shiso mama

I guess I’ve been unofficially growing out my hair ever since I cut it. Not that I hate it, really, but I think I’ve finally realized that the texture of my hair makes it so that it will never look how I envision it should look, no matter how much styling and product I (theoretically) use. By the time I realized that I desperately needed a trim, however, it took an additional few weeks to actually book an appointment with my stylist, who, having decided to return to graduate school, only cuts hair on Saturdays.

So when I showed up in her chair last weekend, I was feeling vaguely apologetic, as though the state of my overgrown hair was an insult to her craft. I guess I was feeling a little eager, as well.  Trim here here and here, I requested. Get rid of this cowlick, chop off that insouciant kick of the hair. And by the time I left the salon, I looked like this:

Hmm, well it seemed like a good idea when I was describing it to her…
Then I realized that I was no Karen O, and I felt a little like this:

Hmm, in fact, the more I thought about it, the more I felt like a little immigrant girl, fresh off the boat. Case in point:

(a little aside - lately I’ve been obsessed with the thought that one of my eyes is askew, a la Shannen Doherty, but looking at this old picture of me made me realized that I’ve always been like this!)

Here, let’s see the old me and the new me side by side, shall we?

You see my point, despite my sad attempt to sweep my hair to one side.

And here’s another disturbing image:

Yes yes, it’s all full of love and pukable adorableness, but have you noticed that our haircuts now match? Who’s his hairdresser? Me. Maybe one of these days, I’ll start dressing him like me too.

So, have you been holding your collective breath for the fabulous, stupendous DWR finds??

Have you been robbed of your sleep?
Lost your appetite?
Been unable to focus on your work?

Well, wait no longer.

Drum roll, please…….

Ta da:

What is it, you ask? Is it a modern, life sized sculpture of a bird which somehow unfurls into a sheltered picnic table? An exciting toy whittled by the mysterious Dwarves of the Bavarian Forests?

No, it’s really just a little bird that chirps when you move close to it or turn off the light, and it’s for Otis. Oh, and it’s standing next to my Yi Xing pottery peanut, which is one of the few tchotchkes that I’ve kept over the years. I’ve had the bird on my work table for the last couple of days, and I keep forgetting about it, moving my arm into its range, and having the crap scared out of me whenever it starts chirping. Maybe we should cancel our subscription to the alarm company and just set this thing by the door. Or, if I were the type to diet, I’d put it near some food.

Oh wait, and don’t let me forget this other little find:

My love, my treasure, my robe hook.

Can you guess? We didn’t really find anything. Sigh. The prices weren’t that great and the selection was small. Not a single Flor tile anywhere. It was pretty disappointing. Luckily, we met up with our friends there, drank coffee and ate cupcakes and buttery croissants all morning while we waited to charge through the doors, all of us sans babies, which was fun and thrilling all by itself. Oh well, that’s OK. I think a big part of this whole sample sale obsession is the thrill of the hunt, and the fun of the anticipation. We’ll just wait until the next one. Sorry for the lack of vicarious thrills.

These days we have been in full-on home improvement mode. This despite the fact that we moved into our remodeled “dream” home 15 months ago. Isn’t that a positively absurd and depressing thought? Really, though, by the time we moved in, we were so exhausted by making decisions and spending money that we just needed a loooooong break. So we have lived without curtains on our windows. And we piled all our clothes in stacks. And we apologized endlessly to all our neighbors for letting the weeds take over our yard (and we would apologize for making them watch us parade around indecently as well, but we don’t know how to approach the subject).

So we gave Otis away for the weekend and worked away. We were too busy to think about a fashionable Sunday. And we installed some cabinets on the wall downstairs that will ostensibly be storage for Otis’s toys and other stuff. I guess we can finally take his Christmas and birthday presents out of the basement, poor kid. You can see the work in progress in the background here:

How can you not love a man that wields power tools such? I mean, it almost makes up for him not being an architect/doctor/musician who writes sappy guitar love songs. But props to me, I wield power tools such as well (but no, no pictures). Here are my men working together:

Although one of the men preferred dancing with the tools rather than working with them:

Doesn’t he look like he should be a stripper or in the Village People?  We’re excited about the projects we’re working on. I’ll post photos as we finish projects. This way, I’ll remember how things looked before a certain someone systematically destroys all our hard work.

Do you ever put on a couple of pounds (or maybe more, I prefer not to know) and your body just feels all out of sorts?

Nowadays, no outfit is complete without his yellow rainboots and his baby man-purse, stuffed full of striped elephant and small plastic animals. We actually saw one of his classmates at the farmer’s market this morning, and they spent a fair amount of time chasing each other around, whoever possessing the elephant being the pursued.  Did you notice I finally cut his bangs?  Not that it helps, since it looks like he needs another haircut again…

A new habit we’ve noticed:

When Otis eats finger food, he’ll always eat with one hand and hide another piece behind his back. Just in case a mysterious, ghoulish food thief should appear, I suppose.

I’ve been hearing some buzz on the internets about the new Daiso store that opened up here in Daly City, so I stopped there last weekend. Have you heard of it? It’s like a 99 cent store, except one that you’d find if you died and went to Heaven because although it’s junk, it’s Japanese junk (even if it is still made in China) and there’s so much fun, clever stuff, most of it to be had for $1.50(damned exchange rate!). It’s the kind of place where I could drop my mom off with some snacks and a few bottles of water, and pick her up a week later, bags in hand and under her eyes.

I went trolling for goodies to pack up in an “airplane entertainment” kit for our baby friend, Emmett, who was flying to New Orleans. We packed up these finds from Daiso, along with a pad of paper, a Doodle Board, and some emergency snacks in a baby-sized backpack.  I’m anxious to hear how it worked. We’re going to Taiwan this summer, and we’ll need plenty of entertainment for our looooong flight.

(some wooden toys/puzzles, a multi-colored crayon/pen, stickers, and a wooden whistle)

Speaking of shopping, you know I’m a total whore for the sample/warehouse sales, right? I mean, I only talk about them non-stop. Well, the next DWR warehouse sale is slated for next weekend, and my sale buddy, Helen, and I have already resigned ourselves to our usual sample sale frenzy. If you’re local, here’s your chance - we’ve purchased tons of Flor tiles (totally brilliant, in my opinion), some good furniture, and tons of great baby stuff. If you see a couple of Asian moms with crazed looks in their eyes, shoving aside pregnant ladies and old people, that’ll probably be us.

My friend, Takako, and I met in birth class more than two years ago, and I’m so terribly fond of her, despite the awful fact that she packed up and moved to Boston shortly after the birth of their son. She is the kind of friend who will remember your unhealthy obsession with the country of her birth and send you goodies when she visits home. She is the kind of friend whose mother will send you gifts. She is the kind of friend who, on this most recent visit, not only bought you treats from one of your favorite stores in the world, but also this wonderful bundle of fabrics:

I think the apple fabric on top is my favorite. Did you notice that cup of Japanese cuteness?

That’s the kind of friend who deserves a little gift in return. So when her birthday rolled on by (she shares a birthday with Otis) and her son’s birthday approached, I made them matching bags! A baby man-purse for Tamaki, and a tote for mom. I know, matchiness can be annoying, but somehow, mom and son matchiness seemed OK. Plus it’s complementary, not identical. Plus…yes, I’m just justifying now.

The baby man-purse:

It’s made of a denim-y linen material, with a freeform denim shape stitched on top, edges left raw, and some felt balls (which Otis referred to as “trees”). I wanted Otis to model it, but after taking a series of these pictures, I questioned the setting and the wardrobe of the photo shoot:

I PROMISE, Takako, no bare baby butt touched that bag! He’s wearing (under)pants!!

So we went outside with clothes on, but this is what happens after you teach a baby to smile for the camera:

A lot of whipping around of the head to mug for the camera, and turning of one’s body so that the bag that one is ostensibly modelling is not at all visible (look how he’s even posing with a prop!). So he had to be tricked into running towards the door to look for Baba:

A train whistle made modelling mom’s bag a little easier:

Same idea with the freeform shape and raw edges, but with some snaps sewn on for decoration.

We hear the family is sick, but hope that they will be able to take an outing soon with their new bags.

Speaking of packages, I received my own extremely exciting one of my own from Stephanie. She held a contest for her one-year blogging anniversary, and wouldn’t you know it? I got chosen from her enormous pool of readers. She sent me this wonderful little pillow:

If you’ve read her blog or seen her shop then you’ll know what I mean when I say that it is every bit as beautiful and wonderfully constructed as you would expect. Check her out. Thank you Stephanie!

F and I have started the process of writing our wills (scary, depressing stuff that we should’ve done ages ago), and we’ve been talking to some friends about possible guardianship of Otis, in case something happens to us. We’ve received very enthusiastic responses, to the effect of “Oh my God, I would LOVE to!!!!” And while we are very pleased that Otis would find such happy homes with loving people, would it kill these, ahem, “friends” to make at least add the afterthought of “Oh, and I’d be very sorry that you’d both be dead”???? But, as one friend wryly pointed out, what exactly is the right response here?

Click here to view collage #162.

Hope you are enjoying the (holiday) weekend.  Here’s our little (Easter) ham this Fashion Show Sunday:

Still love our little elf hat:

We went to a Easter Egg Hunt/Brunch today, and as I scanned the crowd of kids wearing their Easter finery or just their everyday casual play clothes, I felt a momentary pang of guilt dressing Otis up as I do. Then I saw one of my favorite kids in the neighborhood and felt better although yes, it’s true, she does dress herself:

(leotard, shirt, thigh high pink socks, pink rainboots)

Which leads me to our latest recycled sweater tutorial. This one took a few more brain waves than the last project, but I’m pretty pleased with the results. I had this sweater, and while I loved the colors and the stripes, the turtleneck made me feel like I was choking every time I put it on:

First I washed and dried it. Then I cut off the turtleneck (using my handy rotary cutter) and turned over the edge and stitched it. Here’s the inside view:

The ribbed hem cinched in a little and I didn’t want it any tighter, so I cut off the hem before taking in the sides of the sweater. Then I trimmed off the excess and reattached the hem, topstitching afterwards. Another inside view:

I cut off the cap sleeves because they didn’t lay in the right place on a toddler, and turned over a hem and stitched. The sleeveline stretched a little (and I think I need to take the sleeve in a little more), but a little steaming helped.

It seemed plain so I played around with some of the extra pieces. I decided a Peter Pan-ish collar was too girly, even for me.

I ended up with a contrasting stripe down the middle (using some of the excess from the sides) and then F and I decided to make it into a “tie” using the tip of one of the cap sleeves because we thought it was funny. ho ho. It even has a little bit of stuffing in it to make the knot a little puffy. It’s all zigzag stitched on.

Anyone going to try?