The Good and the Bad and the Good

We had a happy, happy afternoon at the pool-- --and then the woman depicted by chance in this photograph--
--stole the girls' blue rubber duckie. Two minutes before closing time, her little swim diaper-clad toddler ran over and grabbed up the duckie, which Willow had been happily sharing with the entire pool for two hours, from right in front of us, then ran back over and showed his mom, who nodded and kept packing up. Of course I sent Matt marching right over, but he was utterly defeated when the woman, hardly looking at him or the kid or the toy, told him her kid had brought that duck to the pool every day for four weeks and maybe we should look around more for OUR duck--I think Matt should have just grabbed the duck and ran, but he reminds me that poolsides are slippery.

Seriously, what do you do when some random person brazenly steals something from you right out in public? If we'd been kids, it'd been easy--"Give me back my duck!" Bam!--but as adults we were utterly stymied when polite conversation did not allow us to achieve our goal. Seriously, this woman just would not give back that duck. So Matt had to march back with failure in his eyes, and we had to carry our hysterical child from the pool.

Don't worry--Willow feels better now, except that I keep bringing it up again to help her process. You know--"You've been sharing so well now for over four years, and only once has someone stole what you were sharing with them," etc. It's too bad, because Will really is a very generous child. Parents often compliment me, as if I had anything to do with it, and she's always giving her little buddies presents from her own toy supply. I hate it when this happens--you lovingly raise up your child with the utmost thoughtfulness and care, cultivating precious qualities in them and building up their characters, and then some idiot comes along and makes their best attempt at ruining all your work in about one minute with one ugly act or one ugly remark. You know--telling them, "Stay with your mommy, or a bad person will come and take you away," or hitting their dog right in front of them, or stealing the toy they'd brought to the pool to share for a while.

One of our family friends was with us at the pool that day, and she's a social worker, and when I asked her for her professional opinion about the situation, she thought for a minute, lips pursed, then said, "That woman has problems."

I have something that would have cheered the girls right up, of course, but I wouldn't give it to them because I am mean. The gifties inside have to wait, but my Christmas in July Stashbuster Swap angel package arrived!

You know I got bailed on by my official partner, who apparently received the ornaments I made without a word and then disappeared, but the swap organizer found two, count them TWO, people to make swap presents for me and get nothing in return--Craftster calls them swap angels. And my first swap angel package was AWESOME!
These are the veggies that my angel crocheted for me. She made a carrot, corn, peas, a tomato, and a baby eggplant/beet. I'm so excited to put these in the girls' Christmas stockings--I've made them pretty flush on felt food, but I'd really been wanting some crocheted food, as well. Now if I can only find somebody to crochet them a matching set of eggplant top knitted hats...Because the girls also love the ocean, my angel also crocheted them some ocean life, a sea turtle and a dolphin. The sea turtle's shell is like a little jacket that you can take off and put back on again. A jacket, y'all--how much fun is that? A lot.The sweetest thing, though, is that she made me and the girls matching jewelry--the black beads are all magnets, so that you can wrap the same piece around your neck a couple of times for a necklace, or around your wrist several times for a bracelet. Of course, the first thing I did was to wrap mine and the girls' all around my own wrist for one giant, super-bracelet.
I'm really happy with my swap package; this turned out to be a great swap, after all. Just a couple more lovingly handcrafted items, now, and the girls' Christmas stockings will be full before November!