another old shirt rescued!

the permalink to my latest post on wardrobe refashion is all fuckered up for some reason, so in a departure from my usual refashion m.o., to save you from having to scroll through wardrobe refashion looking for my post, i'm just posting it here:

this was part of my college uniform:

not only is it ridiculously big (as all of my clothes were back then), it has developed some issues in the back....

.....and so has since been relegated to the pajama drawer (or, more accurately, one of the pajama drawers. i have a few pajama/loungewear drawers. some of my friends find this odd). but i never wore it, because i was afraid it was just going to keep ripping and fall apart. so, clearly, it was time to take it apart myself.

i started by removing the sleeves, then cutting across the back at the spot of the enourmous gaping hole, leaving me with this:

then i cut down the sides, making two pieces, and slit the part of the back that was attached to the front down the middle, comme ca:

i decided that those two pieces coming off the top of the front piece would become straps, so i trimmed them a bit to make them slimmer and hemmed the edges. i also turned the neckband under in the front and stitched it down to make a uniform hem all around.

then i put it all together: pinned the side seams (which, since i don't have a dress form yet, involved pinning the front piece of the shirt to my bra to keep it still while i held the back piece in place) and sewed them up, hemmed the top of the back piece, attached the straps to the back, and hemmed the front piece— which had ended up longer than the back—at the bottom. and this is what i got:

putting it on, i realized that the part where i had hemmed under the existing neckband stuck out....

...and i was going to fix it by turning it under one more time and re-hemming, but then i realized that i liked it the way it was.

the finished product definitely retained some of the pinholes and frayed edges of the original shirt, and i'm glad it did.

off to maine on vacation, more when i return!

it is unwise to get only 5 hours of sleep before taking a 2-year old and an 8-year old to the natural history museum because

maybe you'll not have the energy or mental stamina for the "i don't want to wear paaaaaaaants" argument the preceeds leaving the house and end up stuffing the 2-year old in the shorts and carrying his screaming ass to the subway station.

maybe you'll give a total parker-posey-in-dazed-and-confused bitchface to the 12-year old who snottily tells you that the reason the bell rang in the elevator was because you were holding down the "door open" button for too long.

maybe you'll give a slight hip-check to the pushy tourist who tries to bustle past you on your way out of the elevator.

maybe you'll not-so-silently curse out the stupid euro-tourists who walk up the stairways like they had specially reserved them for their own private use instead of staying to the goddamn right, goddamn it.

maybe you'll need to go to bed at 9:30. good night.

more refashioning

here.

a dark day

today, wile said "little".

new refasion post

is up.

not really grasping the concept

"mama, you pick out my clothes."

"really?"

"yeah!"

"okay. [walk to dresser. choose shirt and pants] here you —"

"no! not pick those pants! pick the other ones!"

why i love ebay

i just bought this for $4.99:

will you look at that? those shorts!! vintage 1985. it's a size 6 months, so obviously not for wile. first met fan to have a baby gets it.

naaaaaaaap!

that's right, two days straight. yes, i would like a high-five. thank you. ow, not so hard.

during the glorious time of the sleeping baby, i put a new post up on wardrobe refashion.

naaaaaaaaaaap!

sorry, i'm a little delerious.

here, have a picture of wile and gwen eating lunch at the queens farm museum earlier today:

and the insane-o rooster we saw:

what is this "flow" i'm supposed to be going with?

all of this non-napping sleep insanity has made me realize how far i've come in terms of dealing with the two-year-old behavior ("behavior" is a nicer word that "bullshit", right?). i can roll with whatever he throws at me now. and i can look back at the past few months and see how hard it has been for me to deal with this transition to the 2-y.o. state of being. which is totally understandable—i mean, how would you like it if 50% of everything you said was met with a resounding "no!"?? plus the whining. oh my god the whining. and as i've mentioned before, the constant negotiation. and the iron-clad refusal to give in to reality. example, from bedtime last night:

"wile, you always fall asleep by yourself"

"no! i dooooon't! i don't!"

it has taken me a few months to learn to just say "okay! but tonight you are."

so the fact that i have been able to deal with this whole not-napping-totally-unpredictable- schedule-that-leads-to-frequent-decents-into-inconsolability-and-insanity development without losing my shit or just walking out of the house and telling trucky and lulu to call me if anything bad happens makes me feel....pretty damn good. i've reached a place of toddler-parent zen. you know, not every second of every day, but most of the time. and this is fairly amazing not only in itself but also as a component of my personality as a whole. i am not very zen about anything. i like—okay, fine, honesty: need—to control things. the fact that i can let go a little and adapt to a wholly new set of variables every day is unprecedented.

so what has he been throwing at us lately? let's see:

thursday, aunt susie was visiting. around 2:30, we were on our way into the backyard to dig and he told me he was tired. i asked did he want to nap now? no, soon. okay, soon. around 2:45, i told him 5 minutes to play. "no no no mama i want to dig more!" it was too hot to fight. i told him now or never. the answer was never. so in my new zen state, i decided not to force the square peg into the round hole and just said fine, no nap! onward! so we dug, then went to the park. headed home around 5:45, started making dinner. he said he was hungry, and took his place at at the table and asked me what was for dinner.i told him fish. "what kind fish?" tilapia! thus began the battle cry: "no, i want salmon! i want salmon!" repeated at varying degrees of whining, wheedling, pleading, and desperation until he literally sat back in his chair, closed his eyes, and nearly fell asleep, all "i want salmmmmmzxxxzz". i scooped him up and took him to bed. he was nearly asleep when he asked for pajamas. i got him some ones he hadn't ever worn before, with appliqued gators on the shirt. "mama, look—there a yellow one, a blue one, and a gray one." i say: "actually that's more like tan than gray." what the hell was i thinking? shut up, pantone girl! the chin started wobbling, the eyes welled up with tears: "i not like that color! mama, take that bottom gator off! take it off!!" ten minutes later, i was coloring in the f-ing grey/tan gator with a red sharpie. then he said "where that gator's face? mama, i not want the gator's face at that side! i want it over here!" something in my tone thankfully convinced him that i didn't have a magic sharpie in my bag that was going to make that happen. i sang no songs (the tradeoff for the sharpie), he fell asleep. at 7 o'clock. that's an hour and a hlf earlier than normal.

that was definitely the worst day lately. saturady he went to the mets game with stephen and iden + luella and jake and pulled another marathon session—fell asleep in the car on the way home from the game around 4 and slept till 6am. sunday there was no nap, and bedtime was peaceful because our friend courtney (hi courtney!) was visiting from colorado and wile was too excited to have her here to have any freakouts. but yesterday he woke up in a hellacious mood. thankfully, he asked for some ba-boo around 10, so i gave him some and he passed out till 11:45.

and today? today we had a long talk about naps and school and how at school you have to participate in naptime and how naps make you feel good and happy and then we have more fun together and blah blah throwing every sales tactic in the book at him and, though his mouth was still forming the words "i don't want to take a nap" as his head hit the pillow, he! is! asleep! asleeeeeeeeeeeeep!

wanna take bets on whether he'll wake up in two hours or tomorrow morning?

home runs off the wall

he can't poop in the potty, but he can do this....