Repurposing Project

There is a new trend going around where old pieces of furniture are given a new life and purpose...repurposing, they call it. 

Grammy had already repurposed a computer hutch that Papallama built for her one Christmas, but she hadn't fancied it up yet.  This week began the beautification project to transform the hutch into a printer/arts/craft/sewing cabinet.  Let's just call it my PACS-inet. 

As is often always the case with my projects, it was more involved and more expensive than I anticipated.  And I was hoping to follow Papallama's mantra of "If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing right."  So I cleaned, I sanded, I primed, I put one coat, I put another coat, and another...

Maybe one of these days I'll finish it.  For now it is drying its third coat.  I am posting a few pictures of it midway to give you an idea of what I'm in the midst of. 

Watching the paint dry~

If You Can Read This Warning...

It's probably too late. 

Recently, both Mama Cat and Mama at Law were greeted by signs at the childcare center warning them of the latest outbreak of a contagious disease.  For Mama Cat, it was a warning that several children had contracted Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease.  She said that when she dropped Baby Bird off for Mothers' Morning Out, he was the only child there and the smell of bleach had replaced the toys.  The center had taken the necessary precautions to prevent the spread of this ailment.  Yet six days later...you guessed it...Baby Bird began to break out in the easily distinguishable sores that give HFM its name.  Luckily, he seemed to feel no worse for wear and paid no attention to the sores.  For Mama at Law, the sign read RVS was spreading around the children.  Sure enough, when P Buddy got home that night, he started a coughing spasm.  His doctor later confirmed that he had it during his 'well' check up.  He, too, seems to be in good spirits and mending nicely.

I just visited Baby Bird last week.  His family is having to move after the landlord sold the house they were living in...a year before their lease was up!!  In the midst of it, Baby Bird caught another bug, this time a stomach one, and passed it around to Mama Cat and Jaybird. 

Well, you know the saying...

"What doesn't kill you will make you stronger!"  I know some folks who are much stronger now.  I just wouldn't try to tell them that just yet. 

Ay yi yi~

Happy Mother's Day

Grammy and her girls

With Mother's Day approaching, I thought I would review a few books on the subject.  When doing a quick search, I ran across Love You Forever, by Robert Munsch.  This book, written in 1986 when Mama Cat was just turning two, touched my heart at the time and continues to be a favorite of many.  New mommies are often overwhelmed with the level of love they feel for their baby, and how much that intensifies as the child grows up.  Munsch captures the intensity of the mother-child relationship in a sentimental and simple verse. 

“I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
as long as I’m living
my baby you’ll be.”

But here is what shocked and surprised me, though it shouldn't have.  Munsch wrote this verse after he and his wife experienced not one, but two still births.  On his website, he writes, "The song was my song to my dead babies. For a long time I had it in my head and I couldn’t even sing it because every time I tried to sing it I cried. It was very strange having a song in my head that I couldn’t sing."  Then one day it occurred to him that he could write a story around the song, and well, 15,000,000 copies later, I guess he wrote a pretty good story.  My own mother had a still birth baby and her first son died when he was five.  I can tell you that while they were rarely mentioned, they were always present in her life.  To think of her pain and how she shielded us from it touches me still.

Some reviewers criticize the book as creepy.  Afterall, the mommy never seems to be able to let go of her little boy.  Munsch writes stories with lots of humor, and that's how I read it, with his sense of humor in my head.  He is not writing a 'how to' be a mommy book.  He is simply illustrating that we mommies will go to any length for our children and our love knows no boundaries.  Creepy to some, but that is why a mother lion will rip you to shreds, a dog will bite off your hand, and a bird will peck you on your head.  Don't mess with our babies. 

So, on that happy and cautionary note, I wish all the mommies and their babies a very happy Mother's Day! 

A Mommy holds a son's hand for a while, his heart forever.

A mom's hug lasts long after she lets go. ~Author Unknown

But only one mother the wide world over~