Letters to Emmeline : Twenty-three months

Dear Emmeline,

Well, this is your second-to-last monthly letter. After you turn two, I'll write to you every six months; trying to cram a hundred million amazing moments into one letter. I love these letters, and I love writing them, and I love looking back at the pictures I've taken over the last month, and I love reading them months (and years) later and seeing how you developed and grew. It also helps with my baby-amnesia since I mostly only write about the good things. (Probably why I want another kid. Too bad I can't get anyone else on board with that idea!) But monthly letters are a lot of work - plus, as you get older, the month-to-month changes are more gradual. So to every six months it is!

Over the last month, you've morphed into the world's most polite one-year-old. Every time I hand you anything or help you with anything or say yes to you, you respond with a dutiful, "Dank-oo, Mommy." I zip up your coat: "Dank-oo, Mommy." I hand you lunch: "Dank-oo, Mommy!" I open a pouch for you: "Dank-oo, Mommy!"  Even in the middle of sobbing because you got hurt: I kiss your owie, and you get out "dank-oo" between sobs. It's so endearing.

Also endearing is this sweet little "Oh" sound you make whenever you're told information. I LOVE IT. It might be one of my favorite things that you've been doing. I have to catch it on video - it's like partly said in resignation, partly factually, partly in answer ,and it's just the cutest sound in the entire world. I'm always commenting on how much I love it, and Carys has picked up on it too, mimicking me: "Mom, I just love it when she says, 'oh.' It's so cute!"

You have become obsessed with my phone. In the past, you never paid more than two seconds of attention to it - at the most you'd sit for a couple minutes and watch a show with your big sister - but Dad taught you how to play a Lego game on his phone, and now all you want to do is play games on my phone. If my phone comes out to make a call or text someone, you're reaching for it and grabbing at it, repeating, "Peese? Peese? Peese?" You call it "ow" - not like a ribbon bow, but like "bow-wow". I finally realized you were asking for "owl," which is referencing the Kapu Forest game that has an owl in it. As much as I don't want to give you very much screen time, I'm still impressed by your dexterity in using the touch screen and how quickly you figure out new games. I let you have it every other day or so for a few minutes while I'm doing something I need you away from me during - like standing on a ladder trying to hang curtains (because otherwise you try to climb the ladder after me - and you can climb it - and that's probably not the safest thing).

We've been spending so much time with our neighbors (well, six-doors-down neighbors) over the last couple weeks. Carys has two little friends who are girls exactly her age (one a day older; the other six months younger). Then each family has a little boy, both who turned one in September (I know, crazy, right?). So you kind of bounce between playing with the bigger girls and the little boys. You WANT to play with the big girls but you're always a half-step behind and I have to remind them to slow down and wait for you. When they are feeling generous and include you in their games, you're totally delighted. Seeing you mimic them and run after them is completely hilarious. You'll play with the little boys for a few minutes, but they're not quite at the actual "playing" stage yet, so you usually end up back in my lap or running after the big kids.  I wish you had friends your exact age in the area, and maybe we'll find some more friends as we live here longer, but for now you're stuck in the middle.

We went to Dubuque to visit Nana, and you loved every minute of it. I'm so grateful to see the connection that you've built with her despite the distance. We visited a few nature centers, and you parked yourself in front of the fish/turtle/alligator aquarium and excitedly pointed them out to me. We went to an apple orchard, and while your sister played with the two resident dogs, you made an immediate beeline to the swings. You did great on the bus ride there and the car ride back to Omaha, keeping entertained with the Magnadoodles and stickers.

We also celebrated Halloween. We visited a local pumpkin patch and I don't even know what your favorite part was - the dog show? The jumping air pillow? The train? Oh - scratch that. I do know. The caramel apple. Holy shit, did you love that caramel apple.  I tried to get you to go on a pony ride with your sister, but you refused - though you loved waving to her as she came around!

For actual Halloween, you did wear your costume, though you all but refused to keep the hood on. I think I got maybe two pictures with the hood on all night. You enjoyed trick-or-treating and if I walked you up to a door, you'd happily hold your bucket out and receive candy...but if I didn't walk you up to the door, you were just as happy to ride in the wagon.

Pumpkin carving didn't really interest you too much. While most kids would love the chance to get elbows-deep in slimy pumpkin guts, you weren't a fan of touching it and getting your hands dirty - although I did get you to pull a few scoops out.

You love putting on your sister's mermaid tail and hopping around in it - and you're surprisingly agile! Maybe you were a mermaid in a past life. You love riding your sister's scooter, and constantly challenge her on ownership of the scooter, telling her, "My scooter! My scooter!" while you try to wrest it from her hands. You also try to take her fake-American-Girl doll (Gracie) and tell her the same thing: "My doll!" Basically, you love anything belonging to your sister or that your sister is interested in.

 

When you don't want to listen or don't like what I'm telling you, you go into this hilarious "statue" mode where you pretend like you can't see me or hear me. You'll look just behind me, stand completely still, and not move. It's pretty effective until I pick you up and physically move you...after which you let me know your displeasure more vocally and by going limp.

You're a climber, just like your sister. You love to climb up anything you can get your feet on - me, the media center, a fence, your crib. You've recently started climbing out on the wrong side of the railings lining the hallway above the landing - which is something you've seen your sister do many times. Until recently you'd only go out a couple feet, so you were still right above the stairs going down, but I just caught you all the way out. I approached you slowly so I didn't scare you and grabbed you back over the railing. Talk about a heart attack!

You love being tossed in the air (what kid doesn't?) and swinging. You love making silly faces and having us mimic you. You apparently love baked beans, which is a little surprising considering you won't even any fruit that isn't a banana (it's payback for being so proud of Carys being such a great eater). You love coloring, but ONLY with markers. You love our neighbor Laura and will run to her as soon as you see her. You love toy balls. You absolutely LOVE to read. As soon as I say it's bedtime, you immediately start running to your room, calling, "Book! Book!" It might just be a stall tactic, but we could read ten books and you'd ask, "More book? Peese?" You have started to really enjoy dressing up in costumes and wearing silly hats and glasses. You love sweets and will literally fight anyone who tries to keep them away from you. You still completely adore your sister and want to be with her and do what she's doing every moment. You're still nursing, though we've been slowly cutting back on the sessions, especially during the day. You started pointing out "baby" versions of things - if we see a pair of animals, one is always the "baby," and anything that's smaller than the regular version of itself is a "baby" as well. Another thing that makes me laugh - also another thing that's better caught on video than a written description - is when you don't want to eat something. You put your hands over your mouth with these big eyes peeking out behind them and emphatically shake your head "no" while saying (muffled by your hards) "no eat!"  So cute - while equally being frustrating since you eat. nothing. at. all. Sigh.

I love you, girl. I love you so much. I delight in kissing your cheeks and neck before bed and making you squeal with laughter. I love demanding "BIG!" hugs from you and feeling your little arms wrap around my neck. I love cuddling you and feeling your weight against me. I can't imagine my days without you, my sweet, silly, darling girl. 

Love, 

Mama

Sitting Room : CURTAINS!

Guys, our sitting room is desperate for some curtains. At night it's like a big flashlight pointing into our house and you can see every detail from the street, which a) isn't safe, obviously, and b) highlights the lack of "done-ness" of the room and c) means I have to keep the room spotless, lest our neighbors think we're the cluttered sort (hint: we're the cluttered sort).

AS USUAL I just have no idea what I want.

SO HALP.

Refer to my always-on-point Photoshopped renderings below and help me decide! (Note: these pictures are from a month or so ago when we first finished the sitting room - the buffet/middle space looks more like this now.)

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OPTION ONE

Do I want to pull in the colors of the dining room and the accent wall behind the built-ins with a soft blue-green? 

 OPTION TWO

Do I want to go for a fun pop of color to draw your eyes to those beautiful windows and take the house into less neutral territory? If I go with this one, my plans for the canvas would have to change a bit.

OPTION THREE

Do I highlight the gray walls and bring a darker tone into the room to match the buffet?

OPTION FOUR

Do I go for the ultimate neutral - a light, bright white - to keep the room open and airy? 

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Option one is a little too traditional/boring/safe, I think. Do I think that? Maybe? I don't know?

I WANT desperately to love option two, but...is it too out there? If I went with that option, I'd definitely bring the orange in elsewhere in the room (furniture, etc). Am I too in love with the idea of a fun pop of color and not able to see that it's garish and ugly? IS IT GARISH AND UGLY? Please tell me.

Option three and four seem to be the safe options - not safe as in boring, but safe as in "either would work." I like the way three brings some depth and darkness to the room, and I like the crispness of four (which somehow isn't as boring as number one!)

Halloween Costumes 2015 : Boo and Wonder Woman

2012 Halloween Costume : Oompa Loompa

2013 Halloween Costume : Baby Bird

2014 Halloween Costumes : Cabbage Patch Kid and Elsa

I've concluded that I can put time and effort into one Halloween costume a year. That means that the other child (the poor, neglected, unloved child) gets a ready-made costume. At least unless I start working on this in....like....August. Which isn't going to happen. I'm the type of person who is frantically shopping Amazon the three days before Christmas while thanking my lucky stars for Amazon Prime and two-day shipping.

Also note: I actually *like* working on things like this. If I hated it, I'd be store-bought all the way. Store-bought costumes are awesome. I just wish I had the time and energy or make them both; but I don't.

Last year, Emmeline was the pre-made costume. I bought a wig off Etsy and we owned a cute vintage dress that was exactly like something a 1980's Cabbage Patch doll would own. DONE. No effort on my part (except that which involved attempting to keep the wig on Emmeline's head, which was not a small effort). Then, on the flip side...I slaved over Carys's Elsa dress and wig. Like SLAVED over. I worked so long and so hard on that damn (said lovingly) dress and wig. But she loved it and I loved it and I was proud of it.

This year, Carys has wanted to be one thing: Wonder Woman. She's been into superheros lately, so she saw the costume, fell in love, and requested it. Sure, kid. Done. Easy enough. (Note: if I did it again, I'd order a size up. We got a "small/4-6" and she wears a 4T or 5T currently, but it fit perfectly and so it won't last long as a dress-up dress after Halloween. Bummer. Also, she DEFINITELY needed leggings under it due to the fairly short length.)

I did a few modifications to make it more wearable and a little "nicer," though. I sewed the front of the belt onto the dress, because when she was wearing it around the house, the belt and skirt would bunch up (it ties in the back, so I left the back loose). We also bought a couple yards of "rope" (drapery ties) to use as the Golden Lasso of Truth. When I sewed the belt onto the skirt, I also left a space to loop the lasso through. We ended up making an entirely new tiara, as the one that came with the costume was super flimsy and small, whereas actual Wonder Woman's tiara (as Carys informed me) is big and takes up her whole forehead. So I used some gold fabric, stiff interfacing, red felt, and some sparkly gold elastic to make a new tiara for her. I cut a piece of interfacing in the correct shape, sewed the piece of gold fabric over it, then sewed the elastic to each side. Then I covered the back side - the side that would touch her forehead - in a soft red felt.



We threw a white long-sleeve leotard (actually from her Elsa costume last year) and a pair of fleece-lined leggings for warmth/modesty. And then we were done. So Carys's costume modifications and DIY parts were easy and took less than two hours. Easy peasy. My kind of DIY!



She also insisted over. and over. and over. that Wonder Woman has black hair (and she's not wrong) and that she needed black hair. So I bought a can of black temporary hair color to spray her hair. I wasn't entirely enthused about that hair spray. 1. It never completely dried, so the entire night it was rubbing off on her leotard and costume and on anyone/anything that it touched. When she was riding in her carseat, I had to cover the back with a towel to prevent transfer, and she couldn't sit back on a couch at anyone's house. 2. It kind of faded/came off quickly. Within just a couple hours her natural color was already showing through. 3. Although it did come out fairly easily, it was a giant mess to get out.

 

In retrospect, I should have tacked or pinned her leggings up so they stayed in place. Oh, well.

Emmeline's "Boo" costume was the second "sweatshirt-based" costume that I've made (the first being Carys's bird costume from two years ago).  I initially wanted her to be a superhero so we could be a superhero family, but Chris and Carys teamed up to convince me that she should be "Boo" from Monsters Inc. How could I say no to that?

 

Most of the costume tutorials I found online were complicated and cumbersome (using bowls for the top of the Boo costume, etc) and I was 100% sure that Emmeline wouldn't wear anything like that, so I tried to come up with a more comfortable solution. (Though those tutorials DID result in totally adorable and realistic costumes - so if you have an older kid that will wear a bowl on their head, there are some fantastic tutorials out there!).

I bought a purple hooded sweatshirt off Amazon to use as the base. I wasn't thinking and got her current size - 2T - and I totally should have gotten at least a size bigger.

I sewed elastic around the inside of the body of the sweatshirt to make three equal-ish segments. The plan was to stuff these to give it the fluffy look of the source costume, but after doing some testing, I determined that Emmeline wouldn't wear it if it was stuffed, ha! So unstuffed it was left.

I also ripped the arms out of the sweatshirt and replaced them with a soft white minky fabric that had a dot pattern. I closed the end of the new sleeve, but left a flap so she could put her hands out of it if she wanted (and had her hands out pretty much the entire time).

For the head of the costume, I cut "teeth" from stiff white felt and sewed them around the edge of the hood opening. I bought an actual mop head off Amazon (ha!) and cut pieces of it to use as the hair. Figuring out how to get it to flop in the same manner as the original character was REALLY HARD. I ended up gathering the pieces into two bunches, then hot glueing and sewing the bunches to the hood on end. I then took random pieces and hot glued them in spots that looked sparse.  The eyes were two styrofoam balls with the back half covered in purple fabric (from the sweatshirt sleeves I cut off) and black felt pupils (both hot glued onto the ball). I then stuck pipe cleaners (three twisted together, then folded and twisted again to make a short stalk of six) into the back of the balls (secured with hot glue again). I bent the last inch of the ends of the pipe cleaner stalk out at 90 degrees to make kind of a stand to attach to the costume. I never really figured out the perfect way to attach them to the hood - plus if they were attached permanently it made it a much harder costume to wear in her carseat - so I just used safety pins and pinned the ends of the pipe cleaners to the hood.

You'll note in these pictures that she pretty much refused to keep the hood on...at all. This is probably the best picture of the hood on that I got all night (and even here you can see we didn't have time to make sure the hair was lying correctly or anything - it was a "put it on and take a picture before she realizes it's on!):

To finish the costume off, she wore purple leggings and we put her hair in pig tails. She DID have shoes and shoe covers made of the same minky fabric as the new sleeves, but....well, Emmeline doesn't love shoes. And it was warm enough out that she didn't have to wear them, so I let her be. 

Carys has already informed me that next year she's going to be a fairy - and it's a little disconcerting to realize that Emmeline might have an opinion next year and want to give input! Although to be completely honest, I'm hoping I can get her to wear Carys's bird costume from 2013 because CUTE and FREE equals a done deal in my book.