Simsek Strikes

An Apple a Day...

Sometimes life just sits on your back and laughs while you wheeze.  The trick is getting just enough breath to laugh back. I think that today we've managed to do just that.

Today Lex's class was scheduled to take a trip to a local apple orchard to pick apples, watch a real cider press in action, and sample fresh cider.  Because I couldn't bring her (the school has no buses and parents are responsible for bringing their kids) I had arranged for her to ride with a classmate and his family: including his 4 month old sister.

But it wasn't to be.  The perfect, quiet, clear, crisp fall morning was punctured with sneezing, coughing, and a little girl's scratchy voice telling me that all was not well.  I waited until after breakfast to make my decision, by which time it was clear that everyone was getting sick.  Then I had to call the boy's mom and break the news to everybody:  there wasn't going to be any apple orchard trip today. I couldn't risk making their baby sick so that Lex could pick some apples.

There were a lot of tears.  And more tears.  It was a truly pitiful thing to behold.  Spencer hugged me as I hugged her to 'help'.  Paulo assured her that we'd make a family trip to an orchard, soon.  I promised her that we would get her some cider to try.  We looked up (and found) a great video of a real cider press in action on YouTube and watched it about six times.  We broke out a new box of tissues.

It turned out to be the right decision as everyone got snifflier as the day progressed.  And more  irritable.  The older two began to bicker and harass each other. From where I stood, it didn't look good for the day. It was time for me to divide-and-conquer.  So, I set up Spencer with a learning game on the PC and took Lexi downstairs with me (and the baby, of course) to make a mail bag for her.  She's decided that she's big enough to bring in the mail by herself, so it is now her new job.  But, because her hands are small and the mail is often big and messy, a bag was necessary.

Yes, we have dozens of bags.  Maybe more.  But this is a special new job and Nana was right: it deserves its own special new bag.  So Lex chose the material and I cut and pinned.  She helped sew several seams and trim the allowances before getting distracted by the magnetic pin cushion.  But I managed to finish the rest before the mail arrived and it's now waiting for its first trip to the mailbox whenever she wakes up from her nap.

  

It's far from perfect, but I've never made a bag before, had no pattern, and was basically winging it with available scraps.  Given all that, it's OK, and will at least work for its intended purpose.

Next, with all the sickos in this place it was time for some homemade chicken soup.  So we trotted off to the grocery store for the necessary supplies. 

It's been a while since I last made soup from scratch.  I'd forgotten how long the prep takes. There's a lot of chopping and slicing and dicing and peeling and rinsing involved.  It always looks so quick on TV, but that's because they have those miraculously pre-chopped and measured ingredients waiting for them in quaint little dishes.  What you don't see is the cooking-show intern who arrives at 5 a.m. to start chopping.  Or how much blood is lost in the process.  Because you know that the cute little hostess with the impossible-to-place accent didn't jeopardize her manicure wielding a knife for the last two hours.

Labor aside, it's worth it all when the house starts to fill up with the aroma of simmering homemade chicken stock.  I wish smell-o-vision came standard on this thing so that you could take a little sniff, too.  It smells like heaven.

So, at the end of the day we're still sick, but there's soup in the pot, a brand new bag, and the promise that Daddy will be home early tonight.  For once, I think we came out on top in spite of it all! 

Happy weekend, everyone!

Pieces of Camp:: Birthdays 1

Like weddings and funerals, birthdays are only partially about the people being celebrated.  They're a lot about the rest of us having a special day to dedicate to someone we love, whether we do that with laughter or tears or a little of both.  They're about all of us together reflecting for a time on how much this one person means to us and how important they are in our lives. 

So yes, Ellie's first birthday had gifts for her and cupcakes and singing, but you know she didn't care much about any of these things.  She was indifferent to opening presents (unlike her siblings who were all-too-eager to help) and confused by the singing, and just as happy to smear frosting through her hair as eat it.  If the day had just been about her it would have had more swimming, more chasing the dog, more games of peek-a-boo, less gifting, and a whole bunch of playing outside.  Period. 

But it was about us, too.  It was about the older siblings learning to plan something special and to think about someone else.  It was about all of us giggling and enjoying the looks of surprise and wonder on Ellie's cake-smeared face as she explored chocolate for the first time.  It was about marveling at this amazing little creature who has so utterly stolen our hearts. 

For me, it was also about realizing for maybe the millionth time how little I know, and how little (and misguided) my own plans are in comparison with The Great Plan.  My plan stopped with two children.  I am embarrassed now to admit how terrified I was to discover that we were pregnant with Ellie.  Spencer had been a challenging, sleepless little one (probably due to the discomfort of undiagnosed celiac disease)and had only just begun to finally, at 18 mos,  sleep through the night when Ellie was conceived.  I was exhausted and overwhelmed and the idea of starting over was almost more than I could fathom.  I worried about whether or not I could handle another year plus of sleeplessness and screaming babies, how the other two would feel about another sibling taking my attention, about Spencer being a middle child and feeling displaced, and more.  How could I love another child as much as I loved the first two?   

As always, Paulo was my rock.  He was sweet and supportive and convinced that we could handle whatever we needed to--that this one would be a blessing too.  For my part, I cried.  I did a lot of praying in the wee hours.  I tried to prepare myself for another first year.  I tried to prepare myself for the unknown.

But nothing could have prepared me for Ellie.  For the first time, I discovered why it is that some people love having infants;  that some babies could be less work and more pleasure.  She was happy and healthy, patient and easy to please.  I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I kept waitning for her to start screaming for hours each night or vomiting everywhere or demanding to be held 24 hours a day.  She never did.  She only cried a little, and was quick to soothe.  She nursed like a champ without throwing up.  She didn't pull my hair out in chunks or pinch.  She didn't push me away but she didn't demand all of me all day either.  She brought out the best in her siblings even on the worst days.  She made them feel special and important and exciting. She was almost too good to be true. I was smitten.

I'm still overwhelmed by her.  By how my heart could have made so much more room and how completely she delights me.  I'm stunned to discover that I'm actually wishing that she would slow down and stay little a bit longer! So Paulo was right.  She, too, has been a most wonderful surprise blessing.  And me? I was so wrong.  Thank God.

Now she's officially a big One-Year-Old (as the older ones are fond of saying) and thrilled with life.  She loves chasing her brother and sister and takes great joy in almost everything she does.  She laughs with a great, contagious belly laugh at bugs in the grass or kids running by, a game of chase or a really good push in the swing.  She's fearless and friendly, curious and sweet and she makes life so much richer for all of us. 

Happy Birthday, Eleanor!

(newborn photo by Dachowski Photography)

Following: Ellie's birthday shirt from Lexi and Spencer (with help from me).  They each chose their favorite fabrics and helped to trace their hands.  Lexi helped to cut facing.  I cut out the hands and sewed them on both front and back.  I signed Spencer's name and age under his handprint, and Lexi signed her own.  Lex helped to choose a font for me to copy for the text, and I wrote on both sides with art-quality fabric markers.  On the back it says "Our Baby Sister" and the front says "Handle With Care".  They could hardly wait to give it to her and wound up unwrapping it for her, too.  But she wears it proudly, as you can see:

Laughing at the balloons:

Waiting for birthday cupcake:

And the fun begins:

It's great to be One!!

One Mei Tai Down...

So, yes, I did initially buy a few yummy fabrics (scroll down) thinking that maybe, just maybe, I'd try what everyone keeps urging me to do and make a few mei tais for sale.  I actually bought an entire bolt of the heavy white muslin I like for the straps and started measuring and cutting and washing.  But before I'd pieced together anything I realized that, at least the first few, already had homes. 

So, in a couple of quiet hours while the oldest two were visiting their grandmother (more on this later) I found the time to put the first one together for a good friend and neighbor who really needs a couple of extra hands while caring for an infant and his older sister, two youngsters of her own, and some subset of all the other neighborhood kids on any given day.  Yes, in my book she's a saint.  So here's the first of my new mai tai series which has already traveled to its new home around the block:

With any luck I'll get her to model it for you soon!  Until then, I need to get out to buy more white thread and some funky buttons before I can move forward on the others.

Drive-By Updates

Ah, June is here.  Everything is finally green and warm.  The kids have transitioned into shorts and summer pj's and we're spending whole days outside.  But this year the month of June promises to be hectic, and I expect posting here to be lighter as a result.  We have road trips for weddings and other events every weekend, starting with a 4 day trip to NYC this weekend for a friend's wedding.  So I anticipate that each week will be spent recovering from one trip while preparing for the next.

But before the craziness begins, I thought I'd run down a few of the other things going on around here.

First, the Celiac genetic test kits have arrived.  I've almost completed the paperwork on all three but have been dragging my feet just a bit about doing the actually cheek swabbing, probably because I'm a little uncertain how well that will go.  But I hope to finish the tests and send them off before we leave for New York Friday.

Ellie has been busy cutting new teeth, not sleeping, and practicing her walking skills.  She now cruises everywhere with ease and pushes things about the house to stabilize her as she walks.  She doesn't miss a trick.  Now she thinks she should be able to open doors, too.  Heaven help us.

Lex has discovered that she likes running.  This may come as a surprise to any who know her, as she tends to take after me in the grace and athleticism department, but she is making great improvements just the same.  We've begun racing in the yard with the stopwatch and both kids have a blast.  Spencer arguably prefers managing the stopwatch to running, but Lex will run "as fast as my little legs will go", as she says, until everyone else has tired of the game.

She's also enjoyed a couple of weekends in a row of backyard games with Uncle Alec and Crystal:

After no small amount of prodding and encouragement from several different people, I am again entertaining the idea of making a few Mai Tais to sell.  With this in mind I couldn't resist buying a few fabulous Asian prints when we accidentally (really, it wasn't planned this time) found ourselves at a local fabric and craft shop:

And while Lex spends the entire day going from one project to the next, I've grown especially fond of some of her framed flower drawings lately.  She is tireless and turns out cards, paintings, drawings, construction-paper mosaics, and pipe-cleaner flowers and masks by the dozen.  But every so often the colors or composition of one or another will really catch my eye.  This double-flower composition was a recent favorite, and inspired by Amanda I decided to try to reproduce it myself.  I am a complete novice at this stuff, but I'm enjoying it just the same, and Lex is intrigued, too.  She wants to "do one of those next, Mommy".

So although school is officially out, things aren't slowing down just yet!  Maybe in July...

Finally Warm Enough

It was finally warm enough for Ellie to wear her new bubble suit today.  I was surprised to realize how much she's grown.  I positioned the snaps on the straps based on the button placement on the dresses and overalls, with the top snaps placed where I figured they should fit right now.  I assumed that would leave 2 more positions for growth.  WRONG! 

She's already so long that I had to snap them on the last set instead!  How quickly they grow!  Assuming I can reproduce the back yoke pattern piece I will have to add a few inches if I decide to make this again.  For the time being I'm out of material.

In any event, it was a good fit for today:

Grey Day of Little Victories and Little Tragedies

Little Tragedies

There is a rule all parents know:  if things get quiet it's time to investigate.  This is almost a universal truth of parenting.   I regularly run to investigate silences and generally find some sort of mischief.  Just this week I have found Spencer smuggling cookies out of the pantry, pouring his leftover juice back into the jug (yuck!) and trying to use my snap press on his shirt.  I have also discovered (too late) that he'd found a quiet moment to get into my sewing machine, put some cloth under the presser food, move the needle down, change the thread tension and unlock the childlock on the desk drawer.

But apparently Ellie is learning from her big brother already.  At some quiet moment she discovered, right there on the floor, that most cherished and forbidden of baby thrills: paper.  Oh, this paper was a special delicacy!  Light, slightly crispy and slightly waxy it was perfect for chewing and practically dissolved after a moment in her mouth.  Perfection!  She must have mouthed it with silent glee, that much more precious for the privacy she'd managed to win while mommy was busy with her siblings. 

By the time, just minutes later, I came to check on her she was innocently crawling away.  But oh, the carnage!  She'd neatly devoured almost half of the back yoke of my favorite baby pattern.  In a careless moment it must have fluttered off the cutting table onto the floor and she'd wasted no time in discovering it. 

Lexi also suffered a loss today.  Her much-beloved third china tea set lost a cup.  No one saw the tragedy occur, but the remains were discovered in the play area and prompted much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

 

Little Victories

Luckily, there were bright spots, too.  The pattern was not ingested until after I'd used it to cut out the pieces for the bubble-suit I'd planned.  In fact, in spite of tragedies and interruptions and, of course, lots of *help*, I managed to finish the little suit.  All it needs now is a little sun:

And Lex added a little more to her ever-growing mermaid book, did some beading, a little painting and helped me to make a crown for her to match Ellie's new suit. 

And of course, there was banana painting!

Spring Sewing

It began innocently enough.  I decided that Ellie needed some simple summer-weight outfits that fit over her cute little cloth-diapered tush.  After a quick search, I found this adorable infant/toddler pattern at the Etsy Patternshop and soon I was sewing.  It should have been just a few dresses and some overalls. But things soon got out of control.

After the first few outfits appeared for the baby, Lex expressed an interest in having one made for her, too.  Hmmmm.  Ok, that seemed only fair.  But as soon as I agreed my little man piped up:

"Deedoo dress, toooo, Mommy??"

(Deedoo is Spencer's self-chosen nick name.  We may never know why he started calling himself Deedoo, but there is is.)

Well, no, I had to explain that (as much as we tried not to make and issue of things being "girls things" or "boy things") I wasn't going to make him a dress.  But if he wanted I could make him some pants. This seemed to please him, and soon we were off to the fabric store for more patterns and fabric chosen by both kids.

So I began working on the coordinating outfits project.  And as usual, I had lots of "help": help with pins and sewing and bobbin-winding.  In the end, they all wound up with new spring outfits.

And I'm spent.  Now, if only the rest of the fabric would make itself into some charming little bubble suits for the baby...