Birthday Banner
I made this for Ivan's birthday with the intention of using it for all the kids. I made one banner with Happy Birthday on it and one with his name. I was inspired by various garlands I saw on craft blogs and etsy.com (like here: Party Flags or here)
I didn't use a pattern or a tutorial, just made 6"x5" squares (actually 5"x12" rectangles folded in half) and strung them together on bias tape. The letters are Arial Bold or some such font, enlarged and cut out, then copied onto double sided fusible interfacing, then ironed onto fabric etc etc. It was more work than I had signed up for - which is a realization I have with every project. But it seems to me a level of delusion is necessary for me because otherwise I would never attempt anything. I still have to cut out the letters for the other two kids' names...
Ivan liked it a lot. It helps that his spot at the dining room table faces the garland, so I've seen him read it to himself several times (*pride*). If I had to do it over, I'd put the letters closer together, as I've found that there aren't many surfaces large enough to accomodate the whole thing. Measuring would've been a good idea. But who has the brains and the time to consider such details...
Oh. Eyeroll.
Bundchen also says she was "mindful" about what she ate.
Says the model: "I think a lot of people get pregnant and decide they can turn into garbage disposals."
Judgmental much, Gisele? Oh dear. This is the kind of statement that makes me want to stuff her mouth with a giant donut. Seriously though... Kung Fu and Yoga and Mindfulness! Sure yes, all women should try that... after a full-time job, after making breakfast, lunch and dinner and wiping a bunch of little butts and a couple of milk spills... kicking that Kung Fu through the debilitating nausea, on a diet of crackers and cafein-free coke. I should have tried it. If only I had just been a teeny bit more mindful! But no, there I went slacking off after a 16+hour workday, treating myself like a garbage disposal. I was weak, Gisele, I was weak. I'm sorry.
It's good to know that only people, who truly have valuable things to say get to stand in front of a microphone.
Posted at 02:13 PM on March 15, 2010 | Comments (1)I've been sewing!
Another sign that things are easing up kids-wise is that I've been able to get back to some sewing projects I've had planned years go. One of these is this apron:
It's called Emmeline Apron, by Sew Liberated. I bought the pattern and fabric (Swell by Moda Urban Chiks) in May 2008 (!). I wonder what happened then... But anyway, the pattern itself is fairly straight-forward, just takes a bit of time. I love the end result. I'm not a perfectionist when it comes to household maintanence - as you can confirm by the clutter on the bed in the background - , but there is something about wearing a clean fitted apron in roses and polka dots as you mix the cookie dough. It takes it from plain kitchenwork to domestic magic.
Speaking of magic, it is reversible:
A pretty bow in the back:
The cookies were delicious, by the way.
Posted at 05:16 PM on March 14, 2010 | Comments (5)Up... up... up...
I have three bathrooms to clean, two more beds to cover in new sheets and a bazillion little items to organize, but I instead I will now write about this little piece of music...
Before I watched the movie "Up" I knew it was about an old guy flying in a house. Besides that I had no clue and didn't really expect a whole lot besides the usual excellent Pixar-quality of filmmaking. Only there in the first half hour they dropped this whole montage on me, about how the old man met and married his wife years ago and how they passed through the years doing the mundane boring marriage things as well as going through some terrible pain all the while being each other's best, faithful friends until the inevitable end. The music above envelopes this montage in a way that immediately upon watching you realize you have just witnessed one of those rare, magical historic moments in film. The old fashioned waltz and gentleness of it elevate the scenes away from reality just so that you only feel the bottom line: the love of those two people. The music is light, then sad and then continues hopeful but inevitably tinged with the heaviness that comes with having gone through it all. It left me completely breathless to be honest.
Surely it has something to do with the fact that I'm married and can relate... but I have to say I don't know that I've seen marriage summed up so perfectly on film before in such a charming and touching way. The rest of the movie has more of that but also lots of adventure and jokes and things that have to be appealing to people of all ages, the single as well. So it's not like it pales in comparison, but like I said, these few minutes are just a league of its own.
On screen most of the time marriage is portrayed like a drag, a trap, an "institution" that is ultimately unrealistic, impossible... save for a few lucky couples who just happened to be a perfect match. Marriage is usually the end of the movie, the end of the love story, what "every girl wants" (gag), because when it's time to present it as something beautiful aside from the wedding it gets complicated. Who wants to go there really. Also, people who've been married for a long time are old and old people don't do so well with the audience apparently.
In this movie however most of it is just hinted at, but you can see the old man being so faithful to his wife, clueless as he is lots of times and ridden with regret at the end, but he is there, she is there, they are there... all those little things that don't involve the great gestures or the sweeping passions. They truly love each other. It's not easy to be married for many years, I can see that, but it can be harder if you're looking for happiness in the wrong places. Maybe sometimes you can count on your hand the days in a year you felt swept off your feet. But if you turn around the days your spouse was faithfully yours will turn out to be exactly 365. You show up for each other in the consistency in which you show support, sometimes with beautiful words and lots of times with the mere fact of continuing to get up in the morning and hold on to your promise despite the exhaustion and weariness. It is friendship, but it goes beyond that. The act (and I mean act as in concious act, not a lame habit) of faithfulness returns you to the beginning of your romance. Whatever you felt in the beginning takes on a new depth every time and you find yourself repeating: "I didn't know it could get even better..." year after year.
I don't think there is a "secret" to a true marriage, although there is mystery. You just have to show up for it day after day after day. Then comes a movie like "Up" and sums it up perfectly in four minutes and three-quarter time and you are left in a puddle on the couch.
Posted at 04:47 PM on March 05, 2010It's 3.22 pm and time to accept the inevitable.
One of the many many things that can ruin my day in an instant is a bad nap situation. If the baby or toddler of the house does not nap, the rest of the day is shot pretty much. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I try very hard. I put the kid down and then I leave for the expected amount of time the nap should last. If he seems particularly upset, I might go in one time, but since that makes things worse, I don't. I just pretend to ignore all the happy or sad noise coming out of that room. Granted 9 out of 10 times he is asleep within half an hour. But those other times....
I can hear him crying, then laughing, then jumping in his crib. I go about my business but a part of my brain is actively tracking the nap situation. I wash the dishes and check my email while the naplog goes:
"35 minutes since naptime started, subject is awake",
"125 minutes since naptime started, subject is still awake"
"the pillow, the sheet and possibly the mattress cover have been removed from the crib and strewn about the room... "
"toddler must be completely overtired and hyper right now"
"most likely toddler will be a monster for the rest of the day"
"your day is ruined"
"126 minutes since naptime started and subject is still not...your day is most definitely ruined"
The anxiety in me rises and I wonder why since I went about my business as IF he had been sleeping. There is no answer to this. There is just the firm knowledge of many many years and kids past that a missed nap will raise my stress level, but at the same time demand increased patience and endurance but most of all will ruin.my.day.
It takes a long time to figure out what motherhood really is. Few things can be known for sure, and those can take years to reveal themselves. One of those realizations for me was that I have a on-call-radar. When my kids are A. awake and B. in my presence my mind and body are in work mode. It doesn't matter if I'm just sitting around (which I hardly am, but for argument's sake...), my work-batteries are on and I will be tired at the end of it even though I will probably not be able to come up with one single thing that I "did". What DID I do all day? I was there and they were being kids. That is what we did. It's not that I'm always super busy, but I'm definitely "booked" to the point that I can't do anything else.
I have also become a sponge for my family's emotional (and sometimes physical state). If they're whiny, I'm feeling whiny. If they are overwhelmed and stressed out, I feel the same. Sometime when they complain of nausea, I feel nauseous. I suppose this is nature's way of ensuring optimal care for the young, but hey, what happened to me and myself? If Nikola didn't nap and I have to drag him now to ballet and back and a grocery trip in between I will feel his exhaustion and confusion over his emotional instability with all of my synapses every step of the way.
It's not the one missed nap. It's the lack of control over my day and my emotional state. It's up to them, it's all up to three minors who have yet to learn not to eat their boogers.
"She found that her time and her will were tightly fastened to her children."
Posted at 03:22 PM on March 02, 2010 | Comments (3)Looking up
It ocurred to me the other day that it's been a while since I've felt completely desperate. It used to be a permanent fixture in my life. I would wake up in the morning still exhausted from the day before. Several times during the day I would think how I am absolutely certain that I will not make it another fifteen minutes. Generally my state of mind would slip into a panic mode on and off and I would use up whatever energy I could muster to talk myself down. Not out loud of course, no need to alert the authorities. I realize this was mostly related to taking care of three children, one of them school-aged (Homework! Lunches! Getting up on time!), and one of them an infant (Keep baby alive! Stop baby from crying! Make baby sleep!), but when you are going through it day after day you do end up believing that this is just normal life - for you anyway, and which other one counts, really? - and so you must get it together ASAP!
Now I'm approaching a time in my life - for the first time since 2003 - where I'm neither pregnant nor nursing and soon won't have a child under two. This makes a difference in how I feel apparently. It is possible to have more energy and not feel defeated before I've started. I suppose it's normal to recognize phases of your life only once they've passed or are passing, but I still wish it was possible to obtain this information beforehand... Something like using the knowledge from the experience during the experience. The same way when you're older you wish you could be younger, but not your younger self (nooo!), your older, wiser self in the young body. You could perfect the human experience and finally get that "real" shot at life, not that clumsy trial run we all seem to be having. Where was I going with this? I guess what I'm saying is that I wish I could've told my self from a year ago that the day will come where I still have children but am not constantly overwhelmed and would've show her a picture and she would've been able to absorb that information in a positive way and not feel so desperate. I'm not sure it would've worked. But I'm recording it now, just in case this knowledge does become useful again some day.