The Heathen Housewife

Thanks for all the supportive comments over the doctor’s visit. The last couple of days have been significantly better than Wednesday was. Julie woke up Thursday seeming to have forgotten the doctor’s office incident entirely. On top of that, it was just about the nicest weather we ever get here in Minnesota both days, and you just can’t beat that. So off she went to school and when I picked her up, we went to meet some friends for lunch. Here is Julie with Maymuna hanging out on a bench. I don’t know what it is with little kids and benches, but they love to climb up on them and sit. Maymuna and her little sister Hafsa have got to be the second-cutest pair of sisters on the planet. They are really cute.

Sophie enjoyed playing with Hafsa at the park after lunch. Maybe she enjoyed playing with Hafsa a little too much – she’s grabbing Hafsa’s hair!

Awww…that’s better.

One more baby picture, I promise, and then we will move on into a tiny bit of actual content. Warning, though, this one is a little gross. Here is what happens when a baby waits four days to poop, then goes ahead and fills her pants halfway through a car ride. When I realized what she had done, I was actually relieved because she’d been working on it all day and I knew nap time was imminent. Right after I figured out how to get her cleaned up. The positive things you can see in this picture include how long her hair has gotten and the fact that she is crawling. Still, Yuck!

Okay, now to something you might really care about. I got another package in the mail yesterday! Cindy from the comments sent me a few blobs of yarn, and some really cute pictures of her daughter. Cindy made a really kind, insightful comment on the post I wrote last week about Julie’s school and my concerns. Cindy, I’m glad I didn’t offend you, and I’m glad you understand where I’m coming from. Thanks for the package, and thanks for being a friend. Karly is beautiful.

Speaking of Julie’s school – this first week has been great! She’s happy when I drop her off and when I pick her up, and has started talking about the other kids a bit. Two more “typical” kids joined the class, which makes me feel a bit better about the balance. It is really nice having a couple hours with just Sophie a few times a week. When you’re used to juggling two kids, having just one is a breeze, plus I find myself talking more to Sophie directly, smiling at her more, kissing on her without worrying about making Julie jealous or balancing out the attention.

I also have to mention my office. I’ve been making some progress in digging out of my mess. The bed is cleared off, most of the yarn is put away, I got rid of one bin of clothes entirely, and everything else is sorted. I do need to run some trash out still, and the thank-you notes are waiting, but I did get four months worth of filing put away, and the checkbook is balanced. Whoo! Of course, not much knitting has happened the last night or two, and the blanket is getting a little upset. I’m going to go give it a little attention here in a few minutes.

I proudly announce, I have a finished object to report. Hot off the needles, even. You ready? Julie’s pants are done. I treated myself to an evening on the couch sewing up the casing around the elastic and watching Netflix DVDs. I needed it after the day we had, but I’ll get to that in a minute. Here are the pants:

Julie hasn’t tried them on yet because she is fast asleep, and I am not quite crazy enough to wake her up even for freshly knitted pants. I’ll get a picture tomorrow because I know she’ll want to wear them. From what I can tell so far, I am thrilled with the way they turned out.

Now, on to my craptastic day. Really, I had a pretty good day, there were just about 30 minutes of not so fun, but it left me exhausted with a headache. We went to knitting group this morning, and we managed to show up almost an hour late, then contribute to some serious damage to a piece of antique furniture with a washable Crayola marker that only came partially out of the velour when we used an entire container of wet wipes to hide the evidence. Even so, a good time was had overall, and that was not the bad part of my day. We drove over to the mall and ate a little lunch at Potbelly, and that was also not a bad part of the day, not at all.

Then, we headed over to the pediatrician’s office where we had a double appointment scheduled – Sophie’s 6-month checkup, which is only a month late, and Julie’s three-year checkup, which was right on time. I thought I was being all cool killing two birds with one stone, and for the most part it worked out well. Both girls are generally healthy and on track with their developmental skills, height and weight. I had a nice discussion about Julie’s allergies with the doctor, and she offered to test Julie for Celiac and also run some more allergy blood tests to see if maybe she is starting to outgrow them. I took her up on that in a heart beat, since the allergist completely poo-pooed me when I asked for the Celiac test, even though Julie tested negative for a wheat allergy but definitely has a reaction when she eats it. The doctor had a very civilized discussion about our vaccination plan with me, and we agreed to shots for both Julie and Sophie. Can you start to guess where the not-so-great part of my day came in?

The nurse tried to do Julie’s blood draw first, and of course I got to help hold her down (gently, with a big hug basically), and of course she did not like it one bit. Especially when the first arm didn’t work out after several pokes and quite a bit of prodding. They had about five vials to fill, and didn’t even get one out of the first arm. The nurse went and got a different nurse, who tried the other arm and got it to work right away, along with much screaming and tears from Julie, who I was still hugging and trying to distract with some songs while trying not to cry myself. It didn’t help that there was a third nurse in the room the whole time doing nothing but saying the incredibly wrong things to Julie in what, I’m sure was a well-intended attempt to distract her. It also didn’t help that Sophie was sitting in her car seat this whole time crying because she was mostly naked and overtired and wanted to be held. After the blood draw, then they had to stick her in the leg with another needle. Poor Julie. She got lots of band-aids and stickers and treats this afternoon, let me tell you. I think if she had asked for a pony I would have said “what color?”

I barely got Julie calmed down and they were ready to give Sophie her shots. Sophie who was still upset with me, Sophie my normally-sunny little chub. So then both girls were crying, and I had to get them both calmed down and dressed, and they always say “Take as much time as you need” when you know they want you out of there asap so they can use the room again, but I took a good fifteen minutes or so, and we ended up spending almost two and a half hours in the doctors office in all. Talk about draining.

Ending on a bright note, here is Sophie covered in rice cereal and sweet potatoes. She’s still not super into eating solids, but she does enjoy grabbing the spoons and chewing on the wash cloths.

I am taking a break from all the things I need to be doing in order to write up a little post. My office is still a whirlwind, although some things have been put away, other things have been pulled out, and the to-do list is still frightening. It goes something like this:

Get an order of patterns and a packet of samples out in the mail to a new store that has contacted me (yay!)

Write up thank-you notes for Julie’s birthday party and get those out in the mail

Pay some bills and enter the never-ending stack of receipts into Microsoft Money (blech).

Fold some laundry.

Ten other things which I know I promised myself today I would do tonight, but have since slipped my mind and I will be kicking myself tomorrow for not having done them.

Sew in the elastic on Julie’s pants. I got started a day or two ago but have just not had time to get to them.

Knit a square or five on the blankie. (Oh, how I wish I had time to do this one!)

I want to share something with you that I found ridiculously funny today. I had to go to Best Buy to get a printer cartridge because the black one ran out just as I was in the middle of a different pattern order last night (when it rains it pours). I really don’t care for Best Buy because I hate their customer service – every. single. time. I go in there it sucks. But it seems like every time I go looking for some techno-gadget, I end up there because it is the local place with the best deals and/or that carries what I am looking for. So I go into the one out in Minnetonka, because that was near another errand I was trying to accomplish during preschool time. I find the printer cartridges, and this is what the aisle looked like (sorry for the poor picture quality – I had to use my camera phone):

Does anyone else find it unusual that they had the printer cartridges displayed above and behind the blenders, toasters, and other small kitchen appliances? ‘Cause that’s where they were. With no prices listed for the print cartridges, just for the appliances. I have no idea why they wouldn’t put the ink, say, with the printers. I didn’t have time to investigate further because I wanted to have time for my second errand and still make it back to pick Julie up safely. Crazy store.

I know there were a bunch of other, much more interesting things I wanted to write about today, but of course they have slipped my mind. I do want to share that I just signed up for Secret Pal 9. This will be my first Secret Pal swap, and my second swap ever (I did the first Magic Ball swap a few months ago and it was fun.) Like I have time for this stuff. But it should be fun, and hopefully I’ll get someone cool to pick out gifts for.

Back to work!

I’m sorry for the delay in posting the pictures of my amazing trip to Eau Claire to meet the Yarn Harlot, but it was I think around midnight when the van dropped me off at home, and I was exhausted from all the crazy excitement. I did a few things to get ready for Julie’s first day at preschool and headed straight to bed. Anyway, the girls are in bed (for the moment at least) and now is my chance.

Let’s go back to yesterday around 2 p.m. The living room was a mess. Julie was strewing her toys around faster than we could pick them up, and Sophie was scooting around the floor on her belly trying to grab all the toys, leading to many shouts of “MINE!” from Julie.

My fellow knitter-carpoolers started to show up, and I ran around alternately clearing spaces on the couch for them to sit and grabbing my daughters for last-minute squishes and kisses before leaving them behind with Daddy for wanton knitterly fun. We all piled into the van, drove off to pick up the last of us, and hit the open road on our way to Eau Claire and a meeting with the Harlot and lots of other insanely obsessed knitters. I have to tell you that at this point I realized that I was away from my responsibilities as a Mommy and free to really relax and enjoy myself for the next few hours. The sheer excitment of that fact was almost more than the actual plans of the evening. I had all kinds of adrenaline pumping through my body, and I’m afraid I was more than a little irrationally exhuberant.

We arrived at the Yellow Dog, a lovely little yarn shop in Eau Claire that was sponsoring Stephanie’s appearance, and took a few minutes to look around. Only, I didn’t really get a chance to look much because I started seeing people I know (from knitting camp, from the Guild, from the blog), and people who know me from the blog and just couldn’t stop talking to them and showing off the blankie. People couldn’t stop coming up and petting the blankie, and I was honestly a bit surprised that they were so impressed by it. I had a brief freak-out when I realized the pendant from my necklace was missing, and everyone in the store took a look around their feet – but we found it five minutes later on the sidewalk outside. Whew!

I took a minute to go talk to Dixie, the owner of the store, about where I could use my breast pump later in the evening when the need should arise. She was SO accomodating, and let me leave the thing in her office and told me to just go on in and make myself comfortable in there whenever I was ready. Dixie was super-nice and I could tell she was a little nervous, but seemed to be handling it all really well. I loved all her little touches for the evening, from chairs set up for people to hang out in while waiting to go see the show, to the pens handed out while signing up for door prizes, to the fact that she had a six-pack of Leinies ready for Stephanie, to the cute arrow-line made out of yarn directing people to the book signing, to the basket full of chocolates she circulated to those waiting in line among many other things. That Dixie, she’s a planner!

Somewhere during this time at the store, a very nice knitter came up and told me she had a bit of yarn to contribute to the blanket and handed me a pretty little chunk of Koigu. See?

Because I’m an idiot who can’t remember names, and because I was so overwhelmed with joy and excitement at just being around so many cool knitters, I have forgotten who she was. If you’re her and you’re reading, would you please tell me so in the comments? For that matter, if you’re any of the many people I met and/or handed a card to that night, I would love to hear from you in the comments. The whole thing is like a very pleasant dream that is already fading out of memory.

Our little travel-group headed over to the sandwich shop across the street and snarfed down some food, then headed over to the Masonic temple where Stephanie was scheduled to speak. We made sure to get over there in plenty of time so that we scored a row of good seats all together. While we waited, we worked ourselves up with a few innocent hijinks that attracted much more attention than I expected. I said “Let’s get a group picture of us before we forget!” Someone said “How about we take a picture of all our handknit socks together?” (That may have been me as well, but I don’t want to take the credit if it was someone else.) So we sat down on the floor in a circle and asked a very nice gentleman who was sitting behind us to do the honors, and here is what we got:

Tipper has a picture on her blog with identification of all the feet, but I’ll just say that mine are the brown-toed ones at the top, and no, that’s not self-striping yarn. Pattern is available on request. Okay, and here is the nice gentleman who took the photo for us – I thought he deserved a public thanks for climbing up on the chairs for us, and for being such a good sport about it. So, thanks, Paul Rogovich! Nice legs.

Here is our little group of the van-pool, holding up the blankie (upside down – oops!). From left to right, back row is Meleah, Tipper, me, then in front is Stephania, Roxanne, and Kellee (who really should update her blog more often). These ladies are great! Thanks to Rox for driving, and to all the rest of you for making the trip so much fun. And for putting up with my insane exitement.

Okay, so Stephanie finally came on stage and I laughed so hard for so long that not only did my face hurt from smiling too hard, but my throat was sore as well. I love Stephanie’s blog, and I like her books, but the woman is hilarious in person. Especially considering that this was the last stop on the current leg of her tour, and I know she must have been exhausted. I mean, I recognized a lot of the material from having read her books, but hearing her tell the stories out loud and on the fly was so much better. She is not as short as I expected, and her voice is different than I expected, although I can’t tell you exactly what I was expecting or why.

Too soon, the talk was over, and we all headed back to the store for the signing. My friends got in line, and I headed into the office to do a little business with the breast pump. [And here I have to add a little aside. If you have a problem hearing about a nursing woman expressing her milk while away from her baby - Get the hell over it! It's part of life. This hostility brought to you by the one snotty knitter in line who got all pissy on me for mentioning in her presence the fact that I had been pumping when I came back out and explained to one of my friends where I had been and how I had gotten separated from them. I do apologize, however, for saying it so loudly because I hope I didn't hurt anyone's ears. I was trying to compromise between shouting over the crowd and pushing my way through the crowd while carrying a knitting bag, a cooler, and a breast pump. Oh my!]

Okay, so I came out and I got in line with my friends, and before I knew it I was meeting Stephanie Pearl-McPhee herself, in person in the flesh. It was a funny little conversation that we had. She saw the blanket and asked me if it had been inspired by the yarn-burial. So I said, “well, no, I’m Shelly”. And here comes the funny part. In my excitement, I said, “I’m the Yarn Harlot. Oops, no, I mean, I’m the Heathen Housewife. You’re the Yarn Harlot.” And a couple of minutes later when someone took this picture, my face was still red with embarrassment. So then I fumbled around, and I gave Stephanie the homebrewed beer sent by my husband, along with a pint glass for properly pouring it. I dug out my book to be signed, we chatted for a moment about just exactly how much yarn I received, and then….

We took a couple of pictures. The blanket even got to meet the sock.

And then it was over, and I went back out into the main room of the store and looked around some more. Dixie came thisclose to selling me some cashmere. It was beautiful and soft, and came in cute little tiny balls of lace weight. But I am a little overwhelmed with recently-acquired stash at the moment, so instead I chose as my souvenir a bag. Because I love buying bags, and I really liked this one. Plus, I get to use it right away and it doesn’t have to hide in the closet for months or years waiting its turn for my attention.

We went and had a beer and some greasy food at the pizza joint next door, then headed on back to the cities. The adrenaline subsided as we came closer to home, and by the time we tumbled out of the van, I was exhausted. It was probably the best day of adult fun I’ve had since Julie was born.

Oh, and one other thing about the trip. This is what I knit while I was out. I had one toe started before we left, and tried to knit the second toe in the van, but kept messing up because I was distracted talking. So I ripped it out and went back to knitting the plain stockinette, which I know very well is just about all I can do while distracted without making some fatal error. On the way home, things were a bit more subdued and I did get the second toe started again without much trouble. Till I started to get car sick, when I put the toe away and brought the stockinette back out again. I’m loving the yarn – it’s ONLine, in a cotton-wool-nylon blend. The duck was just sitting on the counter and Julie wanted it to be in the picture.

So today was Julie’s first day of pre-school, and I think she had a good time. I forgot to take the first-day-of-school picture when I dropped her off, so here she is with her teacher Kari when I picked her up.

Okay, and now it’s time to face the music. I mentioned a few days ago that my office room is a disaster. I normally keep it pretty neat, and I have a hard time concentrating on anything when it gets cluttered. I have never had this much mess out at one time before, and my top priority for the rest of the evening is to clear some of it up. Are you ready to see the mess?

There is a bag of trash on top of the trash can, there are bins of yarn stacked up by the bed, with some baby junk thrown on top of that. There is a play gym that needs to be folded up and gotten rid of, there is the bag from yesterday’s trip waiting to be put away, plus the new bag waiting to be filled and used. There are Julie’s birthday presents waiting for me to write thank-you notes so I can put them away, there are huge piles, bags, and bins of baby and maternity clothes waiting to be disposed of, the table is covered with leftover goodie bags from the party, more blankie yarn, an empty box, an empty bag, and miscellaneous papers that need some sort of attention before they can be put away or other wise disposed. I’m not even showing you the desk, which is even scarier. Somewhere buried around here is the prescription slip for Julie’s epi-pens which I either need to find and turn in or give up as lost and call the allergist so they can call in another one directly to the pharmacy. I guess I better get started.

Today was a red-letter day, that’s for sure. Everything went smoothly, and I hardly could have asked for a better birthday for my new little three-year-old.* The weather was a little chilly and overcast for an outdoor party, and there was more than one kid running around with a pink nose, but – well, let’s look at some pictures.

The birthday girl woke up in a pretty good mood, and was delighted to discover a baloon boquet waiting for her in the living room.

Harmony and Haribodji (Grandma and Grandpa) showed up to watch the girls for a few minutes while Joe and I went to the park to set up. They got a little lost on the way to the park and ended up a little late to the party, but it was no big deal. Joe’s dad is so sweet holding Sophie. By stopping and taking a picture, I really ruined the moment because they were so cute interacting with each other.

Here is the cake all set up at the park. The kids had a great time checking it out, and I had to monitor it to keep them from poking at it. It’s pretty messy, but the three-year-olds didn’t seem to mind. See the “dirt” in Scoop and Muck’s shovels? That’s frosting. I *am* the shiz when it comes to kindergarten-style cake decoration. I had a hard time keeping Julie interested in playing because she wanted to blow out candles and cut the cake.

I found these cool party favors at the paper supply store – they’re bubble pans and bigger-sized wands that you wave in the air. They were a hit with the kids and the adults.

People were pleasantly surprised when I asked them to take them home at the end of the party, and I think every family did.

Here’s a picture looking down the table as I’m lighting the candles on the cake. Julie is obscured behind the little girl in the yellow, but I know I impressed a few people with how much I can do while carrying a baby around in a sling.

Here’s Julie blowing out the candles with Daddy and Harmony looking on. Oh, and I guess that’s me and Sophie in the foreground on the right. I was surprised how excited she and all the other kids were about wearing Bob the Builder party hats. Oh, and Julie cried while we sang Happy Birthday to her. I think all the attention focused on her was a little overwhelming.

She recovered quickly, and enjoyed her cake and ice cream with a side of Tostitos, which she doesn’t get very often. She also had her first undiluted juice straight from the box today.

My friend Jen had the wonderful insight to offer to take a picture of the whole family, since us moms don’t often make it in the pictures when we are the ones taking them. Check out the sweater on Sophie. Look familiar? It fits her really well, and I love the way the cables look all crisp and happy when they are stretched out just a bit on a real human body. It makes her feel all cuddly like a teddy bear.

Here we are opening the mountain of gifts people brought. I specifically asked every single person we invited with the exception of Joe’s parents NOT to bring gifts. Nobody listened except for one very good friend who I appreciate. I’m not going to complain. It’s just that we have so much STUFF as it is. I wanted lots of friends at the party for Julie, not lots of stuff. Well, we got both and life is good. I was really impressed with the quality of all the gifts. Most were not expensive, but they were all things I would have picked out myself – not just junk. I think by asking for no gifts, I at least achieved moderation – some people brought just a few sheets of stickers or little hair clips. That I can respect.

The party ended and we came home and tried to unload all the junk. Julie got to play with a few of the toys, including the new Lincoln Logs the grandparents bought for her. The rest I am going to put away and bring out maybe once a week so that she can enjoy the newness of each one individually. Joe took Julie to run an errand this afternoon so I got to take a little nap with Sophie. We treated ourselves to dinner out, and then it was time for bed. Here’s Sophie in her little footie pajamas for the first time this fall. It’s going to be down in the upper 40’s (That’s around 8 Celsius) again tonight.

My office room is a total wreck. I usually tease Joe about how junky his office room is, but mine is worse by far right now. All the birthday gifts, the clothes I was trying to sell last week, giant buckets of yarn, all kinds of papers and general detritus that has been collecting while I scurry around doing things more fun important than putting it away. It’s going to stay that way for another day, too.

Right now I’m going to go start *another* pair of socks. I need some plain stockinette to take with me to the Harlot tomorrow so that I can give her my full, undivided attention, and I’m sad to say that even a simple pair of Jaywalkers is not simple enough for that. I have to look at my knitting to do increases and decreases. Can’t have that. So, for tonight I will just make a toe or two and have them at the ready. I have a feeling tomorrow will be a second red-letter day. It’s going to be a freakin’ scarlet-letter weekend, which is perfect for one in which the Heathen meets the Harlot.

*Okay, so technically she’s not three till Tuesday at 12:30, but we’re limiting our celebration to today to avoid confusion. As far as she knows, today was her birthday.

Today’s main event was the baking and decorating of Julie’s birthday cake. While I have no problem with baking a cake*, and I love the idea of decorating one in theory, the reality of decorating a cake is a little scary in our house.

I need enough cake to serve about 30 people** so I made a double-layer 9X13. Here is Julie licking the batter from the spatula while the first layer was in the oven.

Don’t worry, everything was washed in between the mixing of the first cake and the second, so nobody’s going to get Julie-cooties in their cake tomorrow. Also, our cakes don’t contain eggs, so eating the batter raw is perfectly safe. Like I said, the baking was the easy part. While the second cake was cooling off and the frosting was warming back up to room temperature, I practiced my lettering skills with the aerosol-can-icing that I bought as a shortcut. Here’s the results of my first attempt:

Be afraid. Be very afraid. The end result turned out much better, although Joe and I agreed that it looks a bit like a kindergarten art project gone wrong. I was only able to do the frosting part of the decorating tonight, since the box I bought to put the cake in isn’t tall enough to cover the whole thing with the toys on top too. I’ll have to wait till we get it to the park in the morning and quick do it then. I’ll take a picture before it’s served, though.

I am SO much better at knitting than I am at decorating cakes.

*Yes, even from scratch! Baking from scratch is nowhere near as hard as most people seem to think it is, and yields very satisfying results. My favorite chocolate cake recipe is the one on the Hershey’s cocoa powder tin. mmm-MMM! Plus, when multiple food allergies are involved, baking your own is pretty much required.

**How did a birthday party for a 3-year-old end up with this many guests? I do not know. I do know that I was calling around all day today trying to get RSVPs, and more than half the people who are coming didn’t bother to call and tell me. I feel lucky that I had enough goodie bags (barely) planned, and I’m still worried that there won’t be enough cake. It will all be okay – we have lots of other snacks planned too.

When we last corresponded, I was in the middle of a week chock full of errands and fun things to do, leading up to a weekend even fuller of fun things, including Julie’s birthday party and the storming of the Harlot by a bunch of Twin Cities knitters. Let’s resume our story at lunchtime yesterday. This is the exact moment when I was making a critical mistake. Julie was happily eating her left over soup and messing around with her sippy cup in ways that annoy me. Which is partly why she does it. Sophie was busy scooting herself across the kitchen floor in an attempt to come eat my toes. I – well, see in the far right of the picture on the counter? That’s the edge of the sandwich that had me in the bathroom for much of the last 24 hours.

Or at least I’m pretty sure it was that. I had some left over chicken in the fridge from grilling on Sunday night, and I stripped it off the bones and doused it with barbecue sauce to eat cold on a sandwich. I really should have reheated it. I do know better, but I was hungry and in a hurry to scarf something down before one or both of the kids needed something. I’m feeling mostly better now, but it took a few doses of Immodium and Joe coming home early from work so I could sleep it off this afternoon. And we missed what I’m sure would have been a very fun play date this afternoon, which is almost the biggest bummer of them all. Bleah.

The good news is that I got just about everything else done yesterday that I intended to before the illness hit. Elastic was purchased, as were party supplies, and most importantly, the State Fair entries were collected from the Creative Activities building. Here we have Harry cat helping me unpack them and remove all the tags and papers.

I have to say, I’m very pleased after reading the comments from the judges. I really appreciate how much time the judges took to write meaninful thoughts and suggestions, especially considering how many items they have to look at and how little time they have. For those who haven’t entered the fair before, here is what the scorecard looks like:

In all of my cases for this year, I got full points in all but the last category of Workmanship, and as far as I can remember, that is usually the case for me. The best part of the whole form, however, is the comments at the end. They are the most telling.

Let’s start with the hat, for which I got the blue ribbon. “A very interesting pattern and yarn combination. Very nicely knitted. It is rather small in size, more for a new born infant, but it is very well proportioned.” It’s funny, I actually thought I decreased at the top too quickly. The one I knit for Sophie has a much better shaped top, but they’re right – it is meant for a newborn. I appreciate them saying it was nicely knitted, too, but when I got my hands back on it the other day I was shocked with some of the areas that look a bit puckery. Of course I can say that now that there is a blue ribbon on the thing.

Next, the comments for the baby sweater which won a fourth place prize – “A lovely color choice, different from the usual colors. Love your choice of pattern. Sweater well proportioned and your knitting is very well done. Buttons seem a “tad” too large and would like to see buttons closer to shade of yarn.” The button comment made me laugh only because the knitters at the Guild love to make fun of the judges for commenting on the buttons. I see nothing wrong with commenting on the buttons because they do make a big impact on the overall look of the garment. When a judge is staring at several sweaters that are all equally executed, buttons make a good tie-breaker. I was a bit surprised by the color choice comment. I mean, it’s pale pink. How unusual is that for a baby? It makes me feel really good that they liked the pattern since it is my own design. Reminds me that Julie’s matching sweater is waiting for some attention as soon as the pants are done. Fall it is a’coming!

The socks got a simple comment, “Very competitive lot. Nice sox!” I can live with that. I happen to know the judge who wrote that comment, although I’m 99% sure she didn’t know they were mine. They didn’t win, and I’m fine with that. It is a very competitive lot, and they didn’t have anything all that special about them other than being the most expensive socks I’ve ever knit. I’m going to enjoy wearing them this winter.

On to the crazy glittens. I really almost expected mark downs on either color or materials used here. I mean, the dye job on this yarn was very uneven, and the colors are SO garish. But no, the points lost all came from Workmanship, with a tic mark by Amount of Work. The comment reads “Nice Work – interesting effect using 2 strands of variegated. Watch tension at attachment points.” The tension comment here was so spot-on. I struggle with keeping the tension right between the thumb and mitten body, as well as where the flap attaches. The variegated part stung a tiny bit – this was not variegated yarn. I did a spit-splice every two rows, thankyouverymuch. But I guess I did the splices well, because the judge apparently didn’t realize that. I did not expect these to win anything anyway, so getting good comments on them was a reward in itself.

Finally, the blanket. Unfortunately, there was no enlightentment here as to why it didn’t get a prize. “A lovely choice of color. Nice soft feel – what an afghan should feel like. Good choice of pattern. Your knitting is very well done.” Oy! I wish they had had something negative to say. I mean, it is lovely to hear good things about one’s work, but I wish I could have touched and felt the other blankets in the category myself. I do know this…the blanket will go either in Sophie’s crib or with her car seat this winter, and my darling girl will get to love it as much as she will. I hope she loves it to death the way the blanket on the blue blog has been loved. When I started this blanket, I had a hard time bringing the pile of pink Pomfret out of the stash, to be used and never to have as fresh yarn again. I am very happy with how it turned out, and that is what really matters.

Now on to the kid pics of the day…Sophie is still working very hard on those bottom teeth. Here she is last night sucking on the wet wash cloth I was trying to use to clean her up after dinner. Poor thing, I think she may be allergic to or intolerant of avocado. I’ve tried to feed it to her twice now, and both times she’s spent the evening barfing it and the rest of her stomach contents all up. She does love the rice cereal, though. I think in the next week we’ll try some sweet potato.

Here is Julie laying in the corner between the two couches. She likes to hide in there and pretend she’s taking a nap. It can be pretty nerve-racking to glance in the living room where I know she’s playing and not see her, then a big relief when I hear her little voice and go catch her “sleeping” on the giant pillows.

Oh! I have some other good news. I found an overall dress exactly like last year’s but in the bigger size on e-bay. I won the auction for a pittance and should have it in hand next week. Wahoo! Also, I just listed my Sidekick II (the old phone that I replaced with the newer model) on e-bay a couple of days ago, and a local guy bought it today with the buy it now option. I’ve got a few extra bucks in my pocket, and know that the phone is getting some good use. Happy Happy Joy Joy!

Tomorrow – a trip to the co-op for the one kind of shortening that Julie can eat so that I can bake her cake. I’ll bake and decorate it after she’s in bed, Joe will go back to the party store for balloons, and I will rush around like a mad woman trying to think of every conceivable thing we might need for the party and get it ready to go for Saturday. I love birthdays. I have to admit, I am probably trying to give Julie the happy birthdays I didn’t get as a kid. I’m so glad she likes chocolate cake, ’cause that’s my favorite too.

I have so many errands to run and things to do this week, it’s downright silly, especially considering that the week started with a Tuesday. Of course, I had to pick one of the lower-priority errands to run this morning, but I balanced it off with a super-high-priority and a medium-priority one.

We started at the yarn store where I teach. They needed copies of the supply list for one of the classes I’m teaching this fall, Two-Color Knitting (a.k.a. Fair Isle) by way of designing your own hat. I love teaching this class. It’s only three sessions, but it’s action-packed and people always leave feeling like they’ve gotten their money’s worth. Even the people who have already knit Dale ski sweaters, but have not yet learned to think outside the pattern box. Somehow, even though I’ve taught the class like six times, they didn’t have the supply list in the class book, and I decided it was worth my effort to drive across town and deliver copies myself rather than have some kind of further delay or screw-up. Like the time when half the class showed up with super-fuzzy alpaca because – well, let’s not go there. It was a good excuse to show my face at the store and get a peek of what’s going on. It’s been a week or three since I got to hang out there. This was the top-priority errand.

Next, we stopped at Once Upon a Child, a resell store, and dropped off the baby clothes I want to get rid of. I guess I wasn’t the only one cleaning out drawers this weekend because they were swamped, but luckily took the stuff and said they’d give me a call after they’d looked at it so I could come back instead of waiting with the two kids. (Low-priority)

Finally, we dropped into the post office on the way home to get rid of the packages that have been waiting patiently to go out. On the way in, Julie announced that she’d like to find the potty. I looked around, and of course they did not have a public restroom. I seemed to have ticked off the guy behind the counter just by asking about it, though, and he insisted several times that I should run over to the Target a few blocks away before conducting my business. Maybe he was afraid of having to clean up a puddle of pee off his floor, I don’t know, but I knew it would take less time to ship off the packages and get home than it would to pack the kids up and head to Target. So we stayed, and he gave me a little lecture about the importance of being accurate on the U.S. Customs forms when I wrote simply “yarn” on the contents line. He wanted to know how many balls, and I wrote “mixed lot scraps” because I have no idea how many balls I threw in that box. We escaped the irritable postal worker and made it home in plenty of time for Julie to tinkle on the potty, to my great satisfaction and praise.

After lunch, we went back out and collected a few bucks and most of the clothes from Once Upon a Child once more. Apparently, they have a hard time selling newborn sized clothing because the people in our area don’t buy used stuff for their newborns. I guess they get too many gifts. The ladies said it was nice stuff and in good condition, though. I’m going to hold on to it for now and see if my newly-pregnant friend is having a girl and wants it (hi, E!) and otherwise it will go to some charity here in town.

So, for the rest of the week – tomorrow morning is knitting group, then I need to pick up my State Fair items in the afternoon (So looking forward to reading the comments!) I really need to make it to the library as well, since we have videos that are more than a week overdue. Why does this happen when I can renew them online from the comfort of my own home? I do not know. I guess I’m too busy writing blog entries. pbth.

That leaves Thursday and Friday. I’m really hoping to squeeze in a play date with a particular cake-eating friend (she knows who she is), I need to pick up paper goods and goody-bag fillings at the party supply store, I need to go to the co-op and get some ingredients for the cake (non-hydrogenated vegetable-only shortening for the icing, which is still incredibly bad for you, but which I will allow Julie to eat) and some snacks for the party and for Julie to take with her to pre-school.

Speaking of pre-school…Julie starts in less than a week. I’m a little nervous about it, even though I know she will do just fine. When we went to the open house last week, she sat down at the art table and immediately told me to leave her there. She was a little ticked off that I decided to stay with her the whole time, and even more ticked off when I told her it was time to leave.

Okay, and WARNING – scatalogical discussions to come. Skip this paragraph if you’re queasy!
One of the things that I’m nervous about is that the teachers will not wipe the kid’s behinds if they make a poo. On one level, I understand the reasoning for this probably has to do with avoiding charges of child molestation and/or just plain not wanting to deal with the nastiness of wiping poo off of someone else’s kid’s behind. But on every single other level, I think it makes no sense whatsoever. They accept kids in diapers. They accept kids in underwear. They must have dealt with this issue before if kids who need help wiping themselves. Julie does fine with pee, but even I sometimes have a hard time getting the poo out of all her cracks and creases. Not to mention that she has really sensitive skin and if left unclean for very long (more than 15 minutes) gets really red and irritated. I just can’t imagine how this is okay for every other kid and not for mine. I’m thinking about calling the teacher to discuss it, but the resolution just may have to be that if Julie craps her pants while she’s there (and her normal time of day for pooping is right after drop-off time), they’re going to have to call me and I’ll have to come and clean her up myself. Ideas or suggestions on dealing with this welcome.

Okay, this paragraph is safe for the poo-averse. The other issue that I’m worried about is even, believe it or not, more delicate. I knew when I signed Julie up for this program that it is integrated for normal-kids and those with developmental disabilities. However, I was led to believe that there would be about a half-and-half ratio, and run the spectrum from mild to severe. There are nine kids in her class so far, and seven of them are impaired. I don’t know exactly what is wrong with each of the kids, but the ones we met at the open house were all pretty obviously not normal. Now, I admittedly have a phobia of disabled people. One of the big reasons why I’m putting Julie in this program is so that she won’t grow up with the same stupid phobia. I’m trying to be open-minded. I’m trying really hard. Even so, my gut feeling is telling me that there will be nobody there for Julie to play with at her level, that she will not learn the social skills I’m desperately hoping for her to gain through this program. I SO want her to have good friends and be a social kid, unlike I was up through high school. Somehow I managed to come out of my shell in college and never looked back, but growing up shy and awkward sucked. And, the other parents who were at the open house scared me a bit too. I went over there hoping to connect with one or two, to chat about our kids and our expectations for the program, whatever. Instead, I got mono-syllable answers when I tried to talk to them and zero eye contact. The way I saw them interacting with their kids (or *not* interacting with their kids) threw me for a loop. It just threw up a red flag for me.

I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I’m going to keep Julie in the program for now. At least to give it a chance and see how she likes it for a week or two. At least the teacher was very attentive when I brought up the food allergies, agreed that Julie would only eat snacks I provide, and that some of the food-related learning activities may have to be modified for her. Which reminds me, I need to make sure to go to Walgreens and get an extra epi-pen for them to keep in the classroom.

But for now, I’m going to go hide in the living room and work on some knitting. Nothing like some good old procrastination.

I spent a good part of my day shifting clothes around in the girls’ room. The last few days have been a little cooler here in Minnesota, and I figured it was time to dig out and assess the fall wardrobes as accumulated so far. First, though, I had to pack up the clothes that have gotten too small and bring down the baby clothes that we won’t be using again. How sad to be looking at those little things and think that we are done with them, but how happy to look forward to all the fun new clothes they will wear in the future!

I thought I was going to try to sell the baby clothes on e-bay, but then I did a search on current auctions and was really disappointed by the going prices. It seems like way too much trouble to hassle with for $15 to $20 in return for a season of my children’s clothes. I think maybe I will try to take some to the local resale shop and see if I can do a little better – maybe if I ask for store credit instead of cash. We’ll see. It’s quite a big pile sitting here. If you know someone looking for an entire fall/winter wardrobe for a newborn girl, hook me up! I have all the onesies and footie suits and cute stuff in sizes 0-3 months and 3-6 months, some of it almost new.

In the mean time, I took a picture of the stash of pants I have for Julie, not counting the pair of jeans she had on today. That’s 14 pairs of pants! See?

Somehow, I managed to accumulate all of these through gifts, garage sales, hand-me-downs, and clearance racks over the last year or so. The only thing is that last year she absolutely refused to wear woven pants without a huge fight, so I don’t know if she’ll agree to wear most of these this year. (Even though she did put on the jeans and other pants today after the three potty accidents we had without a peep). The other thing is that I have almost no tops to go with all these pants. It’s time to do some shopping. So many of these are very plain, it shouldn’t be hard to find cute shirts to go with them, but I do want to get interesting ones, not just plain solid colors. I’m going to print this picture out and take it with me when I go shopping for reference.

While I was over at e-bay, I did manage to get one item up for sale. I’m finally unloading my Sidekick II. It looks like they’ve been selling for over $100, so that will be a nice little boost to my checking account.

I got another e-mail from Jo-Anne in Canada – the nice lady who makes the bears for charity. She included a photo of some bears she’s made out of our sock yarn. They are incredibly cute, and we should all feel good about knowing some kids will be comforted.

Oh, and about the pants – it sounds like elastic is winning the vote by a landslide. I guess my instinct was right. I can’t explain why it feels like cheating to me – I guess just because it’s not wool, and I think it’s a fun challenge to have the structure of the garment hold itself up. But maybe now is the time to give that up and go for practical. I think I found that dress in the size we need on e-bay tonight, so hopefully I’ll win it and the problem will be solved.

Tara was asking about how to join the legs together for the pants. It’s really easy. On mine, as I finished the legs, I created a gusset on each one of about 11 stitches by increasing one stitch on either side of the gusset every other row – just like you would for the thumb gusset on a pair of mittens. These stitches went on holders, then later got joined together with kitchener stitch. Match up the places where the gussets are and you have your crotch area, and you can just knit around both legs at the same time going on up. I wouldn’t worry about adding a gusset for a doll version, as Tara is making, just pick a number of stitches to graft together for the crotch and knit around the rest. If you’re making pants for an actual person, you should also consider adding in some short rows on the back side to account for the roundness of their behind and/or diapers. Hope that helps!

Now I’m off to bed.

The blogosphere has been awfully quiet these last few days, and I’m afraid I’ve been contributing to that vacuum of words. Life has gotten in the way, mostly in a good way at the moment. I kept meaning to blog, but it got too late, or I was tired, or, well, it just didn’t happen because the bills needed to be paid or a Netflix movie was waiting to be watched…but I am here now and that will have to do.

Earlier in the week, I got this very nice package from Kay in Vancouver. Kay, I am so sorry for not thanking you sooner. I appreciate your generosity, even if you feel like I am doing you a favor by taking it off your hands. I think you’re something like number 97? We’re getting awfully close to three digits here!

Speaking of the yarn-burial, I’ve got four packages sitting here finally ready to go back out to people who are already expecting them. I just got them taped up late last night, so hopefully I’ll make it to the post office on Tuesday.

On Thursday night, I did make it to the State Fair for a second time, and had the luxury of meeting a couple of new knitter friends (Hi, Roxanne and Stephania if you’re reading!) We had plenty of time to eat naughty food and stare at the knitting. It was good times and I’m glad that I went, but I have to admit that I felt a little sad about leaving my girls for an evening. Which was really weird considering how much I had looked forward to it all week. Anyway, here we are eating pork chops on sticks and caramel-apples not on sticks. From left to right, that’s Stephania, me, and Roxanne. I felt like such a loser being the only one without a freshly handknit sweater to put on in the chill of the evening. Oh well – my daughter will be wearing handknit pants this winter.

Speaking of the pants, I am amazed at how quickly the top part has knit up once I joined the legs together. All that time in the car on the way to the photographer’s studio the other day (which I forgot to blog about, but it was an hour each way, and he wasn’t there because he had spaced our appointment but it’s okay because he apologized profusely and offered us a huge discount to make up for it.) But all that time really added up, and I am at the point where I must decide how to handle the waist. I would love to hear any thoughts and/or suggestions. Basically, I see three options. I could knit a tube and insert an elastic band, or I could knit a tube and insert a draw string, or I could knit in eyelets and run a draw string through them. I’m leaning toward the second option, but I’m worried about a bulky knot/bow bulging under whatever dress or top she wears with them. Which makes me lean even more towards the elastic option, but somehow that feels like cheating to me. Should I just get over myself? Here they are.

I need to find a top to go with these pants. What I really want is an overall dress like this one

in a size 5 of 5T. This was her absolute favorite outfit last winter, and she asked for it pretty much every day. And she looked darn cute in it, too. We were both a little devastated when she fell and ruined those stripey tights on the driveway this spring. Old Navy has a similar dress, but it has weird distressed patches on the front that I don’t like.

In the mean time, now that the pants are pretty much done, I needed a new diaper-bag project. So I started some new socks, probably for me. This yarn is by Sandy’s Palette and it’s a wool/nylon single. I picked it up at Shepherd’s Harvest this spring. I’m a little worried about how well a single ply is going to wear, but the colors were so enticing, I couldn’t resist. It’s sort of a wiry, semi-scratchy type of wool, so maybe it will be tough enough to last a few seasons more than merino tends to on my feet.

Here are the day’s gratuitous cute-kid photos. First, we have Julie and her friend Maymuna playing in the sand and Maymuna’s house. Julie is wearing her back-up outfit after having had an accident on Maymuna’s bedroom floor. Sorry, Jen! Speaking of accidents, potty training has sort of plateaued again. She’s staying dry through most nights, but not all, and is having accidents mostly only when there is a #2 involved or when she’s really distracted with playing. This is all totally normal and I’m not worried at all about it. For those concerned, she is using the adult potty with an insert, and we have a small stool for her to rest her feet on below. She seems happy with this arrangement, and although we had bought a toddler potty, she seemed more interested in it as a toy than anything else, and I have since put it away since I don’t want to have to clean it after she does business in it, and she doesn’t have a problem with the big potty.

Here are Sophie and her friend Hafsa hanging out in the empty swimming pool. Hafsa learned to crawl this week, and it is the cutest thing ever. Sophie is SO close to crawling as well. She’s doing the army-crawl thing, and can move herself to the toys she wants, just not in the all-fours method quite yet.

Sophie and Hafsa were battling over the toys earlier, and it was a hoot. See the drool dripping off Sophie? We’ve been having major teething issues around here, and I’m sorry to say I think the Hyland’s Teething Tablets are a load of bunk. Tylenol seems to help marginally. I have to say that if Sophie were not the cutest baby on the planet, Hafsa would make an awfully good candidate.

Tonight we had some friends over for dinner. I flipped hamburgers on the grill outside in the rain, and it was worth it for the nice, simple meal and very good company. This week is all about planning Julie’s birthday party, which is scheduled for Saturday. I need to get to the party supply store and to the grocery store and I need to put together goody bags for our guests. I can’t wait to bake the cake! I’m also looking forward to seeing Stephanie in Eau Claire, and luckily it looks like I’ll be going in a vanload of other Harlot fans. Knitting road trip!