Saturday 10 November 2012

Fear of Masks


Last night we went out to a friend's house for a delicious rabbit supper, and afterwards, while the adults chatted, Meggie discovered some enormous and quite frightening masks in the sitting room.  "What that, Mummy?" she asked in a small, worried voice.  "That's a mask, Meggie,"  I replied, trying to sound neutral (the masks were kind of scary).  "People put masks on their faces sometimes, and then they might dance about or pretend to be an animal."  "What that, Mummy?" she asked, pointing at another strange mask.  "That one looks like a birdie, doesn't it?  It's a birdie mask."  I had to add the "ie" to the end of bird to make it sound super-cute and friendly.  "I don't like masks, Mummy."  "Fair enough, Meggie."

So today I decided I needed to introduce Meggie to the fun of masks, to teach her not to be afraid of them.  Cunningly, I didn't launch right in at the deep end, but instead got Meg to help me to make a sheep.  We cut card, and squeezed a bottle of PVA glue, and spread it about with a spatula, then I let Meg stick the cotton wool balls on without any interference from me.  I cut out a black paper face, and invited her to stick the goggly eyes where she thought they should go (with very realistic results - much more side-of-the-face than I would have ventured - but that is, in fact, where sheep keep their eyes).  We used pegs for the legs (and it sort of stands up on its own, if you're very patient) - and here it is drying above the wood burner (with an extra couple of pegs pinning it to the line to confuse things):


She was very pleased indeed with the sheep.  I was a little disappointed that it only took about seven minutes to make, having somehow wrongly imagined that it would be a merry half hour filled up with crafty goodness and sticky joy.  Then I made my move.  I brought a mask down from upstairs and showed her how silly I looked in it, and tied to imply that there was a lot of fun to be found just behind it.  She was very firm about it.  "No, Mummy.  Horrible.  Put mask away.  I don't like masks."  I got Daddy to put it on, and he pretended to enjoy it too, but again Meggie was unconvinced.  I informed her that Mummy was going to help her to make a sheep mask, and she shook her head and demanded to watch Pingu on Daddy's "yaptop."

So I made the mask, and tried to get her to wear it.  She wouldn't touch it, but she was starting to think it was funny when I had it on.  And to cut a long story short, she wouldn't wear it, no, she wouldn't wear it, she didn't want to wear it, Mummy, so I stopped asking and did some washing up and in the meantime she suddenly forgot that she wouldn't wear it and put it on. 

So I seized the moment and grabbed my camera:


And lo, Meggie's fear of masks was conquered (sort of) in an afternoon of craftiness and woolly delight. 

And later, after she'd gone to bed, I celebrated the fact that today I found a long-feared-lost bag of felt offcuts by making a goggly-eyed grey mouse badge thing (which took much longer than it should have, but is quite cute) which might become a prototype for various Christmas presents (sorry, I said that word, but I suppose it is November) for Meggie and/or her toddler friends.

What have you been crafting lately?  Do you also start to crave a busy-fingered creativity as the evenings draw in?  Will you be making any Christmas presents this year?


2 comments:

  1. Fingermouse!

    That's awesome - Jacob has an intense fear of dressing up, but bizarrely, in our corner shop there are some utterly grotesque masks left over from Halloween, which he delights in putting on. They scare me. He won't let us buy one, though.

    Well done for conquering her fear so quickly, we're really regretting letting some things go on without intervention as it's now causing massive problems :(

    Anyway, with regards to crafting - we spent the last week making Halloweeny things and fireworky pictures, and various other leafy-Autumny goodies.

    For Christmas, I'm making Jacob a felt campfire, trying to finish his rainbow blanket which I didn't finish for last Christmas (oops!) and making lots of decorations. In amidst making lots of booties and blankets and hats, of course ;)

    Too much time on my hands, moi?

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  2. I must start writing about my children again. I love reading about the things that other people's children say, hearing their little voices, and the way they say things in their own special ways.

    This will be my first Christmas as a lone parent ('lone parent'; makes me think of cowboys), and I'm very excited about it. We're going to have baking, and making, sticking, cutting, mess-making, and music, laughter, games, and huge, tremendous fun. I don't know what we're going to make yet, apart from chocolate truffles (maybe with a little Aldi booze in the grown-ups' ones). We used to do 'makes' all the time, when I had children at home. It's been a while, and I'd like to get messy again! My children are starting to grow up, but I don't have to let them go yet :)

    I think we might do masks this weekend ;)

    Lxxx.

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