Year: 2007

Say “Cheese!”

Sarah Kid's Crafts

gsc_camera.jpgConsidering there’s a camera pointed at her a fair amount of the time, it shouldn’t really surprise anyone that Carrie loves cameras. We’re considering getting her the Fisher Price kid’s digital camera for her next birthday. (It bothers me that they have a “girls” version and a “boys” version, but given the choice I know Carrie would pick pink.) But in the meantime she tends to pretend that various things are a camera.

The other day I was flattening an empty girl scout cookie box for recycling, when Carrie grabbed it out of my hands, looked through the open end, and said “say cheese!” So I taped it back up, cut a viewfinder, covered it in plain paper, and cut off a bit of a paper towel tube to make a lens. We decorated it with markers, crayons, and a foam sticker for the shutter button.

Carrie pretends to take pictures with it, and then shows me the back of the camera and says “Look! That’s a great picture!” It’s very obvious she’s only known digital cameras. I wonder if she will ever take film pictures, or if film will even be commonly available when she’s older?

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(It was her idea for me to draw a picture of two doggies and a little girl on the back. I’m not exactly an artist, but she was happy enough with my attempt.)

Carrie’s Tricycle

Sarah Milestones

The tricycle I ordered during last week’s blizzard came today, which turned out to be the first beautifully warm day this year. Carrie was so excited she could barely contain herself! Denis assembled it – with Carrie’s “help” of course – and I got her all set with her new helmet. We headed out to the driveway and let her try our her new wheels. Of course, she had to bring her baby out to tuck into the convenient basket in the back.

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I think she loves her trike, don’t you? More pictures here.

For anyone who’s curious, we ordered the Kettler Blossom trike from Oompa toys. It was the best price that I found, they had free shipping, and it’s a store I’ve ordered from before and had a good experience with. We also ordered the optional parent push bar, and it’s a good thing too since I think it will take a while for Carrie to master the whole pedaling/steering/stopping thing! The helmet is a Giro Me2 from our local bike shop. I tried Target first, but none of their helmets fit quite right – the 1+ helmets were too small and the 3+ helmets were too big. I’m really happy I spent the extra money on an easy-to-adjust helmet. And Giro has a grow-with-me program that lets you trade in a too small helmet for credit towards a bigger one. Plus, well, it’s pink. With bunnies. Carrie couldn’t be more thrilled – unless maybe it was pink with puppies!

I Do Sometimes Finish Things

Sarah Knitting

Just in time for last week’s cold snap, I finished knitting my mitten-gloves! And then I determined that the leftover yarn I was going to extend the scarf with looked enough different that it would be better to just bind off. So I hid all the ends on the whole set, and wore them to rehearsal the night it got down to 1°F (before wind chill).


Somehow, the hat is too short and too long at the same time. It doesn’t cover my ears, but I can’t wear it above my ears. I’m really tempted to rip it back and make it a bit longer (or shorter) but I also really want to be done with the project, since I’ve been working on it for two years! Other than that, I’m pretty happy with how it all turned out. Details are on project page.

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In other knitting news, I finished my first Pomatomus sock. I really think this is the prettiest sock I’ve ever knit. So much so that I’m worried about starting the second. As far as I can tell, there is no place where the colors repeat on this yarn, so they won’t match. I don’t know why that matters to me – although I try to match socks with obvious repeats in the yarn, I don’t worry about it with variegated sock yarns – but it does. I guess I’m worried that I’ll be three quarters of the way through the second sock and finally find the repeat point. In which case, I wouldn’t rip it out, so I should just start it, right?

Weekend.

Sarah General

I’m still here. I’m feeling a lot better – we even participated in Jenny’s soup swap today. The rest of the weekend was spent being mostly lazy, with a rehearsal and a trip to the bike store for a toddler-sized helmet thrown in for some variety.

I haven’t really felt much like knitting lately for some reason, but I did finish a couple of things last week. Pictures tomorrow if I can overcome the urge to do nothing all day. I really need to get back into a routine at some point soon…

Magic Words

Sarah Carolyn

I don’t remember where I ran across this idea, but I read somewhere that kids Carrie’s age have this belief that words are magic – as in, if they say something, then it becomes true. So what adults perceive as lying in small children is really just the child trying to alter reality to make it the way they think the adult wants it to be.

Carrie obviously believes in the power of her words. Since I’ve been sick, she says “I give you two kisses Mommy, to make you feel better”, kisses me twice, and then says (while wagging her finger at me) “You are not old, and you are not sick. You are just fine!”

Don’t ask me where she got the old part from. No idea. Especially because if you ask her how old I am she says “three!”

I wish she were right, and the words worked like magic. I’d like to not be sick anymore. Being stuck in the house for most of a week with a toddler while not feeling 100% is really not the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.

But I suppose the “magic words” concept explains why I can tell her a half a dozen times that we don’t have any bagels in the house to eat for breakfast, and yet she’ll insist that we do. I guess to her I’m making the bagels go away after she’s already willed them into existence…

Recent Observations

Sarah General

1. Having a 102 degree fever for a day sucks. Still being sick several days later sucks more.
2. It’s really, really, really hard to parent a two year old when you can’t speak louder than a whisper.
3. It’s a good thing to have an abnormally well-behaved two year old.
4. On the other hand, having a two year old who has for several days in a row decided 6:30 AM is a better wake-up time than 8:00 AM? That’s not so good.
5. School cancellations are even thrilling as an adult, provided the listings contain the school you’re supposed to be rehearsing at later.
6. Having the school cancellations online is brilliant! Especially when the school you’re looking for starts with “V”. Waiting through the list being read on the radio was pure torture in high school.
7. Ordering a tricycle online in the middle of a blizzard is a rather odd thing to do, even if it was a great deal with free shipping.
8. Knitting a sock, on the other hand, is a wonderful way to pass the time during a blizzard.
9. Practicing “Cool” for an hour straight and still not playing it up to tempo is not fun.
10. A husband who make yummy soup, handles all the toddler dinnertime needs, and attends to bath and bedtime without complaint is worth his weight in gold. He deserves some serious cookies when this cold is gone…

Yet More Cute Sayings

Sarah Carolyn

Quite a few funny toddler moments these past few days:

We watched Sammy on Tuesday afternoon, and the kids were playing follow-the-leader around the house. When I asked Carrie what they were playing, she said “We playing fun!” And then they proceeded to “play sleepy!” where they laid down on the couch, covered themselves up with a blanket, and pretended to snore.

When Denis walked in from work yesterday, we were playing with play-doh. Carrie announced, “Daddy, look! I playing play-doh with my friend Mommy!”

When I was getting ready for band last night, Carrie said “I go to band with you Mommy, PLEEEEASE?” I said she could when she’s bigger, and asked her what she wanted to play. Her reply? “Drums! And a cucumber.”

And then this morning I was trying to get Carrie downstairs so I could have a cup of the brown elixir of life (aka coffee) and she ran back into her room. She was shouting, “Mommy, there’s a monster under my bed!” I started to panic, thinking she was already starting the nighttime fears thing – despite the fact that it was already morning – and then I realized she’d dug out “baby monster”, the one-eyed plush critter I bought for her at Starbuck’s around Halloween. Maybe when she’s older, “baby monster” can live under her bed full-time to chase away the other monsters?

Buried. Swamped. Overwhelmed. You Get the Idea.

Sarah Music

Because West Side Story isn’t enough of a challenge (you know I’m kidding, right?) I agreed to play in the orchestra for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for another school. I had never seen or heard this show before last week, so I got the soundtrack from the library and netflixed the movie. I adore it. How did I get to be 31 years old without ever having seen it?!?

But, two shows = twice as many rehearsals. Today is only the second day back from winter break for both shows, and I’m already wondering what I’ve gotten myself into. And did I mention there’s a band concert coming up at the end of next month…? At least I’m not the rehearsal accompanist for Joseph, I’m just playing the second keyboard part.

And now, I really need to go practice. West Side Story, that is. Have I mentioned how insanely, evilly difficult this music is? I just got back from the most humiliating orchestra rehearsal of my life – I couldn’t even pick out one line to plunk out just to keep time for half of those songs, and in a few short days the kids are going off CD and I have to play for all the dance rehearsals. Do you think if I put my ipod on repeat for that album and keep my headphones on all night I’ll wake up knowing how to play everything…?

Maggie & Garlic

Sarah Carolyn

We took Carrie to Build-A-Bear on Saturday. Her great-grandparents had all given her some cash for Valentine’s Day, so we decided to splurge on something we wouldn’t normally spend money on for her. She loved it! She had a really hard time deciding which animal to make, but wound up choosing…wait, you should really try to guess, because it’s so unlike her…

A dog! (Of course. The bunnies, bears, kitties and lambs didn’t stand a chance.)

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She wound up naming her dog “Maggie”. I’m not entirely sure where she got the name from in the first place – maybe the Little People little girl named Maggie? – but she’s been trying to call my parents’ dog Maggie since pretty much day one (despite the fact that he’s a boy, and his name is Cody.)

The little magnetic puppy that Maggie can carry around in her (equally magnetic) mouth? She named that one Garlic.

Don’t ask me.

Bamboooooooo!

Sarah General

We bought a new bedroom floor yesterday. It’s sitting in 10 very heavy boxes in our guest bedroom at the moment, and will be for a few more weeks, but it was on sale this month so we decided to get it early. It’s bamboo. It’s gorgeous. I cannot wait to install it!

That new floor is the reason we’ve been hauling all the stuff out of our room. I’ve cleaned out all my drawers and the closet, donated several bags of clothes and shoes, and I’m working on clearing off all the flat surfaces. Before we install the flooring we’re also going to paint – a pretty, medium shade of green, on the bluish end of the green spectrum. I’m so excited. We stripped the truly awful wallpaper and painted our bedroom white before we moved in, but we’ve pretty much ignored it since, 25-year-old carpeting and everything. Since we spend, what, at least a quarter of our lives in our room sleeping, it may as well be a nice place to spend time in, right?