We’ve had a busy few days, traveling, baking, wrapping…unwrapping… So I for one am looking forward to some calm family time for the next day or two!
Carrie says “Merry Christmas” too!
Merry Christmas
Year: 2007
3.2 Years Old!
Dear Carolyn,
Have I ever told you what a good kid you are? I feel like a lot of our days consist of me counting to three, repeatedly, but really, you’re very good the vast majority of the time. I don’t think I catch you in the act of being good often enough, but I’m trying to get better at it.
This month you’ve been working on your sense of humor. You know now two knock-knock jokes (who’s there? ach. ach who? god bless you! is my personal favorite) and the “you EIGHT the sandbox?!?” joke. You try your jokes out on everyone you can, including complete strangers in the mall. Never let it be said that you’re a shy child.
You’re also working on learning the days of the week. We don’t have the regular old names for them, though, we have “playgroup day”, “school day”, “Simone day”, “school day”, “dance day”, “Daddy day”, and “church/family day”. Every morning when you wake up, you ask me what today means for you. It’s nice to have a familiar routine, for both of us. Of course, that routine is going to go out the window for the next week or two, but hopefully the fact that it is a routine will make it easier to get back into the swing of things after the new year.
You’ve become quite the social butterfly at school, and have even started asking if you can invite one of your school friends for a playdate. Actually, I’m pretty sure you asked her to come over during school, because the other day you were very sad that she hadn’t come to visit yet. I had to explain that mommies get to set up playdates, not kids, and that we’ll have to arrange it after the holidays. I’m really happy to see that you’re making new friends!
This has been such a busy, crazy month, and even though you’re looking forward very much to tomorrow and seeing what Santa brought (you asked him for a dollhouse and a yo-yo this year) I’m looking forward very much to the new year and a return to calm, every day life. Well, as calm as life gets around here, anyway!
Love, Mommy
My Little Angel
One of the things about sending Carrie to a church preschool is that there is no attempt at being politically correct about the holidays. In fact, they held a Christmas pageant with costumes and everything. It was one of the cutest and funniest things I’ve ever seen. All the kids were in the three-year-old classes, so they had one of the teachers narrate instead of trying to teach them lines, but there were many songs and all the kids really did a great job. There were such funny little moments I had a hard time holding the video camera still. (Note to self: next time bring a tripod and get there early enough to sit in the front row!) Let’s see, the baby (luckily only in doll form) nearly took a header when Mary went to put him in the manger. One of the wise men was very reluctant to part with his gift. And the sheep were rather…enthusiastic…about baa-ing.
Carrie, of course, was one of the angels. She told me later that she really, really, really wanted to be Mary, but I suspect that’s just because Mary got to hold the baby doll. I personally think she was perfect as an angel!
A Very Tuba Christmas
When I was a kid, my grandparents used to take me to Midtown Plaza to ride the monorail and see Santa. It was really magical. And then as an adult I discovered the tuba Christmas event held in front of the giant Christmas tree. Well, this year is the last year that either of those things are going to happen there, since they’re going to be demolishing the building sometime next year, so we decided to take Carrie to the final Christmas at Midtown.
I have to admit, I was fighting back tears several times – not for what the place is now, but for my memories of it. And the place was packed. More than I’ve ever seen before. Maybe if they’d had those kinds of crowds in past years the place wouldn’t have gone so far downhill that it would need to be demolished…?
Raking the Leaves
So we did finally find a Carrie-sized rake, and we spent a good portion of today raking the lawn. Well, there was probably at least as much jumping into leaf piles as raking, but at least the lawn is mostly de-leafed at this point. (There are still quite a few leaves on some of our trees, but they look like they’re planning to hang around all winter at this point!)
Carrie says, “Hurry up snow, I want to make a snow angel!”
3.1 Years Old!
Dear Carolyn,
I’ve been thinking long and hard about whether to keep writing these letters now that you’re three. Will you really appreciate them when you’re older, or will you just be embarrassed that I put all this stuff about you on my blog? But I just can’t seem to let it go yet…maybe when you’re four?
This month, I’m happy to say, has been fabulous school-wise. I can’t even get you to give me a kiss goodbye sometimes, because you’re so eager to run off and join your classmates. This makes me really glad I stuck with it during those heartbreaking drop-offs – not that you ever really cried when I left you, but you just clung to me with all your strength. Now you can’t get enough of school!
You’ve also become a lot more comfortable hanging out at the shop with me when I’ve had to bring you along. You love to “play store” with the bins of sale yarn and your toy cash register. And you really help me out when I’m putting price stickers on the yarn…although I probably shouldn’t admit that since you’re not old enough to work yet!
Three so far is definitely harder than two was. You’re trying to become your own independent person, and I’m just trying to get us places on time. You have an uncanny ability to move slower than molasses whenever we’re running late. But we’re figuring it out, you and I, and I think by the time you turn four, three will be a piece of cake!
Love Mommy
Happy Thanksgiving!
Carolyn helped us get ready for Thanksgiving, by making some pumpkin pies. While Great-Grandpa looked on, she stirred and mixed, and made a very lovely pie:
Final verdict?
Delicious!
Needle Felting Fun
Yesterday we had an all-day needle felting workshop at the shop. I had so much fun, I couldn’t stop making things!
We did “paintings” with fiber:
And 3-d objects:
And then I tried to make an ornament (mine is the one that is decidedly not ornament-sized, the other one is one the instructor gave me):
Finally, I brought home some layers of wool to try wet-felting. Carrie and I pounded at it for a bit and wound up with nice, thick wool felt:
Felting is fun!
Peace Shawl
Do you remember the autumn-colored merino I bought at the Hemlock fiber festival? Well, first I turned it into this:
And then, I knit it into this:
This is the Peace Shawl, and it was almost the perfect size for the amount of yarn I had spun. I had to work 6 fewer rows before the edging, and I literally hat a foot of yarn leftover. (That bind-off was a bit scary, because I was sure I’d run out of yarn to bind off with 10 stitches before the end!)
This is the first yarn I’ve spun that I’ve felt was worth knitting into something, and I’m very, very happy with how it came out!
Bah Humbug.
OK, I need to preface this by saying that I adore Christmas. The day after Thanksgiving, I will be breaking out the Christmas music and starting to decorate the house. But today I am feeling pretty malevolent towards the whole Christmas thing…
See, I need a rake. Specifically, a kid-sized rake that Carrie can use this weekend with Denis so they can get some yard work done while I’m at the shop. I’d like a decent quality rake, but at this point I’d settle for some piece of plastic junk that will be recalled in six months due to excessive lead paint.
Target was a bust. They haven’t had fall stuff out since before Halloween. In fact, the sales associate actually laughed at me when I asked where they might be hiding. KMart was also a bust, although I couldn’t even find anyone to ask. So I thought, Home Depot! They must still have rakes, because their business is home, lawn and garden stuff, not Christmas!
I was encouraged by the big “Fall Cleanup” sign hanging near the door, but that turned out to be a grand total of 17 giant black plastic rakes sticking out of a box…right next to a field of plastic Christmas trees. And when I went to the service desk to ask, I was told “oh, kid rakes sold out a long time ago.” Um, it hasn’t really been fall for all that long… “But it’s Christmas now, and people see them and buy them for gifts so they sell out really fast.”
OK I have two problems with that statement. First of all, who in heck buys a rake as a Christmas gift for a kid? And second of all, last I checked, it’s November 7th. If I’m reading my calendar correctly (and it’s been a long day, maybe I’m not) Christmas is December 25th. If I had walked in on December 7th and asked for a rake, then maybe I could see the reasoning behind telling me it’s Christmas now and rakes are “only sold during the fall. Um, you know, while the leaves are falling.” (OK, um, as a matter of fact all the leaves are actually still mostly on my trees. So, I was kind of thinking that fall isn’t exactly over yet…?)
I’m all for holiday spirit and all that, but please, for the love of Christmas, can’t we at least enjoy some turkey first? And perhaps a good bit of raking and leaf-pile jumping?!?