High Romance

My husband and I really know how to turn up the romance. As one friend said, we know how to have a CRAZY time.

This is us. It's after the girls have gone to sleep. We cracked a beer, turned on that day's Tour de France coverage, and basted the triangle quilt.

In his defence (and mine), I made him help me. The quilt is for the girls so I thought he should, literally, have a hand in it. Besides, at 90'' by 90'' it was taking over the living room as it was basted, he might as well have helped.

A Triangle Quilt

Welcome to the next hole in my head. No, I'm not even close to finishing the last one. I got tired of trimming all those half square triangles. There are nearly 300! Or it might, just might be evidence of some quilter ADD.

These are the bee blocks from the Pieced Together 2 Bee. I was putting together another, similar top a few months back and The Monster expressed such excitement over the design. That quilt went to live somewhere else, however. Ever since she's been asking for a triangle quilt of her own.

Then, the other night, I walked into this scene. Beyond the damn cuteness of the two of them cuddled up like that, you can see their sweat-soaked heads. They refuse to wear anything but full PJs and fight over the heavy duvet every night. With summer finally here the nights are actually warm. What else to do but make a quilt.

Yes, here in Calgary we switch to quilts in summer, instead of winter. Winter is for duvets (or layered quilts) and summer for quilts. So it is now my mission to get the girls a triangle quilt before summer ends.

I started with 11 blocks of various sizes. I figure I need 25 blocks at 18.5'' square to get to the queen sized quilt I want, with plenty of overhang. Since Sunday afternoon I've managed to make 6 more blocks and cut out 5 more. Some of the blocks might end up being solid yellow. Maybe, maybe not?

We're looking at a long weekend, I wonder how much I can get done? You know, in between actually spending time with the family.

Summer?

The sun is FINALLY shining here in Calgary. It feels like forever ago that we had it. It's been a rainy spring, one that makes us happy we spent so much money waterproofing our basement a few years ago.

So now The Monster is out of school and out of sorts. We're trying to establish a rhythm to summer without doing too much. I'm trying to find the time to quilt and write without resorting to PBS Kids as babysitter. We're all searching out the summer. Here's where we are so far.

Last touches on that Shades of Grey quilt. I can photograph it now that it's stopped raining.

My husband's labourer, also a part-time tattoo artist put to work with sidewalk chalk and a book about pandas.

In all his fashion glory, this is my husband mowing a maze in the park across the street. The City doesn't seem to be quick to mow it this year so Hubby goes out every time it is sunny and mows paths for us to explore. The stellar fashion choices are always there.

Time spent watching an ant (singular) try to move a dead bee.

A precious visit and loads of snuggles with our latest nephew.

My reflective girl on her 5th birthday last week. Okay, so I caught her trying to look away, but let me have the mystery of her contemplative look. Here's one way we celebrated her birthday.

My youngest, having ANOTHER fit. Such an impatient, stubborn, and tempestuous little girl. And she's three.

But she is also phenomenally silly, adventurous, and obviously inherits her fashion sense from her father.

And now, a whole bunch of pressing to do. I need a break from the cutting - my wrist was killing me the other night when I was slicing my squares into these. I hope I'm not adding carpal tunnel to my summer plans.

Bring it on, summer! We can take it.

Enforcement

3 hours.

My 3 year old sat at the table an hour for every year the other night. Just because she wouldn't drink her milk. And because we told her she couldn't leave the table until she did just that.

She cried, she took a bathroom break, she fussed, she tried to play, she desperately worked us for conversation and entertainment. We continued on with our evening - working, cleaning up, putting The Monster to bed (even though she couldn't sleep because she is quite used to her sister in the room), and I even made caramel corn. For 3 hours she sat there. At that point I subbed out the milk with a cold glass. She spilled that one. I cleaned it up and gave her another one. With a nonchalance that belied the battle of wills she simply picked it up and drank it.

Right now you either think we are cruel parents or are filled with admiration for our stick-to-it-ness. Or you think we're dumb. I'm going with all three myself.

A rule is a rule. We don't care if they don't eat all their dinner. As long as they've tried everything on their plate, they can eat as much or as little as they like. But they have to drink their milk. (Very lovely goat milk, I might add.)

As for us parents, our rule is that if we start down a path we don't cave. If the other says something we don't contradict. So even though we had a pile of things to do and actually needed the dining room table, we worked around her. It was exhausting, I'll admit. I'm proud of all of us for sticking to it. And the caramel corn went really nicely with a scotch once it was all over.

(I used this recipe, but subbed the syrup for maple syrup, added pecans instead of peanuts, and crumbled in some cooked bacon with the popcorn.)

And don't tell the kid, but I'm impressed with her. That stubborness will do her well as an adult, if she makes it there.

What are some of your dinnertime rules? What's the longest you've had to go to enforce a rule?