One May Be The Loneliest Number

A friend, referring to her son and his age, once said, "One, two and three SUCK but four, well, four, it doesn't suck so much. You just have to make it to four." I have to tell you, I didn't think one really sucked and so I wasn't concerned about what was coming down the pike. At one LB slept thru the night and spent the days playing, eating, giggling and being, generally, delightful. Sure she was spirited, but rarely did I think about selling her on the black market. I figured the dreaded two and three was more of a boy thing and was content with life. Then one and a half rolled around and the suck started to happen. Little did I know, one and half, one and a half didn't have jack shit on two. Two is the pits. Two is an asshole.

Two takes its favorite book and rips out the pages because the ripping noise is neat.

If you tell two to stop doing something and indicate that a failure to stop will result in a time out on the naughty step, two will do the something and then walk itself over to the naughty step with a smile on its face.

Two wants a granola bar but not that granola bar the other one no youtoucheditAHHHHH.

If two was a frat boy, he'd come to your house, drunk, pee on the floor next to your toilet, eat your cheetos, throw them up on your pillow, cop a feel on your mom and then brag about the whole damn thing on his Facebook page.

Two asks for a brownie and whines for hours until you give in. Once two gets the brownie, it takes one bite and then crumples the rest in its little fist and throws it at you.

Two will only wear a diaper if Zoe is on it.

Two cleans up all of its toys. Yes. It cleans up all of its toys and then, as you are about to walk out the door, finds the largest bin of toys and dumps it all over the floor so that it will take another ten minutes to clean up the crap and you will be late.

If two was Viagra, it wouldn't give you an erection. No. Instead it'd give you severe allergic reactions, chest pain, fainting, fast or irregular heartbeat, memory loss, numbness of an arm or leg, ringing in the ears, seizure and sudden decrease or loss of hearing or loss of vision in one or both eyes.

Two cries. And whines. At the same time. A lot. For no reason. For some reason you don't know. For some reason it doesn't know. For some reason only the dog knows.

Two only wants french fries and chicken nuggets. Unless you are out with other people. Then two wants anything but french fries and chicken nuggets and the thing that you ordered it. In fact, two often wants to not eat. Ever. Just to see if you would really go to jail for failure to feed it.

Two wakes up screaming in the middle of the night as if it is on fire because it needs you to reach the six millimeters below its hand to get the blanket.

If two has to put a toy away and does not want to, well, it would rather (and somewhat gleefully) take that favorite toy and throw it in the garbage than put it away. And then, with a smile, two will tell daddy all about how it threw away its favorite ball instead of putting it away like mommy asked.

Two, two is birth control. If we want to stop teen pregnancy, we merely need to lock up a bunch of teens with a bunch of two year olds. If any of the teens survive, I guarantee it won't be to go and have unprotected sex.

Small Things

For the last month(ish) I have been in a super, duper, sour-puss mood. I am grumpy and surly and negative. I am easy to anger and basically no fun to be around. I hear myself and my nastiness and yet I can't stop it from spewing forth. Delightful, eh? I suspect, or at least I hope, a lot of this is from not sleeping well since my kids have conspired to have me up every hour or so to help with those oh so meaningful middle of the night tasks like blanket unwrinkling or binky retrieval. I am tired of being a grump and am kind of sick of myself. Nonetheless, I haven't been able to stem my tide of vitriol. Last night, however, both midgets managed to spend the entire night asleep and without need for assistance and I am using that as my impetus to turn things around. Or at least try. Granted, I am so not Miss Mary Sunshine to begin with but at least I can fake it. And, in my first attempt at faking joviality, I am going to list one good thing that makes me happy ... vacuum lines in the carpet. Okay, so maybe that is lame. But honestly, there is something about seeing fresh vacuum lines in my carpet that makes me feel a little better about the world.

Six Random Things

1) I like silly bandz. I bought some on a lark for LB and decided to give her one when she did something good on her own and without my pleading. On a good day she would end up with five or six of them which, at the end of the day, I would take back so that I could start again on the next day. This worked out until she started breaking and losing them and I kind of decided that I liked them. Now we are running out and I don't have enough for her or for me. Which makes me sad. Yes, I am sad because I only have a few of my two year daughter's animal shaped rubber bands left to wear on my wrist. Can you say loser?

2) I have a kitchen in my garage. Well not a functioning one. And, not one with appliances. Fine, I have a bunch of kitchen cabinets and some granite counter tops in my garage. Some how when everything was stored, the island was stored properly, which is to say it is a functioning island with cabinets and a top. A functioning island that now has two days worth of mail and six bottles of soda sitting on it. My point: an island is rather useful in the garage.

3) I have reknit my short-row heel and made it larger. I like it enough that I have started the second heel.

4) I have also started a garden. I PLANTED STUFF IN THE GROUND. WHERE BUGS LIVE. Mind you the majority of my garden consists of herbs in containers. But still, there are some chives, basil, parsley and oregano IN THE BUG FILLED GROUND.

5) TD seems to have mastered the art of sitting up. Mere hours after we were at her pediatrician's and I stated that she in fact could not sit up for squat. Note I also stated she couldn't eat food. She made sure I knew this statement was one hundred percent true as she took her first ever bite of banana, spit it out, and then projectile vomited on me. A lot.

6) There are twenty-one episodes of Law and Order in my DVR. Every single one of them is from 1994 or earlier and has Michael Moriarty as the prosecutor. I watched those shows when they were first shown and thought they were great. Now I watch them and think they are great, yet dated. Stuff from my teenage years feels dated. HOLY FUCK.

Vexed

Still working on my socks and I feel as if my short row heel is ... too short?


It just feels small and I don't like it which means I need to rip it out and do it over. Of course, I won't have hotty hot hot Tom Selleck as Jesse Stone to watch and get me through which is a total bummer.

Also a bummer? Revlon Cherry Pop nail polish. Painted the nails yesterday afternoon and woke to small chips this morning. Shame on you Revlon!

Pretty

Happy Mother's Day!

Motoring Along

Still knitting STOP Almost have a pair of socks STOP


Okay not entirely true STOP Almost have half a pair of socks STOP And, as always, liked the verigated yarn in the hank and in the ball but not so much when knitted up STOP When will I learn STOP

Banal

Oh dear blog, how I have neglected thee. Even this post which was suppose to get the ball rolling has been sitting in the draft folder since March 5! Which is why this recap feels dated and stale. Nonetheless, I took the time to upload the pictures so I might as well post it right? Right. Though why I didn't post back in March ... ???

Taking care of sick kids and eating bonbons doesn't make for interesting blogging, soooo. Yah. I can recap the last several months as follows:

One kid sick, other kid healthy. Both kids sick, parents healthy. One kid sick, one parent sick, one kid healthy, one parent healthy. Wash, rinse, agitate and repeat. We can't seem to get everyone healthy at once and it is making me twitch. Our sickness peaked with RSV bronchiolitis which pitched TD into the land of breathing treatments.


Not all of the last few months have been woe. At one point we were all healthy enough to go to the local aquarium which was awesomely fun. I snapped this photo of LB. I LOVE IT. She is like a disgruntled street urchin.


I failed super spectacularly at my Knitting Olympics project. If I was an ice skater, I would have taken to the rink wearing no skates. If I was a skier, I would have gone down backwards, and on my hands. What I am saying is that I did not even complete one piece. Nope. Not a single one. Part of that was because I forgot I was suppose to knit on it. Part was because LB decide to unknit a bit of what I had knit. And part was because TD was very, very sick. Since the Knitting Olympics I have picked up the sweater once. To fix with LB undid.

Speaking of failure, my car repair? Failure. I had a rental for over two months. In fact, driving a second rental as I had the first rental so long they up and sold it out from underneath me. When I finally got my car back from the shop, I also got an $800 rental bill because apparently the insurance company and the repair shop were at odds. Weeks later and it is still not resolved.

The mouse problem seems resolved. We hired a company with a cutesy name and it sent a man out who foamed up our holes and poisoned the ever-loving crap out of those unfortunate interlopers who got sealed in. Then he came back a few days later and took away said (dead) interlopers and left us in mouseless bliss. There is a six month warranty which means that in July (seven months from our service date, which is one month past the warranty) you will hear me start to complain about mice reappearing.

One mouse up and died in the middle of the second one-week post-poison wait. Somewhere in the vicinity of my yarn. In exchange for my offer to perform acts illegal in some states, my husband agreed to go through all of my yarn to look for the dead mouse. Hours later it was discovered that the mouse had not died in my yarn (YEAH!) but in a small L.L. Bean bag that held my two glue guns and glue sticks (BOO!). The bag and its contents, organic and otherwise, were pitched. I have since needed a glue gun twice. Note, I have not needed a glue gun anytime during the last five years we have lived in this house. Karma is a bitch.

Continuation

Olllleeeee! Ole, ole, ole, OLE! Happy Cinco de Mayo! I'm celebrating with some knitting and perhaps, some salsa. Yes, that's right. Not only did I finish some baby socks, I started some Me socks!


If Cinqo de Mayo wasn't reason enough for a party, knitting some Jenna socks should be!

Duh

I'm an asshole! I know better. And yet. Yet, I admitted to the universe that I had two simultaneously napping children. And the universe, it said, Nu Uh. And up woke TD.


Since she was awake, I did manage to snap a photo of her wearing her new socks.

Jungle Boogie

Ta da! I finished the itsy bitsy baby socks. Unfortunately, the itsy bitsy (well not so itsy bitsy, rather rolly polly) baby is sound asleep and unavailable for a photo op. And actually, being that LB is also asleep ... this is really not that unfortunate. Two kids napping at the same time? Totally fortunate. Also rare. So of course I am using my alone time productively by farting around on the internet. Woot!



In case you are curious, these socks took up NO YARN. I mean really. I made a full on whole pair of adult Monkey Socks with this yarn and had two little balls left over. These guys took up one of the remaining little balls. Insane. Also, when used on such a small project, the yarn stripes and is not the psychedelic blur it is on bigger projects. Neat.

Yarn: Lorna Laces, Shepherd Sock, Color 302, Jungle Stripe
Needles: Addi Circs, size 2.5 mm (US 1)
Pattern: None. Toe up star toe, 28 rows in the rounds, short row heel, 6 rows rib.
Time: Actual knitting time - 3.5 days. Total time - one month.
Care: Machine washable.