Evolution of the owl

This is the first owl I ever made.

 It now hangs out in the depths of ‘the zoo’: a cage for all of the girls’ stuffed toys.

 Next, I tried to make the owl able to stand by adding a flat bottom (it doesn’t actually stand, it’s too top heavy).

I then tried to see if shortening the body would make any difference (I still wasn't sure, but look at my gorgeous girl!!).

Then, I read the archives of my hero, Abby Glassenberg’s, blog (she is ah-mazing and gives brilliant tips and advice!!) and learned more about making softies in 3D. This latest owl has three panels instead of simply a front and a back so that it can actually stand up by itself.

 I’m still planning to tweek it some more, but I am very happy with where it is heading.

Where have I been?

I’m a hopeless blogger. I say that all the time. My last post was in August and so much has happened since then, but I have not bothered to document it. This is not an excuse. It’s more of a confession and an apology.

I am a terrible friend. I never call people, I rarely answer text messages and if I’m not going somewhere with the girls or the whole family, I tend not to go anywhere. Instead, I spend my time at home, reading, writing, sewing, sleeping. It suits me, most of the time. But over the last few months, I have been through the wringer – emotionally and mentally.

I have always struggled with depression. While at uni, I would spend hours sitting on my bed staring at the wall. I had friends who I saw at lectures and tutorials, but I never went out anywhere or actually got to know them. During breaks, I would stay in bed for days on end (my longest stint was three weeks when my parents divorced). David would bring me food and make me shower (God bless him for still marrying me!!).

Then I had a baby. My beautiful, awe inspiring baby who would cry for hours on end, then feed for just as long. I got to the point where I would lay on the couch and not move unless I was attending to her needs. I was prescribed antidepressants and advised to stop breastfeeding. I never took the medication, because I felt better after I stopped breastfeeding.

When Willow was born, she was a dream child, but breastfeeding was hell. My period came back only four weeks after she was born, wreaking havoc with my hormones and milk production. I was exhausted, stressed and anxious all the time. I stuck it out for 11 months (so they were both fed for the same amount of time) and felt much better once I stopped feeding her.

I felt like I was completely in control of my depression. I have done my Masters in Guidance and Counselling, so I knew all of the theories. Behaviourist theory is the only documented proven therapy to work with depression, so I figured as long as I was busy, I would be fine (I know, I really do know the theory, I promise!!).

But I still had periods where I would cut myself off and just go through the motions. It began increasing until I got to the point where I did not even want to spend time with the girls. Any chance I got, I got away from them. When they came back, it was too soon. My guilt and anxiety increased and I was so grumpy, defensive and aggressive. I made poor Bel cry so many times by the way I spoke to her and I am horrified to hear how she speaks to her friends because I know it comes from me. The tone of her voice is awful.

Then my beautiful soldier of a sister-in-law died. On her father’s birthday, the day after my birthday, five days before Christmas. She said goodbye to me and I did not believe her. She had come through so much and was on such a high dose of morphine and methadone that I was convinced it was the drugs talking. But she went, leaving the biggest hole in my heart that I have ever experienced. She had been sick for so long and all she ever wanted was to live a normal life: go to work, go out with friends, have children. I get to do all of those things, so why was I so miserable? I just wanted to curl into a ball and be left alone – indefinitely.

Instead, I finally made an appointment and hauled arse to the doctor. I needed a pap smear and figured I should see if I was actually depressed while I was there. I actually told the doctor everything and he told me that, yes, there was no doubt that I was depressed and I needed to take the medication this time.

So I did, I am, taking the antidepressants. I still like my own company, but I’m starting to feel more engaged with the world. I am actually spending time with my girls and feel more energetic. I can drive without my stomach being in anxious knots. I can sleep.

So to all of my friends, I’m sorry. As I read over this, it sounds like a giant whinge and an excuse. But the reality is that depression is becoming more prevalent in our society and this is my journey with it.

Hard lessons Part 2: Saying goodbye

When David came home, after we had lunch and more tears flowed, we wrapped the nest in green fabric (Big's choice) and cut it down from the wire. We went outside to the butterfly garden and dug a hole. Bel wanted us to take photos to remember the baby bird.

David said a prayer and then Big helped him fill in the hole.

More tears fell at home when she noticed how forlorn the wire looked without the nest. But she said goodbye and hopes to meet the baby bird in heaven.

Hard lessons and the circle of life

I had actually been looking forward to this post until today. For weeks we have been watching Sun Birds staking out our deck and building a nest. There was much excitement when the mummy bird moved in permanently. We would watch her for ages and laugh as the blue chested daddy bird preened himself while looking at our windows or chattered to the ‘other bird’ in the toy toaster (it’s our old chrome toaster).

We watched closely over the weeks and were over the moon when we noticed the mummy bird bringing insects to the nest in her beak. Big learned so much about how to tell the mummy and daddy birds apart, why it’s important for the mummy bird to sit in the nest, how to be still and quiet so we don’t scare the mummy bird away. We loved their trilling song that sounded throughout the day.

Because the nest is above our play area, the mummy bird actually became quite used to our presence and would stick her head out of the nest and peer at us as though we were just a mild annoyance.

But then…

Last night we noticed the mummy bird’s absence as we ate dinner. David tried to tell Big that it was because the baby bird had flown away. We couldn’t hear the baby cheeping and hoped this was the answer.

But we came home from playgroup this morning and I could see the baby’s head peeping out of the nest. I called Bel over excitedly, noticing the flies too late. The mopping that I needed to do was temporarily forgotten as I held my distraught little girl and tried to answer her questions.

She cried so hard. I cried because I couldn’t take away her pain. I had been so fearful of this happening. But the questions were so hard. It started with her standard, “Why?” But she didn’t want to accept my answers. I told her the baby must have been sick. “But they are not apposed [sic] to get sick.” I then tried to tell her that everyone dies at some point. “Why?” So we can go to heaven. “I don’t want to go. I want to stay here. Will you die? And Daddy? Willow?” My heart broke over and over as I tried to make her understand.

She has calmed down, but every now and then she still asks why. “I don’t like it when baby birds die. If the mummy bird gives the baby lots and lots of kisses, then the baby bird will be happy.” (She saw the mummy bird trying to pull the baby out of the nest. I told her she was kissing the baby.)

I called David to give him the heads up. We are going to take the nest down, wrap it in fabric and bury it when he comes home for lunch. I’m hoping a small ritual will give her some closure.

All she wants to know right now is why it died and if the baby bird is happy.

The busyness continues

After we got over Hubby’s birthday, Little turned 1. We still can’t quite believe it! There was a big party planned and relatives arrived from Perth and New Zealand. But the spanner in the works was Big having a febrile convulsion one evening during dinner. An ambulance, emergency accommodation and a babysitter later, we got to the hospital. It turned out she had croup and was given medicine and discharged.

Big being so sick meant that we couldn’t have Hubby’s elderly grandparents and unwell sister come to the party. So it was a bit smaller than we hoped. But Little looked so cute in her birthday dress (fortunately I had made it before all of the family arrived so it was completed before the drama!). 

Grandad had made a cake and the afternoon was enjoyed by all whose immune systems were strong enough to attend!

It seemed that as soon as Big recovered, Little became mysteriously ill with ridiculously high temperatures. So when she became limp and lethargic and incredibly hot, we once again went to the emergency ward. In between temperature spikes, Little flirted with the nurses at 1am and had them madly in love with her! We finally got home at 5am with no answers. It wasn’t until a few days later that a rash indicated that she had a simple virus, roseola.

So, while we waited at home for the girls to recover, I received an interesting phone call. A while ago, I had filled out an application to be part of the Mummy Panel for the ‘Cairns Parenting Companion Magazine’ and I was one of six mums picked! So excited!! I had a very brief photo shoot (just a head shot) yesterday, and will have a couple of comments published in this coming edition.

But did I think with two sick children, new commitments with the panel and simply cleaning the house that I had enough to do? Of course not! I had sold a doll through ‘Earth Toys’ and was feeling pretty good about it. So Hubby said I should start a website. I figured that was too hard, so I launched a facebook page: www.facebook.com/spupeedesigns . And it’s going brilliantly! I have actually fallen behind filling orders for my dinosaur softie, which is a bit stressful, but very exciting! Once I get the dinosaurs made, I’m hoping to have a chance to make some other ideas into a reality this week and post them up on the page. Stay tuned!

It's been too long and I made a wallet

I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again, I am a really slack blogger! I do loads that I would love to blog about, but finding the time to sit and write it all out seems to escape me. That has been truer than ever this month!

In July, we had Hubby’s birthday. I want to preface this by saying that I completely and utterly adore him, BUT he’s not as emotionally exuberant as I am. So when I make things that I get excited about, he barely bats and eyelid. I have learned over the last decade + that, “That’s nice” in hubby speak equates to, “Wow, babe! That’s amazing!” in my language. But I still hold out hope that one day he’ll be as excited as I am…On top of this, I don’t seem to be able to find the perfect gifts for him. I have come across presents in clean outs that are still in their original packaging that I gave to him while still in our teens.

So when his birthday rocked around this year, I was stumped. He desperately needed a new wallet, but I loathe handmade wallets. I have no idea what it is about them, but I just think they look dodgy (sorry to any proud wallet makers out there!). But, in keeping with our handmade theme, I set about making him a wallet. I unpicked his wallet (he really moaned about being walletless too!) and painstakingly tried to recreate it out of orange fabric (his favourite colour). I got Big to handle the wallet with paint on her hands (she kept trying to touch the wallet without getting the paint on it, bless her!) and stamped ‘RAIDED’ across the front, because we all get to his wallet before he does!

I hated it! I still do! So, with children in tow, I braved the shops and bought him a leather wallet and a new ipod for ‘Angry Fridays’ at work (the day he plays heavy metal music in the workshop). Our shopping trip dissolved into tears when Big discovered that we would not be presenting Daddy with the wallet that she helped make. Needless to say, the store bought wallet is under our bed in its original packet, while Hubby carts around his one of a kind one.

June Gifts and July Crafts

We had quite a few birthdays in June. I really am hopeless though and often forget to take photos of gifts before I give/send them. I did it as recently as yesterday. So I don’t actually have photographic evidence of some gifts, like my little brother’s…

But, for the birthdays we celebrated in June, I made the following gifts…

As well as birthdays, we found out that a friend of ours was having a baby. Yay!! I love it when people have babies. It’s (usually) so exciting! So I tried a new technique and hand dyed some organic bamboo terry with blueberries. I was so thrilled with the results that I am going to try some other natural dyes for more ‘Sleepy Worms’ to put in the shop.

I love our zucchini vine. The photos of the Sleepy Worm turned out so well, that I couldn’t resist finding out what other little creatures might alight on the huge fuzzy leaves. This little guy was made for a very dear friend of ours’ mother, H. H has taken me under her wing simply for my friendship with her daughter and my love of sewing. She is forever thinking of us and the girls and sending clothes from overseas, or fabric that she saw and thought I would love to add to my stash. I wanted to show H how much I appreciated her love and thoughts, but she is a phenomenal sewer, so anything I thought of making paled in comparison to what she can do. So I decided to make her something completely frivolous, but (if I do say so myself) incredibly cute!

As well as sewing for friends, we have been a bit crafty with the girls too. Our most recent project, which I saw somewhere while I was trawling blogs, was ‘gnome pegs’. Bel had a blast helping me paint them. I finished their faces and hats during nap time. Even though Bel is learning to sew using an elastic needle and rug base,

stitching tiny hats is still a bit beyond her!

We used non-toxic paints thinned with white vinegar (I read that this helps stain the wood. It seems to have worked). Once the paint was dry, we coated the pegs with bees wax and popped them in a low oven to let the wax melt over them to seal the paint even more and give them a nice shine.

The little pegs are much loved and the blue is much sucked on by Willow. They have joined the ever growing ranks in the doll house. Our next project will involve pom poms. We’ll see how much patience Bel really has when she realises how long it takes to make them!