Like a kid in a candy store

That's me at Hobby Lobby.  Of course, the real kids flopping around on the floor around me kind of dampens my excitement a tad.  It's like we walk in the place and they lose their minds.  Zoe tries to eat the plastic grapes and the other two try to play tag.  But I was on a mission.

A few weeks ago, I made a mohawk hat for a friend of mine in Canada (I guess that makes me international, yep, yep) and she said that her respite worker for her son (who is severely autistic) loved the hat and wants one for her baby.  So my friend has asked me to make one for her to give her friend as a gift.  She wanted it to have wild colors, so I had to see what I could find.  It wasn't much...

The yarn I used to make the first one, that frizzed up so wonderfully, doesn't really come in anything remotely wild.  It's the one on the left.  That was as wild as I could find.  Up close, it is a mix of purple, orange, yellow, red...  but it's kind of muted.  They did have some brighter colors, but they were very girlie.  Most of the "wild" I could find reminded me of girls, and this is for a boy.

The other yarn was pretty much an impulse buy.  I wanted to give her a choice and I just fell in love with this stuff.  I haven't used anything like it before and I can't wait to play with it.

I have another "commission" I'm working on.  An old friend of mine ordered a sock monkey hat and fingerless gloves from my shop and when I told her I had shipped it out, she asked me if I would make her something else.  She wants a bandana-style dress like I make for the girls, only in her size.  I'm kind of excited for the challenge of translating it into an adult size.  And she likes the Michael Miller fabric the girls vetoed for their Easter outfits, so I get to use it  anyway.  

So I have lots of stuff going on and I'm pretty stoked about it. =)

Decisions, decisions....

I'm planning Easter outfits.  This will be my third year making the girls' Easter outfits and I think this will be the cutest, and hopefully the ones that will be most likely for them to wear throughout the year. 

My idea this year is pinafores.  I know, you're thinking "Do you really think your kids are going to wear pinafores more than once?"  Look at it.  It's totally adorable, reversible, and I can see it paired up with jeans and a tshirt easily.  I especially can see Izzy in one.  Is it bad that most of my sewing is Isabelle-inspired?  I know I should probably sew with the other two in mind also, but I guess her taste runs closest to my own.

I'm struggling with fabric ideas though.  My first idea came from the Michael Miller Antiquity line.  I adore the Breeze colorway and I want some of that old script fabric so bad I can taste it.  However, there are two problems.  First and foremost, Isabelle HATES it.  I could just go with it anyway, but if they won't wear it, what's the point?  Secondly... it's designer fabric.  $9 a yard and I'd need probably 9 yards total (I can get away with 6 probably, but my original idea would run about 9)... that's way more money that I really should spend on their Easter outfits. I'm still going to figure out something to do with that script fabric though.  I need it.

Well, there is a third problem... all three outfits would be very similar and I think I'll get more wear out of the outfits if they're different. 

So, I've been scouring the Hobby Lobby website.  My thinking is that I can start buying fabric as I get 40% off coupons, which they have every few weeks.  Their fabric usually runs about $7 a yard or less, and if I can space it out use enough coupons, I'm running in a much more reasonable ball park price-wise.  I'm making sure each pinafore is a different color scheme... pink, green, turquoise.  And I think I'm going to just make white peasant dresses (plain white fabric, $4/yard!) to wear under the pinafores and then I might dye them after Easter.  We don't do well with white in our house.

I'm excited and want to start them right now.  I have some serious crafting ADD.

Splenomegaly

If there's any part of my job that I truly love, it's medical terminology. 

This was my poor Dodo yesterday

We were both home sick.  I couldn't get her fever to break for anything most of the day.  I'm normally a very warm person, but with me being sick and her running a fever, it was so uncomfortable to hold her.  Luckily she wasn't very clingy and preferred to lounge alone while we watched Little Bear.

Today I decided to send her to the doctor.  Normally, I take the kids to the doctor.  It's not that I don't trust Bill with it, I just tend to be too much of a control freak and I'm on pins and needles until he calls with a report.  It just cuts out the anxiety to go myself.  But I'm behind at work due to my own illness and the snow last week, so I had him take her.  

He called to report that she has a double ear infection.  No big surprise.  And then he said the doctor said her spleen is enlarged.  If you know my husband, you know how I pretty much blew him off on that one.  But he assured me he was serious.  Her spleen is enlarged.  Let's just say I tried to be as quietly freaked out as I could be.   Of course, I googled it and discovered that it's not uncommon for your spleen to become enlarged when you have an infection.  Whew!  He mentioned that they drew blood and her blood count was fine, so they just want to see her in two weeks to make sure it's back to normal once her ears are.

Of course, what he didn't say on the phone, and God knows we're all glad he didn't at the time, was that the doctor drew blood to check her blood count because an enlarged spleen can indicate leukemia.  I would have come UNGLUED.  But with what I read and the fact that her blood work was fine, I am comfortable that it's just infection-related.  

And just look at my little Dodo today:

Hopefully we're all on the mend now and can get back to something resembling normal.  It's going to take me forever to recover the house and laundry, but until I'm back to 100%, we'll just have to muddle through.

Cranky Soapbox Moment

Happy Valentines Day!  To everyone who has a sweetie, I hope you cherish even the tiniest token of affection you got.  To everyone who doesn't - go pamper yourself... I'm sure you know how better than anyone else anyway.

So now, let me get to the part where I get all preachy and crabby...

I am so sick of women who define their happiness, or themselves even, by a man in their life.  It just screams out that you have no self-worth.  Trust me, no one enjoys the roller coaster of emotions you set off on every time you meet a man.  You're giddy and obnoxiously happy, planning your wedding within a week of meeting some guy, and then when he takes off because you're a smothering nutjob, you can't get out of the bed because your life is pointless again.  It's insanity.  A partner is someone who compliments your life, brings an added dimension... your life should be perfectly fine without them.  I've told Bill that he's in my life not because I need him, because I do not need him.  He's in my life because I want him to be there.  Plain and simple.  And to me, that should mean more.  I don't want someone to HAVE to have me in their life. 

On a similar note, do not change who you are for a man.  If you do not have a strong enough personality to still be YOU when you are in a relationship, you have no business being in a relationship.  I understand that being around a person, things are bound to rub off, and that's fine.  But when your religious views change... your musical tastes change drastically, you pick up habits that you condemned before.... maybe you really need to think about things.  If you as you are is not good enough, maybe that's not the right person.  It would be like me starting to listen to country music and watching RFDTV.   If someone didn't question that, the world is just going to hell.

I think a woman should know, without a doubt, that they can stand on their own two feet without a man.  Yet I know so many women who couldn't and wouldn't.  I don't think I'm some feminist.  I would say the same thing about a man, but it's rare to find a man who acts like that.  I just don't think a woman should get lost in the shadow of a man.  I guess I just come from a line of very strong, independent women.  I've tried to give this advice to friends in the past (in a nicer, less bitchy manner, mind you...) but it just goes in one ear and out the other.  I just hope I can raise my own girls to feel like I do... so that when they get married one day that they appreciate their husband as a partner, not as their reason for existence.

Trash

That's what I feel like.  3 day old trash in the hot sun.  Ugh.

Everyone but Bill has been sick.  I'm 99% sure we had/have the flu.  Glad I got that shot, let me tell you.  I hate shots but I get guilted into it every year.  I've already called in sick to work tomorrow and can barely muster up feeling bad that I'm already way behind due to the snow and that someone else is going to have to get up early and get there at 5:30am.

I got lucky that the worst part hit yesterday while Bill was off work.  He doesn't call in for anything.  He's at work tonight and I'm sitting here wondering how I'm going to manage getting the girls out of the tub and dressed for bed.  I'll perk up a bit, try to do something and crash again.  Waiting on a perky moment right now so I can get them out.  They might not get their hair washed.  (they didn't...)

I still need to finish up their Valentines for school.  My plan was to get them done earlier in the week, but I procrastinated and I'm regretting it.  I probably shouldn't be putting my germy little hands all over them, but there's no other option at this point.  I'll just spray it all down with Lysol.  LOL

Paranoia

Today we got about 5 1/2 inches of snow.  Not a lot to some of my friends and in-laws who live in snow all winter, but it's a pretty big thing here.  I love it at the moment... the yard is a perfect white blanket of fluffiness.  The girls wanted to go play in it, but they're sick.  I might let them go out tomorrow, but only because they've been cooped up all week so far.

Unfortunately, the snow has caused me its share of anxiety this evening.

Let's start with Olivia, my precious drama queen.  She's a very whiny and needy little patient.  She's been running a fever for 4 days.  I took her to the doctor and she checked out OK... it must be a virus of some sort, but her ears and throat are fine, so we just have to wait it out.  Tonight she fell asleep on the couch about 5:30pm.  Every once in a while, she'd start getting upset in her sleep.  I thought maybe it was a fever dream or something.  Then she just flipped out.  I tried to get her to calm down and take some Tylenol, but she was fighting me and then told me her peepee hurt.  Great.  Lovely.  She's had UTIs in the past.  The last one was so bad that I actually had her in the van to go to the ER before she stopped screaming.  It would explain the mysterious fever, so my mind is spinning... Bill took the van.  The roads are crap.  I can't put all three kids in the truck and even if I could, I don't feel comfortable driving the truck in the snow, knowing how awful it was when I was driving home from work.  I was getting ready to call my sister to see if she could help me out in some way, when Olivia jumped up and ran to the bathroom.  She just had to pee really, really badly. 

Then I put the girls to bed and settled in the chair to read a bit while they fell asleep.  I was coming to the end of my chapter, ready to sneak out of the room, when an ambulance drove past.  My sister lives 4 houses down from me.  Earlier in the week, an ambulance came down the road and I ran outside to make sure it passed up her house.  I was about to do the same, but decided against it.  But then I couldn't concentrate anymore.  And then a second ambulance drove past.  I jumped up and put my shoes on and ran out to see where the ambulance was.  It was much closer than the ambulance earlier in the week.  Normally I have no problem picking out my sister's yard even in the dark because there is a road across the street from her driveway.  But with all the snow, I couldn't be certain where the road was and the ambulances were really close to where my sister's house should be.  So I had to text her to make sure she and her husband were not about to take a ride in the ambulance.  She said it was two houses over from her.  I felt a little silly, but I just had to be sure.

And the icing on the cake is that my husband is at work.  I tried to convince him not to go to work, but he went anyway.  He made it just fine there, but sometimes he has to go out on the road while he's at work, and he has to drive home in the morning.  So I get to worry until he comes home.  Aside from worrying about his physical safety, there's also the concern that he has the van - the family vehicle.  If it's wrecked, we have a  pretty big problem.  At least he can wait until daylight to leave... I'm off work tomorrow so I don't need him to get here at any particular time. 

All I can say is that for causing me to worry, if there is anything open in the morning, he needs to stop and get me a big coffee on his way home.  I broke the coffee pot Sunday, which hasn't been an issue since I don't drink any until I get to work during the week, but being off tomorrow, I'm looking at a coffee-less day.  And that's just no good for anyone.

Working Mom Blues

I would never in a million years say that a stay-at-home mom has the easy life.  But there are days, like today, when I really wish I were one.  Working full-time with little kids is so complicated and frustrating.  I'm really blessed to have a job as flexible as I have, but even then things get tricky.  I try really hard most of the time to look at the positives... but sometimes it's tougher than others. 

I have three sick children.  Olivia started running a fever on Sunday and it's still going.  She was peppier today, though, so hopefully we're on the downhill slide.  I took her to the doctor and she said her throat and ears were fine, which were my main concerns.  It's just some random virus.  The other two decided she was having way too much fun being sick on her own.  Isabelle woke up with a fever this morning, and by this afternoon Zoe joined in.  Unfortunately, based on the way I felt like utter doodoo earlier (freezing and hot at the same time and just completely ran down) and now feel better after taking some Excedrin, I have a bad feeling I'm an unwilling participant in this junk.  I'll probably hit the sack a little early tonight and just hope I wake up A-OK.

The past two days, with all three kids home, have reminded me that I need to get an action plan in place for summer - PRONTO.  Bill works nights.  He has to sleep during the day.  If I'm at work and the kids are home... things get a little crazy.  I swear the man is borderline narcoleptic sometimes, but even if he couldn't fall asleep at the drop of a hat, the little bit of sleep he gets isn't enough for him to properly supervise our little angels.  Last summer was insane and I eventually went to working half-days so that he could sleep and the girls could not burn the house down or go run the streets.  And you think that's an exaggeration, but it's not.  They did get out of the house.  Twice, if I remember correctly.  My boss tried to get me to enroll them in summer camps and activities, but Zoe is too young still for most of them.  I don't want to have to put them in an actual daycare - that would most likely run me about $200 a week, which is about double what we pay now for Mother's Day Out.  I don't know anyone who could babysit (plus I just find it kind of uncomfortable and inconvenient to have a babysitter here with Bill asleep.... ).  I guess I need to just really sit down and figure out my options and the costs involved and see what will work best.  I just don't want to use up every little bit of my vacation time.  The perfect solution would be for Bill to get offered a really nice job making twice what he makes now so I could just stay home.  At least for the summer.  =)  I can dream...

Tomorrow is going to be another snow day.  School has already been canceled.  Of course, working where I work, I still am expected to go in.  Which is yet another day of Bill being home with all three kids and no sleep.  I'm really on the verge of just saying I will not be in until the girls are back in school.  I hate doing that.  There are people there who don't have that option - it's a medical facility and someone has to be there if there are patients.  But my job is not critical to the daily operation of the place and while I hate playing that card, I can't in good conscience put my kids in jeopardy because it's "not fair" that I don't have to be there.  And yes, there are people there who would say just that... But the fact remains that I can always replace my job, but not my kids.