Tools of Motherhood

There are two small tools that have saved me on a number of occasions, and it's been in the back of my mind for a while. I depend on them so often that I should really share them.

The first mom tool is a carabiner on my keys. I didn't start using it until I had kids but it's good for anyone on the go. I hook them to the diaper bag, my purse strap, the stroller, my belt loop-- and a few times to my bra strap because it was the only loop-y thing available. Silly, but better than losing keys. Keys always seem to find the lowest, most ridiculous place to hide. Hooking them to something, even if you do forget where it was, makes them more visible, less likely to slide into the dark depths of a bag or stroller and harder for little hands that love keys to run away with them. The carabiner I use isn't even one of the fancy climbing ones, though I think maybe I should put one of those on my holiday list. Who knows when I'd need to Macgyver my way out of a five-story building? I could totally crochet a rope from duct tape in 30 seconds or less.

via. sort of.

The second mom tool is a case for my phone that holds my ID. I loved the first one I had because it wrapped all the way around the edge of the screen in the front. That's critical for inevitable falls.

It held three cards in the back. Four if two of them were thin. No longer was I searching for my ID on the way out the door to preschool because I'd switched bags or jackets and was too lazy to carry my entire wallet so I'd just dropped my ID into a pocket BUT WHICH POCKET WAS IT... or am I thinking of what I was wearing yesterday... and did I really leave the house without it the first time I went out today OR WAS IT IN THE JEANS I WAS WEARING EARLIER? Maybe you don't have this problem. Maybe you're 57 times more disciplined than I am about your ID/wallet in the first place. But for me, attaching the phone and the ID, and also a form of payment for gas, food, emergency coffee has been a lifesaver.

The first case is durable and fantastic. But black. Which means it attracts shadowy depths and at a glance can be confused for some other device. I've envied a lot of cute cases with fun prints, but the card-carrying functionality couldn't be beat in my book. Definitely couldn't see buying the same case in a different color just for fun, although they've added a few color options since I first got mine. And a few weeks ago I spied this case... still wraps around all sides of the screen in front, but is a higher visibility pink.

And the back side-- opens! I can now carry 3 cards, a blank check and a bit of cash. The mirror isn't all that necessary for me, but it's fun.

And it does this:

Perfect for Skyping with Dad when he's traveling or propping up a show to watch when we're stuck in a miserably long line somewhere and I've run out of entertainment ideas. I seem to run out even faster when stressed by the long line cranky kid scenario.

The pink one is chunkier, but the function is worth it. I haven't had a tiny purse event to attend since I got it. If I could fit lipstick in there too this would BE my tiny purse.

The pink case is now backordered, but you can see more about it here. The first case is available here, and it's still on stand-by for me if there's an unexpected problem with the pink one. The options in this realm are only going to get awesomer, but it's already as awesome as I need it to be. No more searching for my ID! (Adrianna is probably going to pop in to tell me that "awesomer" isn't a word just like "funner" isn't. Buzzkiller.)

So... are there mom tools you've come to depend on and now wouldn't want to live without? In case you haven't noticed, I'm kind of a gadget girl.

Unrelatedly, thank you for your kind words yesterday. Today is a new day indeed.

More Unexpectedness

When I posted about what I hadn't expected in the fall, I really, really didn't expect what came next in As Our Dental World Turns. After I'd written that, thinking I was in the clear, I had to go through three rounds of antibiotics to treat a sinus infection caused by the wisdom tooth removal. And then an entirely NEW string of events began. But because the drama is now (fingers crossed, knocking on wood, offerings to the gods of fantastic dental health) over, I can tell you the story. I'm telling it because I think it's a helpful mom story. This is a crafty blog, but it's a mom crafty blog. My second kid has some obvious differences from the first, and I think if this situation with the second had happened with my first, I would have blamed myself entirely.

One day in November I was brushing M's teeth and thought... hmm. That isn't the shiny pretty molar that I remember seeing there. It looks like she's been chewing toffee. I figured that it was at least a stain, and maybe a cavity. I took her in to see our family practice dentist. M had seen the same dentist along with her sister the previous March. At THAT appointment I was *totally* patting myself on the back for getting her in before she was two. I'd pay for that.

The dentist, who we'll call #1, made some seriously grave faces. She said I needed to get her to a pediatric specialist ASAP. #1 said M had 5 or 6 cavities in her molars, and that they were bad. She later called me after studying M's chart to say that there had to have been some sort of developmental problem. In March those teeth hadn't even erupted yet. And 7 months later, they were in big trouble. Here's where being the mom of two helped-- I hadn't treated the second kid any differently than the first. I got her in to see a dentist sooner, even. And it didn't matter. They have very different teeth. I cried.

We got in to see dentist #2 the next day, who was part of a pediatric specialty group recommended by #1. She also saw 5 or 6 cavities, and said that at M's age, we could do some temporary treatments (fillings that include fluoride to try to keep them from progressing) in the office in two visits, and that we should go ahead and schedule her for treatment at the hospital. That scheduling can take months, I was told. They'd need to put her under to do x-rays, caps and fillings.

We did the temporary treatments and scheduled the hospital for February. Dentist #2 said that the teeth had to have been damaged during development-- maybe a fever at just the wrong moment? No way to know. She tried to reassure me that the problems were not anything I could control, but that felt hollow to me. I shouldn't have given her candy. Ever. I cried more.

In December, January and February M had waves of illnesses, and with every fever, even though I knew there were plenty of bugs going around, I worried. Was the fever related to her teeth? Was I harming her for not pushing harder to get the work done? I wasn't hounding the practice's patient care coordinator as much as I could-- mostly because I didn't want to rush my kid into an OR. When she had a fever and ear infections too close to the scheduled date in February, the treatment was delayed. I breathed a sigh of relief. Sort of. And then decided that I didn't have enough opinions. I wanted to be sure we were doing the right thing.

So I took M to see #3. He was also a family care dentist  that I'd seen for a cleaning, and had worked on thousands of kids over the course of his career. I wanted to hear: "Oh, that's totally not a big deal, I can take care of this in the office". What I actually heard: "Wow, that's the kind of thing I only see once in 20 years. The cavities aren't just on top or in between, they wrap all the way around. You need to get her to a pedodontist". So he referred me to one. More me crying.

We went to see #4. At this point #2 had rescheduled her for March 26, and I let that stay on the calendar while I felt out other options. #2 didn't seem confident and in-control to me. And the patient care coordinator was annoyingly un-helpful, so I was hoping #4 would be better. #4 seemed to look at her thoroughly and said: "She has as many as 12 teeth with cavities. We could try it in the office, but the meds will make her act kind of drunk, and we don't know whether she'll be a cooperative drunk or an uncooperative drunk." Well, I wasn't so concerned about her being uncooperative. More concerned about the trauma of having to go back repeatedly and maybe never wanting to set foot in a dentist's office again. And with her "soft teeth", this dentist told me, she'd be in for a lot of visits. He said it could've been caused by a c-section (I didn't have one) or by third-trimester stress (okay, there was some of that) or by a fever or by another infection that diverted bloodflow... a lot of reasons for why this happened and we'd never know for sure.

I appreciated that #4 took a good bit of time to explain what he saw, but wasn't sold on him. It's ridiculous to say that I was influenced by the way he treated his staff when his interaction with me was good, but I couldn't shake the bad feeling I had about him while observing the office. He didn't treat his staff all that nicely. I needed to stick with #2. More crying.

Because the hospital procedure had had to be rescheduled, the practice that included #2 had had to switch doctors, and I needed to take M in to see and meet the doc that would now be #5. Halleluia, she was faaaantastic. Confident, experienced, kind, obviously knowledgeable. I wished #5 had been #2, but the path lead me to her no matter. I felt so much better about proceeding, even though I was scared to death to put little M under. I still cried, but felt better about the plan. Two sweet friends who'd also had to do it were so reassuring. And it's not something I'd heard much about otherwise, so I'm so grateful that they shared their stories with me.

So this morning at 5 am, we got up and got M up and out the door. She wanted to know why it was dark, because she typically wakes up at 8:30. We said we were going on an adventure. Fortunately she'd never had any pain from her teeth, so she's still relatively happy about dentists. She also wanted to know why K wasn't coming with us, and thankfully, she didn't have to because Mimi had come to the rescue and could stay at home with her.

She couldn't eat or drink, but since we were so far off of her normal schedule, that wasn't hard because she didn't even think to ask. We arrived at the hospital at 6. Shiny floors are for dancing and spinning.

She was totally happy to put on the "gween dwess" they had for her. She was way less happy about the socks that didn't fit. She asked 47 times for "socks for me"-- meaning, why don't they have socks that fit my feet?!

There was a parade of people-- nurses, physicians assistants, anesthesia guys and eventually the dentist. She got a cherry flavored soda sort of drink that was supposed to make her sleepy. Except it was more like drunk. She and the little boy on the other side of the curtain from us got it at the same time, and their words got slurrier and sillier simultaneously. It would have been funny if it weren't sad. Eventually she was laying down and just barely awake.

They took her back at 7:35 after the dentist said "she'd take good care of our little girl". Guess what? More crying. We waited and waited and waited... and I traded messages over Facebook with a crafty mom friend on the other side of the pond who also had a kid going under at the same exact moment. At 9:45 the dentist emerged, smiling. M had slept peacefully and was starting to wake up. She had only needed treatment on 8 teeth, with the back 4 being a big problem and the other 4 just in front of them being much lesser and probably dragged into the yuck by the seriousness of the ones behind them, and we'd need to be very attentive, but all looked good. Moooore crying, but this time, relief in the mix.

Recovery was no treat, and scarier-looking than I was ready for, but it moved along quickly. By 11:30 we were at home and she was starting to keep liquids down, and by the end of the day she was prancing around and eating normally, just looking a bit tired. It bums me out that she has four silver caps-- something that seems increasingly unusual in kids these days, but I feel so much better knowing that she's buttoned up-- these teeth can't be a problem. They're silver superstar teeth. They'll come out eventually, and we'll be on high alert from now on. In the meantime, I don't have to worry about whether fevers are tooth-related. We cross our fingers again and hope that she doesn't have any similar problems with permanent teeth. They say there's no way to know.

And you, crafty blog reader, actually DO get an unexpectedly crafty anecdote. Your treat for reading all of this un-craftiness. As we were getting her settled early this morning-- in the gown and socks, on the scale for a weight, the nurse handed M a blanket made by Project Linus. I wasn't sure that M would really care about a blanket, but boy did she. She wanted it neatly laid over her. She adjusted and readjusted as she wiggled around the bed, and when she wanted me to snuggle with her, she wanted it to be neatly across me as well. Because she's not normally into special objects, not a "lovey" kid I hadn't brought anything like that with us. Just hadn't thought about it in the stream of thoughts about getting up at 5 am and diaper bags and insurance cards and forms and please-lord-let-my-kid-survive. It was a lovely highlight of an otherwise difficult morning, and it was heartwarming. After we got home she was happy to show off the new blanket to her sister and cuddle with it on the couch. To all of those Linus blanket making ladies out there, thank you.

And that's the story. One that I couldn't handle writing until it was all over. So relieved to share it with you with a happy ending. Maybe someone out there will also have a kid with superstar teeth and they'll end up besties in kindergarten.

Shamelessy Self-Indulgent: We're on APARTMENT THERAPY!

I'm not sure I'm the type to a vision of what my life will become any more than five minutes from now. No big plan about where I'd like to be someday. I try to be happy where I am, while I'm here.  Instead I have more of a mental list of things that I'd like, things that would be nice, things that I think almost definitely wouldn't suck. The surprise of actually seeing this on Apartment Therapy is somewhere on that list.

How fun is that? Pretty crazy fun. 

Also funny... that first comment on the post at Apartment Therapy is from a reader that said she wouldn't put stickers on her furniture. Obviously, I didn't hesitate. So I thought about it.. are there ANY pieces of furniture in my house I'd get upset about stickers on? I thought hard. Nope, not really. I'm thinking that's just my style. Or maybe I depend too much on Goo Gone.

Hope your weekend is full of fun surprises!

Chalkboard Party Cups

I don't know that I would've come up with this idea if the Silhouette folks hadn't just sent me a roll of Chalkboard vinyl to try. But I'm getting ready to help host a party this weekend for friends getting married in May, and the combination of events produced:

I love a good grown-up party. When it's a grown-up affair and lots of folks don't know each other, there's some ice-breaking to do. And there will be beverages. Oh, yes, there will be beverages. Might as well help people use those to connect. A pinata would be funner, but I'm told that's not going to happen.

Supplies:

• cups
• straws
• chalkboard vinyl
• chalk markers (I used these and these)
• Silhouette
• card stock (if you're adding flags)
• printer (if you're adding flags and choose to print them)

At the risk of being painfully repetitive, since I know I've mentioned this before, did you know the Silhouette software is free to download? Even without the cutter you can use it as a design program to print with whatever printer you have. If you know someone who has one you can prepare your files at home and take them with you to do the cutting. If you're thinking about getting one but nervous about the software, that part is try-while-considering-a-buy. 

So I had a roll of this. And my Silhouette SD. I'm not a Cameo girl, no reason for me to be unless the SD quits. So far, so good.

The vinyl didn't want to stay stuck to my mat because the chalkboard vinyl doesn't want to let go of it's rolled curl (more so than other vinyls) and my mat has lost some stickiness, but with vinyl there's a paper backing that holds the cut pieces together, so the stickiness of the mat isn't critical. I did my best to roll the vinyl in the opposite direction to flatten it out and then used masking tape to hold it in place.

I used that cool "replicate" function to pack all of my labels together to maximize the number of labels on a sheet, and then realized that by leaving more space in-between...

I could save myself a WHOLE lot of weeding. This way I can pick up the labels with a much less nit-picky effort.

Ta da! Loving it already. At this point I could just skip the flags and ask people to finish a sentence that starts with "Mary and Matt..." but I wanted to try the flags.

So I printed rounded corner flags for the straws. The party isn't until Saturday, and I may change my mind, but I started with "Your biggest wish for Mary and Matt" and "What year did you first meet Mary and Matt?" Little x's make the spot for the straw.

Card stock is my favorite thing to cut with the Silhouette. Pops right off of the carrier sheet.

Pretty cute as is.

Cuter with straws. But straws make every cup cuter.

And then the flags. Poke the straws through the top so that the pointy parts point down.

I got two different kinds of chalk markers to try. I think the brighter yellow is too bright, but the other three will be good for this soiree. I like the chalk marker thing, in hopes that people have fun and change up their "wish" answers-- especially after a beverage or two. And less messy than old school chalk for party people.

Thanks, Silhouette people, for helping with the party prep. Thanks, reader people, for reading my silliness. And if you have ideas that are better than or work with mine for the straw flags, tell me! I've still got time to change it up before Saturday. 

Designer Love: Beck and Lundy

Before Christmas I was searching for a fun, personal gift for my brother and his fiancee, both cyclists. The tandem bike is a sweet symbol of their journey together.  Happily I stumbled upon Beck and Lundy.

Patty Sloninger is the artist behind the shop, and her work is whimsical and lovely. And web-wise, you can find her all over.

She blogs.
She flickrs.
She prints.
She fabricates.

I was particularly excited about her tandem bike calendars and since the 2012 version wasn't in the shop yet, I asked whether I could have one when they were finished. And after I was wishy-washy about which color to choose - I was trying to picture where my brother and fiancee would put it-- the lime would be cute in the kitchen, the yellow in the home office, the blue in the office office? - she sent all three! It's taken me much too long to share this on the blog. Was a matter of seeing my sister-in-law-to-be in person again for the exchange.

The packaging is simple and cute-- she takes the time to letter the address beautifully. Such a nice addition. I love knowing that a package you might order to be sent as a gift would arrive with personal touches. The prints themselves are perfect, I love the year included in a sticker on the luggage.

I'm glad I'm not the one to decide which one would go where. They're all adorable.

She included an adorable note on a card that features designs from her "Backyard Baby" collection for Michael Miller. I love the soft, sweet color palette. The coordinating print is available in her shop.

Her shop also includes the calendars on tea towels.

And through the magic that is Spoonflower she can match custom name fabric to her other prints. How amazing is that? Yay for living when we do. So many options for making things personal even if you're not crafty like that yourself. Maybe A can ask her to make this "June". 

Sweet, yes? Stop by Patty's blog for more of her beautiful work. Have you ordered anything custom lately-- from Etsy, Big Cartel etc? Telllll me about it.

A Green Post: Crafty with Coffee

There's ordinary St. Patrick's Day stuff happening around our house. Lucky Charms as a special treat, drawing rainbows, green clothes and accessories, maybe a Shamrock Shake. Mostly I'm so happy that my sweet Irish-American husband is home from a month of travel that I just want to sit and look at him and celebrate the fact that he is the one putting the kids to bed tonight.

So instead of sharing anything exciting that's holiday specific, I'll tell you what I've done over the past month of getting through days knowing that I had to stay awake long enough to do bedtime myself. It happens to be a "green" post. Not crafty in a creative way, but easier for people who like experimenting with things.

Adrianna and I are both coffee-loving fools. Lately I've been hitting my max three cups a day. I lovelovelove my Keurig coffee maker-- every cup tastes fresh and I'm not trying to guess how much to make for later and then dumping half a pot in the afternoon. A different flavor for each cup if you like. What I don't love is the cost of K cups. It's way less than Starbucks, but way more than the cost of brewing a pot on a per-cup basis. And then there's the thought that I'm generating a lot of plastic trash. I have the reusable K-cup thing-y that came with my machine, but I don't enjoy cleaning it. My dad was actually the one to tell me about these - caps that would make the K cups reuseable.

Have you taken a K cup apart? There's just coffee and a tiny filter in there. It's not all that fancy, really. Once you peel the top off, rinse it, let it dry and then it looks like this. Kinda cute.

The caps come in set of three with a brush. My third cap is red. Was avoiding a Christmas color scheme here by leaving it out.

I don't really use the brush to clean the cup, I just use the spray setting on my kitchen faucet. The full-stream setting punches a hole in the filter, but the spray setting cleans it pretty well. I only use the brush to take the cap off after it's been brewed.

I refill them over a wide-mouthed container of coffee. Any stray grounds fall right back into the container. Just leave a bit of room at the top...

And pop the top into place. Then it's business as usual. I use regular ground coffee, but plan to use espresso grind for my husband. That's what's in the real K cups, and my husband is into much bolder coffee flavors than I am.

Every time you re-use it the machine punches a new hole in the bottom. So, it looks like two holes were almost on top of previous ones...  looking like I've re-used it 7 or 8 times?

If you're thinking of trying these, definitely check the model number of your machine and look at the compatibility. Machines vary. For me, this has been a huge money saver, and makes me feel better about not tossing so much. For recycling, they should be deconstructed anyway- and now I'm an expert at it.

If you haven't read this post from last Friday, you've got one more week to enter the giveaway. Hope yours is a great weekend!

Craft Night! (and a call for advice)

This weekend I hosted my first craft night here in my new place of living.  We ended up with 5 people and did some freezer paper stenciling (or as I've been calling it, FPS.  let's all use it 3 times in a sentence today and make it a thing!)  It was the perfect number of ladies and the perfect first craft.  Easy enough to do while gabbing and snacking, but not so easy that we were done in 5 minutes.

I'm going to show you a picture, but you have to remember that I'm not one of those crafty bloggers who goes all out in decor and food for these kinds of things.  I'm a one trick sewing pony and only a wannabe crafter.  (also, we don't get to choose our furniture or curtains, so please don't think this decor was my idea!)

And I graciously slaved away to provide these yummy snacks for my guests by stopping at the local bakery and ordering some chips and salsa from the mexican restaurant.  The lengths that I go to to entertain will boggle the mind.

Everyone's FPS turned out great.  So great that you'd think I'd have remembered to take a picture.  Nope!

But here's what I made:

Just your standard pink-on-pink unicorn.

The reason I'm showing you so many pictures has nothing to do with my mediocre-at-best FPS and everything to do with the fact that I MADE THIS SHIRT.  I know, I know, it's just a tshirt.  But I couldn't be prouder if it was my 4th child. 

And I want to marry my coverstitch machine.

And here's where I need your advice:  What should we do for our next craft night?  I'm leaning toward making easter banner/pennant/thingies.  So I guess I need to know what we should do 2 craft nights from now.  Cuz this is definitely going to be a regular thing.  We ladies need more excuses to get together to chat and have a glass of wine but still walk away feeling like we've done something productive.  Like FPSing.  There, I said it 3 times.  Your turn.