A Girl...

Onesie, Twosie, Buckle My Shoesie

Isn't it just like me to make a declaration of intention and then not follow through? Yes. What I mean is that I'd decided this was to be the week I share with you my homey crafty projects, but I seem to have made the decision a little prematurely, i.e., before actually completing any of said projects. To put this in context, last night we went grocery shopping directly from work, and we didn't get home until 9 p.m., which, between our requisite dinner and a movie, left little time for housework. (We may also have detoured for a quick egg toss. So there's that.) Maybe I could post about the contents of our refrigerator and pantry and the organization thereof. Our pantry, it's the weirdest I've ever seen; the top half is open to the kitchen and the lower half is bounded by a barn door with a hook-and-eye latch (very rustic; high splinter danger) and looks like it belongs in a Willa Cather novel. Whereas the front rooms of our house have remained true to their 1912 construction, the kitchen is straight out of 2002, all except this pantry, with the twee barn door and the latch and the expectation that at any moment a fleecy white lamb will burst through the gate and prance across the tile headlong into the dishwasher.

Alas, I don't have any pictures of the panty door on me right now, so you'll have to settle for this:

Remember when I (wo)manned the onesie-painting table at a baby shower last fall? Simon blew us all away with his freehand Rolling Stones design, and although he said he'd had years of practice drawing The Mouth on homework binders throughout junior high, I was sure there were equal parts luck and skill at work because it was just too dang perfect to be all talent.

Cue the birth of his niece eleven days ago and I saw it all happen again, only this time it wasn't just Rolling Stones but also Jane's Addiction and AC/DC and Dead Kennedys and Smashing Pumpkins. (Baby's parents are of the rock-and-roll persuasion; when the OB nurses asked whether they'd prefer Enya or something lighter as the background for their impending Miracle of Birth, they whipped out Black Sabbath and showed them how it's done.)

Fronts:

Backs:

Although keeping the sex of the baby a secret is a good way for parents to (temporarily) ward against amassing unwanted frilly dresses and lace bonnets, Mel and Kilo nonetheless received many gifts of the ducky/lamby/bunny variety--not exactly what you'd call "tuff grrl" accoutrements. In contrast, we've sent them a stuffed rat, a stuffed shark, tattoos, and--my favorite--pretty pink PUNK ROCK thumbless mittens. (Apparently you can buy them in black, silk-screened all fancy-like, but with Simon as my witness, I came up with this idea all by myself in the stroller aisle of Target, so there.)

(Identity protected impending permission of the parents to post the half-pint.)

Finally, as a nod to the particular joy that comes only with dressing little girls, Simon created two cutesy sleepers. The fronts were classic, "Pretty in Pink."

The backs? Well...see for yourselves.

I say Uncle Simon's going to be a hit with this kid. What do you think?