Hello! This is my second chapter of Not Just a Phase, focusing on baby Leni sewing weird outfits.
It was Saturday. Lynn Sr. was reading the news, Rita was sewing a dress for one of her old friends from high school, two-year-old Lori was building a tower of blocks, one-year-old Leni was playing with a pull-along toy dog, and three-month-old Luna was lying on the floor staring at the ceiling.
Leni toddled over to Rita's sewing kit, dug out a needle and a thread, and then discovered she could fit the thread through the needle. In one of her rare moments of clarity, Leni decided to make a dress for Rita. She cut off an enormous piece of sky blue fabric and began sewing it together to create the skirt of the dress.
"No fair!", grumbled Lori, "Why Leni sew but Lori no sew?". Even since she was Leni's age, Lori had prided herself on being the oldest and doing things Leni, and later Luna, could not-- last year it was things like saying words and walking, now it was things like attending preschool and using the toilet. Yet, she could not sew, and somehow Leni-- her clumsy, dopey baby sister-- could!
Lori's lament got her parents' attention and they looked over at Leni.
"Holy cow!", said Lynn Sr., "She's actually sewing those bits of fabric together!"
"I never expected it at such a young age," said Rita.
Once Leni had finished sewing the skirt together, she cut a portion out of it.
"Leni, don't use the scissors!", yelled Lynn Sr. in fear, so Leni dropped them-- she couldn't understand him but didn't like scaring her daddy-- and ripped off a piece of white fabric off and began to patch up the hole she'd cut.
However, when Lynn Sr.'s back was turned, Leni took the scissors and sneaked off to get more things for the dress-- she cut off the sleeves from one of Rita's other dresses, a bit of Rita's fluffy coats, a piece of Lori's curtain and her bedroom carpet (back then, they didn't share a room), and stole some more of Rita's fabrics, a belt, and a rubber glove.
The result was-- to put it bluntly-- a fashion crime. The bodice had a seafoam green neck, and was mainly dark grey, but with one strange-shaped sky-blue patch on the right-hand side. The sleeves started out fine, with poofy dark grey material and white tops, but then the left sleeve (which was seafoam green) had the two fluffy white pieces of coat sewn to it and a rubber glove at the bottom of it, and the right one (which was also seafoam green) had a large rip down the side and a loose thread dangling off it. The skirt looked relatively normal, even with the piece of curtain at the front, but the whole thing had the piece of carpet sewn across the side of it, which just made it look ridiculous.
Nevertheless, Leni, who hadn't developed her fashion sense yet, went down the stairs dragging it behind her, and showed it to her family.
Rita gasped, Lynn Sr. screamed, but Lori and Luna laughed. Coincidentally, this was Luna's first laugh. They thought the dress seemed funny and it was funny getting to shock the parents (provided they didn't feel too bad about it.)
"What do we do?", said Lynn Sr. apprehensively, "We can't let her get away with this, but she's too young to understand the words if we told her off, and we can't ground her since she's too young to leave the house on her own yet anyway."
"I guess we could put her in timeout," said Rita, "but unless this keeps up, let's avoid getting her her own stool and use the one in Lori's room."
So, they picked up Leni, plonked her down on the stool in Lori's room, and had her sit there for five minutes. Leni was confused, since she didn't know what she did wrong, and Rita hung the dress up next to the stool and took a photo of it and Leni.
Leni didn't get to make any clothes the next day, since Rita had decided to keep her sewing kit out of Leni's reach, but on Monday, Lori went to preschool and Leni went to daycare, and at daycare, they had craft time.
During craft time, Leni realised that she hadn't made anything for Lynn Sr., Lori, Luna, or herself, so she used the art supplies to make four very large crowns.
When she got home, she put the crowns on each of her family members (except for Rita) and Lori, Leni, and Lynn Sr. did a little dance (which was his idea). As for Luna, her hat was way too big, so it slid right off her.