I am enjoying this second trip through Preschool SO MUCH, let me tell you.  With the first child, you fret, and with the last child, you savor, knowing it’s rushing by too quickly.  Wasn’t it just yesterday that Sara had Clown Month, and I made ties and hats?  I blinked, 2 years rushed by, and it was Kelly’s turn for the great Circus Parade, an event famous to her class.  So famous, in fact, that when she and her friends paraded through the middle school (nothing is cuter than 12 little 3 year olds, handing out tickets, inviting an entire school to an imaginary Circus), many of the middle schoolers gathered around, begging for tickets, retelling tales of their Circus Parade.  Apparently, the school that parades together, stays together.

I had to make a little something.  I had bigger hopes than one hat, but a 2nd case of laryngitis and a throat infection had other plans for me in the 2 weeks leading up to the Parade.  I settled for a bright purple clown hat.  It was to be a quick cut and sew hat, that honestly…simply didn’t fit.  Trying to make a clown hat that will fit a variety of head shapes and sizes is tricky.  While Kelly was the ever-patient model, she and I both knew that she would not be wearing the hat in the parade.  Kelly had long planned on being a Circus Bear.  She had BIG plans…2 years of planning in fact…2 long years of thinking that she would most certainly…BE THAT BIG SCARY BEAR.

And she WAS scary, let me tell you.  She was so authentic, that underneath the mask, she had blue face paint whiskers.  It was lovely to see my old hats and ties and what-nots scattered on Kelly’s class…they’ve held up, which is really the most important attribute of anything donated to a classroom of 3 year olds.  I asked her if she’d like me to make anything for a bear, but she declined.  I’m so glad it worked out just as she had mapped it in her head.  She was one ecstatic little (scary!) Circus Bear.

After the hat came out smaller than I planned (all of my skirts come out too big, and all of my hats too small…I am the Goldilocks of seamstresses), I cut out the back and inserted a triangle of stretchy fleece.  I’m not sure what the white flecks are, but I’m guessing Kelly rolled around in something.  With the addition of an elastic chin strap, it fit perfectly (even that took more than one attempt).  Please don’t tell the girls I posted this picture.  This is a tiny corner of their playroom, tucked in behind their armoire.  Sometimes they call it the secret bedroom, and at other times, it’s called “The Dragon Killing Room”.  Either way, I’m sure this space is very, very secret, but when I found my little blondie sitting quietly in the baby playpen, wearing the hat, I made a mad dash for the camera.

And so here it is…our last “Clown As Big As Your Child” mural.  Didn’t Kelly do a beautiful job?  It’s ridiculous the things that become precious to you once you have children…but all the same…I wish Circus Parades could go on forever.