Happy Birthday Quinnie

This is Quinnie 2 years ago today. Note the IV taped to her hand...


This is Quinnie today. Quinnie has boo boo hand again on her birthday.


On Sunday, I had to go pick Sean and Ali up after they had stayed at the Old Salt (restaurant my sister in law works at) well actually they satyed at Lamies Inn which is attached to the Old Salt, but anyway we had to go there to pick them up so we were going to have brunch there as well. Ali called me on the phone and said something to the effect that we're up and come on down, so I finish doing Quinnie's hair and go downstairs to iron my shirt and once that task has been completed I set the iron on the kitchen table as it is a much more stable place than the ironing board, and I don't want Quinnie to topple the iron onto herself or have the iron set fire to the house or anything like that so I tell Quinnie "no touch, hot hot, lets go find your shoes" and proceed to turn away. I get aproximately 10 feet away when I hear a blood curdling scream and I know instantly Quinn has burned herself. I cannot even express how awful I felt about having my poor baby burn her entire right palm. On something I was trying to be careful with too. It was awful. The burn didn't look too bad at first so I put some bacitracin on it and wrapped it up and took her to get her Dad, and later on that day when we were changing the dressing it had gotten significantly worse so I took her to the emergency room. I got the most acusatory, demeaning attitude from the doctor who not only implied he thought I had done this to her, but that I was also tying to circumvent my own doctor by coming to him (it's sunday night BTW) and then rewrapped the burn exactly as I had it and charged my $50 to boot. Long story short, we went to our doctor on Monday and were treated fairly, and they de-roofed her blisters and sent us away with some medicine for it and instructions to change the dressing twice a day.
The boo boo looks a lot better today. And the birthday girl is happy.



We got Quinnie her "big" birthday present. A fish - well it will be a few fish but the guy at the pet store suggested we start with one 'cause we don't have any beneficial bacteria built up yet so he suggested we come back in 2 weeks for the remainder. Quinnie loves her fish.





So in between fish tanks and boo boo wrappings, Ali had colored some eggs, and I, of course took advantage of the leftover easter egg dye to dye some roving. I wound off balls that looked like they might fit in the dye cups and put the whole thing in the microwave for a couple minutes and this is what I had.
I let it soak while we were out getting the fish and setting the tank up and stuff and a while later I rinsed it and this is how it came out. I made mittens for Sam (when she was about 4 - so 15 years ago) with easter egg dyed yarn and they are still bright and cheery. I think these might become socks for Ali - well at least that's what the roving whispered to me when I was hanging it up on the curtain rod. We'll see.

Cajun's yarn

Cajun

Cajun's fleece washed

carded

drawn through a diz to make a roving

spun on the spinning wheel

plied

wound into a ball

Maple Season

It's maple sugar time! I love this time of year - it means there really will be a spring after all. I saw a lot of maple buckets on Batchelder Rd in Raymond (NH - On my bus route) this week and I just get all warm and fuzzy. Lately there's been a movement to tap with blue tubing into a huge rubbermade bucket, which I suppose is more efficient, but it isn't as picturesque. I'm glad the folks on Batchelder Rd are still using buckets.

Big Girl Bed

Quinnie got a Big Girl Bed yesterday! We got the bed off Craig's List last November and it's been sitting in "Sam's room" ever since, but yesterday, after the latest in the great crib escape escapades I decided to get Sean to help me move the bed upstairs. Now one of the joys of living in an antique colonial is that they have quirky stair wells. Neither of our 2 stair cases is a straight shot so we went with the wider of the two, which also happened to be in closer proximity to both the bed and Quinn's room. Unfortunately for us, and the bed (and the walls) one of the drawbacks to secondhand furniture is that it comes preassembled and in this case that meant pegged and glued. So when the bed inevitably got stuck in the stairwell, we had a tough time disassembling it in situ. I was in the hall end and able to work at waist height, so my end came apart tidier than Sean's end, which was also the end that was stuck, and one of the things about modern furniture is that it's comprised mostly of particle board, which I admit is very strong and very dense, but when it breaks it's also more difficult to repair. So we had a slightly more difficult time reassembling the bed than we should have. Several hours later, Quinn's bed was all assembled and made, the crib was in the attic, her room set right, and the flared tempers tempered. We had a late dinner and started Quinn's new bedtime routine. Gone of the days of drop and go bed times, now they must be orchestrated carefully to avoid having a stressed out Mommy and a resentful, non-sleeping toddler. So I tucked her in and read her a couple of stories and turned on the music and started to leave, and it took her all of 2 minutes to run screaming and crying come get me in my room. So back I went and sat with her while she adjusted to the new bed situation, and after about 15 minutes she was out cold.