Tomorrow is “Big Trash” day and Mr. A is already cruising the neighborhood looking for stuff to reuse or recycle in his summer “projects.” In June, he rescued some wooden blinds from the end of our neighbor’s driveway and over the summer used them on a variety of projects.
They were the perfect width to be carved into sword blades and receive a cardboard handle and a covering of foil. The blind slats had some natural spring and bend to them which Mr. A harnessed when he made a bow and arrow set, using recycled PVC pipe scraps for arrows.
Perhaps his greatest creation was his three-way catapult featuring blind slats mounted on a wooden box with small plastic cups nailed to the ends. Not only can they can be pressed back and released, sending the sponge marbles Mr. A made out of Model Magic flying, but you can also store extra ammunition INSIDE the box. He attached wheels and a handle to the box so it can be hauled from place to place like a piece of luggage.
Super cool. I try to think of Mr. A as a budding engineer and not as a weapons-crazed evil genius. I am his mother you know. It’s my job to see the best in all that he does. He is not a future war-monger, he is an up and coming physicist and inventor.
Meanwhile, E-Grrrl is in heaven with a different sort of recycling project. Her friend’s mother is going through her enormous shoe collection and showering E-Grrrl with her cast-offs. Mind you, E-Grrrl is not quite nine years old but is big for her age. Because she’s my darling daughter, I won’t say, “My God she has freakishly large feet.” But, ahem, y’all get my drift. Her friend’s mom, on the other hand, is one of those petite brunettes in her 40s that can buy her clothes in the juniors department, the sort of woman who could guest star on Desperate Housewives. (The sort of woman who makes me, at 5’7”, feel like a freaking amazon warrior.) Her size 6.5 shoes actually fit E-Grrrl, who is a complete shoe whore and thinks clicking through Zappos.com is better than watching a Hillary Duff movie and let me tell you, she loves Hillary Duff. (Yeah, I know, it's embarrassing. My Grrrl! Hillary Duff! What can I say? I once loved David Cassidy. I cannot cast stones.)
About half of the shoes dropped off at the house are fine for E-Grrrl to wear—they’re clogs and mod loafers with wedge soles. Now the others would be OK if E-Grrrl were meeting her third-grade pals for cocktails or going on a job interview. (What type of job would she interview for? Shoe buyer for a department store, of course!) She puts on these high-heeled pumps and sandals and struts across the ceramic floors, pivoting with aplomb at the end of her imaginary runway even as she wobbles a bit on the spiked heels.
Click, clack, click, clack, click , clack.
“Oh Mama,” she exclaims, “isn’t that simply the BEST sound in the world?”
Oh Mama indeed.
I let her keep the black and white polka dot pumps—just for the fun of it.
August 6, 2006
© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.