Grandma's Dress

This dress has been hanging on my closet door since April, back when Sophie wore it for her and Michael's birthday celebration.  It was my dress, one my grandma made for me out of a little extra material from a dress she had made for herself.  From what I understand she didn't even use a pattern.   All I remember is having a dress like Grandma's and thinking that was pretty dang cool.

Like I said, Sophie wore this for her birthday, but it was pretty cold that day.  She wore a sweater over it, and nobody was really in the mood for me to get all paparazi on them.

So since April, I've been crossing my fingers that Sophie wouldn't grow out of the dress before I had a chance to get some pictures.  Sigh of relief today.

The Secret Garden

Since the weather warmed up way back in March, Michael and Sophie have been intrigued by our secret garden.  Ok, it's just the space between our garage and our fence, but they love sneaking back there to explore the leaves and flowers and all things overgrown.

We have a fantastic maple tree in our backyard that provides tons of shade and makes a summer afternoon beneath it feel less...suburban.  Yesterday the kids got filthy putting dirt from under that tree into their "new" sandbox (given to us by a neighbor) one plastic shovel-full at a time.  Sophie came to me with dirt all around her mouth, clearly having sampled a taste.  She and I were both pretty grossed out, but it's a rite of passage, isn't it?  Thank goodness for antibodies.

After that fun fizzled, Michael and Sophie took their garbage trucks (also given to us by that neighbor whose grandsons are outgrowing her toys) back to their little haven.

As much as I long for a new home, I'm reminded every day that the big joys of life have little to do with where you are, especially since my peanuts can make a paradise out of an alleyway.



Carrie met Aidan

Twelve years ago this summer, Carrie and Aidan got together.


During that same summer, Carrie and Mike got together.

After closing the restaurant where I waited tables and Mike cooked, servers and bartenders, cooks and managers would change out of au jus stained t-shirts, have drinks, and dance until last call at one bar or another. 

On one of those nights, serenaded by AC/DC, Mike kissed me on the dance floor.  He called me the next day and we had a couple of beers on our night off, good mircrobrews I assure you.

On the phone and over those beers there was an ease and an attraction, no games, no drama, just talk of school and family, of the gossip we were fueling at the restaurant, and of the ease and attraction themselves.

Weeks later we realized we had to pick a date to mark when the relationship began.  We picked twelve years ago today.

Sadly, Aidan and Carrie didn't work out, but season 3 and this seductive melody will always take me back that summer in the city (and by city I mean Ypsilanti, of course).

Pink and Blue

Will this kind of thing ever stop making my heart soar?

Ever since I found those pink and the blue bootie Christmas ornaments on the day we learned that both Michael and Sophie were on their way, I just get all mushy when I see little representations of my boy and my girl.

My mom found these overalls on a clearance rack at Kohl's the other day.  She said they were right there together, both in size 24 months, just waiting for her.  The kids wore them today for another shopping outing with their grandma and me, and the twin attention was out of control.  When we stopped for lunch, they held my hands on the way to the restaurant bathroom, and one woman at a table we passed exclaimed, "That's the cutest thing I've seen in my enire life!"  She should have seen my Osh Kosh B'Goshed duo dancing to Celine Dion's rendition of "All By Myself" in the handicapped stall of the bathroom.  Apparently it stirred their little souls.

At this point, of course, "boy" and "girl' hardly define all that my kids are, but I gave in way back to pink and blue being their designated colors.  Families with same gender multiples often do that as well--Jack's stuff is green and George's is yellow.  It just helps keep things organized and sometimes helps everyone, even parents, tell identical babies apart.  I'm sure hypothetical Jack and hypothetical George's hypothetical mommy would get all sappy seeing items in their color combination as well. 

Am I right?  Are there any other MoMs out there who get sentimental seeing a mama duck with two (or three or four) ducklings, believing you know just how she feels? How about when you see your kids' colors?

Coincidentally, the kids' new favorite sleep time snugglies are the pink and blue bunnies that a student gave to me just before I went on maternity leave.  I'll have to tell her about that when school starts again. She was a freshman that year and will start her senior year in September...funny how that happens.  Funny also how the students I had that year are extra special to me.  I'm allowed to admit that, right?  They knew me when, you know?  : )

I saw this commercial on Friday while the kids were napping and I was catching up on some shows.  Even it stirred up my twin mama sentimentality:

I really wasn't planning on using Pull-Ups, but it appears that those who do get to live in houses with gorgeous built-ins where their twins peacefully share a room into the big kid bed days and go to sleep without much assistance.    Maybe Pull-Ups are the key to my dream future, minus the uber goofy husband.  Sort of.  ; )

Speaking of sleeping without much assistance, I plan to give a more detailed update on the pacifier situation in the days to come, but as predicted, today went better than yesterday.  Still not great, but I'll take better!

Bye-bye, Pacies - Day 1

For the last week I've been hyping it up.

Me: Michael, Sophie, where are we going to put your pacies on Sunday?

Sophie: In a tree!

Michael: A park!  Way up high!

Me: Yes!  And after we put your pacies in the tree, what will you say?

Sophie and Michael: Bye-bye, paci!

Me:  And after we put your pacies way up high in the tree, will you have your pacies for naptime?

This part got blank stares for several days, but eventually after some brainwashing practice...

Michael and Sophie: No, no more paci.  Bye-bye, paci!

The tree is one in a local park where many little ones have hung their pacifiers to say a final good-bye.  After weighing the many options, that's the way we decided to take this step as well.

Here's how it went.

Then we went home, the kids went down for their naps peacefully, and we never thought about those things again.

Riiiiiiight.  Wouldn't that be nice?

If this had gone down without difficult naps and bedtimes, I would have been shocked.  But that's why we chose now as the time to do this.  Bedtimes have been a little rocky lately, and we figured if we're trying to get over a rough patch anyway, why not add in this complication now instead of upsetting bedtimes later on when we have them smoothed out.

What actually happened when we got home today was I snuck into the kids' room while Mike got them started on lunch, and I put two new sock monkeys in a dresser drawer.  That's where we had been storing their two pacifiers since they became "just for bedtime" long, long ago.  Going to that drawer before and after every sleep had become a pleasant ritual--Michael and Sophie putting them away in the morning and after nap (sometimes requesting one or two more minutes like you heard Michael do in the video) and getting them out again at the beginning of the bedtime routine.  I felt the drawer had to be part of this transition.

 

Kohl's Cares Sock Monkeys

When Sophie and Michael finished lunch I told them there was a surprise in their room, that there were no more pacies in the drawer because they were in the tree, but there was something else.  When I opened their bedroom door and they saw the monkeys peeking out at them, Michael giggled and they both grabbed and snuggled the animals right away.  I showed them that there were in fact no pacifiers in that drawer anymore (they were cool with that), we did diapers and put on sleep sacks (not giving those up until out of cribs), turned on the sound machine and the Twilight Turtle, put the kids in their cribs, covered them with their blankets...and the fun began.

They cried.  And cried, a sad, grieving, lip-quivering cry, eventually calling for their pacies.  At one point they both tossed those sock monkeys out of their cribs simultaneously, saying "Eff these, Mama.  Go back to that tree and get those damn pacifiers!"  They said that with their eyes, anyway. 

I felt it was best if I tackled this on my own for consistency's sake, so Mike ran some errands with my blessing. Trying my best to stay strong, I gave Sophie and Michael some kisses, offered to cover them with their blankies, rocked them both a little, left the room, let them cry for a bit, went back, gave kisses.  This went on for about 45 minutes.

Hoping I wasn't trading one baby bedtime habit for another, for the first time ever (aside from rare occasions of painful teething or sickness), I rocked Sophie and then Michael until each was totally out.  No eyes fluttering open as I stood up.  Not just to the "drowsy but awake" state I've always committed to in order to promote self-soothing.  I held them, snuggled the crap out of my heart-broken kiddos, and helped them doze all the way to a paci-free dreamland.

That's probably better than just going out to the stash in the kitchen that the kids don't know about and grabbing another pair of pacifiers.  Probably.  Only time will tell. 

But eventually for that nap my little ones were asleep, calm and comfortable.  After seeing stress and sadness on their faces for over an hour, that was all that mattered to this mama.  That and no longer hearing the sound of plastic-pacifier-hitting-hardwood-floor in the middle of the night, knowing a cry is soon to follow.  We're aiming for both, and we'll get there. 

Sophie warmed up to her sock monkey this afternoon and wanted to take it with her everywhere--everywhere, that is, except for bed.  She knows it's here because her paci is not, and she's made it clear by refusing him crib priveledges that she's not thrilled with the trade.  Still, bedtime tonight went better than naptime (hardly any rocking or calling for pacies), but we're still in the thick of it.

Then we're onto potty training.

Ah, the joys of toddlerhood.

DIY Drum Shade for Pendant Fixture

Look what I just made for zero dollars!

Remember how I bought two lamps from the Salvation Army that looked like this for the DIY mercury glass lamps project:

I bought and covered new shades for the lamps and was all set to toss those old shades when I remembered how expensive new ones can be.  The parts to make them aren't easy to come by either,  so I cut off the little tops to save for some future project.  Seeing the two big rings from the bottoms of the shades gave me another idea...so I saved all of it.

I decided yesterday to put that idea I mentioned into action.  I cut the fabric off of one of the large lampshade rings and strung the smaller ring right in the center of it using some white electrical wire (what we had on hand).  I ran three pieces of wire around both rings, twisting each wire back on itself a few times at each end and then cutting with wire cutters.

As you can see above and below, I attached the fabric that was still on the other ring to the inside of the one with the wire using a hot glue gun.  

The fabric bent in dramatically in the middle until I took the clothes steamer to it.  

Now I have a 24" drum shade, a product that can easily cost upwards of $100,  to hang in my kitchen on top of this guy:

I think that's what I'm going to do, anyway.  The fixture above looked like this when we moved in:

Turns out this brass luxury can still be yours for a mere $90 at Home Depot.

Obviously I spray painted it black way back when we moved in.  Just a couple of weeks ago I was wishing I could update the fixture again by simply turning those little arms up and adding new sconces.  So I tried, and I could.  Just that simple.  I swapped the sconces out for three I had in my bathroom and bought just two more at Home Depot--a $10 update.

When I took this peaceful looking picture, there were two balloon-chasing lovebugs scurrying around the kitchen listening to that record on the player.  I had to take the picture quickly between scrurries!  Funny how quiet it looks.

So that's what the light looks like at this very moment.  While I'm happy with the third look I've squeezed out of this fixture and enjoy the visual interest that the black scrolling arms and crisp white sconces add to the room, I think a large drum shade would better lend itself to the simple, mid-centruy modern look I'm trying to incorporate...which is the thought that made me break out the glue gun last night. 

We'll put my new shade up tonight and be one step closer to a finished fix-up!

If you're interested in making your own drum shade but don't happen to have two enormous throw-away lampshades sitting around, I suggest you try this tutorial by Ashley Keylor at The Keylor Family.  I just stumbled on it while looking up prices for large drum shades for this post.  Most tutorials I found via Pinterest and Google in the past were for covering existing drum shades, but this one is really about how to make one from scratch with materials from Hobby Lobby!



Backyard Fun

Over the weekend the kids had their lunch outside on the deck again, but the sun was a little harsh at the big patio table. 

Watching the kids eat (yup, roll-ups again) sitting on this bench, I thought of this picture of my brother and me back in...does that say "July 1981"?  Wow.

Mike was working on some projects in the garage, so I snatched his iPhone and attempted to capture the sentimental cuteness.

Two smiling at the same moment?

Nope.  Mostly just chewing...

...and a high five...

...and a fist bump...

...and an E.T.

I love Michael's sweet face in the one above and the one below.

As they played I got a little fixated on the summertime perfection that is Sophie in pigtails and a sundress.

I usually try to brush my girl's bangs to the side a bit whenever she's in arm's reach, but after playing around they tend to fall forward and straight...like mine (see 1981).

(Check out Michael's kissy face under Soph's pigtail below.)

My motto lately is that I'm cool with the kitchen project taking all summer as long as it doesn't take all summer.  I don't want making time for kitchen stuff to make us miss out on anything this summer has to offer our little family.  As badly as Mike just wants to knock the last bits out of this work, he's on the same page.  If he needs to take a break from cutting trim to blow up a pool (a gift from a family friend who bought it for a party and passed it on) or put together a picnic table (a birthday gift for the kids from Mike's parents), he's all about it.  So that's what he did while the kids and I went for a walk around the neighborhood, ate lunch, and I played paparazzi.

You can hear Michael say "Papa" at the start of this video.  He was talking about getting the table from Grammie and Grandpa.

They enjoyed the pool with water later on that day...