When Ariana was approaching the age of toothlessness, I made several little tooth fairy pillows that she gave as gifts to special friends. The pillows are quite time-consuming to make, each taking 5-6 hours from start to finish, and I ran out of umph before I got one completed for Ariana. Sadly, so many things in my life seem to be like that. I love doing projects or other acts of service for other people because it makes me feel good and, by and large, people appreciate the help. But I tend to run out of time to do things for my own family, and quite honestly, my family is sometimes much less appreciative of my efforts. But that’s no excuse for neglecting those that I love the most, and I’m really trying to better balance my priorities. And so when Vivi discovered that she was really, really close to losing her first tooth, I seized the opportunity to right past wrongs, and working at a feverish pace, I started making her a tooth fairy pillow. Well, to be completely honest, I first went into a funk for a few weeks because she’s passing into the next stage of life, and I just want her to keep her baby teeth for a few more years, and then I feverishly started in on the pillow.

I worked on the pillow while the kids and I watched Anna and the King last night, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see Vivi wiggling the tooth, so I stitched faster. I finally forbade her from any more wiggling because, if I had come this close, I was NOT going to have another one of my kids lose a tooth and not have their own custom-made tooth fairy pillow to put it in. No mother should have to go through that once, let alone twice. 😉

It’s tough embroidering the small letters, and I know that I could have done a better job on that part, but I resisted the impulse to tear it all out and start afresh. “Finished is better than perfect. Finished is better than perfect. Finished is better than perfect.” I had to chant this false mantra to myself over and over to cross the finish line, but cross I did, putting the stuffing in and stitching the opening closed this morning. I would have had it done last night, but the computer crashed (unmountable boot drive error, blue screen of death), and I had to turn my attention to that so that I could sleep.

Aaagh, sweet redemption. I only hope that Ariana can forgive me for not making her a pillow back in the day. I’ll have to figure something out to make amends.