{"id":37043,"date":"2017-06-28T14:21:55","date_gmt":"2017-06-28T18:21:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/?p=37043"},"modified":"2017-08-21T15:27:43","modified_gmt":"2017-08-21T19:27:43","slug":"children-and-puppiesinevitable-damage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/28\/children-and-puppiesinevitable-damage\/","title":{"rendered":"Children and Puppies=Inevitable Damage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Children and puppies–I do love and enjoy them.\u00c2\u00a0 Damages are to be expected and the children who are the light of my life\u00c2\u00a0 never fail to deliver<\/a> in their younger days.<\/p>\n

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Recently, Vivian Rose, 4 yo, was here for a week of Nana Camp.\u00c2\u00a0 She is a scamp so I rarely let her out of my sight.\u00c2\u00a0 But one\u00c2\u00a0 day she slipped away while I was on the phone.\u00c2\u00a0 She was wearing her back-to-school Children’s Corner Jane.<\/a><\/p>\n

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At the top of her head is what Vivi calls her “fountain.” This was her signature look for a few weeks at the beginning of the last school year. She loved it.<\/p><\/div>\n

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As I turned away from\u00c2\u00a0 the kitchen sink, Vivi stood behind me, looking quite artificially serene.\u00c2\u00a0 Her outfit was streaked with what looked like peach sidewalk chalk marks.<\/p>\n

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Vivi’s back to school Jane.\u00c2\u00a0 After laundering the stain remains<\/p><\/div>\n

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“What’s on your shirt, Vivi?”<\/p>\n

Smiling sweetly, “Dirt.\u00c2\u00a0 Umm hmm.\u00c2\u00a0 Brown dirt.”<\/p>\n

“It doesn’t look like brown dirt.”<\/p>\n

Big blue eyes widen as she replies, “Well, the red polish was vewwy vewwy high u—uh, I mean…. it’s brown dirt.” She smiled and walked away.\u00c2\u00a0 End of subject.\u00c2\u00a0 What she lacks in honesty, she makes up for in creative explanations.<\/p>\n

After laundering, the “brown dirt” still remains.\u00c2\u00a0 I can’t imagine what she got into in such a short period of time.\u00c2\u00a0 She had to leave the kitchen, run through the dining room, down the hall, up a flight of stairs, across that hall, through our master bedroom, and into the master bath.<\/p>\n

The red polish is, indeed,\u00c2\u00a0 “very, very high up”\u00c2\u00a0 in\u00c2\u00a0 a wall cabinet above an antique wash stand. Vivian Rose travels fast and climbs high.\u00c2\u00a0 But the outfit is a year old so the loss was not great.<\/p>\n

We had a grand time.\u00c2\u00a0 She loves to dump out\u00c2\u00a0 my button jars to sort and play with the novelty buttons, especially those which are heart shaped.\u00c2\u00a0 She sewed a kitty cat keychain.\u00c2\u00a0 Sewing is always a favorite activity with all 4 of my grandchildren.<\/p>\n

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Getting started on a keychain.<\/p><\/div>\n

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While she was here it was time to have pictures taken for our church directory.\u00c2\u00a0 She happened to have with her a white smocked pinafore that her mother had worn 35 years earlier.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a little too big, but I loved seeing her wear it.<\/p>\n

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35 year old Little Sunday Dresses pinafore, smocked with Ellen McCrn’s monogram.<\/p><\/div>\n

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That Little Sunday Dresses Pinafore<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0 pattern by Florence Roberson is a treasure.\u00c2\u00a0 Notice the armscye.\u00c2\u00a0 It is wide and square, with ties to draw it up to fit the child.\u00c2\u00a0 It can be worn for at least two years.<\/p>\n

And she loved playing with our Shepherd\/Great Pyrenees mix puppies. \u00c2\u00a0 Samson and Delilah are crazy about her.<\/p>\n

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4 month old Delilah is kissing Vivian all over her face and neck. Vivi is squealing with delight. Crabby 11 yo yellow Lab Rastus looks on with disgust at Delilah’s unseemly behavior.<\/p><\/div>\n

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But these pups, too, have taken their toll.<\/p>\n

Confined to the utility room for a short while, they helped themselves to a few books from my homeschool library shelf around the corner.\u00c2\u00a0 I guess they wanted a good read that they could really get their teeth into.\u00c2\u00a0 Anne of Green Gables<\/strong><\/em> and\u00c2\u00a0 Greek Legends\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><\/em> are only legendary now.<\/p>\n

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The plastic bin of puppy chow covers a large area of unraveled carpet.Who needs carpet?<\/p><\/div>\n

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They’ve eaten the upholstery off the back of one dining room chair.\u00c2\u00a0 But dear Bob says not to worry! We can just put that chair in the hall against the wall.\u00c2\u00a0 They have chewed the binding and fringe from the dining room rug and eaten shoes and slippers.\u00c2\u00a0 But that still seems like small potatoes to me compared to earlier pups Jacob and Esau.<\/p>\n

Those\u00c2\u00a0 black Labs were Olympic gold medalists when it came to damage.\u00c2\u00a0 Their biggest score just broke my heart.<\/p>\n

A year prior to the “incident,” Capitol Imports had asked me to make an heirloom quilt for their traveling trunk show.\u00c2\u00a0 They sent a king’s ransom in laces, Swiss batiste and all manner of\u00c2\u00a0 trims.\u00c2\u00a0 Six weeks of work later, the 60″ square quilt was lovely in my humble opinion.\u00c2\u00a0 Capitol agreed.\u00c2\u00a0 It toured\u00c2\u00a0 the world with them.<\/p>\n

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I loved their champagne Swiss and trims.\u00c2\u00a0 Combined with pink lace tape and pink satin ribbon, and free motion quilting, the scrappy design was elegant.<\/p>\n

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I asked if I could borrow the quilt to show at a class I was scheduled to teach in Orlando.\u00c2\u00a0 Somehow, the dates were mixed up and the quilt had not arrived when I left for class. Later the FedEx delivery person simply threw the box over the fence. and drove off.\u00c2\u00a0 Dum da-da dum….<\/p>\n

On my way home after class. I called my husband.\u00c2\u00a0 He said that Jake and Esau had chewed something up.\u00c2\u00a0 “What?” I asked.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know what it is–something white and fluffy.”\u00c2\u00a0 I had no idea that it was my quilt.\u00c2\u00a0 At home, the quilt was a pile on top of the freezer, with nothing much to identify it but all the batting that had spilled out.<\/p>\n

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I was actually nauseous when I realized what had happened.\u00c2\u00a0 How could I tell Capitol?<\/p>\n

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How much would it cost to replace the materials and of course, the time recreating the quilt?<\/p>\n

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Monday morning Capitol called, cheerfully asking if the quilt had arrived in time for my class.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t even have time to prepare mentally. \u00c2\u00a0 I just blurted out that my puppies destroyed the quilt and I’m soooo sorry!!!!<\/p>\n

There was a brief silence and then….and THEN…this lovely lady said she understood.\u00c2\u00a0 Her puppy had eaten a new shoe that morning.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I hardly thought that crime compared to Jacob and Esau’s evil act.\u00c2\u00a0 But her kindness was so appreciated.<\/p>\n

She went on to say that if at any time I wanted to remake it, just let them know and they would send replacement supplies!\u00c2\u00a0 How amazing was that???<\/p>\n

I never did remake the quilt.\u00c2\u00a0 It still lies folded up in my linen closet, a reminder of another day, another time, another beauty lost to puppy teeth.\u00c2\u00a0 Beauty is fleeting, don’t they say?<\/p>\n

But the damage of children and puppies, as I said before, is small potatoes.\u00c2\u00a0 It does not make me any less eager to see them and to have them included in our lives.\u00c2\u00a0 It helps me focus on bigger issues, like what will I sew next?<\/p>\n

What will you sew next?<\/p>\n

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Children and puppies–I do love and enjoy them.\u00c2\u00a0 Damages are to be expected and the children who are the light of my life\u00c2\u00a0 never fail to deliver in their younger days.     Recently, Vivian Rose, 4 yo, was here … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":37069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,28,40,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37043"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37043"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37206,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37043\/revisions\/37206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}