We find a delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Beautiful
Month: July 2006
The Elusive Knitting Post
How long has it been since I posted any pictures of my knitting? I swear I knit. Honest! It’s just that the majority of what I’ve been knitting is secret knitting at the moment. (I have 3 and 3/4 Christmas gifts done already.)
But, I do have a new baby sweater project to show off!
Pattern and yarn details are on the project page.
I’m really enjoying how this project is turning out so far. I like the drape of the fabric, the heathery color of the yarn, and the flower motif. I’m going to make another one of these little sweaters in a bolder color for Carrie after this is done.
Pool Party, ’06
I’m pretty sure this was this very first pool party I’ve ever planned where it didn’t rain! I’m so thrilled! And it was so much fun, too – we had 11 adults, 6 toddlers, and 3 babies. All the kids had a blast in the pool, and Carrie was so excited to see all her friends from playgroup “swimming”. (As a side note, I was floored when I told her that we were having a party and all of our friends were coming and Carrie actually started naming all the kids in her playgroup. The fact that she understands the concept of “friends” makes me all warm and fuzzy.)
What with trying to make sure all the kids had adequate supervision in the pool, I didn’t get my camera out. I should have put Denis in charge of picture taking, since he was chatting with people who weren’t in the pool and not in charge of any kids. Oh, well.
The only downside to the day was that by the time everyone left we decided that it was too late to try to give Carrie a nap, and that we’d just put her to bed a bit on the early side. I can’t even describe the meltdown that started at about 6:15 and lasted until I finally rocked her to sleep at 7:15. I think that will be the last time we ever voluntarily skip a nap!
Pigtails!
How can something as simple as pigtails make Carolyn look at least a year older than she really is? They’re adorable, but it almost makes me sad to see how old she looks!
She wasn’t thrilled with me taking her picture while she was trying to watch “A, B, C, D, LALALA SONG!” -as she calls her Learning About Letters DVD. She really, really loves Sesame Street now. Her other favorite DVD at the moment is “ELMO ONETWOTHREEFOURFIVESIXSEVEN, EIGHTNINETEN!!!!”, Kids’ Favorite Songs – Elmo counts backwards in that one, which she has done a few times, but she can count forwards much faster. Her titles are all in caps because they’re usually shouted at the top of her lungs, and the numbers come out as two words because she pauses after seven to take a breath.
Gorgeous Sock Yarn
Oh, I really hope my sock kit pal loves this yarn I just bought for her as much as I think she will!
Don’t ask me why I’m up so late. Either the white chocolate raspberry mocha I had at Sit & Knit wasn’t really decaf or I can’t handle that much sugar. I’m going to regret it in the morning.
But at least I finally found the perfect sock yarn. Now I just need to actually implement the bag that’s been floating around in my head. There’s what, three-ish weeks until the deadline? Yikes!
Twenty-One Months Old!
Dear Carolyn,
You’re 21! (Months, that is.) It’s been an eventful month, with your first trip on a plane, your first success on the potty, and your first time strawberry picking.
It’s so much fun listening to you talk now. A lot of what you say is incomprehensible to anyone but me (and often to me as well) but you sometimes come out with the clearest, funniest sentences. Like “I want coffee, too!” and “Cookie time please?” You’re starting to use the “-ing” ending now, saying “sleeping” where you used to say “sleep”, “eating” instead of “eat” and so on. You’ll also parrot things: I can ask you to say anything and you’ll give it your best shot.
With it being summer and all, we’ve been in the pool a lot. In fact, you would prefer to live in the pool, so if it’s not raining we go in pretty much every day. Your Uncle Michael comes over to swim with us, and you wake up every morning asking “un-co mie-yo swim? ta-ree swim?” (you seem to think your name starts with a ‘t’) and every morning I have to remind you that we don’t go swimming until after naptime. You’re very brave (in a scary way) around the water, and even go so far as to stand on the side of the pool, hold my hands and jump in. You blow bubbles in the water, kick your feet, and love to splash and be splashed. Unfortunately, you’ve become terrified of actual baths now, since the poo incident. Too bad we can’t wash your hair in the pool.
The big thing we did this month was go to Florida with Nana, Poppy and your aunts, uncles and cousins on that side of the family. You may not remember it when you’re older, but you had a wonderful time, meeting Winnie the Pooh and Minnie Mouse, playing in the sandbox at Sea World, and hanging with your cousins. You were also thrilled to be on an airplane, and still talk about airplanes a lot.
At this point you have 14 of your 20 baby teeth – your top two canines came in just this past week. You just need the bottom canines and your big back molars and you’ll be done with teeth until you’re in first grade or so. With all the teeth in that mouth of yours you’re getting really good at biting and chewing almost everything. I still cut grapes and other round things, but you can even eat (and like!) raw veggies. You’ve gotten a tad bit picky about your food, though, rejecting things that have flecks of spices on them and other little anomalies. Mostly you still like and eat almost everything, as long as you’re in the mood!
It’s been a fun, and challenging, month. There are days when I’ve wondered if we’re both going to survive until Daddy gets home. And I’m sure there are going to be many more of those days over the next few years…but I wouldn’t trade being a stay-at-home mom to you for anything in the world!
Love, Mommy
I Give Up
It’s so overwhelming to go through all the vacation pictures. Not only the 450 I took, but everyone else’s too. I’m beginning to wonder if digital is such a good idea. Just (mostly) kidding! At this point I have it sort of narrowed down to about 300 I want to print. Right. Like I’m going to put 300 pictures in a scrapbook. I think I need to work on that some more.
So, since I’m a full two weeks behind publishing my blog posts because I’m waiting until I get the pictures in order, I’m just going to publish them all without pictures. Besides, this way they don’t have to be typekey protected. Maybe sometime next week I’ll manage to get a few pictures posted.
Since they probably won’t even be on the front page, the vacation posts start here.
“I Want Coffee Too”
After a terrible night that involved Carrie sleeping (I use that word loosely) in our bed for several hours, it seemed like she was up for the day at 6:30. I said to Denis, “well, there’s nothing for it but to make a big pot of coffee”. To which Carrie replied, “I want coffee, too!” At least, that’s what it sounded like to both of us, and when asked to repeat herself, she clearly said “want coffee!”
What a nut!
Luckily for us, after this exchange she put her head down on the pillow and when I asked her if she was sleepy she said “crib!” Only it sounded more like “crap”, and it took a couple tries for me to figure it out. But then she want back to sleep in her crib until almost 10. I think she’s working on one of those big back molars, based on the amount of drool, but since it’s still pretty early for her to get them I’m guessing it’s going to be a long few months.
Oh, The Screaming!
I’m mildly surprised that we didn’t wind up with the sheriff at our house tonight. There was so much screaming. It started with an innocent little bath. And an innocent little poo. And a toddler who’s got enough knowledge of where and when to poo that she was quite traumatized about poo-ing in the tub.
Then the toddler started screaming for the potty. And once on the potty started screaming for a diaper. And when she was told she needed to take a shower to get cleaned off (as the tub was in need of a good cleaning now) she started screaming about that. The actual shower experience? That was quite, quite traumatic and caused a great deal of screaming. At this point Denis and I were trying not to pee our pants laughing. There’s something about a naked toddler covered in slippery soap who is clinging for dear life to a parent and refuses to put her feet on the floor of the shower long enough to get rinsed off while alternately screaming for a diaper and screaming for her bath that triggers an automatic laughter response. Because it’s either laugh or go insane.
We finally got her rinsed off and in a diaper and she started screaming for the potty again. At some point during this whole scream-fest, we realized the front door was open, and it’s a really quiet night. The neighbors must think we were torturing her or something. I suppose from her perspective we were.
And it’s, what, 11 already? And she’s still up. Not screaming, but not sleeping. I don’t know if she’s still getting over the traumas of the evening, or if this would have happened anyway. (She had pink lemonade at dinner. Mmmm, sugar.)
If she ever takes a bath, sits on the potty or willingly takes a shower any time before college it will be a miracle.
You Know You’re A Crazy Knitter When…
You go to the same yarn shop twice in an hour to buy enough yarn to make one tiny little sweater as a gift. I always try to buy something really easy-care when I knit gifts for small children, but then I discovered that the Debbie Bliss yarns were 30% off, and the cotton cashmere came in such a perfect color and would work so wonderfully for the pattern I wanted to do. So I bought six skeins, enough for the smallest size. Halfway home, I realized that it was just cruel to give a sweater that required special care to a family who was about to have their second child. Cruel to the sweater, that is. What if they, in a sleep-deprived stupor, put it in the dryer?!? (Cue the scary music.)
But the yarn was on sale, and therefore couldn’t be returned. What to do? Then I realized that just one more skein would be enough for a Carrie-sized sweater, so I went back to the yarn shop to buy another skein of cotton cashmere and picked up a machine washable/dryable yarn (also very pretty) to knit the gift sweater in. Bonus? That yarn was also 30% off.
Never mind that I have more yarn, projects and kits than I could ever knit in my lifetime. No knitter in her right mind could possibly pass up cotton cashmere for $5.25 a skein, especially to make a lovely, lacy sweater for her baby girl. :)