Month: December 2012

Cheetahs never…

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The other morning, the boy was in the bathroom down the hall and the girl was keeping him company by sitting outside the closed door and chatting with him.  All of a sudden, she yelled down the hall “MOM! Brother says that there are cheetahs in Asia!! He is WRONG!”

I think about this for a second, and then yell back down, “Kid, there’s no cheetahs in Asia.  They’re only in Africa!”

He yells back (still in bathroom), “NO! There are cheetahs in Asia! They live in Iran!”

Still doubtful, I use my google-fu to learn that, well, shit, there ARE cheetahs in Iran.

“You’re right, actually! How did you know that?!” I asked him.

“‘Cause we’re learning about Asia and we just did a part on Iran,” he replies.

And all I can think is that I’m now living with someone who’s going to be an even more insufferable know-it-all than myself.

Sparkle Scarf

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On a trip to Fancy Tiger a few months back, the girl saw this pretty pretty sparkly yarn and fell in love and wanted a scarf. Given that it’s not exactly cheap, I tied some vague, “you must be good” clause to me getting the yarn for her.

I thought she’d forgotten about it entirely, but then on the way back from the Thanksgiving wedding in Houston, she looked up at me and said, “I be so, so good at Megna’s wedding? Now you buy me that ‘parkly yarn and knit me a scarf?” How could I say no?

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Yarn: Knit Pixie Collage

Needles: 19 to cast on, 15 to knit

Pattern: Cast on 30, join in round, knit in garter, cast off.  reaaaal complicated.

You can’t see the sparkly goodness in this picture, but trust me, it shimmers.  It’s interwoven with a few strands of what seems like gold tinsel.

It took  me a few tries to get this right since there’s no real pattern-I really wanted a longer scarf that she could loop once around her head.  The first time I finished it, the cast on edge was so tight that I had to unravel the whole thing and cast on with larger needles.  Using size 19 needles for anything makes you feel like you’re knitting with broomsticks.  It also means that the entire thing took about an hour to knit, which is such instant gratification that I want to make about a million of them.

Here’s a picture of her wearing it that just screams, “Look, I just discovered photo filters!”

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4 year old sacrifice

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For months, the kids have been doing anything to avoid being a rotten egg. As we go upstairs at night for bath and bed, the boy will scream, “Last one up is a rotten egg!!” and since being a rotten egg is the worst possible thing EVER, both kids will scramble upstairs as fast as they can. Sometimes I’m already halfway up the stairs when the boy darts by and the poor girl is lagging behind. Even though I run AS FAST AS I CAN, somehow I always manage to slip at the last second and the girl ends up on top of the stairs just a split second above me.

I moan, “I’m the rotten egg AGAIN?! I’m always the rotten egg!” and I proceed to weep while both  my children roll on the floor giggling loudly.

The other day after running upstairs and me being the rotten egg YET AGAIN, the girl stopped at the top of the stairs. I was kneeling and she put her hands on my shoulders, looked into my eyes, and said, “Mommy, I be rotten egg for you today,” and then gave me a big hug. I almost cried for real-it was one of the sweetest things she could have done.

I’m sure, though, tonight I’ll be back to being the rotten egg as usual.