There is a certain amount of beauty in completely lacking grace, I think. It’s the overwhelming enthusiasm, I guess.

The whole fan-dam-ily trekked to Target on Saturday and McPantses spent the entire time doing a combo touchdown victory dance/floor show through the middle of the store in her very loud, completely tuneless voice. I gave up being embarassed at the whole thing and just eventually had to laugh as people we passed laughed. McPantses proudly proclaimed she was doing it all for the benefit of her brother, who watched her with squint-eyed interest.

At one point, the Husband looked at me and said, “You know, she reminds me of you.”

I said, “I know there’s an insult in there somewhere, but I’m not sure what it is.”

He said, “She almost ran straight into a shelf because she’s so busy charging ahead that she’s not looking where she’s going at all.”

the Husband for spreading his cold throughout the household. First the boychild got snuffly and then I woke up yesterday with an earache and a sore throat and that weird underwater ears feeling that comes before the full-on sick.

Good Morning, Full-On Sick!

Wugherty.

My thoughts are still with the people of the Gulf Coast and waterlogged New Orleans. I’m so sorry, y’all. My home is open to those of you I know or have “met” one way or another and, hey, I even mopped!

How about some happy crafters for inspiration and comfort:

There are some sites I like to look at because they’re especially lovely and because their crafty goodness makes me want to smuggle needle and thread into my office so I can secretly sew in the manner of a slipstitching superspy* ‘neath my desk. Would you like to see who’s on my favorites list for that reason? I thought you would.

You can check out Bella Dia’s site, look at her photo album or even buy her hand-stitched goodies. I think it’s all just delicious.

Tell me you don’t like the wee seersucker lumpling by Amy Rue and I won’t believe you.

I want to snuggle the hen. Loobylu’s month of softies critters inspire me every time I see them and this one is no exception.

Another one of my favorite websites specializes in the knitty arts more than the needle-n-thread arts. Check out Mason Dixon Knitting and look at what will surely be an award-winning sweater and scroll down to August 29th and look at one of the most gorgeous big little girls with the most gorgeous eyes you’ve ever seen. Seriously! The eyes! The haircut! The bone structure! My word. That’s a kid you can tell from a glance will grow up to be even more gorgeous than she is now. Read funny Ann and Kay, too, okay?

It’s not stitchery, but I love it anyway: I may have linked his artist cards before, but I still haven’t purchased any for myself. Must have a set. I want to frame one for the boychild’s bedroom and I want to send notes to a special few on the rest. I think they’re beautiful.

And now I must go blow my nose.

* You know your inner nerd loves the alliteration.

A few days (see her 8/26 entry) ago, the gorgeous and divine Tertia asked readers about how one protects her children from abuse and violence and the various ills of the world. This was in response to comments on an earlier post she wrote about some horrible things going on in her part of the world (South Africa). I didn’t read the links on the horrible things thread and I didn’t read the comments, either, because I can’t open my heart up to horrible violence to children right now. I just can’t.

I have been thinking about protecting your kids, though, and a few basic things that really matter. I guess they’re probably total common sense and I shouldn’t bother listing them here, but I don’t think I’ll be able to get the monkey parliament in my brain to stop rioting over the topic until I spit it out on paper, so to speak. This post may not reflect Tertia’s links or comments at all, keep in mind, because I didn’t read them.

1. Your kids count more than your current bedpal. There shouldn’t even be a contest.

There’s been a good deal of uproar over Ayelet Waldeman’s NYT article about how she could live if she lost one of her kids, but that if her husband died, she’d be devastated. While I don’t necessarily subscribe to her theory, I sort of understand where she’s coming from: if I lost the Husband somehow,* I would be devastated beyond repair. I might not need round-the-clock suicide watches like I would if something happened to the kidlets, but there will never be another The Husband. Ever. Aside from the fact that he’s himself and perfectly perfect, especially for me, there’s the fact that kids count more than a bedpal and how on earth could you ever introduce and properly train a new one? I would be terrified and my hat’s off to those who manage it successfully.

I think it’s probably easy to get all googly pie-eyed over a new love interest and forget to keep your kids’ best interests at the forefront. That’s me handing out a big ole judgment, but there you have it. I think parents with multiple partners have great potential to do their kids a disservice, if only by introducing more people to the household.

2. Kids don’t lie or exaggerate as much as we think they do.

People, including me, have a tendency to disbelieve what kids say on all sorts of topics. Believe your kids. I never want to get up to take McPantses to the bathroom during dinner out, but she always tells the truth (now that the potty has no magical allure, anyway, and we don’t have to go visit new potties just to check them out) about having to go. If someone is bothering my child for any reason whatsoever, I’m going to pay attention to what my child tells me. And that leads me to number 3.

3. Pay attention to what your kid is saying and read between the lines.

4. Trust your gut.

We work very hard at being civilized and one of the things we work at is avoiding our natural fight or flight instincts. If someone makes you nervous, you may have good reason to be nervous. Don’t mess with that with it comes to your kids.

5. Search for the best and demand the best and expect to receive it when it comes to childcare and education.

6. Don’t place your kids in danger. Remove them from danger immediately if you learn they’re in danger.

You can only do so much to avoid completely random violence or danger. You can, however, avoid crack houses and shacking up with pedophiles.

7. Don’t have kids if you can’t care for them.

If you have children and you can’t properly focus on them and keep them from harm’s way, find someone who can care for your kids and take major precautions to avoid having more kids. Bob Barker touts spaying or neutering your pets. I tout spaying or neutering your crappy parenting selves.

I am probably naive and courting trouble when I say this, but here goes: I imagine that much of the harm that befalls children comes from not heeding the simple (really, simple to the point of being obvious, hunh?) things I list above.

I’m not sure about this post. I’m not sure about putting it out there because it seems facile and because it seems overly obvious. But the more I think about it, the more it does all seem to come down to a few things. Should I add anything? Should I quit being an ijeet?

* If he dies, if he wanders off for the college football season never to return, or if he finally tires of my mercurial personality, etc.

If I hear another newswhore describe one of my favorite cities as a soup bowl, my brain is going to leak from my ears.

I join the rest of the world watching and waiting as Katrina hovers dangerously near landfall. I don’t want New Orleans to be devastated, but I don’t want anywhere else to be flattened, either. I hate myself for paying attention to bloodthirsty newswhores, but I can’t stop watching.

Those poor people waiting to get into the Superdome break my heart. I would be terrified.

ETA: I’ve been going back and forth between watching and hiding my eyes all day and I wanted to offer my best wishes to the writer of a great food blog who lives in New Orleans with his family.

I just got off the phone with my sister, who is housing her sister-in-law and two friends and a very nice golden retriever while the New Orleans girls, who arrived in the middle of the night last night, ride out the storm in Atlanta. My sister’s parents in law are also in Atlanta with family. They’re aghast at the news coverage and my sis says many tears have been shed today. I think the Garden District inlaws aren’t expecting to have a home 24 hours from now. They all agree that the media are horrible vultures–they didn’t sleep much last night and they will sleep even less tonight.

Stay safe, y’all. You are in my prayers. I can’t imagine.

We’ve ridden out a few hurricanes in the past and we’re pretty far inland from serious destruction and we are frightened enough where we are. Really, truly, I cannot imagine.

Scene: McPantses is elbow deep in bits of modeling clay.

McPantses, proudly proffering her objet d’art: “Look, Daddy, look what I made!”

The Husband, with great wonder in his voice: “Wow! It’s a spider!”

McPantses, with mild reproach in her voice: “Daddy, it’s a lady.”

Gratuitous picture:

Do you love the chair? It’s as old as I am and it’s rocky and squishy! And, best of all, free!

Gratuitous linkage to a new flickr acct is right HERE! I don’t know why, but the flickr thing makes me nervous. I’ve only uploaded my few fave pics of McP from yore. The Husband nixed an old Easter pic of us. Probably a good idea.

is six months old today.

He was 24 weeks old last Sunday, but today, per the calendar, he is officially six months old.

The last six months have been a mostly wonderful whirlwind of activity and snuggly baby love. Actually, everything directly involving the boychild has been perfectly perfect in every way, down to each and every well-aimed pee-soaking.

McPantses is the best big sister anyone could hope to have and her wee elf-eared brother is a delectable morsel.

Happy day, Charlie Crabcake. You have enchanted us as much as your sister did. Please don’t jump out of your crib; they’ll have to bring in the vapors to revive me.

It’s been a huge long while since I’ve taken up the embroidery needle and with the boychild’s Christening coming up in a matter of weeks (Sunday, September 18th), I have a little work to do on the gown. I need to put McPantses’ monogram on the slip skirt and add Charlie Crabcake’s, too.

I pulled it out last night to look at it, and you know, I bet I spent over 500 hours sewing that gown, most of them while pregnant with McPantses. I put the most time into the whitework embroidery down the front–there’s a series of Christian symbols on the yoke and going down the front center. I surrounded the embroidery with winding feather stitching and it’s a true heirloom and a work of art. The moment I wedge the boychild into the gown,* I’m sure I’ll be a sniveling mess.

Weddings? Meh. I can take ‘em or leave ‘em. Christenings, though, get me every time. My biggest prayer with McPantses’ was that I didn’t audibly gulp or sob in front of the church. I suspect my biggest with this kid will be that he doesn’t have a massive poop blowout in the sanctuary. Nothing says HALLELUJAH, Y’ALL! BRING ON THE HOLY WATER! quite like liquid baby poop, does it?

Embroidery, like knitting, is contemplative work. You have tons of thinking time as you tug a little needle up and down through a piece of fabric and if you’re in the right frame of mind, it’s marvelously relaxing, as it was last night when both kiddies were snoozing and the Husband was out of town. If you’re in the wrong frame of mind (such as, say, enduring forced conversation while trapped at someone’s house), it’s a great way to keep yourself busy and avoid a bit of what’s going on around you, not that I’d ever be so rude. Much.

I’m starting to embroider the Vitamin Ball from this book. The VB patterns are 24 different veggies playing in a band or dancing and they’re drawn in 1930s style. I love it. I’m doing the tomato-headed bass player for starters, on a flour sack towel sent to me by the same gal who sent me the patterns. Flour sack towels can be found at Target for $4.90 per 4-pack. I’m going to use the embroidered towels as huge dinner napkins and I want the whole set of 24 because, in my book, when it comes to embroidered linens, there’s no such thing as too much.

I want McPantses to learn about embroidery and sewing, too. It was important to me as a child and I can’t wait to share the little sewing kit and book that came in the mail last week with her. She’s very exacting and detail-oriented, so I think the felt bird kit will be a big hit with her. I might have already linked that Winky Cherry book, but check it out again. Great price, fast shipping. Thumbs up!

I think we’ve all managed to survive the Martha Stewart more-is-more-when-it-comes-to homekeeping-style and are moving towards a simpler way of doing things. Certainly everything Martha touches (except ImClone, hardeharhar) turns to gold, but she seems to add steps to everything she does, which makes much of what she does out of the realm of possibility for people who are thin in the wallet or thin on time. Perhaps the normal folk can nice things up without shearing their own sheep and spinning the wool to knit.

Embroidery? It’s a cheap hobby. Just ask Jenny Hart, whose apropos embroidery patterns are fabulously timely and retro all at once. Her embroidery kit, sold through one of my favorite purveyors (Chronicle Books), is so cute that I’m tempted by it every time I see it in the store, even though I already have everything I need to embroider my way from Redneck USA to Manhattan.

I guess number 17 on the list of things that make me happy is needle and thread and what comes from putting them to use. I have a bird pattern from an old Martha something or other (I think it was originally a Christmas ornament) that I love. I want to fill the white wire tree with a flock of birds–maybe a few in charcoal gray men’s suiting fabric with a nice chalk stripe and a red satin breast thrown in for kicks.

Number 18 is certainly the joy that comes from passing down a hobby that is far more than a “craft.” As my favorite sewing ladies tell me, embroidery and French handsewing are fine arta. I’m going to have a blast passing the needle down to McPantses. Hmm. In a non-addict way, that is.

Treat yourself to a needle and thread today. If you’d like to stitch up your own birdie, I will mail a copy of the outline to the first few people who ask. Tho using a machine will make the putting together prettier, it’s a simple project that you could do by hand. You could also assist a child with the Martha bird. There are two body pieces (cut two of the same), one breast, and four wing pieces (cut four of the same). I promise you can do it.

Oh, but if you do, will you post pictures for me?

I have lots of pictures to upload as soon as I put them on my computer. I even signed up for a Flickr account. Clap for my newfound “technical” ability.

* The Husband says it would be easier to put footie pajamas on Mean Cat Zelda than it is to put any item of clothing on the boychild.

I never realized until yesterday just how useful diapers could be.

You’ve been a part of my household, off and on, for the past 5 years. I welcome you with open arms, Pampers.

Imagine, wouldja, my surprise when I walked into the house yesterday after work to be hit in the face with the sledgehammer of a kitchen filled with liquidy dog poop. One of my dear retrievers has a bit of an upset tummy, I think.

No less than seven separate puddles of smelly squish awaited cleaning and after I hauled everyone and everything inside, I just stood in the kitchen for a minute trying to figure out how to handle the filth. The dogs were outside by this time and the kids were in the living room.

I called the Husband to kvetch–we are down to one half of one roll of paper towels and possess nothing else even remotely capable of handling such a mess. What to do?

Seriously, what to do?

PAMPERS TO THE RESCUE!

I hauled out a stack of diapers from the boychild’s room (by this time the kid is screaming in his bucket seat on the dining room table, but left to scream he was, as McPantses and I gagged over the stench in the kitchen) and used 10 to scoop, soak and wipe.

Then I scrubbed the floor with vinegar/water and bleach wipes and took out the trash.

Then I mopped the floor.

Then I washed my hands for about the eighth time in 15 minutes and washed out the sink.

THEN I got the boychild, whose face was boiling red with anger and grief.

Think Pampers could make a commercial out of that, y’all?