Ok continuing what I was talking about yesterday: going a little green. Here’s the fabric grocery bag I made from this tutorial. I used muslin. I really love this muslin. I like that it looks so natural and undyed and you can see specks of brown in it from the plant I guess. CAN I USE MUSLIN FOR CLOTHES TO WEAR OUT? Sorry I wrote that in caps and bolded. But I really want an answer. I love the way it looks and I want a wrap skirt and a top in that muslin, yes that’s how much I like it.

Anyhoo back to the fabric grocery bag. Alan thinks it’s a little small but it’s like an actual plastic grocery bag with gussets so it opens up more. See:

Alan wonders why I didn’t make it more tote-bag like. But this is exactly what I wanted even down to the little simple embroidery detail of a leaf.

Well actually it is little bit smaller than a grocery bag. It’s the seam allowances that did it. I will enlarge it a bit and then I just need maybe six more? Hmm…on second thought maybe I will do as Alan says and make something more tote-bag like. Then I won’t need as many bags and it can sit staying open and it will be easier to put things in. DUH!

Oh and a picture of Isabelle.

I haven’t posted a picture of her in a week. Olinda must be Isabelle deprived. So here she is playing in her playpen. Alan emptied it out and she hasn’t been in it in ages. She was having so much fun. When we took her out she would bring a chair over and try to climb back in. Funny girl.

Well I thought I’d try a patterned fabric for the Harry Potter wrap skirt. But instead of using a whole bunch of fabric making one for myself, I used less and made one for Isabelle. And it looks nice so now I will be making myself one in patterned fabric too.

And whoo hoo a button!! With a buttonhole and everything! A butthole (ha ha I accidentally typed butthole. I’m not fixing that. You know what I mean) that doesn’t look a mess! My sewing machine does something weird when making buttonholes. On the zigzag stitch going down the stitch length is looser than when it goes up. So even though I don’t change my stitch length it comes out different. So after many practice tries I think I have to adjust the stitch length myself. I don’t think that’s normal right?

And I do have a picture of Isabelle wearing it for our monthly family picture. But I’ll post that later when I get the rest of our pictures together.

Did anyone notice Isabelle’s crazy hair from the pictures at the beach? When we got her out of the car she had pulled one rubberband off. We didn’t fix it because we were in a rush to meet Olinda. When we got down to Olinda, Alan put the other side up. Everyone was laughing because it was all crazy, one side higher than the other. I saw but didn’t fix it. Then I forgot all about it. I didn’t really notice until I looked at the beach pictures again. Do you think that’s why everyone was looking at her and smiling?

Go read silly parent #33, wet.

Isabelle turned another month older last week. Sometimes I can’t get it together to post our recap on time. Oh well. It’s a week late but at least it’s here.

This month Isabelle seems to be calling for Alan more and more. When she wakes up and sees him sleeping she says deh. When we’re in the living room while he’s sleeping still, she’ll pound on the door calling for him. And when he leaves for work she pulls aside the curtain saying deh as he’s leaving.

And enter a new phase: whiney Isabelle. I am sure she whined before but she seems to have taken it to a new level. She has a whiney I want my way fake cry now. Sometimes she makes it interesting by adding a little throw myself down on the floor action to go with that cry. Yikes! HELP US! With real tears and everything.

And this isn’t new but I wanted to bring it up. The shoveling of food in her mouth. When will that become ladylike eating? Sometimes she jams so much food in, there just isn’t any room to swallow. So she spits it out. Not very ladylike either but so funny and cute.

And a concern. I know all kids are different but reading about other kids on blogs and getting one of those monthly what your toddler should be doing newsletters has got me a bit worried. Worried about what? About Isabelle’s talking or I should say her lack of talking. She doesn’t say many sentences or even many words.

Some of the words Isabelle uses frequently are ball, book, wa (water), daw (dog), ca (cat), ear, cole (cold. says it while rubbing her belly), boo (booger), shhooo (shoes), ki (kick. says it when she’s kicking a ball), poo (for anything coming from that region, even farts), mama, and deh. She does have other words but I was reading that she should understand 200 words, and probably use about 50 to 75 of them regularly. Ummm…how many did I list? Thirteen regular words? Olinda says she does talk. We just don’t understand her. Well fine. Shouldn’t we be understanding her more? Like understanding at least thirty seven more words? And sentences? The only sentence I understand is come on (I say that a lot to her). So just a bit concerned.

Go read month twenty two.

This is for my records. Not that you’d be interested in my unwelcome visitor who hasn’t made an appearance in about two years and eight months. I knew it was coming. My sister warned me of the sign.

Well on the good side, now we can have another baby.

Oh and thank you everyone on Isabelle’s lack of talking. It’s very reassuring to read all your comments! She does have an appointment coming up soon and we’ll talk to the doctor about it.