Kiss My Knits!

School’s out this week, which means Jayne hats are going to be running a little slower than I’d like. C’est la vie.

Mr. Tvini had his stress test today. We were very fortunate, because fellow knitter Rachel had scheduled a play date for her niece and my daughter and me for today. I wasn’t able to go, but she very thoughtfully agreed to take both girls to Discovery Place so I could go be with Steve without worry. I know Em had a good time because when she got back, she pretended to take a nap for a little while, and I’m pretty sure she actually drifted off. Heh.

Tomorrow, Em says she wants to go to the Zoo. It’s excellent timing, since the NC Zoo just opened up a new and improved Watani Grasslands Reserve elephant habitat. They used to have an Australian exhibit, but that was temporary and so we told her that the animals had to go back to Australia. She keeps asking if the other animals have to go back to Africa now, so I think she thinks all the exhibits are temporary.

I’m lucky to have the luxury of being able to pack up and go to the zoo without having to schedule time off of work. As I say, Jayne hats will go more slowly because of time constraints this week, but I’ve got to be a mother first.

Way past bedtime now. I can’t be backsliding on getting enough sleep when there’s a day trip tomorrow!

I asked Em to let me take a picture of her tooth. You can’t see the chip so well, but she gave me a pretty darned good impression of Cletus, the Slack Jawed Yokel. I love my little goober.

Some folk’ll never chip a tooth,
but then again, some folk’ll…

Em was monkeying around in the bathtub and slipped and bumped her chin. She chipped her top front right (permanent!) tooth and she is very anxious about it. Poor kid.
Which reminded me of how I chipped my teeth.

Yesterday went from bad to worse, as my husband was called back into work at 9pm and didn’t get out until 2am. He was called again at 4 in the morning and thankfully was able to consult by phone. He doesn’t normally work with the system he was called to support, but he wrote a perl script and worked some web magic to fix everything up just fine. May I say how very, very lucky the company he works for is to have him?

Anyway, since he was pretty zonked out today, he understandably opted not to come up to the family reunion that was taking place today up at my aunt’s place. It’s a wonderful location, since it’s roomy and welcoming and right next to the stables which she owns, so there’s plenty of land for the kids to play on. Em was thrilled to see her second cousins again, and they all had great fun playing hide and seek. Those are some smart, creative kids, although they all need to stop growing, because it only makes the rest of us look older. Also, I learned that one of my cousins has a husband who is now really, really good with ceramics, so that’s something to keep in mind for Christmas.

I took pictures of the kids playing, but I’ve loaned my digital camera out, so I can’t show you anything at the moment.

While Em and I were off with the family, my husband was able to pop over to see some friends of ours who I really need a catchy LJ moniker for. Their names are Rob and Laura so… the Petries? Anywho, look at the fantastic gift they had! A detailed star chart with glow in the dark stars and pictures of all the constellations! It’s even mounted in such a way that you can rotate it with the month so it stays accurate to what you’d see in the sky. I guess someone at the Petries’ house has outgrown their star fascination, but believe me when I say that Emily was delighted to receive this. So thank you, Petries! Em is very stoked about going to bed tonight. It’s a cloudy night, but she’s got her glow in the dark star chart!

Speaking of which, it’s time to get her bathtime/bedtime rituals started, so I’m off for now. Here’s hoping a good day continues into a good night – with no calls from work!

Emily, stars and new socks.

Examples of the”swaps” my Brownie troop will be making today. The top campfire is triangles of felt glue-sticked to a barrette back. We may add logs in the form of twigs which the girls scavenge, weather permitting.

The bottom s’more is craft foam glue-sticked together, with a face drawn on the foam marshmallow. They’ll be attached to pin backs which already have adhesive on them. I found these craft ideas at the link from yesterday.

I find it’s a good idea to make one example ahead of time so they have a point of reference. They’ll naturally jump off and do their own thing, which is good, but it’s handy to see what you’re jumping off from.

I have a dentist appointment tomorrow morning, which wouldn’t be an issue except that I also have a Girl Scout meeting tomorrow afternoon which I don’t have supplies for. Frankly, I’m really, really tired today, even though I got to bed at a semi-reasonable hour last night. Sleep deprivation from the time change has finally caught up with me. The appointment couldn’t be rescheduled without a fee, so I’m going anyway, and I’ll make do with the scouts.

Some of our girls are going to an overnight camp in April, and they’re required to learn a song to share with the other campers and also to make some swaps to trade with the other girls. Six girls are going (including little sisters of some scouts), four girls aren’t, so it’s kind of weird to be running a meeting to take care of the needs of half the girls. A half which doesn’t include my daughter, who elected not to go after she found out just how much her nighttime routine would be disrupted at camp. Oh well. There’s a daytime camp coming up, so I think I can sell it as something they’ll still use in the future. And I found a page with some swaps I think my girls can make that won’t require too much in the way of supplies.

Although Emily doesn’t want to sleep under the stars, she has expanded her astronaut interest to include the constellations. It’s a pretty natural fit for her. She’s already interested in space, and she loves sets of things. When she goes to bed at night, she likes for us to lie in the dark for a few minutes and point out imaginary constellations on her ceiling we see. Well, the constellations are actual constellations, it’s just that obviously they are not on her ceiling. Maybe I should invest in one of those little planetarium orbs like my dad got for my mom when I was a kid. I’m sure it couldn’t cost that much for a kid-friendly version of one. (ETA: Sky Turtle? Wow.)

Em keeps asking me to tell her a new constellation I haven’t told her before. I’m having to really reach at this point, for more obscure things like Saggita the Arrow. As a result, now she knows unusual things for a 9-year-old girl, like that Gemini contains Castor and Pollux. I’m having to brush up myself, too, so that I can recognize more constellation in the night sky. So this is good for both of us.

It also gives me something quick to put on her lunchbag in the morning – provided I can remember what the various constellations actually look like. This might also be a good intro into the Greek myths. Hmmm, maybe it’s time to check out the D’Aulaires again…

For my own reference, a few constellation links:
http://www.abc.net.au/children/space/games/skypictures/default.htm
http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/st6starfinder/st6starfinder.shtml
http://stardate.org/nightsky/constellations/
http://www.kids.union.edu/fsnCannedConstellations.htm (if you know anyone who still has film canisters)

Possible books:
H.A. Rey’s “Find the Constellations”
Michael Driscoll’s “A Child’s Introduction to the Night Sky” (includes glow in the dark star chart)
D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths (may be a little advanced)

I’ve been knitting like a fiend this weekend. When I say I’ve been working on Jayne hat orders that came in on Jan 6-7, understand that ten orders came in on Jan 6-7. It’s not a one to one ratio, where I always get one order a day. Some days, several will come in. Some days, none will. That just happened to be a busy period because it was the tail end of the Donors Choose challenge.

Busy or not, though, earlier this week I had to set aside Jaynes for just one night. I was over at Turtlegirl76’s the other night, and the knitters there were working on her favorite charity, Hats for Alex. They were all making itty bitty Jayne hats. SQUEEEE!! Too adorable. Busy or not, naturally I wanted to put my own work aside and throw my Jayne hat into the ring. So here it is, a creditable baby Jayne. It’s in Vanna’s Choice acrylic kindly loaned to me by YeaIKnit. Size 8 needles. You could probably go up to size 9, I’m just a loose knitter. No ties on the earflaps to get tangled. The orange is kind of brown, but really, the colors aren’t a bad match considering it’s for a baby hat. The yellow isn’t as lemony as it appears here. This is very inexpensive, machine-washable yarn. It’s acrylic, of course, but it gets the job done. I’d say this would fit a 3 month old. I always prefer to knit big, though, since kids don’t exactly get any smaller. I reckon I can post the pattern if there’s interest and if I can figure out where to put it.

Many thanks to Turtlegirl76’s cat Ripple for modeling. Also, for being slow enough to catch. He may be the old man of the house, but that doesn’t mean we can’t rob him of his dignity from time to time.

Speaking of that Donors Choose challenge, I was dropping Emily off at school last week and the music teacher was on car duty, shepherding kids into the building. She was literally jumping up and down with excitement as she told me the xylophones are being delivered this week. Considering that a few weeks ago the playground was torched, that’s a very positive event.

For those concerned, the burned sections of the playground have been removed and the playground reopened, so apparently it wasn’t a total loss. I don’t know about repairs, but at least the kids can play on it again. Sorry for the blurry quality of the pic, I took it this morning as I was dropping Em off at school, and frankly, it looks weird to take photographs of the school while it’s in session. I always think the teachers are going to call the cops or something.

Emily’s Clara Barton obsession continues. Here she is dressed as Clara Barton, jumping out of a tree with two trash bags (old baby blankets) as parachutes. Naughty, naughty Clara Barton.

Here’s a more modern nursing tale that would have Clara Barton beaming with pride. I guess medical personnel have always been daredevils, whether they’re jumping out of trees or running into gunfire. Great to see folks making women’s history this Women’s History Month.

I’m off to rustle up breakfast and knit some more. Hope y’all have a great day!

Emily got some nice presents for her birthday. She got books, a DVD, and some toys including a Playmobil playset that she’s really enjoying. But the one gift which she’d been specifically asking for for months was a cuckoo clock. I kid you not. The kid really, really wanted a cuckoo clock. And so, now, in her room, direct from China by way of eBay, is this genuine plastic 14″ tall cuckoo clock. She’s thrilled. It plays a recorded cuckooing sound on the hour, once for every hour. She really wanted us to have it continue cuckooing all night, but we said no. “It won’t keep me awake!” she protested. Finally, I said, “well, it might keep us awake!” She slowly grinned and said, “That’s funny.” Yeah, Daddy and I are crazy that way.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when 8am rolled around this morning and that thing started cuckooing eight loooong times. Steve’s going to rig up either a toggle switch or some kind of photovoltaic cell, or possibly both, for it so that we won’t have to deal with this constantly.

But is it worth it for the joy that it brings my little weirdo? Yes.

This morning: knitting, stamping boxes, writing notes, and rustling up more straw. It’s the Jayne stuff that’s knitting-adjacent that slows things down sometimes.

Hats up for: Troup TX, Rock Hill SC, and… unknown. Hm. Guess I better contact that guy.

How the party went.