Little Miss Blue's outfit

I expect my readers to know me well enough to have guessed that I am proud of being the mom to a little girl who wears a spiderman costume even though she is a girl (and gets lots of smiles and encouragement for it from her friend's parents and her teachers too). But some days she just likes wearing a dress. Even better, a dress that flies around her when she swirls, and better yet, a dress and a cape for her to fly for real, she says. She was pleased with this birthday gift that I made for her, ignored it for the first 24h, as often with clothes, and apparently adopted it as the official "little Miss Blue's" outfit.

The dress is a copy of a pink jersey dress that Cristiano bought for Leila in South Africa, which has grown with both of them to now fit Coline as a three-year-old. I sort of cut the mold around the original dress and it being bell-shaped made it easy to fit loosely around Coline. For the cape, though, I can offer a pattern in this book: 

Click here for a link to "Growing up Sew Liberated". I recommand this book for whoever likes making cute and useful gifts for little people. It offers a range of fun projects with patterns, accessible techniques and easy-to-follow descriptions for beginners. I am grateful to my friend who regularly lends it to me.

Little Miss Blue

Cris: "Coline Rosa Lana" (got confused with "Leila Rosa Lana")
Coline: "I am not Coline Rosa"..."Coline Blue Lana"!
Little Miss Blue turned three today. Blue IS her favorite color, by far.

Her birthday was duly celebrated with a picnic at school yesterday.

She has been so excited about turning three! In her own quiet way she loved being the center of attention. She took her part very seriously, focusing on the candles while her "coleguinhas" were singing "Parabens" and clapping hands. She pinched her lips when she realized all eyes were on her. She distributed her favorite fruit, blueberries, to the adventurous ones who went for the blueberry experience (blueberry is not common around here, although some new varieties seem to be growing well in the coolest parts of Brazil). I had a mom approaching me today to ask about the amazing grape that Coline had given her son. Something definitely happened between the two of them as he wouldn't stop asking her for more and she would cross the room with the greatest care to deliver him a spoonful of the berries as if she was carrying an egg in an egg race game. She judilated when I allowed her to eat blue sugar-coated chocolates as she pleased on that special day.

She is proud to be getting dressed all by herself, and when given a chance she will either go out as "Menina aranha" (Spidergirl) or just naked. She is a lazy cat in the morning and quite a night owl who will only get more and more hyper if I let her, but reading a story or five, once Leila is in bed, warm milk in a bottle and most of all a hug under a warm blanket and she peacefully falls asleep. She loves spreading objects on the floor all over the house and is convinced that it is not and will never be her job to collect them. When she talks about the snow (which she discovered last month), she has stars in her eyes. She is a sweet, bright and beautiful little person who won't miss an oportunity to laugh and make us laugh. I love you Coline Blue Lana!

Behind the scenes, was a whole week of making (sewing) a gift for her, preparing "lembrancinhas" for her party pack with Leila and her (a picture frame for her friends to decorate with buttons from her Brazilian grandmother's shop - what better place for a cat to have a nap than the exact piece of cardboard we are busy with?), trying and failing to produce coconut sweets (coconut milk, sugar and water, boil and poor over a marble table top and work by hand. Well, it did not work out this time, and so, buying additive-packed mini-chocolates instead, which she definitely was thrilled about - I suppose there was a lesson for me here), decorating the house with pictures of her and her gorgeous smile, a little baking in the morning and then literally hours of opening her presents. We do love birthdays.

Out in the garden

Last September I picked a small rectangle on our plot and started working the soil in order to plant something edible. I was warned by our landlady that the soil being what the miners dug out of the mine it was not going to be easy to grow anything there, but I decided to give it a go. I decided to plant corn (sweetcorn) for the simple reason that only GMO corn is available to us here, except for the imported Bonduelle canned sweetcorn that we get from selected supermarkets. With the help of Thembile, the dog, I worked the soil, removed a few stones, added horse manure the day that two of them visited our garden and when the rain came I planted corn and bean seeds. I have not seen a bean stalk in that area. The corn did grow, but surely is not too impressive. I cannot really call it disappointing because I was not expecting much in the first place. Let's say that I did not get too overwhelmed when I saw that the diameter of the corn stems are less than that of my fingers. Leila and I took a stroll to the corn patch this morning and had a peep into one of the cobs. I was already about to explain to her how we would do better next year, expecting to see one of those one-grain cobs as we got last year from corn planted in a pot. Well, to my greatest surprise, this corn has grains! and they are so soft that I can eat them raw! We will (hopefully) do better next year, with a bit of compost in the soil at least. I am liking this homegrown sweetcorn business, and to tell the truth, I do not think that corn ever tasted sweeter than the one that Leila and I harvested.

The rest of the day was a good one too. As yesterday I was offered and picked up bags of soil from a friend's I took on to make a small raised bed. I was amazed at how exhausted I got in the process of making such a small contribution to the garden. I mean, I have not yet finished assembling the banana trees that were cut down last week or throwing in the soil and covering it with whatever mulch I will gather on the plot. I have not yet sewed the seeds or planted the seedlings and I already contributed so much sweat. This labor just drove me to complete puzzlement in the face of supermarket shopping. Oh and there was some admiration too: have you seen Leila poking holes through cardboard with a machete? May this be a hint of how blunt the blade was.

Next on this Sunday's to-do list was reshuffling the play house so that Thembile can nest in there, for... she is expecting! Leila cannot bear to wait another two weeks whereas I am not sure if we are ready. She was such a tiny puppy only a few months ago. Weeks perhaps? The young lady had about ten suitors from the neighboring houses, all howling at night, including a big black alpha male who insists on peeing on our house (or the girl's bicycles) every day since we moved in, but she did not let him come close. She had her own favorite. I am glad his is not bigger than her. I quite like him even. As if that would matter!
Anyway, once the house was ready with an armchair in it and the late afternoon sun, in came our champion napper - Scratchy. Hunting mice at night sure calls for some serious day sleeping and he knows all the best spots. He just follows the sun on its east to west course.

Finally, some painting was done. For the first time I allowed the girls near the acrylic-based paints and was not disappointed. After a few brushtrokes each they went away and let me play around. Soon their favorite piece of "furniture"will go back to where it belongs and they will play some more. It feels great to be moving along, fixing things and making new ones and enjoying the beautiful days of March.