Hurray, hurray!  We've made it through the first four months of Sebastien's life relatively unscathed.  We can't really remember the meaning of "sleep in" anymore, but who needs sleep anyway (word of warning to you, Phil, you might want to take time off from work and sleep 24/7 for a while).

The last month has been particularly easy for us due to Lia's visit (Mihai's mom), who allowed us to postpone daycare for a while longer.  As you can see below, Mihai finally got some help on the various chores around the house.



Just kidding about this.  Our house has been vacuumed, multiple times, the sidewalks have been swept, and even the front windows got sprayed down with the hose.   All these things we can no longer do because of Sebastien (ok, we're joking again... can't really remember when we last did any of these things in the past two years).

Four months after Sebastien's birth and his fancy cradle is finally done.  Mihai will never do dovetails at an angle again.  But if any of you is willing to try, a word of caution: don't bother measuring the angles too precisely.  If you first fit the ends into the bottom, you can use the resulting angles (as imperfect as they may be) to scribe the sides of the box.  If only I'd thought this through before I started.  Another word of warning: when edge-gluing the various panels making the box, use narrow (< 4 in.) panels.  Otherwise the wood warps horribly with the change of the seasons (yes, it took me so long).  But, enough talk, and here's the outcome.  The baby slept in it once.  Now the cradle is a storage unit for the various baby toys.



But, let's get back to the baby.  At 4 months he's grown quite a bit: as far as we can tell he's about 26 in. in length and just over 20 lbs. (measured with our bathroom scale).   Which means his old Graco car seat, borrowed from Oli and Aurora,  was no longer appropriate.  We thus found ourselves at Buy Buy Baby trying to figure out a solution that will last us a bit longer than 4 months.  After long discussions with the salesperson, we settled on the Britax Marathon - the Cadillac of carseats, mainly because it is rated for longer and heavier babies than other carseats.  Rumors have it it's also more comfortable, but as neither of us could fit in and Sebastien doesn't speak, we cannot vouch for this statement.  But, here it is in all its glory.  The next project is getting another seat for our little Golf, hopefully something cheaper than the resale value of the car.



Four months also means we're nearing the day when we'll abandon Sebastien in the arms of a ruthless daycare provider just so we can pretend to work for a while.  We thought we'd taken care of the whole daycare issue.  After many phone calls and several visits to the local daycares, we had finally settled on a daycare found through Monday Morning Moms, a referral service that also do all sorts of cool stuff, like check up on the providers more often than the state does.  While the daycare they provided was a bit farther than we would have liked (about 15 minutes/5 miles from our house) it was still pretty much on Mihai's way into work.  Plus we liked the lady (Christina) and the other kids.  A couple weeks ago, however, with less than a month to go before Sebastien was supposed to start, we got the news that Christina had bought a new house and was going to move, daycare and all, another mile and a half away from our home.  On top of this, we would not be able to see the new place, nor would it be licensed, until probably very shortly before we would start daycare.  Nevermind that Christina is on vacation during the third week of August.  Not exactly what we had expected from Monday Morning Moms (warning to all of you that might be looking). 

Thus, Marina found herself again on the phone, trying to drum up another local daycare, with very little time to spare.  We were fortunate enough to find an opening in a place within a few blocks from our house: an Ecuadorian lady who likes to keep a small "class" - pretty much an ideal situation for us, other than keeping Sebastien at home.

But enough talk for now.  We all know what you're really reading this blog for.  Mihai's woodworking advice.  So, if you want to handplane your stock, it helps if you wax the bottom of the plane with an old candle.  Also...

Hmm.. Marina just burst my bubble.  You're really here for Sebastien's pictures.  Shucks.  Anybody for woodworking advice?  Please?  


See me in action: Splish Splash! (tilt head to the right for optimal viewing)


Mihai's learned too much from the cat.

Here's the "little" one in all his glory!

And here's to his 4th month!  Happy Birthday dude!