Cookies To Sweeten The Soul

I am so lucky - today, I received a box of cookies from Canada.

They are made by a lovely woman whom I am beginning to think of as a dear friend - she pushes me to go beyond where I think my limitations are creatively, and she has been a wonderful person to get to know as both an individual and a customer.

I'm not sure if my photos convey how wonderful and sweet these cookies are, and how detail oriented their maker is. They certainly taste like a little bit of nirvana.

This guy kills me! He has a fluffy tail! The squirrels eating my tomato plants on the porch aren't one quarter that cute.

My child thinks these cookies are absolute genius, and he's right. They are beautiful, tasty, fun and hand-crafted with care.

El, you bless us with your creations. Thank you so much! Maybe there's a box from Canada waiting for another lucky person at Milk.

Sweet Child That I Adore

We have our days, just like everyone else, but he is by far the cutest little person I've ever seen. And I don't care how biased I am.

A friend said to me on the phone in response to being one the fence about procreating a second time: "Just because your child has had a bad day doesn't mean another one doesn't deserve life." Brilliant.

Monday: Listed

In publishing this list I hope to keep track of enough things to actually get a few done.

1. Write up Scrip Order Processor job description. (it's a co-op preschool thing which has to be done by Wednesday)
2. Draft interview for CFF fundraiser walk - want to help by posting something on PCZ.
3. Start socks for Mother's Day gift. Size 2's and vanilla basic sock. Should only take a few days to finish these.
4. Resend letter to J. The one I didn't send was very quickly outdated. Joy of snail trail mail and hand-written letters.
5. Vacuum. The whole house.
6. Choose pattern and yarn for Q2 challenge at Loopy Ewe.
7. Make a dent in financial paperwork for Black Trillium. (this is the one I keep avoiding) With taxes finished, the rest should be cake, right?

Okay, seven is enough, right? Let's see what I forgot to remember come tomorrow.

Afternoon addendum:

8. Scrub the pink out of the bathtub before it gets unsightly.
9. Scrip order. By Tuesday morning.
10. Send out BTFS orders.
11. Pay some bills, enter some receipts, reconcile, then freak out because we spend too much money.
12. Transplant pea starts and get some compost into the other pots (for tomatoes!).
13. Clean and hang hummingbird feeder.

Odds and ends I should squeeze in there somewhere...

14. Get zoo pics from sister. My son and my niece were totally cute, holding hands and being sweet. They looked like they could be siblings.
15. Dye some yarn. Site needs Twilight Garden and backup Rainbow Black. Plus a skein or two of the PCZ colorway and some more Crushed Berries. All space-dyed, which I detest.
16. Start packing up April birthday gifts to be sent out.
17. Grocery shopping.
18. Write review of Disney discs for PCZ before another deadline completely blows us by.
19. Respond to emails.
20. Get more color photos up on BTFS Facebook page...

Alright, this list has gotten out of hand...

21. Darn hubby's DIC socks. Which begs the question: Tear out current WIP DIC socks?

Peanut Buttah & Pumpkins

Recipe time.

We wanted edible playdough today, so I looked 'round the internets to find a recipe. Guess what? 99% of the recipes I found call for milk, mostly powdered. For an art/cooking project? Has anybody tried eating that stuff lately, because what I remember from my own childhood is that powdered milk has more flavors in common with licking the outside of the animal than the sweet stuff from the udder. (Not that I get to ingest milk anymore - lactose is not my friend.)

So, experimentation time. Here's what we did:

crunchy peanut butter
honey
brown rice flour

I warmed the honey and the peanut butter for easier mixing, then sprinkled in rice flour until the little guy liked the texture. This is obviously a very easy process, and doesn't need exact measurement. I wouldn't recommend using a peanut butter than already has sugar (you know who you are), or if you must then omit some or all of the honey. I'm also quite sure that cashew or almond butter would sub in well if peanuts are an issue.

* ~ As a health warning, if your child is under three, you might want to skip this recipe. It sounds fun, but you're more likely to have problems with both peanuts and honey if you're under three. ~ *

Last nights recipe actually included measurements. Well, most of the ingredients did. Pumpkins are undoubtedly my son's favorite part of Hallowe'en, so we buy them early and often. But then I have to cook them up, so I needed a creative way to use up a few things I had in the fridge (oh, that yogurt is still good, I promise). Here's the what-for's:

1 small pumpkin, baked, skinned and gutted
2 sticks butter, or 1 cup, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
3 cups AP flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 cups plain yogurt
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

First, prepare the pumpkin. For me this means splitting the sucker down the middle, greasing a pan with a little olive oil, then throwing the pumpkin in the greased pan into the oven (at 350 degrees) until the skin starts to turn brown and the whole thing has give when pressed.

Second, prep the yogurt. Say what? If you've seen Alton Brown's Good Eats episode on recipes for lactose-free folks, you've seen him make yogurt cheese. The stuff is brilliant - it makes fantastic ice cream, "cream cheese" frosting, bagel schmear, or sour cream substitute. Here's a quick run-down of AB's recipe: scoop a cup or more of yogurt into a moistened multi-layer cheese cloth. Twist the cloth into a tight little bundle - the whey will start to release immediately and run out. You can either hand squeeze for a while, or you can weigh the bundle down with couple cans on top and inside a strainer. I just squoozed mine until I felt like enough whey had come out - this will drastically reduce the volume of the yogurt.

Okay, cake time.

Cream the sugars and butter together in a large bowl until the mixture is light and fluffy. As the butter/sugar mix creams, combine the flour, leavening, spices and salt and sift together. In another bowl combine the pumpkin, yogurt cheese, vanilla and eggs. If you think the wet mix is too thick, add the second cup of yogurt a little at a time, stopping when the wets resemble pancake batter. Alternate adding flour and pumpkin into the creamed butter and sugar. When everything is well mixed, it should be very fluffy and pale orange.

Butter and flour two loaf pans. Set the oven to 350 degrees. Divide the batter between the pans and bake an hour at 350 or until the cakes test for doneness.

Beware, this cake tried very hard to collapse on me right out of the oven. The crumb will be very moist and tender. Wait until the loaves fully cool to avoid total collapse.

I will probably revise this recipe to include more flour so that it has a little more structure. The tender, pudding-like texture was really yummy, but very unprofessional.

Getting My Zen On

A Heavy Load

Two traveling monks reaced a town where there was a young woman waiting to step out of her sedan chair. The rains had made deep puddles and she couldn't step across without spoiling her silken robes. She stood there, looking very cross and impatient. She was scolding her attendants. They had nowhere to place the packages they held for her, so they couldn't help her across the puddle.

The younger monk noticed the woman, said nothing, and walked by. The older monk quickly picked her up and put her on his back, transported her across the water, and put her down on the other side. She didn't thank the older monk, she just shoved him out of the way and departed.

As they continued on their way, the young monk was brooding and preoccupied. After several hours, uable to hold his silence, he spoke out. "That woman back there was very selfish and rude, but you picked her up on your back and carried her! Then she didn't even thank you!"

"I set the woman down hours ago," the older monk replied. "Why are you still carrying her?"

- excerpted from Zen Shorts by Jon Muth

As I drove to work today, I was verbally assaulted by a non-knitter that obviously didn't realize the sock in my right hand was only being worked on at long red lights. I was furious, mostly because I had to go through that whole adrenaline reaction thing one does when threatened. I didn't think about it at all while I was at work for three hours, but as I headed back to my car I began to contemplate how to handle the incident. I went through a series of steps:

1. Totally flaming pissed. Who did he think he was!? Darn hypocrite probably drives intoxicated, talks on his cell phone and drives, or picks his nose and scratches his balls instead of paying attention to the road. He certainly didn't have the traffic in front of him on his mind while he was screaming at me. I'm gonna rip out this guy's innards and post them on my blog.

2. Reflective. Maybe this man just had a really shit day and lost control of his filters. Maybe he forgot his meds this morning. Regardless, he's a muggle with no clue that it takes two hands to knit, and I don't exactly have a spare 3rd to drive with.

3. Not my job. This one took me a while to get to. The excerpt from above finally came back to me from a book I've been reading the little guy. No matter what this guy's issue, it isn't up to me to react, fix it, or get revenge. I plain old don't have to carry his anger.

There's a reason why zen is a life-long learning process.

* * *

For a while band-aids were a favorite of the little guy. Remember the three musketeers and their yellow forehead decos? Well, we've run out of them and so Little J has moved on to my panyliners. He has no idea where they actually belong, since I virtually never use them. Which means to him that they belong above the eyebrows as well.

* * *

Today was a yarn spree at Twisted! Loot:


Tofutsies in "Foot in the Door" colorway.


Kureyon in #40 for a Lizard Ridge-like scarf for a gift.


More Kureyon (#182) for Lizard Ridge blanket.


More sock yarn. Strawberry Fields Forever indeed.

While I was shopping and winding, I chatted with Shannon about various other things they were thinking of carrying and sock yarns we both liked knitting up. She's spoken with Claudia of Wollmeise and has found out that there may not be any more wholesaling of that yarn. Boohoo! I led her to Fly Designs Lacewing and Monarch, which I'm hoping they'll consider carrying. It was a great afternoon.

Finishing

(I kept thinking "finishing school", but how dorky is that?)



Lizard Ridge Ver. 1.0 block number one in color #182, as showcased by my sweet boy who adores getting his picture taken. Who also adores taking pictures:





As we were making pasta yesterday.

TMI Alert

Now, a toilet training story. I should preface this with the acknowledment that losing the diapers isn't something we've been pushing very hard. Hub and I aren't antsy to have another babe, so, as long as Little J isn't wearing diapers when he's forty, "who cares" is pretty much my philosophy.

Occasionally, (okay, after every bath), Little J gets to run around in the buff. One afternoon, I let it go on for a while because it was 90 degrees or so outside. Out of nowhere, the little guy tears off to the bathroom, and I hear banging around with the potty seat. I checked on him to find he'd flipped up the lid, seated himself and was using the facilities (sans mess!!!!!) all on his own.

For the last week or so, he spends most of the day nekkid, and runs off to use the toilet whenever he feels the urge. So far, not a single accident. He has started getting himself up on the big toilet without help. Needless to say, when this guy figures something out, he does it completely.

Chatty with Charlie

Scene: Bedtime.

Mom attempts to read A.A. Milne to toddler. Toddler reads his own version, following words with finger.

Page reads, according to toddler: Feefee dollars, feefee dollars, feefee an' dollars. Kissor Robin. Mango po'sicle. Eat it all up. Bees, bees. Buzz, buzz, everywhere.

(What context did my child learn the phrase "fifty dollars" from?)

---------
The Lizard Ridge Sq1 is zippity-doo-dahing right along. I have some fun money coming, originally intended for E.L. Silky Wool in a color now unavailable, and I'm trying really hard not to plan out a jaunt around town to all the stores I know have Kureyon in order to pick out my next few squares. So many projects, so little self control.

And the leg of WTS #1 is 6.5 inches. Heel shortly, folks.

Customer Service Revisited

I totally hear you guys about don't write off the shop. In one of the LYS's I don't frequent anymore, it WAS the owner being priggish. This latest thing just set me off about all of them.

My personal preference is to shop all over the place, including the internet. I think I'll be back in that shop, but I won't go out of my way like I used to. If an opportunity comes up to talk to the owner, who is quite fabulous BTW, I will. Or I'll have a chat with the person(s) I'm frustrated with. I don't expect the snob vibe to go away, though, and it is a real turn-off.

Every yarn shop needs a kid area. It should be part of their business plan. Okay, I'm a little insistent. But I guarantee that if my LYS had a train table, you wouldn't know my kid was in the place.

All For Babies

T'day wasn't my best day ever, some obscure crap with family loused things up right outta the gate, so I'm going to try not to whine, but I'm not making any promises about swearing or ranting.

My son, at two and a half, has been everywhere I've been since he was born. Well, since before he was born, but that's a personal matter. In that time I've learned to read the signs of kid friendly folks and not-so-friendly folks. The little guy has been oblivious thus far, and I hope it stays that way for good long while.

Toddlers, being the curious little sponges they are, develop a quick sense for how to entertain themselves in a store that doesn't contain actual "toys". My son, like any normal kid, is checking for interesting items, which might or might not be glass, pointy, dry clean only, or expensive. He has a special affinity for running, and loops (around racks, shelves, aisles) are like an open invitation. None of this is to say that he's destructive or inconsiderate. Quite the opposite, in fact. To my knowledge, he hasn't broken anything or permanently damaged a display in a single store. We don't walk out with things that aren't ours and we clean up our messes.

My son is the dearest thing in the world to me, and I like having his constant company. So you can imagine how I feel when someone in a shop says and does things to make it clear he isn't a welcome addition, or that if we're there together I can't possibly be a serious customer. Disgusted, insulted and annoyed are three words that come quickly to mind just now.

I love knitting, and I love yarn. I write a frakking blog about my love of fuzz. Yarn shops are first on my list of places to visit for fun. When I visit my BF's mom, I know where to go for yarn. When I visit Seattle, or Raleigh, Chapel Hill or Asheville, NC, I know where to go for yarn. Heck, if I visited New York, or Boston, or dozens of other places, I'd know where to shop for yarn by asking my blogging pals or reading around online. And I have been to at least half of the LYS's in the Portland area.

And in no less than three of them we've gotten treated like we had sticky chocolate fingers and a funny smell about us.

Today, it was implied that my son was going to break the Pyrex needles. That he was going to walk out with the cute little knitted animals. That he wasn't being careful enough with the woolly creations and the merchandise. That he, and I, were basically not trustworthy.

I don't imagine that all children are at their best every time they go into a store. I'm sure things have happened. But I also know my child very, very well, and I do not like to see him treated as if he as very little going on between his ears. Children do what we expect of them, and that is the bottom line whether or not you're their parent, friend, relative, or a perfect stranger.

My son is a fairly bright guy, and he's very social, so I'm sure there will come a day soon when he is hurt by the way someone treats him whom he is not acquainted with. As it's my job to protect him from that while I have the chance, you can bet I won't take him anywhere near those places he isn't treated as a valued customer. If that means an LYS drops from my list, oh well.

I've discovered that I believe children to be a gift, even if they aren't mine. That doesn't make it okay to parent them without boundaries and expectations. But it should be true for us culturally as well as personally. I wish I knew how to make it so.

Oh yeah, and where do you think future generations of knitters are going to come from?

Nothing to See Here

Or, better yet, let's talk about my kid. The little guy has been a bit of a pill lately, due to the fact that his body is sending him two molars that don't normally arrive until four years from now. So he ain't my favorite person all the time. But then he goes and does something really fabulous like standing up for himself at the playground without retaliating or being malicious, and I get all fuzzy with pride. It makes me think that even if you have huge mommy-guilt and wonder if you'r the worst person in the universe you might not be totally guaranteed to eff-up your kid's psyche.

There's a thing I've been trying to figure out - where did he get that bruise from? I'm there nearly 110% of the time, and I can't recall where he would've gotten a little goose egg in the middle of his forehead. I was the one who gave him his first owie (totally stupid accident not worth recounting), and I was there with him and very sad for him when he got his first shiner. Suddenly, it seemed, yesterday there was a little blue spot in the smack center of his little noggin. Now, the little risk-taker hasn't leapt off anything absurd. Lately. So, I missed something.

News in knitting: the kilt hose are finished. Both. I'm not ready to talk over the details, but they've been given to mine hubster, and he's very excited about the whole plan (involves a Utilikilt). And best of all, he never suspected that those "sleeves" actually turned out to be socks. Pictures forthcoming on model. (THEY FIT!!!)

That's all for now. Go about your business.

Doctors Make Me Nervous

...but that doesn't mean I don't take my kid to one.

Today was our first appointment with our new pediatrician. My anticipation level hovered near anxiety for reasons both numerous and boring. If there was a list of 100 things about me on this blog, it would contain something about my tendancy to worry over the uncontrollable details. That said, I think my son could not care less about the whole business. Smart little peanut.

We're on a very altered vaccination schedule, and though our previous pediatrician in North Carolina was good at adjusting to that, she was never really supportive. I was confident in my choices and educated about my reasons which helped to ease her concerns. However, this was not the kind of ongoing relationship that I thought would be best for my son and my own mental health. In all other ways our previous doc set the bar unreachably high.

Back to those vacs. I picked a new doc here in Oregon because he was familiar with the source of my altered schedule and he is supportive of such changes. He's also pretty clear about medicating with antibiotics only when necessary, another kudo for us. We talked about one of the shots we'd chosen to go without and he asked me to reconsider my objections based on new data. Good argument. He's aware of the thimerisol issue, we talked about Chicken Pox and Measles/Mumps/Rubella timing, and he never said a peep about my passing on Hep B. After today, I feel very confident about his knowledge and I'm pretty sure we'll be able to work together well in my son's best interests.

(The pediatrician who checked out my newborn son two years ago wasa total bastard very vocal about our choosing not to give our son his first shot, for a sexually transmitted disease no less, at the age of 12 hours. Not a keeper.)

Sunday Salad

Rowling Meets Master Shakespeare

If you're a fan of both, then Saturday's airing of the second episode third season Dr. Who is a blockbuster. I know, how can so much greatness exist in one place? Hopefully you'll watch and find out, although if you're on the North American continent you might have to drool and wait.

The 1st Sunday After The 1st Full Moon After The Vernal Equinox

Also known as Easter. Which in my childhood meant dyeing, hiding and hunting eggs without any religious connotation. We also received a huge box of candy from my paternal grandmother in what amounted to a semiannual sugar installment.



I'm planning to carry forward that dyeing, hiding and hunting, although without the competitiveness and some of the emotional mishaps that accompanied my own experience. One year, I spilled the cup of blue dye on the carpet, and didn't hear the end of it the whole weekend. That's always loads of fun for a twelve year old. This year was the second Easter egg hunt for the little guy, and the first that he was involved in the dyeing process. Like a charm. We even found a good place to hide eggs in our apartment complex neighborhood.



Fuzz

I've sewn up the ends on another preemie hat, which means now I can drop off the whole inventory. I've also come to the neck shaping on the experimental sweater and progressed a few rows on the kilt hose. I don't look forward to starting sock #2. Mother's Day and BF's birthday are both quickly approaching and my plan is to knit up 12 or so ball band washrags. Good thing they're quick.

No-Knit Weekend

My best bud and her son came to stay with us last Thursday, and departed today around noon. Geographically, we're usually about as far apart as you can get and still live in the continental US, so this was a very special visit. Thusly, no knitting for most of the time they were here.

Instead, we took the kids, who are nine months apart in age, to several parks, our local children's museum, a cool kid-oriented restuarant, rode the light rail to downtown and went to a toy store. My son is having a bit of a tough time because I haven't been allowing him to exercise his own controls enough, so there were times when things seemed to be self-destructing for us a little bit. But I learned a ton during the visit and all the outings, and the boys enjoyed the heck out of each other's company.

Several months ago, I checked out a book called Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood by Jim Fay, and though I came to the book with great skepticism because of it's title and because I expected it to be about structuring your child into oblivion, I did get some great tools from reading it the first time. I also passed on the title to my best friend and her mother, and they seemed to like the idea. Best Friend's husband took a look at it and urged us all to go back and read again (truth be told, all three of us only read the first six chapters). B.F. did that and has had spectacular success with her son who is nearing three years old. The recent visit reinforced for me that I had missed a few things in my first reading, so I'm going to have to read it through again, though in the mean time I've tried a few things I learned from watching B.F. and son. The difference might reinvigorate my interest in parenting.

I've also come across another book that both B.F. and Rachel have taken an interest in: How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and How To Listen So Kids Will Talk. I've already snagged it from the li-bary and I'll probably want to babble about my new discoveries later on, so stay tuned.

No Kitchen Sink - Yet

Yesterday was a nuttilicious day, y'all! A painter came by and redid our counters. Yikes, the smell. Then, I chose to go buy a Toyota Sienna I'd had my eye on, and of course I was late picking up my husband and subsequently late to work. But how cool is my boss - she asked if I'd be better of going back home for the night! Whew.

I've been slowly working away at my kilt hose project, but there isn't a lot of knitting time when my husband isn't home so progress is pretty slow. I'm adapting the pattern to go top-down, so you can see what the cuff looks like so far. That little braid pattern is so simple - BC4 x2, knit 2 rows, k2 FC4 k2, knit 2 rows - but at six stitches per inch on aran weight yarn its a bit tight. Problem is, I think it might be too small and I might have to frog it. Frag. But I won't know until I move into the main part of the calf increases, so I'm going to keep going. At least this isn't a rush job, as AverageJoe's birthday isn't until May.

Yup, AverageJoe is hubby. That's what he calls himself, so I go with it.

In the progress of toilet acclimation, my toddler son has developed an avid interest in flushing. If I go and don't invite him to flush for me, he gets very upset. My poor sweet husband, who very much enjoys his privacy while using the commode, gets the same thing along with a little observer whenever he pees standing up. Personally, I think it's hysterical. This morning, for instance, the little stinker was still mostly asleep in my arms when I had to go, so I took him with me as we've done since he was a few days old, and after I was finished he stayed behind to flush and fill about six more times, all the while with that look of ultra-concentration and barely-awakeness on his face. This little obesession also carries over to the TP, which he unrolls liberally and then loads into the bowl. We haven't had an overflow yet, but several rolls have gone swish bit by bit without proper usage first. Have I mentioned that I think all little kids are nutters, and most especially mine? The thing is, I can see my own proclivities in my child, so maybe he comes by his nutter-ness honestly. Don't mistake that to mean that I spend a lot of time flushing bits of paper down the bowl, mind you.

My mum came to visit last Sunday from Seattle, and with her came several goodies including four more boxes of my books. The reason that these books weren't in my possession in the first place is that when I moved to North Carolina three years ago, I left all my stuff (minus the things I could fit in my '99 Jetta) with my mother. When we came back, we thought we'd sorted it all out. We have three bookshelves, approx. 32" by 70-something, full to beyond capacity with DVDs and books, so there isn't room for much more. But what I find really disturbing about these four boxes showing up unexpectedly is that I didn't realize I was missing any books. And these turned out to be some fairly important ones, like the leather-bound Shakespeare compendium that was a high school graduation gift. Or a copy of Plato's collected works that I used for three or four upper-division courses at university. I could go on, but suffice to say that I can't believe I didn't notice the missing inventory. Am I going soft?

I'm still working to update my links, but so far I haven't had time to start reading any new blogs. If there are any readers at this point (which I doubt, but oh well) feel free to make suggestions.

Who The &*%$ Are You?

Though this quip applies to many far and wide, and though it could apply to me and my idea about blogging, in this case I think it applies most accurately to my child. We are currently undergoing what I like to think of as logic-free toddlerism. Case in point:

Last night, Hubby and I went out for dinner with our two-year-old son. Getting into the car seat was a struggle, though getting coat on and out the door was induced by talk of getting into the car. Dinner went well, we made a quick detour to a car dealership to look at a minivan, and then we went to the bookstore which is one of our son's favorite places and one of the first words he used regularly. Getting inside was easy, my husband took the first round of looking about while I played with the kid. Then it was my turn - easy day - and then when it was time to leave I went to find the guys. Well, here's where the trouble starts. My son had (finally) dropped a load in his diaper, and for some reason he wants to not to have "those" diapers changed lately. However, his propensity for diaper rash induced me to make a clear choice and set a firm boundary. I informed the kid, gave him an option, and he flatly ignored me. SO, I picked him up and off we went. This treatment didn't go over well with Shorty. Big friggin' surprise.

Now, I understand that this in "normal" two-year-old behaviour. I put normal in quotes because there really isn't any such thing at this age, which makes everything normal and plausible. Shorty is learning to exercise his independence, thus the advent of "by selfs" as a favorite phrase. What kills me is that things can be going just fine, we're all on the same page and Shorts is getting to do his thing, and then just as suddenly we're off on a tangent that's dangerous or we're refusing to move along to the next gig.

What kills me is that in trying to figure out if throwing a fit will change anything, my son howls like his heart is breaking and that is not something I have an easy time with. We've NEVER let him "cry it out" because we think it's just cruel and sick. Okay, there was ONE time when he was about four months old and he refused to be comforted and ride in his car seat. Once in two years that I haven't been there to comfort him, and now I think it might not be my job anymore. Is that crazy?

All this heartache and boundary pushing and lack of sensible choices makes my head spin. It's like I wake up every morning with a different person, and I spend half the day just trying to figure out what will work and what won't for that particular moment. Sometimes I get all geared up to wrangle, and he submits to my suggestions without comment. Sometimes a thing that normally wouldn't bother him or get him worked up sends him so far over the edge that I have to let him cry for a while so he can get a grip and let me help him work through it. So you can see where I might start to feel like I'm living with someone with a case of severe multiple personality disorder or schizophrenia.

Ultimately, all this will be lost in the history of natural progression and we'll be on to the next challenging stage. But while we're right in the middle of it I find myself wondering if I want to bother having a second child. As I was pointing out to the car salesman last night, it is so different when the child is your own and you are responsible for how they turn out as adults. There is nothing about parenting that makes it not worth the trouble. However, staying sane enough to raise the child is a question for every parent at various stages. This is one of mine, and while it isn't lots of fun, I am growing up quicker than I thought possible, and the moments when Jack and I are golden make all the work worthwhile.

Easy Saturday Morn

Taking is slow and easy this morning, so this post will be link-rich and thought-slim.

Watched a movie from Netflix this week called On A Clear Day. I generally put things in my queue that I can watch with the little rascal, which puts some serious limits on my choices. It's nice when I can enjoy and adult movie and not worry that my son will be seeing things that will scar him for life. My take on the show: feel good ending with believability, some quirky and interesting camera angles, strong characters that don't make you uncomfortable to watch.

Working on the Lombard Street Socks pattern in Dale of Norway Baby Ull in a lovely shade called "Green Apple". Finished the first sock, cast on and knitting the picot cuff of the second. Loving socks right now.

Trying to read blogs on an RSS aggregator or on the web led me to giving up on the whole thing - lost my blog community altogether. Took way too much time and I decided I'd rather knit in my down time. But with the advent of Windows Vista (boo hiss, right?) I can read all my favorite blogs in Outlook! I haven't added them to a list yet, but I'm reading Mason Dixon Knitting, Yarn Harlot (of course!!), and The Panopticon. Notably, all are about knitting. There are a million more blogs about knitting out there, and I have my eye on a few.

And now a quick kid story to wrap it up. We're still nursing, even though Little Man is 25 months. We're working toward weaning, but it's slow going with a high-needs kid. Of course, we have whole conversations about nursing, which lead to some fairly comical ways of asking to have a bit of milk. Like "ita-bita boo-bah". That's little bit of nursing, complete with thumb and pointer finger held close together or doing open-shut-open-shut. Kills me every time.