At approximately 6:32AM, K ‘cuddled’ into my bed, a procedure which involves a lot of rib and knee kicking. “Momma, we make the book today…Can we have eggies for breakfast? Momma, we make the book NOW?”
Breakfast was served at 7:16, the table cleaned up at 7:48, the book project began right then. K wanted more butterfly die cuts, so I set up the machine. She got fidgety with the photos while I did so – I tried desperately not to scold her too loudly, and had her start choosing which two photos we would omit from the book since we lacked pages.
I finished the die cuts, and swapped some other photos for her choice – yeah, I know, bad Mom.
We started slapping photos into her book only to find that the manufacturer had not put the extra 1/4 inch of space the comb binding took up so that we had to trim all horizontally oriented photos – I hoped K would not make a mess with the tape (or use it all up decorating the table) while I trimmed them. I tried to let her put the photos in herself, but she left them overhanging the edges, and I thought they wouldn’t last very long that way – not that her photo books have a pristine appearance anyhow.
It turned out I’d miscounted how many pages there were, so I had to cut another page to hold the extra photos. I stuck it in the middle so it would have extra strength from the firmer pages.
Finally she could dictate her page comments and I could add my journaling. I thought, good, we are up to the part where we tape in the butterflies, K can do this herself – but M meanwhile had finished his chores, so he started watching Wild Krats on the computer. K announced that I could finish the book, and went to join him.
I’m not sure if I did a good job serving as her steady hands, or if I took the project over from her because I got too fussy about the details. At least she picked the photos yesterday when she printed them, and the pink and purple colors of the butterflies – or as much pink as I had in my stash, it’s more pale pink/orange than pink, and she’s happy. In fact, she was so delighted, that she asked to show it to the neighbors, even though I try not to let her invade the neighbor’s house in the mornings least I be using her as unpaid babysitting.
K hasn’t returned.
I’m sending B after her, he’s dressed.
Addendum: Yes it was a success: K just asked me to take photos of her and the new neighbor girls, so we can put the photos into a scalloped mini-book, with pretty paper cut out into the scallop shapes. And next time, I’ll let her tape the photos in herself.