Meet Norbert & Norris (The Norovirus Brothers)

So yesterday my littlest scientist was struck down by the hideous norovirus that is going round. I’ll spare you the details but he was so ill and it broke my heart to see him that way.

He managed to sleep through the night last night, and woke up feeling better than he did yesterday, although he’s still not great and has no energy.

Thanks to family and friends, my biggest scientist was able to escape the house leaving me and tiny to snuggle up on the couch for the day. (My friends and family are AWESOME!!!)

Anyway, mid morning my little one started to ask me about what had happened to him yesterday. We watched a video and grabbed a cool book off the bookshelf and went into a bit of detail about viruses, etc.

Due to personal experiences, being so sick has really scared him so it’s been a double whammy. This was the perfect opportunity to explain how incredible his body is and that his **WHITE BLOOD CELLS** have got their boxing gloves on and are working overtime for him at the moment!

As we were sat discussing what the norovirus is and researching pictures of how it looks under the microscope he asked me if we could make a “NOROVIRUS TEDDY” – because I’m a bit nerdy like that, I jumped at the opportunity to make it all a bit more lighthearted for him so we went up to my loft, (creative space), and rummaged through my fabric stash for the things we needed to pull this off.

He decided that he wanted grey and blue norovirus teddies so we found some really soft fleece – because who doesn’t want to snuggle up to a sick germ?! Then we grabbed some white for the eyes and found some safety eyes in my sewing box for the pupils. (Scoring mum points for having it all in the house 😉 )

If you’re with me on this whole germ plushie thing, then here is the list of things you will need…

Fleece fabric in your choice of colour
Thread in matching colours to your fabric
Sewing Machine, (or you can sew by hand if you are ‘sew’ inclined – sorry, that was bad)
Polyester Toy Filler*
Safety Eyes*
Needle & thread
Dressmaking Pins*
Scissors
Paper to draw out your pattern

The instructions for this awesome idea are in the following pictures…

Sketch out a rough idea of the germ shape you want and then cut it out to create your pattern, (My boy drew & cut out this awesome pattern after researching what norovirus looked like)

Pin your pattern onto your fabric and then cut round it. Then cut out two ovals for eyes and sew them onto one of the **right sides**, make a little incision where you want the pupils and snap the safety eyes into place.

Pin your pieces (**right sides together**) to get ready to sew.

Then sew both pieces together leaving an opening to turn right side out and stuff.

Before my little one stuffed his germs, he wanted to make them hearts to put inside, (we went to Build a Bear last week). He made one wish for each germ heart
1. I wish that I will feel better tomorrow (so do I kid)
2. I wish that no one else will get this
( he is the sweetest)

Now stuff your germ with toy filler. (Forgot to get a picture of the grey one being stuffed so this is the second one). Make sure to push the filler into all the spikey bits so you get the correct shape.

Take your needle and (coordinating) thread, turn the raw edges in and do a whipstitch to close the opening.

Apparently Norbert was lonely so we created Norris!

I absolutely adore how these little guys turned out. I love that we learned as we went along and I love even more that we were able to put a smile on my mini scientist’s face!

I hope you manage to keep away from this nasty virus! Stay well everyone!