there'll be days like this

the children are short, the days are long

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

March Miss Lady Sweater Done!

It looks boxier lying on the floor than it does on me. (I hope.)
I may decide to change the "sleeves" a little, but otherwise it is fine. And with Ben's help, I found the perfect buttons. Not the ones I had in mind originally, but I'm happy with them.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Who's busy?

It has been a whirlwind month around here. Jeremy took that second business trip of the year-- I survived. He was a little worse for wear, having lost not only the 3 hours from flying back from the west coast, but also the hour for springing forward.

Sebastian continues to maintain his perfect attendance record, despite going into school at 9:30 last Monday and then calling home sick at 1:30. Of course his teacher thought I was pushing him to get perfect attendance and neglectfully sending him into school sick, but it is all him. He wants that Friendly's gift card at the end of the year. And he didn't have a fever when I dropped him off. I can't control what happens when he's not with me. (I can barely control what happens when he is.)

Thursday we went to Boston to visit Jim, who was an awesome host as usual. I highly recommend his chicken cutlets. Yum! I got some cutie stuff for myself and for the kids for Easter and for someone else over in Berkeley who should look for a package at some point. (But not too soon-- it isn't in the mail yet.)

We got home Saturday night, Sunday I worked, and Monday my cousin Emily and her beau Michael came to visit until Wednesday. It was a nice visit, if rainy, and now I'm trying to get my life back in order.

So far today I have raked out all the flower beds and admired all the buds emerging from the ground, swept the sidewalk, and left all the leaves in piles around the yard waiting to be stuffed into those giant brown bags. (Cross your fingers that they don't blow around too much before I can finish the job after I pick up Sebastian from school.)

And I hope to finish my March Miss Lady sweater which is only a couple of rows from being finished in the body and a couple of rows each for the cap sleeves. I can't wait to be done with that. Then I've been asked to knit a gecko for the store, but when it is done, I think I'll take a little break from knitting. I am really lacking for inspiration and maybe a few weeks off is what I need to get back in the swing of things.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Fit to be tied

Sebastian and I have been in a bit of a power struggle the last couple of years over when he would learn to tie his shoes. He was clearly winning, as I was continually convinced to buy slip-ons and velcro models, and every time I tried to teach him how to tie a bow, he would respond with limp fingers and I with yelling.

For the last few months, he has been wedging his thick wool socks into a pair of shoes a full size too small for him, despite owning a pair of low top Chucks in a more appropriate size. But I couldn't very well send him off to school with shoes he couldn't put on himself when the boots came off, so off he went day after day looking more and more like the ragamuffin he is.

Well, along came February break, and when I removed his shoes from his backpack and discovered that the elastic had completely ripped free from its moorings on both sides of both shoes, I made a bold move to win the battle. I threw the pair, along with its dry-rotting velcroed brethren, into the garbage and announced that he would be learning to tie his shoes before he went back to school because he had no other choice. End of the line.

The first few days of vacation passed with multiple refusals to learn and statements of intent to procrastinate. Finally, two days before his return to school, I told him the time had come. He tried. He failed. He tried again. Better, but not right. He tried again. And he did it! High fives all around... Lots of cause for celebration...

The next day we were out shopping, and he was very excited about his future of shoes of all sorts, and pointed out several styles he would love to have. I told him that when he outgrew this pair, I would take him shopping, but that most likely his shoes would not be coming from the large chain store where we were.

The next 3 days of school go by, followed by a weekend of wearing his shoes with no problems whatsoever. They fit. They are tied competently by Sebastian. All is right with the world.

Today I go to pick him up from school and am confronted by the information that my child was shoeless during library and told the librarian an elaborate story about how when his father came home from his business trip that he would be taking him to Target to buy new shoes because the ones he has don't fit. Umm... no, no and no.

And he apparently wandered the halls shoeless all day yesterday as well. One would think that his teacher would have told me about this. But one would be very wrong.

I suppose I should be thankful it wasn't his pants he was neglecting to wear.

Monday, March 8, 2010

The New Normal

My friend Amanda and I have been talking about when we should stop waiting for things to "get back to normal" and just accept that we have an ever shifting, very busy, new normal. For example, things are "back to normal" this week because Jeremy just took both of the boys to school for the first time in 3 weeks. But, he leaves at 3:30am tomorrow for a business trip from which he will return Sunday just in time for me to go to work. Not normal, but approaching being the New Normal since this is the second trip in as many months.

But, as I'm sure you suspected, some things are as normal as ever around here. Like the knitting... Let me introduce you to my latest, slightly abusive, and generally unhealthy relationship:

My February Lady Sweater. Henceforth to be known as the "March Miss Lady Sweater". This pattern is extremely irritating. I'm sort of irritated that I'm even making it considering that every other female knitter on the planet seems to have also made one. But we all know that I hate to follow a pattern, so of course, mine will have short sleeves and 8 small buttons instead of 3 large ones. There was some serious frogging with this little lady. For some dumb reason, the lace part starts before you divide for the sleeves, so that when I would make it short sleeved, it would end up with one little strip of the lace. It looked stupid. So I ripped it back to where the lace started, did some more garter stitch instead, and voila! it is much improved. I also made the button band narrower since my buttons will not be so large.

You might ask why I would continue with something that caused me to use the "f" word way more than normal. And the answer would be that I really want a lacy, short sleeved sweater to wear over my sundresses in spring and summer if I get a little cool. And I looked for a different pattern and just didn't have much luck. So I'm sticking with this one. And as long as I don't eff up the lace pattern again, the rest should be smooth sailing.

In the meantime, when I've needed some stockinette to soothe my frayed nerves, I've been working on some socks for Jeremy, who is the only one left in this house with no "mommy socks."

I thought this was self-striping yarn when I bought it, but it's more like self-spiraling. That's okay. It fits him like a glove. For his foot.