Author: sajbat

MCA Denver for the Pint-Sized Set

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A little while ago the boy and I had another stay-at-home day adventure.  This time, we went to the MCA Denver, which he calls his “Heart Museum” because of the cool spinning light up heart sculpture right outside the door.  We drive past it every day on our way home and spend just enough time to have figured out the sequence of events.  First the heart and ribbon are all lit up, then it starts to beat, then the sword goes through and the heart (to my eyes) goes into ventricular fibrillation, then all the blood drains out, and the cycle starts anew.  It’s delightful.

We took the bus to get there, sparing the need for parking and getting us $1 off the entrance ticket and looked around.

Honestly, he wasn’t terribly impressed except for one installation, 10,483,200 Minutes, pictured below.  I particularly enjoyed a photography series, but the art isn’t as accesible to the sippy-cup set as the stuff at the DAM.  I loved the atmosphere there and the building itself–stark and spare.

That last pic is the boy filling out a form tied to the artwork.  It asks you to select your favorite forms and colors from a few options, and on the back is a mini-questionnaire.  They somehow use this to create future works.  Here’s what the boy answered to the questions asked.

A bit tough to read, I know, but better if you click and enlarge. I particularly like the answer to : “If we all work together toward one thing, what might that be?”  Which was: “Obama.”  Parental brainwashing at work.

Upstairs they have a cool space, filled with fatboy beanbags, that looks over the city.  Just next to it is a free art/collage space in which we spent a bit of time.

The best part for the boy, though, was the cafe on top of the museum.  They have yummy sandwiches and desserts and have a nice selection of games, and we played a few rounds of ConnectFour.  The boy even won a game!! I couldn’t believe it.  I NEVER let little kids win.  I’m too competitive and I figure they have to learn how to lose graciously sooner or later.  Then, much to my chagrin, the boy saw that they had Candyland on the shelf and insisted we play.  I HATE Candyland.  There’s no skill involved to the game, and I can’t always win.  Dumb, dumb concept.

We passed by the library on the way home and stopped in to check out some new books and I got a glimpse into what the future holds:

After we got home, I actually LOOKED at the comics that we checked out (in a hurry, so as not to miss the bus) and realized that they were entirely inappropriate and were soon confiscated, which only made them more appealing.

Overall, I enjoyed the MCA but don’t think I’d take the little ones there again until they’re a bit older, or if they have a special exhibition that would appeal to them.  I understand that they want to maintain a space that is hip and doesn’t have kids running around, which is great. Still, I think it would be cool if they could have more kid-friendly stuff to expose them to that art.  Maybe a monthly event? That I would definitely attend with boy in tow…if I can drag him away from Spider-Man for a bit.

Slouchy Cardian, Finished

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So after all that wrangling about the shoulders, I then tried the thing on partway and felt that the part that goes over the chest was waaaay too small. And, yes, I cut my head off in the picture because I just looked that bad:

I figured then I would just sew it all together and pick up and knit a border, but when I got it all constructed, it worked fine! I figured out that the problem wasn’t the narrow fronts, but that the sleeves were too short and I kept pulling them down to come halfway over my palms which is how I like them.  I unpicked and reknit the sleeves an additional 40 rows and then the fronts were fine.

The boy took all the pics! Nice job, no?

The hood attaches far down enough that it helps to prevent the sweater fronts from rolling inward which also makes them wider.  The little details on this sweater are nice–I especially love how the front ends curl in and the bell shaped sleeves.  The yarn, being a wool/silk blend is also surprisingly warm and this will be the perfect sweater to throw on for Spring nights where it’s just cool enough to want your shoulders covered.  I would consider making this again, but I would definitely make the sleeve circumference just a bit wider so that I could wear it over a long sleeved shirt.  As it is, they’re pretty tight and I can only wear the sweater over tanks or short sleeved shirts.

Nevertheless, I foresee this sweater getting a lot of wear.

Hey Jealousy

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First of all, I would like to reassure all of you that peace was restored after that crazy night.  The boy slept in his bed all night long, the girl went down at 6:30 into her crib and was not heard from again until 6:30 in the morning, and both adults slept in the same bed all night.  Maybe the planets were just misaligned…

On another note, my parents sent me this travel itinerary for the next 2 years.  How is this even fair?  Hmmm…I wonder if we should join into any of them…I’ve always wanted to go to Ulan Bator…

To expand (or click on above pic)-

Here is the list of 2010/11 travel plans:
1. Denver, CO.
2. China
3. Prague/Budapest/Belgrade/Sarajevo/Zagreb/ Dubrovnik/Split/Ljubljana
4. New York
5. Salt Lake City/Moab/Arches National Park/Canyonlands National park
6. Denver, CO
7. India (two trips: Kerala and Orissa/Bihar/Varanasi/Kujhraho/Jansi)
8. Chile/Argentina/Brazil
9. Denver
10. Vancouver/Victoria/Prince Rupert/Prince George/ Vancouver/Seattle
11. Moscow /Ekateringburg/Novosibirsk/Irkutsk/Ulan Ude/Ulan Bator/Beijing
12. Denver
12. New Zealand/Australia
Let me know if you would like to join in any adventure!
/Dad

Go Mom and Dad!! I love having such adventurous, curious parents, and it’s certainly where I get my love of travelling.  There’s a Marathi saying: “Paya la bhingri” (excuse the cracked up Marathi) which roughly means: “Having spinning tops on the bottom of your feet.”  My parents used to use it to refer to me since I never seemed to settle down, but I think that they are the ones that it clearly applies to now.

Anyway–I have to go renew my passport.

Musical Beds

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Last night was great.

We had put the girl to bed around 6:30, her usual time and she seemed to fall right asleep as per usual.  We finished with the boy’s bedtime routine around 8 pm, also as per usual.  A bit later Eric went to bed earlier than usual because he was really tired.

Shortly after that, the boy yelled downstairs “Can I sleep in your bed?” “Fine,” I yelled back.  He crawls into bed with Eric.

Then the girl wakes up screaming, so I go comfort her and then go back downstairs.

I hear intermittent grumbling from our bedroom as the boy is probably kicking Eric in his sleep.

Then I hear the boy start to scream, and hear Eric call my name.  I run upstairs and find the boy shuddering in fear and crying, almost inconsolable.  “What happened? Did you have a bad dream?” The boy nods. “Can you tell me about it?” The boy shakes his head and starts shuddering anew.  “Was it that scary?” “Yes.” “Were you in it?” “No.” “Was I in it?” “Yes.” “Was anyone else in your dream?” “No. Just you.” “Can you tell me what I was doing?” He starts to shudder again and shakes his head, “No.” He calms down and then I put him back to bed and go downstairs.

The girl wakes up screaming AGAIN, and I give up on the evening, pick her up out of the crib and go to lie down with her in the boy’s bed, thinking at least this way we’ll all get some sleep.

Then, Eric enters the room carrying the boy, who had been snoring and kicking him, hoping to put him to bed in his own room.  Finding us sleeping there, he says, “What the hell is going on here?” and walks out, deposits the boy back into our bed and heads downstairs to sleep in the basement.

At this point, the girl and I are in a twin mattress on the ground, the boy is alone in our king size bed, and Eric is in the basement on the couch.

Now I realize that I’m cold and need another blanket, which is, of course, in the basement.

I sneak out of bed and head downstairs trying to be as quiet as possible, sounding for all the world like a prowler, and scare the living daylights out of Eric who’s asleep downstairs. I’m thankful he doesn’t sleep with a gun under his pillow.

I grab a blanket and head upstairs, and try to get comfortable.  The girl is farting and crawling on my face in her sleep.

I take the girl and bring her into my bed where the boy is, where she continues to crawl on my face and generally squirm around.

A few hours later, the boy sits bolt upright in bed and exclaims, “I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!” “Take what?” I ask. “Sleeping in this bed with the girl!” “So go sleep in your own bed, kiddo.” He takes off and goes to sleep in his bed.

Then HE starts crying saying his tummy hurts. I go into his room, rub his belly.  “Maybe it’ll help if you try to poop,” I offer. “Okay,” he says. Sleepily, we walk to the bathroom where he does his business, says he feels better, and then heads back to bed.  I think it’s around midnight at this point.

The girl continues to fart and roll onto my face all night long.

So not only did I not get a wink of sleep, but apparently I’m so terrifying I give my own son nightmares that are too scary to talk about.  Parenting FAIL.

Scientific Child

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For Christmas the boy got this science experiments book, which is better for his age group than the one that I mentioned in the earlier post.  The experiments and concepts are tailored more to a 6 to 8 year old, but many of them are still fun to do even if he doesn’t completely understand the science behind everything.

First you find “dirty” pennies.  The boy made it his personal challenge to find really really dirty ones.  Mix vinegar and salt together to create a weak acid.  You really should use white vinegar so you can see the bubbles easier, but all I had was apple cider vinegar, so that it was.  This is very stinky unless you love the smell of vinegar.

Drop them in…

and see what happens after they take a bath!

Before and After

If you leave them out to dry without rinsing, they get all crusty and blue.

We then took a few nails and dropped them into the vinegar and we forgot about the experiment for a few days as work and school took precedence.

When we wondered why the house smelled like vinegar and remembered about the experiment, the nails had a slight copper sheen to it, as you can see on the 2 left nails.  I wouldn’t recommend this as a method to plate your metal jewelery, though.

Here’s a page from the Exploratorium (my all time favorite place to go in the entire world, which completely solidifies my standing as an absolute and total NERD, as if you didn’t already know) that describes the experiment that we did and the science behind it.

Obviously, the boy is too young to understand about acids and ions and things like that, but he sees the change happening and it’s the first time that he can see the effects of tiny little things that he can’t visualize firsthand, and I’d like to think it stretches his mind.  The fun is in seeing how the world around you works, how you can manipulate it, and beginning to get the gears turning.

Pretty cool, no?

Slouchy Cardigan

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I have learned that there are a few of you out there who actually come here for the knitting and not just the cute kid pics.  This post is for you.

I’ve been working on and off on this cardigan for almost a year, which is sad.  I got to a point where I’d finished the fronts and backs and then moved on for a while.  Anyway, it’s almost done, which I’m happy about.

A lot of people have had trouble with the armscyes on this particular pattern, and with good reason–they simply do not fit the way that traditional set-in sleeves are supposed to unless you knit them significantly longer.  Even in the pattern measurements, the height of the sleeve cap is only 3½ inches and is supposed to fit into an armhole that’s 9 inches high.  I knitted the sleeve caps longer than in the pattern, but not quite long enough so I just fudged it.  Suprisingly, this has not been corrected even in the errata for the pattern.

I used the tutorial for set in sleeves found here, but here’s how I did it with this particular cardigan.

First, you lay all BLOCKED pieces out, after seaming together the fronts and backs at the top. The center of the sleeve cap must match the the seam where the front and back join, and the bound off edges of the sleeve must meet up with the same on the front and back as well.:

At this point, nothing looks like it fits together. That’s okay, because you’re trying to make flat objects into a three dimensional one which only comes easily to physicists.

Next, I measured the length of both sides and pinned them evenly spaced.  Start with the centers of both, then pin at halfway points between those two and then halfway between those pins:

You can still see the fabric puckering where it doesn’t quite meet up.  At this point, you have the option to rip and reknit, or just wing it like I did.  Here’s the fun step where you make it 3-dimensional and see how it all fits together.

Next comes the seaming, using a standard mattress stitch.  How to deal with the not-quite-even areas?

Just pick up more stitches from one side than the other evenly spaced and your problem is solved.

Finish the other side as the first, and you’re left with a set in shoulder, nicely seamed.  This one does pucker a bit but I’m hoping that will even out with blocking and wear and frankly isn’t all that noticeable.

Here’s a closeup of the shoulder seam, which I think I ripped out and redid because of the irregularity in the front, but you get the point.

After all that, I realized the fronts were waaaay too narrow, and I had a momentary bit of panic about having to redo the entire fronts, but I’ll save that for the next post!

Experiences

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That’s what the boy calls experiments, anyway. Currently, he wants to be a scientist when he grows up and do lots of experiences.  One of our earlier adventures was here, but now we’re able to do more complex ones.

A while back I checked out a library book with some kids’ science experiments in it, and there was a whole chapter on electricity and experiments with that.  I went to RadioShack, remembering it from my  youth as a place with random wires and springs and plugs on the walls with acne-faced bespectacled nerds roaming about, and instead found that it had become a mobile phone store with tacky furry talking animals for sale as well.  As it turns out, they do still carry all the wires and such, they’re just hidden away in industrial looking drawers in the back of the store.  (The acne-faced bespectacled nerds are now running all the large software companies and laughing all the way to the bank.)  I purchased a pack of alligator clip wires, copper wire, a buzzer, a switch, a light bulb and stand, and a 9-volt battery, and gave it to the boy for Christmas.

Some of the basic stuff is just learning how circuits work–how you have to complete the loop for the electricity to flow through, starting with a simple bulb. This one is already jazzed up with a homemade switch–nails into a scrap of wood, with a paperclip around them.  Squeeze the paperclip, and it completes the circuit and the light goes on.

Then things get even fancier, with the switch from the shop:

I teach him the basic idea by having him trace his finger along the wires from one battery terminal to the next, and showing how there has to be a continuous line for the electricity to flow and for the light to turn on.  In case you’re wondering, the 9 volt battery doesn’t conduct enough electricity through dry skin to buzz you.  The girl did stick one in her mouth, but it didn’t bother her too much, either. (kidding, only kidding. Sort of.)

The next cool thing is to make a game.  Remember that carnival game where you have to guide a loop of wire along another wire without touching it? Well, that’s just a simple circuit and we have all the tools to make it! You connect a bare wire between the two nails on the block, fashion a bare wire loop to go around it, hook it up such that touching those two completes a loop with the buzzer, and you’ve got a good half hour of entertainment.

Concentrating hard:

Aw, man!

He never did manage to win, sadly, but I confess I might have made it too difficult with a loop that was too small.  Still, he loves to mess around with the wires and such and figure out how to make it all work on his own, which is really the whole point.

More science experiments to come!

Warts and All

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I was speaking with a colleague today about how difficult it can be to have small children and how much they can try your patience. Often, the stuff that makes it to the blog is the fun, entertaining, aren’t-they-so-cute stuff, but a lot of the time it’s just plain hard to have 2 small kids and be 2 full-time working parents, I don’t care how amazing you or your children are.

Case in point, our adventures with ice cream the other day.

I had a day off, put the kids in school so I could run errands, and told them that I’d pick them up early so we could get ice cream together, thinking it would be a fun idea.

We get to Little Man Ice Cream and the boy chooses chocolate with sprinkles in a flat cone. I get the girl strawberry with sprinkles and we sit down on a bench to eat. The girl is somewhat incredulous at being given a whole cup of ice cream all to herself, and proceeds to gorge herself with no attention to precision and globs of pink fly onto her raincoat. The boy is standing up, licking away at his cone, entirely content.  I feel like a great mom having a great time with her great kids.

Then, it all goes to hell.

The sun goes behind the clouds, and the boy says, “Can we finish our ice cream at home? My hands are getting so cold!!”  It seems reasonable enough, but I’ve forgotten that you can’t reason with a 22 month old.  I tell the girl, “Let’s finish our ice cream at home,” while I take the cup out of her hands.  She responds by screaming continuously.  I try to pry the spoon out of her fist but it’s no use.  It’s her only ice cream left and she’s not having it.  I can’t pick up the livid toddler and carry her ice cream at the same time, so I give the cup to the boy (whose ice cream is now in a cup as well) and we start walking to the car.

As he walks with ice cream cups in hand, he trips and falls prostrate on the ground, scraping his palms on the sidewalk.  Both cups tumble to the ground.  He stands up and starts bawling while I try to console him with the fact that none of the ice cream touched the ground.  Remember, the girl is now being carried like a battering ram and screaming her head off the entire time.  The boy gets it together, still sniffling, and we get to the car where the girl proceeds to make her body as rigid as a board and refuses to get into her carseat.  With no small amount of wrangling, I manage to strap her in, but I’m frazzled now and say to the boy, who is standing behind me,  (and this, I’m not proud of) “I wish you could have just stayed there a few more minutes! She’s so upset now!!”

To which the boy starts wailing, “I’m SORRRRYYYY!!!!” and crying as loud as HE can, repeating “I’m sorry!” over and over.  I get to experience screeching in surround sound.

Sigh.  Two screaming kids and a guilt trip is not what I had had in mind.  People are staring, too.

I turn around, give the boy a kiss, hug him and say, “I’m sorry.  It’s okay–it was getting pretty cold.  Tell you what–let’s go home, turn on the fireplace, and eat our ice cream by the fire where it’s warm and toasty.”  This mollifies him and we put the ice cream into the cup holders in the back seat, where they fit perfectly. 

At home, the girl hyperventilates in her high chair until she gets the ice cream in front of her and proceeds to demolish it and then lick the cup.  The boy parks in front of the fireplace and eats the rest of his as well; peace is restored.

It all ended well, indeed, but there were a few moments in there where I just had to take deep breaths and do my best to remain calm, and even that I failed to do entirely.  This post doesn’t even begin to cover the mad morning rush to feed/clothe/transport children and the reverse routine at night that we have on a daily basis.  All of this to say that while it’s fun and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, it’s challenging too–and I’m well aware that many parents have it much tougher.  I know that you, too, have a story of when you were not a particularly graceful parent under pressure, and I just want you to know that you are not alone.

Singin’ in the Car

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The girl does the most adorable thing these days when you drive with her.

No matter what’s on the radio (usually some depressing tale of suffering, anguish, or political misconduct on NPR) she will sing at the top of her lungs whilst slapping her knees and waving her little head back and forth like an Indian raga singer. Her hands reach up as high as they can go before coming down onto her knees one at a time, and she only pauses if she sees a dog, bird or train and has to show you the sign for it.

She’s very tuned into music (pun NOT intended, but there nonetheless) even more so than her brother was.  Some of her favorites are Wilco, the Flaming Lips, Old 97’s and more recently even Garth Brooks.  The boy got a mix CD from a friend of his for his birthday of all of his favorite songs.  It’s mostly a Country mix, and it includes some good stuff like Johnny Cash, but we’ve also had to sit through countless repetitions of “Cheeseburger in Paradise.”  I kid you not. Really, though you put any music on and she starts dancing and swirling around, utterly delighted.

I know some of you have seen the dancing video before, but it’s too cute not to repost here.

 

 

Here’s one where she’s singing and doing her little head bobble. It’s a bit older, so she “sings” more nowadays, but you get the picture. Yes, she’s sitting in a tupperware and yes, the boy is “playing” a helicopter.