Wordless Wednesdays: Milestones from a Year Ago Today

 Spaghetti, in a high chair.

 Pulling up to standing.

Yes, the picture quality is abysmal, but it was the first time he ever stood up,

and I'm just thankful to have had my phone handy.

Wordless Wednesday

Pink Saturday:Breakfast

Mongoosine hates eating breakfast.
Don't let her sitting near food confuse you, she's rather stare at a newspaper than eat. Most mornings, she's got one thing on her mind, and that's "how long can I lay in bed before I absolutely have to get up" and breakfast comes between her and that plan.

What do you do to encourage your kids to eat before they leave for school in the morning?
For more Pink Saturday, check out How Sweet the Sound.

Appropriate Dress.

What makes an outfit appropriate or not appropriate for a tween?
Well, I'll tell you right now, that I generally try to be pretty open minded about what my kid wears, but I draw the line at two big stars on her chest in places that are intended to draw untoward attention, and tiny little tank tops that cover neither all of her belly, nor enough of the top with their little low cut spaghetti stringy ness.
Skin tight is a no no too.  So short it shows your undies? Out.
No belly shiners, ta-ta-touters, or panty peepers.

Right this moment, she "hates me," isn't "speaking to me," and I'm the "meanest mom in the world."

So, just wondering, where do you draw the lines?

Hey baby, that's my bag.

Yesterday on Facebook, my friend Brooke, of Brooke Van Gory Designs was talking about taking comparison shots of her three different sizes of diaper bags to help people decide which they want, or rather, covet.  (I still covet another, even though I bought one.) She joked about how much you could fit in the upsized, and I joked that I could fit my whole toddler in there.

Of course, this led to me trying to fit my whole toddler into my BVG.  Fortunately, he was in a semi cooperative mood.

Check out her size reference post here, in which she featured a picture of the JabberWalky in her upsized expedient weekender.  It's educational.

For some more shots from the impromptu photo-shoot, keep looking here.

"You want me to ham it up for a picture? Sure!"

"Aren't I cute?"

"Look mom, squirmy!"

I think you can definitely call this bag "toddler tested, toddler approved."

Spring

As we greet the spring today, following the glorious though cloud obstructed perigee of the moon, I am struck with the fact that as of yesterday we are enmeshed in yet another war.

Yeah.

Skeptic Toddler is Skeptical.

Happy freaking spring.

Pink Saturday: Handmade Masterpieces

This babydoll was made by one of my mother's aunts.  Her limbs are attached via very large buttons on sturdy cording which runs through the body. Her face is entirely embroidered, and her hair painstakingly sewn down, piece by piece.
She is the first doll that made me think that handmade dolls are better than factory made ones.
The dress is also handmade by the same great-aunt, of lovely white eyelet and light pink ribbon.  While I have learned to make dolls because I fell in love with the idea so long ago, mine aren't quite as lovey sweet.
My great aunt also inspired me to *try* to learn crochet, as she was a master with the hook.  Her mother, my great grandmother, had been quilter, another art I was inspired to learn, growing up surrounded by lovingly and carefully crafted items.  I continue to surround myself by handcrafted items, both heirloom family items, and ones carefully constructed by my contemporaries.  What can I say, they tickle me pink.

For more Pink Saturday, head over to How Sweet the Sound.

Winging It

I've been struggling, a lot, lately, with things which normally come naturally to me.
I've found these newfound struggles crushing.

Back on January 31st my choir began rehearsals for a concert which is this evening.
My conductor decided that the second sopranos could use a little more somethin' somethin', and so she asked me to sing that, as opposed to the part I regularly sing, which is first.
It scared me because I have a lot of trouble hearing inner parts.
Let me rephrase that. I can't hear inner parts unless they are substantially louder than the outer ones.
In the past where I've had to do a few lines of second, I have rehearsed it into the ground by how it feels, completely turning off how it sounds in my head, because I can't listen to the outer parts and sing the inner ones.
I know this sounds like self-defeatist talk, with all the "I can't," but I have tried for many many years to learn this, and have consistently failed at it, but it was never a big deal.  I have never particularly needed this skill.  When it came to ear training I could build the outer parts and then experiment with the inner ones until it had the same sound.  It isn't that I can't tell the difference between an f and a g when sung between a b and a d, it's that I can't find it if I have to sing it, and can't tell you which it is without recreating it on a secondary instrument.

So, like I said, I was terrified when my conductor asked me to sing second, but I'm a "can do" kind of girl, and I said "yes ma'am," moved myself to that section, and set out to listen and try to figure it out.

I missed a couple rehearsals. This is not like me, but roads were impassable one night from the village in which we live and the city in which we rehearse and perform. I missed another night when I passed out early in practice (ouch) because I was coming down with a nasty bug. Another night I was stuck out of town on an impromptu business trip from Hades my spouse made me go on after rescuing my niece who had been abandoned some 3 hours from home, yet near where spouse had appointments, and halfway to the appointments for the next day. Fun times.

So, instead of freaking out, I worked on the music a little more than usual outside of the house.
Let me rephrase that. I've spent hours working on the music. I have tried to sing it with various youtube performances of it. I have played it on the piano into the ground. I have written in counts and Solfege and notated intervals of concern.

The performance is tonight. I just finished another hour and a half of practice time. My toddler now knows the song that gives me the most trouble.

Here's the problem. I don't.

I still don't know it.

I. Do. Not. Know. It.

I have never felt more incompetent in my life.

Sure, I kind of have a working knowledge of most of the pieces, but I do not know them. Every time we rehearse, or I sit down to play another it feels like the first time, and I feel like I'm sight reading. It's like the final exam in a class you didn't know you were taking nightmare.

So, what am I going to do? I'm going to wing it.  I'm going to have a little faith in how neatly I've shown myself where I might be able to hear the notes I need to find ahead of time in order to sing them later.  I am going to mouth it when I don't know where we are.
I am going to smile and fake it.

And then I am going to strongly consider resigning from the chorale, because after the many hours I have cried over not being able to learn these super easy Handel pieces, after the panic attacks at the thought of tonight's performance, I don't want to put myself in a position to end up feeling this incompetent ever ever again.

Nothing is worth it.

Any last minute advice for winging it?

How much do you give?

If you had the power to possibly change someone's life for the better, and it was only going to cost you about half of your monthly food budget, doubling the mileage/gas consumption put on your vehicle weekly, and giving up ten hours a week, give or take, would you do it?

Wordless Wednesday: A Year Ago Tomorrow, or Happy St. Patrick's Day

Wordless Wednesday

Grades

They say that parental involvement is the key to a good education, and while I do not take that so far as to homeschool, since Mongoosine and I are not particularly compatible in a learning environment for that many hours, I do try to keep involved and up to speed on what is going on at school.  She attends the local public school.

She's all sugar and spice. 

I can't imagine why a girl, who never exhibits any attitude wouldn't be the

 *perfect candidate*

 for homeschooling with a high-stress mother...

My daughter's school makes them all available online. When a grade is entered into the gradebook, it's immediately accessible from home.
I check them every day.
How often do you check your children's grades?  

Guilty Pleasures

Funny how we all have guilty pleasures. Last year, mine were things like watching Desperate Housewives and eating way to much ice cream. This year, it's spending too much time sitting at the computer and not enough time sewing.
Or maybe I just want to make sewing a new guilty pleasure?
I'll have to think about that.

I find it strange that we call them "guilty pleasures," though.
Am I accomplishing something spending hours a day on Twitter and Facebook? Probably not. Am I don't something I should feel guilty about? No.

Productivity is not moral. There is no prize for being the least likely to spend time doing things others do not value.  There is no religious obligation to spend free time working.  If one wants to read cheesey romance novels (perhaps ones set in Wisconsin?) very few people would argue that it's hurting anyone else... so why should one feel guilty?

Now that I think about it, I don't have guilty pleasures, I have idle pleasures.  Take that, popular lexicon. Now I'm going to go sew.

Pink Saturday: Longing for Spring

 Planted in my garden, these beauties from last summer are patiently waiting for it to get warmer so they can start growing again. I am trying to be patient too.

I'm not doing a very good job of being patient.  Deep down inside I can feel it getting warmer, and I'm looking forward to green grass and blooming flowers again. Even if my lilies won't be up for a few months still,
today, they look a lot like hope to me.
For more Pink Saturday, head on over to How Sweet the Sound.

Craft Around the Clock

HELP!
I am having trouble finding the space in my schedule to accomplish the things which I need to accomplish, let alone get any sewing done.
So tell me, you time management gurus out there, how do you balance life in order to find the time to get your sewing/knitting/painting/underwater basket weaving done?

I've already relegated blogging to the middle of the night.

Sippy Sip

If you are a parent, you know how hard it can be to placate a toddler. If you're a nursing mom, you may have experienced how hard it is to convince a toddler that sometimes, when he thinks he wants nursing, what he really wants is a cup of something else.  Something that doesn't involve mommy's chest.
Let's face it, sometimes there is something trying in being the solitary provider for all comfort, as well as the preferred provider of warm liquid nourishment.
As the JabberWalky approaches two, more and more often I find myself asking him if he wants a Sippy when he says he wants "boo boo boo BEE."
Sadly, more often than not, unless I'm seducing him with juice, he will just crinkle his nose and demand "BOOBEE!" even more loudly.
Perhaps it is my own fault in that his cup usually only has boring water in it.
We haven't started doing milk in a cup yet, mostly because I'm paranoid that the cup will roll under the chair and be disgusting when I finally find it to wash it.  As a result, it's water or juice, and watered down juice at that.
It's not a perfect plan, but I've decided I'm going to offer him a cup with all his meals so that he gets used to drinking like a big boy at the table, instead of demanding nursing while I'm trying to eat.
I'm not sure if this is in line with baby led weaning, because I'm offering with the hopes of finishing a meal with both breasts safely in my shirt, but I am sure that it's an important step in eating in a calm manner.
That said, I'm not handing him a sippy at bed or naptime, those are still stricktly mommy cuddles times. Besides, it's way easier to appease a tired toddler with exactly what has always done the trick.

Any advice for convincing a toddler that drinking from a cup at mealtime is a great idea?

Wordless Wednesday: Traditional Pony Back Rider

Wordless Wednesday

Tutorial Tuesday: Recycled Shipping Boxes

Most of the time, if I'm mailing something smaller than a breadbox, it is going in a cracker box.
I used to just wrap in a paper grocery sack and roll on, but I don't like wasting the materials, and I don't appreciate the added weight. I have to pay to ship that added weight, you know.

So instead, my new technique is as follows.

How to turn a cracker box into a mailer.

 Step One:
Select a box.  I like cracker boxes, because we eat a lot of crackers around here. They're nice in soup, and the toddler enjoys having one for each hand. They're also the perfect size for a Raggedy Rebel or Little Punk.

 Step Two:
Find the box's seam.  In this case, it's right by that blue line, about half an inch from the corner edge.

 Step Three:
Carefully deconstruct the box by gently pulling apart all the glued edges.

 Step Three:
Remind yourself that you need tools. (Yes, I do the deconstruction first, because I now carefully break down any box I think will work well to ship something, toaster pastry boxes, cases of pop... anything. The cases of pop will be it's own tutorial, because it's more complicated.)  I use a pair of scissors and a roll of clear packing tape.

 Step Four:
Locate the end of the tape, tape it to your working surface, and let the tape dangle for easy access later. This whole process is just unpleasant if you have to keep hunting the end of your tape.

 Step Five: Locate any places where you've accidentally abused the packaging creating loose bits, and tape those down.  Be sure to burnish the tape after application.

 Step Six:
Locate the long edge you separated earlier.  roughly fold it into place, then use the edge of your work surface to fold it over, reinforcing the new angle of fold.

 Step Seven:
Overlap the edge to be closed, holding the box in the approximate shape you want it and lay down a small piece of tape for the purposes of allignment.

 Step Eight:
Press the box flat so that the edges you're still joining are in the middle, and tape securely. By shape checking first you're sure to not be missing where you want these to overlap when they're flat. If you skip straight to the flat taping, you run a risk of overshooting and having it not make a very proper square afterward.
Don't forget to burnish the tape.

 Step Nine: Fold in short sides of one open end.

 Step Ten:
Overlap long sides of open end and tape closed.

Step Eleven:

Place item in box, now that it is only open from one end.

Step Twelve:

Repeat steps nine and ten on open end.

Step Thirteen:

Address box, be sure to include return address.

Step Fourteen:

Ship

Step Fifteen:

Giggle that you're giving the doll something to read while in transit.  You know, if dolls could read  in the dark.

A Toddler's Lexicon

This will, of course be an incomplete list, because it is off the top of my head, but as he learned at least two new words yesterday, I thought it'd be a good time to share.
22months.

Mama
Dada
Sissy (sometimes he calls her by name)
Papa (grandpa)
NahMah (grandma)
NaNa (other grandma)
BoBo (the dog)
Kitty
Cat
KittyCat
Oh-Oh-Bot (Robot)
CeeDee (ABC song request)
NaNaNa (Ricky Gervais' N Song on Sesame Street request)
Oooooh (Abagail's Song request)
Shoes
Race
Voom (car)
Ch-ch COOO-KEEE (train, yes, he thinks trains say cookie)
Bus
Ball


Sit
NighNigh
Bye Bye
Hi
Bump
On
Off
The
Want

Blue
Green
Red
Yellow (favorite word at the moment)

Ice
Cookie
Meat
NumNum/s
Boobee
Cheese
Banana
Juice
Pie
Cookie
GkaGka (craker)
Wawa
Poon (spoon, fork, knife...whatever)

Eyes
Nose
Ear
Mouth


Uhoh
Yes
No
Yeah
Yep
Nope
Wow
Mine
Woohoo
Wee
Ow
Nice

The Great Circumcision Debate

Recently, on Rockin' Mama, there was a blog post titled I'm going to  give my newborn a tattoo in which she drew a comparison to the legal practice of circumcision a baby and the illegal notion of tattooing a newborn.  Of course, the comments degenerated into name calling, rehashing the old arguments, and anonymous posters justifying their decisions and how in that case it was totally okay.  One of the arguments which irritated me the most was that it might "prevent STDs" so I've decided to share with you my response.


"Safer sex practices, like condoms prevent STDs.
Circumcision on a minor without specific medical indications with less invasive solutions is reprehensible. The 14th Amendment provides equal protection of the law for all citizens, yet girls still benefit from the fact that it is illegal to circumcise them, yet perfectly legal to remove healthy genital tissue from their brothers.
Religious cutting of children IS WRONG.
If my religion required I cut someone I've only known for 8 days without their consent, I could be thrown in jail for it, regardless of the fact that my religion stipulated it.
Freedom of religion is not freedom to practice one's religion on the body of another.
Children are our responsibility to protect, care for, and nurture. They are not property. They can not be legally bought nor sold, they can not be traded in at the flea market, and they have fundamental human rights just as surely as anyone reading this blog post.

Thank you for this brilliant analogy, as ultimately, infant circumcision is an elective cosmetic disfigurement performed on nonconsenting children.

I actually have similar feelings about the piercing of baby girls' ears, though I console myself that at least if the girl doesn't want those holes later, she can let them grow shut (in theory) whereas men are not starfish, and their foreskin will not grow back."


You're not required to agree with me, but that's how I feel about it.

Pink Saturday: Color Me Pretty

I love sugar skulls. I love the life in death in life and art mimicking death and life imitating art aspects of them.  As a result, I follow some exceedingly talented artists online who specialize in this sort of art.
One of them, Wenchkin, recently hosted a coloring competition.  Since I'm a five year old at heart, I happily busted out my favorite photoediting program and entered with giddy glee.
This is the picture we had to color:

Cool, isn't it?

This is what I did with it.

I decided to go spacey with it, because that's how I roll. If you haven't noticed, I geek harder than I rock.

Well, the model picked my picture as the winner, and so I got my own picture sugar-skull-ified by the very talented Wenchkin.  

I sent her this photo as a reference:

Ooh, pretty.

And this is what she came up with:

Absolutely amazing, isn't it?

And since I'm essentially still a five year old, I decided I needed to color it in too, with the same photo editing program, and this is what I came up with.

That was a lot of fun.

In any case, when the tween sees this, she's going to be very jealous, and I'm very pleased with the way it turned out.

If you want to see more of Wenchkin's art, check out her Facebook page.

For more Pink Saturday, check out How Sweet the Sound.

Dress Code Distress

My daughter's school has a rule that grates on my nerves.
The students aren't allowed to dye their hair any unnatural colors.

NO

Her school even prohibited a girl from attending her after-the-end-of-the-school-year graduation event because she had blue hair. Interestingly, this rule wasn't enforced equally at that event, allowing another girl with pink streaks to participate. Then again, that other girl was popular, and the blue haired girl... not so much.
So why does it bother me?
It bothers me because I don't feel it is the place of any school board or administrative staff to tell me or my kid what color her hair can be. It bothers me because it smacks of rule making for the point of controlling someone, rather than rule making in order to ensure the health, safety, or education of the students.
I have similar problems with other points in the dress code, but this one specifically makes my brain hurt.

At the beginning of the school year, the assistant principal explained in an orientation assembly that it would be a distraction, then went on to joke that we wouldn't want to see him with green hair, and so it's only fair. I had to bite my tongue, because frankly, green might be an improvement.

Personal attacks aside, honestly, I don't understand how the color of any child's hair is going to detract from the learning environment any more than an interesting bow or complicated braiding style or up-do might.  The children are allowed to wear shirts of whatever color, even ones with pictures and writing.  One would think these things are more distracting.

Further, if the color of a student's *anything* is going to detract from the learning environment, perhaps one needs to address the real problem. If what is going on in the classroom is less engaging than the hair color little Melanie or Stanley have been rocking for a week, then the kids wouldn't be learning, even if Melanie kept her ginger and Stanley kept his brown.

Rules for the sake of squashing creativity have no place in schools, and I'm embarrassed that our local schools enjoy creating rules for the sake of exercising power.

What do you think, would purple hair make it impossible for learning to take place?

Things and lost stuff.

In middle and high school there was a necklace I wore every single day.
It was a light amethyst colored faceted glass oval in a tear shaped marcasite/silvery pendant. The whole thing was probably one and a half inches by two and a half inches.  It was a bit large, and I loved everything about it.

Just found this picture online. Someone sold it on ebay. 

Is my precious.

There were times when my mother would beg me to wear something else, just for the sake of not having that "clunky thing" in homecoming pictures. I realize now that she thought I was overly attached. She was probably right.
I wore it off to college with pride, despite he fact that the faceted glass "gemstone" was a little chipped and not nearly so shiny.
But on August 31st, 1997, I lost it forever. Ironically, I know where I lost it. I lost it in the pool at the hotel my parents took me to. Not taking it off meant I was wearing it swimming, as I had hundreds of times before (what if I took it off and LOST it?).  Well, sometimes you lose things when you are wearing it.
Because I never took it off, not even to shower, I didn't notice that it was gone until the next day, far far away without any chance of going back to dive the pools not-so-intimidating depths and search the filters for it.
I grieved that necklace like my pet had died.
I know that the very emotional response was a bit over the top.
The strange thing is, there have been other things to which I've become inordinately attached over the years, but the ones I don't miss are the ones I gave to someone who loved it.
I always find myself doubting whether I'm making the right decision when giving something I have cherished to someone else whom I know will cherish it, but every single time I've been rewarded with comfort when I reflect on the item, rather than sadness that it's now gone.
I'm not saying I wish I'd given the necklace away, but I am saying I wish I had the peace of mind to know it was well loved by whomever found it. I hope someone did eventually find it.

But here's the other thing I'm saying, if you have it languishing in your jewlery box, bored and alone... I know a good home that would be perfect for it. ;-)

Seriously though, parting with things we love of our own free will is so much more satisfying than hoarding them til they're gone.  Sharing is always the better.

Wordless Wednesday:How they Grow

Wordless Wednesday

Sewing- The Cool Kids are ALL doing it.

Just after the Academy Awards the other night, Tom Hanks was on Jimmy Kimmel, Season 9, Episode 20.  If you find it streaming online (currently available on Hulu, as well as on ABC, but as you know, I'm not in love with them at the moment) there's a cute bit about being a pageant/stage dad, and you get to see him "sewing."  The bit starts at about 29 minutes, and if you want to catch the seamstressing, I mean, if you want to catch Tom Hanks sewing, it's at about 30 min 30 sec in.
Or you could enjoy this screen shot, because lets face it, that's why you're here.

What I can tell you about this- the machine is a Singer, in case you were wondering, and if Tom Hanks can pretend to sew a pretty pink pageant dress, there is no reason for me to not make myself a sun dress. Anyone else feeling inspired?