Practical & Conscientious Parenting
Creative Projects
Growing Up
14 years
It really hit me yesterday that Mehalia will be nine soon – halfway to official adulthood, at least the beginning of it. She’s been wanting to do a lot more grown up things, like trying a mojito (no rum, extra sugar).
Trying her first (non-alcoholic) mixed drink
Towards the end of second grade, she decided that her style was scarves and headbands, and she had to wear them every day. Of her own initiative she took a shower the night before her first day of a new summer camp, since she wanted to make a good first impression. A few weeks ago she was really happy to help out with her great-grandma’s garage sale, insisting that she be the official money taker.
Calculating change for her customers
I love that she is one of the most creative individuals I’ve ever met. Since she was a toddler she’s been crafting toys from paper, boxes, string, and rocks, and recently she’s developed a signature card design (I’ll have to get a picture of one later).
She knows she wants to be a singer; a few years ago she learned a couple songs with her pop accompanying on guitar, and last year she started looking up lyrics to songs she’s heard and practicing them. I could go on and on about all the things I think are cool about her, but definitely the best part of being her mama is the inspiration she offers to express my own creativity and be the coolest person I can.
She makes new things with everything she finds
Fairies and other tiny animals
14 years
Yesterday was “Dress up like your favorite book character” day at Mehalia’s school, in honor of Dr. Suess’s birthday. Unfortunately she was home with headlice, but she had her costume all picked out and wore it for the day anyway. (The wings are of course now quarantined for two weeks in a plastic bag with the headband and necklace, next to another bag with all her stuffed animal friends that sleep with her.) Her character is Bella the Bunny Fairy, with her bunny Misty. I’m hoping she’ll wear it again for the Procession of the Species parade on Earth Day. 
Homemade Playdough
15 years
I thought I had missed my chance for a treasured childhood memory, having never made playdough with Mehalia. Tonight I needed to make some for my preschool class, so I invited her to help. She was of course delighted, as she always is whenever there is mixing and pouring to be done.
The recipe we used was 4 cups each flour and water, 1 cup salt, and 4 tbls. oil. It was supposed to have 1/2 c. cream of tarter too, which I didn’t have, and then saw that I could substitute 1/4 c. each baking powder and baking soda. We’re in the middle of moving, and despite my attempts to clearly label boxes with detailed contents, I couldn’t find those ingredients either.
So we did without – it appears to be fine. It was so awesome to see, and smell, the gooey glop turn into playdough before my eyes. (After mixing the ingredients in a big pot, we just heated it up on low, stirring often until it thickened.) It didn’t make nearly as much as I thought it would, so I ended up making a second batch, this time doubled. It was so warm and soft when it finished. I’m really happy I finally tackled one of the things I considered an essential element of childhood.
PS – By the next morning, the second batch had “melted” into a sticky mess, so maybe those missing ingredients were important after all. I tried adding sand since I was using it to make shell prints, but it just got even grosser. Oh well, the treasured memory remains in the creation process, and I’m sure we’ll need some again at some point so I’ll get to perfect my recipe.
Terry Fleece Diaper Doublers
15 years
by Zach
in Creative Projects
When we told people that we wanted to use cloth diapers, we got a lot of support, and also a lot more props than we deserve. I think, especially with older generations, that people think about desperately trying to safely pin a diaper on a wriggling little bottom. But with the amazing diapers that people have come out with these days, it’s really not hard at all. And fortunately for me, Anne had already done a lot of the research and trial & error with Mehalia, so we had a great resource for any questions we had.
So far, everything is going great with Edie in cloth diapers. We’ve had a couple of blowouts, mainly because she’s just so tiny still and it’s hard to get the diaper covers around her legs. One of the best things in our diaper collection has been our terry fleece doublers. They really wick away moisture and keep Edie dry. And they were really easy to make.
We had a couple of doublers that Anne had given us that we used as a template. The fabric store we went to only had a couple of bad colors of terry cloth, so we bought a yard of white terry and dyed it ourselves using iDye. And there are so many cool cotton fleece prints these days, we just picked out two that we really liked and bought half a yard of each.
The sewing was a snap, though it would have been even snappier if we owned a serger sewing machine (which we seriously contemplated buying). But not owning a serger, I learned how to use a finishing stitch that I didn’t even realize our sewing machine had. Ashley traced the outline of the doubler we had on the fleece, and loosely pinned it to the terry cloth. She sewed a straight stitch about half an inch to the inside of the line she drew, and then she cut along the line. She was a little nervous about doing the finishing, so that’s where I stepped in. There were places where I got a little too close to the edge, but all in all they turned out great, and we love having so many of them. It was really a lot easier than I thought to do a project I used to think was only possible with a serger.