birthday love from Atlanta

 Just right 1st birthday gifts for Asher...

and amazing 5th birthday gifts for Audrey.

The reaction: 

Lucky, lucky us!

Oh, and by the way, Larissa, I just added the movie to my queue, so we'll see if it still holds the same allure now as it did when I was a kid. Popeye didn't fail me, so I have high hopes. 

simple top for girls of all ages

Here's an easy top I made for Aud last summer, but never got around to posting. I used this tutorial, which was super simple and straightforward, for the basic construction, adding a band of contrasting fabric along the bottom.

Image courtesy of Banana Republic

I was reminded of it recently when I saw this lovely, grown up version. Who'd have thought? Doesn't it look like a variation on the simple pillowcase dress that so many folks have made, including myself? Never really thought of making an adult version, though. I may have to go find myself some printed silk...

whether you're a mother or a child or ever were a child with a mother...

Here's a poem for you...

The Lanyard by Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly

off the blue walls of this room,

moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,

from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,

when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary

where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist

could send one into the past more suddenly—

a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp

by a deep Adirondack lake

learning how to braid long thin plastic strips

into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard

or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,

but that did not keep me from crossing

strand over strand again and again

until I had made a boxy

red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,

and I gave her a lanyard.

She nursed me in many a sick room,

lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,

laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,

and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,

and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.

Here are thousands of meals, she said,

and here is clothing and a good education.

And here is your lanyard, I replied,

which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,

strong legs, bones and teeth,

and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,

and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.

And here, I wish to say to her now,

is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,

but the rueful admission that when she took

the two-tone lanyard from my hand,

I was as sure as a boy could be

that this useless, worthless thing I wove

out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

(You should really listen to Billy Collins read this poem himself here.) 

Happy Mother's Day to you all, and especially to you, Mom. Can't wait for you to get here so I can tell you in person.