I went upstairs with the Green Albatross for a victory lap at 11:00, and put it on our bed (as of yesterday, I had only handwork left to do — about 100 feet of handwork). It’s too small. Apparently, I made a string of cutting errors when putting this thing together 3 years ago, which made it so that I need to add about 5 inches to each side (the length head-to-foot is fine, but it’s not quite long enough on the sides). I didn’t notice these errors, because the quilt has never been fully assembled before yesterday, so I’ve never been able to put it on the bed before to see how it hangs.
So now I have to add two more little panels. This won’t be hard to do, and Jerry helped me audition the fabrics I have left (which are limited — I have used up most of all of it), so I have a plan of attack. But WHAT A PAIN. To finish by Ash Wednesday will probably not happen now (I was hoping to give up the quilt for Lent). But I’m glad I jumped the gun and threw it on the bed before it was “done,” or I would have been unsewing a lot of stuff and REALLY unhappy. This way, it’s just another inconvenience in a long string of inconveniences that have made this quilt such. a. pleasure. to work on. Ugh.
So. I went to sleep obsessing, and I think I have it all figured out, but I was pretty frustrated/disappointed.
At 1am, Helen came up to our room, complaining that she was sick.
“Did you throw up in your bed?”
“No.”
She was kind of disoriented, and the child has really wild dreams, so we thought maybe it was that. She crawled into bed with us and passed out immediately. But she kept getting up and moving around — my guess is to move to something that would be cold on her face; that’s what I would do when I was nauseated as a kid. I wasn’t sleeping well at this point, because I was listening to her tummy pretty intently.
I heard the familiar gurgle, threw back the comforter (Albatross was safely folded up and in the closet, thankfully), and clapped my hand over her mouth. Jerry rocketed out of the way just in time, and I caught most of it in my hand except for the spray.
So. At 1:15, I was washing the sheets on our bed, my pajamas (from the spray), and Helen’s pajamas, and Jerry was setting up a little nest for her on our floor. I spent the night until about 7 on the floor with her, making her sit up and use a little trashcan… For a while, it was about every 10-15 minutes, but finally things seemed to calm down and she slept for a while.
Today she’s pale and doesn’t have much of an appetite, but she’s being cooperative about drinking Gatorade. And she keeps telling Alice, “I’m sick, Alice. I spit up all over Mommy and Daddy’s bed.”
Bless Alice’s cold black little heart, she slept for FOURTEEN HOURS straight last night. 🙂