All the news that's fit to print

We may get a couple of our fifteen minutes of fame! A local reporter is working on an article about Moms who blog, so we met her at the 'Bou for coffee this morning and a photographer stopped by this afternoon. Too exciting! I will certainly link to the article if I can!

In the forty-five minutes we were at the coffee shop, Bug upended his cocoa the minute it got to the table, Bean managed to dismantle a piece of the fireplace (I think (hope?) that it was already broken and she just knocked it loose), and Beeb, who was tied to my chest with a wrap, let loose with a poo that probably registered on the Richter scale. So if you read about unusual earthquake activity in Wisconsin, it is probably a false alarm. So, pretty much, a normal outing!

From the Department of Vital Statistics

Bean and Beeb had well child/baby check-ups last week and I completely forgot to report! The Beeb was a couple of days shy of two months (the appointment was the 30th) and tipped the scales at 11 pounds 10 ounces...well into double digits and he has climbed from around the 25th percentile for weight at birth to around 50th percentile. He is currently 22¾", or as I prefer a studly 1'10¾".

Bean continues to be a tall, exceedingly solid girl. At 3'4", she remains right around the 95th percentile for height. Although she looks very proportionate, albeit with a pleasant amount of baby/toddler chub remaining, she is again way off the charts for weight at 47 pounds 2 ounces. For her age, 95th percentile is around 37 pounds...whereas she weights more than 95% of five-year-old! Both last year and this year, the doctor thought that the weight had been recorded wrong as she doesn't look like she should weigh that much! But mama is getting her upper body work-out lifting her!

Hmmm...

We've had a few of "those" days. After completely mutilating my DPNs on the first sock cuff and getting halfway through the second cuff, I had the bright idea of trying on the sock (it isn't for me, but it is for an adult, so my feet are in the ballpark). Ahem. It wouldn't go over my heel. Not even close. Crud. Fortunately, in the interim, I had been led astray by the siren song of "Clearance Yarn" (Knit Picks Gossamer in Blue Jeans, four skeins, buried deeply enough in the stash so I can pretend it didn't happen. Shhh. We shan't speak of it again. Especially since there are a few skeins of Alpaca Cloud in Sunlight Heather calling my name. Loudly. Insistently. Irritatingly.) and also ordered a 32" circular needle midway in size between the one used to knit the socks and the abused DPNs. So I ripped back and redid both cuffs and finally finished them. I'm pretty sure I knit about 3½ socks to get this pair. Anyhoo, I'll get a FO post up at some point with pictures and specs. I immediately cast on for my Kitty Man socks (second picture down). I swatched, made the toe and have started up the foot, but I am still calling it a swatch as I think it will be too big. So I'll do a few more rows and decide whether or not to start over.

The puker was Bean. I'm still not convinced that it's a stomach bug, even though she puked in bed again last night when we tried to give her some cough medicine. She has a really loose, "productive" cough and I think she is gagging herself. Yeah, I know, TMI. Want to hear about the color, consistency, and texture of Beeb's poops? No? I didn't think so. Moving on...

Why is it...

that kids, cats, and dogs insist on barfing on the carpet? Can no one puke on linoleum? I'm just sayin'...

Why I hate DPNs

Okay, I'm not bashing DPNs. I have several sets of Brittany DPNs in larger sized that are just wonderful to knit with, but when it comes to smaller DPNs, I'm hopeless. I tend to be a little tense when I knit, if you understand "a little tense" in the sense of Wisconsin has "a few" cows. I can't remember how many wood and bamboo size 3 DPNs I broke in the process of making my first pair of socks. Things got a bit better when I switched to metal DPNs, at least for size 2 or 3 needles. When I finally discovered "Magic Loop," dude, it was like discovering religion. Not only are circulars generally made of sturdier stuff than (some) DPNs, going from ten pointy ends to just two was magical. Seriously, I used to have nightmares about having to explain multiple puncture wounds to Child Protective Services. However, I don't have any really tiny circulars for cuffs, so I had to break out the DPNs. Not only did this lead to much creative vocabulary, but also this:

Okay, it goes a little something like this. I'm starting out "a little" tense (see above). The needles start bending, making it easier to drop stitches and harder to pull loops through. This makes me more tense. The needles bend more and so on. I have finished a little less than one inch of cuff on the first toe-up sock, stopping periodically to unwind myself. So now I just have the same amount of cuff on the second sock to complete. After getting this stressed out, I'm glad I have knitting to relax me. Oh, wait a minute...nevermind...

Happy Halloween

We had a lovely Halloween! While looking through my blog subscriptions, I found these (recipe here) and just had to try them myself! I think they turned out ghoulishly good!

For trick-or-treating, we had a fairy princess (who decided that she needed her Iowa Hawkeyes football jersey under her costume instead of the pinkish turtleneck that we wore to the zoo. So, more accurately, she was a football fairy princess. The wee one was a tiny lion and the trio was rounded out by Spiderman, who refused to wear his mask or have the neck velcro fastened.

A couple of detail views...the cute little tail on the lion cub:

And the football fairy princess's pigtails, which lasted about two minutes before she pulled the elastics out. Earlier entries in the pigtail history are right here.

Since we had trick-or-treating at the zoo a week and a half ago, we decided to do "quality" trick-or-treating rather than "quantity" trick-or-treating. Our apartment complex has a fairly high turnover rate, so we don't know many of our neighbors, so the kids and I hopped into the car and drove to trick-or-treat at a couple of friends' houses. I think it was more fun going somewhere that got "oohs" and "aahs" for the kids costumes and a chance for momma to chat with grownups. We even got invited in for a piece of yummy pumpkin pie, though Bug wondered aloud why the other trick-or-treaters didn't get to come in for pie!

Bulky Butttock Muscles: Part II

I have been hoarding this particular little anecdote for a while now. First, I needed the visual aid and by the time I had that, I had read about the contest on JenLa (click button below for details) and decided that these two things dove-tailed nicely*.

Regular readers may remember us coming across the phrase "bulky buttock muscles" while reading about the body and the giggle fits it caused for the Bug. Well fast-forward to early September and the arrival of the wee Beeb. While we were still in the hospital, I was getting ready to change a wee diaper and Bug came over to see the action. Before I got down through the layers to bare baby, out of the blue, Bug asks, "Does Baby Brother have bulky buttock muscles?" I chuckled while finishing with the denuding of the baby bum and told him to see for himself. Bug studied the minute hiney for a few seconds before announcing, "Nope, not bulky. They're baby buttock muscles."

These are said "baby buttock muscles" about a month later. While the skinny little butt (compared to the rest of the body) is obvious, the scale isn't, but take my word for it, even with a humongous cloth diaper on it, Beeb's sweet little butt fits comfortably in my hand.

And, as an AWW bonus, a reprise of a picture from last spring:

I am still wondering what happened to the "A."

*Edited to add: Due to a bit of controversy accusing JenLa of malicious intent for using a phrase that I have seen on several sites other than the person who started it, they have withdrawn the contest. I am pulling the button and link and the abbreviation of the offending phrase, but will leave the post since the world needs more cute baby butts.

We Love Fall!!

We went back to Lake Farm Park on Saturday and took Kitty Daddy along. And I remembered my camera this time. It was another beautiful fall day, so we had a nice walk and Kitty Daddy tossed horse shoes and I knit while the kids played at a couple of the playgrounds.





I have been knitting, but at the moment, all my stitches are going into biggish projects that don't show much for the effort. I will throw in a progress photo of the Frost Flowers and Leaves shawl, though.

I started the edging and have completed a couple of inches of the twelve miles of edging to finish the shawl...so the end is in sight, but not necessarily all that close! The edging is 12 stitches wide and every 16 rows finishes off 10 shawl stitches. There are 1380 stitches around the edge of the shawl. Yipes!

Eeeewwwwww...spiders!

No, actually, there are nice and cute, cuddly spiders! Yet another Halloween-inspired crafts project. We made the spiders a couple of weeks ago and finished up the webs this morning. We got black pipe cleaners, black pom-poms, and google eyes from the craft store and added paper plates, black paint and black and white yarn from the home supplies.



Other than that we have been alternating between camping at home nursing colds (Beeb, Bean, and I) and trying to get out and enjoy the fall weather. In preparation for winter, we have added a Tuesday library trip to check out some of the other nearby South Central libraries. We like the familiarity of the branch we have been using, but it is a tiny library in a strip mall and the kids are getting a little bored with the limited kids area toys and I'm getting a little tired of having the teensy-weensy kids area cheek-by-jowl with the computers and feeling like we are disturbing everyone!

After the library, it was too beautiful to go back home, so we went looking for a park that we had heard good things about. I couldn't remember the name and only had a vague idea of where it was, but we hid pay dirt! We found Lake Farm park, which has wonderful hiking trails, three playgrounds scattered among the hiking, a lovely setting with trees, prairie, and Lake Waubesa. First, we alternated hiking and playgrounds and on the way back we alternated hiking and sitting on park benches overlooking the lake and reading library books. Since it was a spur of the moment trip, I didn't have my camera, but we definitely be going back, so I will get pictures sometime!

Wonderful weekend

We had a marvelous weekend this week, marred only by the fact that Grandma and Grandpa weren't here to share it with us as planned. In addition to perfect fall weather and gorgeous fall colors, we had a whole bunch of fun activities.

On Saturday, we went to the Enchanted Forest put on by the City of Fitchburg. It was held at a local park and included wagon rides pulled by Clydesdale horses, a bonfire, and a walk through the woods lit by Christmas-type lights and populated by folks dressed up in story book costumes. Of course, I forgot my camera, so no pictures! We went the first year we were here, but missed last year due to an unfortunate combination of iffy weather, cancellations, and company.

On Sunday morning, we got up and headed out for trick-or-treating at the zoo. I remembered to bring my camera, but discovered that the batteries were dead when I went to take the first pictures, so I only have one picture of Beeb from before we went to the zoo (I promise to get costume pictures of everyone on Halloween!):

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight...

Sunday afternoon and evening were dedicated to Bean's Birthday! The divine miss Bean is now three years old! We celebrated by going to Ella's Deli (which has become a birthday tradition here) and then coming home for cake, ice cream and presents.


If you aren't in the kid-vid loop, it's Map from Dora. Say it with me: "Cake - Presents - Three Years Old!"