Essential Tasks.

I've been keeping myself very busy lately, performing Essential Tasks such as cleaning the dust off the door panels and organizing the downstairs hall closet (and subsequently my sewing cabinet) and turning at first 100 pounds of tomatoes into salsa and then, after reconsidering, upping that number to 125 pounds* and getting a head start on baby laundry by washing the clothes before they've been dirtied, and so on and so forth. Essential Tasks. Tasks that, were I not 37 weeks pregnant, I would ignore like I do the rest of the time.

Anyway, all this is to highlight the High Importance of the Essential Task which I completed today. Years ago, when we started planning on having baby #2**, I decided to make Caleb a doll that he could practice parenting with while I tended to the live baby. I found a pattern (Simplicity 2809, if you're interested), bought the fabric, cut it out, and (rather amateurishly) embroidered a face over a series of months, taking my time. And then, when nothing continued to happen, I became petulant and put the project away.

To cut to the chase, I finished the baby doll today.

The hair is a wig I made out of a remnant of cuddle fleece (infinitely better, I think, than the three strands of yarn the pattern suggested) (also, the picture makes the hair look reddish, but it's about the color of wheat). I also made two diapers for the doll so that it can have diaper changes, too, when Baby Sister does. I'll likely make another outfit before the week is over if my energy holds. It isn't professional, but I'm pleased (and so, incidentally, is Caleb). And hopefully it will save the real Baby Sister some abuse.

*Are you our neighbor? Want to guess what your Christmas neighbor gift will be this year?
**When I still held the mistaken belief that I would get pregnant just as easily as a drunk teenager in the back seat of a car.