Can you paint fabric storage cubes?
Just about everybody has one of those “cube” organizers, whether it’s Ikea’s Kallax or one of the thinner knock-offs sold elsewhere.
We had a six-cube unit* that floated around the house for years — closets, bedrooms, different closets — before winding up in our daughter’s room. Now it’s a six-unit Barbie office complex, complete with a dentist and a daycare centre.
Years ago my mom let me take her 16-cube light birch Kallax. It was my first Ikea piece and I was so proud of it.
Remembering the ‘baby bubble’
Something in our conversation startled me. I leaned back in my desk chair reflectively, like an old lady in a rocking chair thinking back on her life.
“Of course. Mum-Mums,” I thought to myself. “Those awful, sticky, lighter-than-air baby cookies. They made such a mess. How could I have forgotten that?”
It had been so long since I thought of the Mum-Mums and Gerber puffs that used to fill the pockets of my diaper bag. There were little baby cheesies, too, and they tasted OK. Except the tomato flavour — those were gross.
I had been interviewing Courtney Ceponis from Port City Strollers for an article about her fitness classes, and listening to her talk about life with her 10-month-old son made me feel nostalgic … and old.
Was it really five years ago that I was freezing pureed carrots in ice cube trays? (Remember the weird names I used to delight in giving my concoctions???) That I was snapping up sleepers and tickling roly-poly thighs and patting little diapered newborn bums to hear that satisfying Pampers crinkle?
Our conversation about babies was like a trippy blast through the past, where I remembered everything while also realizing how long it had been. It was like dreaming of a place you haven’t seen in years, and wondering if you’d just imagined it …
When you have a baby and most of your friends have babies, babies absolutely consume your world. You know it, and you laugh about it, but you don’t fully understand its weight until you’ve slipped out the other side.
I remember being in the Baby Bubble, where it was second nature to heft a baby onto my hip and carry them around while I cleared the table or transferred wet laundry to the dryer. I could eyeball a onesie and immediately know if it was a 3-6 month size or a 6-12 month size. I automatically swayed back and forth, even when I was alone in line at the grocery store.
I remember the years I couldn’t carry a small purse. I was always lugging around too much stuff — diapers, wipes, teethers, toys, and the Very Special Last Resort Toy for when I was really desperate. Sometimes I felt like a pack mule, but then I’d save a friend’s morning by having an extra diaper to hand them when they ran out.
Going was a crapshoot, I remember. The nervousness of walking into a restaurant while toting the infant car seat that weighed approximately 80 lbs. The baby might sleep the whole time or they might start wailing when the meal arrives. (It was always, always the latter.) I remember forgetting to order a glass of water, so when the soother falls on the floor I’d swish it in my 7-Up and hope for the best.
I reach up and touch my hair, and I can barely remember the months it was falling out. The months of that ugly fuzzy regrowth. The days I would be wearing the crumpled “in case of emergencies” T-shirt I stuffed in the diaper bag for when I got covered in baby barf or poop … or both.
When I get together with friends now, we don’t talk about how many times our baby fed, or how long of a stretch we managed to sleep. But I remember when that was ALL we could talk about. I remember being genuinely surprised when someone suggested getting together in the early afternoon, because a 1 p.m. nap is just … expected. It felt like the world stopped at 1 p.m., and now it passes without me even noticing.
You aren’t kicked out of the Baby Bubble automatically when your baby turns one, or two, or even three. You walk out of that world so slowly that you barely realize you’re moving.
Then one day you realize everyone in your family eats off the same (non-plastic) plates and drinks from the same (non-sippy) glasses, and you no longer own the fistful of plastic spoons that used to be washed daily. It’s not exciting when everybody sleeps through the night — it’s just annoying on the odd night when someone doesn’t.
You carry a small purse, and the only snack inside is a granola bar you’re probably going to eat yourself. You don’t worry about eating in restaurants, everybody buckles their own seat belt, no one’s going to swallow a nickel (hopefully), and you can make plans that start at 1 p.m.
As much as I love the “big kid” stage, where our son and daughter are funny, independent, and full of personality, there was so much sweetness being in the Baby Bubble. The squishy little tummies, the coos, the tiny grins and giggles.
It was forever ago and it may feel like a dream, but it’s one I won’t ever forget.
Upcycled wood and metal lockers
A few weeks ago I shared how I turned old sticker-covered lockers into cool toy storage for our seven-year-old son’s bedroom.
Now I’m showing you how I took more of those same grungy lockers and gave them a completely different look for my new home office.
The project started the same tedious way — scraping off zillions of stickers.
By the end of the task, I could tell how tricky a sticker was going to be based on the style. (The holographic ones were the absolute worst and now I am permanently traumatized by those tiny, sticky shards.)
When it was time to paint the fronts of the lockers, I went with Tremclad Rust Paint (flat white) but it took a disappointing number of coats — like, six, I think. If I was doing this project again, I’d use Fusion Mineral Paint like I did with our son’s lockers, since it’s thicker and covers much better.
Painting the lockers white wasn’t very exciting, but I had some other details planned for them.
Once the FINAL layer of white paint was dry, my handy husband taped off the lock areas and sprayed them a nice warm gold (Krylon Metallic in “Gold”). I was too nervous to get over-spray on the fresh white paint.
Then it was time for construction! We’d bought a pile of 1x3s ($30) and a sheet of plywood ($15) so I could construct a wooden “surround” for the lockers. My handy husband had originally planned to build it, but we had different timelines — mine was more … immediate — and I wound up building the frame myself in less than an hour.
I started by making two tall, skinny “walls” (the height and depth of the lockers). Then I propped them on either end of the lockers — tilting chairs into them so they didn’t fall forward — and connected them along the top with more 1x3s.
With my handy husband’s help, I cut the plywood into two long pieces to cover the frame walls. Then it was just a matter of holding them in place and using our nail-gun to secure them over the frame — making it look like the lockers were surrounded by thick, chunky timbers.
I sanded the surround and then slid it forward so I could stain it without messing up the lockers. Standing in the middle of the room, it was like a weird wooden archway. I was fresh out of foam brushes, so I grabbed a rag and wiped the exterior down with a nice medium stain (“Early American” by Minwax).
I did a couple of coats of polyurethane the next day, and then my wooden “archway” was ready to slide back into place. I love how the dark wood makes the white lockers pop, and they certainly look much fancier.
Since the lockers were in pretty bad shape, I wound up painting the insides with random leftover paint — green, orange, blue, red, anything I had on the shelf. I also added some shelves made of extra melamine board, but left the middle locker open for hanging/storing long items.
My new wood-and-metal lockers provide plenty of storage space in my new home office, and I could even lock them up if there was something expensive I needed to protect. For now, though, I don’t think anybody’s after my collective of picture frames and wooden letters.
Pin this idea for later!
When your antidepressants backfire
The decision to start taking antidepressants is huge (it shouldn’t be, but that’s a rant for another day) so it’s kind of funny that the decision to CHANGE your meds routine is sometimes even more monumental. Like, didn’t you already take the big step?
Nope.
Change is scary, especially when you’re talking about little pills that change your brain chemistry. Brains are not a thing to be messed around with!
The thing is, you wonder if a change might make things worse. You’ve seen the (ugly) “before,” and what if you’re sent back there? What if you’re zoomed to a dimension that’s even worse? Maybe you should leave well enough alone, or … yeah. It’s weird.
My foray into the world of antidepressants has been pretty basic. I get a lot of private messages about what I’m on and how much I’m taking, so let’s spell it all out here in case someone is too shy to ask. Hooray for TALKING ABOUT IT AND/OR READING ABOUT IT!
When I first made the decision to start them, it was the summer of 2015. (Can’t remember if it was July or August — I know there was T-ball because I remember being especially miserable at the T-ball field.)
My family doctor suggested sertraline and it sounded good to me. Gentle! Popular! It’s what little kids can take!
I started taking 25mg (one yellow pill) each day, and then added a second 25mg after a month. I think I stuck with three pills (total of 75mg) for a while, and at some point I/he/we decided to up it to a full 100mg — replacing my three yellow 25mg pills with one big fatty orange (100ml) pill.
And that’s exactly where I stayed for a long time.
#MomConfession: I made a Minecraft mistake
Want to hear a parenting lesson I never expected to learn? It’s to research a video game before you agree to let your child buy it.
I’m not talking about anything that’s clearly inappropriate, like Grand Theft Auto where they’re stealing cars and beating people up, or a war game where they’re taking down people with Uzis.
I’m talking about the seemingly innocent game of … Minecraft.
I’d been hearing about Minecraft for years, but I didn’t pay much attention since my kids weren’t old enough to get into it. It seemed weird and confusing. Everything’s made of cubes? And there’s a guy named Steve, who is also made of cubes?
I was surprised when our seven-year-old son was suddenly obsessed with the idea of having Minecraft here at home. During a desperate moment of boredom over Christmas break, I agreed he could spend $20 to buy an older version for the PS4.
After all, I reasoned, it’s probably like Lego. The kid does love to build things out of cubes!
I helped him download and install the game, and then I handed over the controllers. The split-screen option meant both kids could play, although I assumed our five-year-old daughter would just bop around and not build much of anything.
Their good buddy came over to join them, and soon all three kids were happily shouting as they “met up” with each other’s characters. I stuck my head in the room to peek at the screen occasionally. They were in some kind of jungle, I think. The fact that everything was pixelated cubes made me a little dizzy.
When I passed through the living room at one point, I actually recognized one of the cube-y shapes.
“Awww, it’s a chicken! Look at him walking around!” I cooed. This was kind of adorable. It was like a — wait a sec! “OH MY GOD, WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THE CHICKEN?”
The kids were giggling as a cube character beat the living snot out of the cute cube chicken.
“We have to!” one of them shouted. “It gives us an egg!”
I watched in horror as they killed a cow to get leather and killed a little hopping rabbit to get a rabbit’s foot (I guess even murderers need luck). They started to hit a wolf but the wolf attacked them instead. Then one of their cube people fell into a lake and struggled for a while before drowning.
Um, I thought this was a BUILDING game — not a freaking bloodbath?!
I told them I didn’t like them wiping out all of the animals and I was thinking about turning the game off, so they quickly went to a new area. They went in and out of little buildings, and even closed the little doors. One of the buildings even had little tiny beds! Ahh, that was better.
I went back to the kitchen as they kids chatted excitedly about “creepers” and had a big discussion about where to find Santa Claus. (Huh?)
I’d almost forgotten about the earlier carnage when I heard a new sound: blood-curdling screams.
I ran back into the living room to find three terrified children shrieking and tossing game controllers and trying to hide under couch cushions.
“ZOMBIES!” they screamed. “ZOMBIES COME OUT AT NIGHT!”
Our daughter was crying hard and the boys were still shrieking while I snatched up a controller and quit the game.
“No more Minecraft!” I boomed.
“Awwwwww,” they complained, as if they hadn’t just been screaming like someone had cut off their legs.
Once everyone had calmed down, I did what I should have done in the first place and started reading up on Minecraft. Apparently the kids had selected “survival mode” where there are plenty of enemies. If your characters don’t find shelter at night, there are all sorts of monsters waiting to get them.
We tried again with the game set to “creative mode,” and they happily wandered around some kind of North Pole village — yes, Santa was there! — and no one attacked anyone else. Well, they tried to kick an elf and I told them to stop. Sheesh.
I know this is just the beginning of our kids’ foray into video games, but never again will I agree to a new game before checking it out in detail. Dora the Explorer never would have killed a poor little chicken.
As featured on …
Heather's Handmade Life 