sheets. ad naseum.

Everyone who knows my kids and their capacious bladders know how often I change Owen's sheets. Sometimes twice a day, because he can't always sleep more than four hours without peeing through his diaper. Since the only alternative seems to be dehydration, I live with it and just do A LOT of laundry.

I am also too cheap to buy sheets. Plus, O-dog has some VERY particular feelings about sheets, esp. those with a sub-par thread count or *gasp* poly-cotton blend. The first time I put a sheet on his bed with polyester in it, he said "Mommy, these sheets hurt my back". He was two. This would not be a problem, because when we put him in a big-boy bed, it was a twin. I promptly went to Target to buy fours pairs of sheets, which I layer with water-proof sheeting so that when I need to do a quich sheet change, I just strip off the top layer and protective sheeting, and voila- clean sheets. (He sometimes doesn't make it from midnight to eight a.m., thus rendering the midnight diaper change both ineffective and annoying.) Then, for reasons that only my pregnancy addled brain could possibly deduce, we changed his mattress to an extra-long twin, making all of his sheets useless. Awesome. This leaves me with the sheets my brother gave me with the mattress (red plaid, with holes), the cheap back-hurting sheets, and a pair of star sheets that are twin size and cause my to spew expletives whenever I struggle to jam them on the bed. Which is about three times a week, minimum. Add to all my other bed sheet quirks the fact that I don;t believe in white sheets, because I want to know at a glance whose sheets are whose during laundry time, and I am stuck either shelling out good money for (admittedly good) sheets that coordinate with each room's decor (and I am using the term "decor" as loosely as possible, here) OR doing laundry over and over while risking some of Bridget's first words for linens being spelled with only four letters.

What's a girl to do? I was seriously considering going to goodwill and searching for ex-long twin sheet sets (in all my spare time) but this thought alarmed Amanda and made me realize that my mother would DIE if she thought my children were getting bed-bugs from the homeless, or whoever might be touching the goodwill sheets. Plus, we all know that "bed-bugs" are a slightly sore topic in my extended family right now....

I was resigned to Target. Again.

Then I was putting away some laundry (don't worry, not all of it- my kitchen table is far from naked) and found my wedding sheets. I chose my bridal bedding from the Swell dorm line that Target was selling at the time, because I am a sucker for Cynthia Rowley and multi-colored stripes. I still have the shower curtain up in the kids' bathroom (well, in theory. I haven't removed the Valentine's curtain from the bathroom yet) and the hand towels. (That part is actually true). I loved the sheets because I grew up with white sheets and a powerful menstrual cycle- not a good combo. Once I realized you could get multi-colored striped and RED sheets, I felt like I had just discovered Google Reader. (Ha! Not true either- I don;t think Google Reader even existed when I got married almost seven years ago- if it did, i certainly had never heard of it. Or heard of a blog, for that matter.) Anyway, I felt elated.

These sheets were my favorite, until I got pregnant with Owen and realized what it was like not to have a real period for almost a year, and then pretty immediately afterwards (or at least it feels like it) got pregnant with Bridget. White sheets all around! Plus, my mother made me a BEAUTIFUL quilt for my 27th birthday, in pastels and clear, sea glass-ey colors. Beautiful, but not matching my multi-colored stripes.

My swell sheets, soft, beautiful.... SOFT have been languishing in the sheet box under my bed, forgotten like Junie in the rapture of motherhood. Then I got inspired, and in less than an hour, converted my beloved queen size sheets into extra-long sheets for my big boy's bed. Fitted and top. Admittedly, they look like a squirrel all hopped up on crystal meth sewed them , but they are done, on the bed and....





















They look perfect. Like I chose them for the room, spending hours online, trying to match the perfect color scheme. Mimsie made the bed quilt- TOO CUTE.

Apparently, I have a very narrow palette of acceptable decorating colors. This might seem shocking until you ask Craig how many gallons of light blue paint we have in the garage.


Five, all just a tiny bit different from one another.

(Please excuse some of the ghetto aspects of this, like the lack of bedskirt. I almost started that tonight too, but then I recognized what a bad idea it is to start a sewing project at midnight. The old me would have done it in a heartbeat, but this is the new me. The one who looks at naked mattresses, apparently.)