Monday Monday

My little smuglet on the way to school Monday morning


Blowing raspberries


Talking


My, what big teeth you have


A Cute little boy wanders into my photoshoot. Nothing accessorizes my most recent knit creation better than T.

Serious Color

I set aside my lovely moss green cardigan unfinished in favor of more colorful ventures. I don't know if the Oregon winter gray got to me or if the featherweight cardigan just dragged on too long (by no fault of it's own), but I jumped on the Noro badwagon a couple of months ago and haven't fallen off yet. Noro is a self striping Japanese yarn that comes in many luxurious bases (silk/wool, cotton/wool, etc). It also comes in some very vibrant colors. I'm on my fifth Noro project in a row. Here are the first four ...

While I was slogging through the featherweight cardi a friend made a pair of these mitts. They were so simple (and I already had this awesome yarn in my stash) so I decided to take a break and make some too. They were fast indeed and I had so much fun working with the bright colors ... that cardi is still hibernating. The mitts are made from Noro Taiyo (cotton/silk/nylon/wool).

I only burned through part of a skein with the mitts, but I still felt like I was on a spring cleaning roll, so I dug out this soft wool/angora/silk blend that's been adorning my sewing room for at least 2 years. This was made from not quite two skeins of Noro Kochoran and I made up the pattern as I went along.

Emboldened by several small sweater successes in the last year, I decided it was time to try something grander - a full length cardigan! For probably the first time in my knitting career, I selected a pattern before picking the yarn. Usually it's the other way around - I fall in love with a yarn and then figure out what to do with it. I didn't actually have enough of any one yarn in my stash to do this, so I made a trip to the local shop and found this neat colorway that reminds me of lightening. None of these colors would have seduced me on their own, but I found the unusual combination very compelling. This is my Noro Kureyon (wool) Catwalk Lightening Cardigan. This was my first ever pieced sweater and it even has pockets! I can do anything now.

I fell in love with this Noro waistcoat pattern and after surviving Catwalk Lightening, pieces, pockets, and all I had no trouble diving right in. I had some of this Noro Taiyo yarn already, but not enough so I had to order more. Luckily, the yarn has so many colors to begin with, I had no trouble blending the two dye lots. The back was knitted with two skeins at the same time, alternating every two rows to create a broader stripe pattern.

A is for AA-mal

Last week we started cataloging T's utterances. He likes to mimic words we say, but most of the words in this list were spontaneous without prompting. Some of them really surprised me.

Abbey, all done, all gone, animal, apple, ball, balloon, banana, bath, bee, beep beep, belly button, bike, bird, blue, boat, boo, box, bubble, bum, butterfly, bye bye, car, cheese, cracker, daddy, dirt, door, duck, ear, ei ei o, engine, eye, eyebrow, fan, fish, flower, flush, green, hair, ham, hand, hat, hi, hiding, home, honey, hop hop, hot, kitty, knife, lawn mower, Letha, lights, mango, mess, milk, mommy, more, mouth, neigh, night night, noodle, nose, off, Oma, onion, outside, owie, owl, pee pee, pepper, pew, pizza, poo poo, quack, rain, raisins, razor, ring, row, row, school bus, screwdriver, spoon, strawberry, stripes, thank you, tick tock, toothbrush, truck, tunnel, twinkle, uh oh, up, vacuum, watch, water, wee wee wee, window, yellow, yum.

Animals: bzzzzz, quack quack, moo, meow, woof woof, who who, rawer

He also does vehicle sounds: Woo woo (train), rum rum rum (motorcycle), vroom vroom (car)

Everything his says is adorable, but the fundamental communication is especially nice. I love that he can ask for water and tell me when he needs to go poo poo. Sometimes he asks for specific food items like apples, mangoes, crackers, and hop hop (bunny grahams). The other day after I tucked him in I could hear him calling from his room. When I came back he was standing and pointing to his net full of stuffed animals and saying aa-mal. I love the way he says it with a long drawn out emphasis on the 'A'. I handed him a soft green frog from the net and he promptly dropped it in his crib and resumed repeating aa-mal. I handed him a striped tiger and he dropped that as well. Finally, I removed him from the crib and held him up to the net so he could pick his own aa-mal. He chose a spotted cow complete with bell (not my first choice for bed time). He laid right down when I put him in the crib and went to sleep with his aa-mal of choice.

T is fixated with Lawnmowers. As soon as he hears someone fire up a lawnmower engine he starts saying 'mowmower' and will keep saying it until we help him identify the source. He watched our neighbor mow his entire front lawn yesterday and waited patiently for glimpses of the lawnmower through the gate when our neighbor moved to the back yard. He loves to push the toy lawnmowers at school and also enjoys helping us vacuum.

The Scoot and I are often shocked by how observant T is. He'll say something that is very understandable, but we won't see the object he's mentioned. The first few times this happened I thought he was mistaken, but I've learned that if I look harder I'll find what he's talking about ... A silent, parked, lawnmower in a neighbors yard; a ball glimpsed through slats in a fence; a tiny tiny duck sticker on the dresser (qack qack). He's also training me to pay attention to the context when he says things. Although he gabbers plenty, most of what he says are 'real' words and if I try hard enough I can usually figure out what he's saying. This morning he pointed to his tray at breakfast and said something I totally didn't understand. When I looked at him but didn't respond he repeated it. It sounded liked "right here" and when I said "right here" he stopped repeating, so hopefully I got it right. I don't want to miss and opportunity to let him know that I'm really listening.

Catrobatics

March 31, 2012 - T discovers that the wood floor is a great place to push the kitty bed around and do some tumbling.













tuckered?


time to vacuum!

The Zoo

The following are pictures of T at the Oregon Zoo on March 24, 2012. We haven't been to the zoo in months and T showed a very serious interest in all things zoo ... the real animals, the fake animals, the stone walls, the cable fences, the other children, the elephant ears... We were there to kill time so I just turned him lose and followed him around for the most part. The last time we were at the zoo I toted T around in the sling, so this was a huge difference. This was T's first truly interactive zoo visit.

T in front of the Mountain Goat moat at the zoo entrance.


A Fake Marmot. This was REALLY interesting!


The Eagle enclosure. T was more interested in the little girl looking over his shoulder.


Kack kack ... kack kack ... that's what the ducks say.


Fake lion cubs. T would have stayed here all day if I hadn't had to move him along to make space for other people's children.


tickle tickle

Your robe, Madam

I thought I was a morning person, but by my definition morning starts around seven. I also like to laze in bed for a bit before starting the morning routine. Lazing, used to be part of my morning routine, but lazing has been replaced by abbreviated lazing, or sometimes, no lazing at all.

The little man goes to bed around 7:30pm so it's not too surprising that he's ready to go before I'm done lazing ... and sometimes before I've even started. Said little man has been known to attempt to push parental units out of bed despite efforts to encourage snuggle time (read parental lazing).

Sunday morning T woke in a good mood. I retrieved him from his crib and took him back to bed with me in an attempt to laze. He promptly climbed off the bed and headed for the kitchen. I laid there figuring there wasn't much for him to get into between the bedroom and the kitchen, but then I heard an odd sound. I wondered if he was going through the cupboard under the kitchen sink so I got back out of bed to investigate. I was very surprised to find my 16-month-old son pawing (yes, I said pawing) at the pantry door along with our three cats. We fed the cats and headed back to the bed for another pass at lazing. No dice, he climbed off the bed again and headed toward the kitchen. A few minutes later he returned, tugged my bathrobe off the chair next to my bed, and handed it to me. I couldn't help laughing as I pulled it on and headed for the kitchen to make breakfast.

He really gets it. This morning after joining me at 6:20am and tunneling around the bed for 15 minutes while I tried to laze despite small feet periodically smacking my face, T started to push. I helped him off the bed and waited for him to head toward the kitchen. Instead he went straight for the bathrobe. This time he added lip smacking sounds as I carried him to the kitchen so that I would know that he was definitely looking for breakfast. It's impossible not to be amused by his creative methods of communication. Do you think he'll see the humor when I try to coax him out of bed as a teen by handing him a bathrobe? Somehow, I think not.

The Fashion Police says NO! to accessories

T is not a fan of my accessories. What's with that? If I put on a scarf he will pluck, pull, and yank until he removes it or I remove it for him. He doesn't want to play with it. If I give it to him throws it on the floor. Yesterday I wore a very attractive capelet (in my opinion) that I knitted myself.


The second he saw it he was pulling it over my head and throwing it on the floor. My solution ... wait until he's a school to put it on again. Of course I was wearing it when I picked him up after work, and he informed me under no uncertain terms, that I was absolutely not to wear the capelet .... by pulling it off again. Apparently I'm not allowed to wear hats either. His teachers at schools get to wear scarves, so why can't I!?!

The Scoot just informed me that he isn't allowed to wear hats either. Maybe I should have him try on the capelet.

And on a topic completely unrelated to fashion ... T loves to visit his cousin Abbey. He says her name perfectly over and over and over. His teachers at school finally asked who Abbey was. Not only does he pronounce her name flawlessly now, but he also recognizes where she lives. If we pass her apartment complex in the car he will point and say Abbey, Abbey, Abbey. Last Saturday we had home made pizza at Abbey's house. T, The Scoot, and I dropped off a pizza stone earlier in the afternoon and the Scoot pulled up to the apartment while I ran up to deliver the stone. When I got back to the car T was wailing! He was so upset that I hadn't taken him with me to play with Abbey.