Sew Liberated

what we nurture

I very much enjoyed this interview with Sylvia Boorstein today while doing some sewing. I know you'll like it, too ...

Tangled up in thread,

Meg

the beach boys

Lachlan's first, Finn's third, and Patrick's thousandth trip to the beach. Each boy is loving it, and feeding off each other's excitement and enthusiasm! Tomorrow we celebrate Finn's birthday. Off to do some behind-the-scenes birthday prep!

Glad you loved the Paloma! Be sure to post photos of your tops to Sew Liberated's facebook page or to Craftsy. Also, if you purchase the downloadable pattern via Craftsy, I'd love it if you leave feedback and let us know how you liked the instructions and the printable format! 

oh brother

We're being far too serious here, Finn.

What we should do is get our crazy on, like this:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!

Screaming at the top of our lungs while covered in mud sure is fun, isn't it?

Some of you have asked about my secret method for cleaning off my boys. Truth be told, my boys are often covered in something - mud, weeds, oatmeal, peanut butter - I am not one to fuss over their appearance. 

But being dirty is the sign of a day well spent! To keep them from leaving a trail of mud in their wake as they move through the house, I just hose them off, dump their messy clothes in the washer, and dump them in the tub before dinner. 

Then it's my tub that's dirty. It never ends. The soil everywhere is a sign that we made the right decision by moving out here to some land - they're country boys, these two. Nothing is better than being outside. I'll take the ever-present dirt packed underneath fingernails.

Montessori bloopers

Is this as funny to you as it is to me? From my dopey response to his question to the fact that he isn't washing any dishes and doesn't remember what he's doing to Lachlan banging who-knows-what on the coffee table in the background, this is a far-cry from my playdough putting-away prodigy. ;) Ah, it's still fun to wash dishes, though. You have to embrace the imperfection if it all! 

We're happy to be home and doing simple things like cooking and trying to clean up after ourselves. It sure beats eating out all the time like we had to do on our trip, which felt like this, meal after meal. Hooray for home! 

on the road

Hello from Washington, DC, where we've come to protest the meanies who'd like for insurance companies not to be required to insure children with preexisting conditions like our little Lachlan enjoy ourselves despite it all for one day as we drive to New York City for a family wedding this weekend! Gosh, this is such a unique and powerful city, and we're seeing it with new eyes this time. When we lived here seven years ago, we were in such a different place in our early married lives. Now here we are, navigating the metro with a stroller and a baby carrier as opposed to a yoga mat and a bag of groceries. The boys loved the open space of the national mall, which is exactly where they needed to be after being in the car all day yesterday.

See you tomorrow or Monday with pictures of my trip to the garment district in Manhattan to source fabrics for my next patterns!

another trip around the sun

The first day of my trip around the Sun, the first day of Spring. Nice that they coincide.

Thirty one. Last year I was holding a baby who needed supplemental oxygen. This year I was holding the hand of that same baby as he splashed his nearly-walking feet in the water of the river. 

My boys made me a cake, and I spent some time familiarizing myself with my new toy. Come to think of it, this camera made that cake look rather disgusting! But it wasn't. It was quite tasty, honest! 

It was just a normal day, and for that I'm very grateful.

one year

One year ago today, we held Lachlan skin-to-skin for the first time since his surgery. 

Though we didn't dwell on all that he has been through in his one year of life, it has been a week of reflection for me. For, when you have a baby whose heart works only because of the skilled hands of his surgeon, a baby who struggled to nurse or take anything by mouth for the first five months of his life, who was fed with a tube ...

There's something so amazing about the pictures of him on his first birthday, February 27th. He takes it all in, this little one. He's full of sweetness and spunk. At one year old, he asks "waz dat" about every 13 seconds or so. He wants to know everything, see everything, hold everything ... eat everything in this world. Have your cake, little Lachlan. This life is pretty amazing, isn't it?

We ended up baking him the "Baby's First Birthday Cake" from Organically Raised: Conscious Cooking for Babies and Toddlers . It was plates-in-the-air yummy. 

sudsy

Baby Doll got a bath yesterday, a warm bath with plenty of bubbles . 

I think Finn would bathe baby doll every day if given the option. Alas, his bathing fervor does not necessarily extend to his OWN body. Unless, of course, you count mud baths. :)

Given both boys' proclivity for dirt play, baby doll is often handled by little, messy hands. (What does this say for my house? Thank goodness I have an old, brown couch.) Baby Doll, although Finn's Mini Me, gets plenty of love from Lachlan, too. Lots of wide-open-mouthed kisses. Oh, Baby Doll. You're a forgiving little fellow.

The birthday preparations have begun for our little almost-one-year-old love. Finn's on board, Mama has Lachlan's very own Baby Doll doppelganger in the works, and we're perusing healthy "cake" recipes to make for this important milestone. Finn had a very mellow first birthday celebration - we had no party, just a few days at the seashore. But when you give birth to a baby not knowing whether he will live to see his first birthday, you celebrate when he does. There's plenty to celebrate this February 27th. Plenty indeed.

simple

Sometimes, in my bag of parenting tricks that I've gathered from here and there, I tend to forget things. It's a big bag of a lot of randomness, with some Montessori thrown in, a dose of Waldorf for good measure, and a good amount of attachment parenting. And yes, some may find the bits of granola dispersed through this parenting bag a bit messy ... even funny. But it works, and that's how we learn to be parents - by throwing past experiences and good ideas into that bag, hoping that we can a.) find the bag when we need to pull something out, and b.) rifle through it to find that particular idea among a sea of others.

Lately I've been thinking to myself that I need to clean out this disorganized mess. I'll be the first to admit that I'm addicted to parenting books. I need to break that. There's just too much information coming in. 

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that I'm rediscovering the value of Montessori's Practical Life exercises in my home, after nearly forgetting about them. I gave up the idea of being a Saint-in-Residence a while back, ;) a character trait that some believe Montessori and Waldorf parenting necessitates. Yet, even though I got rid of those unrealistic ideas from my parenting bag, that didn't mean that I threw out some simple tools - dare I say the backbone (at least a supporting leg?) - of the philosophies themselves. 

I've written about Montessori Practical Life before while I was teaching, and here's something I happened upon recently from a Waldorf perspective.

And you know what? Even if neither of these two philosophies truly resonate with you, the idea of giving young children meaningful work to do in the home is an amazing parenting tool. It calms nerves. It centers children. It gives them confidence. It develops their capacity to concentrate. Out of it will come content for creative play. It allows you, the parent, to get a few things done while they work. Setting up activities for your child makes you feel like a capable parent (when I often feel like I'm floundering in the murky waters of sibling messes.) I love me some Practical Life.

I thought I'd share with you some of what we're doing around here in terms of meaninful "work" for Finn.

Today, I had some pictures of this recent beeswax-fest on my camera. You will need some polishing cloths (I made mine from Little Folks flannel), a very small spoon for applying the wax to the cloth, and some yummy beeswax/jojoba oil blend from my go-to practical life resource, Montessori Services.

Wax anything that's unfinished wood - from the play kitchen to toys to tables. It helps to have a smaller container of beeswax so there's a limited amount and it is used more judiciously. You see the whole jar here because I forgot my own advice. Next time, next time. Now our kitchen is super-waxed! 

Best of all? Thirty minutes of contented work. For all of us.

Oh! P.S. The apron pattern (including the template for all of the embroidery work) can be found here!

a kid's day

Waking up. Sometimes I need toothpicks to prop open my eyelids. I don't drink coffee - it never became a habit, and it gives me the jitters. My dad always used to say that cofee tasted like licking concrete. (We always wondered how he found out what licked concrete tasted like.) 

All of this to say that mornings are not the easiest time of day for me. It's always too early. 

Along came boys. Two of them, who are up-and-at-'em, ready to eat and play about three nanoseconds after their eyelids pop open. 

Several months ago, we were fortunate to receive a visual activity chart from A Kid's Day. It has greatly smoothed the wake-up ritual for both myself and Finn.

As we wait for breakfast to cook, I pull out the custom-made labels and hand them to Finn to attach to the tree chart. It gives us a moment to talk about our plans for the day. Transparency in routine has been helpful for Finn, and this little chart has helped me to maintain a predictable rhythm to our days. 

I try not to put *every* little thing we do on the chart - just the bigger "events." On a typical week day, I might pull out the following labels: inside play, outside play, errands, lunch, nap, tea time, art activity, dinner, music time, bedtime. That's plenty for us.

I do find that I need to put the chart up on top of a dresser ocne the labels have been placed, or else the temptation to completely rearrange our day (the labels are magnetic) is just too much for Finn! Here's a video of how Traci, the creator of A Kid's Day, uses their chart - I like how she has it stuck to the wall.

And the good news - A Kid's Day is giving away a Regular Tree Chart with 20 customized activity labels to one of you! Just leave a comment below to enter, and if you love their charts, earn extra brownie points for "liking" A Kid's Day on Facebook. What a wonderful home business, don't you think! Let's help spread the word!

Comments close on Sunday evening, January 29th. The winner will be drawn at random and announced on Monday, January 30th. Good luck!

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