Self-taught

About two weeks ago, Rose woke up and decided that she was done with diapers. After a week of trial and error, she GOT it. Boom. That’s all. I don’t have a baby any more.

After trying to potty train Jay before he was ready (and the 2 months of appalling accidents that ensued) I was not even planning to put Rose on the potty until this fall, August at the earliest (when she turned two and a half years old). We had been letting her sit on the potty before bedtime every night for a few weeks before she abandoned her diapers, but I didn’t think it was really teaching her much. Wrong! One morning she freaked out when I said it was time for a diaper, and she hasn’t gone back since. How did I get that lucky?

We got her some My Little Pony undies, and she really has done all the work herself—she needed no treats or stickers or anything for motivation; she just wanted to be a big girl. Intrinsic motivation—I’ll take it! She’s even surprisingly coordinated at getting her pants on and off and climbing up and down from the potty. She wears a waterproof cover over her undies at bedtime, but it’s just a precaution—as long as I wake her up to pee before I go to bed around 10pm, she usually wakes up dry in the morning. I’ve been radio-silent through all of this out of fear that I’d jinx this. It seems too good to be true. But it’s not!

I think it’s safe to say that Rose is officially potty trained. She’s more used to the idea by now than I am. Cloth diapers take a certain amount of time, energy, and brainpower to keep in working order—washing, folding, timing the wash days, monthly extra washings to keep up absorbency, etc. There’s a small hole in my life where the cloth diapers used to be. How shall I fill it?

Actually, in the past few weeks I’ve been sewing rather more than is strictly necessary. I have no formal sewing training, just a whole lot of years of trial and error, heavy on the error. I learned so much from making that pioneer dress that I thought I’d remember it all better/improve more if I kept sewing while all the info was fresh in my brain. But I was not prepared to decipher another confusing pattern. Enter: Pinterest with its easy stretchy skirt ideas and the t-shirt repurposing dress. Sewing fabric onto the bottom of an old shirt is magic.

I took these pictures with my camera’s wink timer, so they are quite professional.

 

I wish I had made the waist a little higher on this one, but so far it’s not worth redoing.

 

This one worked out the best but I just used some old fabric out of my scrap box and a very old shirt, so it’s not as light or cheery as I’d like.

 

And the soft, stretchy skirt. Sinfully comfortable, ridiculously easy: 1.5 yards of knit fabric, sew down one side, fold and sew the top, insert elastic in the top, hem the bottom. ShaPOW. Skirt. 

Sewing won’t fill the diaper-void forever, but I think I’m adjusting already. I just wonder if I’ll have the courage to wear one of these dresses to church on Sunday.

We have two BIG KIDS

Jay, Rose, Layne, and Paul

We gave Jay this glorious book for his birthday last week:

I love GOOD rhythmic poetry, and this one is historic and patriotic to boot. We’ve read it every day since Jay’s birthday, and Jeff and I have explained some of the colonial details to Jay (he’s rather intrigued by the fact that it wasn’t a war of good vs. evil, just a fight for liberty). Yesterday I was delighted to hear Jay and Rose running around the house, waving their Lego peewers while saying, “chase the redcoats down the lane!” and “we’re minute men!” This is such a thrilling, stirring poem. “The fate of a nation was riding that night.” Ahh, it gives me chills. If you want a little refresher, here it is: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15640

Here are a few more irresistible scenes from our week:

Reading party.

Biting party. Layne loves loves LOVES watching her big cousins play. It is SO CUTE and fun to watch her watch them.

Jay and Rose wear Layne’s cheeks out. Steph has one more week of classes, so we get Layne for only one more week. Sniff. Thank goodness they live just around the corner!

Rose sat like this in that box for at least 10 whole minutes the other day, snuggling with her bunny. Another time she was walking around moaning and holding her bunny in a funny way. I asked her what was wrong, and she said “bubby tying. bubby sad” (bunny’s crying, bunny’s sad). I saw that she had the bunny’s grubby little paws up on its face, in a clear position of sorrow. Bunny was crying into her paws. It was hilarious.

Jay and I built this magnificent palace together while the Rose Monster (aka Hurricane Rose aka the Block City Destroyer) took a nap. I love blocks. That’s all I ever want to give my kids for gifts: blocks and books.

Practically sisters. Except Rose calls her Wayne.

After I took these pictures, Rose said “Wayne heavy.”

Progress

Jeff and I decided to use this 3 day weekend to give our poor neglected yard a little TLC. After we planted grass a few weeks ago, we kind of just left it alone and hoped for the best. We thought that the grass we planted wasn’t growing at all, but after Jeff whacked down the knee-high weeds back there, we discovered some tender shoots of grass here and there. Yay! This weekend, Jeff tackled the grass and bushes and I labored in our garden patch. Jay and Rose roamed and “helped” everywhere. We’re pooped, but it’s finally starting to look like a yard back there!

The Yard:

March 29, 2013. Dusty-dry…

…May 27, 2013. Do you see some green or what? That second daily sprinkler cycle is helping (budgetary moan).

Now on to the garden:

February 2013. Awful, tangled mess.

March 29, 2013—[hours and hours of agony later] Behold, the weeded garden strip.

May 27, 2013. Tadaaa! According to the square foot gardening formula, I think we have enough room for 18-20 squares (2x9 or 2x10). So much for starting small? Since we built this garden box with old landscaping scraps, the measurements aren’t exact. Eventually maybe we’ll extend the garden strip along all 35 feet of that white fence. But for now, that patch beyond the right box border is for Jay and Rose. It’s their “garden.” Jay says he will use rocks for seeds. Rose is happy to gouge and fling dirt with her puny purple pumpkin scoop-turned-shovel. Sand is expensive (so is fancy square-foot-dirt!) so instead of that giant sandbox of my dreams, the children get a rectangle of dirt next-door to our garden. I think they’ll still be happy.

We decided to use what we excavated from the yard for our garden “boxes” instead of buying new materials. So we dug out the dirt, re-laid the railroad ties, laid down some anti-weed tarp, lined the back with paving stones, and filled in the trench with the signature square-foot-gardening mix: peat moss, compost, and vermiculite. Jay and Rose loved mixing the dirt together.

Next step…plant seeds. Yikes.

Note to self—don’t forget gloves next time.

Since these yard-garden pictures were decidedly un-cute, I shall slap up some others from this month that fell through the cracks and are heretofore UNPOSTED. What? Yes, I’ve been holding out on you. Some of these have made their way to Facebook, I’ll admit it, but only some.

 

{ninja turtles}

{tres leches cake}

{water guns}

{reload}

{post-swim snack}

 

{water baby}

{sage rats}

{spontaneous Sunday morning nap}

{faux-phone call}

{first dentist visit}

{blasted bonnet}

{Sunday sunset}

{buttered clouds}

{sigh of contentment}