Embroidery and Other Lost Arts

In preparation for last week's baby shower for Irene, we guests received a square of flannel along with instructions to decorate it in whatever way we wished--paints, buttons, applique, etc. Also, we were to write a note about WHY we had chosen our design, which was to pertain to Irene, the expected baby girl, babyhood, parenthood, whatever.

The square I received was a solid dark brown. What? A baby quilt with dark brown in it? Nevermind. I decided to embroider it with a star. My note to Irene would explain that as I rocked baby Rachel I often sang "Twinkle, twinkle, little star." In the "How I wonder what you are" part of the song I would think about how I wondered how she would turn out--this baby, then this toddler--my own star.

Embroidering the flannel square--hah! First, I haven't embroidered for many years--decades, actually. Second, I didn't have any of the necessary supplies, being floss and an embroidery hoop. My friend Doris came to my rescue with the supplies, and to get a CLUE as to what the backstitch might actually look like I pulled out the fabulous, much cherished, quilt that Mom made when I was pregnant with aforementioned baby Rachel. She stenciled pictures from coloring books onto fabric pieces that she then mailed to family and friends with instructions to embroider the pictures and also their name. The most wonderful part--the part that makes me weep with joy and love and the memory of it--was that each contributor actually DID it--actually embroidered a quilt section and sent it back. OMG. Could this ever happen today? Answer: no. And that was a mere 30-some years ago.

How I cherish this quilt, with sections from all of my three grandmas (yes, three--there was a divorce when my dad was a boy), my best friends, my sisters, Tom's mom and sisters (for those of you who don't know, Rachel's dad and my second husband are both named Tom), my cousin, Rachel's future cousins.

The quilt now resides in my cedar chest, but that is ridiculous. I plan to hang it and decorate the guest room in yellow-complementing colors. I've made it quite clear to Rachel that although this is her baby quilt, it is not really HERS, since all of these contributors were doing it for me and her father, not HER. They didn't even KNOW her. In other words, she can pry it from these cold, dead hands.

The Happiness Scale: Childcare or Doing Dishes?

A recent New Yorker contained a review of two new books on happiness research. We learn along the way that happiness research is an actual field of scientific study, more or less launched by a seminal paper published in 1978. Who knew?

These juicy tidbits, tossed our way so effortlessly by New Yorker staff writers, are precisely why I read the magazine cover to cover. And precisely why I suffer so every December 31 when I collect the year's unread issues from the bedside, the bathrooms, the coffee table, and the handbags and force myself to throw them out, an act showing considerable strength of character, in my view. I have to fight against the Grandma Myrtie gene.

Grandma Myrtie read the Lansing State Journal every day, and at some point--she must have been in her eighties--she could never quite finish the day's paper. But she refused to discard them because she still wanted to read them. Was still sure she would read them. By the time she was 90, the newspapers were stacked waist-high against walls and heaped on every chair and couch. My house would be thus littered with New Yorkers if I followed my genetic impulse.

Back to the happiness research (yes, we're still on that topic, and I'll soon get to the point). Not eight lines after the field-of-happiness-research tidbit came this wow statement--offered only parenthetically, mind you: "Studies have shown that women find caring for their children less pleasurable than napping or jogging and only slightly more satisfying than doing the dishes."

Ah, scientific support for what I have believed for years.

Recently a friend with a toddler posted on Facebook: "Eat breakfast, have playdate, walk to park, eat lunch, take nap, visit grocery store, push trike, eat dinner take bath, read story, hit sack. Repeat."  I commented: "That's what I now refer to as Parent Prison. You're in the hard labor part--on the chain gang." I knew my friend would recall our recent coffee date (sans toddler) when I had pointed out that a young woman, juggling coffee and a squirming child at a nearby table, was in Parent Prison.

But after my clever post, other of her Facebook friends weighed in with positive comments on motherhood and toddlers. I felt, once again, that I am the only one who thinks putting Cheerios in a Ziploc bag and scheduling my life around naptime is akin to hard time on the rock pile. OK, maybe not that bad, but go with the hyperbole.

I considered posting a follow-up explanation on Facebook, explaining that I do think having a kid is thrilling and worth it all and something I would not trade for anything.

Thank you, New Yorker. I am vindicated. I was in the mainstream all along when I was a lot happier taking a nap than playing Candyland.

Mantras and Motherhood

Yesterday I read on Rachel's Facebook page: "I've officially become my mother. I've adopted her habits, her mannerisms, the way she talks, and several of her mantras."

Wow! I was thrilled. I called her and told her I was putting my little finger to my mouth right then. My own Mini-Me! 

But I didn't even know I had mantras! She pointed out that my "let's make a spreadsheet" mantra is one that she has down. Good one. Every party I host has a spreadsheet. Christmas cards have a spreadsheet There are spreadsheets for birthdays and anniversaries, house projects, Daddy's funeral arrangements, medications. I mean, I can't imagine how people live without spreadsheets.

What other mantras do I have, I wondered. It would be fun to make a list. But first I should look it up. "Mantra: A mystical formula or incantation. Also, watchword." "Watchword: A motto that embodies a principle or guide to action of an individual or group; a guiding principle."

OK, that works. Here we go:

1. Always make a list.

2. Always look up the definition of words you're not absolutely sure of.

3. A place for everything, and everything in its place.

4. There's no point in owning a car that's not red.

5. What the world needs now is love. (I adopted that during the Vietnam war, which coincided with the first release, by Jackie DeShannon, of the song by Hal David/Burt Bachrach.)

6. Use beautiful postage stamps, not the boring ones showing the flag or the liberty bell. 

That's enough for now. What are some of your mantras?