Different Strokes

I completely understand why I should encourage my children to value their individuality.  I know there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to fashion, and comfort is sometimes a lot more important.  Having said all that, it’s difficult to know how to communicate to Girlie the importance of making herself less of a target in the middle-school crowd. 

We’ve tried all the tips about encouraging good hair care by buying cute ‘hair pretties’, which she loves, but she still doesn’t want to brush her hair and would be perfectly happy to sit at the table with tangled curls hanging down into her plate.  Since Girlie reached adolescence, she really needs to use deodorant, but doesn’t like it and hasn’t developed the habit yet.  She doesn’t notice or care about body odor, and sometimes I feel like the Pit Police.  Her nails, which grow incredibly fast (given her nutrition level, I don’t understand how she can have nails that would be the envy of many women), are usually not very clean (and I’m trying not to be too graphic, here).  We try to keep her nails clipped, anyway, because it’s dangerous when she’s having a meltdown.

Apparently, it’s another part of my learning curve.  The two older kids were outside the ‘norm’ in the other direction, as they both much preferred to be clean.  The younger two are constantly challenging my olfactory awareness!  If there is a magic formula I hope we find it; otherwise I’ll have to stand at the front door with deodorant and keep some in the van along with the wet wipes.  Is there some sort of badge I can get for that?

Needle felted bookmark made for a friend  (shown in "Snuff" by Terry Pratchett).

Needle felting is definitely a ‘different strokes’ type of thing – I haven’t come across many folks who are familiar with it.  It involves shaping unspun wool (usually, although yarn can be used in some applications of needle felting) with barbed needles so the wool fibers lock together and become permanently felted.  Needle felting can be done with templates (for the leaves I used small cookie cutters meant to cut pie crust), free hand as a three-dimensional object (like the acorn), or to add embellishment or decoration to felted knits.  Check out Laura Lee Burch's blog for some fun and beautiful examples of needle felting, along with tutorials.  There is something satisfying about stabbing barbed needles into bits of fluff and ending up with art that’s just so – different!