Overdramatic?

I went to a girls only movie night last evening. The film was the BBC's Jayne Eyre.
It changed my life.
Not in a super meaningful principle altering kind of a way. Just in that if I don't have the privilege of watching the film from time to time throughout the remainder of my life, I'll be dissapointed.
I'm particularly keen on this scene. I've watched it something like seven times today.

Mr. Rochester...(sigh)

knotty bags

You'll never guess what my kids did today, all three of them at the same time.
They napped. (I know!)
And I;

It was a nice quick and rewarding project. There was one hiccup though, I generally utilize every bit of my fabric to the full width. This was no exception, but just look what they did to the selvage on this delightful floral!

Disgusting isn't it?
That's a full inch taken up with unattractive branding. I was squeezing these out of the yard and a half, half width of each fabric left over from this baby sling so there was no way to cut around the offensive bits. (Oh right, I was going to write a tutorial for the sling...using this same fabric. I'll have to get back to you about that)
Anyway, my two bags were all put together but graffiti-ed up by the fabric manufacturer, what was I to do?
How about hiding the sin with a band of grosgrain ribbon and throwing on a few D-rings just for kicks?

Up the sides for the bag pieced front to back,

and around the middle for it's left to right handed fellow.

I'm actually quite a fan of the D-rings, you could clip your keys on there or use it to keep your sunglasses ready for a quick draw when the weather is chancy. I might just tack D-rings onto the outsides of all my existing bags. Since I'm not destined to keep either of these, I have to come up with some way to keep the D-ring idea in my life.
Next it was time to consider pockets. Trouble was, by this time the children were awake. I managed to slap a pair of pockets on each bag but don't look too closely. I eyeballed the positioning and pinned them on for sewing with an eleven month old balanced on my hip, reaching for the pins.

Then I sewed them on with that same child perched on my lap.

What I mean to say is, the pockets are crooked and the stitching in wonky.
And I'm not going to do a thing about it.

Well now, Annie? Sarah?
I hope you like them, wonky stitching and all, because they are the prizes for that contest you both won many moons ago. I don't know who's will be who's. I'm going to pack them up and shuffle them before I address the packages so it will be a surprise!
I love a surprise, don't you?
That's why I didn't send any prizes sooner. I wanted you to forget having won anything so you'd get that extra little surprise when I reminded you about it. The delay had nothing to with procrastination at all, I was just looking out for you.
You're welcome.

The Vacant Stare (otherwise known as the only expression my face is currently capable of holding)

Our weekend was fairly draining, especially for Enzo who did not nap at all on Saturday. He still has not recovered. That means he has been doing a lot of screaming and hurling his stout little body onto various surfaces, and I have been taking a lot of long ragged breaths that somehow fail to reach my lungs and holding my head in my hands.
This morning I thought we were out of the woods. He got dressed happily enough, we ate breakfast and then I dropped him off to play with a friend while I went to the orthodontist. Immediately after my appointment I had to rush back, fetch the children and deliver them to the dentist's office or their bi-annual cleanings.
All of this went well. He was happy, he played sweetly with the toys while Zizza had her exam and then climbed eagerly into the chair for his own. He opened his mouth before the dentist had even finished requesting that he do so and remained obliging while his teeth were counted and brushed.
Meanwhile, Zizza had stepped away to have some pictures taken of her teeth. When she came back Enzo was through with his exam and had picked his prizes, a yellow crayon shaped eraser and a ring set with an orange heart-shaped plastic jewel which he chose over the plastic monster finger puppets. He played with the toys some more while she had her teeth properly polished with the whirrring brush and the grainy stuff in the little cup. (She's such a big girl, her first complete cleaning!) Then he hopped back onto the chair, she'd sat in it twice so he should as well, no?
After a second trip to the prize center, we were ready to leave. I was still operating under the impression that last night's sleep had been sufficient to finally chase away the weekend's over-tiredness. That's when he caught sight of the rinsing sink with it's stack of little dixie cups on the counter. He wanted a drink but it had only been fifteen minutes since his fluoride treatment and he was to wait another fifteen before having anything, so I said "no."
And that was the end.
He started screaming. He kicked off his flops and would not put them back on. He continued to scream. I picked up his discarded foot wear and made for the door directing him to follow behind me. I was lucky in that the path to Dusty Miller was entirely shaded so that his walking barefoot would be a possibility. Without that shade, such a walk barefoot would probably result in third degree burns on the bottoms of his feet.
I herded him halfway before I had to grab hold 'round his waist and tuck him under my free arm (remember, The New One has a permanent spot on my left hip during outings) for the remainder of the ten yard journey.
There was a video due at the library today. He screamed all the way through the drop off because he wanted to go inside.
My kitchen was so bare I simply had to stop at the store. There was no way around it. I'd been planning for a proper grocery stock-up today but I could plainly see what a poor idea that would be. Today, my only choice would be Target with those blessed three kid carts. Truly, I couldn't brave taking him in public without the restraint of the five point harness on the Target cart. I turned in that direction and he screamed from the back seat "NO, THAT WAY!" apparently the right hand turn was offensive to him.
I was offended too when I got to Target and had sit him in the basket of a normal cart, as all of the three passenger variety were apparently in use.
I bought, milk, bread and carrots. Then I fled for my life.
He screamed instead of eating his lunch.
Unable to relax after the screaming I'd endured, I twitched all through nap time.
He, it seems, also had trouble unwinding and, like yesterday, didn't sleep.
I tucked him into bed for the night at 7:00 pm.
I started singing, "Here comes the Sandma-"
"NO! PIGEONS!"
So I sang "My Pigeon House" instead of "Sandman" and then I ran away and hid.

Photogenic evening

It was a family dinner at my mother in law's house. I spent the whole evening trying to get a series like this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a really good excuse for not taking a turn pushing the kid wheel. Every time one of the other adults consented to push the thing across the lawn, I was right there, my camera set to rapid fire. I got a few like this of most of the kids but Zizza's is the longest uninterrupted streak I caught. I think I'll print out all of the photos and make a flip-book.
I've noticed that I take a lot more photos of Enzo than Zizza these days. After giving it some thought I decided it's because Enz ignores me while I chase him around with the camera so any unblurred photo I manage to catch is natural, candid, my favorite kind. When Ziz sees the camera in my hand, she feels inclined to pose. Which means I get a lot of fantastic fake smiles like this one.

 

Nice huh?
Turns out, all I need is a bunch of cousins running around to distract her and I can get candid, non-freaky smiling photos of her.
Observe

 

Vying for attention.

 

Upset over an injury.

 

Looking for sympathy whilst showing off her bandaid.

Those are my three favorite Zizza photos from the last three months or so.
Since most day's I'm fresh out of distracting cousins, I've been working on finding the cross section between adorable and posed. I'm glad to say we're making progress. I took a few today with very close to natural smiles. Of course, she insisted upon standing on one leg and closing her eyes like a sleeping flamingo, but her smile was much less rubbery than I've come to expect. Progress.

Zizza the Builder

While we were visiting, uncles were tending to low hanging branches and little boys were helped to clear away the rubbish.

 

The little girl was not interested in clearing anything away. She gathered instead, and built a fairly house.

 

The project was quite extensive,

 

I'm not sure what size of fairies she was building for. It looks more like an apartment complex than a single house to me.
In any case I'm sure I'm sure the local fairy population enjoyed the dwelling while it lasted.

Zig

For the first time since I was paid to in the Utah Festival Opera costume shop, I (almost) followed a pattern.
I know, it's weird.
The pattern is Butterick B4686. It was the sew along project featured on Presser Foot for June/July. I had quite a fun time sewing along in May so I decided to play again in spite of my aversion to commercial patterns. It also helped that I got the pattern on sale for $1.99.

I browsed fabrics, both in my stash and online for quite a while before I saw this and knew it was what I wanted. The idea of pleating the zig-zags just tickled me.

 

The alteration I made to the pattern was related to my fabric choice. The pattern calls for laying out the piece length wise, that would have made my zig-zags vertical, and I would not be ok with that even if I'd had enough fabric to do it that way.
Since my fabric was narrower across than the 7 pleat skirt piece, I had to adjust. Lucky for me, taking out one pleat made it all work out just right.
I would have been more than a little annoyed if after going to the trouble to actually buy a pattern I'd had to completely rework it to accommodate my fabric choice.

 

My only regret is that I was unable to match the pattern across all of the pleats. I meant to wear it high wasted and tucked in, as above, but the interrupted zigs and zags are less that flattering across the tummy. Had they matched, me thinks they would have had quite a slimming effect. Oh well, I like it anyway.

Related Tales

My mother used to have night mares about big and little things. A big puffy soft ginger bread man next to his little whithered and burned brother. A pair of pantyhose stretched out and still holding the shape of the legs that wore them with a unstretched wrinkled pair straight from the package. An over sized bear, holding the little teddy from the doll house. The contrast gives her the heebe-geebes.
My aunt, who enjoys watching her sister squirm, took to bringing gifts along when she visits. Usually she tries to find the big and the small. Like the mugs; one standard mug sized, the other half an inch tall. Sometimes though, she finds something tiny and, for the sake of convenience, just brings it along without it's larger counterpart. For example there's a terracotta pot planted with a few pink silk flowers whose total height does not exceed one inch. In that case, she relied upon the potted plants already in my mother's possession to provide the contrast.
We, children caught on to our auntie's scheme after a time and stared pointing out the bigs and smalls in daily life. Eventually, Mother confessed that she's gotten over her aversion and only shudders now for the pleasure of her company. Good news though, knowing the reaction is put on does in no way lessen the amusement it brings.


I have a sister just two years older than myself. When she was potty training, I took interest and followed suit. After a while though, I guess the novelty wore off and interrupting play to run to the potty seemed like quite a lot to ask. (I'm guessing, I don't actually remember)
My mother came up with a solution to the problem, a way to make pottying fun again. The solution was the potty treat.
I know, I know, potty treats are not actually anything new or exciting. That's true, the treat's themselves were not the fun part. The fun part was how every time I used the potty I got to pass out treats to the whole family and any friends who might be visiting, all of whom would tell me how great I was and thank me enthusiastically for peeing in the toilet so they could have a cookie. This was exceptionally effective for me because as the sixth child in the family there were always plenty of people to pass treats to and accordingly plenty of praise and adoration to reap.
The treats themselves were little penny sized cookies. They weren't gingerbread, but were about that color, and they had little crescent shaped cracks across the top. I'm pretty sure they came from "the little store" to which we walked occasionally for odds and ends between trips to Macey's the big grocery store. I really loved those cookies.
I tried potty treats with Zizza during that last phase of potty training. It didn't work that well for her, which I attribute to two things.
First, it was just her and me. I was already telling her how great she was for going potty so adding a cookie into the bargain didn't change much.
Second, the cookies we were working with were nothing to get excited about. There just aren't any miniature cookies on the market today that will induce the kind of enthusiasm necessary for a potty treat. I guess I could use candy instead, but for me, potty treats will always mean cookies.
Enzo's days in diapers, they are numbered. With an older sibling around to offer encouragement and support beyond my own, I'm giving potty treats another go. The poor selection of minuscule cookies available was still a problem, so I took matters into my own hands.

Mamma, this photos for you!