Baby August  was born on August 31, 2008 at 2:21 a.m. He was 9 pounds, 12 ounces and 21 inches long.

Yes, we make giganto babies in my family!

Things are going pretty well so far. Augie is a great eater and he caught on much more quickly to nursing than Wyatt did. We’ve all been adjusting to being a family of four. Wyatt is having a little bit of a hard time, but over all he seems pretty happy to be a big brother. I think he would just prefer that Augie didn’t take so much of Mom and Dad’s attention.

My maternity leave began today.

I suppose if you want to get technical, it officially began on Saturday, the first day after my last day of work. But Saturday felt like a regular Saturday and it took a weekday to make me realize I’m really and truly off work for awhile. When you add in that Wyatt is on his preschool vacation and that Zach is working his booty off trying to rack up contract hours, I got a real taste of what life would be like if I was a full-time stay-at-home mom.

So here’s how it went:

8:00 am: We all got up at the same time which was odd, because usually one of us gets up with Wyatt and the other sleeps a little longer.

8:15 am: Zach fixes Wyatt a bun and some fruit for breakfast, then makes eggs and toast for us while I drink tea, read the comics and do a sudoku.

8:55 am: I read my email and realize that on a normal day, I would be rushing out the door right now to get to work only a little bit late.

9:00 - 10:20 am: Various play and getting ready for the day activities.

10:20 - 10:30 am: Drive to the park for playgroup. Wyatt shouts at me the whole time, telling me that I’m going the wrong way and that he won’t get to play with Little Rachel because I’m going to get us lost and everyone will go home before we even get there. I’ve got the GPS and I’m pretty confident that I’m going to the right place, but the three-year-old in the back seat actually manages to shake my confidence in my typically great sense of direction. I also try to ignore him repeatedly telling me, “I am right and you are wrong.” but I fail and start to argue with him. Sigh.

10:30 am: When we arrive at the playground, we are the first ones there. Wyatt says “I told you we are at the wrong park!” several times but is soon distracted by the slide.  Soon afterward, the other parents start arriving and I am vindicated.  I chat with the other parents about sleep, leaving the house with a newborn, sleep, weight loss and more sleep while the kids play. I feel my focus shifting from my stressful web development job to parenting and greatly enjoy it.

12:30 pm: Leave the park and head to Costco. On Zach’s advice, I buy Wyatt a slice of pizza and a lemonade when we first arrive and he happily sits in the cart eating his lunch and trying various samples as we do our shopping. I buy an insane amount of stuff in preparation for the impending arrival of a newborn, including diapers and wipes for the new baby. One more thing to cross off my pre-baby to-do list.

2:00 pm: Back at home, Zach laughs out loud at the amount of stuff I bought, but I assure him that you really need a 60-pack of taquitos when you have a tiny baby in the house (easy to eat one-handed and we can send them in Wyatt’s lunch).

2:30 pm: Zach and Wyatt build a blanket fort while I sit on the couch with my feet up and give advice on how best to ensure the structural integrity of their house.

3:00 - 4:00 pm: Wyatt and I participate in various relaxational activities while Zach does more programming.

4:00 pm: Wyatt and I decide we want to have a nap and lay down on the bed with a pile of books to read. Despite several attempts by Wyatt to steal my pillow (”Mama! You have to share!”), I manage to hang on to it, but neither of us fall asleep. Still, we enjoy reading about Frances and her adventures.

5:00 pm: Wyatt and I make banana bread, then do puzzles and have a blueberry snack at the kitchen table.

6:00 pm: I clean off the top of my dresser, my nesting activity of the day. Because you really need to have a clean dresser when you have a new baby in the house.

6:30 - 8:00 pm: Zach and Wyatt go to the gym. I finish cleaning off my dresser, start this blog post and make dinner.

8:00 pm: We all eat dinner. Wyatt is super good at the table, but we’re running late for bed time.

8:30 - 9:30 pm: Clean the kitchen and start the dishwasher. Bath, jammies, tooth brushing, “hot tea” and stories.

10:00 pm: Wyatt is finally asleep. Time for Generation Kill and a foot rub from my dearest.

All in all a good day. I think I could use a few more of these before the baby comes, though.

My latest craft project was to make a bunch of swaddling blankets for the new baby. When Wyatt was teeny-tiny, the only way he would sleep was if he was being held, and even then he never slept more than three hours at a time.  I’m all for attachment parenting and co-sleeping, but sitting up in bed all night holding a baby is not exactly conducive to getting a good night’s sleep. Swaddling saved me from going insane. The very first time I swaddled Wyatt properly, he slept for five hours straight in his co-sleeper which meant that I slept for five hours straight lying down in bed. When I woke up, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. It was the most sleep I’d had in a month. I was so energized, I felt like I could run a marathon.

Hmmmm…OK…maybe not a marathon.

I felt like I could walk around the block.

Anyway, I wanted to be sure we had a good supply of swaddling blankets for the new baby, so the other day I went over to the new fabric store by our house and I bought three 42 inch squares of flannel. I know I could have just washed the fabric and used the blankets without doing anything to them, but I wanted a finished edge to keep the cloth from fraying.

I didn’t do anything complicated at all to finish up the edges. I just finger folded each edge over by a quarter of an inch and stitched along all four sides. Then I folded each edge over again and did another pass over them with the sewing machine. Easy peasy.

I’ve been collecting some good links lately and thought I would share them with you, Internet.

Craft Blog — I feel pretty neutral about Craft magazine — don’t love it, don’t hate it — but I looooove their blog. They always have great, interesting, amusing projects and post a bunch every day.

Bembo’s Zoo — Great site for kids. Animals and letters combine in a cool visual tool.

This Tom Selleck Cake — I’d like a hunk of cake like this!

Where the Hell is Matt — his videos rock. I find it very difficult to watch these without tearing up at the thought of how amazing this world is. And we’re going to vacation in Vallejo this summer….

Japanese Paper Dioramas — I keep telling myself, “I don’t have time for another hobby. I don’t have time for another hobby.” So far I’ve resisted.

The Big Picture — amazing photos updated every few days.

Classic Photos recreated in Legos — click through to the photo page to get links to the originals.

We walked over to the store with the wagon to get a few groceries, but Wyatt started acting a little bored almost even before we left our front yard.

To distract him, I handed him my point and shoot and asked him if he could take pictures of things as we walked along. His first assignment? Take a picture of something blue:

Take a picture of something red:

Take a picture of something purple:

Take a picture of some garbage:

I did not instruct him to take a picture of my booty, but that’s one of the hazards of handing your child a camera when you’re pulling him in the wagon. Of course, a normal person wouldn’t have posted this picture on the internet….

Wyatt has been doing very well with his lunches the past couple of weeks. Reducing the amount of food I send to school with him has really seemed to improve the amount he eats. I’m sure that it’s helping a lot that he’s settling in at preschool too. The excitement of eating with all the other kids seems to be wearing off a bit and I think that helps him to sit still and actually eat a bit more of his lunch each day.

Since he’s been eating more of his lunch, I decided to branch out from what I had been sending and start adding vegetables back into his lunches. In the past, I’ve tried sending veggies and they all returned home untouched. My goal this week was to send something different every day to see what got eaten and what didn’t.

Tuesday was green bean day. Wyatt will occasionally gobble down all of his green beans at dinner, but other times he leaves them untouched. I also sent blueberries, half a banana and smoked chicken and gruyere sausage cut into chunks.

Veggie Success: None! He ate everything except the green beans.

Wednesday was tomato day. I cut them in half and drizzled them with a little strawberry balsamic vinegar. I also sent half a PB&J sandwich, more blueberries and some goldfish crackers.

Veggie Success: Partial! He ate about half the tomatoes.

Thursday was peas day. I also sent another chicken sausage (cut in half length-wise and horizontally), ketchup for dipping, cheese stars and a mini blueberry muffin from the freezer.

Veggie Success: Partial. The peas came home untouched but he ate them as a snack along with the leftover sausage before dinner.

Friday is corn day. I really had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to put this lunch together because we were out of nearly everything. Along with the corn he’s getting grapes, a mini blueberry muffin and home-made trail mix of Puffins, dried blueberries and a couple of chocolate chips.

Veggie Success: Unknown. He’s still at preschool as I’m typing this.