Parenting

Crafts for the Uncrafty

Homemade Halloween Costumes Win Forever and Always

October 30, 2017

This photograph was taken in 1988, in case the crimped hair didn't tip you off.

Every year when I was a little girl, my mom would start making my Halloween costume in September. I might want to be a can-can dancer, or a character from Little House on the Prairie, or Cher (oh yes)...whatever it was, my mother would somehow pull out confusingly professional sewing skills that she apparently reserved solely for Halloween, and whip up a masterpiece of glitter and ruffles and perfection.

I am simultaneously sad about and relieved by the fact that kids these days ("kids these days"!! I'm so old) don't want homemade Halloween costumes. There was something grand - even heroic - about the fact that despite having no particular interest in crafting and exactly zero time to spare, what with her whole "being a lawyer" thing, my mother just rustled up her reserves and knocked it out of the park, year after year. And even when she didn't - my Cher costume consisted of a stretchy tube of sparkly fabric and the most unfortunate wig you have ever seen...it was still the only costume of its kind out there. It was mine. Made by my mom. I loved that.

DIARY

10 Lessons I’ve Learned Since Becoming A Mom (Twice)

October 20, 2017

2 weeks postpartum. (Note: This photo is in no way representative of actual life with a baby.)

The first time I wrote about being a parent was the day after my first child - my son - was born. I didn't "write" about it, actually: I just posted a series of pictures, because I had no idea what to say about parenthood, having experienced it for all of 12 hours, and was overwhelmed by the idea of saying anything at all, lest what I said turn out to be "wrong" or "not motherly enough" or some such ridiculousness. As I wrote in this post, "To write about my feelings for my baby is to open up conversation about those feelings, and they are so precious and so mine that it would be heartbreaking for me were they to be trivialized or misunderstood."

I mean, I used to hide pacifiers before taking pictures because I was scared that some unknown Internet Person would yell at me that giving my baby a pacifier was a terrible, horrible thing to do. ...Because what did I know? Maybe it was!

DIARY

From WAHM To SAHM…Sort Of

September 25, 2017

How amaze is my new crafting room?!?!?!?

hahahahahahaha

As of today, our childcare situation has shifted pretty dramatically. For the past couple of years, we've employed a part-time nanny to watch our daughter in the mornings (while our son is at school), and then occasionally watch both children in the afternoons, whenever my wildly inconsistent work schedule requires. But over the past couple of months we've realized that Goldie is clearly ready for preschool, which means that both kids are now out of the house until early afternoon - and beyond the prohibitive expense of paying for nanny + preschool (nope), I just felt like I could...make this work. Somehow. I can get most, if not all, of my work done in the morning, then pick up the kids and get to have afternoons with them.

DIARY

Our Very Own Superheroes

September 6, 2017

Us, 2014

I woke up around 1AM on Sunday night and stumbled out towards the living room, where I found Kendrick setting the alarm and getting ready to come to bed. "Hey," he said. "Why are you up?"

I pointed at our son's closed bedroom door. "I wanted to go lay down with him," I said.

Crafts for the Uncrafty

What To Do With All Those Mismatched Teacups

May 24, 2017

My mom - like many, many moms out there, apparently - has always collected teacups, and over the years she's passed off a handful to me as "gifts" (a.k.a. "things she has too many of and no room for"). Which means I, too, now have a lot of teacups. Some of them are family heirlooms and belong safely tucked away in my china cabinet, but others are just...teacups. I have no special attachment to them, but they're not the kind of thing you toss in the garbage, you know?

Enter Mollie's grandmother, Shotzy (which, if you're wondering, means "Darling" in German, because of course it does). Shotzy loved having a perfectly matched table, so whenever one of her teacups broke, she passed on the rest of the set to one of her granddaughters.

(Is all of this not the most charming thing you've ever heard?)

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