The knitting collective

In all of my post-Harlot excitement I was talking about Tuesday evening to one of my co-workers when she paid me a most excellent compliment. She asked me to teach her how to knit.

Non-knitters, take heed. We are like the Borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

Yarn Harlot comes to OKC

I have been in the presence of greatness. The Yarn Harlot was in OKC last night and she rocked! If you enjoy reading her blog, that is exactly how she is in person, only times 10. She is funny and charming and approachable, and just the type of person that you could see yourself sitting in a bar drinking with and telling stories and laughing (and knitting) until the wee hours of the morning. She spoke to a crowd of about 120 people before going over to the reception/book signing. And let me just say that she was hysterical. She could seriously venture into stand-up comedy – she’s THAT funny. My cheeks actually hurt because I hadn’t laughed so much in such a long time. At the end of her speech, she told us that we had to sing her a song and someone immediately broke into the song “Oklahoma.” Before you know it, the entire audience was singing at the top of their lungs. The ladies in front of us were singing too and then one turned to the other and said “Why are we singing this song? We’re not even FROM here!” They turned out to be from Arkansas. Anyway, it was an incredible evening and I can only hope that Stephanie enjoyed visiting us as much as we all enjoyed seeing her. If she comes to your city (or even close to your city), I highly recommend going to see her. You won’t be disappointed.

Go HERE to read Stephanie’s account of the evening and to see all the neat OKC places that the sock visited. And to see more pictures, including a picture of the cute cake, go HERE.

Also, thank you for all the encouraging words last week when it was hotter than hell outside and I had issues with the boy child. After venting on Friday and then getting great sleep Friday night and waking up to MUCH cooler temperatures on Saturday morning, my attitude was greatly improved. Then the husband gave me plenty of sanity time over the weekend, and I’m happy to report that things are much better.

No more wire hangers!

If mothers were given report cards, right now mine would show a grade of D+.* My son is irritating the piss out of me and I have days where I cannot stand to be around him. I am wracked with guilt about these feelings too. I don’t know if it’s the heat (it was 107 yesterday and forecast to be 110 today) that is making me cranky and impatient or what, but I have got to get some serious distance from him this weekend. In my defense, here are just a few of the things he has done lately:

• He fiddled with the controls in the refrigerator and turned the temp on the freezer all the way down to 0 (with 0 being the warmest) and it started defrosting. This is after being told 100 times not to play in the refrigerator. It took me almost a day to realize exactly WHY the freezer was defrosting. Luckily we didn’t lose any frozen breast milk. We may have lost some veggies and possibly some waffles and ice cream that we didn’t need anyway, but I am okay with losing those.
• We went to the grocery store and he picked up a penny off the floor. Then I watched in horror as he stuck it IN HIS MOUTH. We’ve had the conversation about what’s appropriate to put in our mouths and what isn’t about a hundred times now, but I honestly thought we were past that stage. I don’t see him putting coins in his mouth at home so why he decided that a filthy grocery store floor was ok, I’ll never know. Perhaps he’s regressing because he’s jealous of the baby (even though he hasn’t been acting as if he’s jealous lately). Who knows?
• He ATE part of my mouse pad. He turned the mouse pad over, picked at the foam rubber until pieces came off, and then ATE THEM. I noticed the gouges in the mouse pad and I asked him if he tore it up. “Yes.” What did you do with the pieces that came loose? “I ate them.” Why? “Because I just put them in my mouth.” Right, I got that part. Why did you put them in your mouth? “Because I just ate them.” We’ve already established that. Tell me why you ate them. “Because I just put them in my mouth.” Do you see where I’m going with this? His 4 year-old mind doesn’t even understand what I’m asking which brings me to the next item.
• His attention span is about 2 seconds long. When I want to explain something important, I will kneel down and tell him to look at me. When I have his attention I will say, “Now, son, the reason that I…” which is about the time he looks away and I can tell that he has completely shut off the part of the brain that process my voice. He’s hearing “wha wha wha wha wha” (think Charlie Brown’s teacher) and thinking about firetrucks or his Hot Wheels Batmobile or something else. He’s GONE. And to get his attention back, I have to raise my voice. Most of the time simply raising my voice doesn’t work, so I yell. And when yelling doesn’t get his attention, I turn into scary Joan Crawford mommy screaming at him. That’s not helpful at all and makes both of us feel bad. I usually wind up crying and telling him I’m sorry, and he comforts me and tells me “It’s ok. Don’t cry. There’s no monsters.” He doesn’t comprehend why I was even yelling in the first place, and then he has no idea why I’m crying after yelling. It’s all very frustrating and I have zero patience for it right now.

It could be that I am expecting too much out of him. He is, after all, only 4. However, when I compare him to his peers I see a huge difference in speech and language and maturity. He is way behind. I know in my heart that he probably isn’t ready for pre-K next month, but perhaps I’m hoping that his teacher will take notice of the fact that he’s behind and start the ball rolling for us to get him some help. But then realizing that he’s way behind only brings up more guilt because I wonder if perhaps it’s my fault. What if I had read to him more? What if I had encouraged him to color more? What if I was a better parent and didn’t scream at him because he won’t pay attention? I could “what if” the situation to death, but I know that’s counterproductive and we just need to move forward now and deal with it. And the first step will be me getting some space away from him this weekend. I will let his daddy handle things with him while I concentrate on taking care of the sweet baby girl who smiles at everything I say.

*I started with an F and then figured that I at least deserved credit for keeping him clean, fed, and clothed. Hence the D+.

Breath of hell

Dude, it's freaking hot outside. The current official temp here in OKC is 106. A coworker came back from lunch today and proclaimed "It feels like the breath of hell outside." She's not lying. Here's what my car temp showed yesterday on the drive home:


One hundred nineteen degrees. Breath of hell, indeed. A record-breaking heat wave is happening across the entire nation. Would the Bush Administration kindly like to restate their position on global warming and how it doesn't exist?

Alarming

At the hospital where I had Kelsey, they gave me a book to take home called Caring for Yourself & Your Baby at Home. It’s a book that they put together at the hospital and it’s filled with loads of wonderful information. There is even a section on abuse and the signs you should look for to know if someone is abusing your child. Here’s where it gets frightening. The book states “an estimated one in four girls and one in six boys are sexually abused before their eighteenth birthday.” One in four girls and one in six boys! Is anyone else as alarmed as I am by those figures? A Clinical Social Worker in the hospital’s Case Management Services department was responsible for the data in that section and she doesn’t state where she got her statistics. Can those figures really be that high? If so, that's heartbreaking.

Do you suppose that the freaks in this world who prey on children are becoming more common or their numbers remain the same and we are just more aware of them now? Regardless, let this serve as ample notice to anyone who attempts to sexually abuse my children. I reserve the right to severely injure, maim, or even kill anyone who touches my kids in a sexual manner. And when I’m done with you, my husband who holds black belt rank in several different styles of martial arts will take over.

Actual knitting content plus a Kelsey update

Last week I ordered the yarn to make a gift for my cousin’s baby, which is due at the end of August, but I had the urge to knit something while waiting for the yarn to arrive. I have 4 different projects at home already on the needles, but did I work on any of those? Of course not. I started this for Kelsey:


It’s the Swing Set from this book (which I LOVE LOVE LOVE). I’m doing it in Berroco’s Cotton Twist in the colors Radish and Uncle John’s Band. It will soon be abandoned so I can do some infant hats to promote breastfeeding awareness and so I can make the sweater for my cousin, but I have a feeling I will be rushing through those projects so I can get back to this one. Oh, and I also made a wonderful discovery: I can actually knit while nursing. This is huge for me because my girl likes to nurse. A lot (mostly more for comfort than actual hunger). So now instead of feeling misplaced guilt over not getting something done around the house while she’s nursing for an hour, I feel like I’m accomplishing something. Awesome!

Kelsey laughed for the first time 2 nights ago right after her bath. I was playing with her while putting her diaper on and she started laughing. Luckily the hubby was home so he could witness it. We started laughing because she was obviously having a good time and then she got even more tickled and started giggling. I ask you, is there anything more precious? And then last night during her bath she farted very loudly and it reverberated off the bottom of the baby bathtub and she chuckled again. She is her father’s daughter.

At her 2 month checkup last week she was up to 9lbs 10oz and 21” long. Plus her head had grown 3” in circumference since she was born (thank God her head was tiny when she was born). Here are some pictures taken that day:

The bandaids on her legs are from the 4 shots she received. Four!!!

But she was still all smiles...