"Clippers"

I am not a crafty person. My incredible mother is a professional seamstress and quilter. She paints, she decorates, she bakes--she can make anything. Really.
I, on the other hand, get frustrated by thinking about crafts. Past RS Super Saturday projects haunt the shadows of my closets, threating to expose me. Past sewing projects (save the one I'll post soon) have turned into tear-stained lumpy messes, and I've never baked a cake from scratch...ever.
That being said, I was inspired this year, to attempt to make Christmas Stockings for my two boys. The projects are beautiful sequinned affairs, all hand-stitched and darling but incredibly time intensive. I chose this gingerbread stocking for Benson and have another train stocking I'll do (next year) for McKay. Or at least, that was the plan.
Nearly every night since before Thanksgiving, after the kids have gone to bed, I've spent some time working on this stocking. I've cut-out, beaded, sequinned, appliqued, and otherwise labored over the project.
Well, Saturday night I worked on the stocking, then put it on the shelf and went to bed. Benson was sick and was up most of the night, so BJ spent the first half of the night up with him and I the second half. We were both completely exhausted by the time McKay greeted us at 7:00 am. He came in with his usual morning request to "watch a movie" and BJ, in bleary-eyed exhaustion put on an episode of Caillou and went back to bed. I was in Benson's room and heard none of this happen.
When Benson and I came out, BJ and McKay were sitting on the couch together. As soon as he saw me, McKay said, "Sorry I ruined your project Mommy". I mumbled, "It's ok honey", not having any idea what he was talking about but BJ said, "actually, it's probably not".
Apparently BJ went back to bed at 7 and fell asleep until 8:30 when he heard McKay next to the bed saying, "Daddy I found clippers" and then the distinct slice of scissors. BJ rolled over and there in McKay's hands was my beautiful project with slices around all the edges. Apparently he'd been cutting for about 40 minutes and boy does it show.

I have to admit, I was rather horrified that my hours of work had been sliced to pieces, but that fact that McKay followed me around the house kissing and hugging me and apologizing over and over again did help.

I'm still going to try and salvage the stocking but now it will be McKay's stocking and Benson will get the train stocking. And, every Christmas when we pull them out, we can tell the story about McKay and the "clippers".