From frumpy to fabulous, hopefully

I may be reading to many refashion blogs lately because when I saw this little robe thingy at a local thrift store, I went a little nuts with excitement. I'm thinking about refashioning it into a summer dress for myself or maybe a skirt for the girls. Very Sound of Music, no?

What pieces I have left over will be tucked away and eventually used in a vintage sheet quilt I plan to make in the far distant future -- need to collect the sheets first. My inspiration.

All sorts of Big Girl happenings

This has been going on for a few weeks but Lila is finally at a point with her big girl cup where we can leave the room and trust she won't shake it or dump it out or any other sort of impulsive movement of which Lila is prone.

Now that she's using a cup, she's agreeable to drinking milk again. We went a good 8 or 9 months with her refusing to drink milk. Of course, with the copious amounts of cheese and yogurt she consumed, we weren't too concerned.

Boy oh boy

As a mom of two girls, I don't have nearly enough "boy" fabric in my stash. So I was very excited when a friend asked for my help sewing a baby quilt for her brother's first baby boy. I poured over fabric selections online for hours and drew up concept boards of different fabric combinations. In the end, we decided on these fabrics below, most of which I got from Fabric Worm. Cynthia has an amazing selection plus she's fantastic to work with and has a great sense of style. She patiently helped me by making sure the fabrics I was selecting indeed matched since viewing true color of fabric online can often be so tricky. I highly recommend her shop.

Aren't those guitars fantastic? They'll be the backing. The stripe will be the binding. And the other fabrics (minus one that is still in transit) will be used on the front. The actual design of the quilt is still to be determined. I should make it easy on myself and do a simple patchwork but a modern log cabin or maybe square within a square seems very appealing to me. What design would you use?

A week of firsts

Lots happening over here for the first time:

• Lila has taken to informing us she's ready for a big girl bed.
  
• Casual conversations about the Pacifier Fairy have begun. When asked what kind of toy Lila would like the Pacifier Fairy to bring her, Lila first said an Elmo placemat. The next day she said she wanted a pillow. Must teach her the definition of toy.
• Rosalie learned how to drink out of a sippy cup. She's very proud of herself, as are we.
  
• Lila asked to go to the potty in private. I think her words were something like, "Mommy go away. Go in the kitchen." Once I left, she eventually did use the potty. Now she'll randomly tell us she needs to use the potty but always wants us to close the door, something we're going to have to rethink doing as today I opened the door to find her elbows deep in the toilet as if it were her own personal water table.
• Rosalie stood up in her crib and everywhere else for that matter. We're in full cruise mode. She's trying to stand independently too.
• Lila has developed a fascination with where the pee comes out and has to look at her girly parts ALL. THE. TIME. I hope this is just a step in the annoying journey to bladder control.
  
• Rosalie can climb stairs. We've never practiced it with her but apparently she's got it all figured out. Imagine my surprise to turn the corner and see this:

"I don't know"

While Rosalie's verbal development is still, well, developing, she's definitely compensating with hand gestures. The latest is this "I don't know" gesture that she likes to do when a question is asked or when she hears "I don't know."

The first time I noticed it was last week when we were meeting with the Feeding Team. I was telling them how Rosalie is more receptive to trying foods if she's nursed just prior to me putting her in the high chair. "I don't know why it works but it does," I said to the team. They busted out laughing and I looked down to see Rosalie holding her hands up like this.



Little stinker has started waking up 2-3 times a night again. It's a good thing she's so charming and cute.

Sweet progress

When I get really stressed, I like to sew. There's something really therapeutic about creating something beautiful with just fabric and thread.

Things have been stressful lately (for more reasons than I have time to go into on here) so I've been trying to fire up my machine on a regular basis to keep the panic attacks at bay. I spent Friday night making the template for my pinwheel quilt. Red Pepper Quilts has instructions here, but I must warn you that it just gets you started. It's not a full-blown tutorial, which I generally need to be successful the first time around.


Needless to say, it took me a good chunk of the evening to do one block. With the technique mastered, I was able to crank out five more the next day. And now I want to do more. It's quite addictive.

I also finished the free motion quilting on my Good Folks quilt and got the binding sewn on the front. Now I just need to hand stitch the binding to the back and it will be done! I've loved all the quilts I've ever done but this one really has stolen my heart. It's going to be bittersweet to give this one away but I know the new owner will love it.


I also recently picked up some thrifted men's dress shirts to transform into dresses for Lila. More on that soon, I hope.

Urban playground

After successfully destroying one pair of shoes puddle jumping, we finally invested in some marked-down dinosaur rain boots.

Some kids play in sprawling subdivisions. Ours play in the alley. Such is city life.

Patriotic inspiration

I woke up this morning with a huge urge to make a red and turquoise pinwheel quilt. I have a number of sewing projects in queue so this will have to be just a mini-quilt for Lila's wall. This will be the first time I'll be cutting into some of the Japanese fabrics I bought more than two years ago, which makes me a master fabric hoarder, don't you think?

Feeding team update

As many of you know, we've been taking Rosalie to a team that specializes in eating issues in children in the hopes that they'd be able to help Rosalie transition to solid food.

We met with the team this week and, to my dismay, Rosalie remains the same weight that she was a month ago. Actually, she's held steady at 16 pounds for almost two months now. It's worrisome but I try not to get caught up in the numbers when she looks great and is making steady progress on her developmental milestones.

Rosalie's eating progress has been slow but we have seen some progress. She'll now put food in her mouth and taste it, sometimes even sucking on it. Mostly though she takes bites and chomps on the food in an exaggerated manner - kinda like Cookie Monster eating cookies. The food bits fall out, of course, and we just have to tolerate it all in the name of practice. This is what the feeding team tells me anyway.

Her gagging and vomiting have lessened and she's actually swallowed food - not very gracefully and clearly accidentally - but she's swallowed food. Food that has gotten the best response? Cinnamon rolls, thin crust pizza, graham crackers, syrup soaked french toast, and pulled pork BBQ sandwich.

In a few weeks we have an appointment with another specialist at the other children's hospital in town. Unlike the feeding team which operates from a behavioral framework, this doctor will be reviewing Rosalie's case from a diagnostic, medical perspective. I'm hoping that, if anything, we'll at least rule out any sort of physical problem.

In the meantime, we're wasting copious amounts of food since Rosalie loves to fling most food off of her tray. If we ever could use a dog, now would be the time.

Sharing

This is Lila's new version of sharing: putting everything out of Rosalie's reach. She's really struggling with Rosalie's new-found mobility. In fact, I'm pretty sure it freaks her out. She'll scream "Put her in somewhere place!" whenever Rosalie starts truckin' it toward Lila and a toy or puzzle.

So I'm curious. What are your tips for promoting harmonious play and sharing?