That Will Never Happen

"Oh no, Daddy, the ball went near the kitten!"

"Well, just go get it, Sweetie."

"No, the kitten will claw me."

"What if he claws ME?"

"He wouldn't. He knows you're the big boss."

"Oh, I'm the big boss? So I get to boss people around?"

"Well, me and [monkey-boy]."

"Ok. What if I told you to go get the ball?"

"That will never happen."

She took it really well...

"What?" you ask. "Who?" you ask.

Monkey-girl is repeating Kindergarten. We've known it was a possibility since November. She's just kind of 'young'. (Her birthday is in the middle of October, and she's always been a bit 'young' for her age.) The problem isn't academic, it's maturity/resilience/coping/whatever you want to call it. We made the decision to go with the teacher's recommendation a few weeks ago, but I hadn't yet figured out how to tell her. I was quite sure she would take it quite badly.

Well, she took it very well. Very, very well. She was very calm, listened to us explain that she was going to do Kindergarten again, smiled when we said she'd be like a special helper to help the new kids...I am amazed. I asked her if she wanted the same teacher/class or the other one, and she thought about it for a bit and decided to go with the other teacher/class for next year. (That is what I expected her to do.)

I've been holding a lot of stress inside worrying about this since November. (A lot of things have just been pushed aside mentally, as I couldn't deal with them.) Now that it's finally decided and she knows, I can let it go. I still have concern for her having to deal with unthinkingly cruel remarks, but we can take care of that when/if it happens.

Back to life!

More crafting progress...sort of ***UPDATED***

Oh, you don't want to know...

...I started a couple more projects. Bad me!

But first! I finally finished up a couple of doll dresses I had made quite a while ago. All I had left to do was the weaving in ends and attaching ribbon and sewing on buttons.
















Then..........Monkey-girl needs a white summer cardigan (and it's hard to find nice ones in the stores that will go with all her summer dresses). And Monkey-boy needs a new blanket because his is...well, it's falling apart.

Yeah, lame excuses for someone who hasn't finished any more of her huge list of 'works in progress' (WIPs).

What's worse is that I had crocheted the back, both fronts and both sleeves of her cardigan and realized when I was trying to sew them together, that my guage was wonky...much tighter for the sleeves than for the rest. (ACK!) AND I had remembered her measurements wrong, so the one I was making would probably only fit her for a couple of months and then be too small! So, I ripped it all out. That was hard. I'm starting over and paying more attention to my tension this time so that hopefully I'll at least be able to block the pieces to the right size. My goal is to finish it by the end of June.

For Monkey-boy's blanket, I let him pick out the yarn as he wanted a 'rainbow blanket'. Well, do you think I can find the orange yarn in the same brand as the other colours? Of course not! The yarn companies make it, the stores just don't stock it! Bah! I tried using a different brand, but it's quite a bit thinner (even though it's labelled worsted weight), so it's just not going to work. Of course, it's the orange I need, and I started with the red, so the blanket's on hold until I can find orange yarn that will work.

Then, the fabric store within walking distance from my house lost it's lease and had a closing out sale with fabric 70% off. You know I was bad! I let Monkey-boy pick out some fabric for some shirts as he's become SUPER-picky about his clothes (he's not quite 4). I picked up some cute stuff to make Monkey-girl a summer dress. And, of course, I bought some nice twill for some slacks and skirts/skorts for me. Woo hoo!

Then I came home and used stash fabric to make Monkey-girl a pair of shorts and a (very cute) skort. Stash fabric! Well, maybe I can say I was just making room for the new stuff...yeah, right.




(Isn't this fabric great!?!? I love it. It was in my Grannie's stash and was just a small piece. Just the perfect size to make these shorts. And I might get a barbie skirt out of what's left. :) )

Then I went to the Fabricland in Langley with my mother-in-law and went a little nuts on the flannel. I love to make baby blankets for new babies in my circle of aquaintances and friends. The blankets are about a metre square with two layers of flannel. They're the perfect size for bundling a baby even once they get quite big, and I found them to be SO practical when my monkeys were babies (very absorbent too!) Two ladies I know have just had babies and two others are pregnant, so this wasn't a completely selfish shopping spree. Of course, I did buy some more fabric for monkey-boy. It's a really nice blue with little race cars on it- my boy LOVES cars!

Once I get some of these projects done, I'll post more pictures. And if you are still reading this, I'm amazed! ;)

The hair cut...

So, since Monkey-girl decided to cut her hair, I had to try to even it up. So, here are before and after pictures.

Before:

After:

I took at least 6 inches off. It's still a bit wet in this picture, so once it dries, it looks a little shorter. There are still some short bits on the left side (shoulder length), but I couldn't bring myself to cut all her hair that short!

Stay tuned...

...more posts coming.

I have a few things to post on, but haven't pushed myself to the computer to do it. :(


...and now the kids say there are 'kitty-yuckies' by the stairs...guess I'd better grab the paper towel and take care of them.