Round and Round

Jun 30, 2007

A belated knitting updated. Because I know how much y’all care about my anxiety-busting hobby. Thanks to several nights of insomnia, I have finished up a couple projects over the past few weeks.

It’s been knitting in the round month over here. First up, M’s birthday gift, hand-knit golf club covers. Not a stellar job, and not in the appropriate alma mater colors of blue and orange. But the yarn was priced right and seemed like a manly color. The covers are a little snug when trying to get the covers on the actually club. Lesson learned: always try to model your handiwork, even if it requires shlepping out to the car at 2am in the morning.

Up next, a pair of mittens for an outreach project that Lovely Friend is coordinating at her church. While I don’t attend the same church, Lovely Friend is well aware of my inability to say no and my knitting habit, and asked me if I wanted to contribute a pair (or two or three).

“Why Chichimama!” you exclaim. “It looks like one mitten is much fatter than the other!” And indeed, you are correct. I have no idea why. Same yarn, same needles, same pattern, same number of stitches. But yet, there you are. One fat, one skinny. Of course, this means that I feel somewhat obligated to try try again. But first, I’m going to start in again on my Einstein jacket.

Full Circle

Jun 29, 2007

I am blogging from my new MacBook. M said he was coming home with a surprise, silly me thought it was a cupcake. And even though we agreed to no anniversary presents, note that I am not racing this one back to the store. I am only feeling a small twinge of guilt that his anniversary present consisted of a pulled pork sandwich with a side of baked beans. From a can.

I’ve spent the last 45 minutes trying to figure out how to right-click, and am still a little unclear why the computer came with two power cords. Somehow, picking up a new operating system is not nearly as easy as it was a decade ago when I switched from Mac to PC. Thankfully, when I announced out loud that I was old, C patted me on the head and told me that I might be old for a kid, but not for a mommy.

But seriously? I feel really old right now. I’m off to watch some tutorials, because I think that’s what the old folk do.

The Ten Comandments of Vacation Bible Camp

Jun 28, 2007

1. Thou shalt not touch (or hit, or pinch, or kick) thy neighbor, even if he started it.
2. Thou shall write thy name on all thy art projects or risk receiving someone else’s Jesus Bear.
3. Thou shall wait quietly, in line, for thy turn, even if thou feel like practicing thy handstands.
4. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors’ dinners, even if they are slow eaters.
5. Thou shall listen to thy teacher, not thy neighbor.
6. Thou shalt not bring thy own toys to camp and then use them as flying projectiles.
7. Thou shall remember to collect thy confiscated toys at the end of camp.
8. Thou shalt not tell thy parents that thy toys were ripped from thy hands by thy evil teacher for no reason, as thy teacher, who might have let the whole thing slide, will elaborate upon the circumstances for the confiscation.
9. Thou shalt not bolt for the nearest exit, even if thy siblings are headed out to the playground.
10. Thou shalt not try to climb on the pulpit.

All Hail M

Jun 27, 2007

Who stayed up late and fixed my computer!

Unfortunately, I belatedly remembered that I had neglected to backup my bookmark files. Which contained all of the links to the online knitting patterns I like, including the ones I am in the middle of at the moment. It also contained all the things I was planning to purchase people for major gift-giving holidays over the next year. Gah.

As if my posting could get any less frequent…

Jun 26, 2007

My laptop seems to have croaked this evening. It is not an unexpected event as it has been limping along for days, to the point that I even backed up all my files over the weekend. Which, it turns out, was a good thing. M is going to try to salvage it tonight but I have my doubts. Not in him, but in the machine itself. And if my laptop is really kaput, my ability to blog will be even more hampered than it already is. You see, the kids have no idea that “mommy’s computer” can actually play PBS kids and Playhouse Disney. So when I sneak a few minutes to read emails or blogs, there is no clamoring for their turn. But if I try to sneak away to the office (where I am now), they immediately start begging.

Sigh. I was really hoping it would die closer to the holidays so I could ask Santa for one of these…

It’s hard to be the little one

Jun 24, 2007

Friday I took the kids to the library to sign up for the summer reading program. Of course the library is closing in a week for extensive renovations, meaning that our summer reading will now consist of the same books we already have read over and over and over again, but I’m not at all bitter. The end result, so they tell me, will be a more user friendly and comfortable library with WiFi everywhere. And if I will actually be able to take my laptop to the library and sit in a comfortable chair instead of the 70’s originals that are in there now, I am all for it.

Anywhoo, there we were at the summer reading program sign up desk and the library page asks my kids “Do you want to sign up for the readers club or the listeners club?” I step in and reply “The listeners club,” which causes C to give me a look of pure hatred. “I can READ, Mom, I want to be in the READERS club.” OK, I think. If he wants to spend the summer plowing through our early readers over and over again, I’m not going to complain. “Fine C, go ahead. But you know this means you have to read all by yourself and can’t count the books I read to you at night.” Eye roll and all, “I KNOW Mom. I AM going into kindergarten.”

A then pipes in “I’m a reader too!” To which the clearly not so familiar with children page responds “Oh! OK then! We’ll sign you up for the readers club!” “But A, you don’t even know all your letters!” I quickly respond. “I DO! I can read! I CAN!” And A bursts into tears. The page looks confused and can’t quite seem to decide what went wrong where and what to do about it.

Finally, she comes out with “A, if you want to switch to the readers club later in the summer if you learn to read, you can just come back and switch, OK?” A is still bawling. “I AM a reader. I AM.” I grab the summer reading materials, promising to fill them out at home and bring them back before the big closing, and carry a bawling A out to the car, dragging an unwilling C behind me.

I bet you can guess how we have spent the last few days. A is bound and determined to learn how to read. She had M drilling her on the alphabet yesterday, and me pointing out every word in every book she loves. “What’s that word? And that one? Move your finger Mommy!” This morning when I went into her room, every early reader was piled high on her bed from the night before when she had clearly paged through them all after we had tucked her in.

The girl has determination, you have to give her that. And I won’t be at all surprised if I am trying to explain how we can’t actually return to the library mid-summer to sign her up for the reading club because the library is closed, despite the cheerful words of the library page.

For the blogliners

Jun 21, 2007

As part of my great summer organizational binge, I’m going to be fixing my labels over the next few days as, in case you hadn’t noticed, there is very little consistency (case and point, I currently have three different “meme” tags). I have no idea what that will do to bloglines, but if random posts from years ago start showing up, please excuse the mess.

Is it wrong….

Jun 21, 2007

…to be debating what I want more, a sewing machine or a stand mixer, if I ever have some extra funds to spend on something? I think perhaps I need to get out more.

But seriously, what do you think? Sewing machine (New curtains! Hemmed pants! Holiday gifts!) or stand mixer (Yummy cookies! Quick bread mixing! Ice cream maker attachment! Did you hear me? ICE CREAM!).

Overheard From the Back Seat

Jun 19, 2007

A: “Mommy, I like this song. It that your voice?”

Chichimama: “Uh, no, it is Celine Dion’s voice.”

A: “Oh, it’s pretty. It sounds like your voice…”

I so love that child.

Perspective

Jun 17, 2007

Tonight, all I wanted was for the kids to go. to. bed. already. A was freaking out because that is what she does best at bedtime, and C kept popping out of bed to see what A was freaking out about. I finally got them both into bed and silent, and went out to the deck to sip my wine and ponder the weed infested backyard.

As I sat there, sweating slightly, I remembered summer evenings as a kid, lying wide awake in bed wondering how on earth I was expected to fall asleep when the sun was still up. I lived in New England so there was no air conditioning and on the really hot nights I would lie there sweating, alternating between crawling under the rough cotton sheets because I was afraid the spiders would get me if I wasn’t covered up, and tossing them off because come on, it was way to hot to be under a sheet, spiders be damned.

A few minutes into my trip down memory lane C appeared in the door and announced “I can’t sleep. The sun is up, I am hot under the covers, but then I take them off and I can’t sleep because I need the covers to sleep. What am I supposed to do?” And I was instantly transported back to those sleepless summer nights of my childhood. I empathized, internally. I knew what he was feeling. And then I sent him back to bed.

Sometimes it’s good to be the parent.