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Stiles would sew little foods onto a pair a pants or any clothing for every one of Eli's food phases as a toddler.
one whole month, Eli became obsessed with cucumbers. so Stiles took it upon himself to go to the local thrift store, finding a pair of toddler jeans before taking a trip to the nearest craft store and stocking up on felt fabrics, iron-on patches, stickers, and various types of threads or yarn. he'd stay up all night cutting the felt fabric into cucumbers and sewing them into the knees of the jeans.
when the following month Eli asks for bananas every morning, Stiles goes on the hunt for a pair of red corduroy shorts, patching half peeled bananas just below the pockets.
he does the same when Eli inevitably becomes addicted to goldfish crackers. Stiles found an old striped sweater in the lost and found bin of Eli's daycare. it took him a while to get the shape right, but he managed to cut it perfectly, sewing the giant felt goldfish cracker to the front of the sweater. Eli wore the hell out of it, fraying the edges from rough play at school but Stiles didn't get mad, he just thought it added more charm.
at some point, Derek had introduced Eli to sushi [ which Eli adorable pronounces as shoo-she ]. and at that particular time, Stiles would hear little Eli pitter patter up to Derek asking for, "shoo-she?" almost every Friday night [ how could either of them say no? Friday night "shoo-she" became a thing in their household henceforth ]. anyway, this task was much harder for Stiles to take on. he didn't trust his own crafting skills and the last thing he wanted was for Eli to walk around with some kind of jumbled blob patched to his clothing. Stiles was lucky enough to find a pack of sushi patches on Etsy. so he grabbed an old denim jacket of Eli's, ironing on a sushi roll to the back of the jacket.
Stiles would continue to do this with various pieces of Eli's clothing; tomatoes on pajama pants, stamping shrimp across a white shirt, finding a baseball cap with blueberries on them. he'd do this until Eli got over his food obsessions and grew out of the clothes. by then, he'd turn every piece of clothing he customized into a patchwork quilt they'd cuddle up with on their family movie nights.
maybe every once in a while Eli brings Stiles a shirt from his closet, asking him to attach whatever new interest he had onto it.
[ Derek’s not at all left out of this cute fun — Stiles would use up leftover materials to sew strawberries into the knees of Derek’s sweatpants ]