Sometimes You Need A Super Hero Cape

Anna was invited to a birthday party and we needed to get a birthday gift. We brainstormed and found some ideas on Etsy. Although it's meant for younger children, the Super Hero Cape appealed to us both.

I needed to create a logo for the cape and we decided to combine the design from the top left option and the letters from option second from the bottom left. Izzy's favorite colors are blue and green and we got blue fleece, green felt for the letters, a metallic novelty lace trim for the "tornado," a gold braid curtain pull for the collar and gold fringe for the bottom of the cape. The slogan, "More awesomeness per square inch," somehow got lost in the rush to complete it. Maybe if I had a fancy-schmancy embroidery-type sewing machine, I could have pulled that one off.

Super Hero Cape - Embryonic Form

Unfortunately, everything always takes longer than I expect or plan for. Anna cut the letters while I figured out what to do with the cape. My lovely Pfaff 1222E got tangled up with thread in the bobbin and quit (I have to make a trip to the repair shop tomorrow).  By this time I was very frustrated and thought this the worst present in the world. I seriously wished we had gone with Anna's original suggestion to buy an iTunes gift card. So I stitched the last three letters by hand and tacked the curtain braid on the collar. Then I discovered the small elastic cording I hoped to loop through the two blue flower buttons we'd gotten was too big. So, I stitched the elastic to the buttons with the thread and put a drop of glue on the thread and elastic for good measure. I didn't have time to make the tornade design on the back of the cape---we were already an hour late to the party.

 

I had Drew try the cape on so Anna could see it. It was awesome. I had made triangular darts at the shoulders and sewed some of the gold fringe under the folded-over fabric so it looked like epaulets. Drew ran up the stairs, the cape flying behind him, and came back down. "I love it!" he said. I did, too, and was glad I had finished the cape anyway.

 

"Please take some pictures," I told Anna.

 

"You don't think this is a lame gift?" she asked.

 

"No," I said firmly. "Every teenage girl needs a Super Hero Cape once in a while."

It's Apples Versus Oranges in the Parker Household

We only have one pitcher and only enough space in the refrigerator for one pitcher. Anna got to the pitcher before Drew did and made orange juice. Drew prefers apple juice.

Here's the threat:

"Apple juice is the next choice for the pitcher, or I will pour the orange juice out."

Brain Pickings on Love

This, quite frankly, is the best explanation of love I've found, from the book, "Big Questions from Little People: and Simple Answers from Great Minds:"

 

You don’t fall in love like you fall in a hole. You fall like falling through space. It’s like you jump off your own private planet to visit someone else’s planet. And when you get there it all looks different: the flowers, the animals, the colours people wear. It is a big surprise falling in love because you thought you had everything just right on your own planet, and that was true, in a way, but then somebody signalled to you across space and the only way you could visit was to take a giant jump.

Away you go, falling into someone else’s orbit and after a while you might decide to pull your two planets together and call it home. And you can bring your dog. Or your cat. Your goldfish, hamster, collection of stones, all your odd socks. (The ones you lost, including the holes, are on the new planet you found.)

And you can bring your friends to visit. And read your favourite stories to each other. And the falling was really the big jump that you had to make to be with someone you don’t want to be without. That’s it.

PS You have to be brave.