle Rock.

Here's my latest project:  baby food jars into spice jars.  Bonus:  I had a baby food spinner storage-thingy, and I painted that to go along with the whole she-bang.

I started with baby food jars that my friend, Coni, generously donated for the project.  She needed to get rid of them anyway, so win-win.  I washed and thoroughly dried the jars before transferring the spices over.  Also, because of the whole "wanting everything to look uniform" hang-up of mine, I printed labels using Microsoft Word.  Handwritten labels on the tops with a white paint pen would have worked too.

Then I found this baby food jar storage spinner in the basement when I finally got around to cleaning up down there post-construction.  Score!

A can of spray paint and voila!  A spinner that no longer looks like cheap plastic to hold my transformed jars.

And now I have this nifty spinning spice rack on my counter.  When going through my spice cabinet, I chose the ones that I use the most, since I had a limited number of jars.  I still have space for two more jars on the spinner, once I acquire a couple more empties.

This project cost about $2 worth of paint out of the can, and I'll have the rest of the spray paint for future projects.  Jars were free, and I already had the labels sitting next to the computer.

My OCD is satisfied for the time being, and now I need a new project.  :)  And I should say that I got the idea from a Pinterest post, so it wasn't entirely my idea.  I did, however, add the spinner.

Easy Does It

One of the most memorable things that I will take away from my sister's visit was a comment that she made while I was nursing Jed.

She said, "Why not look at breastfeeding him as a way of just stopping and taking it easy, rather than looking at it as an interruption to all the things that need to be done."

So that's what I'm doing.

Breastfeeding has not been easy for me.  I committed to it for six weeks, longer than any of the other children.  I've made it past that point, and I'm ecstatic!  Because of physical roadblocks, none of the other children were b/f for more than a month.  And I was okay with that after the initial disappointment and guilt faded.


Jed has been easier to nurse.  My milk comes and goes at times, but for the most part he gets enough.  I'm doing what I call "hybrid feeding", which pretty much means that I give him a couple ounces of formula if he's still irritable after two hours of nursing and chewing on me.  Yes, two hours.  He's gone that long at one time.

But I still find myself impatient, irritable and not entirely happy nursing him.  Sounds horrible, right?  Everything I read tells me that this is supposed to a wonderful experience for both mother and child, that we should be bonding in blissful harmony around the areola of my boob.  But in reality, it hurts a lot, I'm sore all the dang time and let's face it -- feeding every 2 1/2 to 3 hours really slows me down when I have four other kids to raise.

It's hard, tiresome work and I find myself thinking that formula is much easier.

Of course, my reasons are all selfish reasons, centered on what works best for me and how it would make my life easier.  For that reason, I'm still plodding along, putting the little guy first and continuing to breastfeed, even though it's not the glorious experience that I expected.

Then we come back to what my sister said during her visit last week.  I keep saying that in my head, a mantra to motherhood that sustains me when my nipples feel like they're the latest patient to undergo electroshock therapy.  And when I look down at his sweet face, all serene and fat and happy, I do feel a little bit of what the experts say I should.

That is, until he starts pulling on me like I'm ElastaGirl again.

Photobucket

Photobucket.com is a cool website with photo editing tools that you can use to spruce up your digital pics.  Here is a before and after of the same picture.

And I have no ulterior motives in posting this.  Not getting paid or anything.  Just a cool tool I found that I thought I would share.  :)  I guess you can call it a Tip of the Day, since I haven't posted one of those in a while.

Unedited, as it was taken
Jenny and Jed, 3 weeks old

Edited with Photobucket's really cool tools ... have fun!

More Pictures of the Newbie

Lesson Learned

When I pray for something, the answer is not always the one that I want or desire.  Sometimes it's not even in the ballpark of what I thought I was praying for.  Sometimes the answer is YES!  A resounding yes, one that can't be ignored.  At times, a definite no.  No way, no how, so stop asking!

And then there are the times that a prayer is answered with, "Wait.  You'll see."  Except, I don't always know there's been an answer and I'm left floundering and continuously praying.  I figure those are the days that I'm not listening to God as much as I should.

Rewind a few days.  Actually about a week now, since Jed came home from the hospital.

The child wouldn't poop.

Now, he'd toot like a madman and it had some punch.  Nearly cleared the room a few times.  And I kept thinking, "Okay, today's a poop day.  Be prepared."  I thought that on day 3, 4 and every day until he was eight days old.  Every time I changed a diaper I prayed for God to help my poor little guy fill that diaper with a bunch of nastiness.  The poor baby was so irritable and his belly was all tight and distended.

Each day that I would pray, I would research infant constipation, looking for tips, tricks, hints, and solutions. And pray for Divine Intervention, because he was miserable and I couldn't do a dang thing.

Yesterday was a terrible day for me.  For everyone, really, because I was an emotional wreck.  I had only slept about an hour the night before, because my poor kiddo was hurting and wanting to nurse all night.  As in two 2-hr nursing sessions with bouts of being the Human Pacifier in between.  I had to work through the guilt that I was supplementing him with formula because he wasn't getting enough milk from me.  (This is a problem I've had with all the kids.)

I stumbled through the day trying not to cry, not to breakdown.  It didn't work.  At the point of exhaustion, a friend called to talk me through it.  And then my sister called and it came gushing out again.  Two friends from high school messaged me with encouragement, and I cried at the computer.

I doubted my ability to continue breastfeeding, to keep up with the appetites of the little barracuda and whether or not I had it in me to be a pacifier when I had four other children, a husband and a household to take care of.  And what did breastfeeding have to do with poop and prayer?  I think it boiled down to feeling helpless and not having the answers I wanted, to feeling like I wasn't doing enough, making enough good healthy breast milk that would help his digestion.  Being frustrated and at my wit's end because my milk supply was once again dropping, and I was supplementing with a bottle.


Desperate at the end of the day and into the evening, I began to massage Jed's belly and do the bicycle motion with his legs once more, praying and praying that he would poop.

And finally, at eight o'clock last night, he let it all go.  A humongous, monster poop.  And I was a proud mama, and immediately thanked God for finally answering my prayers!  Jed finally got some relief and I did too, from all the worry and stress.  The baby felt so good that he slept most of the night, only waking once and then going back to sleep.  This mama got almost eight hours of sleep!

When I woke up this morning, I almost felt like I could see a pathway, one that I had missed in my frustration, exhaustion and exasperation.  It seemed like God was saying to me, "I answer in my perfect way, not your human way.  You just needed to be patient with me."

It became clear to me that God had, indeed, answered in his perfect way.  I felt peace that I may have to supplement with formula now and then, but I would continue to nurse him as much as I could first.  That Neverending Night of Nursing had other effects, not just creating a zombie-mom.  He nursed and nursed and increased my milk supply, and got more and more of the good stuff to help him poop the next day.  I also think the formula may have helped, but that's just my opinion and is probably not shared by the breastfeeding community.  Oh well.

I also awoke reassured that I would do what I thought was best for my child, as I have the previous four.  I refuse to feel guilty about giving him a bottle when I need to.  There's not as much milk in these jugs as other moms have, for whatever reason.  He'll get what I can give him, and hopefully his diapers will continue to fill and he'll gain the right amount of weight.  I'm not perfect, but God is, and I'll work with what he's given me.

I will trust Him with even the mundane and try not to ramrod my idea of the right answer down God's throat, and instead, try to listen more carefully and see the big picture.

My hubs gets a big shoutout for listening and building me up at 3:30 a.m. when I needed it, for going downstairs and making a bottle and laying beside me while I blubbered and blew my nose and fed the Jedi.  And thanks to my tremendous friends Amy N., Christy H., and Mandy L., and my sister Karen, for their support, encouragement and love.

And thanks be to God:  "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.  ~Isaiah 55:8

Jed's First Photo Shoot

Our friend Michelle came over to take some photos of our new little guy.  Here are a few for your viewing pleasure!

Jedidiah Has Arrived!

It's been a whirlwind week, and sorry for just now posting about our newest little guy.  Jedidiah Robert arrived at 1:09 a.m. on June 13th.  He weighed in at 8 lbs 6 oz, and was 20.5 inches long.  He has beautiful ash blonde hair and has everyone wrapped around his little finger.

The morning of the 12th started off with us making a trip to the hospital in Virginia because I thought my water had broken and was leaking.  Of course, that turned out to be a false alarm, but since I was so close to my due date, my doctor wanted me to walk around the hospital grounds for an hour and see if we could get my sporadic contractions even and productive.

So close to 1 p.m. they checked me again and I hadn't made any progress before.  I already had a doctor's appointment scheduled for that afternoon at 4, and she wanted to see me back in a few hours for that check up.  Jesse and I went to eat some Mexican food (yum) and shop a little to kill the time, then returned to the clinic for more prodding in sensitive private areas.

I had dilated a centimeter more by then, and the doc thought it a good idea to go ahead and "augment" my labor.  I had a month of intense pelvic pain prior to this appointment and was all for the idea of meeting our new son that day.  Jesse had some reservations, but interrogating questioning the doc about all the risks involved put his mind to ease.

So up to Labor & Delivery we went.  I measured a bit more dilated by then anyway, and my contractions were evening out to be about 3-5 minutes apart on their own.

Couple hours passed, a little pitocin given, three hours of stalled cervix, a bag of waters broken, an intrathecal on board, and then BAM!  Time to push.  About twenty minutes later, our little Jed entered the world.  I screamed him into this world seven hours after labor officially started.

By the way, an intrathecal works great for contractions, but really sucks on the delivery end ... no pain block at all!  I had no idea how spoiled I was with the epidural on the previous four kids.  As close to natural delivery as I'll ever get, and man, Eve was getting some strong reprimanding in my head for a while there.

Now it's nearly a week later.  We've had our challenges in learning how to be a family of seven, but we're hanging in there with much prayer.  For now, the baby Jedi is the apple of everyone's eye.