“Once you’ve made a 5-pound, bean-filled sock monkey that smells like feet, there’s not much to be done.”

When you work from home, you reap what you sew

By Allison Gorman

When I tell other parents I work from home, those who’ve never tried it say, “Wow, you’re lucky,” while those who have been there laugh and say, “So, I guess that means you work all the time.”
What it actually means is that if I sneak down to my basement office to work, there’s a better-than-average chance I’ll end up making a sock monkey instead.
I’m not competent to make sock monkeys. There is a sewing machine in my office, but that’s only because we’re out of storage space. I got the machine years ago, when I fantasized I could bond with my young daughters by sewing their clothes. I found a simple sundress pattern, allowed my then-4-year-old middle daughter to choose her own fabric (with pictures of kitty cats!), and let her sit right by my side while I cut out the pattern wrong, stabbed myself with pins, accidentally sewed the hem to the neckline, and muttered a word I could have sworn I didn’t say loud enough for her to hear. She wore the sundress when we went grocery shopping the next day, and an elderly woman in the produce section leaned down and said solicitously, “Why, I love your kitty-cat dress! Did your mommy make that?” I really haven’t sewn much since.
I dusted off the sewing machine recently to make the sock monkey because, although I don’t remember it, I promised my youngest daughter, 9, that I would. I am in the habit of making promises I don’t remember. If you don’t believe me, just ask her.
Here I am, for example, promising she can have ice cream for breakfast:

Her: Can I have some ice cream?
Me: It’s bedtime. And you had ice cream for dessert two hours ago.
Her: That was yesterday.
Me: No, it wasn’t. Get ready for bed.
Her: Then can I have ice cream for breakfast tomorrow? Grandmom lets me
have ice cream for breakfast.
Me: I’m not Grandmom.
Her: She says ice cream’s healthy.
Me: No, it’s not.
Her: So Grandmom was lying?
Me: I guess the milk part is kind of healthy.

And here’s me promising we can go on vacation to the Nickelodeon Hotel in Orlando, Fla.:

Her (turning from TV): Can we go to Nick Hotel in Orlando, Florida?
Me: No. That’s a lot of money.
Her: No, it’s not. Prices are as low as $129 per night. Ask for the SpongeBob Squarepants upgrade and you’ll get SpongeBob all over your hotel walls.
Me: I don’t want SpongeBob all over my hotel walls.
Her: Oh, OK. We don’t have to do that part, then.

I had just sat down at my computer when she materialized by my side, startling me. I’d snuck down to the basement to work because, last I knew, she was spearheading a neighborhood effort to find pineapple-flavored popsicles in our garage freezer. The blue, red and orange popsicles were long gone; all that was left were the yellows, and several small children were systematically unwrapping and rejecting the banana-flavored ones, which nobody likes. I knew there would be a mess of popsicle sticks and wrappers, and probably ants, but that seemed a fair exchange for a little time to work uninterrupted.
But here was my daughter, lingering by my desk chair.
“Hey, can we make that sock monkey now?”
“Sock monkey?”
“You know, in that arts and crafts book Aunt Debby gave us? You said we could make the sock monkey.”
“I did?”
“Yes.”
I tried turning the tables on her. “Did you clean up all the popsicle sticks and wrappers?”
“Yes,” she said, “and I cleaned up the drips so we won’t get ants. So can we?”
Though I didn’t remember promising to make a sock monkey, I did remember the book from my sister-in-law. Debby is one of the most gracious and generous people I know. She is very crafty, and she has no children. She once gave my oldest daughter, then age 2, a book of old-fashioned paper dolls, the kind whose elaborate dresses and hats fold on with paper tabs. Each article of clothing took about 15 minutes to cut out—which I did, projectile-sweating like Sluggo in the old Nancy comic strips, under the extremely close supervision of my impatient toddler.
Debby’s arts and crafts book did include a sock monkey pattern; I recalled my 9-year-old pointing it out a week or two ago, and some vague conversation about the logistics of the project. I also remembered one of my mother’s cardinal rules about parenting: that you must not break your child’s trust by failing to keep promises (like ice cream for breakfast, apparently).
I remembered, as well, my daughter’s most recent arts and crafts project, which she did on her own and presented to me after I’d spent a Saturday morning working at my computer. It was the illustrated story of Sparkles the Unicorn, who is sad because his mom works at her computer all the time. But Sparkles is an enterprising unicorn; he takes clothes from his older sisters’ closets and sells them to other teenagers for exorbitant prices, so his mom doesn’t have to work again and can play with him all day long.
It took me about three hours to make the sock monkey, and if I’m slightly more competent now, it’s only because I learned a few lessons along the way. First, no matter what the book says, do not use dried beans to fill a sock monkey, because it will weigh about five pounds. Second, when you’re raiding your children’s dresser drawers for socks to make a sock monkey, make sure you steal clean socks. Once you’ve made a 5-pound, bean-filled sock monkey that smells like feet, well, there’s not much to be done.
Third, unless you consider sock-monkey-making one of your core competencies, don’t leave the product sitting around. My 16-year-old saw the monkey on our coffee table and stopped dead in her tracks. “Whose sock monkey?”
“Mom made it for me,” said my 9-year-old, hugging it ostentatiously and ignoring me waving my arms behind her sister’s head.
“Hey, I want a sock monkey,” said my 16-year-old.
“I really don’t have time to make another sock monkey right now,” I said. “Besides, I made you a kitty-cat dress.”
She looked confused. “That was 12 years ago,” she said. “Besides, I’ve always wanted a sock monkey. Remember that book Aunt Debby gave us? You promised me years ago you’d make me a sock monkey.”
Looks like I’ve got work to do.