ElmoBaby's Christmas Dress

This morning when Audrey woke up and came out of her room, she was holding her beloved ElmoBaby doll (which is a baby doll and not actually an Elmo) in one hand, and the ugly, pilled, pink-and-purple outfit it came in in the other hand.

"ElmoBaby is naked, Mama, will you help me put this back on?"

I stood there looking at it for a sec, then decided no, no I would not help her put it back on. After breakfast, we were going to make her something new to wear. What self-respecting baby named Elmo would be caught wearing such an unsightly jumpsuit? Well, ahem... anyway... So we ate breakfast, put Brother down for his morning nap, and hauled out the fabric scraps and sewing machine. Of all the different colors and patterns Audrey dug through, she landed on a sparkly Christmas print, and from there it was Mama's job to figure out exactly how to make a very wee dress that was both cute and sturdy enough to last through multiple attempts and dressing and undressing.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that little dress (and britches, once we figured out they were oh-so-necessary) took Henry's entire nap time. However, I think both ElmoBaby and her 'Mama' were both pleased in the end.

While I was making the tiny seams and hems, Audrey dug out those fuzzy pom-poms you see on the front, took them over to ElmoBaby, and said, "ElmoBaby, doyaant fuzzy balls on your dress? Oh, OK... Mama, ElmoBaby wants these, too." Mmm-hmm. So the pom-poms made it onto the dress too.

I should also mention that once ElmoBaby was dressed in her new attire and Mama was beginning to clean up the sewing setup, Audrey came over and said, "ElmoBaby needs shoes and a Christmas hat, too!" Um, no, no she doesn't. "Audrey, would you like pancakes for lunch?" Maybe another day, girlchild. Maybe.