Recent creations

This is the quilt I made Meagan for Christmas. I know I told a few of you about it, and I meant to post pictures forever ago, but I'm just now getting around to it.

Meagan calls this her "horsie blanket". It was a lot of fun to make, and didn't take as long as I thought it would. All the horses are machine appliqued, and I even did the quiliting myself. For a first try, it went pretty well, even if there were several puckers on the back. If you look hard at some of the close-ups, you can see some of the quilting--there are clouds in the sky and flowers to either side of the pony. There's more in the grass, but you can't really see it. I even wrote "for Meagan" in the grass of one of them. I wonder if she'll ever notice? The only hand sewing I did was the eyes of the ponies. Hand sewing is not my forte. Each eye is a different shape and size, and one even looks Chinese. Oh well. I guess it gives them character. I think my favorite is the white pony with the green mane.

This is a quilt I put together for a machine quilting class, that got cancelled because of the snow. Since it was more or less for practice, I didn't want to go out and buy a bunch of fabric, so I mostly used what I already had on hand, leftover from other projects. There are pieces from Pamela's wedding quilt, Bethany and Cedric's planet blankets from last year, coloring bags I made for my niecs, and other stuff. It was fun to put together. Each set of circles is made from complementary colors. It's just the quilt top right now, and it might be a while until I finish it, because I tore apart my sewing area today. We took a bunch of stuff to storage, in an effort to make our house look less cluttered for when we put it up for sale in about a week and a half. So I have no more sewing desk and my machine will shortly be boxed up. *Sniff*

Meagan's dental saga is done

Meagan's major dental problems are hopefully done for a great long while now. We took her to a pediatric dentist last month, who scheduled her fillings at Dayton Children's today. It was done at the hospital because they put her under anesthesia for the procedure. It was much easier on her than the last dentist, who bodily held her down and broke a tooth in the process.

I took her in a little after 10:00. She wasn't supposed to have anything to eat after eight o'clock the night before, so she fussed a bit when I didn't let her have any breakfast. I expected her to fight me more on that, but she was actually okay. When we got there, they took us back to a little waiting room, where she was checked in and had vitals taken, that sort of stuff. A nurse gave her a coloring book and some crayons. It was really cute, because she kept saying she was going to take the coloring book home to her sister.

The procedure was scheduled to start at 12:15, but the previous surgery in the room before her took longer than expected, so hers was late starting. When they were ready for her, they gave her some medicine to swallow. I don't remember what it was exactly, but it was supposed to help ease the separation from the parents and calm her down until the anesthesia was given. It made her a little silly. We were coloring together, and there were some letters on the page, and all of a sudden she started talking about "m's", and whacking her stomach, saying there were "m's" in her tummy. I asked her if she meant M&M's, but she said, "No, there are m's in my tummy," and burst out laughing. It was pretty funny.

While she was gone, I had a couple of hours to kill. I mostly sat and watched TV and knitted. It was rather relaxing. I didn't even feel guilty for just sitting around, like I would have, had I done it at home.

After the dentist was done, she came and talked to me. She showed me some x-rays they'd taken, a couple of which were of her cleft. She's missing a tooth there, and the x-ray doesn't show an adult tooth, either. Eventually we'll have to do something about that. The x-rays showed her adult teeth coming in in a few places--it was kind of weird to see. The dentist said she was kind of advanced in that respect, her bottom front teeth are already loose. They will tighted up and loosen over the next several months, but she expects those front teeth to fall out within six months to a year at most. That's kind of early. The dentist also found one extra cavity that we didn't know about--it was between two teeth, so really had had a total of five cavities. They put some sealant on several of the teeth to hopefully help prevent any more. We also floss her teeth daily now. Hopefully all that will help us to not have to do this again.

They did take longer to bring her back to me than I'd expected, though. The procedure was supposed to take about an hour, and then she was supposed to go to an observation room for an hour to wake up, and then they were supposed to bring her back to me, but it was longer than an hour after the dentist came in to talk to me. A nurse told me she was disoriented and started thrashing around as she started to wake up (which is pretty normal), so they gave her some pain medication and she fell asleep again. When I did see her again, she was still a bit groggy, and still had the IV in. It was all wrapped up so at first I thought she had a cast on for some weird reason. She really did NOT like the IV, and kept trying to take it off. I managed to distract her with the TV and other things until they were ready to take it out, but she was really glad to get it out. She kept saying that she wanted to go home. She told me she wanted some water, so they brought her a sippy cup with apple juice (water apparently makes kids throw up after anesthesia), but she hardly touched it, and still wasn't happy. As soon as we left the hospital, and started driving away, she drained the cup. I think she was more eager to get home than to drink before. Once she got home and ate some food, she was pretty much back to normal. I don't think she remembers much of anything, because when she's talked about it, all she's said is that she went to the hospital, and got a pink sippy cup and a coloring book for her sister (which she really tried to give to Bethany, but Bethany didn't want it). We're glad it all went so well, and that she's cavity-free now.

Funny kids

This is Sean's new favorite funny face. The more you laugh, the more he does it.

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Bethany watched me putting my makeup on this morning and said, "Mommy, you're not supposed to color on yourself!" My bad.

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Later, I was playing Mario Kart with Bethany, but after eight races, I was tired. I told Bethany I wanted to take a break. She said, "Okay, Mom, you sit back and take a break until you are done breaking."

Do as I say, not as I do!

So tonight as Nate was reading the kids their bedtime story, I was doing something that I constantly tell them not to do: I was standing on their plastic picnic table while I was trying to plaster up some holes so I could paint tomorrow. I was trying to hurry, because Sean was screaming his head off, so I jumped up on the table instead of getting a stool. Well, the kids found out first hand why I tell them not to stand on the table: it collapsed under me. Of course, I weigh about four times as much as them, but details, details. Bethany told me, "Mommy, you shouldn't get on the table, you broke it." I had to take Sean out to feed him and put him to bed, but Nate told me that when it was time for songs, Meagan requested "The broken table song." When Nate told her he didn't know that song, she said in a sing-songy voice, "The table is broken, the table is broken", or something similar. I'm never going to live this one down. I'm sure that a year from now, Bethany will be reminding me about the time that I broke the table. (Just the other day, she brought up the time I was gone overnight--I was in the hospital when Sean was born--and how she didn't like it. It was almost a year ago, sheesh!) I did manage to put the table back together--it has just popped apart--but it is a lot wobblier than before. I'm wonder what the kids will have to say about that.

Sean's first steps

Sean took his first unassisted steps today. It's just been over the past week that he's started standing alone, so I was surprised that he's started walking already. I guess I shouldn't have been, though, since he's been walking along the edge of the couch and behind his scooter for several weeks now. But once he started stepping out alone, it was like a light clicked or something, because I saw him doing it all day.

Farm with Old Donald

Meagan's current favorite song we sing at night is "Farm with Old Donald", i.e. "Old McDonald Had a Farm." Old McDonald has had some pretty interesting animals on his farm lately, too. Most often he has "a mommy pink horse and a daddy pink horse", and yes, we say all of that, sometimes with a baby thrown in as well. Bethany will branch out with a red or green mommy horse. Then the other night Meagan wanted "a different kind of mommy pink horse" and we had to say that whole phrase, too. Tonight took the cake, though, when she wanted "a green teddy bear". I just looked at her and asked, "And what does a green teddy say?" She lifted her little fist in the air and with a punching motion said, "Mirn, mirn!" So tonight, the Farm with Old Donald had a green teddy bear on his farm, with a "mirn, mirn" here and a "mirn, mirn" there, everywhere a "mirn, mirn!" I wonder what we'll sing about tomorrow night.

7 Feb update: Nate said that the other night Meagan requested Old Donald had a "picture of a pink teddy bear." I wonder what she'll come up with next.

25 Feb update: Tonight Meagan said Old Donald had a "pink backpack" on his farm. Why? "Because it's my favorite thing!" she said. I asked what a pink backpack says, and she said, "Nothing." So, Old Donald had a pink backpack, EIEIO, with a {pause} here, and a {pause} there. Here a {pause}, there a {pause}, everywhere a {pause}....

1 March update: Now Old Donald has people on his farm, who talk, talk here and talk, talk there. I wonder if Old Donald puts them out to pasture, or what?

12 March: The two latest additions to Old Donald's farm are a snowman (who said some made-up word that I can't remember), and Sean. Old Donald's farm is turning into quite the menagerie.

16 March: Now Meagan wants Old Donald to have a car. When asked what a car says, she said, "Talk, talk." I asked, "What about vroom, vroom." "No, it says, 'talk, talk' ".

20 March: I bought the girls balloons today, so of course that was what Old Donald had on his farm tonight, only both girls wanted that this time.