wherein i love lou and george, or: friendship, the perfect blendship

My first re-introduction to the way kids make friends was at the hands of this amazing little creature, my favorite little girl in all the world:

From the time she could communicate easily, I would watch her sidle up to other kids and make friends with them. I heard her unabashedly refer to others she had met moments before as her friends. There was no agreement made; nobody asked permission. Just an assumption that they were now friends. This isn't unique to her, I know. Most extroverted kids do it but that doesn't make it any less cool.
Now I have one of my own, who makes friends everywhere he goes. People love babies -- this is not news. Especially round, smiling, toothy babies that goo and ba at the slightest encouragement. We take George with us when we eat out, when we go for walks, when we see bands. I see no reason to sequester a child away from normal entertainment in favor of a rigid schedule of staring at primary colored plastic and sleeping. Besides, he won't even humor the idea of bedtime before 11pm.
This is him making friends with the waiter at the Horseshoe while I was trying to get a nice photo of him and papa ("you take your baby to the horseshoe?" yes.).

I sometimes have to stifle the urge -- HARD -- to deter him from interacting with people I deem... undesirable. Old, kinda filthy hippie guy outside of the Grand who kept calling George "a treasure": sweet and well-intentioned. George loved him; chill out, mama. Cross between Jimmy Buffett and Santa Clause drinking mead at the Honeymoon: wanted to hold George, did so like a pro; George was thrilled and gazed adoringly at the guy for the remainder of the evening. It makes me wonder how often my own prejudices or hang-ups have gotten in the way of making new acquaintances.
Today, at our usual Sunday breakfast place, the sweet girl whose glasses we've admired, who wears red lipstick so adeptly and takes our drink orders, asked if I was on facebook. She was nervous-seeming, and I told her that on the walk home last week, Nathan and I had talked about how to ask her to be our friend, and if it was even appropriate. I hadn't yet mustered the nerve -- for what reason, who knows -- but I'm glad she did. Thinking about how silly and chicken I was, I was reminded of the ease with which we used to interact before rejection dulled our collective confidence. And I am so grateful for these two, for their guilelessness.

chubby girls (and boys)

I am always on the hunt for 60s and 70s kids' clothes patterns at thrift stores. When made correctly (which I sometimes fail at), they fit the way I think clothes should. I have the hardest time buying new clothes for George because I find most of what's in stores so incredibly tacky, stereotypically gendered, poorly made and bearing the stupidest sayings ("Mommy loves me" -- no shit; I hope so!). There aren't too many good old patterns out there for boys. Most of the ones I fall in love with are for jumpers or dresses, or my recent favorite: a bikini. So I was super stoked to find this one at Value Village the other day:

I got it home and looked it over again and couldn't believe I'd missed something right on the front of the pattern sleeve.

See it? "Not suitable for chubby girls." Or, I should say, "NOT SUITABLE FOR CHUBBY GIRLS." Like, sewers for chubby girls: don't you even THINK about it.
It brought to mind a few questions. Were there patterns, specifically a different version of this one in particular, that WERE suitable for chubby girls? What is "chubby" according to McCall's? And how many little girls sat with their mothers at the fabric store pattern book table, like I did with my mum so many times, and fell in love with this pattern only to have their mother point out that it wasn't made for them?
Children of seamstresses are (sometimes painfully) aware of their measurements. I have always known what pattern size I was, and I knew when I had grown disproportionately because of my mother's tongue click and slight grimace in recognition of the extra work she'd have to do folding here, adding on there. And this was before she started calling me fat, outright.
Now, I will never be 5 feet, 10 inches tall and I will almost certainly never weigh less than 120 lbs, which is about what my mother weighs and always has. I will never consider myself thin, and considering myself normal is a daily struggle. Just today, a friend referred to her own body as such and I had to check the part of me that judged her COMPLETELY valid self-assessment as boastful (totally messed up, right?). I can never imagine anything less than genuine, serious health-related concern forcing me to even broach the subject of weight with George. And never in a million years would I, even then, call him fat (okay, I call him fat all the time. I mean later). But what I DO do is call myself fat. And I need to knock it off, as soon as I say this one thing:
This chubby girl is making the effing pants and peter pan collar jacket.

george's birthday

I've told George's birth story more times than I care to count. At times I've been shy to share it because I truly feel that it was the ideal experience, and this is not in line with what most people consider to be "normal" for women, for childbirth. I can't commiserate with those who had 70-hour labors or eventual c-sections, who say that childbirth is totally miserable but worth it. I came out of the experience wanting to do it again. Not eventually, right away. I say this not to be a braggart, but because I am coming to realize that it bears saying, and repeating. Women do not need to fear childbirth the way we're taught to. Of course, some people will say I make these statements from a pretty sweet position, and I do. I was lucky, but I also let my body do its job, and was rewarded.
Three days before I gave birth, I looked like this:
We spent the day before I went into labor (and, coincidentally, the day George was born) in Anacortes for Jess Lynch's craft fair at the Adrift. It was a long, tiring but fun endeavor and as the fair wound down, it began to snow. Hard. Beautiful, big white flakes. The first (and, it turned out, last) snow of the Winter. I was momentarily excited, then remembered we had to drive home. We quickly said our goodbyes, Jess ushered us out the door and we made it home as the snow started to slow. We walked in, lit the Hanukkah candles and crashed.
At 2:45 I woke up with what I thought was mild cramping, no big whoop. I woke Nathan to say I was getting in the shower for some relief. All the ladies I had asked about labor told me I would know when real contractions hit. Without a doubt. YOU WILL KNOOOWWWW, they said. Ominously. I did not KNOOOOWWWW, so I figured this was not "it." Like a fool, I parked the iPod outside the shower and, using the labor app I'd downloaded, tried to time what I had decided were not-really-contractions. I am still shocked that the iPod survived my waterlogged hands reaching out every two (that's right, TWO) minutes to restart the timer. I shampooed my hair between waves and was less than thrilled to recall, after ten months, what it felt like to have cramps.
When I got out of the shower it was about 3:30am. I told Nathan to call Winni, our midwife, who asked me some questions, reassured me, then sleepily told me to try to get some rest and call her in the morning. We both assumed I was mis-timing the not-really-contractions, and I still felt that it probably didn't much matter, as I wasn't in labor.
I was experiencing what I'd consider fair-to-middlin' menstrual cramps, so I took to walking laps around the livingroom, into the bedroom, and back. My cats trailed me from room to room, better aware than I was that something important was happening. Though I had taken the HypnoBabies home course, using what I'd learned didn't occur to me; I was content to pace and breathe, my parade of pets behind me. Unfortunately, neither did it occur to me to get dressed, and in about 45 minutes, when those "fair-to-middlins" turned into "okay, ouches" followed immediately by I am having a baby right here in the living room, I was wearing nothing but underwear and a t-shirt. One pressure wave forced me to the floor, and while I rocked on hands and knees, Nathan called a questioning, shocked Winni back and she told us in no uncertain terms to GO NOW; she would meet us at the birth center.
In addition to being half naked, somehow, in all my preparation, I had not completely packed a bag. My duffel inexplicably contained graham crackers, a note to "remember the popsicles," a pair of hilariously impractical underwear, a nursing tank top and two outfits for the baby. Nathan cobbled together an outfit for me, helped me into some pants and my coat and I went outside while Nathan loaded up the car. Until I felt the night air, I hadn't noticed how sweaty and inwardly focused I'd gotten; it was so refreshing to stand, silent, while the town slept around me and Nathan ran back and forth from the house to the car. I realized that I was having a snow baby, just as I had predicted. Poor Nathan's mantra during the thankfully brief ride to the birth center was "Don't push; please don't push." I must've looked like the stereotypically ridiculous lady in labor, huffing and puffing futilely to make the urge to push lessen. 

We walked into the birth center and Eloisa, the midwife who miraculously temporarily lived in the basement, appeared to welcome us into our candle-lit, warm and cozy room. There wasn't much time for pleasantries. We said hi, she told me to strip and she checked me -- 100% effaced, 100% dilated, bulging bag, ready to go. She started the tub water and I got the go-ahead to push. NOTHING in my life has ever felt better. I eased myself into the water and any pain I had been feeling was gone. The pressure of the baby was there, but the relief of the freedom to push and the soothing, warm water made everything better. Eloisa was invisible to me as I pushed; she was just an encouraging voice from somewhere behind us, telling me I was doing well. A few pushes later, I felt her put pressure on my perineum and she told me the baby was crowning. One more push and he was out, after 20 minutes of pushing, total. As Eloisa capped him, sucked out his nose and mouth and put him on my chest, he cried for a second, but opened his eyes and looked around, quickly calmed, I'd like to think, by the gentle way he was introduced to the non-womb world. Winni burst in, having been slowed down by the snowy roads, missing the birth by only a few minutes. It was 6:08am, less than 4 hours after the first signs of labor.

 
I never felt the urge to expel the placenta, so Winni and Eloisa helped me out of the tub and encouraged me to bear down. What followed the delivery of the placenta was the only hitch of the entire birth, and included a significant amount of blood, some deceptively-named massage that was more uncomfortable than anything preceding it and a shot or two in the leg that, combined with expert handling by my midwives, stopped the bleeding in short order. I needed two stitches -- understandable, as a baby had practically flown from my nether regions -- the discomfort of which were so minimal and lessened even more by a conversation with Winni about local music, food and friends-in-common that I couldn't imagine having in a hospital, with a busy OB-GYN. While she worked on me, it was revealed that a certain someone had scored perfect apgars (genius), weighed eight pounds, one ounce and was 21 inches tall. 

We hung out for awhile in the big, fluffy bed. We got pooped on repeatedly before wising up and busting out the diapers. We nursed somewhat awkwardly. We called around and sent photos from our phones. Winni brought me some delicious tea and we chatted about What the Heck Fest while Eloisa's daughters woke up for the day and padded around the birth center in their jammies, giggling and peeking in the door to see our new baby. We got the then-unnamed but future-George dressed, and headed out about noon, into the gorgeous, clean, snowy day. My mom met us at home with veggie burgers, milkshakes and waffle fries and as we cuddled up in our own bed on our son's first day in the world, I was so grateful for the way we were able to welcome him home. 

really?

Three independent requests for George's birth story. I guess it's a mommy blog requisite, huh?

baby in the hood

I had been waiting, breath bated for Anna Maria Horner's new book, Handmade Beginnings to come out. I'd seen a few of the patterns and thought the mariposa nursing tunic looked, well, LESS like a maternity shirt than all the other nursing clothes I've seen. So I bought the book on sale and was so pleasantly surprised to find lots of other projects that actually align with my aesthetic pretty well. This is rare in the sewing world, unfortunately. Though I've been sewing for like 20 years, primarily with patterns, I very rarely find something just like what I was wishing for. I got the book in the mail and promptly made two (different!!) nursing tops -- photos maybe later, if I am looking cute -- and the "baby in the hood" jacket for George. It is precious, made up in about 2 hours with some pattern alterations (I didn't fully line it, summertime coming and all), and fits him with a little room to grow in the 9 month size. My little butterball.



I'm so glad to be using up some of my fabric stash and I'm totally validated in my habit of keeping weird little scraps because I lined the sleeves with one scrap and made the hood stripe and button placket with another.







I am already having anxiety about George's upcoming phase of hating mama-made stuff. I went through one, albeit a brief one where I eventually just learned to sew, and I'm sure my mum was bummed.