My Nearly 6-Hour Rockford Sock Monkey Fail

Rockford's Midway Village Museum recently held their annual Sock Monkey event. My daughter and I went this year so we could make our own monkey. It didn't go well.

Upon arrival at this event on Sunday afternoon, we signed up to participate in a scavenger hunt that would've had us visiting every area of this fun event. The prize was worth the effort. Since there were only a couple of hours before the vent ended, we decided to go make our own sock monkey first. You could tell something was wrong the moment we walked into the sock monkey making room. Every parent looked at me like I was the newest inmate in the cell block. We sat down with our supplies and a dad at the table next to me said "you're going to be here a while." I remember thinking to myself that my daughter and I would be quick and get to that scavenger hunt. Then a mom sitting next to us with her husband and two kids said the people that were in our seats before us were there for over 2 hours. That's when the panic set in.

We got to work quickly and one hour and forty minutes later, this is how far we'd gotten when the event was closing. That meant we'd... correction... I'd be finishing this sock monkey at home. I don't know any 11-year-olds that can sew.

Monday after I picked my daughter up from school, it was back to work on the monkey. She had homework to do so, like I said before, finishing this was mostly on me. it's 3 p.m. and she has dance class at 4:45 p.m. and I wanted to finish it before class. That was wishful thinking. I got the mouth and one ear done before I had to DROP HER OFF at dance class. I wanted this thing finished before her mom picked her up from dance class.

I got home and sewed the left ear on, which looks like a Totino's Pizza Roll. Last task now was to sew on the button eyes. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how to do that. After the fact, a friend said they should've been sewed on before stuffing the head, but the instructions say it's the last step. After struggling to sew the eyes on, i figured it would just be easier to glue the on. Since the only glue I had was Elmer's wood glue, it was a quick drive to Walgreen's (closest store) to buy a glue gun and some glue sticks. Quick drive back home and 15 minutes later, a finished sock monkey. But there's more.

I couldn't wait to get back to dance class so I could give my daughter our finished creation. I'm typically not one to point out flaws but I can't help it with this hot mess monkey.

• A crooked smile
• A pizza roll ear
• Two arms and a tail we forgot to turn right-side in

• And some pretty awful (not likely to last) sewing

Even thought it took over 5 hours to complete, I enjoyed the time with my daughter. My fear was that this sock monkey wouldn't be liked cause it's such a hot mess, so I sent her a text later to ask.

I love her so much.

You know how they say no matter how bad your situation is, someone else's is worse. At least it wasn't my friend Karen's monkey. LOL.

Her explanation of what happened:

Somehow the mouth and the a** got mixed up on ours!! 😂 after sticking myself with a needle 100 times I was done. It got modified just a little!!