brush it off

It all started out innocently enough.  Britton wanted to do some fingerpainting.  Sure, that's fine, I want to encourage creativity and all that jazz.  So I leave her side for a couple of minutes to wash some dishes, not five feet away, and return to Britton painting herself.

She explained that she needed to paint her hands in order to get handprints.  How else is she going to do handprints?  That's fine.  I warn her not to touch anything but the paper.  Not the table, not the window, not the chairs, nothing.  And then the inevitable "this is a murder scene" paint spill happens...

But I'm playing it cool because it's washable paint and it was an accidental.  We get it cleaned up, then Britton is back to painting.  Her legs.  It seems that at this point the easel next to her is simply there for decoration.

And that's how we do fingerpainting in this house!

maternity leave endeth

It's helped me out mentally to have a maternity leave that mimics a school summer vacation.  Just as I did for almost 20 years of my life, I eagerly anticipated May (in this case, not the end of school, but the end of work) and have dreaded August.  Every day of the last three months has been a countdown, one day closer to the return to work.  

I didn't go through this with Britton.  When I had Britton, I wasn't employed, and I didn't go back to working until she was five months old.  It was hard then, so hard that I vividly remember spending my entire first day staring at my iPhone, watching the video stream from her daycare room.  When my phone battery died by lunch time, I spent my lunch hour charging it back up and logging on as fast as I could. I cried all day, and every day after for at least a week.  I was certain that anything I was getting from my job (money, autonomy, identity other than "mother" and "wife") was not worth the trade off of irreversible damage I was doing by abandoning my daughter in a center where no one would take care of her to the degree that I would.  That same internal fight has waged itself within me ever since.

It doesn't help that this maternity leave has been much easier than Britton's.  I'm more comfortable, more confident, and I don't feel like I'm drowning on a daily basis.  When I was home with Britton I called the hubs regularly to beg him to come home from work early.  I cried some mornings asking him to stay home with me so I wouldn't be the only one Britton needed that day.  I stared at the clock, willing the hours to hurry up.  Not two months into it, my post-partum depression and anxiety diagnosis didn't come as a shock to anyone that knew how hard the previous two months had been for me.  But now, just over two months in Barrett's life, there's no post-partum depression, no anxiety, and no overwhelming paralyzing need to break away from my home just so I can breathe.  

Britton's teacher reported to me today that Britton was in a bad mood today, refusing to each lunch and being highly sensitive with easily hurt feelings.  Once I got her into the car I asked her what she was feeling and why her teacher would describe her like that.  "I missed you today, Mommy" was her answer.  I kept Britton in daycare while on maternity leave for two reasons:  I wanted her to stay in her routine, knowing that I'd only be out of work for 12 weeks, and also I didn't want her to be at the mercy of a newborn.  For the first 6-8 weeks, my days were filled with the need to respond to every whim of Barrett.  Some days he would eat every hour, some days he refused to nap more than 30 minutes.  I didn't want to stick Britton in front of the television for hours on end while I tended to the needs of her brother.  

August 5th.  That's my first day back.  I purposefully chose the Monday after Britton's birthday so I could spend the week before her party getting ready and cleaning the house and donating work clothes that will never fit and finally getting around to all the little errands and chores that I put off because Barrett needed to nap or Britton wanted to go on a walk.  August 5th we, my family, start all over again.  There will be another new morning routine, a new daycare room, new teachers, new day.  I will miss being home with my baby all day, but I will also miss the hugely-therapeutic "me" time I've had over the last 10 weeks.  During Barrett's naps, I've quilted and sewed, talked to my sister and mom on the phone, updated family photo albums, finished editing home videos, read books, seen movies, even taken a nap or two.  It's been selfish time and I needed it and I admit that I will miss it.  

Next week is my final week of non-work.  I know myself.  I will drag my feet.  I will put off thinking about it.  I will pretend that August 5th isn't a week away.  And then, come August 5th, I will take my babies to daycare, get back in the car, head towards work, and cry my eyes out.

pool time anytime

It's been hot here the last couple of days, as it has been all along the east coast.  Well, it's been what people around here consider "hot" - over 90 degrees.  But since I used to live in Oklahoma and Texas, where we regularly wore short sleeves all year long and it topped 90 degrees at Thanksgiving, we're not losing it over the heat.  But because no one here is used to it, the public pool has become a veritable crowd control issue, and I'm not thinking that it's relief from the heat if I'm trying to swim in my 2 square inches of personal space in the shallow area of the pool.

So, our neighbors put out their blow up pool and Britton saw it.  Which of course means that she wanted to get in ours.  Since we had failed to hide the pool well, she knew we had it and had every intention of getting into it, cold hose water be damned.  While the hubs blew up the pool and filled it, I got myself and Barrett ready to join them.  But the water really was ridiculously cold, so Barrett hung out with the hubs while I froze, standing in 8 inches of water.

The driveway pool is the newest thing, didn't you know?

Britton loved every minute of it!  She especially loved pretending to be her swimming teacher, and instructing me to "scoop the water!" and "put your arms out like Superman!"

I convinced her to get out so I could hold the baby and the hubs could get dinner done.  And I've promised to take her to the public pool tomorrow so she can actually swim (with a life jacket).  But it doesn't open until 11:30 am, so you know she's going to spy that pool still in the driveway and want back in.  I just hope it's warmed up by then!

scrappy summer quilt

I was checking out my favorite quilting blogs and ran across this one here - Cluck Cluck Sew's Scrappy Summer quilt.  The colors, the simple four square blocks of white and solid, and the chance to use my scraps all made me want to make this quilt.  So I got down to business, cutting out squares and squares and squares of my fabric stash.  This quilt has squares of the first and second quilts I ever made, every dress I've ever made Britton, every quilt I've made Britton, and some fabrics I had no idea I even had!  It's a virtual "Where's Waldo?" of past projects.

And for the first time, I have pictures of the progress!  I don't know why I don't photograph the process, but I think it comes down to two reasons: one, I take photos to document the quilts and I know how I made them, and two, I don't have a quilt blog so it's not like I'm trying to teach people how to quilt through photos.  But I wanted to show Jessica and Memaw this quilt in progress, because I was so excited about how it was turning out!

The binding is a red pin dot (I have pin dot squares in blue, green, brown, and grey in the quilt) and the backing is the same incredibly soft butter yellow sheet from Target I used for Memaw's purple and black quilt.  I did my loopy free motion quilting because I wanted the quilt to be all crinkly and snuggly.

Britton asked me who the quilt is for, which is funny because I don't keep any of my quilts.  Either they are made as gifts or they are donated to charity, but it seems that even if I don't have a plan for a quilt the quilt finds its way to a home that isn't mine.  Imagine Britton's surprise when I told her it was ours!

And Sadie just had to sneak a snuggle too.  Doesn't she look so guilty?  Or crabby, I'm not sure.

This is my last quilt for a while.  My maternity leave is up in two weeks, and I'm moving into some handmade Christmas presents that oddly enough are not quilts!  But I'll keep checking out my quilt blogs, because who knows where the next quilt inspiration will come from?

britton's 4th birthday quilt

As you may or may not know, I started making birthday quilts for Britton around her second birthday (I didn't start quilting until she was over a year old).  Previously I made her the Bee Quilt (see here) and the Calendar Quilt (see here) for her birthdays in years past.  

I've been working on this quilt for about a year now.  Well, not continuously working on it!  I fell in love with the "Ruby" fabric line from Bonnie and Camille, but of course I discovered it only after it became difficult to find.  I was able to track down two charm packs on Etsy, then found the robin's egg blue pin dot border and red scallop binding fabric at my quilt shop in Texas.  The main colors are red, pink, robins egg blue, grey, and cream, and the combo of all of them is perfect for Britton.  I started this quilt when we lived in Texas but made little progress on it!  Other quilts took precedent, and then suddenly Britton's birthday was nearing and I needed to get this quilt finished fast.  And I'm so glad I did!  

The pattern is "Dilly Dally," also by Bonnie and Camille, and is the first quilt pattern I ever bought.  I just couldn't face all the math in figuring it out myself!  

I quilted it in my loopy free motion quilting, which just makes the entire quilt snuggly and crinkly and perfect.

Here is the border and binding.  I have binding material left over, and you can bet that it will turn up in future projects.  

The backing is a cherry fabric from JoAnns.  Confession time:  I have been eyeing this fabric for a long long long time.  I usually wait for fabrics to not be on sale at JoAnns, because then I get to use my 40% off coupon (when JoAnns puts fabrics on sale, it's usually only 30% off and you can't use a coupon).  But this fabric is always on sale!  But for $4.89 a yard, it was still a steal, so I grabbed it up for the backing and it just makes the quilt.  And the fabric is so ridiculously soft.  I plan on going back to JoAnns and stocking up on this cherry fabric because I love it so much!

it's been a long week

We started out last Wednesday with a two-month wellness check at the pediatrician office.  And shots.  Oh, the shots.  This was Barrett's first round of shots and I had no idea how he would react.  Fever?  Screaming for hours?  Hmmm, as you can tell, I'm an optimistic when it comes to such things!  But seriously, I was hoping for the best, and I got it.  As Jessica predicted, Barrett came home and took a THREE HOUR NAP.  It was awesome.  And he wasn't too sore or too cranky either.  

And there was 4th birthday party preparations for Britton.  First and foremost, Britton's birthday quilt...

And making cake pops!  If I had known it was so easy, I wouldn't have been buying them at Starbucks!    I followed this recipe and they turned out amazing.  Into the freezer they go for the next three weeks.

And washing 9 month clothing I didn't think I'd be pulling out this soon.  Seriously, nine months.  Barrett is now 16 pounds, 0.6 ounces and 25 inches.  I asked what percentiles those are, and it appears they are off the chart measurements.  Big boy here.

 

baby sleeps. i sew

The first few weeks of Barrett's life were a blur of feeding him every 2 to 3 hours - no long stretches of sleep at night and no naps over 1.5 hours.  Slowly but surely, he's eased into longer night sleeping, which makes me more clear-headed and energetic.  And then the naps came, at least an hour but usually closer to 2 hours and over.  And while I was a baby robot for those first few weeks, barely getting more accomplished in a day than unloading the dishwasher (getting out of pajamas and showering were optional, let's be real), I slowly eased into wanting to get back to quilting.

Waiting for me were three of Memaw's (Memaw was my mother-in-law's mother) quilt tops she never finished into quilts.  I've now completed all the quilts she left undone, and really, that's the way it should be.  You know from previous postings that it's a quilter's moral obligation to finish quilts that quilters before you left incomplete.  And I knew when Memaw passed that it would be up to me since I'm the quilter in the family.  Finishing these quilts was therapeutic - exactly what I needed to get back into the swing of things after the complete disconnect of having a baby.  I've since completed two additional quilts and two quilt tops.  I'm on a roll!

This was the last quilt Memaw made specifically for our Memaw, my mother-in-law.  I backed it in a queen-sized yellow sheet and straight-lined stitched the borders, with free-motion tracing of the dresden flowers.  I even found enough extra black flowered material for the binding!

This one came from Aunt Judy, and was an unfinished quilt top made by Memaw.  I straight-line stitched the borders (once that walking foot gets on my machine, I have a hard time taking it off!), and is backed in a sheet as well.

The last unfinished quilt top from Memaw.  I again (broken record here, folks) straight-line stitched the borders and found enough fabric from one of the doll's dresses in Memaw's stash to do the binding.  

One of my goals of maternity leave was to finish these three quilts, which had so patiently waited in my sewing room stacks.  Now I'm engrossed in Britton's birthday quilt, hopefully getting that finished up by next week.  More quilts to come!

2 months old

Two months feels like the first big milestone to reach!  We've made it through the newborn up-all-night ridiculousness and completely random eating and sleeping, and settled into a nice routine.  Now that Barrett has rid himself of the gas issues for the most part, his personality is coming out.  Barrett is a sweet baby, usually only fussy when he has a burp he can't get out.  In the evenings, during the "Witching Hour" of 6:00 pm until 7:00 - 8:00 pm, he can be cantankerous.  He makes the hubs soothe him like there's no tomorrow.  

But mostly, he's just content. He eats his bottle (usually 3-4 oz) of Similac Alimentum and Sensitive combined.  Using only Alimentum makes him spit up because it's too thin, using only Sensitive makes him spit up because it's too thick, so combining the two is the winning combo for him.  When he's finished eating, he turns his head and shuts his eyes.  He's full and he's ready to nap.

We moved him into his room to nap, still in the Rock and Play.  He naps longer in there by himself (went for a 3 hour nap today!) and I swaddle him for every nap except his last afternoon nap.  Once he wakes up he thinks he's starving and needs a bottle immediately.  Then I keep him upright for about 10 minutes to prevent spitting up and hiccups (the hiccups lead to gas and irritated stomach issues).  Once we're in the clear, I change his diaper and make faces at him. This boy is a flirt!  He loves cooing at me, sticking out his tongue at me when I stick mine out at him, and squinting up his eyes and laughing.  If he gets to check out the black and white pictures on the wall, he's happy.  Tummy time, not so much!  Then between 45 minutes and an hour and 15 minutes after waking up from his nap, he's ready for an ounce or two of formula (we call this his "Angry Ounce") and some quick rocking, and he's back in the Rock and Play, to put himself to sleep.

We haven't moved him into his room for night sleeping because the bottle warmer we ordered isn't here yet.  We have a two story house, and as I've whined about before, I'm not walking up and down stairs all night.  So the hubs and I decided to move our mini-fridge and a bottle warmer to our room and prep bottles there when he feeds at night.  Night feeding was moving to only 1:00 am and 5:00 am (going to bed at 8:00 pm), then he decided to go to bed at 7:30 pm and wanted to feed at 12:00 am, 3:00 am, and 6:00 am.  So we're still waiting for that to work itself out!  But we've kept to our bedtime routine religiously, and he now loves his baths.

Barrett likes when I take him outside during the day to feel the sunshine (if we're lucky) and hear the birds.  A little bit of stimulation goes a long way, so we try to keep things relatively calm around him until he's older and can handle more.

He doesn't have his doctor appointment until Wednesday (first immunizations) so I don't know his weight or length.  But I suspect he's at least 16 pounds because this boy is heavy!  He's in size 2 diapers already, and wearing 6 month (and some 9 month) clothing already.

Likes:  smiling and interacting with us, warm bottles, when Britton talks to him, his bath, riding in the car, his room, the swing

Dislikes:  waiting for bottles, tummy time, having his nails trimmed (he won't unclench his fists, so we can't trim them!)

4th of july

Yesterday, Britton celebrated the Fourth of July at school with a parade around the school. Complete with a glittered bowl hat and a baton made of what I think was originally a drink swizzle stick.  With paper streamers taped to it, because you all know it's not a party (or, in this case, our nation's birthday party) without some streamers!  And she was so proud of the tie-dye shirt she made at school, even though she pointed out that she didn't actually get to "make" it.  She explained that only the teachers were allowed to touch the dye, but I explained that she still got to help because she watched.  That's logic to a three-year-old!

I wanted to surprise Britton and go see the parade, but Sadie's impacted anal gland (for the love of God, do not google that image) and subsequent emergency vet visit put that plan out of reach.  And for anyone wondering about Sadie, tomorrow morning she's getting sedated and having that sucker cleaned out.  I can't talk about how much money this dog has cost us without crying.  

Back to less gross things - the 4th!  We were all home today and didn't do much in the way of celebrating.  Britton and I made it to the pool for some swimming and Slush Puppies, and I went to the grocery store.  Man, we know how to live it up! We weren't invited to any cook-outs, and with small kids we don't enjoy fireworks shows so much as curse them these days.  It's not even dark here until at least 9:00 pm, and any enjoyment Britton would get out of a fireworks show would be quickly replaced by overtired shenanigans and crabbiness.  That girl needs her sleep, and so does her mommy, so we're skipping fireworks until everyone in house can stay up that late!

47 months old

Let me tell you something about birthday parties in Pennsylvania - invites go out early.  Two weeks ago, we received an invite to a kid's party that falls on the Saturday before Britton's party, as in one week prior.  So I got my invites squared away (ordered from Etsy and printed them out at Kinkos) and put them in school cubbies last week.  For a party that's still 5 weeks away.

Even with planning her party and ordering presents, I still can't believe Britton is one month away from turning FOUR.  Last Saturday we were at the library and the librarian was trying to sign kids up for the summer reading club.  She asked me what grade Britton is in, and was floored when I told her Britton is only three years old!  She was certain Britton had at least finished kindergarten because, in her words, "she's so tall!"  That she is, librarian lady, that she is.  The hubs and I actually looked it up, and Britton is the average height and weight of an eight-year-old.  I can't make this stuff up!

Britton can write her alphabet, her first and last name, and her numbers.  I discovered that she could write numbers when we were playing hopscotch last Sunday and she proceeded to draw her own hopscotch game and fill it in with 1 through 10.  It is such an odd disconnected feeling when your child is learning things you didn't teach her.  

She's doing really well dealing with the addition of her brother, if only because we have made sure she gets plenty of time alone with me.  Every weekend I take her to her swim lessons and the library, and any errands I need to run, and every evening after dinner we take a walk together.  Then when we get home I do her bath and books and tucking in.  It's tiring, but it works!

Did I mention that she threw out her first swear word?  It was bound to come.  A couple of weeks ago when Memaw was visiting, Memaw was trying to get her dog Boomer to go outside and pee.  Well, Britton sees it and goes, "That damn dog!"  I think it's a safe assumption that she heard PawPaw say it about Boomer, because I've heard him say it myself.  But we got such a kick out of it (the hubs and I had to hide our laughter), even though we had to have to inevitable discussion about "adult words" and how there are just some words kids can't say.  

Likes:  meatballs (she'd have them every meal), granola bars, pink lemonade, vanilla milkshakes, swimming and the water park, cutting anything and everything with her scissors, painting with the hubs, helping out with gardening and cleaning, reading books, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood

Dislikes:  Sadie sitting on her, riding her bike (I don't know why)