The week before Christmas was busy.
And I haven’t been writing anything here for a while.
Last week we spent the majority of our evenings battling “demon baby” (or is it daemon?) after midnight. That’s what we call it when Elizabeth starts screaming her little head off, gets stiff as a board, and seems to do it for no reason at all. Seriously. She’ll be fed, changed, wrapped up, held, bounced, walked around, etc, and she’ll still be red-faced, eyes clenched, wailing. I’m waiting for the horns to protrude.
This past week we seem to think we might have this whole spiel liked. We’ve found that topping her off with some more milk, followed by a bath in the sink seems to calm her right down, and within 20 minutes of the bath, she’s out cold. It’s worked like a charm the last two nights in a row, and we’ve been getting record amounts of sleep. Just this morning she slept from about 1:00 AM to about 5:30. A new record, and one we welcomed.
We’ve also been grateful to Kylene’s family for helping take care of her a few nights so that we could sleep. Major help. Sleep is nice. After three weeks with an infant, Kylene and I were both weak and sickly, and needed sleep.
Last week I was busy finishing up some Christmas gifts that we made, taking care of E-beth while I was home, and trying to figure out what to get Kylene for Christmas.
This week I’m out of the office (other than the four hours I’m in today) and hope to get some things done around the house.
Last night I finally finished up the Jointer Cabinet I made back in October — right before Elizabeth’s chest of drawers. I took the jointer off, masked off the parts I didn’t want painted, and sprayed two coats of white PVA primer, sanding lightly between coats. I love that primer.
I got a mortising machine for Christmas from Kylene! w00t!!
Before Christmas I picked up a rail & stile set for making 15-degree beveled shaker-style cabinet doors. I’m going to piece together plans for a coping sled, post the sled jig to woodworkingcheap.com, and start working on cabinet doors for the kitchen (again) in the near future. I plan on taking the existing sets of doors (that aren’t square, aren’t jointed properly, were over-sanded, and were a nice first-try learn by doing set of mistakes) and ripping them down with my table saw to reclaim most of the wood. I should be able to make some smaller projects (I know a little girl that needs a rocking chair) out of the scraps.
I won’t be able to spend more than an hour or two in the garage every couple nights for a while. Daddy duty is more important.