Mama Squirrel

Scenes From 37

Last night the Mister, Little Tiger, The Milk Belly Princess and I celebrated my birthday a day early with my parents where this gift from my mom filled me with child-like glee:

My wonderful mother spent the better part of six months trolling house sales to amass this collection.  

Do you remember when you were little how, after trick-or-treating on Halloween night, you would dump your treat bag out on the floor and sort it?  My approach to these buttons was sort of like that.
While I was thrilled with the buttons, The Milk Belly Princess was more interested in the bubble wrap they were packed in.  Notice the look of intense concentration on her face.

When I woke up this morning, I opened my front door to find that The Doughnut Fairy visited at dawn and brought me a special treat.

After coffee and doughnuts, I decided to venture out into the world before settling in to do some crafting. Since the Christmas season is upon us, I stopped at Hixson's to pick out this year's family ornaments.   I've been visiting Hixson's ever since I was a child. I used to wish I could own the giant Raggedy Ann in the store's front window.
(Rumor has it that this is the same Raggedy Ann that you can see in  Higbee's in A Christmas Story.  I re-watched the movie today while I was crafting and, while there is definitely a big rag doll in the scene after Ralphie gets booted down the Santa slide, I'm not sure if it was her.)

It would make sense to say that we buy the ornaments at Hixson's because they have a large selection of glass ornaments, but I think I like having an excuse to go there because walking through the front door is like traveling back through time to an era before big box stores.  I think it is the most eclectic retail establishment in the area. Hixson's does not have a clearly definable demographic or inventory and, as the sweet cashier said as she helped more than one customer this morning, "the dust is part of the ambiance."

The ornament selection IS very good.

However, that's not all they sell.  You can buy anything from novelty items (I shied away from a box of "live rattlesnake eggs") to squirrel shaped cookie cutters to candy to music boxes...although they do have a rule about those:

Although the purchaseable inventory is interesting, there are parts of the store that seem more like a museum.  In an era where big box stores insist on making every square foot profitable, I'm impressed by the amount of space Hixson's devotes to displays that don't relate to their inventory.

Somehow, Mr. Hixson managed to acquire the displays of now-defunct area department stores..  A small sign near this hat mannequin stated that it came from Halle's.  

Decades ago, this scene from "A Christmas Carol" was in the front window of Halle's or Higbees at Christmastime:

Alice here was also part of a local department store window display.

Although these figures are too old and shabby to serve as holiday decorations at the local mall, I find them beautiful.  

I chose my ornaments, but I will have to wait to share them with you.  Part of our ornament tradition involves getting the ornaments signed by Bill Hixon himself and he was not available today.  Mr. Hixson has spent the beginning of the past 28 Christmas seasons traveling to Washington D.C. to help decorate The White House.  According to the gals at the counter, he will be home tomorrow.

Cousin Fun

One of several things I appreciate about my in-laws is the fact  they understand  holidays are really stressful when you have to split your time between two sets of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  As an only child, it would be really difficult for me not to spend a major holiday with my parents.  It would also be stressful to face every holiday knowing that I was going to have to make two or more "stops" throughout the day to avoid ruffled feathers and hurt feelings.   I'm so grateful that the holiday gatherings on The Mister's side of the family are scheduled in the days following a major holiday instead of on the holiday itself.  Everyone can gather in a fun, relaxed atmosphere without worrying about when we're going to eat because they have someplace else they need to be.  

We celebrated my in-laws' family Thanksgiving on Saturday and a glorious time was had by all.  Since I'm not the greatest cook, The Mister made brown bread, and I brought a craft for the kids as my contribution.   They sewed their own pillows and did a fantastic job.  I employed the same crayon-on-muslin technique  I used for the teddy bear and turkey tutorials. I really liked how cousins aged 13-3 could work on this project and create something they were proud of.  Here are a couple of finished projects.  First, we have Miss E and her tribute to Charlie, her pet bird:

Followed by Mr. D's pillow depicting a  "monkey with a moustache."

Giving Thanks

I've been looking forward to Thanksgiving break.  Ever since the last parent/teacher conference night (where I was the teacher--the ones where I'm a parent are easy) I've felt like I really haven't been operating at 100% and I've been looking forward to a few days off to relax and re-energize before the holiday whirlwind leading up to Christmas.  

I was feeling especially drained on Tuesday afternoon.  As the school day drew to a close, I found myself thinking the thoughts that my mind drifts to when I'm especially exhausted/overhwelmed/cold/hungry (I'll spare you the grouchy details--even I find them tedious).  I bolted out the door to start my Thanksgiving vacation as soon as my contracted day was over.  I drove home through a rainstorm and reunited with The Mister and my girls.  We then proceeded to have a lovely evening with my good friend Laura, her husband Jassen and her niece The Amazing Miss P at a local pizza place.  While the little girls watched our pizzas being made, the adults toasted the upcoming holiday weekend, laughed and chatted.

Wednesday morning I awoke to The Milk Belly Princess crawling into bed with me.  I tried to fall back asleep, but I kept waking up to the intermittent ringing of the phone.  When I couldn't stand it anymore, I went downstairs (yes, I'm one of those people who can stand to have the phone AN ENTIRE FLOOR away from me) to see that I had a voicemail message.  It was a friend from work, a  lady  I eat lunch with and really like, but have never had the chance to meet with socially outside of school.  Her message was of the vague "give me a call when you get this" variety, the kind that any adult over the age of thirty knows to foreshadow some kind of bad news.  

In my naive mind, I assumed the news would be of the "sad and bad but not directly related to me" variety.  I called her back expecting to hear about the illness or death of a co-worker's parent, someone I'd never met who lived a few time zones away.  As she told me the reason for her call, my blood went cold.  A colleague and mutual friend of ours was involved in a terrible car accident on his way home from work on Tuesday.  If you really want to, you can read about the accident  here, but suffice to say, a 79 year old man made a grave error in judgement and ended up crashing head-on into his car causing serious injuries that necessitated an emergency helicopter ride to the nearest level one trauma center.

I cancelled the girls' craft night I had planned and Laura and I attended this vigil where the minister who addressed the crowd of over 500 told us we needed to pray for a miracle.  So we did, and have every day since.  It's still too early to tell the full extent of Jim's injuries, but everyone who knows him is hopeful that somehow he will be able to make a full recovery.  If you're reading this, please keep Jim, his wife and two children (ages 10 and 7) in your prayers.

Standing on the football field at the vigil , I had some time to think.   I thought about how much I take for granted.  I thought about all of the arguments and petty injustices that I blow out of proportion on a daily basis.  I thought about how most of what I complain about is pretty ridiculous, how in my world an insuffcient lunch (because I was too lazy to go to the grocery store the night before) and a mouthy kid (mine or someone else's) constitute "a bad day."  I thought about how I want to savor all that I have so that I can appreciate it NOW, not when it is taken away from me.  

After the vigil, Laura dropped me off at my house and  I went to pick up my girls at my parents' house.  I was greeted by a teary-eyed Little Tiger telling me that her "ear hurts more than its ever hurted before."  Normally, this would have made my tired self grouchy.  I would have felt like I, not she, was the victim as I either sent her off to bed with some children's Motrin or grudgingly took her with me to the ER.  But I couldn't complain.  If my biggest problem of the evening was a little girl with an earache, then I was pretty lucky.  As we sat in the ER waiting to be seen, I rocked Little Tiger, and thanked God that we weren't there for something more serious.

The next day was Thanksgiving.  We spent the better part of it as a family.  The Mister, Little Tiger, The Milk Belly Princess and I went for a walk and explored the woods close to our house.  The Milk Belly Princess was very excited to show off a "secret bridge" she discovered on a recent exploring trip with The Mister and was very proud that she could walk across it all by herself.

Little Tiger, feeling more like herself after a good night's sleep and some medicine, was happy to turn the woods into her own personal gymnasium with the help of her daddy.

As much as I knew that The Mister would have preferred this to be a "camera free" adventure, I just had to snap a couple of pictures so I can look back on this day one, five and ten years from now and remember how, at this moment, my family was perfect.  

Turkey Dolls!

The Milk Belly Princess spent the better part of the weekend telling me that she wanted to sew a turkey doll.  Little Tiger agreed that this would be fun. Here is a step-by-step account of our latest crafting adventure.

I began by taping pieces of muslin to our art table with painter's tape.  I then had each girl hold still as I traced around her hand with a pencil.

Next it was time to color the turkeys with crayons.

After both girls finished coloring their turkeys, I ironed them to set the color.

If you try this at home, be sure to place a piece of plain white paper between your iron and the turkey so when the iron melts the crayon wax it doesn't get all over your iron.  

Next, I asked the girls to choose the felt they wanted for the backs of their turkeys.  Since Little Tiger and The Milk Belly Princess are young (5 and 3), I cut the felt backing into the turkey shapes because I thought that cutting around the feathers would be difficult for them.

The turkey fronts and backs were pinned together and it was finally time to start sewing.  The girls used large tapestry needles and embroidery floss.  Once Little Tiger has her needle threaded and the end of her thread knotted, she can sew independently until she runs out of thread or needs help with a tangle.  This was the first time The Milk Belly Princess sewed anything other than drawer liner (you can read more about that in this post from Filth Wizardry) which has a wide weave, so I sat with her and helped her work.  

When she was ready to stuff, she was very proud of herself.

Stuffing proved to be a little bit tricky, but we did it with the help of a chopstick.  Here are the girls with their completed projects:

I really enjoy sewing with my girls.  I hope that they always enjoy crafting with Mama as much as they do now.  I hope that you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Some Pig

This weekend, The Mister and I are taking Little Tiger and The Milk Belly Princess to see "Charlotte's Web" at a local theater.  Prior to watching the play, I thought it would be fun for Little Tiger and I to read E. B. White's classic story.  Unlike her younger sister, Little Tiger is old enough to enjoy a chapter book with limited pictures.  We started about two weeks ago and finished on Tuesday night.  Little Tiger REALLY enjoyed the story and I got more out of it as a parent than I did when my own mother read it to me as a small child. 

As a little girl, I was enamored with the idea of talking animals and Garth Williams' gentle drawings.  I could not begin to appreciate half of Charlotte's wisdom in the way I did while reading the story as an adult. Earlier this week, I was especially struck by what Charlotte told Wilbur when he asked her why she worked so hard to save his life.  

              'You have been my friend,' replied Charlotte.  'That in itself is a tremendous thing.  I wove my               webs for you because I liked you.  After all, what's a life, anyway?  We're born, we live a little               while, we die.  A spider's life can't help being something of a mess with all this trapping and               eating flies.  By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle.  Heaven knows               anyone's life can stand a little of that'   (White  164).

In the beginning, when Mr. Arable wanted to kill Wilbur, Little Tiger was very worried about what was going to  happen to him, which made me worry about how she would react to Charlotte's death in the end.  As it turns out, while she was upset at the prospect of Wilbur's untimely, violent death, Little Tiger took Charlotte's peaceful passing due to old age in stride.  She said that she "felt bad for Charlotte," but was really excited for Charlotte's eggs to hatch and to see the new baby spiders.  

I was the one who was more choked up about Charlotte's death.  We read the majority of the book lying next to one another in Little Tiger's bed, but when it was time for that part of the story, I sat up and had Little Tiger sit in my lap.  I wasn't sure if I was going to cry or whether my doing so would be upsetting for my daughter.  I know that crying is natural, and I usually don't go out of my way to mask my emotions when I'm truly sad about something like an illness or a death in the family.  However, I feel like at the age of five Little Tiger is still too young to fully understand why someone would cry over a  story that they chose to read and select "entertainment" that they knew would stir such strong and , in her eyes, negative emotions.  In fact, at the age of 36, I'm not sure that I fully understand that myself.  I do it, and on some level I suppose I "enjoy" it, but I don't understand it. 

When my mother gave Little Tiger "Charlotte's Web" last Christmas she also gave her a little stuffed pig to snuggle while we read the story.  After we finished the story, and Little Tiger was tucked into her bed I decided that our own Wilbur could use some embellishment so I found some ribbon, felt and embroidery floss and made this:

 Charlotte also wove "terrific," "radiant," and "humble" into her web, but I think this says it all.

 

Halloweenery

Over the summer, in the midst of not buying toys for Little Tiger and The Milk Belly Princess, I assumed I would make their Halloween costumes.  Then school began, the first quarter whizzed by and mid-October was upon us.  I was feeling really bad about not doing a better job of planning time to make costumes for the girls.  Especially after Little Tiger participated in her first horse show two weeks ago and decided that she wanted to be a horse for Halloween.  How in the world was I going to make that from scratch in two weeks on top of everything else that was going on? Then I read this post by Amber Strocel and felt so much better.  She's right, sometimes my idealistic beliefs of how I think things should be need to take a backseat to a child's pure joy and enthusiasm.  

I didn't even have to plunk down $19.99 on a new costume.  The local children's consignment store had the perfect costume for Little Tiger and The Milk Belly Princess re-discovered the kitty costume she wore two years ago (and that I wore about 32 years ago).  Here they are on the big night:

 

And here's a side view of Little Tiger's horse costume so you can get the full effect.  I think she's galloping here.

I hope you had a wonderful Halloween and are beginning to get excited about the magic of the winter season that will soon be upon us.