show and tell

I hate it.  Remember this?   Somehow, we eventually managed to find a similar looking doggy at Michael's Craft Store... and convinced Gretchen he was playing hide-and-seek with us.  To this day, she believes that is how we got her Little White Woof back.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Well, every Thursday night, the homework is to bring in an item from home that begins with whatever letter they are studying that week.  They, of course, want to bring their favorite things to share with their friends.  I, of course, hate Thursday homework.  We get creative and bring in things like Spongebob Stickers to share with everyone on S week.  But, mostly, they bring in photos of whatever item they want.  Last week was C week.  Carl brought in a photo of himself in his "cap" and gown.  This week is P week and they are excited because 'picture' begins with the letter P.  So, it'll be a double P when they bring in pictures of Perry the Platypus and Peppa Pig.  Well, triple P, actually.  For C week, Gretchen brought in Candy Corn.  But, show and tell was not before snack, so she didn't get to eat it with snack.  She gobbled it up at home.

Anyway, yesterday, at 2:40, they hop into the van and exclaim, "Tomorrow we have to bring a teddy bear to school!"   ACK!  Flashbacks.  I am already picturing weeks and months of sobbing themselves to sleep when their bears go missing or get damaged.  Gretchen said, "Mrs Jordan said if we don't want to bring a special bear, we can bring an old one."  Oh Honey, don't you get it?  An older bear would simply be more special to us! 

So, once the kids went to bed, I pulled out some fleece.  It was about 8:30.  I grabbed yellow for Carl and wanted pink for Gretchen, but the pink wasn't big enough.  Brown would do.  I had to whip off a simple outline pattern.  By now, Lew was home from work and was cooking a pizza for us.  Monday Night Football was on and I had the sewing machine all spread out on the kitchen table.  We had to sit on the couch and eat our pizza.  He grabbed a beer, but I had made up a 1/2 batch of the Pioneer Woman's Pumpkin Smoothies for myself.  If you haven't tried the recipe... do it!!  Mmmm!!!  We haven't eaten on the couch in such a long time.  It was kind of nice. 

OK, ate dinner and back to the bears.  It took me 2.5 hours total - and that included the pizza and pumpkin smoothie break.   I drew the pattern, cut them out, stitched their faces, decided not to stitch names on them to save time, sewed them, stuffed them and sewed them closed. 

One less show and tell with the potential to have a beloved stuffed family member go missing at school.  Of course, they both absolutely loved their new bears... but if they lose them today, I can make another.