Month: January 2006

Finished the Quilting on this one!

Lookie what I finished today! It still needs a binding (edge), but almost all of the work on this one is done!!!

Outside The Box (picture)

I think I’m naming it “Outside the Box,” because I was pretty much going to follow the pattern instructions and lay it out so that the thin strips were in lines on the quilt. Then a few non-quilting friends came over and started playing with the blocks on the design wall, forcing me to think outside that pattern. I *loved* what they came up with so much more, and changed the position of only a few of their blocks before I sewed it all together. It’s quilted in an all-over feather design, using free-motion quilting and all cotton threads.

This one took me about 2 years, but it was dormant for at least a year of that.

The cat in the picture is Emily. She’s tremendously bored by all of this.

Haircut

The same man has been cutting my hair since I was between 2nd and 3rd grades. I really like the cuts I get most of the time, he does a beautiful job with up-dos when I’ve needed those (proms, debutante ball, and wedding).

But usually when he styles my hair just for the everyday, I want to come home and redo it.

Today is no exception. Now that I have a little more time for vanity since Alice isn’t nursing anymore, I’m going to let it grow back out some. In the meantime, however, I have to have haircuts regularly to keep the ends neat so I don’t look shaggy and gross. And so it looks *styled* instead of “oh, look, Elaine’s growing her hair out, doesn’t it look crappy?”

Today I feel like I need to put on a warm-up suit, some Adidas sneakers, put a whistle around my neck, and start yelling at a volleyball team.

Not. Feminine. At. All.

Looking forward to styling it myself tomorrow morning.

Molarity

Alice’s two top baby molars have cut through (so now she has six incisors and two molars), and her bottom two baby molars are cutting. No WONDER she’s been crabby. She’s 18 months old, and is FINALLY getting molars. It’s been over six months since her last teeth came in, and probably even longer than that. That’s my genetic contribution — my family has always been a bit slow when it comes to teeth. I just hope that Alice avoids all my other dental….issues.

Medicating her at bedtime helped, and the entire house slept like the dead last night. Much needed.

Radio Alice

Yesterday, the girls pretty much had ice cream and birthday cake for dinner.

Helen FINALLY stayed in bed after 9:30, when I very pointedly said, “Don’t LEAVE this room AGAIN.” Normally she’s not bad about that at all, so it was odd.

It was just a hint of what was to come, though. Alice decided at midnight that she didn’t really want to be asleep. Or alone. So she started squawking. I ignored her, but then a thunderstorm woke her all the way up, and she started wailing. She cried off and on (mostly on) for a while before I went down to see what the problem was. It was her “I’m tiiiiiiiiiired and looooooooonely” cry, not one of those cries that would have made me rocket out of bed.

She just wanted to be held. For about a minute. Then she wanted to play.

I got her to settle down, put her back in her crib, and as soon as I (very gradually) lifted my hand off her back, she was on her feet and crying again, reaching for me.

At 2am, after about an hour and a half of this, I heated some milk for her. I have never done this for either of my children before, because COLD milk makes me gag, so the thought of WARM milk is just abhorrent. Bleah. She liked it, but she still wanted to play.

After we administered ibuprofen in case she was hurting somehow (though we couldn’t figure anything like that out — she was happy unless we put her down), Jerry put her back in her crib successfully at 2:30, and came back upstairs. I congratulated him on his success, since I had been totally unable to get her to cooperate (unusual: Miss Alice LOVES her sleep). At 2:35, she started to cry. At 2:36 I turned off the monitor (her cries still carry up through the vent, so we can still hear her, but it’s just not very loud and not guaranteed to wake me up unless she’s SCREAMING). Good Night, Radio Alice.

When my alarm went off at 6am, she was crying again. Maybe because of my alarm; I don’t know. I don’t think she had been crying all that time, because I think I would have been aware of it. I was awake much of the night anyway because of the rain.

Ears? No problem. Those are fine.
Fever? None.
Tummy? No problem. Appetite and output are fine.
Teeth? Maybe. She still only has six teeth, and is LONG overdue for the next batch.

All I know is that BOTH girls are REQUIRED to take naps today. And neither of them is happy about it. And I do. not. care.

NAPS ALL AROUND. And dinner will be a real meal tonight, with their usual routine and bedtime.