Emergency Quilt

This weekend we (by we I mean Chase) lengthened Wren's bed a bit, since she's getting so tall. It's sort of an encouragement for her to spend more time in her nice big girl bed and less time in ours. Her bed is awesome, but it is not a standard size for sheets or blankets. We've been using her old crib blankets and her red baby quilt, but with the new big size, she needs a new big girl quilt.


She helped pick some fabric from the (massively diminished) stash, and I got to work on Sunday. I'm making a very informal coin quilt type thing, and I may call Rachel and get some advice on tying. I've always wanted to try that, and since this has to be fast project, my usual hand quilting probably isn't the best idea. Any advice?

Just So I Remember

Whenever this phase is over, I want to remember the time when every morning, at 6:00 AM on the dot, Jane screeched until Chase went and rescued her from her crib, and then she snuggled into bed with us.

She is very cuddly but not in a way that allows anyone else to relax. She is a demonstrative, full body, intense cuddler. And if you forget that, she will give you a bloody lip. Her favorite (read: only acceptable) position is straddling the chest of the person she wants to "cuddle" with and repeatedly, at odd intervals, slamming her body down into her cuddle resipient. She will usually aim for your neck, but its early, and her aim is frequently off. You can sometimes throw up your hands to catch her head as it comes crashing down, and try to redirect it, maybe off your clavicle, to a pillow or something, but Jane is not cool with this. She will screech her displeasure.

When her head hits the target, she will bring her arms up and wrap them around you, snuggle her hot blond head up under your chin, and go completely limp. You have about 4 seconds to snuggle, to appreciate her wonderful delicious babyness, to think, "we are so incredibly lucky to have this little lady in our lives," to sniff her head sweetly and think, "huh...maybe we should give her a bath today..."

After 3 or 4 or 5 seconds, she will wiggle and twist and swing her body back up, maybe smack you in the face a few times, screech like a bird of prey, and crash down again. This happens so many times every morning that Chase and I pretty much always have bruises on our collarbones. If you try to restrain her, or redirect her, or put her back to sleep, you will fail. The only thing that will break this cycle is a banana, cut up into little pieces, and a handful of cheerios.

I am her favorite right now, and so although Chase is the one who usually gets her out of bed in the morning, I am the main recipient of the "cuddles." It's funny because we've been here before with Wren, and although right now I would give one hundred million billion dollars for a morning free of crashing, face bruising baby heads, I know that someday soon she will stop wanting to snuggle with me so much in the mornings, and I will miss it.

And here, so as not to start a picture-less post trend, is a picture of the two constant blurs of motion in my house, "helping" me make piece a quilt top this weekend.

Sicky

Everyday I tell Chase "I really think my cold peaked today. I think I'm getting better. So far I have been very wrong. I've been taking pictures but I think the sheer amount of snot in my body has cost me the ability to focus, because they're all pretty blurry. That's a picture of a little banner type thing I made for Wren a long time ago. It recently found a new home on our porch, next to my bright yellow lantana (my mom's favorite flower). It's not long enough to go around the whole porch, just one side. Those things are the easiest thing ever to whip up, and I've actually seen a tutorial for them using just various shapes and clear plastic thread that looked awesome. I'm thinking about making some of the felt scraps I'm always finding bunched up in my sewing basket into leaves, and sewing a little fall banner like that. Too Martha? HEY I LIKE FALL. Even this cold cannot change my mind. I'll make a banner if I want to.

If my pictures had come out, they would be of a really yummy peach and blueberry pie, a super successful attempt at tikka masala (which I could actually taste! hurrah!) and a little elf hat I'm working on for Jane. It's blue to match her eyes (Awwwww). This is the recipe we used for the masala, but if you do it, follow the advice in the comments and take out almost all the salt.

Nevermind John I didn't mean it

And now you're playing okay stuff, it's like my scorn worked as a tonic for good music. Anyway, I wouldn't want you to get your feelings hurt during what I suspect is your habitual daily self-googling, so here are some pictures of cute kids to help you feel better.


All is forgiven?

Shut Up, John Aielli, For Real.

I have a love/hate relationship with KUT's Garrison Keillor wannabe morning DJ. No I don't want to visit your blog. Please stop talking. Argh. Moving on...

Yes that is a finished quilt those ladies are playing under. Hurrah! It has been washed and dried and is momentarily dog hair free- so I'll need to get it in the mail in the next 20 seconds.


Here's the back, with some posing help from Wren. I'm really happy with it, obviously. I'm sorry, I promise I'll stop talking about it now.


We had a dinner party last night. It was a super stressful day, up to the last minute- dirty house, dirty fussy children, last second recipe change, overlong meeting at work... but then the actual dinner was so nice and relaxing. I didn't want to be considerably more weird than I already am by taking pictures of the delicious frittata that Chase and Wren made, but it was lovely. As was the berry crisp thing with a topping from this recipe cheat sheet. When Chase and I were washing dishes together afterwards, and watching the Daily Show on the laptop, we both said we'd thought about canceling, and were really glad we hadn't. Hurray for making new friends!