Sweetness has decided that I have a face I’ve give her, when I’m trying to indicate that is something she really shouldn’t be doing, but I don’t want to reprimand her. Apparently this is also the face I make at her when I think she’s being too silly.
This is Sweetness, making the “Jenface”
It’s been an interesting week and it’s only Wednesday.
I got a bunch of packages in the mail and had to bike to the Post Office to get them (which is about 2 miles away). This is a huge excursion for me, even though it isn’t that far away, because no matter which way I go I have to bike along some busy roads (which I don’t enjoy so it makes it more like work) and it’s mostly uphill (which, by definition is work. Heh heh heh… what? No-one remembers science class?).
This is unlike my morning bikeride, which is 4 times longer, but all along nice trails, so doesn’t seem like work at all. Anyway, I got some really great stuff in the mail, mostly for my business. This included: stitch markers (which I have begun to buy in bulk), because I go through them so fast, a swift (because I can no longer mooch off of my room mate), and most exciting, a tripod!!! This for me is really exciting, because I can now take videos of myself doing different techniques, which means so interesting content in the next few weeks.
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Michael came home with a fever (100.2) today, proceeded to consume dinner (which included a rather salty gravy which he should not have found delicious, but did, which tells me he’s really sick). He told me he knew he probably was running a fever today because he didn’t have seconds when someone offered him bagels, which would make me concerned. Michael rarely turns down free food. Later in the day, he was offered free cupcakes, and he didn’t feel up to eating them. That is DEFINITELY a sign that he was sick.
Now? He’s passed out on the couch. It’s down to 99.8. It’s so strange. Normally I’m the one to get sick frequently, and Michael never gets sick. This winter neither of us did, and now it’s spring and he’s the one getting sick. *knocks on wood*
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Now that Sweetness has been biking, we’ve been taking longer and longer bikerides in order to build her endurance. This is because Sweetness wants to be able to bike to my new house for a playdate. I’ve explained to her that my house is about 5 miles away, which means she’d have to bike five miles there and five miles back. I need to be comfortable with her biking ten miles, because if she gets tired on the way home, I can’t stuff her in the trailer because somebody needs to deal with her bike. The other day she rode 7! miles, and we’ve been planning some bikerides to take her longer and longer distances.
Today I come into the house, and Sweetness runs up, excited. Apparently they’ve discovered a new playground, and she wants to take me. She’s trying to give me directions (to be fair, Sweetness has an excellent sense of direction, and has gotten me places I’ve never been to before with her directing me. The only problem is, her directions are based off of well, a five year old). The directions went something like this:
“So we go by the lake, and then instead of going the place where we saw the deer, we go up that part where it was really windy. Then we go by the dead rat…”
At that point, Sweetness’s father and I loose it.
After we stopped laughing, we had to explain to her why a dead rat was not a good landmark.
Poor Light. Sweetness’s gotten a new bike, and she’s really thrilled about it.
To tell the truth, I’m pretty thrilled about her biking too, because Sweetness has been getting rather heavy over the winter (she’s five now! FIVE) and hauling the two of them around meant I was pulling an awful lot of weight.
So we’ve been going on a bunch of bike rides as Sweetness has gotten more and more confident with her bike, an I’ve gotten more and more sure that she’s able to stay in control of her bike, which dictates where I’m willing to take her.
This means Light’s taken to riding in the back of the trailer all by herself, which she has mixed feelings about. On one hand, she’s pretty thrilled about all the extra room she has, on the other hand, she misses having her sister to play with and read books with as I haul them around. She also doesn’t appreciate all the attention Sweetness has been getting.
Still, Light did pretty well the other day, drawing and taking “notes” in her notebook as we went along a trail. She still will pipe up when I’m going slow and up a hill, telling me “You can do it, Jen! You can do it!”
Well, we were going up a hill, and it was rather hard, and she said something too me about paper and her helmet. Not really understanding, but getting the gist that it was about preventing them from blowing away, I just made the noises any adult makes when they’re only half listening, because we’re concentrating on something else. I put the conversation out of my mind after that until we got home.
When I got home, I went to take of Light’s helmet and lo and behold, I find nearly two dozzen “notes” in her helmet wadded up. I go and ask her, “What’s this?”
Very solemnly Light replies, “I was keeping them from blowing away.”
To this I have to say, good job light, I would have never thought of that myself.
It’s about time I give you an update on Sweetness and Light, since we haven’t visited them in a while.
It’s been a rather rough winter for all of us. There’s been very little snow, which makes it hard for us to go out and play outside… snow is much more fun to play in when it’s cold than going to playgrounds. As a result I’ve been having to scrape the bottom of the barrel finding ways to keep them entertained. There’s only so many days we can go into the city to see the Smithsonian or even go the the Airplane Museum, which is closer to home.
(On a side note, Mrs. D, as she’s known at the College Park Library, is amazing)
Hence, Sweetness and I have been working on our knitting. She’s coming along nicely. We still haven’t learned purling, but she’s developed on her own a style of knitting that’s a little Picking and a little Throwing, and a lot her own.
Light has decided she wants to learn. Now, I’m all for teaching kids early, but Light is 2 1/2 (the half is important!) and not quite there yet. She’s sit in my lap for ten minutes and work with both our hands on the needles, but that’s about it. Which is actually quite impressive that she lasts for ten minutes. Then she’ll take up her own needles, and “pretend” to knit.
Well, I couldn’t help snapping this picture the other day, when I realized the picture we made.
Oh Hi. I am too tired today to be cute.
So today I give you another cat.
You know Jen tries to improve her pictures, right? It’s important, so that you guys all want to buy her patterns or her lessons or read her blog. Every book is better with pictures right?
(Jen note: Ya’ll I don’t agree with that statement, but remember, Zephyr is only reading picture books, so don’t be too hard on him)
So she takes pictures of cats other than me. That’s okay, ’cause I know she loves me the most. So today you get two pictures. Me, ’cause I am cute even when I’m tired. And Sweetness and Light’s favorite neighborhood tabby:
Her name is Ginger. I think I have a crush on her. SHHH! Don’t tel her. She is very beautiful.
Yarnies,
I’ve got a sneak peak for you today. I’ll even tell you what yarn it’s in. Three Irish Girls Aiden on Adorn. Try not to drool too much.
Got an idea on the name of them? The stitch pattern kinda reminds me of Totoro, and well, if you can’t figure out by the link then you’ll just have to go ask a friend.
So, any ideas?
In other news, Sweetness fell and smooshed her hand between her scooter and the ground. It was bleeding, and I didn’t have a band-aid (hence why you should always have a paper towel with you… I do!). But luckily, I had some TIG, to save the day. She was pretty excited that my special yarn got to be part of her bandage.
So, do you have any inventive ways that you’ve used your yarn lately, besides the obvious?
I mentioned that I take care of a sister duo, Sweetness and Light, ages four and one-and-a-half. I’ve been teaching Sweetness how to knit.
Well, this video should say it all. Listen carefully, you will hear Sweetness insisting that she can do it all by herself, without me. I, in the background, am trying VERY hard not to help when I see her struggling. Thank goodness she’s smart enough to insist she do it herself, because if it were up to me I’d always want to be helping.
Just take note here: Not only does she wrap the stitch the right way, but she can pick up dropped stitches.
Hello Yarnies,
Working on some new patterns. This one is scheduled to come out in the fall (I know, it’s strange that you have to think about making a pattern a full season and a half before it’s supposed to come out).
Sweetness was kind enough to model it for me. It’s made from an angora/lambswool mix yarn. It promises to be quite warm!
What do you think?
~Jen
Hello Yarnies,
So this post starts with a story. Occasionally I take care of a sister duo, Sweetness and Light. Sweetness is four, and Light, is around… oh, seventeen months.
Sweetness is a rather independent and precocious soul. When learning to walk she would refuse anyone’s help, waving hands away, and shout “SELF! SELF!!!” One day while we were drawing, I looked over to her paper and asked her what she was drawing. I expected something like, “a rock.” Instead I got, “The Lunar Landing Module.”
If you haven’t guessed, her father is an engineer.
Well, since I’ve been taking care of her, occasionally she’ll see me knitting or crocheting. We’ll have a moment when Vivi is playing and she is drawing, and I’ll pull out my knitting or crochet to get a few rows done.
Well, lately she’s been asking me to teach her. You see, at first I taught her finger knitting, but she quickly realized that what she was doing, and what I was doing were two different things. She wanted to knit with sticks.
Okay, I said, fine by me. I really didn’t expect it to go anywhere. It’s the rare four year old that has the hand-eye coordination, never-mind the concentration to learn to knit.
So I taught her. She practiced for a few minutes, got tired of it, and decided to make up her own knitting. Which basically meant that she made a big tangle of the yarn.
That was fine. I only gave her a little yarn. (yes, I’ve been through this before. Children will use all of any resource you give them. That’s why my mother only kept three band-aids in the box, and the rest somewhere else. Otherwise, we’d want ALL the band-aids for our dolls) I really didn’t expect her to even sit through the whole lesson.
Well, a week passed, and I was knitting again. She asked to help. I put her hands on the needles and just let her watch as I worked.
Another week passed, and again Sweetness asked to learn. It had been a rough day, and I might have responded a little harshly. I said it wasn’t fair to me to teach her if she wasn’t willing to practice. She said she would.
I taught her, at first, her just placing the needles and me wrapping the yarn. And then, at her insistence, I taught her how to wrap the yarn so she could do it herself. And now? She’s still working on it. It’s slow, and she only does three or four stitches, but when you’re that young? That’s quite a feat.
My point is, when you learn a new skill, things can often look rocky. Take my Kitchener stitch. For the longest time, every time I needed to do it I had to look it up. When I do it now, I always accidentally purl the first few stitches, and then have to undo it and correct it again. But one day in the future I will whip out something that needs to be Kitchenered, and I will remember it, right away.
And it will be a beautiful day.
The other lesson: indoctrinate children to knitting/crochet early. It can keep them occupied and quiet for a full five minutes.
