Swim Suit Therapy

I haven't been much of a blogger this past month or so.
We got word that finally all of the arrangements have been made for our little Moo to leave us.
I've been numb for a long time, so when I heard it didn't feel like much. If anything, the numbness intensified in response to the news. Hence my lack of writing. I can't write what I don't feel.
I questioned my lack of feeling, and answered myself that it was because I'd already done a lot of my grieving. I guessed the numbness would persist until she was gone and then I could finish up with the grief at my leisure.
That was a good theory but it turns out it was false.
Making specific plans with dates and times of when exactly my stewardship of this child will end was a sharp rock breaking through the husk of numbness.
I spent a lot of time this week contemplating pain as I wandered around the house aware of all the lists of things that needed to be done but unable to fix on anything to do.
Thursday I realized that swimming lessons were to begin today and that nudged me to get to work on Zizza's new swim suit.
So far this pool season she's been making due with last year's suit which is decidedly small.
Thursday night I took a pattern from this leotard (which reminds me I've been too numb to mention her dance recital)

Friday afternoon I got to work and made the suit. (This picture cracks me up)

I started with the basic tank pattern from the leotard but I narrowed the straps, changed it up to a racer back and ruffled the heck out of it.
The first few times she put it on she honestly could not stop herself from shaking her ruffled little tush. She climbed on the bathroom counter and shook it in the mirror. She shook it at me. When The Mr came home she scurried up stairs and put on the bathing suit just so she could shake her ruffles at him.

I was flattered and happy that she liked it so well. I was also glad that she toned down the ruffle shaking before the day came to go out in her new suit. It was adorable, true, but not entirely appropriate public behavior.

You know what? Making something was just what I needed to patch up that breech in my husk. I'm feeling a lot better. Able to do the things I need and want to do during the next week and a half.

In a related story, I hung these hooks on the wall above the bathtub so the suits can drip dry after swim lessons. (yes they are un-even. Yes it bugs me. No, I haven't fixed it) In the past, my bathroom counter has collected swim suits all summer long. Not this year!