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.

Beholder

Growing up in South Florida, I'd often see houses that had outdoor art. And by art, I mean "real" stuff, commissioned for a good hunk of change, not a cardboard cut out of an old lady's bloomer-clad bottom, though I saw a fair share of those as well. Anyway, half the time the real art would end up being a geometric sculpture plopped down, seemingly carelessly, on an obscenely well manicured carpet of grass. I was reminded of this this morning after I was violently dragged into the world of the waking by an incredibly cute five month old imp. And yes, I realize that my semi-cognizant state may have affected my mental acuities.


Discarded exercise ball or art? You decide. Several years ago I bought an exercise ball so ginormous that Shaq would find it too large for athletic use. After several aborted attempts at exercising with the thing, it was relegated to the basement and has been there ever since, which is actually years and is a nod to my hoarder tendencies. However. HOWEVER. It turns out humungo exercise balls are great toys for toddlers. SO HOARDER TENDENCIES PAY OFF. WOOT! Not the point though. LB was playing with the exercise ball and when she was done, the ball didn't get put away (i.e., wedged back into one of our outdoor chairs) and rolled away during the night. And it was this, the rolled away $10 exercise ball, that made me think of fancy schmancy uber yard art.

Hello?

I have many MANY halfway finished posts which have languished in a draft folder for quite sometime. I hope to cobble them together to say something intelligent, but until then ... I have knit one sock. One sock that is too large for my bambina, but not so large that she won't be wearing it.


Ta da! Also, I need a manicure.

Oh For The Love Of Cookies

My poor sweet LB just can't seem to catch a break. First she got tossed about in the car accident, then she got a nasty stomach virus, and now she has an upper respiratory virus. In an attempt to be more empathetic I am trying to concentrate on her being my poor, sweet, pitiful sick girl and not the whiny brat who has passed on her funk to the rest of the family. Which ever way I look at it though, it has meant a string of cancellations for things we had planned to host. Can you say SUCK?

The latest thing to bite the dust was our monthly dinner gathering wherein we were hosting Mardi Gras night. To say I was psyched about this would be an understatement. I picked February solely because I wanted to do a Mardi Gras theme. I had planned a Bloody Mary Bar and was going to make vats of Hurricanes and a King Cake. I had beads! And masks! So canceling made me sad. Very sad. Knowing how disappointed I was, my husband sent me the following politically incorrect e-mail (an e-mail which reminded me that yes, I am married to the right man):

I’m sorry about having to cancel. I know you were looking forward to it. Maybe we can take the one in June and make it a South Africa World Cup theme. That way, we wouldn’t have to provide food.

Get it? Famine?

Try the veal. I’ll be here all week.

Sweater Scmeter

I don't like knitting sweaters. It's true. I like wearing sweaters. I like owning sweaters. But the knitting part, not so much. That last few days LB has been sick, we've been housebound and I've been a surly bitch. My patience is nil and my empathy for whiny little girls, sick or otherwise, is negative nil. I've repeatedly thought that I should turn on Elmo so that she could veg out on the couch and I could sit and knit next to her and maybe mellow out a tad. And this is a wonderful plan, except when I pull out the sweater I get more grumpy and more surly and then when LB drops her cup of milk, because apparently she is incapable of holding her cup for extended periods of time but also refuses to put it on the table because I asked her to and that means she must not, um, anyway, she drops her cup, creates a minute shower of milk droplets all over the couch, her sister, and the floor, and I explode. That sentence was so long, even I got lost in the middle.

So yah, I hate knitting sweaters. I do not, however, hate knitting socks. I like knitting socks. Speaking of which, here is a pair I finished knitting some time ago.



I find these socks to be quite comfortable when I am pole dancing. They prevent blisters when I am working a long shift and they keep my feet warm too. A+ for function. Also, A+ for form. See how aesthetically pleasing they are with their precisely matching stripes? Nice, eh? I suspect those matching stripes get me better tips.



Yarn: Regia, Design Line, Kaffe Fassett, 4253, 27053.
Needles: Addi Circs, size 2.5 mm (US 1) WHICH I HAVE SINCE LOST!?!
Pattern: Jaywalker
Modifications: Toe up.
Time: One month.
Care: Machine wash, tumble dry low heat.

Overlooked

You'd think that with my public declaration that BY ALL THAT IS GREAT AND HOLY THYSELF SHALL KNIT A SWEATER, I SHALL, that you know, I would be knitting on that sweater, or at the very least, thinking about knitting on that sweater. So it is with some chagrin that I tell you that I forgot, I KNOW, forgot ... forgot? Yes, plum forgot, that I was suppose to be knitting a sweater. Whoops!



I have since remembered but fear I may be so far in the hole that no amount of speeding knitting will make up for the time I spent doing ... stuff. I thought about trying to sound mysterious as if I have been doing something quite exciting instead of knitting but the truth is I haven't done diddly. I've been dealing with the oven. What oven? The LB oven, she burns at a steady 103.7, coughs like duck mimicking a fog horn and whines likes well, something, something annoying. Despite my dear heart's malady, I have done some knitting. Only time will tell, however, if it was enough to keep me in the race.

Under Pressure

I decided to sign up for the Knitting Olympics, which, quite dorkie, I KNOW. But still. Short of fingernail painting becoming an Olympic sport, I really can't see my advance-maternal-age-assed self entering the real Olympics any time soon, or ever. So yah, the Knitting Olympics, my chance at a gold metal.

What this entails is picking a project that would be a challenge for you to complete in seventeen days. And then you know, COMPLETING IT. You start it once the Olympic flame is lit and have to finish before the flame is extinguished. Straight forward. Well, except for the whole picking a project that is challenging. I am by no means an expert knitter. I am, however, somewhat educated and have good reading comprehension skills (so sayeth the SAT's). So there are very few knitting things that I have come across that are too challenging once I read the pattern. Granted, I am lazy and so the whole READING THE PATTERN? That can the be the challenge (ergo why I hate knitting lace charts). All of this is my verbose way of rationalizing why I am picking a simple sweater as my Knitting Olympics event. I picked the Holla Hoodie, a stockinette sweater with a few cables here and there. A sweater that even Knitty.com labeled "tangy" which means so simple a blind, one-armed monkey could do it. But this sweater, despite its easy skill level, will be a challenge. Honestly.

If you are observant, you might notice that Holla is listed on my sidebar as one percent done. This is not because I am a cheater and jumped the gun. No, this highlights why I chose this as my Knitting Olympics project. Several months ago (pre-baby #2) I started this sweater. I cast on an insane amount of stitches, realized my gauge was fucked, and quit. I quit because I was too lazy and time-deprived to knit a proper gauge swatch and start again. Thus, what seems to be my biggest knitting challenge right now is time. It use to be I could knit at work. I could knit at home after work. I could pretty much knit whenever the mood struck. Now, I only knit for a few hours a week when I meet my lady friends at Starbucks. The rest of my free time is eaten up by dishes, laundry, and dishes. So I am committing that for seventeen days, I am going to use my free time to knit a sweater. I am also probably going to use some of my work time (uh Elmo, can you babysit?) to knit a sweater. Because whatever it takes, did I mention ELMO???, I am going to knit that sweater.

Now this all sounds great and I sound very GO SWEATER! But. But, more observation would note that there is another sweater, the Kangaroo Duo, sitting over there on my side bar. Minimal investigation shows that this sweater has been sitting in a pile, unworked on, since November 2007. Yes, that sweater has been on sleeve island for over two years. Apparently I have absolutely no follow-through when it comes to sweaters. So, in addition to the time challenge, there is also the finishing a sweater challenge. I am hoping that the pressure of signing up for something, of publicly putting it out there, that this is enough to make me Git R Done, and, at the end of the seventeen days I will have a sweater, and a gold metal.

C is for ...

Crash!



Last week we were hit by a truck. I KNOW!

I was just minding my own business driving down the road when a wiener in a jumbo pick-up truck turned into us instead of the gas station. As his truck pushed us over the curb and I was heading toward a man pumping gas and an electrical pole I kept chanting in my head, "Don't hit the guy, don't hit the pole, don't hit the guy, don't hit the pole." I was also mentally screaming, "FUCK!" Though for the purposes of the A-B-C along I should take literary license and say I was mentally screaming, "CRAP!" In any event, I missed the electrical pole and the gas pumping man, and the gas pumps for that matter. Some would attribute this to providence, I, however, attribute this to a misspent youth during which I drove my cars ridiculously fast and extremely dangerously. Some instinct must have stuck in my brain. That or we were really feakin' lucky.

B is for ...

Baby Booties.



Some of the cutest freakin' baby booties out there. I'm not sure if it is the shearling innards or the big ole yarny stitches, but something about these booties tickle me and I lurve them. I lurve them so much that I am cramming them on TD's feet despite them being close to too small. I say close to too small because if I say too small I'd be a bad parent for cramming her toes in there. Anyway, I lurve them so much I am ignoring several disparaging comments regarding them from people who typically have good taste. In fact, I lurve them so much I am ordering her another pair, in a bigger size. Yes, I could make her a pair, but come one now, I still haven't even finished her C'mas stocking.



P.S. I totally hate the word lurve. It is so 'sloppy drunk' and yet, I used it a bazillion times in this post. I apologize.

Faux Pas

Dear Nordstroms Shopper:

Please accept this apology on behalf of my daughter. She is not quite two and well, you see, we've been working on manners here at Casa de SouthPark. Those manners include saying, "excuse me" when one burps or toots (toddler speak for farts). I realize that you were suffering from some extreme gastrointestinal distress which is why you were in the Nordstroms' loo in the first place. And I realize that the last thing you wanted was to hear was my sweet little snowflake chirp "'Scuse me" after each and every one of your toots. So, I apologize. She didn't mean to embarrass you (or me for that matter). She was just practicing her manners. Maybe you can take heart in the fact that all of her hard work seems to be paying off and that she is starting to learn manners. No? Oh well.

Sorry,
'Scuse me and her Mom

Ice

Yesterday we got a couple of inches of snow which resulted in some icicles on the windows of my car. Not a big deal, right? WRONG! It is a HUGE deal if you are a twenty-one month old toddler who goes by the moniker LB. A deal so huge that you must scream and shriek and have a goddamn meltdown the second you enter the car. Now I'm a nice, kind, caring mom, at least some of the time. So when LB screamed MOMMY! MOMMY! NO ICE. NO ICE. NO ICE, MOMMY! I was willing to scrape the icicles off. Just not in my garage. Which is why we had the following conversation:

LB: MOMMY! MOMMY! NO ICE. NO ICE. NO ICE, MOMMY!
Me: Honey, it is just ice. It's on the outside. It's fine.
LB: NO MOMMY. NO. MOMMMMMMMMMMMY! NO ICE. NO ICE. NO ICE, MOMMMMMMY!
Me: Okay sweetpea. As soon as we are in the driveway I'll scrape the ice off the windown.
LB: NO ICE. NO ICE. NOOOOOOOO ICE, MOMMY!
Me: Listen! I am not dumping the ice in our garage. You are just gonna have to suck it up for a minute.
LB: No suck Mommy. No suck.