The Beginning

Today she started her first day of playgroup. It is only three days a week for a few hours a day but STILL...I know that it is the beginning of her moving towards becoming who she is apart from me. As my second child she has accompanied me to drop her older brother off at playgroup for the past two years, so she was so excited to start herself, talking about it all summer. Now she feels like a "big girl", I can tell that she is so proud...and she didn't even look back when I dropped her off today, just ran in to play. I am so proud of her, so proud that she loves other children and feels so confident in her little self already...but still there is that sadness, kissing her cheek, saying goodbye. I think that the sadness is in part because I know that it is just the beginning of another part of her life. And then there is that part of me that is so happy to have a few hours to do my own work!
I loved this post today over at Maya*Made. The ever crafty Maya sent her daughter off to school with one of these lovely little lavender filled felt hearts. I was so inspired that I grabbed these lavender filled felt hearts that I made as Valentines gifts last winter and stuffed one in Carys's pocket. I love the idea of sending her off with a soft sweet smelling reminder that she will always have my heart.

My felt hearts are pictured on a hand embroidered dish cloth that my mom brought back from Mexico last year.

Maya offers a great tutorial on how to make these hearts. All you need is felt, lavender and embroidery floss. Instead of decorating mine with a button as she did, I just use circles of felt stacked on top of each other to play with color, sewn on in a star pattern. I usually put these in drawers since the lavender smells so good, but my children have also been known to serve them as "cookies" for a tea party and I love how Maya had the idea to make it into a necklace, adding an extra dimension of fun for little ones, especially for jewelry-loving little girls.