Monday, February 18, 2008

Hemming My Jeans

How to hem your jeans while being a stay-at-home mom to a three-year-old and a one-year-old on a snow day:

1. Getting ready to go teach freshman comp while repeatedly telling your three-year-old to go put on some pants and reassuring your one-year-old, who is following you and whining, that you will read the dinosaur book as soon as you're done, notice that the jeans you bought at Goodwill yesterday and are planning to wear to school look like this:
2. Look for the chalk, but remember that it's outside under a few inches of snow after the girls used it to draw pictures on the sidewalk. Find the vanishing ink pen on the kitchen counter. Mark pants. Take off pants only to discover that the marking pen--white--doesn't show up. Tell one daughter to stop throwing raspberries on the floor. Tell the other one, again, to put on some pants. Look in the study for a children's marker, but find only crayons on the floor. Get a Sharpie from the coffee mug above your desk and mark the pants, then get distracted when three-year-old pours juice for herself and misses the sippy long enough for one-year-old to swipe marker and draw all over the computer keyboard.



3. Lay the pants out in the study on the floor. One-year-old proceeds to dance on pants; lay out pants again. Look for scissors. Find, out of the eight pairs of scissors you own, the pair that used to be sharp, since you bought it a month ago, until somebody else cut...something, and nicked the blade a bit. Laboriously cut out pants.

4. Take pants to the sewing machine, which is set up in the living room since the guys installing drywall in the basement last month blew the fuse in the study where you keep the sewing machine and not only did they not fix it, but your partner took apart the outlet for some reason. Turn on "Rhinocerous Tap" for the girls. Admire three-year-old's dancing, which is awesome. Debate matching your thread, but ultimately decide that it's too much work. Debate changing the sewing machine needle, but get distracted when three-year-old keeps grabbing for thread spools from one side and one-year-old grabs for sewing scissors from the other. Suggest that they go stand behind the couch.

4. Hem pants. Admire. Take "after" photo, attempting to stand in exact same spot as "before" photo, but while climbing behind the couch, girls have removed clean, folded laundry stacked on couch and thrown it on the floor, thus obscuring the unvacuumed rug completely. Notice you are wearing your partner's socks, but decide not to bother changing.

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