19 August 2009

A [Thunder] Shower for Baby Molly

The final week in July brought a very celebratory make. My sister Megan is pregnant with a little girl named Molly. Everything is progressing very well. Megan and Molly are both healthy and steadily growing (Molly growing all around and Megan growing...round). I love you, Megan. You're beautiful in all your pregnant roundness. :o)

When I was home (in Jersey) for the first week of August, my mom planned a baby shower for Megan and Molly. She invited 80 people...because that's how we do things. Go big or go home. And we were planning on having the shower in the picnic pavilion in our back yard--one of those crazy constructions of my parents' that I don't quite understand until we have a million people we want to feed, and then it finally clicks: of course we need a picnic pavilion. This is what our lives have been missing all along!--So we spent Saturday and Sunday morning preparing: making cute little mini-quiches with tomatoes and fresh basil, covering citronella candles with pretty paper, making blackberry syrup for blackberry lemonade, setting up the picnic tables just right, arranging jars of Baby Molly blueberry lemon marmalade my mom made as shower favors, wrapping presents that would be prizes for shower games, and so on and so forth.

Show time: we were all ready in the picnic pavilion; the tables were set; the decorations were hung; the food was ready. And then we heard the thunder. And then the sky opened up..one of those absolutely torrential summer thunderstorms that you think will pass quickly because surely the sky cannot contain that much water, but it does. We all sat in the pavilion for a little while, listening to the rain pound against the metal roof, hoping that it would stop soon. And then all of a sudden, we realized that it was time to initiate plan B, and we all snapped into action. I wish I had thought to grab my camera. As guests started to arrive, my family scrambled to move everything inside, to clear out the clutter from the classroom, to figure out seating for all these people, to set up the food, to basically completely wing it like only the Gibersons can do. There we were, running from pavilion to house and back, all soaking wet, slipping on the classroom floor, ushering guests into the house with umbrellas as we started the party from scratch, and I looked around, and I thought to myself, "It's so good to be home." There's something about mass chaos that settles me into a familiar place, where everyone works together like this is what we were made to do, and I remember what it's like to be a part of a family that is capable of greatness and flexibility and beautifully messy life.

In the end, everything worked out just fine, like we all knew it would despite our momentary panic. We ended up squeezing 50 people into our family room. The food was great. Everyone had a lovely time. And Molly made out like a bandit.

My gift to Molly was a crib quilt and bumper made from fabric that I am convinced was designed for that very purpose:
I bought a plain crib blanket and bumper from Ikea and covered them in the fabric, which was just the right width to make a simple duvet cover for the blanket. The bumper was a little trickier because it was 168" long. (That's 14 feet.) I made a giant sleeve of fabric and had Jason hold the end of the bumper while i turned the sleeve right-side out over the bumper, which stretched almost the entire length of our apartment. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the actual gifts as I made them into the wee hours of the morning the night before Jason and I headed down to the Promised Land. (Sidenote of caution: Never EVER drive from Boston to Jersey on a Friday afternoon in the summer. A normally 5 1/2 - 6 hour drive took us no less than 9 hours.)
But the important thing is that Megan thought the fabric was as perfect as I did, and I know she'll enjoy setting up Molly's crib with the pretty browns and greens and pinks and flowers and swirls that are that ideal balance of girlyness and classic understatedness. Unfortunately, Megan will just have to wait for said nesting until the mold is cleaned out of their house from the air conditioner leak in their attack, which sent Megan and Justin to live in my parents' house for a few weeks while simultaneously being 8 months pregnant and caring for their 2 foster children--a newborn and a two year old. Have I mentioned that our family thrives in mass chaos?

6 comments:

  1. Molly!!!! I love it!!!

    And oh my goodness... three kids under 3 years old... I am definitely NOT that brave. Way to go Megan!!

    Also, I'm in love with that fabric, too. It would also make an adorable bag for a dear old friend from college (ahem). Hehe, great fabric makes me want to sew things, even though I've never done any (real) sewing in my life, ever. So, even though I have no children (and no wish to have any at all right now), I love the project.

    Lastly, I wish I could've seen the Giberson girls in action during the thunder shower. I bet it was incredible :)

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  2. Robin, you are wonderful and Molly is going to LOVE her crib! You're right- it's perfect in all of it's girly and classy understatedness :o) I can't wait to see the nursery put all together. And you and Amy would be so proud of me...in my nesting phase I'm getting crafty and I made a mobile to match the crib bedding. Am I shunned for using something Martha Stewart? I know she's no Soule Momma ;o)
    http://www.marthastewart.com/article/bird-mobile?autonomy_kw=bird%20craft

    Love you and I can't wait for you to meet your neice!
    In all of my beautiful pregnant roundness,
    Megan

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  3. Hannah, if you want to sew...do it! It's really not that scary. It's kinda like cooking--just following directions. Although it does help to have a sewing machine. Are there any lovely old seamstresses at your school or church looking for a student? I'm afraid that might have to do until I move to Jersey...if I move back to Jersey. :o/

    Megan, I AM very proud of you, and no, you are definitely not shunned for using Martha Stewart. I think that mobile is adorable. You need to send me a picture of the finished project!!

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  4. Robin--in a bizarre way your blog has been getting me through a really rough time right now. It's a ray of inspiration in a really boring and visionless time! Not to mention FRUSTRATING! Since I've now read all of your archives, I'm tentatively starting August. But what will I do when I now have to wait an entire week for my new make!! When I am frustrating and sick of checking gmail to see if I have any responses to job applications. Whatever will I do!? But I am still counting on you because you've really been downright profound at times, maybe because you speak to the downtrodden creative spirit that I know has been kicked into submissive dormancy.
    I should also say--dang girl! The Robin I knew in college could in no way have strung together 6 consecutive months of blogging. Way to go!!

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  5. Wow! It's been 6 months!! I didn't even realize. I definitely need to celebrate that somehow. Hmm...

    Melissa, I'm so glad that my blog has been helpful for you and that you've enjoyed the archives. That's really so encouraging to me, and I'm very impressed that you went back through all my old posts. :o)

    It's kinda strange writing week after week, wondering if anybody is reading and if it's making any sort of difference for anyone other than me. For me, it's been healing to make things but I think it's been even better for me to be writing...to process the experience of it.

    I'll do my best to update as often as possible. I have a few possible events coming up that should increase my production, so I should have lots more to post in the months to come. As for what to do in the mean time, my inspiration links include a lot of great crafty blogs. Not all of them are as deeply profound as mine ;) but they have a lot of great ideas. Also, if you haven't seen it yet, go see Julie and Julia. It's a really good movie about self-discovery and passions and blogging. I highly recommend it.

    longest. comment. ever.

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