Kiss My Knits!

I send lunch with my daughter to school every day. The same thing, every day, because if I send other things, even things she likes, she won’t eat them. In fact, in the past, when I have sent things in her lunchbox that she likes, but that were unexpected, she has later refused ever to eat them again. It’s just a function of her PDD-NOS, so I roll with it, and pack the same lunch every day – even though she hasn’t eaten the raisins I send for a year now.

So imagine my surprise upon learning that apparently, she has been keeping her lunchbox in her backpack and been telling her teacher that she didn’t bring one when it’s pizza day in the cafeteria. I learned this by getting a bill from the cafeteria for $6.35. Yep, apparently she’s been sneaking through the lunch line. And here I thought she just wasn’t eating any lunch.

You’d have to know my daughter to understand how genuinely thrilled I am by this. Wanting to do this sort of thing, and executing her fiendish plan, takes a level of sophistication that I am very gratified to see my daughter developing.

My daughter was eating a snack, and I asked her to clean up after herself. She went into the kitchen, but didn’t throw away a paper towel that had a dab of applesauce on it. Instead, she brought it back to me, clearly wanting me to dispose of it personally.

Me: “You can throw that away.”

Her: “No, I shall not!”

Her use of “shall” in conversation cracks me up. It’s like she’s doing Shakespeare. Today’s play: “As I Like It.”

And I had a great time. We got to see our friends, and their kids are adorable. Example one and Example two. Yes, that’s my Swiss Army knife, but he cut himself on a tree, not my knife, I swear. And yes, that is my sheep blanket, which is holding up well through repeated machine washings. It was a narrow scrape, but I managed to avoid “baby fever” and will stick with just the one I have now.

We started out late on the trip up and so we missed an item on my timetable – I thought we could stop and have dinner in Richmond, maybe hit World of Mirth and Got Yarn. Due to a traffic delay caused by a wrecked car-carrying 18-wheeler around Durham, it was 7:15 by the time we hit Richmond and those stores were closed. We elected to keep driving. Good thing, too. We hit bad patches of traffic a couple of times and then took the 50 fork of 50/301 (wrong!) and so it was midnight by the time we reached our friends’ house. I was exhausted, as I had done all the driving since my husband doesn’t like to drive my car. He’s a foot taller than me and the car is a bit tight for him. We hadn’t made reservations, and by the time we arrived, the hotels were all booked. Apparently they’re next to bars, and people drink until they’re plastered and then rent rooms for the night. So we wound up staying with our friends, which was nice.

We hit Bowie and Annapolis the next day, including stops at Yarn Garden (I needed #6 doublepointeds for the top of a hat) and some brewing shop (my husband and his friend brew beer). My friend and I had a good heart-to-heart in the car while the guys went in. It left me more depressed than I was before, but I’m sure it was still good to let a lot of those feelings out.

Then it was off to the waterfront to wander around and eat sushi. A good time was had by all, although I was so exhausted that I know I looked like a zombie, and my friends asked several times what was wrong. Well, I’d had about 5 hours sleep after a tiring day and am walking around in 90+ degree heat. I was trying to soldier on and be a good guest, and I think I did all right, but I was utterly wiped out. I kind of figured that if their 3-year-old could keep it together, so could I.

We started back home on Sunday, and this time we arrived in Richmond at 12:15. We decided to stop and grab lunch and maybe try World of Mirth again. We got close, and it was very crowded. Whaddya know, it was the Carytown watermelon festival! So we parked and walked around.

We found 17 bucks in cash on the street when we came out of an antique shop. I was flummoxed. It had clearly fallen out of someone’s pocket. We waited around for a while, holding it clearly in our hand, to see if anyone came by looking at the ground or inquiring. They didn’t. With no way to find the owner, we decided that it would be okay to use it, but only if we spent it all at the festival. So as we wandered, we gave a few bucks to the humane society, firefighter’s fund, etc. and did leave it all in Richmond. I still felt guilty, but I honestly didn’t know what else to do.

Anyway, we ate some watermelon, hit some stands and stores, and generally had fun. When we were roasted to an even crisp, we got back in the car and drove home. We listened to Harry Potter in the car on the trip, and got as far as chapter ten. Good times.

Our daughter apparently had a good time with her grandmother. They swam every day, and she went to a play and to Mass, so she had some new experiences. I’ll be picking her up shortly.

In knitting news, I finished the vegan Jayne hat. Someone ordered one from cotton, as she is vegan and didn’t want a wool one, but also didn’t want acrylic. I loooooove this cotton. It’s Araucania Nature Cotton, the easiest cotton I’ve worked with. It’s not tiring on the hands like the other variegated South American offering I’ve worked with, Manos Stria. The pompom on this hat is a little droopy, which is just the lack of spring in the cotton, but the hat itself feels very good and is surprisingly resilient. I’m pleased with how it turned out. The only thing I’m considering is getting some fray check to paint on the ends of the ties so they don’t unravel.

So, all in all, a wonderful weekend. Can’t wait to do it again!

When was sick, I sent her a little care package. My daughter saw me doing it, and I explained. Now she has her dolls act it out.

Her: “This is Angel, but she’s not a real angel. She’s sick so she has to go to bed and I’m going to give her some medicine. Go to bed, Angel! You should rest! She can fly! But she’s not a real angel. Angel lives in (state) and we can go see her there. She has to lie down! Lie down, Angel!”

So , have fun flying, rest when you’re sick, and apparently my daughter will be visiting you at some point.

I went with my daughter to a bagel place the other day. While I was ordering, she found us a table and played with a couple of little plastic Playmobil dolls she had brought in. She was under the table for a moment, after dropping a doll. I came over to the table, and she said, “They’re hiding their faces!” I look at her dolls, and sure enough, the dolls were hiding their faces. They were covered with little pieces of still pliable used chewing gum my child apparently found under the table.

Greeeeaaat.

I took my daughter to the zoo today, and actually got TWO registered “Where’s George” bills as change. One was from Greensboro, not that far from the Asheboro zoo, but one had made it from Illinois in just 13 days. Pretty impressive.

I wish I had a where’s george stamp. I’ll bet my identity thief has one. Grumble grumble.

In case you were curious, after driving for an hour in a car with no air-conditioning to get to the zoo, my daughter says her favorite animal was the turtle. Which to my eye looked pretty much like the one we found in our back yard last week. Oh well.

It was a long, tiring day in hellish heat, so I’m off to bed. Sweet dreams of cool turtles, y’all!

The girl insisted on three braids today. I think we’re drifting dangerously close to “Snoop Dogg” territory.

It was a productive long weekend! Not as productive as I thought it’d be, since I wound up having to drive instead of the hubby, and he has this wacky insistence on me not knitting while I drive. Sheesh.

How I spent my Independence Day weekend.

The other day I went in and saw my daughter crawling out of the dryer. It’s raining, so I go to dry some clothes today, and the dryer door won’t close. Well, it’ll close for a second, but then it pops back open again.

The cuteness of my daughter coming out of the dryer was not worth the cost of a new dryer. grumble.

My daughter, after lunch today: “What’s your favorite letter of the Hebrew alphabet?”

Me: “Umm… Aleph?”

Her: “Mine’s Vav!”

The only churches she’s ever been inside are Methodist and Catholic, and we have no Jewish family members. I didn’t remember until later that we’d found a cast-off piece of paper in a shopping cart that had the Hebrew alphabet on it and had talked about it. I know very little about the Hebrew language.

This kid has an insanely good visual memory. Either that, or she’s got some kind of past-life thing going on. If she makes a little construction paper yarmulke, we’ll know something.

ETA: She’s changed her mind. Now it’s Gimel.