Butterflies for Lucy (The One in Which She Thwarts My Efforts)

See that face? That's the pained look my daughter makes when I'm forcing her to do something against her will (see also: eating food, wearing shoes, talking to Grandpa on Skype). Here, I am encouraging her to try on this dress I made for her this week and pose for pictures.

She's only 26 months old and already she's clued into the idea that every kid's modus operandi should be thwarting the Things That Mom Really Wants Me To Do. I thought I had a few years of co-operation before that kicked in. But so it begins. In fact, this might be the last time she wears this dress. (If she continues to refuse to wear it, maybe I'll raffle it off here. I hope your kid has skinny arms like mine does: the armholes are on the small side, and I don't have any of this butterfly fabric left to remake it. I guess I could always rip the sleeves out and turn it into a sleeveless romper dress.)

Some kids seem to live to please their parents. Mine is like I was: my mom loved pink, ergo I hated it. My mom adored watching me dance, therefore I threw tantrums on the way to ballet class. Some would call that bratty, but I'm guessing it has something to do with asserting independence, blah, blah, kill your mother, marry your father, blah blah...what was I saying?

I'm already working hard on playing it cool re. the things I hope she gets into. Like music. My one regret is that I have never learned to play an instrument. Of course I could learn now. I'm a big girl — and there are three guitars, a mandolin, a harmonica and calimba in our apartment. But thanks to that jerk Malcolm Gladwell, we all know mastering any new skill takes roughly 10,000 hours of practice, and who has that kind of time? I'm only on episode 6 of this season of Mad Men.

Anyway, though she may never wear it again, I'm really proud of this dress because it's a little shred of evidence that I mastering this new skill. Only like, 9,876 hours to go.

In Which I hate On Rompers

It was the hottest summer on record in NYC, and I spent most of alternately sweating and complaining to anyone who would listen about how fugly and inappropriate it is for grown-ass women to be running around in rompers. My two-year-old looks adorable in rompers. She wears them often. That's how I know for a fact that rompers give you a wedgie unless you're wearing a diaper. Need to raise your hand to wave hello? Well, now you have camel toe, young lady. Also: going to a public bathroom. Do you really want to be topless while you pee? I saw a study once about how few of those doors actually lock...

This is all a digression to explain my surrender. Go ahead: squeeze yourself into that romper that gives you uni-boob, girl. I no longer judge you. I can't, because this week I created a pattern for and sewed a mini-dress modeled on one I made for my toddler earlier this year. Yes, that one, pictured at left. (Don't I look thrilled? I just love having my picture taken.)

I'm now taking my second patternmaking class at the Fashion Institute of Technology, home to Twizzler-thin hipsters who are the only beings apparently unaffected by climate change (how else to explain leather pants in 30 C heat? Seriously, Republicans should make these kids a talking point.) I feel like such a mom when I am there. Like: "Cute outfit, lady. My mom would love it, heh heh."

Aside from my anxiety regarding my own general uncoolness, I knew I'd love it. I learned so much even in the first semester. I can create slopers (the building blocks for all patterns) and can draft bodices, sleeves, collars, etc. (We move on to skirts/pants this semester). In short: I finally learned how geometry can be useful!

The original pattern for the toddler dress (pictured at right on my girl) is from Burdastyle.com, an amazing online resources for sewers. Not only can you download patterns there, you can also learn techniques from tutorials. I basically used the sloper I made for myself to extrapolate a mommy-sized dress pattern for myself. My next project is to learn how to post my own patterns there, so I can start sharing the stuff I make. (We finally got a new computer, so anything is possible now. That's the reason I stopped blogging here last winter: my laptop was so geriatric that it wouldn't function with modern websites like Blogger.com. That's more than six months with a computer so slow, I missed the dial-up connection of my university days.)

Anyway, I am back. I have 10 things on the go, and plan to post about all of them. Hopefully patterns one day too, for anyone who cares.

P.S. I swear on a stack of rompers that I will never, ever wear my dress on the same day as Lucy. That would just be too much.

It's a New Year

I've never really felt moved by the "New Year." It seems so arbitrary -- why does the "New Year" start in the middle of winter, when we have months of cold and snow left lying in wait? It would make more sense for the New Year to begin at the onset of spring, when change (and newness) is in the air. Or even in Fall, when the cycle of life/death enters a new stage and the new school year begins. But January? What gives?

Still, I am full of promise for 2010. The first half of 2009 was tough. The second half, much better. Many things happened for our family to give us hope that things will get even better in this new year. And though I'm as sleepless as I was when we rung in 2009, I have some hope that things will get better soon.

That's my one resolution: to have a full night's sleep this year. Preferably more than one in a row. I need to be able to concentrate in my pattern-making nightclass at FIT!

Christmas was super fun this year, though it was quiet (as quiet as any day with a 17-month-old can be). Lucy loved her elephant I knit (see left). We ate tourtiere (see below) and enjoyed lots of family time -- including a trip on NYC's Nostalgia Train, an old-timey subway from, I think, the 1930s, complete with hanging lightbulbs, low-hanging ceiling fans that could slice hairs off the head of anyone over 6-foot-4, plus vintage ads (text from one ad: "Hit him again, lady! We don't like door blockers either.").

Tradition, shmadition

Sometimes the great thing about being an adult is that you don't have to follow the rules. For example, I just opened the chocolates my mom sent in a package of small gifts for my Christmas stocking. Don't judge me: They're Purdy's. And I love Purdy's. I won't open the soap, tea, lip balm, knit gloves or hot chocolate (my mom puts the exact same stuff in my stocking every year. Plus when you ship internationally you have to write on the customs slip what the contents are. No surprises there). I won't let Lucy open anything early, and I will continue to judge my husband's folks for opening the gifts we sent last year on the day they received them -- like, 5 days before Christmas. Don't they know that makes Baby Jesus cry, I asked my formerly Pentecostal partner.

The other great thing about being an adult is that you get to make your own traditions on Christmas. You get to choose how and when you open the gifts (I think slowly with a mimosa). You plan the menu and set the playlist. And you don't have to eat brussells sprouts (unless you make them with bacon and carmelized onions, like I did at Thanksgiving -- thank you, Mark Bittman).

Ever since my parents split three days before Christmas when I was 12, I've had negative associations with the holidays. Following that awful year (I didn't get my present — a bike — for a couple months following the split), Christmas was always super stressful; dividing time between mom and dad's houses, hoping the present from one didn't make the other jealous and angry (divorced parents really are as childish as Noah Baumbach depicted in the Squid and the Whale). As an adult living away from home, I've spent numerous Christmases with friends' families, and I would much rather take part in a new tradition (oxymoron?) than try to recreate the impossible: a time when my family was happy and Christmas was full of promise.

Now, however, with my own child and living far from my family, I make the rules. The first new family tradition we adopted this year was to make a Christmas music video -- my husband on guitar and vocals, little Lucy on harmonica, and me on the drums. For this, our second Recession Christmas , we sent DVDs of the video to our families in lieu of gifts. The praise has yet to roll in, but I'm sure it will be a hit. Also, inspired by my friend Dreae's "Made, Found or Handed-down" gift-giving rule, I bought Ryan's gift on eBay (we set a very low spending limit that pretty much demanded buying second-hand).

I'm still trying to figure out what to have for dinner. In the U.S. Thanksgiving is too close to Christmas for cooking turkeys on both occasions. I hate ham, so that's out. What would be wintry and flavourful? Or totally unorthodox but delicious?

Toddler Tee Dress

It feels wrong to covet your daughter's dress -- especially when your daughter is only 16 months old. But I'm a little jealous of this purple jersey Tee dress I made for Lucy from a pattern at Burdastyle.com, upcycling an old purple jersey skirt that I haven't worn since I was pregnant, and a scrap from a T-shirt that is unsuitably short for me now. (It's unseemly for a mom to rock a belly button-skimming shirt; also, more importantly, it's totes '90s!)

I need to figure out how to adapt the pattern to fit myself. Perhaps after I take the pattern-making program at FIT, which I plan to start in February! Whee! It's the first step in my plan to undertake a total mid-life career change (that's what members of our generation are supposed to do, right?)


But a neckline this loose only looks good on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. I think I may undo it and insert some elastic, which admittedly will ruin the geometric '80s effect of this design by Arsonista. Still, it's more practical for a tall, skinny toddler who doesn't much like wearing clothes to begin with. I can always take it out when she grows a bit and her shoulders aren't so skinny.