Another Day in the Neighborhood

For about half an hour today I thought Olivia might never sleep again. I was just about to put her down for a nap when I realized I hadn't seen a soother (Canadian for pacifier, if you're wondering) in a long long while. Certainly she was plugged when she went to bed last night, but since then they had all completely disappeared. Now I realize she's old enough to go without pacification - I expect to get comments from the public whenever she's out and about with one - but we keep waiting for a less stressful time to ditch the habit. We're moving right now, for Pete's sake (it might not look like it, but we are). Anyway, the point is that as of today she still needs one while sleeping and I couldn't find one to save my soul. At one point I even checked the yard, because she's been playing out there a lot lately and you never know.

Have you ever heard that, wherever you are, there is a spider within three feet of you? I swear that I must always be within three feet of a soother, but they hide from me (and possibly laugh). We must have close to a hundred hidden around our house and car, but damned if I could find even one.

Finally I found one under my bed. A reasonable place, and one probably I should have checked before going outside. By this time Olivia was whining, "Mommy, I'm tired" and Liam was done asking nicely for help with his miniature race track and was whining too. Soooo....fast forward past book reading and cuddles and Liam coming into Olivia's room to declare, "Mommy, I'm fwustwated that no one is helping me," and I'm just about to leave Olivia in bed. She looks up at me and says, "Mommy, me need two soo soos."

Sure honey. Wait right here and I'll be back as soon as I find one.

Olivia and I actually had a lovely morning together. After dropping Liam off at preschool we stopped in to the library. They had a few new knitting books in (although nothing that turned out to be too exciting) and Olivia made some friends while I perused them. I went specifically to get some sort of stitch dictionary, as I'm doing a traveling scarf exchange through Ravelry, and I needed a reference. The gist of the exchange is that you knit the beginnings of a scarf - four to six inches - then slap it onto a stitch holder and mail it off to someone in your group. That person will knit another four to six inches in the yarn and stitch of her choice, and then mail it off again. The scarf makes its way around a circle of knitters and comes back to you in about six months time. I honestly don't expect that I'll wear whatever comes of it, but I do plan on making it sort of a collective art piece in my craft area in the new house. Anyway, I picked up the Field Guide to Knitting, because it is small and I'd forgotten my library bag. It claims to show me "how to identify, select, and work virtually every stitch," but I don't know about that, seeing as it has 161 stitches and that can't be ALL of them, can it? But it is complete enough so I'll keep it checked out as long as they'll let me and then I'll probably pick up my own copy.

By the way, on the way into the library we passed a little girl, perhaps four years old, who was dressed in head-to-toe pink and waiting on the sidewalk for her mother, who was gathering library books from their car. Olivia and I passed by her and Olivia said, out of the blue, "Hi princess!" The little girl said, with a touch of awe, "How did she know I'm a princess?" Takes one to know one I guess. Turns out the girl's name is Jasmine. I imagine she will be quite popular in kindergarten.

Olivia and I also dropped by one of my local yarn stores to pick up that last bit of yarn I'm buying for my friend's hat. The yarn had to be about sport weight, navy blue, and not too itchy, and to my surprise they recommended Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool. I was worried that wouldn't be warm enough, but the two employees worked together to convince me it will be, plus it's a great navy color. So I'm going to cast on for this hat (Ravelry link, sorry) as soon as I'm done here. The pattern is an adaption of the official Navy hat, and I really hope he likes it.

As for Liam, he's got a new favorite joke (that actually makes sense; usually he makes up his own).

Why did the chicken cross the playground?
To get to the other slide!

Finally, we spent some time over the weekend moving our bird feeders over to the new house (this is the sort of thing you do when you are moving without an urgent deadline). I've set up a spot outside the family room window and I plan to keep a little guide to Colorado birds on the windowsill. But back at the old house, Sir Liam was worried about the birds in this neighborhood, so I gave him some seed to put on the deck railing. He didn't come back in very quickly and when I looked outside I found him like this:

Waiting for the birds to sit on his finger and eat. (Tell me, how do you disappoint such sweetness?)

Okay, is that enough randomness for you? I'm off to cast on.

Comments

[Jodi]

I swear, you have the cutest kids ever! The traveling scarf exchange sounds like a neat idea.

[Holly Jo]

I LOVE what kids say to one another. It is like a whole other language. :)

Liam has the sweetest heart - I have never met him, but I swear you can just see it in his face. He's going to grow up to be a huge champion for human rights or something. :)

[Kristin]

Oh! Look at him! I want to bring him a hungry bird! He's too cute!

[sue]

Oh Liam looks so cute waiting for the birds to sit on his finger. I remember my kids had pacifiers until they were 3. I used to always get comments about how they shouldnt need them. They never ended up with horrible teeth, and they slept better with them too. They only took 2 weeks to get rid of them when we decided to. I always found them under my kid's cot mattresses and have no idea how they ended up hidden under there. I had to laugh about the princess too, I had one of those a while back.

[Stacey]

I just noticed this...are you really reading 7 books at the same time?

[Jody]

Here's one of Allie's favorites for Liam:

Where would you find a cold pirate?
In the AAAARRRctic Ocean.

[stefaneener]

That is sweet. I tell you, you guys just hit the jackpot.

Moving like that sounds both good and horrifying. Really.