Welcome to my office!

Cozy, huh?  (And please tell me why I don't see all the little ickies when I'm taking the picture, but they jump right out at me the second I download a picture?  So please mentally turn that campaign chest around, flip the fringe on the blanket down and hide those ugly computer cords!)

The beauty of working from home is that when I'm not here, I'm right here in this corner of my living room in this little chair that just fits my kinks. Well, the times I'm not running around to the park, or the pediatrician, or the carpool line... Most of my day is spent taking care of my kids.  My work happens during naptime and after bedtime (gotta love that 7 pm to midnight shift, eh?)  I sort-of can't wait until I have an actual work day for work-- it will seem dreamily productive, I'm sure.  But of course, that will mean that my babies have grown up and gone to big kid school--oh, no, no more talking about THAT.  So for now, I'll fit it in when I can and do with a tad less sleep. 

I am going to have to spend the next few days on work-- I'm a wee bit behind (due to those aforementioned little hitches-- they ARE cute, though.)  I'm hoping to pop back in in the next few days with some pictures of our home.(Hint, hint:  if you're not already following the blog, sign right up so you'll know the very second I post something!)  We live in a wonderful old home-- 86 years young, with many lovely little corners I want to share, and some really big renovation and decorating nightmares that I sometimes don't want to think about.  But blogging is therapy, right?  So we'll talk it out together.  But for now, me and my cutting table have a hot date.  Hot diggity dog.

The Story of John Harper

Well, it happened.  My little man celebrated one full year with our family. 

John Harper, aged ONE!

We were expecting his arrival a little bit sooner than he chose to arrive.  John Harper was due on Dec. 12.  It came and went.  As did the 15th (his "other" official due date.)  Then came Christmas Eve, Christmas Day.

my belly, 41 weeks

I saw a midwife for my pregnancy with John Harper.  It was an uncomplicated pregnancy, and I prepared for six months for a VBAC(Grady was a cesarean due to size) using Hypnobirthing.  We felt ready and excited to welcome John Harper in a completely natural birth.  We played this song over and over and over again, and I cried imagining the moment I would get to meet my son.

I awoke with a scream in the middle of the night on Dec. 28.  I'd read about back labor.  I didn't realize what waking up in the middle of a back labor contraction felt like.  Not great.  Throughout that night and all the following day and well into the next night I worked to get John Harper to us.  After a full 24 hours of hard, hard natural labor, I was at 2 cm.  I asked for an epidural, and then after some hard thought, prayer and tears, Adam and I decided that the best way for our baby to be born was via a repeat cesarean. 

coupla days old

John Harper Westmoreland Tarleton came screaming into the world at 11:54 pm on Dec 29, 17 days overdue.  All 10 lbs, 11 oz, 21 1/2 inches of him.  Despite his long journey, he seemed perfect.  I was able to touch and kiss him immediately, and they brought him to me to nurse within an hour. 

four days old

Within a few hours, we realized he was not, in fact, perfectly healthy.  There seemed to be something funny about his latch, and nobody had any real answers, other than to keep nursing him.  No one came to check his blood sugar, protocol for babies over 9 lbs., for 26 hours.  When it was finally checked at 27 hour old, his blood sugar was 40.  He was shaking and a seizure looked imminent. He was given formula, and stabilized.  Then began a cycle I am still trying to forget.  I would pump for 20 minutes, getting a few milliliters (yes, drops!) of breast milk (my milk hadn't come in yet because of the cesarean) and then Adam would feed him from a tiny cup.  We then gave him formula.  I got up while he ate and washed the pump parts.  And this cycle had to be repeated every two hours-- meaning about an hour in between the time I started and the time I finished--24 hours a day.  It took three days for him to be able to stabilize his own blood sugar, even on an almost exclusive diet of formula. I look back on those weeks-- and I had been through the shock of a newborn before-- and I don't know how we survived. 

meeting Grady and "Grady's John Harper"-- his enormous baby doll

There's more to the story, too, that isn't worth talking about anymore.  It was a hard, hard time.  Breastfeeding is so, so important to me, and it seemed like John Harper needed all the benefits my milk could provide even more than other babies.  We saw lactation consultants, occupational therapists, speech therapists, and an infant chiropractor.  We heard words the words "cerebral palsy." People have asked me if I cried a lot.  I didn't.  I knew that if I let myself fall apart, even for one minute, I wouldn't get myself back together. 

six weeks old

We kept on keeping on.  I kept putting John Harper to my breast.  I kept on pumping.  He began to eat less and less formula and more and more of my milk.  But his jaw was clamped shut as if it were wired, and his little body still seemed like a board-- he was completely stiff and we couldn't get his arms and legs to bend. 

And then, when he was 4 weeks old, he began to run a fever.  I took him to the doctor-- the pediatricain we saw told me to take him home.  The next day I was sitting in the emergency room holding my blue baby, watching him struggle to get air, seeing him held down while he had vial after vial of blood drawn, have a spinal tap, a chest x-ray.  I was alone.  Adam was with Grady while we waited on someone to come watch him. 

I didn't know what the next day would bring for us.  It's the most afraid I've ever felt. 

really little-- I think this is prior to the hospital, but I'm not sure

He had pneumonia.  He spent days on oxygen, hooked up to wires and buzzers and I sat in a chair next to his hospital crib that looked like a cage.  After a week, we came home again.

And then the weeks went by, and then months.  When he was 3 months old, he began to latch on during nursing.  We held our breaths while the lactation consultant weighed him after he fed.  I breathed a sigh of relief that he was getting milk.  And slowly, slowly, as his little mouth practiced opening and his little muscles worked, his body began to unkink.  He rolled over.  He rocked on all fours.  He crawled at 6 months, 1 week and 3 days old.  And nobody talked about cerebral palsy anymore.

 

First frosted cupcake.  It was really yummy.

And so today we celebrate one year of John Harper.  And we are almost ready to say goodbye to an old year and welcome a new one in. 

Goodbye to a year of hospital stays (there have been two more, but thankfully he's been fine every time), fear, worry and stress. 

Hello to a new year of wonderful with my wonderful boy.

Happy Birthday, John Harper!

A Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day...

...I have to ship to Austrialia.  International shipping makes me cry.  A lot.  Mostly because I think that by heeding the advice of my friendly postal employee (whom, I might add, includes the word "beer" in almost every interchange we have...)on my customs declaration, I might end up in the pokey.  I have tons and tons of fun stuff in store for you, but I need another day to get it together.  Hope everyone's holiday was de-vine and I'll see you tomorrow!

image found on photobucket

P.S.-- my husband says I should delete this post-- of course I don't cheat on my customs declarations, silly.  I have a feeling the pokey is not nearly as nice as my house.

::REFLECTION::

And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.  And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

~~Luke 2:9-14

Blessings of peace, goodwill and great joy to you and yours this holiday season.

**WHOOPS** (an interactive tale)

Late one recent night I had a inexplicable craving for one of these from here. (Joy, don't click those links-- you don't want to know, I promise).  And no, in case you're wondering, I'm not this.  So seeing as how I got off the couch and all after dark, I decided to go here for some of this.  I had a lovely time.  And it was only upon returning that I looked in the mirror and saw that I'd spent two hours in public looking like this.

Please, please tell me you do stuff like this, too?

"Duh"-uh-ull

After a couple of days of looking at our buffet that I decorated last week, I couldn't help but think how uninspired, uninspiring and just plain dull it seemed.  And then I remembered these cute little bottle brush trees I found at the Tar-jay (2 for a buck!).  And I had a big "duh" moment and started all over again.

So out went the old and in went the new.  I was working with what I had-- because who wants to go shopping with two kids the week before Christmas?  A crate of clementines and a coupla dozen candy canes. 

That's a little better now, don't you think?

This season has been a hard one--wrapping up the last season of Hoot Baby and preparing for our spring collection, dealing with illness, another hospital stay for the baby (he's fine now!) and many, many too-long and rainy days.  There's starting to be a little light at the end of my tunnel, and I do so, so love designing, which is the phase I'm entering (ever so briefly-- it's the most fun, but also the most quickly-passing part of my job)

 

But for now, I'm going to do my best to enjoy everything the season has left to offer-- and maybe just a few more slices bites of dessert! 

On Friday, just after lunch, it began to snow.

My Scotch-Irish husband channeled his inner Jewish grandmother and fried up platefuls of crispy, delicious latkes.  As the snow continued to fall, we dined by candlelight.

I went out into the night (wearing croc moccasins with no socks.)  The world was hushed and shimmering.

It was magic. 

John Harper pretended to be Ralphie.  We pushed him around in the stroller up and down the icy street.

Grady walked around and around our neighborhood.  He slid down hills and shoveled snow.

He was amazed.

 

We baked and baked and ate and ate.

 I looked at my children and my heart was completely full of them.

I caught my husband's eye and was perfectly content.

All weekend long.

Do you want to know what really scares me?

This guy. 

 

I know every one of you who reads this blog who has children knows that feeling. It's a kicked-in-the-gut, stuck-in-a-nightmare, absolutely bowled entirely over by the enormity of what's entrusted to us as parents kind of feeling.  I'm so very, very imperfect myself-- how in the world am I supposed to know how to raise him to be everything I hope and dream and wish for with every fiber of my being?

 Some of the time-- lots of the time, usually-- I feel pretty OK about the job I'm doing.  My kids are well-fed, well-dressed, well-enriched and well-loved as much as your average kiddo, and probably a good bit more than some.  I worry, of course.  Who doesn't?  I worry about the baby, whose health seems somehow fragile even as he bowls over furniture and speaks little phrases, all before his first birthday.  I worry about the big boy as he begins to navigate the world without me at his side.  I cried the other day when he told me that some older children in his new Primary class had told him, when he announced "I'm three-and-a-half (which he firmly believes he is, although he's not yet three) that he was only two.  "But I NOT, Mommy" he told me.  It's the first time I knew of that he had felt small and helpless and without power and I was not there to give comfort and hugs (and tell those bullies where to get off, too.)

 John Harper will be OK.  He's a child of supreme--well, normalcy.  Of course we find him to be unendingly wonderful and handsome and clever, but his ability to steer an even course is evident even now.  He's Adam.  My husband is the most unflappable person I know--the yin to my yang.  I'm plenty flappable for the both of us.  Like Grady. 

Grady is me.

 

It's incredibly difficult, I'm finding, to parent yourself.  All your flaws are right there, magnified, and since they are your weaknesses, it's really hard to find the strength to help someone else overcome them.  He's a boy of huge emotions.  His capacity for love overwhelms me daily.  And the other side of this--his mercurial temper, his impulsiveness, his sudden,violent eruptions, overwhelm me, too.  I'm scared,sometimes, by how un-normal he is.

I often feel as if I'm tight-rope walking as we go through our days.  I have the feeling-- a real, visceral sensation-- that Grady walks on tip-toe down a narrow and precarious path. 

On one side-- everything I don't want for him. 

On the other?  Great things--things I cannot imagine, even through the rose-colored glasses of the dreamiest of mother's for her precious first-born child.

I feel, very frequently, like the slightest misstep, the least miscalculation in how I react might sway him.

And that feeling is the scariest thing I've ever known.

 

All of human wisdom can be summed up by two words-- wait, and hope.

-Alexander Dumas

May your weekend (and all your days) be filled with the limitless possibility that is hope.

(Almost) entirely thrifted

Have I mentioned I love thrift stores yet?  Probably not.  And my almost-three-year-old definitely does not ask to go on an "outing to the fwift stowe to sewch for val-u-bles."  Because that wouldn't be precious at all...

So--here's the buffet in our dining room, decorated for the holidays (almost) entirely from the thrift store.  The lamps were my grandmothers, and the buffet comes from my aunt's ex-husband's mother via my own mother (follow that?) and the center display thing is from here (very cool store) but everything else is either thrifted or free.

 

I found the lampshades and the mirror a while back.  The milk glass is all collected from the Salvation Army.  I bought a couple of those pieces (the urn-shaped vase, the Apilco lion dish and the beaded vase) a while ago.  The rest I found this week.  I think I paid less than $6 for all of it.  I especially like the quilted thing-- it doesn't have a bottom, and I have a candle in there.  I haven't lit it yet, but I bet it glows really beautifully at night....

 

I know it's considered "green" (which equates to "cool") to buy second-hand/used these days, and I'm so glad.  I feel like I can come out of the closet, so to speak.  I bet some of my more chi-chi friends who read this blog don't quite know what to think of me (or maybe they've had me pegged all along and were just too sweet to say anything....)

It's the perfect equation: totally unique goods+cheapskate+a good way to kill an hour= fun.

Also, all the branches were free, since John Harper and I dug them out of the cut-off-from-the-trees-people-took-home-bin at Lowes.  Yeah, I'm that girl. (I'm probably supposed to be embarassed about that one, huh?)

 

The ornaments are all thrifted, as well.  Plus, I found a HUGE box of old glass balls, which I made into one of these.  It's not entirely circular.  I'm debating whether I plan to fix that or not.  On a side note, I proposed marriage to Eddie Ross via the comments section of his blog last night.  He did not accept (although he did accept my comment.  If you wanna go see me making a virtual fool of myself, go right ahead, but I'm not going to link it for you...)

And because sometimes it really bugs me how blogs make it look like all mothers of very young children do is sit around and beautify their homes, here's what the other side of the room looks like.

It's very Grey Gardens, no?  And let it be noted that those objects under the high chair are the pieces of the grilled cheese sandwich that the baby dropped carefully, deliberatly and one-by-one while I stared right at him while checking my email during lunch.  Four hours ago.  Yeah.

Where I do whatever it is I do *a studio tour!*

Here's a wee peek into where the magic happens... or the mess.  Mostly just the mess.  I am not a clean-up-as-I-go creator, apparently.  Would somebody like to back and quilt my sign for me? I should just go ahead and apologize now for the wonky photography lately.  I'm learning to shoot in manual it BOY is it hard. So I'm mostly taking pictures of things that don't move around until I figure it all out.

Today we're looking into my teensy-tinsey studio. 

 Here it is.  I pinch myself pretty much every time I walk in here.  I feel so very, very lucky that my life even includes the need for such a space. Being mama to two boys under three provides ample opportunity to need a little decompression now and then.  Lucky for me I can come in here to do that, instead of self-medicating with this. (Not that I don't do that a lot, too.)

 

When we were looking for a house, we had seen this one in the on-line real estate listings several times, but hadn't ever really considered it.  That's because there were no (and why NOT, I ask you?) pictures of this room there.  We walked in, looked around for 5 minutes, and made an offer on the spot (and got into a bidding war on a house that had been on the market for a year without a single nibble.  Go figure.)So, anyway.  It used to be filled with books, since we have a lot of books.  Luckily, the house is filled with built-ins and my kind husband said it was OK to break up the library and move in the fabric.  Lotsa fabric.

 

These shelves used to be a lot neater-- remember?  This is where I keep the smaller cuts, vintage bits, and some of my favorite sewing books.  The bolts go over there with the clothing (and there's a sample sale in my near future, I think.  They're pretty full, and I've been working on Spring line sheets all day, so those lovelies need to find a home asap!)

 

Not a sneak peek-- I'm not quite ready to show you anything yet.  Just a little gift for a special someone's Christmas.

I was in love with this wall-color when it first went up-- it was so crisp and rich with all the white. But right now, I'm finding it more than a little claustrophobic. 

(That chair was $4 at the thrift store.  I made it over to look just like this little dress from our first collection. (which for some reason is going to stay this small.)

I really want to paint it this color-- "Summer Rain" from Dulux-- the dreamiest green-blue-grey that's everywhere at my favorite restaurant.

Grady most enjoys sewing with me.  Mostly this involves dumping out all the pins on the floor and then picking them up with a magnetic wand, thereby rendering them magnetized so that they stick to my scissors and machine and every other metal surface around.  He's super helpful that way.

 

Love, love, this chair.  It's supposed to be for sale, but I love it too much to let it go.  It was an $8 thrift store find a few years ago.  When I reupholstered it, I used a .99 cent pillow from Ikea for the cushion-- it's so lofty and poufy and really comfortable.   Amy Butler on the seat.  I keep hoping this will be there when I go in... it hasn't happened yet.

 

A last little moment before the baby woke up and I had to get back to the rest of my life.  I don't get too much time in there during the daylight hours, but I do so love it when I do. I'll share some more details of my little space soon!

You better watch out...

He's watching......

(and I really hate those lamps.  Gotta do something about that asap.)

I'm not feeling too in the spirit this year, but I'm trying to fake it.  Grady's huge "ooooooohhhhhh" when he saw what his (non-napping) brother and I had accomplished while he slept makes me think I'm probably putting on a good shine...

So what is it you do, exactly?

On Friday, popcorn meals and random Target shopping. This weekend-- totally not random fabric perusal. Cause when I'm not taking care of my little ones, I'm a designer. It still feels really weird to say that, but it's true. I work way too much to pretend it's not. Here are a few peeks into last season's line (all via my girl Cophia Lee, of course!)

Things got crazy for a while there. I've since read a lot of well-thought-out business plans, where people prepared for years before launching their company, had every last little detail thought out, every move planned. That's not exactly how things happened here.But there's nothing like learning on your feet, right? So in a little more than six months I have two collections and more than 40 pieces under my belt. Our trunk shows were a big hit last season, and I can't wait for the next go-round of those. Our website continues to give me headaches, and a new and improved version is on the way. And Hoot Baby should start appearing in stores near you in the very near future.

And that reminds me, if there's a great children's shop in your area, please let me know about it! We're not too fancy, not too frilly, but all about the highest quality construction and totally wearable design.

And now a little peek into what I've been peeking into this weekend...