Gratitude Gifts & A Birth Story

Blogger was down this morning so I am only just getting around to posting this now. Sorry!

How do you show your feelings of immense gratitude and say thank you to someone who, without any notice, drops everything to watch over your dear little ones? How can you even begin?

Well friends, that is just what I am attempting to do. You see, we didn't really have things planned so well for Baby L's birth. After a lot of meditations on the birth and discussions with K's teachers, we decided that the girls would not attend. That was just our personal choice for our family, and every family is different and knows what is best for them.That meant we would need someone we felt extremely comfortable with to look after them while I was in labor. This was hard for us because we do not have any family nearby and, quite honestly, I didn't want to be a bother to anyone. We finally got up the nerve to ask our wonderful neighbors down the road (The wife runs a Waldorf daycare, the husband is the current 8th grade teacher at our school, and their children also attend our school), and we had some amazing people offer to do it, as well. It seemed like it would all work out ok. Back to midwife appointments and stressful 'non- stress' tests (why do they call them that when they just stress out the Mama-to-be?!). Baby L decided to stay in longer and longer.

Finally one weekend when I just couldn't take the stress any longer, I decided to try the tried and true method of inducing labor - taking a dog for a walk. (Walking Nara on a hot Virginia day induced labor with my stubborn C) We went to downtown Portland with my Paw Paw and explored the city. We even stopped by Voodoo Doughnuts as a special treat. We drove home after that and I felt nothing so I thought maybe this time around it didn't work. Then we walked through the door and my water broke. My labor with K was 10 hours total and C was 5 hours total so I was a bit nervous he would come really fast. We were about to call our neighbor when I realized there was a Waldorf teacher training workshop going on in Washington that weekend and all of our local teachers were there. Oh no!!! Everyone we had set up to watch the girls was a teacher, now what?!

Amidst the panicking, hungry girls and contractions, Kevin thought to call a family we really love and admire, a family with the sweetest little girl around that my girls love, a family that I consider to be the truest of friends, a family we could 100% trust with our precious ones... Yep, that smart man of mine called them. They said yes without hesitation. We gathered up the girls pajamas and special bags we had packed weeks before and hopped in the van. Even though by this time my contractions were only 2 minutes apart I went along for the ride. I don't remember much about dropping them off now, it's all such a blur as this was the point when my contractions became more and more intense, but I do remember the warmth I felt as soon as we walked through their front door. It just felt so safe and perfect, like this is where they were meant to spend my time in labor all along. My girls left me and ran to play with their friend not caring that we were leaving. Even my super attached koala bear C had no problems letting go. I remember writing down my contractions as we were talking and my friend's comforting hug...

Anyways, I didn't mean to go into a mini birth story there but I thought you should have a little bit of background to see just how thoughtful and caring that sweet family is, and how indebted we are to them.

Ever since Baby L's birth I have been searching and searching for a way to thank them. It needed to be just right. Then one day at one of our play dates their little girl fell in love with K and C's bonnets. That's when it hit me, this would be a perfect way to show our gratitude - sew her a bonnet! They are as much into Laura Ingalls Wilder as us and have a deep appreciation of all things handmade.

So I got to work. She expressed that she liked the cherry fabric I used for K's bonnet. I made that bonnet about 2 years ago when we traveled the Oregon Trail so I couldn't find that fabric anywhere. Then I remembered we had a tablecloth I made, but never used for the girls' table, out of that fabric.
I dug it out of one of my boxes and got to work.



She liked red or pink with the fabric so I removed the aqua rick-rack and sewed it up.



K modeling the bonnet



Then I still had fabric leftover so I made her a matching skirt to go with it.



We gave them their gifts and I think they like them. She put then on and wore them that day. BUT this is only the beginning of showing our gratitude. There is still more I would love to do for all of them. I would love to hear any suggestions you may have.

Well, that ended up being a lot longer than planned. Thanks for reading. I hope it wasn't too much.
Oh and for the record - we still don't know if it was the dog walking or the doughnuts that did it...

See you in this space tomorrow for another fun giveaway!

Gratitude Gifts & A Birth Story