Growing Grass Heads

“The waiting is the hardest part.”

Tom Petty

Pip has a subscription to ‘Chirp’ magazine from her Gramma J., and the latest issue has instructions for making ‘Grass-Heads.’  The moment she laid eyes on those heads, she knew that she wanted to make one.  The craft list was quite extensive and we had to shop for googley eyes, panty-hose and grass-seed  before we could begin.  I took care of the googley eyes and Big Daddy-O bought the seed and the hose.

When my husband returned from his shopping adventure his first words to me were: “I hope knee-high stockings are okay.”

Pip and I sat down to make the wondrous grass-heads and I soon discovered that the only part of the craft that she was interested in was spreading the glue.  (As it turned out, much of the head-construction was too difficult for her little hands to manage anyway.)

After stuffing cotton balls and grass-seed into the end of the knee-high stocking, I found myself questioning the reinforced toe.  Would the grass seed be able to make it through?  Of course, I thought, if grass sprouts up through concrete, surely it can handle a reinforced toe.

Pip glued the googley eyes on expertly, but got a bit carried away with the pipe-cleaner mouth.  After cleaning a few sticky spills, we were ready for the last step: fill a cup with water and set our Grassman on top.  He started to sink.  His mouth fell off and his eyes were nearly submerged before I rescued him from a sloppy fate.

Chirp hadn’t warned us of the potential sinking hazard.  The instructions clearly stated to fill the cup with water, but the photo in the Chirp magazine showed grass-heads happily bobbing above their cups.  AHA!!!  I quickly deduced that the knee-high stockings weren’t substantial enough after all!  Not enough support to hold up the poor head!

Pip and I proceeded to empty the cup, then we stuffed a few of the unused knee-highs into the bottom of the cup so that Grassman would have something to rest his soggy head upon.  We re-filled the glass with water and our little Grass Head was looking pretty good.

“When will his hair grow Mama?”

I referred to the Chirp Magazine.  “In about a week.”  Oh dear.  I think Pip had expected it to take a few minutes.

I’ll keep you posted.

Grassman looks optimistic, doesn’t he?