The Beans (Spilled) and a Giveaway

First, I should tell you guys that I'm giving away a pack of cards at Funky Finds.  The pack contains five cards, each with a different painting, signed by yours truly. 

But wait.... what's that in the background.  Look closely.  Squint.  Turn your head side-ways.  You might see a glimpse of what I've been up to.   Nine paintings.  Months in the making.  Finished yesterday.  Soon to be boxed up and sent to Japan.  What's in Japan, you ask?  Well, you can read about that in Kathy Miller's blog.  Are we getting warmer?  Kathy Miller (of Michael Miller fabrics)  has been traipsing all over Asia, meeting with Fabric mills.  Japan, she says, has the best.  So there you have it (the spilled beans that is.) 

As a life long sewer, and lover of beautiful fabric, I am ecstatic about having my paintings on fabric.  As a painter I have often been inspired by fabric (I've already confessed my blubbering adoration for Kaffe Fassette.)  So I feel like this is coming full circle for me.

In celebration of my announcement  I'm going to give away a pack of cards here too.  but unlike Jessica's  giveaway, I'm making you work for it.  Share something embarrassing your kid has said.  You know, like when I was at the grocery store and Lily asked in her loudest little voice, "mom, why does that lady have a beard."  If you don't have a kid, use a friend's.

I'll give another example for your amusement.   I was on bed rest after finishing up in-vitro.  We were new in the neighborhood.  A neighbor came to the door. 

neighbor, "can I talk to your mom."

Lily, "She's in bed making a baby."

Neighbor, confused, "where's your dad?"

Lily, "He's upstairs with my mom."

Dave had to rush downstairs and straighten that out.

That's it then.  Ready set go.  {Wow!  Thanks for all your funny stories.  We have a winner--my next post}

Comments

[kira]

Well, here goes ... and am I first? :) My son was 4 years old & we use the correct terms for things (like the DR. told us to). My husband took my son with him to visit some elderly couple in the ward and while there my son was playing and having a good ol' time. All of a sudden he ran over to my DH and looked very distressed. My husband asked him what was wrong and he looked RIGHT at the elderly couple and said, "My P****s is hard & it hurts." The elderly couple looked so embarressed (which I'm told was nothing next to the look on my husband's face) and they quickly left afterwards.

[kira]

Congratulations by the way!!! I can't wait to get my hands on some! :)

[Laurie]

oh. WOW. L A U R A !!! I guessed it days ago when you were prantzing around quiltmarket with the big wigs! yay...i'm so happie for you, girl! I cannot wait to get my hands on your beautiful flowery fabric goodness....I'm sure your sweet momma is so proud of you, as your dear dad would be, too. Gorgeous prints/cards of your paintings, too.....as for an embarassing kid story, well, um...kids will be kids so i can't honestly say my kids embarase me, but the other day we were out for a walk in the park, and this really old car pulls up (all rusty and lowered with mags, and no muffler) and my kids say out loud: "hey, mom, look at that old junky car, who would ever want to have one like that?!" and i whisper quietly to them with pursed lips, "SHHH, honey, i'll tell you later." and she insists with this: "well it looks so junky and all jacked up!" out of the mouth of babes. LOL~

[Valarie]

Congrats! Can't wait to see the fabric!

I am stealing this story from my sister...she was in a dressing room with my 3 year old niece one day, and my niece said in her loudest voice "Mommy, you have a lot of fat!" My sister was mortified of course. The next week they went shopping again, and my sister reminded my niece not to talk about her fat in the dressing room. As my sister was trying on pants, my niece this time belted out "You really need to shave mom!" My sister said "Amanda, what did I say?!" My niece replied, still loudly, "What? You just said not to talk about your fat!" Gotta love 'em, huh?

[Jackie]

Congratulations! I so look forward to seeing (and sewing with) your fabric! I share your admiration of Kaffe Fassette and was lucky enough to take one of his workshops a few years ago - genius, that man.

My son is just barely speaking full sentences so I'll share one that I witnessed. A neighbor's son loves the Toy Story movie and got a "Woody" doll for his birthday. He ran up to another neighbor at our block party and said "Hi! I have a Woody!" I love kids!

[Heather Bailey]

Yay, the beans are spilled! That means that I can spill a few of your beans too over at my place : )

[Sandi Henderson]

It's about time I tell ya. I have been waiting and waiting for the spilling of the beans! Yay! I have company at MM!

Sandi

[Cary]

Wow! Your work is absolutely amazing!!!!

As for an embarrassing moment, it happened in a public restroom. My daughter was just recently potty trained and was in the stall with me. Another lady was in the next stall. My daughter insisted on reacting to every single noise made in the next stall!!! She would say, "OH!"....."Yeahhhh!!!!" and clap and say "Uh, she pooped!" and clap and say "Good girl!" The whole time, I'm whispering as loud as I can "SHUT-UP!!!!!!" My daughter had no clue that I was bothered by it and was reacting all the way out of there. I'm sure it was more embarrassing for the lady if she figured out what was going on. After that I made sure the stalls next to us were empty!

[Bess]

Your paintings are beautiful.

As for the embarrassing story...A few years back my husband and I and our very chatty 3 year old were renting a house that was up for sale. One day when a realtor was bringing through a client to look at the house my daughter decided to give them the tour. First stop were the bedrooms, second stop was the living room where she proudly pointed to the couch and said "that is where my daddy sleeps!" It was true. I was pregnant and could not sleep with him in the bed but I didn't really have a chance to explain and there was some very awkward laughter.

[Debbie, Pennsylvania]

Love your work...such beautiful paintings. My story: My son was about 2 when the song "Who Let the Dogs Out" was a big hit. My son and my daughter are 11 years apart so at that time she was 13 and loved to encourage him to say or do things at inappropriate times to get a laugh. Well, one day my husband, myself and our 2 kids were in a very uptight, very quiet antique shop (you know the kind where you tell your kids not to breathe on anything for fear of being banned from the shop for life.) Well, getting back to the hit song: my son was in his stroller and we asked our daughter to stand with him while we looked around. We were upstairs when suddenly we heard my son start singing "Who let the dogs out...woot, woot." The next verse, which I'm sure to this day our daughter told him to say, was "Who let my butt-crack out..woot, woot."

My husband and I were laughing histerically since WE have a sense of humor. We quickly ran down before the next verse. We made our way to the front counter and let me tell you, I have never met anyone so uptight in my life. The shop owner's stare could have stopped traffic or burn a hole thru a brick wall.

As we were leaving (I couldn't help myself) I had to say "Get a sense of humor, lady." Needless to say we never visited that shop again....her stare told us we were banned for life.

[Kim (McClellan) Mercer]

That is really exciting about the fabric! I can't wait to see it.

Embarrassing story--I'm another one who doesn't get too embarrassed by my kids--although my daughter does talk incredibly loud everywhere and all the time, so we've had the "This is so boring. I want to go home" in the middle of church loud enough for just about everyone to hear, or comments about how stinky someone's breath is or public restrooms. One that I found pretty funny, although I worried about what the people listening thought our bathroom must look like--we were in the church bathroom and as soon as we walked in the stall, she exclaims, "Ooh, inside the potty is very clean! It's beautiful!!!" I hope people don't think we don't clean our toilets--we really do!

[Courtney]

I've been admiring your paintings from afar too long. And so, I delurk. :-)

Embarrassing moment:
My three year old, while at a check-out, saw a fairly large woman behind us who was leaning over her cart. This action did not do her rear-end area a bit of good. In fact, for the first time, my sweet daughter became concerned by the size of this woman's behind and continued to try and discuss it with me, confused, concerned, and with the hand gestures (arms open wide). I had the most difficult time not laughing at my daughter, trying to pay, and keeping a hand over her innocent little mouth.

[emily]

Yeah! Spilled Beans.

I love how you keep us in suspense. :) -Still waiting for pics of that gorgeous chair, btw.-

You have some amusing Moms that read your blog. These stories are hillarious! Good luck picking one.
****************
A few weeks ago, I took my baby to lunch, just the two of us. She is going through that super fun stage where she is absorbing as much information as she can every day. She points to things and then looks at me with her head cocked to one side. That's my cue to tell her what it is, and then she repeats the word... over and over and over again. At lunch, she picked up my fork. And my conditioned response was to say, "Fork."

"Fruck." she replied.
"Fruck. FRUCK. FRUCK!" My baby was cursing at me in triplicate...and the quiet restaurant goers thought it was hillarious. Thank goodness.
**********

On another subject, when you volunteered for The Mother's Day Project, how long did it take for them to get back to you? I signed up via email, but haven't heard from them. Wondering if I should send another email.

[Molly]

Alrighty: Recently at church during Children's Time at the front of the entire congregation, the pastor asked if the kids had ever heard a bell. My daughter raised her hand high and said, "My mom has an alarm clock, but she does NOT get up when it goes off."

Congratulations!

[Kelly beeson]

I really want the cards, Laura.

I have two entries, since maybe you won't find one funny enough to win, but for sure you will find the other one hilarious.

First, when Ross was a baby my Mom the speech therapist taught him to talk WAY too early. At first it was fun because he was like a parrot and we could show off his skillz. But then he actually started to understand what he was saying, and who knew 13 month olds could have such a biting, dry wit? I got up to lead the music in Sacrament meeting one Sunday, and Ross stood up on the back row and yelled "HEEEEEY, BAAAAABY!" like he was the lonely construction worker and I was hot supermodel walking by his work site.

My brother R is mentally handicapped. Maybe my great-grandparents were a little bit, too, because they named their son EDSIL, like the car. We would go to my Grandma's house to visit and R would run outside into the south pasture and yell, "Hey, (word that means hole-in-ur-bum but starts with an A)" in greeting to uncle Edsil. If Edsil didn't hear (which he often didn't, he was a little deaf), Ryan would yell it over and over. It was pretty awesome.

[Angela]

Congrats on the fabric and on the lovely cards! Woo Hooo!

Embarassing story? My 2 yo daughter saw another woman breast feeding her baby and asked what she was doing. I explained that she was feeding her baby just like mommy used to do with her. She looked at the woman again, then at me, pulled down my shirt, looked at my breasts, looked back over at the woman feeding her little one and said "I don't think so". Talk about me turning very, very red. Ouch! We had a nice talk about pulling down Mommy's shirt in public after that.

[beth]

ok....just had to comment on this one..WOW, how do you pick just one......
My favorite is last year when my 3 year old son, decided he wanted the big woody with a hat for christmas, SO everytime anyone especially Santa asked him what he wanted he replied, "A BIG WOODY"..how do you explain that one??? And he was sooooo cute!

CONGRATULATIONS Laura, How come I always hear everything thru the grapevine????????

[Laura Gunn]

These are hilarious! Who knew woody dolls would cause us so much trouble. And now I know not to name my next child Edsil. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one with stories like these.

I'll let this run until tomorrow night.

[margie r]

Upon her return from France (as a nanny) I visited with my daughter in Toronto. Her host family asked me if I would like a glass of wine. When I politely refused, Anne said "Oh yeah, Katie told us one drink and you fall asleep." Out of the mouths of children!

margie r

[kelly]

Laura, Melanie thinks she suckered YOU into coming.I can't wait to see you. Are you bringing your painting stuff? I'd love a painting.

[Mary]

Congrats on the new fabric line! How awesome!

[Melissa]

My nephew and I were visiting a neighbor, an older man. He happened to have bare feet with very yellow gross toe nails. My little nephew stared at his feet and said, "Gross! Whats wrong with your toes!"

[Faith W]

Laura,

Congratulations! I am so thrilled for you, what an accomplishment, sending best wishes and big smiles your way.

Now for my most recent example of motherly pride:

I was standing in a very long, very childless line at the downtown post office this Christmas with my three energy-crazed boys when my four year old, Henry, yelled "MOM! I NEED TO GO POTTY!" Well, I had already been waiting in the line for a good 25 minutes and was now just a few people back from the front of the line and so I quietly whispered, "Ok honey, can you wait just a couple of minutes? Mommy is almost done, ok?" To which he replied, "I CAN'T WAIT! MY POOPIES ARE COMING OUT! (small pause) RIGHT NOW! I FEEL THEM!!!!"

One of our finer moments, for sure ...

[Tiffany]

Congratulations, Laura! Can't wait to buy some of your fabric.

Here's my story...
I don't remember this, but my mother tells me that we were in a fast food drive-thru when I was about 3 years old, and as she was handing money to the cashier I asked, "Mommy, is that a boy or a girl?" She was mortified. She assures me I'll get it back times ten when I have kids of my own. I still wonder that about some people, but I've learned to keep my mouth shut until the person is gone!

[Lanne]

LOL @ all the stories. My mother dressed us in our sunday best and took us up to the hospital to visit my Aunt and Uncle - very proud..very new parents of my newborn cousin. Mum held us up to the window and let us look at the baby in the nursery...

Back we went to the room.. and everyone was cooing and ohhing. and .. foolishly they asked me (all of 5?) what I thought. I got up really close the baby's mother and said.. well.. It might be alright when they fix it. Your baby has an ugly squished face and a flat nose.

LOL - I dont think anyone saw the funny side - and I wasn't invited to the cousins wedding last weekend. Good thing I got a sense of humour!