Oma's Christening Gown

Well, the little man may not be subjected to the formality of a traditional christening, but he will have to suffer the tradition of wearing the gown. Lala got him dressed this morning while Mom was showering and unable to protest.

The gown was handmade by my great-great grandmother, Emma Gregory. My Oma and all her siblings wore the gown for their christenings, my father and his siblings all wore it, and my sister and I both wore it. It's a beautiful gown and really shows how much love and care used to go into clothes. The picture doesn't show detail of the gown, but the detail of Uli's awfully cute.

Right on with traditions.

Can you believe Papo wore that once? (11/25/07)

Toys for Christmas

So, it may be tough to get toys for Christmas for the Uli man. We just watched the news and the recommendation from several groups was to not buy any toys from China that a child under 2 would put in his mouth. Guess we're going to have to get old fashioned and buy wooden toys and paint them ourselves. Or... buy American made - does the good old USA make toys any more???

I think I'll just get him a carrier so that we can start hiking with him after Christmas.

We're also all organic now for the munchkin's clothes. Trust me, I did not make this decision, although I was probably the catalyst for my husband's newest neuroses. Baby skin is apparantly significantly thinner than adult skin, and therefore absorbs a lot more chemicals than adult skin. No chemicals for the Uli man. We didn't have a homebirth to avoid drug exposure only to allow for chemical exposure through his clothes. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, he isn't exposed to chemicals through his food either - I only eat organic foods. Only chemicals Uli man gets is from the air... considering we live in a fairly rural area, I am thinking his exposure is not too bad.

Picture of the cutie:

No caffeine in the house...

There are no caffeinated coffee beans in the house. This is a tragedy, and frankly, its dangerous to those who come into contact with me. I should put a warning sign out front to warn visitors: uncaffeinated, sleep-deprived Melanie on the loose...

Luckily, we just got a Starbucks that's a five minute walk from my front door. The world is safe for another day.

Uli and I made our coffee run this morning at about 9 am. It was near 40 degrees out. He got to wear his new Capilene. Here's how cute we were: