whirlwind days and a blogiversary winner!

Is it really only Wednesday? Monday was Lydia's 15 month check. She's doing great--23 1/2 pounds, 31 inches. Yabbering a lot with a few actual words thrown in and a few signs (eat and more: a girl after my own heart). She screamed bloody murder when I tried to change her diaper on the paper covered exam table. As I lifted her legs she did that huge back arching thing so that she ended up upside-down. That set the tone for the visit up until her immunization. For that she just stared, nonchalantly.

Tuesday netted a second trip to the emissions station. My van failed last time and $500 in repairs later, we've been given a waiver until next summer. Chuck E. Cheese was nice enough to fix lunch for us and after that we (Ben, Lydia and I) met up with my stepmother to go visit my grandmother (the one whose middle name Lydia sports as her own middle name). She doesn't remember us anymore, but seemed in good spirits and laughed as she rolled Ben's ball off of her knee to him for a little while.

From there it went downhill.

Lydia seemed to be having a reaction to her vaccine and was screaming every time I tried to set her down for a second (I'm guessing it's the vaccine), then as chopped a big onion for dinner (teriyaki noodles with shredded chicken--yum!), I heard Abie screaming outside. Distracted, I dropped chopped onion all over the kitchen and then saw Billiam bringing Abie in, blood covering his elbow. He had taken a spill while riding his bike. Once the bleeding was under control a nasty gash was revealed and I headed off to the er with him, pretty sure that stitches would be needed.


Four hours and 45 minutes later we were back home. They numbed it and cleaned most of the grit from the driveway but couldn't get the last bits. The pa said that going deeper would be "practically a surgical thing" so he scrubbed it some more, gobbed it up with bacitracin and bandaged it up, not wanting to suture it closed with the stuff still in there. Pacman on my cell phone and the camera phone were a godsend during the huge waits while there. Click here if you want to a yucky photo.

A quick call to update Bill and I found out that Lydia was just as happy as when I left. Jake, good sweet boy that he is, actually ended up getting her to fall asleep.

I fell asleep around midnight but at two Ben woke up crying that his tooth hurt. He had a tiny filling last year and I thought it must have fallen out. I gave him some motrin but my poor baby was crying and periodically shaking with pain for two hours before I could get him back to sleep. I felt just awful for him.

A trip to the dentist this morning revealed that he didn't lose the tiny filling...he has a cavity in a different molar that appeared just since his last cleaning 4 months ago. GAH!

After that we grabbed Jake and headed out to find him something suitable to wear to his senior banquet tomorrow night. Semi-formal.

This evening is an event at Hope and Clara's school that they are involved in.

Are you still there? I'm really not griping about all this...just reporting. Really, this was a long way of saying that if I owe you an email, it's coming. I've just been a bit swamped. Hang on...I do have one gripe. We have a low-yield well and we're out of water. Thank goodness it's supposed to rain tonight. Gripe over.

And now, the winner of the blogiversary contest! I copied all the names and numbered them. Off to the random number generator and the winner is....

Lindy!

Congratulations! I will get the Kureyon out to you this week, barring any more minor catastrophes.



Huge thanks to everyone who posted a link (and Nancy, for posting twice!). Please keep helping me to spread the word!

We had a weekend full of t-ball, baseball, and field hockey, with Clara turning 12 in the middle of it all. She got a new, taller bike to go with her new, taller self. The old one fetched $10 for her at the curb and now the grandparents down the street have a bike for when their granddaughter visits. This year she opted for dinner out and a sleepover with her best friend instead of a bunch of girls. In the morning Billiam found them sitting up, slightly dazed. He asked them if they got much sleep and they just looked at each other and back at him. I'm guessing that means they stayed up all night.

Lydia has her 15 month check today and I am hoping it doesn't involve immunizations.


What's today...the 23rd? I'll be drawing a name on the 25th for my blogiversary contest. Three skeins of Kureyon are up for grabs. Just mention the fundraiser on your blog with a link to me and let me know in a comment that you did to be entered.

my boss, Clara

So, my boss says I cannot show you pictures of her. But she offered up this to share.

debates and kidneys and bladders: what more could you want?

Oh, yarn would be good, I suppose. You have to wait until the end for that.

So, apparently at middle school level the debate thing is not a competition with winners, but a learning thing. That's good. My dad, stepmother, Ben and Lydia also went and saw in the program that Clara's team would be participating in the second and third rounds. Clara has been working on speeches for months and chatting about the topics. One thing she failed to mention: as captain of the team she didn't actually speak today. Thanks, babe.

The whole sitting quietly thing was going to be torture on Ben and Lydia anyway, so with nothing happening for a while, we headed off to brunch. We got back in time to see the debate that Clara had been working on--whether animal dissection should be required in middle school. Clara's team was told to argue for, which I know disappointed her, but the woman running it in their room whispered to me that their team was doing quite well, especially for having four of the six on their team brand new to debating. I actually missed a lot of what the child who was not mine said because it was so very hard for Lydia to be quiet so we stood in the hall peeking through the window for a good part of the time.

I took pictures but am forbidden to post them. Even the one where Clara is telling me I better not post it on my blog as I snapped it. Darn.

After that was Emma's appointment. More Testing of the Pee and a recap of all that has been going on with the main doctor in the practice. We've been going to her since just before Emma was born and I just love her. Anyway, because of the uti, she wants to see if the high sed rate is because of inflammation in her renal system so we go next week for a kidney ultrasound then a VCUG in a month to rule out reflux. I am not looking forward to the latter and will have to figure out the right way to talk to Emma about it. If I tell her too soon she will be freaking out until it happens. But I don't want to spring it on her, either.

And now, yarn. People, the package arrived from Cider Moon today and I've decided that I'm not having a drawing at all. I'm keeping it. Bwahaha!

OMG, Jacki and Gail sent the most gorgeous assortment of yarn for you guys! Glacier, Adagio, Flurry and Handspun. And the colors? You have to wait a little bit longer. I am going to take photos and post them tonight or tomorrow. You're going to love it! Thank you, again, Jacki and Gail!

Remember, $5 gets you a chance in each of the five drawings! Just head on over to the paypal button up there on the right. Thank you!

insert clever title here

Remember yesterday when I said I had just three more rows on the EZ Baby Surprise Jacket and just enough yarn to do it? I actually had three more ridges (of garter stitch) to go. So six more rows. Plus the bind off. I was able to start the bind off last night during Clara's field hockey practice but was too beat to even pick it up when we got home. I think it's going to work. But then, I am an optimist. Still, I am holding my breath.

This morning we'll be heading out to watch Clara's debate team at their first competition. I think that all of my kids should be star debaters. After all, they are all convinced that they are absolutely right 100% of the time. I have no idea where they got that. (whistling nonchalantly)

My blogiversary is coming up next week and I'll be having a wee contest that I'll tell you about later.

In the meantime, please consider buying a chance in the AHA raffle. $5 = five chances! And the prizes are going to be good. Really good.

I heart April.

One reason: egg salad sandwiches with pepper. For some reason I forget about egg salad most of the year. Dyed eggs make that happily impossible.

Another reason: two of my girls are April babies. Clara (21st) and Hope (29th). At nearly twelve and nearly fourteen, they have forbidden me to post photos of them here without permission, but I think they won't mind this one.

Reasons are not necessarily in order of importance.

In other news, I have three rows left on my EZ Baby Surprise Jacket in Cider Moon's River. Well, first I have to go back a row and a half then knit the last three rows. Because it's important not to read the directions carefully, I kept increasing every other row on the last rows. So now I have to go back and knit them straight. And I actually see how the shape is going to work, finally. Without effort, even.

I think I will wait on sewing up the seams until I can make bets with each and every family member on whether they can shape it into a sweater. Hey, I have to earn money for more stash somehow and I'm short five dollars today because the baby made off with my cell phone and I had to offer up a reward. The phone was turned on when it dropped out of my pocket but apparently Lydia now knows how to turn it off. Just the skill I need her to have. :-O So that upped the reward.

It was under the fish tank stand, by the way. And now Ben is trying to think of what he can buy with five dollars. I'm just glad to have my phone back.

Oh, and did I mention that the whole thing took just one skein? I'm getting close, but I will be really surprised if I run out before finishing. There seems to be just enough.

Congratulations, Emma! You win...

...more blood work.

Emma sported another high fever on Wednesday into Thursday. So, of the last five weeks, including this week, she has had only one week of wellness. Three with high fevers and one with the knee thing. In between her energy level is lower than usual.

So we're trying to figure out if she has just had a run of very bad luck, catching viruses left and right, or if they're somehow connected. They're running the same tests as before, to compare, as well as a few others. We went to a different lab and it was the polar opposite of our experience before. They took us back before the front desk person had finished copying our insurance card and we were out of there lickety-split. No blood trails left behind.

We finally found an orthodontist in the area that seems super nice and doens't require half up front. That's always a good thing. So now we can get started on Hope's second round of braces (the first round was for an underbite in third grade). I wonder if they give a family discount, as Clara and Emma seem like they're going to be needing them, too.

snow day #3

Have I mentioned I love snow days? The only downside to this lucky run is that it's not because of snow, really, but ice. We got a little bit of snow then lots of sleet and freezing rain. The first day the kids were able to go outside and play. Sledding was great and (what fun!) they could walk on top of the stuff without sinking in most of the time.

The second day looked promising. They could glide down the hill on their backsides, forgoing the saucers altogether. Then two injuries in quick succession (following, but not related to Clara's super slide into the neighbor's fence) and the troops were called in. Today I haven't let them out at all. It's just plain dangerous.

But there is plenty of fun to be had inside. Dogs were walked and fed (note the bowls of fruity cheerios served on the floor), babies flew and The Screaming Babies practiced (their cd release show is tomorrow--woohoo!). All this and Monday is a holiday. Sweet.

distraction

a few photos from New Year's that I never posted.
Lydia enjoying her sparkling cider (with a lot of water added) toast

Abie, at midnight

Clara, shortly after that. Don't tell her I posted this.

Benny Pan

For language arts, Clara had to choose and read a fiction book then give a speech to her class proving the existence of one of the characters using two pieces of evidence. Her first was a tube of pixie dust. But her piece de resistance was Peter, himself.



The other sixth graders couldn't stop smiling and waving, Ben had a blast and Clara got an A. Trifecta.

Clara's hat: done.

pattern changes available as a pdf file. Just drop me a line: gretchenknits at gmail dot com or gretchenknits on ravelry.

As of yet unblocked but she loves it. Jake has asked if I can knit him one in boy colors (my words, not his) instead of the other pattern.

Noro Kureyon (154) and some black merino worsted I already had. Based on Amy King's Fake Isle hat from MagKnits with the skull design lifted from Hello Yarn's We Call Them Pirates and a few other little changes. When I make it again I will put an extra row of black between the skulls and the stripe of Kureyon. The checkered part above the skulls will move down so that it is the same distance from the skulls as the bottom one. There are some wonky parts where I wasn't paying attention but those only add to the charm, right?

real, live yarn in person and other ramblings

I've told y'all that I buy most of my yarn online. The selection is endless, I can hunt down bargains and I don't have to move my behind from my comfy bed/couch/chair to request that it be delivered to my mailbox. What a deal. But man, touching, squeezing and sniffing the stuff just cannot be accomplished through the screen.

I finally made my way to Eleganza Yarns over the weekend. We needed to go into Frederick to exchange one of Billiam's birthday gifts. On the way I casually mentioned that I would like to finally go to Eleganza to pick up some yarn for my sister's baby gift. I'm sly like that. And Billiam's theatrical "Woe is Me"about working a 6 1/2 day week and then spending his only free time in a yarn shop was much shorter than expected. Score one. Love you, honey.

I think the poor man behind the counter thought I was deranged when I walked in and immediately started grinning from ear to ear. Yarn is crack, I tell you. Crack. I ended up with some Rowan Calmer in a lovely pale pink and some Dale Heilo for Jake's replacement pirate hat and one more.

Oh, and I found out that they are planning to have another drop spindle class sometime soon. He said to look for more info in mid-February and that's almost here! Yea! Honey--if you're reading this--I will need to take that class. You know that beautiful, colorful fiber in that box in the kitchen that I ended up keeping when I realized it wouldn't fit into the Yarn Aboard box so I bought some other stuff to put in it, instead? That could be yarn!

Clara's hat will be finished tonight if I play Insomnia Girl in anticipation of Jake's flight tomorrow. If so, photos in the morning. There are a few things I would change around if I were doing it again, but for having made up all of the changes except for the skull part on the fly, I am pretty pleased.

Last, but not least, I won some note cards of The Blankie from Shelly over at Heathen Housewife. Woohoo! If you don't know what The Blankie is, head on over there and scroll down to February 2. It's knit from remnants of sock yarn. Gorgeous!

And, because I cannot possibly end this without a picture...

after all that,

Emma woke up in tears with a sore throat. One baby hat, wrapped and tagged, handed off to her little brother to give to her beloved teacher. This is her teacher's last day of school before her maternity leave so Emma won't get to see her again until she brings the baby in to meet the kids. At least she won't be giving Mrs. G. a hat and a virus for Christmas.

Hope and Clara were busy cooking and baking last night for their teachers. After a burned first batch, Clara made perfect little chocolate chip cookies and lined them all up in a roll like this:

Hope went for homemade marshmallows, from Martha's recipe. They were surprisingly easy and pretty darn tasty.

They each chose their favorite teachers (and the bus driver) to give gifts (they have seven teachers, each). I don't think Jake ever did teacher gifts once he got to middle school.

Abie's teacher got truffles from these nice folks, as did the bus driver. They were simply but beautifully packaged and I will be checking back next year to buy more.

How about you? Do your kids give gifts to their teacher(s) at the holidays? What kinds of things do they give?

"we've found a good one. Jake, bring me the rifle."

~Billiam, when we finally decided which tree to bring home.

Tree Hunter Man. I told you I would post it.

(Now you can all watch as I get my ass kicked for posting this)

This tree was actually our second choice. The best, most perfect tree that we found first became The Poop Tree after Billiam and Hope skidded through some...well, poop that was next to it. Don't tell Hope I told you that. She would shriek at me in that voice that thirteen year old girls use when you've ruined their life. Again.

I don't even think she actually got any on her shoes. But the thought of it sent her whole world askew and when she thought we might actually still be considering getting The Poop Tree she ran up the hill, horrified. Mind you, there was no poop on the tree. It was next to the tree. That was enough to ruin the whole tree. Just ask Hope.

There was much discussion about how likely The Poop Tree was to fall into the poop once it was felled. Favorable angles were considered. In the end, this family's fear of the poop won out and we set off to find the second best tree.

Hope, lugging the sack of potatoes that is Lydia

The sack of potatoes smiles

My Abie

Ben, in the lemon hat that wouldn't die. Cheap cotton, circa 1990 something

Clara, ever happy with her camera-toting mama

Emma

Bluey, among the blue spruces

Ben had the most fun, hands-down.

A barbed wire fence! QUICK! Strike a punky pose.

Hope, hiding from us as we considered getting The Poop Tree

Cutting down Second Choice Tree

Billiam's view of his audience as he cuts down Second Choice Tree

For some reason this year the blue spruce prices came down while the other tree prices went up so that in the end there was just a few dollars difference. So instead of waving at the blue spruces as we drive on to the cheaper ones, our sunroom is now filled with blue sprucely goodness. The ornaments still haven't gone up, but maybe tonight.

aargh! (in a good way)

Just a peek. This will be relegated to drafts later today to keep someone from seeing it.

I was able to block it out enough that I think it will be fine. I'm fairly certain that his noggin isn't bigger than mine and I can get it on. Honestly, I would prefer that it be a bit bigger, but it works. Now I just need to do the lining and it's all set.

I'm right on track with that other hat, too.

Today I will start (and maybe finish) the fingerless mitts for a shorter person. Those are going to be quick and fun. You'll see why when I take a pic.

Meanwhile, Clara came home from school yesterday and burst into tears. She (and I) had completely forgotten about her school's audition for Stomp the day before. Her theater teacher spotted her in the hall in the morning and asked her why she hadn't shown up. Poor thing. I felt like the World's Worst Mom for not remembering but I made it clear to the kids this year that if they are responsible for writing their own commitments on the calendar. Even so...

Oh, and my worrying about the Jake's teacher recommendation letter(s) arriving on time was for naught. Jake told me yesterday that one of the teachers told him on Monday that she had mailed the letter. Thanks for sharing, Jake. So as long as the counselor got his stuff in, it's taken care of. Now, if the college would only use the weighted gpa for honors and ap courses. Bah.

overheard

(Ben had just taken a bath and his hair was towel-dried but otherwise untouched)

Clara: "BEN! I love your hairdo!"

Ben: (with gusto) "Thanks! I got it at the bathtub."

Life is sweet.

deal

Lydia in her handknit sweater that Billiam and Clara picked up from a street vendor in NYC. You can't really see it in the photos, but it has fair isle work on the hood and the lower half of the body. Fifteen bucks. Can't beat that with a stick.

my favorite tourists

At Rockefeller Center. I think Clara needs to adjust the date on her camera.

The trip was a roaring success. Much fun to be had by all. They got into the city and, after shuffling things around on the bus they decided to leave the backpack and get on their way. They had about two hours to kill before the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall so they walked around and shared a giant corned beef sandwich for lunch.

I got a call around 12:30--when it was time to go into the show. When they decided to leave the backpack on the bus, guess what was still in it?

"We left the tickets on the bus."

Oh. No. Way. The bus was in parts unknown and the trip organizer had already gone to an earlier show and couldn't be reached. Billiam bit the bullet and bought two more tickets, a much less costly investment than future therapy ("Remember that time we went to NY to see a show and left the tickets on the bus? Yeah, well it ruined my life..."). They ended up with better seats than the rest of their group and loved the show.

More shopping after the show (they found an adorable hand knit sweater for Lydia for a steal!), then pizza for dinner (during which my NY born, pizza snob husband decided once and for all that we truly do finally have pizza down here as good as in the city). They were going to go up to the top of the Empire State Building but the line for tickets was 90 minutes long and they decided they would rather just take a picture from the outside and walk around more.

Traffic was terrible getting out and they didn't end up getting home until close to 1 am, instead of the planned 11 pm. The car door I heard just after midnight must have been the neighbor.

Clara was six shades of pale from exhaustion and happy as a clam.

moving on

Ok--the mittens were supposed to be one of the quickie Christmas knits. I've just frogged the first mitten in the second pattern. It was the Target Wave mittens from the Fall 2006 Interweave Knits. When I saw the pattern I loved it and hated it. Maybe hate is too strong a word. I love that it's a novel approach to an old standby. This definitely isn't your father's Oldsmobile. But I just couldn't decide whether I liked it. I'm not crazy about the stripes. Yeah, I know. They are a huge part of the pattern, but thought I might like them better in variegated. You know, like that would play down the part I didn't like while maintaining the newness of the pattern.

I plowed ahead, using the ever so lovely pink/purple variegated. Mitten completed. I hate it. Whatever charm the pattern had in its original form was lost in the yarn change. Crap.

Well, I can't go to sleep now, anyway, because Billiam and Clara aren't home, yet. They went with her Theater Arts class today up to NYC to see a show and eat yummy things. There was Much Drama. More on that another time.

The rest of us (minus the sleeping Jake) spent a good part of the day at the younger kids' fall festival. Two of the four (Hope and Abie) won at the cake walk. Two homemade cheesecakes were chosen and all four were much pleased. I say that as if I'm not pleased, too. Mmmm. Cheesecake. They were very sweet to decide to save them until tomorrow when everyone will be home.

Oh, I also won four hours of a carnival concession for a song. Whee! Cotton candy machine! The kids don't know about that just yet because they were supposed to call by 4:30 if we were the high bidders but didn't end up calling until close to seven. Too bad we didn't win the four hours of moon bounce to go with it. I wonder how much cotton candy you can make in four hours....

I think I just heard a car door. They must be home!

Hey, now! You're an all star!

Clara made the all star team for her softball league! Woohoo! The game will be June 11. More on this later.