School Holiday Project #1: The Trauma Teddy

It's been a little while since my last post... I've been working hard on my beautiful new site, soon to be ready! Take a sneak peak if you like :o) It's pretty and flowery and everything I hoped it would be. I can't wait to get started! Anyway.

I'm REALLY looking forward to the school holidays. Is anybody else? It doesn't seem to be a popular thing to admit, but I've said it. I love school holidays. My lovely little chicken, who's in Kindy this year, can't wait for the holidays to start; she's decided that she wants to learn to knit. Why would a five year old want to knit you might ask? In her words, "Because we need to help the poor people and we haven't helped them for AGES so I want to knit them something so they keep warm." Ohhh! My mummy heart melted right about now. After careful consideration we decided it might be better to knit a Red Cross teddy for sick kids instead - hopefully a little simpler to make than a jumper - and she was more than satisfied with the decision. So off we go this afternoon to BigW to buy some junior knitting needles. Has anyone knitted one of those teddys before? Is it hard? I'm an amateur knitter so I'm not really sure what I'm getting myself into. I do have a feeling that I'll be knitting a lot of it myself though...

My daugher's humanitarian heart has mine melting pretty regularly these days. It seems to have developed this year as she's seen school friends go through difficult times with one friend's parents breaking up and others falling behind in school work. When I think about it, it was the terrible Victorian bushfires that really got her started. We rummaged through the house for things that might help out and donated as much money as we could muster (which, when I counted up the coins, wasn't as much as I would've liked to have been able to give). Since then, she's been dedicated to helping people. One day she announced to her Grandma, "I'm going to try and make my school a better school... I'm going to teach everyone to be kind to eachother by being kind to them." Really? From a five year old? Again. Melting! Her favourite show was Random Acts of Kindness and she often used to say, "I want to be like that," of the people willingly and lovingly helping others. How did this happen? I have no idea. How did she go from a normal, happy but generally self-centred child, to Little Miss Humanitarian?

How beautiful is the innocence of childhood passion. Void of all knowledge of reality and self consciousness that might quench them, children's dreams and hopes seem attainable when they're being babbled about in the car home from school. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to maintain that child-like passion and desire to help?

I'll keep you posted on the progress of our little Red Cross Trauma Teddy. Suggestions more than welcome!

xox