sometimes he's a little scary

check out this picture i found from a few months back. he's putting together a map of the 50 states, where every state is its own piece. when i took this photo, i had not helped him at all.
by name/shape he definitely knows virginia (where grandma and grandpa live), california (uncle graham), washington ("where i was born"), wisconsin (where his cousin jade lives), alaska (where uncle drew and aunt kat are from), mississippi (where his good friend averie moved to) and texas (where "miss katherine" [my good buddy] lives). i got this puzzle at a garage sale this summer, intending to save it for when he was older, but he spotted it and wanted to play with it. he plays with it a lot, so i started telling him the states and some fun facts just for fun, not expecting him to remember it. he's a sponge, that one.

the school questions start early

the one rule i have for boo right now is "one class at a time." i don't want be one of those crazy moms who puts their kid in every conceivable class. i just think free unstructured play time is too important at this age.

so right now he is going to 2 hours a week of pre-preschool at the park district, on tuesday mornings. it's indoors, 9 kids / 2 teachers, they do a nice art project and some other things every week. it's really close (just 5 minutes down the road) but i have to stay within 20 minutes, partially to be close in case of poop accidents, and partly because you couldn't drive much farther than that and accomplish anything and be back in time.

he also goes to 1day/week of day care on mondays while i do my clinic volunteering (which i'm not counting as a class). he seems to like it, the teachers seem nice, and the place gets good reviews. the kids are always behaving well and i've been there at a variety of times. they play outside and when weather is bad they have a beautiful gym area. i know they do art stuff, but there are never art projects waiting for me. i think it is because they don't make every kid do the same thing at once, they let the kids sorta choose what activity they want to do. because there are always a variety of activities available, i think given the choice between sandbox/cars etc and an art project, boo will rarely choose art.

so now i'm trying to decide whether i should continue with the tuesday morning park district program, or switch him to a thursday chinese immersion preschool in a class with 3-5 year olds. we've done the parent-tot classes there in the past and he seems to like it well enough. i just didn't do it this semester because a) there was bad highway construction between here and there, making transit painful and b) he wasn't quite old enough for the drop-off class.

advantages for the park district class:
- really close
- 2 hour program, as opposed to 85minutes
- he knows the teachers
- local moms and kids ... makes more local friends that he's likely to see later on
- messy art projects
- kids are all exactly his age

disadvantages for the park district class:
- no chinese, obviously
- the errands that i can do locally are not really ones i need to do without him, usually. for example, he's pretty good grocery shopping with me. and if i need to do a close errand, i can often pop out if DH is home anyway.

advantages for the chinese immersion class:
- he gets an ear for a language (my goal is certainly not fluency; i just want him to have an ear for it, so if he wants to learn it later it will be easier for him)
- it's in an area that i love going to anyway, an area of "useful errands" - container store, trader joes (though i love taking him there with me), nordstrom rack, nice mall, bank.
- it's on thursdays, which gives him more of a break after the monday daycare day. which is nice, because not only is he away from me all day monday, but he also doesn't nap - and he usually takes a 2-3hour nap every day. so he has seemed to be a bit on edge monday night/tuesdays/and even into wednesday a bit.
it's also nice to be able to space apart my days without boo.
it also happens to coincide with the workday of one of my good friends in the area who works thursdays/fridays/saturdays, freeing up tuesdays for a possible playdate with our kids. and if there's one thing i've learned with this interstate move, it's that good friends are important to cultivate and work at spending time with. but i have no idea what her kid's schedule will be like next semester anyway.

disadvantages for the chinese class:
- he would be the youngest in a class of 3-5 year olds. even though his language is far above most average 3 year olds, he's already kinda on the quiet side in groups.
- distance - it's about a half hour drive each way.
- probably not as many messy art projects, but i don't know for sure


when it comes down to the nitty gritty, it's messy art projects (which i want him to do in a program) vs ear for the chinese language, and tuesdays vs. thursdays. so far the chinese class is winning.

last swap package

a package arrived the other day in the thick of boo's birthday party. in the chaos of the moment, i forgot all about it ... yesterday i opened it, and discovered my last swap package had arrived! since my original swap partner had apparently flaked, this person sent me a package of goodies entirely out of the goodness of her heart (and pocketbook).

my favorite is a little zippered purse made out of this lovely elegant earth-tone fabric. i can see this one getting a lot of use. there is also some yummy malabrigo to make a kid's hat, a kit for "kissing fish" mittens (so cute!!) with a matching colorway, some knitpicks harmony wood dp needles for the mittens, some handmade soap, and a little moth-away baggie. i love the bright colors of the yarn! thank you!!

more birthday stuff

here's some other stuff from boo's birthday celebrations this week ...

for his actual birthday, veteran's day, he was off from school so we went to the children's museum with my friend RG and her adorable daughter AS. good thing we got there at opening, because before long the place was packed with half the stay-at-home-moms of the county. even our original lunch place was packed, so we ate at a nearby family style restaurant ... much to boo's delight, as he enjoyed the chocolate chip pancakes.

made him a birthday crown out of wool felt - a great idea from "the creative family," an awesome book that i've been reading. needlefelted his initials onto it and ironed on an applique star for each year. there is elastic in the back so i'm hopeful it will still fit next year. messed up the fancy sewing stitches i tried doing on the top since i didn't practice, but figured it wasn't a big deal.

for dinner on his actual birthday, we took him to the rainforest cafe. he loved the fish ... but then the thunder and lightning came, and his eyes got really big and concerned and he frowned and said shakily "outside! let's go outside! it's scary here!" he also wasn't a fan of the robotic animals - the gorillas were fine, but the animated crocodile in the front definitely deserved a wide berth. i'd probably give him several years till i take him back there again! in this picture he is suspicious of his birthday dessert - "lava mud" with gummy worms emerging.

birthday presents included a glide-2-ride bike from my parents - i figured it would be perfect for him, since he evinces no desire to pedal his tricycle, but loves pushing off the ground with his pedalless tricycle or his police car cozy coupe. initially you leave the pedals off, and they can walk the bike and eventually glide; when they get comfortable, you can put the pedals on.

our present was a kitchen with a grill. i just couldn't resist - i suppose this is one thing i got partially (mainly?) because i wanted it. i would say that i always wanted one as a kid, but to be honest, i don't remember actually wanting one. but boo loves playing with kitchens at his friends houses so that's how i justified it :) he loves pretending to make coffee for daddy (and anyone else who is on the phone or comes in the door) and tea for mommy, making bread, and warming up fried rice. legos remain his principle medium. love it!

that dog

100th post of this blog! and still going.

i'm up late tonight because i'm worried about our dog ... last night we took DH's sister out to eat, and came back to find that dixie had leapt onto our sideboard, pulled down a heavy crystal bowl (with some dents in the hardwood floor), and eaten all the halloween candy inside, wrappers and all. today we took her to the aquarium, and came back to discover she had pulled down a tray from our high bar - which had all the leftover decorated car cakes from the birthday party. probably about 3/4 of a pound cake and assorted red hots, chocolates, and other candies ... and tonight we are cleaning up the mess. ugh!!!

there's just no stopping the countersurfing. i thought the bar was safe - it's higher than a normal bar, too, and she's not that big of a dog. this adds to her infamous list of stolen consumer items:
- a pound of raw ground beef
- butter ... usually left out by innocent visitors who wish to bake. most consumed at one time was 2 sticks.
- half a box of chocolates
- cereal boxes left on the table
- many a tupperware full of banana bread and the like
- a deep dish uno's pizza!

race car birthday

for months boo has been wanting a "race car party" for his birthday, so today was the day! thursday i baked all day and friday was spent in decorations.

here we are painting the car favors. during the party kids put stickers on their individual cars. i bought these online and they come with enough supplies for the kids to paint themselves, but having a dozen kids indoors with paint just didn't seem like a good idea.
here's a picture of my nephew with his stickered car.

here is the cake ... each kid got an individual car cake. the cars were made from a williams/sonoma mold, half with pound cake mix and the other half with sweet potato pound cake mix. (DH gave it a thumbs up. i wasn't so sure, but i'm not a huge fan of pound cake in general. especially after inhaling it for hours while decorating. the only reason i use it is because the definition of the mold comes out best with the fine grain of pound cake mix.) for the adults i made a coconut cake from scratch.

i'm so thankful that my sister-in-law is visiting - she helped with most of the cake decorating. last year i did it by myself, and let me tell you, it's a lot more fun when you don't have to decorate a bazillion different cars.

if you've visited the house you have seen a large cardboard box that originally contained a loveseat repurposed as a house. now it has been recreated into a racecar ramp.

birthday boy!

i was a little conflicted about whether or not to invite all of his neighborhood friends. i really would have liked to, but we already had a dozen adults and a dozen kids who said they could come - which freaked me out a little bit as you might imagine :). i guess i'm still in seattle mode where a certain fraction of our friends there have to work every weekend, so you can always expect a certain number to not be able to make it. but today everyone was free, i guess. so if you live in the neighborhood and are wondering why you didn't get an invite, i'm sorry! i think next year we'll have it some place other than our house so that we can invite more folks. it's just hard with a november birthday in the midwest - i'd love to have it outside, but you can usually count on cold weather. in fact, i hear it's supposed to snow today.

we'll miss ewe

so finally i can post about something i've been working on all summer ... a little project for a friend of mine who is leaving our knitting group. when i first moved to this area, we "met online" through meetup.com - turns out we have little boys born within 2 months of each other and both have knitting obsessions. she's a navy wife, though, and is leaving as soon as her house sells.

so i got all the knitters together to do an afghan. i spent ages looking for just the right yarn - i wanted washable (she lives with a 3 year old and a dog) but i didn't want to go all acrylic because i wanted it to last and not pill. i wanted something that came in several nice shades of green (which i was guessing was her favorite color). eventually i settled on plymouth encore, a nice acrylic/wool blend. my MIL helped me pick the colors, and we found all of them together in a little shop in charlottesville. (that was the visit that i stuffed the carseat bag full of yarn on the return flight.)

obviously, she has a thing for turtles! i took the patterns from various afghan books and from a search for "turtle" on ravelry. here are the squares that i did.

from the "great american afghan" book. the pattern for the first square originally called for a crab applique, and i substituted a turtle from one of my crochet afghan books. the button in the middle of the red accent square is from stitches midwest.

beth and i recently figured out how to knit in a moebius round - a technique that is kind of mind blowing when you think about the details. i did it out of noro kureyon to commemorate the booga bags that we did together. i was a little worried about putting it on a washable afghan, so i kinda just tacked it on, but i figured that even if she washes it, the felted product would also be a reminder of the felted booga bags.

a dinosaur, to commemorate our sons' favorite creature

our mutual friend bethzabe knit this square, and i did the turtles (from a turtle potholder pattern).

and lastly, a sheep - my first knitted bobbles. like the beady stare?

so yesterday was the going-away party. one of our other knitting friends is also moving, but only gave us a month's notice so no afghan for her :). and she's only moving to the city, so we'll see her around. we got her a gift certificate to her new LYS, the new franklin habit book of knitting cartoons, and i made her some earrings and stitch markers. i made my first decoupage'd box to house her present, using papers that didn't make the cut for arielle's wedding invitations.

i also decorated a cake inspired by a blog i saw on ravelry.

here are some better shots of the individual squares that she took: http://www.flickr.com/photos/twertlegirl/sets/72157609001467900/

whew! time to move on to other projects!

the ravelry packages are finally here

so a while ago i signed up for a swap, and have been a tiny bit sad because it appeared that my partner has flaked out. then today i get packages from both the moderator of the swap, and an angel who is sending a package out of the goodness of her heart! the moderator, whose ravelry name is deathbyyarn, sent this: patons soy yarn (yes, it's really made of soy) is the yarn bit; and then there are a host of goodies, including a music mix, chocolate covered sunflower seeds, a bar of organic chocolate, some lovely paper cards, caramel apple mix, and an autumn scented candle. each individual item was wrapped in some fun amy butler-type tissue paper, reminding me of how much more lovely an already lovely thing becomes when it is packaged nicely.

my angel sent me two books off my amazon wish list that i have been wanting:
- luxury one-skein wonders - i have the second book in this series and it is wonderful. a book full of one-skein projects that are incredibly gorgeous. and each only requiring one skein - not too bad of an investment of time or money. it's not often that i see a book that i want to make even one or two patterns in, and this is a book that i want to make almost all of them!
- soft and simple knits for little ones - again, it is hard finding a book of patterns for kids that are sensible, easy, and cute in my taste. this is one of them!

thank you, angels!

unbelievable

we did it!! today we are dancing. i once again have some faith in our country. yup, brand me one of those "unpatriotic" folks who must not live in "real" america. i was absolutely incredulous that we re-elected that shrub who got where he was by his family connections and because he came across as a regular guy that you could have a beer with. someone whose cronies redefined science to suit political motives, who was not known for his intellect or skill at diplomacy - oh i could go on for hours. and there are so many reasons i opposed the mccain/palin ticket. i could go on for days. i've kept a lot of my posts more on facebook instead of this blog for many reasons that are uninteresting to go into. but, since this blog is also partially a journal, i can't keep such a big part of our lives entirely out.

more for my future reference than anything else, here are a few of my favorite articles that i've posted links to on facebook.
Chicago Tribune: "We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready."
Christopher Buckley: "Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case. So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me."
George Will: "Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?"

The Anne Kilkenny letter: "They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team."


and fun:
les misbarack
yeswecarve.com
sarah palin debate flow chart
a metaphor even my son could understand
and last, but certainly not least, any SNL skit with tina fey! particularly the katie couric interview, which actually was scarily not too different from the real one; the VP debate; and the alaska rap.

and for the first time, i contributed to a campaign, both in (modest) dollars and a little bit of time. not much, mind you, i'm definitely not one for knocking on doors and cold-calling. i'm so staunchly protective of my own time and resentful whenever i get these interruptions myself, so i hate doing it to other people. but i do a little phone banking yesterday to remind some pennsylvanians to go out and vote. the obama website is almost scary in how easy it was to volunteer. his campaign was definitely well-run (except for their trivial inability to get bumper stickers out within 2 months of ordering, and i never did get those yard signs - but they clearly had their resources in the right spot!). i hope he will be able to channel the energy of all of these volunteers and newly empowered voters to actually enact some change. i am optimistic for a government that is more transparent, a government that governs more than rules, a government headed by someone with intelligence and diplomacy and the ability to inspire.

so now we are reading "goodnight bush" with a hopeful heart.
in the situation room
there was a toy world
and a flight costume
and a picture of -

a refinery plume
and there were war profiteers giving three cheers
...
a grand old party to war in a rush
and a quiet dick cheney whispering "hush"
...
goodnight ballot box
goodnight fox
goodnight towers
goodnight balance of powers
goodnight constitution
and goodnight evolution
goodnight democracy
goodnight privacy
goodnight old growth trees
goodnight detainees
goodnight allies (shows nothing)
goodnight abu ghraib "cheese"
goodnight contractor beheading
goodnight innocent bloodshedding
goodnight nation great
and goodnight church and state
goodnight bubble bursting in air
and goodnight piggy beyond repair
...
goodnight earth?
goodnight heir?
goodnight failures everywhere.

pearls before swine

DH sent me these choice comics. if you know me at all, you know why i love these :) click on them to make them more readable.

knitting puns

was poking around the web for cute ideas for a knitting invitation, and saw these...

Purl Fiction
Knit of the Living Dead
Crochet Tiger, Knitting Dragon
Knitty Woman
Purl Harbour
The Terminknitter
The Wool Is Not Enough
Three Men and a Baby Alpaca
The Blair Stitch Project
Dye Another Day
Edward Knittinghands
Knitting Hill
Good Wool Hunting
Natural Born Acrylics
Purling for Columbine
Indiana Jones and the last crochet
Cast-on-away
Schindlers stitch
Merino Royale
Moss stitch and two smoking needles
To knit a mockingbird
Stitch Cassidy and the sunshine kid
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Cast off the Black Purl
Dye Hard
The Scarlet Sweater
Dude, Where's My Yarn?
The Shearing of the Lambs
Purl, Interrupted
All Strings Considered

Have you heard the joke about the lady who can't board the plane with her knitting project because of terrorism? Authorities were afraid she would knit an Afghan.

we're throwing a little going away party for a couple of our knitters, and evite now lets you customize everything. so i lifted a pic of some gorgeous sock yarn for the background, and will have them rsvp to "who's knitting?" as: "Coming for the sheep thrills!" "I'll have to check my gauge" and "Baaa humbug, unwinding elsewhere."