Angels and Owls and 4:30am
He looks like an angel here. An angel with bedhead 
He looks like an angel because it is not 4:30am. This photo was taken at 11:30am after his nice 3 hour morning nap because he was awake at 4:30am. And his favorite game is tackle Mama. Ask for juice 100 times. Climb on top of Mama saying, “Mama? Mama?” as though she’ll sweetly wake and turn on all of the lights and scramble eggs with sausage.
Not this Mama.
Want to learn limits of patience? Argue with a 2 year old at 5am. “Ian, it’s dark.” “Ian, Mama’s sleeping. Anika’s sleeping. Daddy’s sleeping.” “Ian. Go. To. Sleep.”
Nope. We watched Chuggington and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Star Wars Clone Wars. I drifted into hazy dozes where my dreams mumbled in Mickey Mouse voices, where characters clashed with lightsabers blazing. And each time I thought, “This is it, he’s down this time.” Until a commercial or the show ended when he nudged me for attention.
Of course, the minute I put him in the car to drive Anika to school, he was asleep. Fast asleep.
Asleep enough that I worked on my owl project when we arrived home. I wanted sleep so badly for those last night hours, but once the clock passed 8am, I couldn’t settle down. No such luck. So the owls are here!
This lucky first edition owl is the easiest version, a sample for my 18 Dragonfly kids who may be sewing them on Friday. I have ideas for a heart face layer. First, I wanted to see the simple version. The pattern that I am getting together for our Etsy store will have options to make it fancier. I had fun making him, and Ian had a ball playing with him.
I don’t need heirloom crafts. I like crafts that I can give my kids, that won’t bother me if they throw it on the ground or stuff it in a pocket.
As I made the owl, I figured out my crafting motto: I don’t believe in perfect, I believe in personality
My goal is the opposite of professional-looking crafts. Instead, fun and adventure matters. This owl is made for playing
Two milestones today. Ian officially stopped calling his sister Ah. Her name has been Ah for over a month, “Ah, dinner, Ah.” And “Ah, stop. No, Ah!” And we tried teaching him a nickname, but she was Ah.
Today she became Ah-ka. ”Ahka, where you?” ”Ahka, stop!” ”No, Ahka!”
Another sweet name, but I’ll always remember Ah
Then, Anika was sewing with me yesterday. ”This relaxes me,” she said. ”I like to make things.” I remembered the knitting rings I bought a couple of years ago but proved too challenging last year. I pulled them out and, ta-da! She’s a knitter (of sorts). She’s using these Knifty Knitter looms to make her first hat. Oh, we’re in trouble now when we go to the yarn store
She said it was easy this time. She learned at school on her castle knitting- which is like the mushroom-knitters. I wonder if she’ll finish the hat . . .
For now, we’re both having fun on the couch. I get my twenty minutes (all that I can do before my fingers start going numb) on her fingerless gloves, and she works away at her hat. I love watching my kids grow.
Speaking of kids, I teach tomorrow. And I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. Off to dreamland
