trucks and hats

I did manage to make a dump truck costume for my first born.  Three boxes, some crazy glue, a quart of semi-gloss, and a sharpie. He was definitely impressed for about five seconds. 

This was the first Halloween I bothered dressing anybody up.  Joseph was a baby for his first and second Halloween; last year I had three day old twins so we pretty much took a pass.

Violet's costume was an elf hat (pattern from Bend the Rules Sewing) and a play silk from Joseph's school.  I'm not totally clear what she was supposed to be (some sort of pixie or fairy, I suppose) but it was cute.

Poor Harry didn't even get a makeshift costume; he just got another elf hat and some grainy photographs.

The babies cooperated and kept their hats on for hours.  Halloween magic, I tell you.

one

They turned one. We made it. The past year has been incredible and I am so very glad it's over. I'm deciding to just own how much I disliked the experience of having twin babies; I realize that their babyhood is precious/fleeting/etc, but there's no getting around how much it sucked at first (like, for the first ten months) and how miserable we all were. I really like the babies (and the universe) a lot more now that they're beyond the constant crying, constant holding phase. Now we are in the goofy slapstick almost-toddlerhood phase: so much better. They have excellent little personalities that get lovelier every day. Onwards and upwards, my ridiculous babies.

(Photo by this talented lady)

how to use facebook (to make everybody hate you)

If your status update involves any of the following, you've just alienated a bunch of people:

• your brilliant and superior parenting skills (e.g., your three year old's reading ability, the fact that none of your kids eat any refined sugar, etc.)
• how other parents are so pitiably stupid for parenting in a way different from your own
• any reference whatsoever to vaccination: for, against, or otherwise
• hysterical invective against circumcision, baby formula, or nighttime parenting choices
• shit-stirring in general

The "hide" button is a magical thing and I use it freely.  I expect a certain amount of idiocy in any forum where people aren't interacting face-to-face.  But I just do not understand how people can survive a few years of parenthood without being deeply humbled by the inadequacy of whatever ideals they started out with.  I'm not even sure that the people who set me off on this little rant really do believe that my kids are forever scarred by my horrible parenting choices.  They're probably just looking for some validation from the little choir they're preaching to.  But it strikes me as antagonistic and (strangely) competitive and they should most definitely shut right up.

feeding the freezer

When I'm baking I almost always double the recipe and freeze half.  Most baked goods freeze wonderfully.  Muffins, quick bread, yeast bread, pie, pie crust, cake, cookies, cookie dough, biscuit and cobbler dough, crumble topping.  Everything.  I've even had some luck freezing muffin and quick bread batter.

Having a freezer filled with relatively wholesome pies, muffins, etc. really helps in the snack department.  And the breakfast department.  I bake with whole grains, minimal sugar and heaps of fruit, so I don't worry about the kids (or me) eating too much/too often/whatever.  When I taste "normal" pie or cake made with white flour and sugar I'm overwhelmed by the sweetness, reaffirming my belief that my carrot cake is a perfectly reasonable breakfast.

These apple cakes are from Rustic Fruit Desserts. I had some mealy apples that needed to be either baked or put in the compost pile.  One went in the freezer, one went in our bellies.

pilgrim dress for silly baby

I've been shamefully lazy about NaBloWriMo.  I think I've missed three days.  Pathetic.  Last year I managed to post each day despite, you know, giving birth to twins via major abdominal surgery (okay, so I scheduled posts ahead of time--sue me).

I enjoy seeing small children in somber clothing.  Dignified, serious clothing makes their foot-eating, food-wearing antics even better.

This dress nearly wound up in the scrap bin due to a buttonhole mishap.  While opening up the buttonhole with a seam ripper, my hand slipped and tore a giant hole in the placket.   I managed to patch it; you can see the repair job on the top button hole here, but I've decided it's good enough.  I didn't cry, curse, throw crockery or yell at my kids.  I feel so mature.

This is not my first buttonhole disaster. Either the automatic buttonhole setting on my machine is at fault or this is just one of those things (like pie crust) that I'm just going to routinely screw up despite having decent theoretical knowledge of what needs to be done.

Other than that, I'm pleased with the dress.   I made it out of an old skirt I had sewn years ago, before the mysteries of fabric grain had been revealed to me.  Perhaps it's the fact that the fabric was essentially free that I was so patient with my buttonhole issue.  Hmmmm.

melted crayon success

Joseph obsessively breaks his crayons into conveniently sized choking hazards that the babies can't get enough of. I was going to throw all those sad little pieces away and pretend they got lost but instead we melted them in some silicone muffin cups. 300 degrees for 5 minutes, that is all it takes. And my muffin cups are still pristine; I had heard that melting crayons can do horrible things to metal muffin cups, so I think silicone is the key to success. Joseph was transfixed throughout the process--he pretty much thinks I'm an alchemist. I have never been so impressive. I think you could probably get better results if you tried to color-coordinate the crayon scraps. Our color scheme here was entirely kid-directed, so you get what you get.

halloween help

I have no interest in halloween, not this year or any year.  My husband and oldest son do not feel the same way, unfortunately.  They both think inflatable pumpkin lawn decor is a great idea, and they both have been asking for months about Joseph's costume.  Joseph wants to dress up as an excavator or a front end loader, but either he doesn't quite grasp the concept of costumes or he is seriously misjudging my sewing abilities.

I suggested that he and the babies all wear their pointy hats (elf hats made from Bend the Rules Sewing; they take about two seconds to make and look awesome) and we can go as a family as gnomes. This suggestion was greeted with stony silence.

Anybody have any ideas for a quick costume that doesn't involve multiple trips to JoAnn's, fake fur, foam or engineering skills?  I'm pretty sure I'll just dress the babies as gnomes and call it a day, but Joseph needs something more exciting.

a (reasonably) happy post

Conventional wisdom is that twins amuse one another (because we all know how siblings always get along and play together peacefully) but until recently they just smacked and bit one another and cried a lot.  When they were in the crib together it was like a baby cage match.  Not good.  But now they babble at one another and crawl around the house like a pair of baby hooligans, banging on things, tearing apart books and annoying the crap out of their older brother.  We're out of the there's always somebody crying so maybe I should just hide in the bathroom and think about how much I dislike my ovaries for making twins and then feel guilty and then cry and then feel incompetent etc etc etc stage and settled into normal, busy-but-manageable family life with two little kids and one not-so-little kid.

Of course, at night it's like having two newborns and a poltergeist, but let's not dwell on that.  Joseph now greets strangers with a cheerful "how did you sleep last night?"  Because we are sleep obsessed/deprived crazy people in this family.

More preschooler hilarity that must be documented for posterity:  yesterday at the grocery store Joseph saw a man wearing an absurd red turtleneck and promptly announced "oh my, you look fancy today, don't you."  I don't think I've ever loved another human being more than I did at that moment.  At some point we'll have to have a discussion about manners but that can wait.  

linen flower dress

These smock/jumper style dresses were Violet's summer uniform.  When I made them, I assumed she'd wear a onesie underneath, but I forgot how sticky and horrible the summer is here.  I was glad to have a bunch of light dresses to throw on over a diaper.

The flower on this dress is made from some leftover linen quilt binding.  It was two inches wide and then folded in half; I did a basting stitch down the raw edge and then gathered it into a ruffle.  I coiled it into a vaguely floral shape while hand stitching it in place from the wrong side; if hand sewing ruffly flowers sounds like a major undertaking, understand that this step took about five minutes.  I then hand tacked it onto the dress (another five minutes).  I was pretty sure it would turn to shit in the wash, but it held up miraculously well.  The laundry gods smiled on me with this one.

three

My chatty, curious, dreamy, truck-obsessed little boy is now three. Three! Every time we reach a new stage I say to myself "this is the best ever. I will cry a thousand tears when this is over." And then it turns out that the next stage is even lovelier than anything that preceded it.

This was the first time I attempted an actual birthday party, although it was still pretty small and low key. I had to make sure we didn't go to any "real" birthday parties in the weeks leading up to this because I was afraid he'd be disappointed that he didn't have an inflatable ball pit or a cake shaped like a truck or whatever. "But where's my ball pit, mama? It's my birthday, isn't it?" Sob sob sob.

more guilt induced crafting: a penguin

This fuzzily-photographed penguin is based on this lovely pattern with some details inspired by Harry's penguin-shaped (!) nebulizer.  I made it in about half an hour, in classic kid-on-the-lap fashion:  raw edges, no ironing, and zero attention to detail.  I'd be very satisfied with myself if somebody would play with it, even for a single minute.  Alas, most of the toys I make really underwhelm my kids, which is actually to say that they underwhelm Joseph--the babies are content to play with garbage/laundry/lint so I'm not taking their interest as a ringing endorsement.

guilt induced crafting, part one

During the middle of the summer we were stuck at home a lot because 1) it was a million degrees out, 2) it seemed like at least one of the kids was always contagious with some gross upper respiratory thing and therefore not fit for human company, and 3) I was too sleep deprived to drive anywhere.  So we spent a good chunk of the summer inside, going crazy and making memories to share with future therapists.

In an effort to keep the two year old busy and make myself feel like a good mother, I tried to do some really simple sewing projects with him.  This bath mitt is from a pattern in the spring 2010 Stitch magazine, although I cut some serious corners.  I used an old towel and some fabric scraps.  I just eyeballed most of the pieces and did a quick raw edge applique instead of whatever the pattern instructions called for.  With a kid on my lap, this took me about 20 minutes.  

This was mostly a success: Joseph fed fabric through the machine, cut scraps with his scissors, and stopped emotionally terrorizing the babies for a few moments.  I made a dent in my weirdly large pile of old towels (seriously, I could people the world with bath mitt critters) and felt like I accomplished something.  Hooray for craft projects that work out.

pictures of my children being beautiful

So.  Hi there.  It's been so long since I posted that I can't remember how to properly upload a picture.  It took me about 20 minutes to make this picture appear on the damn blog and now I can't even remember why it seemed like such a great picture anyway.

I am so very happy that the summer is over.  It was not wonderful.  The details are best glossed over, unless you really like hearing about dead pets, diseased gallbladders, a baby who didn't gain weight for three months, a baby with an antibiotic resistant ear infection, and the fact that my husband and I were seemingly in a contest to see who could be in the world's crappiest mood.  I've been very busy alternating between feeling sorry for myself and feeling sorry for my kids for having such a basket case for a mother.  It's been a laugh riot over here.

This baby does not eat.

But things seem to be improving.  The three year old is in school two mornings a week.  My gallbladder has stopped actively trying to murder me, and if that means I can never eat dairy, nuts, or eggs again for the rest of my life I can happily make that sacrifice.  We're getting to the bottom of the babies' health issues.  We planted some trees.  I've been making lots of pie.  I no longer feel like the house was built over a hell mouth.

This baby does not sleep.

I'm doing NaBloWriMo again this year.  See, I have three months of unblogged projects that I can totally milk for 31 days of posts!  Maybe I'll even contemplate writing a tutorial.   

in which i trash talk my kids

My children are crappy sleepers.  My husband and I are also pretty awful sleepers (he wakes up in the middle of the night to eat/wander/scare the shit out of me; I have never had a normal night's sleep without Ambien CR).  I often wonder whether shitty sleeping is genetic or whether it's just that since Scott and I have no idea how to make ourselves sleep we're poorly equipped to help the little ones.

At night, when we peek into Joseph's room we never know what kind of freaky shit we'll find.  Will he be passed out on the storage bench like some kind of vagrant at a bus stop?  Will he be naked from the waist down?  Will he be sprawled on the floor while his trucks are cozily tucked in his bed?  He often wakes up in the middle of the night screaming about sharks and robots.  It takes him hours of babbling and playing to fall asleep. He almost never sleeps past dawn.

Harry isn't actually a horrible sleeper.  He still wakes up to nurse 100,000,000omg000,000wtf times a night, which might be a bit much for an eight month old, but that's relatively manageable.  It doesn't take anything especially heroic to get him to fall back asleep and he actually takes two fairly predictable naps a day.  In this family, he's a sleeping prodigy.

Violet, however, is a mystery.  She only naps in the car or in somebody's lap, which means she barely naps at all.  She will take cat naps in a sling but wakes up when she hears so much as a peep from either of her brothers.  Transferring her to a flat surface is fraught with peril; if she wakes up, her (loudly voiced) feelings of outrage and betrayal will keep her awake for hours.  At night she wants to sleep on my stomach with her head embedded in my neck and her fingers in my eye sockets.  I believe that she would be a happier, less needy baby (and that I would be a happier, less insane mother) if she would get more sleep, but I can't figure out how to make that happen without selling the boys or chaining them to a fence or something so that Violet and I can cuddle all day.

All of this is to say:  I'm so damn tired.  I was hoping that this twin parenting gig would be less stressful by this point, but it most definitely is not.  There is always somebody who is not happy.  There is always something that should have been done already.  Sigh.

training pants

Last month during a hellish, emotionally deadening trip to Target we gave in to Joseph's demands for "truck underpants."  Considering that he had shown zero signs of "potty readiness," I did not have high hopes, but from that point on he's been totally done with diapers except overnight and at naps; occasionally during the daytime he'll surprise us by deciding to pee in some random place but it's in no way a "mistake" or an "accident."  More like "science experiment."

So we still need something waterproof for trips out of the house, especially when we're going someplace where a toddler peeing in the corner would be frowned upon.  Enter the training pants.  I made them from a cloth diaper pattern with the wings/tabs cut off, the side seams sewn up, and the edges bound in fold over elastic.  The outer layer is PUL, the inner layer is an old T-shirt, and sandwiched in between is part of an ancient microfiber insert from one of the first cloth diapers I bought when Joseph was a wee baby.

And on the back I appliqued an airplane, just because.

bathing suit remediation

I would like to be able to throw on a swimsuit and go to the damn beach without feeling like I'm parading around in my underwear.  I'm not ordinarily an especially modest person but I feel very exposed in a bathing suit.  I think my entire family would appreciate it if the car ride to and from the beach could be spent discussing something other than sexism and the male gaze.  I also think I shouldn't have to confront all my body image issues every time I want to go swimming.  It kind of kills the fun.  And yes yes yes, I know I should be proud and confident and all that, which I kind of am when I'm not expected to appear publicly in my underpants, you know?

I should probably just get myself to the store and buy one of those suits that has trunks instead of a bikini bottom.  Instead I made this swim skirt out of half a yard of tricot and some fold over elastic.  Combined with a camisole-style bathing suit top I already have, this ought to keep me fairly well covered.  We'll see how it works.  I suspect that once I hit the water it will float up around my torso, but I can live with that. 

I love that fold over elastic is the answer to so many garment construction challenges:  waistbands, necklines, gathering and pretty much all aspects of diaper making.  A few months ago I bought a few yards in a bunch of colors and it's served me well.

babies in a basket

Makes me smile every time I see it.

wrap dress (vogue 8379)

It's another wrap dress, this time in wearable-outside-the-house bamboo/cotton jersey instead of nightmarish blue polyester. I am so proud of myself for making an actual garment that isn't an elastic waist skirt or a potato sack tunic. It's comfortable, flattering, and nursing-friendly.  Since it's a wrap, it can be adjusted as I lose weight; since it's made of comfy jersey, it's about as cozy as a bathrobe.   There's the unfortunate fact that I tend to forget to readjust the neckline after feeding the babies, so I often have a boob or two semi-exposed, but that happens regardless of what I'm wearing.  I should probably make five more dresses just like this, but since it's a miracle I managed to finish this dress at all, I'll probably just wear this one multiple times a week. Yay.

For the record, I deviated from the pattern in a few ways:
1) I left off the sleeves
2) I bound the armholes and neckline using cross grain strips of fabric (instead of making facings)
3) I gathered the shoulders in little pleats to maximize the drapeyness of the bodice

Good grief I look pale in this picture. I think it's the lighting. Or anemia.

side pocket pants

This is my favorite kind of pocket for kids' pants:  a wide U-shape that I make a bit bigger than the child's hand, placed directly over the side seam.  The size and placement make it easy for toddler hands to find.

I made these navy linen trousers last summer and they've endured a year in heavy rotation.  Right now they need to be worn with the cuff rolled up a few times to disguise the fact that they're too short.

He's my little urchin.

file under dumb stuff people say to me

If you really want to piss off a mother of twins, suggest that she wear both babies at once. Explain that you saw it on the internet. Use a word like "ergonomic" to make it clear you're an expert. For extra added rage, recommend that she learn to nurse both babies at the same time while wearing them. Point out that if she could master these skills (as you undoubtedly would were you blessed with twins) twins would be no more challenging than a single baby.

This week the babies got their first teeth so tandem babywearing was the only way to keep the screaming at a minimum while leaving me with a free hand to help the toddler use the bathroom (which probably deserves a separate blog post, as well as several poems celebrating this triumph). To be fair, Harry was only moderately fussy, but Violet (who is moderately fussy on the best of days) was a terror. Job satisfaction has been at a low this week, you know?

Totally unrelated: so apparently most Americans pronounce "Harry" and "hairy" the same? Really? My mind is blown. They're different in my (northeastern) accent, as are Mary, marry, and merry. Do you all pronounce them the same? Can I just say how grateful I am that Harry's real name is Henry?

giveaway winner

The winner is comment number 39.  Sara, I just sent you an email asking for your address.

Thanks to everybody for stopping by and offering to give my sad fabric a new home.  This was fun, kind of like trick or treating.  

I can't wait to fill up the empty space in my drawer with some new stuff...

give away day

If you like blue and beige, today's your lucky day.  I have a boatload of blue and beige fabric that I will never use, and which you can volunteer to take off my hands by leaving a comment on this post.  Most of it's quilting weight cotton but there's some home dec weight as well as some mysteries.   

Every time I try to organize my fabric I encounter this pile of blue and beige and think to myself:  "gee, I should probably make something blue and beige" but then I lose interest halfway through the project (or sooner) because I have no interest in owning anything in those colors.  Therefore, I'm also giving away the makings of several projects in various stages of completion, all featuring said blue and beige fabric:

There's a big stack of two or three inch squares which I had intended to make into another bathmat before coming to terms with the fact that I don't want a blue and beige bathmat.  There are also some large squares which were probably going to be cocktail napkins.  And lastly there are some pieced half square triangles which were going to be coasters much like these (from a long ago giveaway day).  And there's one sad solitary coaster that only needs to be stuffed with a square of batting and topstitched.

I also have a stack of truly disreputable prints.  Marvel at the ugliness.

In order to become the proud owner of:

1. the big stack of blue and beige fabric,
2. various half-completed projects AND
3. random prints

just leave a comment including whatever information I need to get in touch with you.  I'll pick a random winner on Friday, 5/21.  I'm not going to ship internationally, so if you're not in the US, sorry.  

red dress with peter pan collar

I started out with a simple enough plan:  remaking an old skirt into a dress for the baby.  But the next thing I knew I was drafting collars and inserting pleats and what have you.  And three days later I had a dress.

I did the collar the same way I did last time except
1) I topstitched the finished collar to make it a bit sturdier and less likely to need a heavy ironing, and
2) I attached the collar to the front of the dress and then bound the neckline edges with bias tape.

I also topstitched the pleats for the same reason.

I haven't hemmed it yet because I'd like this to fit her for a while, so I need to figure out how to do a very deep hem without it looking bulky.  This probably means a blind hem.  Stupid missing blind hem foot.

apple pocket dress

apple pocket dress, originally uploaded by thebigcozy.

Well, it started out as a pocket and then I absentmindedly sewed all the way around it, so now it's just an applique. The linen leaves aren't sewed down around the edges (they're just attached with the button) so little hands can amuse themselves by grabbing them.

The blue fabric is a sateen sheet that I've used in other projects. Since sheets are huge and kids' clothing is tiny, one twin sheet set is an infinite resource. I have sheets I've been mining for literally years and there's still enough yardage left to bore me senseless.

Also: linen bias tape, I love you so much. You make my old sheet look so much better.

bloomers

Linen bloomers and tiny baby feet. I'm reeling from the sweetness.

They stared out as the bloomer pattern from Weekend Sewing in the 6-12 months size, but I had to make them smaller in every dimension to fit my tiny girl, even with her puffy cloth diaper.

The blouse/smock/dress she's wearing is from last summer's sewing bonanza.

Here's what I have lined up for the Kids Clothes Week Challenge:

• a few pairs of summer-weight clamdiggers for Joseph. My little man is strangely prim and modest (when he's not running around in the nude, that is); he's been refusing to wear shorts (also: must wear socks) so light weight calf length pants are our compromise.
• a few dresses for Violet
• more bloomers
• some diapers, which really ought to count as clothing since they're all my kids wear for half the day

Poor baby Harry gets nothing new since we have boatloads of Joseph's old clothing and it's not like he cares one way or the other.

curtain fail

These curtains are every bit as lurid in real life as they are in the photo. My dining room now looks like a place where people go to get murdered and dismembered. The fabric is gorgeous but it looks terrifying with the light shining through it. Are all colored curtains this gruesome? And yet I've see them in magazines and the Anthropologie catalog, so it can't be that insane an idea (but I also see rompers and toeless boots in the Anthro catalog, so perhaps they are not to be trusted). Perhaps I need to line the curtains?

flags, bunting, whatever you call it

I think I am the last person in the world to make one of these. My attention to detail has reached a new low: I just cut out the triangles freehand and sewed them to a piece of packaged bias tape. I didn't finish any edges or even pink them. I'm a rebel, what can I say.

bunnies

I used to tease my mother about how she had a cell phone for ten years before learning how to check the voicemail, but after spending the last six weeks futilely poking around my new computer trying to figure out where it's been hiding my pictures, and how to get them from my camera onto the interwebs, I've been humbled.  My problem is that I really believe my new computer should behave in exactly the same way as my old one; similarly, I expect every microwave on the planet to operate identically to the one we had when I was in grade school.  This is a constant source of disappointment and frustration.

Anyhoo, now I can finally introduce you to Pinky the bunny, made from one of Annie's excellent kits.   I had never bought a kit before but I think I will do so again--all the frustrating (sourcing supplies) and tedious (tracing and cutting) parts of crafting are totally taken out of the equation that way. My two (and a half!) year old helper found bunny-making to be very rewarding and has requested that we make Pinky some friends, ASAP.

This squishy fellow (also named Pinky) was made from this super tutorial.  The fact that I was able to assemble nearly all the supplies and get the rabbit almost entirely done without getting up from my computer tells you 1) how satisfyingly easy this project is and 2) the prevailing state of disarray in my house.  I have so many stray baby socks I could people the world in squishy bunnies, which I just might.

staying right where I am

OK, I alluded to this before, but I seriously need to stop leaving the house for a while.  The main reason is that I might murder the next person who lets their gross kid sneeze near (or on!) my babies.  The babies have each had five colds in the five months they've been alive.  When their noses get stuffy, they won't eat; this means they become even more distressingly underweight.  Violet is ten pounds; Harry is fourteen pounds and he's still so small he's off the growth charts, so that gives you an idea of how tiny Violet is.  We've all been sick this week, but she's had it the worst and I've decided that keeping her healthy has got to be the priority around here.  She needs to get strong, and her parents need a chance to recover from five months of taking care of three sick kids and being pretty constantly sick ourselves.  I feel awful that Joseph won't get to go to playdates, but he's going to have to take one for the team.  

The other reason I need to just stay put is that going anywhere with three kids is a circus.   Even just getting everybody in the car to go to the park is really stressful, and that's only followed by the babies screaming for most of the car ride.  And then there is the dumb shit total strangers feel the need to say to me.  "Looks like you've got you're hands full there, ha ha."  Unless the next words out of your mouth are "how can I help" or "I guess I should keep my germy hands to myself," you ought not to be talking to me.  And then there's the helpful advice ("can't you breastfeed them both at once?" "can't you put them both in a sling?") which I could respond to rationally if I weren't a total mess, but as things stand all I can do is fume and feel judged.

I am really tired, sick, and run down so this sounds more negative than I mean it to be.  Most people I know, even random acquaintances, are helpful, supportive, tactful, kind, and awesome.  And I am so grateful for that.  (And I seriously need to mention how fantastically helpful my parents are.  We would be so screwed without them around.)

right back atcha

Here Harry is doing his best wise guy impersonation; perhaps he's discussing the merits of various pizzerias or telling you which horse to bet on. Regardless, Violet is very concerned for her brother.

(Instead of writing about what's actually on my mind these days, which is how shitty an experience it is to run errands with my kids, and how much it makes me hate the universe and everybody in it, I am going to post pictures of the babies behaving adorably. When I can come up with something nice to say I will say it.)