Children and Puppies=Inevitable Damage

Children and puppies–I do love and enjoy them.  Damages are to be expected and the children who are the light of my life  never fail to deliver in their younger days.

 

 

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

 

 

As I turned away from  the kitchen sink, Vivi stood behind me, looking quite artificially serene.  Her outfit was streaked with what looked like peach sidewalk chalk marks.

 

 

“What’s on your shirt, Vivi?”

Smiling sweetly, “Dirt.  Umm hmm.  Brown dirt.”

“It doesn’t look like brown dirt.”

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.  End of subject.  What she lacks in honesty, she makes up for in creative explanations.

After laundering, the “brown dirt” still remains.  I can’t imagine what she got into in such a short period of time.  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.

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

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

And she loved playing with our Shepherd/Great Pyrenees mix puppies.   Samson and Delilah are crazy about her.

 

 

But these pups, too, have taken their toll.

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

 

 

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

Those  black Labs were Olympic gold medalists when it came to damage.  Their biggest score just broke my heart.

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

 

 

I loved their champagne Swiss and trims.  Combined with pink lace tape and pink satin ribbon, and free motion quilting, the scrappy design was elegant.

 

I asked if I could borrow the quilt to show at a class I was scheduled to teach in Orlando.  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.  Dum da-da dum….

On my way home after class. I called my husband.  He said that Jake and Esau had chewed something up.  “What?” I asked.

“I don’t know what it is–something white and fluffy.”  I had no idea that it was my quilt.  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.

 

 

I was actually nauseous when I realized what had happened.  How could I tell Capitol?

 

 

How much would it cost to replace the materials and of course, the time recreating the quilt?

 

 

 

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

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

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!  How amazing was that???

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

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

What will you sew next?