Costume designer

  Cookie has been taking a theater class all semester, my 5-year-old keeping up with her big brother and sister. The end-of-class showcase will be her first time performing on the BIG STAGE.
  Having just finished seven bottom-half-of-a-gerbil costumes for a play the other two are in, I thought it only fair to sew something for Cookie to wear in her BIG SHOW. She plays the part of a little boy in a Shakespeare-inspired skit.
  I'm so happy with what I put together by altering a pattern for pajamas and using stuff I had around the house that I took a picture without even waiting for the kid to put it back on. It fits her fine, and I finished the buttons and bows after she went to bed. She wanted to wear it to bed, but I said she has to wait until after she wears it in the show.
  I might have hit the mark a little closer to Pinnochio than Shakespeare, but it's sure cute. I'd like to point out, too, that this not being amateur hour, those are working buttons in the vest and the bows are drawstrings at the bottom of the knickers. Booyah!

Supermom, oh yeah

  I got to be a hero today, the kind of opportunity that graces a parent from time to time.
  Cookie got sand in her eye, something that's never happened to her before. She freaked out a bit, if you can freak out only a bit, holding her eye and screaming.
  I heard her out in the sandbox from inside the house. I cocked up an ear like that dog in the RCA logo, trying to determine how hurt she was. Amid the screaming were angry shouts and accusations. I figured someone still able to continue an argument wasn't hurt too bad.
  Her dad went outside to get her, and then she came into the bathroom with me. She was pretty scared about me touching her eye, but I let her be in control of it. I pointed her face up and pooled some saline solution on her closed eyelid. I told her to blink her eye a little to get some in as much as she felt comfortable. After two times, she was able to open her eye. She looked really surprised that we fixed it.
  She looked at me gratefully and said, "thank you" in a very pathetic voice, made more so by the fact she can't pronounce "th." "Fank you."
  I figured there was probably an issue of discipline to deal with, but if you read my blog at all, you'll pick up that I don't like tattle-tales. They both know better than to start telling me all about how so-and-so did whats-in-fuss to them.
  I told Princess I needed to see her alone, and told her, "I don't want to know anything about any fight you and Cookie had, but you need to understand that you may not throw sand. It could really hurt someone, and even though it's usually easy to get out, it's possible that something would happen that would make us need to go to the hospital."
  She looked guilty enough for me to know the little speech wasn't being wasted.
  After a few minutes, I told Cookie I needed to talk to her, too. She got the same speech. Being the younger one, she couldn't help but launch into, "I only throwed sand on her pants, and then she ..." I stopped her and said again that I didn't want to hear about their fight. She just needs to remember not to throw sand.
  Then she started to cry, I gave her a hug, and she went back outside to play.
  So my point is, I'm a hero who can wash sand out of eyes, and I endorse "tattling does you no good" parenting.