We All Need Someone

Mom, when you were little did you have an imaginary friend?

Absolutely.

What was his name?

Mr. Fox.

Was he a boy or a girl?

MISTER Fox was a boy.

What did he look like?

I think he was like a fox that walked like a grown up.
So do you have an imaginary friend?

Yes.

What does he look like?

He has like skinny arms and he is yellow.

Like Sponge Bob?

No, like a little fluff ball with crazy eyes.

like The Lorax?

No, that guy has a mustache and my friend just has a really nice smile. He always listens to me.

FBSG: The Crafts

please note hair and clothing during FB.

Our home is always a flurry of fake productivity in the form of crafts. In our kitchen roughly a quarter of our pantry space is dedicated to paper, pens, coloring books, googly eyes, glue sticks, markers, crayons (melted and otherwise), foam mosaics, wooden figures, plaster bobbleheads, and the like. Then in the basement – which we recently finished – there is a “guest” room that is roughly the size of two bedrooms and has two closets, a sewing table, two sewing machines, a work table overflowing with computers and files and project ideas, an ironing board, and the remnants and preparations of thousands of craft ideas that I have either cooked up and never finished or tried and abandoned with little to no success. It’s safe to say that any break from school includes a crafternoon, or two,maybe three. It’s also likely that said crafts will be ambitious, messy, overwhelming to the entire house, and somewhat popular with the littles.

Over Fall Break I had my hidden craft surprises and one that I let the children choose. The second half of that statement actually reflects the extent to which I will go when I am bribing my children in a fabric store.

Our surprise crafts were the frosting and chocolate cookie haunted house, the wood bead spooky creatures, and a foam haunted house. These came out of The Halloween Box.

But on a frenzied afternoon at JoAnn’s I happened upon a 99 cent pattern sale that I had to look through. Had to. So, I told the boys to also look through the patterns and find a craft they might like to make during Fall Break. They picked Simplicity 5310, McCall’s 6052, and McCall’s 6481. I did say ambitious, right?

I bought all three patterns but when the rubber hit the road and I actually made the boys cut their own patterns and hunt for their own fabric scraps (in my scrap bag that is daunting) they narrowed their scope of work to McCall’s 6481. This pattern aids in the creation of a zoo of stuffed toys that look an awful lot like Angry Birds, thus the appeal.

The wood bead craft took only an hour. I like crafts to take at least two hours because you spend a half hour preparing and another half hour cleaning up. So, you better get the most out of your Fall Break, right?

But the Angry Birds took all night long. The boys cut their own pattern pieces and selected their own fabric. I had some concerns about Mason’s choices at first. But you know what, he has an artist's eye and it all worked out famously. This pattern is a bit fiddly for a novice sewist. It was hard for my children to do much more than the body pieces and the stuffing. I was left to close the birds and sew details like the eyes. I would recommend making this in fleece or felt. My kids just used what I had which made for some tricky materials to run through the machine.

The two boys attacked the project differently. Cooper's was the most ambitious. He got the cutting done much faster than Mason. Mason took at least an hour deciding what fabric scraps to use and then chatted the entire time he was stuffing the bird. Topic? What to name it. 

I don’t understand why this pattern made such small animals. The scale could be bumped up probably 50% and make for a really great pillow or stuffed animal. Were I to make these again, I would absolutely take the pattern to a copy store and ask for an enlargement.

As for my sewing during Fall Break, I prepared for the holiday rush season for Cutie Petutie Originals http://www.cutiepetutieoriginals.com/ and then sewed Vogue 1261, New Look 6977, and two of Simplicity 2911. For reals, that’s a lot of sewing. I’ll be writing about all these patterns and showing pictures of the finished awesomeness on my sewing blog. 

Fall Break: A 10-Day Guide to Survival

Before we stroll down this majestic, tree-lined street of autumnal nostalgia I would like to first announce that I’m one of the moms that likes when my kids are on break. Some moms hate it. I appreciate that sentiment. Frankly, if I had some of the kids that are out there, I’d hate it too. But I love it. I look forward to it. I plan for it.

The secret to having a successful Fall Break (insert Christmas Break, Spring Break, Summer Break) is to ask your kids what they want to do. Ask this well in advance of the break. And make it a homework assignment (I don’t home school but my kids write a lot of extra essays under my direction).  I believe I posed the question something like this:

Please write a short paragraph and illustrate the top activities you would like to do during Fall Break.  Scanned answers posted here:

Mason

Cooper

As you can see, the expectations weren’t that high. All I had to do was break out a football at the park and take the kids swimming. (Let me also add that when my children request to go swimming beyond the two hours a week they both put in at swim practice I am always gobstopped.)

Then I break out the secret weapon. This comes with a little bit of planning, so I’m sharing my secret now so that you can be ready for next year. That’s right, next year. At the close of the Halloween shopping frenzy I go to Michael’s, JoAnn’s, and even Target and shop their clearance sales. In the beginning I only shopped costumes because my kids were big on the dress up scene. But when they outgrew that I started to just buy the crafts and activities. These are always pennies on the dollar at clearance time. This is a clandestine operation. Pack your purchases away with the plastic pumpkins and ghost garlands when you put away your decorations.

Once my kids are actually let out for school I break out the bin of decorations and start unveiling all the fun surprises that they will have for Fall Break. This year we had the following activities at our disposal:

New decorations for the porch

Jack-O-Lantern face stickers for everything from pumpkins to artwork

Wood bead skeleton and witch kit

Masquerade masks to be decorated with feathers and sequins

Miniature finger puppets

Foam haunted house (like a gingerbread house but foam)

Gingerbread haunted house and gingerbread haunted cemetery

Also in my decorations bin I store the Halloween books (children’s picture books), Halloween linens, the skeleton pillows (sewn on Fall Break last year), and Halloween cookie cutters. When these get unearthed the boys go bananas to be reunited with their toys and reread old favorites.

What ensues after Pandora’s box of Halloween decorations is opened is really fabulous. While it all goes quickly, it’s never boring, nor frustrating. I just pick up another activity out of the pile of fun and we move on. It’s messier than my lonely days when they are in school. But it is short-lived, a mere 10 days.

And there you have it, a clue. In the next few days I’ll be sharing with you some of our Fall Break adventures – just to get your creative juices flowing.

PS – May I also recommend you take in someone else’s pet gerbils for the week? Pet-sitting is a tremendous learning experiences for the littles and adds to the Fall Break commotion.

Generous Heart

You know that awkward moment when the teacher puts you on the spot in front of 23 kids? Guh. Why do they do that? 

Mason's kindergarten teacher -- who we like very much -- invited me to be a part of a tradition she does during a student's birthday week. Basically it's some form of show-and-tell every day of an entire week. Gratefully she gave Mason a short week. 

I'm sure you can guess her reasons. During the presentation of his life on a poster board -- 5 years condensed into 10 photographs -- he stared directly at the poster board and read word for word the captions I had written. These captions said things like, "My brother Cooper and I built a replica of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster." and "I volunteered to paint the cafeteria last fall." Come on, the kid was reading it having never rehearsed it! I was both totally proud and somewhat aching at the awkwardness.

His teacher wanted him to improvise, however, and was trying to get him to talk into a microphone. Hated it. But he endured. Oh that's when sweet kindergarten teacher said, "I'm going to ask your mom to list some of the reasons she loves you so much." 

Is this a test? Am I supposed to cry? Or am I supposed to let things just eloquently roll off my tongue like a Hallmark card? Pah-lease. I decided blubbering would be frowned upon. Basically I said, but I can't remember exactly what I said because I was mostly concentrating on not crying....

1.  When Mason was born, one of the reasons he stayed at the hospital (they had just seen his grotesque NICU picture) so long is that he had what is called a generous heart. Generous is a word we use when we mean big. He was born with a big heart and he still has a big heart. He is kind and gentle and generous of his time, and his things. He never wants to leave out someone. 

2.  Have you ever noticed Mason doesn't talk as much as some of your other friends? (Can I tell you how many times small boogery children point out this when I'm in the classroom volunteering?) And when he does talk he speaks very quietly? Well, I call this soft spoken and it is one of my favorite things about him because I know he listens to others before speaking. When he does speak, he means what he says. 

3.  And last, he's creative and I love creative people. 

And here is where Mason interrupted me and said, "What about those LEGO crayons?!?!" What a transition! Basically he gracefully got me off the hook and allowed me to stop talking and start handing out tiny LEGO men made of melted crayons. He then bragged about me while I bragged about him. It was excellent. 

Tonight, as tradition dictates, I tucked in 5-year-old Mason for the last time and said good bye. sniff sniff. Thankfully Mason, reassured me with, "I'll still be the same person tomorrow." And just as I'm wishing they didn't grow so quickly I'm reminded of a conversation I very recently had with Mason. 

He asked, "Mom, do some kids grow up and never leave their mom's houses?"

Tentatively I answer, "Yes. Why? Do you think you wanna do that?"

"Well, I been thinking about it. " And that was the last I heard of that. Until today when he twisted off the stem of his apple in 29 turns and declared that is when he would get married. Great. Idea. 

PS -- I'll be writing about the party on my sewing blog later this week.