Burlap bumper pads

Every year during December, Liam's entire school focuses on one thing. "The Plays". Pre-school through grade 6 students are divided into groups and they all have a role in one of 4 plays. "The Plays" have been written and adapted by the grade 5-6 class with the help of the teachers. Grades 7-9 are involved in backstage production, orchestra and entre-act entertainment. It is a well oiled machine that culminates in 150 kids on stage singing a song written by the teachers that tells the stories of all 4 plays.

This is Liam's 4th year at the school but only his 3rd time in "The Plays" since he had his tonsils out 2 weeks before Christmas 2 years ago and had to miss them. So far he has been a gold coin, a spider and this year a little fox kit. Lucky for me Hilary can sew.


He started his stage career with a recurring walk on role and has progressed to having one line. He delivered it on time, nice and loud and with no shenanigans (as some of the other 7 year olds managed to do. It's not often that they get to be on stage in front of 200 people, what an excellent chance to show off!) Each play group also does a dance routine at the end of their play, with the kids helping to choreograph their moment in the spot light.

While Liam loves all aspects of "The Plays", from set design to dance class, the highlight for him is the fact that each child gets to take home a prop from "The Plays" as a souvenir. Every year parents hold their breath in fear of what their child is going to emerge from backstage carrying. The first year Liam brought home a papier-mache gold rock, about the size of a soft ball. That wasn't too bad and eventually it has found it's way out of our house without him noticing. Last year he came home with a quiver full of papier-mache arrows. These still get played with on a regular basis, so any attempts to relocate them would unfortunately be noticed.


This year Liam kept talking excitedly about the owl's nest that he was going to get. While we weren't thrilled at the idea, we figure we could shove it up on a shelf, stick a stuffie bird in it and be done with it.

Yeah, we're a little slow sometimes.

The fact that Liam was a fox in the play should have tipped us off to the fact that the owls were probably Liam sized too. And that the nest would be sized to fit them.

It's as big as my bathtub.

My darling son was so excited to get this. Luckily it folds up and we were able to get a cab home where the cabbie didn't laugh too much at us after we put the nest in his trunk. Liam talked about the nest the whole way home, about how we were going to play owl and how he was going to sleep in it. Our cabbie seemed to develop an odd shaky/twitchy thing around this same time. I'm sure we are all the talk around the taxi company water cooler today.

The nest is really just a big circle of burlap covered foam with some straw glued to it here and there. There is no bottom to it. When I inquired just exactly HOW or WHERE Liam planned on sleeping in it he declared that it was going to go up on his bed. And so it did.