As the morning moved on and the sun started to rise, Nathaniel also emerged and the bigger planning for our day began. This weekend we have to do a fair amount of computer-based work, getting my Dress Me Up books ready for tax remittance, due at the end of the month. Finding computer time while Ruby is awake is challenging and we try to avoid it. She both loves and hates the computer - loves it because of all the BUTTONS! and the mouse! and the screen! and, I think, the inner excitement of the temptation to touch even when we say NO!, and she hates it because we do say so, and how zombie-like we become, unable to adequately focus on her and her needs and questions and requests regarding the computer. (Her most repeated is to "send Grampa Dad a email". She dictates and I type, always the same message, 'Happy Birthday, Grampa Dad', regardless of the date.).
So this morning, anticipating the moments in the weekend when we might need to be on the computer during her waking hours and she might need to send an email, I decided to make Ruby her own computer. And now, while Ruby and Nathaniel are food shopping and park playing, I have a few moments of uninterrupted computer time to share it with you (which is way more fun than wrestling Excel to tally PST).
Together we went down to the fabric room and choose cottons in stripes and a vintage child's print and ORANGE!, and then pulled out my button box to find just the right keys.
Creative piecing - this was a very intuitive first-thing-in-the-morning kind of project.
Stitched up and stuffed with buckwheat husks. The weight feels soooo good.
I added two small pockets - one on the side for pens, and one of the back for a note pad (or a vertical piece of cardboard mimicking a computer screen - her only complaint, "We need a SCREEN, Mama.") Of course, it's really more of a typewriter - but Ruby doesn't yet know of them. And though I was around at the time, I can't really imagine the work of folks calculating and remitting all those taxes by hand.
