Maker Sophie

If you follow my blog at all then, you know that there is nothing more important in my life than my family. However, when I was a young bachelor boy, way back in the day, I always thought that my life was good. I had friends, a good job, my own house and car and my health was good. Then, I met my wife.

Meeting Keri made me realize how Love can elevate your life, taking it to a higher plain of fulfillment and satisfaction. When Keri and I were a married couple, galavanting around our corner of the world, I thought my life was pretty special. We had our other newly-married, “couple” friends, we had a new home, we both had jobs we were proud of, we ate out in restaurants whenever we felt like it and our health was good.  Then, we had our first child.

Becoming a parent blew my mind!   Holding Leah on the day she was born and seeing her eye lashes and finger nails and little tiny toes made her seem perfect in my mind. She was our first-loved and the centre of our world. (Since becoming a blogger, I have written several posts about Leah:  the link to the one about all of the books we have read together over the years can be found here. The link to the recent post about her research into the life of her Great-Great Grandfather and his life during WWI and The Halifax Explosion, can be found here.)  We loved our life with Leah. We had playdates with our other friends who were starting families of their own, we took copious amounts of photos of her, Keri got to spend the whole first year of Leah’s life with her because of our generous maternity leave benefits from work and all three of us enjoyed good health, too. Then came Sophie.

Simply put, Sophie completed us. Three years younger than her sister, Sophie has brought a whole new level of joy and happiness to our family. At turns, shy and withdrawn in certain situations while, at other times, she commands the stage and bathes in the spotlight’s warm glow. Sophie has a comedian’s sense of timing and a linguist’s sense of language which often makes her social commentary razor sharp and very funny. She loves to read but, not to be read to. She is as smart as her bookish sister but, instead of building a library of knowledge in her mind, Sophie tends to be more “street smart” and practical about how her intelligence manifests itself. As a result, Sophie embraces the philosophies and practices of the Maker Movement and is quickly becoming quite skilled at creating almost anything.

The Maker Movement is one that embraces creativity above all else. In schools, it is found in the dedication of common spaces for making things out of all sorts of materials and items. Students in a Maker Space may use LEGO Blocks or programme robots or sew or build with wood and much, much more. There is a freedom of choice that defines how one interacts within a Maker Space.  From this freedom, comes the satisfaction of creating something out of nothing and, from that experience, comes the confidence to begin to grant yourself the permission to dream of what else may be possible and then, going ahead and simply, making your dreams come true.

Sophie has become a Maker in our home. While Leah is a consumer (she reads the words of others and interacts with technology apps), Sophie is my creator of content. She loves to bake and paint and draw and make Mathematical calculations, she crafts and cooks simple meals and dresses up like a fashionista!  An example of Sophie in the Maker zone mentality can be seen from how she spent her weekend.

For starters, Sophie belongs to an environmental organization called Earth Rangers. In this club, Sophie takes on certain “missions” that help our planet and the plants, animals and humans who inhabit it. So, this note appeared under our thermostat. The note instructed us to lower the thermostat a few degrees and to keep it at the lower temperature for a week. We did that. Thankfully, there are no shortage of hoodies in my closet.

Next up, Sophie has been wanting to learn how to sew. Keri and I are not sewers in the least. But, luckily for Sophie, her favourite person in the world…Gramma…knows how to sew. So, right after lunch on Saturday, the girls all headed over to Gramma’s house and Gramma taught Sophie how to sew with a needle and thread. Sophie and Gramma (mostly Sophie, I have been told) made this carry-all bag. Well done, my little tailor!

Later that evening, Sophie disappeared into the kitchen. She was very quiet for awhile and then, she emerged proudly holding this Christmas ornament for our tree. All on her own, she had gotten our craft supply box out. She then, traced a star on paper, covered the paper with wax paper and then, traced the shape of the star using a hot glue gun. After the glue had hardened for a few minutes, she simply peeled it off, hot glue-gunned a piece of yarn to act as the hook and, voila!  Sophie created a classic Christmas tree ornament. Flushed with success, she spent Saturday evening making stars for everyone in her family, including her Gramma and Poppa, her cousins and her aunt and uncle, too.

On Sunday morning, Sophie and I make Christmas cards for all of our neighbours. That is thirty-two cards. We did this because Sophie and I believe in the magic of Christmas and, much to my chagrin, we want to know our neighbours better than we do. (As you may recall, I recently wrote a post about my shocking discovery that my next-door neighbour had been a semi-famous Canadian celebrity and I had never known the whole time we lived side-by-side. The link to that post is here if you wish to read about that.) So, anyway, we made all of these cards and I delivered them to each home, just before typing this post on Monday morning. Hopefully, our neighbourhood will become a little closer and we will get to know each other a little better as a result.

But, what Sophie was most excited about this weekend was baking Christmas cookies. So, on Sunday afternoon, Sophie and I made a double batch of sugar cookies and a double batch of chocolate chip cookies. If anyone wants to come over for tea, we are ready!!!  Sophie was very pleased with herself because, for the first time ever, she cracked the eggs herself and didn’t get a single shell fragment in the batter!  She did most of the stirring herself and used cookie cutters to make the shapes you see in the photo. She iced the cookies once they cooled. They are delicious and I am going to get fat, for sure, eating all of the good food we now have sitting in our kitchen.

As the photo at the very top of this post shows, doing for others is something Keri and I have tried to instil in both our daughters. Sophie has a kind and caring heart and a creative mind, which is a powerful combination. To want to make a difference and to have the Maker mentality to confidently dare to make it happen is how our world changes for the better. 

Sophie Audra MacInnes is a special girl and we couldn’t be prouder of her if we tried.