I have been making an effort these last few weeks to just get things done. There are so many ideas and plans that I have for our home, but I noticed that my days were going something like this:
Get Emma ready for school. Stop and nurse Esther. Take Emma to school. Sit and play with Esther. Start laundry and dishes. Stop and nurse Esther. Finish laundry and dishes. Help Ethan find something to do/play with Esther. Put Esther down for a nap. Spend some time in Bible Study. Write a blog post. Stare blankly into space. Stop and nurse Esther. Run a couple errands. Pick Emma up from school. Help Emma with homework. Read the kids a book. Put Esther down for a nap. Start dinner... you get the idea.
And I noticed that for days on end, the creative part of my brain was getting pushed to the side--to be used when I had some more time. Well, that day may never come. With a nursing baby, things just take longer than they should, and if I was every going to cross anything extra off the list, I just had to make it happen. If you read the above schedule, you may think that I should try doing something creative in that time period where I'm just staring into space...but that cannot be. For some reason, my brain requires that time to transform from jello to semi-functional. So creativity must be squished into the spaces between.
I read somewhere that babies need a variety of mobiles to keep stimulated and interested. (It's a Montessori concept, I think.) If that's the case, I could whip up a quick mobile with simple supplies, and if it turned out terrible, I'd just chuck it and make a new one. Turns out, a simple mobile is still a mobile. And mobiles are cool.
I sent the kids out for twigs, and then just cut some simple shapes out of paper. I backed the shapes with some white paper I had drawn with reds and pinks, and then taped the shapes to a length of thread. Then use more thread to tie everything together.
When you think you're almost done, hang it up somewhere, and slide the knots from side to side to find a good balance point. (I'm going to add a little diagram of this later.)
Then hang it all up with a cup hook.
Esther's room has a ceiling fan, so the shapes gently flutter and spin. She loves it. This buys me a few minutes here and there (of happy + awake time) so I can make up for spending time on a craft. The whole thing probably took about 20 minutes from start to finish.
