She Blogs!

If my digital camera wasn't broken, I might never have thought to upload what is certainly the best picture of me and the kids yet taken. Thanks, Pilats!

Noah had his second birthday "party" last weekend. By "party" I mean "excuse for us to spend $75 at Say Cheese." Nathan came! Noah's Birthday Hat did not come to fruition, but he did receive much loot, including a book about a mouse who has difficulty with boundaries and a Tricycle. Also a dump truck that grinds out ear-bleedingly loud derivative songs about how awesome trash is. (Thanks, Ma.) And a cool building set!

I can't believe how big this guy is. He has hundreds of words, some of which strangers can't understand (well, if you can't understand that cobibot means "computer," I don't know what to tell you). He follows (well, understands) sometimes complicated instructions. He provides the color commentary for the extreme sport that is parenting:

"Maia wying." Maia is whining, but it sounds like crying.
"Daddy doppa abogadot." Daddy dropped the avocado on the floor. Mommy cleaned it up.
"I nee ceyal. I nee anodder ceyal." Maia taught me that I don't have to accept your first cereal offer.
"Oh gott." Mommy still says this when no one else is around.

weekup, maimai

My schweetum is getting huge. (That's him serving as Maia's alarm clock, by the way. He's sitting on her head.) He uses sentences:

"Diegot!" Please turn on "Go, Diego, Go!"
"Ammon onna thibault." Perhaps you are confused. The TiVo remote is right here, on the coffee table.
"Eeyago ammon." Accept this remote as a gift. Turn the TV on. Now.

He's been accepted into preschool. He sleeps almost all night, in his own bed. He hasn't nursed since early February. He still name checks the boobies but he's pretty accepting being cut off from the milk bar. When he sees a Starbucks, he asks for a cookie. He knows stuff.

Don't tell anyone, but a baby he is not.

At the same time, though, he's gotten clingier, and also much more affectionate. I get gratuitous hugs and kisses all day, which is pretty awesome.

Meanwhile, our pre-tween, normally the sunniest person in our household -- the rest of us tend to range from subdued to melancholic to choleric -- is becoming a little, um, surly. For her, anyway. She expects a full explanation before following orders. She moves like cold molasses, no matter how late in the morning it is. She's not, well, as credulous as she used to be.

She also can't. stop. reading. This is part of why she's so slow. It's hard to complain about her staggering literacy. She disappears in the bathroom for endless hours. She reads in bed instead of getting up in the morning. She reads on the couch instead of eating breakfast. She reads the cereal box.

I would imagine our parents are feeling a sort of schadenfreude right now.

Finishing the Hat Month

How was Finishing the Hat Fortnight, you ask?

• A Small Hat of Vegetable Origin was completed. It fit (just). It was given for a Birthday. I am Pleased.
• I saved thousands of dollars bought more yarn.
• I started a scarf for meee!
• I still have a project on the needles that must be completed in the next two weeks, and a matching one that is still just a twinkle in my eye that also must be completed by then.
• I have a strong desire to abandon those projects because they are boring and slow, but I'm not supposed to buy any more yarn and I can't think of anything appropriate.
  
• I still want more yarn, even though my stash has developed its own bylaws and belief system.
  

Finishing the Hat Week

It's Finishing the Hat Week here on Heartbreaking Mess. Here are the rules:

1) No new projects on the needles.

2) All existing projects must be completed with the materials at hand.

3) That means no new yarn.

4) Not any.

5) Knitting is now the top priority craft around here until I Finish the Hats/Scarves/etc.

Keeping these rules in mind over the past two days, I Finished a Hat.

Incidentally, this was supposed to be a hat for Noah. Then after (sigh) not paying enough attention to gauge, I realized it was moderately gynormous and he'd probably be swimming in it. So then it became a hat for me! And then I misread the pattern last night (knitting and wine perhaps do not mix?) and ended the hat two inches early. So now, it is a short, fat hat.

But apparently Noah has a short, fat head.



I'm still furious, because the hat is so short the brim doesn't even fold up correctly, but at least I have learned a valuable Lesson about gauge.

Again.

Life Lessons

Just saw this in someone's signature on DeviantArt:
"Life is like a ball of wool, it starts fine is messy in the middle and ends up fine again."

Whoever said that never turned two skeins of Misti Alpacas Pima Cotton/Silk (#440, Papaya) into an effing mess. It's lovely yarn, beautiful sheen, soft to the touch, and I turned it into Cynthia McKinney by being too shy to ask the nice lady at Imagiknit to show me how to wind the yarn winder thing. I just took it home and tried to knit with it. Lesson. Learned.

Also in knitting news, I just knitted a hat for someone. Someone with a small head. I did knit a gauge swatch, I swear, but I didn't put much effort into it and then unraveled it so I could use it for the Small Hat. Which ended up a Gynormous Hat. Lesson. Learned.

Also, if you have ten hours of work to complete by the end of the weekend, don't spend three hours completing and seaming a Hat you already know to be Gynormous, or you will end up spending Sunday evaluating porn sites instead of sipping coffee while reading the Sunday Times and listening to Nina Simone. Lesson. Learned.

Duboce Playground
Maia can make a friend in about five minutes. She and this unnamed child (Maia doesn't know her name) sold pretend ice cream, built a fort, hit the swings, and did a bunch of other stuff I didn't see while I was chasing Noah through the foliage. The little girl was so upset when she had to leave Maia for home that she had a tantrum. I sympathize -- Maia is pretty fun. She's sweet and imaginative and athletic and enthusiastic and brilliant and about a million other excellent things.

The sky was blue, the air was cold, and the N Judahs kept cruising by the playground, to Noah's delight. We were supposed to proceed to the aquarium, but the kids didn't want to leave, so I decided to just wing it. It was nice to be outside after a week of rain and bouncing off the walls and ceiling. I'm trying to be Spontaneous Mom instead of Type A Freak Mom. Spontaneous Mom seems to have more fun.

Why?
Dear Noah,

I'm just wondering why you decided to pour a bag of Goldfish pretzels into a mesh basket. Did you think you were plating them for serving? Mesh has holes in it. That means that you essentially strained out all the salt, leaving it on the coffee table and living room floor. I would be a lot more annoyed if I didn't own a Dustbuster.