Filling The Hours

Despite our newfound appreciation for snow, there has been, as many of you may have noticed, very little of that falling from the sky, and so we've had to find other ways of entertaining ourselves.

Mostly, we have baked.  This is mainly due to my winter cravings for sweets, but Willow really likes measuring and stirring.  Really.  She gets more pleasure out of the act of baking than the end product (though that doesn't stop her from asking for tastes as each ingredient is added).  I have no photos for you, as I am pretty busy and usually covered with flour, but within the last two weeks we have made oatmeal cookies, old-fashioned gingerbread, and as of this morning, Jamaican banana bread.  Our flour is being depleted at an alarming rate.

And yesterday, we added a new activity to our repertoire.  For her birthday, Willow was given an easel that I have, frankly, been too scared to use for its true purpose.  We've mostly stuck to crayons.  But yesterday I thought we'd give it try.

Man, I thought I'd prepared.  I put a drop-cloth down.  I stripped her down, and dressed her in one of my old t-shirts.  I got her towel all ready so I could just pop her in the tub.  And I gave very, very clear instructions about the necessity of staying on the drop cloth and keeping the brushes touching the paper only, and really, she listened very well.

There was just oh, so much paint.  We got these nifty little tubs with built-in paint scrapers, which would have worked great if Willow had been willing to make the miniscule effort required--but she wasn't.  And why should she?  As far as she is concerned, the best thing about painting is getting as much on the brush as possible.

And so there was paint on the easel, paint on the drop-cloth, paint on her hips and arms and paint on her feet.  Feet that, as soon as she decided she was done painting and ready to take a bath, stepped off the drop-cloth and pitter-pattered across the house to the bathroom.













I confess, I was a bad mother.  I left my child in the bathtub and sprinted back and forth around the house, wiping up paint, cleaning up brushes, hanging artwork to dry, putting everything away, hoping frantically that a) Willow would remember that she is not allowed to stand up, splash excessively, or drown while she is in the tub, and b) that the cat would stay far, far away.   I did go check on Willow every minute or so.  All's well.

And when she saw the easel and asked to paint again this morning, I suggested we bake banana bread instead.  Because although we somehow managed to use three batter bowls, hundreds of spoons, a bread pan, and a muffin tin, the clean-up was still waaaaay more manageable.

Cozy Worm

Willow is a budding punster, God help me, and when we bundle her up after an outing in the snow we tell her we're going to get her all "cozy warm."  This is not as fun to her as being a "Cozy Worm," and so she shall be.

In order to keep this Little Worm cozy when outdoors as well as in, I knit her a moebius cowl.  It is photographed with bunny and gingersnaps because, sadly, my Little Worm hasn't yet figured out the potential benefits of this cowl and so far refuses to wear it.  Maybe I'll pull it out the next time we're out in the cold, so that a Shivering Worm can become a Cozy Worm and still make snow angels.

Sizes:
12-24 months (2-3 years)
Materials: 
--US 9 24-in. circular needle
--Far less than one skein Spud and Chloe Sweater (shown here in Grape Jelly).
--one stitch marker
Gauge:
17 sts X 26 rows = 4 inches




Pattern:

Cast on 60 (64) stitches.

Join to knit in the round, being careful to INSERT a twist.* Place end of round marker

1) Knit 3 rounds.

2) Purl 3 rounds.

3) Knit 5 rounds.

4) Purl 2 rounds.

5) Knit 3 rounds

6) Purl 2 rounds.

Work backwards from (5) to (1), and then cast off all stitches.   Weave in ends, and attempt to convince your child that warmth is a good thing.

*After all the times I put a twist in without meaning to, I found it surprisingly difficult to get a twist on purpose, and I kept checking to make sure it was still there.

Snow!

Last year, Willow was firmly anti-snow.  We set nary a foot outdoors between December and March.  I thought I was going to crack--I even started going to grocery stores for fun.  I had an inkling this year would be different, but I wasn't quite prepared for the radiant snow-joy we experienced this past weekend.







There was sledding.

There was snow-shoveling (this because Toaster and RockNoodle had been out shoveling snow earlier, and Willow wanted to help out.  Her assistance, of course, being more along the lines of getting in the way and dumping snow in places Toaster had just shoveled, but points for participation).

 

There was general snow-frolicking.

And there was more sledding.

A very, very good time was had by all.

Exit Strategy

I love being a stay-at-home mom.  I think it is the best thing for my child, I know that it is the best thing for me, and I'm delighted that we can make it work.  But there are times when I question it.









If Willow had gone to day-care, would she still, at age 2, be unable to share?  Okay, probably.  But would she be unwilling to converse with other children?  Maybe.  But would she totally lose it because she's in a situation outside of her precise just-mommy-and-me-by-ourselves-in-our-house norm?  I'm not so sure.

This situation, mind you, was nothing extreme.  Yesterday, we went to a friend's house (where we had been before, more than once) to hang out with a couple of other toddlers.  As is important for the socialization of both the child and the mother, no?  Willow was so excited she flat out ran the 3 blocks it took to get there, and when we arrived set right about tearing the place apart, as two-year-olds are expected to do.

I had prepared her as best I could--changed her and gave her milk right before we left, and while a smarter mother would have brought snacks, we weren't planning on staying long, and there was going to be food there.  Very kid-friendly food.  Like eggs.  And cake.  Willow loves these things.  Frankly, she loves almost all food.

When she doesn't particularly care for a food, she lets it drop out of her mouth and moves on.  Today, her eggs were spat out with such gusto they got all over her face.  Lovely.  And very polite to our hostess.  And the cake?  Even more gusto, with a full minute of spitting, so that there was cake on her face, on my face, on my clothes, and on the floor.  One tiny bite of cake can have quite the range.  "That cake so yucky."  Loovvveely.

So forget snacking.  Obviously you're not starving if you spit out perfectly delicious cake, so go play, kid, and maybe we'll leave a little on the early side.  And sure enough, about half an hour earlier than I'd originally planned, Willow asked to depart.  And while I didn't exactly jump up and hustle her out the door right that second, I didn't try to delay her, and I did start preparing for the exodus.  I honored her wishes, and she saw that I was doing so.

And so imagine my shock when I sat her down on my knee to put on her boots and was greeted with the shrieks of a victim of the Spanish Inquisition.  I explained that in order to get home, we needed to wear boots and a jacket.  As is always the case.  It was as though I had turned the rack even tighter.

Where is a teleportation machine when you need one?  I would have paid hundreds of dollars in order to be three blocks away in my house without having to force my child into her jacket.  We abandoned the shoe idea, and I carried her all the way home (mind you, she was chatty and pointing at birds in trees by the time we were ten feet out the door).

I'm still making plans to meet another friend with another toddler to go to the Children's Museum of Art.  Because that's what you do.  You keep trying, right?  They'll never manage new situations if they're never experience new situations.  Plus I'd go nuts with the cabin fever and probably end up eating her or something.

I'll probably bring snacks this time, though.

Star-Crossed Paper Dolls

Aha!  Done!

Star-Crossed Slouchy Beret, using Brooks Farms Ellie.  I will confess, there was a bit of a kerfuffle as I was closing it up and I did have to pull out a few rounds and start over, but I'm convinced that's because dpns are stupid and the thick-thin yarn makes it hard to see where all the stitches are exactly.

The thick-thin yarn also makes it a little tough to appreciate the gentle cables in this hat, so that it has a little more in common with Urchin than the original, but I like it, and I think the recipient will too.  (What a joy to be knitting for people again!)

But I'm still mostly going to be knitting for me.  And so I've cast on Paper Dolls.  I've been an enormous fan of Kate Davies' for, oh, ever, but I've never knit a thing.  Not even Owls, since it wasn't until I birthed a little owl that I really came to appreciate them. 

I have always noticed a level of detail in her designs, and attention paid to construction and embellishment, that you don't see often--the one comparable designer that comes to mind is Kim Hargreaves.  And so I knew when I began to cast on that I was in for a long haul of a project, and, as with Kim Hargreaves' patterns, I would probably be very irritated at some point along the way, but very, very happy with the result.







  Two and a half hours later I finished casting on.  And here, days later, and I'm still working on the ribbing at the bottom edge.  Yep.  I'm not complaining, I'm just saying--I told myself so. 

January

January and I are officially not friends.  Usually it's February who lashes out at me like the mean girl in the locker room (and I'm not putting it past her this year, either), but so far January has really had it in for me.

I suppose technically it started right after Willow's birthday, when I developed the bronchial infection everybody's talking about (I've heard rumors it's whooping cough, for crying out loud), which rendered me voiceless, breathless, and unfit for much beyond lying there on the couch and whispering stories (nothing like a toddler shouting "Mommy read it loud!")


And just as I've been rebounding from that, I was slapped across the side of the head with a migraine (nothing like a toddler screaming "Jinglebell Rock" and shining a flashlight in your eyes).

Add to that Willow's sudden brain explosions which have her up and chatty at 4:30 every morning* but screaming with exhaustion by 9am (while refusing to nap.  Of course), and January is officially off my Christmas card list.**

In the mornings, we are good for nothing beyond playing with playdoh (a game which involves interminable lava-ball making on my part, so that Willow can then squish them into her volcano.  Variations include pizza and pepporini, and blueberries and pancakes, but the amount of tedious labor on my part remains the same), marathon readings of Kevin Henkes' mouse books, and a lot of hugs and kisses.***  In the afternoons, it's "I must play with a fan!"  "I must climb on the table!"  "I must pull over all the plants!"  "I must play with your steak knives!"  I prefer the playdoh.

All I'm saying is, you'd better bring your A-game, February, because we're only halfway through January and I'm already crying uncle.****

*Dave should be complaining about this one more than me, since he actually gets up with her sometimes, whereas I just bring her in bed with us so she can paw at my eyeballs and sit on my head.

**If, you know, I actually had one.

***I'm not really complaining about that one.

****Exhaustion has me digging in the bottom of the barrel for a metaphor salad.

Frozen Waterfalls

We were supposed to clean the house this past weekend.  Really.  But...we didn't.  We went for a hike at South Mountain instead.  It was a balmy 60 degrees, following a week of significantly cooler temperatures, and at the midway point of our mile-long loop (hiking with a toddler means shorter and slower), this is what we found:

I'm just a poor, simple Hawaii girl.  We have waterfalls, sure, but they don't freeze!  This was, quite simply, one of the coolest things I'd ever seen.  I'd love to see it happen (though I'd venture to guess it takes a while).  Because it was warmer, you could hear--and see--the water flowing again behind the ice.  And a little further along the trail, some real movement.

 

Yeah.  Not much else to say there.

I would like to point out, though, that in the first shot I am wearing a hat.  That I knit.  It is the Star-Crossed Slouchy Beret, and the yarn is Brooks Farm Ellie.  I mention this because I have cast on for this same hat, using this same yarn.  I have knit this exact thing before.  Surely I can do it again.