Sharing something special

I’d like to tell you all about one of my most favorite people in the entire world, my grandmother. Maw-Maw is a very crafty person and it is from her that I inherited my love of crafts. She taught me to crochet when I was a little girl, and since I am left-handed and she is right-handed, I learned by sitting across from her and mirroring what her hands were doing. At 90 years old she still sews, crochets, embroiders, and quilts like nobody’s business. The closets in her house are full of beautiful quilts that she has made, however, none of them have as much meaning as the quilt below:

When my Paw-Paw died in 1993, she carefully cut apart his neckties and made a quilt with the pieces. She edged the quilt with a shiny brown and burgundy rayon. Here are some close-ups:

After she sewed the pieces together, she went back over them with zigzag and briar stitches.

I absolutely love it and it brings back many good memories of my Paw-Paw as well. As she and I visited last weekend, she began to show me quilts that she hasn’t finished yet and there was a quilt that was her mother’s that she was repairing. It’s a beautiful quilt with big, embroidered butterflies on it. Like a lot of people her age, she is concerned that she won’t be able to finish everything before her time on this earth ends. She fretted out loud about who would finish her mother’s quilt. I said, “Maw-Maw, if you don’t get it finished, I will learn how to finish it.” She looked at me, smiled, and said, “Yes, you’re about the only one I would trust to finish it.” I was flooded with pride and sadness at the same time. She has been such a huge influence on my life, and I don’t even want to think about her not being around anymore, yet I know that day will come all too soon. But when it does, I will lovingly finish all the projects that she didn’t have time to.

Nine months

Baby girl is now nine months old. Here are some pictures for your enjoyment:





Do these pictures mean that she sleeps all the time? Oh, how I wish that were so. No, it’s simply easier to take a good picture of her sleeping because she’s not a moving target. I only have a handful of good pictures of her awake right now. Most of them have part of her head cut off or are out of focus like this:

(Side note to hubby: This is why I want a digital SLR camera! So I can take good pictures and not have to deal with the dreaded shutter lag of a regular digital camera. I shoot everything in action mode just to speed it up, but it’s still slow. Also, she anticipates the flash when the infrared autofocus beam goes out, so it’s harder to get a picture of her sweet smile. Kim, back me up here, please.)

So what fun things is she doing now? She is crawling everywhere and pulling up on everything and just busy busy busy. She will also pull up on something and let go and just stand there, and her balance is already better than mine so surely cruising and walking aren’t far behind. She’s not exactly talking, but she will make cute little noises and when she’s really upset she’ll say “ma ma ma ma ma.” She has discovered how to scream and she can do it very loudly, always followed with a big smile, as if she is delighted by the sound. When she sees me cringe, she does it even louder, so I try not to react when that noise starts in the hopes that she will grow bored and stop.

She finally cut two teeth this month and between teething and wanting to be constantly on the move, is fully in the throes of the dreaded nine month sleep regression (go here to read more about sleep regressions). And we won’t even mention the separation anxiety. Good times. But all in all, she’s an absolute delight and I wouldn’t trade her for all the sleeping babies in the world.

Her brother is quite proud of her too. At daycare the other day I had her in the carrier and I set it on the ground while I talked to the teacher. A little boy the same age as Braden came over and started playing with her feet and talking to her. Braden let the boy linger for a few seconds and then said, “Ok, that’s enough.” The little boy ignored him and started playing with Kelsey’s hands, so Braden said more forcefully, “OK, I said that’s enough!” The little boy still ignored him so Braden started to try to push him away and the teacher and I had to intervene. God help her when she starts dating.

Six weird things

Because Krista tagged me, here are Six Different Things About Me:

1) In the late 80’s, I was sort of a metalhead. My friend was dating a guy who played guitar in a heavy metal band and we went to all their gigs. This usually meant we dressed up in slutty, all black outfits with lots of chain-type accessories, tons of eye makeup and used about a can of hairspray on our ratted, big hair. We were pretty scary looking. I need to look and see if I still have any pictures from that era. I don't really dig that type of music anymore though.

2) I have a strong aversion to loud noises now. And you know those guys with the speakers in the back of their cars that are so loud that the bass from their rap music rattles your chest inside your car even though you are like 2 car-lengths ahead? My secret wish is that I had some type of telekinetic superpower that I could use to blow up their speakers. Ditto for the guys who pull up next to you at the gas station who force you to listen to their music, especially if there is liberal use of the F word while your children are with you in your car.

3) I was a band geek and played the flute and piccolo in Junior High and High School. In fact, I was first chair flute in grades 9-12. Half the year we did marching band and the other half was concert band. Some of my favorite memories of school were of performing during halftime at the football games, and the band trips that we took to Colorado and Florida.

4) I grew up wanting to be a veterinarian but I changed my mind during a Career Day in Junior High when one came to our class to talk about his career. He said that in order to get into veterinary school, you had to meet with a review panel and tell them why you wanted to become a veterinarian, and they didn’t want to hear “because I love animals and I want to help them.” The thought of having to come up with something completely original to tell the review panel paralyzed me with fear. That and the fact that I wasn’t very good in math or science made me decide that perhaps veterinary medicine wasn’t my calling.

5) I have a somewhat overactive imagination and have imagined many horrible ways to die, not in a suicidal way, but more in a “gee I hope that never happens to me” way. This stems from watching too many horror films as a youngster and more recently, too much CSI. I don’t watch horror films anymore, but I still love me some CSI.

6) If I am a guest at someone’s house and need to use the restroom, and they have a shower curtain hanging over the tub in said bathroom, I will look behind it to make sure nobody is lurking there waiting to jump out and scare/harm me. This has never actually happened to me so I don’t know where that particular irrational fear comes from. I actually have many other irrational fears too. Perhaps I need to explore them in therapy.

This was fun! I'm not going to tag anyone, but I would love to read others. Anyone???