Pheww!

I don't write often here about my grad school work, what with this being a cozy hiding place from life's various stressors, but... whoo-hoo, people! Yesterday I finished editing the first chapter of my dissertation! (The chapters are all written - now they need to be rewritten, and then I will be able to defend and get my degree.) That is also why I've been away from the bloggie a bit - well, that, and a lovely trip to Boston with my mom to see my grandma:



and to show Jakey off to the rest of the family, including his uncle (well, cousin once removed, technically, I guess) Phil:



I came back to lovely weather, a beautiful and happy family, and a weekend of picnics:

Cardboard Awesomeness

Just got photos of a few new cardboard pieces - you guys totally rock in the creativity department.

First, a great black and white kitchen from Cecily.

And, a fantabulous blue washer and dryer from Andrea (love, LOVE, the Maytag logo):

Flouncey Flowery

I bought this skirt from the clearance rack at T.J. Maxx a while ago - it was enormous but I loved the print.



Finally this morning I took a spare ten minutes to cut off the top, sew a small channel for a quarter inch elastic, and make myself a cute little flouncy flowery skirt.



Lara is totally fascinated by the sewing machine... but still far too little to muck around with it. Soon enough!

The Good Life

The big people surround me. The polka-dotty one is my favorite and gets all my smiles. She giggles, but I am mostly sleepy.



Also, you know what's funny? When the food one hovers over me with a camera trying to catch a laugh. I humor her because she seems to be trying so hard. Ha - "humor her" - see what I did there?

Some Days

Some mornings are like this...





And some afternoons are like this...

My Two Smalls

I don't have siblings, and thus am completely fascinated by the idea that the quintessential experience of Lara and Jake's family life is something that I can only vaguely guess at. I can predict the certainty of joys and frustrations of needing to carve out a niche role in the family structure; of navigating the complexities of sharing and the ins and outs of mine, yours, ours; of the stresses and victories of inevitable comparison. It reminds me a little of the thoughts I had when Lara started nursery school - that she was about to start her own life, with a daily set of experiences that I would not share. But this time my exclusion is so much more profound because even with constant presence I cannot really know what it is like to have a brother.

Right now Lara's relationship with Jake is heavily imitative of our relationship with him. For instance, he hates the car with a passion and her responses to the stress of his screaming are filled with the vocabulary I have given her (partially in an attempt to keep it neutral, but still give her room to complain). Already though they are forming their own connection. She keeps a close watch on me as we leave the house to make sure I haven't forgotten any of his accouterments. And yesterday in the car we were treated to a vision of the future: "Hey that's my toy! Daddy that's mine! Jakey touched it!" "Honey, that's ok, it's still your toy." "But he already touched it with his hand!" Of course, in order for him to have reached it in the first place, she must have been putting it in his hand to play with.

Happy 4th of July!

A pretty much perfect day yesterday. We spent the morning in blissful weather at the Morris Arboretum, which is a totally captivating and magical place. They just built a new exhibit for kids called the "Tree Adventure," which is so enormous that we only made it through the first part (and which I would never have found out about without this fantastic blog of things to do around Philly).

The bridge to the suspended walkways where we learned about trees and what they do:



Looking through the binoculars at the tree canopy:



The outside and the inside of the human-sized bird's nest:





Checking out how squirrels feel running along the branches of trees on the suspended net:



After being in the treetops, we wandered a little bit around the arboretum itself, until Lara discovered this beautiful symmetrical garden:



I love that she is now a posing master, and when I asked her to walk forward and turn around to the camera she instantly did her best photo-ready turn:



Afterwards, we found a meadow with several curved metal sculptures, behind which a bluegrass band was just about to start playing.



We sat for a while and listened. So peaceful and happy.



The afternoon was all about an amazing pool party at a friend's house.



Misha won the parent award by getting Lara to actually go in the pool and swim around! She needed no such convincing to go in the moon bounce (oh yeah, it was that kind of party, people) or devour three cupcakes.

Home At Last

Mr. Forty-Two Roads is back from his conference in Switzerland! We made him a banner - Lara colored in some letters, painted others, and made collages inside the rest. This is a really great project to do with a kid missing a parent who is away!

Updates

I don't have a photo to share today, but I did want to write down the funny doings of the last few days before they are jettisoned by my Swiss cheese memory for good.

Jakey has started smiling at us. Sometimes it's a full-out grin from ear to ear; other times, it's a coy smile that plays only on one side of his mouth. Either way, he is quite delicious. Also, I have figured out that if he is sleepy, I can put him on his tummy on the playmat and he will conk right out (see picture from yesterday). I've decided to call this "tummy time." Yay for a little freedom from having a baby on me 24 hours a day!

Meanwhile, a few days ago: I put Lara to bed and heard nothing from her room for at least a half hour, when suddenly she started calling "Mommy, Mommy, come here!" She had red paint smeared all over her hands (up to the wrists almost), her pj's, and her sheets - like she'd been doing surgery or something. Then I realized that she also had paint on her face. No smears there, though, just very very carefully applied circles on her cheeks and forehead, and a pretty good outline of her lips. "Why do you have paint all over you?" "I was putting on makeup, Mommy, like you and Olivia have on." (Olivia being a book character. Oh, books, always putting ideas into people's heads.) I really wanted to take a picture of her, but then I thought that would send the wrong message about not doing that any more. It was really amazing, though. Impressively funny and creative.

Last night, she went the opposite route. Again after a period of suspicious quiet, I heard "Mommy, come in the bathroom please!" and walked in to find Lara sitting in the bathtub in all her clothes, studiously applying soap to any exposed body parts. "I'm making myself all nice and clean!" And right she was, since the next thing to do was to wash the soap off and congratulate ourselves on the impromptu bath.

Man, kids are funny.

Our Weekend: A Photo-Essay

Cute Lara

Working:



And in a crown made at the wonderful children's craft program in the art museum:

Another Momentous Milestone

Misha finally finished residency! Five years is quite a slog, folks - he really deserves some accolades. Also, I decided, he deserves a whole bunch of tiny presents:



They were really small, most less than an inch, wrapped in scraps of tissue paper, ribbon, and raffia. Inside each was a little piece of paper with a note on it, and I hid them all over the house in places he encounters every morning. There is still one that he hasn't found, as far as I know.

Happy Father's Day!

Lara made Daddy these Father's Day robots:



If you can't see, the one on the left is Hoppy and the one on the right is Jumpy - these are both their names and their functions!

I made Misha this tee:



I made the design on Photoshop and then had it printed on Cafepress. It came out great - much easier than trying to figure out how to silkscreen in an apartment.

And Jake? He brought the cuteness quotient up:



Happy Father's Day, everyone!

Farmer's Market Poppy

So pretty... and sadly so very ephemeral. These lasted maybe four hours in a vase!

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I have a question for all of you creative types out there. I now have a few photos of flowers and nature that I really like, and would like to use to make a set of notecards. Where do I find a good printer? We sometimes print out our photos on Shutterfly, but they aren't really high quality. Where do people who take art photographs get their images printed? I know, I know, I'm a rube.

Our Small Friend

A Lara's-Eye View

One of the presents Lara's very thoughtful brother brought her when he was born is a little digital camera. She was a big, big fan of this gift - probably her favorite thing Jakey came home with. (It's amazing how technology leapfrogs itself, by the way - a 2 megapixel camera is now $30.) She is not quite a master yet, but here are some fun shots from the past few weeks.

Father's Day Collage

My dad is visiting this weekend, so I gave him his present a little early. I've been wanting to use that stencil of Lara and me for a long time, and I really like how this one came out!

Almost 3 Weeks

Jake this morning - bathed, fed, and all dressed up in a cute tee I picked up at the Art Star Craft Bazaar a couple of weeks ago.



And last night, Lara drew a family portrait in dry-erase marker. From the top clockwise: Daddy, Jakey, Lara, and Mommy. I managed a quick photo before we were all erased.

Swinging Collage

Sadie's happy girl and husband. Looks like she loves the swings as much as Lara does!

A Good Weekend

Every weekend should have a cake day, especially when you can order the Triple Chocolate Mousse Torte from the bakery all by yourself.



Really good weekends have playdates, and when your friend Gus has a giant barrel of Playdoh accessories? Awesome.



Weekends require special attire. This outfit matches because everything has stripes.



And the best finish to a good weekend? Going to the playground with the Jakey baby and Daddy.

Lara and Jake Play Together

I love how cute she is with him. Now she calls him "the Jakey baby". As in, "Mommy, can you give the Jakey baby to Daddy and put me in the bath?"

We've now also entered the age of interminable stories. Mostly they are long, extremely detailed recaps of recent events, taking us all the way back to the exact moment of the actual telling of the recap - "and I then I told you about the playground... and then..." - where they kind of end as Lara figures out that nothing since then has happened. But yesterday I wrote down this one:

"A dragon came for the farmer to eat him, and then the farmer was falling down and hurt his butt. Then I put him in the bathtub and his head was in the bathtub too, in the water. Then the farmer ate a hamburger and lived happily ever after and turned into Princess Fiona."

I wish that one came with illustrations.

Fitted Sheet/Changing Pad Cover Tutorial

I got a couple of questions asking how I made the fitted sheet and the cover for the changing pad, so I thought I'd draw up a quick tutorial. The process is the same in both cases, and really takes no time at all.

Step 1.
Measure the height of the mattress/changing pad. Now add 4 to this number. This will be value X. Use this value to measure and cut out squares from the corners of your fabric, like so:



Step 2.
Sew together the cut edges, a to a, b to b, c to c, and d to d. You will end up with basically a fabric box that should fit snugly over your chosen mattress or pad.

Step 3.
Fold down the top edge of the fabric "box" about 1" to create a casing channel for your elastic. Pin in place, and sew the casing down. Remember to leave an inch or so unsewn so you can thread the elastic into the casing. I used 1/2" elastic, but I don't think it really matters very much. My method of threading elastic is the traditional one - attach a safety pin to one end and then scootch the safety pin through the fabric to pull the elastic through. Sew elastic ends together, and you're done! (In the image below, the red rectangle is the casing/elastic.



Let me know if some part of this doesn't make sense!

And also, to answer another question that I didn't get a chance to answer directly - yes, Jake's swing is from Dwell (from the collection they made for Target, which is totally adorable).

Jakey Awakey

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Thank you so much for all your well wishes, everyone! So far, two is lovely, but requires an even tighter grip on time management and multi-tasking prowess. Babyhood does seem much easier the second time around, though. So few needs - and they are so easily met; so few opinions - and they don't necessarily have to be catered to! And, as an added bonus, I fins that I have attained some kind of relaxed zen state (which, as everyone who knows me can attest, is so not my innate personality). It's nice. I'm an island of calm amid the chaos.

New Stencil Collage - "Love"

I am really struck by the sweetness of their pose and the expression on Jenae's face looking at her girlfriend - it really is quite evocative of what must be a very loving relationship.

One week later

Jake has fully mastered that grumpy-old-man baby face.



Lara is the happy recipient of many presents - some from her brother, some from the rest of her family - and has mastered the art of saying "thank you" so cutely that gift givers are inspired to give more.



Lara's family, meanwhile, has mastered the art of appealing to her princess-ballerina side.