Granny’s Stolen the Thing I Want..

“One of its eyes is missing. How can I make a head if I only have one eye,” I grumble.

“That’s ok Mum. It’s only got one toe as well. It’ll balance it up,” shrugs Cameron.

“We’ll find the eye. It’s probably in here,” Hannah volunteers, routing through the bin with her friend Harriet.

The ‘sock bear’ is not going well.

Sock Bear?

Hannah has been asking me to make her a sock bear since she received the craft kit as a present at a party in June. I hid it in the cupboard for a while, hoping she’d forget about it and I could give it away as a raffle prize for Christmas. Sewing is not my strong point. But she didn’t forget, and now she has taken to presenting me with it as soon as she gets home from school, before I can distract her with a biscuit, a drink of milk or a cash bribe.

I finally submit to a sock bear-making session, partly because her friend Harriet is here and I need to entertain two of them. And also because I feel like I never do anything with my kids these days. I spend their post-school hours either running them around to after-school activities or locking myself in my office to work. For a family who claims to be all about adventures together, we are a disgrace. Anyway, it’s only a bear thrown together from a sock. It can’t be that hard if it’s a craft kit for a six-year-old. Can it?

I soon discover that it isn’t a craft kit for a six-year-old. It’s a craft kit for a 50-something structural engineer. The diagrams are complex and misleading. The sock is a ridiculously fluffy slipper thing that frays, and small beads, eyes and toes get lost in its fluff. It needs sharp scissors, which we don’t have. And a sharp brain which I don’t have. I’ve also chosen to make sock bear in the kitchen, while I’m cooking up a chicken korma. The two aren’t compatible. But it fails to state that on the box. It takes me half an hour to cut out the pieces, and they all smell of raw onion.

Half a sock bear is better than none?

As the korma is cooking I stitch up the lower half of sock bear. I show it to the girls.

“It seems to have a weird toe sticking out,” Harriet points out.

“That’s ok, it’ll make it different from your sock bear,” I say.

“It’s very different from my sock bear,” she replies, eyeing up the patch of splashes of chicken korma around its groin.

Now I’ve made sock bear’s bottom half, I need to stitch the upper half together. But my section A doesn’t resemble the section A on the box and I seem to have two section B’s. No one can find the eye. And the dinner is burning.

Sock Bear has burnt the dinner

Stuart comes in to tell me he’s off to his Mum’s house. “What’s that horrible smell?” he asks.“It’s the stench of a craft project crashing and burning,”

“What are all those pieces of fluff?”

“A teddy torso. But I can’t make head or tail of its upper body and it has a freak toe.”

He offers to take it with him. “Mum will sort it out in a jiffy.”

“Are you comparing me unfavourably with your mother?

“She’s better at sewing.”

“My sewing is fine. She just has more time. Anyway, I think I’ve got the back of it cracked. How long did it take you to do yours Harriet?”

“About three months.” Harriet screws up her face. I conclude that sock bear probably looks better if you do that.

Let Granny have a go

I give in and pack Stuart and Hannah off to his Mums with the sock kit and the torso and I walk Harriet home.

By the time I return, Hannah is on the phone from Granny’s house, “Granny says you need to send a different sock. This one is too fluffy.”

I explain that it’s a special sock, designed specifically for a sock bear kit.

“Granny also wants to know what the weird thing sticking out of the foot is.”

“It’s a toe. You know that.” I tell her.

“Granny didn’t believe me.”

I tell Hannah that Granny will have to get on with the sock or send it back so I can finish it off after dinner.”

But Granny has not really helped

“It might take a bit longer now. Granny has taken out all the stitches out that you did.”

“She’s done WHAT?” It’s a repeat of last year when she offered to sew on a scout badge. She ended up taking off the other 12 badges and re-sewing them all back on because my sewing wasn’t good enough.

“My sewing is fine. You tell her I was making a chicken korma at the same time.”

Hannah relays the message and returns to the phone. “Granny says that is very evident. What does evident mean?” she asks.

“I want sock bear back. “ I bark.

Hannah relays this message too, but Granny has now put her foot down. “Granny wants to finish it. And she wants to know what you did with the other eye.”

Sock bear is threatening my self-esteem

The chicken korma is spoilt by the time Hannah and Stuart arrive home. Cameron stirs it around, picking off the bits of crust from the side of the pan. Not only can I not make a sock bear but now I’m struggling to throw together a simple curry. And a stupid sock bear is threatening my self-esteem.

“Why are you so late?” I grumble.

“Because Granny had to get the sewing machine out to finish sock bear.”

You don’t need a sewing machine for a sock bear

“She got the sewing machine out? That was unnecessary.” I say. “You don’t need a sewing machine to stitch a sock. I made his pelvis in five minutes.”

“But sock bear’s pelvis has broken granny’s sewing machine,” says Hannah solemnly. “I think she’s a bit cross.”

“How many toes has it got?” I ask.

“None. She hadn’t reached his foot when the machine broke.”

So now I’m back to square one.

“Will you stop slopping that korma around,” I shout at Cameron.

“I think I’ve found sock bear’s eye!” he says, fishing out a piece of chicken and a plastic black and white cornea.

Sock bear is haunting me

Late at night, waiting for sleep, sock-bear’s beady eye haunts me. I scold myself for taking economics instead of textiles at school when I was really was good at sewing. I have a go at Stuart for letting his mother trump me with her sewing machine. I’m annoyed I couldn’t master a simple craft toy. And regretful I didn’t choose something simple to do with the girls. But most of all I think I’m annoyed with Granny. She stole my precious time with my daughter. She snatched one of those rare after school hours when Hannah isn’t at Rainbows, recorder or round at a friend’s. While I was stuck home alone, stirring a chicken curry, Granny and Hannah had a lovely hour deciding how many eyes are enough for a sock bear. They chatted and laughed as they puzzled out the pieces of his body. They giggled as they unpicked his legs and teased out more toes.

They made time for family while I made a korma. Sock bear will last forever, but the korma only lasted for dinner. If Hannah ever gets to go to sleep with sock bear will she think of Granny and not me? When she grows up will she think fondly of her sock bear and wonder what activities I did with her?

But then I remember. Sock bear is not yet finished. And I’ve got his curry stained eye! This sock bear saga is far from over. I will win my daughter back.

So, do you manage to find ways to make the dinner and a sock bear? Or do others steal your precious family time?