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#toddler – @ahedderick on Tumblr
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Farmer/Artist/Mom

@ahedderick / ahedderick.tumblr.com

The collected nonsense of an Appalachian farmer
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From the Annals

   A bit of family history, from 2006

One evening I went into the tool shed to get corn for the chickens. I had the Baby on my right hip and Son trailing behind. When I opened the corn bin, there, huddled roundly at the bottom, were two deer mice, Mama and baby. They were glossy and well fed and did not look the least bit guilty. Son started jumping up and down saying, "Can I touch one? Can I touch one?" I got a bucket, set Baby down on the floor reluctantly, and started trying to scoop up two athletic and highly motivated mice.

   The mice were leaping everywhere but the bucket, Son was trying to help, and Baby was looking around the floor for something she shouldn't stick in her mouth (so that she could stick it in her mouth). I was cool and calm.

   Finally I got both mice in the bucket, to be humanely released, and Baby securely back on my hip. Son was still jumping up and down beside me. "CanItouchoneCanItouchone?" As I rounded the corner of the woodshed I beheld the stupid dog with a hen pinned to the ground, "playing" with her.

HAAAAAA! I screamed in my best marine sergeant tones.

Mama mouse made a leap that would have had Jackie Joyner Kersey weeping with pride and landed on my left shoulder, quivering. The dog unrepentantly let go of the chicken, who leaping up clucking and squawking almost enough to drown out Son saying, "Mommy, you scared me! CanItouchitCanItouchit . . . "

I'm telling you, I was really, really cool and calm.

In the end, the chicken was ruffled but unhurt, and Baby and Son got to look closely at (but not touch) the bemused mice, who were successfully released far away from the corn bin.

(Note; this is why I started going gray early, I think)

(This is a photo of a different corn thief, but a mouse is a mouse)

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velcropoodle

We've checked out from the library "Leave Me Alone!" by Vera Brosgol twice now, last time was a month ago. This week that book activated in my toddler's brain like a sleeper cell and she's been randomly shouting "LEAVE ME ALONE!!" then quietly mumbling "the old woman shouted."

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ahedderick

THAT'S MY GIRL!!

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ahedderick

Little Monsters

Little Monsters everywhere!

I bought this fabric from @pterribledinosaurdrawings designs (but I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the website) quite a while back. I made the green design into a dress for my little niece last spring, and saved the rainbow monsters for this year.

Small dresses are so quick to sew up compared to adult-sized ones!

After racking my brain and trying a couple of searches, I think I got this from a now-defunct website called MyFabricDesigns. However, I do remember seeing Spoonflower in one of his posts, too. Anyone who wants some could ask the man directly at either @pterribledinosaurdrawings or @vinceaddams

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Toddler

A year or more ago I purchased a subscription to the 'magazine' Babybug* for my little niece. She is a little more than two, now, and talking a blue streak. I got the following from my brother:

She wandered around the living room with her new magazine saying: Babybug. Babybug! babybug? BA! BEE! BUG! bbybg Baybug! Read book! babybuggy! [etc, ad lib]

and yes, of course I nearly cried laughing. What a delight! I miss those years.

If anyone is wondering, Babybug and the other Cricket-type magazines are way more expensive than other children's magazines, and yet worth every penny. There are no - ZERO - adverts in them, just a little book of short stories, clever poems, and good illustrations. Oh, I wish they lived closer, so I could read with her!

-* By the same folks who publish 'Cricket'

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Batteries

   A couple of months ago I gave my brother (whose daughter was turned one this summer) advice to watch out for ‘noise toys’ that get low batteries. Our daughter once had a doll with various buttons, snaps, zippers and laces (and dialogue for each fastener). The batteries on that thing got low in the middle of the night, and she started talking in the weirdest, creepiest distorted tone. It was geniunely hair-raising.

   This past week I got a note from him telling me that the stuffed panda, which is supposed to giggle charmingly when it’s first turned on, started saying “HAHAHAHAHAEEEEEEUUURGGGGH“ instead. I was glad I’d warned him, and I laughed until I nearly cried.

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HAT

  Oh, Mother-of-moles* I sewed a hat! A little toddler-sized hat. It is monstrous.

   My brother told me that Niece is extremely interested in hats, as toddlers sometimes do. I was going to make a tiny, doll dress out of the monster fabric to go along with her dress, but the baby dress pattern included a little sun hat . . so. Curved seams are difficult, very small curved seams are blasted difficult, but I did it.

* I read Ursula Vernon’s graphic novel Digger, and never recovered from it. Highly recommend. It gave me a range of new and unusual expletives. Also a pirate shrew who is ethnically a troll? Or maybe the other ‘way round. Highly recommend!

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ahedderick

Monster dress

   I bought fabric (months ago) for a li’l baby dress for my niece. Yesterday I finally cut out some pieces to start making it, and today I got to sew a bit. Man, I’d forgotten how TINY dresses can be.

Well, I’ve begun. Problems cropped up immediately.

YOU, sir, are getting exiled upstairs while I work with the crinkly pattern paper!

(the sounds of distant SCREMES of outrage and injustice)

   I want to modify the pattern several ways, so I’m cutting some bits from a scrappy white sheet to get them adjusted properly. Then I will cut from the good fabric.

   In my original post I neglected to credit the artist. I know most of us are already familiar with the small monsters and relatable dinos from @pterribledinosaurdrawings​ , but if you’re among today’s lucky 10,000 - that’s where the artwork for this fabric came from. The fabric came from myfabricdesigns.com  and more fabric and sewing info can be found at @vinceaddams​ 

   Anyway, I think giving my little niece a monster dress and an even tinier monster dress for a stuffed doll will be an excellent thing. I will post more about it when I figure out what I’m doing next.

   (If you’re wondering if you, and adult, could possibly get away with wearing a shirt with tiny monsters all over it, I would advise you to seize the day and wear all the monsters your heart desires.)

Whew! I’m more or less finished (give or take a button.)

   The biggest problem I faced is that I’m accustomed to having a finely-honed mathematical mind to work with, which means I can visualize how the 2d pieces of fabric go together into a 3d form, how to adjust things if I want them different from the pattern, etc. And, I’ve noticed lately, my mind is not working as it used to. I got stuck on this project trying to figure out how to attach the bodice (which has a little overlap for buttons) to the skirt (which does not overlap) and ended up in tears because my brain wouldn’t visualize the steps. Well. Anyhow. I got that sorted and chose two vintage buttons from my grandmother’s stash.

   The skirt is a half-circle, most of the seams are finished inside (so there aren’t frayed edges tickling her, and I’ll be able to pack it up and send it to my brother this week. He will have to teach my niece how to say “monster!”

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Flying Leap

   Once when my daughter was about three she had a nightmare in the middle of the night. I sleep VERY lightly, and when her feet hit the ground in her room I came instantly awake. She didn’t cry out or make any noise, she just ran as fast as she could into our room. She vaulted right over my husband’s sleeping form (it was impressive!) and zipped under the covers in between him and me like a greased ferret. Before I could ask her what happened, she was asleep again. I have no idea how she fell asleep that fast. But she found a place of utter safety and was able to let go of her nightmare fear at once. I was shocked, thoughtful, impressed - and wistful. I never felt like that, but I’m glad she did. I will never forget that night, and feeling glad that she had a place of safety.

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