Clover skirt , and mom talk

This was my final project for kids clothes week - a super simple skirt with a twist. This time I managed to keep it to the most basic of skirt construction: fold over waistband, hem, elastic. 

How could I not make something with this briar rose clover fabric for Clover? It's so vintage sweet, has the little clover leaves and flowers, and cute crickets hiding through it. Of course, I did manage to make the print point downwards, which is kind of weird. Oh well. Not the end of the world.

This essex linen kick of mine couldn't stop, so I added a pocket shaped like a cat and fabric painted with a face. I spent about 5 minutes slapping paint on there for the face, so don't judge. Lol. Not the most sophisticated piece of art. But I got 5 stitches into embroidering a face on there before I remembered how much I dislike embroidering. So instead, I pulled the stitches out and threw the paint on there while holding Violet.

Sadly, there are no pictures of my chicken legs wearing her Clover skirt, but it's not been the easiest thing getting her to cooperate with me for anything lately... and I didn't have the emotional energy to do any unnecessary cajoling to get a few pictures. Our relationship is tumultuous, and we have some beautiful moments of joy mixed in with big blowups and hurt feelings.  She's 4 and it already feels like we're getting a taste of the teen years.

Without having planned it, I sat down with the girls and scrolled through pictures of Clover as a baby. Truthfully, it started as a squabble between Clover and I over the definition of "boy hair", as I insisted that girls can have short hair and boys can have long hair, and just because a baby has short hair, it is not necessarily a boy. She emphatically disagreed, so I decided to show her all the pictures of herself with a bald little head. 

As we looked through the pictures I was filled with memories of that unique time of enjoying life and its relative simplicity when we had our first little baby, I think I was 23?, and it was all just about spending time as a family watching Clover discover life. Everything changed so much following the birth of her sister, when Clover was just 18 months old, and as time has gone on and the girls get older, I feel like I have less of a grasp on my job as mom/wife/homemaker than ever.

Now that we are mere days away (dear God, I hope so anyway) from welcoming the third child into our family, I hope that sometimes I can reclaim that simplicity of the first months with Clover. How does that happen? I don't know. Maybe in moments of intentional letting go of all the responsibilities, difficulties, and self doubt that weighs on my heart as a mom.