Wednesday 21 October 2015

Cot Sheet to Sun Shirt


We've made it.

In the last few months Little Tree chose to give up the only consistent sleeping place he remembers and move into the double bed in his room.

Honestly for a while there I thought I might still be putting him in there until he physically couldn't contortion his way in any more.  He was comfortable and honestly there was no pressing reason for him to move, either from his point of veiw or mine, as I had removed the side and put a bed rail on to stop him rolling out when he was safe to get from mattress height to the floor on his own when he was somewhere between 18 months and 2. At just over 3.5 he decided he didn't fit any more so with no fuss, after producing my secret to the first week, dinosnores he now lulls himself to sleep with room to move.

What this meant is that when I went looking for some fabric to experiment with this full cotton cot sheet was available.  The idea for this project came from a full cotton after swim shirt I picked up at the op shop some time ago.  I found it invaluable for those times when he had been out in the sun all morning but he wanted to be outside after lunch too.  Being light but long sleeved I was happy to let him out again and know he wasn't going to get burnt.

Although I loved it it wasn't until a friend bought me Sewing for Boys last year that I started to plot to make a size up as the current one was getting pretty snug. I actually requested the book based on the online look of the "easy linen shirt" pattern where people had made it up.  The problem was although it made the pattern easy I wasn't really into the whole seam up the front move.  The fabrics I own are strongly patterned and I knew myself well enough to know I wasn't going to the trouble to try and pattern match.  Thus the plot to make it button up was born.

In the end it was a very minor tweak to make it work.  I cut it to allow the seam allowance to go from around 2 cm to 4 cm and tapered it back to 2cm, from the original seam point, to the top where it meets the collar.  Being cotton and roomy it doesn't feel hot to wear, it seems, and he loves space right now so the  stars were absolutely the right choice.

I can see a few more of these being added to his wardrobe for the summer when I have the time

Saturday 10 October 2015

Listen to the Child - Around Here

Today we tried something new.  We entered the Dalmeny Dash which was a fund raiser for the local public school in town.  Little Tree loves to move, preferably fast, and I have always done my best to support him in building both his confidence and his strength by giving him opportunities to build these skillls every day.  That said we were never going to finish the course because we had a 2km ride or so to get to the start line.

The thing is I didn't let that stop us trying.  I know he is still at an age where he really can't judge the fuel in his tank enough to turn around early enough to ensure we get home, normally I make the decisions about distance to circumvent this, in this case I wanted to give him more ownership so I created a contingency plan.

He set a goal.  He wanted to get to the park which was the final turn around point and my first choice was not to talk him out of it.  I knew he couldn't get there and back with the extra to the start line, but he didn't need to; Nanna would pick him up.  He's young, he's strong and he was pretty determined that he wanted to get there so I thought he might manage to make it the 9 km, or so, all up that it would entail.

In the end he didn't ride to the park.  Instead he made it to the second turn, around point which was, around 6kms, or about 3/4 of the way there.  Unfortunately he exhibited a bit of  dodgy risk assessment and had a crash.

That is going to happen when you're still 3.  Anyway the first response marshal was sure he had a bruise on his cheek so was pushing to call first aid for ice.  I let him even though I was sure what he was talking about wasn't a bruise just dirt in his skin coloured nose zink, I was right.  It wasn't until we were waiting for first aid that I noticed what I was dabbing on his forehead wasn't a round puncture but a 1 cm line break in the skin that was going to need a steri-strip to stay closed.  All told it took about half an hr from incident to treated.

I checked the next check point wasn't far ahead of us, I was almost certain it wasn't but didn't want to create a situation where he felt like he had failed because he tried but didn't reach it.  Although First Aid was pushing a bit to pack us in a car back to the rally point, for no other reason than they were probably convinced the last place he would want to be is back on the bike,  I gave him a choice.   I could call Nanna right then or we could go on to the next checkpoint so he could get his stamp.  He had already asked to keep going while we were waiting for First Aid so I was pretty sure of his choice but as I said it was about giving him ownership of the journey.   

 We got there.  The check point had been packed up because we were in the last group off the start, add a half hr to that and they thought everyone was done, but the girls came back and stamped his card and made a bit of fuss of him.  Regardless of from being the proud owner of a split lip and 2 shiny new steri-strips to the forehead he had a great day.

Would he have felt differently if I unnecessarily took control and forced the day to end in a heap on the side of the road?

Honestly who knows.  

What I do know is next year he'll make it to the park if he chooses to.  

In fact I will be sort of surprised if he doesn't make it there and back.