laeroport

Seven

Oh, my darling daughter.  How did you get to be seven already?

It seems that just yesterday I was holding you in my arms, meeting you for the first time.  Watching with wonder as you learned to babble and talk, crawl and walk and then run and dance.

You love to be in motion, but find time to be still.   You will ride your bike between mailboxes, jump rope and play hopscotch or dance in circles for an hour, and still enjoy sitting and reading a book quietly.  And oh, how reading has taken off for you.  The world is yours in a book.

You are creative and imaginative.  Once you got past the stage of trying to eat the crayons, you have constantly been drawing or coloring or writing stories.  You had a lot of inspiration for being an artist from Ben.  I love it when you tell people that you are an artist, for indeed you are, my girl.  And I hope you never are gripped with insecurity about your art.  I hope that you will always proclaim that you are an artist, even as your mother can't quite say the words about herself.

You are fiercely independent and yet still very attached to your family.  "I do it myself" was probably your first sentence, and I will never forget your first day at our beloved Montessori school, just after your second birthday.  You were the last child on the playground, scooting around in a little car.  I wanted to scoop you up and hear about your day, but instead I was greeted with "Go away, Mommy!"  And as you've gotten older, you still love school.  The transition to public school this year went better than expected.  You have thrived - flourished.  And learned so much. 

And yet, there is a lot to deal with as you get older.  You wear your emotions so close to the surface, my dear.  One minute you're happy and smiling, laughing with abandon and the next you can be sullen or teary-eyed.  Your sensitivity makes you fearful, at times.  It is hard dealing with friends who are often fickle and a little brother that at once loves to antagonize you and worships you.  I hope you will find a balance as you grow older, and the happy moments will outweigh the sad and frustrating times.

Happiness is what I wish most for you.  For today, on your seventh birthday, and every day from here forward.  Your name - Aidin Helene - means fire light.  And indeed, your fiery personality lights so much love within our hearts and makes us feel happy and blessed to a part of your life.

Happy Birthday, my sweet, serious, smart, funny, creative, dancing, freckle-faced beautiful daughter.  And many, many more.

In which karma bites me in the ass....

I have been known to hold a grudge.  I have been known to gloat.  I do not always exhibit all the qualities befitting someone who has been a member of the Girl Scouts for 30+ years.

Yesterday, I was recounting the story of learning to sew.  My second 7th grade home ec sewing project (the first being a pillow shaped like a roller skate) was a simple tunic.  No sleeves.  Round neck with a slit in front and a neck facing.  Shirt-tail hem.  My mother and I, pattern in hand, made our way to the local Alco fabric department. 

There, prominently displayed was the most beautiful rack of white and pastel eyelet.  Oh, yes, please, Mom!  Let me have that!  But my mom is a smart and practical sort of woman and steered me away from the $3.99/yard eyelet to the more reasonable should I screw the whole thing up $1/yard broadcloth.  Pouting and vowing I would never wear the vile sea foam fabric (which in all honesty, was lovely and made the perfect cool summer top that I wish still hung in my closet), I made my way into my home ec class for Mrs. Drayne to help coax that fabric into something resembling apparel.

A quick survey of my classmates revealed that Jana Ruyak had the beautiful white eyelet for her project.  In all reality, it could have been Carrie Culp, but Jana Ruyak just sounds better.  Either way, Jana Ruyak and Carrie Culp were smart and popular and on the cheerleading squad and seemed to have all of material trappings befitting a seventh grader of status, from their ruffly Gunne Sax blouses to their Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, complete with swan on the pocket.  I harbored just a wee bit of envy.

Work progressed on our tunics.  The cutting, the pressing, the sewing, the finishing the seams.  When it was time for Jana Ruyak to clip the curves on her tunic's neck facing, misfortune beset.  One wayward motion of the pinking shears, and SNIP!  A hole - not a cute little embroidery-bound eyelet hole, but an honest-to-goodness clipped with the pinking shears hole right in the front of her tunic.  Half way between nipple and collar bone.  Front and center.  With no way to cover it up.  I smiled my secret, evil smile.

And ever since then, I have been EXTRA careful when clipping curves or trimming seams to not commit a Jana Ruyak.  Oh, so careful.  And in the 27 years since, I never had once, until yesterday, approximately four hours after retelling the Jana Ruyak white eyelet story with glee.  Glee, I tell you.

I was sewing along on Aidin's birthday skirt, feeling quite smug about my fancy french seams.  I went to cut the thread on one of my last seams and SNIP!  It happened to me.  A hole.

It is not a devastating injury, and actually, the extra effort to cover up said hole (which is next to the side seam) will ultimately make a much cuter skirt.  But still.....

So I guess this is the universe's way of saying "Get over it!" in relation to all the angst I still feel about junior high and high school.  Jana Ruyak was just being herself and never did anything mean to me.  She was friendly and polite and a generally all-around nice girl.  Why should I harbor ill will toward her for all these years, just because she was pretty and popular and smart?

And typing all this makes me wonder if Jana Ruyak will ever google her name and find this little tale....

Please tell me I am not the only one with these issues..... oh, please.

Mother's Day

Yesterday we celebrated our Punkin's 7th birthday.  I am still scratching my head wondering how my sweet round baby can be seven already.  Skip on over to flickr to see the Kit cake that my mom decorated and the cool blue bird house my brother made, among others.  She got lots of American Girl things and craft supplies, so she was one happy kid.

I spent most of my Mother's Day being a mother - getting ready for a party for my little girl.  (With a lot of help from my mother - and missing Tim's mother, who is still in the hospital in Arizona.) 

But I am sporting this new little gift.  Each little (loud) tick tick tick tick tick tick makes me giddy.

Nah, it doesn't take much to make me happy.  Hope your Mother's Day was happy as well.

You've got teaching "in the bag"

One last day of bad puns* in appreciation of our teachers.

Voila, a bag:

Embroidered denim (given to me by my Aunt Sherry) and red & white check with an interior double pocket made from Aidin's old jeans.  I just made a simple rectangle of a tote and then boxed out the corners slightly.

Aidin's family birthday party is on Sunday.  I've got a good start on her presents - I just need a little more embroidery time after she goes to bed and some elastic.  And my mom is going to help me make a Kit cake from this cake pan.  My brother and I had hockey players and Girl Scouts from that cake pan.  I'm sure we can make it look like Kit.

Now, if I can just get my house cleaned up....

Happy Mother's Day!

--------------------------------

* I realized I didn't list all the bad puns from this week:

Monday:  You really measure up! - with a retractable tape measure enclosed in a felt "cozy", embroidered with our teacher's initials.  Which didn't get a photo.

Tuesday:  You were "mint" to teach! - accompanied by a pack of Altoids minis.

Wednesday:  I'm "lucky" to have you for a teacher. - along with a lottery ticket that had the word "luck" on it.  We gave these to Eliot's 4 teachers, Aidin's regular teacher and the other 1st grade teacher, who leads her reading group, + one for the PE, music and art teachers.

I did remember....

to take pictures of some of the things I have sewn, although it was in the school parking lot on the way into the classroom.

For today's teacher appreciation gift, "Thanks A Latte!"  Dunkin Donuts cups (with a $5 gift card inside) wrapped with a coffee cozy (blatently copied from Amy).

Sorry for the crap photos.  (I never claimed that this was a photography blog.)  I sewed a bunch of random strips together and then used a Starbucks cardboard sleeve as a template to cut out two cozies.  They both have some of the same fabrics, but not all - and they are lined with different colors.  I insulated them with fusible fleece and attempted to free motion quilt.  I said attempted.  Ahem.  And yes, that is a hair tie for the elastic.  Thanks for noticing.

I also have made a few baby gifts.

Two bibs, two burp cloths, a ball, and another spruced-up hand-me-down onesie.  I chose the dot fabric and Aidin picked blue flannel for the back.  I tried to steer her to a sage green that looked really pretty with it, but no.  It had to be blue.  The ball and burp cloth patterns are here.  The bib is from Amy Karol's book.  It is my favorite bib pattern.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

My co-worker's sister just had a new baby.  When I had Aidin she gave me all of her maternity clothes and answered so many questions as I was freaking out over being pregnant.  She has 3 older children, 15, 12 & 9, and now she is starting over with the sweetest little baby boy.  She's a brave woman!  I wish them well.

I've got a tote bag to finish for tomorrow, and birthday presents to finish for Sunday.  Keep your fingers crossed that I can stay awake past 9:30 tonight to get them done.

So, how are things with you?

A few things

Just popping in with a quick "hi" and a few photos from the past week:

May Baskets

A 4th birthday t-shirt. (The invitation said "please do not buy a gift", so we made one from things we had around the house + dug up a volunteer Columbine from our garden.  Seriously, I can't send my kid to a birthday party empty handed.)  I was happy to see the birthday boy was wearing his shirt yesterday when I picked Eliot up. :)

Field trip to Kaleidoscope  and a picnic lunch in the park with Aidin's class.  Did I mention an hour each way on a bus full of 1st graders?  It was a great day - I wish I could have played at Kaleidoscope instead of being a helper.*  And I got my quota of hugs for the year.  Good stuff! 

And more good stuff - Becky is much improved.  They think the heart damage is minimal.  She'll probably only be in the hospital for a few more days and then will stay with Grandpa until they release her to travel.  Thanks for your thoughts and prayers.

Tomorrow: (IF I remember to take pictures) actual sewing projects!

* Hey KC Crafty friends, do you think Kaleidoscope would let us have a grown-up group session?   

Where has she been?

Life is busy and crazy all at once at chez laeroport.  We celebrated May Day, and are appreciating our teachers this week (thanks Cindy!).  I made a new ironing board cover.  And patched the knees in some of Aidin's pants.  And made a "4" t-shirt for a birthday party.  Exciting, eh?

 

I have several secret projects underway and a 7 year old birthday party in the planning.  I'm making birthday presents, and teacher presents and Mother's Day presents.  And no photos of any of it.  This is actually the third birthday party we've planned for Aidin.  Since October she has been planning a pirate party.  About a month ago she decided she wanted "Star Wars" instead.  Last week a boy in her class trumped her on the Star Wars theme and didn't invite her.  Now we're moving on to Kit.

And then there's the worry.  My mother-in-law's sister passed away last week in Phoenix, just over a week after being diagnosed with cancer.  She and my father-in-law went down to be with her Dad.  Thursday night she woke up having an asthma attack that landed her in ICU.  In the meantime they've determined she also had a heart attack.  All very scary for us, especially since they are so far away.  She's doing better and has been moved to a regular room, so that's comforting.  Please keep Becky in your thoughts.

But though life is fraught with uncertainty, we forge ahead and celebrate the here and now.  And for that, I raise my margarita glass.  Happy Cinco de Mayo.

Evidently I DO have Sense!

Since I have nothing else to entertain you with, and since I don't want you to think I fell off the edge of the world....

Take the Quiz here!

Who are you????

A brief encounter and winners

My sewing machine and I met last night.  While my children were merrily splashing in the bathtub across the hall.  Just long enough to add some bias tape as a hem on Aidin's dress.

Grandma made the dress a few years ago and since my girl grows up, but not out, it was rather short.  Thankfully Grandma put in a proper 2 1/2 inch hem, so I ripped and trimmed.  Voila!  Dressed for another season!

Wow!  I see I am not alone in my love for  Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing!  Kathryn wins the book, but everyone who didn't mention they already had the book wins a prize. I'll be sending a little recycled something to Jen (Happy Birthday!!!!), Chris and Andrea as well.  K?

Have a splendid weekend!  We have Brownie Play Day tomorrow, and for all you locals, the Kaw Valley Quilt Guild's annual show is Saturday and Sunday at the Fairgrounds.  I went last year and loved every minute.  Be prepared to endure pictures from this year's show next week.

Doing my part

So I took two bags of clothes, two coats, a bag of toys, and a chair to Goodwill yesterday afternoon. (That was all that would fit in my trunk.)

And came home with shoes.  Brand new, look like they've never been worn Ann Taylor shoes.  For $4.48.  It was a happy Earth Day, indeed.

In honor of Earth Day

I share with you the efforts of my weekend:

It was time for the semi-annual rotation of the closets around here.  Eliot is the lucky recipient of the hand-me-downs of my nephews AND our young friend, Matthew.  Aidin gets some sweet stylish duds from our friend, Mackenzie.  This weekend was time to pull out the tubs of things previously too big and add them to the drawers while removing the borderline too small and winter items.

The end result?  I still have a 40 gallon rubber-maid tub FULL of stuff for Eliot that is either wrong season or currently too big.  Aidin has her own big tub, half full of clothes for next winter.

And the things that came out of the drawers (and most of Aidin's baby/toddler/pre-school clothes that I had been hanging onto) were packed up to hand down to my sister-in-law, who now has one of each.  That made six shopping bags and a box that once held diapers.  Now I just have to store them until I see her in May.  The trunk of my car is also full of other things to go to Goodwill.

As for my closet, I've been invited to a spring clothing swap.  Isn't that a great idea?  I'm ready to take a whole bunch of stuff and not bring back anything.  Whatever is left goes to Goodwill.

So those are hand-me-down onesies with strategically placed freezer paper stencils to cover up some of the stains. I'm putting them in the mail today, because Arya will outgrow them before she gets them if I don't.

We also rotated the books.  We love books.  And we probably have too many books.  So we rotate them by season.  But when we got out the winter books we didn't take time to put the fall books away, and now we're 6 weeks into spring... it was a book explosion.  So now we have four bags of books in the closet (summer, fall, winter & Christmas) and a much more manageable selection on the shelf.  And while arranging the shelf I discovered a few duplicates.  Hmmm...  I guess when I really like a book, I want to make sure we have a copy. 

One of the duplicates was Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume.  Did you read this book when you were a kid?  I remember my teacher reading it to us in elementary school.  Or attempting to read it to us.  She couldn't read because she was laughing so hard at the antics of Peter and Fudgie that she was crying.  And we were in agony, shouting "What?  What?  What is so funny?"  Granted, I haven't read it in years, so you might want to read it yourself before you start in reading it to your kids.  Just sayin.

So if anyone wants my extra copy, leave me a comment to say how you're celebrating Earth Day.  I'll draw a winner on Friday and include a few other fun recycled things.

Cheers!

How young...

is too young...

to take your kids to a bar....

to hear their dad's band play?

It was a beautiful afternoon on the patio at the Replay.  Aidin was very interested in people watching - there were a lot of highly tattooed folks wearing a collection of extremely interesting outfits taking some jaunty turns on the dance floor.  But it was a good time.  There's a short ode to Smokey on flickr. 

And still no needle and thread work, but there was some freezer paper.  More on that later.

Ciao for now, my friends.  Happy Monday!

You're all invited....

to the WiseAcres hootenanny at the Replay on Sunday afternoon.  They're the second band and will be firing up at 5:00.  All ages, mostly kid friendly show on the patio - the forecast is for near 80.

And if you don't live within a 100 miles, have a great weekend anyway. ;) 

I hope, hope, hope to be back with SOMETHING crafty to show on Monday.  It's been 14 days since I've touched a needle and thread.  I'm suffering....

When thoughts collide

This morning, in the car, on the way to school.

Me, driving the car, listening to this story about the Pope on NPR.  Aidin and I had talked about the Pope yesterday, also in the the car whilst listening to NPR.

The kids, in the back seat, having some discussion, topic unknown to me.

A:  Hey mom?  Who is that guy?

Me: The Pope?

A:  What?  The Pope?  No, that guy from Star Wars with the horns on his head!

Me:  Oh, Darth Maul.

I'm still giggling about that conversation.

*****

On a completely unrelated note, the photo is from a survey of my yard last night.  There are a few bright spots, but most of it is in sad shape.  More garden photos on flickr.

The most creative thing I've done is my taxes

and evidently they weren't creative enough because I still owed a lot of money to two states and the IRS.  But here is a random assortment of other things we've been up to.

*  I did go to opening day of Farmer's Market.  By myself because no one else in my family could be pried out of their pajamas and away from cartoons.  And it did snow.  I bought some maple trail mix that has been almost completely consumed and some strange mutation of a rice krispy treat.  My dear friend Jill was there, not as a vendor but as a Market Board member.  So she and I trotted off to Henry's around the corner for an un-interrupted hour's worth of coffee and conversation.  My morning couldn't have been better.

*  Hyped up on caffeine, I visited the Friends of the Lawrence Public Library book sale on give-away day.  That's right.  Take whatever you want and as much as you want.  Or in my case, as much as would fit in my shopping bag.  Granted, the pickings were slim, but I still managed to come home with some great kids reference books on birds and horses, weaving looms and how things work.  I also picked up some grown-up books, including The Far Pavilions, which I read in 1993 as a new resident of India.  I recently watched the 1980s made for TV mini-series from Netflix.  Forbidden love in the British Raj.  ::swoon::

*  On another coffee-related note, my 11 year old four cup coffee maker which was originally acquired for free is on it's last leg.  I've run vinegar through it, which has helped in the short term, but now it is back to steaming instead of brewing.  Yesterday it made a perfect four cups of coffee.  This morning I got enough steam to remove wallpaper and half a cup of espresso.  So if you detect some crankiness from me, that would explain it.

*  Sunday we went to the Jayhawk victory parade.  The parade started in the parking garage of my office, so we were able to see the players up-close and personal and even get a few things signed.  And can I just say that Bill Self (our coach) is a really NICE guy?

*  While waiting for said victory parade, my husband's band, the WiseAcres (formerly the Funsuckers) played outside the Replay Lounge.  I've posted a few short videos of them in flickr.  And one of a reprise by Aidin.

*  Having received a clean bill of health and a reprieve from weekly doctor visits until July, my mom and dad took off with their trailer this morning.  Destination:  Big Bend National Park.  Stinkin' cancer can't keep them down.  So be prepared!  Future blog fill will surely be their pictures from the road.

I hope you've got something more creative going on than I have over here!

Cheers!