Three Thought Thursday: Episode 31

1. Mark has been gone this week and boy, has it been brutal! I almost always take for granted the sheer relief that his simple presence in our house brings. On a typical day, the boys and I go, go, go all the way up until dinner time. Toys, books, parks, walks, errands, meals, crafts...I do my best to make the day-time hours full and eventful. So by the time Mark gets home from work, we usually eat and then I manage to stumble to the couch and collapse. The boys still continue to play and do more "stuff" like books and baths and jammies and whatnot, but for those few hours before bed, Mark and I are able to collaborate on all the chores as well as have time to visit with each other. It's less direct one-on-two care of the boys like I give them during the day and more just hanging out as a family. But when he's gone, the boys don't seem to be able to make that differentiation. Dinner wraps up, and they're still demanding full attention. Seriously, last night, I gave up and just laid on the floor and let them climb all over me instead of playing chase like Kolbe wanted. "Dog-pile Mama" was just about all I had left in me. Thank God Mark is just in Midland for this week. And thank God he's not in P.A. School there in Midland during this stage of the boys' lives! I realize that I did this every day, every week for a year and a half a while back, but I had an fifteen-month-old and a newborn...not a two-and-a-half year old and a one-and-a-half year old! Babies are exhausting because you don't get much sleep; toddlers are exhausting because they are physically exhausting! Literally...Exhausting.

2. Did you know that Pop-a-Lock is free if their visit involves extracting a baby? It's true. And yes, I learned this from experience. Yep, yesterday I had an ultimately-bad-mom moment and managed to lock poor Rudy in the car. With the keys in the ignition. Really, I had the best of intentions. We arrived home from the grocery store and one of Kolbe's favorite songs was playing on the radio. After turning off the car, he begged for me to turn it back on so he could dance. Obliging, I turned on the battery so the radio would play but didn't crank the car. After unbuckling both boys, I decided to let them climb out on their own so they could dance while I carried in all the groceries. (We were in the closed garage.) After a few back and forth trips, Kolb came in and said, "Mama, open door so me get in car." Upon returning to the garage I found all the doors of the car closed. With Rudy inside. Car still on. Baby hysterical. Hoping against hope, I frantically tried to convince Ru to hit the unlook button on the door. I knew Kolbe could do this so surely Rudy could too! Yeah, right. Within minutes his whole head was covered in sweat and his wailing only made it worse. I immediately called Pop-a-Lock and put in a request for them to send someone out, explaining that it was an emergency and my seventeen-month-old was in the running vehicle. Meanwhile, I continued to try to comfort and coax the little guy into hitting either of the buttons on the door. At one point he did hit the window button, opening the window just a crack. Cheering, congratulating, praising...nothing could convince him to do it again. So I began trying to stick things through the window, trying to reach the buttons myself. I thought I might have had it with Mark's fishing rod at one point, but it just continued to slide right off the button. Finally the Pop-a-Lock guy arrived and freed my poor soaking wet, red-faced baby. And wouldn't you know it, his crying stopped instantly. He wouldn't even stick around for a minute or two to let me hug on him. Just ran right off with Kolbe to continue their daily shenanigans. The Pop-a-Lock guy explained that most people call 911 (duh.) and so they have a contract with the fire department. When someone makes a 911 call with this situation, both the fire department and Pop-a-Lock get dispatched. If the fire department gets there first, they usually break out the window. So he congratulated me for just calling them instead and said that there would be no charge since it would actually be filed with fire department. Kind of a nice consolation for such a horrible event. Like lady, you're so ridiculous for allowing this situation to happen that we're going to spare you the financial burden since you're quite obviously burdened already. (*Laura bites bottom lip and hangs head in shame*)

3. Toot, toot! Yep, that's me tooting my horn. Why? Because I accomplished something that I've always wanted to do. Well, I guess I shouldn't say always, considering I've only known how to work a sewing machine for about one year now. But when I was little I always liked quilts and thought they must be amazingly hard to make. And then when I started sewing last summer, I decided that if I ever figured it all out, I would make a quilt some day. I never thought I'd be able to accomplish it just one year later! But alas, I have managed to make a completed I-spy quilt for the boys and I am so proud of it! Actually, it's kind of one of those things where I look at it and think Man, twenty years from now I'm going to look at this thing and cringe at what a horrible job I did! But it's my very first so it's not supposed to be perfect. And really the only parts that I think are kind of bad involve the actual quilting. The quilting itself is hard. Unless you have a big machine that does it for you. I did mine completely with a free-motion foot on my machine, meaning I had to manually feed it all through there myself and create a free-hand pattern by moving the quilt around in squigley patterns. It was tough! Luckily, Mark took the boys to the park for a good forty-five minutes after their nap on the day I quilted it so I could finish. And then hand stitching the binding on took another several hours as well. Now I can see why quilts are so expensive and so precious to so many families. And I must say, that I have loved the reaction to it that I've gotten from the boys. The quilt has eighty-eight squares, each with a different object on it so we can lay it out on the floor and play I-spy. They love it! Kolb is great at finding the items I spy, while Rudy just points at any random object when I call something out. It's adorable! From what I had heard, most sewers either love quilting or hate it. I definitely loved it and look forward to starting a new one soon! Here's a little peek at my first quilt: