Smokey the Magnificent

Tonight I burned my tummy while ironing.

It isn’t what you think. I have been known to iron the skirts of dresses while wearing them, yes; shirts, never. But just now I was sewing a shirt for Tiny Miles from the butchered remains of a shirt my father once wore - judging by sleeve length it was a winter shirt, but knowing my father he bought it two decades ago and the fabric’s now good and summery. Also, by “just now” I mean 10:49PM, because apparently I live in a Thomas Hood poem.

Anyway, so I was ironing the shoulder seams flat - I always give the clothes I make a jolly good press when I make them, and after that they have to fend for themselves; it’s an attachment parenting thing, “baby the babies when they’re babies so they won’t need babying for a lifetime”, you know - and the ironing board padding had slipped away from the metal mesh, and as the iron gave a particularly juicy zhzhzhzh, it steamed out through the gaps and through the by no means sheer fabric of my shirt, and there I was. Scalded on the tum. I haven’t been scalded on the tum since I gave birth to Tiny Miles and clutched a wheatie bag so tightly to my squish that it was red for days afterward.

Thought you should know.