Happy Easter – With a Strobe Light

easter3Well, not much to say here. Easter was far less bitter than the days leading up to it. This is remarkable since I decided to take a second whack at creating a lovely gown for myself which also ended up in miserable failure. Dan says Laylee will love using it as a dress-up dress, so some good came out of it. I ended up wearing a skirt I made last summer and the world is still spinning.

easter4Laylee’s dress turned out cute, as dresses sewn for adorable children often do. The bunny-man was good to us, bringing me a book of Shel Silverstein poems which Laylee has claimed as her own.

“You hafta SHARE! Please.”

The church service was beautiful, the beauty exaggerated by the fact that I was sitting on the stand with the choir and actually had the chance to pay attention for once…and the fact that it was not my three-year-old who pulled the fire alarm during the choir’s stirring rendition of the closing song, “I Know that My Redeemer Lives.” It was much more exciting with the strobe lights and sirens.

We all love the song so much that we just kept singing away while the congregation mumbled nervously, trying to decide whether it would be rude to flee the building when the choir wouldn’t shut the heck up.

When we found out who the culprit was, I was not surprised. That’s just the kind of thing you’d expect from a child raised by parents who grew up in a nudist colony. *wink*

In other news, the weird things meme is circulating again and although I have been tagged before, I have to mention my recent tag by Peter, a man who’s blog, like his business is called The Tutu Boutique and who listed crying during reality TV shows as one of his weird qualities. Dude. His blog is pink. He sells tutus and princess things. Check him out. He cracks me up.

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Rage Against the Machine

Rally ”˜round your family,
With a pocket fulla shells.
And something about a FIST FULLA STEEL!

Not Rage fans? Okay. Never mind. Me neither. We’re more into Raffi now. Rally round your family with a Robin in the Rain. But Robin in the Rain and Baby Beluga won’t make very good background music for my next project.

I’ve decided to smash my sewing machine and serger with a large rusty mallet, cremate their remains and sprinkle the ashes all over the desks of the good people at Butterick!

Who makes a pattern that doesn’t give measurements for sizing?
Who makes a pattern with pleats, a full lining, and an invisible zipper that suggests using sheer fabric?
Who makes a pattern for a butt-ugly sausage wrapper and markets it as instructions for a beautiful dress?
Who thinks that the average woman has breasts that sit above her armpits?

I have never claimed to have a perfect body but I am not:
A) Morbidly obese…yet. (I am currently self-medicating with the Cadbury Mini-Eggs Dan brought home to me along with beautiful I’m-sorry-you-are-a-sewing-failure potted Gerber Daisies.)
B) Freakishly tall (5’6” doesn’t count, does it?).
C) Sagging to the point of needing reality-TV-worthy plastic surgery.
D)10 sizes larger in dresses than I am in pants and shirts.
E)Ever sewing for myself again.

Today has been my sewing nightmare, the likes of which I have not seen since I started sewing 20 years ago. Today is a day that would have junior high HomeEc teachers running for their lives. I swear I ripped out more seams than I sewed. I’m not sure how that’s possible but I’d advise you not to question my logic at this moment. I am currently holding a large rusty mallet, okay?

Today is a day in which I pulled a major pectoral muscle just trying to get out of the straight-jacket I like to call “my Easter dress.” Karli advised me to try icing it before I go into the ER again.

All of its lovely pieces are going into a baggie in the garage where they will await the day that I lose half my body weight , chop several inches off my staggering circus-freak height and get one of those crazy bras that bring my cleavage up to chin-level.

Now I have some demolition* to take care of. Peace out.

*Disclaimer — No equipment will actually be harmed in the process of rage and destruction I am about to embark upon. I love my Babylock and old-school sewing machine with a great love.

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Since People at My Church are so Square…

…They don’t want us to go naked on Easter Sunday and our dresses currently look like this:

my dress

laylee dress

I may not be blogging for a couple of days.

Have a great Good Friday!

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Food helps You Grow and Gives You Energy

Unless you are a car or an imaginary sister friend named “The Other Snow White.” If you are a car, you can eat gas for energy but you will never grow any bigger. If you are an imaginary sister friend named “The Other Snow White” you will always stay too small to go on play dates and your job will be to stay home and keep the house safe from Monsters, except the nice monsters because they’re allowed to come in the house and stay in it if they WANT!

I just thought you’d like to know a little bit about how food works.

Food goes down and down and down your throat and then says “AAAHHHHH! I’m going down!” and then it turns into pee and comes out your BUM.

If I eat my food all gone, I will grow up into a Grammy.

If Laylee eats her food all gone, she will grow up into a Mom and a Kathryn.

If Magoo eats all his food all gone, he will grow up into a Laylee.

What will Daddy grow into? Apparently like the car and “The Other Snow White, and the Beast if he lets the last petal fall, he will be doomed to remain a Daddy for all time.

When I become a Grammy and Laylee becomes a Kathryn, she would like a new Mommy because she wants to always always have a Mommy. She is accepting applications. Only apply if you’re willing to stop eating so you will NEVER grow big like a Grammy.

I have explained that I will always always be her mom, even when I become a Grammy, but she wants a backup plan.

Side-note: If your Magoo bobs around like a human bobble-head while you’re trying to feed him this morning and you accidentally jam a spoonful of YoBaby organic banana flavored whole milk yogurt into his right eye, it will not give him energy or increased growth potential. It will just make him turn red, smear the yogurt deeper into his eye socket and cry, hypothetically speaking.

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Tip Tuesday Bonus — Keeping Easter

Yesterday Karen was asking for suggestions of how to teach your kids the real meaning of Easter.

When we were little, my mom taught us the Easter story using scriptures from the New Testament, along with visual aids inside plastic Easter eggs. Gabriela details it on her blog.

I always make “hot cross buns” on Good Friday. They are actually two Rhodes Rolls, dipped in melted butter and rolled in cinnamon sugar, baked and then painted with a cross of cream cheese frosting. True hot cross buns don’t seem remotely appealing to me and the ones I make give us the chance to eat something yummy, while teaching the kids about the crucifixion and atonement.

Nettie from Singing a Verse of My Song has some cute suggestions too.

What have you got for us?

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Tip Tuesday — Potty Training

pottyNo, this is not about getting your post-pregnancy body back in shape. Today we’re talking about a little training for the kidlets.

I’m pretty excited that I shan’t be needing this advice again for another year and a half or so. In fact, I may decide not to potty train Magoo at all. When he turns 6 or 7, I’m sure his friends will make fun of him until he figures out what’s up.

For me, potty training Laylee has been a wild ride. It’s taken us over a year and she is finally about 90% trained during the day. Pull-ups are worn at night, except when they’re not.

Our main problem was that we tried to force it before she was ready. We got the book, courtesy of Grammy. We did all the steps but she just couldn’t make it happen. She really had no idea when the pee was coming.

Me: So, where do we do our pee pee?
Laylee: IN THE POTTY!
Me: That’s right. Are you dry?
Laylee: YES!
Me: Great.
Laylee: Oh NO! WAHHHHH!

Big puddle.

So my main advice is – don’t attempt it before they’re ready and don’t turn it into a battle. Go at their pace and have patience that they’ll figure it out sometime before Junior High.

One of my favorite young mom friends told me that she just made it a game. Let’s see how long we can keep a pull-up dry today. When it got wet, oh well, the diaper came back out. Eventually when they could keep it dry for a good chunk of the day, they got to try it with real underwear. She said this worked great and they had very few accidents by the time they transitioned to the real deal.

My main regrets come from the times I made Laylee feel guilt or shame for her accidents. She was little and she was learning how her body worked. Once I stopped chastising and started commiserating with her and cheering her on to do better next time, we started to see real progress.

I’d love to hear any fabulous suggestions you have.

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