Thinking about Farpoint 2011

Yeah it is about a month away but this is the time that I start getting ready for the convention. I have new dolls I want to make. Caroline and Ariel have figured out what they want to do for the Masquerade. We almost have the skits sorted out.

This year I am going to try not to have the run up to the convention to be as insane as it has been in other years. One thing I have going for me is that we figured out the costumes now rather than two weeks before the show.

I like Farpoint. It is one of our regular conventions and it feels very homey. This will be Caroline’s 9th Farpoint. It was her first convention when she was a little over 3 months old. She knows the hotel. She knows the people. I don’t have to worry about her like I didn’t have to worry about Ariel when she was 8 years old and running around with the other kids her age and a little older. We don’t give her free rein but it isn’t like one of the larger conventions that we go to on occasion like New York Comic Con.

So things are ruminating through my brain pan and soon I will start to make the items I want and need to make for the convention. Along with all the stuff that I usually have to do to keep the house in decent shape and the family healthy and happy.

I am grateful for conventions that feel like home.

LJ Idol Season 7 Week 10 Icarus

I can remember at a rather early age reading the story of Daedalus and Icarus. It was in D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths which had just beautiful illustrations. One that stayed in my head was the image of Icarus falling towards the Earth as his father desperately reached out to try to catch him. I felt so sorry for Daedalus who’s only crime was being a good and clever craftsman.

Years later and I find myself a mother of a very bright and clever little girl who is full of questions about the world around her and wants to do so much. She has watched me sculpt and sew. She has watched me make puppets. I have made dresses for her dolls and stuffed animals. I have repaired broken toys and gotten vomit out of beloved llamas. She thinks I can do anything if I just want to do it.

As she has been getting older, she is figuring out how to do things for herself. Sometimes she over reaches and I have to come in and help but she has some idea of the limitations that her age brings. She is determined to learn how to sew on the big sewing machine. We have a small one that has a great guard for young fingers, but she chafes at the limitations of what kind of cloth she can put through it and how few stitches she has to choose from. She wants to be able to do what Mommy does. Right now I can hold her off from it because her foot doesn’t reach the pedal to run the machine but as she gets taller, that is going to go away.

Recently she and her father wrote a book together. They plotted it and figured out how the story was going to go and then Peter went away and wrote the book. He has been reading it to her a couple of chapters at a time. She asks intelligent questions about the story why he changed this or that. He explains to her why he did what he did and she nods and they go back to reading. I hope some day that this book sees print not only because it is such a good story, but it is also a labor of love between a father and his daughter who already is showing signs of great storytelling abilities.

Since she was little, she has been good with animals. We taught her at a very early age that tails were not for pulling and you had to let the animal come to you on its terms. She has learned to ask owners if she can pet their dogs and accepts “no” for an answer because she understands not all animals like children. I can remember when we were at Animal Kingdom at Disney World. Caroline was maybe 5 but probably younger. Peter and Ariel had gone on a ride that Caroline could not go on because of her height. So I took her to see the tigers. The tigers were sleeping on a grassy hill. I took Caroline around so she could get a better look at them. I swear two of the tigers looked right at us because they got up and came over to where we were. Caroline had her hand on the glass and the tigers came up to where she was and rolled in the dirt in front of her. She giggled and watched them for a bit and then turned to me to pick her up. I picked her up and the tigers looked at us again then sprinted to the back of their enclosure. One of the things she wants to do in life is to be come a large cat veterinarian. She want to help save all the species of large cats that are left on this planet and I think, if she puts her mind to it, she will do it.

I can only protect her for so long. She was mine for the first 4 years of her life. Now the world and all that is in it is out there for her to explore. I have taught her how to deal with life and life’s problems. I has taught her to be nice to people and to respect everyone even the mean people. I have taught her so much to try to help her cope with this madcap thing we call life. I have made her wings and now I must let her fly but I hope that she heeds my teachings and warnings and doesn’t fly too close to the sun.


For the Visually Impaired. This is a picture of Caroline taken at the Center for Puppetry Arts on December 26th, 2010. She is holding up the Reindeer she made in the puppet making workshop. She is standing in front of a picture from "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" which has had two holes cut into it so children and adults can make their heads the heads of the elves.