Seven things

1. The kids, for 90% of this afternoon, were great. This is highly notable because Barak's behavior for the last, oh, month or two has been really, really challenging. As in, really REALLY challenging. This morning was OK, and apparently he had a rough start at school (I got two phone calls) but once he got home he was just great--as in his old/normal sweet self.

He was being so cooperative, in fact, that I wanted to find something fun for him to do, so I found an empty Sterilite box (I use those to store most of their toys, so I always have a few extras around), filled it about a quarter full with the odds and ends of pasta that were hiding out in my cupboards, along with a couple of handfuls of rice, and put it on the kitchen table along with his box of Matchbox trucks. I told him that he could bulldoze and build what was in the box as long as he kept everything on the kitchen table and didn't make a mess. Could he do that? Yes, he could.

So I closed the baby gate into the kitchen and went to clean up the living room with Iyyar. Barak not only spilled next to nothing on the floor, he entertained himself happily and quietly for at least an hour and a half. During which time Iyyar enjoyed a rare spell of undivided attention, and I got to put away laundry, organize toys, and do all that fun stuff. Wow.

2. I have a tichel storage solution! Thanks for all your suggestions. I checked out the links and pondered the possibilities, but being as I didn't want to spend a lot of money on this didn't really want to buy 10 scarf hangers for my hundred-tichel collection. But they gave me an idea. As I may have mentioned here I think that the best investment ever created on the baby toy front is the $2.99 package of plastic linking rings I got Barak at Target. Well, as of now they have a new role in life. I linked them all together, hung the chain from my closet rod, and threaded a scarf through each hole. Presto--nearly instant tichel storage. All I need is another 3 packages of them, and I'm set.

3. If you have been expecting a package for me and have despaired of its ever showing up, take heart. There is a stack of packages like you wouldn't believe piled up on the bed behind me, and if all goes well I intend to mail them all tomorrow. Stay tuned.

4. A few years ago, when I first started toying with the idea of selling my loom, I asked my knitting buddy Cecilia what she would do with a $1000 yarn purchasing allowance. I wasn't seriously intending on using all the money from the loom to buy yarn (because as I may have mentioned I do have some already) but I felt it would be reasonable to put aside some portion of the proceeds of a loom sale for future unjustifiable purchases of a woolly nature. I don't remember her initial list, but a lot of Noro and a complete set of Clover needles were involved.

I did sell my loom in August, and set aside half of the money for future fiber-related purchases. I thought this was reasonable; I was selling the loom because I needed the space, and using the proceeds to fund more fibery stuff was not actually purchasing anything, just trading, right? Anyway, it went into my PayPal account, and there most of it stayed through the autumn--when I got into my third trimester.

I don't know about anyone else but I now have a three-pregnancy track record of serious fiber activity in my third trimester. As in, nonstop obsessive knitting, and yarn acquisition completely out of proportion to any hope of knitting time. When I was pregnant with Barak, I remember several sizable Webs orders; with Iyyar, it was Elann.com and sock yarn. Well, this time around, I actually had a budget to do some damage with. And... well. I now have an Ott-Lite, a greatly expanded stash of Socks that Rock mediumweight, a pretty good collection of Opal (already diminished by recent knitting activity), some new sock knitting bags from my favorite Etsy shop, and, um, quite a lot of new knitting needles.

5. And speaking of knitting needles--well, I could try to blame Grandma E for those, but that wouldn't be quite fair. She did, it is true, turn up on her last visit with a set of the new KnitPicks nickel-plated Options needles. She did sing their praises and tell marvelous tales of the smoothness of their joins and the sharpness of their tips. However, she did direct several pointed looks at the open closet door on which is hung my entire admittedly expansive collection of circular needles. And perhaps, when I murmured something about possibly wanting some Options needles of my own, her seemingly straight-faced reply of "Because you don't have enough needles," might have had just a touch of, oh, I don't know, sarcasm. Probably not though. Right?

Anyway, I did buy some of the Options needles in the laminated wood, along with some of their DPs in size 0. And I must say that they are now my favorite needles ever. They are smooth, they are sharp, they are warm and they are light. With a few sets of tips and cords, you suddenly have almost any size circular needle you could need, other than the 16" ones (which I don't often use anyway, since I prefer DPs.) And speaking of DPs--their DPs come in sets of six. Six!

AND, so far at least, they do not bend. Usually after a mere two pairs of socks my bamboo DPs are C-shaped. I've had these for a few weeks and they have been in pretty much constant use, and there is nary a sign of warping. Plus, they are very lovely to look at. I only bought them in the 0s, and now I am eyeing the full set of sock needles in sizes 0-3. But I will resist. Really. I will. Even though Cecilia already bought them and had them sent here for me to send on to her in Australia, where KnitPicks does not ship, and I have been gazing at them longingly for quite a while now. I will resist, because I have completed my fiber shopping for this pregnancy--even though Grandma E is right, and I don't have enough needles.

6. Iyyar is talking more and more now. He is quite fascinated by Emese and points at her with exclamations of "Cah! Cah!" He also is very into socks, for some reason, and not only sticks his foot out for me to put socks onto, he occasionally gets himself more socks out of his sock drawer and tries to pull an extra sock or two on top of his shoes. It doesn't work so well, but he enjoys it, and that's what matters, right?

7. I had been gaining weight faster than I wanted to so a few weeks ago decided to banish white flour and white sugar from my diet during the week. I'll eat it on Shabbos (which includes Saturday night, because otherwise how would I eat pizza?) but have been pretty vigilant about not touching it otherwise. No white pasta, no white bread, no trips to the bakery, but other than those two banned ingredients I eat what I want. Tonight, dinner was brown rice spaghetti with spinach and cheese, a big pot of onions and mushrooms sauteed in butter, and latkes. Clearly, I am not starving myself or anyone else around here. Yet to my shock and delight, at my last prenatal I found out I hadn't gained any weight all month! Baby, B"H, is growing fine, but I didn't gain any weight. Woohoo! So far I've gained 20 lb, with officially 10 weeks to go (although I've never gone past 38 weeks before, so it's probably more like 7 or 8 weeks to go) so if I can make it through Chanuka without tripping up too badly, I might actually have this baby at the same weight I was when I had Barak, even though I started out this time about, oh, 15 lb up from my starting weight then. Even if I gain close to a pound a week, which right now I'm not doing. That'd be nice, wouldn't it?