Petits Fives

When my girls, or gargoyles as we lovingly call them, started being at school and preschool more and more, and I thought, ooh, more time on my hands, brilliant, I shall start a business and have loads of time to do it in, I did of course forget about holidays.  School ones.  There's a few aren't there?  And as I teeth-grindingly point out to The Husb when he talks about me having more time on my hands, you will find that the hours of available porportedly 'full-time' time fit themselves only into 31 weeks a year.
Goodness.
How do they learn a thing at school, I wonder?!
31 weeks.  Of which 2 have just occurred.  And pop an Easter, a holiday abroad and a 5th birthday into that melting pot, and the convoluted point I'm getting to is that OriginalStitch has been cruelly abandoned for 3 weeks.  2 of which consisted of the ankle-biters being around, and 1 of which consisted of the carnage-clearing from those 2 weeks.

Don't get me wrong, we had a lovely, lovely 2 weeks off, even if I did mercilessly exploit the daughters by treating our entire holiday like a Mallorcan Photoshoot, and screaming inanely "Logo on the outside!  Turn it round!  The Backpack!  Logo on the outside!" as The Husb advanced across airport concourses to the toilet with a small Hetty in tow, but I was able to dedicate little time to the rigours of running my business.  So I sit here thinking, well, Blog, what shall we do?

Nothing for it but to digress and talk about party bags.

So, Isla was big fat 5, which I think we can all agree is a Very Big Deal in the Life of a Person of that Age.  And having just started school, she is getting to know her little pals, whom she will grow up with for the next um, however many it is years until secondary school.  So, I thought, it's our turn to go to the bar - we will do the whole class party thing, sans parents, but I am not, repeat, not being the party entertainer and putting on crafts and games and puzzles and so on.  Oh no.  So in came Dazzling Dave as The Husb refers to him, but whose name was actually Oscar, to entertain 28 nippers in a church hall.
And thank all that is good in the world for Oscars, for he performed miracles, and not a single child cried.  The Husb and I were fairly appalling waiters but the children got fed, several poured drinks down themselves, there were minimal toileting necessities and, thank heavens, none who needed assistance in the Number Twos department, and all in all a jolly good afternoon with plenty of hilarity, shrieking, letting off of steam and massive giggling was had.
But with investment into Oscar, I made a decision, which was that I was not going to then also spend a fortune on party bags, party bag innards, tablecloths, plates, cups, straws, party poppers, balloons and so on.  You know, the fun stuff.  No.
Nice aren't I?

But I couldn't stomach sending the children off with no party bag, because you have to be very, very strong to stand there while 25 children look up at you in turn, in a queue, and say "Where's my party bag?"
Don't tutt, you lot - you know perfectly well your child has said it themselves.  And if you're saying, no my little one would never say that, I'm telling you, bet they have.  You just didn't hear 'em.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not judging - it's just that Party Bags is what we do these days and so the expectation is there.  Hell, I expect a party bag.  I once said to Isla when she was nagging at the end of a party "Well, perhaps you'd better very politely ask H's mummy if there are any..." and she very politely tapped H's mummy on the leg and said "Where's my party bag please?  And Hetty's please?  Thank you?"

One little girl at Isla's got very confused when I said it was pudding time and said she wanted her cake to keep and put in her party bag.  "How do you know there are going to be party bags?" I said. "Because it's a party!" she grinned.  Impeccable logic, impossible to argue with.
And a bit mean on my part actually.  Thank heavens I didn't make her cry, wicked woman.

So.  We melted down crayons in a second-hand petits fours tray (ooh, fancy, no?) an idea taken from this lovely tutorial here.  An activity which, by the way, is masses of fun.  And check out how many we made!  There were 28 kids and they had 5 each.  You do the numbers, coz I can't, I had to get Isla to work it out.  We made colouring cards using some birthday images from this life-saving website here.  We shoved in a load of cheapie sweeties.  And used sandwich packaging from OriginalStitch products, and bob's your uncle.  Party Bags!  And you know what - they loved 'em.

What eco-friendly non-plastic party bag ideas have you used?  Come on, I need to start planning for the next daughter birthday!

Gender Mender

I have been trawling the internet like some prowling fabric nut for toy-making ideas; my sister's assertion that you need to get cracking early if you're going to make all presents is coming at me hard and fast.  I sat there yesterday while the daughters did colouring-in (aw, don't they sound nice?  In reality they were a pair of agents from the dark forces for most of the day), transferring dates into a book of birthdays, and panicking.  Each birthday invitation that arrives now is a race against time, but I am meeting the challenge head on.

Make a dog from a sock?

Make a rocket from fimo?

Do something snazzy and piratey with magnets?

March and April are full to the brim with birthdays, and I have my first boys' birthdays coming up.  Now, those who know me will know that I rail against sexism in toys - I am constantly astonished by the toy industry's persistent gender stereotyping - just check out a toy catalogue - and especially since I have no sons to create a natural balance of toys, I choose toys with calculated precision to try and achieve that balance between boys' and girls' toys.  They have a kitchen, and also a toolkit, a trainset and lorries and lego and also dolls and dolly beds.  I snort in derision at most things fairy, princess or pink based (although the daughters like those things as much as anything else of course) and feel affronted that my daughters might be excluded from things pirate, castle or tractor based.

So you'd think I'd happily be sewing nice pink bags for the boys, or creating a little princess sock puppet for them, or manhandling giant foam tractor shapes for the girls, complete with rake-wielding farmhands and a giant carrot barrow.

But no.

I'm in a state of nervous tension over what boys will like.

So far the girls have all received either beanbag bags or homemade crayons in bags, and the truth is, the boys would like those things too; but somehow I'm all paranoid that they won't, because the darn system's got to me hasn't it.  It goes like this: right, I'll do a bag and the chunky crayons for Boy 1.  Voice in head - ooh no, boys don't like colouring in.  Boys don't like bags.  And hey presto, the doubt has set it.  Now, the two little boys I know best are actually very keen on colouring in, very good at sitting and doing crafty things, with good concentration spans and so far, no penchant for needing to stand on the table beating their chests and spitting at people.  In fact, when I cast the net further and think of most of the boys I know, they're all rather well behaved, and if I go even further and think about the little girls I know, there are plenty who would quite like to leap from a tree and stuff my chunky crayons in an electricity socket rather than do colouring in.  But there I am, biting my lip with worry about giving crayons to boys, whereas I didn't question it at all with the girls.  I'm disgusted with myself.

So then, who's up for an anti-gender-stereotyping-in-toy-manufacturing demo in Trafalgar Square on Saturday?

I'll knit some placards.  See you at the train station.  Don't wear pink.