A Spot of JAM: Adventures at our house...

Seamstress to the Stars

You should come to our house someday. You wouldn’t know it by looking at the outside, but we have a mountain inside our house that you have to climb very carefully (log staircase with a railing made just for kids to shimmy up!). We have an entire ship deck where you may get to be Peter Pan defending yourself against Captain Hook (played very ferociously by Jonathan). Maybe you won’t believe it, but we also have the Hundred Acre Wood inside our house. And Tigger, too, if Jonathan has on his Halloween costume. Yep! I knew you wouldn’t believe it. But my kids do!

Best of all, we have Sherwood Forest inside our house…yes, the whole of it! Inside our house! If you came to visit, you might have the pleasure of being dubbed The Honorable Sheriff of Nottingham, or maybe Prince John, or even Little John. But you likely won’t get to be Robin Hood. Nope. That character is reserved for Jonathan. The morning after Jonathan watched the animated version of Robin Hood I was given a very important adventure-land assignment. I was supposed to be sewing some basket liners for my husband’s Christmas gifts to customers, but Jonathan managed to persuade me to make him a “Robin Hood dress”…er, tunic. I looked around the house for something just the right color of green. Aha! There it is…an old pair of sweatpants. I started by holding them up to Jonathan for height then lopping off the legs. I tore out the seams so I had two pieces of material in the shape of a funnel. Then, feeling quite smug at how easy this whole sewing thing really was, I sewed up both sides, making, yes, I see my mistake now, essentially a bag into which my son could step, but only wear if he didn’t want to use his hands. (“Oh, dearie”, and other choice words!) Not exactly great if you want to be Robin Hood and steal from the rich to give to the poor. Grrr. So I got out my trusty seam ripper and went to work on those smugly sewn seams (perfect seams too, I’ll have you know), and I put on my thinking cap, clamped my teeth, pursed my lips and began creating. Four hours of sewing later, which really translates into most of the day because of stopping to get snacks, stopping to take Annisia to the potty, stopping to wash Annisia off and change her clothes because I didn’t get her to the potty in time, stopping for lunch, stopping to put Annisia down for a nap… four hours of sewing later, I was done. Four hours of my life sewing a Robin Hood tunic that Jonathan then wore… for the next three days. (heehee…can you tell I am pleased?!) But minutes after putting said tunic on, what did he do? Did he thank me profusely? No (although the glee in his face was fairly rewarding.) Did he proceed to go off and win the archery contest so he could kiss Maid Marion? No. What did he do? He said what he really needed was a hat and shoes like Robin Hood. Waaaaaahhhh! Why me?

Darla Markovsky, January 2009, written for MOPS newsletter