Tick Tock

You may remember the quilt for my mother-in-law and her 70th birthday…still. Lordy, the lady is now 70 years and 7 days old and I still have yet to present a finished quilt to her.

Pardon me, but my gig is making baby quilts and the impact of a day passing, a week passing within one project is so minuscule it’s alien to me. And yet, I feel a certain urgency with this quilt. The quilt will soon belong to someone whose longevity precedes its very threads.

Unlike the smaller colourful quilts sporting nuances of liveliness and the joy of things yet beholden, this near-complete quilt embraces the pieces of a time gone past. It captures the love and life of family in each row, speckled with images aged in sepia tone conveying an era, an existence and, most importantly, a gift shared over the last seven decades.

So much is happening in our abode, there is blame to half a dozen reasons why this quilt is not finished. The girls and sickness, I and sickness, job searching, job beginning, cleaning and preparing for au pair, welcoming au pair…take your pick, I have plenty of excuses.

Why just yesterday…I darted from room to room, trying to rush out the door by 6:30am. That was before the morning had spun me merciless. My schedule begins at 5:30am, but on this morning, Babydoll decided 4:30 would do just as well. After soothing her back to sleep, a feverish Cutiepie awoke at 5:15. Babydoll was now back awake. Once both were settled in makeshift beds on the couch, my morning marathon began.

“Can you put Dora the Explorer on?”
“Mommy, I need a pillow!”
“Can I have a drink?”
“Mommy, the TV stopped!”
“My blanket fell off!”
“Mommy, I’m hungry!”
“I want cereal!”
“I want cereal too! But no milk. Spoon, Please!”
“Mommy, can I have orange juice?”
“Mom, Babydoll’s kicking me!”
“Mommy, the TV stopped!”
“But I don’t want Babydoll to look at me!”

A long suspecting silence from the TV room until finally, the reason emerges.

“Mommy, Cutiepie knocked over her cereal!” All over the white rug.

After clean up and a quick two minutes spent on showering and preparing myself for the outside world, I decided at this late a point, another measly 10 minutes wouldn’t make a difference. The damage had been done. It was now after 7am and this new timing meant a long two hour drive to my new job, once affectionately coined, “Worth the Drive”.

For the next several minutes I explained, in a very stern voice, that as much as I loved them, Babydoll and Cutiepie must find a way to sleep until 7am or otherwise sit unsupervised, self sufficient upon Dora TV recordings until the rest of the world awakes at a sane hour. After being sprinkled with snotty wet kisses and bad baby breath, I continued my frantic march through the house en route to work.

It was then I saw and heard the notion of time and all it meant. From the corner of my sewing area, there is a silent ticking, a slow ticking away of time. Awakening me, though this was not my countdown to work. This clock was of a different kind. It is the kind that matters.

Family photos peeked out from the folds of fabric reminding me of time well spent.

Tick. Tock.