Saturday Cobwebs

It's a sleepy Saturday morning in the valley. Mr. P and I are cruising around on the internet, and Mr. D is dreaming of catching blue jays (probably).  Just a few notes...

 

<sigh> Not only would I not mind being in London, but I would love to assist at this Pontifical High Mass that Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos will be celebrating in June! Read more about it at www.latin-mass-society.org.

On an unrelated note, I'm discovering that the baby goods industry is just as full of marketing and messaging as the wedding industry.  If anything, it is worse: being a new parent, one is worried about "messing up" or not doing things correctly, and there are all kinds of goods out there to "reassure" you that by buying their goods, you're being a better parent. Examples abound.  Magazines are a good place to start if you want to see what kinds of gadgets are out there for anxious parents. I just read an ad about a "Prenatal Education System" that you strap to your belly.  The gadget then broadcasts "lessons" of various sounds to your unborn child. Spending the money on this product and giving your baby these lessons is supposed to yield all kinds of benefits- smarter! more ready to nurse! etc!  I wonder who gets suckered into these things? I recently talked about language development with a professor from BYU. He listed for me all of the abilities that infants have, innately, when it comes to language absorption and retention. An 18-month old, for instance, already knows syntax- well before he even comes close to reading. Babies have abilities that the rest of us will never have again in our lives. And Socrates, and Thomas Aquinas, and Einstein never had prenatal learning systems that their mothers diligently strapped to their bellies.

So some baby stuff is bunk, or at least easy to reject out-of-hand. But then there's the things that are traditional, and can cost a lot of money now: mobiles! wicker bassinets! strollers that look like old-fashioned prams! These are MY Achilles' heel. I almost buy these things, in my happy baby fog.

I realize, though, that darn it, I am a crafty person who was raised by a crafty mom. When we needed costumes, she made them. When our American Girl dolls lacked clothes or fancy steamer trunks, she made them. And she loves doing those kinds of things-and she passed the love of handmade goods onto us. I can knit and crochet, sew a little and embroider. My sister knits even better than I, can make soap, and does wonders with pastels and paper.

I was at the Pottery Barn website. If you want to see expensive items, especially for little people, go there. They have these adorable mobiles- one was even on sale. I was tending towards the sale one, when something shook me out of my consumer stupor: I could make some of these! They had soft, home-sewn stars and moons on them. I think I even made something like these stars for Girl Scouts in 3rd grade. So there's another project to add to the pile. A challenge, really: I want to make this mobile in such a way that no one knows it's been homemade.

I've also been hung up on baby furniture. I NEED a baby dresser, I thought. We're short on closet space. Then I returned to reality, again, and realized that I already have smaller, modular dressers that are even the right color. With new knobs, they will look very nursery-ish. Done, and hundreds of dollars NOT spent.

A dear friend of mine works at a magazine. She sent me copies of tons of wonderful, old baby patterns, mainly knitting patterns. Among them is the pattern, with a whole photo layout, for a sweater that Princess Grace knit for Princess Caroline. Imagine! Even princesses once knitted for their babies, even though, unlike for other moms, the need for knitted items was absent in Princess Grace's case. But other households traditionally relied on home-knit undies and baby items. And here we are now, not even considering that we could make some of the things that we buy. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I don't HAVE to knit a whole layette set. But as we try to consume and waste less, making certain things from scratch can be really economical. And it cuts the clutter from our lives.

I told you that this was a random post.  I just hope that it didn't add to the clutter of your own day!