As Cute As a Button

I remember when I was little, maybe 4 or 5, my mom was very sick and had to go out of town quite a bit for doctor's visits. While she and my dad were gone for sometimes 2 or 3 days at a time, I would stay with my grandma in her little apartment that was above a dry cleaners.

Grandma never had many toys for us grandkids to play with when we visited. I would bring a doll with me, and maybe my coloring books and crayons, but mostly she would occupy me with things that she had around her apartment.

She would let me stand on the step stool by her big sink while she was busy cooking, and wash the few little plastic play dishes that she kept in her cupboard. I remember her letting me use her very fancy dish towel to carefully wipe each little plastic plate and cup dry. 

When it was time for ironing clothes, she would set up her ironing board in her dining room. She had a teal plastic bottle with a metal sprinkler top that she would fill with water, and she would lay each item on the board, then let me sprinkle the clothes, and roll up each thing and stack it in a basket. When everything was sprinkled and rolled, she would then start unrolling each thing and take such care ironing out each wrinkle.

Whether she was baking bread, or making pasties or some kind of baked good, she always had a little job for me to help with. She helped me to carefully level out a cup of flour, or let me stir something with her big wooden spoon. She let me cover the bowl of bread dough that sat rising on one of her big metal radiators. I remember going over to peek many times under the flour sack dish towel to see how big it was getting.

These simple little household chores were the reason I loved to go to grandmas. I felt so grownup being able to help her with these tasks. She always knew how to make it seem like fun instead of work.

When all the 'busy work' was done, it was time for Grandma to sit and rest...to take a nap or watch her 'programs' on tv. It was then that I would dig out my favorite thing to play with.......her sewing basket.

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I would haul it over to her dining room table, climb up on a chair an open it up to discover all that it held. Brightly colored spools of thread, zippers, needles of all sizes and a fabric measuring tape were among the treasures it held. But most important of all......were the buttons. 



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Inside that sewing basket were many tiny glass jars and plastic pill bottles filled with all kinds of buttons. Ones that looked like pearls, some with little clear glass stones that looked like diamonds, ones of every color of the rainbow, all different sizes. Silver and gold ones. Some were strung together on white thread.


I would spend what felt like hours looking at those buttons. I would sort them into piles of different colors, I would sort them by size, stack them, count them. I remember some that were shaped like tiny rosebuds.


My grandma used to have a saying...whenever she saw something she liked, she would say, "That's as cute as a button." Those buttons were cute. And they were beautiful. It was as if she were allowing me to play with the most precious of gems.


I often wonder what happened to grandma's sewing basket after she died. I'd like to hope that a family member still has it tucked away somewhere.....still holding those buttons that I loved so much.


Linking to:


Five Days...5 Ways ~ Feature Friday Free For All
Serenity Now ~ Weekend Bloggy Reading
Sew Many Ways ~ Sew Darn Crafty Party-Week 56