Maybe it's because he hasn't been feeling well, and I appreciate it more when he's being his usual self, but Iyyar has been ridiculously cute lately. He's had a big jump in his expressive language and every five minutes comes out with something that I know I should write down or blog or remember to tell Abba when he gets home. And later? I can't remember it at all.
So I'll open a window in blogger and see what I can remember.
1. I've been teaching Barak his ABC's, which he won't be learning in school till the year after next (Hebrew first, then English). Barak is okay with this but not wildly into it. His visual memory is not the greatest--he still has a hard time with a number of Hebrew letters and usually needs hints to differentiate gimel from nun, hay from chet, etc. Iyyar, on the other hand, can be told a letter once and, if he's in the mood, remember it forever. Last week Barak made an A page for his ABC book. I gave Iyyar some coloring to do at the same time but did not mention A to him specifically, even though obviously he was in the room at the same time. Next time the box of Weetabox comes out: "Imma! Wook Imma! Wook! Issa A"!
Hey, he's right. "That is an A! Good job!" Then,
"Imma! Wook Imma! Wook! Issa oder one A! Iss two A's!" What do you know. It is!
I showed him B and he spent some time picking out B's. I showed him S yesterday and he already knows C from C is for Cookie. Sometimes he mixes them up, showing me an S and saying A, but he usually gets them right.
2. The last three days have been better poop-wise. (Hmm, blogger seems to consider "poop-wise" a valid English word. There must be a lot of mothers of small children on blogger--ya think?) Yesterday morning he spent about half an hour crying and saying he needed to poop, but then he spent the rest of the afternoon pooping with little fanfare. I can't imagine he's still constipated with everything that's been coming out. I took the suggestion of Miriam and Dr. Google and stopped giving him cow's milk as of last Thursday, which seems to be helping.
Yesterday I had a serious talk with Barak about why we can't give Iyyar milk or things with milk, how they make him sick, etc. He told me about kids at school who are allergic to bananas and so on and seemed to get it. Which is why I was both surprised and un-thrilled to find him and Iyyar hiding under the kitchen table, with Barak spoon-feeding yogurt from a full quart container into Iyyar's mouth. I heard them giggling under there but they didn't seem to be getting into any trouble--then I saw what they were doing. I really gave it to Barak, who knew very well what he was doing--I just hope it doesn't put us back at square one.
3. I was going to talk about cute Iyyarisms, right? Okay, so, he still says "od" in Hebrew when he means "another one." So if he sees a second letter A, sometimes it's "od A!" If he sees more than one of something and wants to count, it's always "two!"
4. On the subject of numbers, this isn't an Iyyarism but it is worth noting. Barak likes numbers, the bigger, the better. "Million" and "billion" and even "trillion" and "googleplex" didn't do it for him, so he came up with "sillion" and "gotchion." As in, "I love cinnamon cereal! I love it a hundred thousand gotchion ten much! I just want to eat it the whole day!" A gotchion, apparently, is more than a sillion, so that's really a lot.
5. Iyyar is into Emese lately. He likes to follow her into our room and peek under the bed to check that she's there. All cats are Emese, including the Lego cat, which is, to be fair, small, round and gray.
6. Avtalyon is getting three upper teeth at the same time. The top front left tooth is through as well as the one to the left of that, which gives him an oddly lopsided appearance; the top front right tooth is almost through. This means that he is slightly cranky (which, for the record, would have equaled an incredibly calm and even-keeled day for either Barak or Iyyar at that age) and wants to chew on everything, including Grover's nose.
Iyyar has a Grover doll--I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this--who is now his best friend. He takes Grover just about everywhere and if he does not have Grover in his crib he will wake up and call me politely to find him. Right now, Avtalyon wants nothing more than to grab Grover and shove that big pink nose right in his mouth. There are few that Iyyar wants less. "No! My Grover! No baby! No Talyon! Not your Grover!" I'm going to have to find Avtalyon a similarly appealing Elmo or something to prevent escalation of hostilities.
7. Iyyar is picking up a few of Barak's less great habits, like the urgent screaming for whatever minor desire he might have at the moment. I'm not sure why he thinks this is a good idea, since it never gets Barak anywhere, but I guess it is part of the little brother territory. So sometimes I'll here Iyyar, in his little two-year-old voice, bellow, "Imma! Needa JUICE! NEEDA! JUICE! RIGHT! NOW!" with accompanying foot-stamps. What is very funny about this is that when he does this, he is not actually after juice. He knows quite well that he will not get juice by doing this. He just thinks it's fun. So sometimes, I'll hear him hollering in the living room, throwing a tantrum for juice--without ever bothering to come let me know about it.
8. Lately, Iyyar has taken to imitating a fire truck siren. His idea of a firetruck siren, however, is a one-second earsplitting shriek right at the upper ranges of human hearing, before you get into the frequencies of, say, dog whistles. "Imma! Fire truck do whooop!" "Actually, I think it makes a sound more like this: woooOOOOOoooooOOOO." "No. Firetruck do whoop!" At this point I agree with him, just because my ears hurt and I don't want him to do it again.
9. Sometime last week Iyyar woke up at 2 am in so much pain that, in desperation, I brought him into my office to show him Grover videos on YouTube just to distract him. It worked somewhat--he was interested in Grover even though he was doubled over and crying--and so it's not that I regret that exactly. The trouble now, of course, is that he knows that Grover is inside my computer. He knows about Grover and the soup, and Grover and the big and little hamburgers, and Grover in the baftub, and Grover singing about around, over, under, and through. "Want see Grover! Want see Grover 'nair! Want go office, Grover!" (feet stomp) Sometimes I let him see one or two, but when I've got all three of them back here it gets pretty perilous. This room is just not set up for free-ranging small children.
10. There has to be a #10, right? Ummm... oh yes. Iyyar and Avtalyon. When Iyyar and Avtalyon are together without Barak around, it is very very cute. Not always, because sometimes there are the dread Grover Wars, and sometimes Iyyar wants nothing so much as to take every toy Avtalyon touches and put it on the highest shelf he can reach--but sometimes, sometimes it is very cute. Sometimes, in fact, Iyyar is downright solicitous of Avtalyon. He shows him how to do things. "Wook, baby! Wook, Talion! Openit--no! Not like that. Not like that, baby. Wook! Dis! Dis way!"
And Iyyar and Avtalyon have something else in common, too, besides the shared love for Grover. They both sing the happy food song.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
A vagany mellett kerjuk vigyazzanak
I can't tell you how nostalgic this makes me. I used to take that train every Sunday morning at 5:23 am. The music doesn't really do it for me though--it should really be Sipos F. Tamas or something. Oh, oh my gosh, this.
Monday, January 05, 2009
Everybody's a critic
Last Friday Ada came over to help out, since Asnat was out of town and I had to take Iyyar for the GI and then, theoretically, work, although that part never did happen. As she was leaving I noticed her wrapping a polyester fleece scarf around her neck. With what was probably barely concealed disapproval, I asked her if that was warm. She said it wasn't and she'd been looking for a better (read: wool) scarf. I don't actually like knitting scarves that much--they're boring as anything--but this situation simply could not be allowed. "I'll make you one," I said. "What do you want?" We established that the scarf should be pink, that it did not have to be especially soft, and that wide was good.
I thought about spinning something, then decided in the name of speed to, um, make a directional scarf in Silk Garden Sock. (Yeah. Speed. In sock yarn. I know, I know.) I cast on this morning and by midafternoon sometime was into the first short-row section. Then Iyyar came over and inquired as to what I was doing. The conversation went something like this:
"What dat?"
"That's for Ada."
"Dat socks?"
"No, that's a scarf."
"Garf?"
"Yep, scarf."
"Not garf. Sock."
"No, it's a scarf."
"No gike it."
"You don't have to like it."
Pause during which Iyyar wrinkles nose in expression of total disgust. Then, shaking head disapprovingly,
"I gink Urda no gike it. Ewww."
The scarf is sitting on a shelf until Ada is here next. I'm not making an entire scarf out of sock yarn if it's going to be ewww.
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Hurt me
Friday's GI series went fine. Iyyar did not enjoy himself but drank the stuff he was supposed to drink and generally cooperated as much as could be expected; the radiologist said everything looked normal. Friday night he (Iyyar, not radiologist) pooped with minimal crying and hopes were raised. Today, though--two straight awful hours of screaming and crying and writhing and stomping his feet, pulling each knee up to his tummy in turn, all while pleading and wailing. "Hurt me! Hurt me tushy! Poopy! Owww..." I tell him he needs to poop and then he'll feel better. "I can't..."
I don't know. One second he's in agony and the next something catches his interest, then you can see on his face when something hurts again. It seems like it's abdominal cramping from his behavior. He isn't really that constipated though, in regards to how much is in there--not so much poop showed up on the scan and he's been going at least somewhat almost every day. So why does it hurt so much? I don't know. We'll see how tomorrow goes--one more day on Miralax--and then I'll call the doctor on Monday to see what's next.
I don't know. One second he's in agony and the next something catches his interest, then you can see on his face when something hurts again. It seems like it's abdominal cramping from his behavior. He isn't really that constipated though, in regards to how much is in there--not so much poop showed up on the scan and he's been going at least somewhat almost every day. So why does it hurt so much? I don't know. We'll see how tomorrow goes--one more day on Miralax--and then I'll call the doctor on Monday to see what's next.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Poop
Iyyar is constipated.
Let's just get that part right out in the open to begin with. This has been going on for a while now, since before Thanksgiving at least, since the weekend after Thanksgiving is when Sarah came to visit and accompanied us to a memorable family photography session at which Iyyar alternately smiled cheesily for the camera and bent over double howling, "Poooooopyyyyyyyy! Imma, I need poop potty! Hurt me! Tushy hurt me! Imma, tushy hurt me!" A few minutes after the end of the session, he pooped--cataclysmically--and felt better.
Since then, it's been sort of off and on. He's had a really bad cold, and some kind of a bug, and he's thrown up a few times (once rather memorably when Sarah was here). Now the cold is gone, the bug seems to be gone (although he did throw up a little last Friday night) and he is really, really, really constipated--as in, last Thursday he woke up from his nap crying and screaming and writhing so much that, in the absence of an open pediatrician's office to take him to, I brought him to the ER.
Without going into too many details, let me just say that none of my several visits to our local ER has greatly inspired my confidence. This one was no exception. They did give Iyyar an x-ray and pronounced him impacted; they gave him a suppository, which, much screaming and wailing later, produced four very full and very foul diapers and a much happier Iyyar. They told me to follow up with an appointment with my regular pediatrician, and sent me home with an extra suppository just in case. They seemed to think the matter resolved and so did I; but less than a day later, we were right back where we'd been with the pain and the wailing. I gave him suppository #2, which worked somewhat. Sunday night, it all started up again, and I wasn't happy about waiting for my Wednesday appointment but circumstances around here (an unexpected trip out of town for my husband) weren't really conducive to my trying to go elsewhere.
Last night at around 9, he started crying, and then the crying escalated to wailing and writhing and howling and the whole nine yards. I called a neighbor who had mentioned sometimes using suppositories on her own kids and asked if I could have one; I used it on Iyyar with no results whatsoever. I tried all my tricks (this is, obviously, after a couple of weeks of the full-on anti-constipation diet, which Barak has been loving--hey, juice! Imma never lets us have apple juice and now we get apple juice and applesauce and raisins and dried apricots ALL THE TIME!), to no avail; the only thing that calmed him down at all was, between around 1 and 2 am, some time on my lap in my office watching Grover clips on YouTube with occasional pauses to cry and strain and try to poop. "I can't! Poop! Hurt me! Hurt me Imma!" It was awful. At around 2 we called the doctor's office for any ideas; she asked why he hadn't been prescribed a laxative or given an enema and I gave the bitter rundown of the ER visit. Sigh.
Fast forward to this morning, far too few hours of sleep later. Barak went to school and I took Iyyar, still unhappy but no longer crying, to the pediatrician. The pediatrician checked him out, prescribed Miralax, and said he wasn't that concerned. "He's not really that impacted. I don't feel anything up there, so let's see what the Miralax does. It's not as though he's been throwing up and..."
"He has been throwing up, actually." Hmm. I'd forgotten to mention that.
"What?" This, apparently, makes a big difference. Now we are scheduled for an upper GI series for Iyyar on Friday morning, with the barium and the rest of it. I'm still not sure exactly what they are looking for--I have been told not to worry yet but this is just about the worst thing to say to me if you really think I shouldn't worry. I told the doctor as much. "If you tell me what you're looking for, I'll know. If you don't, I'll imagine all kinds of catastrophic things, so you might as well just tell me." Congenital anomalies, I have been told, or any kind of a blockage.
In the meantime, I gave him the Miralax and he's had three dirty diapers since. He does seem to feel much better. Here's hoping that this will all turn out to be nothing much and will resolve itself speedily, with no more lasting adverse effects than Avtalyon having figured out that stray sippy cups found on the floor might contain something he now knows he likes very, very, very much.
Let's just get that part right out in the open to begin with. This has been going on for a while now, since before Thanksgiving at least, since the weekend after Thanksgiving is when Sarah came to visit and accompanied us to a memorable family photography session at which Iyyar alternately smiled cheesily for the camera and bent over double howling, "Poooooopyyyyyyyy! Imma, I need poop potty! Hurt me! Tushy hurt me! Imma, tushy hurt me!" A few minutes after the end of the session, he pooped--cataclysmically--and felt better.
Since then, it's been sort of off and on. He's had a really bad cold, and some kind of a bug, and he's thrown up a few times (once rather memorably when Sarah was here). Now the cold is gone, the bug seems to be gone (although he did throw up a little last Friday night) and he is really, really, really constipated--as in, last Thursday he woke up from his nap crying and screaming and writhing so much that, in the absence of an open pediatrician's office to take him to, I brought him to the ER.
Without going into too many details, let me just say that none of my several visits to our local ER has greatly inspired my confidence. This one was no exception. They did give Iyyar an x-ray and pronounced him impacted; they gave him a suppository, which, much screaming and wailing later, produced four very full and very foul diapers and a much happier Iyyar. They told me to follow up with an appointment with my regular pediatrician, and sent me home with an extra suppository just in case. They seemed to think the matter resolved and so did I; but less than a day later, we were right back where we'd been with the pain and the wailing. I gave him suppository #2, which worked somewhat. Sunday night, it all started up again, and I wasn't happy about waiting for my Wednesday appointment but circumstances around here (an unexpected trip out of town for my husband) weren't really conducive to my trying to go elsewhere.
Last night at around 9, he started crying, and then the crying escalated to wailing and writhing and howling and the whole nine yards. I called a neighbor who had mentioned sometimes using suppositories on her own kids and asked if I could have one; I used it on Iyyar with no results whatsoever. I tried all my tricks (this is, obviously, after a couple of weeks of the full-on anti-constipation diet, which Barak has been loving--hey, juice! Imma never lets us have apple juice and now we get apple juice and applesauce and raisins and dried apricots ALL THE TIME!), to no avail; the only thing that calmed him down at all was, between around 1 and 2 am, some time on my lap in my office watching Grover clips on YouTube with occasional pauses to cry and strain and try to poop. "I can't! Poop! Hurt me! Hurt me Imma!" It was awful. At around 2 we called the doctor's office for any ideas; she asked why he hadn't been prescribed a laxative or given an enema and I gave the bitter rundown of the ER visit. Sigh.
Fast forward to this morning, far too few hours of sleep later. Barak went to school and I took Iyyar, still unhappy but no longer crying, to the pediatrician. The pediatrician checked him out, prescribed Miralax, and said he wasn't that concerned. "He's not really that impacted. I don't feel anything up there, so let's see what the Miralax does. It's not as though he's been throwing up and..."
"He has been throwing up, actually." Hmm. I'd forgotten to mention that.
"What?" This, apparently, makes a big difference. Now we are scheduled for an upper GI series for Iyyar on Friday morning, with the barium and the rest of it. I'm still not sure exactly what they are looking for--I have been told not to worry yet but this is just about the worst thing to say to me if you really think I shouldn't worry. I told the doctor as much. "If you tell me what you're looking for, I'll know. If you don't, I'll imagine all kinds of catastrophic things, so you might as well just tell me." Congenital anomalies, I have been told, or any kind of a blockage.
In the meantime, I gave him the Miralax and he's had three dirty diapers since. He does seem to feel much better. Here's hoping that this will all turn out to be nothing much and will resolve itself speedily, with no more lasting adverse effects than Avtalyon having figured out that stray sippy cups found on the floor might contain something he now knows he likes very, very, very much.
Doughnuts
Chanuka just ended yesterday and we finished it off in the traditional jelly-filled sugar-topped way, with sufganiot. And it reminded me of a granny story, possibly one of my favorites.
I was sitting in my granny's kitchen watching her fry doughnuts (fank) which were to be filled with homemade apricot jam and eaten warm. If you've never tried this, well... what can I say, you haven't lived. Anyway, there I was in the kitchen, watching this very normal thing (granny frying doughnuts) when suddenly it hit me what I was seeing.
She was turning the doughnuts. In the boiling oil.
With her fingers.
Erm.
It's better in Hungarian, but this is the exchange that followed:
Nagymama, az Neked nem faj? Grandma, doesn't that hurt?
Granny smiles without looking up. Most mar nem. Not anymore.
I was sitting in my granny's kitchen watching her fry doughnuts (fank) which were to be filled with homemade apricot jam and eaten warm. If you've never tried this, well... what can I say, you haven't lived. Anyway, there I was in the kitchen, watching this very normal thing (granny frying doughnuts) when suddenly it hit me what I was seeing.
She was turning the doughnuts. In the boiling oil.
With her fingers.
Erm.
It's better in Hungarian, but this is the exchange that followed:
Nagymama, az Neked nem faj? Grandma, doesn't that hurt?
Granny smiles without looking up. Most mar nem. Not anymore.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Why I don't blog about Israel
Because you can all just read David instead.
He pretty much says what I would say if I knew as much as he does and could put it as clearly.
He pretty much says what I would say if I knew as much as he does and could put it as clearly.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Anybody there?
Hello? Hello?
I'm still here, just otherwise engaged. The kids go to bed, whatever needs to get done around the house gets done (or not) and then when it is a choice between spinning and blogging... well...
I'm still here, just otherwise engaged. The kids go to bed, whatever needs to get done around the house gets done (or not) and then when it is a choice between spinning and blogging... well...
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Quiet
Sorry for the infrequent and badly written posts. It's been busy around here.
Avtalyon is walking more and more; he can now lurch from couch #1 to couch #2 without face-planting. He likes playing peek-a-boo and Barak has fun playing it with him and making him laugh. Personally, I totally don't get why it's so funny, but it's cute, so who cares?
Iyyar still talks like Yoda, but surprises me more and more often with a fully formed offering like, "Imma, put that down!" when I've tipped the jogging stroller up to turn it. He also does an entertaining Hebrew-English patois, in which he demands "doobie one blankie" or "od doggie!"The constipation continues off and on; yesterday I broke out an intended Chanuka present (a Sesame Street sticker book with pictures of Grover) to distract him from his misery before he (finally) pooped. Good thing he likes prunes ("big raisins") or we'd really be in trouble. He no longer eats everything indiscriminately as he once did; he eats the knaidlach out of his chicken soup, leaves the rest untouched, and holds out the bowl demanding "More chichen soup!" That stuff in there? That's not soup. That's just, you know, soup waste. Carrots and whatever.
Barak is getting taller, and will loudly proclaim to everyone that this is because he is EATING HIS VEGETABLES. After said proclamation, he will consume one (1) noodle with one (1) shred of spinach attached. He still seems happy at school, though I have heard other rumblings that all might not be well. My friend up the street told me that her daughter told her that she'd been told by another child "Don't like Barak!" And today he was upset because another child tried to take his cookies and his morah had to intervene. Sigh. It's so hard to know what's normal and what's not, because my own experience was anything but. When is it really appropriate to step in? I keep telling myself that as long as he's happy and loves school I am not going to worry about third party commentary, and will just check in with his morohs monthly or so. Not sure if this is the right thing to do.
For myself, I am very happy with the new wall unit thingie I have back here, bought off of craigslist from someone who had a Curves that went out of business. It's 5' high and 5' across, with 16 cubbies that are 15" deep. Lots of stash fits in there and it now looks like a yarn shop back here. In a good way, of course. I am finally knitting a second sweater for Abba, out of some White Buffalo Unspun I bought from elann some years ago. It's three strands of very fine roving, held together, and I am knitting it on 10s so it's going quite quickly. Of course, very fine totally unspun roving is also incredibly fragile to knit, and I am doing a lot of knitting in the eye of the storm that is three boys aged 4 and under. Oh well. It spit-splices very nicely, and it'll still be warm.
Avtalyon is walking more and more; he can now lurch from couch #1 to couch #2 without face-planting. He likes playing peek-a-boo and Barak has fun playing it with him and making him laugh. Personally, I totally don't get why it's so funny, but it's cute, so who cares?
Iyyar still talks like Yoda, but surprises me more and more often with a fully formed offering like, "Imma, put that down!" when I've tipped the jogging stroller up to turn it. He also does an entertaining Hebrew-English patois, in which he demands "doobie one blankie" or "od doggie!"The constipation continues off and on; yesterday I broke out an intended Chanuka present (a Sesame Street sticker book with pictures of Grover) to distract him from his misery before he (finally) pooped. Good thing he likes prunes ("big raisins") or we'd really be in trouble. He no longer eats everything indiscriminately as he once did; he eats the knaidlach out of his chicken soup, leaves the rest untouched, and holds out the bowl demanding "More chichen soup!" That stuff in there? That's not soup. That's just, you know, soup waste. Carrots and whatever.
Barak is getting taller, and will loudly proclaim to everyone that this is because he is EATING HIS VEGETABLES. After said proclamation, he will consume one (1) noodle with one (1) shred of spinach attached. He still seems happy at school, though I have heard other rumblings that all might not be well. My friend up the street told me that her daughter told her that she'd been told by another child "Don't like Barak!" And today he was upset because another child tried to take his cookies and his morah had to intervene. Sigh. It's so hard to know what's normal and what's not, because my own experience was anything but. When is it really appropriate to step in? I keep telling myself that as long as he's happy and loves school I am not going to worry about third party commentary, and will just check in with his morohs monthly or so. Not sure if this is the right thing to do.
For myself, I am very happy with the new wall unit thingie I have back here, bought off of craigslist from someone who had a Curves that went out of business. It's 5' high and 5' across, with 16 cubbies that are 15" deep. Lots of stash fits in there and it now looks like a yarn shop back here. In a good way, of course. I am finally knitting a second sweater for Abba, out of some White Buffalo Unspun I bought from elann some years ago. It's three strands of very fine roving, held together, and I am knitting it on 10s so it's going quite quickly. Of course, very fine totally unspun roving is also incredibly fragile to knit, and I am doing a lot of knitting in the eye of the storm that is three boys aged 4 and under. Oh well. It spit-splices very nicely, and it'll still be warm.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Baby steps
1. Avtalyon is walking. Seriously. He hit ten months last week and he is now launching himself fearlessly from pieces of furniture, sometimes even making it to the next piece of furniture before crashing to the floor. I've seen him do three steps at a time. He also stands and sits easily in the middle of the room, without anything to grab onto, and can stand unassisted for as long as he wants. Incredible, especially around here. Other milestones: first pizza (this morning), first cookie (yesterday--I was doing some creative homeschooling with aleph-beis cookies and he got in on the action) and 1000th bowl of chicken soup. I know that technically there is probably very little wrong with a baby living off breastmilk, Cheerios and chicken soup vegetables but it's probably unusual.
2. Iyyar thinks that he can fit into a size 3 diaper. He is mistaken.
I don't think that I have mentioned here that Iyyar is very, very fond of Grover. He knows about Grover because the Pampers I buy for nighttime have Sesame Street characters on them, and he always digs through the drawer to get those out first. The predictable result of this, of course, is that he runs out of Grover diapers--while Avtalyon still has plenty of Grovers. In size 3.
Iyyar is still in love with the Grover doll I succumbed to in the Newark airport a couple of weeks ago. He carries it around the house with him and takes it to bed every night. And whenever you find Grover for him, he gives you a big smile. It's sweet.
3. The huge box is still in our living room. I saw it while walking through our back alley with Sarah last week: a great big dryer box being unloaded from a truck behind the building next door. I asked the man doing the unloading if it had staples and he said no, it was glued; I asked if we could have it and he said sure. It spent a few days as a dragon cave and is now a pirate ship. I told the kids they could have it till Chanuka--not sure what, if anything, will be left of it by then.
2. Iyyar thinks that he can fit into a size 3 diaper. He is mistaken.
I don't think that I have mentioned here that Iyyar is very, very fond of Grover. He knows about Grover because the Pampers I buy for nighttime have Sesame Street characters on them, and he always digs through the drawer to get those out first. The predictable result of this, of course, is that he runs out of Grover diapers--while Avtalyon still has plenty of Grovers. In size 3.
Iyyar is still in love with the Grover doll I succumbed to in the Newark airport a couple of weeks ago. He carries it around the house with him and takes it to bed every night. And whenever you find Grover for him, he gives you a big smile. It's sweet.
3. The huge box is still in our living room. I saw it while walking through our back alley with Sarah last week: a great big dryer box being unloaded from a truck behind the building next door. I asked the man doing the unloading if it had staples and he said no, it was glued; I asked if we could have it and he said sure. It spent a few days as a dragon cave and is now a pirate ship. I told the kids they could have it till Chanuka--not sure what, if anything, will be left of it by then.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
More updates
Sarah was here! She came, she brought much gorgeousness (including, among other things, a quilt for Avtalyon, which I will photograph when I have some light), and she even stayed an extra day because she just couldn't bear to leave us. Many latkes were eaten and much knitting was accomplished. It was my designated weekend to finish Things in Bags, and so I did:
Celtic Dreams, which I started more than ten years ago now and stuffed in a bag minus a sleeve and 3/4 in December of 1998. I sent it to Sarah sometime last year, and she arrived with it complete but for the cuffs, which I did before she left. The whole thing, blocked and fitting perfectly, despite the intervening 10 years and (mumble mumble) pounds:
I also finished these, which have been minus the top two inches of one mitten since the week before Barak was born, when my hands swelled so much I couldn't hold size 1 needles:
They're made of Dale of Norway Tiur, now sadly discontinued, and Koigu.
And I finished a pair of pink and white mittens, which I didn't photograph before I gave them to Sarah.
The visit was great--just what I needed. We sneaked out to knit at Borders, stayed up way too late, ate cookies and takeout, hung out with the kids and just generally did knitterly things. You know you have a good houseguest when she not only is unfazed by a geyser of toddler vomit, she even cleans it off the rug for you while you're busy de-vomiting the toddler. She was quite tolerant of all the discussion of poop, too. And all this with a bathroom that lacked towels and soap until about twelve hours before she left.
There is much that I could blog about the visit, but you'll have to excuse me if I don't. I have some knitting to do.
Celtic Dreams, which I started more than ten years ago now and stuffed in a bag minus a sleeve and 3/4 in December of 1998. I sent it to Sarah sometime last year, and she arrived with it complete but for the cuffs, which I did before she left. The whole thing, blocked and fitting perfectly, despite the intervening 10 years and (mumble mumble) pounds:
I also finished these, which have been minus the top two inches of one mitten since the week before Barak was born, when my hands swelled so much I couldn't hold size 1 needles:
They're made of Dale of Norway Tiur, now sadly discontinued, and Koigu.And I finished a pair of pink and white mittens, which I didn't photograph before I gave them to Sarah.
The visit was great--just what I needed. We sneaked out to knit at Borders, stayed up way too late, ate cookies and takeout, hung out with the kids and just generally did knitterly things. You know you have a good houseguest when she not only is unfazed by a geyser of toddler vomit, she even cleans it off the rug for you while you're busy de-vomiting the toddler. She was quite tolerant of all the discussion of poop, too. And all this with a bathroom that lacked towels and soap until about twelve hours before she left.
There is much that I could blog about the visit, but you'll have to excuse me if I don't. I have some knitting to do.
What I've been up to
Spinning and more spinning. The skeins on the far left and far right are spun from fiber contributions from Grandma E; the orange, yellow, pink, and purple skein second to right is from the roving Harmless gave me when I saw her in Newark two weeks ago now.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Drained
I had Barak's first parent-teacher conference this week. Last week, when I was in New York, my friend Naomi tried to warn me. "Every time I walk in there, the teacher sits there and tells me about a kid I've never met or heard of."
Yeah. Well.
Apparently Barak's morohs are not so pleased with him. There are two. One was only moderately negative. The other one told me, "He doesn't finish his projects," in the same doom-laden tone of voice in which she told me he was hitting the other children and they were afraid of him.
???!!!
First off, this is Barak. It's really, really hard for me to picture that. But I know that some kids are polar opposites behavior-wise at home and at school, so it's always possible. But... what? If he's been hitting kids, why has no one called me over the last three months?
The meeting was strange. It was supposed to be ten minutes, which is not enough to begin with, and I got less because the people who came before me were late and ran over but the people after me walked right in at their scheduled time. It was also strange because I had the vague impression that they weren't sure who Barak was--an impression strengthened when one of the teachers, when I asked a specific question, turned to the other, saying, "I don't know him that well." Um... hello, you should.
It wasn't malicious, she said, or at least she didn't think it was malicious. He's very deep, she said, and very bright and creative, and he likes pirates, and he's been pretending to be a pirate, and some of the other children have been scared. And one of them said that he hit her.
At the end of the meeting, I managed to overcome my shock and paralysis enough to ask some rational questions, among them, "How serious of an issue is this? I am not getting a clear picture of how concerned I need to be and what I should be doing. "
The response: "Well, we're observing him. "
Which means... what, exactly?
I walked out of the classroom and directly into the office of the early childhood director, where I said, nicely, that this would not do: either there was a real problem, in which case telling me about it for the first time three months into the year in a 10-minute meeting with no warning was inadequate, or the problem was not that big of a deal, in which case that was not a meeting well handled. She was more reassuring, saying that it was only November, they did not expect or want perfection from small children, and that if I felt there was not enough communication I could call any time.
It's hard to know what to do with all of this. His actual progress report did not look that devastating; it was more their tone of voice, facial expressions, body language etc. I know that Barak is a little bit funky and a little bit different. I know that he has a vocabulary that is not normal for his age (his teachers both agreed that he was very bright...) and interests that are probably a little unusual in your typical chareidi school. (Gilbert & Sullivan, chaveiros?) But to me he seems like your normal four-year-old kid who likes trucks, Lego, cookies and Sesame Street. He is downright solicitous of Avtalyon, and plays nicely with Iyyar about 85% of the time. The problems that I see at home--his tendency to scream when frustrated, his constant need for attention--were not even whispered of. And in the end, he loves school, he says that he has lots of friends, and he loves his teachers. When I see him play with other kids, he seems to do just fine.
Like I said. Hard to know. MHH called the early childhood director yesterday and left a message saying he wanted to go over Barak's progress with her; he's going to ask the specific questions that I was too shocked to ask, as in, "Has he been seen hitting anyone, or was it reported by other kids?" and "How are his interactions with the other kids generally--does he have friends?"and "Where do we go from here?" One of my concerns especially is that I have heard stories about all kinds of things getting sprung on parents in nursery--from the kid who got kicked out for hitting (whose mother knew nothing about any problem until, you guessed it, parent-teacher conferences) to the kid who was kept back a year for not knowing aleph-beis, whose mother had no idea there was an issue until March. Communication: not their strong suit.
If I'd had a happy experience in school, maybe I could handle this in stride and see it as normal behavior for a 4-yo boy. But I didn't. I got eaten alive, socially and emotionally, and my dread of seeing that happen to Barak is, well, intense. And up until now all I saw was a happy well-adjusted kid, the same happy well-adjusted kid who was reported to me all last year. So maybe... maybe what? Maybe he's changed? Maybe the environment has changed? Or maybe his teachers are just a little bit freaked out by scary scary pirates?
Yeah. Well.
Apparently Barak's morohs are not so pleased with him. There are two. One was only moderately negative. The other one told me, "He doesn't finish his projects," in the same doom-laden tone of voice in which she told me he was hitting the other children and they were afraid of him.
???!!!
First off, this is Barak. It's really, really hard for me to picture that. But I know that some kids are polar opposites behavior-wise at home and at school, so it's always possible. But... what? If he's been hitting kids, why has no one called me over the last three months?
The meeting was strange. It was supposed to be ten minutes, which is not enough to begin with, and I got less because the people who came before me were late and ran over but the people after me walked right in at their scheduled time. It was also strange because I had the vague impression that they weren't sure who Barak was--an impression strengthened when one of the teachers, when I asked a specific question, turned to the other, saying, "I don't know him that well." Um... hello, you should.
It wasn't malicious, she said, or at least she didn't think it was malicious. He's very deep, she said, and very bright and creative, and he likes pirates, and he's been pretending to be a pirate, and some of the other children have been scared. And one of them said that he hit her.
At the end of the meeting, I managed to overcome my shock and paralysis enough to ask some rational questions, among them, "How serious of an issue is this? I am not getting a clear picture of how concerned I need to be and what I should be doing. "
The response: "Well, we're observing him. "
Which means... what, exactly?
I walked out of the classroom and directly into the office of the early childhood director, where I said, nicely, that this would not do: either there was a real problem, in which case telling me about it for the first time three months into the year in a 10-minute meeting with no warning was inadequate, or the problem was not that big of a deal, in which case that was not a meeting well handled. She was more reassuring, saying that it was only November, they did not expect or want perfection from small children, and that if I felt there was not enough communication I could call any time.
It's hard to know what to do with all of this. His actual progress report did not look that devastating; it was more their tone of voice, facial expressions, body language etc. I know that Barak is a little bit funky and a little bit different. I know that he has a vocabulary that is not normal for his age (his teachers both agreed that he was very bright...) and interests that are probably a little unusual in your typical chareidi school. (Gilbert & Sullivan, chaveiros?) But to me he seems like your normal four-year-old kid who likes trucks, Lego, cookies and Sesame Street. He is downright solicitous of Avtalyon, and plays nicely with Iyyar about 85% of the time. The problems that I see at home--his tendency to scream when frustrated, his constant need for attention--were not even whispered of. And in the end, he loves school, he says that he has lots of friends, and he loves his teachers. When I see him play with other kids, he seems to do just fine.
Like I said. Hard to know. MHH called the early childhood director yesterday and left a message saying he wanted to go over Barak's progress with her; he's going to ask the specific questions that I was too shocked to ask, as in, "Has he been seen hitting anyone, or was it reported by other kids?" and "How are his interactions with the other kids generally--does he have friends?"and "Where do we go from here?" One of my concerns especially is that I have heard stories about all kinds of things getting sprung on parents in nursery--from the kid who got kicked out for hitting (whose mother knew nothing about any problem until, you guessed it, parent-teacher conferences) to the kid who was kept back a year for not knowing aleph-beis, whose mother had no idea there was an issue until March. Communication: not their strong suit.
If I'd had a happy experience in school, maybe I could handle this in stride and see it as normal behavior for a 4-yo boy. But I didn't. I got eaten alive, socially and emotionally, and my dread of seeing that happen to Barak is, well, intense. And up until now all I saw was a happy well-adjusted kid, the same happy well-adjusted kid who was reported to me all last year. So maybe... maybe what? Maybe he's changed? Maybe the environment has changed? Or maybe his teachers are just a little bit freaked out by scary scary pirates?
Saturday, November 22, 2008
B'kitzur
It's been a while, and there's been a lot to post about--nothing big, just a lot of little stuff. Sorry it's not fabulously written, but it's motzai Shabbos and I got me some spinning to do.
1. The pirates obsession continues. A few weeks ago--I didn't blog about this but should have--I took Barak to see a local production of Pirates of Penzance. It was fabulous. The production itself, considering the unpromising venue (local middle school!) was surprisingly good; the cast were better singers than actors, but much better that than the other way around. The orchestra, with the exception of the guy on drums during the first act (who got replaced somewhere around the time Frederick meets Mabel--wonder what the story was there), was really good too.
Barak really had no idea what to expect, having, obviously, never been to the theater before. When we got there, a few minutes early, and settled in our seats, the orchestra was busy tuning up, and Barak noticed snatches of a few of his pirate songs. We talked about how the orchestra was going to play more pirate songs, and I pointed out some of the instruments, and Barak and I confirmed that yes, we were here to see pirates and also to hear the pirate songs. The lights went down, the overture started, and Barak was totally rapt watching the orchestra--and oblivious to the closed curtain behind it, which meant nothing to him.
The overture over, the orchestra stopped playing for a moment, and Barak looked back at me, clearly wondering if we were leaving--and then the curtain rose, the pirates leapt onto the stage, and he just about jumped out of his skin. It was fabulous. We were in the front row of the balcony, and he could stand up if he wanted to without bothering anyone, so he did, some of the time; he was rapt for the entire first act, and when intermission came around he was unwilling to leave, because what if he missed the rest of it? (We didn't.) He was so wrapped up in the show that he did not even comment on the concession stand, which, for my sugar-obsessed son, is saying something. In short, he behaved beautifully, and the row of retired ladies behind us said so. "I've never seen any child behave as well as your son did! Not even much bigger children." And then he got his own round of applause of behaving so nicely. :)
Further to the pirates: he and Iyyar have lately been going to bed every night listening to the Pirates CD, which means, naturally, that Barak now knows a lot of the words, or at least thinks he does. ("And pay a manky monious part, with a pirated and a pirate heart!") Naturally, he asks me what they mean. Have you ever tried to explain something like, "When I can write a washing-list in Babylonic cuneiform" to a four-year-old? Or even, "We observe too great a stress/on the risks that on us press/and of reference a lack/to our chance of coming back"? Or how about, "For when threatened with emeutes/and your heart is in your boots/there is nothing brings it round/like the trumpet's martial sound"? We tried that one this week.
"What does it mean, Imma?"
"Well, are the policemen really brave, or are they really scared?"
"They're really scared."
"Do they want to fight the pirates, or do they want to go home and take a nap and eat some cookies?"
"Probably go home and eat some cookies." [He omitted the reference to the nap, funnily enough.]
"They're singing about how they don't really want to fight the pirates, but how singing about it makes them feel not so scared."
"Oh."
2. Avtalyon had his first non-Cheerio cereal today: Rice Chex. He approved.
3. He also cut tooth #2. Ouch, for both of us--he keeps wanting to chew my finger. He's been standing unassisted for longer and longer stretches, and cruising around expertly on the furniture--he's also coopted the garbage can into service as a walker, and uses it to hobble along up and down the hall. He looks like a tiny old man, only much cuter.
4. Avtalyon and I had a little adventure last week; we, just the two of us, flew to Newark on Thursday morning for a chasuna in Spring Valley on Thursday night. By happy coincidence, my good friend Harmless had the afternoon off and came to pick us up at the airport, accompany us on a Century 21 run for a tights-drawer resupply (DKNY opaque black, all the way), and drive with us all the way to Paterson because it did not occur to me to find out what number on Main Avenue in Passaic we were going to, and so we drove all the way the wrong way down it, as in, all the way to Paterson. Oh dear.
Fortunately, Harmless is also Patient, and also fortunately, the price of gas has gone down considerably in recent weeks. One google maps text message and one quick meal of kosher Chinese takeout later, and Avtalyon was released from the cruel baby jail (carseat! wicked, evil carseat!) to which he had been confined for much of the day; I stayed with a friend whose many kids kept Avtalyon entertained while I got dressed in my de rigeur New York wedding black suit, and then abandoned Avtalyon to the care of said kids as we (friend and I) went off to the wedding. I will admit to second (and even thirty-seventh) thoughts as I walked out of a house containing my precious baby, a bunch of little kids without medical degrees, and a responsible party aged 14, but I came home to a happy, sleeping baby in clean pajamas, so it was all good. The wedding was lovely. We made it back in time for Shabbos. And now I have new wool to spin, courtesy of Harmless. :) Because, you know, I totally don't have enough wool.
5. Iyyar has, inexplicably, been having a really rough time sleeping for the last few weeks. He's been waking up screaming and inconsolable multiple times in the night, either wanting to be held or not wanting anything identifiable but rolling around on the floor hysterical and writhing. Every night, I'd think, "he's sick, I'll need to take him to the doctor" and then the next morning he would be totally fine, except for being so tired that by early afternoon he turned into a miserable wreck. I thought it was nightmares, but couldn't think of what could have set them off; I called his morah (my friend Yehudis) to ask if there was anything going on at school that I didn't know about, but no.
"Maybe he has pinworms?"
Pinworms? WHAT?! I haven't seen any pinworms.
"They come out at night. Take off his diaper and shine a flashlight on his bottom. They look like little white hairs." This was last Wednesday night. Considerately, Iyyar started wailing just a few minutes after that conversation, so I went in there with a mag-lite to change his diaper. I took off the diaper, shined the light on his tush and OH MY G_D ARE THOSE LITTLE WHITE HAIRS ACTUALLY WORMS?! I wiped at them with a wipe--and the hairs were gone. It was all I could do to not start jumping around and screaming then and there because it was SO GROSS. If you don't know about pinworms, count yourself lucky. Or click here. Go on. I dare you.
I was leaving for New Jersey the next morning and couldn't take him to the doctor, so I asked Yehudis what she'd done when her son had had pinworms. And she'd covered a clove of garlic with vaseline and stuck it up his rectum to kill them. "It works!" she told me, as I tried not to gag. After some consultation with Dr. Google, I decided for the middle ground of a) feeding child lots of garlic, b) smearing tush with vaseline and c) putting a couple of crushed garlic cloves in his diaper. The next day, we had a few huge and disgusting diapers; last night, Iyyar slept through the night for the first time in weeks. It seems to have worked.
But boy, does the house reek.
6. I went to the dentist on Tuesday. All hail fluoride rinse; no cavities, no bleeding, and the whole thing was practically painless. Seriously. Brush and floss, people, and get yourselves a bottle of ACT if you don't have one already. It's disgusting, but you get used to it.
7. This post is now long enough, but I will leave you with this:
Avtalyon in his elf suit, courtesy of Tanta Cecilia. If elves hung out in baby swings, that's totally what they'd wear to do it in.
1. The pirates obsession continues. A few weeks ago--I didn't blog about this but should have--I took Barak to see a local production of Pirates of Penzance. It was fabulous. The production itself, considering the unpromising venue (local middle school!) was surprisingly good; the cast were better singers than actors, but much better that than the other way around. The orchestra, with the exception of the guy on drums during the first act (who got replaced somewhere around the time Frederick meets Mabel--wonder what the story was there), was really good too.
Barak really had no idea what to expect, having, obviously, never been to the theater before. When we got there, a few minutes early, and settled in our seats, the orchestra was busy tuning up, and Barak noticed snatches of a few of his pirate songs. We talked about how the orchestra was going to play more pirate songs, and I pointed out some of the instruments, and Barak and I confirmed that yes, we were here to see pirates and also to hear the pirate songs. The lights went down, the overture started, and Barak was totally rapt watching the orchestra--and oblivious to the closed curtain behind it, which meant nothing to him.
The overture over, the orchestra stopped playing for a moment, and Barak looked back at me, clearly wondering if we were leaving--and then the curtain rose, the pirates leapt onto the stage, and he just about jumped out of his skin. It was fabulous. We were in the front row of the balcony, and he could stand up if he wanted to without bothering anyone, so he did, some of the time; he was rapt for the entire first act, and when intermission came around he was unwilling to leave, because what if he missed the rest of it? (We didn't.) He was so wrapped up in the show that he did not even comment on the concession stand, which, for my sugar-obsessed son, is saying something. In short, he behaved beautifully, and the row of retired ladies behind us said so. "I've never seen any child behave as well as your son did! Not even much bigger children." And then he got his own round of applause of behaving so nicely. :)
Further to the pirates: he and Iyyar have lately been going to bed every night listening to the Pirates CD, which means, naturally, that Barak now knows a lot of the words, or at least thinks he does. ("And pay a manky monious part, with a pirated and a pirate heart!") Naturally, he asks me what they mean. Have you ever tried to explain something like, "When I can write a washing-list in Babylonic cuneiform" to a four-year-old? Or even, "We observe too great a stress/on the risks that on us press/and of reference a lack/to our chance of coming back"? Or how about, "For when threatened with emeutes/and your heart is in your boots/there is nothing brings it round/like the trumpet's martial sound"? We tried that one this week.
"What does it mean, Imma?"
"Well, are the policemen really brave, or are they really scared?"
"They're really scared."
"Do they want to fight the pirates, or do they want to go home and take a nap and eat some cookies?"
"Probably go home and eat some cookies." [He omitted the reference to the nap, funnily enough.]
"They're singing about how they don't really want to fight the pirates, but how singing about it makes them feel not so scared."
"Oh."
2. Avtalyon had his first non-Cheerio cereal today: Rice Chex. He approved.
3. He also cut tooth #2. Ouch, for both of us--he keeps wanting to chew my finger. He's been standing unassisted for longer and longer stretches, and cruising around expertly on the furniture--he's also coopted the garbage can into service as a walker, and uses it to hobble along up and down the hall. He looks like a tiny old man, only much cuter.
4. Avtalyon and I had a little adventure last week; we, just the two of us, flew to Newark on Thursday morning for a chasuna in Spring Valley on Thursday night. By happy coincidence, my good friend Harmless had the afternoon off and came to pick us up at the airport, accompany us on a Century 21 run for a tights-drawer resupply (DKNY opaque black, all the way), and drive with us all the way to Paterson because it did not occur to me to find out what number on Main Avenue in Passaic we were going to, and so we drove all the way the wrong way down it, as in, all the way to Paterson. Oh dear.
Fortunately, Harmless is also Patient, and also fortunately, the price of gas has gone down considerably in recent weeks. One google maps text message and one quick meal of kosher Chinese takeout later, and Avtalyon was released from the cruel baby jail (carseat! wicked, evil carseat!) to which he had been confined for much of the day; I stayed with a friend whose many kids kept Avtalyon entertained while I got dressed in my de rigeur New York wedding black suit, and then abandoned Avtalyon to the care of said kids as we (friend and I) went off to the wedding. I will admit to second (and even thirty-seventh) thoughts as I walked out of a house containing my precious baby, a bunch of little kids without medical degrees, and a responsible party aged 14, but I came home to a happy, sleeping baby in clean pajamas, so it was all good. The wedding was lovely. We made it back in time for Shabbos. And now I have new wool to spin, courtesy of Harmless. :) Because, you know, I totally don't have enough wool.
5. Iyyar has, inexplicably, been having a really rough time sleeping for the last few weeks. He's been waking up screaming and inconsolable multiple times in the night, either wanting to be held or not wanting anything identifiable but rolling around on the floor hysterical and writhing. Every night, I'd think, "he's sick, I'll need to take him to the doctor" and then the next morning he would be totally fine, except for being so tired that by early afternoon he turned into a miserable wreck. I thought it was nightmares, but couldn't think of what could have set them off; I called his morah (my friend Yehudis) to ask if there was anything going on at school that I didn't know about, but no.
"Maybe he has pinworms?"
Pinworms? WHAT?! I haven't seen any pinworms.
"They come out at night. Take off his diaper and shine a flashlight on his bottom. They look like little white hairs." This was last Wednesday night. Considerately, Iyyar started wailing just a few minutes after that conversation, so I went in there with a mag-lite to change his diaper. I took off the diaper, shined the light on his tush and OH MY G_D ARE THOSE LITTLE WHITE HAIRS ACTUALLY WORMS?! I wiped at them with a wipe--and the hairs were gone. It was all I could do to not start jumping around and screaming then and there because it was SO GROSS. If you don't know about pinworms, count yourself lucky. Or click here. Go on. I dare you.
I was leaving for New Jersey the next morning and couldn't take him to the doctor, so I asked Yehudis what she'd done when her son had had pinworms. And she'd covered a clove of garlic with vaseline and stuck it up his rectum to kill them. "It works!" she told me, as I tried not to gag. After some consultation with Dr. Google, I decided for the middle ground of a) feeding child lots of garlic, b) smearing tush with vaseline and c) putting a couple of crushed garlic cloves in his diaper. The next day, we had a few huge and disgusting diapers; last night, Iyyar slept through the night for the first time in weeks. It seems to have worked.
But boy, does the house reek.
6. I went to the dentist on Tuesday. All hail fluoride rinse; no cavities, no bleeding, and the whole thing was practically painless. Seriously. Brush and floss, people, and get yourselves a bottle of ACT if you don't have one already. It's disgusting, but you get used to it.
7. This post is now long enough, but I will leave you with this:
Avtalyon in his elf suit, courtesy of Tanta Cecilia. If elves hung out in baby swings, that's totally what they'd wear to do it in.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Monday, November 03, 2008
Click this link right now
I can't believe I didn't know about this already.
Edited two hours later:
How, how, HOW is it possible that I have not a single ball of black worsted-weight superwash in my entire stash? My entire stash which one might, if one were to be absolutely honest, fairly describe as, ah, extensive? The ONLY black superwash in the entire house is half a 50g ball of Dale Baby Ullgarn--enough yarn for a hat for a newborn. A premature newborn.
Gah!
I can pick up a ball tomorrow at the LYS by my office for Hat #1--for the rest (and there will be more) I'll have to wait for a delivery from cheap wool yarn central.
Edited two hours later:
How, how, HOW is it possible that I have not a single ball of black worsted-weight superwash in my entire stash? My entire stash which one might, if one were to be absolutely honest, fairly describe as, ah, extensive? The ONLY black superwash in the entire house is half a 50g ball of Dale Baby Ullgarn--enough yarn for a hat for a newborn. A premature newborn.
Gah!
I can pick up a ball tomorrow at the LYS by my office for Hat #1--for the rest (and there will be more) I'll have to wait for a delivery from cheap wool yarn central.
Updated
The current sock yarn stash.
If it's missing from the old sock yarn stash, it's probably been knitted. Because, even though I feel like I've been whining nonstop about not having any time to knit, I cannot deny the mysterious appearance of a finished object or six.
Like these. The largest gloves ever, knit for a friend with very, very, very big hands. I started them last August. Look at the tracing for scale. Now try putting YOUR hand on a sheet of 8 x 11 paper and see how much of the paper your hand doesn't cover.
And this: a Cobblestone modified to require as few purls as possible. See that line up the yoke? That's where I wrapped and turned at the beginning and end of each row/round, because the idea of having to purl to achieve garter stitch--garter stitch!--was just too much to bear. Begun before we went to Israel; finished a couple of weeks ago. Back in the day, I could have done it in less than a week, but, well, I have other things going on now. No idea why Blogger insists on turning the picture sideways; that's not the way it is on my computer and I have no idea how to make Blogger rotate it.
What's next? Mmm, well, maybe some of this...
If it's missing from the old sock yarn stash, it's probably been knitted. Because, even though I feel like I've been whining nonstop about not having any time to knit, I cannot deny the mysterious appearance of a finished object or six.
Like these. The largest gloves ever, knit for a friend with very, very, very big hands. I started them last August. Look at the tracing for scale. Now try putting YOUR hand on a sheet of 8 x 11 paper and see how much of the paper your hand doesn't cover.
And this: a Cobblestone modified to require as few purls as possible. See that line up the yoke? That's where I wrapped and turned at the beginning and end of each row/round, because the idea of having to purl to achieve garter stitch--garter stitch!--was just too much to bear. Begun before we went to Israel; finished a couple of weeks ago. Back in the day, I could have done it in less than a week, but, well, I have other things going on now. No idea why Blogger insists on turning the picture sideways; that's not the way it is on my computer and I have no idea how to make Blogger rotate it.
What's next? Mmm, well, maybe some of this...
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Why, what's this?
You mean, it's not obvious?
It's what happens when you ask your four-year-old son what kind of a vest he wants you to knit, thinking he'll say "blue" or "red" or maybe "with a green stripe."
Yeah, well. Maybe other kids say that. My kid is the son of a knitter. He aims a little higher.
He asked for a vest with a fire-breathing dragon.
What could I say? I knit him one.
I don't usually pass on tzedaka requests
But there's a first time for everything.
Fourteen-year-old survivor of the Mercaz HaRav (where, by the way, we would be happy to be zoche to send any of our sons) massacre needs surgery in the US to put his insides back together so that he can do things like eat and go to the bathroom. The family is from Sderot. The kupat cholim (insurance) is not covering it on the grounds that it could be done in Israel; his parents feel that he should have it done by specialists, and the specialists are in the US. If it were my kid, I would feel exactly the same way.
Full story, and address for donations, here.
Fourteen-year-old survivor of the Mercaz HaRav (where, by the way, we would be happy to be zoche to send any of our sons) massacre needs surgery in the US to put his insides back together so that he can do things like eat and go to the bathroom. The family is from Sderot. The kupat cholim (insurance) is not covering it on the grounds that it could be done in Israel; his parents feel that he should have it done by specialists, and the specialists are in the US. If it were my kid, I would feel exactly the same way.
Full story, and address for donations, here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)